Select Board - September 14, 2026

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Good evening. Welcome to the Monday, September 14, 2026 meeting of the Westport Select Board under Mass General Law, Chapter 3A, Section 20F. This meeting is being recorded. Um, for uh I want to thank uh Jake for standing in for me. I missed the last meeting, but I I kept everything in order. So, thank you for keeping that along. Um, our next meeting is two weeks from today on the 28th of September, but then we have

another gap of three weeks again. So, keep your eyes on the calendar for the next meetings, but the next one is the 28th of September. Um, the only acknowledgement I know about is um for Friday's September 11 uh memorial service that was put on at the fire department. I was unable to attend, but my colleagues were there. So, uh, Dick, did you want to say anything to say about that?

We all said a few words, kept it short and sweet and thoughtful and nice.

[snorts] So, uh, it it wasn't well attended, but it was a place to be, and it was important to be there.

Thank you, Jacob.

It was [clears throat] obviously a very important day for us to recognize 25 years later. It was uh um, great to see all the first responders there and uh, put it on here standpoint. Thank you.

All right. Well, thank you for Thank you for representing us there. Um so we don't have any other acknowledgements or recognitions I know of. So we're going to go straight to the agenda. So the first item that we have um is a public hearing is a consideration and possible vote to redo revoke town warfage privileges for the vessel Hard Labor owned by Mr. Louville. And I'm going to invite um the harbor master up um to

kind of give us an outline of um the request that's being made and um some background.

Welcome, M. Bill Chase.

Good [clears throat] evening, Madame Chair and members of the board. I think you've all got the information that I passed along to Chris in regard to this situation, do you not?

We did. So, we have a letter. Uh so we have a letter um from you dated September 1st with an overview of events and then it includes the um warfage department doc rules and regulations that you highlighted.

And then um it has some information about the rental fees that have happened. And then um we have a complaint from a citizen.

We have two complaints that were filed by a citizen. And then we also um I don't know if you guys all had a chance to read it, but we also got a letter um signed by a number of um people uh advocating for the suspension of the warfish privileges. So um can you just give us an like a summary? You don't have to give like every detail, but can you give us it seems a pretty severe

request. So, can you just tell us a little bit about what warfage fees are, what we're what we are the service that we're providing with the warfage fees and then this particular why you're making a recommendation um not to continue the war fee.

Okay. So, I I put together a little statement I think that would sum up everything that you just asked for.

Yeah.

So, typically we do not discuss the Wingers rules on a regular basis.

[clears throat] I suspect most of you haven't even seen them.

These are rules written decades ago when the line between right and wrong was clearly defined.

They're contained in the bylaws of the town article 43 pages 69 to 74 and they address address the rules of conduct at the town warf in regard to Ben Louink and the fishing vessel Hod Labor. pattern of behavior consisting of small transgressions of the Wingers's rules has now escalated to actions affecting a local business and it's having a negative effect on the fisherman at large which I think they

explained in that letter that uh they wrote which I was just brought just brought to me this afternoon some of the examples of these smaller transgressions summer of 25 I moved Mr. delivering to the head of the central warf a prime slip I might add with [clears throat] the understanding that he would be in the spotlight and would need to be on his best behavior.

The 28th of May of this year he was told to remove empty bait barrels forbidden by the rules along with six barrels of rancid bait. He took his time getting it done and he claimed ignorance of the laws and regulations.

The regulations specifically say that bait can be on the dock for loading and unloading purposes only.

In the winter of 25, he left an unattended skiff in the water which sank at the dock.

I hauled it out with his father and when he came down, he yelled obscenities at his father, blaming him for the situation.

He took no responsibility for the sinking even though the boat belonged to him.

At the end of May, excuse me, May of 26, he broke off a piling at the end of the dock at the cost of $1350 to the town. I gave him the bill, but he has not paid it to date. He blamed the issue on the piling, but a video clearly shows that he pulled away from the dock with his morg line still tied.

Recently, he kept trash on the dock, which stayed for two weeks. It was an empty bait barrel that belonged to him.

He blamed the collection of trash on the people who fished at the warf.

Now, none of these incidents would bring us to the select board to request his removal from the town warf.

However, the incident on 828 of this year clearly does.

This was an ugly incident that was unfortunately witnessed by many patrons at Westport Seafarm.

The incident in question involved the dumping of two barrels of rancid bait into the water directly abudding the restaurant owned by Mr. Fennery. The restaurant was opened at the time.

I was alerted to this shortly afternoon on the 28th. [clears throat] I walked to [snorts] the end of the dock to investigate with Mr. Fenerly. I found the decan who had dumped the rancid fish in the water. Mr. Louink showed up shortly thereafter. A heated discussion followed. I had to threaten to sum summon the Westport Police Department to break it up. No physical altercation ensued, although at one point it seemed

very likely.

Once again, he denied knowing about the regulations prohibiting the dumping of bait at the dock.

It has become clear to me that Mr.

Luvelink wishes the demise of the Fenley's business, which is why I'm here tonight.

He confirmed to that he confirmed that to me himself on two occasions.

Most recent being on 828 after the incident. He was verbally warned that if this happened again, we would find ourselves where we are right now.

The very next day, I was alerted by one of the fishermen that Mr. Louisville Link had planned to do something on Labor Day weekend to oh I don't know what the word is to to bring shame to the restaurant to do something to to create some kind of an incident.

I notified Mr. Fenley of the threat which I thought was my responsibility and so to me the threat to this local business was the last straw.

Mr. Luvelink has shown no remorse nor a sense of contrition. quite the opposite.

His response to every incident has been met with claims of ignorance of the regulations and with a dismissal of any responsibility on his part.

The space on the town dock is a privilege. It is not a right. It's also a financial boon. At $40 a foot, it's pretty cheap.

I cannot accept a solution where there are no consequences to these actions and look to the select board for enforcement of the bylaws. Therefore, I am asking the select board per the Waringers regulations to revoke his waring privileges effective immediately.

I also have this letter that you mentioned from six of his peers at the town war. I don't know if you want me to read that or not.

Did you want to just pull some extra? I don't think you need to repeat the rules, but you want to just summarize.

Well, basically, one one of the things that it does still, it makes a few points, a few very valid points. One is that the actions of one fisherman at the time warflect on everybody else.

And I don't think it's a surprise to say that fishermen everywhere are under pressure by oh, I don't know what the word is. um rationalization maybe everybody wants shoride property including town wars where the fishermen have to buy their trade. So the poor actions of one reflect on the rest and I think that was one of the points that was made on this. The other point is that when you talk about

fishing bait, there's salted bait and there's fresh bait.

Bait is expensive now and it's not to be wasted.

But to take fresh unsalted bait and put it on the dock and leave it there for a week in the hot sun is not a prudent fishing uh activity. So this letter basically says that they think this was all intentional targeted towards Mr.

Fenley and I agree.

Thank you. So um if I heard your summary correctly, so you uh as the harbor master dealt with him in May and in August. So he was provided warnings both of those times. Was did you mention a previous warning before that?

Prior to May of 206?

No, I don't think so.

Okay. And then did you have any I what I couldn't tell in the um rules and regulations. It doesn't really talk about um uh I don't want to I guess like punishments, right? It doesn't really talk about an appeal process or appropriate punishments or things like that. So it doesn't really talk about that in in and I'm wondering if it was just missing or was probably just a gap in the regulations. Doesn't really talk

about the process.

Well, Madam Chair, there there is no vehicle for that. Yeah, there's nothing that says there must be multiple verbal warnings followed by multiple written warnings before any action is taken. There is nothing rule about that.

And can you talk about um when um I was asking the town administrator and I were looking for this. The warf rental fees, when do they start and end? Like what's the time period for the rental?

So the bills were sent out on the 8th of June. They have 60 days to pay. So, it's basically fiscal year that you're covering like July.

It's more seasonal than it is fiscal.

Okay.

Okay. Um, we're going to give a chance for the the I don't want to call them the defendant, but I want to give a good chance for the other party to resolve.

But before we do that, um, are there uh questions or comments from Yeah, just one question of Mr. Chase, Madam Chair. How long would be the uh the revoking? How long was that last foking of?

That's strictly up to you, Mr. Brewer.

Um, the Waringers regulations say that if any of these rules are broken that they are subject to a suspension, a revocation by the select board at its whatever sees fit. May I follow up? Do you have a recommendation in that regard?

[sighs and gasps] Yeah, I do.

I have to agree with the fisherman who wrote the letter and I have to believe I do believe that these actions towards Mr. Fenley were intentional and I also believe they will not stop regardless of what we do here. So my recommendation is to revoke his warridge privileges.

Uh you could do that on a time period.

You could say two years, five years, 10 years, forever. That's strictly up to you. But if you're asking me to be judge, jury, and executioner, I would say two years.

Okay? I need to recuse myself from the discussion of this matter.

Okay?

Because of not a direct conflict of interest, but a direct indirect conflict of interest as my son was employed by the fenise uh during the past season.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question after uh Ben presents his case. Can we ask Bill afterwards? Okay.

Thank you.

Nothing right now. Okay.

I see a letter from five captains um from the warf. How many vessels have warfage privileges right now?

If Well, if you add the skiffs in, I believe the number is 23. The six that you see there are the bigger boats, the offshore boats.

Okay. So, it's one quarter of the population of the all of us. 10. That's okay. Um the town bylaws so show so show so show so show so show so show so show so show so show so show so show show that uh warfage is from January 1st to December 31st but you said that the payments are in uh uh June is that just a disconnect between how the process is set up right now

I think it was targeted towards the uh seasonality of the fishery uh Rick is basically a little bit of u leeway for the guys if you will not making much money in the winter they start picking up financially in the spring and then peak in the summer of course and into the fall. So I think that was structured around that.

Okay. And then um the letter from these captains references rule eight of um the warfage rules for uh regards to any vessel owner accepting warfage and peers does so does so with full knowledge that any vessel not granted warfage may also use appears for repairs, refitting, loading and unloading. Mhm.

And then rules 9 and 10 go into the process for reaching out to the captain of that ship to work that process.

But according to this letter, that process is currently broken with that tenant. Can you speak to that?

Yes. Uh so the reason he's there uh when I took over July 2nd of last year, the doc the Tom W is basically over booked.

There were one too many boats.

the end of the central W had been had been kept open for all the reasons that are laid out there and that are laid out within the Waringers regulations.

He was put there because that was the only place to put him quite honestly.

These newer boats basically designwise are much wider. They're much beamier than they have been in the past. So the places where he could actually go and fit were limited. So the bigger boats can go alongside the west face of the west dock and along the ends of the two docks. If you try to fit them in between central warf and the west dock, there's no room. So I was very limited with

that. There was a meeting with Jim Hartnett, myself, uh Al Rancarell, his wife, his attorney, Alex Brewster. Um and we tried to sort this all out and that was the only solution we could come up with was to put him at the end. If we hadn't done that, then he would have been out.

But, um, I guess what I was getting to though was, um, rule nine talks about them working a schedule with him to let them know when he's out of that position so people can come in and unload or work on their vessel or anything else. Is there a process in place currently that that is happening? So the wa the wingers regs state that if someone needs the end of

the war either one of the ws this west wall or the central w for fitting out purposes they need to with permission from the winger they they they can use that. Um I have not had any requests for that. I did ask Ben to move one particular day.

Um it was back in the winter. It was a snowy day. Uh he said he was out of town, but that was the only time that I had actually asked him to move.

We had outside uh fishing boats from Point Judith and other places that were offloading um here at Westport. I put a stop to that. The reason was uh they were breaking pilings, doing damage, and basically paying us no money. So it didn't make any sense whatsoever. So with the outside boats eliminated, the end of Central W became available. Okay.

Anything else? Anything else for for Captain Chase here before we let um Mr.

Liveink?

Okay. Thank you, Bill.

Don't go anywhere. I think we'll need you back. Well, you can stay that. You can go sit down, but stay in the room.

So, Mr. Link, are you here?

Good evening.

So, you've heard you heard what the uh harbor master had to say here. So, I guess maybe you want to tell us your side of the story here.

Um, I think the first thing I want to address is uh the broken piling um which was a complete accident that I did accept responsibility for and I did send a check to the town to the on what was on the paper he gave me and so I don't know why it hasn't been paid yet cuz I but I did write a check and sent it to the town. So, that's the first thing.

And um I don't know. I just want to apologize for if there's been any misunderstandings between me and the harbor master and any of the things that have taken place. He asked me to pull the bait. I had some bait on the dock.

You heard about that. He asked me to put on the boat. I put it on the boat and I was kind of confused because I'm not the only fisherman that is keeps bait on the dock. A lot of the fishermen do as well.

So, I was confused at the time. I want to address the trash barrel he was talking to me about. It was not an empty barrel. It was a barrel full of tarps that I used to cover bait. And the people of the dock who walk the dock and the fish people who fish off the end of the dock were throwing their trash in it. So, I was kind of um what's the word I'm looking for here?

I'm not I'm kind of upset, you know, cuz it was holding stuff for like and then people just throwing the trash in it and it's not a trash barrel. So, but he asked me to remove it and I did without a problem. And um basically I'm just sorry for my actions in regards to Carrie and Finley. I think it's all just a misunderstanding. Um he harassed me as

well that day. I was on my boat and he came up to me when Bill talked to me about the dumping of the bait. I was not there. We had a breakdown on the boat. I went to try to fix that breakdown and my announced to me my deck hand threw the bait off the stern. It wasn't a whole lot of bait, but it was some bait and um I assume responsibility for that and it

will never happen again.

I I do wanted to say we have a video of it. It was a big barrel of bait. It wasn't like we're not talking about a little bit. I don't know what you call a lot or not. Pretty big barrel.

Um so it wasn't quite full. It wasn't full to the top. I don't think I wasn't there.

I [clears throat] didn't want him to dump. I didn't even know he was doing.

He just took it upon himself and I um told him that we can't he knows now we can't do that. So So can you talk about um the the I guess I don't know what the word is. I'm going to look for either but like the value of this u to you what does it do to your business if you are not allowed to uh put your vessel there it almost puts me out of business

because working out of new I would have to go to New Befford which is very hard to work out of because it's a first come first- serve basis nobody's like they're allowed permission to tie up but nobody's guaranteed a slip to the dock so it would be a lot of hassles getting bait and unloading and doing everything I have to do every day. It would add hours and hours of steam time and cost

me a lot more money than it what does right now. And um I only live 4 minutes away from my boat as of right now.

My family's been down there since the 50s.

I'm three generations of lobster fisherman out of the point and my family never caused any trouble to nobody. And I just don't understand. I feel like I'm kind of being targeted a little bit. You know, I'm the youngest down there.

youngest Warfidge holder. I've been a Warfitch holder since 2020.

6 years, 5 years with no problems at all at the Warf.

So, but but you're not denying that you had an altercation with with one of the other business owners down there after you after you had someone who dumped into the water.

So, there was definitely a confrontation, right? And um some one of the things that the um that the letter alleges here, it basically kind of talks about if I can just like the spirit of it is that if it feels like you haven't been very cooperative with some of the other boat.

That's not true. That's not true because nobody's asked me to move for the space and I was asked once cuz I did some maintenance. I moved without a problem.

another fishing boat when it was a storm last winter um came down in the rain um and tied up alongside me and I went down to help in the pouring rain. him. It took him about an hour to get his boat tied up to mine for the storm and there was no problems there. And I've never been asked by any of the other guys and like you said there is two end spots to

do that um fitting and there's two docks you know and I have no problem moving for anybody. And um I also like to say that uh Bill gave me an option on Friday um if I apologized in front of him to Kerrion and if Kerrion accepted my apology that he wouldn't take this before you guys tonight. and I offered to apologize and um they did not take me up on that offer, but I would like to

publicly apologize to him and um I do not um wish no ill intention on his business.

Thank you. Anybody have questions? Mr.

Little, the um when did you send the check out for the broken pilot?

Um within a month or so of uh when he gave me the paperwork.

Okay.

I So not recently then? No, it was back in I think this was in the spring that this happened.

And I have no idea what a small or large amount of bait is, but two 55gallon drums that are full seemed like a large amount to a layman like me.

Yeah, I don't I don't think they were full barrels. I think they were like both half barrels, which I don't I don't know. I wasn't there and it will never happen again.

And I'm not the only fisherman to dump bait off the dock.

I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to try to throw anybody else under the bus, but I'm if you if you're going to kick me off, you almost got to kick everybody off for some of these things.

You know, you name me.

No, you're not we're not having a conversation from the audience here.

There's this is a public hearing.

Anybody from the public who wants to say something will have a chance, but we're not listening to you now. But I will give you a chance.

All right. I know it works.

Um Did you have anything else? Anything for you?

No, I'm good for right now. So, um I thought I had a follow-up.

So, so you heard So, one of the things you heard about uh that the harbor master said was that and what he put in his letter, which I hope you've seen, is um he's not convinced that that you actually are he's he's from his perspective, from what the retelling I heard, he's told you twice that you've been in violation of something and he's been displeased with your reaction to that. um it wasn't an immediate like

oops I didn't know and stop doing it and that kind of thing. So if we were to give you an extension, if we were to like maybe give you a fine or some other punishment or no punishment at all, how would we know what kind of assurances we have that it wouldn't just happen again?

Madam Chair, I thought you were recusing yourself.

Um process question.

Okay, go ahead.

Has he been allowed to see the letter that came?

Did you see the letter? No. Okay, so we can we can give you a copy of the letter. Thank you. Nothing. No comments.

The letter the letter that we got in advance was basically what Bill summarized it very.

Yeah. Um say anything.

So, uh Okay.

Anything else you want to say before?

Because we're going to let other people talk now. So, no, just I apologize. I'm sorry. It's all I can say.

All right. So, this is a public hearing.

So, um if anybody has something that they want to say or add into the record, you need to go to the microphone. I just want to first invite whether Mr. whether the frenies want to say something since you had the complete you don't have to but I'm just offering to you first if you want to [clears throat]

uh good evening it's Kerian Fenley um co-owner of Westport Sea Farms um I just want to u I brought Bill down to the end of the dock. Obviously, we had an incident. Um, showed Bill the video uh because obviously what transpired ended.

Um, we had several videos with our cameras and everything. Um, Bill then asked me to uh send to him an incident report. Um, it's not wasn't my sort of uh desire to do a complaint. Uh, but I do believe in rules. Um, I've been on the dock much longer than Ben. Um, the there is a history of older fisherman teaching you to respect the dock. Um, and that has been eroded to the point

where there is no respect of the dock.

Um, I I submitted the letter to Bill.

Like I said, um I hope to enforce these rules so there is respect and we can keep moving. I do feel like it's targeted. Um it there are endless things. I did not accept the apology um for various reasons. Um there are laundry list of things that Ben has done. Um, as far as Bill, uh, I told Bill I I don't care if he's off the dock. I just can't have him near our

property or my boats or my crew. Um, whether it's honking the horn at my truck drivers, offloading vessels, um, disputes, that sort of thing. Um, we had our portaotties vandalized. We had to lock them this year. I think it's all related. Um, and honestly, like I said, I would rather the whole [clears throat and cough] um be done with the situation. I'm I'm not looking I don't need an apology. I

just don't want to deal with it any longer. And the sort of we all want to work, do our things, and go home. Um, as Bill pointed out, uh, right before our largest, one of our largest weekends, we were told about a threat, uh, coming up over the weekend, and there were four barrels of rotten bait that went into the weekend on his boat. Luckily, the wind was in the opposite direction. Didn't affect us.

Uh, prior to the weekend, I reached out to the Westport Police Department and they recommended me to do a um trying to think of the um not uh restraining order. Uh the officer I talked to told me that I had enough to go up to the Fall River court system and pull the restraining order.

out of respect for Bill uh and going into the weekend, I I didn't want to do that because then Ben would be forced to get off the dock and that sort of thing.

Uh Bill assured me that uh there would be enough police officers down there that they could handle whatever situation was going on. Uh and I trusted him. Um, I wasn't also trying to escalate the situation, but the police officer from the Westport Police Department did indicate uh if I felt fear for my business or my person or my family um to take it to that level. I explained to him I was nervous because

our restaurant is a familyun restaurant.

All weekend uh the five of us were there. Um I got three kids. I don't know what he's going to do.

Um, I believe u he has a license to carry. These things are there are numerous things that sort of escalated and I just I just want it all to stop um and just do my work and focus on that.

As far as the dumping the bait in the water, yes, it does break the rules, but this is also the water that I make my living from. So, the the oysters on the river actually pull in the the water and they filter it. So when you're dumping rotten bait in the water, um it is ingested by the oysters. So I have a vested interest in protecting the waterway. Um so that's that's my thoughts on the matter.

Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public has a comment?

Yeah. How you doing? Uh Paul [clears throat] Ling, 439 Drift Road. Uh yeah, I've been here since 5 years old in the dock and uh yeah, I I myself didn't know about the bait rule, dumping the bait in the water, but he he's kind of come back at us three times. It wasn't for him coming back, this would have never issue. First thing was the floating crates. We moved them. Then the

bait off the dock, he put in the boat.

Well, the boat broke down that week, so the bait had to come home. So, yeah, the deck hand dumped in the water. We've been dumping for years, but we never had any issues for years. It's just, you know what I'm saying? There's more fertilizer going in this river right now from people's lawns than there is bait.

So, um, yeah, the the boat sinking, that's nothing to do with it. Everybody sinks boats and everything. Yeah, his boat sank. The pylon broke. Yeah, the piling broke. Well, they get yanked all the time for other boats. Yeah, he snapped the pylon. But to make the kid go now because of this and we we never caused any trouble. My grandma was the first art teacher. Yeah. Ed noink worked

for the town for for a lot of years and my wife worked for the school department but to say we're going to threaten somebody and what he was going to do we know we we don't cause no harm. I have no issues with Mr. Finley but uh if he didn't have to come back he provoked him three times. You know what I mean?

Instead of coming say hey Ben move the crates in. He ran into Bill. Same thing with the bait. Yeah the bait's on the dock. All right. We'll put it in the boat. You know what I mean? Sometimes we can't. The bait has to come home. His boat broke down. What are you, you know, but it's no excuse to dump it. I don't know. I dumped the bait in water. I'm

going to tell you like it is. But I've been there since I was 5 years old, 1970. We owned 24 acres on Drifter Road.

I own three acres. We put a lot back to Westport. My grandma was the first art teacher and you guys know Edlink.

So to go and get rid of Yeah. Hey, I give him a fine, but give him a warning.

We're not causing no trouble with his business. He probably wants the end of the dock. He's already got three or four spots, Mr. Finley, on the dock. How many more do you want?

So that's my issue. Anybody want to ask me a question? Go ahead.

Comment. This is one way.

Oh, it is one way. Well, I'm not political. So last time I choked up with this microphone at the shelfish advisory.

Oh, you did very nice.

If you guys didn't have this camera on, I can tell you a lot more. You know what I mean? A guy to stand up here and get on a microphone. Boy, I can we can chew you anything about the river you want to ask me. So, thank you.

There's a lot of fertilizer going in there. That's all I got to say. So, for a little bit bait gluten, shouldn't have done it at the restaurant. I was, you know what I mean? But that's all I got to say.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Kristen Fenley. I'm Kerian's wife. Um, other owner of Westport Sea Farms.

All the things that happened are not great. the bait, the piling, all that.

My biggest concern is the threat of violence.

I witnessed him several times say that he was going to knock my husband out. He was going to fight him. He was going to come at him. My children are down there.

My husband is down there. My husband's staff is down there and my staff is down there. My staff is a lot of people in town's kids. My responsibility is to keep it safe down there.

This side of fishing, I don't care about the bait. I don't care about that. I do care about the safety down there. It's my biggest concern. I want you to think about that. There's a lot of people down there that need to stay safe.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Um, my name is Timothy Field. I own a boat in Westport and I authored the letter that you guys received this afternoon. Um I just just like to re reiterate the point that you know the dock there's certain activities that are covered down there because it's a dock and you know early early mornings late nights kind of the same thing that farmers may do and you know occasionally there's some smells and stuff like that

but the there's really never been any problems down the dock. There's been little issues here and there and we always work it out amongst ourselves.

there's been nothing that's ever been brought to like this level here. Um, so I think that, you know, that kind of says how how big of an issue this is.

And you know, I I I I have nothing uh I don't know any background between the two parties here, but just the as me and the rest of the fisherman down there, we just want to see the rules followed because we know that if the rules don't get followed, sooner or later something will happen to that dock. Somebody will say that, you know, you fishermen need to go to New Bedford. Westport is not

the place for you anymore because you're too dirty to this or you know something else. Um and yeah, if we lose the dock, it would be a big uh a big loss to Westport. So I I think it's kind of like a matter where we're kind of looking like well we're going to police amongst ourselves here and uh that's just how we feel.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right. So, I'm going to close the public comment and then we can open for discussion. So, um I'm just going to start for me. For one, it's very clear to me that we need to update the regulations. Um it's probably been a while since we've looked at them. Um and you know, we I think as as much as we've been kind of looking at policies and procedures and things like that, I think

that we I think they need an update.

they need a refresh and procedures to make sure that everybody is signing off that they understand that they received these rules and that they're going to follow them. So that's my first comment is I think that u Bill and and Chris that that's something we should be working on as we're maybe coming I don't know if there's really a low season over there but as you're coming into a less

busy season I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm really reluctant to um stop the livelihood of someone who is using that for commercial purposes and I so I I I really don't like the idea of revoking the license and the harm that it would cause on business.

But I also don't like that we don't have a clear appeals process. We don't have clear documented warning system. I it's pretty clear to me that there's at least been some misbehaving on your part. Now the threat of violence I feel that that's real. That's a legal matter, right? And that's not what's before us right now. So what's before us right now is are the violation is is the the rules that we have in place

um have been violated in such a way that we should take action against this uh this uh leie [clears throat] I guess or leasing the space right so should should something happen to should and should if we decide that there should be some sort of punishment what's what does that look like right so does it look like revoking the privileges. Does it look like there's there doesn't seem to be a

mechanism for fining or something like that? But um that's I think if we kind of concentrate the conversation on, you know, were there rules that were broken?

Should there be some consequences for the rules that we broken and then what else might we be able to do? So that's me. So I'm going to open the floor.

Madam Chair, thank you. [clears throat] Um I guess we are in Bill's words judge, jury, and executioner here. uh with respect to making a decision on this uh unfortunately I think the environment at the end of Westport Point it's not very good. I think there's a commercial dock there's two businesses. There's parking issues and this isn't the first time that we've had an issue with let's say disagreements

um since the property owners came up. I know there was an issue with our harbor master during a shallop event where a town employee who was in this room was asked to get off the dock at Sea Farms and was not allowed to get off the dock.

So I don't want to start going down these items because I don't think everyone's completely innocent uh in this and I don't feel the need to take away someone's livelihood. I think there should be whether Bill can swap the spot. If there is a better spot on the dock, maybe we move that. Maybe we do something with respect to you are on essentially probation, one more issue, and you're off. Um,

we're in a situation where we were asked a month or so ago to take action on violent dogs and that was the first time we had heard about that incident. Again, this is the first time we've heard about this incident in a public manner here.

uh this is a you know fight between business owners and you know I I I do have some issues with respect to what you know what's been said uh just because the individual has a CCW does not mean he's threatening gun violence and you need to be very careful uh as to how you're slandering him especially in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with respect to that um I don't think just because the mere presence of a firearm

or a CCW means that there will be gun violence so be careful what you're saying and with respect to that I I think there the decision from the board probably needs to be along the lines of some sort of um written acknowledgement of these incidents. Uh that if there's any further issues with this uh individual that obviously you will lose those priv privileges on the dock. Um and maybe if possible if there if there

is a fine or if there is a possibility to move those uh dock positions maybe that's also a possibility. [cough] Thank you madam chair.

Thank you. I mean, the fact of the matter is everybody at that warf goes there to put food on their table, you know, a roof over their head. It's their business and their livelihood. Uh, that includes um the business owners there and all the ship captains. And even his public comment has to do with the fear of public perception of the dock and potentially losing that livelihood to

the people who are following the rules.

Um, I do see there being concerns in regards to um, not properly laid out policies and procedures within the bylaws for the dock. Um, I think if you are truly contricious, you're not going to continue that behavior. Um, based on the other board members comments, my thoughts are to um give uh the harbor master the ability to revoke your warfage privileges if you commit any other further violations going forward

without him having to come to this board to do that.

That's my feeling on it.

Yeah. I mean I I mean from my perspective I think that um I I think it should I think people have ability to appeal right so if we are going to uh I I I do like this the idea of a probation or period and say we we don't want to we don't want to hear from you again but I don't want to just unilaterally give one person um the power to do that

without some kind of appeal right because you you you put Bill in a situation where he has to make a judgment um and then you know there's no recourse, right? So, I mean, I personally am leaning more towards giving you a warning and and telling you to knock it off and you're probably going to face legal action if if it continues that's separate from whatever we're doing. Um,

and I do want to put make it clear that I am willing to revoke this. If we've sat here in front of this, if if we've sat here and told you don't do this anymore and it's in writing and you're acknowledging and we say don't do it anymore and you do it again, you know, we can't be there's, you know, people trying to make their livelihoods down there. But, um, yeah, I guess maybe because because your

suggestion about possibly moving the boat. So, maybe I just want to ask if there was if Yeah. Like Bill, is there like is there a place to move if if and I'm sorry you have to go to a mic but you can either sit there or you can go to them.

Uh there is Madam Chair. [clears throat] It wouldn't be very desirable for uh Mr.

Louink but there is a there is an option.

What I'm more concerned about here after listening to all of you is that there be no consequence other than moving his boat. So for him to move that means someone else has got to move. So the short answer to your question is yes. We could put him somewhere else. Um but again the letter that was written by the uh six fishing captains to me is a jury of peers

and I think that carries a lot of weight as it should. So, is it is it am I reading this correctly that the um that in 20 for the 2026 rental fee uh Mr. Louink uh paid $2,000. So, it's $40 per square foot for a 50 foot boat.

That's correct.

So, the um the amount that has been paid for this uh rental is $2,000. Correct.

Right. Okay.

Madam Chair, and he has and he has paid that. He paid that on the uh 6th of August, actually.

Okay. Can I ask a question? Right.

Chris, uh Chris, with our position here, do we have the mot ability to impose a fine or a penalty and then direct that to something specific?

Uh the board does not. So I think the options that are available to the board are as you've discussed uh a warning. Uh I think you know an acknowledgement or another way of putting it is a last chance agreement. Um the other option which is just below revocation is a suspension. You know you could say hey 1 week 30 days of a suspension of using the town dock. Um but those would really

be the four options that are available to you at this point in time.

Like would we be able to like find like $500 and say it goes to the shellfish fund or something like that?

We would not.

No.

Not not based off our current regulations. No.

Is it because we can't initiate the fine or we can't direct where it's going to go?

We do not have the fine outlined in policy. Yeah.

Which we would need to update.

Oh.

Yeah. The the policy doesn't actually call doesn't have a late It hasn't laid out nor a hearing or an appeal process either.

Yeah. Yeah. This is uh nobody really likes the paperwork and putting together rules and regulations, but then you get situations like this and it's really tricky. So um so we could issue a suspension, we could issue a warning, we could revoke the privileges alto together or as the board I think mentioned like a last chance agreement.

What is it?

A last chance agreement uh similar to what was said though if there's another incident um you know maybe there's a time duration involved there um then the slip would be revoked at that point. the the regulations say that they goes I mean I guess Rick said this earlier the regulations actually says it goes from January 1 to December 30 but in practice that's not what we're doing right

well it's a calendar year rental it's it's basically a slip rental just like any marina go ahead madam chair I'd recommend probation and what that means if there are further instances then we will take this matter up again and I can assure you my vote will be to revoke for at least a year should that occur her. But I won't stick that stake in the ground tonight because whatever happens will be

discussed and considered at the time.

But I do believe there should be consequences. One might say this is not enough, but it certainly sends a message and it if there is misbehavior, we would act quickly.

A second.

So what is the the probationary period here?

One year.

Probationary period. I didn't put a time on that. Um should it be till the next renewal maybe?

Yes.

Process issue.

Yeah.

That's coming again.

Since the annual Well, since the renewals are annual, I would be thinking well, this where is confused because the renewal says the renewals are a period of January 1 to December 31st, but it sounds like we didn't even send out the renewals until the 30th of June or June.

That's that's correct.

They don't necessarily align. If you wanted to just say one year from this meeting date, that might be cleaner.

Um, I like that. That's what I was thinking anyway. One year from this meeting date, certain.

So, so that's my motion.

Okay. So, the motion is to uh put the the uh Mr. Link on notice that he is on probationary period for one-year period starting today. If he's in violation of any of the rules and regulations cited by the harbor master, then we're going to have another hearing and we'll determine if there's further comments.

Okay.

Could I ask a question, Madam Chair?

Just a second. Did you agree to that?

Just said. Okay.

Yes.

Just um one.

So, Dick, would you specify what those transgressions would be in this written document? So, I think it's the violation of the provisions of the um I mean it's the rules and regulations before us, right? I mean that's that's all we really have is the rules and regulations before us. So, um the I mean the dumping the bait was one of them, but I think it's the entire rules and regulations as they exist right now,

right?

Yes.

Yeah. Is there some reason you think that's insufficient? Well, I think it needs to be specific so that if we come back here, and I suspect we will, um, that I have something to point to saying you put this in writing and he did X as opposed to something that is subjective.

It it would be the rules and regulations as listed right now. That's all we have.

Okay. And I can also just add to that after this meeting I'm happy to write a memo on behalf of the board just reiterating the vote tonight that lays that out and references the rules and regulations and and the written warning will come from us from the select board that that's what Yes.

Okay. So it'll have our signatures on it.

Yep.

I know you keep raising your hand but there's the public comment is closed.

So I have a I have a suggestion.

Okay. You have to be quick David because sometimes you talk a lot. In my previous early life, I was a prosecutor. I was a assistant district attorney. And I think you're missing a piece of a potential solution here. And what we often did is we had we found someone guilty and then we suspended the sentence for a period of time. So you had the sentence hanging over them and then if they

violated anywhere in the probationary period, the sentence was enforced, which is a much cleaner way of trying to solve this problem than the other way.

I'm just suggesting to you that that there is another option here that we use in the criminal justice system, which is you get a guilty plea, you suspend it, and then you hang the guilty plea so you don't have to go back and litigate it over again. And then if they violate it, you they violate the probation and you enforce the penalty.

Thank you.

That's how it works. That I think that was what kind of where Rick was going earlier.

For what it's worth, Madam Chair, I agree with all of that.

Okay. So, we have a motion and a second.

Is there any further discussion?

I got a quick question. So, what are they going to be charging me guilty of?

Just dumping the bait off.

We're not charging you guilty of anything. We're putting on probation.

Well, probation of just dump from dumping the bait. Is that the only No, we're putting you on probation.

Expect you abide by all of the rules and regulations that are outlined in the doc rules and regulations.

Understand?

So, you better study them in great detail. Yeah.

Because if you violate any of them, I feel like some of your colleagues down there are going to to notice and uh I think you need to work on your relationships down there if you don't want them to to notice if you've violated any of these. But um I I do want to address like from just a comment perspective about um kind of the suggestion that that you know Mr. Fenley

went and told on somebody instead of you know following procedures is exactly the right thing to do if you're engaged in a situation. You want to try to work hospitably with the people around you, right? But if something if behavior has become problematic, if you think that there is something if you are in feel like you are in danger, which is something that I absolutely heard, you

don't confront people like that. You take it to the authority. So I think it was completely appropriate for people to go to the harbor master with complaints or to go to the police department with complaints. That's what you do, right?

I'd like people to work amicably together, but when that fails and someone feels threatened, then they're going to go to that. So, I just follow the need to say that. Go ahead, Rick.

My only concern is timeliness. So, if we decide to put him on probation and he violates that probation by violating the rules of the town bylaws and the dock bylaws, then you have the potential of it being a month before he comes back here again and we decide to revoke those war privileges. So I would like to have the ability to empower the harbor master to implement that suspension pending him

coming back to appeal after the fact to implement like if there's a violation to immediately implement the suspension while the while the process is taking place.

Correct.

You may that's not part of my motion.

No. Okay.

All right. Any other discussion?

All right. All in favor?

I I Any opposed?

So, we have three in favor, one opposed, and one abstension. So, we'll get you a letter that outlines exactly um what it is you need to do. And then I just want to ask the town administrator and the and the harbor master like let's reook at the regulations and um make sure we get a path in place for properly so that pre preferably before we issue the next set of permits. But, you know, if it's

January, that might be tricky.

It needs to be tightened up. It needs to be tightened up. We need to put more procedure in place so that it's very clear for we discussed that at the uh department head meeting week or so ago that uh not just my department but I suspect others have some rather outdated documents and procedures. So that's a good thing we have a fresh a new town administrator has a fresh set of eyes and so

we're looking for him to give us that fresh perspective.

All right. So, everybody is welcome to stay, but if you if you decide to leave because you just don't want to have the fun and excitement of the rest of the meeting, please do not congregate in the hallway and talk. It's very disruptive.

And Mr. Link, you're excused, but Bill, I'm going to move your other item up on the agenda. So, can you stay here for a second?

No, it's over.

Thank you.

Um, Bill, you had another one on here, right?

I'm not sure that I did.

I think you did. uh the town doc feasibility study. So um so 5C, maybe this isn't you, maybe this is Chris, but uh 5C is request to authorize a town administrator to sign change order number one for the Westport town doc feasibility study.

Yes. So this is something that um Bill and I have worked on separately. This is the SEC grant. Um so before you this evening uh is a [cough] uh essentially an extension uh of some previous work um which was contract and authorized. So uh the town received an SEC grant to do this feasibility study. The grant has closed out. However, uh in order to continue to use the funds, we have to

show that there's still outstanding work um to essentially show SEC before they release the additional funds. So, um I think the current change order is using the remaining route of that SEC grant in the amount of 22,000 58648.

Uh it' be my recommendation to authorize me to sign that change order this evening.

And there's no there's no additional cost to the town or anything. Yeah, those are not.

All right. Does anybody have any questions about that? [clears throat] All right. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

So, we have a motion and a second to approve the request to authorize the town administrator to sign the change order for the down doc visibility study.

All in favor? I I um that's unanimous. Thank you.

Anything else, Bill?

Um no. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

[clears throat] Um so next item we have on the list is um the preliminary license permit approval. Um so the the select board is responsible for a yearly um issuing of a whole bunch of permits to do business. Most of them are related to motor vehicles. So um there's a very what we what we do is um we put together a preliminary approval. So, we kind of blanket approve so that anybody that

comes in with all the paperwork is in order that we can just issue the licensing. It's just more efficient. Um the uh but also um you know if if people have concerns about a business or want more scrutiny on a business or something like that, then that's also an option.

So, um I've been assured today that we don't actually have to read all of these um because they were posted. We have printed p uh uh lists and then they were all posted on the agenda. So what I'm going to do instead is just go through kind of the categories and see if anybody has anything that any that they want to put a hold on or they are specifically interested in. If anybody is here specifically

or um contesting whether we should preliminarily approve a license, please tell us which one. Usually we don't get any, but um so I'm just going to read the um categories and see if anybody has any that they want to um put on hold. So we have it says class one. Is this class one vehicle sales or Yeah, class one vehicle sales. Um we have class two vehicle sales. There's a very long list there.

Top quality auto sales is there three times. I'm assuming we got three different businesses. Uh we have class three Um we have repair this your vehicles. Then we have uh all alcohol club um all alcohol inkeeper uh all alcohol package store uh all alcohol restaurants.

Hold um all alcohol veterans club um farmer winery pouring wine and malt inkeeper.

Wine and malt package store.

Wine and malt restaurant.

Um seasonal wine and malt.

Seasonal all alcohol.

Stain hold.

um common victual.

Madam chair, I'll have to abstain on one of those [clears throat] um entertainment amusements and inkeeper. So just Jake working backwards. So on the um Victor lure on the common victuals, which one did you want? You want Baker's I'll abstain from Baker's Beach and vote the rest of them.

Okay. And then um did one of you have something to abstain from?

I'm abstaining on uh Bay Breeze Sea Farms.

Bay Breeze.

Madam Chair, I had a question.

Mhm.

I observe that Harry's Country Store is listed as a common victual or which is correct, but I believe they are also wine and malt package store. I don't see them listed elsewhere.

Maybe I'm missing it.

I'll just suggest another look at that to make sure we didn't leave that out.

So, Carla, can you take a note of that?

So, for the um for the all alcohol restaurant, was there anyone particular you wanted to talk about or So, so I have no I have no issue with it, but bootleg barbecue is now the Stonewall Tavern. So, I just haven't accurately reflected if they change um I think if they change name, they have to re-update their paperwork and stuff, right? Yeah. So, okay.

So, if it comes in as not bootleg, then we'll have to come back through us again.

And then um so for so what we're gonna so I'm entertain a motion to approve all of the preliminarily approve all of the permits with the exception of uh Bay seasonal all alcohol and Bakers Beach.

All right. So, everything except Bakers Beach because we're going to vote Bakers Beach separate and then um Bay Breeze.

Yeah.

All right. Do I have the motion for that?

Motion to approve. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

I.

I. And then I'll have a motion to approve um Baker's Beach Common Biter.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

I I So that's four in favor and one Epste. And then um Babe Breeze, did you want to um talk about that now or do you want to have that come back up in a proper permit session? Was that you that wanted?

No, it was just He was justaining I had on the last Oh, you were just obaining. Okay. So, then we have uh uh Sorry, I didn't understand that. So, um and then so we have a motion to approve the seasonal law alcohol for babies.

Motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor?

I I So, that's four in favor and one abstain. All right. So, everything on the list was approved. And then just a note about uh which which was the country the town Landing store.

Yeah.

Harry's store and then the um bootleg barbecue. Just check in those.

Okay. That was so much better than reading.

I know.

Thanks.

Okay. Uh we have a request from Mission 22 to hold [clears throat] their annual 5K walk run rake ruck race on Sunday, November 15 from 10:30 to 11:30.

I move acceptance [clears throat] or approval.

Second.

Is there anyone here to talk about that?

Right. All in favor?

I I that's unanimous. We have a request from Michelle and Brian P. um the South Coast Harvest Festival for a common victual license at Westport Fairgrounds at 200 Pine Hill Road on Friday, September 25 through Sunday, September 27th.

Move approval.

Second.

Someone's here for that. I can see a t-shirt. Do you want to talk about your event?

You You have to go to a microphone.

Hello, we're Michelle and Brian Pay.

Welcome, Michelle and Brian. You want to tell us what's going on?

Hello. We are entering our fourth South Coast Harvest Festival. We're praying for nice weather. Um, we have some stacked entertainment this year. We have the Paul Bunan Lumberjack Show, which we're really excited. We've been trying to get them for four years. They're an educational program that talks about the history of forestry and the importance of thinning out our forest and the benefits to wildlife. Um

we um have a nice relation all kinds of entertainment lined up.

We have a nice relationship with the fairgrounds. Things are going well. Um we've had a safe event each year and we hope it keeps growing. It's growing.

It is growing.

As long as the weather's with us, we're happy. We can't order that up for you.

Unless this past weekend got the bad weather out of our system for a while.

I know.

This week, Saturday was beautiful. I don't know.

Sunday, not so much.

There were two events that got blown out on Sunday.

All right. So, that's September 25th to 27. Where can people find out more?

Uh, South Coast Harvestfestestival.com or on Facebook or Instagram, South Coast Harvest Festival.

All right. And we had a motion, a second to approve. Is there any discussion?

I'll be there every day.

All right. Great.

Every day.

Every day.

All right. All in favor every day.

All in favor?

That's unanimous. All right. Thank you all.

Order up the weather.

We appreciate you.

Um, we're on 3D. We have a request from Coastal Food Shed for a one-day wine and malt beverage license for a speaking event at 8:45 Sodom Road on Friday, October 2nd from 5:00 p. p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Is there anyone here for that?

Okay.

I move approval. Second.

All in favor? I I that's unanimous. We have a request from the Holy Ghost Club for one-day all alcoholic beverage liquor license for the following events at 179 Sodom Road. A fundraiser on Saturday, September 19 from 12:00 to 7:00 with a rain date of Sunday, September 20 and a concert on Saturday, September 26 from 5 to 10.

Move approval. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

I. That's unanimous. Um on uh 4A, we have a request from police chief Chris Dunn to accept the resignation of Valerie Bello um E911 dispatcher as of it's um actually as of September 15. I did get um late breaking requests from the town administrator for the under the 24hour rule that um they would like to uh appoint her for PDM. Is that what's what's the motion that you'd need?

Uh so it would be two motions. So, one would be to accept the resignation uh of Valerie as of August 31st, 2026.

No, that would be September 15, right?

September 15th, right?

Um and then have her be appointed as a per DME 911 dispatcher effective September 15th.

Great.

I want to make a motion um make a motion to accept the resignation as of September 15th and allow Valerie to be Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. and allow Valerie to be appointed PDM uh E 911 dispatcher after September 15th.

Effective September effective September. Thanks.

Is that a motion?

Second.

Is there any discussion?

All in favor?

I I That's unanimous.

We have a request to accept the resignation of Betty Slade from the community preservation committee as of September 4, 2026.

Move approval with accept with regret with regret.

Second, I understand you guys honored Dave and Betty when I wasn't here.

Yes.

Well, it was this weekend.

There is another one. There's another one this weekend. We have all of them.

Many going away parties.

We honor her here.

All right. All in favor?

I I That's unanimous.

We request to appoint James Blair Berling game to the beach committee.

Move approval. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

I.

Uh that's unanimous. We have a request to appoint Cynthia Zumbbo to the Council on Aging.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

I.

I. That's unanimous. We have a request to appoint Will Boier as production assistant to the cable TV department.

Motion to approve. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

I.

I. That's unanimous. We have a request to appoint Theresa Valanc Court as an election worker.

Motion to approve.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. That's unanimous. We have a request to appoint Duncan Law to the Infrastructure Oversight Committee.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

I.

I. That's unanimous. We have a request to appoint Joshua Brum to the shared inspectional services clerk position in the building and health department effective November 9, 2026.

Move approval. Go ahead. Do I have a second?

Seconded.

Um, so I do have an up just a comment on this one. So, um, because this is so, uh, Mr. Braum will be moving from the registars's office to the inspection to the building department and so the this is a take effective November 9th. So, this is after the election. So, he's going to work the November 3rd election um, and then move over. um we uh can't immediately post for the position

because um there's a grace period. So once he once the union member takes another union position, there's a 30-day uh grace or whatever to decide he doesn't want it. And then um so we have to wait 30 days to post for the registars's office. So I was I wondered why we weren't just immediately authorizing the posting, but that's why. So this motion is to appoint him effective November 9th

and we'll deal with the other stuff later.

We'll deal with the other stuff will definitely be coming because they're going to but he's going to work through the elections. So that's the big thing.

That's the good part.

Yeah.

And then then his success will be on the cusp of the new elections, right?

The town offices.

The town, right? The town for April.

Yeah.

All right. Any discussion? We had a motion, right? We did. All in favor?

I. That's unanimous.

Um, action item 5A. We have a request to release the Westport Housing Rehabilitation Lean recorded with the Bristol County Registry of Deeds in book 1018, page 279, dated April 5, 2011 and recorded on July 21, 2011. Do you want to tell us what this is, Chris?

Yeah.

Yeah, you can tell us, Chris.

You want to tell us?

Um, no. So this is uh something typical the town does. So um through our affordable housing trust uh they have a home rehabilitation program. As part of that uh when you get funding uh the trust puts a lean on your property for a certain period of time. Uh this one was back uh in April of 2011. Um with these type of agreements typically uh they expire after a certain period of time.

the lean is removed. Um so in order to release that lean uh it requires board approval and at which point that will be uh recognized in the registry.

What's the pleasure of the board?

I agree.

Are you moving that?

It's a motion.

I can I don't have it's the board I chair. So So moved. Okay. Second. Any discussion? All in favor?

I as unanimous. Jay, can you take Can you take over?

All of it.

I can talk again.

Oh, okay. All right. No problem. Uh, we are action item 5B, request from highway surveyor Chris Gonzale Gonzalez to execute a time extension document letter to PJ Keating to establish a new project completion date for the Sanford Road pedestrian and roadway safety improvement project. um phase on the year 2026.

Move approval.

Do I have a second?

That was uh Craig and Dick. Uh all those in favor?

I opposed.

That's five in favor, zero opposed.

We skipped over 5C. Oh, we already did 5C earlier. Excuse me. Uh 5D request from Jennif Jennifer Belhummer uh Kadamunk Nursery School to host the annual trunk or treat at the town hall annex parking lot 856 Main Road on Saturday October 10th from 4 to 6 p.m.

Do we have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

Uh that was Dick and that was Craig. All those in favor I opposed. It was 5 nothing. Carla request to authorize town administrator to execute Mass DOT 2022 economic development earmark grant amendment contract number 125223.

Chris, do you have any Yes. Uh so this is the uh flashing signal at the intersection of Gford and 177. Um, this project has been on hold because uh the grant funds were set to expire at the end of June. They worked their way through the legislative process so we can get a one-year extension. Uh there is a bit of a delay from when we placed the order to when uh the equipment actually arrived, so we

didn't need the extra calendar year. So, um this extension [clears throat] uh would be through June 30, 2027 for that project.

Okay.

Do we have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

Craig and Dick. All those in favor?

I opposed. Five in favor, zero opposed.

And now what a few of our in the crowd are waiting for a old high school property master plan update and potential action on next steps. Mr.

Matelli.

Yes. Thank you. Uh so as the board knows over the last couple of months we have been engaging with Brewster Thornton Group Architects on their master plan scope of work. Um you know again based off of the board's direction. Uh we went over the last couple months and we reviewed the prior studies. Uh and good evening and I believe Christine is here.

She might have be stepped in the hallway. Um and so with that we had user group meetings. uh we looked at uh space allocation needs. We looked at uh programmatic needs of the various departments. Um again with the idea that uh we knew that this was not going to be something that was uh one big project but rather a phased approach. But um this evening we do have a presentation

for you and she'll just step in from the hallway now um and hoping to give you an update that on that and talk about again next steps and just questions hoped to have answered.

Go on.

Thank you. Uh, and I just want to introduce you. Uh, Christine Shay is with Brewster Thornton as well as Nathaniel Ginsburg who is a partner with Brewster Thornton as well and who have been our uh, project points of contact.

Absolutely.

I have a presentation. I don't know.

Yes. Can you pull that those slides up?

Thank you.

I have it on all forms. There we go.

Perfect. She's already Great.

That's great. Thank you so much for having us. Uh, as Chris just said, I'm Nate Ginsburg from Brewster Thornton Group Architects principal, uh, and Christine Sheay, project manager. We've been working with the town of Westport to, uh, go through the past studies that have been done for the high school and um, consolidate some of that information and do a potential test fit for additional town offices to move into the

school. Uh, there has been extensive studies. I think a lot of them have been very broad-based trying to understand uh a lot of different possibilities for the high school. Ours was uh was quite focused and this is sort of an update on where we are, what we've been able to discern and the direction we're going to go uh forward um with with uh input from the select board. Um, we have not done cost studies

yet. That's part of our next step.

Um, but we would like to kind of share with you where where we are now.

Yeah, you need closer.

Better turn one of them off.

Just shut that one off.

Okay, you'll be good.

All right, there we go. Thank you. Um so uh taking a look at it, meeting with town departments, um meeting with with folks that to find out where kind of overlap is, what the needs are for each department, how those needs fit into the building has been uh our our path so far. And uh what we found is that the the building is actually very suited to handling quite a few different departments. Uh we've got multiple

points of entry where we can u divide up some of the different needs. Um but we're we're basing our design right now around a single central point of entry that can uh help guide people to the departments that they need. And then yeah, no, I'll let you I'll let you do that. And then and then we're uh we're um identifying sort of shared space as well as kind of dedicated space. and

Christine will be able to walk you through uh the the whole plan uh and the process that we've been going through.

There we go. Switch switch microphones now.

Turn. That's fine.

I don't know if that just screwed up Valerie, but we'll see. She'll yell.

Um I just wanted to introduce Brewster Thornton Group. This is my like 92nd elevator speech. were 36 years old. Uh specializing in community buildings, that's Nate and I's sector. So that's town halls and senior centers, um recreation centers, that sort of thing.

Um we've been ranked number one in the state of Rhode Island for technical competency for the last 15 plus years.

Uh we specialize in preservation of buildings, so that's why this building makes sense for us to take a look at.

Um, and 90% of our work is repeat clients. I've been following Chris around in all of his lives. So, every which is how we ended up in Westport.

Did you want to say anything about No.

Okay.

Uh, like Nate said, we just wanted to review progress um confirmed design direction. We've met with all of the user groups uh multiple times once to really understand their programs and then to to look at what we came up with, make sure it made sense for them in in a big picture master planning perspective.

And uh we want to review those program assumptions with you and then just discuss any concerns before we move on to cost estimating and finalizing the master plan.

In terms of schedule, we've done the existing conditions uh assessment. We've talked to the stakeholders. We've created a program and space planning.

We've gotten the user group buyin. We're here to present our uh in initial concept design.

After tonight, we are hoping to then break it all down into pieces because we understand that a $60 million budget is not realistic. So, we're going to break it down into bite-sized pieces to find funding.

We'll have it cost estimated by Kio, our cost estimator, and finalize our master plan. And that's going to happen over the next month or so.

This is just a list of all of the work that you guys have done, uh, which was pretty extensive before we got on board.

Some of our planning assumptions is that it's going to continue to be a townowned building, that the priority is the COA, recreation, [clears throat] um, and potentially keeping the school administration since they're already in there, at least in the short term. We want to maximize the use of the building without demolition.

And we want it to be a phased renovation approach. So we understand that you you don't want to pay for entire building renovation all at once. There are spaces that could be used as asis and then we could renovate them over time. Um so we want to be just careful about how we phase this project because it's a giant building. So, we want to do this in pieces and we're going to create an action plan

to have the town be able to move forward with those pieces on an individual basis.

So, this is what we came up with and we'll break it down for you because I know this is a lot to take in. Um but as I said we did programming the programming exercise with the user potential user groups and we broke it down into uh how how everyone can um fit into the space the existing space as it is with some minor tweaks. I think we all know that

building has been a school for a long time and infill has happened. I think if we undo that infill in a large part, we can get spaces that are pretty right sized for the user group.

I think the uh kind of the main important thing about this plan, you can see all the the pink shaded areas. Those are shared spaces. So, we were able to find a lot of ability for each of the different organizations to to share space and consolidate resources. And then the the main entry is really where the majority of people would come into the building. Uh a single central point of entrance allowing uh them to go to

any of the organizations that are within the building. But then there is a separate schoolaged drop off where kids could come and go in a in a secure area.

Yeah. Part of the building that we, you know, we wanted to look out look at when we laid this out was being able to break it down both for security um and just having different things open at a at different times, especially with the school administration having their after hours program. We needed to make sure that people didn't intersect. So, I think by having a few um select security

doors, we can be able to break that down so that you can have the auditorium open or the gym open or be in your office and not feel like the entire building is open to everybody.

This is the second floor, which would be where we would recommend moving the school after school program. Um it would require a new elevator on that side given that the existing elevator is kind of on the opposite side of the building.

Um but that would open up the other half of the building to multi-use spaces which are currently pretty well suited as they are and then we could renovate them over time. Uh we also heard from school administration that they have to often shut down their school after school program if there was an issue in one of the classrooms. This would allow them to kind of easily swap to the other side.

And then the basement, we were we're proposing to renovate the gym side to be a new recreationbased gym with smaller lockers. Those locker rooms on both floors are huge. We could split them in half easily.

And then the other side of the building would be uh utility and storage. I don't think we have to do much with that space for now.

So, as I said, we met with uh each of the potential user groups and did a real programming exercise to understand the different spaces, compared those spaces to, you know, national standards of how that how they break down. Came up with their program. I won't go through every single line item, but we did it through the veterans services and this is kind of how those pieces fit into the overall plan

that basically they would take one classroom and then they have the opportunity to use a larger activity space.

Same for recreation.

They have a lot of ability to have shared spaces.

And as I said, the basement floor plan, we were considering having an independent gym area with new locker rooms. You could have this be on a after hours schedule that you wouldn't have to open up the whole building to get to it.

Um, as Chris mentioned, we could also use it for the ball fields for the kids to come change in this area if needed.

lower level gym and locker rooms could have its own separate entrance that that could be secured and used at a separate time. That that gym is a smaller size, so it's great for for fitness uh while leaving the upper gym for for sports, youth sports.

And then they have a lot of opportunities to use the gym, the auditorium, multi-use spaces. There's a lot of overlap with COA. And then we did look at moving uh her office to this building um as part of a annex consolidation.

School administration. It's basically what they have now plus uh some additional office space that they're that are needed.

They also have a bunch of classrooms that they use on the after hours. They also were interested in vocational tech classrooms if it was available.

We would basically keep their storage in the same places on either end of the building. And then as we said before, their after hours program could be blocked off pretty easily on the left hand side with the gym and the locker rooms, multi-use spaces.

And again, that's the second floor.

Council on Aging, they have lots of spaces, um, including a cafe and the sport of day program that could be come over from their building.

A lot of shared spaces, including the gym and auditorium.

And we're proposing that their office space gets consolidated into the front part of the floor plan and then they use the space on the right as all of their activity spaces and the gym.

Once we knew that all of those user groups could fit, we went back to the folks at the uh annex as an option to consolidate your buildings um and moving them out of that building to this building.

And they fit pretty well with the extra office space on the first floor.

And we would infill some of the space on the second floor as well.

And we're back to the overall concepts.

Can go back to the the main floor plan here.

So again, we found uh we found a lot of overlap, but we also found ways to give each of these programs their own defined spaces.

Um, I think we'd have to look at uh some security doors throughout the building to keep the uh children separated uh school age children and to be able to give them their own space um and allow each of the program spaces to have shared spaces that can consolidate some of the need from different departments.

I like the front door element. We keeping the front door the same. You go into a common lobby. You have a receptionist who can tell you where you're going. There's a security point there. Um, and then you can go to whatever activity you want to go to.

And you know, one of the nice things is, like I said, the gym could be blocked off, the the theater could be blocked off, you could have um events there.

Even the large activity room on the far right were able to uh block off so you could have, you know, an early morning exercise class or whatever that might be in in the morning without opening up the whole building.

The building becomes pretty well used as you layer all these programs on. So the cafeteria still is very useful, the theater, the gyms, all of the major spaces are very useful for these programs.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Do you want me to So, I see um there's a new construction of a of a barrier there for the lobby to the theater. So, is the idea separate entrance from the rest of the building?

It's like, you know, currently going in it's through the cafeteria.

Exactly. So, I think long term I know RGB when they did their their master their visioning, they had kind of taken out the bathrooms right there, made that a real prominent theater entrance. I liked that idea. Um, but in the short term, we could just put some security doors and make that a really usable space without opening everything else up.

So, Madam Chair, I was requested to participate in this process on behalf of the affordable housing trust and I see no mention of possible uses either in the building on the property for the affordable housing trust or affordable housing. So, I haven't got correct.

I don't think so.

Okay, the presentation's done.

I was going to say it was a waste of my time and let's uh let's see what you have to say.

I did want to stop because I know this is a lot to take in. So, so I apologize, Madam Chair.

So, first of all, I appreciate your work on obviously the concept plan you're providing. Um, and obviously I want to make sure that it it seems like it's very fluid. Obviously, you have abilities like when COA if there were, you know, the first movers in there, uh, and they may need more space is ability to kind of flex that and make more space. So, I I really appreciate this layout. I think, uh, this is the closest

we've gotten just with a conceptual plan to see something positive and that can be done um, you know, in a phased approach. I know you have more of a presentation to give, but I appreciate the effort on this and and honestly, it's uh, I think it'll be well received in the community. Now, of course, your next time you hear may be a little bit different when it comes to money, but right now I'm very happy with

what you presented. So, thank you.

And to you to your point, I think the building is about 80% utilized.

[clears throat] Uh, so we are identifying some areas as shared storage spaces. Those storage spaces could be converted to office spaces or program spaces down the road. And I think we'd have to kind of strategically locate some of those to allow for programs to expand.

Thank you.

Okay. Obviously, do do we have any other questions here at the table? If not, you can continue on with the presentation.

Thank you.

Oh, the slide got really weird.

Anyway, we were we just wanted to look at um possible funding options for breaking this down into bite-sized pieces. as we talked about would be to consolidate some of your buildings once those folks have moved into this space including the existing COA and the annex the affordable housing piece. So, uh, we [clears throat] we talked to a developer based on the affordable housing folks

request and they felt like, uh, this building would only be interesting to them to renovate if they could get 30 to 40 units in the building. Um, as you can see, that would mean probably the whole building. So, you'd really need to make it.

By the way, that was not consensus. We had several different options for that.

Yeah. So, having met with the the planning board and going going through several options, um I think the the areas of concern that came up were how do we how do we separate the building?

Um how do we have a developer that has space in the building uh so that the town doesn't necessarily own the units or rent the units? Um, and how do we how do we then um have those programs separated from the other town programs?

Um, an entrance for uh housing in the back could be one option. Having housing on the second floor is what is what this option shows uh that we looked at. We know some of the other um studies looked at tearing the building down completely.

um looking at possibly a section of the site. Um so we did go through a few options with What about real estate on the site that's not part of the building?

That's not part of the building.

Correct. Yeah. So that that was those were several options. Uh those were reviewed with with the developer. Um, and I basically what what the developer came back with was their margins are so low right now that any kind of obstruction or any any piece where they're sharing or where the residents have to uh compromise is kind of put uh concern for them. Uh the best possibility for the affordable developer

that we spoke with was a clean site. Um and this site has many you know many uses. Um giving up kind of recreational space uh was a I think was a concern for for some folks. Um but it was also a concern for the developer as far as how do they structure their building? You know, can you break off a separate piece? um we presented the option of of them having the second floor. Uh I think

there was there was definitely some concern about that and getting their their return on the on investment. So with the person that we spoke with um we did not come up with an option that that they were um comfortable with.

What's his name?

I knew you were going to ask me that.

Mr. on the on the trust.

Who was that? David Enis.

Yes.

David Enis.

Yeah. Okay.

Um so there there are certainly there are certainly other options uh which could include uh the current building that the COA is in and using using that as a completely uh independent site that could be sold to a developer.

I mean you understand where I'm coming from. is that no, no one wants affordable housing in suburban communities. We we start with that premise and we understand that we have to be advocates for both open space and stuff like that because you can't create affordable housing unless you have uh subsidies built in. Some of those are tax credits, but some of those are land. And donations of land and

public land are both are the biggest sources of creating affordable housing.

We have a good example of that in town with no choke village. We wouldn't have created Noachchoke Village as an affordable housing development unless we had land that the town had taken through tax title. And so the fact that we owned the land outright and we could dedicate that property for affordable housing meant that we had a built-in subsidy to create affordable housing within the town of Westport.

And that's that's that's why that um we're sort of uh vigilant so to speak on this. So we we you know so we're not just looking I'm not picking on you in this project. Now Christine did talk to me. We had some interviews. Um, we were there with the encouragement uh and support of the of the planning board, both members of the of the board and the town planner. And that was for that

reason because we're always looking for either a property owner that wants to donate land or sell us land at a discounted right uh price or to use land that is in the that is town owned land to create affordable housing.

So if I'm a bit of a a nooge on this that that that's part of my role. So, no, understood. And and we definitely got a clear message that there was a lot of support for providing affordable housing.

And there is if you looked at some elderly and disabled housing with some of the common spaces there in terms of the theater, the gym and some of the space, the synergy with the council on aging and some of the programs that they offer, there is uh a capacity to do this. Does the physical structure lend itself to this? No. there's probably some challenges with the physical structure, especially if we're moving

other town departments into the building. And so I understand that is a potential impediment. But I also understand that we do have a lot of synergy with the with the council on aging or with uh the commission that works with people with disabilities in town.

Rick, did you have that's my sermon? You did speak about low-inccome housing though in regards to it being a potentially very viable property where the COA is now and where the town Linux is now. So, it's still off the table. It's just potentially another more viable property for this one.

Absolutely.

Yeah. that that was the feedback that we got that a you know being able to turn over a site to a developer was going to be much more desirable than saying you know we'll figure out how to get you into the second floor and then we'll figure out a ownership agreement.

I think the reality is is that the COA, recreation, the school department, they all have needs. Those are growing needs and you'd have to do one or the other or find space for them. So because if you if you looked at the counciling agent, you would probably need to radically renovate or demolish the site.

And if you looked at the annex, the demolition is the only option is is is is to look at that because the annex is not I mean we make believe it's handicapped accessible. With all due respect, it's not a handicapped accessible site. And so uh and it's the rooms are awful the but it there's space on the site. So that would be a demo and and reuse of the property in my opinion

which was significantly more appealable to the developer that we spoke with.

Okay.

No, I told she can continue.

I'm going to Well, she's still going.

So, I think right now you're just charged with um does the concept plan meet your needs?

Do you have any concerns before we move into cost estimating? Do you want to continue the conversation about affordable housing? Um and then to that they had asked us to get some pricing on well and septic testing which could be completed now or later depending on you know where you want to go with that because well and septic is tied into the fact that when you go from office space

or or classroom space to housing the requirements for well and septic increase substantially. Correct. And so we have to know what what are the uh capacity for wastewater as well as wellwater on that site. Right.

Yeah. And just to add to that, PAR Corporation um has been looking at this.

They are uh they know this building really well and they did tell us that um you have two wells. One of those wells um is currently pulled out and they weren't sure if it's because it's broken or if it just needs to be put back in.

um they can't do any of that testing and keep the building with water unless you have both running. Um so he said if it does need to be replaced, it's probably in the $7,500 ballpark. So if you wanted to do that now, that would be an additional cost to their services. Um something to keep in mind so that the people who are using the building right now would continue to have water. They would switch from one

to the other while the testing was going on.

So Chris, do we need to make a motion on on this or Yeah. Well, I just want to see what the process would be.

Yeah. So, I think tonight um you know was a check-in point because I know there's been a lot of time already put in uh talking with the departments and so I think just based on the information presented here tonight is um at least one of my takeaways is for the board's priorities that were shared at the prior meeting um you know we can make those spaces work. Um I know housing was that

other component as part of the prior discussions and so you know one is just I guess looking at the concept plan you know looking at the allocation of space um does it account for everything the board had set out uh in its prior discussions prior meetings. Um, you know, the second thing is just before we go forward, um, if the board, um, you know, felt that affordable housing was

better suited at a different location.

Um, that would be helpful to know tonight because obviously costing out the proposal and the phasing of projects is going to change if you know, um, some of the building has to be separated off for a different use. Um, so that would be helpful here tonight. Um, and again, just uh I know we've been doing this over the last couple months, but also just again giving the community update that we've been working on this.

So, um, this will come again. So, there's no final vote, I'll say, other than those two items cuz this will come back before the board when we talk about the, uh, draft plan.

Okay. So, uh, do we have any discussion or any questions, uh, from the table? My biggest question is do you think that the plan you've submitted is going to fall within the 30% rule for appraised value?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm sure what what I mean by that is yes. I believe we'll will we will be required to bring the building up to code.

So you think you're going to go through the 30%?

When you say f fall within I thought you meant uh exceed that amount. Yes, I think we will exceed the amount.

So we'll need to raise value.

So I think some of this is going to be when it comes down to phasing and how we approach that. I don't think again correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think some of these initial phases um are going to hit that threshold, you know, but I do think as we start to more or less fill in the space a little bit more um and I know Christine has had some conversations with our uh building

official regarding the code uh in terms of how we phase in some of that cost.

Um, I think, you know, we'll have a better idea once we get those estimates back. But, um, I I do think, you know, to build out the space over time, we're going to be we're have to put some money into the building.

So, my my question is at what point do we have to start adhering to the stretch code?

30% of assessed value over three years.

Okay. Because in other words, I understand that some of this is aligned with the the pre, you know, it's pre-existing uses and stuff like that.

You know, the the the afterchool program, the educational administration and stuff, but as we move into town offices, we're sort of drifting away from what what we're grandfathered for.

And so when we lose the grandfathering so to speak, we have to now start adhering to the stretch building codes.

So what percentage of that property do you think is going to need to fall under a more u um aggressive building code?

Uh that's better.

That's a good question. something we can have an answer to you on when we come back after we've looked at the cost and the phasing.

That's a huge number.

Yeah, that's what makes it feasible or not feasible to be completely honest because all the other proposals that came forward assumed blowing past the 30% and that's where it was the $20 million to bring it up to code and then all the crazy stuff beyond that.

But like Chris said and what you said is 36 months the clock resets. So if you phase it and we have viable options there and your presentation, the only things I saw that cost money seem to be tearing down some walls, putting up some fire barriers and an elevator, unless I'm missing something there.

I mean, I think over time we would do more than that, but the initial get them in the building step is exactly right.

So it's like we're going to The next part is the hard part. you have to break it down into bite-sized enough pieces that we [clears throat] keep it under that over that period of time, but eventually you will want a sprinkler building. You know, that's kind of the big ticket item, right?

And then to piggyback on what Craig said, my understanding is that if you're going from a higher risk category in the IBC to a lower risk category, the IBC does not drive any updates to code. Is that correct?

Correct.

Well, we have a lot of interest on the Council on Aging. what what happens as you move more of their functions in is that [cough] does that trigger the the um the stretch code?

Yeah, again it's a good question and I think we'd have to cost that out uh with with our estimate in the next phase um to figure out is right is one department going to push us over that limit or can we get them in in a phased approach that that allows us to do that?

I understand that. Um, I do think changes, changes to the kitchen, changes to the locker room, changes to the entries, um, secure entries and exits, the elevator, uh, those are all, yeah, those are all big ticket items. Um, unfortunately, appraisals don't come back as high as you'd hope, you know, for for the cost of building these days.

Uh, it always seems like it's a pretty low bar to hit that 30%.

Dick, did you have anything? Uh yeah, I was going to ask, Madam Chair, I want to talk a little bit more about affordable housing and particularly the memo. Um as I read this, it looks like it's not going to work for various reasons and various options are outlined and none of them are really good, but one might be interest. Is this basically saying not only is it affordable house affordable

housing that's not going to work is housing in general or is it just a part of it I'm not quite gathering suppose a developer wanted to buy the property from the town this is probably hypothetical anyway and put up condos unrelated to affordable housing is that doable or is that under this advice here really not good either So, what what we're what we heard was that if you could turn over the property wholesale

to a developer, that would work. They could certainly take the building, do a conversion into into condos, into senior living, into affordable housing with the entire building.

But if we're trying to parse this and break off a piece or give them a a second floor or give them, you know, one side of the building, it becomes very difficult very quickly.

It also creates another problem for you.

The school department is school administration lives there now. So you have to find a place for that. Plus COA and recreation both need to expand. So, you know, you're not you're creating a problem instead of solving a problem by putting affordable housing in there.

So, it would be competing with each other and therefore would make the others less viable.

And even um at some point um to get the category of affordable housing, you don't need 100% affordable housing. You need 25% affordable housing. That's that's what you can take 50 units and if 13 units are affordable and the balance or not, you've got the the the uh the label of affordable housing for if I could follow up. So, we're the the the condo idea, how however foolish that

may be or not, that's really not on the table here because we're we're not talking about selling land and it might be 10 years from down the road we might be thinking about that if we can't get the money to renovate the place. Uh but for now, this that's not in the cards.

We're dealing in the context of affordable housing as being part of the the mix that's necessary if we were to go in that direction. And then the memo, tell us why that's not feasible for all intents and purposes.

Yeah, certainly breaking off a section of the property to sell to a developer for housing or affordable housing is something that could certainly be investigated. It would reduce the amount of land available for parking. It would reduce the amount of land available for recreation. We would certainly have to do a survey, find out if there is a suitable uh area of land that could be

broken off with enough buildable area.

That is certainly something that could be done because you're dealing with wetlands in that building as well. So, I mean, just walking around it was there everything saturated at the building.

The further you go back, you're just going to cause problems for yourself.

The further you go back, I I think basically what we know is the site. um when you go further back, you're dealing totally with wetlands, right?

So, we're looking at the footprint that is currently occupied with with the old high school and and the town offices within that school offices and what what what are because it's still being used as recreational fields. One one of the studies that was conducted looked at multiple options for how many units they could get with uh with condos with a large uh building, you know, with

with multiple buildings. Uh and there there was certainly a study that that you could go back to that would show you how many houses you could get, but that study looked at tearing the building down. Yeah.

Um and I know the ball fields are used in in in the back. Um, but that seems like kind of the the the prime real estate on the site that is not wetlands currently without tearing the building down.

Right.

Okay.

Go ahead, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Jake, for taking over. Um, so I just I want to say I really appreciate the concept plan. This is feels like the closest we have to actually getting somewhere and doing something. I think um I really like the approach. I like the approach of moving a lot of those annex building offices in. I like the idea of like the phasing it, you know, whatever. If we're building the doorways

and building the elevator, I think that we have to stop talking about affordable housing on this site. I'm for affordable housing. I am okay with affordable housing. I think if we could make the Council on Aging be affordable housing or the annex or if we can find another property, I would absolutely support that. But I think that that is going to get in our way of making any progress on

this particular building and how we solve this particular problem. So my opinion is that we should move forward with the plan that's been presented and go into cost estimation and we should really take affordable housing off the table. And I don't think we should spend time and money continuing that option. I think if somebody wanted to come in and develop it, they would have come approach us by now. But um also

don't vote against it only to it's been it's it's taken off the table. Leave it on the table with a possibility that it could um not be part of the plan. I'm more than happy to support it, but I'm not going to support it as you're proposing.

That's okay. I'm expressing my opinion.

[clears throat] So my opinion is that we should take it off the table indefinitely forever. But I'm okay that we're not being asked to do that right now. that right now we're asked to whether we're approving of this concept plan for cost estimation. I absolutely approve going to cost estimate or I would recommend and vote for going to a uh concept plan as it was presented. I do not think we should

spend the next six weeks looking at affordable housing and the costing associated no time up until this point talking and I don't think that there's value in doing the well and septic testing unless that supports the potential use of the new concept plan without housing. So from the um well and septic is that only just to assess the value for housing or is there value in doing that um for just

the concept plan without the housing? I do think there's value in doing that uh just to understand the condition of the wells right now. Uh there is a question right now as to whether one of the wells has failed and needs to be repaired. Um just as far as being able to understand um the the the long-term costs, not have any surprises down the road.

It does.

Thank you. Uh so I actually echo this echo the sentiments of Madame Chair. I'm glad she's saving her voice to express express those sentiments. Um, I've said it all along that I think in this situation, in this facility, we're trying to do a square peg into a round hole with respect to housing and affordable housing. I think many people need to remember that when the select board took on uh basically the old high

school and we should probably rename that but the old high school um we there's also deed restrictions as to those fields and with keeping that that building then obviously there are deed restrictions as to what you can do with those fields. So that also limits the ability to what can be done uh on the site. I had said all along unless you can do 30 40 50 units, it's it's not going to be economically feasible. Um

even in you know my environment here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where uh 40B housing is pushed um you know extensively throughout communities. Um I agree um with Madam Chair with respect to that we should probably take affordable housing off the table for this specific location. I think as I me mentioned earlier, you've done a tremendous job with the presentation.

I'm afraid about the next presentation when there's a dollar cost with it because we've we've seen the pie in the sky uh in the past, but I think you kind of have an understanding that of where we want to go with this, the phased approach and what we can kind of accomplish um you know tiered. I mean this does not have to be done in 12 to 24 months. It can be you know get COA in

there and and and start slowly uh bringing everyone in there. Um, I would agree that I think we probably should look at the wells and the septic to support obviously the facility that will be in that location. Um, obviously we've had issues here at the town well not here but at the town hall annex uh with that well. So I think it would probably be best to confirm that we have two working wells and and appropriately

working and and what the septic can support um you know from an office space standpoint. So um that's kind of where I'm at on this. I'm very happy and and optimistic as to where we've gotten to.

Uh I just hope that we can continue to move forward. So, thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I'll continue. Mr.

Mundy, do you have anything?

I'm just thinking about if what's it cost to test the septic in the well? You know, ballpark for Wag.

Um the planning board had come up with a scope of work that was, you know, ranged from 50 to 10 and some thousand dollars.

We can certainly bring that right back down and just do some basic testing first. Um, which would be in the, you know, I don't quote me on this, but like $20,000 range.

What's a new well cost ballpark?

$7,500 is what they're telling me if we wanted to replace the one the pump.

Yeah. The pump. The pump itself.

The replacement's cheaper than the testing.

No, that that's just for the pump, not a whole new well.

We don't know if the well is good because the pump's bad.

Correct.

Correct. It's out of It's out of the well. So, we don't know why it's out of the well. Is it out because it was broken?

I'm just thinking 7500 bucks for the new pump, but test the well. So, it's almost like get the new pump and then if it's not good, test it after that.

That would also include septic system.

I don't think that's a bad idea.

Yeah.

Do we have one?

Great question. Uh, so we uh I would have to look through our article language uh to see if that was an allowable use. Um, but that's where I would I would go if you want to task me with taking a look at that.

Is there many left over in the article or whatever we have for funding for the building right now?

Um, like kind of like it sound like a good 25ish thousand because you're going to need 7,500 for the pump and then Yeah, not for the study component, but the article for the maintenance on the building. I'd have to look at the specific language, but we might be able to tap that.

Do we have money for the study if like I guess I'm test to test?

Not through. Yeah. No, not through that.

Not through that.

So, we could replace the $7,500 to replace the pump. We could probably find that's probably maintenance of the building and we think that probably that will work.

But the study that she just said $70 to $100,000 for the study. We don't have funding for that.

We do not. Um that'd be something we'd have to put in our phased approach. But but that was through wasn't that through the planning board that was go putting RFPs out for doing a study on that or are we talking specifically just looking at the setting of the two wells we currently have to support an office space scenario which would be cheaper I think right is that what you're alluding to

yes so the the scope that the planning board came up with was obviously looking at an affordable housing perspective the um proposal that we got it passes you're not going to get any money from the affordable housing trust okay's No hosting.

Um, the first pieces of that are significantly less expensive. But I would like to go back if that's something you were interested in, which it sounds like you are, go back to the civil engineers and kind of tweak it down even more because I don't think it needs to be quite that extensive. if we're moving forward not doing affordable housing.

Madam Chair, so my thought process is what?

I know, but I'm still going to give you the respect.

I do.

So, so my thought process is the next time you're here is to present obviously cost estimates with respect to that. So maybe it's a hey preliminarily we get started and it's going to take 25,000 to bring the wells up to speed to bring the septic up to speed and then we continue down that that kind of alakart pricing menu.

We can we can make some assumptions on okay first day. Yeah. And and that's probably I think what I think at least the chair and myself are getting at is that if we take the affordable housing off, we focus on these wells and these septics to support the building and the facility that would be there to support town services and the residents of the town.

So right, I think that would be part of your first phase when you come back for pricing because it's not that far off, right? I mean, we're looking probably I think on your timeline next month. Was that exactly correct? Okay. So, I don't think a decision needs to be made that we got to run out into a well or get a well pump in.

And honestly, I don't think that they would even have availability immediately. So, we might be lagging behind anyway.

Okay. All right.

Is there any other discussion?

Who's chairing a meeting right now?

She's I am right now.

Okay.

Do we have any public comment?

Oh, I thought I thought I thought I was going to escape until Mr.

Lima uh David Lima running the whole time.

Right. I'm I'm uh delighted. I think it's a good step. I think it's the right step. I think it's measured. It's what we've been talking about all along.

We're talking about phase development at the when this all started three or four years ago. Um, I'm if I were to I agree with Madam Chair that I think that the affordable housing even in the original proposal that I wrote, I included housing as part of the concept because I think it's an important component of this town. But what's equally and more important is the other uses that we're trying to put in

that building. This town needs what we're talking about. We need housing, too, but we need this. And if we didn't do this and we just did housing, you would have to find a place for the Council on Aging. You'd have to find more space for school. You'd have to find all kinds of space that you can't find. You've been looking. I've been watching and you can't find it. This is

where it is. So, this is where the battle has to go forward. And I I think phased steps is the only way to do this.

And just personally, and I'll end with this. There are many people who have come to me anyway because I've been standing here all this time talking about this idea who have entrepreneurial economic interest in using that building.

So I I am not faced by the notion that this building at some point will pay for itself at some point.

And we need to work assiduously and judiciously to figure out how to do that. And I think that's what this presentation is. And I agree with Madam Chair that I think housing should it's muddying the waters right now for the discussion. It's not that we don't care about housing. Of course, we care about housing.

Can we transfer the chair of this meeting?

I'm not I'm sorry. I have the floor right now.

Excuse me.

Can we make Shan the chair again?

But we have a gentleman that's speaking from the public. I He hasn't gone over any time.

Just just processes.

I I have the floor.

Yeah.

Now you do.

Okay. I'm not against housing and I never have been. But I think right now the conversation is this battle between housing and what's else is going on.

No, it isn't.

Well, I'm sitting as a as a spectator here and I can presume myself listening to what people are saying. My own concept of what I think I hear is advocacy for instead of something else.

That's what I hear. And I'm it's a free time I have to make my presentation that I'm agreeing with Madam Chair that I think housing on that site is muddying the waters. Even though I'm in support of it, it's muddying the waters. That's all I'm That's all I'm going to say.

Thank you, David.

I just want to address So Jake is the vice chair of this committee. I'm having a hard time talking which is why I defer to him.

Okay. But I'm I can take over if that will make you more comfortable.

No, I just I just want to know who's running the meeting, that's all. So you're you're not running.

I'll take over. Would you like me to take over?

No, I mean I can continue on. I I would prefer Jake take over.

Okay. No, he's m he's Mr. Chair.

Okay. Do we have anyone else from the public that would like to speak?

Hey Dana.

Good evening everybody. Um, I also want to compliment um the team that was put in place to try and work out this problem. And I want to just say I really appreciate the time that you took to talk with all of the department heads and to consider our um thoughts and concerns. So, thank you very much and same to the town administrator. Thank you very much. Um I'm in support of this

plan. Um but I just wanted to voice a few things I'm still thinking about. Um one is the annex. I don't want us to forget that the annex is a very valuable resource with that gym. I rent out and use that gym all the time throughout the year. And I am a little nervous if we lose that gym, we'll be competing a lot more with um um sporting groups, with the COA, with other town groups, you

know, in using the gym space. I know um it's been mentioned [clears throat] there's like a basement uh small gym. I don't know if it's a fullcourt gym or not. U maybe it hasn't yet been determined, but um I just want us to keep that in mind that that annex gym, it would be a real loss to lose that.

Also, um the brand new park space, the playground, we spent close to $700,000 in renovating that and I would really hope that stays as a town resource for the community. as well as the space in the back of the annex which has a stage we just renovated after the blizzard and um it is also a very wellused space. So I'm sure you know those things can be worked out with some plans moving

forward but I just wanted to say you know please keep those things in mind.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you Donna.

Hi Donna Amaral.

Yes. Um, so I love the fact that there's so much shared space. What I don't want to happen is competition for the shared space and negative attitudes about who gets the space. So that will be in in the planning on who's going to manage that. Um, how is that going to be equally shared in the community? Um, but I do appreciate that a lot of the areas that I was concerned about um are

identified as shared and that um all the entities in town that want to use it will be able to use it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Hi. I'm the owner of Kadamok Nursery School. Um we rent the basement of the town hall annex. So, I just want to point out that if the annex were to be demolished or not there anymore, I would essentially be out of business. Um, we're serving second and third generation families now. It's been in the annex for about 40 years. So, if it were to be demolished or go away, we would no longer be there. There'd be

about 30 or 40 families that would have to find other care for their children.

Not to mention my employees and myself and my family as well. So, I want to just don't forget about us.

Thank you. Any other comments, sir?

First, I'd like to say you guys got here faster in 90 days than anybody else has gotten. So, I so glad what I saw tonight. I have just one concern and it's a safety concern. I think the town needs to look at sprinklers as soon as they can in that building because that building's old and without them a disaster is possible. So just consider sprinklers even though yeah it's probably going to bring you to

that 30% it's a very very important safety factor in that building. Thank you.

Thank you.

And you know, I I was present with others for the walkthrough of the old high school uh with the consultants. And I expected to see it in rough shape.

Like I expected to see water stains and rodents and various other things in that old high school. And to be perfectly honest with you, it was in very good shape. Um it it's a you know, going to say structurally is probably better than anything that'll be built today, whether residential and or commercial. Um, but again, I it it's in a good place and I think we are in a good spot with with

this uh project and hopefully uh hopefully the prices are uh reasonable as well. I continue to hammer that point, but I'm afraid so.

We should be m um I move that we direct grant. Uh sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I couldn't get in line because I'm over here.

Wait, Val, you have a comment? Oh, Val Bal, come on up to the microphone.

Uh, I too was part of the um the stakeholder interview things. Valerie Bane, uh, Westport Community TV. Um, from what I was told that the town hall is not going to be closed and, um, I know there's issues with people having to go from the annex to the town hall.

They go to the wrong building. Uh now it'll be three miles apart and my main concern is with the meeting rooms. Um so sometimes I am in two places at once. Um and I run back and forth and it's nice to have both meeting rooms. So I don't know if this meeting room is going to stay or there's going to be two meeting rooms at the at the new building.

So Val, I think that's a valid concern.

I think that's going to come down at a at a later time when it comes to scheduling, right? I think I think when we have more flexible space and meeting space like right now there are situations where this room's occupied. I may have an offshore wind or infrastructure oversight where we've been in that room down in the in the corner. So I think giving more opportunities and more spaces to use um

will probably avoid that. I mean we may be able to have an evening where you have two meetings in that same location so you're not you know running back and forth. Um, but I think that that all comes down to scheduling and, you know, with with numerous facilities and, um, I you looking at, you know, that that plan, I think there are going to be, you know, plenty of opportunities to stay in

that one location. So, but that's a Is this meeting room going to be used?

I'm sure it'll still because sometimes I have to start a meeting here and run two two buildings down. Now, I'll have to run three miles.

No, we'll make sure you don't have to run three miles.

So, yeah. So that's just a concern and I don't know about the people, you know, uh the residents have if they go to the wrong building now, they got to go three miles.

Well, just a reminder that the actual central location of Westport is the old high school.

Geographically centered is the old high school. So it is technically further south right now than the rest of the town.

So thank you, Val.

Okay.

Hi. Um, Carol Freighus, veteran service officer. Um, so I just again I want to thank your team. I think you did an amazing job. U for me personally, for my department, I think it's a fantastic idea. Like I I coordinate with the council on aging frequently and to be right there across the hall essentially would make it a lot easier for referring our common clientele back and forth. Um,

one thing, this is important to me, maybe important to other people in the annex. I love the fact that they incorporated a employee break room because we do not have one at the annex.

Um, so it's eating your lunch at your desk every day. That's not huge, but it is, you know, something important for morale. Um, but my concern, and I think it's been echoed, is just who's controlling the shared spaces? I mean who has ownership of the shared spaces so that if I need to use it for an event I'm doing but somebody else wants to do wants to use it who has priority who

like how is how that would need to be worked out that's my only concern. So thank you. So, I think we may get to a point if this obviously comes to fruition and we move forward, there could be a part-time property manager, if you will, uh that would oversee that or or you know, this this is kind of a long ways off uh in my opinion, but I I think that there will be um you know,

efficiencies and economies of scale that I think are going to be a lot better than what we currently have. Uh so I think that you know we don't want it all to fall on Chris but we may have a situation where as uh David Lima pointed out there may be revenue coming in and it does create a situation where we may have another part-time employee that could oversee that. Um so I I think that

that I appreciate your your sentiments and your concerns with that but I think that would be something that could be addressed uh pretty easily hopefully.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Do you have something rich?

Yeah. I would just like to say that um to address a couple of the concerns in the audience, I would hope that we move all of our meetings to one shared building. So it would be incredibly easy from an audiovisisual perspective. I want that building to have the opportunity for the recreation department to grow and expand and be healthy and get much more fleshed out.

So we we're thinking about you and I don't want that playground to go anywhere because that playground's wonderful. And I think Kodamunk has been a wonderful tenant and I think if we ever divest from the uh annex, I would hope that there's a space available to move you guys to the old high school and have you all as a wonderful tenant there as well. So you're thought of as well.

And we have it's a center block building with a lot of fire barriers. If we got to put sprinklers in because of code, we'll put sprinklers in because of code.

But it's safe building as it is right now.

Okay.

I just had another issue.

Second one. Well, it no financially. So, when Val got up, I thought, "Oh, wait a minute. What about the infrastructure of phones internet setting up cameras? That's going to be another added expense to upgrade the old high school.

That's all I got though.

Thank you.

Any other comments from the public?

So, I believe I move that we direct Brewster Thornton to move forward with a cost estimating of the concept plan. subtracting the affordable housing but including well and septic based on the revised uh concept.

Second.

So we have a motion and a second. So it was Shaun or myself with the second. All those in favor?

I opposed.

I that's four in favor with one opposed.

So thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. We look forward to the the next one we'll come forward with.

So, I guess we'll be rolling out the welcome mat for 40.

So, the welcome map for 40B developments

is all All right. So, the last item, well, excuse me. The next item is 6A which is a discussion for the head of Westport.

Vulnerability analysis, traffic calming and reszoning.

I'll make this quick.

Michael, how you doing?

Anyway, we do have some people. Okay.

From Bruce um from TEC Engineers who are trying to get on the call right now. Carla, they tried to uh use the Google Meet link.

Sorry.

All right. While she's doing that, I can talk about some other things related to what or not [clears throat] related to what I have the engineering firm coming on for. So, we have a couple of different projects going on at the head of Westport that really could be their own agenda items altogether, but I just wanted to give you an overview of some of the things that are underway at that

part of town. Um, so we have a village center zoning project that is similar to what we did with Adamsville. Um, that's underway for multiple locations in Westport, but the head of Westport is one of those places. And so we're working on developing some zoning articles um informed by community feedback on uh having some smaller lot sizes and some limited commercial uses in that area.

And um then at the at the same time we just received a municipal vulnerability preparedness grant to start studying the flood dynamics at the head of Westport.

So it' be the title influence, the storm surge and storm water that results in the bridge being overtopped.

Um and then lastly, we've been working with TEC engineers on um traffic calming through the head of Westport. Um and what we're what we've done with them is we've come up with a conceptual traffic calming plan for Old County Road. It would start at the high school. Um, and the plan calls for five different speed cushions, reflective tape, a slower speed limit, and signage to physically

and visually signal to motorists that they need to reduce their speeds as they're going through the corridor. We had a study done uh I think it was last summer through with Serpent showing that most motorists are traveling in excess of the posted speed limit as they travel through this area. um probably on average of at least 10 miles an hour over. There's some of the statistical outliers. There's one person clocked

going like 70 miles an hour or something like that. So, um the speeds are a pretty significant issue through there.

Um, but I wanted to talk about all three of them in tangent because they're all linked together to a certain extent to support zoning that encourages the commercial uses in the in the head of Westport. People need to feel safe getting out and walking between destinations and and parking their cars and um and even just driving through the area. And so that means we need to make sure that the the actual experience

speeds through the neighborhood are are reasonable. But before we start making permanent changes to the road, we know that there's this there's a um hazard m hazard mitigation needs with the bridge being over top during storm events. We need to analyze that and determine what kinds of storm water or flood capacity modifications need to be made to the area. And so we're work re starting to

rework some of the infrastructure within the road layout. We want to minimize disruptions through the area as well as trying to do it in a way that's you know uh we're we're lining up these prog these projects so it's more costefficient.

Um so what we have been discussing with TEC engineers was to do was to pilot um some more temporary measures through the the corridor. So with some modular devices that can be installed and um evaluated to see if they're effective in reducing the the speeds. Um and then they could be made permanent in the future if the uh data that we would then go out and and measure again um once they're

installed to we could make it a permanent fixture should they be determined to be effective. Um and if would have TEC maybe they'll be on the call in a minute. I was going to have them um go over the design.

But before we move into the traffic calming piece, I guess does anyone want to talk about the village center or the municipal vulnerability?

So I have a couple questions with respect to that. So if we're looking at zoning changes, I mean that is a pretty highly residential neighborhood from basically Pine Hill all the way 288. Um obviously you have the school, you have a head store, and then you have property owned by the town of Westport with Westport River Wershed and the kayak. So where will we be looking to make zoning

changes um with respect to that area?

Predominantly in the areas where there's existing business. So it's the same sort of thing in the as with Adamsville is that the businesses that are in the head of Westport are zoning nonconformities.

Okay. So making the zoning match the the land uses in the area. Now if people really desire an expanded commercial district then that's something we could propose at town meeting and see what people think. But the intent is to start small as we did with the Adamsville project.

So the zoning you're referring to would be essentially just the Head store Westport River wershed and the kayak place and USPS and if there are any other properties that have historically been used for commercial uses.

I mean I think my concern is that if you change that zoning then obviously that would allow other businesses to go there. But you're talking about a hazard mitigation plan and I can show you pictures where the kayak place was flooded, the head store was flooded and and Westport River wershed had water on the side of that building. So in my opinion, I don't see why we'd be changing zoning to put it in essentially

a pretty significant flood flood zone um you know during actually just a moon tide, let alone um a hurricane situation. So that's and then you know thinking logically if you're going to change zoning and try to increase businesses down there or get a different business in that location.

We're concerned about a traffic traffic issue. So are we just increasing traffic in a location that we don't want to increase traffic to?

As a safety concern.

I'm down there 7 days a week at the head store every single day. So I I've seen basically all of it from, [snorts] you know, from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in the morning at least. Um, and I have an issue trying to, no pun intended, curb, um, you know, human behavior. I think if you put, you know, we'll go to that and the engineers will go that, but you put speed humps in and

now they're going to go 50 m an hour between the two speed humps and then go over the speed hump a little bit less.

And, uh, a very astute person prior to me getting elected. So, your number one consu uh, issue that will they'll be coming to you with is speed issues. And I have gotten messages from Pineh Hill, Drift Road, Gford Road, Reed Road, Old County Sodom uh, with speed issues. So, too, and and a few others. So, I my concern is why are we focusing on this specific issue? And and you're going to and the

engineers are going to explain it, but I do laugh because it says it's ideal for speed limit 35 miles an hour. Um, that section has a 25 mile per hour speed limit. So, is that going to mean I can go faster over the speed bumps?

Just saying.

All right.

Do we want to go engineer to Yes.

Yes, we can go to engineer.

So, we have Kevin Dandrid from uh TEC Engineers and he'll go over the design that they've come up with.

And I you should be able to share your screen Kevin.

Uh yeah. Do you see the button? Um good evening, Michael. Good evening, board.

Um can you hear me? Okay.

Yes.

Okay, great. Um, thank you for inviting me to a meeting. Um, uh, if it's okay, I'll share my screen now and just walk you through some different elements.

And, you know, we're just getting going with this excitement with the town.

Um, and Michael thought it'd be a great idea to give an update to the board, which I agreed with. Um, just so we can start off with the best understanding possible of the context of Old County Road. and it sounds like other roadways in the area. So I will share my screen now.

First I'm using this Google meeting site instead of Zoom or Teams. Um let me know if you can see the PowerPoint. Okay.

Uh yes we can see your screen. Okay, great.

Um, so my Well, we see we we see your calendar right now. So, we don't see your we don't see your PowerPoint. We see your calendar, your Outlook calendar right now.

Oh, that's odd.

Sometimes you can select which screen to share when you open it up. It might have might [clears throat] have been the Outlook.

Yeah. So,

That's it. Thank you, sir.

You got it.

All right. Sorry about that. Um, [snorts and clears throat] my name is Kevin Dander and I'm a principal at the firm TEC Incorporated or the Engineering Corp. Um, one of the engineers that was on earlier, he had to depart as Gerson Roberto. He's part of my team. and Leah Pickett who is my client representative for MASDOT in the office of transportation planning. She was also on here earlier. Um just as way of

background, DOT through the office transportation planning is funding this planning work and hopefully some temporary traffic caling devices under what's called the local early stage actionable planning program or LEAP.

This was awarded the town applied for two specific areas of identified need locally which is old county road traffic coming and then a separate assignment which is more of a coaching effort um to start the project planning process for some sidewalk or other types of multimodal improvements along Sanford Road. Um the main topic for tonight is Old County Road, but our work um is paid

for by DOT. Um, we hope to be able to issue additional concept level drawings, estimating, but also things that can help the town implement what hopefully can be a pilot project uh to assess in a temporary fashion ways of doing speed management on Old County Road.

Obviously, this is an area that has some, you know, sensitive areas with some more vulnerable users. Um, you have the two schools on the campus there. In the middle of the screen, you've got the library. Then, as you head further down the hill, you've got the landing, uh, different businesses, um, the kayak rental shop. You go further to the east and the post office.

So, you have an area of kind of village density at the bottom of the hill, as you know. Um but the speed attributes as documented by the recent serpent study show that despite the posted 25 mph zone um motorists were going um predominantly in the 37 38 mph range.

So why do traffic hauling? Um well essentially speed kills. Um you know with every increase of 10 miles hour there is a significant increase in the likelihood of fatality or serious injury. Uh this graphic is um something that AAA prepared a number of years ago in concert with other agencies and it's actually part of NASDAQ's project development and design guide that um this chapter just recently got

published. But on the right side, that's the area where I wanted to document that what we found in that Serpent study that was um issued earlier this year is that the 85th percentile speeds and that's the speed at which 85% of the motoring traffic is going at or below was registering 37 to 38 miles per hour depending on eastbound or westbound in a couple of those areas that are signed

and posted for 25. This is a roadway that has approximately 6,000 vehicles per day. So if you think about that number of vehicles over the course of the day going at a higher rate of speed, it increases the likelihood of unfortunate interactions with more vulnerable users.

some of the considerations and I think this gets to um one of the comments I just heard as I jumped on, but traffic caling devices are most effective when they're used in a theme rather than a spot area or acute location. Uh because you do find that if it's just a oneoff that folks go over that and then speed back up again. But if they're done with consistent spacing and in the right areas,

you can create something where nobody can really generate a consistent increase in speed. And it helps manage the uh troubling attributes for a lot of motors, which is just let me get to 88 or further north as fast as I can. even though they may be going by schools or or the the um village store there um the landing store etc.

any devices. Um, they shouldn't be kind of whimsically put down or in the wrong spots. And I have examples from a community in the Northshore that tried to do it as mitigation for private development and the developer put something down that was more in the category of a parking lot speed bump, which is not what we're looking to do here. Um, and if done wrong, uh, they can, you know, be removed immediately if

they're not done right. They typically should be accompanied by signs and markings that are prescribed in what we call the MUTCD. It's the federal document with state amendments in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that define size, location of markings, etc.

And I'll show you an example in a moment, but that Serpent report was really important to be able to at least create a baseline. Um, but if the town is willing to do a pilot project to assess if something like this makes sense for permanency along Old County Road in the future or other streets, um, you should really collect data. So then you can collect data that shows okay what are those speeds like in between a

couple of these devices and then compare it back to what Serpent had documented.

There is an opportunity based on timing when we're um embarking here with the board um to be able to go out to the public get some input on this pilot project. if there's an opportunity to try to put this out in the spring uh after everything thaws and people are out walking and biking again, test it for one warm season and then remove the devices in the fall of uh next year.

Um these are there are different options to use. There's a a number of different types of traffic hauling measures. you know, some could be roadway narrowing, but in this case, Old County Road isn't that wide to begin with. Um, what you see in the image [clears throat] are called speed cushions. You may have heard of speed humps. Those are essentially if you connected all three of those pads that are down on the

pavement, [clears throat] it's one longer device that goes over the width of the road more or less. That's [clears throat] a speed hump. But in this case, speed cushions. And there's an example in Fall River, not too far away, uh, where they are more friendly for emergency vehicles because the wheelbase is wider. So, it can go, um, in between these devices while regular cars and uh, pickup trucks and the like

um, have to base, you know, go over one or both in that particular direction.

They're typically put down in pairs.

This is something that can be placed that doesn't affect drainage attributes.

Um there's typically signs and you can see examples of the signs on the right side. At the vertical device location, it would have a speed hump sign with a placard that advises for 20 miles 25 miles per hour. The black dashes that you see are advanced pavement markings.

And um we've suggested to Masto in the town that you could use temporary retroreflective tape that can be put down easily but also removed easily in the fall. These are types of devices that are temporary in nature that are bolted down. Signs that can be easily erected, you know, quick dig safe check on the side of the road and the highway department could put signs in like they do for stop signs and other

intersections etc.

Based on our initial evaluation, you know, there are at least five locations that would make some sense specific to this core area between the school complex and then uh further east along Old County Road. Uh but keeping in mind that we do not recommend them on the steeper section of um the roadway between essentially the library driveway and the bottom of the hill just because that's not advisable

given, you know, going downhill. Um and people that may not be paying attention um are at a different angle and have the ability to be more abrupt.

But in some of these flatter sections, and there's at least five of them in close proximity where you can get proper spacing, there should create a theme for slower travel along the roadway. There'd be roughly five over the course of approximately half mile. Um, and in talking with Michael a couple weeks ago, there's the opportunity that you might be able to get a location further east

that could be used to control manage speeds going westbound. And maybe you don't need one going eastbound here. And then you could take one of the devices from here. That would be ideal to have an eastbound device going towards the school, but maybe you don't need one going westbound as you head towards 88.

So with 10 speed cushions, um they could be placed in different locations, but again with the idea of having a theme or a series of devices that can better manage um speeds, we would suggest that it might be a good idea to get a publicformational meeting organized um to get some additional public input, get some comments. It sounds like there are a number of requests out there for speed management

in town. But again, this is meant to be a pilot or a test using temporary devices seasonal in nature for next um warm spring, summer, early fall season so that you have the opportunity to assess the effectiveness and then decide is it worth like did it manage speeds effectively? Were there any issues for maintenance or for um emergency vehicle access? etc. But DOT is uh prepared to

assist the town and they would use our contract to help procure the temporary equipment that would be purchased for and supplied to the town and the town could um uh install with um with town forces and we're available, you know, for guidance in the field um and to do some data collection along the way. So, I just want to provide that quick um summary, you know, as far as the uh background of, you

know, how we're involved and, you know, essentially we're here to help the town, try to assess it if you're interested.

Thank you. Um Michael, did you want to provide any anything further on that?

Yeah. sort of circle back on a on a question you had asked. You had asked why Old County Road and I think and as opposed to some of the other locations that you had listed. Um Old County Road has a lot of different land use types that bring people into it. Um like the recreation uses and the business uses. You have the library. You have the schools. And so I think all of

those other places it would be great to have installations where we're getting this people's speeds to come down. Um but we wanted to prioritize this corridor given the different uses in the area um over the over other locations in town.

So did you um I at one point there was a neighborhood association on the um at the head. Did you meet with them?

I have received complaints from the well I I won't say from the entire association I would say from members who are associated.

Yeah.

Um because of in terms of public comment that would be a good place to start.

Right. Okay.

So my only other question would be obviously why didn't you know we just reszoned Adamsville uh specifically a town meeting and and I would think that that would probably even be a greater opportunity given that you know you have a business on one side food truck people crossing back and forth in that location. I know there are speeds have been an issue on Adamsville. So I'm just I'm a little taken aback by just the

sheer scope of of what was just presented tonight. So I think you know when I hear pilot program I don't think it says half a mile but 3/4 of a mile or so of speed humps over essentially a bypass right it it connects Tivetan from Westport to Dartmouth and UMass Dartmouth and and and all that and you know so the speeds will just increase uh when you get past Pine Hill

all the way through Westport till you get to you know I don't know I It seems a little overkill. I was I was thinking when it was going to be presented as there'd be a couple of speed bumps in front of the head store in the in the kayak place and you know call it a day. It seems a little extensive to me. But anyway, any other comments?

So, um so a few years ago, uh I don't even remember. I think Mike Sullivan was on the board. So, whatever that was, you were probably on the board, too. We had um other studies that were done um for the same problem, right? same speed. And one of the things that came up at that point was that um there was some concern that if we did a speed study um that it would actually result

in increasing the speed limit um because [clears throat] at the time, I don't know if it's true anymore, but at the time they weren't really putting 25 mph zones. And so there was some concern that if we reevaluated that that the answer would come back 30. Um and then we talked specifically about um speed humps. Now, this looks like a little bit different, but at the time, um, they're

really not recommending speed humps or speed bumps or that kind of thing. So, I'm curious if there's, um, if there's things that have changed. I understand this is more temporary, but like if if if the guidance has changed, but my big recollection out of that study was that the best way to calm traffic was to narrow the roadway. And so that we were doing that by restriping and and putting

um like parking spots in so that even if the road itself wasn't narrower, it looked narrower. It felt narrow when you were driving on it. And so how does um how does this idea of these speed cushions, you know, work longer term? I and how does it kind of like can you just get the same thing by striping it or do we need to stripe it differently?

I do kind of understand though, Jake, the the reason you're having more of them is like to continue the slow like that makes more sense to me because you just have one and you hit it and but [clears throat] um can you just talk a little bit about like has guidance changed or have the rules changed? Like because the other one we've talked about was um putting a stop sign at drift uh where

drift road meets there and that was a no-go at the time, but like have we looked at those sorts of options?

Sure, I can provide some background. um as far as I'll start with the stop sign.

Stop signs, you know, an evaluation of like an always stop say um could be an option if there were specific safety issues um you know like poor sight lines etc.

But stop signs are specifically not allowed to be used as a traffic calming device in that document that's called the METCD. Um it's something that Masdot and even you know local cities and towns need to look towards for a standard for where and how to use signs, markings, signals, etc. So that's something that um could have a specific assessment to see if it makes sense there. And maybe

one was already done. Um by the sounds of it, somebody had already assessed it to say that it wasn't appropriate. But as far as the devices themselves, um, you know, this has become a more progressive element of what we do in our industry in traffic engineering. Um uh there's an area and I forget what street it is on in Fall River is a very recent example that Michael as I understand it the the chief and maybe

other members of the fire department had visited to assess uh as we were in the early stages to see if it was even remotely um of interest and I guess the reaction was that yeah it it makes sense to give it a try based on what they could see. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I don't think it was Fall River. It was I had talked to the chief about Providence, but um yeah, same sort

of same sort of sort of reaction. Yeah.

Um and we have put a lot of these devices in in different elements, both temporary nature and in permanent locations like school zones. Um sometimes there are a hump which is just a slow speeds. Sometimes it's a raised crosswalk so that uh it's slowed in the area of higher pedestrian travel. Um but in general this is something where there really was never good guidance say 15 20 years ago. Um, but these do work. Uh,

and the cushions in particular because they can allow emergency response vehicles to still go through at a at a an appropriate rate of speed without you know a water full engine you know going over and you know you know killing its uh suspension system. Um, you know there are adaptations that make sense. I will say that uh I have worked extensively in one location where uh in the town of

Wayland um where we've worked for gosh 20 years uh there was a road there is a road Gleason Lane that uh commuter cutthrough route and the idea was well gee you know you might consider narrowing it but it was already 20 feet wide 22 feet and cars were going about the rate as what I'm seeing on Old County Road. So, with street trees, like large trees right at the edge of pavement,

um the width of that roadway was not something that was that effective. In other areas, I have seen it uh do some level of benefit, but only by about a mile or two per hour. Um the real um the real effective piece is something where motors do have to slow down for the vertical devices and uh they're safe but in this case I think it could be scaled um

you know as as the board desires. My our recommendation is to look at, you know, five or six locations. Um again to look at that corridorwide initiative to manage speeds. Um we can have data points that could assess I I think the question and I I apologize for um the slug board member's name, but who had the comment about speeding up after the the um the zone?

Well, you know, we could put a a counter out there to see, you know, was there an effect before or after um to see if there was that increase after the five or six locations. Um, but I will say that, you know, when done well and done with devices that are appropriate for the road, like the ones, um, we've showed, and the one cut sheet I had, it did say that that one was for 35 miles

per hour. But if you shorten them up a little bit, um, and they're about 3 in high, but if they're shorter, then you could drop it down to 25 or even 20 miles per hour as the target speed zone.

those would be the ones that we'd recommend out here. Um, but you know, you could, and that's part of why we could be available for the town is you could try it and if you don't like how it's operating for after, you know, giving it a fair shake at, you know, say six or eight weeks, you could take them up. You could take two of them up. You could take all but two up. Um but the

other benefit is that once the pilot's done, you could have these devices available to deploy on other roadways um to be able to assess in a similar manner. So it's they're not a a one and done except for maybe the the roadway striping that's temporary nature, but the devices themselves are rubberized.

They're bolt down. The signs and the posts, they could all be reused by your highway department. So, it's just a different opportunity that beyond Old County Road, you could still have those things available to to use elsewhere.

And to answer the other part of your question, Terwoman TE's, I think I'm familiar with the study that Serbed had prepared a number of years ago, the added parking and and striping, those are all things that we would want to keep consistent um with this type of plan because with traffic calming devices, the more you layer into it, the more effective it'll end up being. Um, and I did talk to

Kevin about the um, the one thing that I from the serpent study that has not been incorporated was redoing the paint on the east side of Old County Road. And that's the area where if um Kevin, could you could you share your screen and pull up the uh the presentation again and go to the slide with the study area because there was one area where he said you could consider a second or another

traffic pillow device in that area.

That one. Yep.

Yeah, with this horizontal curve here, um, uh, you know, it's gentle enough where you could still have a good rate of speed, but, um, you know, if you wanted to try to intercept motorists going particularly westbound before you get to the post office and that intersection, you could put a device somewhere on this straightaway here in between the two curves. um to start that theme earlier, the context,

the density of housing um seems to change as you go further east of here um you know to and beyond Pineh Hill Road.

So we wanted to focus on a reasonable area where it could be a good test um without doing too much of the road and having it be too spread out. But that's something where this is an adaptable type of pilot program where you know if the town liked it so much you wanted to add to more further east then you know certainly have the option to do so.

One more question. So, um, so I one of the things that we hear a lot is that, um, if you just post a cop there and start ticketing people, it would slow everybody down. My my unofficial uneducated opinion is it does absolutely no good at all. It's super expensive and it works for a little bit and then stops working. But is there any kind of data or evidence of that of like just

ticketing people and how effective that is in calming speed?

Um, usually they're most effective when they're done altogether. You know, I think Michael said it best too as far as like the combination of things that might be done out here between on street parking and raised devices and repainting narrower lanes. All those things help, but enforcement does help.

You know, it's just it's not constant.

You know, it's not 247.

And that's one of the biggest reasons that, you know, a device like this, at least what we're talking about seasonally here, [clears throat] would be 247.

And, you know, you're still going to need the police enforcement to look for those outliers that are uh I would say ignorant no matter what sign or device is out there. um um that just are I think ignorant to the other people on the road or the other motorists on the road or the even their own safety. So I think um we can't solve everything but the engineering part with devices like this coupled with

enforcement coupled with education you know and we do a lot of work with the state for the safe roots of school program they they call it the five E and the other one is encouragement you know that's for the students but a lot of those E make sense to combine in a case like this that's not necessarily school related at the bottom of the hill but the engineering and the enforcement

always kind of work hand in hand.

Rick, do you have anything?

I think they're annoying and I think they're ugly and I want nothing to do with them.

I mean, I used to live in Texas and nobody speeds in Texas because there's cops everywhere and they'll write you a ticket. So, I lived in Texas, too. People speed all the freaking time in Texas. I don't know where you are.

Well, their speed limits are actually accurate for this traveling, too.

Uh Dick or Craig or Nathan?

I'm very familiar with the area. Um I think that uh um stop sign at at Drift Road would be probably redundant. You've got the the big speeding thing is you got two hills and it sort of conv converges on the bottom and cars start accelerating and coming down the hills and then they they sort of hit their peak going through the center of of the head. Um, so you know, so there's a good question whether you

want to have a um a good discussion about putting a stop sign at the bottom of drift road um as a drift drift before you get to county. Um and then if you're going to do a speed trap, you would do it um near the schools because you have the special markings. you got the 20 mph zones even if if it's not during that time of day or the or the library area

cuz that's that's where the the the danger spot is. And then the other one is when you're getting um coming sort of midway down the hill uh between Pine Hill and Reed even if he did something just before Reed but I I don't think he Maybe one more stop sign might do it, but right now you don't want to put stop signs on Oak County Road because you have them on the the the roads that are

feeding into it.

Mhm.

Madam Chair, um Ry, it's okay.

Yeah. The the people Craig and I went to uh visit during the campaign at one of the homes. We learned about this firsthand. This is a real issue. And speed cushions are uh they're not like speed bumps. I'm familiar with those. But speed cushions, personally, I wouldn't mind seeing those on Westport Point.

I was going to say you might be the next then Westport Points issue, too.

Long story short, from my view, it's worth a try. They might be valuable. We should study that. and but they are different and they uh they don't present some of the problems of speed bumps and other ways calm traffic. So I say keep working on it.

I I support working on the pilot like I I appreciate it. It's not my first choice but for many many years we've tried many many things down there and I think if you were to have a community meeting like they're talking about I don't think you're going to get very many people say don't do it. I think you're going to get everybody that lives there come and say please do this now.

So, but we won't know unless we have the community meeting. So, like what's the action that you're looking for from us?

Nothing. I just looking for the board's feedback and any direction you'd like to give to [cough] myself or the project engineer. There would be uh Ray Kevin, we still have a public meeting that'll be held in town as a part as as a part of this contract. Well, maybe we should do one in and you know, maybe reach out to some of the people that were the offices and whether they meet or not anymore,

they all still live there, right?

At least the most of the ones I know, right?

And and um you know, and and now that the um that the watershed is there, you know, maybe they don't want to meet somebody's houses, but maybe we could get use the offices of the watershed alliance to to the library right there.

What?

The library is right there. Yeah, but um your your um library is only open one night a week.

So, in other words, would we're not talking day daytime. That's So, I don't want to I don't want to prolong this much longer, but I just have a couple of questions with respect to So, you said the wheelbase is different. So, can a dump truck go over these as fast as a fire engine because they're about the same width?

Um well, part of it with the emergency uh response vehicles is that they can um traverse the entire road. Um Okay.

You know, but regular motor vehicles aren't allowed to cross yellow.

Yeah. Until there's a speed hump there.

Sorry.

Yeah. But but um you know, that's that's where these devices kind of go hand in hand with enforcement.

You know, it's but you know, it's it's a fair question, fair point. Um, but different rules of the road.

Uh, Michael, have you spoken to Chris Gonzalez in the highway department as to where they feel or how they feel about this on I've sent the plans to them several times. Um the most conversation that I've had with them on the design or on the project itself is as a part of this DOT wanted to have um actually provide purchase the materials and provide them to the town for installation but due to

the highway's current commitments they weren't able to um install those devices which was part of the deal. They DOT would acquire it, highway would install it, but they they're not available to do that. Highway's not provided direct comment on these. I will note they would be removed in the winter so that you know they're not getting beat up by plows or destroying plows.

So even if they were temporary, you take them out in the winter and everyone goes back to speeding on that road.

Okay. I' that's okay. I mean, I listen I mean, I've been in a lot of areas in this country. I know these guys are talking about Texas. Go down to Waldo or Stark, Florida. They park cruises up and down that county. You don't know if there's a real cop in one of them or not. And then, let me tell you, you abide by the traffic. I say put a $40,000 cruiser and then just put it

there and move it around every day.

You'll get people to slow down.

Thank you. Um, so do we have to make There's no motion on this today, right?

Okay. All right. Any other questions?

Anything from our public?

All right. Thank you, Michael.

Thanks.

Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Have a great evening.

Uh, so the next on the agenda is a town administrator report. Chris, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just pull that report.

Uh, we touched on it at the beginning of the meeting. Uh I also had uh the honor of attending the 911 ceremony as well uh and was honored to take part and say a few remarks on behalf of the town as well. Um there was this past week a legislative alert um put out by MMA. Um they're just reminding us that there are still conference committees that are working through uh the versions of the

bills that were um considered at the state level, including the economic development bill, mass ready act, energy affordability. Um there's some things in there that pertain to um uh municipal interest. Um and they just encourage us to stay in touch with our state representatives on those items.

Um third thing is Nadine Castro from our planning department uh is providing interim administrative support to the zoning board of appeals.

um while we are recruiting for that permanent replacement. Um so if there are members of the public with questions uh or concerns with regards to ZBA matters uh we ask them to send our office an email and we are forwarding those over to Nate uh to assist them with uh lastly uh it is believe it or not already start of the season where we start talking about FY 2028. Uh so uh on

the behind the scenes, I'm working right now on a draft budget calendar uh that we can talk about the next meeting. Uh in addition to that, we can also um perhaps set aside some time to talk about early budget priorities. Uh and in addition to that, I know the FINCOM uh met this past week and they also provided a list of recommendations ahead of this year's budget process and town

meeting for the board's consideration.

Um, that's it for me.

Thank you, Chris. Any questions on that?

I just do you want to remind everybody about the teamster get together?

Uh, certainly. So, uh, as the board knows, uh, we have a few, um, uh, unions within the town, one of which is our teamsters, um, which we will begin bargaining, uh, this week.

Offin Thank you, Chris.

Be posted.

Uh, next would be to approve the minutes from August 24th. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve the minutes from August 24th, 2026.

Do I have a second?

Second.

That was uh Rick and Craig. All those in favor?

I opposed. It's five in favor, zero opposed.

Uh Dick, we have a report on the bill warrant. Yeah, one more in here this time and uh 2.7 million and everything's in order. This was approved on 93. We have another one this week. So, all is good.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Uh we have uh item number 10, which is select board committee reports and s suggestions for future agenda items.

We'll start with Craig.

All of my committees are meeting this week.

So, I have nothing to report.

Thank you, Craig. Dick. pretty much the same. We've got a whole bunch of things teed up and coming very quickly here. So stay tuned.

It's amazing how that falls. We have quiet and then all one week. Shauna, I also have a comm I have bike committee meeting on Thursday and the climate resilience, thank goodness, was was rescheduled. So I Oh, I think there's school building there's school building committee meeting this week also.

Thank you Shauna. Uh same for me. I have infrastructure oversight committee I think on th Wednesday Wednesday evening so we will have that on Wednesday. Uh Rick I have nothing significant sign significant to report.

Thank you Rick. Um any comments or statements or any topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance.

All right. Do I have a motion to adjurnn?

So moved.

Comment he just said it.

I'm sorry. Yes. I we'll leave that motion on the on the table. Uh public comment. Would you like to speak?

Do you mind if I sit?

No, it's fine.

Okay.

How you doing? So, last week um myself and what can can you give me your name and address in Westport?

Oh, Deborah Deeds 1D narrow.

Okay. Um, last week myself and uh 11 other homeowners lost our power. Limb came down, took the power lines out. Uh, we made calls to Eversource. Eversource said, "Those are private lines, so we don't service them." So, um, a private contractor was brought in on Friday, so we lost power on Tuesday. Uh, brought in a private cont. And I also spoke to uh two supervisors uh from Eversource

and um they said uh Westport has the most private lines of any town that they service in Bristol County.

Um so we brought in a private contractor on Friday and um then the private contractor left and my Generrack is still running. So I called the contractor. I said, "What's up?" and uh he said, "You have to call Eversource. They have to come down and flip the breaker on." So several of us called Eversource and Eversource said, "Um, those are private lines."

So, um, we don't inspect them. You're going to have to contact the wire inspector for your town, and he's going to have to come down, inspect the wires, and then he calls Ever Source, and they'll come down and flip the breaker on. So, um, I called, uh, the wire inspector. Well, other people did also, but um he said, "I don't know what you're talking about." He said, "We don't inspect those wires." He said, "I've

been here 46 years, and you know, we don't do that. So, you're going to have to call Eversource back and work it out with them." I said, "That's not an answer." because calling Eversource and going through the whole thing again and expecting a different answer from them, you weren't going to get a different answer from them. So, um, the conversation between he and I got pretty contentious. And I said, "So, you're

telling us we can't get our power turned on? Eversource is saying that is private lines? Town guy has to inspect the lines. The town guy is saying that Eversource has to inspect the lines.

So, um, apparently somebody was able to make a phone call and next thing I know I get a phone call from your town guys saying, "You'll have your power in 20 minutes."

Um, I don't think somebody should have to know somebody in town in order to get your power restored.

So, um, well, I I appreciate that. I think that's maybe something that I mean could have been brought to Chris uh Vitalia because we do have obviously uh connections with uh Eversource with respect to that. So that could be something that you could reach out to us.

See your your town wire inspector was able to make a phone call, but I mean this guy was giving me a hard time and and he was just uh he was short and curt and condescending and I was like listen we haven't had power since Tuesday. Yeah.

It's Friday. It's 3:00. You're going home. So, you're telling me that nobody's going to be That's another thing. That was another question. The town wire inspector, is he on call?

I Chris, would you know?

Yeah. So, uh they're not here full-time, so they have uh um varying schedule based off of what their responsibilities are. Um more than one wire.

Yes. So, what I would say is um so to inspect these wires. I mean, these private wires have been in this town for a long time.

Yeah. So, I I'll say this is the first I've heard of this particular instance.

Um, same. I've only 22 years. Yes.

And we've never uh, you know, whether that's why I'm here. I'm bringing this to your attention.

It's possible that Eversource somebody at HQ uh changed the protocol.

Mhm. Yeah.

And they're like, you know what? We don't want to have anything to do with your wires. We don't maintain them. We don't repair them. We don't trim the trees around them. We don't get a discount, which I'm shocked that nobody has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the people.

I personally live on a private lane and I'm always the last to get power restored as well because of that. So, it's it's a very similar situation. Do we want to look into say? So, as our chair mentioned, uh you know, we have our own set of contacts at Eversource that we can get in touch with. I found that out on Friday, but I had to get ugly.

No. Well, that and truthfully, when I hung up from him, my nose started gushing blood. That shouldn't happen.

Yeah. So, I I think after this, just you after we adjourned, if I I'll get your information. I'll get the address.

Um and then I could do a little bit more digging into uh the protocols because certainly if this happens here, Yeah. it's going to happen.

This happens any other, right? So, just for the future. Well, that's that's why I'm here because when he said the, you know, these supervisors from Eversource said Westport has the most private lines, I was like, we're coming into winter.

We should discuss the protocols with Eversource. And we do have one part of leverage. We control their pole lines in their locations.

Mhm.

And so we can give them a hard time if they don't develop. I should not say that.

It's in our best interest.

It's it's it's it's in their best interest to have a collaborative relationship because they need us for certain things in terms of their customer service responsibilities and we need those things their their services in terms of services members of our town.

Mhm.

And then we we probably should do some research at some point in time about why we have such a high percentage of of private users.

Well, I'll be honest with you. Like I said, I've owned this house for 22 years and it was NSTAR and whenever we lost power, they came down. It was not an issue until Eversource took over, right?

And then all of a sudden it's you know, you can pound sand.

That's that's it.

But um you know, they want our money.

They still want our money. I don't get none of us get a discount on our bill for because they don't maintain, they don't repair, they don't trim the trees.

Well, I appreciate you bringing that to our attention and we'll have Chris look into Exactly. because it it's not like you said, it's not going to be the first time it happens. So, if there is a change in protocol at Eversource, we can address it and with the number of private lines, including myself. Um, yeah, because both sides were saying we we're not coming down.

Yeah.

Like we need to make sure the inspectors know what they're responsible for and every source what they're responsible for.

Have you read France Kofka's The Castle?

Excuse me.

France Kofka is the castle. That's like the life you're living right now with the Yeah.

So, Chris, can we get that information afterwards? And then we can reach back out.

Yeah. Good.

You know, because there's a lot of private lines. I didn't know there were that many. I didn't know our our lines were private when I bought the house.

Just ask Amazon drivers how they deliver packages in Westport.

They're delivering other everywhere but the right house. Private lines don't exist on Long Island.

They don't. It It was not something that even crossed my mind, you know. So, thank you.

Which I, you know, I'm dealing with it, but um that became a real issue on Friday.

We'll get it, you know. All right. I appreciate Thank you. Thank you for waiting for that. Thank you.

Uh we had a motion on the table. All those in favor? I opposed. And we are ajourned.

Thank you. Thank you.