Issue 4 June 24, 2024
Finance Committee May 30
Upon opening, Chair Dick Trussell commended Michelle Vasquez for her years of service, seconded by the other members. Roy Rezac was welcomed to the committee.
Trussell was retained as Chair. Jocelyn Mylott was retained as Vice Chair. Rezac was elected as clerk.
No Minutes were approved because they had not been known to be received and reviewed.
Trussell had resigned from the Tax Fairness Committee so that Rezac can take over the role for the representative from the Finance Committee.
Since Vasquez has been replaced, a new representative is needed for the School Bond committee. Stanley Starr was Vasquez’s backup. He is taking her place and the new backup was voted on; Mylott was elected.
Town Administrator, Kate Hodges, introduced her document of policies and procedures for the Finance Committee. This needs to be reviewed and approved. Trussell suggested that this should be done at the next meeting. This was agreed.
Starr questioned the electric rate for the municipal aggregation. Hodges said the contract is only done every 3 years. This past time, only the current supplier bid out of 3. The other two did not respond, one does not do aggregation. The contract at 15 cents comes up again in June 2026. Rezac stated that Harvard has a lower rate with a more environmentally friendly solution. He also noted their program is friendly to solar users with net metering. Some other comments were made concerning joint electric with abutting communities.
Cheryl Gariepy, Finance Director, presented spreadsheets to explain FY24 YTD Expenditure and Revenue status. She explained that Real Estate Taxes were actually lower than budgeted by $926K. On the budget, including the increased evaluations and the override, the budget was to be $27,355,159. As of a month before the fiscal calendar closes, the revenue is actually $25,870,819, a shortfall of $1,484,339.64. This means 94.57% of the needed revenue has been collected. There are several categories are under collected.
In FY23, the town was at 99.39% collected. Further in FY23, 96.00% of expenditures had been made. In FY24, 93.08% of expenditures have been made.
Gariepy then presented another spreadsheet, because as she said, “free cash is a hot topic lately,” she presented a spreadsheet showing the free cash numbers “as if the books closed today.”
With 3,399.57 from last year’s ending fund balance, adding back in the money that was encumbered, $15,870, subtracting out the free cash vote the town just did, $1,199,455. New fund balance is then $2,215,572. The fund balance is the unassigned, unencumbered money. To this $2,215,572, is added the revenues to date, $25,868,499, and subtracting the expenditures paid to date $24,850,526. That brings the fund balance to $3,233,544.
From this fund balance of $3,233,544, Gariepy took out any real estate or personal property receivables (still owning), $1,453,816 and $87,013 respectively. Trussell pointed out that this is a significant number of 5% uncollected. She also took all the negative amounts from any of the other funds which totaled $138,988. Additional she subtracted $1,138,690 of deferred revenue. This leaves $415,038 as what is actually free cash.
Trussell asked what a bonding company looks at; Gariepy says they will look at all and see there is $1.2M in reserve. Trussell asked whether without the override, the town would have negative free cash. Both Gariepy and Hodges said yes. Hodges went on to say that this is a struggle to explain to the town. Trussell asked Rezac if he was seeing the same. Rezac wanted to have more time to review the spreadsheets presented.
Hodges suggested a video for an explanation to the town. Trussell thought this was a good idea. Rezac wanted to have some relation to the tax impact on a household. Hodges will move forward with the concept.
Affordable Housing Trust Meeting June 6
May 2nd minutes were not available for approval.
Bob Dipietri spoke about the 40R mixed used residential project on Lunenburg Road (Rt. 70). Working on the MEPA submittal, updating all the reports. There is an issue concerning the utility easement. Until it gets resolved, the MEPA paperwork is on hold. No known resolution date. Working with on the approval of the subdivision road, which has changed since the first plan in 2020. Will be going to the Conservation Commission about this on June 11th and then the Planning Board on the 24th.
During the discussion of Chapter 1 of “Housing Needs Assessment” items came up which Chair Victoria Petracca will take back to the author Nels Nelson. Petracca thought it was good presentation, visually attractive but needs to be more user friendly; too dense for easy comprehension. The state needs all the information but maybe a page summary would help. Needs clearer recommendations. Brian Keating (Planning Director) said it needs an executive summary. Keating thought the trends exposed in the report are alarming.
Petracca recounted that she needs to the report to say the town needs to be over 10% to reach safe. The encouragements on pages 2 & 3 need to be expounded as requirements or mandates. She also says the statistics about the subsidized housing inventory (SHI) needs to be corrected and maybe the methodology should be explained better. There were typos on some pages which confuses the context. Needs to look out 5 years to see total housing to assess the total affordable housing units needed.
Kelly Dolan, Director of Health and Human Services, spoke to the series of community and education outreach on housing. Five classes, with 7 presentations in total, will be given to explain processes around housing benefits available. Flyer will be coming out to outline these classes that will be held in the fall.
Neck Farm Estates still need to get approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals. The project is perceived as too dense. The developer says the project will not be economical if the density is reduced.
Laurel Hill still needs to do some work before going before the Planning Board again.
Cleveland Street LLC has missing paperwork for state approval. A building permit is missing.
The AHT has $42K in CPA funding that may be used, maybe in aiding to the homeless being housed in trailer or some other uses. The Housing Trust could have that money in their account instead of having to go to Town Meeting to acquire the money. Any action would probably need to be vetted by the state agency. Petracca will report back and add as an agenda item.
Planning Board June 10
The minutes of 4/8 and 4/22 were accepted.
Public Hearings:
Keating presented a request for an endorsement for a division of land at 339 Seven Bridge Road for slightly over 2 acres where Approval is Not Required (ANR). This was approved. There was another plan submitted for another 35 acres, also an ANR. There was no paperwork available for this and the Board had not looked at it. Chair Frank Streeter said the Board could review at the next meeting in two weeks. Keating’s land surveyor said there was paperwork submitted. The Fish and Wildlife is waiting on this, for this open space and not a building lot, their fiscal year ends at the end of June and so this is an issue. After some discussion, with the contingency that the paperwork being submitted within a week, the Board approved.
Streeter moved on to 357 Sterling Road while there was a search for paperwork on the previous item. The request for this site was for a continuance until 6/24 meeting and this was approved.
On 201 Hilltop Road is looking for the review of the site plan and storm water permit for an equestrian arena. There is currently a no-work order in place because of the clear cutting of a large section of trees. The civil engineer for the site spoke to the issues on the site plan, which have been rectified.
There are still tree stumps on the site and the civil engineer thought that Planning Board approval was needed to remove the stumps. The owner says the stumps cannot be removed without violation of the no-work order. Streeter is concerned about a collapsing brick wall around the walled garden.
Cara Sanford made a public comment. She requested that any paddocks be kept out of the wetlands and buffer zones. Streeter stated it was not an unreasonable request.
Discussion returned to the stumps. Streeter is concerned that after two years there should have been more progress. He would like the enforcement order respected. Kendra Dickinson, board member, said she does not have a conflict of interest. She stated that Conservation Commission is satisfied with the restoration plan and there is no other outstanding issues beyond the enforcement order. Streeter suggested that the tree stumps removed. There should be a sketch where the fencing will run to keep the horses out of the wetlands. Streeter suggested they should be able to go start removing stumps. Lifting the no-work so the work of removing the stumps could be completed. Streeter said an order of conditions need to be put into place by the next meeting.
Dickinson said that the stumps could not be removed without the storm water being managed. The public hearing was closed with the expectation of getting a schedule from the owner and getting together an order of conditions. The public hearing was closed.
Then the no-work order was lifted by the Board, per an order of conditions being available at the next meeting on the 24th. An updated set of plans with the schedule is expected.
Dickinson made a motion that the storm water permit be approved provided there were changes as requested to the drainage parameters and subject to order conditions as presented at the June 24th meeting. This was approved.
A staff report came next on 2038 Lunenburg Road, this is over Rt. 2 on the opposite side of Old Lunenburg Road. The restoration plan needs to be presented to the Conservation Commission. The road has been improved and they are getting ready to pave. No new update on the subdivision plans, but the catch basins have been moved. The Board cannot make a determination but an engineering review is needed to decide whether this is a major change. No plan exactly showed the location of the catch basins. Streeter suggested an engineering review would be best practices. This needs to occur before paving.
The Wayfinding Program had an update on community survey. A written report was made on the second survey done, ninety responses were gathered. Nature and conservation were highly favored. The signs were discussed, the favored color was red, as well as a review of the kiosks could be used. No budget has been approved for these items. There are potential funding sources. These need to identified before a proposal can be made to the town.
Streeter asked, what are the next steps for the Master Plan? What would be the implementation? A matrix was suggested for steps to be achieved throughout the years. Streeter asked the five board members to come up with suggestions. Discussion followed.
No new information was available on Hawthorne Lane and the other items under Staff Report. There was an update on storm water on McGovern Blvd with no new interaction with the Conservation Commission. As far as Hawthorne Lane, George Frantz suggested that maybe no more private roads should be allowed in Lancaster since all of them in his memory have been a disaster.
Conservation Commission June 11
As the meeting opened with roll call, David Mallette announced that he wouldn’t be a voting member until July 1st. Under the discussion at the end of the meeting as to why this should be. Mallette said his papers stated and the town clerk had explained that his term did not begin until July 1st. Since Bruce McGregor is stepping down at the end of June and there is already a vacancy, the question came up why the Select Board designated Mallette’s position as a replacement for McGregor instead of for the current vacancy. McGregor’s last meeting will be June 25th. The commission is now back down to 4 members.
Public Hearings:
All hearings were continued to June 25th per requests by the applicants.
Discussion:
For the 397 Center Bridge Road, Brad Stone has drafted an enforcement order. The order was ratified.
The minutes from April 23rd were approved with the correction of the spelling of McGregor’s name.