TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ September 6, 2016

I used to work for a lawyer that would go like for deposition. He would go through the room beforehand and drop all the chairs except his. So, it was like [laughter] play. and we'll show down low. Um anytime Alden back to order. We do have a quorum this evening. All five select from here. Uh can we please rise for pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat]

Um, any amendments to the agenda other than what's in bold? Not me. Okay. Nothing for me. Anybody else? All right. Um, I'm going to skip public comment and consent agenda so we can go right to the uh Lincolnville communications pres presentation.

Yeah. Okay. So, okay. So, maybe I'll just start out by introducing myself. I'm Rick Manning from Lincolnville Communications is my brother Randall. And so, Lincolnville Communications is a uh an ILAC. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with what an IA stands for. That stands for uh incumbent local exchange carrier. So, it's essentially the old legacy telephone companies. And so, we started, you can do the first slide if you want, Randall. Okay. We started and and I want to make sure I'm delivering the the right content here, but essentially we're just providing an overview of our company, what we're doing now, kind of what our strategy is, and where we're kind of headed along the Mid Coast. Does that kind of align with the expectations here?

Mhm. Okay. We have Hey, look at So Lincolnville has been around a long time, you know, 1904, you know, with just a small uh telephone exchange and it was a number of farmers that that put together a small uh telephone company uh when they couldn't get connected to the larger U bell and so they did that and and um Shirley Manning, who's were kind of a family-owned and operated company, uh she was the general manager of Lincolnville for a long time and eventually she ended up purchasing the company. Um, but at the time it was just a small little a couple thousand customer company and that again that was a legacy and it was one that's uh regulated by the public utilities commission. In the in the '9s she actually bought another through an acquisition uh in New England of all the GTE properties. She brought another ILAC

and you can see the territory that she bought and that's where our corporate headquarters is now and that's the Dammer Scott Breamman Union that whole area there kind of a little further south than Lincolnville and a little north of here and so that's that's what the company started out as is uh you know income local exchange carriers that was fully regulated and then in the '9s uh she kind of established a an an internet service provider and also uh for Lincolnville there was not a cable TV company that provided service there. So, she actually put in a a headend. So, we're a company that has telephone service, uh, very large internet capacity now, but also uh internet, I'm

sorry, very large internet capacity, telephone, but also cable TV. Go ahead and flip to the next one if you want. There you go. I got And so the company's grown now to become what's called at least a piece of it. It's called a Seac. And a Select is a competitive local exchange carrier. And that's essentially a company that can do business all over the state or out of state or out of country and it's not regulated. And uh that started when she ran a big fiber project for MBNA up in up in Belfast and using Sonnet technology actually connected uh a loop between Bangor Portland and created a a point of presence with AT&T along the mid coast which was unique at the time one one of a kind uh in that area and so that really started the fiber buildout back in the late 90s. So, uh, you know, just a a little less than 10 years ago, she actually purchased the company and, um, so now she owns it. We're and as I

said earlier, we're a family-owned and operated company. Randall and I between us look after engineering operations and we're also doing business development now. And our strategy really over time we had fiber that we provide we built a big fiber network and we'll go over that with you but we provided fiber to large large customers enterprise customers other carriers that sort of thing. We never really had a vision that someday we'd be doing fiber to the prem and a lot of the communities and and uh that's where we're headed now and we'll share that with you as we go along through the rest of the presentation as well. uh connect Maine uh that this year we've got our 11th Connect Main grant and I'm not sure if all the folks here familiar with that but what we do there's a state fund uh that a lot of different uh ways it collects revenue uh but the whole state contributes to it and for for areas that are rural and are

underserved. um they they work with uh carriers like us to match funds and so they'll do like a a 50% match on a project. We'll we'll match the other 50% that makes it economically viable for our company, you know, allows us to make a business case. We'll actually go out and do a build in a rural area and that gets fiber right to the prem. At least that's the way we do it is fiber to the prem in a lot of rural areas and we've done now uh 10 we've been successful with. We just received one for Waldoboro and that one's actually Energized up and running now

today. The first customer. Yeah. And hooked up the first customer and that we just started that a few months ago. And so we're quite proud of of the success we've had with the Connect Main grants. We think that's a wonderful thing. And I know the people in rural Maine are are sure happy it's around. They have some great service. Now once you get fiber to the prem, you're really your internet capacity is only restricted by the electronics you're hooked to it. So it's a fantastic service.

headquartered in Nobleboro. Now, uh we do have a couple other offices. The original one in Lincolnville, which is a line depot for us now. We have a coot tech there and a couple of line people that that uh service customers up in that area, you know, the Belfast, Lincolnville, Camden area. Um I I I mentioned uh that we are from main people. Um, and Shirley's owned the company since 2008 and we understand the values of Maine we feel and which is a strong focus on service. Shirley's always driven our company to be a really great service provider and we think that's how we can differentiate oursel from other other larger providers. You call us, you know, you get a person to talk to. Our doors are always open. Uh we have a great relationship with our customers and we think we do real well in the area of customer service. um with the fiber buildout that we're doing and the services that we're providing over

we have a very strong network that you're going to see a picture of in a few minutes with great connectivity to the internet uh triple redundant now through Canada and we're the only company in Maine that has done that. Uh so for a small company, you know, because we are just a company with just about 50 employees, we we contract line folks and we contract engineers and we contract a few other things, but we're relatively small company. So we feel like we punch above our weight a little bit that way uh relative to the services and the technology that we can provide. We have an open door policy and anyone uh a group like yourselves or representative from your group anytime would be more than welcome to come to our headquarters. We love to have people come to our headquarters, meet our people. We have a big war room we call it and we have an overhead and we can show all of our network and we can take

people down through our CO which is our central office and show all the technology that we have there and we have 27 such cos on along the coast of Maine. Uh so we're growing uh quite rapidly actually right now. So uh the company's been fortunate to to be in a pretty good position. And Shirley's always been a a pretty strong leader in this industry. Um uh really well known in the telephone industry. Uh but she's been a strong leader and her business has done well. We've always been able to fund all our investments with our own cash. Uh we're actually trying to do things a little more um aggressively now because we have quite a lot of interest along the mid coast. So that may change a little just because we're trying to do it a little faster than we have because of the demand. But pretty really pretty really pretty really solid position financially. Um, and we really one thing we also pride

ourselves on is we we meet with folks like yourselves in a town. We've done this several times already along the mid coast you know with Belfast as a good example. Camdom Rockland we just did it a lot of work with Walder and we meet with the people that lead the town and try to understand the need in the town. So we really try to partner more so than just come in and say we're going to do this or that based on a business case. We try to build a relationship because we're here we're not someone that's going to just come in here and take business and then leave. We we're here for the long run. U you know our future lies with our our customers and our customers lie with our customer service. And so that that's uh what we try to do and and by partnering with with you know the business groups like we've met in Belfast a good example with the community leaders that the town leaders the the business groups and we've sat in

front of all of them g give them these sorts of presentations we show them what we'll do what we target in their community if we were to build there on our own we get their input quite often we use their input alter our plan and then go in and build. So basically, you have an opportunity if we come to your community to have input where we go, which makes the most sense because you know your community a lot better than we do. And we find that to be a very good way to start out. So the good news, what we think, you know, we're we're small, so we're we're able to be quite agile and creative, but we're also large enough to have, you know, the latest in technology. And we do all our technologies on the cutting edge, especially with Fiverr to the home. There's very few companies that are doing it in Maine and uh and we think it's the way to go. It's a very expensive to deploy and that's why the

relationship with the longer term is very important to our company. Um but we think that's the the wave of the future. in here talking about how we differentiate ourselves and something [clears throat] we just just implemented and it's just just uh been put in place this year. We started last fall. We had a uh being an internet service provider we had a connection to the internet and our connect we had redundancy we had one to New York and one to Boston I can't remember the capacity it might have been six gig or something like that in the aggregate and so we knew that uh we had

a a growth plan and a lot of interest in that service but we also knew that it'd be nice to be able to differentiate ourselves and and have something unique and so we worked uh we have a guy that works with us who's a internet specialist and he kind who've uh led a a

project when we went out to bid for internet connectivity. We determined or learned we could get through a company through Hiburnia in Halifax, Canada, a leg through Canada which actually goes and then it goes transcontinental through the ocean and down into uh New York and Boston I believe uh under under sea and then it also has a lot of overland connectivity all over North America. uh we we we hooked up with them and we got a third leg and so ultimately in that way it's a third leg because we have a connection north and south with them. We also have another one uh to Boston. So we have a connection into Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is very diverse and unique. One to New York and one to Boston. And we also did something that's that had been kind of unprecedented in Maine. We did a peering connection. an appearing connection. Uh it wasn't anything I was familiar with until I I spoke with him about it.

Randall probably knew he's been in this this part of the business longer than I. But it gives us a direct connection to an exchange in New York. And so we connect directly to Google, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and other large ones which really represent a big alliance share of our internet services. You know, if you looked at our usage profile, you'd notice that that's where our highest use is. Well, we connect directly to that exchange and we no longer have to go through the internet for people that want to use Amazon or Google or Yahoo.

Netflix, right? Wow. And so it's a really right now if you get on you go through the quickest path even has to provide for you. That's how it's routed. This is a direct link through Fiverr. So it is it's a it's unique in Maine and we found that 25% of our traffic is Netflix and uh and so we got a direct connection to Netflix. uh like you said Amazon, Google, you also connect to the University of Maine the same way and appearing connection is a free connection that you do with large carriers so you can communicate back and forth and it gets rid of the latency from the internet and all the places has to travel through right

so it works out really good so that that was really we we now we're now on a capacity of 35 gig which is very very large that's exactly right very very large in Maine but now we also have this this u experience our users will have different than other internet exchanges or or other carriers that they work with because they're going to be able to experience this with the large I mean that's where you spend a lot of time right there you know the key thing we built this fiber connection to the house is what's you know better than anything else out there we want to make sure we gave a good experience to the customer the connection to University of Maine there's there's more non-traditional students now in the state than there are regular students at the University of Maine and so we were talking to the leaders of the University of Maine and we we communicated that to us and we said well we can get a

parenting connection with you, they get a good experience getting to their their classes, whatever they have to do through the internet cuz a lot of them doing it now. And so all these type of connections just give a better experience on that already high-end fiber that's going there. And then this uh triple leg redundancy that we put into place is great because what we found in the past was um we've seen Time Warner and a few others. Um the connections gone down on the southern side of Maine that goes out through Kery and people lose everything and that's that's the main focal point of internet going out of the state. Um so what we did we built that one in Halifax, we got one going out the southern route to Boston. We have another one go uh the western route into Boston and we go the southern route into New York and this one goes out into Canada and through Halifax to the world. So it's it's

really a nice setup and our large enterprise customers really like it because you take the hospitals that we have the banks that we have and you get and you lose one of those services it could them. So we got this nice Canadian outlet when that all goes down you know because a lot of people are on the same polls going I'll do that southern side of the state. So that city kind of touched on that last bullet bec you know because of that connection we're finding not only our our enterprise customers are maybe buying more of it but also some of the other carriers are actually looking to us now to provide them with with back hall. So that's new that's new for us new sort of business ready for the next one.

That's just a list of the companies. I mean Lincolnville Telephone is considered still a parent company but LCI is a company we're here representing today. That's that competitive local exchange carrier. The Lincolnville networks and Tidewater are two regulated incumbents and those are up in Lincolnville and I'll show you a map of those in a minute real quick so you can get a feel geographically where they're situated. And then we have the ISP which just has the name of Coastal Telome. So it's essentially a group of customers all under Lincolnville really. So just to give you an idea of our fiber footprint and we own most of our own fiber. Uh we lease once in a while um but not often. We try to build our own because because of the, you know, commitment to customer service, if we can own it and maintain it, we feel we have some control in terms of outages and things like that. So, we're fortunate to be able to own a lot of our

own. And it's expanding all along the mid coast. The light blue is our backbone kind of network, which is the loops where you'd have like the 10 gig and the one gig size sorts of rings. And you'll see a lot of rings coming down the coast because that's the architecture that we lay out when we go into a community. We try to be redundant. Um and so that if one side goes down, we have the other side covered and and and that we think that's important. Um

so you're already to the north and the south of us here. Yes. Yeah. We we we and that's you go all the way down through our strand, our own strand actually ends at the Freeport Town line right now down through Brunswick and then we [clears throat] have some main fiber down to Portland there. Um we're we have a lot more activity in Portland now because of our internet capacity. So, we're starting to talk with some pretty good sized customers there. So, we're working our way there with our own fiber, but in the meantime, it's advantageous to use what's on the polls already until we can do that. So, that's our system. Uh the magenta color there is our a lot of our local loops and distributions. Some of that's been funded with Connect Main and more rural areas. And then down in the bottom, you'll see a line that's kind of headed over towards Callus. That's the one that goes up through uh Monton and then into Nova Scotia uh

down into Halifax. Go ahead and jump to the next one if you want to. The next slide I think just shows the um the magenta stuff the um is some of our most rural areas in our phone company and that's areas like this and we we have fiber to the prem to um all those customers that had the lowest bandwidth that we had available to them at one point in time and that was part of the 11 connect main builds and we completed 100% of them and uh so this one we're doing for Walderboro um we're just finishing ing it up and we plan to have it well we already have it in front of 100% of the customers we said we're going to and so we have a great relationship with connect Maine which helps us get more grants because we've completed everything we said we're going to do and you'll find if you look into it not everybody did that

and uh so they they appreciate what we've done we appreciate what they've done for us too so so this is kind of uh if you look at the tan that goes from Kango to Portland it's kind of the focused area of our select. Right now, if we said where are we really focused, we've been spending most of our time between Belfast and Bath. We just put together a three-year plan to put to lay out another 100 miles of fiber and we'll actually be building in most every community down through there. Uh uh this year, I think we're going to do quite a bit this fall and in the spring in Bath. We've got some projects we're working on in Brunswick. Uh but that's our CEAC and and we we have an office in Bangor. We have a co in Bangor and we have um a lot of opportunity there. But right now we're trying to focus on the mid coast because that's really what we have the internal capability to focus on right now. It's a

lot of work. Uh but we've just worked uh uh we answered an RFP in Ellsworth and and we're talking with about any community that's interested in working with us. Uh we're very open-minded about that and if we can make something work, we will certainly try. uh the Lincolnville, the green is where our incumbent uh exchange care that the original company started and the yellow is the other uh regulated and we also have a lot of fiber in those locations as well. But we own all the you know own pole plant, we own all the copper there like a fair point. So we're the we're the uh legacy phone company I guess is what you call it. But anyway, that's our that's our focus this year. Uh I did a big project in downtown Belfast. I did all of downtown Belfast. We're working on two or three other uh builds in Belfast now. Randall did Waldoboro and and uh that he did all of downtown Waldoboro and he also did that connect

main grant. Those were some of our bigger builds in 2016. Uh years a lot. Yeah. And can and we did some in Camden as well. We met with the town of Camden. We're going to get in front of their economic development group soon and and talk with their business leaders, but we have a lot of fiber deployed in Camden and in Rockland that we just need to get the word out and let people know we're there. uh we've been doing a little more outreach and that's uh I joined the company actually last fall. I worked for the power company. I'm an engineer by trade and I work for the electric utility in Bangor for most of my career. So I retired last fall and joined the family business here and a big part of my responsibilities are trying to just do the outreach and let people know and in business development really. And so we started that and we spent a lot of time in front of different folks like yourself in different communities. But

we have a lot of fiber deployed uh where it's just simple a all we need to do is put a drop in an to serve the residents or the business and we serve everyone. We're not we don't come into the community and try to cherry pick a business or two or five or whatever and and not look at all the residents that we pass by. we'll we'll connect anyone and uh we try to do that and and that's what how our business strategy has kind of evolved over time. We're actually doing this 5 to the prem speak to that. Yeah,

one of the things I learned a long time ago, we were looking at a big customer in Booth Bay, Bigalow Labs, and there were a lot of people contending for that circuit and the economic developer for the state was there and she said, you know, everybody wants to come in and pick off the big customers, but what else you going to do when you get there? And we we figured listening to that that made sense. And I think coming to these meetings and talking to people and hearing what they got to say, what we needed over here is this going to help us our economic growth here. And we've done that. We've proven oursel in Walderboro, Belfast, and Camden, wherever they need it. We we work from the building. And listening to that statement and uh doing that was we won the Bigalow Labs, but we went into Booth Bay where you started offering fiber right to the residential customer, too. And that's what main needs. the main

needs not just coming and picking off what you need but they need for education economic development they need that large bandwidth and communication to the university and to these peering connections we have I need it for my Netflix

that's right and um [laughter] so I think that you know that listening to that has helped us and uh because I used to work for Verizon and 9x and and all that and we didn't listen and as a technician I used to go to the door and I'd hear about it and I had nobody to talk to behind me to support me. Um, but this company from Shirley Down, you know, listens and they can call her right up and they have and she's taken care of it. So, [clears throat] so it makes a big difference. So, this is just a a quick overview of our product. So, we talked about our internet connectivity at the top and and the speeds. We can offer anything you really want over fiber. Um, our lowest is 10 meg megabits bytes or whatever it is. And we have the full TDM services which are legacy phone. We have a meta switch technology which is a uh higher end of of VoIP capability that means we can offer voice over the internet um and

that's PBX hosting and lots of other things that that that technologies capable that's just coming online this year as well. Uh the TV product that we have is IP TV that we deliver out in the select primarily and that's a full digital headend that we have. we own our own and that's another product that we find other carriers that are are starting to develop interest in because they'd like to be able to provide a triple play to their residential folks and having that uh IPD over fiber is a really nice signal. It's not condensed because there's no band bandwidth limitations. So, it's a very crisp clear uh te uh TV product.

You get the true high definition that way. Um and we on our RF plant we have to condense that signal like a lot of companies do to make it fit into the the bandwidth of the RF and fiber you don't have to condense it at to get the foliage to picture that way. And uh IPD

is uh we can push it all over the state because it's so easy to move and it rides on that same hairike fiber that's coming inside of your house and it doesn't infringe on the bandwidth that you have or the size you want for your your internet at all. It's two separate virtual lands that ride over that. So it's really a neat product. So with that product, it allows us to offer the uh residential primarily and we we're selling commercial AAA triple AAA bundles to places like restaurants and hotels. They're interested in the TV product as well. So the triple play is just phone. If you don't know, it's phone, voice, and TV. That's what a triple play is. So you get one one provider, one bill for all three services. And that has some some benefits as well. So the next few slides are just showing some I think pictures of some of the work we've done this year and uh this is showing Belfast.

If I could I'm sorry if we go back. So it said anywhere from 10 megs to 10 gigs. Is there how many steps in between do you have? How many tiers? There's really no gig once you get to a gig is probably a gig at a time but

sure but it's we go from 10 to 20 to 30 40 50 100 we can we can provide anything. The at the side of your house is capable of a gig. Sure. So we can set it at any level you want. Wow. And eventually it'll be capable of 10 gig and it's pretty incredible stuff.

Yeah, that's big stuff. But but um no, it it's adjustable with just uh you know going into a soft you know communications and changing it. But as far as billing plans and stuff like that, do you offer all the different tiers along?

We offer uh 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 and 100 for residential customers. We do have large business customers and uh business customers that have larger bandwidth than that. Yeah, we do that have 500 meg connections. Great. I don't even know what a gigabyte looks like. [laughter]

In comparison, I mean, you know, I I pay I pay Comcast right now. Um and and I I if I was to do a test, it's probably around uh 13 megabits per second is is the best is is the best I'm going to get. And so, I mean, their their lowest tier is already pretty comparable.

And and there's also a huge difference, too. the way the data is transmitted. Okay, you've got what we get now it comes it's electricity over copper. What they're sending is light over glass and it goes a lot faster. The thing about light over glass in you know being in the telecommunications one of my biggest [clears throat] issues as a technician every time it rained um copper was affected the temperature change in copper it was affected. It changes your your bandwidth flow uh every time that temperature changes um and adds distance to your cable. Um, fiber is not affected by any of that. It the corrosion, it doesn't corrode. It's really a neat product. And it's also synchronous. It's the same speed up and down. Mo most of your um or pretty much all of your copper delivery is mostly down and a little bit up.

Yeah. You'd be you'd be lucky to be doing four to one, you know. Yeah. And the other thing about fiber is that it doesn't degrade when everyone gets on at night. If we sell you a 10 or a 15 or a 20, that's what you get all the time regardless of how many people are in your house or on it, you're going to get that speed. So, it doesn't degrade with the usage profile. That's what's superior about that product and the delivery of the internet, you know, over over glass. Um,

no, no, that's great. So, so this is just to give you an example of what we do when we go into community. We had we had we've had a number of enterprise customers in Belfast for a number of years, large ones there. And you can see the light blue north and south and west and east of where we came in and out of there. But this over the last couple of years, you can see the magenta with at the very top in the middle of the page, you'll see a little looks like a little building. That's that's a central office we'd have there. So our backbone feeds it and uh that would feed distribution out. And you can see the the magenta lines all the way down in the town. And you can't you can't really see it, but all of downtown is the immediate downtown area is covered. The green is work that's in progress and part of our plan. Um,

we have downtown. You want to see? Oh, do you do we have downtown? And that gives you a little a better idea. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Belfast, but all basically we met with the town there and they said really if you could help us get the town downtown is has a great the greatest need initially. And so we have and we've connected a a number of business customers all through there in the last four or five months. You know, I started we started in the spring and then now we're starting to build out and uh we've got some um a couple of different developments uh condo associations that have asked us to come and so we're working on those as well. And you know, we build out a business case at a time. We're not um we we have a general strategy for an area, but again, if we if we know there's a solid interest there, we'll go out and we'll solicit the interest and and actually give them

applications to fill out. we get enough applications to make our business case work, we'll do the build. That's how it works. So, if you have an area that you want fiber in and you can get a group of people that are interested enough to help us fund it, it doesn't really cost the community any money as long as we can make the business case work. So, we're not out there.

Um, we're not a provider that went into Belfast and said, "What can you give us for money to build your your town?" We said, "What is your need in your town?" And if we can drum up enough interest, we certainly will build there. And we did. And so that's how we work. And and that's kind of our philosophy. We try to, like I said, it's on a business case at a time. Unless you have some large enterprise customer, and that happens, too. You'll come into an area because a large customer wants to help fund because they really want your service. That happens a lot. Quite frankly,

the lab thing. Yeah. Quite frankly, that happens a lot. And that's nice. That's a nice thing. And we're working on a couple of those right now, too. Go ahead and flip. And this is uh that's kind of a a look at Waller Burl and the in the magenta downtown. There's what Randall just did. That's all basically covers all downtown. And uh is North Augusta Road on in this?

Yeah, that's the light pink right there. Oh, okay. So, we're looking Augusta Road. Yeah, North is down in this one. Yeah, North is down on this So that light pink would be the connect main grant that we work told us they had a lot of interest out there. Uh and we went out and we went door to door. The town helped us. Uh some of the a lot of the people we probably had as much support from the folks and all the the leadership there as any town we've been in. I mean they actually went to their neighbors and knocked on the door and said, "Hey, let's let's put a group together and they wrote some testimonials and wrote some letters and support when we went for the grant. We were able to get it." they were actually going to do their own and they were going to try to get their own uh grant from connecting and once they met with us and saw what we had done and then they saw the work we were doing in

downtown they just said you know why don't you guys just go ahead and apply and we'll just help you and because we're very reversed at applying for grants and and building them. So that's what we did in Waldoboro. That's 7 milesi of fiber we put up straight up through old Augusta road and uh we put in $100,000 of our own money in that and uh it was $225,000 grant so we matched

you know 100,000 of it so we got 125 from connect main was it just about 50/50 it was just under 5050 yeah we matched so our town we don't have a ton of business that would be probably a big help to this but uh I mean certainly we some and I'm sure that the interest would be there, but most of ours would be residential. Um,

do do you feel in in your town that you're I don't know if you're familiar with the definitions of served or underserved. There's several different uh thresholds where you could where you're considered served in a particular category and the lower category that the number of your residents are in. I think that's a higher scoring grant. It's it's like a point system. There's a metric, a matrix that they put together and they they assign points to how underserved you are, what kind of support you get from the community, a lot of different things, variables that they look at when they award a grant. So, you know, maybe Durham is a is a very appropriate place for a grant or two or three or I guess it just depends.

Sure. on what you have here. We're not overly familiar with what you have here. here. You should be able to email me some examples of stuff that you've you've you know used with uh as far as these these uh applications and uh

well and we should be able to determine from either an organization like connect Maine or or something of that ilk because there is a move to expand internet capacity statewide and whether or not so the the state as a whole I anticipate has sort of been broken up into underserved you know identified what areas are what

they have uh what we found is they do have a map. They hired a consultant to build a map for the state of Maine and it was labeled, you know, by color what what they considered everyone's category to be. But we found is is that the data that was used to to build that uh that

you know isn't necessarily always 100% accuracy accurate. So they really depend on the carrier or the town to bring the the more accurate data. I mean I think it's a great map and and but I think it's generally like it it for instance it showed the whole mid coast in our area is is served 10 gig or above 10 megabove I'm sorry and that's not the case at all and so we pointed that out and they said well when you come with a grant just point out what is there and so you'd say this provider is there this this other providers there and that's what they serve. Sure,

that's what they use. It's more empirical information than what they might have with that general map, but there is one general one and you could look at Durm and see how it's colorcoded now. It might say fully served at 10 of which you you'd score low on that part of the scoring matrix for connect.

I bet we are probably right around there because I think most most of the town does have cable and most can get at least 10 minutes. Comcast. There's a small portion of town that is Time Warner. And if and if you have if you have 10 now available, you're probably well considered fairly well served. I'm not sure.

That's downtown. Yeah. Just a tighter view of it. Yeah. Absolutely. This is just another example in Canon. We have a a strong presence as you can see there. All the purple's built. The blue's been there for a while. The green is uh is areas we identified for our next few builds and then actually there's a result of a town meeting there. The tan is where they've said, you know, you really should look there. Uh that'd be a great place to build. And so we've had added that to our plan and and we're going to look at all of it. And what happens for us is you know we're make like I said we do these in investment at a time and we have to look at each one of these opportunities and we look at the cost per customer pass and we look at try we try to have a good understanding of what the take rate might be because we're a business too and we have to prioritize our investments and try to do the best best

that we can with our capital and so that's how we deploy it and so again that was that's a function of a plan that we as built you know our history there and also our our new plan and then meeting with the town. So that's a that's a good example of after meeting with a group of people what you come away with. Now we have to go back and cost you know we have rough cost now in our in our planning document and we refine those and really the biggest variables that uh drive cost in a plan like this is make ready work. And not sure if you're familiar with what make make ready work is though, but when you go on our pole line, there's you'll see a lot of wires up there and we have a place to be. We're essentially right under cable TV and if there's not a lot of carriers on there, make ready costs are low be uh because no one has to move. we don't have to replace poles to get the, you know, the uh

I see the height over the roads and driveways and uh but if there are a lot of carriers on there already and we want to go in, uh we might have to pay every other carrier to move and then we might have to change the pole out and sometimes you can we we've seen times where it's a $20,000 pole for us to change just to get on. And so that's when it's gets really expensive. So anyway, that's what drives the when you say cost per customer pass. That's really the biggest variable. We know the cost of strand steel to support the fiber. We know the cost of fiber. We know what it costs for our labor to put it on. Essentially, you have averages on a cost per mile basis. The biggest variable is that

Mr. So when you get in the route ones and the downtown areas, that's where you get congested and that's where it can get a little more expensive. [clears throat] I think Rockland was the next but just another example. We don't spend any time on we do we've done a lot in Rockland this year. We spent um a lot of time with with the town. We we we were president at the blues festival. We were president at the lobster festival. We did some work with a TV a TV company that wanted to uh broadcast live from there. We gave them a 300meg connection um uh so they could broadcast live. We had our own 300meg connection down there and provided some wireless. So, we have a great relationship uh uh uh with the town. We're we're continuing to build there. We you know, we connected the chambers and Rockland and and we're working on the one in Rockland, I'm sorry, but we did one in Cam Canada and Belfast. So, we're building those we

continue to build those relationships in each community. But there's a lot of we have a lot of interest in Rocklin. We I mean, every week we have folks asking if we're there yet and and a lot of business and residential both.

Rockport's a town. You may have heard they they they uh were looking at doing their own uh fiber network and they still are I think to some degree. Um, but I think recently some I'm not so sure they were successful with some funding for the next steps, but so they're kind of regrouping a little bit and we've met with them and we have we also have a lot of fiber already in Rockport and so we explain that to them and we're going to work with them any way we can help them. Um, you know, we're willing to work with anyone and if they'd like us to, we have a lot to talk about. They have some interest in doing some different things and and we certainly listen to it and and uh we'd advise them. I mean, I from our perspective, we're in this business and we have the billing and we have the customer service and we have the lineman and and uh we'd encourage people just, you know, if you want to work with us

and we can make a case to build in your town, that's probably what we'd suggest, but some people want to have more control than that and that's fine, too. And and and just like Also and other communities, they would rather go it alone and but uh if they want to do that, u we'll certainly we have, you know, bandwidth that we can deliver. We have IPV we can deliver. They know they know our products. So, they know we're willing to work with them. So, we may be working with them jointly in the future. We're not sure, but they're certainly aware of us and and we're the local people. I mean, that's right in our that's right in our wheelhouse right there because we're right along uh Ponobskot Bay for sure.

When I spoke to you in the spring, uh you were talking with uh I don't want to call them out on on but uh a town just a couple couple towns north of here. Uh um and I wondered if you'd done anything more with that. I mean, they were they were definitely to the west in uh 295.

Which one was it? Uh we're looking at we work with all we've talked about a number of different towns. Whitefield is it? Well, it was it was uh you you had talked about uh about Oh, yeah. Well, they they showed interest, but we haven't heard back from them yet.

Okay. Yeah. That's what it really caught my you know I was thinking wow if you're coming right down through there anyway we just met with Russ and Georgetown and on the other side um they they came up and asked us about some type of service also showed them our place and um I think Long Island out of Portland was looking for something

yeah we met with them and and you know they're an island out in kind of an independent uh from Portland itself I guess so they're looking at possibly some sort of a development out there we um we've we've done, you know, a lot of work with the city of Bath and anywhere along here. You know, we're interested in working if we can make it work. Um,

we got a lot of interest in Brunswick right now. Um, business and stuff are asking us to come and uh we're also you go right towards Casset and we're working on something there right now. So, another area we're we're thinking about is we don't

we don't we're not connected is uh to uh Thomas, right? Yeah. Yeah. We had a lot of interest there and so we're looking at maybe doing a little build there as well. Yeah, we did talk to Bowden. Is it Bowden? Bowden Ham right there.

They're right next to each other. Yeah, I remember that talking to but we never gave out the information never got back to us. Yeah, I'm sure we'll we'll hook up with them at some point. And this would that would be nice because that would be help come this way.

This slide just a few bullets. You know, we're like I said in the beginning, we're we're from Maine. We're Maine people. We get it. We understand Maine's driven by small business. So we've priced our product very competitively. We feel uh and and c so so competitive pricing and customer service. That's that you know we get that's what's important. I mean that's you know we're not a real large company ourselves so we understand how important that is. So um that's kind of what those those really bullets there are directed at. next.

you know, we're we're continuously growing along the mid coast and we're we're wide open-minded about uh growing. Um, you know, like I said, our strategy is five to the prem and we don't leave anyone behind when we do come through an area. So, we're if there's any way we can help your community and make it work economically for us, we certainly would would be interested in talking with you. Right. I think this was um today, you know, essentially we'd like we wanted to kind of introduce our company, tell you what our strategy was, what we're all about, kind of where we've been building and where we're heading. Um and we're certainly u um available to you anytime if you'd like to continue discussion, you know, when you decide what you may want to do here. If you're going to try to do something as a community or you think you might want to take on something with Connect Main, if you like some assistance there, we'd be more than

willing to to help you and partner with you. That would be great right there is uh I we'll keep in touch with them through email. Sounds good. Any questions? Just give us a call. We got we got some pretty good experts on

our we got a great team and and Rand a lot of the people just go out and kind of you know introduce our company and and and but um we we again we'd love to have you come by and meet some of those people as well. They're very good at what they do and um we're there. So give us give us a call if you have more interest and and we really appreciate the opportunity.

I can tell you for one I'm interested. I I would love to see this happen for our town. Yeah, a lot of towns are and it's it's it's about geography and and costs, you know, and so there's a lot of there's a lot of ways you can be creative, you know, and that's what we we like about our company or, you know, we kind of differentiate yourself in that regard because we're willing to be creative and do whatever it takes to try to help our community. We're not locked in process. We're not locked in bureaucracy. You know, you're talking to the decision makers right here. uh we report to one person just a small group of us and we look at we look at them like I said a business case at a time and we can re we can uh react very quickly if if things align so

well and particularly where it sounds like you're pretty close I mean you're in Brunswick you're in Freeport neighbors yeah yeah and so it wouldn't be I wouldn't be surprised that you know if not right right off but over time heading west you know wouldn't surprise me at all we have uh other opportunity even further west So, we're always looking at a way to improve our network, too. And and as you saw, we we come down using an AT&T fiber down through the middle part of the state. You saw that above you. We also we have strain going down into Freeport. We're like, as we do that, we like to uh complete rings. So, if we built something up from say Brunswick up this way and fleeted a a ring over to the AT&T side, um that helps another multiple ring. And when I we talk about rings, it creates that circle. We put a piece of equipment inside it in the middle of it. One side goes down, the other stays up. It's a we were a

telecommunication company at heart since 1904 and we built our network like that instead of like an ISP who has been riding on other people's networks and stuff over the years and pointto-oint connections. We try to avoid those and we have battery backup central offices and generator backup central offices. So everything's been built to PUC standards because that's what we've done forever. And so the quality is there. That's what keeps our reputation intact on the mid coast. And that's why we have most of the large business customers on the mid coast. Um and we've had them for a long time.

Thank you, gentlemen. Good. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Nice meeting you all. cost. We'll talk to you. I'll be in touch. I'll be in touch. Mark, any questions? Just call me. Just going to run. How tall is a gigabyte anyway, sir?

About that tall computer. Yes, that can get It's a thousand times taller than me. Or actually, do they have beards? [music] Thank you. how I came in. Your easiest way would probably be come up. Come out, take a right here. Go to the end of the road and take another right. That's 136 all the way back to Freeport.

Oh, that's okay. I think that's how I was planning to come in, but we somehow came in this way. We missed We missed a turn, I think. Thank you. All right. Thank you. See you later. public comment? Public. None. Consent agenda.

I move we accept the consent agenda as presented. Sir. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries. Actions discussion items on to be absence of the acco. Um, so our acco has um gone away for the month of September. Um, and I've been trying to get somebody to replace him for the month of September. Um, and so far what it looks like is I can get um the gentleman who works for Panel to work for us. Um, and so I'd like your approval on that. And what I would do is I would pay him the stipend that September has.

So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you for finding someone. Yeah. Thank you. Brunswick told us no. Huh? Brunuk said no. Mark, did you say it's complicated? [laughter] regarding the main department of labor and

yeah, Calvin's not here, but um I spoke with um Michael Plant and and basically he's said that he received everything that he needed. Um there were a couple other things that he asked us to give him um a roster of the training for the um tagout

walk out tagout um and the training what the training consists of um and after he gets that which I think Calvin is actually already sent to him um what they'll do is he thinks that he can get us a 90% discount on our fee or fine um

without going through the the um whatever McColl the the process appeals process the appeals process right. Um and so I'm just I guess I'm looking for approval if he can do that. So as opposed to the $550 it would be $55.

Oh I have no problem approving that. I'm good with that. [laughter] Is that a motion? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries. Okay. Uh, voting credentials for MMA annual meeting. I don't know much about this one.

Are are you going to the MMA? I am going to the MMA conference. Um, we have to Well, so we we are allowed a a vote at the MMA annual meeting and we just have to designate a uh I'm already there's a convention. So, but will they let you?

I've sat in the last two years. Okay. I nominate Josh to be our and we can also do an alternate and I would alternate Ruth. I put Ruth as the alternate where she's going to be there too. Okay. Second. Well, if if she's going to be there anyway, if you want to make her the

You guys are flip quarters when you go in there. You can go. All right. All right. All right. Okay. So, you can make two of you work it out. One be the nominee, one be the alternate. I would also um see ask that we allow the uh

administrator to sign for the select one because there's a sign by municipal official second. Okay. So we Okay. So we have all that in there. Any discussion? All in favor? oath. We have two um uh suggestions for appointments as deputy register. Uh one is for Ann Neman and the other is for Dr. Chesley. Do we need to take them separately?

I would move that we appoint uh Ann Neman and Duncan Chesley as deputy registar for the town. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries. Um, chief. lot there that needs expansion, but it uh the first one is Yeah, it doesn't look that critical, but the first one when it talks about the fire act grant, those items that are in there at like our SCBA cylinders have a 15-year lifespan. Um uh getting close to crunch

time. We have about three or four more years left in their lifespan of before we have to take them off the shelf. So, not the shelf, but out of the packs and replace them. [clears throat] Um, so anyways, I'll go to the training. I think it's actually this Thursday in Augusta. I usually go to Scar Bro, but that was last week. So, I'll go up to Augusta to do the training and then I we'll try to reformat it and submit again this year. Hopefully, we'll score just that little bit more. I'm not sure if we can score enough so it'll put us past that threshold unless they increase the funding. But definitely the priority, so I have to give it a shot. Uh trim work and the painting, you have the invoices for those. Those projects are complete at the station. [clears throat] Actually, they did a I got a compliment. They both did a nice job and they actually threw in some extras cuz when we actually priced it

out, we forgot about the side, the red side and they actually threw in the red sign and the trim work on the back side of the station some of it. So it they did a good job. I guess it has to stand the test of time though.

Sure it will. Yeah, [clears throat] the lights have been changed. Instead of changing the lights, he actually did LED bulbs. And uh we lost some of our wattage by doing that. Instead of changing the fixtures and stuff, but I think it's still plenty bright enough. It's not to turn it into a daytime area. It's actually just to illuminate it for safety purposes and security purposes. So went from 400 to 250, but it checking

them out at night. I think it's still satisfactory. And the neighbors are probably grateful. I mean, the neighbors are probably happy that [clears throat] it's not quite as great. Yeah. Yeah, they're not if we're to change the fixtures, the other side of just changing the bulbs is the lenses aren't the ones for the LED lights to begin with. So, um, but it was substantially cheaper going that way. It uh was about a third of the price by doing that instead of the fixtures. So, anyways, that stuff on the lighting for the most part is taken care of. But uh um Engine 22, I don't know if you have the picture of Engine 22, but those guys texted me a picture of it and I thought they were actually messing with me and it was an old picture or something cuz they actually otherwise in the scratch marks and the the rub rail. They did a very good job getting rid of the bend in that. So,

looks good. Yeah, it does. It uh Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think we need to worry about what happens with engine two in regard to that piece of it because they they couldn't handle the way it looked so they had to fix it. Good.

Yes, that is good. Uh it the pium piece I've been kind of keeping you a breast of where we're at with the pdium and the staffing thing. The predium piece is actually, you know, Diane is still doing the part-time two days a week, but filling in the other days, it's actually not working too bad. Uh, with the existing members of the department that are full-time elsewhere, but putting it out, they'll do a text message every It's almost time to put one out for October here in another week or two and start trying to fill in October, but September is probably as full as it's going to get. I seem to have a difficult time with Tuesdays. Um, but it right now we're at 17 or 21 of the days full. So if we can if we can hit that, it to me that that works it and it works about with what we have in the budget to keep it going and stuff like that. So we keep trying to hit that threshold. I would like to start to try to establish a list

of people just in case Oz goes dry or they get other commitments in K I've already had one that's going on to taking a bunch of college classes. So, he pulled his name off. He's still on the list, but the odds of him taking any of the the time is slim to none. So I

would like to establish a list that I can go to kind of a secondary list that hey these people are outside of members of the department but they're interested in staffing if there's an opportunity. So it uh [laughter] um and then uh the coverage for week nights and weekends it uh as I put together my reports and stuff I've been trying to watch it pretty closely and we we're doing all right on the week nights. We are really struggling bad on the the weekends. We end up getting the staffing, but the commitment to say, "Hey, I'm going to dedicate this full day to the weekend and stuff." It uh would that's where we're struggling is that commitment level if they're available. It uh so I I think probably over the course of the last month we've maybe dropped a couple of calls, but a lot of them have been the way the calls have come in as well. a lot of seems like this last month that uh we don't

just go on one, we go on two, three, four, and uh we a little over a week ago we Saturday the 27th I think it was we had four of them within the span of an hour and a quarter that uh we don't have enough depth to staff that many especially.

So when when you're asking for a weekend, are you asking for like a full day commitment or split? Split. It's actually evenings and days. Um just because we thought we'd have better a lot than saying no, you need to staff it for 24 hours. Uh [clears throat] so it's actually it's not Yeah. Evenings is 7:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. and we let that the same way. So weekends it's still a 7p to 4:00 a.m. So days is 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. seem to do okay on Friday nights, but the the Saturday and Sunday nights, which Sunday nights is usually sit around the house and get ready for work the next day. I I don't understand the Sunday nights, but Monday through Friday we seem to do okay on, but Sunday and Saturday, Saturday and Sunday nights that we

Well, just like the song said, they're all working for the weekend. No. [laughter] True. True. The last thing we want to do is tie up the whole thing. It might be a beautiful weekend. Yeah. Um, [clears throat] yeah. So, as I put together my report, I kind of wanted to keep you a breast on how it was going cuz it it's all going to play a big factor into what how I recommend we should do things and stuff. And I've been discussing it with the membership at the meetings and the offices that uh we have offices meeting next this coming Sunday night and probably going to be one of the primary focuses of a conversation about how things are going. How can we how can we do it better? How can we do it differently? I will say with the new systems morale seems to be substantially better in the department and stuff. it was actually impacting morale drastically that they feel they should always be there for everything and they

were at a point where they reached their breaking point and they couldn't at uh let's see the call this afternoon was 267 for the year which this year seems to be we're substantially above where I would have even estimated.

How many days through the year are we how many days to the year are we right now? 250. So, so we're over one a day. Yeah. Yeah. No, it wouldn't be bad if it came in that way, but it doesn't come in that way. You know, they make the commitment and like you if you take a night shift, you could starting at 700 p.m. You could not end up with no sleep. Actually, this weekend for the Poland call, there were four of them that didn't sleep at all on Sunday night. Yeah, Sunday night there were four of them that didn't sleep at all Sunday night. So, Yeah. So the the volume compound Yeah. It just the

decrease in volunteer is compounded by the volume. Especially this year it's really hammering on it. So anyways, I wanted to keep you a breast where stuff was and how it's going. We're not hasn't changed drastically. I actually think it might have improved just a little bit. Let's see if I can make a few more changes. I think we might be able to improve it there and then yeah, hopefully I'll come to you within a month or so and have a something we can put out to the public. One, telling them, but two, hopefully talking about trying to do one more recruitment to see if maybe we can come up with a few that way, especially if they know it's crunch time.

Thanks, Chief. Okay. Any any questions? Thank you. Do you have anything for us? I I put everything in there. Okay. Can be safe. Calvin. Calvin. Yep. One sec. Jill just ran to get him. You're up. I never done in the last meeting. I never gave you the report. I had them all in here and never handed them out. I guess I thought I got back the next day and they were all still in there. But

very positive things from people live on very very happy guys on that road. I haven't heard too many positive things. No, no, we'll go back one. Send it back once again. Sorry. That's all I got. I already gave you one. Okay. I'd like to do is go right to the bottom one if I could. I'll pass this out just

So, um, if you have an extra one for Ruth, I I can share. That's all I got. I'll get you one. I can give you share. I'll give you this one. So, because I don't I don't need this. Just if you look at how I I know we discussed the last meeting about um the roof RFP and I got to thinking about it and um I think that we already did the RFP

and um that they all bid and if you look at the price per square they've all come in with a number per square. So I think if we just say look we're going to take 10 square off. If you take obviously things get cheaper in quantity. So if they're willing to do the job at 10 squares less for the same as they've they they've said here per square if I send this back out to everyone everybody knows the other one's numbers. So it's really an unfair advantage to them at this point. Whereas they've already bid that's their dollar per square. I think if we just say look you can take 10 square off of this building. We'll price we'll take we'll we'll take 32730 off times 10.

Or if the low bidder is willing to take off that same amount per square and still do less quantity for the same volume price, then I I think that's the fair way to go. [clears throat] I mean, 10 squar is not that big a deal.

He already told me other than he'd do it. So and and I don't I don't remember now when we looked at those things is this architecturalss. Yep. Yeah. Lifetime architectural one. Well, that's debatable. Yeah. Well, I won't be around to argue with us.

Depends on whose land be measuring [laughter] it. Yeah. The roofers usually warranty their their workmanship for a lifetime, but the shingles don't go really through the roofers. I I fully get that. Been there, done that.

Yeah, cuz it must be around 10 square on that roof edition because he told me he'd do it for 29. He even dropped some more off. He said if I do it this fall [clears throat] and we did it in October. That was the bottom one.

Yeah. And and we we currently have 20 roughly 24. So I'd have to come up with five some. So I think I can He says if you don't have the money this year, don't worry about it. He'll just send it to me next year if you want to put it in next year's budget. But I I'll find it somewhere.

So the the 10 square or is is which part of the building is that the office area? Yep. Right. Yeah. Did that include the front porch or is it just the office? Just the office. So this would include the front porch. The front porch is the worst. The roof.

Yeah. I was going to say the front porch seemed if I remember when I looked at it was the worst. This is Yeah, that would just take off for the the new the new office part that was just done in two or three years old or whatever. Yeah,

it won't be architectural, but it's not that big a deal. question, you know, especially if he's willing to take a little bit more off. He's going to do it this fall. See what that bottom dollar is. He's pretty square and and he gave it to me at 29. So, but right off the top, I don't remember.

Uh, I think it was 10 square it was it was like three. Where's my calculator? 3 32 3273. If it's 10 squared, it's 3270. 32703, right? And uh 32us 3273 is 295 roughly. He said to do it for 29. So, okay. Yeah, that's what I was just trying to come up with. So, if I could let him know, he could order the stuff and and um

he wasn't even there rather than be in the roof. Right. Right. Yeah. Hopefully that part will [laughter] be That's the plan. Well, I I know some guys they don't tend to go around with magnets and stuff and leave some incidental debris and

Yeah, I put that right in the scrapes and stuff on the sides of the buildings. I put that right in the spec. So, [clears throat] um, so if we're okay with that, that's makes sense to me. So, we would need a we actually need a motion because we haven't accepted any of the bids yet. So, we'd need a motion to accept.

Do we call Do we want to get that in writing before we accept it to make sure? I mean, I know that's what he told you, but just to make sure that between then and now nothing's changed. I could have him give me a contract with us.

Yeah. you know, I guess bring the contract in and have you guys approve the contract right now. Right. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Okay. Okay. We'll vote on it then. Yeah. Y the uh rubber pads and extra those are just phenomenal. I that's that was a great investment that uh we'll be able to use for they don't show any wear really and we wouldn't be able to do this without without it. So this was a very hot it's the hottest August we've had. So even Route 9 where they've been doing culvert replacements do you get down through and it sounds like an airplane now you feel that you hear that rumbling. So certainly on that new pavement we would have been uh having some problems. So ongoing ditching uh pretty much that chews up our our day. So Rabbit Road uh we pretty much finished today. We had a a little piece left. Uh we just got a little piece right by the road to do and then um back by the pond that house there

just past the pond headed back towards there's a shelf. I don't know how that got there but when they graded they pushed it out so there's a false uh road bed or a second I want to pull that back so that the water bleeds out from under the road without having to go through all that extra. There's about a 4 foot plateau there that I don't know. They got that cone too wide when they pushed it out of what happened. But [clears throat] so I want to uh I'll probably dig that out on my way up to runaround pond where um that's where we're headed next. So [clears throat] pretty much we'll tie up that rope.

Just got a little bit left section left to grind. Yeah. On on runaround. Yeah. That liquid injection. Is that what I saw this past weekend? If you drive up through there where there it looks like a paved section or is that the paved section on the next?

No, no. The uh paved section we paved we paved a piece uh we just paved uh up to four-wheel drive the dirt the gravel road on the right. U so we started at 5400 and went to there and that was all they could finish in a day. So they didn't get started till noon Friday. So

it won't affect it at all to not be starting from one end all the way through to the next? Nope. do it all the time. We come to a point where we gets dark and we pull pull it right there and start up [clears throat] the next morning. So, um you know it's becomes a problem is when you stop and start at two different places on the opposite side of the roads and you have a drop off when it's that's not good, but trying to avoid that. Um so we we did the injection that's u that that was worked great. Um got it paved. Now it's hot as a hot as a rock. You hit that with a hammer, it'll bounce back at you, but I don't know why we couldn't do that on a why we couldn't leave it that way. But guess it doesn't work. So

if it did, I wouldn't have poured concrete in my foundation. right now we're grinding the remainder of runaround ponds. I should be done grinding probably tomorrow and they'll probably be back paving tomorrow. this this morning it was wet and there was too many chances of rain and last time they filled up their trucks I made them all go home that's expensive so they opted to wait so

[clears throat] um mitigation letter went out uh response back I emailed Mike back this afternoon haven't heard back from him so gave him what he was looking [clears throat] um the posting rabbit road still looking into this. I did I've got my book out and I've got all the statutes and I see the correspondence of our existing ordinance that uh our did in 2012

or 11 with Janet. I see that going back and forth. He's citing a different statute than what my book is citing. So I'm I just I got to work through that and see. It looks like it's already we've already been through all this just back in 2012. So I don't know if we could I guess just I just got to look into it a little bit more and

we do I know we put an ordinance in place on we have it and I I read it. My question is can we just add it lists the two roads Leighton and whatever the other one is Shiloh Shiloh and Leighton I think and I don't don't know if we can just simply amend that by adding another one and some of his language was unclear to me what he was suggesting and

uh it appears to me that the selectman have the authority to do it whenever there's threat of damage to road. But no hurry. I'll get that hopefully worked out by next meeting. And Scott are going up tomorrow to help with the layout equipment. I need Josh to go up. He's on vacation, but he's going to take some time off tomorrow morning to go up and then I'm going to give him some time on another day, which he wants to do. So, [clears throat] um cuz he's got to see about when people get in the body in the back, they can't get back out. There's no ladder. So, this is going to be Josh wanted to go make sure he can get out of the truck. He gets in there, can't get back out. It's Ron gets in there, he can't get out. We want to [snorts] make sure he can get in and out of there. And he wants to make sure he can get in and out. So,

just make them raise money like the guy on the roof's doing. [laughter] So, they're building a ladder that fits. So, we don't have ladders on the other one. So, we're putting a ladder in there and building it. [clears throat] Um, so Josh is on vacation. Was out last Thursday. We'll be out this week. Um, so Ken is filling in today and Thursday. He's got a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I couldn't do it tomorrow, but um,

what' you fill the hole in? Uh, oh, on Shiloh Road. We used cold We used cold mix. We didn't use We didn't use patch. We used cold mix. control the no pavement. Well, that did you see that great big hole that was right by the dump? Right by the

It was embarrassing. This that's that's awful. I [laughter] the welcome to Durham Hole. Yeah. Right at the right sign that says Durham. I was like this is that. So, we just want to make sure people were turning at Graham Road and bringing their bringing their dump their trash up there.

When you hit a big hole, right, we give directions to the dump. So when you hit a big hole, you know you went too far. [clears throat] So it's not a good landmark we want to we want to be known as known by. Um so we did some wash outs along the shoulder of Shiloh and Javale up in those hills. Uh report some wash outs up on Haskins Road. Um and the next one I see that Lisbon is building a stone planter. And when you come across the bridge and look at our side, we got a big

rock wall that's got graffiti on it. So, or what I'd like to do is um um get people that do flower graffiti. Well, no. I'd like to uh look at putting a sign there with a planter. I mean, it's not They have a nice brick when they sell it. Um get landscape supply. It's a curved arch type with a nice pillar top. They're like 1,200 bucks and you can fit the sign in between those and I would just have to it'd be nice to have a sign that that above the Durham and

yeah I I had someone actually had spoken to me about whether there the possibility of putting one up at the top of the ledge or something like that. I don't know where you were thinking like down at the bottom right at the bottom in front and there was a big drainage piece there and so I would have to work with DOT to I'm sure I they'd let me do it. They would just say okay but don't block that hole. So, we may have to pour some concrete either side in and set a footing and I'm sure it can make it work.

Find out what Yeah. Find out what it is. It is. Yeah. Can't get nobody to Or could we put a big hole on the other side on that side of the bridge? Welcome to Durham. [laughter] Welcome to Welcome to D. [laughter] Well, we don't want that to be our trademark.

Well, at the end of the bridge, there's a bump and then there's that thing. Well, until they pave the braids. Yeah, they got put another layer on that. Hopefully, they're going to get that done before before fall. Hope before the wing hits it. Cloud hits it. I've done that before. Hit one of those and it's at the back of the track right now. That's not good. Uh the primro uh I added um there was

some concerns about that hill like Barry Baldwin said I added 20 in of material on the bottom and nothing at the top. So it goes just sitting on bedrock at the top. So that is a lot better than it was but I really couldn't get much more than that without creating problems. Pretty good there.

We picked it up 20 in. We picked up eight the first time and then I did some math. See how much money we had. Okay, looks like we're okay. So add 20. Add two. Add another foot. So 12 and eight and 20. And so we put another 200 yards of material in there. That's what all I got.

Any question? Just you keep we've been keeping track of how we hours we've been spending over on these two roads? I mean it's pretty easy. We've been here the whole summer. I mean uh Well, more or less. I mean, cuz I'll be coming to you sometime asking the the tally of what we the town spent there so we can add it to the 1.1 so we can figure out what exactly what the road cost us.

Yep. Yep. Okay. Just want to make sure we're keeping track of all that. I mean, we do a lot of other stuff, too. So, we we still have to go and fix other stuff. You probably pretty much judge when you were over there. Yep.

Because I will be asking about that sometime. I know it hasn't been asked of me yet, but it will be asked of me exactly what we spend on that road. I will. I'm pretty sure it will be too. It may not be asked just of you. It may be asked of me and some others.

So, I'd like to be able to add uh our time plus the 1.1 and divide it by foot and I can tell everybody exactly how much it cost per foot to have that. Well, that gives us a good idea of what we'd be looking at next year, too.

Yeah. We got a bunch of roads we got to do through the town. So, be able to tell us where we'd be sitting. Yeah. Well, and the way to look at that though is this road would have had to been would had been ditched anyway. So,

right. I mean, that's way so people say, "Well, how much would it cost you per foot?" We can say this much. And they say, "Well, how much would it have been if uh Saw Brothers come in?" I said, "Well, I don't know. We didn't get a a figure for that." So, the next road we do, we can say, "Saw brothers, come give us a foot measurement, how much to do everything, all the ditch and everything, and we'll have something to judge it to what we expect."

Okay. So, that makes sense. Yep. Yep. So, we got a bunch of roads to rebuild. [sighs] Yep. Any other We probably ain't going to get them all done this century. Well, this decade. Well, I was going to say I hope I hope we get to each one this century or we're going to have some pretty bad roads with some pretty angry people if you don't. I don't think we have a choice. We're at the point now where we have to fix them.

Any other questions? Okay. All right. Uh, selectman's comments. Upcoming meetings. Regular Selecman's meetings will be held here at the town office Tuesday, September 20th at 6:30 p.m. and Tuesday, October 4th at 6:30 p.m. Um, there will be uh

Oh, the comprehensive plan committee is meeting next Monday, correct? Right. The 12th. Monday the 12th at 6:30. 6:30. Okay. Um, anything else that we I move to adjourn. Wait a minute. We got to do this here. Well, uh, that was part of our consent agenda. We approved.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I thought it was down. Second. Sorry. Okay. So, there's a motion to uh to adjourn [laughter] and seconded. All in favor? We still got to sign it, correct? Yes. Still got some signing. Sorry. Passed you over. Okay.