TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ April 8, 2025

Heat. Heat. it's a thing where like if I get a car accident or like whatever and he wants no part of it. All right. Good evening. I would like to call to order the April 8th meeting of lecture board. We have a please rise to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands

Welcome to start. I would like to congratulate Josh and Rebecca being elected to the SL board. This being the first meeting after municipal election. We need to elect a chair and vice chair. At this time, are there any nominations for chair? Joe, there's only one chair now.

So, I have a second. I'll second it. for vice chair? I'd like to nominate Josh. Do I have a second? Did he accept it? Oh, sorry. happening? I was like, what? What's going on? Okay, thank you. Sorry. Some advisor that we got from Jerry was generally speaking after the municipal election happens, you don't necessarily have chair just the previous chair start the chair. So, it's good to have I guess usually the clerks will do it the first meeting. Thank you for keeping us on the rails everybody. Appreciate you guys. Um well, first off before we start, thank you all for for the nomination and the vote to beat the select board chair uh this year. I really appreciate it. I feel like we've had a lot of success last year. I'm super excited for us to continue continue that and it's very easy to chair this board when everyone who meets it up is so great and just doing all the work too. So, um do we have any uh amendments to the

agenda? We do. Okay. We need to have an executive session number 4056F to discuss a hardship of when we get there. Do we have any other amendments to the agenda? And often times this would be a time where like if we had the lawyer here and they had a time restraint, we might move them to the front of the agenda or if they had someone scheduling issue or if we want to move chiefs to the back of the agenda so we stay at home meeting and we appreciate that sort of stuff too. So all right um old

business we don't have any old business. Oh, sorry. We need to uh open up public comment. Seeing no public comment, we can move into old business. We don't have any old business. Um, you know, we had our annual meeting, but we do have it as a topic in new business to just kind of discuss how that went. So, is there any other old business? All right. New business. seen uh no old business is the approve the minutes. Oh shoot. Yeah, I just checked it off. I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes. So got a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Usually um if there's something like that, I'll ask for a motion rather than making the motion as the If the discuss the discussion that would be a good time like sometimes like if someone reviewed the minutes and realizes there were some errors and then we needed to correct something that's a really good time to say oh hey we need

to adjust this just to make sure that when we put them into the record they're reflective and accurate. Yeah. All right. New business chief that's okay. Uh Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation has awarded the Durham Fire Department a 25,897 grant to purchase a new rescue boat with motor, trailer, and accessories. This new rescue boat is more suited for the river and will replace our wellworn 2002 model. Our current boat out there was awarded to the town uh by the Steven and Tabitha King Foundation in the amount of 7500 uh April of 2002. So 23 years old. We are pleased to partner with Firehouse Subs in their effort to equip small town emergency responders with the tools needed to respond to the everanging climate of emergency response. And a more detailed media press release will be coming in the future upon receipt of the rescue boat. I know the boat is in uh New Jersey. um we had to submit a um

complete write up on it with with a quote and whatnot. So it's a 14 foot rigid hull inflatable bigger motor trailer all of it. We'll be able to uh sell the boat we have into that and purchase rescue suits and and whatever accompaniment whether it's lights or something for the new boat. Um I had put that down. I'm very proud of of the group, the grant group, including Captain Salvi, who who continued on that cycle for three years uh to reapply for that about every quarter. Um quick story of how that really came about very quick is um we were running

medical calls to to a residence real close by. Um transported one time, helped her one time, ends up being a mom of a Auburn police officer. He reached out and said, "Hey, I just want to thank you for your efforts with my mom. Didn't know you were fully staffed. Great service. Appreciate it. Do you know about Firehouse Subs?" "Yeah." I said, "Well, my cousin Auburn, and if you, you know, want to tag us with that, it may help." So, just because of normal routine and helping others in town, we were tagged uh with the franchisee in Auburn and it really probably pushed us over the edge. So, again, that's to the boys running ambulance calls and the It's a great small town story for us. So, you know, 20 years for rescue boat uh that should be purchased on the grant. Uh so, very proud of that. Um just to let you know, and on Sunday, uh Auburn called us for a rescue boat for a car to the river on their side. Very

timely, very timely. So, we go all the way up to the dam in Auburn. We go all the way down to the dam in Lisbon. Uh and if Lisbon has anything, they call us for a second boat. Sort of a backup. Recently, we helped sort of recovery. Uh and then you know tops of them a few years ago had a recovery a rescue also. So we will do all three counties with our boat. Uh and then we go out two or three times a year with cars in the river or canoe or something. So um it is used. Uh the other funding stream I told you about was more than a thousand from the Lewon shooting overtime. Uh so that check is literally in the mail. signed off and just this week, as you heard, we got a $15,000 um check in the mail from the EMS state uh sustainability. So, straight from Main EMS, not a federal deal. Um and we can purchase capital improvements for our rescue things like IV pumps, a stair chair, and portable stuff. Is that a

competitive grant chief or uh the the mania was sort of a very long process? not competitive, but it's on call volume. So, every town that applies is a different amount. Um, you know, firebased, EMS, and it's uh they even did private solar companies. So, I'll be getting the town manager about proper use and deposits and and where it all goes. Any questions on those?

You said the first goal was 27,000 26. Yeah. week. It was a great week. It was a great week. So, thank you to all that. Thank you. That's great. get it here. We will be doing training. I don't know if you're the poster boy, but we'll try. Well, lots of photos, too. So, I mean they you guys do a great job with your PR, but I think it's important to like Yes, they've given us a template and whatnot. They're very regimented. As a matter of fact, they might even purchase it for us and then we'll see about delivery. But yes, there will be a social media campaign. Great. And while we still got chief here, I just want to point out that we had a pretty bad structure fire last week. And I think what we saw was really beneficial. The relationship that chiefs made with the surrounding department is the the response from surrounding towns was huge. I mean, how many different departments were here? I think it was

maybe eight, but each one sent two rigs, including the new Gloucester, you know, Freeport, Lisbon, that type of thing. Yeah. And so I I know that we just came out of the budget cycle and there's a lot of questions about mutual aid and how much do we give and how much do we we we take and this is those this is those you know deposits on those those goodwill checks that we make all year long with other agencies when we have a response that quick from from our partners that resulted in a lot of people lot it was it was a bad fire but a lot people's lives were saved and you know just that one structure on that. We have been taking donations. I met with the the victims yesterday, gave them a lot of the cards that they needed. Um, some dog food, things you don't even think about. So, we will be storing some of the stuff for them. I've been working with them, but the community really stepped up immediately.

Things you don't think of, you know, health and beauty aids, you know, you're talking about a 12-year-old girl, even a new pillow just to sleep on because you've lost everything. I mean to put your head down on a new pillow, that type of stuff, it really goes a long way. So the community did that for them, including pets. So it was heartfelt to see, you know, absolutely. And I'd say I think Chief got home at 3:00 a.m. He was back there at 6 a.m. that same morning checking in on appreciate all those extra hours. All righty. Um I just want to have a quick review and discussion over town meeting. Uh see what people thought about it. I It went really well. We got some really positive feedback via email. Um, and one feedback that I got was the uh we should project larger and use larger font on our um slides because there's some folks have a hard time seeing it. They just came up after and said that in the future they'd like to

be able to see a little bit more. And you know, I think that's a simple thing we can fix. We had kind of a projector issue um last minute projector emergency. And so I think that might be something we just think about for the future town meetings. But um I got all positive feedback and so I was really happy to see how it went being done by 1254 agenda with all the changes and stuff we had in there. Um and overall I think it was a very civil discourse which is always nice to see and um just want to hear what other people thought about the time.

that um there were some things that came up at town meeting in terms of like feedback that I think is worth discussing. I don't know if this is when you want to do it, but um I thought that the feedback about the texting in terms of like road closures and stuff like that. I think that that was fair feedback. And so, um maybe that, you know, is just something that we address, you know, early on. Um things that you know or like if there's a fire in like you I don't call you out like but you post that on Facebook or whoever the communication officer is like to steer clear of that area to me that's a time where a text message might be appropriate in that situation to you know just help that area stay clear when they're trying to do their work or when a road is closed because of flooding or a car accident or whatever I I personally think that that's an appropriate time use that service. I know that we're trying to like ease into

it and we're not we don't want it to become a situation where people are just ignoring them because they're getting too many. Um and I think it's it's a worthy discussion to have where that line and that balance is of what is important to out and when. Yeah. Um yeah, I was happy to get that feedback too because I think we had talked a little bit about in the past just like getting our feet under us. on that like we've had people say I don't I want to unsubscribe because the text hold me up and then we've had other people say oh it's really great. So I think we just need to kind of frame out policy on that. So I think it was good point that was made. Um the other thing which was kind of self-inflicted and I know everybody tells me not to do it but I always do it to myself where I because I genuinely do want people to know information and I also want feedback, right? So I made the post and shared the outcome of town meeting

which opened a 8 to 10 hour can of worms. Um, and of course I can't not respond. I just I did it to myself and I know that and it's okay. Um, but some of the feedback from that which you know I ended up kind of taking Josh's position of like the information is there and at some point it's on it's the onus is on the residents to get the information and informed which you know because a lot of that felt very repetitive of you know here's all the administrative things that we did to get people at the meeting right and I did I outlined all of them because people give us a hard time like you know so I ran down the list every single time here's all the ways that we made this available and I think the one that I will take away from the 8 to 10 hours of feedback is that um other towns, they do put signage at the major intersections, right? And so I I think that that's a worthy thing to think about for next year, well,

2026, that at this intersection, you know, whatever by the bridge, maybe three or four signs that say town meeting, the time, the place, I think it's simple enough, but I don't think it will prevent an 8 hour discourse next year. I think it's easy enough to put that out there the intersection right at the river coming across the river. There's sign right there and then intersection 125. So Josh also made me think it would be great if in this downtown process we had a little poster or a little stand up in front of one of these buildings that we could put that sort of stuff as well. What were you guys? I mean, look,

how long have we been doing town meetings in this town, right? I found when I moved 13, almost 13 years ago. I found out the next year. Um, they, you know, spend money on signs. People complain signs. I know. I know. Uh, you know, they talk complain about having on Saturday. They want to move to a week night. Well, you have week when other people can't be available. Uh you know, you can't make everybody happy, right? And at some point as citizens, if you want to be involved, you have to take initiative. And and I mean, yes, people need to show up. 18 people, I think 124.

What was the last year? 165 64 usually in the past two years. Not the past two years. 165 164. It's not enough. It's not appropriate. And I mean, I miss stuff. Um, you know, to to be there. I' I've miss every year to be there. Um, and uh, every every

time we could be, we already know when it's going to be next year. Um, and so, you know, at some point my sympathy I just have sympathy and you know, we we can put it out there every way we have available to us. And I think that's what we've done. And

it Saturday Yeah, I think it's been like that for the last 20 plus years. And part of my thought process is when you have something that's so signage would be important definitely this year but once we get to the point where it's always the second Saturday in June it's kind of like town lore at that point that's when it always is. I put it on my calendar, a bunch of things pop up and I'm like, "Oh crap, I got that on that day." So, I just I think it's a PR

is I think it's also going to have to bring myself into this. It is a PR issue. um the select board town our PR is not the way it's presented is not great and I think that starting from the day after the town meeting is when we have to get into the heads of everyone this

is a civic duty you want to have a say then come to the town meeting if you don't like how things are then come to the town meeting I totally agree with you 100% on the resident and if we don't make that commitment, that's on them. But it is in

part our job to put it out there and have whether it's on Facebook and because I've seen your posts and which are great. You are phenomenal at how you so kudos to you. But that's a lot and that's not really for you. I do it to myself, but it's fine. Thank you. But I think that nailing into the heads of all of us here, we have to just make it almost

like a second nature. Like in, you know, one parent can go pick up a kid from Little League, but the other parent needs to go and show up. If we have some sort of daycare or babysitters at the town meeting, is that something that can even happen that we can allow for parents to come into the town? You know, thinking about and this is not to be finalized now. But these are things to think about for next year and thinking starting now is probably the best bet that we have.

on this. So, I think an even bigger conversation to have is paper and if like I know there's another town Elliot maybe Maine does a hybrid format where they have their town meeting for all the discussion and and whatnot but then where voting actually takes place the way the school budget voting takes place and with that if that were the option would that get more people to come and actually vote versus having coming and having to sit through a 4hour meeting if they because that was also some of the feedback is that some people want to just vote. They don't want to have spend 4 hours to vote. I was going to say my issue with that is I think that that would turn time and even even fewer people attend and there only 60 more people that voted for 12 hours and it's also important for people to hear the rationale perspective of all the issues. So, right, we would be doing ourselves a disservice to move it to a written vote

and an even bigger like at what point is it appropriate to talk about a town council form of government when you only have 120 people out of a population of 4,000 showing up to vote? I I mean what what maybe that's something we ask Kristen at what point is that it show okay that's the number you had 50% participation yeah so when we did a referendum we had 50% participation so history will show that municipalities only have that kind of participation it doesn't typically go up it'll actually go down because And you talk about the first Saturday in April, the second Sunday, second Saturday in June is going to be worse. Well, it's going to be a school vote, right? So, there will be more people coming out for that, I assume. So, there will be more people on it. So, I think they referendum vote on their school budget, right, the Tuesday before. And I think that's how people really want to vote

for the most part. I think that's when you talk to many, which I have have a lot of values with a lot of population in Durham that have gone to a referend or% it varies throughout I think% participation rate is is pretty pretty bad but you know is that is that what you to be that's what is

participation rate in your in your government well we do some things during the year to improve our communication and our messaging you know for the for for the year just raising awareness about decisions that are being made or discussion points that are happening maybe that will also help we're going to put in the during last once a month from Joe, you know,

anything to just raise awareness about what's happening there. Sorry, just that the budget committee talking about the transparency and while I get that because the select board is very transparent. I mean, I I've seen what you guys have done all throughout the year, but it's more of like people not seeing it and never knowing where to go for it. That was a big discussion we had because we had you know the referend we had the um the the extra time meeting on

the moratorum which I think had like 50 people so almost half as almost third as many as this meeting a lot of people and very loudly discussion and then we had public hearings that no one attended. We had um We had uh the actual hearing for

the thing for the for the land exchange that no one attending. These were texted out, emailed out, news blasted out, mailed, put out on the town everywhere. And one challenge I do think we're running into is I just think that there's a large enough proportion of the town that's just not really concerned about the budget. When we look at our um census data, our median household incomes, our age demographics, I think a group of large portion of our town just like I'm not really concerned with this outcome. So I'm not going to give up the Saturday to go do it. And I think that that's the only thing we're running into because it's like we have it or we don't. I'm fine. I'm not worried about change in my rate and that's that's fine. And so I think that that is a big portion of what keeps people home because a lot of people just like I'm not worried. I'd rather go hiking, you know, and I have a Jewish

June is a good time to be outside. We get we get two months a summer to me. Like this isn't the first municipality that has that change. I mean yeah. And so I think that I mean I think I focus groups kind of stress me out sometimes. I get frustrated but it might be worth thinking about having a more facilitated conversation about this with representatives from from the town. Um because we kind of see the same thing in terms of our boards or committees in terms of level of participation. There's a half dozen people who hold three four different spots on different committees and are always looking to sign up for more. So it's not like we have even a huge level of participation on those communities either. So I think it's a why is that? That's what I want to know. It's like what is it going to take or what what are we missing or what what do we need to do differently? And maybe it's not an us problem, right? Maybe

maybe it's not, but maybe it is. And I just want to be very reflective of that because you guys know me. I'm like I I want community engagement. I want people to want to be part of this talent leadership and contribute. And so what is necessary to bridge the gap to make that happen not only for Tom meeting but also for volunteerism on the committees. I do think that there is definitely I don't know how but there is an element of people not getting the information because I after the town meeting just serendipitously ran into someone who's like you're from Durham you're on my board like yeah how have you been meeting today? How's today? Yeah. And I mean I ran into someone before saying come tell me this weekend or this weekend it's been the first Saturday of April for 20 years. We texted it. So I think that somehow it's still not gating out. We got to reevaluate. Do I think that that brings

us to 50% participation? No. Does it bring us to three and a half? Was there 50% statistically here that it was included people voted during on the budget over 2,000 people, right? Because that's 50%. So I mean at some maybe it's like worth the um project or whatever we want

to call it experiment if we did our referendum vote one year to see what level of participation it was. If it's not looking like more than 3% then anyway we don't have to continue to do this tonight but I do think that this is something that we should put on our list of things that is there a way to do a town meeting with a joint referendum

so that you can have a little bit of both I think that's that hybrid approach but like um my concern is just that like now 50 people will show up and just the night before there's only 50 more people who voted in was there anything super controversial that was going on that year oh yeah I'm going to go back and look at it and just see like that is shocking to oh my gosh everybody has something to do with Okay. Anyways, I think that's good good discussion here.

this on the it was really there was really good discussion and people like we're greater than some of our parts where people can come to us and say you know we got a random person knows the fire code knows all this stuff has a lot of feedback that's really great that's what makes the community strong is when people are sharing their their work experience their experience and helping others get informed and really respectful this course and I was happy with that.

Um so FOA training uh we have to do our annual freedom of access act training super essentially I don't know for train before so any correspondence around town uh business even on your personal device can be requested through freedom of access act so someone says I want to see all discussion on Joe and Josh or Joe and Jerry on this topic any sort of discussion has to be uh provided to the person request it. It's kind of like the federal version which is the freedom of information act the state level and so we have to do annual training um we had all our most almost all our boards and committees do it this year and our budget committee um and last year Christian came in and went through it all with us and call that good enough for for training did people like that because my If we did that, we can invite other boards and committees possibly to like get people who want to do it in person and learn in person. So, just wanted to

hear people's thoughts on that and then talk about scheduling. Yes. So, I brought this up before because I do have concerns. Not that anyone's being like doing it on purpose. I think I just don't know, right? And so I love the idea of workshop that all town boards and committees and commissions attend that person goes through. And if they if they can't attend in person, then they do the main

municipal association training online and have to submit their certificate within like within a very short period of time, right? Um I I know that people can read the thing and say they read the thing and and sign off on something and then that does it. But I that's not enough for me personally. I think we we're trying as much as we can. We're doing a phenomenal job moving us towards a more professional town government situation and I think that it really starts with this and I I agree. I think a really good opportunity to do that is we have um a discussion again on having

better joint meeting of all 14 committees that we had last year and if that's one we can do again maybe we can pair this with that that could be too much for one night um but I think that having saying like you know this is the day that we're going to do it for the select board if you are available please attend and if not then you'll have to do this online that you actually have to go through stuff um get people all on on the same page and do a better job of getting us all forward trained in a meaningful way. Um I think we should put on the record um each committee's roster and have the chair of each committee be responsible to turn the roster into even for one or two sessions. But we should have a really solid record keeping and I think the chairs should be expected to ensure everyone on their team is part of that. Yeah, I agree. I know that um like this year the planning board chair did a

really good job making sure all of their members training very quickly after um we put out that same community chair. So um so for I'm thinking that we want to get this photo training on the calendar relatively soon. Joshua, I was going to say say it.

read it. I've understood it. I've been involved and stuff with it. So, it's I don't particularly want to spend three hours going over it. Um, but do people are sick and I of course everybody needs more. Yeah. Um I get for

us redundant work. So like we're totally in it. Um but I think if we're going to ask our members to do the version, too. So I'm fine with that. Um, in terms of scheduling it, do we want to try to get this on one of our next meetings? I think to

be I'm just being D's advocate. I think to be fair, try to get as many people there as possible. It's It's nice to do at least, you know, a month notice of the end of May. What was it? I was going to say February. I'm in the wrong part. Look at all the snow. what's happening. Um, I have 120 days to get it done. 120. So, I mean, I think what month is the May 27th later in the month because my wife is going to be away for week of the month. Is that

little longer with Tristan because we covered a lot of other topics. It was her first time being here talking about the services, talking about what's responsibilities and that sort of stuff. that same meeting is planning on coming here and

I said he's kind of packaging that earlier does it have to be on our meeting nights um but how long are you planning on spending on this? I I mean I think that if Chris is uncomfortable doing a 30 minute presentation on a week it's quick and done and then um you know tell people to read the normal thing before but very quick I think 30 minutes is more than enough time to cover requirements. We should see if she's available and then send it to the make sure the majority are available. Is George presenting to us? Okay. So, what if and this also makes it so that George doesn't have to stay here until 6:30. What if we start a little early at night, like either 5:30 or 6, George comes, does his thing first, then he's not staying here until 6:30, 7, whatever, after he's been all day already. Starting a little earlier that day, George presents back to us. We go into workshop for faux gets here at 6:30

at our regular meeting time. Invite everybody and then go from there. So May 27th, we'll have a workshop for all the boards and committees. This is enough space. Um, FOA block before our meeting started 6:30. So at 6:00 we do a FOA training meeting starts at 6:30 and we have our normal meeting. to see if she's at 6 p.m. 27th at 6 and

then is that um do we need Eureka for that? It would probably be wise and then you come over here for 6:30 right there. Okay. over there and it is codification. So I think that I want to make sure we have that. All that earlier.

asked her two boxes of every Um, all right. Well, the next thing I want to talk about is regular meetings versus workshops. And so, I was thinking about this. I know we Jerry's mentioned last year that, you know, some boards will have a business meeting and and if they have a topic they're working on, they have a workshop the following following meeting. And I was kind of thinking about this and, you know, would work. I was paying attention to some some legislation at the state level where the way they were working with the way they work through it is they have you know presentation from the person introducing the bill they have public comment and then that's it questions from there from the committee is to ask clarification questions either the public comment or whoever presenting and then in the following uh week they have a workshop where they just work on nothing but that and so I want I was

thinking that we knew I'd be able to have the opportunity to um better delineate what we think workshop would be for us if we wanted to work on things and just be willing to take a business meeting and do a workshop instead. Um because I think we're going to have some policy things we want to work on this year. Um I think we're going to have you know some of the discussions like what you just brought up and those workshops could be you know at that point we could ask Jerry if there's capacity for town staff to gather information on a workshop topic and come to us for us as individuals to go gather information or call in M&A or call in GP to get a presentation to work on a specific topic and then that meeting will be just towards prepare for the meeting and then working on some policy or discussion kind of like Last year we did um permits and fees that was part of our normal meeting. We could have worshopped that

and kind of gone a little broader investigations and stuff like that. So what people's thoughts were on that as a model this year. How does it work in terms of like the administrative task have to do at every business meeting, right? Because you can't just do that stuff once a month. Well, you could you could sure and just do the agenda public comment and just don't have really any other topics or items on the agenda other than that workshop item because through cification there are going to be some policy decisions that you folks are going to have to work through and we'll flush those out as we as we get to them but those be better

for our shop. So, I have two two things about that. I think I love it, right? Um and then also at the same time, it makes me a little bit worried that the meetings that are not a workshop when we're only having two meetings a month, it's going to make that other meeting really long. And then the workshop meetings are going to be really long, which I'm here for it. You know, I'm here for it. But so that's my only thing about it is that it makes me nervous and I going to take some really great planning ahead of time if we are going to do that. Because if one of our entire meetings is going to be dedicated to just one subject, that's a lot of other subjects that have to get handled on

what do we have 26 going to be down to maybe 13. Maybe we're not going to do a workshop every month. No, I'm not saying we would do a workshop every month. I think that one thing I noticed is that what got our meetings really long this year and I want to be I don't mind staying late, but I have my wife so around anyways. Um, so one thing I noticed we would essentially have a whole big meeting. we get into these broad discussions and then by the time we're ready for the workshop, it's already late and you know, you don't most of us don't um think clearly when we've already had a full day of work and now it's 7:30, 8:30 at night, we're starting this big topic that we know is going to be a heavy topic. I don't know if we're facilitating things the best way. And so what this would be is rather than doing like this year, we just did a lot of that. And so rather than doing that, we would say this is a topic that we want

to dedicate a whole meeting to and so let's wait till we're gonna talk about that at that time. There's some things that we kind of opened up the can like four or five times before we got to it or like perfect example like the permits like it kept going at the end of meetings and it turned into a two or three meeting thing whereas if we would have just dedicated one meeting as a workshop we wanted to talk about permits at all made our expectations clear on what we needed for presentations and information I think we could have really efficiently done that without cutting it short and without making another meeting four hours long. So I think I think that's something I wanted us to consider working on trying this year. I think it's a good idea, but I think we should make change while we do it. Yeah. I don't think it's a every second meeting is a workshop, but it's like the codification I can see being a workshop

topic. Well, I think if our first workshop is goal setting from there, we can probably pick out those things that would likely result in workshop and we can go from there. Exactly. And we can be really reasonable about like here are the three things we're going to work this year. Not here are the 16 things we're going to work. 16.

Yeah. I just think that we're we just went through a really busy year with a lot of change and I think we want to be like really focused on a few different things. But anyways, you know, when you talk about goals and committees, that's that's one of your

night before, I will I'll be here. Um, when that happens, if so many people are unable to be here for the meeting, is that something that can be moved a day or two? We've done that in the past depending on the material. So like if we had even

we would say instead of the second and fourth Tuesday, let's move that second Tuesday to either the first or the third Tuesday. If it's a light agenda and there were a couple of us that miss it at the same time and usually it's just kind of lighter maybe buttoning up a couple things and extensions and stuff like that. Can I just Something about April is that April has five Tuesdays. So we could technically move the 22nd to the 29th. I will not be here.

of councils, they set their schedule and they stick to it. They don't stop moving meetings around because the public depends on everybody. So I would just caution last year that I would I would try to I think last year we moved one because of issue and because of timing because of I was thinking

feel like this gave me good guys um regular meetings and that sort of stuff. So, I'm happy with that. Uh the next discussion I want to have tonight is just uh setting our board and committee goals uh workshop like we did last year. So last year we had representatives from each boarding committee come to us and tell us here are our top priorities and here are the things we want to work on. And then the select board would say okay of those five things this is the one we want you to focus on this year because the way it kind of functions is the boards um reports to select board and so that's where we can like um hand task to them. So for example, him up to the planning board with this resource protection stuff, we ask the conservation commission to get involved. Now we have an adding committee that we can ask for for input as well. If we have questions about historic features, we can ask these other committees and they have

some autonomy to work on things, but we're kind of moving into this like top down here's tell us what you need to be working on. Tell us what you need for support. And then some of these things do require some contribution from town staff and we have to make sure that there's enough time for the staff people to work in especially our plan who has a lot of work already tied up on his schedule and so I want us to set up that meeting to have those boards and committees all come to us but I want us to set it late enough so that at their next meeting within this month or next month they have the opportunity to figure out what they want to present. to us and then we can hear from them. And then I feel like and what I want to say, I want us to have a really good meeting with our rules, but I kind of want to do that after we get I was thinking about doing it after we get their roles so we understand what's

going to be worked on by them or do you think it's better for us to do that before as well? ask can reporting so we don't have the same issue we had last year? There were some questionable what was done? Yes. Because that is May 13th.

enjoy your vacation. my phone right here. do you think about June 10th being our workshop and then June 24th being the um joint work joint uh workshop? Okay. And that actually it gives us a year when our meeting isn't until June 13th. It also gives some of these boards and committees don't always meet every month. They don't have their agenda. So it gives us them ample time to meet especially because there might be some new members and stuff like that. And then June, so June 10 workshop June

24th invite all the other boards. week and up that I want I like that idea. Um GP Council, they will provide us one free facilitated workshop here. So if we wanted to use it for that, we could that they yeah they could come here and then they could facilitate it rather than the words and so that's that's an option as well. Um and that's on our our discussion for later to talk about what we want to use our free workshop on GP this year. But yes, I think that having

I think have a presentation or at least something recorded so everyone can see this is a judge against we never said this you never said that situation and so I want to make sure we're avoiding that this year. So, one of the things that we talked about last year and brought as an example and I will bring it again is that and I don't remember which community took it from um they it basically matches their comp plan format where it says this is the goal or this is the thing, this is the action plan, this is who's responsible and they break out each committee's goal, action who's responsible and then it's measurable. There's check in, you know, and it's very organized and everybody's looks the same. I think that's one of the things that we can really work on is getting everything uniform across the board between all of the town boards, committees, and commissions. So, everybody's agenda looks the same. Everybody's, you know,

just all the Give it Give it a little more uniform here. Yeah, I think Deb and I worked on that spreadsheet earlier this year that has tracking and we couldn't provide a blank version to each one of these committees and boards to use to track their own things. So, um we and I were workshopping it just two of us all year last year and essentially it's just just an Excel sheet that's you know you fill in your task, your timeline, the status of it and there's a drop down menu and stuff like that. So I think that having something like that after our workshops would be really beneficial and being able to provide it to other folks as well um would be really beneficial especially if they're coming back to report to the boards, right? It's just this like format that's getting back and forth. It just I just feel like that will clear up a lot of this miscommunication between boards and committee

goosey, so I need to go all kind of sort of stuff. So, there's a lot of stuff going on. Um, cool. So, we're going to do that committee goal setting workshop on ours will be on the 10th of June. That uh joint one will be on June 24th. I will make sure I email uh early next week or this later this week to all the chairs to let them know that we're going to have that on June 24th. And so, the expectation will be for them to come prepared with some of their ideas and then we can get them all recorded and move on from there. All righty. Um, the next thing I wanted to discuss, maybe a little premature, is just permit fees. So, uh, we have the authority to evaluate permits and fees periodically to make sure that we're targeting what we think is appropriate for the town. We went through and addressed almost every permanent fee last year uh and brought ourselves somewhere in the middle ground between what the surrounding communities

um are charging. And we saw that was uh providing the benefit of a lot increased revenue from last year and like 150% increase in revenue base and that only kicked in halfway through the year. We didn't do this till late. So, uh, and we're still below maint. So, it's not

like we're certain that since we just did that last year, I don't think we need to change that much this year. But the thing that we didn't get to was discussion around the gravel pits and stuff like that. Um, and that's something else that came up at the time beginning as well. And so I just want to say unless someone feels we need to, do we feel like we need to go through the permanent fee all and all over again this year or do we just want to take what we did last year? I'm looking at so it's like and it's okay. I just want to get feedback, you know. I mean I don't think we need to go through the entire thing, but I think that seems to be just there was it was that was a hurdle, right? I mean, that was a hurdle. And so, now that we've like gotten over the major hurdle of getting to that, right? I do think it's worth looking at the whole thing and seeing does this make sense, like a little bit of comparative data,

which I'm happy to ask obviously ahead of time, right? So that I can get, you know, I want to see some data on before our changes versus not and where that You know what I mean? like before and after trends like what what did we change and what was the result of that change in terms of fewer or more permits or a revenue for the line of whatever and then see if there's anywhere that it doesn't seem like it's making sense or we need to look at that further. Right? that will help you decide if we need to look at it further or not. But then I think the other thing is that um like the gravel hit, but there were some others that I feel like are missing from the schedule. And so I don't want to just like blow by it. I want to have a discussion about some of the things that I think are still missing.

tell us, you know, there any that you think need to be added or increase or solar installation. I guess anyway on this topic it's like let's check where we are right now. Let's fill the gaps that we have. I remember what the thing was that our thing doesn't currently outline if there is an ordinance violation that there is a fee assessed for the ordinance violation. I thought it said that it would be double the fee. as if they didn't get a permit didn't get a permit the permit fee but we're just like let's say pretend that someone installed the road and didn't get a permit for it right they paid double permit fee which was $125 but what's left is a road and that is a violation of the use ordinance and that there should be a fee associated with That's more than double the fee in my opinion. Does June 10th sound like a good time? Are we doing something? Oh, that's our goal. Sorry. I wasn't going to pay. Well, why don't we just

have to send you our goals for the year? Yeah. I think that would would be really helpful is if when we came to that June 10th meeting um whomever feel strongly about did a little homework and come with a really delineated like I want to address this this year like the lack of X Y and Z or finish from here and maybe

could be possible Jerry we just if Allan just took some time between now and then just review to see if there's anything stood out as a yeah, this is really super low. I know that there's been some changes with the building codes and stuff like that. I don't know if that's

"Yeah, every time around double say, well, why did they do that? Why didn't we?" So, some of this might be we still have this permit discussion, but we can not super fast, but we can blaze through the first third or half or twoird of it, but we've already kind of been there. So my goal is that we don't spend four meetings hours. I know. I'm sorry. It was a hurdle, but it was necessary. We laid a really good foundation and made some changes that hadn't been made in a long time. I think that we're candidate just

what we did. Just kind of the way we went about it was Yes. Yeah. I think we're coming out. got there's going to be more than one policy you're going to have to you also got contracts. You might have a lot of work to do there. You got the facility, you got phase two. So, you know, there's

there's there's a lot I don't want to see you all get so that you might not be able to long it's going to take out. So, and if someone was knocking on the door, bad contract negotiations, we don't know how much that's going to take. You know what I'm saying? So, I like I said, I love your enthusiasm.

that's where I'm thinking like I'd like to just say it sounds like you're saying that there's some gaps in the permits and then there's the crowd concern in my mind like outside of those two the gaps and the pit concern I'm fine with what we adjusted for fees um because if it I I don't I would be very surprised if our fee adjustment prevented development from happening last year because we're still way cheaper than other Allan doesn't have a concern with those because last year when we brought this up he's like yeah we're way under on a bunch of this in my mind like 80% of the fees I don't feel like we need to really dive into just adjust them raised the red line for us if we need so and then we just focus on the gaps the um penalty and making sure that

we are square on the s like that those three items is like where we should focus those three items are where I think we should focus at just because it is going to be a lot but I don't want to turn into like last year. So really quickly because I think the direction has to come from the board and you just asked for that information from Allen, right? I feel like what I need to know to be able to make an informed vote and then not have it turn into multiple meetings is from a person like what legally we're allowed to add as a fee for a violation to the land use ordinance, right? So like is that legal or is the only legal remedy to a land use ordinance violation to file court action? I want to know if we can if our code enforcement officer can say that that's a land use violation and then assess the fee or is the only way to deal with that by starting court action which is what the current situation is. So that either you tell me

well I think the conversation should be around violations I don't think it's black and white I think there's a lot of variables out there that would you know kick a violation Even if you want even if you want to go down that road, right? So I think I think that the conversation just needs to be around violations. How they work, when should they work, what should that

and is it do we need an ordinance to be able to assess a fee or does the way our current thing reads say the select board can assess a fee and change the fee schedule? If we put a violation of the land use ordinance fee on the fee schedule, is that legal? I need that. I need to know that. And then the other thing is that with the gravel pits, I would like for Donna to tell us how other municipalities tax

gravel pits and we can have a conversation on another night. I need to know why I think what we're doing like does it make sense? And so what I need to know is do we is it assessed a different way in other towns or is it a fee that they pay to make up for the fact that it's not their tax bill is what their taxes are on a regular piece of property. So you maybe you know we're gonna have to come in for the floor for 30 minutes while she's here. Maybe we should have for an hour and a half and talk

she's she's here. Now I don't know what that will do to your you're trying to plan for that. We're trying to get on the 27th of May. Yeah. And that's the know, George might need an present to you and then maybe you will absorb that because I don't think you can really make any decision. No, that's the perfect thing for the workshop. We get a presentation. We clarification questions we ask if there's additional things that we need to know and schedule workshop to address it and if we figure it's going to take more than one or whatever I think that's a perfect workshop model because sometimes where I think we really spin in certain lectures we'd start a deliberation on what we should do right after we get the information while it was still fresh and we still have a lot of unknowns like well you know we have to consider that so so 27 just and for you know as

get the facility study presented to us question. Is that is that the committee? with Christ if um a discussion with her on violation Um George and if you have questions for Kristen if we can submit them in advance like the next couple weeks to take away on them. Um and if

you can submit those through through me and Jerry there might be answers that Jerry first there might be some of those questions we wouldn't really answer for you. So, um, I think just to Jerry and I, we can figure out what she needs to know for questions and all that sort of stuff. So, I was this opportunity to tell you what we have what we do is most of the stuff we filter through Joe and Joe talks to Jerry about it because they need they have the capacity, you know, sometimes we'll go directly to Jerry, but if all five of us individually are going directly to Jerry, that's a lot. And then all the res So we kind of filter through Joe and then and then maybe we pick up the conversation with Jerry if it's something that needs to continue. He's definitely approachable and all that, but like it's also can be really overwhelming. We're all reaching out to him constantly asking questions. Yeah.

The um one of the questions I had with the organizes and the permits that you guys had organized for this past year, where do you have that list of everything that went through and transpired with. So you mean like the sheet like our list of all the things that are permanent and what we brought up with additional questions um somewhere on the website onite and also um when we got

this agenda I I emailed Kim and asked if she could send that to us and I forgive me because I don't have my phone so I can't wait to see I know she sent it to me and I assume that she sent it to everybody. I don't know if you're on the board. I am on my email just started today. Okay. So, I can forward it to you, but normally what will happen is Okay. So, anything that's anything that's on our agenda, becomes a link that's clickable as a like supplement to our agenda, right? So, like when it did, we weren't making a decision about the actual permit tonight. So, she didn't that initially I didn't know that and I overprepare right so I asked her to send me that so that I go through that before meeting um but normally if it's a topic for discussion we're going to be making a decision on it the link is available on our agenda and then you can look for it on the website also it does right there I think it's on the documents on

the website okay I think we could Um, so May 27th, we're going to meet early for the FOA training available and then also that'll be an opportunity for us to ask her about questions about violations and enforcement. And it would be very helpful to make sure we had any questions we have for her submitted by May 13th. So she has a couple weeks um and then we'll get our presentation from George onification. So that's really good timing because we'll learn about the violation enforcement, we'll learn about the application, then we'll go into our June 10th meeting where we will um to our goal setting. And so we'll have some information about what we just learned and that goal setting could be driven a little bit by what we've heard from the facility study and what we've heard from enforcement violation and what we've heard from the cification. kind a little census on some of the big things and how much work that's going to

take. And then on June 24th, we'll have all other boards come together with them. Does that sound I know you're stressed because you're not here. You I want to make sure you get everything. Um, cool. So, that's kind of our rough agenda there. Um next question. The next question was GP facilitated services. So they offer the opportunity to facilitate one meeting um for free. And so they've done some of the meetings they do are like a meeting on roles and responsibilities which we had come a couple years ago. Um they've done a financial financial crash course meeting um problem solving facilitation and annual budget priorities facilitation just as a as a option for some of the things that they facilitate. And so I wanted to know what folks thought we might want to use their facilitation services for this year. Um my first thought was

um part of me was thinking maybe for this goal setting with all boards and committees but my other thought process was um I think that there would be a benefit at some point this year with facilitating meeting between us and budget committee before starting the next budget process and I almost would want to say for that because I think that um June 24th We I think I could just facilitate that everyone

that just hear from people and um my opinion is that while we were a little disorganized with the committees and boards and commissions I feel like organization. We're completely capable of facilitating that by ourselves and I think it went really well. I think we just maybe need to be a little bit more organized than we were to do that last year. Um, yes 100%. I think that we absolutely

need a facilitated meeting with the budget. So that's what we'll say. Well, ask everybody else. That's what I'm just thinking out loud. What do you all think? We'll start with you here. Well, I just want to make sure we don't want to use it for the June 24th. I agree because I think that the 10th and the 24th is when we might approach topics that we say this is one. So, we're going to have to get some some facilitation on. So, are we in agree that we don't want to use it for the 24th of June?

I'm trying to figure out that restarts in the calendar year one from from before December 31 and then get another one from after January one July 1st. need to smooth that process a little bit. So, we don't even know what that might look like, but they had noted at their last meeting that they would like to have um some meeting with us this year as well. So,

meeting between the chairs. So, the motion they approved details is the um right now. I just wanted to know we wanted to use it for this June but the GP called facilitated meeting for the facilities won't count as the facilitated separate summer. Okay. Well, I mean, I would love to see what I mean, if if they're gonna let us do one in June and then let us do another one after, we could use it for the workshop, but because I think that we could do this in June, but at the same time, if we don't need to and then they can come up with a deliverable after that reports back to us, I would rather that means we're just going to be able to start using them again after June 30. Let me reach out.

she's been here a few times now. playing where you'll get the most out of it. But I can reach out and see um what they're willing to do when saying that they'll they start the counter in July one as well. It's part of the work. It's the other thing too is that we could consider between now and June 30th like the solid waste committee could potentially use some facilitation and it might if if we're not going to use it for us before June 30th maybe we have another committee that could benefit from some facilitation. I think that might be after the goal setting meeting though. I also also just like when I think of like value proposition here like it's less work for the budget committee facilitation than it is for a multi multi facilitation and so I don't know if they have a different charge there. So if we were going to have to pay for outside facilitation I' rather less expensive activity versus a larger more

expensive activity. either way, uh appointments. So Jeff, I accidentally um uploaded the wrong file for the reappoint. So what was online is you have the correct one. guys to the next meeting. Um, it's to be I have an opinion. You want to hear it? Yes, please. Um, so my opinion is that but no one was

here for public comment, right? And that if there was any discussion about any of these appointments, it would have to be held in executive session. And for those reasons, I feel like um and because they're reappoints and not new appointments, I personally am okay with doing a study even file. Thank you for apologizing and acknowledging that um I'm personally okay with doing this tonight instead of waiting to do it. Um but obviously, you know, it's up to everybody else. Yeah, sorry. I'm just trying

committee. Um so I'm seeing we have board of appeals, scholarship committee, Cemetery Committee, Conservation Commission, we have the Eureka Center, Eureka Community committee. Is that all? We don't do planning board. get applications for alternates. We don't have to reappoint anyone. These are only the people who are up after. So these are like the ones that are done yearly on a set

one person whose term is up. Yeah. Okay. that clarifies for me. Um, so let's just go committee by committee here. That works for folks. That works for you. Um, conservation commission commission reappoint. friendly and Jeff Tindle. These are all people who've been on the committee before. This is conservation commission. Sorry, been on the commission before. Um Jeff's the only guy who last year was his first year. It's been on for a long time. So I just maybe this isn't the now

time. Maybe this is a workshop time when we're talking about our goals and stuff like that, but I do think it's a conversation we're having about appointing people to committees that serve on multiple committees and how we're going to address that going forward in the future. So, it doesn't need to be tonight, but you know, we do have a lot of appreciate their volunteerism, but I do think it makes you know a lot of the boards and committees very heavy. Yeah, I understand.

know. I don't Is there like incentive you can give to people to join committ? I I do actually think that this is really important to bring up, but some anecdotal evidence I've heard from people is that some people have been intimidated to apply different committees because they see that there's been so many people on other committees, but they have thought you were either in the group that they got to be on committees or not. So, there was one person who recently joined the steering committee for this downtown process and they said they were waiting for this because they didn't really think that they were applied to be on a committee that's already formed because they saw so many repeat people. So I do think that that does play a little bit into it like when most I really appreciate all the people certainly there's some people on three committees people don't feel like it's really to go on there and we don't have

a rule that says that limits or x number of time we do we have and there should be like I mean we're in my opinion is if you're unelected or committee maybe you shouldn't be on the volunteer boards or committees because you're now an elected role that has some influence over another on the planning board when I vote on the land for a monthly statement

or it's just it's just messy like I was on the budget committee and the board of appeals when I got elected to So I think that one of the things where you do get into a little maybe it makes sense is like if you have like a comprehensive planning committee comprehensive plan you really do want to be able to draw from some of those committees. Um, so do we want go ahead

committee doesn't have anybody to serves on other people on multiple committees and hold off on those appointments until we um have that discussion further. Because also if if something were to come out of this to limit the number of communities people could be on you don't want to drop that on they might have a preference of what they want to be on if they were limited you know um what are other people's thoughts that seem we don't have written policy but ultimately we are the ones who choose who gets the points in these committions

want to develop but I think it would be to vocalize and write one down. I think if we're going to have a policy, we're going to vocalize and we're going to write one down, we need to have that on the I'm not saying we're doing that tonight, right? But we need to have that on the agenda because there people might have something to say about that and want to have the opportunity to make a public comment which might enlighten our vote about how we feel about this. also like when you have a non-resident who's here listed to be on the committee too and that's another question so for something like this for our

perspective would we want is this we would want to workshop with our goals um if we if we could make a goal you know one of our goals could be to develop a policy on boards and committee assignments for sure. Yeah. The challenge is that if we do that, we're not reassigning people to the boards and committees until after we've done that. Yeah. And that could be a while. This could be an agenda item on our next which I get. But if we don't um do this tonight, we have that we're not going to leave the next meeting with a written policy, are we? I mean, that's a lot of work.

these five terms. I don't want to do that. You don't want to do them today. And that's fair. That's what I'm trying to get. I mean, not if we're going to not our policy is I just saying sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. If we're talking about appointing someone to a five committee and we all acknowledge that we perhaps want a different policy change about this going forward we don't get to

talk about that one not I'm not trying to say one specific person right but as it stands right now we're this is a year and a half long uh decision that we're making for each of these committees tonight if we do this tonight before that conversation

long appointment. Yeah. say is my intern Sorry. Um I I just do have a concern about mult people serving multiple communities. So you have people like three or four maybe even four. Um and for from my concern is that I don't want us to and this is something that you know if this was voted on people voted on we want these people on everything. That's one that's different. But if we're assigning work, um I I want us to

make sure we're having a casting a broad net and having positive idea ideas from the community and having a broad swap for our community and I want to mindful of that. So I don't really want to have to go down the path of inviting putting people on multiple committees. And I do see some notable exceptions in my mind like there are there's you know maybe with your appeals board you want someone who has experience in something else but at the same time I kind of just want to keep it clean and separate you know and so we don't have to write something down we can vocalize that we've decided that we want don't want people like because I also don't think we should have people on the committ from the same household you know two spouses on the same committee you know parents child, grandparent on the same committee, all that's that's one of those things that I also just think about as well.

why really is that trip to in the meeting, but I don't think there's really anything that is going to that's that's carries the same weight as They're they're really gathering information going back to the decision. So does the board of appeals sorry interum without the appointment.

appointment is a long time member of the board of always and they're not on any other household that um there's no one else in the household on that committee. Um so like what I was saying some of these we can say there's no obvious concerns conservation commission no one on anything else no one's in the same household once we start getting into a committee once we get into some of the other committees that's where some of these question marks are. Is it fair to say we can maybe do a couple of these as a slate and then say we need to get a policy there's a married couple on one of these other ones res

cemetery committee Um, and I want to I'll just pass it on so people can see here. And if we want to talk about appointments with people that need to have All right. Correct. Correct. Uh, do we So the appointment for the board of appeals, Terry Kirk, is interested in uh volunteering again. Do I have a motion to accept Kirk's particular.

discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? Any opposition? All right. I will sign this. We don't have any DA in here but um indicate interest or okay same deal. So we have Jessa, Roberto Rosinski, Samantha Car's name, but Tindle. Do I have a motion to accept this slate of reappoint for the conservation commission? Do I second? Any additional discussion? None of those people are also on agriculture. None of them are on agriculture committee. This is the only committee that these folks are on. There might be a little overlap with the downtown steering, but I think that's a special

right. All in favor? Any opposition? reason. Um agriculture committee we have David Wilson, Jod Freddy Bird, Steve, um Megan Grimes, Gary Goodri, Claire Ross, and Eric Day. Do I have a motion to accept the of pre. executive session? Okay, see none. All in favor?

Christine. Do I have a motion to accept this slate of the appointment for scholarship. So second we have any discussion or any executive session or any reason we want to see none. All in favor? the Eureka Community Center. We have Jean Tox again. Kathleen Low, Pearl Scribner, Anita Sars, Kathy Ser. Do I have any? Do I have a motion to accept this

session? Any all in favor? Any opposition? None. say I would like to hold off on the reappoint of sol due to at least one um duplicate from another off on the um the cemeteries committee due to non-resident interest and um

another couple. So, I'd like to hold off on you for further discussion at a later meeting. Are folks okay with that? ready for town Monday and I had committ Should we make the hosted decisions So the tax think that on the uh you know the news or the town Facebook um that theel will

be able to solve open to the public. So just those are the questions we're hearing and will ask those questions that meeting committees or committees, they're all open to the public. Um if a board member attends, um they should the expectation is that we're just treated like a normal member of the public. Uh sometimes they give us a little bit of privilege to speak on something or ask questions about whatever. But um anytime I've attended, you know, conservation commission or or anything else like that, it's just I'm there and willing to speak as much as they want. That's a little different with Deb being kind of the leazison to the board. So we have that in place, but more than welcome to attend any of the boarding committees just to see what they have going on. I I've made the distinction very clear because I do go to the meetings and I do ask questions as president. Um and when I go into the microphone or when I am

speaking I always say my address here as a resident not as a select board member so that there's a clear distinction between my role in that room and the fact of the questions that I'm asking um and you can do that or not do that I choose to do that.

youbody else showing up to anything big or we cover all that so far like you know facility stud like share anything we want with the board any questions or anything, but this is really the time to say if we want something to add on the next agenda or um or hearing, you know, other things. So, um from my I'll start off my say welcome to the world. We're really excited to have have you here. It's really cool to have um you know, this is a relatively uh young board in terms of tenure of these positions. I think at this point um with the district

fourth year start of the fourth and so this is actually it's not super common to have boards with that little overlap. So, it's really exciting to have have you here have a new face in town on boards and committees and we've seen around but to have have your presence and we're excited um totally excited to learn your

background. Um we often times you'll find that prof [Music] Josh. Happy to have you back. Um you know, on your your term. Um but we're really happy to have you, too. So, um I just wanted to say that I'm going to try to do the same thing this year with Jerry and have a few things outlined for the meetings. maybe we can come in next meeting with these outlined because I I try to let folks know what's coming up on um the agendas and sometimes things pop up and we'll have to move something but I want us to all kind of be on the same page so we know what's coming up in advance at least a few meetings. So at this point we know what we're doing through the end of June and I think it's really helpful at least for me to know that we're all on the same page. So I'm going to try to keep doing that again this year. Josh, you have anything?

and that is do we have a date for? Yeah. Is that going to be in every class from now on? post. Facebook weekend. That's awesome. Happy Mother's Day. Yeah, for Mother's Day. Ford brought it up. We do have a budget. Be careful what you're after.

let them just buy like 50 of them because they last three weeks. I got I got I made it a year and a half for the last totally destroyed again. I have a great experience. Totally. I have the little I have the hook in my mind. So they even use the little thing on the back. It's awesome.

Welcome. And I would just like to say that I believe this evening is historic moment where females have majority of the board. I think it might be their first time. think you did a really great job at town and I've gotten that feedback from people that thought you did a really nice job. So, from myself and the board as a whole, I appreciate the time and effort and how well you articulated um the town's position. And I did so good. I do cry at town meeting. My voice shakes when I get and I usually end up crying. I didn't write

for you because I think that as the select board we really see how much you do for this town and I'm sorry that I hope Rebecca can help us with this their PR skills that the select board can do a better job um of getting the message out to the residents of how much you do for the town and um how good you are at your job. Um and so while I maybe didn't

articulate my position as well as I could have when I was defending you at the town meeting um I tried to do my best because I really do believe in the work that you're doing. Um and I sincerely appreciate it. And so that is one of the things that I will bring as a whole when we do our workshop is to make sure that we're doing a better job getting the message out there so that residents are supporting the way that the court is. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

really appreciate the support that I got at that meeting and staff too was I couldn't do it without anything and and the other thing I want to say too is Jessica I know that's two very long days for you and I that um the feedback that I've gotten about the way you know like we joked a little bit about how nobody got hurt this year at election and nobody had power and you know weren't flash and stuff like that right and so um I know those are two very long days and we really appreciate everything that you do over all the elections but especially the election and town meeting so thank you

looking and in what her thoughts are. Um, I'm assuming that the website will all be updated with all these new names and capital that have to because I don't we don't have a charter. There's nothing in any of our ordinance establishing that. So that's why we establish it annually and I think that if we just there is a policy the select board did vote on a policy to establish the committee and what their role was that is a policy that does exist

[Music] meeting concerned about um the visibility of the spending like when we vote throughout the year to spend which is the budget you know so I think when we talk about those objectives coming I'd like to put something in there about um making sure we understand when we're voting to spend money when we have a voted board meeting that it is potential to you know show an increase at some point in the future that the res.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of culture change work to do around that because um one person in particular on the budget committee pointed out like this is we debated intensely at every town meeting was whether you want this or that. And I think for very wise reasons we move away from that. But um I think that we can really do a lot more outreach on like the why and the how and I mean we are elected officials. We are running business and we have to make decisions all kinds of decisions that resulted in you knowity.

So probably some steps we could take to increase the visibility spending and capital I guess. No, I'm just saying like when we had it when we went with the to to vote for something and it's an embedded cost that he year to year versus like a one time spend. So like when he came to us and we did generator that was a one time spend but then when he came to us and when we did text messaging that was an embedded cost that lives on in the agenda or um

the IT services right we voted on that and that's that's a fee that lives on in the agenda. It wasn't a one time just saying that it might be appropriate to you know have more visible recordeping that res I do think the challenge there is that we have sometimes that people will learn of an expense they have access that's the only embedded multi-year expense we have we have tons of embedded multenses electricity operations those sorts of things like it expenses are already embedded we have annually you just So, and I think that that's where we we have those discussions at at the town meeting if people were at the budget committee meetings. Um, but I think that it would just be hard to go through every single embedded expense and be like I think it's a new one, but we did like a public comment session or whatever. But I do see the point from both sides of it that like when we made the decision, let's say let's say the

text messaging was a fiveyear thing, right? and we made a decision to do that. That that is a budgetary thing that we have now made a decision as a select board to do for a fiveyear period and we did a couple of those this year. So I do see that [Music]

they're asking for and they still come. Yeah. Because I mean it's a lose no matter what we do, right? I just I I 100% understand that. I just think what's the challenge is like the way we went about it was we postponed the vote on the text. We had two meetings on it. We had two public comments on it. No one on it. No one said anything about it. And then we put it in a budget committee comment on it a lot. And I think that there's a little bit of difference here too. It's like this is a $2,000 expense on 4 million $6.5 million budget for

example, right? But I'm saying like if we were doing something bigger, if we were saying, oh, the text by government is going to cost us $20,000 here, we would probably have gone about it differently. But I just think that some of this just falls under like operations in my mind.

think the people are really passionate about not having sex also up I understand your point about um clarifying that but one of the challenges for me too is when we have members of the budget committee who aren't following along with our expenses It's really hard to even sound

have to end by 9 unless we extend them. So, we're shooting for shooting for a nine this year, right? Right. another thing. come up with any budget agenda items that you want to put on for consideration. You don't have to wait till you're you can always email Jerry or email myself and Jerry and I will talk about it. Yeah. I'll email you.

say I will be here conference and then um I will be vacation yeah, management and wildlife resources. That's Earth. consent agenda? So we have a second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Upcoming town waste committee meeting April 14th at 6:30 at the Eureka Center Conservation Commission. April 16th at New Center at 6:30. Town office going to be closed Monday the 21st Patriots Day and then the select board meeting will be April 22nd at the fire station uh at 6:30 and we do have for executive session. So I'll take a motion to make a motion that we extend the meeting by 15 minutes just so we don't have to session in case we need it.

meeting. Any discussion? All in favor? session to 405.