TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ May 28, 2024

for order today's meeting of the select board 528 2024 starting at 5:30 um we have a quorum we have one excused absence today and we will start with the Pledge of of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all righty any amendments to the agenda [Music] anybody have anything cool um any public

comment yep all right come on you can come on up um for clarity for public comment uh this is a period of time where members from the public who uh live in Durham can come up State their name and that their the street that they live on and make any comment they want limited to 3 minutes and this uh we just let folks know it's it's not a question or answer period and there's not a response from the board this is just a chance to share thoughts or concerns or anything like that so if we don't respond to something it's not that we're not taking the comment seriously just I'm caveat that so come on come on

microphone with your name in the in your street Michael OA Davis Road all right you good yep go ahead um good evening I'm here to speak as the runner up to the rsu5 school board election uh from Friday April 5th there were 391 votes cast I lost by 1.2% and I'm not here to make a case for myself as I've already interviewed for this position with the voters of Durham I spent weeks going door too signed close to a th000 postcards placed yard signs holding Q&A sessions Etc I've made my case to those who showed up on a miserable weather day back in April I'm here to address the process which is disconcerting to say the least I understand this board is bound by current guidelines but I would respectfully suggest they address the current process which leaves voters without voice a small group of Select Bo board members uh will total usurp the voices who Brave terrible weather on April 5th by filling the upcoming

vacancy by Fiat when going door to-door throughout March the major concerns brought to my attention by parents and Grandparents were in no order of importance sexualization of our children the pornography available to them in the school library and the insanity of Dei what they felt added insult to injury was the refusal of the City School Board to listen to their concerns in other words they had no voice I hope the irony is not lost on this select board they will once again render the Parents Without a voice by usurping the voters of Durham thank you thank you for the

from anyone okay seeing none oh did you have question okay cool yeah so tonight is as those watching from home know we're starting a little early um we're we're Our Town legal council is expiring at the end of the month correct and so we're in the process of hearing from those who responded to our RFP so before we move into Old business or new business tonight we're just going to hear from both of the legal firms who responded and we've got this scheduled to go till about 6 o'clock so um did you

have anything you wanted to say Jerry before we get started uh no I have some questions I don't know if awesome so do you have process questions or do you want to you have questions for the yeah once folks yep once we get started cool um I guess what I would like to do unless anyone else has any objection um to this is I figured we would just get a quick introduction um from both of them and then we have slated here in no particular order um get hearing from skeleton taner and Abbot first and then is it pretty flattery flarity sorry

struggle with names you all heard that already so and they'll be they'll be next so um just brief introduction for both of you and then we'll start with uh skeleton tainer and Abbot sure go first yeah uh so my name is Grady Burns uh I'm one of the attorneys here for Skelton tainter and Abit yeah and I'm Amy Dietrich I I think you have our bios in here so I won't repeat a whole lot of what's in there although I will notice I think my picture is a little outdated so I hope you'll forgive me that was a while back mine was in fact missing so I can put a name to the face so um between the two of us my practice uh focuses primarily on the employment l side of Municipal law so the areas in which I typically get phone calls are around a lot of issues around paid leave workers comp um

accommodations people who are injured can they come back should they come back how can they come back are they going to be paid while they're out how are they going to be paid while they're out and talking through those issues we also do a lot of work on policies as you know and I'm looking at Jerry because he's probably in the thick of it um you know there are a lot of new laws and policies that come up every every year and we have to look at your handbooks and your policies and update them make sure they're compliant so a lot of people right now are thinking about Paid Family Leave which is going to be coming up in the next few years um there was also earn paid leave that was the big sort of uh topic of conversation for several years um but my side tends to focus on

the people and the policies and I'll let Grady talk about his specialty in a minute um but I think that what we try and do is we try and divide and conquer so that you always have somebody that you can call and you know which person to call with which kind of problem yeah and I would say my expertise falls under the category of just about everything else um I am a general Municipal practitioner um I've been uh practicing in the area of Municipal law um both uh for municipalities and counties as well as private clients being rep uh representing them to municipalities and public entities uh for my entire legal career um prior to becoming a lawyer uh I was bitten by the local government bug I briefly served on the Auburn City Council which was my first foray into uh municipal government um and from there uh ultimately became uh an attorney and and that's been the work that I've uh done uh throughout my time as a lawyer

uh so in a normal day I will be uh handling everything from uh ordinance Drafting and and revision uh and review uh working with towns and cities uh on issues related to their uh meeting warrants uh dealing with freedom of access requests and ensuring uh helping to ensure that towns are timely acknowledging those um assisting with any questions regarding confidential information um as well as uh I I also do a fair amount of representation in uh Municipal and land use litigation whether that is uh rule 80b appeals uh for land use issues permitting issues um as well as before planning boards and zoning boards of appeal um I've also uh done work in the past with um Code Enforcement Officers helping them to draft uh notices of violation as well as helping them to actually bring forward uh those NOS to uh to court if necessary in order to bring compliance through the rule 8K process uh so uh our firm is uh

uh 14 attorneys we have a broad area of practice between those 14 attorneys so we're smaller than some uh but we provide a a broad uh a broad array of uh municipal government experience uh that we could bring to bear for you and certainly we're happy to answer any questions that you might have as well all right cool well with this framework tonight we'll start uh continue with you and I'd open the um floor here to the board members and to Jerry for anyone who has questions for

yeah so you know we've had Jack for quite a while uh his firm and and his his folks so you know pretty big shoes to fill we got a lot of history um how are you guys going to what are you guys going to do I see necessary The Proposal what you're going to do to I'll say assimilate that previous knowledge I get it that you know stuff comes up to go and research it but what other upfront things are you going to do um to uh look at to see what durs like and how

how how things should be reacted to um from say past precedence yeah that's a great question and uh and forgive me it's Jack Conway correct yeah yeah um I I know that uh the closing of lyel choen Weber is affecting a lot of clients including a lot of municipalities right now so I just I wanted to make sure I was uh correct in that um part of that process I think there are multiple pieces of that process and it will be an ongoing process um town government uh a lot of things change and a lot of things stay the same um the issues tend to uh recur over time um personalities uh may come and go um but uh relationships stay pretty constant in a lot of cases especially with towns the size of Durham um so part of that getting up to speed would be um looking through the record that uh has already been produced by your former attorney um looking through any current or pending issues that you've been dealing with with Jack and

making sure that there is a seamless transition if there are any ongoing matters that require immediate uh work by our firm um to ensure that uh no balls get dropped we uh we've worked uh across the river or uh for a long time on the same side of the river as lyel choen Weber for a long time and we have a great relationship with those attorneys um and a long-standing one between our two firms uh so I'm confident that uh both informally and also formally uh with any transition of any files that we we would be able to ensure that that is seamless in terms of building relationships with the town I think that'll be an ongoing process um I have in the past uh run um for some towns annual boardsmiddle

to maintain that relationship uh and to you know answer any questions that you might have uh as they come up um and also to uh create uh a framework for an ongoing dialogue we work a lot with our town administrators uh with our Municipal clients um you know Fielding questions on a regular basis and um you know always being available and open but I think the the short answer to the the one I just gave is that uh we will be making ourselves available to you uh the members of the town as well as uh to your former uh attorney to ensure that uh we can continue to grow uh that relationship um if we were to begin as your councel thank you thank you Josh or Jerry Joe do you have any additional questions besides that one I I had a couple minor ones on uh travel um you know how much travel do you typically do for towns only I'm thinking that we never necessarily saw our attorney before so I saw it in there and

I'm like H I wonder how many times he goes to some of these other towns it it depends it really um it it's uh Maine has I think 504 municipalities it seems like each one of them runs things a little bit differently and has different preferences when it comes to uh how they might interact with with their Council there are some towns that really like to um see their attorney you know face to face on a fairly regular basis uh some don't and you know it's it's a lot more email communication I think our location uh being I clocked it uh as I I drove here it's uh exactly 15 minutes from our office it gives us a good opportunity or a relatively unique one frankly to be nearby and close enough that travel time uh you know the both the time and the mileage would be so marginal that you know we would wave those costs um you know and potentially provide you with more of an opport to interact with uh us uh if you need to

when you need to in person and one more if I may Joe absolutely so uh employee and retainment so you have a number of folks that work uh with you in the office that do probably majority of background work how much how much turnover do you really have at the organization that's a right question uh so my for I can give you a uh a small example then I I would uh uh ask Amy for a little bit more context she she's been with the firm longer than I have but my assistant uh has been with our firm for 30 years uh she has uh been uh serving uh you know working with both the attorneys who have been here for a substantial number of years as well as our clients and uh our staff uh is uh

diverse in terms of their uh tenure with the firm but we have a number of key staff members who have been involved with uh SK an abbit for uh you know something on the order of of decades um that includes some of our uh attorneys uh I believe as well um but Amy might have a more specific answer for that yeah and I'm happy to speak to that so I've been at skeler abbit for about a decade now and speaking to the lawyer side of it um we have a collection of shareholders gosh I think we're six or eight at this point and um Skelton Tiner and Abbott had a big wave of retirements about F between you know between five to 10 years ago and the overwhelming majority of the shareholders who are left are like myself in their 40s 50s and up into their early 60s but we work very hard to have transition plans and succession plans so our firm doesn't end up closing um so we build in succession plans for every Department like real

estate Municipal law um you know every you know kind of different specialty that we have and we have very very very little turnover um in terms of shareholders I can't remember the last I think somebody left last year but it was to sort of leave the practice of litigation entirely um so we've I think how long has skeler been I know you our firms our firm's been in continuous practice for over 160 years now um within Leon Auburn uh we are hoping for at least 160 more uh and uh I won't be there for nor nor I um but and some some of our relationships including with some of our uh public sector clients uh they span uh decades some the better half of half a century at this point um those relationships uh are longer than any individual uh member of any of those organizations um and I think one of the things that we pride ourselves on as Amy said is um both you know our the history of our presence within the community but

also our ongoing impact with our clients um and and our continuity over time thank you yeah good Josh do you have any questions I was going to let Jerry back clean up here on questions so or you can actually uh Jerry did you have any questions yeah I've got a couple okay awesome um

so interaction between the law firm and the town is probably going to be mostly through me um so you be talking to me a lot if I have a question that you can answer in four minutes how do you feel that uh if if it's uh so I I could speak for myself uh you know uh if it's a quick phone call um you know and it's you know a substantive issue uh that you know I where it's literally you know hey Jerry oh it's a it's a good question uh let me you know fire off a quick email to you uh we we bill in uh tenth of an hour increments so um you know for that if if it's a uh for for things that are substantive where you know legal work is being done um I would say generally uh we we will capture that time um but if it's uh you know administrative or scheduling a meeting things like that uh certainly you know those would be things that we bill for and also um you know if it if it is truly a 30- second call uh I

think that's probably not one that's making it onto the the billing sheet as well but uh generally speaking it's got container and abbit we use a Time tracking system called tabs and so when we start work on I'm looking at Josh cuz I know he's a ler too I don't know if you use it as well not now no no you don't well maybe you have experience with it but you know you have a timer so when you start doing work you you hit it and then when you stop work you hit it again and so you're only build for you know exactly the time that we do work and that's that's how I personally track and I know Grady does too because there's no other way to remember what you were doing you know a week AG go at 2:37 p.m. you've got to have some sort of contemporaneous record good thank you um J you can just keep going with your questions okay um next question is we rather you mention policies and Personnel policies person policies here

Curr personel handbook is very old there may be some things in there that are not even legal to that actually um so supposed to say that but but it's but I'm trying to get to my point you're right that's I was going to add a some more question you know so can you tell me like can you walk me through the best way to update that policy is said something oh town man just put in there whatever you want will review and walk me through the best way that we could have a Personnel policy that's fair and and uh competitive with other

municipalities so I will first say that it would be extremely unusual for me to review a personal handbook that wasn't illegal in some way so just to so you feel like you're seeing um the laws change all the time and what I tend to do is what my clients want me to do but the way that I find it to be most efficient is that I usually ask you to send me in word a version of your personnel handbook and maybe flag for me the sections that aren't working well or hey I think I might have heard something that changed about the law what about about this and so I focus I read the whole thing but I focus on those and having reviewed dozens and dozens of personnel handbooks I have a lot of samples and language I can use so I can tell you you're missing a main family medical leave policy which most municipalities are you don't need to offer FMLA maybe but you have to offer the main version and so then I propos to

you language that would comply with law in that regard um or it could be something like the main Human Rights Act has been amending six times since you last looked at your policies in 1998 so we've got to update the protected classes and um that's how we tend to do it and then what I'll usually do is I'll send the town manager a version of that and we'll go back and forth to make sure that the language is what you think is appropriate and then maybe we'll present it to the select board or you know whatever the you know whoever is voting on it and we'll explain why we want to make the changes that we're making whether it's because we have to or we think it's a good idea or it's fixing a problem like I said PTO paid time off and medical leave those are huge issues and a lot of times the policies are a little too lean on those and so you have people who are doing one thing in one Department one thing in another

department and it's better if we have one concise set of policies that cover what everybody should be municipalities that you have you gone through a land use codification process I with them and how did that go any experience with that all so uh you mean like codifying like a land use ordinance uh so in uh my prior experience so i' I've been with Skelton I actually just celebrated my Oney year anniversary with the firm uh prior to that um I had been at a larger firm in Portland um and uh uh there in that prior experience uh is the most recent time I have done uh Soup To Nuts uh land use ordinance uh rewrite um and harmonization um I I it is something that uh is often more time consuming than uh than it usually appears to be on the front end um the in the last instance I did it involved uh pulling together essentially five separate ordinances into a cohesive single uh land ordinance that um took the

subdivision ordinance the Shoreland zoning ordinance there was a standalone building code ordinance as well as the town's freestanding uh zoning ordinance and Consolidated them into a singular uh much more workable document uh for that town um that ensured that all of those Provisions spoke to each other um so every town is different many of the land use challenges are similar and obviously when it comes to things like Shoreland zoning the State sets at the very least uh a baseline of what you must do uh but the to my mind the most important thing when it comes to creating um or codifying a land use ordinance is ensuring that the um the the legal side

our side ensuring that the the language fully reflects what the town on the policy level is trying to achieve uh home rule is a beautiful thing and uh setting aside some areas of land use regulation uh including some of the new housing regulations that that were just very recently imposed and things like Shand zoning towns have a lot of flexibility when it comes to how you're going to regulate certain uses so the the first and most important thing for uh for me as someone who reviews those ordinances is ensuring that uh I'm clear on what policies the town is actually trying to reach and then looking at that language and ensuring that it actually is doing what you want it to do um and that is often a process that involves collaboration with the local planning board as well as with the select board thank you I have a question yes absolutely I'm Debbie Oliver hi nice speak um when you

take on new clients do you have like in your planning stages the like applied time thresholds per week or how do we know that you can handle what the Durham Services May tax on your on your team I I'll take this one so at Skelton tainer abbit we don't have any sort of we are a smaller firm so we don't have a sort of large Rubiks like that in place um what we tend to do is we only take on the number of clients that we can handle I saw that uh with respect to the Durham RFP it's not a terribly large number of hours per year but stuff comes up every year so certainly it changes what we aim to do is get back to our clients within the the same day or within a couple of days of a question being Mas um and certainly with a variety of people working at The Firm if I'm say in trial you know for a week I can kick it to somebody else if you need a response more quickly and are the uh rates the same if we have some really complex

issue that's going to take a lot of time to sort through is the is the base billing rate the same no matter what the topic is so we have um in our proposal we have all of our rates all of the shareholders at Skelton painter and Abbot have volunteered to take a reduction in our rate of at least 25% down to 250 an hour for some people that's a much bigger hit I think some of our corporate lawyers um who you might deal with if there's you know some sort of transaction um it's more like a 45% cut in their rate um and then Associates bill out slightly less than that we also bill out our paral leals much less than that um and for administrative work you know know sending letters doing mail copying we don't build that at

minutes left here so Josh do you have questions you want to back I think might have been answered I mean my my questions were the the personel policy I think that's something that's important that we need to work on um and um you know I think Jerry does

a good job of limiting sort of the communication to what what it needs to be so he's not harassing you all the time um um and so uh I think you've answered my questions and and of course I mean I know the history of the firm and and most most of the attorneys there I think still um so almost and my last

question because everyone covered most things pretty well you know you mentioned home rule Authority and the flexibility and we have a a fair amount of language here in Durham that is utilizing that flexibility so it's not necessarily sticking to state standards and so it with the other municipalities that you've worked with do you have a lot of experience with those municipalities having really flexed in within that home rule Authority so it's not just the Baseline state level regulations that you're reviewing certainly yes and uh new issues are arising all the time and towns uh seem to be finding uh at least in my experience every day are finding new ways to try to address new problems or to address old problems better uh even outside the land use context I think uh you know when we talk about local government we talk about land use most often but home rule Authority Cuts in a lot of different ways and uh in towns

municipalities one of the reasons I love municipal government so much and I've I've been a nerd for it even before I became a lawyer is that uh it's often underappreciated but it had it touches uh the average citizen's life uh in I would say numerously more ways than most other branches of government on a daily basis so that flexibility uh you know part of my job is knowing where the lines are uh if uh if something that the town is proposing to do is there a state level preemption issue uh what is the scope of your home rule authority to do X um that is a big part of of what I do whether that is um finding uh crafting leg the the most recent uh instance I can think of that I was working on this was for one of our Municipal clients it was an ordinance um looking to uh regulate uh certain types of electrical transmission um through that Community which is a complicated issue and one that touches uh both state and federal

regulatory Authority so the there was um a big question of how we know we can regulate this somehow but how exactly can we in order to reach uh our underlying policy goals um and so that that's one of the things that I enjoy most frankly about this this type of work is um helping towns be creative to solve the problems that that you all are facing because you'll be the first ones to see them it won't be the legislature thank you very much no problem well do we have any other questions for either our two Representatives here today before we uh move

very much for your time this evening I think you answered everything really well and we'll be back in contact with you shortly thank you so much and if you have any additional questions please don't hesitate to reach out um we'd be happy to provide supplemental information if you need anything perfect thank you thank you so

be here I think I saw them pull into the parking lot um shortly and we'll sit down and have the same for them so we just take a couple minute break here while wait for them to come in I got I got a general question mostly for Jerry what's the current rates that we get

take a seat we will need a third chair yeah pick your pick whichever one you'd like sorry our third person is Big sitter is sick but he will be here in like one minute that's all right these things happen y usually so would you like us to hold for your third person to

quick and get another minute or so house in they have a baby down to Austin her company primary office there he is he's going the wrong too she saw pretty recently after does it's Bree all righty thanks for waiting a second yeah no problem sorry about that these things happen it's not a big deal at all uh so just like with the last group um just asked that we'll go through really briefly and have you each introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice maybe what you specialize in or do within your practice and then we'll have a series of questions for you all to choose amongst yourself who answers or or how so we've got you slated for about you know 30 minutes so or so here to answer any questions and tell us what you want us to know so thanks for having us yeah so

um I'm I'll start I'm Kristen Collins I'm a co-chair of our Municipal and finance group at Fredy uh I've been practicing Municipal law my entire career so that's uh since 2005 and I started out at a small firm in Belfast and went to main Municipal Association for six years and I've been at pretty since 2016 um um I have done everything under the sun when it comes to Municipal law including um through MMA which of course spans all 400 some towns in the state um I used to keep a little roster where I'd check off each town that I had spoken to and it was every single town by the time I was done there um so I um am a

generalist and I am a point person for a lot of our towns um overseeing work for um you know of all of our partners and Associates for each of the clients um that we sort of we have certain clients that Steve and cam might oversee or that I might oversee or that Cam and I might oversee and we kind of divide it up that way um and if if I'm the designated Point person on a town for instance I will be the one making sure that all of the work being done for that town is being done properly And Timely and the same for Cam and Steve but um I am also a member of our Employment Group so I keep up to date as much as a generalist can on employment law um we do also have specialists in that area but employment law is something that I'm especially proficient in um as well as land use um and ordinance writing and um everything in the land use side of things so that is um my specialty and I'll let cam take

over sure I'm cam fonte I'm of council at pretty FL I'm part of the municipal group and also the land use group um like Kristen I'm sort of a generalist in the municiple area there's a couple cities and towns that I'm the primary attorney for and I deal with you know anything under the sun that arises with them um my specialty in the municipal area is probably public financing so I deal with towns and cities on bond issues like lease purchase agreements for municipal equipment um occasionally tiffs and any other type of you know Bond anticipation notes or tax anticipation notes that they may need so I assist them with those and ensure that they have you know the financing that they need for a capital Improvement or equipment purchase when they need it um and I'll do that from start to finish through authorizing at a town meeting all the way through the actual closing on the on the purchase and then aside

from that I do a lot of land use uh a lot of uh land use enforcement actions um advise code enforcement officers on drafting notices of violation and you know dealing with difficult property owners and ensuring that people are complying with the town's ordinances whenever they need to um I've been with pretty FL for a a little over three years now um before that I did a stint at the revisor's office in Augusta working for the state legislature and then before that I was an administrative attorney uh in New York City and then found my way back to Maine and I'm enjoying it very much Steve uh I'm Steve langore I'm the founder of pretty's Municipal law and finance group I've been at pretty for 38 years and more or less been pacing Municipal law almost all that time I started off as a trial lawyer in fact I have a long career trying jury trials and appeals to the state supreme court but um I founded the

municipal Law Practice Group about 25 or so years ago about the time that I became Corporation counsel to the city of Augusta the job that I still hold and became my assistant Corporation counsel um in Augusta and over the years we've grown the group from just one or two um Municipal clients um I've been the rangley town attorney for 33 years now which if you know anything about rangley is quite quite the record given probably all the town managers and boards that have dealt with um over the years but you know if it's something to do with Municipal law I've probably been involved in it from going to court to attending hundreds if not thousands of of meetings writing writing Charters dealing with land use issues dealing with um virtually every aspect of Municipal law in over the years and then we gradually built our Municipal practice just by being in situations like this and responding to rfps and

meeting people and knowing um towns and um letting them know that the the level of you know expertise and experience that we have I think we're very very efficient um three of us back each other up I expected Cam and Kristen would most likely be the primary people who be dealing with dresen but I absolutely I'm available which is which good we're very responsive and we meet together every week and talk about the the issues that towns um are going through I also am an employment lawyer as well and have dealt with virtually every aspect of employment law from trying cases to rewriting handbooks to whatever you know whatever you need you know generally called upon frequently just to give advice as to how to handle employment situation so know we're very very happy you know to be here um today and group the group sort of organically from adding towns like um brunwick and your neighbor down the road um Lisbon and

Belfast and KY and a whole variety of different uh clients most of whom we we deal with by zoom and email these days being being what it is but we're very happy to be here today and uh happy to answer any questions that the any of you they have awesome thank you uh just like last time we'll just start with questions and Jody do you want to kick us off again with questions I don't yeah let me go um so you know as you probably know our our uh previous attorney Jack Conway been with us for quite some time um so quite I'll say big shoes to build how you guys plan to um you know look at Durham's history and and feather That Into You know what you currently you know you obviously have a large clientele base in the public sector here um how how are you plan on on garnering that history and um applying that as it applies to dur um so we we've done this you know the the list of towns that Steve just

took over in every single one of those situations there's either been a solo or a firm that we've taken from um and it often feels like it's going to be a lot bigger of a task than it actually turns out to be to take over from an existing attorney um is how I'll preface it but to solve against any concerns I hope that Jack is willing to um you know stay on in an advisory capacity and to do a kickoff call or meeting with us where he lets us know what's going on today what are the short-term concerns what are the long-term projects um what files do we need transferred is he going to hold on to things so that we can access them um as needed so I hope we'll have that collegial you know relationship that we've had with all of our other situations like that um litigation obviously is the most pressing thing so we'd want to know right away what's going on if there's anything pending so we don't miss deadlines and so we get

our appearances in um other than that I think our favorite way to just take over is to meet with staff and to meet with officials um and do a general rundown of what's going on what's your sense of the town what's the long range plan um that is how I feel at least that we've best gotten up to speed with a town I've been so much of it about it's just developing the new relationships you know we've usually come in and as Kristen said we've have a long list of clients all of whom had other attorneys you know before before we do we usually generally meet with staff and I think so much about representing any Town including Durham is just the relationships that you develop who do you feel who feel comfortable with you know how what are you going to learn so we we talk you know we find out what's going on and like Kristen said it ends up generally that there's less than you think in terms of what you need from the

previous attorneys you know you're dealing most towns are dealing with what's happening right now what are the crises that are happening now what do you need to be addressing need to be working on sometimes absolutely getting some of that institutional knowledge you know is helpful but for us it's just a matter of taking the time to to get to know people and we've done that successfully many times I and uh if you haven't or you will I strongly urge you to talk to some of the other managers that we've dealt with many of whom were were there and we took over and would be able to tell you you know that we did that effectively the recent example for me would be the city of Belfast um they' had a solo City attorney for 30 years um who we took over from and um it was no easy task in terms of what was going on I'll say that um but but you know we've been able to relatively seamlessly take over a whole lot of litigation um from

you know pretty big convoluted Superior Court cases all the way down to some small rule adk enforcement actions and um it's gone swimmingly I'm good perfect uh Jerry so I'm the town manager so um we probably have a The Chosen One um so as far as building go I have a real quick question maybe it's a maybe it's a code enforcement question maybe the code officer calls you it's a quick down 3 minute 4 minute phone call how how would you build that you build four hours tenth of an hour 10th of an hour okay Y and I find myself you know if it's really quick thing I won't take the time to even write it down or bull it um probably some people at the firm would not like that but um yeah and and the other thing is just efficiency within that one you know 0.1 hour is something to keep in mind that because of our experience we just are able to answer a lot of stuff right on the Fly okay um next question is we have some policies

that really affa like our Personnel policy you just kind of walk walk us through how you advise us to update that policy to keep it competitive with other municipalities within the law employment law and stuff like that is it well to Mr town man just write up what you think is give it to us a little review how walk us through how we best I can take that question yeah because I've been doing this quite regularly um recently jally we just um asked to see what your current you know current policies are we'll take a look at that and then we have an outstanding attorney by the name of Harper weissberger who works at our firm who is extremely up to date as what all of the current policies need to be there's a tremendous number of policies that unless you're doing this all the time you can't keep up with the nlrb is constantly putting out issues over anything that U might be un related regardless of whether you have unions um

or not um so generally I would kind of you know we would have probably the client the municipal attorney who's working with the town s of work as an intermediary and then Harper would go over this make sure everything is absolutely up to speed in terms of where it needs to be and we would just work with you to to get it past and and through but something that we've been doing very very regularly for our clients and she's done so many of them now that she doesn't have to to reinvent the wheel because it's it's a really big issue right now because policies are constantly changing there's policies over pregnant workers there's just a variety of things that you think you're up to date on but you probably aren't then we have burn pain leave and all the other new regulations that have come up just within the state um so Harper is great and uh but I would say we skipped a step there which is meeting with a

manager to talk about what the priorities are and I've had I think newer recently went through a whole overhaul of their policy and they started with the manager um and staff trying to write the changes out in long form and I tend to find that somewhat inefficient because then you give it to the policy wonk lawyer and she's going to change everything around so I would think we would just either have you sit down with me and go over everything or annotate the current policy with some bubbles of thoughts and then we'd work on the language and priorities from there if I can just add Harper is also very good at making sure that you get the policy that you need she's not going to give you a 600 page document we're certainly not going to give you a 600 page document that you know you might never actually have the time to read or apply it's going to be tailored to what the town actually encounters and advice

that it actually needs to have on the books we have a huge repository of course because of our number of clients so it's easy to kind of pick and choose language from various policies um next question is the municipalities that you worked have you g through of

experience with that how much should you be involved in that process I think I mean you're you're the one who does the most have we we've we've all been through them um I love a land use code I think it's way more user friendly to everyone than a Shoreland zoning ordinance um land use ordinance zoning ordinance site plan ordinance so it makes sense at least for landies to codify everything but we've done full codifications as well um typically the town is going to go out to an RFP and find a codification service to put everything together and put it online um so we've been involved in the fairing of the information to the codification service and in the um sort of helping to revise things and get them uploaded sometimes that's the problem with those Services is it's timec consuming and difficult to get things up to date um so the other part of that is to come up with practical ways that the

land use ordinance in particular which is going to be amended all the time is always up to date and available for the general public and for your attorneys um so you know that's it it has its ups and its Downs um generally it's a great thing to codify and we'd love to help you with that but also I think we need to realize its weaknesses and find those practical Solutions you know like the city of Portland for instance is the city of Portland and its land use ordinance is actually not codified it's a PDF document um Brunswick does the same so you know there's codification in the sense of pulling it all together in a cohesive document and then there's codification is the next step of putting it on the service and that's where things can get a little

Jerry maybe I folks chance Deb do you have any questions um how how would you describe once you come in and interview a number of people from the from our staff and everything do you also provide like an advisory position after you view where we are where are um what our situation is do you identify risk points things that we should be thinking about that we don't even know I mean does that how does that plan yeah I see that happening a little bit more organically not like we're going to sit together and kind of come up with a a 10-step plan for the town but I think we will pretty quickly see the points for instance just working with your ordinances for a couple of months we're going to know what things need to be changed um you know if there is a Personnel issue that crops up we'll very quickly see where the weaknesses are and the policy or the practices and I think I mean for my part at least I like to advice more on the

Fly um and let the situations guide what the advice should be and what the what the big long-term plan should be yeah think yeah we're not going to sit you down and spend a lot of time like trying to figure out where issues might arise it's much more efficient to you know ask you what your perspective is what your opinion is and more often than not if you think something doesn't seem right or is difficult to administer you probably identified the problem for yourself so at that point we're happy to help and I think it has everything to do with getting to know the town manager who can then say here's where I'm having here's where I have concerns here's the issues that we're dealing with that are hard for us here you know what are your suggestions and just being able to sort of count on on us being able to give you advice that you think is is going to be helpful in that respect and I think that's the number one way that we figure

out what's going on in in every town is just as as a process of deing developing that relationship and you know gaining that trust between people so you know that when you're hearing something you're getting good advice and you're getting good suggestions based on you know all the work that we're you know we're doing you as I said we've we've represented a lot of towns we've seen a lot of situations um but frankly everyone of our towns is is important you know to us just because we represent you know gust to our others you know we don't we don't look at it that way you know we look at all of our clients is being um important and I'm not just bsing about that that's really is the way that we you know the way that we do things and we we very much operate as a team talking about all these kinds of issues also so you know we see something say what are you seeing over here it's like yeah okay that's a good idea we'll

talk about that further so we try to be really open to being creative about the way that we that we we do things and we don't kind of need jerk respond to issues by saying well we want to write you a long memo on this so we try to be and we already pride ourselves on being extremely practical a lot of times we'll see what happens is you get into cases and there'll be you know let's say a planning board decision is being challenged in court in an ADB case you know instead of just sort of automatically spending the town's money being the party defending that there's generally always you know a developer somebody who is a real party and interest and then there's maybe somebody who's challenging that and so we do everything we can to let those parties and interests you know kind of you know carry most of the of the cost you know for the town and so really only jump into these issues and you know as

attorneys and spend your money when we know that it's something that is going to be important to how you're seeing your town and what's important to your values and so forth rather than just well we've been sued so you know we need to spend your money kind of thing so we really go out of our way to practical in that

no I'd defer to Jerry if you have more um sure awesome questions um Town Charter how important do you think it is for a town to have a charter not that important yeah I I'm pretty big believer in Charters myself I've been uh actually you know see we're not hungry on everything but I like seeing the charter I mean it's not critical you can run a town with doubt it but I I I think it's it's great because it really sets the it's really the plan the imprint of your unique you know um municipality I I've been on a number of different Charter commissions myself I was as as a citizen I was the chair of the Hollowell you know um Charter commission that substantially rewrote those I've sat on for Augusta they have had been doing a charter commission every 10 years which thankfully we don't do anymore we've completely Rewritten the charters and so forth to me I think it's it's great because it's it's it's your Constitution

and it lets you set the framework for your for your town you know in the way that you want to you know is it critical can you do everything else you know by ordinance absolutely but to me I like having that all in one place and really something for people to read and really know what your Town's doing but that's my opinion they a different opin I was going to spit the baby then yeah yeah I I mean it is helpful and when when Town gets to a certain Crossroads where it's it's grown and there are you know there's a lot of Push Pull and we just kind of want to better understand what the town manager's role is Visa the you know Personnel or things like that um because there are some towns where the town it's a town manager plan technically but there's traditionally more select board involvement some of those towns need to really kind of sit down and think about how we want things to go and it's a charter that would have

to modify that Arrangement um there the reason I have some hesitation is because I've seen the charter process go arai in a couple of towns um where you end up with a charter commission that puts in place rules that actually are kind of difficult to work with um so I point to New Gloucester again which had went through a charter commission process and um I was just telling these guys in order to pass an ordinance in that town it's got to go to the selectman then town meeting and then a referendum for every single ordinance no matter how urgent um and you can see why the town people might have liked that but then again it's really from a pragmatic standpoint kind of a nightmare so um maybe that's why I'm so quick to because I was just working with that Charter and not my favorite yeah I was going to sort of you know stick to the middle there and say I think it really depends on the town municipality

whether it feels that it needs that kind of clear statement like Steve is saying like a constitution to govern the way it moves forward and specify everyone's particular responsibilities or if it's feels that it's being you know know adequately governed right now and everyone kind of understands their role and where they're supposed to be and what their responsibilities are then you know going through a charter might have more cons than pros at that point but if there's a desire and it feels like it could be sort of a unifying clarifying activity for the town then I see no problem it we spur with another question nool

I'll go first I'll go last then um so you know we have some ordinances in town that really utilize the home rule authori so they fit you know obviously within the legal framework that the state has but in some instances we might have you know a more robust resource Protection District or Shoreland zoning requirements and so I'm just wondering your firm's experience with working with municipalities that kind of have their own um ordinances that don't always align exactly with the Baseline standards so you know dealing with that sort of stuff yeah I mean just talking about ordinances in general and particularly sort of groundbreaking ordinances for myself I wrote the state's first wind

ordinance as far as I know I wrote the state's first cannabis licensing ordinance as far as I know um and a lot of the solar ordinances that I see all over the place so ordinances that our firm has created have been used as templates all across the state when we wrote them I think it's important to understand that we were in a complete vacuum um so something like cannabis licensing for instance before licenses were even available from the state we were working out you know should it be a numerical limit um what's the constitutionality of shutting down uses that were already in place how high can we go in license fees all of that sort of stuff um so that you know just in general we are not afraid of getting out there with regulations that would be kind of new to the state much less the town um but I'd say a lot of our towns we have a lot of Shoreland towns um with a lot of varieties of variations on um

Shoreland zoning and very Adept at you know I can call Coen Clark at any time of day and he'll talk my ear off for an hour about his perspective on various Shoreland zoning issues for instance um and so we you know we definitely have lots of towns that have ordinances that are a little bit from the norm MH cool thank you Joe just a how many people you guys have working for you how big is the organization you had a lot you have a lot going on so I'm concerned it's just the three of you well oh we have um over 90 lawyers at pretty flarity right so that's one of the things that you know we bring to the table for for any firm is we pretty much have expertise in just about any area and these lawyers who many of whom quite frankly are building $500 an hour all of them understand and are willing to work within the within the hourly rates that we provide for municipality so you know we're the we're probably the biggest

legislative and lobbying firm in the state we have connections and um lawyers who handle virtually every agency um in Augusta from the D to the Pu doot um and others we have um just working with us regularly um we have we have um a real estate um attorney who works with us we have an environmental attorney who works with us we have an energy um attorney who worked with us so while we handle a lot of what goes on we have tremendous

resources of attorneys which work you know within the firm and they're all available and have been called upon many many times to help you know handle issues for municipalities I I think that's something that absolutely you know sets us apart we have some tremendous lawyers who have um we have do a lot of development work in our firm which also gives us the expertise to work municipalities to understand how to deal with your developers when you're dealing with developers you know so um I think that's something that's it's a huge strength you know of our firm um you have us so it works in a in a way you're dealing with a smaller group right you're not you're not you would never are going to see anyone other than the three of us unless there's some very specific and unusual issue that you're um that you're having to deal with so we're not the type of firm that sort of like oh God who's the who's the

lawyer we're seeing today kind of thing we're not like that you know at all and so I we bring a lot to the table that way I keep seeing other firms that have a municipal group that has like 15 people in it or something but then I've never seen any of them at court or at a town meeting or whatever I'm like who are these people but um just as a case in point if if we had a Personnel issue um you know Steve or I are going to probably handle the larger picture Personnel issue it let's say it's a fair labor standards act question we've got a specialist for that let's say you needed a Personnel investigation we've got a specialist for that um let's say it's a union issue you know you want you have um a group that wants to unionize we've got an expert for that and we know enough to be able to to work with that expert and to work with you to to bridge that relationship and to make sure it's all being done in the way that

suits what your goal was uh we don't just pass you off to somebody else than any other for coming here today and answering all our questions and we know how to get hold of you if we have anything else for to ask and we'll be in touched shortly so no thank you very much for that and I said before I start strong L urge you to call the town managers that we listed and frankly any of the other Town managers are on our on our on our client list but I think they'll tell you from their own experience what it's like you know dealing you know dealing with so the years and number of towns that are similarly sized you know to Durham talk to Christine Landis and Chelsea or talk to you know talk to Joe roach up in rangley or you know there's there's there's any number of different managers I think will tell you that they they absolutely like working with us and uh and we would Surly hope to have that opportunity with you as well so I've got

to drop as a last thing that I live eight miles down the road so I would really look forward to the short travel of these meetings got say shorten the travel budget yeah absolutely perfect than thank you very much appreciate your time

with the last place I was and very very effective waste my time great great process perfect thank you Alan um Jerry just clarification our legal council ends June 1st 31st May 31st yeah so this is our last meeting before um that and so are you all all I wanted to discuss a little bit about when we would make a selection for one of these organizations one of these firms I I I personally in an ideal world would like the time to let Heather who was not here tonight review the meeting and but that would push us to next month which means we'd be without legal councel for um a few days which is does makes me very uncomfortable as well so anyone else have any thoughts are are there any issues right now no no there's no

M and in the in soliciting for proposals if we didn't have someone Kristen did say that she would step up and help us out if to okay yeah because my thought is to have this vote be at our June 11th meeting or even try to do a special meeting an extra meeting on June 4th just with this being the only thing we discuss making the decision and then and then moving on so I'm opening it to any of you on the board for feedback on that yeah I mean the only other thing I had here was for the board was did we call any of the references to see how easy it is to deal with the two organizations so I I think it's I think that would be up to Jerry to do I I could tell you um skeleton Tanner I've dealt with I I've not worked with either of these attorneys although I've spoken with Amy a few times about different things um they're always they've always been accessible I think and um I don't know the other attorneys

I did one of the partners in my own firm did have a number of cases and know Steve um and so you know I don't think we can go wrong either way either way we went um so I'm I mean to to me it would be whether Jerry has a preference or whether anybody had a certain feeling M um as for waiting one question that we didn't ask that probably should have would be is there a time frame for when they could get on board um my guess is being lawyers it can happen overnight so but just just in case I assume they would have said something so yeah um you know to me I'm okay waiting till the 11th um or coming back on the 4th either way it's fine with me yeah well Josh you brought up a really good point I know ultimately we have to make the decision as a board as to which firm to go with but one thing that's important to me is with Jerry you being the primary interface with them is really getting your feeling and your

your opinion here weighs on how I would be inclined to vote because this is an organization that you're going to have to have a longstanding relationship with more so uh from a day-to-day standard than than us as individual board members so um what is the timeline you're comfortable with knowing that we value your Insight but also you having an idea of what's going on that would might require legal um counsel I can certainly call the um Town managers that listed I

I know is high go when she was a town manager there so I know them well I can do that um so I for me like they talk about it really does come down to relationships right so I haven't worked with any one of them so I felt like I any one of them

would be fine from that from that standpoint I wasn't uncomfortable with any of them and I thought they presented themselves good um so but I have heard really good um things about predy flarity and so I would tend to lean in that direction it's only because of people that I talked to before that have them as attorneys yeah I think they're going to represent either one of them are going to Res represent the town fine none of them gave me the well I don't know if I'd want to work I have any of that um and and the the the cost is their their billing rates are pretty similar right I mean it's close enough that I wouldn't even have that really be weighing on my mind on a a deal breaker and I I will say one thing that I did like that the second group did say is you know initially they would want to sit down with us and and and talk to see what is out there yeah burying issues or get the know the town and stop that

relationship I thought that was really you know yeah and one thing that the second firm really made me comfortable with was their discussions on bringing different ordinances from you know a a Vortex of nothing at all to creating something was important because it whether not that I'm insinuating we would want to create some ordinance for something out of thin air but knowing that they have that experience of having done that I think that that is is really valuable as well um both terms I got good feelings from uh first gentleman Grady seemed very passionate about local government which is good to hear this organization seems like they have a lot of you know uh infrastructure behind them to to quickly respond to specific issues and a lot of experience so you know in in the standard interview format this is where I'd be like well kind of want to hear from references to see what people's individual experien are so

maybe what we could do is have you con connect with some references to get some feedback uh in the next week or so and then we can make a decision at our June 11th meeting if everyone's comfortable with that or would folks rather have a special meeting to make a decision either works for me okay yeah there's nothing pending that we have to worry about and if we have you know representation if we need some in a pinch then I'm not seeing that we have a huge risk out there mhm like waiting would be all right and Josh you already said you feel comfortable with the 11th yeah that's fine although I would caution about reaching out to somebody you know on that part-time basis I think if something comes up we should come back quickly and not uh just because we don't want to start with one and go just there are too many issues with that in my mind so that would be the only comment I would have on that yeah I mean in in a perfect

world I would be most comfortable if we met on the fourth next week just to vote on this and do it right away but I'm if if everyone else is okay with waiting I would say that I'm fine with that but also same kind of second what you just said there Josh if something pops up maybe our response to how to handle it will be a decision-making response on who to go with at the same time rather than saying yeah can we use you for a week until we pick somebody you know and so when I when there's nothing to worry about is when I worry the most you know but if folks are already okay with waiting till the 11th to making a decision then um we can put that on the agenda

one more yeah I thought it was kind of nice that the first attorney said they were like only 15 minutes down the road that's really nice then the second group said she was only 8 minutes time so that kind of yeah the only difference there is they the first the first attorney said that they wouldn't charge mileage right which is you know nominal in the long in the long run but 20 months that I've been Jack hasn't visited the town office once yeah yeah but I'm hoping we might you know not that I want to wish that we need more use of a lawyer but hoping that we build a good relationship with new Council as well thought it was interesting that the first organization has been around for 165 years or something like it's always impressive when there's an organization that long and there's still someone with the same last name working there so June 11th we're GNA put that on

theenda Al righty old business first off are we done with questions about the legal firm selection process cool all right old business uh review of the Union Church Quick Claim Deed Jerry yeah so Jack up the D I just wanted I didn't really have any concerns or questions I just wanted you folks to look at it if you have any concerns or questions I can bring that back to Jack if the answers um if not I think it's um I I had a comment okay um in the last

paragraph yeah uh it talks about whether the German Historical Society ceased to exist or discontin use of this land and buildings for its so use I thought when we were discussing it we had uh the additional language of and I'm drawing a blank and I was trying to find it and I couldn't find it um that if they it stops that it has to be open to the public and um if they

cease having that open to the public time then it would revert back to town and to me that was an important aspect of this because then there's the town still has the benefit of here's this building that we've owned and and it's a justif to me it's it's a justification of here's why we're giving it to you instead of selling it and and I think it's important and that was language I thought was missing I just have not been able to come up with the language yeah I was just looking here so what if somewhere after the if THM Historical Society cease to exist or discontinue use of this land and bilding for its sole use comma or um

public what was it public value or public access was the language or Public Access cease to exist then property shall be reverted because I I get what you're saying is so even if they're existing but for some reason there's no more public use component so my understanding is you know under the Derm historical societ it is open to the public MH so you're saying that if as long the sole use portion here defines encapsulates that open to the public component right I mean they're going to do their thing they're going to have you know whatever they Bank sales or fundraisers that's going to allow the public to go in and see the artifacts this that and the other that's what that's what they do they put on those sort of programs um but but if they stop using

it if the Historical Society cease to exist or it's no longer used for the sole purpose of the Historical Society then it reverts back to the town I I I thought we had included language when we voted on it that said something along the lines of you know I think I think when they when when Tia came she mentioned like at least once a

month they would have time or it would open to the public and to me that should be in this because that to me was the grounds for doing this or not not the grounds but part of the reason why we can justify giving the building

can oh God sorry no I just picked the definition up of sole use means having complete control and ownership over something for a long time using it for its intended purpose so if the intended purpose was to keep it open to the public if that's what their I'll say their Charter loose words their their goal there

um then yeah maybe Jack's use of that word might be okay but I'd have to go back and look at but I do remember that it need to have that public content in it some so I oh go ahead but would it would it hurt to add that well that's what I was just going to get at is I I think that the intent here is to say that Soul use includes all the things that we understand Soul use to in include you know Public Access cuz we had to make sure that there was public value in order for us to transfer it right and so we're kind of it seems like our board is kind of tying some s of form of public access to being part of public value and I think that if we just add in a line here that calls out the public access component that would be important because sometimes with these historic buildings some people think that the public value might be limited to just its existence in general because it is a value to the public to see it so

I just want to make sure not that I have concerns under our current board or the next board but if you know leadership changes in both organizations just want to make sure that there is something in here to Josh's point that states and Public Access you know it might be a redundancy because sole use might capture that but yeah but rather have it in there through the Historical Society right well what if they change their Charter or whatever and you you know or I mean right I mean then we're going to have to come back if it changes use at all it reverts back to the town well no you're saying the use is the charter and so they can amend the charter right they're going to amend presumably they're going to make changes to it so to me

important part of this and I remember it was rich had raised the issue yeah several times so we not getting confused with the use of public funds no no no but so my understanding is that the way the board felt during our conversations was that some members tied the use of public funds to be needing public value and we

all fell on that the building should have public access and so I see what you're saying Josh is essentially saying if something changes with the charter or something changes with I feel like I got my back to sorry if something changes with the charter or something changes with the organization they no longer feel that Public Access is an important important part of that we would not necessarily be comfortable with that whereas right now there is a limit at least like what like the third one of the third weekend days of the month there's access to it or something like that I just think that it wouldn't hurt to have a line in there that also explicitly calls out Public Access

M so even if it said like should the durm Historical Society cease to exist or discontinue use of this land and building for its sole use comma or remove of public or removal of Public Access comma then the property shall revert to the town of Durham so that way if the charter if the organization exists but says we're not going to let anyone else in the building besides chartered members anymore we're saying well that's not part of the agreement like there still needs to be a public access component am I encapsulating what you're getting at Josh I'll I'll call Jack brain on that I

because Joe might be right jack might say well that's what soul use is in there for but I'm just thinking that for for us for me to be more comfortable if it's explicitly stated Soul use and Public Access I feel a little bit

because I may have it written somewhere I know we talked about yeah whether we explicitly stated or not I know that everyone on the board at the time brought up some sort of Public Access component as being important it's public benefit yeah yeah but I think that in addition to that we we tied public benefit to having some sort of Public Access component not necessarily 24-hour access or the same level of access of like Eureka Center but there being a point where someone can say I I know that there I do have the right to access that to see it even if it's you know the third s Saturday of the month from 10 to 12 or whatever okay um I also think on the first line of that same paragraph it should say dur Historical Society not ter

there was been discussion about some of the items in the building belonging to the town and uh what are we doing about that are the historical pews the what does the board want to do about it well I think we need to know what what it is and

this is the D it here is just conveying the building and the property like the grounds but not the contents right right and so I think that there was some discussion that we were saying that the contents would belong to the town of Durham but the building would be where they're housed and an agreement with the Historical Society I don't know if that gets called out here um but I think that this I think that that might be a different question I think that this gives them the building and right contents another yeah right but do we lose access to it when we transfer it through the Historical Society they own the building now right and they can cut they we don't have access to what would then be our property inside their building yeah right I thought it was building and contents we were talking about on this so you know I think that the fear is is that the Historical Society not that they would do this but

they could sell the contents which is worth value there is value to that um so without taking an inventory of everything in there because I'm sure some of it has come from various sources but they all various sources donated it with the intent to leave it in the church so there should probably be something mentioned in here about contents okay so this is going to this building and contents so if we do this my fear is it'll Jack will be done maybe he'll stay on and do this this might take a little while to H out because I'm not even did did the contents get donated to the Historical Society to the town does anyone know I think that they have the answer to that cuz they said that they've done an inventory of the thing of it cuz I'm I imagine some of it might be things of the town and some of it might be someone's great great grandmother gave them this and so there you know it makes me think of other

museums where you go in and it might say you know this is on loan from the town of Durham this is UN loan from you know Joe Roy or whatever and so just understanding where that is but I I don't know if this quick claim deed is the space where you start talking about a a historic dress or a hat or whatever it's it's not but it's something that you know should have been raised it needs to be raised I think before we finally this and so my suggestion would be that

uh either we have a workshop and we meet over there with the Historic Society and we um talk about this issue um or it's the only thing I can come up with um because I don't think it's fair to put it on you Jerry right I don't think it's fair to put on on Joe I think it's something that the Board needs to do and we need to have an understanding of here's where we can agree who what belongs to who and here's where we can't and we have to decide if we decide that we're going to donate it to the society fine but we need to have a plan going in when this happens because that property then um is staying in the building and um if the town is going to keep ownership of it we need to do that before we transfer the building or make clear that there's a dispute and then what'll be I mean it's so it it's what do you think a lot of nothing but it's again it's Town property so we have an obligation to the

town's folk to do something about it what do we think about getting this language changed so we add Society next to durm historical and then add in I can give you this right here then add in after Soul use comma or Public Access is removed comma then the property shall rever to the kwn of durm we can add in that but before we sign it and hand it over we should probably meet with the to Derm historical society and ask them to bring their inventory sheet or whatever they have to us and we can have that discussion as part of like we're handing over the building we're acknowledging that these are the contents that the town owns that they're on loan so we least at least have a record you know if they say well we don't want to hold them anymore we would then figure out what we need to do with those but I think what you're saying Josh is it's it's important because we're giving away I mean with approval of the Town we're

giving away Town property to this organization but we want to make sure we're only giving away what we talk to the town about not necessarily those those it needs to be mentioned where you mentioned it but it also should be mentioned earlier after the Duram Historical Society purposes and Public Access

the durm Historical Society purposes and Public Access comma and that there that should the his DM Historical Society cease to exist or discontinue use of this land and building for its sole use comma or the public access is re removed then the property shall revert to town of dur so I've sketched that on this I'll hand that over to you oh sorry

the turnaround time here is to have the lawyer look at that might be his final task with us and uh do we want to add approving I hate to keep adding things to the agenda but do we want to add approving the quick deed to carry that this that old business over to next meeting as well and do we want to invite the Duram Historical Society to that meeting to review this with them and ask those sorts of questions about

conversation yeah cool so do we have any concerns that the this was done without a title search or was there no risk there um deed prepared without title search by this office yeah we gave him the title to that oh okay so it's no backgr so I'll add this to the June 11th meeting

not yeah that's so that's something I you'll send a copy of this once it's approved to to Tia once once we get the final burgage down then that's when I'll send it to the store de once it's I don't send it to them now then it changes and then you know what I mean so once we have aove you like but I think for the town recordkeeping it would be good to have the um you know the whole thing wrapped up which includes the content list and the acknowledgement that that's still on side of town not that it's part of this but just when we kind of cross the finish line on this topic that we close close you're saying close the chap the door to the chapter yeah I agree we're going to have to get that content list from the St I I'm almost certain they have it already because I think Tia has mentioned multiple times that they have that all pulled together and so if you could email them ASAP and just say at the June

11th me and we're going to review Quick Claim Deed language but could you please also send a representative so we can get with an inventory of the content so we know what belongs to the town and what belongs to which really all our concern is what belongs to the town in terms of anything outside of the building or the grounds is there going to be a fiit oring all here I'm fine with doing it here okay I would say if they have a list we should get that early yeah send a list of what's in

told us the public hours of yeah and I'm almost certainly have this information already but I think like you're saying it's it's really important to dot the eyes and cross the te's here so we understand it's like when you buy a house and you show up and there's a lawn mower in the garage like is this mine did you leave it here on purpose you yeah and I don't think this is going to be an issue I I just think we just need to document it I don't think anyone I think we we all talked about this publicly before so it's just a matter of uh crossing the te's and Dot the yeah and that's also good for them too cuz then we are all on the same page so no one from the town a future iteration of the board saying hey you need to give us back all this stuff in there and they're saying well only half of it's yours half of it we got elsewhere so should just keep everyone happy or at least try

J all right reevaluate discussion and award of property reevaluation company um what does anyone want to start what they what they thought we we had two respondents which I think was a little fewer than we expected um we had what is it klt or C KRT KRT

and then we had deargo um KRT being the larger of the two firms correct yes y did anyone have any thoughts on it Joe did you get a chance to review I I reviewed it all and uh also Lo looked at your Q&A you guys had with them um I mean KRT seems to me like the front runner I'm I was a little more concerned about durgo um you not having the um uh the I'll say the the depth of folks uh um and um and uh the time to

get this done I'm nervous about the schedule when we stop backing it up against um you know going to the town and saying we want to change the calendar year uh change you know to to a to a different schedule for for taxes and for the way the town operates though I felt better with with krp based on both their their proposal and their presentation uh and um yeah I did it was

interesting to me just the um the it input um into it um you know it's it's kind of although Trio I know everybody uses it and that's what we use and stuff but it's um too bad you can't get that data in a different format to have it be more accessible by the public um but it seems like you know that's what we use so that's what we're sticking with but um you know I think having this you know I'm kind of like the old school with the little cards is interesting to me but I'd like to move forward at some point and so doing it with little cards again makes me think I'm going backwards but seems like that's the only way to really do it without changing our whole Software System so that's kind of a different animal um but I'll just throw that out there that I was looking for something I think Deb brought it up during the conversation about data how the data gets entered and brought in it seems like very manual entry which is

liable to have mistakes in it um so didn't seem like a data dump to me otherwise both both companies were the same in that department I didn't see any difference but they had quite a bit of difference in their rate was it about 50k or something one was 190 the other was 2203 MH yeah but fortunately for us

we've already and appropriated enough for either one of those so both of them fall within our budget which is which is nice I don't think we could go wrong with either one of them but I was actually leaning towards the smaller organization interesting Josh I I agree with got a gut feel of that with you can't go wrong I you know my idea was just to throw them and pick one like I mean that's that was that was I I I didn't I like the I see the benefits of the bigger I also like the smaller so I was yeah I didn't want to make that de I'm I'm leaning more towards KRT personally for some of the same reasons that you brought up Joe um you know I I kind of got that same Vibe um I in in this case I do like generally I've always like really looking at the smaller business but in this case I do like the um

idea of a company that has a larger footprint in terms of their backend staff that they can have help out with things that's an important thing to me um and I also just think that there's a some of the process that I think that we are most comfortable with um they KRT said was already their basic standard approach of reaching out ahead of time with certain groups uh giving you an idea of who's going to be where and then some of their electronic data collection and some of their enhanced technology seems a little bit more towards what I what makes me comfortable so I'm leaning more towards the KRT um side of things

personally and so they're both within our budgeted rate um I like the the bid details from KRT a little bit more oh for sure it was more comprehensive package much more comprehensive and so that's that's where I fall my question would be you know it's $30,000 which in the grand game of things isn't much but it is a number is was a difference yeah that much of a difference that was the only question part of what I looked at with one of them is like even just postage KRT covers all the postage components of it and whereas um the other firm would expect us to cover that and I don't I'd have to check with you Jerry but I imagine that our postal budget would get blown pretty pretty quickly there I mean that's just an additional cost that we'd have to we could plan on that yeah but but it seemed like a few things were alart I'll call with the smaller organization everything wasn't upfront so I'm still

thinking the the cost bogey is going to shrink really quick um in between them I I think you end up spending about the same money when you're all said and done um and and the the depth of the other organization the other folks have full-time jobs as Town managers and what have you I'm not sure that did I didn't get the warm fuzzy watching it that they were you know they certainly weren't going to get it done as fast and I I didn't see the rigor in them getting it there was no benefit for them to get it done in the time frame we need it done even though there a contract and everything and you're going to be paying the lawyers to get them to get the contract done and and again one of them

drops off the face of the Earth for some reason then you're down to two people and it bothered me there's a lot more depth than the other company yeah that that's the thing the depth thing was a big issue for me because I just know that this is going to be a very stressful process for the members of the community people coming in and going to be here a long time knocking on doors figuring out what's going on with everyone's house and that sort of stuff so I really like the idea of that depth especially because I do get concerned if um about the timeline if there's you know something arises and somebody can't you know uh make it you know you have that that backup with the other firm I like their prop KT's proposal more it seemed more in-depth and it kind of like you said Joe I just felt like they're utilizing you know I I think about the trajectory for Town and we're trying to get more detail oriented more electronic

more focused on that sort of stuff and I felt like KRT was a bit better fit for me for that sort of stuff and even though we use Trio and KRT uses something else from from talking with our assessor it sounds like that the meaning they were saying that that was a really good product as well so it seems like there's good good stuff there um and it seems like their their quote encapsulates you know every bit of the cost without like you said that kind of Wiggle Factor so that's that's where I fall on it so KRT would be my preference but I'd move that we uh award the proper reevaluation to KRT second second any further discussion all in favor any opposition a see none

additional old business so new business Cog Town facility study we have Matt and George here tonight to talk about that a little bit everyone should have this little packet in their you know the town has been looking at the possibility of getting a grant for a study of this uh area which would include the town office property the little Le field the Eureka Center and this property that we're in tonight to do some kind of a visioning process for this uh and GP Cog has agreed to uh

provide services consultant services for the project as part of the membership services uh that the town gets from GP Cog your packet did include uh um a scope and schedule for the project as well as a visualization of the existing conditions which would be the starting Place uh in terms of the visioning process uh we look at in depth at what's here now kind of get a picture of what it looks like and what it could look like in the future is typic the typical tool visioning process um one of the components to be looked at as part of this proposal is to look at pedestrian connections between all these fac facilities I know working at the town office if there's a meeting over here uh I and most other employees probably get in their cars to come over here because there's not really safe pedestrian access uh on this busy road and so looking at uh connections between the ball field uh Eureka the town

offices this building as well as uh you would include connections to the school uh to really make this whole area interconnected uh another topics that's been discussed recently is uh the need for putting a foundation under the under the Eureka Center and if that if that does go forward then moving that building onto a foundation uh further away from the intersection would give MDOT opportunity to reconfigure that uh for safety purposes and function either as a te or is possibly a roundabout they'd probably look at what the different options are and benefits and costs of each so so that would be another uh traffic related pedestrian related U uh part of this study uh associated with that on the traffic uh is uh front is the parking uh

you know this is now the primary public meeting space and just tonight with a limited audience if there's a function of the fire department or an emergency at the same time that there's a major public meeting here there's some potential conflict issues and I understand that this is a orary uh situation in terms of this being used the town's primary meeting space but part of the goal of this project and process would be to come up with you know what are the options and what what is the direction for the future in terms of the use of of this facility for public meeting space and um similarly the parking lot across the street I've been to many meetings at Eureka in the winter you come out and it's pitch black it seems like a simple solution to fix it but it's been years uh and that really raises another issue is that most of the improvements to these properties have been done usually in a crisis response on a hit or miss uh uh

basis so part of what could come out of this process would be to have a comprehensive list of all of the maintenance needs of of these buildings and then be able to put that into some kind of a CIP process to to come up with a plan for getting this stuff done you know prioritize what what is the most important so that could be part of this process to to look at maintenance needs and improvements uh that could be done over time and then start planning for those through budgets and other other processes um and then beyond those practical uh limited needs uh it could be an opportunity really for visioning of what what this area could look like and what it should look like say 20 30 years from now uh as the town continues to grow so uh I just kind of saw There's an opportunity right across the street here between the Eureka and the town offices uh kind of Envision a small Park uh like you have a a river park and then uh you

know possibility of gazebo picnic tables uh a playground and then uh when families are at the ball field younger kids can come over and play at the playground while the older kids are engaged in baseball uh so there's just again just what are what are the options I've you know participated and organized these types of visioning processes you don't come in with a set of here's what we want to do you come in and say look what sometimes you can get some very creative ideas come out of this process that nobody ever thought about uh and then just you know see where that goes and what kind of process there is so you could come up with kind of a long range Vision this is kind of the center of the town uh these are the major town facilities and what what is the future hold for it and get get input from the public so one of the the decision points for you folks would be how to approach this project um we would Matt and I

would be kind of the primary staff people to serve this and uh but you typically would get some kind of a steering committee which could be done on an ad hog basis uh where uh in either Town officials appointed uh but also you could look at forming it from the stakeholders so for example someone from the town hall staff someone from the fire department someone from Eureka Center uh the school district uh the Little League uh neighborhood uh property owners that are going to be affected by whatever happens here in the future so you could look at some sort of an ad hoc uh steering committee for the process because that would be very important because certainly you don't want staff coming in and saying here are the recommendations it's much better if you can have a citizen driven process and and that would be very important so that's kind of my setting the stage for the discussion and then Matt is gonna go

over the details of their proposal to do the process yeah let's hop in with questions real quick I so my question well two one is can this Encompass like putting trees back in front of the town office because when them gone I didn't they don't like it um and two we put all these things over here a couple weeks ago a lot of which you're going to be involved with yeah is this going to take how much time is this going to take and are you going to be able to do accomplish or help with everything I I feel like almost everything that happens in town we're throwing and we're we're always someone is always saying how busy you are and how there's only one of you yeah um George is saying that well I think he's the only one who hasn't said it is the problem um this is why this guy's here okay okay I that was the whole thing I'm listenting is just how much is this going to put on your shoulder Jerry has

kind of asked me to take just kind of coordinate manage this it's almost like the uh the codification and remember the digitizing of the tax maps okay I put limited time into that but I put in some I think some uh important strategic uh controls and and accountability and guidance so that's kind of where I can fit that stuff in if I were doing everything that's in that that wouldn't work but he's going to be doing all the heavy heavy lifting on this I felt like somebody had to ask that question I I appreciate that yeah yeah yeah uh introduce myself Matt panfil plan director for greater Portland Council of governments or gpcog uh we are the regional planning organization in which Durham is located uh full disclosure I am a Durham resident two miles down the road so I'm even closer than the attorneys are but uh gpcog does uh they signed with being the transportation planning a Agency for the area but also does land use planning

uh Economic Development and uh sustainability uh in my role as planning director um particularly land use um you know some of the things we're looking at um where we would be of assistance is in concept plan development um maybe concept plans for streets improvements things like that um I want to make it clear it would be the town's plan um we're not coming in with an agenda or anything like that um you know it is we're providing technical assistance uh meeting facilitation assistance things like that uh you know public Outreach of needed um survey that kind of work um you know we can do that uh also um as a Durham resident uh I've approached uh my boss and and the organization about being able to contribute my time uh in a volunteer capacity uh to whatever extent possible um as um I've been here five years um haven't really been involved in the community yet uh as was director of Planning Development at Brunswick and uh

most of my evenings were spoken for um so in this capacity U and obviously there's details that would need to be worked out but um I do feel a a sense of civic duty to contribute some of my time as well um so we never want to turn down anyone's sense of civic duty if it's popping up because as Josh said there's a lot of things so if you can't do it on this I'm sure we can find something else for you if you're interested um cool so I had a couple questions about this but I I want to let you all ask questions first if you have any burning questions here I'll go so the uh this is obviously a grant proposal right will it will be for a grant to get a lot of this work done no it's actually already approved oh sorry through GP Cog and member services Okay cool so this is but one point of this is that I mentioned the potential benefits from it uh if the town is in an opportunity to apply for like dot funding for various

improvements then having this visioning plan can be part of the basis for making that application and so this is included in our services we get from gpcog and it would involve this deliverable of a plan and kind of a vision without additional cost but would that also maybe incorporate some estimates of what sort of stuff might cost to do for planning I'm just thinking for planning purposes if we get this great plan and it comes to us and we want to see bring it to the voters and say here are things we want to do now that we've got this great plan is there a cost estimate or are those determined a little later it would be rough I mean we're talking again when you say Vision it's kind of concept level um what this does um then I'll you

know mention specifically uh main do has a village partners ship initiative that's once you have a vision plan you can start applying for like grants under different um I think they have like I forget how they divide it but that's when you're kind of Grant eligible to get some funds through uh main do so the vision is kind of like the first part to get there okay once you have that you kind of bring it to them say look we're planning for our future um we're asking for you know X Y or Z Grant um so that I I think that is the um importance of this type of document I think the you know as far as cost estimates um you're not going to get like a something that's going to out to bid um but ballark understanding of you know you want this type of amenity there's this General Associated increase with that you know there are estimations for parking costs you know yeah yeah that's that's all I'm wondering is obviously it's not going to

be you know here's an exact estimate but something ballpark just for us to get w heads around what I'm hearing here which I really like is you're saying that there are certain grant opportunities that are only available after you get a vision plan like this yeah I mean there might be others out there but you know I know specifically of the village I'm thinking specifically you know state roads Village partnership is uh initiative is designed for small towns um and Rural uh planning so you know it

seems like that would be a recommend you know not to get too far I would caution I would caution against look looking at cost estimates as any part of this for a couple of reasons first um if people aren't in favor of the concept then you know spending time doing calculations is is really not very productive and secondly maybe more importantly is that people tend to grab onto numbers and so if you say you know this parking lot is or these improvements this pedestrian system is going to be in the ballpark of uh 100,000 and then it ends up five years later you go forward and actually do the project with inflation and everything and now it's 175,000 or it wasn't really fully designed to know harder cost so uh I think at this point of visioning it would probably be more important to just talk about the concepts and then just see what parts of it have any traction in terms of public support and then go

to the next step of starting to look more detailed at it so there's no to expense at all here except maybe for some of your time right yeah because like what I hear yeah what I hear is limited Town expense and then opening opportunities to potentially get additional funds after you develop this and for me what's important is there's all these Grand opportunities out there which are funded already by you know tax dollars that everyone's paying in so if there's opportunities to get more of everyone's tax money back into Durham and working for us in Durham that's really great and so if this is the step there and you know you bring up important things because I've often thought about this it's like we're all coo located with our buildings here but like you said it's like you feel like Frogger if you're trying to cross the road over here to here and then it's like there's no Trail in the woods

between the Eureka Center and and the the ball field and all that and we already see people playing in the in the parking area or the grass that we use as a parking area so I think it's a good vision for our community to maintain that like Village WHL aesthetic but have you know a good space so I'm all for it personally Joe so we um you've got the area marked off here but as my understanding this is going to include looking at um the Town garage as well

space no it would just be this triangle it would be just this triangle so it's the geographic area the triangle ends at the school or includes the school probably just the town properties now obviously interconnections with the schools and some of the surrounding neighbors would be something that would be looked at okay I just wanted to make sure it was yeah no it's just the triangle just the triangle okay and I I two want to clarify because I thought I heard like this was part of GP cars like General services this is a grant that be filled up MH it's we had a grant money last year uh through main do uh through our that's distribute through us to that which we completed some of the background mapping existing conditions did some background study um the remainder of this would fall under General member services or my

time so that 8,000 was nearly all of it yeah it wasn't and it wasn't eligible to be carried over so oh yeah I think we we kind of did a my understanding was there was a pause in the process um and we kind of left it at I did the existing conditions work um and then we to resume um but the scope of what's left is um to me comfortable be covered by General members okay it would be something that would be you know right up our alley that would fall under cool what are what are next steps

well as I mentioned the possibility of uh forming some kind of a steering committee uh get direction from you folks on that so that we can uh understand how we're going to move forward and uh Matt is in the scope has uh laid out uh meetings with uh various stakeholders and like such as the planning board the uh Eureka Center uh other groups to to begin to uh just make them aware of the project and then uh schedule later in the summer some uh some public meetings on it uh so we really need to get the thing rolling and part of what we're looking at is to uh try to conclude this thing in time for the next budget cycle so that if there are grants that are available and there are matching shares we can uh understand what that's going to look like and get that into the next

to start out with you folks kind of get your uh understanding of what we're going to be doing and and again get some assistance from you in terms of uh the leadership of this project yeah you all have any other questions or comments well I I guess I guess I'm just a I'll say I don't use the word concern but part of the scope here is to look at the nearby developed neighborhoods and potential future residential housing and a mixed use buildings so is it it's why I'm asking about the the tri the triangle wouldn't include any of that that's why I'm so is the steering committee going to be formed to go look at say how to put a Connect Patriot Way I'll say all the way through back to 136 and then grid up this area of town to uh

put that type of housing in putting in maybe another road behind the school or is this just looking only because that's what the scope says I'm just looking at the scope here and you know this is again where my involvement in the process gets some ground testing on some of this stuff so you know this is typical GP Cog and other Regional planning agency approaches to these types of projects which tend to be much larger scale but uh at the same time uh

as you're doing this you don't want to just stay within the road you want to look at what's what's what's next to it uh are there neighborhoods is there developed like the big corner piece down here uh what's the future of that property you wouldn't necessarily get into planning that but recognize there's a potential there for subdivision or uh

commercial how should these properties be and when they do the intersection uh for example where would the curb cut be for that and make sure it doesn't interfere so generally you see how it interconnects and fits but you don't say okay now we're going to do a master plan for that piece but is that what you want the committee to go do no the committee would just go along with everything that the process and then like the It's always important whenever you have a public meeting as you well know to have uh members of the of the community kind of being the spokes people and The Advocates and where they are to assist them as opposed to a town staff or Regional planner coming in and facilitating it so that's the kind of input the steering committee and then when then when you're all said and done uh they're the ones that decide okay what are we going to come in with our final report and recommendation to the

select board so my understanding there is like looking at those abing resources might be just feeding into exploratory options so hey this is our design here knowing that right next door is vacant but is zoned to allow commercial and allow uh residential so maybe there's a slightly different modification to the the roundabout knowing that there could be a commercial use or whatever so it kind of feels more just like if we're looking at this triangle we should look what's next door as well yeah and also it's like with one of these processes we did down in Falmouth with the old they had an old vacant uh Shop and Save that sat there for 15 years and one of the things that came out of the visioning was to say wouldn't it be great if we had some Cinemas uh so we wouldn't have to go to the mall uh and they ended up pursuing and somebody came in and put Cinemas in there so in terms of this context like let's just say that there

is that I think it's six or eight Acres on the corner there and if people in in the process talked about wow you know wouldn't it be great to have a small coffee shop or something then uh you might just come up with an idea for some of those that you could then go to the property owner who happens to own the get Ando and just say look we had a public process there's some Community interest uh here's some thoughts that came out of this as opposed to we're going to develop a plan for that and you never know again the public fee bets so important uh the it might be you know we want this to be preserved uh or conserved something like that um so once we have an idea um you know again it's not going to get to level of detail of densities or showing uh you know any sort of housing um you know further concept plans but yeah acknowledging the area and what it might represent in relation to this um again if that's not

amendable then you know we kind of say you know next step one of our recommendations is next step is maybe take a look at that area but I I would think it's worthwhile getting uh public input on oh yeah you know the broadly speaking again we're talking high level Vision uh the future of uh that area so from us you just need a thumbs up and a feedback on what we want a working or steering committee for this to look like that's right yeah so I'm just seeing here you've mentioned kind of key interest in the area based off of who's within the triangle and who's adjacent to it um so you know talking to folks from the budget committee planning board School District Little League fire station uh and the town office in Eureka Center I think that's important I would imagine a few Community Voices being involved there as well I don't know if that would look like us putting out a call to the town to say is anyone

interested in being part of this visioning um experience can say it and at least get two or three people there or do you think think that there's value in literally looking at the direct neighbors and knocking on the door and saying hey we're doing a visioning experience for the the town center and you're own a property adjacent to it do you want to give feedback yeah and again based on other projects that I've worked on the these types of situations the neighbors are going to be the most impacted by it and getting someone from their constituency involved in the process can save you a lot of grief in the long run yeah you may even considering I don't want to put anything more but uh especially a meeting with just neighbors um or individually you know I I think once they understand what the the purpose and intent is um you know there would be more Comfort level that were you know to to that point so what if this the way it

worked is we agreed to this list of key folks and then put out a call to get a couple people who wanted to participate but also build in a system there where the first meeting you have is kind of a informing the neighbors and if that meeting leads with folks who now want to be involved there's still the opportunity for them to get you see what I'm saying so if we build this ad hoc committee open it up say hey to three people from the community want to volunteer for this you could then host your first meeting with the neighbors and say do any of you want to be on this and making sure we're making space for those people who are most impacted now obviously if every single person person from you know a one mile radius wants to join this we we'd have to put in some qualifiers there but it's one of those things is sometimes I feel like we do these initiatives and then people who are most impacted maybe didn't pay

attention upfront to everything that was being talked about around them and then they feel like they're kind of backed in a corner at the very end so to avoid that saying we're going to talk to you all up front please let us know if you want to join do you see something like that working out well I would look for the steering committee to kind of talk about about that in terms of what what neighbors would be impacted uh the most and which ones should we be sure to include and then if you want to expand it beyond that certainly with an Outreach you can do that but as far as the steering committee and direct involvement of of neighbors I think it's going to be a more limited scope maybe the houses on either side of this building the you know the ni Nick neighborhood over those are those are who are going to be most impacted and have the most benefit from it how big do you think the steering C

would be well there's a list right there of potential represent is your steering yeah I'm thinking representatives from those various groups would be important particularly Town Offices you know there's the staff that's there the people in this building the Eureka Center uh you know again we're just talking maybe a representative from each of those groups and I have a quick that's a Bolt's question on that so if there's someone from the town office is going to be on this would that be counting towards work time or or would that be more of a a volunteer time after hours kind of thing I just want to make sure we understand that question MH because like we know if you're working on it it's part of your job but if we have someone from the town office working on it I think Jessica's volunteer I saw her hand go up

so so I just want to make you know I I just because you know all sit in these very long meetings and it turns into a I mean as it is something Jessica's like yeah this was a 14-hour day for me you know um and just don't want to be like hey it's part of your job here's several hours of unpaid labor you know I think our lawyers might not like that once they would that be true if you had someone from the fire department that's my was my next question too is if we build in and that's maybe more of a personal disc to make it clear that it's a volunteer to help make this area because it will theoretically I think uh

help you know getting I get that but do get a little nervous around what I don't know around laws when your employer offers you the opportunity to volunteer at work in addition to your normal I know like in my organization that wouldn't be allowed um they're they may be volunteering as a resident even though they work in that you know cus what if they're not I think if we wanted to get everyone's input from all these areas talking about maybe interviewing people or maybe that interviewing process should be done on company time so to speak um and I I would Envision the steering committee to be taking that input and maybe a smaller group maybe from the select board someone from the planning you know just a a smaller team and bring all that input that you heard from all the those areas to the steering that's that's a really good point so what you envisioning is like if we have this larger steering committee but

they're going to talk to someone from the town office during work hours to get their input and then bring it to if there's an evening meeting or something like that yeah if if you're more comfortable with that this is one practical reason um you could we could just keep this list as stakeholder groups to be contacted as oppos sorry was that we could if you're if you're bringing up some very good points about concerns uh for the Constitution uh of

the uh of the steering committee and this list that was provided was idea that Jerry and I kind of threw together just to say okay who would you want on it but you could go in a different direction as far as that is concerned and just do your call out to the community who's interested in serving on this searing committee and then keep this list as just Stak holders groups to be contacted and involved in the process I kind of I I I like that idea a little bit more just because I get really nervous around like sure you're allowed to volunteer for work I'm like a little

and if there were any like that you could drop them off the list yeah I just don't want anyone feeling pressured to give up their valuable free time to contribute towards their workplace um because that's really tough for a work life balance and just to clarify I will be charging my time yeah George would you like to volunteer for 10 hours a week I'm not I'm not well I think that it would be great to pull together a uh steering committee um um and then make sure that they're engaging with these primary stakeholders here one thing that I am seeing on here that we have talked about before but we haven't ever done is like it says here a select board liaison and so I know that we've talked about especially in our new rules that we adopted we have a set list of of like boards and committees that select board members cannot be members of in addition to being on the select board but we did talk about this whole

liaison concept where one person does represent not necessarily represent the views of the selectboard but brings the aura of the select board to the meeting to say this is this kind of stuff that you know we want to keep an eye on is that something we want to incorporate here or just have us as a select board remain primary stakeholders in the

of this oh then we're done that works for me if you're volunteering to to do that that's yeah I mean so what I'm I'm just thinking is that I just think not necessarily have someone be there but like I I think about like on the Conservation Commission there's a mean that Joe and I were there and someone just had a process question and some with someone from the select board being there they can say oh the board would need to know X Y and Z and we're not giving an opinion but the board would need to know X Y and Z if you if you wanted to do that so I think that it does give a good good contact and and helps keep us informed so if you if you're willing to take on that role I'd say that we could have you be the select board as a community member oh a select board we can volunteer as much as we want you're on the select board that's just a bonus maybe yeah I like the idea and think there's a lot of good stuff

here cool well I don't want to here I'm comfortable with this list and with make putting out a call for volunteers for some steering committee members is that something we can get out on the town website and through the yeah and through the normal means and then I really just want us to make sure we're engaging with the direct neighbors even if there's just a subset of like I'm not maybe as far as knocking on doors just cuz this feels very much you're talking about doing what in my backyard and I want to make sure that those folks are engaged really early on so no one ever feels like it's dropped on them in the end so that's just my big take away from some of our other planning processes as well so and glad to hear we have a planner in town who lives two miles away from the town office and wants to yeah I don't know if I'm going to regret saying that or but no I yeah me can you please list

your personal cell phone number into the microphone I'm kidding UN list it well perfect do you feel like you have what you need from us George and Jerry thank you okay this exciting right we have to authorize and sign the codification contract next yeah or just give me authorization to sign it and I'll sign it tomorrow that works for me all I mean I make a motion to allow Jerry to sign the codification contract second all any discussion all in favor

any opposition none we get a mower situ sitation it sounds like so works is looking to get another m mower now but it's pretty beat up that he's using mostly for the uh cemeteries um it's a smaller one that he can use for them he just is looking to get a u another one the one that he's

currently using is on the replacement I guess it's it's pretty beat up there's some duct tape hold on some pots um so he just wants authorization to able to purchase that more to do the other properties is this about the price that it came in at yeah meaning the one that on the on the replacement schedule without I think it's lower lower than what the replacement schedule had in there for okay and this would replace the existing mower not replacing it it's going to be in addition to okay um the one that he has now is a little B smaller and it's falling apart that he's going to dedicate to the cemetery cemeteries can be pretty rough on Mo yeah so he's going to probably put it out of its misery using it at the cemetery okay so it's still going to get some use out of it still to get some use out yeah um but he would like to get a new one to be able to do a nicer job on and did just to clarify here so

obviously his we're seeing here the preferred bid is the lowest bid yes did Calvin feel pressure just go with the absolute lowest bid or is this what he feels is the best fit for the job he feels is the best best moment for them okay yeah cool is thisa part of his budget or yeah it's all part of his yeah we uh put we sucked money away for it in his capital reserve this year actually yeah I remember when we looked at when we did the flat funding of capital reserve I know it was right before you joined the board I remember seeing that the mower was listed as something that was going to need to be replaced in the short term so um if it's under budget that's always good yeah and his his pickup truck too was up too but we've talked about that we're going to wait another year it has a sticker until March so if no never get rid of a truck with a sticker right exactly you might as well run that truck

through the salt this one buy one but eventually we will have to look at that I mean it is St out I think a better I think it's a better use of but this this bring shows the strength of this planning process right here because in the past we would have to say buying a new truck and now you're saying hey let's really push it a little bit further so and you know if the rear end comes out you know falls out of that truck then we can come back to the board and say look now we've got bigger issues but that's not the case right now that truck is that truck will work I mean and what we're doing now he has a new mechanic um so what they're doing now is they're uh they've had a spreadsheet with all their equipment so anytime they work on it they're tracking how much money they're putting into it because that's always a good sign to know when you need to to maybe unload something if you're putting more money into it then

it's worth yeah then maybe it's time to to do that so makes me think of old beater vehicles in high school if you're spending all weekend every weekend fixing it might be time for if you get to work on it for two days to get five days out of it might be time to replace it but I'm happy to hear they're tracking that sort of stuff it's time to track that now time to look at these things a little bit more cool cler so do we have a motion to approve the yours acts make a motion to

uh approve the replacement of the mower or additional mower here that's in the um current uh CIP plan second any discussion any uh all in favor any opposition seeing none perfect cool all righty the next thing is the RSU board vacancy as you can see

uh we have an email that Jessica has printed off from us from Michelle Richardson from the school board um sounding like the recently elected uh School Board representative from Durham has had a change in um ability to fill the role and it will no longer be able to fill the role so Jerry could you provide us with a little guidance as to what the process looks like so for folks that process is going to be very similar to fill that seat it's going to be very similar to how you fill other board committee seats so we'll have to make an announcement that there's a school board member seat available and we will have them pick up on application at the clerk's office they can fill that out and and then we'll give those uh applications to you

and then you decide when you Appo and so have to decide on how long you want how long you want to get people to decide if they want to run or not F them application and what mean you want to appoint do you want to interview them you know what how how do you want to to do that but that's the process it's very similar to appointing for a Committee Member and so we don't have a set process for the amount of days that this needs to be open do we have a precedence that we've used in the past no but Michelle said that um they're not meeting in a yeah until August they have a retreat in August they'd like the new person to attend and then they'll start their so you do have some time do you know when that Retreat is I'd have to check a if we want to work backwards maybe we want to say we should have but pick a note later than date so they would would they would be doing something in August we would want to have something

appointed I'm just looking at our schedule um and we have a lot of stuff coming up and I think this is an important process that we need to go through so I'm thinking like if we say no later than July the July 23rd meeting

we need to have someone approved and we can work back back from there now is this Retreat like a thing do Jessica do you know like a meeting they discuss I believe probably their goals and priority okay cool yeah um so July 23rd

seems like the no later than date for me and I like the idea of posting this for at least two weeks if not three or four and then building the opportunity for us to talk to any of the people who have filled out an application now with that that discussion happen in an open session or would that be okay and so what do you all

26th of June at the latest or 25th is our or yeah whatever 25th 25th sorry S no no worries I and because then you'd want to make a decision on say either yeah because if we did that Joe you're right if we did the 25th and we make our decision on July 9th yeah that

that that if the 23rd is our end date last possible we can make our decision for July 9th and so interview on the 25th so I won't be at that meeting that's okay yeah so my thought process might be a slightly different that's fine let's and that was we set an end dat we announced candidates and then we as a select board sort of host like a candidates night in that way because I know com there was a comment about public input um and so that might be a way to sort of address it's not going to I don't think it's going to address the issue that was raised tonight but it will at least allow there be public input and comment for people who are interested like can meet the candidates kind of thing right Jessica did you have something yeah I just want let you guys know so this whoever you appoint will serve until the next municipal election M and then at that election we'll be electing two School Board M people and the rest of

that term for this position would be two years so this who we so what you're saying is who we're appointing only serves into the municipal election in April in April correct and then they may or may not decide to run but we will have two positions open and this is a portion of one of the those positions three year 10 year correct or whatever is right so there'll be one for three and one for two to fulfill the rest of this so it remains staggered y Okay cool so I like the idea of getting

applications um you said June 25th you're you're on vacation so so my thought process and so I don't think there's a good time during the summer um but I also think it's important to keep uh this open M for a period of time

because uh people are going to either decide they want to do it or don't want to do it and I think it's important enough that we should give people an opportunity to make that decision um and so so what if we kept it open from today the 28th

in an application can show up on the June 25th meeting to speak with us because there's we it sounds like what you're saying Josh is and I agree anyone who fills out an application there'll be no prior vetting process by select board they can all be here for the 25th meeting unfortunately that's fine de won't be able to make it um but then we can get get some feedback at that 25th meeting since it's public you will be able to review it if you wanted and then on the July 9th meeting the board will make a decision does that sound good to folks it won't give us much time for a public well if if on the 25th is the time oh I see what you're saying is if they come and

the 25th we could do a public thing afterwards like I mean I mean yeah right I don't know which way I know so my my point was while I have I I have questions I'd be right prepared to ask and all that uh you know I think the public comment and sort of having a public lead you know having it almost like a workshop maybe but open to public so that maybe we start with some questions uh and then we open it up to further questions uh just because I mean I'm sure that it was just a thought I don't know yeah I get what you're getting at I want to make sure that this is open for people to apply for at least two weeks and it is the summertime someone who wants to applies on vacation this week often timbuk two and they come home next week and realize what's going on that it's it feels like it's pushing them um well may maybe like you said leave it open to the 25th on the 25th the candidates come in introduce themselves why they've applied

and then have a public meet the candidate sometimes the week of July 8th through 12th well what what what if this what if we did that and we have a we have a July 9th meeting what if that July 9th meeting which we don't have anything on here for so we have the candidates come in introduce themselves on the 25th July 9th the public can then come in and share their opinions or share some feedback and then after we receive that feedback on the 9th we have a discussion and we make the appointment on July 9th does that work because then everyone it gives everyone a chance to come in make their case say why they're on the board we can ask them some questions on the 25th as well then on July 9th we can get some public feedback and then I'm comfortable with us just because of the timeline hearing that feedback on the 9th and making a decision on the 9th unless there's something very pressing that pops up that we say we need to push

this to the um meeting on the uh 23rd July 23rd but that gives us that option so July 25 would be application deadline and Y and then we would and that leaves it about a month for people to fill out applications and then on July 9th we'll have folks um from the public can come in and give us some feedback or they can email us feedback from whatever they saw on the 25th to the 9th or whatever so July 9th is kind of that public feedback and then we will discuss and make an appointment on July 9th so I think you're saying at the select board meeting on the night public comment section for will will include feedback

to yeah and so we'll just and so at the beginning of that meeting everyone has their three minute public comment but that's where people could say you know I I watched this meeting or I attended the June 25th um June 25th meeting and saw these candidates and I support candidate so and so or if there's any sort of whatever and then we can take that as some feedback you know jar what do you what do you think are you going to allow the public to be able to ask the candidates question no no I wasn't going to no I wasn't thinking that but it gives the candidates no time

to have a meet the candidate session like well I think that that's where kind of like a regular election it would fall on on them to talk to whomever they might want for constituents or something like that because it seems like what we're trying to bridge the gap here of is our policy put in place is that we would just appoint somebody and then the normal election process is just a full election so what we're trying to say is you can apply you can come speak to the community as a whole in a public format and then the select board will make a decision taking into consideration that public feed feedback so I think that that's what Josh is proposing is kind of that middle ground

to understand no I propose a where he meet the candidate the public can ask because okay that was my that's frankly I think that's important I think that was what the comment was we're making the decision and if we're asking the questions so the public might have other questions and if if one of the concerns is getting the public involved then I think they need to be involved whether that be something that we initiate on our own there's only two people three people here so I'll just look somebody else wants to organize because I know you know you have nothing else going on right um and I've been thinking on like

historic district district commission I've been going it's it's still ever since then uh and so to me to me I think that's a better a better I don't know I so you want to meet the candidates and you want potentially the select board present to to hear out if if if we're going to say hey the select board is hosting we're we're take we're going to open up the Eureka Center to have whoever is interested in running come and answer questions I don't need them to come talk to me individually because that's an opportunity I think that we should be attending since we're making the decision but I think it's important to have some other voices and concerns because so what if June 20 what if June or we could just do it without no no I understand I understand what you're saying I think it's important can hold an election at this point um what if the June 25th meeting is a

facilitated meet and greet the candidates where people can ask questions and we're just there to it that way have a meet the candidates if you wanted to go and ask questions that's fine and then when you have a regular meeting folks that met the candidates if they have comments that they want to come in and share with you they can they can do that and then you can you know take those into consideration that that yeah I like like that a little bit more and then go from

there who's hosting me c that's what we yeah so in the past has the town ever host I thought the town has never hosted candid it's not been done meet the candidates page where they can submit biographies sorry that was my confusion I thought the town hosted it fine let's remove that component then entirely and we'll just let's say the 25th is when applications are due um if someone wants to host to meet the candidates and they come give us some feedback anyone can give us feedback on the July 9th meeting but on we want applications due by July 20 June 25th and then on July 9th the select board will make a decision and we we are always open to feedback from folks so um Community comments yeah yeah

but like I think if we've lay out this timeline we're saying hey we're going to have it open for four weeks keep like and then we'll post on the 25th here are the people who who applied um if someone else wants to do a meet the candidates that's fine but we will then accept comments on July 9th at the beginning of our meeting on on your feedback on who should be picked I mean there's nothing stopping someone who applied to show up on the n9th and say I think I'm the person for the job that's fine too and then July 9th the select board will make the appointment does that work for folks so June 25th application

deadline July 9th will be a decision and we just want to make it explicitly clear explicitly clear to everyone listening we want to hear feedback if you have some after you've had the opportunity to see the applicant list and if there is an opportunity for you to meet the candidates for you to share your feelings with us um by either via email or in public comment on the July 9th meaning so good time for people who haven't felt hurt to be h

um just circulate that in the normal venes we're doing I've got it all right so we'll circulate right now that the applications will be accepted until close of business on uh June 25th and the board will be making a decision on July 9th but we encourage folks to give us feedback at the July 9th meeting during public comment on anything that they know about candidates when you say applications do you mean the appointment by Municipal officers application that one is that the one you want to fill out which is on our website under the town court

I'm coming early do do we want to put that bi put that bi a upot too right at the same time we can do that but we should announce that please submit a biography application if you would like to be included on the me c here man manager report thank you yeah

couple things um the uh June 11th s meeting is voting day um so that's going to be easy day for us are you doing at the a j or election yeah June 11th election yeah which will be the ru5 budget validation the state primary and the region 10 Bond question

s staff be busy working but you know they're yeah um what's so does that are you saying that that's a bad meeting then well no but Jessica can't be here because she's going to run the election have somebody else taking minutes de will it's just going to be a busy day I just just it's just more of have an awareness that your June 11th select board meeting is the same mhm just that's all just okay and so far what we have on that agenda is going to be goals for the board and town manager that was kind of our goal discussion which feels a little bit more worksh shoppy anyways um and then the lawyer selection and then the finalizing Quick Claim Deed okay um and so those are the three things we have on there do we think that that is too much one of those yeah so I'll

hand these out now um Jerry and I met just because I know that we've put a lot of things out on the board here and we've talked a lot about hey next meeting we should this next meeting we should that so Jerry and I met just to kind of roughly frame out the what might be on upcoming agendas and we could probably put this on the website as well but um this is kind of what we have listed here because we've got some extra meetings and stuff like that so this is roughly what we're thinking we will talk about at those meetings and if I just say to any board member if there's things on here that you think need to be moved around or cans that could be kicked or things that you want added let me know and we we can work them in but anyways continue Jerry okay so the other one I have is that we lost our cleaner she she got done she has another job so I'm looking right now that sounded ominous when you said we've

lost our cleaning all right yeah um yeah they they took another job another opportunity so right now I'm uh taking applications until like May 30th and hopefully we can replace her what what do we pay for hour can you say that well the last person who just pay minimum wage M that would be tough to

yeah so we you know I'll do the best I can but I don't know if I can stay within that yeah that's so we'll see what we get do how does that work for your budget like what's do you have cleaning services budgeted or was I do but it was at the current rate that it was which we're going to we're going to look look at that a little bit differently next time we do a budget so when we run into these situations you know because it's not a zero some budget I kind of budget it that way for the cleaner M I'm kind of stuck so I mean so my question there without getting too detailed into your work is what's the Frequency the cleaner comes they they put about 7 to 10 hours in um and they clean the town office Public Works in E yeah I guess so they do one thorough cleaning and then then in the middle of the week they'll come in and kind of just pick stuff up a little bit like especially in the winter time when

they track in it's Sal reason I ask is you know at at minimum wages can can be hard to maintain Workforce period so maybe there's some flexibility to you know concentrate all those funds into that one good cleaning per week with some of those interm stuff getting I skipped or even if it's taken out your own trash or just as a stop gap for this year until we can budget something just just a thought you you you run your office how you need but figure it out depend all the cleaners that I've looked at aren't aren't charging minimum wage for their cleaning services especially not if you had to clean up after me um just yourself next

yeah yeah no but this is thank you for bringing it to our attention now um the only other thing that I just want to make you aware of I'm not going to mention any names I'm not going to mention any addresses but there about some residents using fake tags on trash so I've called the shff office fake TX yeah they they made their own so called let me know they have the

see your reaction going to continue to do that the town will press jges Services that's really what it is yeah so we and like the Cella knows who you are when you put fake tags on and put it in front of your house so that's really pretty much um all I got for as far as the excitement all righty that's not a rampid problem it's just one or two people it's the first I've heard of it so one resident maybe there might be more what so like I said I'm not going to I don't want to get anyone mention any names or addresses or anything like that but we're on it I I shouldn't I don't even use all my T if you're GNA do that I just let everybody know the res you're going to get caught we produce like trash once every three weeks you you know you you will get caught eventually so MH we should have asked the lawyers tonight if they have any Trash violation experience I mean I got so bad that the yellow on the stickers was just

bringing it to knowledge let people know that you're not fooling anybody that's a new excit glad you're on it Jerry any board member reports not a report a question because I'm not sure what the appropriate time is you're good uh uh I forgot at the beginning um we have the the catering permits under the consent agenda yeah I thought you were so I do the Bob ones but the catering ones are a little bit different you can authorize me to sign it that's fine but that was the more of a Bob at the anets MH okay so the catering ones are a little bit more because more traffic goes to them um and they did them last year and you approved them wrest and bu I just I think you I I think the board ought to be aware of that because yeah but there's a whole conversation around that last year if I remember correctly I I thought that was the the conversation with them was what I I could be wrong I thought you yeah I think you're right

too I thought we gave him C block on that's fine I can if you think we should know about that's fine yeah I mean I think you should because it's a you know they're estimating 90 people it's not that big a deal but if you see people par down on the road which they're saying they're not in this you'll know why people give be a c what's going on any other board member reports like I said I was just going to say that this is our Rough Guide outline and you know I've heard in the past people like I don't even know what we're talking about next meeting or meeting after this can change this isn't set in stone but I just wanted to give everyone an idea and this way too I understand that it's like it's summertime people are busy but now if you have a rough idea of what the next month of meetings are like and you're planning your vacation when you're getting out maybe you're like oh that's something that I

really want to attend can we shift it or can we uh maybe i' do something different with scheduling or whatever so I just want this to be out there and transparent for folks um we do have the extra meeting on the 18th which is the workshop for law enforcement discussion and that is at 6: PM um but other than that everything that you have here should be roughly what we're looking at the only thing I would rather say for board members too is just like looks like we're having applications open for different things I just encourage folks to as individuals let everyone you know know you know now's Now's the Time to get involved if if you're looking to so do you want to mention while Lois is here on the 25th I be talking about the story yeah so we're I don't know if Lois you were watching the meeting or anything but we I wasn't if I can just say I got a message to come down yeah yep so um you know we had

just reviewed the quick claim deed and we had a couple edits and then we were hoping to have um the uh Durham history Historical Society come on the June 11th meeting I know that you have all in the past mentioned that you may have an inventory of what's there and what's owned by the town what's owned by you all and we just wanted to make sure we had all that squared away so there's a full understanding of what's yours what's the towns what the storage is and stuff like that so we're all on the same page for future boards and iterations to know so that inventory y I just read an email that inventory will be available to you within next couple days oh perfect yep and so we just wanted to make sure we're dotting all the eyes and Crossing all the te's and everyone leaves the interaction knowing this is what's in the building this is what's ours this is what's on loan we're kind of saying like with other museums

sometimes you'll see like on loan from the town of Durham on loan from so and so you know that way everyone's buns are covered so but I'm also talking about the June 25th where m is on the historic district commission oh we're going to be discussing article 12 5.14 yeah sorry I was 514 I'm sorry the June

2 we'll just give Lois a copy of this okay Lois and I went to the wrong Derm [Music] historical Lois Durham historical that's what goes on in my brain and then I'm looking for that final qualifier there but all right um other than that do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move so move any uh do

I have a second all in favor no opposition all right and uh I already kind of covered the upcoming meetings but just to keep an eye on your schedules because we got a little bit different meeting frequency going on um but you have that document now and like I said Jerry and I are going to try to get together every month to frame out what the next two three meetings might look like so I'm hoping to give this update regularly so all right there any typ of prep work do for the on the law enforcement I thinking up anything I don't have to read I think this is just our first listening session or you can go watch some episodes of cops or something law order they're going to come in with I told Chief McGee I want you to come in introduce the topic again with a little more detail uh and then we'll turn it over to the sheriff and the chief deputy and they can explain the different options that they can provide yeah is there I

know that we obviously advertise that we have our meetings if there's a way that we can make sure folks really know that that that on this special Workshop there is this listening session because this is something I feel like folks are going to want to hear so it's not open to the public to comment on but just to listen there's a way we can just make sure folks know if you want to hear the initial discussion on June 18th we're hearing it out I mean it's all open to the public anyways but I just feel like making that very clear would be

adjourn motion to adjourn all in favor any opposition seeing none no discussion no discussion adjourning good point tonight did you guys started earlier and I it was we had