TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ February 25, 2025

my candy cane pen I live and In Living to the D select board meeting here on February 25th 2025 at 6:30 p.m. uh meeting called the order here at 6:30 and we do have a quorum and we will begin with the um Pledge of Allegiance

Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible liberty and justice for all all right do we have any amendments to the every public comment yep come on up we get a microphone over here some of this so I'm oh sorry just name in on the street yes it's uh Paula Erman py on Hollowell Road um let you know I

moved to Durham in 1969 moved away returned came back moved in my parents the F the Family Farm is what I have um I've been on I'm I'm speaking about the historic district commission I know they're part of the meeting later but I last time I came to one of these I wasn't allowed to speak so I'm going to speak now um I was on the Comm I've been on the commission for the past 10 years I decided to speak tonight to put on the public record that I am expressing my concerns and I believe the me other members of our of our uh commission that we've been excluded from the discussion in the drafting of the Durham amendment to Historic property Provisions as well as the elimination of the Durham historic district commission um one of the comments from the last select board meeting that I would like to challenge is that the 2018 comp plan is eliminating the commit the the historic district I believe that's not correct I

have um the comp plan and in the comp plan it actually has respons for the historic district commission not eliminating it so um that's that's one of my comments and I wanted to give a little history because I watched the last select board meeting I think there was some discussion about the commission and how it worked so I have some history for you um the commission did give out letters to every homeowner in the district um probably every couple of years since I've been on it for 10 years everyone in the in the district got letter saying they're in the district and what that meant um we have done numerous certificate of appropriate appropriate appropriate I can't yeah that's it um for the structures in the district not just the houses that are part of the the three houses or two houses that are part that you're talking about but all of the houses there are houses in there that are from 1850s

they're not on the national register but they are old homes and that's part of why why I came back to Durham I like the rural historic character of Durham and I don't want to lose that um we had a pass pass codes officer was an advisory member of the commission which was extremely helpful he guided us he helped us he told us taught us a lot um and that was extremely helpful and it opened communication a lot um I spent three

years rewriting the um because the part of the the 2018 um comp plan was to rewrite WR it I was one of the members that spent 3 years working on article 5.14 and article 12 and we used the uh the interior the department of interior guidelines as part of that you got those those ones that we rewrote um I don't

believe any homeowner in the district ever complained about anything we ever did I never heard that somebody came to the town and you know we're all upset that never seemed to be a problem so I'm not sure why we need to get rid of the district and the last thing is um the

things the district ran fine and then things started to fall apart when some of the Town employees didn't seem to understand the ordinances how the district Commissioners fit with the ordinances how the commission's role was and I understand since I've been here there's been numerous code different codes officers in the last 10 years I think maybe four or five not all of them um had the depth of knowledge of

or the enthusiasm for the historical structures that are part of Durham's history um so I just wanted that to be part of the town to know that the not all the members I don't I don't think any of the members of the commission are in favor of changing the ordinance the way that the attorney has decided to do it anyway thank you thank you for your comment do we have any other public comment for tonight okay seeing none we will move into Old business and we'll start off by reviewing our revised draft of the best standards for battery energy storage system standards 5.8 I know we had some questions that came up um for our town attorney after we uh met there and then wanted to make sure folks had the opportunity to ask those so we get clearance before we uh vote on the uh ordinance as written in front of

there was a recommendation that came in from the uh Conservation Commission to increase the threshold for the large large uh scale solar projects um they felt like a 20 acre threshold would be more appropriate than a 10 acre threshold on those large scale projects and I think we had a you said you were going to do math on the George you sent me that calculation right the square footage was that an email you

draft for which is part of the contract zoning amendments and uh after a meeting today with the town attorney uh I think you all have before you tonight a combined version of the contract zoning and the best standards so in that table uh there uh for solar energy systems currently the proposed threshold for requiring a contract zoning vote would be 175,000 ft of panels and that translate when you put into the distance between the arrays and everything else around it it's about a 10 acre threshold size uh the Conservation Commission has recommended going to a 20 acre threshold and if you do that then the math works out to be 400,000 square ft of panel surface area yep and uh the recommendation what we received from the Conservation Commission was just that they felt that uh other large scale developments aren't held to the standards of um contract

zoning and that they didn't feel like uh solar project should be held to that extra standard either or that this at least the threshold should be increased I know that last year when we went through the um solar ordinance process some of the feedback from uh people was that our ordinance was uh very strict on small projects but Nots and so I think this gives us the opportunity to make it more strict on large projects but maybe move that threshold I know that a 10 acre project with the feedback I heard from some members of the planning board the planning board was a little iffy on there and if John if you wanted to add anything about the planning board feedback you let me speak at your meetings from time to time so return it back to favor um some of the members were like 20 seems like a lot doesn't seem like a lot one of the members is a um has experience in the permitting of this Arena and said that 20 10 acres is

really kind of like a minimum size to have a project but at the same time we were learning of examples of towns that didn't have ordinances for large projects and I think green is looking at like a 600 acre project right now and no mechanism to um C go through any sort of

Permitting other than their kind of basic permitting there and so for those reasons I would like us to have a discussion about going to a 400,000 square foot um threshold to be considered large scale uh didn't know what other people's thoughts were on

that great well I just always feel like I talk first so I was trying to restrain myself and let other people go before me do either you have any thought on the 400,000 the reason I'm comfortable with it too is that we have really aggressive buffering standards in our current ordinance so like when you read it it says that it's a 50ft vegetative buffer that's not 50 ft of space that is 50 ft

deep of planted vegetation of variety of heights so it the the point of this or our ordinance is that we shouldn't be able to see projects from residential areas or see projects from the road and it's on um it's a requirement of the applicant to prove that that's correct right George with the visual architectural ass there is a requirement that they have a visual impact assessment done so if there is a view along a public road or a neighborhood adjacent to it then they can require buffering but I think it's important to understand that even with a 50ft vegetative buffer it's not going to make the project disappear but what it will do is it'll soften in the impact of the visual impact and also you need to recognize that it takes time for a buffer to mature so it might be six to eight years before it really gets robust enough to have that have that effect so it is a means of mitigation but it's not

a total anybody know on the way to Auburn the solar project that they have there what size I'm a very visual person and I can give you an example if you're looking for size um a football field without the end zones is one acre so if that gives you perspective of what a project looks like 20 acres would be roughly 20

football Endzone less football fields so let's say 16 football fields together and is there a reason like we don't consider a compromise between 10 and 20 and meet in the middle at 15 I think we we can totally have that conversation right now I didn't know if it was like in the solar panel world if it's they look at 10 or they look at 20 but they don't look at anything in between what we heard from the public input was that 20 acres is the minimum threshold to make a commercial uh scale project viable economically that's what we heard less than 20 acres is more of like a community solar project for subdivisions

or developments or something like that and sorry does the 10 acre just move into the medium scale or come out of this contract zoning all together it would the the what I'm discussing is that we would change the threshold for contract zoning so anything under that would fall under medium or or small would not require contract Zone which would not require contract Zone I see right I mean 10 acres seems big to me I mhm

so does that buffer exist only for the large or is that also required for medium uh no it exists for the um medium yes and then in large it would be the same situation as best where then they would be looking for a permit for a specific location and there could be additional ask so that's why at that 20 acres you could say well we really don't want to see it here's the additional ask and they may say that's too much of an Ask we're not interested I'll get to you in a second jonath so so essentially if I actually put it in real acreage that parcel of land on soapa road the wide open field 24.8 five acres or

thereabouts you could put something in there 10 acres of that wide open with a 50ft buffer and plant a bunch of pine trees along soap a road and call it good I think the plantings would be need to be more excessive than pine trees because it talks about three Heights of vegetation in the in and then you'd have to as long as you're meeting the standards of the visual architectural survey cuz I mean that's a large amount of land we're talking about a huge amount of land so I mean I might even might even step back and say I wouldn't even allow a large commercial building building in that large into DM I would say no way keep it at 10 let them come in and make a proposal at the 10 Mark even if it's for a development they're still going to have to go through the development uh requirements um you know I mean it is the future I get it but that's a huge sight if you think about that so I'm trying to get a visual of where you are

are you talking about so road on the right hand side before you get to 125 that that that's 28 Acres that's well it's it's actually about almost 40 acres in total so you're talking about half of that I'm looking it up right now John John you had something well just to clarify that 10 acres is 10 acres of panel Dimensions so it's actually 20 acres what George said that's 20 acres and a 20 acres of panel is 40 acres basically two for 20 acres would be the recommendation would to increase the 175,000 ft to 400,000 would increase it to 9 Acres of panels and then they're accounting for about double that is open space in the fenced in area and stuff like that so the a 20 acre project would be 10 roughly 10 acres of panels plus the buff ring plus those sorts of things so 400 square fet of panel 4,000 squet 400 400,000 square ft of panels is 10

acres of actual panels n Acres n Acres of actual panels and then the other 11 acres is space around them space in between the paneling space around it fence Access Road things like that but we're saying that size would require contract contract Z so 400 in 1,000 sare ft would require contract zoning and anything less than that would not 99,000 would not rewn meeting vote it would still have to go through the planning board to meet all the solar energy system standards and the town would the town would vote on large scale because that would be contract zoning it's what we're trying to figure out is where the threshold is to go to the large scale project and I see your point Joe because you're saying well if we were talking about any development that big I'd be reticent but um the the just the feedback I'm vocalizing that we got from Conservation Commission was um if this was put in place if contract zoning was

put in place at the 175,000 ft panel Mark it's it's extremely likely that no developer who deals with that would be interested in developing Durham because of the difficulties of in the process of going through the um uh contract zoning the risk that is associated with it and they lack the leverage on projects like that to really offer Stellar incentives at that small size because the profit margin is so much smaller on these projects than it is on other large industrial projects who can say well we can give a lot here and so the concern from the Conservation Commission is that by putting uh 175,000 foot being the large scale you're essentially putting a no solar and durm sign which is totally something an opinion someone can have but that's just what they're vocalizing as a concern it just means they have to go through the extra Hoops it doesn't mean that there's no solar right but he's saying if they have to go through

the extra process it might deter them from doing it which then maybe would have our town not reaping the benefit if having I'm not seeing the difference in cost you got to do a site survey no matter what you do you have to have staff coming for a year to go through the contract zoning process and then you have to be able to have leverage to offer something of value and if your return on investment on a project is a 15 or 20 year return on investment your margin of profit is smaller and there's less to offer as an incentive whereas for other larger developments that might have a larger profit margin they can say sure we'll pay for the new fire truck and an extra buffering or whatever whereas these projects don't have that flexibility because of how tight the profit margins are and that's just the feedback we've got some from some folks who have done the permitting of that so the other argument that that came up in

the public comment also was that unlike a gravel pit or a very large commercial or residential development typically after 30 40 years these things could go away and the field could be restored for example to agriculture or some other use so yeah that was an argument de commissioning and the argument that the Conservation Commission made as well is your surface impact is much lower because you're putting in your pylons and then you're putting in your panels and so it's not like you're taking it and going scorched Earth on that 20 acres there's still Wildlife that use it there's mixed use solar panels where they grze sheep in between them in between the panels they PL can plant them with um the standards in our our ordinance has native pollinator benefits

and um requirements to manage invasive species so it's it's a less of an impact than other projects and so that's part of the reason why they think that um it it it should be considered a little bit differently than like a concrete facility

taxpayer if on on these types of projects like if we wanted to change the threshold because we want to encourage people who want to put these yeah well my understanding is property valuation of the project would then be added to um the town valuation and so the benefit would be if a Project's worth several you know couple million dollars that's adding it to the valuation so then when we're figuring out the mill rate that's now an extra couple million dollars could bring down the could bring down the mill rate so that's one of the thought processes and oh go ahead George you

had well I think George had said you had repeated the commercial size of these projects is the 400,000 panel square square foot panel generally that's the entry point for commercial and so does it become worthwhile for them to go through contract if it's not worthwhile for them to go through contract zoning at 10 thou at 10 acres MH if we're still at the you know the break even point at 20 acres is that the right number to choose then or are we still limiting I I mean I I I I am by no means an expert in this and so uh I find the conservation committee

uh recommendations persuasive U but I also I look at it and say does that putting it at the Bare Bones to make it profitable is that really going to attract consumers um cuz otherwise we're in the same boat as if it was at 10 acres yeah and I think their argument is is that contract zoning should only be kicked in right now for people who are operating at um a commercially viable size and they're saying that that commercially viable size is 400,000 ft of panel whereas before that that's incentivizing new developments or whatever to maybe have a community solar approach or not be punished if they need to do on Farm solar production and things like that um you know if we have

farmers who may want to ad panels to help offset their energy costs if they are running an operation that has a lot of electricity now they're getting into I need a contract zoning in order to offset my farm energy because it's just big enough this problem would be avoided if we moved it to the 400,000 square ft which is really where those commercial developers start having some of that wiggle room for return on investment and stuff like that so that's that's their recommendation um you know I used to work in pering I don't think we ever worked on a permanent project that was under under this size a 10 acre size as well so so are you looking for a vote on I'm just I want to have a discussion before and then I'll make a motion to increase the uh surface area to 400,000 square ft

for a large scale solar second second kind of did it backwards we had a lot of the discussion do we have any other discussion here motion to increase 175,000 F feet to 400,000 square opposition with a reluctant side okay I feel like I always have to justify my vote just means that I can put solar in my conservation land out back but a homeowner association six acres of land no cuz RP doesn't allow solar

the ordinance here hold on give me one we have our attorney here so we should at least ask her something my brain to process well I had a question the last time about I think your question was about contract zoning and best yes and this and now this is all one all one okay so um so not to separate things now they're they're tied together yes I mean either is an option

and we've talked about that today it's a it's really a question of what the board is comfortable with right now so when they were separate the let's say contract zoning failed but the best standards passed what that would mean is that a project could be placed anywhere in town subject only to those minimum standards right I definitely when you combine them um if don't like or don't understand the concept of contract zoning or maybe they disagree with it for solar or for whatever reason vote the whole thing down now we have to rely on the moratorium on best which is going to stay in effect um which would have to be renewed and we try a different approach so it's you know all it really means is that there would be a delay in time before we could get regulations in place so that we could have project actually come through with regulation you are comfortable with MH the reason I like having them combined is that um

last year when it's been busy year for the Conservation Commission and the planning board um the last couple years when they've been working on ordinances the issue that came up with the solar ordinance is that standards were developed but nothing for the sighting was developed and so we now have a standard but there's no Authority given to the planning board to take into consideration the location of that so things that came up in discussion during the solar ordinance were well do we want to have protection on Prime agricultural soils do we want to have protection um within a certain distance of schools do we want to go the route of some towns where you have a mitigation fee that's higher in some parts of the Town versus lower in others to incentivize and so we didn't have a sighting tool all we had was standards and so I like the the idea of this best standards being um married with that sighting tool because I think

that if we were to just have the best standards kind of to the point you were making Joe like now you do allow without going through contract zoning something to come in front of the planning board and it could be right on the side of the road or right in right near the school or right near something else that doesn't have and then regardless of whether people think it's a good Loc or not there's no Authority given to the planning board to deny that application based off of the citing of the project if they're meeting the minimum standards and so I think that this would by marrying it together you're saying here's the standards and here's the process of figuring out where it goes so rather than going through this onerous process of how do we want to rank the land at landscape where do we want to encourage where do we want to discourage that can be done as applicants come through and I imagine

that if there was an applicant for something like this these aren't things that come through all the time like a new house permit or something like that so it seems to me that it would be more efficient use of time to handle the sighting on a site by site basis or application by application basis understanding it could be zero applicants it might be a applicant or two applicants but it's likely not going to be several applicants a year approaching this process so that's why I think having them kept together works because they only really work together so I have a couple of questions when but I don't have to go first Josh and Joe you got anything I'm good with the rest of the ordinance de one the last time we had extensive conversation around the wording about it

wouldn't it would have to meet the minimum requirements of our existing ordinance specifically around noise and I'm trying to did what happened with that did that trying to find that line it's not in this it's not in this draft it can be added it's not in there currently and basically the language that had been offered by the town attorney was to say that uh contract zoning could not reduce the standards below the uh the best standards that are before you so that's a that's another policy issue but that's currently not part of this it's not in the draft right now it can be added okay so that's my only thing I just want to make sure that we're on the same page about that I attended the planning board meeting and John feel free to flag me down if I'm mischaracterizing anything anyone at the planning board said it seemed like there was kind of some Heming and ha on that to understanding that since the ultimate body that

decides is the town the legislative body and everyone gets a vote it's not a I want to give some public comment or some written testimony if you get a vote that keeping the maximum amount of Leverage available for the community could be wise because it's so site specific so I know last time we used the noise example if there's a land owner who owns a 100 acres and they're putting they they want to put this in 250 ft from the nearest dwelling and road but the noise standard are two DB higher than normal it might not be heard or the community might be able to say sure but you need to put in a mitigation system for that noise or you need to come up with a a plan to make sure that there's an adequate buffer or prove to us that no one nearby can hear it and if we don't have that mechanism right now we are a little bit limited and so I I was kind of hesitant at first

about the idea of like having a standard and then not saying you have to follow every element of it all the time but the more I thought about it is the since the legislative body which is the community gets a direct vote in this if the community decides that the perceived um uh reduction of a standard is worth

the several percentage points reduction on a on a mill rate I don't want to take that opportunity for people to vote on okay um and then my other question is just if we we did just change that to 400,000 square ft the other places in this that are referenced would obviously also get changed we just didn't call that out specifically but I just want to make sure that yeah we changed all without saying but saying it anyway that's what I did that's all

that I wanted to bring up and John was that a fair characterization of your board all right I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth so any other questions on this as amended your attorney hasn't oh boy uh so just to be clear about where we're falling on this question of whether the minimum standards can be modified so the board's intention is that under contract zoning anything under the sun can be in there whether it's more or less restrictive than the minimum best standards in the ordinance the the discussion we had last time and Josh you came up with some Swanky language there was that the the best standards had to be taken into consideration and changes can only be for good cause or appropriate so the the way we were trying to get at it is they should be the guiding principles but that if there is a hangup or there is one that wants to be considered uh Mo to be modified that that should be

available because the town's going to vote on it and it's not a council that's voting to approve it okay was that the language change that got put into the draft no because the language itself is not in there right now well yeah what is in there is if the

draft that's on the agenda is the current running draft it says that best shall need the following minimum what what line is that what page you on I don't think it is the one in the packet um the one they're looking at is the combined one that was revised do we the hand the copy hold

meet the minimum standard and however the language needs to be to meet the minimum standard that's how it should be and we should give them the option of coming with a deviation I'll say to the minium minimum standards but not the other way around yeah and I think that our intent is to say we want to have a guiding standard I know it's our intent but what's it say it in words that it may they they have to meet the minimum standards I don't think it says it so what it says is um it's at least again maybe my version's off but 5.8.5 still says your three best shall meet the following minimum requirements hold on wait the planning board uh reviewed that and recommended that that not be inclusive so I'm not sure I would that so we have a difference between what Kristen has a lawyer and what the planning board came up with I'd rather have what she has let me just clarify the planning board suggested that if

that limitation were going to be applied it should be done in contract zoning not in the best standards themselves so it wasn't an intent to say don't do it it was just to say carefully place it it needs to be in both well now it's all one so we have to

decide if it's going to be in here or not be in here yeah the draft before you tonight does not have that clause in was I was looking for it because I knew that it was something that we had discussed we would need to add it okay yeah and I'm okay if the contract zoning can modify anything in here and they do just serve as sort of guidelines but I would want the lead in language to say something a little bit more clearer about that at the end of the day I write it's an amendment to the ordinance the contract's owning and there's no limitation but then it's kind of well why do you have these standards in there if you're just going to be able to do anything else yeah and I think the intent for us was to say that those standards which a lot of people put a lot of work into are the guiding standards and that the the intent for should be for them to be met but that if someone is going to come forward and go

through the contract zoning process they may be able to request could we modify this standard in exchange for a and c and the initial conversation could be absolutely not that's way too egregious we're not even taking that into consideration you know that's sort of the process with the planning board when people request a waiver right we have standards that exist and people can request waivers from the standard for certain standards yes and then if they can't get that waiver then they can go to appeals like everybody else no you can't appeal contract zoning well I'm just saying the the normal process for any project right now without this is you would go planning board they say no you go to appeals if you want a variance of some sort so we're Buy bypassing that if we don't have that language no because you can't appeal contract zoning saying we're bypassing the actual effort to go and ask for a

variance of some sort whether it be in front of the select board or the town no they would be asking for a waiver from the standards from the from the uh select board the select board could say no that's end of discussion or the SB could say yes we'll consider it but it's the town voters you to decide is that my yeah I think what you would want to do is just kind of a hybridization and have what it says now is tier three best shall meet the following minimum requirements I would just pack on to the end of that unless otherwise specified and approved contracts owning agreement so then this is the fallback if the contract owning agreement is silent on this stuff all of this applies but if it modifies the decal level or whatever it is under the contract Z to do that which line were you on there again that is not in that gra the person is wrong but here this line appears right under 5.8 can you say the the minimum standard

please so what I'm suggesting is that tier three best shall meet the follow following minimum requirements unless otherwise specified and approved cont agreement because the other example that we used was like let's say that the standards I'm using an example this might not be real life um have a 50 foot buffer on all four sides but one of those sides is up against the power line it doesn't make sense to have to have to have the buffer right so if we're if we're looking at it at a different situation than the noise like to me that's reasonable so I understand the argument for being able to wave some of the standards because it doesn't make sense to have that 50ft buffer up against the power line in between the projects as long as we're telling telling him to go meet the standards and then be able to come back and ask say we can't meet this one for the following reasons and that's okay I think we on the same page there but the

warding needs to be in there to do that that's all this one here that we're about to vote on doesn't have that wording so we shouldn't be voting on it yeah and I think we're on the same page because I'm I'm saying the same thing they should have to request we're not saying request a waiver but say here's our standards the you have to follow then they can come back and say we want to wave this portion of the standard in exchange for X Y and Z and so we need that more explicitly put out here luckily we have a meeting s days I was going to say because if we have to vote on this tonight then we could say with the edit that is on record but we we can get the draft pulled together and then vote on it we can table this for the second meeting in a row correct if we put this or is that problematic because of the notice for well the public hearing has been moved to the 19th so the language will need to be

posted that's right the the language will need to be posted by March 5th we meet March 4th perfect yeah but I mean is that fair to give you one day it's just one one minor change wait why would you need to have a second meeting on it because you could just approve it tonight with that one well we don't have the we want we don't have the words in front of us yeah that I'm not concerned about that if you wanted to just say say we're approving this being moved forward to a planning yeah I just want to make sure we all are on the same page on what that language is saying and where where it would be inserted on the draft that we have in front of us so I just tried to find my old

people comfortable voting tonight with the edit at as I am on record I am but I want to be respectful of people who might not be also if you're not Joe it's totally fine we can I mean it was supposed to be in there this time around it got dropped off so I'm kind of upset that we didn't get a final version with what we said to be in

there so it was changed for whatever reason whatever we said in the last meeting obviously didn't mean anything so it needs to get in there that I think the changes were reflective of our concerns this is a proposal reflective of our concerns about having uh best separate from um contract

do it on the next meeting is that me just people good with that waiting until the next meeting to vote on as long as we can hit if if folks don't want to vote on it tonight and they want to see it written down in front of us rather than voting on it as as as spoken about right now we can do that next meeting if that's the preference I would suggest we do that we see it in black and white we it's going to be located what the words are okay so vote to table sure um motion to table this until March 4th pending the edits that we just vocalized which we should vocalize in the motion I guess but do I have a second second okay Christen could you repeat that edit that you recommended and where it would go so we can pencil it in immediately following the heading for Section 5.8.5 it would say tier three best shall meet the following minimum retirement unless otherwise specified there's also no section

numbers in here no we just don't have that well what line does it go into we have 2.4 and 5.24 so what what page and what line again this is not a final version we need to be voting on final version right and we're just we're writing it in right now so we can vote on that next week um the version we have

is section 2.4 contract zoning and then says Authority yeah if you look for the header that is called that says Perman requirements battery energy stor system Perman in the which we don't have oh we're looking at so we'll have them yeah we have 2.4 and 5.24 solar energy system we don't have the other one we don't have the best Okay so let's table until next week we have it right here I looking at last week's minutes

here no we don't that that was from last last week last yep okay well we'll just get those pulled together and then um sent along and we can vote on that next week um there's a motion to table it until next week yes and I seconded and seconded all in favor any opposition all right seeing none move on now I've got all my documents mixed up here so I lost my engine okay we're on C historic yep historic district ordinance C I got to pull that one

here CU I just moved my [Music] righty can I ask a question absolutely um so John at the planning board meeting there was discussion around buffer and remember we had a lot of conversation and where uh Juliet and Allan maybe we were talked about the project on 136 and maybe the buffer isn't necessarily a big vegetative buffer but it could be a stone wall around okay okay I just want to make sure that I'm remembering that correctly there were no buffer things in the one that we looked at the last time so that one on in Auburn does have a stone fence around it okay I'm just using it as an example just using it as an example I that's not even in our town I don't I'm using as an example I'm just asking if this draft addresses

cuz when we were having our conversation about the buffering it makes it feel a little bit like spot zoning to me okay that's a hot topic for me mhm um how do you want to handle this with the historic district commission so yeah I want to give them the opportunity to provide feedback on it um if you have any feedback on this cuz I know that when we got the um original recommendation from we got the original recommendation from you all we get the recommendation from the lawyer we've tried to marry the two here and then I had sent that invitation to the former chair to be invite you all here tonight to provide feedback on this version and so wanted to give you the opportunity to provide that feedback on this version if you had anything you wanted to provide as we discuss it

and maybe we can we can go through go through I I would love to hear how the commission feels specifically about buffering that's one question that I would I would love to hear from commission I'm talking to you now what I had brought up the last time that we were meeting was that to me buffering standards are important and the example that I keep using is the project that's on 136 on the way to Auburn where there's that church and then right next to that in the open field they built multiple duplexes right next to that church and there's no buffering whatsoever in between that and so we don't know yet what the outcome of the district is going to be um my concerns around not

having specific language around buffering um I in every project that we have in town I feel like the way that we maintain our roal character is through buffering and so that's important to me but I I welcome what your opinion is of

buffering um when we're talking about historic can yeah yeah you just got to say your name yeah well we got to get you on the microphone so we can pick it up I don't really have that much to say because I don't I didn't bring our original one that we wrote because we had thing about buffering it I don't know if they has the original not on hand um we we didn't have a thing about

so I don't know which microphone we're getting pic picked up on here I know this one's full of charged battery stuff so all right my name is David mclen I'm the I think technically Vice chair of the historic district commission um I live on willsboro road what I what I'm going to confess to right now is that I had to miss our last meeting with our commission um and so I'm not as up to speed on everything and I don't see track changes on this so to Paula's point it's hard for me to track exactly what changed I did listen to the last select board meeting where you discussed it but I am not prepared in my role with the group to give immediate comment um so I'm I apologize if I misunderstood the assign for what I Was preparing for this meeting today um probably on me because I missed the meeting and I know there was a discussion I was not a part of so I'm always being for S on this one I still

want to be a productive member of the conversation today I'm just not prepared to open with a statement to the details of these changes do you have an opinion on buffering on buffering specifically for well I guess on any designated historic property that we've deemed to be of value and therefore under the historic preservation guidance is what you're saying yes do I have an opinion on any of those properties and buffering not as a blanket statement No I think each individual property has its own unique needs based on where it is in the town you know the properties again I'm speaking for myself not the commission right now because we haven't had that discussion but properties in the historic district are really different than say the baggley Bliss house on 136 right I mean there's just I think each would require an assessment by a group like the commission someone who can look with a reasonable eye and say

this is in in line with the general values and perspectives or industry standards for historic property okay and when I talk about buffering Joe I think that you keep thinking that I'm thinking like the 1500t radius that's not what I'm referring to no I don't think that okay okay I'm talking about like some sort of physical structure between the the yes building and basically what what Dave is saying like to look at that and and put

what's appropriate like that was what brought up the rock wall versus maybe a vegetative buffer right and so does this provision of the draft account for that um review I don't know what the word is that I want yes it does no it it doesn't okay no it doesn't and I think the thing to point out is that that provision would be the only provision in any of the sections that we have on the table here that would deal with work that's happening on a property that doesn't contain a historic dwelling for structure and then the other thing to think about is if you remember the historic structure that includes even a stone wall so if you're thinking about how to buffer you know hundreds of feet of St wall potentially that could be tricky um in site plan review we already do have the ability to take into consideration if it's a project that's subject to site plan review um impacts on historic resources and to require

buffering as part of that subdivisions and subdivisions so I think the only donut hole that would leave is like residential um and maybe some very small scale commercial or homebased business kind of development that wouldn't have any like sort of tax require offering and so and I say it totally respectfully I I don't have the same concern because when I think about the structures themselves having these standards I then get a little bit of a concern if we get into but your neighbor now has to meet other standards on their property because they're this new ordinance has popped up on a property that's adjacent to them I respect that I like when my concern like to for example and it's just a difference of opinion the the Auburn example you bring up I look at that and I say they use the same facade the same building style the same colors the same architectural design as the adjacent church it's just a modern

material that to me looks like it did a good job of meeting what the church looks like in the adjacent historic building next to it I don't see that as a uh negative impact on that building so here's another that's I don't feel the need to say to that person who owns that lot you now have to erect a Wen picket fence or a tree line or a rock wall that I want a gas St to go in across the street from the end but that would be subject to site plan review and so that would be that would trigger the buffering element in our community so those commercial developments would be subject to the buffer same with subdivisions am I correct in that assessment yeah so it's only AR what happened with late right that was just a failure of

the ordinance being applied correctly yes okay because like I don't want that to happen and that's what I'm trying to Advocate forh and I think this had I think this covers it the only thing that's not going to be subject to those standards would be if it's a residential structure next to a residential structure so my understanding here is if someone owns a structure that's next to one of the historic buildings they aren't going to be subject to some sort of standard if they need to put in a new fence a chain link fence or something like that on their property they're not going to be subject to buffer standards but if the the neighboring property wanted to put in a um commercial structure that's going to have to go through either a subdivision review or a site plan review it would be subject to buffering the only things that would it would be like you said like a small home base business like I

don't know if a small daycare at home would need to be or or um a small bakery or something like that I don't know but to me this seems like a a step in the right direction to cover most things and then everything else is covered by site plan or subdivision so yeah I'd like to know the commission's position on the removal of the district based on um the this new version of the ordinance applying to the buildings correct me if I'm wrong please um that are on the register eligible for the register um having you know these standards applying to those correct I'd like to invite a different commissioner to come up with that since I was not able to make the last meeting would someone like to step in we all decided we

will say is that we set the invite for tonight's meeting on February 6th to ask the commission to come give us input and so this is the night we're looking for the input so if we don't get it we have to move on without it and I understand that I apologize that I did not receive this or did not understand the assignment I'm not actually pointing fingers I'm not pointing fingers at you guys on that one um not sure where the breakdown and communication was there but I think we did hear at public comment that you were not in favor of eliminating the district that's the position that was your on behalf of yourself or on behalf of the commission I talk from here that actually was that was actually a motion that was the motion passed by the grp the commiss members that were there voted there was Quorum incorrect that's right and was there a quorum at that meeting yeah okay so so if you couldn't hear the microphone the district

commission the historic district commission at their last meeting did vote that they do not approve of removal of the historic district was the buffer discussed the now I'm talking about 1500t radius did you guys discuss the radius buffer we in the past have discussed it and I don't think that you feel

been discussed in previous meetings and there's not a strong opinion for keeping that 1500t buffer around any historic property and and so our discussion at our last meeting about the district was that when we were thinking about districts and contributing factors to the district that if there is a handful of older buildings that meet a certain standard within an area that doesn't necessarily dictate that it meets the standard to be a historic district if you don't have other contributing factors or the nun or the buildings that aren't historic are meeting some sort of standard and so we felt like it wasn't really functioning as a historic district in that regard wasn't there a bigger concern for from the attorney that it may not have been done pursuant or done done I don't know what the right word is but uh the radius was is not certainly done pursuant to appropriate zoning laws so that that I

think is illegal MH but the um historic district my concern with that is it's not a district where you don't require buildings other than the historic buildings themselves to comply with the standards um then I'm also concerned with the fact that there the comprehensive plan the most recent one apparently deliberately eliminated any reference to the historic district or even the area um that is contained within the district and so I I believe the intention of the comprehensive plan was that there would be no District m in our thought process with this version of the ordinance was that this goes above and beyond for protection for historic buildings than what you would expect in a in most municipalities but not having a district because even right now we don't enforce building standards on non-historic buildings within the historic district where I know you have more experience with this than me but I think about

other historic districts and other municipalities the new construction or the non-historic buildings there still need to meet a certain standard and look and we don't have that anyway so it's not functioning that way as a district so we were saying if we just move this protection to the buildings themselves and then this also sets up the language and correct me if I'm wrong so that in a future architectural survey this could be applied to findings of buildings that should be listed or are listed and so we felt like this was a really good way to address the concerns about the buildings remove the concerns about the district and have something that's more more robust and appropriate is there a question about the a vote for the district on my

misremembering um I don't know I I don't think so I mean the I think the only other thing that the district is missing is that it is not based on a survey as far as I'm aware at least certainly not a recent one but if it you know when it was put into the ordinance I think the district was done appropriately as an ordinance Amendment you know with the appropriate hearings and everything so that part isn't a concern um the problem with the 1500 ft radius is that there was no reference to that as districts in a comprehensive plan or

thoughts or even if you don't have it figured out exactly just say what you think what I would say is that I think we all agree that the survey is a really important step which is not what we're discussing today but it's an important legal tool or it's on the record tool to identify your historic resources and Joe what I'll agree with you on is that the high frequency of appropriately historic properties that the survey would identify would de facto create um some regulatory action around that area so even it's not a historic district so we may have the same outcome whether it exists as a district or not just by we already know there's a high density of historic buildings right there I think that's what was our intent for years to so I can understand I mean can't speak on behalf of the commission right now because there's not a statement that we can make on it but I certainly see how you might have the

exact same outcome of a historic preservation just by being consistent and you have the added benefit of going beyond the historic district in protecting important resources across the town not just in that one zone and it also does here well thank you for your feedback but it also does here establish the um it has the details about the new historic Commission with the name change and what that entails um administrative procedures notice to the um advisory opinions and and things of that nature as well I need to ask the group did did was this reviewed in the last meeting like did you guys pull out this document and go over it was it handed to us from leadership I you did have it you you had it but you just didn't go over it okay and I'm sorry I missed it in the

bank I just don't I haven't read the change mhm I'm seeing it for the first time today and that's not I I can't say I apologize for I have a question it's just a bad situation unfortunately I I am looking at the email chatter chain and we did we sent it out on February 6 um all the members were CC with the request to be here tonight whether you were given the other things that's yeah I knew we had the request to be here that I knew I saw that email and I was prepared for that I just didn't realize there was a signed reading coming into this um Kristen one of my concerns that we had talked about in a previous meeting was the process for if there's disagreement and I think George spoke about it maybe at the planning board meeting because I think I asked about it there also and that it would be the appeals process um Can Can you elucidate that whole no I can't articulate myself very well right now I had a very long day I'm

very overwhelmed but maybe one of them can articulate yeah George thanks I can help Okay so the issue was uh under the proposal the uh role of the historic commission would be to provide the required advisory opinion on any project

involving a permit for any of the officially designated uh Pro uh properties either listed or eligible for the state so they would have a period I think it's 45 days to revie the project application and provide input an advisory opinion to the planning board if site plan review or subdivision is involved and to the code enforcement officer who will permit under uh that Authority so then that

permitting Authority whether it's the planning board or the code officer are required to consider the advisory opinion of the historic district of the historic commission which should be looking at the standards that are in the ordinance or which are mirroring the Interior Department standards so if they make recommendations that a proposal does not comply with the standards of the Interior Department then the planning board of code officers should take that into consideration and decide whether to require modifications to the permit or to deny the permit now if the planning board of the code officer looks at The Advisory opinion and does not see that it follows those standards of the ordinance then they are freeth say we have considered the advisory opinion however we don't see that it follows the ordinance therefore we are the to perit so if that permit is is issued then the issuance of the

permit either by the planning board or by the Cod off can be appealed thank you so I just want to point out one instance where I want to make sure going forward we have a better process and I think that you just alluded to the fact that we do but on a subdivision application that we have had in the past there was a historic situation it wasn't one of the listed it was a Schoolhouse um and the

requirement was for for or what the subdivision review they can submit a letter from Main preservation what's the right words made historic preservation thank you and that bypassed our local commission but let me clarify the jurisdiction of the historic district commission stops at the boundary of the historic district as far as opinions on

certificates of compliance and those subdivisions there was no requirement to get a recommendation and that's part of where the confusion has come okay so now going forward if the district doesn't exist anymore right and this exists in

that situation are they going to be consult asked for their opinion mandatory that they get an opinion sub so so this expands the opportunity for the historic commission to comment on activities that are required a permit subdivision or site law if there's if there's buildings that are listed if it affects one of these prop yeah and so like George said if it is a property that's trying to do something that is just uh a permit issued by the code enforcement officer the code enforcement officer works with the historic commission if it's a property that needs to get a permit from the planning board the planning board has to get advisement from the commission and the difference here is this is saying it is required advisement now I know like for example right now on the on um Conservation Commission type things John asks them or I should say the planning board chair asks them but isn't required to ask them

on some of these resource concerns this is separate saying there is a requirement to ask if it's a permanent activity and impacts a historic structure so this expands that what is considered impacting being an abutter yes if if it's an abing a is to

store then would trigger the subdivision revie yeah but it doesn't trigger just to be clear the historic commission review if it's a activity that impacts a historic structure it's going to get reviewed under the subdivision or site plan standards about impacts but if it is um a project involving like you know

a building a historic building structure then that goes to the historic commission for adice so I'm just you probably just said this but George just said a lot of things and you just said that and now my brain is um so I'm going back to Windgate right that was an autter of a historic

property and under this draft because that was in a butter would they have been consulted on that or no because they're not actually doing anything to that building the commission would not have been controled I have a problem with that under I I'm not sure what you mean when you say under Windgate I don't know the details there so there's a subdivision off 136 that would the abing property is uh it was actually well George you said it's not it wasn't eligible for register registry I think it's eligible but not on the registry it was on a list prepared by the main historic preservation commission but after further review they determined that there was not enough documentation to determine that it was eligible didn't me the stand just say it was let's pretend it was because but it wasn't but let's just say it was okay just for the discuss right for the discussion and so this if it would have been there would

have been like buffering requirements right or at least they would have been consulted if we go back to the other one but so the question is now in this scenario that you're describing and maybe George and Chris I know they're confirming but if you could confirm for us if it's a subdivision application that's recommended that is immediately adjacent to or or adjacent to a property that is listed does that have a different process would there be historic commission participation at that point if it was listed if it if it was listed yes so that I don't see that as an issue sorry is it is the project involving if there's a subdivision proposed and it's and it's an immediate abutter to a historic property under what we have today with this proposal no because it is not affecting the structure itself the project is not structure itself it would not go to Historic commission for comment this is what I have a problem

with but can it can I mean just like and this is what George and I was talking about if we wanted we could very easily in the site plan standards say that if a project stands to impact historic structure as we have defined it then the board sends it not only to the main historic preservation commission but also to the local historic commission for comment it's not going to trigger this whole specific advisory process and review of the standards but at least the commission would be able to put their eyes on it and make some

comfortable with that because this is where the buffering conversation comes in right like they could have informed that decision that process at the planning board level to say here's the subdivision going into what potentially could have been a listed structure right it's not going into the structure it's just next to it yes right you need to drive by and this will help you understand why I'm we just have a different of opinion on that part of to use this as an example I think the the historic stone wall was part of the discussion with that one the historic stone wall ran per or parallel to 136 and that had to be removed or relocated is that true so if it was over 100 years old then it would trigger that because it's a historic resource here's another example you're you're Dave the Bliss Farm in right if a gas station wanted to go in across the street from the Bliss Farm in it wouldn't trigger any of this because he

would be in a butter it wouldn't be impacting his structure that is a problem you're listed historic oh we are yeah for sure and I guess I but then that build sorry the the gas station across the street would require a site plan review but but it still wouldn't trigger uh his from the historic district commission it would require a site plan review from the planning board and I'm saying they need to be involved in that

it's okay if people don't agree with me I'm just saying I that is important to me we think we can come up with some language that would a an advisory opinion from the hisor commission if it were a budding a property because that language is currently in the sheland zoning standard for historic so I think we could add that language and in the subdivision standard what it says is the board seek the advice of main historic preservation commission and we could add and the local historic Commission in reviewing such PL that in that would make me feel way more comfortable I would feel better about that and when we say buting we even mean if there's a street in between yes I wouldn't even do a budding I would do that stand to directly impact what's the definition of what's the definition of stands to directly impact that would be up to the auth so that you Canever sub so when you say reviewing Authority

you mean planning board or or code enforcement officer whichever one has that and I I totally understand that but then that does that have to be written and established someplace because like I might be of the opinion that something being visible from somewhere else doesn't affect it other people might say if it's visible from from this historic building that's an impact so I don't understand where that line gets

argument of a quarter mile away the reflection off of that new Barn's roof hits my window and I think that impacts my historic building I'm not saying that anyone would do that but I'm just trying to we will we will get into those situations

big you'd hope that Common Sense would Prevail but there will be a time when it does not I watch the news a lot though yeah unfortunately don't do that not in that example where the gas station is across the street okay directly impact yeah you walk out the door and you see the gas station but if it's quarter mile down but the lights shine and are going to be on all night that could also be and this impacted and this is where I get confused cuz I think about well if they G station across the street is made to look historic I mean I think about growing up we always called the McDonald's in Freeport the fancy McDonald's we're like that doesn't look like McDonald's and so if they gas I mean I think you go one second please if you go to Southern New England there's plenty of gas stations in neighborhoods that have buildings that are 1600s so I just I'm trying to figure out where we draw the line there

cuz I know so maybe just use the term ab buding and then So currently in uh article 9 uh section 9.11 for Shoreland zoning this comes from the main uh D manual guidelines it says archaeological sites any proposed land use activity involving structural development or soil disturbance on or adjacent to sites listed in on or eligible to be listed on the national register of places asting Authority shall be submitted by the applicant to the maintenance or preservation system so what we were discussing was taking that language and inserting it in site plan subdivision that lacks that language for advisory opinions uh adjacent to and add language and with their name

and the requir for advis I love it does that mean that we need to change a bunch of other ordinances it's just adding amendments to a few few of these standards and we can do that okay I'm just processing it's a else it sounds like we invited Kristen today just to push all of our things for till next week I think if I was an owner of a historic building and and that was dear to me I would be in favor of this suggestion I think it's always going remember the point of historic preservation at all it's about the heritage of our town it's about who we are as a as a community they they represent something more than that owner at that one time and so this is an investment from our our government to say this is this look and feel of that historic property is of value to all of us and we don't want that to be diminished so is I do even really matter what the owner thinks it's about us as a community these very unique sites that

we have deemed from the survey that will eventually happen you know whatever we put as the marker of like this is of value to us we'll keep that as best as we can go ahead and I think that's an excellent point because we just did this whole thing with resource protection and as a community we made that decision about resource protection and there were clearly owners of that property that maybe didn't feel that way but as a community we decided that protecting those resources was important and it feels exactly the same way to me of of what you just articulated it doesn't feel the same way to me but if we cuz I

I think about it cuz I do think that there is some rights inherently involved with owning the parcel and with the environmental side of things you're getting into the bigger discussion of Clean Air clean water and Agriculture and things like that so I think that's a little bit different but I I understand the point you're making so why I always say they don't make them like this anymore right true if once it's gone it's gone that's my point there's no taky back seats right I just want to make sure we have clear clearly dictated or clearly delineated what it means to be impacting adjacent because I just see it as well they're not across a lot from me but they're Kitty cornered and so I have now have a bunch more traffic because there's a gas station there and I can hear the pumps and I can smell the gas I just see this as without having a delineated set of what applies it becomes this Vortex that's going to

cause issues um and that's that's my hang up on it I think the verbiage that George went through cleared a little bit more of that up of that concern and remember we're just we're asking for advisory and when you provide it there's even wording in here that says the decision can't be appealed so you advise the planning board or the code enforcement officer they may not agree they might do something different than what you advise there's no appeal process that's right so but to get advice from a group of experts um who represent you know the the concept I I don't think it's a bad

lot of describing over there so do we have a motion to move this to next week as well so moved any additional discussion you can ask a question I'm sure you can ask a question yeah what do you what do you seek from the e whatever name we're going with here assuming this is approved the historic commission what are your next steps to be best supportive of the select board um well our intent was to get feed Feb on this from you all tonight and so if you can provide us with feedback at our meeting a week from tonight um questions concerns things like that knowing that we have some proposed amendments that we're going to be discussing which which George and Christen have put out would be valuable to me can I just make just change that process just a little that if they have time to discuss that and get that to us ahead of time because we're going to have to vote on this on Tuesday so if they come with opinions on Tuesday

anytime we ask someone to come Give opinions I'd love it if they email them to us first right I'm just saying we we have to vote on a final draft Tuesday we vote on it right so if they wait till Tuesday to give us their opinion we're not going to have a final draft in front of us but if we get opinion before that we would have to edit or modify whatever we have in front of us if we want to make those changes right in real time

so but if they if they email them to us we still have to discuss in a public venue anyways I my opinion is the windows closed I mean comment I understand we had a good discussion people could add on to this discussion tonight I think we should take what we said get it updated and vote on it with no additional input I think that's a good point too D Joe a lot to

review it if don't I won't that's basically to to to your point Deb is a really good one like we do need to get it done next week and probably our review next week would be more on the semantics like we're going to do with best um to make sure that language is added make sure it reads well and then approve probably not much of a policy debate next week now that I think about it cuz we're just literally like the the printer needs needs it so um if you have things to add email and this goes to vote on April 5th right at the time that's and ideally right we we want to just like with with the we want to go in as a team right and so if

there's something that's like way off fatal please yeah sure email April 5th will be a long meeting especially longer if boards and committees don't agree with each other's recommendations sure you know is there an expectation on April 5th from the historic district Commission in its official capacity I think we'll have to deliberate on that cuz I know I can't be there unfortunately it's the honestly the Mind tournament I can't not be there well I mean if also the like you could write a statement and one of us could read it also if we need something okay I guess I would like some direction on what would be required of the commission for April 5th at the time meeting it's always open for public comment and if a member says I'm speaking on behalf of the Commission in favor or opposed that's more than welcome and if if no one feels comfortable publicly speaking I'm offer statement okay good can I make one

comment you want to come up Paul no I don't really want to okay um I've heard that you know you've talked to the other commissions and the planning board this already went to the planning board because they've already discussed that I'm trying to really get my handled head around why we are here tonight to go over this when it's all done we spent three years re it's not done we just made edits T saw what we wrote no she did I mean I I I just felt

like we were just kind of okay yeah um so the the comment here is you all don't feel like you had the opportunity to participate we asked several times for the your former chair to participate we made aware of the meetings where it was going to be talked about nobody showed up I can't make any of you all come to the meeting and deliberate and speak and so this was the this was the meeting tonight for that to happen and people didn't do it that I'm I apologize but that's not that's not on us so um and our legal council has

reviewed all versions but just because a version gets written doesn't mean it's legally advisable so all right so the motion on the table is to to t this until next week pending the edit that we've all kind of discussed there and uh George and Christen will be able to pull that together so with any additional comment coming through an email if you guys want send send it as soon as you you have it so got it all right all in favor of the motion any opposition seeing

none have we approved any of these stps yet no I'd make a recommendation though that we do move new business and then talk to about the budget afterwards where we at on that show I'll second that yeah sure also to I just you want move the new business new business new move move new business above the budget above the budget yeah that probably makes more sense yeah you can keep that um all right so the motion is to move new business to right now yes

is there a second on the motion second all right all in favor discussion all in favor any opposition I move that we uh direct the town manager to pay the 25,6 2032 deposit for the Union Church repairs out of can't remember what the account is called yes the Union Church Union Church so I I make that motion second yeah all right any additional discussion Tia is here tonight I just would like to ask if she has anything that she'd like to say I'm just excited I just can't wait so T says see previous email perfect uh yeah so any additional discussion just for people watching we got they got a quote for um deposit on on the work that needs to be done could you just briefly let folks know what the the scope of the work is just come on up yeah just so we can get a microphone here just right Tia Wilson uh I actually live in Topson but I'm the chair of the Historical Society um they are going to be lifting the Union Church um and they

are going to be removing the sill on the if you're looking at the church on the bottom right hand side they're going to repair the Rock and then the back two corners are going to be repaired then the church will be put back down and the plat boards will be put back on and then any damage on the interior from it just shifting will be responsible for that so awesome yep perfect do we have any questions fora awesome thank you thank you all right so see no more questions uh for Tia any questions on the motion all right seeing none all in favor any opposition perfect

so just work with no problem work with Jerry to that I'll take righty so we have did you print this another version of the budget tonight Jerry there's a packet we have budget sorry I made a mistake and I grabbed than you for coming everyone thank [Music]

you hot no I'm good oh it's the first time I haven't been freeing see what we'll just share it did yeah sure all right so we'll do um can I just something about this yeah absolutely so at our last meeting I I feel like I strongly recommended encourag and we ended up increasing the uh fund balance amount that's contributed to the budget and I've had further thought based on budget committee input

and uh and uh I I'm going to support it but I also I know that there was talk at budget committee to increase that amount but I want us all to remember of the budget committee to know we have the reevaluation coming right and we've all seen what happened in Brunswick what's going to happen in Auburn and we are Way Beyond them in

terms of how far behind we are because we're required to do this every 10 years and it's been 2008 right so it's been it'll be it'll be 20 years by the time it changes you know we're already losing money on our homestead exemption and I'm expecting the value of my house to at least double probably every house that's uh 2015 or or earlier is going to double

um and so uh I I was really prepared to come in and say I think we got to lower this after hearing last night I disagreed with a lot of what the budget committee said about some of the cuts and whole bunch of other stuff um

that is something that we have to keep in mind in future years to be prepared because there is going to be a drain on that fund balance when this comes to make people happy otherwise there is going to be a revolution yeah Josh I think your point here is and I think one thing that Joe Joe brought up about the fund balance at one point was the the uh it's the pay me now versus pay me later mindset and when we talk about the fund balance Mark's recommendation is you you really want to save the big uses for that in you know the pandemic year or the massive inflation and now you have these major issues that you just can't you have these fiscal cliffs right and I'm com more comfortable with us being mindful of the re-evaluation because like you said we know that like about a third of people's likely a third of people's value is going to stay the same a third's going to go down and a third's going to increase

I'm seeing the prices that houses are going for around me I expect my house to double or triple in value that's going to be a big increase for other people as well um I think for the third that it increases it's going to increase a lot and we're going to have people knocking on the door to say how do we mitigate this I need to be phased into this a little bit more we've just seen it in tons of municipalities across the state so I think that your point is really wise there about being mindful of when we want to uh dip into that for that reason can I also say one of the other comments I had and for John if you want to take it back on Thursday because I don't think I'm going to be able to make that meeting although I will try um you know there was talk about us adding programs us adding this and all these expenses and the one that kept coming up was the text my go or whatever it's called Uh and I got to say that really

bothered me because Jerry did that in response to the flooding and the request and the complaints that we didn't have notice we we didn't know what was going on uh and so Jerry Jerry did that uh based on complaints from the town's folk and and to take it away and I don't know how many people use it I I signed up for it I I also signed up for the cassella app so I get all the notes uh we're coming tomorrow or we're not coming uh

uh to me uh it directly addresses the issu that were raised and and and I got to say uh I don't I don't know if that was just to be difficult because I felt like we were the enemy last night um or what but that really that really bothered me um because there were multiple complaints about that and it directly addresses that and there's no better way to address it and if my elderly parents lived here instead of where they lived I would sign up for so I would know all that and I could reach them and I think it's a great tool and I think cutting that out of the

I think I would say it's dangerous because I think to me it's worth the extra spense because I think it could save one life and that one life is worth whatever we spend to save it uh because it's going to tell people there's a warming shelter uh there you there's a road closed don't drive through something like that and eventually it's going to save a life and to me it's worth it and that really bothered me last night and I've been steing about that for 24 hours and I felt like yelling at somebody so I'm taking it out on you to the punch back for the I was going to say I feel like I have to save for John's sake this is what my husband always say he's like I feel like you're attacking me I wasn't even there when I vent about it not you and honestly you articulated a lot of points last night John that I really appreciated you making one being that we have professional staff that goes this is literally their job to go through is

figure out these numbers you know and the whole bit and then to see other people feel like they need to come up with a different math equation to arrive at you know what the fire department's part-time wages are going to be beyond what my brain can comprehend and so sorry did I interrupt you were you're not done next okay I have more when it's my turn again I would what I would going to say is I'm sure the other eight people are listening because they all they all put a lot of work into it so which I appreciate I just their feelings are are I didn't I didn't agree with all but I don't speak for them I will tell you that the other mate members are I'm sure you know elting and probably getting people to vote against me as speak but it well it felt like we were being attacked and we're trying to do what we think is best for people yeah I have a lot of comments on but I want to give you chance to I I would just reiterate

what Josh said on the text my go uh tool I if that's what it's called mhm I vehemently opposed of uh eliminating that yeah or and and also a comment on the HR professional I mean we're we need an HR professional I don't know there's comments surrounding that I think that we have some comments here the the finance consultant that we have proves that if you're a professional in a certain field the community benefits we all benefit and we are filling gaps that our town has had that you know Jerry helped identify that like literally his job doing his job right right so you know there's an element of trust a trust factor that comes into play with all of this um but this is why we probably have a budget committee so there can be some back and forth but we directed Jerry and his staff to come in as Bare Bones as possible and they did that and and I really feel that you did that and so I'm also not only opposed to

eliminating Tex my go but I am vly in favor of an HR professional and paying that price I think the town will benefit completely so what I saying is that you know the vot is done in terms of the dollar BS from the budget committee yeah uh and so what we one of the questions I'll have is what do you want from us to make sure that we transfer the information and if if you you're going to come up with articles tonight I'm happy to take the article we can hand write in select board recommends X budget committee agree we already got it all written up here so um my thought process on the budget cycle last night and one thing I think that's important is that um I don't think a lot of

thought was put into some of the changes so when you take a budget and you say uh just add 3% because inflation's 3.5% and the comment was well why did we take off uh half a percentage and the answer was well because we're absorbing a half a percentage of uh Personnel increase because of the family medical leback that's not how math works you can't take a half a percentage off of an entire general General government line to make up for a half percentage increase on one line within that budget especially because that doesn't even address the staff members uh 0.5% because that's addressed in each subsequent department so by saying I'm going to reduce the entire general government by a half a percentage because of a $6,000 increase that's being occurred across three departments factually is inaccurate and so we we can't give Credence to well that's what I said so it's it's a wellth thought out fact it's just not a fact

and that's one thing I want to address with that right now um so that's factually inaccurate also the idea that that we can budget off of let's take last year's actuals and add 3.5% we handed the budget sheet over to this budget committee and they can go through into the general government budget right now and and I hope they do as they're watching and they can take a look why did that come in above the 3.5% of expected inflation there are several reasons why our HR services are something that we're exploring uh insurance premiums went up 9% so you can't just say well it should only go up by a factor of inflation when it goes up 9% we have staff who are taking Family Insurance now that weren't taking Insurance prior we had a change in Staffing so we now have people who have to take different benefits that they're entitled to and that we need to budget to Our IT services dropped us because they no longer offer it services

at the payment rate that we want we were use utilizing so we had to absorb the market increase for that and since it was neglected by previous administrations we now have to be more than a 3.5% increase so the idea to have zero experience and zero knowledge on how a municipal government runs and have zero experience on how to run an agency or a program and then arbitrarily say well it should only go up 3% it's it's just ludicrous and the idea to say well I've done the math and I don't think this is how much it should cost for 12 hour per DM the guy who came up with this number has been a fire chief here for a half dozen years almost at this point he has almost 30 years of experience prior to that if you had a question about that you could have asked it and said where did this number come from and what Chief would have told you is well sometimes it's an EMT sometimes it's an advanced EMT and sometimes it's

a paramedic who responds to this and so when they sign up for that that has a differential there and so that's built into that to accept to to propose that we can accept only a 3% increase on Staffing cost for our firefighters when we know that minimum wagees increased 3.5% it will increase Again by a factor of inflation in 2025 during this budget cycle again it's just ludicrous to disregard the actual facts and just go off of I feel like I want this to be this number and so that's one thing that I'm since I'm ranting here about that because that's why I'm saying I am not willing to make any changes on this budget as we have already approved it based off of anything I heard from the budget committee because I did not hear any factually accurate data from the budget committee at the last meeting and so for that reason I'm fine with adopting this budget completely as is and just moving on from

it I would like to say a couple what is having work with a bunch of I think they are truly dedicated to doing it and think and I think I agree put a lot of work into because we've had discussions about it the second thing this is just general comment it's not about anybody personal on the select board or the budget committee we may just need to lower the temperature of our discussions a little bit you know it watch you know that's I'm the worst guy out there because there there's only one committee yelling at people last night and it wasn't the S board can I I think when

this process is over this year the select board chair the vice chair the budget committee I think their co-chairs need to sit down and have a conversation because I agree with John that people work their on on here the town and I could go on like I think everybody that works for this town could probably go to one of our neighboring towns and get paid more but they're here out of loyalty uh and that's something

you can't put a value on cuz you know we need the people uh uh but I think we need to sit down and have a conversation because there were things like not having uh these articles I just we we can't give you article we can't give the budget committee articles if we haven't had our final vot on it so there was nothing for us to present to them as this is what we're presenting to the town uh and that was just a huge area

where things got out of control but I think it's something that people ended up understanding and so I think there has to be some again I will say it again I felt like sitting there and seeing uh an email uh that was directed at a comment that Jerry made last night uh

I didn't think it was appropriate I mean did it bother me no did I think it was appropriate for people to send like that absolutely uh and there needs to be some sense of decorum uh and we need to stop looking at each other as mortal enemies and say we're presenting this your job is to come in and say these numbers are correct or they're not correct um and um and and we we agree or

don't agree whatever but there needs to be a sense of decorum and that was missing last night that was missing in the emails today uh and these aren't comments directed at you and it's it and it hasn't just been the budget committee I think there have been some from other committees that that have been directed at us that are just blatantly wrong and

disrespectful and you can say that but I think there needs to be more decorum in this because I do think that we need to be above that yeah so I agree but I also just want to say just because someone puts a lot of time into something doesn't mean they're doing it right either I'm I I I agree with that but Jerry I just make a comment I don't doubt that the budget committee has worked hard um and if they discussed it where are they discussing if it's not in an open meeting mhm that would be my well I think it has been I mean you know we we've had those discussions and well there's also not here to defend the budg you know the buet and there's there's also a matter of a quorum of them remaining in the room after the meeting ends and everyone leaves and having additional discussions that's problematic as well I think we got to go Heather I would just like to say that things that I heard last night

that I also feel like were not accurate statements the town voted to go to a town manager form of government we hired a town manager based on a vote that the town man to go to a town manager form of government whether people choose to it's like if this board right we had a vote tonight where four of us agreed on something and Joe went the other way Joe doesn't get to now go and talk about his

position because we're a board as a community we went to a town manager form of government with a to do that we hired Jerry we hired a town manager to do a job and he has done his job and he's done his job very well and so to to be a person even you know and and not everybody has to agree with the with what I'm saying but I take what the Professionals in the room say as the information and the Ed the way to make an informed vote right so what Jerry's telling us what mark is telling us what Chief is telling us what Calvin is telling us I have no idea how much it how much salt it takes to Salt the roads or how much that salt costs that's Calvin's job he's the professional and I'm why would I not take his word for it and why would I try to say I think you can do that with less salt that's not my job Calvin is the professional right and I'm using that as an example but that's an example that's really easy to

quantify the soul the things that Jerry has brought us a budget about we it's not as easy to do that we see the HR person the same way as the salt conversation other people may not but I just want to say Jerry that I think that you have done a phenomenal job with this especially given the current state of the riseing cost of things and I I know that you know but I'm saying it publicly that the select board absolutely supports this budget yeah thank you Joe yeah no I was just going to say the same thing Jerry I I was a new select board member that year and when we hired Jerry and I was in charge of the actual uh effort by committee members and the public to hire Jerry and he has done every single thing that we wanted him to

do and what we brought him in to do do he's been it's been perfect it's exactly how we expected this to go show where our growth where we needed to grow organize the finances he's done that brought in professionals to do that found several million dollars found several million dollars that nobody knew with all the spreadsheet find before that yeah all the spreadsheets floating around didn't have that $2 million in it I don't care whose it was so they organized everything perfectly and we have a budget that proves it and and you know it is a calculated budget it's it's meaningful factually correct and uh yeah

this he's done a great job the staff has done a great job and uh you I I would make the decision again to bring Jerry on board to be our town manager would do it again in a heartbeat he's the right fit and the right guy for the job doing all the things we have for absolutely well thank you you're welcome and if we have to do it again I would prefer not to interview in front of 12 people that's that's the most that's the most people I've ever interviewed in I was part of that process I was part of that process and I really one of our public uh interview interviewers one question that I have and maybe John can answer it oh sorry I was going to make a motion that we approve the budget as presented in include those numbers in in our uh warrant articles and yeah I agree with that motion I'll second I'll second the one comment I want to make here is the reason I ven wholeheartedly agree with that too is I do not believe we can

function with the goods and services we offer right now at the budget committee's recommended level for General government and so that's why we want to we we aren't willing to move any closer there are opportunities and budgets to have negotiation I fully believe based off of the facts and the data we have that this 1.43 million $60 for General government is the bare minimum to do the job and so it's not a I want to draw a sand Line in the Sand and I don't want to negotiate cuz I don't like to play play fair $1. 665 million is not enough to do

this that would involve cuts that we don't know where we would make and so that's why I'm not willing to negotiate on that at all this year and can you tell us again what the difference in in in property tax would be yeah on a I can bring it up on my laptop so it's easier to see we did a little calculation here on the property tax difference at a number this small of course that the the difference is so that's one of the things that I think that we have to be care like small like you and I'm not I'm not seeing this wrong like to whatever but there were things that were said last night and like when we use things like small when we're talking about $126,000 against this volume of a budget that is a small number but for some people when they hear people say that $126,000 is a small number that doesn't sit well with them right because $125,000 is a lot of money when we're talking about that amount of money over

this budget it it's not enough to impact what you're going to allude to now I just think Jerry you've been great about teaching me this that the way that we say things it matters and it's important and so I just want us and also the budget committee to recognize the way that we speak about these things matters so I don't want to say $125,000 is small it's a lot of money but across this budget it has very minimal impact and so what I wanted to share there was um a decrease by the margin of the

difference between select board and the budget committee recommendation so if we if some the town were to vote for the $72,000 lower item for a home that's valued at $300,000 that would equate to less than a $60 a year annual difference on your property tax from the mill rate and so for a 60 less than $60 savings you would be giving up services that protect us from liability like things like our legal services and um uh our communication services and things like that and so that's on a $300,000 home you're talking a monthly difference of less than $5 a month and so just that just brings it into perspective um because as we brought up time and time again our Municipal spending is a very

um proportionately smaller portion of our budget because the school in the county are the vast majority of it and so a 72 a you know .5% decrease in that budget line has very little impact and I understand that every dollar matters but then you start asking yourself what am I giving up for those few dollars that I'm saving and so that all said um what we have in front of us here am I allowed to ask a question about something that like I can ask it in my member report if that's more appropriate so it the qu we have the motion to approve the budget now and then we if we say we're not making any changes we're going to go into the Motions on the warrant articles so this is just to approve the budget and then we can talk about the warrant articles is your question on the budget or my question and I don't know if John can answer it or not but I think it's important for us to understand it was said multiple times

last night that we're we're introducing new services that have not yet been Ved voted on by the community and I have two things about that one that's exactly what this budget is doing right putting that in front of the voters and number two other than the text my gov what other and maybe the HR person

what are the other services that we have introduced you don't have to answer if you don't know and it's okay if well I don't want to speak for two that you mentioned are to be their services, is there something other than those things it made it seem like there was a ton and I just am I I literally am like what I can't think of anything else other than the HR cons only Chang and it text my go I would have included in how I took the comments last night the the increase in it expenditures it it wasn't an option well I I understand that I understand that but that's kind of how I took I I would have included those three things to answer your question so so the it line has increased because the cost of it has increased and so a lot of these things aren't subject to just that 3% interest rate you know when we need a new server cuz it's 12 years old we need a new server when we call up Our IT services which Jerry reported on in this

meeting and we asked them to provide a service and they say never mind we're not working with the town of Durham anymore because they don't they don't provide services at that price level anymore we have to go find it and we can't go find it at the same rate that it used to cost and so it's not a new new service the same service is costing more money and that's what this budget is a reflection of if we want to say that the communication is a new service that's an $88,000 budget line for communication um you you can argue that the expectation from our community which we heard loud and clear is that we can communicate with them even without power and that's what is required to provide that service our legal services are more expensive than they were in the past because frankly our Legal Services were inadequate in the past and we have now got more adequate legal services and the expectation is the town has adequate

legal services and our human resources Services the expectation is that those are provided for the community and we needed to get we need to get additional uh capacity brought in and so just the two items the the text my go and the

um new uh HR HR is only is $28,000 so a $72,000 reduction is not reflective of it of trying to remove those supposed new services so it doesn't even add up that way either I just want to say I I don't like the inadequate legal services but I think I would have set phrase it as he retired so we need a new counsil that's a good way to say retire right y well I know he didn't well when he retired the services were going to be inadequate well I think maybe if I may um some of the points is all the additional spending that has been approved through everything that you said the concern is do the residents get to vote on that and being a new board member I mean I don't know what the rules are if you're introducing new Services is there a requirement that all residents vote on that I know they'll end up voting through this but I felt I was hearing a lot about the message was more like you're doing a bunch of stuff

that the residents aren't aware of and um I don't know if that's I don't really well that goes for me that goes back to we we voted a job well we have a job but we voted as a community to go to a town manager form of government and the town manager is identifying these gaps bringing them to our attention and as a select board we are recognizing that's a liability and so what is this Pro what is the how does that get solved it gets solved by Jerry identifying the gap bringing it to our attention and solving the problem and now that's what the that cost of service to be able to do that needs to go get voted on and I mean if people don't approve it well then we're going to be in the same boat that we've always been in where we're liable in Human Resources there not even identifying gaps so so you and you also got to remember we did this within the budget that was set last year so you can you can say that it's increased service

no it's just better service and yeah maybe we had to pay a little more for one thing and we paid a little less for another we were still well with in budget we used less of the um uh fund balance last year we came in ahead of the game by whatever $170,000 there of fund balance I mean it's all the right things to do for the town people you know it it it's it's a no-brainer so yeah all all the statements about we're adding extra services and adding this there is no addition here zero addition we saved money actually by doing it this way so they just they don't want to use the text messaging thing well all for it but I heard last night transparency well that's what the text messaging gets you it gets you those messages the website being better gets you the transparency this is what everybody's been complaining about so it it yeah it went totally against what the goal of the town is and why we're moving in this

direction I I I I didn't quite get the whole attitude of it either and both of your points because you were saying like Jerry's identifying gaps and Joe what you're saying it's not a gap it's the service that you asked for and the cost of doing that business has changed and we put out and it's at all of our meetings we got what8 quote six quotes for IT services when when it went out we had a robust discussion on it um you know people gave us very hard time for not having a town with Town building with a operating generator so we went and got that generator we made that discussion was spread over multiple meetings so people could come and participate we got a grant for it we were able to get the proper size like it's not a gap it's just providing the services like things cost more money it's really a lot of it's lowering the risk of liability right cuz if you if if we get a harass case between two

employees we get a failed drug test I don't know what to do right I have to call somebody to say and this stuff is confidential I just can't call anybody I mean I just can't ask staff I can't go to you folks I need somebody that's going to keep the town out of hot water and pain and the conversation around the fact that you should know that that you should I just think that is that's not what you should know what you should know is how to solve that problem and who to call to do it per perfect example

just today we Jerry get an email from another municipality our size asking could you give us an uh um could you respond with how much your HR uh staff person and HR director and financial director are responding to we need to know about towns that have 3,000 to 5,000 people what they're paying those staff we don't have those staff I did a little market analysis here of the regional uh manage the town managers

when you start looking at it you see if if a town manager has HR Services listed in this survey as to something that they provide they also have an assistant Town manager and an administrative assistant who handle two different things if the town manager doesn't have HR Services after their town as part of their title that is that is directed to an HR profession profal at their at their town or a lot of towns of our mun size municipality will hire that out as a contract that's why those contracts exist so the idea that Jerry needs to be a a certified public accountant an HR professional and a lawyer a road commissioner and a fire chief is just not a realistic one you know and so there's no issues here from us to you Jerry appreciate that so all right we

have a motion on the budget as uh as the select board has approved uh at our previous meeting is there any additional discussion on that motion just to Josh's comment about the fund balance we're all still comfortable what with what we decided about the fund balancing okay I just want to make a comment that I heard to uh yesterday every year the tax income should be going up on this do does it not is that something we don't normally do just to try to balance things so I'm interested why that comment came up because it was only recently that we started uh looking at uh extrapolate getting revenues and I think that the comment had to do with the um the the non uh tax um page

funding sources the front page here and how that did go up 4% but like we said there are are what line right taxable no taxable valuation oh taxable valuation sorry yes the taxable valuation we we address that when the assessment gets done so we set the budget we come up with that and then the ass will come to us and say Here's the evaluation this is another reason why the time frame that we do the budget is problematic so when the assessor comes to us Deb uh she may say the taxable valuation in town has gone up to 400 um 400 or it's it's 4

million 400 million um not 382,000 but that gets set after this process and so then when we set the mill rate we use that new valuation when when we set the mill rate at our at our meeting that information is not available now it's never been available during this this part of that so I don't understand that okay so just to clarify I think that the comment was made is however many housing permits 11 new houses in town what was that taxable income coming in and why wouldn't that be applied to your your

assessor does that based on information that she gets from us and information that she gets from the state and there's a formula that's actually a tax that comes after that's her job and then after that comes in okay that's good I mean that's that's a good response to that concern that they talked about yesterday and so that never that do they know that problem they bring it up but they should know that that's what happens every single year it's the same

thing I think the way I took that question because I had the same question was all of the other incomes are estimated you know you said this is what it's been progressively doing and I think the question was why don't we do that with the assessed value I think that was the real question I mean I think everybody realizes it doesn't get finalized till June but you build an extra 18 million in or 10 5 million and and it may be with 11 houses last here and we've never we we don't estimate that because we are going to be given that actual number and it's just we we also can't we don't know what has been done for remodels we don't know how many sales have taken place where that involved a re involved a new assessment it's simply I think the comment was simply about hey there was 11 new houses shouldn't you estimate the value of that me answer is that no we don't do that that's right that's right sorry I just

wanted on record cuz I heard that and it seemed reason a reasonable question to me with my level of experience so I'm glad we talked about it that you clarify and it will be corrected it will be added in once we get that new assessment so when you hear it six years in a row it might not be as reasonable to right exact that's but that just means to me like there's a level of misunderstanding maybe I don't know maybe this meeting that Josh is talking about with chairs and co-chairs together and talking through some of the issues okay thank you my comment is complete absolutely good to answer questions any other discussions on the motion to approve the budget as the uh select board is already approved all right all in favor any opposition saying none all right

the camera but it looked like we were looking at you you weren't the intend to be the punching back oh oh yeah oh yeah I'm not losing sleep all right so the next thing here is we are going to take a look at the um War the fiscal year 2026 Duram toown

warrant articles for a a approval of the draft um so that the budget committee can have these uh they've already approved their their dollar amounts but they want to approve the Lang well they they want this for their meeting on Thursday so I wanted you all so I whipped this together some of it was done some of it wasn't so you all would have a view of it you know but you really can't do anything with it because it wasn't on the agenda to review the warrant so I thought Kristen said we could bring up new business well I suppose you could I don't think I mean to me I don't think we need to vote on it but I think this accurately depicts well that's last night what we voted on tonight yeah so I have no problem with you sharing this draft with them because apparently it was very important and I think that what they want to do is comment that

tonight too so you can jump in you can jump in to uh if if you if I'm this is a misar characterization my understanding is they want to comment to say that it is act that this that the budget committee is saying recommends or don't recommend on these things and they also seem to vocalize some concern that they did not get to look at all um articles in the past that had a fiscal note um and so they wanted to review all of them to see if there's additional ones that they've been to com they want to comment on um like I talked

about though for example transferring from one capital Reserve to a different capital reserve isn't something that we need them to vote on because it doesn't increase taxes and even if they were to change their um their rules like they did earlier this year that's not reflective of the charge of the committee so they're they're here to comment on uh things that have a fiscal impact and that is you know the raising in appropriating um but not the transfer that's just our recommendation and that's for the town to um comment on y if I me I think if you look at my

I'm sure you all have when you go through that a whole buch on Co money that's all but article 23 talks about to authoriz select appropriate funds upon and it says select board and budget committee recommend approval so I think that's the kind of you're going to have those kind of statements or whatever that we voted out of the pth I think that is something

ofle covered so this was really just a to show you what the budget committee was going to get you know that wouldn't be fair if you didn't see it as well right so the idea is to review this um on the fourth make any recommendations that you have or that you want to see we'll make and then we'll make those recommendations we'll change them and then you vote on it on the 25th and then it gets posted MH the other thing that I know yeah the other 25th of what I I thought it had to be I thought it was you had to have it before seven days before the seven days right yes seven seven days before the town meeting mhm okay so these these go in as right

so it'll go in annual report as a draft so when you when you approve the draft on Tuesday a week from today then Jeff Justin Kimberly will put it into the annual report as a draft the ordinance articles will be in there they will be available for people to Heather to read prior to the seven days but it'll be available in draft form correct yes we could approve it what right now next week yeah yes you could we don't have we don't have to do it on the 25th though well you have to sign it on the 25th so it gets posted mhm or before well you'd have to have

you have to have a you have to have a special do it no we could sign it on the seventh and post it then like it doesn't matter when we post it traditionally they gave that gap of time emergency changes yeah if there's any changes M right emergencies well I think again I'm probably speaking for the chairman out of Out Of Tune um I think our go

desire to see what you got there and then we would fit in I think we agreed quite truthly on almost all the the expenditures except one or two and and what it says is um if we you know py board budg recommend approval to be both of them and then last year on the exist I guess money out of the whatever you recommended one thing the budget committee recomend so it says select board recommends budget committe so we would write in Recs you guys put in

whatever number you want to put in Jerry did all that already yeah it's yeah what you got proba what we need and again I'm speaking for M which is probably fa interpretation um what know we voted on this we think you should you should I mean you should take our recommendation if you don't want to that's

this over to them looks accurate to me okay so is that work the budget articles are definitely the budget articles can reflect what they what they and everything adds up so check the numbers appreciate um what article is it to um of the amount we're moving from the reserve fence 740 it's uh 18 oh oh 15 sorry yeah and they have their they have their recommendation for approval in there as well what's that uh Article 15 to to appropriate the use of the fund balance there but yours is 740 was yeah it's the same yeah yeah they're the same it was only that one the general govern just the general government one on the front that was different y IND but there was one last year where uh the town voted to let you take money out of designated capital a fire truck you gave the authority to buy the fire truck is that yeah yeah um it's well

it's not specific yeah it's one second go ahead yeah it's in the it's in the Articles where they're appropriate raising and appropriating the amount right so look at article 10 what he's referring to if you look at article 10 11 12 13 um so you'll see it says to see if the town will raise an appropriate $270,000 for fire department C an existing non-aps and capital reserve fund for which the stard May expend the

the attorney said and J we've got some yeah we've also got some guidances it sounds like from state law Reserve accounts generally select board has the authority right from Reser accounts to spend four designated things within the reserve account and the other comment that came up um from the budget committee that I think we should just talk through is you know how do we go

about making sure our communication to the residents is very clear that we're using these Reserve funds to keep that tax rate lower um let me see what my notes say here the issue of using the savings account are we masking the real um that's the fund balance message yes the fund balance yeah yeah that's one thing that I would are people kind of aware that using the fund balance sorry I said the word wrong earlier but using the fund balance we are growing um you know so when you're put together your it's it'll be part of the presentation and we were very clear with that and Joe when he presented last year was very clear with that too is that where the fund balance came from and that it's being used to offset an some expense of the town but it just keeps happening to line up roughly with what we're putting away for future Capital expenses so it's a lot it's just being you know rolled in there so said we're

going to communicate that but and I know we're running but and to that point the fact that it's running right against that same number means that the rest of the budget didn't really change yeah I mean our Municipal budget is n Nal in change yeah it's just I mean

it's not necessarily just a coincidence it means that everything else isn't changing and you've got this flat rate for the the municipality Capital expenditures again not a bad story at alling yeah it's working so all right yeah you can hand these on over Jerry um okay you think we can do this yes yes we

can minutes without an extension John's got to get to bed at 9: so okay bye thank you for coming we appreciate you John and I'm sure they will get the mess and I will leave it you everybody just kind of lowers the temperature a little bit watch terms we're using say anything you want about me don't forget don't forget your mug don't forget your mug Jes my voice worse good night all right Jerry you got a manager's report yeah I got a couple things that I want to share with you so next week's meeting we got a lot on the plate because we're adding the two ordinance amendments right we also

have to do a public hearing on the ga ordinance you remember how we raised the rates where we also have to update that ordinance it's it's a formality um oh I thought we did that that was just the the rates going up you have to actually adopt the the actual the appendices okay so it's it's really just a formality you're also going to have an abatement from Donna so um and

then the first draft of the warrant that you'll say okay that we can put in theual report so you that's when you're going to want to I mean you have it now you all can look at the Articles to make sure you like how they're written and stuff so so there's a lot um on next

week just just to M keep it going okay so that remember the little trifold printer that you all did that kind of explained that went to the printer this week we should be picking them up and for the reil yes for the for how no how the fiscal year tax Sor yes yes so that's in the printer right now as we speak we'll pick them up either tomorrow or Thursday and when will that go on the website that can go on the website pretty much any time okay I think this yeah and uh we'll be putting them in envelopes in every house household will get one mail to too so there's that and then then what will happen there is we'll get feedback from the residents and depending on what that feedback is we might be able to not might we have the option to address that in a YouTube video that GP Cog will help us put together but we want to get that feedback first so we can address it there yep um I was going to say Jerry

and I know you're going to get to some other website Updates this week um I think it would be really great if after the updates take place not only does it all that information go in the news blast but a text does go out on my text my go to say all of this information has been added to the website for for your edification or whatever cuz I just figure multiple Communications to say you're getting mailed some of it you're getting emailed some of it it's on the website here's your text message please check the website check your mailbox check talk to your friends call the select board meet with the manager it's out there yeah what what are we talking about the the so with all the like the the cap the meeting the town meeting information the capital Improvement pl's going on the website this week the the the pamphlets going to for the um fiscal year is going to go on there and I'm just saying I

think this is a good time to say let's also just use the text my go to say hey check the website because all of this stuff have been added and the budget workbook will be on our website the warrant will hold off until we get the ordinances in there and everything so we're going to wait a littleit on that cuz one thing I did hear last year is a former select board member came up to our town meeting at the beginning of the town meeting and he said this was really great cuz everything I needed to know for today was on the website and I had all the information I needed I just had to take some time to look at it and he said and I didn't even spend I didn't watch any much meetings this year but I was able to find it all and so we're doing that again and giving people uh a month to to

to see it you know imagine if they would have just taking my advice from the Geto um and the other thing that we're working on and continue to work on is we're trying to finish up the audit so they continually ask questions the audit yes so other than that I mean we're just we're doing we're providing the services that we can provide and um I've been working pretty hard on this that warant and the budget is

all kinds of trifold and lot so but things are going good staff's been great the flu did run through the staff last week so we we had two people pretty much behind the counter last week for the most part but it all worked out good so we're in good shape all all things good just to follow up if um we're going to need a YouTube video Yeah regard I'm certain of it yeah waiting for the response from the community um and I looked at a you some did some YouTube searching myself of what's already out there there's some really good stuff out there I don't you know well I'm I'm kind of leaning on the GP Cog communications director is who I'm working with so he's kind of gu in the a the town and I think it was Brunswick I watched a video that Brunswick put together between their town do they have a town manager lead and I think there was their chair counil uh you

a discussion between the both and one guy asked the other guy questions and it's pretty informative yeah but the more we educate I just remember how I felt when I watched the YouTube video that was like you know 101 type stuff I thought okay I understand this a lot better and uh we need to get the word out yeah I agree so that concludes that concludes uh my my report cool um for me

like I said uh Jerry and I talked I got feedback from some of the board members about getting stuff on the website this week and we figured that the um Capital Improvement plan can live as on one of like the the news updates so it's right on the front page and we're also going to add it under documents as its own Tab and so that can just live there all the time for people to take a look at um and then we also talked about just you know having the budget articles up there and uh having that all up there by the end of this week that gives people a full month to to review it they have kind email us questions ask us questions you've got a coffee with the manager at some point between when that goes up and then and so and then we're going to have the text go out to say hey keep your eyes peeled for all that sort of stuff um I need to write our update for the annual plan this week uh to get it to

folks next week I want to know if there are any topics that you all want me to include as like a message from the select board as part of that update things I wanted to talk about where right in there was our work on um continued work on Capital Improvement adding uh the agriculture um committee this year our um move to a fiscal fiscal

year also initiating the reevaluation and those are the kind of the highlights that I'm wanted to point out I think you should include first of all the taxt My go and make put that everywhere because I think they'll read that and I'm thinking getting Q code tattooed on me so I can just tell people like and also I think to me what I think is important is to to point out is uh the we've listened to the these the updates on the resource protection and and these other things and I think that's important for people to know that you know they don't like something we've done they come to us yeah and what we started that within

a couple of months after yes it was me and um you know I think that people have to understand you know you might not like what we do but you come to us and we will but that's a really good point because we had the kind of brainstorming session this year with all the boards and committees and tonight is kind of the culmination of a lot of that work that was brought up that day we've got it right here you know yeah the flip chart still there all right that's what I have I I have no did Union Church transfer this year or last year wasn't it this year was voted it was voted on right but like that whole process took place and there's that I think if you go to that the list that that EXL list that we made to keep track if you go look at that what completed and that was part of the reason of doing that is so you could quickly say these were our accomplishment yeah I just want to know if there's anything that was on other

people's minds that we may not have you know that on the Highlight cuz I reviewed what was written in the past and there's a great you know it's it's really I think of this as a message from the board not from the board chair and so I want to make sure that what I write is reflective of what you all want to see in there so I think it's it's not a bad thing to re reiterate the message that like we want to hear from people we are not aboard that doesn't want to hear from people and so i i i i to me that feels like a very

different vibe coming out of this board than what it has been in the past we have some good examples yeah so I just feel like reiterating that message is important yeah that I mean you can come to the meeting and talk where you can fill out those forms and uh that should come here you can send there an email Joe do you have anything for board member report uh just no just again a thanks to the Public Works and the fire department there's been a lot of snow and lot of chimney fires lot of chimney fires I couldn't believe how many chimney fires across the whole state because I listen to a scanner all the time that it was incredible that those couple weeks everybody was really busy but everybody's been doing a great job keeping the roads safe keeping everybody safe so thank you to both department heads and the Departments for uh for doing that great job Heather I said my stuff perfect I think and I don't have anything new to

report oh that was my report I just have one thing I thought you were asking no we moved on to I thought you wanted to I thought youy no listen this is my thing and I brought this up last time and I brought it up I know minut the I feel like it's very important and I brought this up before when we talked about it before we were only talking about FAA I think that if we're going to have this requirement of like the historic I don't know where their new name's going to be and I feel like a jerk but right I given this conversation that we have had over the last couple of weeks with the budget committee I think that training that we tried to do in your office is

essential for the budget committee and the select board members to do I think having a training on the municipal budget is essential I think it is very important Y and I I think that's something we can explore next year for a gpcog workshop because they'll do one free Workshop a year yeah and it could be what's municipal budgeting you know and what's the goal right like the goal of the municipal budget is to provide services to the town to protect the health safety tell me well-being welfare welfare I know I'm talking about right and I just think that need we that needs to happen okay I'm done I we accept the consent second any discussion all right all in favor any opposition seeing none I'm going to slowly make a motion so we can use our last 40 seconds I'm just kidding um upcoming meetings are select board uh next week uh which is different than normal planning board on the 5th of next week agriculture committees on the 5th

as well solid waste committee on the 10th select board meeting then on the the 25th and not on here is the budget committee's meeting on um Thursday of this week do we need an executive session no do I have a motion to adjourn no wait really quick the newsletter when it goes out can you just make an asteris or something that our meeting is different than normal and then make sure that the budget committee meeting is on that it's going to come out well it's going to come out after the budget committee meeting oh never mind oh how bet the solid waste wasn't on the last one no we have a newsletter this Friday and the budget commit meeting is Thursday oh yeah I be adjourn but the

Sal meeting wasn't on the news blast Monday yeah so we can go on Friday okay all right any discussion on the motion I approve all in favor any opposition seeing none Jed at nine what is this supposed to be on8 that's what it says it's on but it's been warm 67 you turn it off I would just turn it off turn it off yeah cuz it only Heats this room