TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ October 8, 2024

we're live all right welcome everybody to the October 8th 2024 durhams life for meeting uh we have a uh Quorum uh Joe Roy is excused he is out of town today so we will stand and recite the the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

agenda I have I have one because Chief is covering um between 7 and 7:30 so that we can make sure he does not get called out uh I'd like to move the uh letter of support for warming shelter in the town of Brunswick uh to after the public comments so move second all in favor all

right um is there any public comment Y have a seat over there okay thank you phis Brandon Brookside Drive a couple of comments I sent an email today to um uh to Jerry so it's was just today asking if he would consider opening the town office for a couple of Fridays days before the election for people that want to come in and do inperson voting so it's still I just sent it to today so I didn't get anything back but I wanted to ask if you would consider that um the other thing that I wanted to make a comment about was the um steering committee so I

can't remember exactly when we met but it's been some time ago and we I recently got an email from someone that's also on the committee um wondering where's the information what we were told I don't remember the name of the company that was overseeing that but um someone took notes and was supposed to supply um the committee members with some overview of um some of the pictures or or whatever so we haven't heard anything about that so wanted to you to be aware of that because it's been probably a couple months now so I just want to bring that to your attention thank you yep thank

you anyone else the letter and what it's about or do you want me to how do you want do you want to do you want to present on it I I can answer questions there may be some so we have been the town of durm has been asked to uh provide a letter of support to the town of Brunswick um and it's partners for a funding request to acquire and develop a permanent home for seasonal warming Center um that will be in the town of Brunswick but citizens of Durham and I I don't recall the I believe a number of neighboring communities will also uh be permitted to participate and use the shelter so it would I think it would be in addition to a shelter that we would have in town this would be a permanent one so if we don't have ours open this this would be a good place to go um and uh it does not to my knowledge include any funds from the town of Durham is just a letter of support um uh

essentially encouraging um whoever is offering this funding to provide it to Brunswick and and support Brunswick Durham and the neighboring communities how' I do spot on as usual I wouldn't expect anything less um city of bath Brunswick Durham even harps well topsum West bath all met uh we've had several Regional meetings zoom and in person about that we started really summertime for this I think Brunswick years ago had a had a a fatality in the town that somebody froze to death so anytime their criteria is 10 degrees or colder they open a sh shelter Center um it's really a center cuz cuz words matter right so you know not really with pets it's just an overnight but you have to leave in the morning uh light fair for food but not really food distribution but they're just looking for support for their funding purposes which is sort of uh State and national funding they have a director um I I

think it might be in one of the churches so they've they've uh partnered with one of the churches in a basement you know quiet space uh sleeping space they have donations for clothes that type of thing so they really thought it out now in A Storm of course we would open the Eureka Center or the fire station when it's appropriate here but during just those cold long nights we will have an address if people come to us to send them there uh and there is sort of an Avenue to get people there not fired apartment vehicles but you know there's like uber type of um uh like charges or that type

of thing it's all in place they do it all type of thing we're just sort of partnering with them any questions for the chief comments so I would entertain a motion um to uh support the town manager Jerry and uh Joe Roy to sign these letters in support of the warming Center in Brunswick Mo a second second for just a

quick discussion sure um I'm just confused about do their letters say the exact same thing is that intentional or were they not sure who was going to send the letter are they both going to send the same letter I think they're both going to send the same letter okay okay and I think and I

my my recollection is Jerry told me that this is this was a letter that was sort of yeah drafted and okay thank you any other discussion no uh so we'll take a vote all those are fav faor post so four nothing all right uh so there's no old business new business is a discussion on the conveyance of the Sawyer

introduce a topic sure sure I'm Deb laraby and I live here in Durham and Roseboro Road I'm the president been president 18 years for the soya durm Cemetery it's a private Cemetery it was formed in 1918 and then in 1919 it

became a nonprofit corporation um without stock and at this moment we don't have a lot of people to run the committee anymore and funds have dwindled because over time people have have died and so forth and so we came to a a sad decision

that we thought it was time that we conveyed it to the town so that it could get the proper care that it needs we haven't dwindled with the care but here it would be more on a with the public works and everything would be regular mowing it would it would just get that constant care that it needs so we had a small budget of ,650

for mowing and that was all the monies that we were Distributing was just for mowing and because we made sure all the veterans we have I think 12 or more veterans in that cemetery and we always make sure that there's are taken care of as well as the others but there's rules and rs in the um main Cemetery Association that tells how you have to take care of Veteran Graves so we F we are a member of that and follow that so I give you I gave you some packets I assume that they got passed out to you they did okay the letter that you have before you um is descriptive of what we've

done and we've put it out to public notice several different ways and it sat with the town clerk for 30 days and we've had um um no one's come forward and said no no no don't do that they've had a lot of questions about how the town takes care of their cemeteries but no one contested so there's a sheet behind that that shows um all the signatures of the

know full cooperation for the conveyance we I worked with um Joe donovic who's the previous president of the cemetery committee and he's the one who gave me the steps to get to to this point so once you folks have looked it over if you so desire to take the conveyance The Next Step would be for it to become an article in the town report

because it will affect the taxpayers you know smly but still it's another piece of town and it's always been done through an article in the town town meeting so I think that's unless you guys have questions of me I'll stop talking so thank thank you um for talking about how to accept this um I I

actually have some questions but I'll turn it over to see if anybody else does first where about is the cemetery located I see it's some right across the road by the across from the ball fields oh okay right on 136 does Durham control other cemeteries mhm yes Durham has 26

cemeteries that the town do town the people that have been involved with this up to now and for taking care of that yeah we we we have just exhausted ourselves and we've tried to get people to come forward family and in a lot of them the families have even died off so it's hard to find The Descendants down through and then of course we had the crash this winter and one of the members

Sons graciously donated his time and repaired the wall for us so that's all done I have new signs coming and they have a copy of the Town sign ordinance so that the signs will be according to ordinance so they won't be in violation when they get them done I do have one question is there still space available in the cemetery if there were residents that want to be buried there yes to the front part of the cemetery most of it is

taken and to the back is what we call the new part on the right hand side there's plenty of casket SL cremation but on the other side it's more like a hilly section so we thought that would be more appropriate for the cremations but I have a cemetery map for you I have a survey of the land it's all

at the registry of deeds it's recorded I also have a full deed of both parcels and that's recorded as well I think that information would be helpful to have and then perhaps if if this is something that goes before town meeting being able to um inform residents of how much space is available in that cemetery is something that as a resident I would want to know that information tier and I have um she came to our last meeting she's head of your Durham Cemetery Comm committee and she and I were going to work together um she's going to get a digital thing all done for it she's very knowledgeable so I know that she and I could work something up perhaps she could bring it forth for you guys if you want thank you that's all I have Josh thank you do you have anything no no I'm good I'm good with this um my first question what happens between now and

the town meeting in terms of it's dormant once it comes December 1st we we close the gate over there for winter burials cuz a couple of times um we did winter burials over there and we had to bring in a small backo to get down through the frost so what we do is if somebody wants to be you know buried over there they can apply but it will happen in the spring okay uh 1 of May when the grounds are you know cleaned up had that spring clean up and everything and the Earth is ready so there really wouldn't be any any any work between you know assuming there's no accident or anything like that again uh there's there's no work that's done between uh December 1st or or or today and may the

only thing we have left over there is our fall cleanup and he comes in and cleans up the leaves and of course more fall between now and then but he basically makes sure the cemetery is ready for the winter okay put it to bed and you'll be able to fund that yes we've already paid for that okay so there's paid to date okay okay that because my first concern was make sure that something that is taken care of absolutely and and I'll stay in charge of it until such time as the town has voted to accept it okay I'll be well hopefully I'll be in Florida but I'd be available you know by phone and even when you guys take it over be available I'll come talk to you anytime you just have to call me thank you um and so I think before you know before we we have a formal vote to put this on uh the as as an article at the town meeting I think we need to hear from um Calvin about the added expense uh and and see so we can have

that information M um but thank you for this presentation is there anything else that we should know about I don't don't think so I I tried to give you uh the documents that that we have you know the oldest document and then the newest one where we took you know changed it over cuz we found a box we didn't realize probably back a dozen years ago about the incorporation and when my mother passed we had a box and we went through it and lo and behold there was the I have the original Incorporation paperwork so I said you know we said well we've got to get a hold of the state and change this out so you know this is from 199 you know let them know that PE there are people alive and taking care of that Cemetery so we changed it out but yeah it's been very interesting eight years it's I've done a lot of different work over there and I do have um if you guys need it too uh the name of the person who does our digging for the citer

okay well um I think what what I'm going to suggest is is I'm going to have ask Jerry to speak with Calvin come back with a what he expects it to cost for us whether there's any NE any additional equipment he would need any additional help he would need to hire um and any information anything else like that present it to us uh when we get closer to December January um and so that we can we can vote on adding it uh as an article in the town meeting right I know has to go through all the communications but could you possibly email me a letter

when you guys have finally decided what's going to happen that you've accepted the conveyance and because I because once it goes to town Mee and if it gets accepted then I have to go through and dissolve the corporation I have to close bank accounts I I have a lot of steps that I have to do after but I know a lot of us are concerned one one question I had is the uh the um money left over for the cemetery would that be also conveyed to the town yes yes all it's uh Perpetual care funds okay I think the town has a Perpetual care fund I can't remember how it's set up we have to check top because cu the money we had was designated for the care over there you know mowing clean up and what have you yeah so so I think I'm not alone to saying thank you for all the work you done and thank you for presenting this and um you know once we have all the information we'll ask Jerry to put it together present it to us and

we will reach out to you and okay if you could just let me know because if not I have to have a meeting in the spring and we have to cancel you know the meeting that we had that said to convey it so we can take it back and okay y we will make sure we stay in touch okay well it sounds good it's nice to see all of you I miss being a selectman every now and then only for a second I thank you for coming thank you thank you D all right um so next on the agenda is a discussion about historic district commission table at the no November 5th election and this is something uh I think we put on the agenda because there was an email I believe from Joe about we would put it on the agenda this is something that's approved well I guess Devin has given the okay this is uh not something I think we control it's something that's allowed um upon a request I think any with within limits I think anybody can have a table at the election some of

the things uh we need to make sure people know uh you're not allowed to wear any uh buttons hats shirts anything like that into the voting place that's um and uh as as you know this specific uh historic district commission is asking is representing the town uh you know it's I think it's important to remember that nobody uh for them or any other anybody else with the table is campaigning or having those discussions because I don't think that's appropriate so um I think there will be people there Jessica Devin others watching that um

and so they will enforce that but those are the only reminders I think I was asked to provide side um there any questions about that messages what's going to be at the table what's the my recollection is they wanted to provide information about um about the um their their role um and

get in education which is part of their um Charter Charter thank you um and I don't I don't think were specifics and I don't think again I don't think it's something we necessarily approve yeah um but it's something that you know I appreciate I guess I appreciate the ask but I think from now on Devin just needs

to be be told so that he can have make sure there's enough uh space there and tables yep all right okay conservation committee do you want to introduce yourself and and I know it's for us it's on the agenda it says an update so okay so I'm Roberta brazinski

I live on Quaker reach Road member of the Conservation Commission I'm Jess Costa and I'm the chair of the Conservation Commission and I'm on Brianna drive so um I think people may know that we um the town is a member of the

community resilience partnership through the governor's office um and last March we applied for an open space Grant and we did not get approved um the I think the application was not very robust at that time and we got feedback from the state um they award things on a point system and so they gave us a good rundown of where we fell short and um so this year um we talked

to GP Cog and um you should have received a Draft application um I don't know if you had time to look through it but this is this is what is in our packet it should be yep Y and um I don't know I'm not really prepared to go through um what is in it thanks and I

don't think we need to go into too much detail but one of the important pieces is for this next round of applications that we're going to go for there's a greater funding amount um whereas it was 50,000 last year um this next round

could be up to 75,000 um for Grant Awards um so the next application is due in December um so we'll resubmit we've gotten support from GP Cog to they're helping us you know fill it out um we um are working with um FB Environmental

um they previously they provided a proposal um for this um for last year um and one question that we had to was um if we can attach their proposal to our application because we think it would really um enhance it but we're not certain if we can because if this work to hire a consultant has to go out to bid I'm not sure we can include their proposal um so that's one question we had I guess I don't know if Jerry needs to answer that um right and actually it was a more like

they titled it a scope of work I don't know if that's the same as a proposal technically it has their cost their break down break down cost we would have to take that out um but um yeah it is helpful in the application to have the scope scope of work because they really want specifics of how you're going to carry it out and the scope of work has specifics how many Community meetings you're going to have you know what kind of stakeholders to reach out to so um

and we did not include it in the last one and I think we would have gotten more points because it kind of answered some of their questions so you know if we can I think it'd be helpful but the bottom line is we're going for the same exact um Grant an open space plan and

conservation strategy um I think some of the areas where the you know increased um budget would go towards more community outreach and events and more mapping uh more robust mapping to figure out where the vulnerable areas are where are areas that are grown to flooding um what areas are priorities for conservation um right and there was something in this one about possibly a watershed plan too so yeah the water um

and also we have to make a decision about I don't know if there was an option before but whether we're going to carry it out in 12 months or 24 months that's kind of the only difference and 24 sounds better considering how long it took us to join the partnership and it's a lot of work to have Community me meetings and interviews and surveys and it's a

lot and so it's a it would be a 10% matching Grant from from the town is that what I read no no nothing nothing no there might have been something in there because the application um asks if you fall into that category but as long as we stick with their um action item

that are laid out and our plan is exactly like that we haven't bearded off to our own thing um no it's 100% covered and then what what I noticed on the last page it says you can attach the vendor consultant estimates so um right but do you uh do

you need a vote for us to approve this or are you just presenting I don't think so we just um you know we want to keep people updated and um especially whereas Jerry's going to sign the application for the second round again yeah just wanted to make sure everyone's updated and also we're using like a community service GP Cog through our town Services

is so any are there any going through this again again and and going back up to the plate to try um so thank you for that I appreciate it um definitely something to talk to Jerry about but I believe our standard practice is that um if something is under $110,000 it doesn't necessarily have to go out to bid and so I have no idea where the price point is in terms of this um but that's just information for you guys to talk to Jerry about um and the update is so incredibly

helpful um for us because we have a lot of committees that are doing a lot of work and it's really hard um for all of us to attend all of those meetings and watch all of those meetings and also try to do all of our own work so the fact that we have updates coming in um is really really helpful so thank you both for being here

right take word Jessica or Devon do you have a report for Jerry I absentee voting is going on absentee voting is going on right now um the office is process 400 I believe absentee ballots so we're we're busy but yeah other than that same as usual all right uh

so I'll start at the bottom Deb do you have a board member report um I just want to mention that I met with the representative from gpcog um since our last meeting Andrew zero um just to you know he was just introducing um the service and what they provide it was it was good I enjoyed uh hearing about it and plan to go through some of the material that he gave me and you know keep an eye out for opportunities where we can pull them in to help us on certain topics okay so thank you that's all I have Heather um I just had a question about

our public comment regarding the steering committee and I'm wondering if anyone knows if we have a chair of that committee uh we do and we can ask Jerry to reach out and okay get an update okay that would be get things moving um and then my other thing is um I know that this didn't that Debbie's uh what are we calling this items yep action item list the action item list we had a long discussion about that last week last meeting um and then we were all kind of on the wrong track about what these two October meetings look like um but I would like to

have this be part of our like so that we can update this as it's going I don't know how we get that on the agenda but that's something that I would like for us to talk about so to get something on the agenda you have to request it I think it's a week in advance to to Jerry

okay and he will put it on the agenda okay this is like a standing thing that I would like to be on there like our consent agenda so that we're making sure that we're closing our Loops so I'll make sure that I do that well have that conversation with Joe and Jerry I I think I think so because I think to put that on every week to have a blanket discussion about each and every one of those topics is is going to be a little too much yeah I don't I don't want to do that by putting it on the agenda that's what's happening so I think that's a concern that was raised so I think if there's a specific item to be discussed I think it can be requested but I think a general where do we stand on all of these things is not something that's going to make it on the agenda because there'll be updates when we have updates unless there's something specific for people to talk about but that's a discussion for Joe

and Jerry but I I think I think I think for now I would ask I you should ask that it be put on the next agenda and then they can have that discussion I don't when Jerry and I met I don't think we had a discussion about that and if we did I don't recall but I don't I don't I don't think it was as part part of our discussion um anything else Joe no good

meant to forward it to all the members and I forgot uh there was a recent article about the difficulty in uh hiring and keeping Town managers um and so I just wanted to throw up throw that out there so everybody knows uh because we do have a discussion coming up about uh Jerry's um Jerry's work for the past year um that we discuss um and it was something that someone brought to me and I had Jerry find and sent to me so I will try to remember to share that um the Cent agenda is there a motion to approve the Cass agenda so moved a second second all in

favor okay and upcoming meetings we have it's not on this list but we have um a a meeting on Thursday at 6 :0 here which will be used for an executive session it's Town Hall it's it's in Jerry's office I think is it last I heard okay so over at the Town Hall at at 6:30

on Thursday um and that is being held Thursday because Jerry and Joe were unavailable tonight there is uh the town office is closed on Monday and the there's a solid waste committee meeting on the 21st at the Eureka Center at 6:30 it our next meeting is October 29th here at 6:30 that's a week later than usual there's a planning board meeting November 6 here at the fire station at 6:30 and I believe there's a historic district commission also this Thursday at 6 o'clock and I don't remember is that here or where is that uh Eureka I believe at Eureka thank you uh is there any uh need for an executive session tonight um sorry I don't mean to interrupt but I think we need to go back to the consent agenda because when I open the folder to sign I'm noticing that there's reappointments in here for election clerks uh Warden and another a deputy Warden and I didn't see that on here so I just wanted to

make sure that everyone knows that we need to do that um and then if we are going to I assume we need to do this tonight yes he we meant to add that to the agenda yes so before every election the clerk needs to um have you guys appoint the warden and a deputy Warden and then we had um a what's the other appointment for election clerk an election clerk oh yes we have a volunteer that can come in and assist with absentee voting and so you guys need to appoint before he can oath them in so I would like to ask for um an executive very quick executive session to discuss the appointments okay and that's under one mrss section 405 is it six is it I okay uh is there a

second second uh any discussion all or I'm sorry all in favor to move into executive session all in favor all right so we will move into executive session good to go y all right so no action is taken out coming out of executive session um I will take a motion though

to amend the agenda to include um uh approving of the the nominations for election clerk Warden Warden and Deputy warden so moved is there a second I'll second any discussion all in to adjourn motion to adjourn second a second all in favor okay thank

want to make sure we actually do it so there's a question about whether we we amended the agenda and there's a question about whether we um approved the nominations so I will take a motion to approve the nomination for election clerk Warden and Deputy waren for the upcoming November election so moved second uh any discussion do we need to say their names out loud here or we said them out loud in the executive session but not outside of it I don't think so I don't think so but no uh all in favor okay and now I will again for the third time ask is there a motion to adjourn so moved a second a second any discussion all in favor now have a good