October 27, 2020 ~ Select Board Meeting

2020-10-27 · Select Board · 1:02:19 · watch on YouTube →

A Select Board meeting held a week before the November 3 election, run remotely. The board worked through a draft charter for a committee to oversee the Union Church, sent it back to Ruth for another iteration rather than adopting it, and asked the fire chief to broaden the fleet assessment RFP into a full needs assessment. Most of the time went to the email hacking incident discovered on October 16 and the vendor's quote to move the town onto Office 365, which the board declined to act on, wanting a Google Workspace comparison and a second opinion rather than a single bid. It approved an election clerk oath and the consent agenda, heard reports from the fire chief, the road commissioner and the town administrator, noted six properties heading into tax foreclosure, and went into executive session on a personnel matter, at which point the recording ends.

What was discussed

1. 0:47
   Call to order, roll call and agenda changes

   Kevin Nadeau called the meeting to order with four of five members present and a quorum; Marc Farrin joined a minute later. A revised agenda sent out late that day moved three items from the town administrator's report onto the agenda as discussion items: the email hack update, an additional election clerk oath, and a brief discussion of foreclosures. Public comment was opened and no one spoke.

2. 0:47
   Union Church committee: draft charter

   The board reviewed a draft charter Ruth had written for a committee to oversee the Union Church, also known as the old town hall, which the Historical Society occupies by town meeting vote for storage and display. The draft proposes seven voting members appointed by the municipal officers on staggered three-year terms: two seats for the Historic District Commission, two for the Historical Society, one select board member and two at large. Kevin Nadeau said the request to get the committee moving had come from Candi Descus (?), who was at the meeting.

3. 5:48
   Terms and the committee's mission

   Kevin Nadeau questioned whether staggered three-year terms work alongside seats reserved for particular groups, and the board leaned toward one-year terms handled through the annual appointments, as with most town committees. The mission section would have the committee set a routine maintenance schedule, submit a yearly maintenance budget through the budget process, plan longer-term alterations and renovations, submit capital requests through the CIP process, and prepare RFPs under the purchasing policy.

4. 5:48
   Contractor paperwork

   Ruth (?) said she had put collection of W-9s and insurance certificates in the draft because it is historically the town's biggest problem: people contract with a contractor, the paperwork is never obtained, and then a bill arrives. Kevin Nadeau said hiring paperwork should sit with town staff rather than a volunteer committee, with contractors sent to the town office before work starts.

5. 10:49
   Who approves spending on the building

   Richard George said the draft does not show the path a job takes: whether the committee identifies a problem and puts it out to bid itself or brings it to the select board first, and who authorises day-to-day maintenance spending inside an approved budget. Kevin Nadeau agreed, saying this is a volunteer committee rather than a department head with spending authority, and that bids and spending should come back to the board. A member also raised whether the bandstand should fall under the same committee.

6. 15:51
   Charter sent back for a second draft

   Kevin Nadeau said the board was not ready to approve anything and asked Ruth to revise the draft so the committee recommends and does the legwork while the town administers projects. Ruth (?) said she would not get to it until after the election, so review was pushed to the second meeting in November. A member noted the arrangement may change again if the town later has a town manager to oversee projects.

7. 15:51
   Fire department fleet assessment RFP

   Kevin Nadeau said the chief's draft RFP was narrower than he had expected, focused on evaluating the condition of existing equipment and recommending the next purchase. He had expected a from-scratch look at the town's population, geography and building stock to establish a minimum level of service.

8. 21:21
   Chief responds on the RFP scope

   Chief Moore (?) said the apparatus specifics were deliberate because apparatus is the largest part of the department's CIP expense over time, and that a proper fleet and department assessment would include the broader material anyway. Kevin Nadeau said the RFP goes out to companies that may not share those assumptions and should spell out the needs assessment, the gaps and excesses and a recommended transition plan. The chief agreed to rework it and send the next draft by Friday without waiting for a meeting.

9. 21:21
   Email hacking incident

   Ruth (?) reported that on October 16 the town determined its offsite email server had been hacked, with no involvement of the town office computers. Emails and email addresses the town had written to in 2019 were copied and are being used to send spoofed messages from servers around the world, some in Amsterdam and Chile, showing a town name or address alongside an unrelated sending address. The messages carry "re" in the subject line and zip or "archive" attachments, are malicious, and should be deleted immediately.

10. 26:50
    Proposal to move email to Office 365

    The IT vendor, BEK, proposed migrating the town's email to Office 365 with the domain unchanged, plus replacing three computers still running Windows 7 with i3 or older processors: two in the town office and one at public works. Ruth (?) said the replacements would go to the deputy tax collector and treasurer, assessing, and the public works foreman, with Windows 10 Pro and Office included.

11. 26:50
    Cost breakdown

    The quote included $675 for BEK to prep and configure the systems, which Ruth thought could come down since she can do some prep, and a migration line she identified as the most expensive part, made up of hours rather than hardware. Recurring monthly charges cover base business email, monitoring, management and reporting, anti-spam, anti-malware and encryption, and backup; Ruth gave the yearly recurring figure as just under $5,000 and described it as about double the present cost, against a $3,000 email line in this year's budget. Everything else in the quote was one-time.

12. 32:08
    Optional services

    Optional lines covered delivering and installing the workstations, which Ruth (?) said she can do herself and which carried a substantial charge, additional anti-spam setup, and Office 365 backup, which Ruth (?) said she did not fully understand since the data is already in the cloud. A member pointed out the Office 365 account comes with a terabyte of storage, enough to back up the town's whole server, and that the backup line probably covers server files rather than email.

13. 32:08
    Google Workspace as an alternative

    Rob Pontau argued for a Google option, which he priced at seven to twelve dollars per user per month and called roughly comparable, and said BEK is a Microsoft partner and will push Microsoft products. He said he set up Gmail for the sewer district and BEK helps him manage it, so they could quote the same work on Google. Richard George objected to acting on a single bid for a long-term system and said a second opinion on platform direction was needed at minimum.

14. 37:15
    Next steps on email

    The board agreed to dig into the Google option and to live with the current situation for now. Members said the spoofed messages were arriving as often as every four minutes, most of them disguised as coming from Kevin Nadeau, and that the current vendor appeared to be struggling; Kevin Nadeau said he would send Ruth the name of a security professional who is a town resident to get another view.

15. 37:15
    Election clerk oath for Taryn Kelly

    One more resident had volunteered to help with the election. The board took a roll-call vote to approve the oath for Taryn Kelly as an election clerk. Asked whether party balance held, Ruth (?) said there is an equal number of Democrats and Republicans plus a number of independents, and that Becky has been working to keep it even.

16. 37:15
    Tax foreclosures

    Six properties have reached the point of non-payment of 2018 property taxes and are now subject to foreclosure, with the process about to start. Kevin Nadeau said owners still have multiple opportunities to pay before a property is actually foreclosed and eventually sold, and that Ruth saw none of the six as candidates for waiving foreclosure the way the old Emerson junkyard was. The item was on the agenda for transparency; no vote was taken.

17. 42:32
    Fire chief's report

    Chief Moore (?) said the department is more than 30 calls ahead of last year and has not missed any, and that he continues to handle COVID-19 issues both inside the department and as town health officer. He is preparing two grant applications for the board's approval at the next meeting: the annual forestry service grant and a FEMA supplement to the fire act grant aimed at volunteer and part-time departments' COVID-related PPE costs, against roughly $2,500 to $3,000 the department has spent on disposable equipment this year. His 2021 budget should be done in the first week of November.

18. 42:32
    Road commissioner's report

    Calvin (?) reported ditching finished on Evergreen Lane with the machine moving to Wyers Hill, continuing leaf and acorn cleanup, hand work on the smaller box cuts, and paving of box cuts plus shim and overlay next week on two roads the recording gives as Rangdale and Deervale. The winter sand bid closes Thursday at 11 with one bid in, and the first salt delivery arrived. Three new plow drivers have been hired, among them former selectman Mark Blake and Brandon Wilkins, and Calvin (?) said he is still advertising.

19. 47:55
    Sharing plow trucks between towns

    Calvin attended a GPCOG meeting on towns lending each other plow trucks with drivers if a COVID outbreak took a crew out, at an hourly rate. Legalities, contracts and insurance are unresolved and the group will take it up again in early December; neighbouring towns have said informally they would be willing. Calvin (?) said he would fall back on Pete Coughlin at Maine Local Roads if GPCOG stalls, and Kevin Nadeau told him not to commit the town to anything, since any arrangement would have to come back to the boards.

20. 47:55
    Road bond balance

    Calvin (?) said the bond-funded work is finished for the season and that after setting aside $20,000 for surface paving and miscellaneous work next year on the road the recording names as Day Road, about $35,000 remains. Ruth (?) confirmed the money has already been borrowed and suggested applying it to the paving line, and agreed it could be carried over to next season instead.

21. 47:55
    Town administrator report: absentee ballots

    Ruth (?) said the office is handling absentee requests, in-person voting and returned ballots, and processed the first batch that day with more to follow Friday, Sunday and Monday.

22. 53:33
    How absentee batches are processed

    Ruth (?) explained that a batch of roughly 150 ballots is checked off, the envelopes separated from the ballots, and the ballots run through the machine without printing a total, with the machine shut down and reopened the next day. Asked whether that is allowed, she said it is fine under Maine law, and noted the office had a poll watcher present that day for the first time she had seen. Almost 1,700 ballots have been requested; Thursday at 6:30 is the deadline for taking a ballot out of the office and in-person absentee voting runs until 5 p.m. Friday.

23. 53:33
    Election day readiness

    Ruth (?) said staff feel prepared after going through the July election, with a large staff and separate people brought in specifically to count. She expected 750 to 1,000 people at the polls on Tuesday, which would put turnout somewhere around 60 to 70 percent, and said public works will set up and tear down and the school will have the gym ready.

24. 53:33
    Board of Appeals appointment and the consent agenda

    Richard George asked why an appointment to the Board of Appeals he had seen was not on the agenda. Kevin Nadeau said appointments to the planning board, board of appeals and similar committees are personnel decisions discussed in executive session, with any vote taken afterwards in open session. The board then took the consent agenda by roll call.

25. 59:02
    Contingency plan for the April town meeting

    Kevin Nadeau said he had asked Ruth to build a schedule for holding April's town meeting as a referendum again if large gatherings are still not possible, working backwards from key dates for absentee ballots, the public hearing and budget decisions. He described it as a failsafe: a referendum backs the calendar up several weeks, and if an in-person meeting turns out to be possible the town will simply be ready early.

26. 59:02
    Next meetings and executive session

    The next regular meetings were set for Tuesday November 10 and Tuesday November 24, both at 6:30; Kevin Nadeau said he will miss November 10 and Rob Pontau will chair. The board then voted into executive session on personnel and Ruth turned off the live stream, where the recording ends. The town's minutes record that the board came out of executive session at about 8:00 p.m., appointed Heather Roy as an alternate to the Board of Appeals, and adjourned at about 8:01 p.m.

What was decided

• 15:51
  The Union Church committee charter was not adopted. Ruth was asked to produce a revised draft clarifying the approval path and shifting contractor paperwork to town staff, for review at the second meeting in November rather than before the election.tabled
• 21:21
  Agreed that the fire chief would rework the fleet assessment RFP to state explicitly that the town wants a needs assessment, an analysis of gaps and excesses and a recommended transition plan, and circulate the next draft by Friday without waiting for a meeting.passed
• 37:15
  No vote was taken on the BEK quote to migrate the town's email to Office 365. The board agreed instead to look into a Google Workspace option and get another opinion before committing, having objected to acting on a single bid.tabled
• 37:15
  Approve the Oath for Taryn Kelly as Election Clerk for the November 3, 2020 elections. Moved by Kevin Nadeau, seconded by Todd Beaulieu; roll call Rob Pontau, Richard George, Todd Beaulieu, Marc Farrin and Kevin Nadeau all yes.passed
• 53:33
  Approve the consent agenda as presented. Moved by Rob Pontau, seconded by Richard George; roll call Rob Pontau, Richard George, Todd Beaulieu, Marc Farrin and Kevin Nadeau all yes.passed
• 59:02
  Go into executive session pursuant to 1 M.R.S.A. section 405(6)(A), personnel, at approximately 7:35 p.m. Moved by Kevin Nadeau; the minutes record Todd Beaulieu as the second while the recording names Rich George. Roll call all five yes.passed

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Motions the minutes record

The town's own written account of what was decided, taken from select_board_minutes_10-27-20_final_0.txt. It owes nothing to the recording or to a model: the clerk typed it, with the vote. Where the summary above claims a decision this list does not carry, the summary is the part to doubt.

• approve the Oath for Taryn Kelly as Election Clerk for November 3, 2020 electionscarried 5-0

  Moved by Kevin Nadeau, seconded by Todd Beaulieu

• approve the Consent Agenda as presentedcarried 5-0

  Moved by Rob Pontau, seconded by Richard George

• go into Executive Session at approximately 7:35 p.mcarried 5-0

  Moved by Kevin Nadeau, seconded by Todd Beaulieu

• come out of Executive Session at approximately 8:00 p.mcarried 5-0

  Moved by Kevin Nadeau, seconded by Marc Farrin

• appoint Heather Roy as an Alternate to the Board of Appealscarried 5-0

  Moved by Kevin Nadeau, seconded by Richard George

• Adjourn at approximately 8:01 p.mcarried 5-0

  Moved by Kevin Nadeau, seconded by Richard George

Worth knowing

• 21:21
  The town's offsite email server was found to have been hacked on October 16. Addresses and messages from 2019 were copied and are being used to send malicious mail that shows a town name next to an unrelated sending address, with zip or "archive" attachments. Residents should delete them.
• 26:50
  The vendor's fix was quoted with a recurring cost of just under $5,000 a year against a $3,000 email budget, plus one-time migration work and three replacement computers still running Windows 7. The board split over Microsoft versus Google and refused to act on a single bid.
• 37:15
  Six properties have reached the point of foreclosure for unpaid 2018 property taxes and the process is starting. Owners still have several chances to pay before a property is foreclosed and sold.
• 53:33
  Almost 1,700 absentee ballots had been requested. The deadline to take a ballot out of the town office was Thursday at 6:30 and in-person absentee voting ran until 5 p.m. Friday, with turnout expected around 60 to 70 percent.

Elsewhere

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