TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ July 9, 2024

our regularly scheduled select board Mee meeting and we'll begin with a call to order uh because we do have a quorum Here and Now pledge of the United States of America to the for it stands one nation under God to start off for anyone who's watching home live there's been several Power bumps and if we have to operate off of a generator the live stream will end but we will up keep the meeting recorded and upload the recording um Pronto so as we

get started here any amendments to the into public comment any comments from the public yep perfect I'll have you come on up and whenever we have public comment I always caveat the intent of public comment is to give everyone who wants to speak 3 minutes to speak and tell us anything that they feel like we need to hear and we generally don't well we don't we have a policy of not responding if there's questions posed or anything like that so if we just stare and smile and don't send anything back it's not intended to be rude we just like to receive information here and and then use that for our consideration so just ask that you give your name in the street you live on sure and then your comment okay um my name is Mary Pennington I live on Shiloh Road um first I would like to thank Emily Samson for her words here to this board on June 25th I believe her comments appropriately outlined the role

responsibilities and purpose of the school board highlighting the importance of collaboration duty to students and being thoughtful and open-minded I have lived here in durm for 28 years my two children have gone through the rsu5 school system one has recently graduated college and the other will graduate next year they both got a solid start in their educational lives by attending RSU 5 schools of the candidates available to fill this open position you have three people who in their letters talk about things such as listening being compassionate finding common ground within a variety of backgrounds and ideas and the rights of all students to re receive a quality education in an everchanging world one of these candidates has even devoted a career to education in addition to her previous service on the board alternatively alternatively you have one candidate with a stated agenda to take us back to an outdated version

of Education that only served a select population Mr Osa states that school boards ceased to be stewards of Education in the early 20th century I wonder which values of the 1900s Michael Osgo would like to return to he doesn't get specific during the regular election cycle I emailed Mr Osa to get some clarification on his thoughts on important educational topics I asked him about approaches to reading and literacy how to support students with a wide range of backgrounds abilities needs and challenges approaches to discipline and behavior ideal class sizes and the role of technology in different grade levels he did not respond his non-response was all the answer I needed to confirm that Mr Osa was is not interested in working collaboratively to develop complicated and nuanced educational policy that will serve our students here and now in the 21st century as a board to best support our Great Schools teachers and

administration in these three towns please fill this open position with your choice of the three candidates other than Michael oan thank you for your time thank you for your prepared remarks would you be comfortable with sharing a copy of what you wrote with the board absolutely okay thank

before we begin the rest of our meeting oh oh go go ahead okay yeah come on Richardson and I live on Patriot Way here in Durham I'd first like to thank the select board uh for undertaking the process of replacing the vacated School Board seat in such a thorough and thoughtful manner I've been on the school board for 11 years and have served as the chair of the rsu5 board for the last eight of those tonight I'm here speaking as a resident and not as a representative of the board in my time on the board I've learned many things about the educational system both specific to our three towns as well as Statewide school board members have a duty to all students in the RSU regardless of which town they reside in I've learned that school Finance is complex and nuanced contract that cover our nearly 400 employees need to be negotiated to ensure that we're able to attract and retain the best Educators

for our children while I appreciate and respect anyone willing to raise their hand to be on the school board I also know that there is a very steep learning curve when you first joined the board given that this appointment will only be for essentially 7 months until the election in April of 2025 I would highly encourage the select board to appoint candy dekus to fill that seat C stepped down from the board this April after serving the students of rsu5 for 13 years Not only was her career in education as a special education coordinator but she was involved in strategic Communications contract negotiations policy committee and most recently served as one of our representatives for the region 10 Career technical school she has committed countless hours to supporting the educational system in rsu5 and can easily step back into that role until a full election can be held in April to fail the remaining two years of that

seat thank you for your consideration thank you um and if you want to no pressure but if you want to send a copy of any of your stuff that would be perfect as well any other public everyone who provides public comment we really appreciate feedback at every step of the way and we're really happy to get uh comments from folks all righty old business I don't have any old business on the agenda Jerry did you have anything anyone else have anything for old business um just as you can see at the bottom of the this agenda we are doing a workshop to discuss fee schedules after our regular meeting and that's kind of what would have been put in Old business because we Ted that discussion um uh Joe and Deb you wer in at last meeting but uh we realized that our discussion was getting a little more nuanced than we had intended so we figured we'd table that till we could get more feedback so all righty seeing that done new business

municipal center visioning steering committee appointments so uh steering lot of fers for folks who are interested in the steering committee um so we have one two three 4 5 6 7 8 n which I think is probably more than we were expecting to receive so I didn't know if we wanted to have a discussion on number of people we want to put on the committee and maybe alternat or how we want to structure that um nine is a lot to have for one

steering committee in my opinion so I know if anyone else had any thoughts or feed feedback on sure that was my hand sorry um so I think when we just did the solid waste committee we did five members with two alternates um I'm trying to remember the union church was it the same or was it more does anyone remember it was seven seven with two alternates yeah I think it was seven with two alternates um I don't I'm I don't have a strong opinion about this either way I think it's great that we have so many people that are interested I'm very very happy to see that I do feel like sometimes when the Committees get a little bit larger it it does make it more difficult um simply in

terms of how much time things take to get through um so that would be my only feedback about the size of it yeah which I know it's not really very helpful I mean I guess you could still you could still do seven and and and then two yeah you know and then a couple alternates if you wanted to do it that way I think the committee being so broad I read all the BIOS and stuff it's a nice broad spectrum of the Town um it would um it would uh be good to get everybody's opinion in to see where we want to go I think this is probably a longer standing committee than just a a short term I think we want to get a you know first iteration and then maybe another iteration later on you know in Phase phased approach to it so having more voices can I ask a process question yeah one you would you done yeah no I yeah sure is the intent to form the committee tonight and then um like how we've done with the um Solid Waste we provided them with

bylaws to be able to get them kick started right away uh do we have a mission set up for them is that being established tonight or tonight are we just establishing the committee how many members who's going to be on it and then that conversation is taking place another night yeah um did someone the only I was going to add to to what I said said earlier was um you know we probably want to put some sort of I know maybe maybe a select board moderator in there or yeah that was kind of something we had talked about earlier this year we' been talking about that but this would be a good use of that type of position and so remind me Jerry this is the um this would have some involvement from the town planner as well as the GP Cog person so for

everyone listening at home more or less there's this envisioning process that we have some money available for to Envision a downtown and what we felt would be important as the select board is to get some early buyin or early participation from Community m from the get-go and that's kind of why we're here so I mean I'm inclined to say do a set membership with

some alternates and then have them work with uh the town planner and the um GP Cog representative to come up with a kind of a mission statement as to as what they're doing and it's really a steering commune to help provide feedback and provide some assistance on you know design and structure of when public hearings are going to happen when get public comments and stuff like that so I feel like it's that that would be pretty cut and dry through what GP Cog is going to be able to provide and what our Our Town planner is going to be able to provide and so I feel like we can appoint members if we want to tonight and then um have them work with the town planner to kind of flesh out that um

mission statement does that seem reasonable yeah Deb Deb says yes Heather my only concern around that I I'm on board with everything other than we had the solid waste committee come back multiple times like what do you want us to do what do you want us to do what do you want us to do I think because we do have professionals that are going to be engaged in the process this time that might be helpful to be able to get to what they need to do I just don't want this to turn into like months long of we're not sure what we're to assuage some of those concerns to Joe's point we could see if anyone's like where wants to put be in that kind of liaison role as well cuz where I see this is different is we kind of have a vision of goal of what we're trying to figure out here is how do we incorporate these funds what sort of vision do we make and there's kind of like a a deliverable whereas with the other committee some of

them are more conceptual of we need to know all the options we need to know what's on the table and so I think that that's why we had a little bit more structure there so I'm I'm fine with proving some members here proving some alternates and then um uh having them work with the the the

individual from GP Cog the the town staff and uh adding in a select board liaison I'm not going to volunteer for the select board leison position because I don't have the capacity right now but um one thing I was excited about seeing this here is often times we get a lot of like the same folks interested in stuff and there's a lot of new names on on here and so um that's really exciting

but any other thoughts Josh I was going to say I I'm okay appointing people tonight but I think if there becomes an issue with uh you know bylaws with you know purpose all that stuff I think we need to know quickly and we need to get back together quickly to resolve those issues so as long as the five of us are wanting to commit to that if they need help we put that on the next agenda I'm I'm okay with that because I do think it's important for them to get started to do that quickly because I know GP I can't remember his name but he I think went out of his way to sort of help us and do this so I yeah so we we've

got what we've got six names that are new to me I haven't seen these a lot on on boards and committees so my thought process is maybe going with them as set set members and then adding in the other folks as alternates or or bringing you know going seven and two or six and three um I just like to empower people who want to get involved in the community to be able to do to do so I don't know what your guys where you all thought I have a question is it acceptable to approve them all to the committee and at their first session they can select two or three of the group as being alternates or do we have to name that in advance I'm how I'm trying to think of how we've done that in the past we've named the alternates in the past yeah we usually name the alternates so um I agree with six new names because we definitely want to um be encouraging of people coming out for these things so I'm on board with that I think that we

should do an odd number I think like the so seven and two because I just to make sure we have an odd number all right the best way to oppose and accept a slate and so can I uh I don't know which one second Josh take the chair so my thought process was I I don't know I don't remember the name so I don't remember who is in what pile that that Joe was thinking but I I do recall there was at least one budget Committee Member and I think there's three because there's three there so I I I think one I I think there's already been questions about the impact on this and budgets which I think were addressed um you know on Facebook and whatnot but I think it's important to have someone there so that that can be explained to them especially if we're going to have a Le on that so if there's three then one of them will end up on it anyway but that was just my my thought

process yeah good point I think the odd number and the and the and what you say and that'll automatically put something you know the budget committee is um because I the three budget committee members are uh standing members of other committees now and do other things so having the six I'll say new newer folks to our committees Beyond there plus one of the budget committee members would be appropriate as the seven and the other two is alternate so just a matter of naming that last person all right do I write Nam on a little piece of paper and we draw

the six new name the six new people and then we're going to draw one we're going to select one person from the three existing budget committee members and then the other two will be alternates correct so what we're really voting on is right now is which of the three budget committee members will be on there corre I would probably go for the senior budget Committee Member is probably Neil so um and and and put him as the seventh person and the other two could be alternates and then leave it at that would be my

names here so I can't make a motion yeah I'm just looking for them now we've got so are are the members that I think we've all agreed on here is uh I can't read the handwriting entirely Steve Steve D Steve duim Katherine Curtis Patrick Bole Devin garno Julie jabot Julia Johnson and then so then the other options um for the next for the one more spot is Neil Barry Phyllis uh Phyllis and Donna um and so we'll just take one

of them and add them to the group of the six I had the opposite thought of I was going to say put the newest budget Committee Member on on this uh personally and I think that's that's Phyllis um but really it's six I'd say

six of one half dozen the other but there's three options so what I'm fine with whatever folks want to think if we want to just do a drawing too so how about this just for sake I move that we select the six people I just listed plus Phyllis to be the members of the committee with Donna church and Neil Barry as alternates that's a motion I'll second second all right any discussion just so we can moving

yes so the motion is for Phyllis Brandon Steve Duan Katherine Curtis Patrick Bole Devin garno Julie Javit and Julia Johnson to be the members with Donna church and Neil Barry being the alternates and I made that motion who seconded it Jos Josh second it and do we have any discussion I think it's a reasonable way works for me so um

any other no discussion all right all in favor any opposition all right that's taken care of here all our the next two item of new business are pertaining to the rsu5 school board and our selection of candidates um we're going to move into a question and answer with the candidates um each of the any of the candidates who are present today the intent of this is to get feedback in a public setting where individual board members can ask questions of their choosing to people who are running for or who have applied for this office uh you know the way the process works by State Statute is after there's a vacancy it's the select board's job to appoint somebody to fill that role but just uh to go through additional public feedback processes we decided to ask people to apply and show interest and then look at some feedback from them and ask some questions just to try to be more robust than we have to just to get more and

more feedback from folks and so the question and answer period we're going to have here I would just ask the each member to come up and have a seat and then we can kind of ask them questions uh individually that we're not intending for anybody to be debating responses between each other this is just we'll ask you a question and you can answer our question we ask that your answers pertain to our questions and not necessarily any responses you've heard before your your turn to answer the question just to make things move really cordially and move forward after that this select board will um go into a discussion period about the candidates and tonight we'll vote to um fill that seat so um do any of the C I just ask

the candidates to come up and or the applicants to come up and have a seat and first thing first if if you have a question about the process that we're going through tonight please let me know so can we make sure they have microphones yeah there's one on each table

house and my wife just that's what I can go I honestly could 30 seconds you want let's take a let's take you need to be here um we're we're going to take a quick uh like three minute recess here sorry I have to attend to something sounds like there's something on fire at my house so a tree

cool we're back on line thank you for that short recess um oh we're missing one candidate still just stepped out of the room we'll wait for them to get back in CU I did say three minutes worries uh perfect so what I want to just start with off the bat is um some

of this might feel redundant because you you've all sent us information already and we're already aware of for you but we're trying to be um aware of the fact that everyone in town receives information a little bit differently so some folks might be watching this and this might be the first time they're hearing these names or seeing these faces so we just if you feel like I've answered this already we've talked about this please put put up with us for the next few minutes so I would just ask that we start moving left to right you just say your name your street um and uh

kind of why you are running for why you submitted your name as a um candidate to fill this opening so we can just start left to right um and by the way thanks for the opportunity you guys went above and beyond what you were obligated to so thank you um so Michael OA uh Davis Road

um I retired in 2020 after 42 years in healthcare over that span I've lived in six different states I've worked in eight first half of my career was spent in direct patient contact Imaging cancer patients second half was spent in the administrative Finance site of healthcare during the course of my care excuse me I've during the course of my career I've had oversight of service contracts at 113 hospitals and five states I've had upwards of 100 plus FTE under my supervision I've managed annual Capital budgets in excess of 200 million I've dealt with shareholders Equity partners and competing Health Care Systems as well as Medicare private insurance groups and credentialing agencies I have a track record of working with disperate groups towards a common goal I believe these skills would translate well to a position on the school board thank you next my name is Rebecca pster and I am from Meadow Road um

I we sent our letter of intent so I'm just going to really briefly because I know time is of the essence for you guys but I wanted I was very sad to see Stacy leaving the school board and I wanted to have a variety of people showing their interest so that is really why I put my name into the running and my son goes to DCS and

he's going to be in eighth grade willing um and I feel very strongly about the school and I come from a public relations background and I thought that that could be of use on the school board perfect thank you okay my name is

Candace candy Deus and um my whole career has been education um I taught fifth and sixth grade I taught special ed and um was I was on the school board when Durham was with Lisbon many years ago when I stayed home with a preschooler and then the super intended asked me to come back and be the special ed director so I did that for a while and I've been on the school board here for quite a while moved away from Durham for a while and then moved back uh I'm sorry I live on I live in the big old house next to the Union Church H Royals Boro Road and um I guess

what I would say when my term was up um I chose not to run again because I'm looking to downsize and thought I've already told the guy in the planning board you ought to do some Community for old people here in town who don't want to leave but I probably won't be in Durham for you know another three years if I really am able to move through with all that what a headache that all that is but um I would really be honored to continue my work on the school board as as Michelle said I've been in charge of the communication committee policy committee I've been on um negotiations with the support staff in the district and on for the last couple years I've been one of the board's representatives to region 10 and it's very very impressive what they're doing that our students can go and be part of and actually region 10 is looking to try to become a full school so that kids don't have to go back and

forth all the time that kind of thing but I would like very very much to continue the work I've done and be on the school board thank you next hi I'm stepworth and I live on new Brook Road um and I applied because first I have two amazing nieces whom I love very much who are students at Duram community school and this gives me a deep and connected interest in the success of rsu5 I also bring an interesting combination of skills as a CPA and a clinical social worker I feel I'm uniquely positioned to understand both the financial challenges that the school is facing and also understand the well-being and the needs of the kids and the students third I bring a long and successful history of working collaboratively on teams and high pressure situations and in situations with many competing perspectives and priorities then finally I applied because I'm someone who's willing and able to listen and to ask meaningful

questions and to support rsu5 and its identified goals and challenges and not to bring my own predetermined answers or my own agenda I would instead bring curiosity compassion and creativity that the role that this role requires so thanks so much for your consideration perfect so that kind of our first blanket question and I had a few questions that I wanted to ask each member but I also want to make sure that the board members have chances to ask questions as well and so um the questions that I'll just say a lot the questions that I was going to ask and we can decide how we want to pose those or just imagine there's probably going to be some overing just just ask all right well I don't want to Commander the line share of the speaking like I tend to do um so some of you have already answered this already and so but just I'll do a reverse answer here and do you have any experience being working

on any school board previously or the Duram uh or or the rsu5 school board and I understand that some folks have answered this but I want to pose everyone the same questions so just start So my answer is right right okay yes yeah my answer is no y no okay thank

you uh thank you for humoring me as well um then the next question is if you have any experience working within school systems either as in contract capacities or professional capacities or in tangental um work experiences so I'll start with you Mike Michael will go the other way around so no no okay uh in

terms of PTA helping out with school system or yeah sure so I guess I should start by pose the question is have you involved yourself working in a school or on a school committee or on a school board or in a school district or in a business that's serving a school's needs or something like that so yes that PTA would be something I'm looking for for an answer so and the school itself no um and multiple high schools grade schools and colleges um coaching wrestling but nothing regarding um yeah no but those are the sorts of things I'm looking for for for feedback so you've had some experience in a coaching capacity

was on the PTA and a member of a variety of committees and uh events and fundraising of experience and as a parent yeah and the community and the board and teaching all of that and actually one of the things I did back in 1978 um another Durham resident and I started the special ed program at Durham oh yeah thank you yeah and so my work in that capacity um um is through my contact with school social workers so I often leas and communicate with them and the work that I do with children through my counseling and Clinical Services

notes and nodding I am listening I'm not trying to be rude and look down um okay so then again this some of the folks have answered it uh what direct experience do you have with rsu5 either parent teacher participant anything like that so sure so um my my two nieces are students at dur Community School M again parent teaching school board just check the yeah my son is at

DCS right now going into eth grade MH I no family I'm I'm from out of state so I do have uh grandchildren nieces and nephews in public school throughout Michigan again but nothing in ours you find perfect thank you um and my last question for now and

then I'll open it up to the to the board some of you mentioned this in your statement and I know this feels repetitive but we really feel like it's important to make sure all this is clearly out there for part of the public process so we appreciate you uh entertaining our questions here but my last question before I open up to everyone else is uh what do you think makes you qualified for this role whether professional experience personal experience personal uh ethos anything like that so we'll just go back this way um to repeat what I opened with I've got over four decades working with sometimes disperate groups um working with Medicare private Insurance Groups um uh massive experience with annual Capital budgets in excess of $200 million and again um I believe these skills would translate well to a position on the school board um with that said I think exercising patience would also be prudent um The Drift from traditional

education um to where we started decades ago to where we are now um didn't happen overnight it won't be turned around overnight and I'm under no illusions that one individual will be able to affect aable change Durham and uh I moved away from period

then my family and I came back into my parents home a few years ago and I'm very grateful for that opportunity uh to do that so my son could go to DCS I I know this town even though it's changed drastically from when I was a kid um but I still feel I know the people here and I come from a communication public

relations and marketing background and from what I've seen with Facebook and other forms of social media and how people are have been talking to you guys about how you know why is the select board choosing why don't we get to vote there's a definite Communications lack happening right now and not that I am a sole person who can solve that problem but there definitely needs to be some sort of Communications help not just with the school board but with the people in the town understanding what's going on and I've seen it left and right here and it just it's a lot of chatter and I like to think the best of people and I like to have them come to a table and have a conversation and not just bite each other's heads off and I feel that I'm a very capable person there are people who have a lot more experience than me with school board and I I would

like the opportunity um but I definitely feel that there's so much growth that can happen this the DCS rsu5 program I I'm so thankful my son can be a part of it we're having a great time with the school with the people and I just I know it can flourish even more and I want to see it flourish more obviously all of my experience and

whatnot but a couple things that um I will will mention is most of the time I don't want to be brighten but I'm usually a pretty good leader most of the Committees I'm on I get chosen to chair them but the other thing I will mention and this has to do with communication which I've been teased about being too much of a person pushing that kind of thing um that was the one who suggested several years ago now that the school board ought around the budget ought to be meeting with each Town's select board

and whatnot to go over that to say see to Heaven ahe of time have their input that kind of thing so thanks yeah um again I I have an accounting background and a social work background and I think those are an interesting combination that could be really useful to a school board member um and also uh I really hold um strongly a belief that knowing

and adhering to the roles and responsibilities of the role are important and as I understand those that's supporting the rights of all students it's collaborating with other board members and it's supporting the employees and faculty of the school and that's how I would view my role as the most important thing to keep in mind so thanks thank you and I did tell a little FIB I do have one last question and then I open up to the board um and just based off of today is your

intent to if selected or regardless of is selected would be to attempt to run for this role again in April now obviously you might say yes and then change your mind you might say no and then change your mind but based off of how you feel today is your intent to hopefully run again when this becomes available so we'll start with you yeah yes okay I guess I would have to say that's up in the air because as he said this old lady is looking to downsize and that unfortunately might not be in Durham perfect I think yes yes okay perfect a good question don't worry we're not going to hold it to you you said you were G to run or not I just want to on the record information to get on the record so could I actually add to that yeah I would say yes even if I'm selected tonight or not okay perfect perfect all right so I'll open up the floor to the select board members to ask some questions I can either go

question by question or we can just go from one end to the to the other and so um does anyone have any preference all right so anyone who wantse has a question I can just call on the members one at a time so any members have any questions or did I ask all the good ones I did ask I guess so I have one question but I always go first so I was TR well that's why I said maybe I know I know so

how about this cuz I ask a lot of questions you ask a lot of questions he we'll get the two big askers out of the way and then everyone else I I just have one question yeah and I'm really going to only ask one question um so my question is please name one area you feel is the most important to focus on as a new member or of the school question so which way did we just we just finished over here with so we'll start with you then could you repeat that please please name one area you feel is the most important to focus on as a new member of the school board um based on I I spent um the

latter part of February and most of March visiting probably three or four dozen homes Gathering signatures to get a petition to get my name on the ballot and my answer would be to that I kind of summarized what I heard um some of this is verbatim some of it is paraphrasing the teates um most of what I heard from all of those parents and or grandparents was the number one issue was restore education to its original Mission Reading Writing math history geography grammar moral instruction Civic virtues um that would be the number one and that was number one with most of the people that had complaints and that were willing to sign my petition thank you thank you um I I would like to be focus on curriculum as well I think that's uh similar um and also strategic planning for organization and how the school system moves forward with planning and the future perfect thank you it's hard for me to say one

thing obviously the budget is a big is a big thing but um just to follow up I would also be looking at curriculum um and um I know that uh recently there's been there's been a focus on um doing more for the social emotional development and support of students which in this day and age is is pretty necessary but the um curriculum business I could name several more too so I'll let it go with that and U the strategic planning that was mentioned the the school system has a strategic

prepares students for Rapid very rapidly changing world and working world that looks very different and is changing quite frequently while also um paying attention to the tension that that pursuing that can create with taxpayers and looking for Creative Solutions where we might be able to do um interesting and new and unexpected things perfect thank you thanks everyone thank you does anyone from our board have any questions before we move into a discussion period I have a couple comments and questions my name is Debbie Oliver I'm new to the board this year so you know one of my missions is I want to listen to the community and we had put out a solicitation to to tell us who you think is your candidate and we did get a lot of response I was surprised actually yeah yeah we uh were very H I was very happy to see the level of response and and our effort here was trying to show that though we were handed a process

that could be very much all on us we did want to get this sort of feedback and I just want to publicly thank we got a lot of emails and we got couple things in the mail we get some things dropped off at the town office so yeah I just want to Echo what Deb's saying so I would just like to thank all of you very much for taking the time to you know come in and put yourself out there and make your profile I did a lot of studying up I was listening to all this email and back and forth and the one great thing about the world is everyone has an opinion and um in Durham you know we are relatively split we did a lot of letters of support for you Mike um many people felt that

just based on policy a certain person should be selected you know we ran a campaign it was a very close vote um and based on that we should just have you come in and take the role as this second tier as the next person other people had a similar philosophy of um policy whereas there

was a strong message sent that a right in canidate came in and was able to beat out a person who did a whole bunch of leg work in the in the dance so I thought that was interesting that we had both of those scenarios come to us as we were deciding and prepping for this session um and I understand both

situations um I also want to say to Michelle as the chair of the school board thank you for your service number one I hadn't given a lot of thought of this is I haven't put a lot of energy I think in this is more like a temporary role the citizens will our residents durm residents will ultimately decide in a handful of months of who the long-term person is so I appreciate the fact that you're bringing up the fact that one of our candidates can step in and just move and go and create um influence without a lot of um you know on boarding type

thing um but in addition to that I also feel that why not start tomorrow for someone new right and that there's a lot of key things that you can prepare for as the new board comes on um in a handful of months where new other new boards are U members are selected so um

I already got a lot from the questions that were asked today from the emails and what people said from the community comments I thought you know we're interesting as much as support mail that we got for you Mike we also got a handful of mails that said I'm just going to you know be clear here anyone but you that we really did not feel that

we heard a message of collaboration and understanding and empathy and that type of thing and it may just be that you have a different style different communication style but um we did hear of it some examples where people had reached out and whether they got no response or were not happy with the tone of the response and to me there's some red flags there that I'm just going to be honest are linked um to that my

children went through um Durham community school and preport high school they're growing now but um I feel one of the biggest things and I'm a manager uh work with a lot of people is your ability to communicate and collaborate and understand and seek to understand people's positions Michelle and the school board have a huge um challenge every year I mean every time we go through the finance piece that's only one thing that I hear about I don't even get involved with the curriculum but I think the ability to work with others to be collaborative is a key point and it's clear that you know

in some of in some of your responses you have that and um that's a good thing that's a good thing so thanks d i those my comments I have some comments as well but if we don't have any more questions I was going to let the candidates sit sit back down too so does anyone have any questions for the candidates because if we want to I if we're going to move into the comment section I think we could just probably close this this question and answer section then roll off of Deb's Insight right there which was much appreciated into a further discussion too so does that work for everyone on the board cool well thank you all for the questions and we're go into deliberation um thanks for kicking this off DE I appreciate sorry no no no you're 100% fine I just don't want to make everyone sit up friend if they don't if they don't need to um so uh I have some

feedback too on what you just were saying Deb but I want to open up to the board first before before I chime in so does anyone else have some comments to get us here so we can start this the table I I'll just say it's nice to have four people interested in the

position it's uh it's a lot to think about about it mhm um because I think what what that went through is a lot of sort of the same thing that I went through um and and so trying to decide and I was hoping that some of the responses tonight would make it easier and it didn't so it's like I I'm not sure you know I think I think what you said there were some people who were for one person or another

think there's really a bad choice so I feel Joe get some comments yeah I'm just trying to see here so I think you know I think we've heard a lot of uh input from uh various uh Outlets um indicating that you know why why doesn't this go for a vote and um so I I

really do think that this you know I I encourage all four candidates um their their resumés what they've written up for us uh are quite extensive uh they all have uh uh very good input to uh where they'd like to see things move um but I I do think that you know the underlying feeling is is that you know having this go back out for a a town boat um and April um I encourage everybody who came here and sat here to pull their paperwork in January at the appropriate time and um and get those signatures in and get on to um you know G get on the ballot uh I encourage you highly to do that uh um makes it a lot easier for the voters to uh uh see everybody that way um but I I would I would lead that you know our um outgoing um uh member of the of the um School Board um should the

school committee should um we should move forward um you know i' I'd actually be willing to make a motion that direction at this point yeah I I do want to give anyone else on the board has a quick comment to say before we go into a motion just to allow the decision to be

by the voters later on on any of the new candidates that are that are up um up for this position I appreciate everybody's input um and um I'll say volunteers them for this it's a hard it's hard work being on any of these committees or boards yeah commit and you've got to report to a lot of different people at different times so so I have some comments but I can let you go first Heather if you'd like to um so I just wrote down a couple of things before I came to make sure that I I touched on them first of all and I think that we've all expressed that we're so thankful that people um are stepping up to the plate and coming forward and are interested in this um it is a thankless job and an important one and so um I I

get the sense that all of us are very appreciative of all of you being willing to to come to the plate um I wrote down similar to what Debbie did that we received countless emails with wide spread support um all across the the gamut um one of the things that I think is really important to say publicly is that um many of those emails stated that the voter's opinion and and that their vote should count and so that Echo what Joe um is saying in terms of putting this before the voters um this process there

one person even went as far to say is that the elect board choosing to do this this way was a disenfranchisement of voter rights and I just want to make it really clear that this is not a process that the select board is choosing this is a State statue that is um required of

us as a way to fill this vacancy and I think it's really important that everyone knows that we're following the process that's laid out before us in state law um we're actually even enhancing it yes with this much public participation um and so those aside from

you know stating which way I would like to see us what direction I would like to see us go in those those are the comments that I think I I would like to make and and have on the record as making sure that that's very well known that this is not our process that this is state law that put this process in front of us thank you heather I want to make a couple comments before we open up for a motion um first off I can only speak for myself but I think the whole board would agree that this is not a responsibility we took lightly uh or are taking lightly and I hope we're showing that through our enhanced um public involvement process and sometimes repetitive questioning sessions for for some of you all but uh I think we really wanted to be thoughtful and open-minded on how we proceed with this and I think we designed a process to do that um with that with that all being said as well I um and I'm happy

that we're getting so much good good responses is what I'm trying to say to to go with what kind of what Joe was just alluding to in my mind um our responsibility here is to I fill this position uh quickly in in a fair way and in a way that we think best represents the voters um and what the voters asked for and so um I'm leaning towards

selecting a candidate who is going to fill a role similar to the the to what the voters have selected um previously or and when I look at that our our the previous person who had won the election obviously for personal uh unexpected personal reasons had to step down and move but we do have a candidate who has been elected by or an applicant who has been elected by the town repeatedly in in the past and in my opinion with the points being made that this role is going to need to hit the ground running it's only going to be for seven months what's that six or seven meetings it's not a ton of time um my my my hope would be to um

roll that per to to just get that roll filled quickly with someone who can hit the ground running and at the same time knowing in my mind knowing that three candidates 100% said I'm interested in running again in April and one candidate said uh I I'm interested in using my experience to fill in and until we run in April to me it seems like a fairer way to appoint that candidate and say give the voters the choice rather than picking someone now and have it show us as a board giving someone as a leg up to run as incumbent if they wanted to next year and so these are the things that I've been trying to think of really really deeply and to Josh's point the great answers everyone gave us tonight don't make it easier because there's no one who's saying anything that's saying don't pick me you know um but I'm leaning towards what you were saying Joe as well is I'm I'm more inclined to going with um Candice uh and I can't say

the last name so I apologize Deus Candace Deus um because I think that we're showing the voice of the voters and we're also selecting a candidate who um may not be interested in running again and then that gives the voters the choice to make their voice heard again in in April so that's that's my thought process on this I'm open to any more feedback from what anyone else that's good enough reason for me and so I would move that we appoint Candace CPUs to the position I'll second that chess did you get the motion in the second yes okay um any additional discussion on the

sure because when the election comes then the three remaining candidates will be on round and the voters can then vote yeah and there's a fair amount of um background that you need so the seven months is probably not enough to for somebody to really you know get up the speed you know so this will keep the the board running as it is today and into

another year and then start me that that yeah that's that and that's my thought process on and I'm glad that motion was made my thought process on this seems the most fair and Equitable to me without giving anyone an apparent leg up should they move forward later in April and also being responsible to say what did the voters say at the last election um in in in their in their choice and what we have in front of us for choices that meet a similar style to that candidate so that's my last discussion point if I'm not seeing any more discussion I'd move into a vote and so all in favor of Candice uh any opposition all right seeing none uh congratulations to Candice for her selection but I I also want to say I greatly encourage this much turnout for applicants come April because a open-minded diverse array of opinions is very important when we're trying to have someone represent in our community and

we really hope that we get this much applicants and if you don't get picked there's always other ways to volunteer on boards and committees in the town of Durham and we are always open to that as well so thank you all business um and now we can move into the manager report

off real quick cut cut back on um thank you yeah thank you all for coming in thank you thank pull your paperwork no one's here for the rest of the thank you all very much all right manager report yep thank you um so not a whole lot to report just some some minor things um so the public works just got done grubbing out the stumps in front of the Town Hall oh looks pretty good does it plenty of rain for the grass seed Y and uh I think you know you know it's not going to stop there I think we need to do some Landscaping out there I don't know if it'll be this year um but I think we want to make something sort of we kind of want to make it fun and what I mean by that is I think what Calvin wants to take a picture of it and he can send that to like a landscaping and they'll they'll kind of dress it up and I think if we do like three different types of land what it looks like give it to the board or and you

guys pick what you like then maybe we can do something in town and have the folks in town maybe vote on what they would like but that's but that's going to be down the I think it's important that the the residents have say in what that looks like cuz it's pretty bare right now we definitely need to dress it up yeah Josh made a comment about how you didn't realize how much those trees blocked the view until they were gone and it's like I drove by today and I was like whoa I don't like it but it's it's just the first phase of it it's I mean those trees were rotted yeah no I totally understand but it was just it was like oh there's a building there yeah so they've got that done which is good um I got an email this afternoon the website the new one should be going live tomorrow wow at some point so and everything's going to be on there everything should be on there the Kimberly garno put a ton of work into

this um but anytime you switch and you move over that doesn't mean there might not be a snafu here or there so with software going to work perfectly I would ask it's not a one andone approach I would ask everybody just be patient a little bit but I think it's not going to take you long to get used to it and I I I think you'll like it I know from an administrative side it's much easier for kimbery to to work and operate and the company that we're using they're just awesome they're very responsive it has been a really smooth process so kudos to

Kimberly for doing an awesome job getting that done so that's that along with that the other day last meeting I mentioned push notifications and want to do that I I still want to do that I don't know if you've all thought about that much um I'd still like to get a little bit of feedback if you think it's good by finding the budget probably going to do it anyway as an administrative thing because I think it would be a good thing because like the whole cassella and picking up trash on July 4th that would have been just an easy push notification saying cassella will be picking up your trash on July 4th done there's no comments there's no mean stuff going it's just here it is I think this would be a really good thing for the town to I want to jump in on this cuz I I stopped by the office earlier today and Jerry and I talked about something and I think that I'm seeing with this iteration of the board is we're all trying really

hard to get information out and then sometimes we almost get slapped in the face for for in the in the comment sections and stuff like that for trying to be helpful and I think that when you can be part of a app and just receive a push notification that select board meeting tonight RSU 5 board uh appointment occurring yeah please attend or you know we can have a push notification has a couple bullet points on what the purpose of the sheriff coming to town was to talk about it's a way to just disseminate information direct and concise information so I'm a huge fan of it um I think someone like Freeport or something might be using it cuz I keep getting emails from some from Freeport saying join our community notification like I'm on the out of the line leave me alone there are a lot of towns moving to that to that side of stuff and it it also marries in with our website and everything so when she would

when Kimberly would do a push notification or thing it automatically goes to the website news blast we can set it up that way so we're hitting multiple streams with one application you could also push your blog out there right right so I just or photos of a new

Invision uh yard I think one of theit would be when we had the massive road closures because of the storms and then people being able to get notifications of of when roads are closed and when roads reopen right um I think in terms of safety I think it it's a worthwhile I think of it too for like warming and cooling stations as well anything that's going on in town we can push it right out okay it's like a modern day town crier yeah so we're now through halfway through our budget and so in the next month we're going to have Mark show up we're going to go through the budget part of a checkbox that I have to check as your manager is to keep you updated on your financial status of the town I don't know how much of that was getting done in previous times I know I haven't done a lot of it since I've been here because we're trying to get the budget all strained out and we're there so I think it's we need to look at that budget so

as we get into the budget season because we're halfway through it we're going to be have to talk about different budget items I think would be important for the board to understand the the trend of our budget now and we aheed in certain lines and why you might see increases in the next budget when you say meet we meet with Mark do you mean you and Mark or Mark's coming to a meeting and we'll go over the we'll we'll go over the budget and I'll point out some lines that are that are going over and the reasons why for just to keep the board updated on your financial matters okay um all the contracts that we have signed with reevaluation the legal services in solid Wass they're all signed and ready to go we're done with that the question that the uh Kristen Collins had for me is do is the board interested in kind of like a meet and greet to kind of like talk about these services and expectations and that could

you on that a little bit I would recommend it just to kind of get to know them and I think we need to have a little more relationship with our uh attorneys than we've had in the past just you know when ordinances get written and stuff they they really probably should they should go and get reviewed by the by the attorney before they hit the town meeting things like that and you know executive sessions we can talk about that when's appropriate what are we doing those just all kinds of things get their perspective on um the role of government your responsibilities versus my responsibilities how they marry how your responsibilities are with the boards and committees just to kind of get kind of an overview and like maybe what we want to work on as far as policies internal policies not so much ordinances and stuff but internal policies so I think about that um when that might be appropriate um if even if

you want to do it um the only other thing that I have that I that is important to me is while I was away on vacation I didn't get one phone call about one emergency and I just think this speaks to the staff that we have they're awesome so I just

commend them on their excellent work and it's always nice when you can go away of course I want them to know if there's something really bad you got to to call me so but they didn't and I think when you go away and that happens I think it's just hats off to the to to the staff here in Durham so kudos to that okay um on that note I'll work next Monday but I'm off Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday next week for vacation too so just keep that up other than that things are things are going pretty good we're we're we're doing really well awesome y any questions for Jerry um can you I feel like I don't understand the the time you don't have to answer it tonight I'm not trying to put you on the spot of the codification like update status like I I

thought we were going to have something to look at going into town meeting and I feel like if I just don't even know where we stand with that stuff so the the codification company has our land use the whole book and they are now looking they're reorganizing that whole book as we sit here right now for example like the definitions in the things were in the back well George is in conversation with them and he had talked to me today those definitions really should be in the front of the land use so if that had been the case with the hope maybe Alan would have saw them but so it's really they're going to organize it to way they think it should be organized and then they'll be working with George and it's it's going to be a little bit long of a process I don't and we'll keep you updated as as it as it goes on because George is really kind of leading that too and I and and hopefully Allan's going to be involved because a

lot of that stuff involves the code enforcement officer it's usually a couple year process yeah hey Al you want to turn your mic on real quick thank you it's usually a couple year process copy yeah so you know it's just getting underway right now so I don't have a big good so when we did the contract with them the way that we have the contract for the um reval we have like a completion date of whatever is is that also true of that no not necessarily like a de drop dead date because I don't think they know how much work they were really getting into until they got the book and how much time we're going to be able to well we we'll work with them when we can but it's just right now it's it's wide open I mhm okay you know they're going to flag some stuff George is flagging some stuff um but we'll keep you posted as it as it goes on but it sounds probably unlikely that something will be in front of us in time to

propose something for Warrant language right I for this year and they're not even really gearing it up to change the ordinances they're going to inform the planning board and ask them what needs to be changed it's up to us to make those changes to bring to to to uh Town meting and so I guess my one question there would be um if if they're writing like concise reports on here's what needs to be I'm taking it you're going to sent forward us those copies as well you know before like I mean I I feel like a lot of a lot of this is falling going to fall on you know the planning board for the administrative portion of it but I want to make sure that we're getting involved that the the onset there of okay here's the lift so we are understanding what sort of lift is going to be needed from town staff and planning board and stuff like that right you know there'll be recommendations they will recommend this this this and

that and it'll be up to you folks to to take the recommendations on not and look with the planning board in George and and if it has to do with codes and so it's going to be a collaborative effort that's what this is really all about between all of us concern is is that I just don't I and I brought this up before and but just because we haven't heard anything about it I'm just checking in um is that I I would like to

see it done the way that North armouth did it where they went through and they did the whole thing at once so that we're not doing like we did this and then five years later we're doing this two years later we're doing this two years later we're doing this it's the whole thing right gets done and then we

update as Lo like State Law changes or you know that type of thing like basically press the reset button and so I I just want to make sure that that is number one still the intent and my understanding was that originally they were going through the entire thing making it compliant with Town manager form of government because some of our ordinances are currently not and also that they're telling us where the discrepancies are between state law and what we have as ordinances yeah so the town manager former government is more more policy not so much ordinance stuff it's more more of a policy yeah but isn't there like elements in our ordinance where it's referring to the select board doing things that the town manager should that actually does cuz like we had that conversation about like uh VI like violation of like storm water or whatever somewhere buried in our land ordinances the select board should be

notified but we now know that that's not how it goes because we're in a town manager form and so that's where I was under the similar impression as as you Heather that's where they were going to be like you know now that you've switched to town manager form this is superseded by the state state law I think that's more in policy how many times do you there are some there are in instances absolutely like that that they'll they'll know and and we'll have it'll be up to us to change it but they'll flag that stuff because of a town manager and select board yeah okay but like in the like in the Personnel policy it's all select board no manager mhm you know like who reports to what and who does what but they going to have a a a recommendation there on how to fix that or just say this is wrong you mean in the personel policy no in the codification oh sorry that's not they're just looking at land use my bad

right right okay we can move on two separate things we can move on I just I I'm I'm just trying to get an understanding in my mind of what the for that looks like and that it's all happening and not getting like this section this section this section this section right and we can have those conversations as we move and if we can do it all in one thing that'd be wonderful the first thing I think they're going to do is they're going to organize it and they're going to say this is how we think you should organize it what do you think right and you have to take a look at the bigger picture don't worry about the details the bigger picture is this easily understood does it make sense logical blah blah blah and then boom then go forward with that one okay and then they then they start looking at individual things and I think they're going to feed it to us in packets you know they're going to feed us this much

here's some stuff this a lot of stuff you guys got to chew on us and tell us what what you want to do right and the way that North Yarmouth did that is that they put that stuff up on their website so that residents along the way had the ability to look and see what red lines were happening this that the other thing and then when they went to their toown meeting after the whole all the packets had been given and all of the edits had happened they went and they pressed the reset button all on the whole thing all in one year yeah and if that's going to be the case my guess that that will be the 2026 town meeting I don't know if we'll be ready for 2025 okay and Allan went through this process in mechanic we're only six months from that that this is six month okay we can move on we can move on Mechanic Falls took three years they just went live last year so it took them three years to get through

their codification okay thank you anything else Jerry no that's all I got for you cool uh board member reports anyone have anything they want to bring up he quickly I just I want to make sure that we're closing our Loops so um and I don't know how to make that happen I don't know what the right way to handle that is but like we had the conversation about what our goals as a board would be we did our goals for the other boards we were talking about our goals and now we're in our July I know we've had a lot on our plate um but we never closed that Loop mhm um the fiscal year conversation that came up and like we started to talk about that that might happen at the next town meeting and so like that feels like a loop that's kind of like out in there and we need to close that Loop so um well I don't know what the best way is to to make sure that we're coming back to those things that we kick but I just

don't want it to turn into like what happened last year where you just kicked it kicked it kicked it and then it didn't happen your comment here actually ironically I was going to say something about that in this section here as well I was just going to say that I am happy to see we've moved forward on like things like the the sheriff stuff like that and thank you Josh for helping coordinate a lot of that stuff with the getting the sheriff in and talking stuff like that and um you know I know that the fee schedule thing was important to you Heather and we're moving forward on that and so I just want to make sure we use this board member report section time to identify what's the next thing is there something Joe or Deb that either one of you are passionate about that you'd like to see us move forward out of that sort of thing that we can start putting on an agenda you know because what I'm

thinking the Jerry and I are trying to meet to plan out agendas three or four meetings out which is a rough idea and right now the only thing I see on agenda for us um going into August is some more disc having the union church or the Durham historic district commission come

and um speak with us about their proposed things we're going send them an invitation for August 10th for that August 13th August 13th I saying the 10th but other than that what I'm saying is if there's something on that list I wasn't at that meeting and I can't remember off the top of my head what was prioritized um if there's something on that list that you think we should be putting on no we didn't go through it because you weren't here we we decided that night that we wanted to wait for you okay um do we want to go through that what day is today do we want to put that on the agenda to go through on July 23rd yeah okay we did have the meeting and have a discussion some I did someone volunteer they were going to summarize them we had the F chart we had the flip chart and then we but we weren't we and we did the thing where we all said which ones are not right but then we didn't like we can't have 20 do you want us to

that's I mean I think we should summarize that conversation with the flip chart notes or whatever and then that should be an agenda item let's look through this written list and figure out what are the top three or how we're going to scatter them over the year should we put that on the 23rd agenda is the folks want to put that yeah Joe or Josh what do you think

yeah I just and and at this point we're six months out we're six months through if we just can maybe find a couple of those that we can address and put put on things that works for me and I think I think we had a conversation with Donna that she was going to talk about the fiscal right that same meeting have Mark come in and talk about the budget right and so when are you plan on them coming in for that well I was going to just I was going to work with you on that I I like the 23rd yeah does that seem too much for us to tackle on the 23rd to me that's a priority because that's yeah 100% I thought it was something we would wait for the reevaluation but Donis comments that it needs to happen sooner rather than later that was like a secondary and tertiary thing in my head but then after hearing Donna's comments that kind of elevated to closer to a top priority for me Donna and have to come the same night

we have Donna come the 23rd and Mark come the first week of August or the first meeting in August or first meeting in August is going to be the Durham historic district con you I'm article 12 5. okay so and that's going to be a full meeting I think so Donna and Mark on the 23rd in July yeah because I think Mark and add value to the conversation when it comes to how we do this in the in the

the way the audit works and the whole night can we just do that and our goals and have that be our agenda for that I'm fine with putting that as as long as you all think that that is a manageable meeting yeah I think so okay I think it would be okay I think especially if we do Deb suggestion where we summarize ahead of time summarize do that I'm happy to do it okay because so the chart we'll do Donna and M first and have the financial conversation first and then we'll get right into the goals on that meeting and what's our next step with the law enforcement proposal I mean we had good good session there yeah I think that my thought process was this is a hot button issue um and it's all about taxes everybody and then the question that we would have is as a board we could do several things we could say not right

now let's think of about it at a different date we could say yeah we want a budget for it let's go through with it or we could say hey let's get the town to vote on whether they want us to pursue this further because we have a we have a election in November that's likely going to have large turnout and then if they say yes we can then put it through the budget cycle between November and the end of the year um I guess we have to decide on how we want to do that do we want to say we're not going to pursue it any further based off what we know we're going to definitely put it on the budget in budget for it right now or we're going to ask for more feedback okay so I think what you're saying is the next step is we we need to put the item back on an upcoming agenda and list the options that we have and decide what what to me this completely fits within the what we're saying we're going to do the 23rd yeah let's leave

that on the July let's do that July 23rd as well I don't think we need any outside feedback at this point we have what we have here and we're just deciding on a process so it is definitely on the flip chart so it will be one of the things and then we can choose at that meeting how we move forward with it instead of having a conversation tonight perfect Josh and Joe sound good to you two perfect cool so we just developed our our 23rd and our 13th agenda for good perfect so so

just to be clear on the 13th that's all you want is the article 12 and 5.14 disc yeah because I'm guessing there there might be some action items that come out of our July 23rd meeting so we could always add that on if we think we'll have time but right now all I see us having time for okay I just want to make sure we're putting enough time all right and just selfishly I'd like to do some of this stuff in July and August because I will be out of the country August 30th through September 19th so I'll miss and then another trips I'll miss September so if we can get things moving I know it's crazy to be talking about our September schedule now but the July meeting the next one did you did you have stuff on that you that's the July that's the 23rd that's the 23rd that's the that's um the goals and the

in the six Monon update from Mark I thought that was the 23rd of that is that's July July 23rd oh the July 23d yep okay is that two weeks enough turnar around time for them well I was hoping I so it might be my miscommunication I was hoping to do that the last meeting in August you're still going to be here right yeah cuz we need to give Mark time to do the reconciliation okay so do we in that case how about we just do the law enforcement and goal discussion on the 23rd can you prepare document necessary before that then on August

13th it'll be the Durham historic district commission and any layover items from the 23rd meeting and then on August 27th we'll have the honor M the only issue I see with that is talking about fiscal year before we set our goals for the rest of the year is valuable to me because if that if if we're getting information from Donna that makes us move that up on our to-do list but we're talking about what we want on our to-do list before we get that information from Donna it's kind of like putting the cart before the horse she she's already T I think talked about how it should be a priority for us yeah okay so if everyone else is comfortable with what they need to to talk about that as a priority okay perfect then then I'm I'm not I'm not worried I also think that while we might get through the I don't think we'll get through all of this tonight and so I think that we should plan to have this

also on the next meeting the July 23rd any wrap up so speaking of that the time let's wrap up this board member report section um and I have a motion to approve the consent agenda some any discussion or second Josh uh any

discussion I see none a motion to approve all right thank you and thank you to folks who caught some edits that needed to be done on the minutes last time that we're approving so uh upcoming meeting 72324 and 8132 24 we just flushed out what our um agenda is going to look like for that and then the planning board is meeting August 7th

2024 um I think they have a meeting this Wednesday too right tomorrow tomorrow and then so July July 10th as need uh executive session all righty so we're going to I would accept a motion to adjourn and then we'll move into a fee schedule Workshop My only policy question on this would be actually before I make that Mo ask for that motion if we decide to change a fee tonight and we're in a workshop when we have to go back into a meeting to change the fee yeah okay so in that regard do we want to keep the meeting open and just move this into and move into a discussion on these fees so we make a well we advertise it

as a workshop because there might be fees that we would want to vote on changing tonight there are definitely some cheap yeah there are definitely some vote yeah so what do you all what do folks think should we just stay in critical that they actually get changed tonight or could we there's a couple I didn't know until the agenda yeah I guess we could amend the agenda to just move move this into a regular meeting and just discuss it yeah agenda all right I would accept a motion to amend the agenda to move the workshop discussion into the regular meeting under old business under old business so mov do I have a second Second Joe all any discussion all in favor all right so let's get these warrant passed out but

um this is all because we started this Feast stru as we know we have an update where we now can update fees uh periodically rather than annually and we started this discussion we de started this discussion uh a couple meetings ago our last meeting realized we were getting a little bit more in the weeds than we had time for so we made a couple of adjustments and then we uh decided we would have a further discussion tonight on some of these items with a little bit of groundwork being done um in in advance for this meeting um you know the initial assessment here is that we're going to be moving forward to try to bring our fees commerate or talk talk about our fees uh and see how are commerate to some surrounding communities as and and what Ser best serves the needs for Durham so um D jurry or Allan did you want to kick off on something with us or do we want to go Section by section and just have a

discussion um I I think I'd like to start with Road association fees right off the bat and do that section by itself all right so in process format let's just go Section by section but because we know that that's a priority section for the town let's um start

there so if you look on the second or third page of the packet that I handed out the red and black it's Road Associated fees um those fees uh so there's three there Town Road entrance permit and that's by the road commissioner um assigned e911 addresses

and private road sign fee those are all fees that are out in other communities we don't we haven't done any fees at all what do you mean when we say out as in other communities have those and we don't have them the other communities do do that and they charge for those fees and we're not doing that and it's very those are very timec consuming uh activities for myself and for the road commissioner okay and oh TR you have a question uh I just before we jump right in I wanted to relay a comment that I received and that was that we were um driving

that we was used um but essentially we were we were driving away uh uh any development in town by talk of raising fees and not associating them with the town cost to the town mhm and so I uh I guess my first point would be is that our is that is that the goal and if that's the goal I think it needs to be stated if it's not the goal then I

um I I my question and what I would want to know when we talk about fees is are they related to the cost of the Town yeah so my oh sorry Heather go ahead um so my position and I did research this week with some of our town staff regarding some of the fees on this um is that I don't feel like applicant applications subdivisions any any of those things should be subsidized on the backs of the taxpayers that those items need to be at

cost to to the applicant the developer I'm not we're not trying to drive development away that's not my personal goal my goal is to make sure that the the person that is benefiting from the permit the application the whatever is the one that is paying for the town service to take place and that that's not being subsidized by all the other taxpayers by the fact that we're paying Town sta with our tax dollarss to do these things when that should be a cost to the applicant not to the rest of the residents in the town that that's my position and what my goal is with raising these fees and they're also so substantially low compared to all of the other surrounding towns near us even at 50 cents a square foot for a building permit that is still below the surrounding towns so my thought on it Josh is like I think that when we like similar to what Heather just said we have our Municipal staff that are funded in

entirely off of the tax base and an durm that is almost entirely just property tax and so in my mind as well um if there there's a certain Baseline set of expectations that we all pay into and we all get get out of and I know you know this but I want to repeat it for everyone else to here you know we're all paying into trash pickup and we're all getting trash pickup but in my mind we're not all paying in re to establish a town road entrance permit um and all benefiting from that that is one person who needs it and one person who's benefiting from it and it it takes up a significant portion of one of our staff members time and in that way I think that charging for that person's time for that discret measurable task is appropriate and I did a little bit of discussing W with our town planner about this I asked him a couple questions and he said it's pretty standard in other communities that some of these building

inspection type stuff or even just a building inspector is their their that cost is covered their salaries covered entirely by the cost they incur from these fee structures so if you're going out there and expecting buildings and all that by the time you count how much you brought in for fees that covers the that person's salary because that's a distinct measurable thing and so I think moving towards a model more like that my my thoughts on the comment of is pushing development away is that I don't think we're Reinventing the wheel here I think that we're moving in we're we're just starting to use the wheel that has been made already like by moving into something more commerate with what the surrounding communities do ones that have a significant amount of development we're just kind of catching catching up to the the process in in my mind that's how I see it because I don't want this to be a

hey let's put a fee that's so exorbitant Nobody Does this but it's like hey if you're saying you're driving development away from us and then you're moving to the town next to us and doing the exact same thing but paying four times the development fees I don't necessarily put a ton of stake in into that argument unless we were becoming the most expensive one I don't disagree yeah but I think comments have been made and people are taking them in certain ways and so I just caution on what comments are made yeah I think that's a good policy and so at least for me the assessment of fees here is to bring us up to in my mind to what

is reasonable based off of the surrounding communities and the the costs incurred by the town via the salary in time of our employees to do some of these things that's my that's my motivation here so but it's a really good thing to bring up because I think it's in like you said if we don't explicitly State why we're having these conversations all people can do is infer you know I think it's the logic thing that you talked about where not every taxpayer is benefiting of this but because when I even watched the video of the last meeting and we were talking about this stuff I thought well you know if I'm a taxpayer in Durham now and I want to add a new entrance way to my lot or something and someone says if I call the town office it's like $125 for the guy to come out and take a look and give you some advice or talk about your culbert size or whatever my my immediate reaction would be wouldn't this be covered under my tax

bill like what's covered under my tax bill you know why do I have to pay a $125 for somebody to come out that's how I thought and I don't think that would be an unreasonable expectation for other people to think that then I was thinking about well if it's a new if it's a new development or someone who is not a taxpayer in Durham yet and the fee is $200 or whatever I I felt that was more reasonable so hearing the logic behind the fact that not all of the residents benefit from certain Services therefore the service will be charged for the time that the employee needs to take I mean I feel better about that but I was feeling a little T step from the conversation that I was listening to from the the video well thanks thank you for those that feedback though you know um one of the places where I was wrong about this um was specifically about like what I would like to charge for the fire department for the public

safety officer in terms of like Mass Gatherings um I I was under the assumption or like on the fourth of July that he was staff more expecting some type of incident around the fact that we have fireworks going on you know residents setting off fireworks or um Mass Gatherings where there could be something potentially happening and and he educated me on the fact that you know that no I don't staff more we're staff 247 and my staff is my staff and so charging a fee um a permit fee for that

type of thing wouldn't incur more cost to the town which would speak to what that comment is right that that would not be an appropriate place even though other towns also are charging for Mass Gathering um because I think that perhaps they go out and inspect like that they can access it with uh um

emergency vehicles or whatever that type of thing where they have to go out and do something that's not part of their normal um job description right that that type of thing would incur a fee but just to have a permit for a mass gathering for the sake of having for a mass Gathering is not an appropriate charge because it's not directly related to a service that's being performed so I I am cognizant of that as I'm going through this and and I am seeking out

the the proper answers from town staff as to what constitutes a service that should incur a fee versus what should think I think that it is appropriate to charge fees for for services these things like entrance permits they have to be inspected for safety the C's put in right all of all of that stuff you I mean they are they are crossing the town's RightWay the town's property you want that to be done correctly um so it is appropriate and it's and it's standard operating procedure really for for most municipalities to to charge fees it's like how much you charge um is really the question um and and to that point I know that like I had a conversation with the town planner and and this is just a a a estimate number but like we talked about what percentage of your time is spent assisting working on things that directly benefit just the applicant of something whether it be a subdivision whether it be uh anything

and I don't want to pick on subdivisions or anything like but anything that you're spending your time on that is functionally helping one person or or just a couple people or maybe even someone that's not a Town Community member um and he said ah probably about 25% and then 75% of my time is doing just the standard Town planner stuff and then I said well do you think we're capturing based off your hourly wage do you think we're capturing through those fees 25% of your yearly compens comp compensation and he said no we're we're probably shy of that and so I think that that's where we're getting at is that we're not saying oh we're going to subsidize every position because we can charge exorbitant fees I think we're just saying where it makes sense and where we're having things cuz I think an example and we can get into it but the example like Allan brought up was like establishing the 911 location takes half

a day and that just is a half a day that he's not spending working on some something else or the private road sign it took more money we weren't even charging enough to cover the expenses for that you know so that's where I think we're getting with these fees and that's where I'm hoping tonight we can find that number not turn this into a profit turning type thing so right and there's a and there's a benefit to it I mean in I mean in the last town that I worked in and and it's even happening in this town kind of going on a tangent but there are people that put their perimeter drain around their house and they daylight it into the bottom of the road ditch and when the bottom of the road ditch fills up with water it back feeds and goes into their basement and they're coming after the town saying you're going to fix this MH no or not so if they had just gone to the town and asked we could have like maybe gave them the proper way

to do these sort of things and now we've done this a couple times here and that takes time it takes staff time to go up there my comment was just that look at that having the logic articulated and even written down on that is I think is important right so we don't have a misunderstanding so one thing I had one one second Josh did you have a com I just want to we get back I mean I just had a I I feel like we're getting no that's fine it it was just a comment that I wanted to raise that I had heard MH for more than one person perfect and so now we're just off and it's already eat something mhm so some of the things I hadn't considered before is um that road fixing stuff I I'm fixing and I have to fix on a regular basis mistakes from years ago on on it's continuous and I'm doing that now and that takes a ton of time cuz I have to I have to go out to individuals and and talk to them about well so you this road isn't set up

right for 911 it's not compliant an ambulance will never find you they they'll be running around in circles and convincing them to change their number or change the road name or oh that takes a ton of time so some of the stuff like um like the sign uh fee for replacing the sign is increased we were charging $126 as I mentioned before that's just the sign that's all we were charging that's all we've been charging that doesn't count the poll the placement the time of the people do putting it in or any of that stuff and when PE signs get messed up we replace them where does that come from where's that money come from it's got to come from somewhere yeah and and one sign repeatedly gets stolen and I'm having conversations about that sign do you really have to have it name that it's a private road he wants it named that okay well I don't know if the sign the town is going to want to replace it 10 times in 10 years

so that some of those fees are are overlapping and and really none of your fees are exorbitant they they're by far around this area they're they're great fees and people aren't boing at at the changes that have already happened since the last meeting didn't have a problem at all no one I've talked to had a problem with the changes that have happened so I think we fully answered or at least provided some feedback for Josh's comments from the public which I think are is important I'd like for us to just in in respect of Time start going through Section by section and let's start um a little out of order with this Ro to Association Fe Associated fees just because of the importance so it looks here that you've talked about establishing this town uh bringing establishing a town road entrance permit of $125 estab assigning an emergency 911 address for $125 and the private road sign fee of $245 is there anything you need us you

want to tell us about these fees why and then we can have our discussion and approve or reject them I think we just talked about why like so to approve it as we have a motion to approve the set the fees in red here uh under Road Associated fees as written do I have a second I'll second second from Deb um any discussion additional

the motion any opposition none Jess do you have a copy of this to for the note taking over there I will have okay perfect so we just we're just approving the three lines the town road entrance permit the sign 911 address and the private road sign feet um now that we've got that one are we good to start from the front page and just go through sure okay y so any application administrative fee of $50 can you give us a little update on to why that's there so I did meet with um Heather this week and we talked about certain those those things um lots of times just charged an administrative fee period That's the fee for any application that comes in is $50 and I'm as I've told you on the code officer in Wales any application that comes to me automatically is $50 and then the fee for the whatever is happening $50 and the fee for whatever happening not State Plumbing permits those are all state set

so the plumbing permits are not like that but everything else is like that so um and just so so you know the uh fee that we we added a fee for inspections occupancy inspection I'm charging that with the building fee at the beginning for the first inspection just to process it I didn't want to forget to charge that I didn't want to know what number I'm on if I charge it with the building fee it's already done it's there and then I know if there's a second inspection required I won't go back to do the inspection until they come in to pay another fee so all right do I have a motion on the application administrative Fe I just I got a question there so the $50 fee is on top of the rest of the fees that are here yep and that's a lot of towns do that there are many towns that charge that why wouldn't we just roll it into each of them again why wouldn't we so the way I read it is like it's like an administrative sech charge where

it's like you know a quote for a business and and they're saying here's the quote to do the job plus 10% for administration um it doesn't matter sometimes it's the people at the counter that are processing an application and then the staff person that is specific to that goes out to do the inspection or goes out to whatever and so the administrative fee or the application fee covers staff time to process an application it's like when I have a a new child that is registered it takes me hours to go through all of the documentation required for them to be coming to daycare that's an administrative fee that they're charged for my time to process all that paperwork and then their tuition is charged on top of that this is this is akin to that and it if you look at any other towns they're all charging administrative fees so to to follow up on that um did

did you guys get a this is a copy from fee comparison from 2022 that we got at our last meeting and just um not swaying your opinion one way or the other just stating here um gray New Gloucester North Yarmouth panel and sabatus all do charge an admin fee of between 20 and $25 for two years ago that was that was as of 2022 and that's for the staff to

fill out the application on behalf of the person at the counter is that what I'm understanding or CU I mean I mean I'm just making it's for what just but what what is what what are we doing for the $50 questions answered asking code questions asking can I do this is this okay what else do you need filing filing charging

generator hooked up I have to pay the $100 for the switch and the $50 fee MH so you went from saving me $25 last meeting to cost to me $25 this meeting so I'm not suggesting this I'm just saying other towns do it so yeah I guess I guess I'm having a hard time with doing it as a separate fee roll it into the rest of the fee structure I only want to quite frankly pay once give me a bill tell me how much you're going to pay once they're just going to charge you both yeah but yeah I guess my so my question to to Joe's Point why not just add it 50 bucks to everything else why have it called out separately I just my that's my trying what I'm trying to understand what if there's we can justify we can justify $50 is covering the administrative part and the other stuff is covering the knowledge and the whatever for no the administrative part should be part of whatever it is you're applying for period so if there's an administra part

to an electrical fixed rate then make that $150 for an emergency generator not a 100 if that's what you want to cover don't make it a separate fee just to walk up to the window to ask you know questions about it and we shouldn't be filling this out either like meaning our employee should not be filling out the application and they're not but they have to review it to make sure that it's complete and I believe that the person who's actually going to process that is it going to be the people at the window processing and they don't know anything about electricity so no offense to them I think that this is more of they can assess whether the applic whether the permit application is filled out or correct it's like that onus is on the person filling out the application it's just like filling out a sub but if we don't have if we don't use admin time what if if it's on the onus of them what we do is we you're saying hand it to the

clerk and the clerk doesn't look at it at all and says application filed I'm not looking at this I'm not using any admin time to assess it I'm not using any admin time to make sure he checked off the boxes and I'm not I'm not incurring a cost of paying for it or going through the system CU I understand that the onus is them to do the application correctly but we don't just say hey all applications have to be correct and we'll just file them so I mean I I I I hear you on this I'm trying to figure out I would just bake it into the cost of all the fees $50 and bump it all up by 50 and call I guess in this regard kind of six and one half doesn't in the end it doesn't matter well but it does though if sorry go ahead go ahead go if if I'm getting I don't know if I'm getting a a pool and a flood zone permit or something say two permits together am I getting charge $50 for each or am I getting $50 charge for one

because then it does make a difference how we do it it's what you guys and and and for me I I I just doesn't just hit everybody up for the extra 50 bucks if we think we need it for administration don't make it a separate charge I don't I so it sounds like you're not concerned about about charging an extra $50 to cover admin you just don't want it as a separate charge yeah I don't and so I mean to to me that's kind of six one half dozen of the other if if we're just saying in your itemized bill it's $50 for the admin and x amount of dollars for the service I know whenever I was when I was in Consulting and we did all expenses we called out the admin expenses separate when we itemized so people saw it was you know x amount of thousand of dollars for the Service Plus 10% for the admin so if the if the concern is you don't want it to say admin and the solution that you're more comfortable is just a

motion to blanket increase all these fees by $50 and then remove that admin line it's at the end of the day I feel like it's accomplishing the same same means unless your concern is that there shouldn't be a charge for administration no I'm not saying that you shouldn't charge for I'm not saying you shouldn't charge for the administrative cost but just build it into each of the fees each of the fees mhm okay don't make it a so how do you do that when it's a varied number like square footage when it's 50 cents a square foot and someone's coming in and it requires the same amount of admin to be able to process that application whether or not the house is 2,000 square fet or it's 1,000 square feet that's a good

one I I I don't know it just doesn't and pluming well pluming is different but depending on what it it varies right the the charge of something could vary when there's other towns that are doing per um footage well especially like theot right and that part falls on Cal Calvin where the administrative part falls on the counter person to process file charge whatnot record key now now that you bring up that point I hadn't thought of that either when we're looking at some of these things that are per lot or per square footage or per per um variable per uh fixture rate you know I don't know how we would bake it into let's say you know x amount of dollars per lot plus two cents or whatever it doesn't c yeah I guess I see

that that point again we're not Reinventing the wheel this is right this has been vetted by looking at what other towns are doing yeah other towns do all this I mean a lot of towns do all this yeah so you can decide to or not you get a vote all

the top we'd move through a couple more at a faster rate but it seems like we get the spicy the one that applies to all right at the beginning um are people more comfortable with a lower number do they not think that it takes two I was using two hours of Staff time for a closed Mo of processing an application from the time that it's it comes to the window to the time that it's completed if people aren't comfortable with a two hour estimate of hourly pay for did you get that two hours from talking to Folks at the front desk yes and I called four other towns to find out how they assess that Fe okay yeah I mean it seems like it's a new thing to us but it seems like the it appears that it's commerate with the surrounding area and our incurred time expense so I I will say frankly I could care less what other tchs do uh because just because other people does does something doesn't make it right for me

coming back to the time incurred but I still go back to this says any application administrative fee is that if I submit five applications at a time CU I got my stuff together am I getting charged $250 or am I getting charge $50 I think that in those bundled applic oh sorry go ahead Josh you could make it so one second Josh could you finish so I to

me there needs to be clarification for this yeah my thought on that is for a lot of those like an application for a new house or whatever you're just applying for that new house construction application right there it's and and that fee is larger cuz is baked in all these other elements of fees so it's not like you're going and saying correct me if I'm wrong am I applying for a new house applic new house fee plus an electrical fee plus a plumbing fee plus a driveway fee plus a road am I giving you when I want to break ground on new house am I putting in five permits or am I putting in one permit that encapsulates no they're all different permits so that that's a good it's a good idea bundle it if you're doing a new construction because you do a building fee building permit electric permit plumber permit driveway permit septic permit yeah to Josh's Point what if there was a Structure where it's

a or simply simply how about I'm just going for my new road I need to get the town road entrance permit the E1 911 address and the private road sign is it really going to take two hours to to review and then settle up the till if I do all three of those and so am I being charged $150 for that on this admin fee or $50 not to exceed that's what I was just going to say what if it was what I know that like in other fees we have like for the electrical it's x amount of 1 to 10 opening $75 what if we had a you know one to three applications it's a $50 uh uh administrative fee one one to three permits applied for at the same time as a $50 administration fee but over three it goes to 100 or what I I don't know because I I see your point Josh it's like I did everything to make this as easy for you I should be able to benefit from that decreased Administration on your end you know I have all my ducks in

a row you know does it really take six hours to process those three things I think that's a good point so and yeah and I'm also thinking that the fee needs to be a little lower like maybe 30 or 35 bucks not 50 m I'm not seeing the two hours for a permit I think we should ask Town staff if it takes two hours so can I just give you an example so when you order a birth certificate or marriage certificate or death certificate the state has this charge 15 for the original and then six for any additional that they get at that one time if they come back then that resets MH So to that point and to Josh's Point like you're rewarding people who are doing things up front in the right way and then if they got to come back then it they're incurring another another cost so maybe we say for one to three

permits it's $50 for additional permits it goes up I I don't know I think that kind of splits the difference here I mean personally I'm fine with the admin fee um for for all applications but I I think that there's been some good points brought up here so

on the um grouping well to move on I need a motion for something motion that we change the fee to $35 for the admin fee stumped by the question Josh has which is you know how do you prevent us from charging somebody you know three fees for something that they come in for there no out claws here um you know one

time fee or something like that what about $30 and then or $35 $10 for each additional permit at that time the way that Jessica was just saying so $35 for the first $10 for each additional at that time and then if they have to come back after the fact their clop starts over again so $35 application fee $10 for each additional at time of service do uh I like that idea more

um so do we have a motion to amend that discussion I'll make a motion to amend the line $35 an initial application administrative fee $10 for each additional application at time of service 35 and 10 do have a second I'll second that disc so for discussion to to put that in perspective if we were to accept the $50 per fee and someone comes in with three permit applications that's $150 whereas now as amended that three permit application would be a total of $55 so that seems to me a little bit more reasonable um especially because I would imagine that a lot of times when people are bringing in these bundled applications that they're of a similar subject matter so they're the the administrative folks are kind of in the Motions working on that thing and they're just plugging along so that makes more sense to me so for a new house it' be $75 or $80 75 or $85 mhm new house application fee

mhm and what would it have been if it was just $50 per house per 300 or something 3 250 or 300 and that's but that but we're talking about is just the administration thing just the administration yeah I'm I'm comfortable with what this amended motion is here that sounds good it's rewarding you for coming to the town office prepared all right any additional discussion I just have a question Alan how often do people come in with two three permits at once uh a lot of people come in with one permit at a time only a handful the developers come in with here you go well I I like for myself when I built my addition I came in for my building permit my electrical permit and my plumbing permit all three of those at the same time because I knew my addition was going to contain those three things and usually people don't they usually come in separate and drives me nuts so this different this would be advantageous to him right hey if it cuts

down on admin and saves people money I'm that that's a win-win to me I agree cool so the uh motion is to have an application administrative fee of $35 on the first permit application submitted plus $10 for every additional permit submitted at that time and if you return

the timer starts over any additional discussion all in favor opposition that was really good discussion in compromise it compromise yeah it was go team commercial construction is the next one right now it's we got through one it's two two two sections all right commercial construction we did uh so right now it's based on size I can tell you that I don't get many of these you probably know that M but I don't get many of these um it's based on Commercial it's based on size 15 20 or 30 cents a square foot depending on the size you can see right there under 12 1201 between 121 and 2400 Square ft and above 2400 Square ft where' this $50 number come from 50 Cent per square foot 50 Cent per square foot number come from it aligns with um the residential I don't know why we would be charging less money to do a commercial structure than we would be to be building a residence when commercial is going to profit from

it and again comparisons to nearby um towns that seems good to me then uh do I have a red line edit of all commercial industrial structures in additions to Commercial and Industrial structures um at 50 cents a square foot and then this this everything below is stricken from the code corre so do I have a second a second second from De any additional discussion that makes it simpler and I'm all for simpler yeah works for me lots of lines go away I just had a question why should residential and Commercial be the same I mean I I would think commercial would be more than

from 30 cents for the biggest structure to 50 if people want to go more than that that I'm on board with that it was just looking at where we were and where we were going I mean I would be more comfortable with a dollar value for commercial like a $1 per square foot is that high and I got to tell you no with commercial I I'll have to rely on engineer stamps and they will have them they'll just say here you go here's our AR plan here's our engineer plan they'll have all that stuff and I'll question The Architects and Engineers so I'm not saying that because they have the money we might as well charge it but everyone else that has commercial development charges an appropriate amount now that we talk about it I do I don't necessarily like the message to the residents that you're if someone comes in here to build commercial they're paying the same as you yeah I think that there should be a charge there so um that's good L it it's

fair do you want to withdraw I will withdraw my motion I will make a motion that we say all commercial industrial structures in additions to commercial industrial structures will be assessed a fee of $1 per square foot of floor area minimum $100 with the rest of this section being

struck I'll second second from Josh any additional [Music] discussion all right seeing none all in favor any opposition all right check mark um miscellaneous construction mhm uh it's going to be the same question for me every time where do these numbers come from Heather my research looking at comparable towns yeah no I me I know I just want to make sure we're highlighting that absolutely and my other question is we have so so taking it we're getting rid of the Satellite Dish permit because we don't think there's a lot of satellite dishes than okay and then why do we have a flood zone permit when we don't allow building in the flood zone anyways we don't need it so I would just say but you can't they can yes they can build in the flood zone if they build above elevation well currently our 100-year flood plane is resource protction same resource protection okay so I just don't know why we would okay someone can come in and

say why can't I apply for this permit if what it says it's $75 to apply for this permit but now you're saying I can't build there well I think it needs to be just just cuz there's other reasons why you can't build there I don't think we should get rid of it okay perfect and also if it at any time in the future our it's easier to adjust the fee than build a new one right and and if if the resource protection and whatnot if those things change in the future right and this is gone it might not get back on the list when it needs to be and I have someone coming in that I know is building in the flood zone and and they've been approved it's it's an approved location so they have that because of the change in the resource protection zone for them okay so um so I would accept a motion to approve all the changes under miscellaneous construction I well I I had oh I can wait no no f i I got a question to yeah

you want to go first no you go first so outdoor pools with filtering systems what kind of pools we talking about a pool above ground INR pool anything a wall not special that plugs in the wall you need a permit if it has a filtering system we could we could say if it's 200 square ft or more if you want to do that yeah cuz I understand what you're saying a little kitty pool obviously no filtering system not thinking yeah that's a I mean I get it if you're doing an installation in which case you're going to have to put a service in yeah not a not I would think not a Walmart pool but I'm highya so my thoughts around this because everything that I do comes from the standpoint of kids safety is that a outdoor pool with a filtering system is going to have at least a 4 foot high wall which then triggers the need for a fence and so having this red this way is

going to ensure that those pools that are of that height Have Eyes on them to make sure that kids aren't drowning in pools so while I 100% agree we do not want kids drowning in pools I don't think we have the ability to show up and say you need to put a fence around your personal pool and your personal property to keep your kid from drowning yes we do we do we do so we require that as a law or is that absolutely cuz I think I've seen some pools that don't yeah there are yeah I don't think I've ever seen a pool before you're actually supposed to remove your with an above ground pool you're supposed to remove your ladder it's not supposed to be in the pool is it law yes that is law yeah H so I guess you're then so what you're saying is that that is there to make sure that people are

swam in a legal pool not that I have one here but elsewhere I'm trying to how how do we how are we justifying the $100 for that all of these numbers and we can I can say it every single time and happy to keep saying that is that when we're making comparisons to the surrounding towns these are the numbers that people are

yeah and when was the last time it was changed probably none of these were changed that I know of years I think that what we're dealing with the little is a little bit of sticker shock of if we don't make annual or periodic adjustments for years or decades the first one you make is a big is a biggie so when I tell people $25 they what that's the look I

it for it Josh I I don't know how much time it costs and and and so again my point is is I I don't want to be setting fees just because other towns do it if there's no cost to the town then why have a fee and so my question in how are we justifying $100 is how does how does this permit take up if we're saying $25

an hour how does it take up four hours well Allan doesn't get paid $24 an hour I $25 an hour that's the agant fee to process the applications that's what I'm doing at $25 which is more but we're using $25 as that number this this is a professional going out to put eyes on a pool with a filtering system to make sure that they're compliant with state law that's so I think we've established the importance of the fee and Josh's point is let's make sure we're establishing a fee that is based off of um our time commitment and our incurred cost and utilizing the uh surrounding areas could be helpful but at the same time in those surrounding areas the staff providing Services may be um compensated at a higher rate as well and so it's a good I think it's a good piece of information to use so would a would a um compromise

be bringing that fee to $50 for aort fee I'm not saying it's not an appropriate number I don't know how much time it takes when one of the and that that and that's MH it doesn't take me two hours what does it what does it to check it takes you drive by take I don't drive by I'll I'll stop get out look at the look at the area make sure everything is all the way it's supposed to be talk to the owner it's a quick it's a quick visit so are you only going out once or are you going out when they bring like prep the site and then after the pool is standing or you only going out one time it's done if I'm going out if it's an inground pool I have to check the bonding on the pool for the for electrical and then

after they're all done when it's all done and the fence is up that's the only time if it's an above ground pool I'm going out when they get it set up when it's set up so you're going out twice for INR and once for above ground so then to me the $100 is Justified Perfect all right that works I me just so it's straight though so it's going to cost you know $270 for permitting for a Walmart pool that cost $38 is that right I don't think so I think that's crazy money because you're going to have to put you're going to get out there you're going to find a non GF out GFI outlet there the guy's got his pool plugged into now he's going to have to have an electrical permeter that's another $35 charge because he didn't do it the same day that he did the original permit for the pool that cost him $35 plus the1 I I I'm I'm we got to differentiate like an INR pool I get it that needs to be done with you know all

the proper permit in here and the fencing on it but the $38 Walmart pool so do we want a swimming pool safety wise plugged into a non GFI well that's what I was going to just say is that if if I think that your your example I think that your example there shows the strength of charging that fee because if you're saying well are we going to charge them because our code enforcement officer showed up and they didn't do anything right it's like that's what he's there to do is enforce the code so if you show up and you didn't do everything right and you weren't prepared and you tried to pull a fast one and they have record plugging their filter in yeah they will that's not okay yeah and I I I understand what will be done but if our goal here is to figure out how to properly enforce the codes I don't think we can say well we know people aren't going to follow the codes so are we going to really hold them to

it what do you do what do you do if they don't have a permit CH tell them they need a permit double the fee give him a notice of violation and then tell you guys about it how many times have you done that I didn't have a permit usually when I talk usually when I talk to them they do it I didn't personally have a permit for my pool because I didn't know that we needed to do that I being completely honest and so I was Char but I did that self admittedly and was charged a double permit fee because I went and said I had a pool and I had already set it up I didn't know I needed to have a swimming pool

don't know I think there's T of pools in town that are not perect but we're all going to find it out when they go do the reval and what about a hot tub no fees electric fee probably building fee cuz they probably going to build a de but nothing for the HUD tub got free standing on Stone you would

you just need the electrical for that rule out the Walmart pool how do you eliminate the Walmart pool I think we I don't have a good way that's that's why I'm having a problem well what about so I mean I'm not trying to just like Bully through this thing right I'm I really have spent a lot of time researching this people are uncomfortable with that and they and I get it like those in Tech softsided this could say hard sided this could say a um

deep uh 48 in depth because that's where the state implies the fencing rule it's 42 in so they don't meet the State statue to require fencing or anything else for at 42 in 42 in a 14t round pool 308 bucks 42 so do you say a pool with a a $100 an

outdoor pool with a filtering system that is 4 in or taller 42 or 42 in or taller what is it what do you have to havee a fence I thought it was 48 4 14 4T is that right 4 48 48 so any pool over any pool 40 so this could say outdoor pools 48 in or taller with a

filtration system I think it shouldn't say taller because that's an inground pool it needs to say a depth of an outdoor pool with a depth of 48 in or more right with the filtration system is $100 yeah cuz when it's 107 degrees and you want to go get a waiting pool eliminate all these perfect are you is that work are you good with that I'm good with that yeah we're making some good comp tonight so um I move that we change the line outdoor pools with filtering systems to outdoor pools of 48 with a depth of 48 in or greater with filtering

line to that second any any discussion all right sorry any all in favor of that line change and then we can vote on the section all right no opposition I move we approve the entire miscellaneous construction section as amending second all right any additional

disc discussion is it the time commitment for you if it's an hour for the outdoor pool 45 minutes for for the flood zone permit in 30 minutes for the yeah what's made of or if I question what's made time more than the pool yeah but yet

we're charging $25 less yeah so do you want that to doesn't it doesn't happen much you guys get to pick yeah it doesn't happen often how many hours does a flood zone permit take you it could take five or six hours working with a a surveyor and

citing the the areas for that they mark off going to check the elevations checking the building checking the flood vents all that stuff but it's it doesn't happen often not well I don't think that it not happening often doesn't mean we shouldn't charge what it costs when it happens yeah and I think that's Josh's Point earlier is about we should be charging what things cost so um I'm going to withdraw my motion maybe there's a little bit more calculations that need to be done on this to say hey can you come back after you figured out what it's going to take time wise for you to do each one of

it's 854 that's what I'm trying to that's what I'm trying to get at is I think that we what's left we we handled the immediate need of Road assist Road associate fees I don't if if we're spending 35 minutes talking about the admin fee I don't think the discussion on conditional use is going to be five minutes and so but the option here would be to either extend this meeting or table the rest of it for um a different meeting and so I would accept a motion for either one of those uh depending on what folks want to do I didn't hear the first part of what you said but I would make a motion

meeting that is the July 23rd we we have some law enforcement too yeah that's our goal thing yeah okay our goal well if this is a goal it's going to cut into that goal planning but this is a goal to do so right um and I think that once we

get this done right future adjustments should be easier to do cuz it's just making adjustments based off of expenses and I think that while this has been cumbersome doing it laying this important foundation I think is really key so um but do we have a second on the I guess that was discussion I apologize do we have a second on the motion to table this till our next

discussion on the motion we're our motion is to table this the rest of the approval until next meeting um just to recap here we approved everything in from application admin fee commercial and construction section and Road Associated fees which would leave us with the continued discussion on miscellaneous construction and the planning board fees and then uh P the board board of appeals in select board and town license fees on page three I I have a question yeah how much is it costing us to have alen here for these meetings yeah I I agree but we can only move through it as fast as folks want to move through it

motion it's it's a question if if we're going to have Alan come back sit through another meeting how much is that going to cost us as opposed to staying here and try to hammer it up for another half hour 40 minutes yeah I think that's a good question I'm fine with staying longer personally but I know that we've run into 9:00 meetings a lot and that some folks sometimes want us to stick to that 9:00 schedule so I just wanted to make sure we're talking about that

longer whatever disc passion it through yeah I thought people wanted to do more research but yeah I mean it sounds I I was suggesting maybe more research be done based off of Josh's questions on the miscellaneous construction and the amount of time it actually takes my my point is is that we're sitting here discussing we want to we want to raise these fees so that they're consistent with how much work is put in and yet we're spending what 3 hours tonight three plus

hours or out last meeting 3 hours of Valen time at the next meeting and and and for what I feel like we're we're coming to these and and so I would guess this hasn't been done for 10 years yeah how bet you haven't changed a fee for I mean I think the challenge is this is just it's a heavy lift and we've come to at least several points tonight where I asked for motion and we just have silence so we either need to move through these and actually change things or table it and do it later I'm fine with sticking through I don't have a bedtime I can crank out till go 11 people want I'll make a motion to extend the meeting until 9:30 we have an existing motion to stop the meeting did I make it I think you did I withdraw my motion okay so you want to make a motion to extend the meeting sure all right I'll second it there's a motion to extend the meeting 30 minutes all in favor any opposition okay cool um just

so what I'm hearing on the miscellaneous construction is it takes you enough hours to justify $100 for the pool the flood zone permit should probably go up um and then the demolition you said it depends um so what do you think is it do you think you can do a standard demolition permit in 2 hours yes okay so let's just plan for the standards here um FL Zone you said it could take five or 6 hours so let's I would make a motion to bring flood zone permit up to $1 second any opposition all right so I will make a motion to approve the miscellaneous construction section with it say stating as amended which states outdoor pools with a depth of 48 in are greater and the filtration system is $100 the flood zone permit is $150 and the Dem of structures is $50 permit so any do I have a second all right any additional

discussion right Debbie seconded she just seconded have it okay all right all in favor any opposition approved Road Associated fees are done um planning board planning board fees so so J did you talk to George about these feet not today not in any detail no did you Heather you talk to George about these brinkly okay not not that I want to say that George what I know is that George thinks that our fees are very low mhm um so this is on these fees right here I reviewed these um I like these fees personally I do think that that based off of my discussions on how much time Town staff are playing putting towards this this is commerate with their effort put in because in some of these fees it's not just just George's time but it's George's time it's Allen's time it's Town staff time um I think that when we

take in the additional piece of information of what is happening in the med communities around us and we're not just looking to the South where everything is more expensive but looking to places like pel and stuff like that I think that this is commensurate with that and I do think that is an important piece of information because a lot of these developers are working across town lines so they're used to seeing these sorts of numbers um so I like them I like we had a discussion last time about the escrow subdivision being low per lot

I like bumping that up to a larger number uh because that makes sure we get the money up front but whatever is not used obviously goes back to them but I don't feel like this is an exorbitant sum to strong our people into having to have a lot of cash up front just to start a process so I like what we have

here I think it's commensurate with the time put in based off of some discussions we've had and I think it's fair based off of what the folks who pay these fees are expecting when they're working in this General vicinity and it's probably still lower than what they're working with in places like Auburn sabatus Auburn Lisbon and Freeport which are all surrounding us so any other feedback on that the one thing that I think is really important is the escrow account depletion yeah that's a huge thing huge cuz we need that it's not anywhere we got nothing once the initial amount of money is gone we got nothing to replenish that in our ordinance so that's important can I yeah sure I I would like for people to note the line at the bottom additional meeting charge for when applicants come to meetings and are not prepared for the meeting um we don't have to say this was just a notation right we don't have to say takes up the

time of the planning board at least $300 these were like Allan's not we're going through um at least $300 which covers the members of a given board for their participation so um planning board members are paid per meeting for per meeting and multiple times are coming up coming to meetings not prepared and

can't get through whatever's before them because they're not prepared yeah I mean I've seen examples of that where an applicant has showed up and Mr talbet or sorry the planning board chair has said well do you have this information oh no but I'm going to change it after this meeting and him saying we can't meet with you on this until next meeting and I'm not going to call a special meeting just cuz you weren't bringing the stuff that we you agreed to bring and so I think that that is reflective similar to like what happens if Allen has to go or code enforcement officer has to go revisiting someone who's not compliant and you know it it takes that time and especially it takes the time of the planning board people and also Town staff every time they have to so that and again other towns do it and one other thing is that conditional use if we're just looking at pound all pound charges $1,200 for a conditional use

perment so $500 is less than half of what they're tring our immediate neighbor and this I was going to say this other thing about the um whether a applicant is not prepared my viewing of these planning board things is generally speaking the applicants are giving given discreet and measure well they're always giving discret measurable deliverables that they are expected to show up for so this isn't a well I don't feel like you were really prepared for this it's like you didn't show up with a map that had all the survey markers on it that's discreet and measurable you got to come back again to show us that because this has to be done in a meeting I feel like this is one of those weird areas where it's black black and white in government they didn't have it so so could I please make an edit to where all of that notation is ADD just add additional meeting fee

charged um for I don't know how we want to say that for when applicants come to meetings and are not prepared and then have that $300 per additional meeting required yeah can can we in I don't like the phrase not prepared because that's going to be but can it say without needed without the requested documentation or information yeah what about something like when the applicant member when a give sorry when an applicant does not provide required information at the the the

required information at the meeting because it's just to cap like I get what you're saying to capture that you didn't bring us what you were supposed to and we are going to have to have this meeting all over again because you didn't bring us what you're supposed to I don't and I think that this makes applicants bring what they're supposed to it's a really easy way to avoid this $300 Fe charge without the required materials yeah applicants fail to provide everything's

like what I'm getting at Joe is like I've watch things where it's like you need to bring your storm water plan with the up toate map and the applicant says oh I haven't updated the map but just trust me it's going to be right next time and it's like well we can't approve that until we've seen it and all right well I'll bring it next time okay so additional meeting fee charge for when applicants do not provide required material good at the time and the amount is going to be $300 yeah per meeting per additional meeting required additional meetings fee when applicants do

not provide required material will have to someone's going to have to do that have to administer that well I think I think chair I don't I don't think John Can ad can John administer a fee like that or he can send a notification to the I I think

sorry oh go ahead but I think I think we're going to have to create a a meeting request form or something and so uh before the planning board puts it on schedules another meeting you've got to come up with this application the this fee and so that's do they still do the chat checklist at the planning board meetings yeah yeah they they get the applicant receives that this is what you need to have for us to do your and then they go through checklist during the meeting and long they got it all often times George will prepare the planning board by or the town plan prepar of the planning board by saying here are the requirements and here is what the applicant did not require in advance of this meeting and so people there is a very much we told them to come with this this is what they Pro provided Us in advance you showed up you didn't have lion item 7 and so this is where like I don't normally like the idea of fees of

well you you weren't prepared it's like no you didn't provide us what what what needed because I've seen it before where they're like you haven't brought the required things for us to do the preliminary review we can't do it for you we got to come back you know the planning board members are on board with this also by the way so uh with that uh edit to that line I'd like to make a motion to approve the board section as written with that edit have a second I'll second all right so discussion now I I still have a question about how it's enforced so how are the rest of these fees enforced so would they I don't know what they I would if it was up to me if it was up to me and when I go for an inspection if they if they failed for code Reasons I'm coming back and when they call for an inspection I'm saying I you haven't been in to pay that I you so but in this example so they show up and they don't bring the documents and so

then they tell so then George comes back to the town office and says they or the town planner comes back to the town office and said it was determined by the planning board that they failed to meet the required to provide the required documents and we have to schedule additional meeting then who physically sends them the fee well that person is going to have to get in touch with George to set up the next meeting right but who physically sends that app the fee and says here's your fee like we're charging you this fee now like when they go to do their prelim subdivision and they pay their fee or they do their whatever their final subdivision and they pay their fee they don't pay that all up front so how do they get charged for those fees when they come before the board because it would be the same process I'm assuming when they come in to schedule when they get scheduled on the agenda that's when they're paying it

and who's to who to they to George about it but they pay they'll pay the counter so George just George would just be the one responsible for requiring it coming up in his invoice and he probably wouldn't have the meeting until he got paid right he wouldn't schedule a meeting until they came in and pay come just like they're not going to schedule a meeting for the preliminary subdivision uh typ until it's paid right all right does that answer your persu your concerns Josh I mean so so what you're saying is is that the town planner is going to say work with these people say okay we'll schedule it this date but you have to

of if they pay because you're going to already have the meeting scheduled right so no if they show up to the meeting and they did not provide what they're supposed to it says all right you're going to have to come back at another meeting in order to provide us with this we can't fit you in next month because they only meet they generally meet once a month so you got to come back to the September meeting but you can't come we're charging you a fee for that because we had to reschedule and so then George would then administer through the town office that $300 fee just like he administers these other Fe just like these other fees are administering if someone comes to the counter and they don't know they're going to check with somebody they're gonna check with me are gonna check with George what do I do with this George oh they pay their fee yes that you can just put that in there something and put it

in under whatever you need to do it with Trio and I'll schedule the next meeting and there's a $35 30 is it 30 or no this is a fee not an application so I don't think there's yeah it seems to be taking a lot of Staff time oh no it says any application or administrative fee sorry is there a better way that does say fee yeah no I they should be paying that no no we no no I'm clarifying up here our first line says any application slash administrative fee so this would be a fee to do that I mean cuz if this is a late meeting and the clerk has to stay late to it accept this fee that's exra

for charging a fee when someone shows up unprepared and it causes us to have to ask five of our volunteers to come back it is my my concern has nothing to do with charging the fee it's how we're going to document it and how we're going to ensure it's being paid and document the fee or document that they failed to meet those standards no they they pay that they they paid it well there's no way to get there's no way to get around George to schedule okay you don't you can't come to me to schedule it because I don't do that but you said Trio tracks we can set tight is it wouldn't we just track it the same way we track all these other Fe that they're already pay enter

Jerry and Allen and the the Town Front Desk staff are are are sure that they can process this I'm okay with it but I think that Josh bra his good good point so I would almost think George would say we're not going to schedule another meeting until this gets paid yeah that's what I do for inspection I'm not I'm not coming you can't get your occupancy inspection you better get your butt in here and pay yeah when you come in and pay that's when we'll schedule the next meeting I'm talking to a contractor that's why I said get your but I'd like to move the motion yeah um so technically if we move the previous question we have to have a vote to go into the vote based off Robert's Rules so if you're moving the previous question we're voting to End discussion and then immediately vote does that work for you y all right so all in favor of moving the previous

favor of the motion the original motion any opposition I'm good everyone we're on the last page uh board of appeals all appeals plus a but notification cost it was $70 and now it says $200 to cover and it covers legal ads um just tell us where that $200 number came from those take a lot of time mhm they never bring all their stuff at once M they want to add stuff now and they want to add another thing that and then I'm going to add this so I got to make you got to make copies you got to do all that stuff you got to prepare that for the meaning for all the board of fields you need to schedule the board of fields you need to schedule around all their summer vacations it's a it's there and don't you have to advertise it in the paper as well you have to advertise in the newspaper how much does that cost um uh

they're about it only costs like 35 or $40 if you get a really tiny tiny ad but they have to be Run Place correct no Oh I thought it was twice no 14 days out okay okay that's what the work so this fee covers all of that what you just listed sounds like a lot what about this a a lot of things what about this a butter notification cost that says plus a the cost they need to pay that the actual post mailing this is covering the time it takes to Wrangle in the appeal board schedules get them on there and um do the print copies get them electronic copies okay so they're not paying for the printing fees before that's built into this okay so there's no admin cost on this one there is AD there's admins on everything so this would be

you said $2200 to justify the time there board of appeals are not paid okay but what I'm saying in order to justify the admin time but we know sorry well that the board of appeal members are not paid but Town staff is paid to be at these meetings okay that's that's where it is and I've seen some of these appeals meetings and if we're dividing 200 by the hourly wages of our town staff that are there it does not equal out even at this rate to their fulltime so I'm fine with it because it's a move in the right direction so I make a motion to approve the board of appeals uh fee going from $70 to $200 do I have a second second any more

discussion all right um vote on the motion all in board we've got retaining the same fee for gravel or junkyard annual licenses an autom mobile recycling business 5year license of $300 a gravel put annual registration fee we have strict $50 and we have a new

structure listed below here so for new and expanded excavations and fill permits the site plan review and fees apply for existing excavation initial registrations 165 and renewal being 165 and then it also says existing excavation public hearing is required requested by the select board $55 plus the cost of notification to aers so this would say a feet so this is essentially saying that if a gravel pit already exists moving forward it's $165 instead of $50 annual

fee and when you put in a new Gravel Pit your initial fee is that's the normal fees associated with that level of development but instead of it being a you know conditional use feed this is a use of this is a gravel pit and that's

use to be able to do a permanent use in our land use ordinance whereas my understanding is conditional use as anything that doesn't fall into that so my question is why would a establishing a new gravel piit costs less money than every than a conditional use so I I haven't had a chance to even look at the Gravel Pit ordinance I printed it out one after we talk but I haven't had a chance to go through that I'm going to guess that nobody has paid that in

years and this is the this is the fee and then but this the site plan reviews these apply I I get that I get that so our but you think it should be 500 I'm not I'm I'm what I'm asking is if we are saying that a conditional use so everything everything we have in here are fees that we're highlighting for the the fee for doing something that's allowed or they're being told to to get a conditional use fee for that but we're explicitly staying saying that gravel kits are allowed and that the fee for that is $165 which is substantially less than what a conditional use fee is and so my question is just is what's the justification of the Gravel Pit being less than a expansion to a private business in town or so my my thought process was the site plan review fee applies so in my mind that's the $500 for the site plan review for the first 2500 sare ft of that's 100% fine that I'm just asking because what you're saying is because

they're already paying the site plan review fee and then this is that on top of it we're not going to that's fine I was just asking that that question so but if you they get a conditional use and it requires a site plan review

then but a conditional use is checking the basic ideas for whatever's happening at that in that neighborhood in that area a site plan review is a more extensive look exactly what they're doing and how they're doing it microphone say what we're going over over here so we can I'm just asking clarification something we were you just talking about

that's the way the way this is written and I was just trying to clarify if my interpretation was correct is that it says site plan review first 2500 sare ft building or parking $500 over $2,500 it just says $100 per th000 square ft over 2500 sare ft it shouldn't say $500 plus

the 100 site plan review over 2500 ft or development oh and up there it should say development or parking yeah yeah that's up $100 a square foot over 2500 square so so so it should say that $500 plus100 right yes you're absolutely right yeah good catch yeah and the and

the site plan review 2500 square foot building or parking that parking should also say development instead of parking let's scoot back there sorry we're back to planning board Josh so what we're just realizing so Josh astute eye picked up that our what we just approved said site plan review first $2500 2500 squ ft of building or parking

it's $500 and then the site plan review over 2500 ft for building it it should say or parking development um is $100 per th000 square ft over 2500 F feet we just need to clarify that's in addition to the $500 for the first 2500 ft so I'll make a motion to edit that line to say in addition to the $500 fee in in addition to the site plan review fee for the first 2500 square

can can I can we make it a little bit clearer yeah absolutely can we just say $500 plus $100 per th000 ft over 2500 all right so I'll make a motion to that site plan review over 2500 square ft building and it should say or parking development No it should say or development parking is stricken sorry or development so let's do one at a time so it should say site plan review over 2500 ft of building or development is $500 plus $100 per th000 ft correct second

all in favor any opposition and then I would make a motion that in the line before that versus Park can we cross that out and say development favor all opposed all right cool back to gravel thank you for catching that Josh and Joe I miss those minor edits all the time that is a big difference I don't want to rush through this part but we only have five more minutes so

can push through this and be done with it okay and so if folks are willing to do 15 more minutes I think that should do it for us I know I'm being optimistic but also it is time for my late night snack so I'm so um I make a motion that

we extend for 50 till 9:45 second all in favor any opposition seeing none all right so so is sorry is is your question why is the ex the Gravel Pit less than the conditional use M isn't the simple answer because it's not a conditional use well that to that's the simple answer to me my my thought about this was that can I I want to clarify what Josh was ask was asking for me yeah that was my question was just because I thought that conditional use was to capture everything that didn't fit nicely elsewhere and then I wasn't just I was just sure why wasn't sure why if everything else that is permitted seems to be above the conditional use cost why this would be under okay that's

I missed the second part of that thank that's my my understanding is that because there is a gravel pit section of ordinance it doesn't it that governs the Gravel Pit which is way which I don't understand why but that's what our ordinance is way less critical of all of

the um criteria that you have to go through for a conditional use am I wrong I can't answer that it I I think that if you look at our gravel use section it's much easier to build a gravel pit than it is to at this point put up a pool with a fence it's it seems like our Gravel Pit process is someone shows up and tells us hey I dug a big hole and we say and that's a big expense for our town well and I've heard that expense the concern is there's not a lot of discussion like can that road withstand heavy duty traffic and I've heard complaints from folks who are saying this is going up and down my road I think that this is part of a much larger conversation but I this is where I am I don't want to kick things down the road no pun intended um I kind of want to hear what Calvin has to say about the impact to the roads for this stuff because I'm not a road expert but I would imagine that in other

municipalities you have different pavement that you might use in industrial areas versus non-industrial and if if you're putting in and Jerry you know pay he's a road expert yeah like my question is is like I imagine there's a measurable impact on the road immediately in front of a gravel pit it depends on where the Gravel Pit is I mean local roads are not built to the same standard as a state road is and it really has to do with the base so a lot of local roads were built on really bad bases until until you have

a road that has a good base it has a hard time handling that kind of traffic and the state roads they're built a little bit more sturdy and and can handle that handle that traffic so if you have a lot of heavy movement and a lot of heavy trucks going over a local Road that's not designed to carry that kind of traffic it's going to beat it out and so what what that raises to my mind is what are we in this town on a 2 and a half mile a year Road replacement schedule right now right now and so in my mind is does that set it up so that a gravel pit on a local Road gets that repavement done one maybe two maybe more times before other roads even get looked at because the wear and tear is happening there well it it it depends I mean if you look at your road Network you know we've got like 40 miles of P road so it just depends on the volume of traffic and the type of traffic I mean you could have a lot you could a road

could handle probably a th000 cars a day much more than it can handle 20 heavy trucks a day and that's just the question I'm getting just the weight of it it's the easel loadings that's on the pavment and if the if the road isn't built to to handle it it's going to break it apart and I guess the question I'm getting at is cuz you know we all get all of us get feedback from different people it's like well if they are going to have that grait there does that mean I'm never going to get my road in front of my house repaved because you're going to have to repave in front of that pit three or four times and I just get keep get kicked down the line and my car is going to crap now because I haven't got my road I'm just sharing things I'm hearing I mean there are ways a town can to help that and just put weight limits on your road MH you know just like different just like I know but but that's but you can

create an ordinance that that does that to help protect your local yeah that's probably getting a little bit outside the feed structure my apologies there um anyways so I this the part of the you answer my question okay because there's a site plan review and there isn't that for other conditional use things so that ANS is my question well my so my my reason why I would like to have a little bit more time around this is because I think this is part of a bigger conversation because there's two components to this that I don't know the answers to number one I do know that these are that gravel pits are considered unbuildable lots and therefore the the amount of property tax that they pay is insignificant but the cost to the town is heavy on the other side of that they pay excise tax on the the vehicles and

so we get that back in the form of Revenue correct yeah they're registering their yeah Vehicles if they're if right but how many of those vehicles coming in and out of that pit are registered in m in Durham right right and so this is why I feel like I don't I don't know how to flush this part out in that does that make sense to people that that's why I feel like this is part of what what it seems like what you're saying to me is that by function of turning it into a gravel pit tax revenue on that pretty much diminishes down to a negligible amount and so should a fee annual fee help build back some of that lost tax revenue because the only other way we're because you're your suspicion is that the registration of the vehicles associated with that pit does not offset the Lost tax revenue correct and it's a the amount of money that the the owner for lack of a better word I don't know is is making pulling the

gravel out of Durham that and for negligible um recovery costs based on the road damage and the fact that the property taxes are taxed at a very very very low rate because it's considered doesn't know enough information to make this make sense I just know that this is well how many pits are on uh on our Public Road versus the uh State Road any I don't oh we have plenty of pits on private roads here yeah I mean no I'm just curious yeah I stle a couple of them that off State Road so that's why I'm just yeah yeah okay yeah I hadn't thought about the property tax element of it

what what are your thoughts on this all about do we have the information we need to answer this right now or are we comfortable with this number and then I mean we do have the ability to and I don't want to abuse this ability but we do now have the ability to assess it periodically not just annually so can we go with something like this and say maybe we need to dig in no pun intended on the pit that was a good pun though dig in on the pit issue a little bit

more just for an effort to close this circle for Allan and not bring him back here for a third meeting and then maybe we could put this as a priority on our 23rd meeting of figure out the pit issue so are you saying make these changes to this as they read here or table I'm saying we either take it and do this right now or we table it until we get more information because we are allowed to edit this at a later date well at least it moves Us in the right direction so or so you're saying if we approve that we could also approve this and then say we're going to look into amending it more and get more information because we we do have that ability I don't want our our periodic review to be every month we're periodically reviewing the fees but to I know this is an exhausting exercise but this is the first time it's been done in ever and so it's just it's a lot of work so my only question is and the same what

I asked before if we haven't been doing the $50 annual registration fee how are we going to start doing this is there going to be a renewal fee every year so what I did when I found out that the mobile home park wasn't paying their annual fee I told him well come in now with me

and I'll we'll pay your annual fee you'll be done with that so he did the first year and he said next year you're going to send me a reminder well no actually the ordinance reads like this this you are responsible to pay your annual fee so you got to do it so this

year when you didn't pay it by January 1st I asked Jessica to send a letter and he was in there the next day and paid it the way the ordance reads around the Gravel Pit is that if they don't pay their annual fee within 30 days we can close the pit so it just sounds like we have an ordinance and a fee that we haven't been enforcing and haven't been collecting and that's a separate issue then what the fee should be in my mind but we also didn't always have a town manager we didn't always have the infrastructure we have now why don't we just put the fee into the tax bill I think because it's being taxed is an undevelopable lot I get that so I don't I don't think that we can assess a mill rate just for in when we send the tax bill to how you would do that yeah because we'd say oh everyone's mill rate is 2175 unless you're a gravel pit we can't I asked on to that yeah that's personal property I mean

right so I get I think the only option here is saying it's a fee get that yeah the manual effort I think the compliance process to all of this we need to think about how to best do that this is just raising you know we're talk we're talking about these these uh administrative fees and I feel like we're adding a lot more administrative work yeah um and you're just talking about it more it's always been there well but it hasn't been done right this one has so it hasn't been done so it's adding more work and and

fees like junkyard fees what's the junkyard people there are two junk carots licensed and they are on it because they don't want to lose their license MH I don't think that an excuse for a fee should say well there's one industry in town that just doesn't pay their fees so what are we going to do ask them to pay their fees it's like yes yeah see like you know fuel

pump asked me to pay when I un unhook it you know you don't pay your taxes we're going to I just don't think I I I think that it's bring I mean it's admin work to collect fees but I don't think we should say and I'm not insinuating anyone here is saying just saying ah what are we going to do ask him to pay the fee that is in our land use ordinance that's just and we can shut them down if they're not paying their fee that would be deadly for

them they won't be shut down too long I think that if people realized the ordinance was being enforced they' just paid the fee because at this rate for all the business generated out of an active P pit $165 I'd like to either uh do this and then change it when we have more information or wait until we have more information and then change it make a motion I'll move that we enact it all right the way do have a second second all right all in favor of the Gravel Pit section of the select board

fees any opposition seeing none I think it either it's implied that we can periodically mhm do this so I just don't want to not come back cuz I do think that totally understand Town license fee for processing liquor licenses what's that already a fee for Bob

there's they have state Char admin10 process so then let's just get rid of that fee because we have a new admin fee on so when they come in to apply for the permit they're going to pay the ad the admin fee plus whatever the fee is already that the I was

considering that would be like ad10 what is this what do they have isn't there isn't there a state statute that they have to pay something to the state yeah they pay the state stay on their own like we don't process that them I just process it through you guys or through Jerry oh because it needs our approval for them to be able to send it in to get whatever what is this fee for El liquor license yob but so includes it's not just businesses it's any event that you're having that has a if you rent the Eureka Center and you want to have beer you have to get a boov permit so but it's not obviously for personal residences it's for businesses and or rental use of town Town property when they do the thing atova so my thought process on this is if we're now doing an admin fee I think that this is high so I will make a motion to bring the town license in for processing liquor license to well I I think Jessica just said that

the admin fee covers this so we don't need this but we still have to have that so the permit would be 0 but we charge an admin fee right okay that's fine by me too is that because it sounds like this fee right here we can just say admin fee yeah perfect so let's just change Town licensing fee for processing so I make a motion that town license fee for processing liquor licenses is set at Town minimum admin fee yep okay uh do I have a second second I'll second yeah everyone second in move today all in favor or any discussion all in favor all right Mass Gathering what's up with this Mass gather this let's strike I I move we strike Mass Gathering From The Feast structure it never was there perfect hear no evil see no evil it was blasting and fireworks there no um I want Chief's input on this because this is two separate things and we started this discussion but I feel like I don't want to speak for him and so I

would like for chief to speak to that I was going to say don't we don't have any ordinance on fireworks do we right I we can't have a fee yeah that's what we have no it says that the select board can enact a fee for anything not covered in this ordinance okay that's it if that

is in the ordinance that's that's yeah that's so why don't we just table this until the next time we you might want to table that topic un intended yeah that was a good fun though yeah cuz I'm not sure how I feel about a firework permit fee um and then what blasting means

so which that kind of goes back to the gravel so I've actually gotten no calls this Fourth of July that's well did just I mean we got just a couple minutes here to your point when you ask Chief about other things like he's not saying oh we're having a bunch of more people sitting here on the 4th of July in anticipation or it's not like it's like right now people get a fire permit he doesn't say hey we had five fire permits come up for this weekend everyone sit in the fire truck just ready to go you know um so anyways we got 99% of it done and

and I think for me I want like are you talking about if I want to have a few fireworks at my house I have to get it or are you talking about a larger scale thing and so those are things that I would want to know yeah yeah and I agree I don't feel like we have enough and then the blasting is is that like blasting the that's this other

page here and this is another page this is the um administrative fees that we have now currently and I just asked Jessica to look at those and change them uh if they needed to be and one of the things is I mean it looks more like this is a copying fee versus anything else yes it's yep copying cop scan not Services scanning is a new thing trash and then FAA and there's the backside notary services do we charge for notary services Char Z for residents $5 for

nonr the rest of this stuff here is pretty much everything here to can we can we yeah this next meeting yeah let's do that next meeting this all seems like admin and I do want to just add this to the fee schedule make it one and maybe change the format just so it looks different all right and eure needs to be added and there's a few other things so we'll finish do we need Allen at next meeting to do this and this J be

here and I'll be here all right cool then we relinquish from the next meeting and that saves you can't afford me saves good time uh Josh had a good point there but will we have a clean version of some new format of this that we'll all sign or something or well you're someone's going to have to update the version it's so I would just ask that we get a version I'll update yeah I'll update everything and so will that be updated before our next board meeting should be okay cool all right um that's

everything we have an extra 50 seconds if anyone wants to continue all right all in favor any opposition seeing none have yet to see opposition to an adjournment oh