TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ February 6, 2024

everybody uh welcome to the Durham uh select board meeting here on 22624 we have a full Quorum tonight um we all stand and pledge allegiance to the States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for

amendments to the agenda I see Jerry you put the agenda in the order that we were going to uh to do this you readjusted this so the original agenda had it switched around so any other amendments no okay public comment anybody a public comment okay and um old business we have

the 2024 planning board recommendations for land use coming yeah he said he was okay I know that um I was reading through these ordinances I can start this off and then we can have a discussion on it so there was um the planning board um

in the town planner and uh a number of other folks had gotten together uh over the course of this year to discuss the housing diversity and density um uh state law that was going to be implemented um at a public meeting um about a month ago back in I'm G to say November time frame they had a public meeting on this got public input and they have submitted their um their proposed uh ordinance for the select board to uh look at in relation to housing diversity intensity and also the second part of this was the solar energy systems um Conservation Commission taking the lead on this um looking at um all the um I'll say the ins and outs of of solar energy and how we integrate them into our land use ordinances so there's also a I'll say a proposal by the by the boards to um uh

include um solar energy and solar panels and and other types of uh solar energy uh ordinances in our in our regular ordinances for folks to um utilize moving forward um so we we have some sort of um regulation on that um and then the third item that they discussed was um set of draft am amendments updated the uh to establish new fees and Permitting Services um the codification of new fees um again we um had um in

2022 um voters authorized a select board to set and adjust fees so this would update the land ordinance to include um any fees that we um assess um in the ordinances themselves I believe is how this goes here to we're we're going to discuss whether to put this into whether we agree with their proposals meeting

through the 20 Page document here it was I I did read through it myself all of the pages and all the changes I didn't see anything that stuck out at me uh um that that was out of line with what I expected based on the meetings in November and um what I know about the ordinances so I have a question about um

I I did go to the public hearing where um it was discussed yeah and then what I I'm a I'm very much a vis visual person and so when I'm looking at the housing diversity and density when we went to the public hearing there were there was the there were two options and the planning board wasn't my understanding was that they were going to put one option out and so what I'm wondering is is the did anything change from that meeting in

terms of one of the questions that came up was um the amount of land needed per dwelling and there were two there were two different scenarios that they were putting out there and so I'm wondering if what we're actually putting on the warrant represents only one of those scenarios and if it's the one that includes meeting the two full acres per dwelling and it's hard for me to tell by reading this I'm because I really do

well so I mean if that's a question if George is on his way I'm happy to wait for George to ask that and maybe if we want to start with Sol that's fine I mean this this this value I believe represents 2 Acres 990,000 Square ft um spatial coverage and everything that I read um in regards to that so

from what I can do three dwellings they would need six acres in order to do that um no looks like the two acres right here on item number eight here but that's how I read it yeah the original proposal at their thing was six acres for three dwellings and two acres for um a duplex I think

so it could I just make a suggestion that we start with solar and wait for George to get here is that yeah we can we can we can we can take this and table it for now if we're going to if we ar able to discuss it can we go to part two or Josh did you have a su I was just going to say we start with the budget if we're going to wait yeah yeah we could do that as well yeah if we want to if we want to arrange our our agenda and start with the budget and then wait and if George gets here we can discuss

for now if we don't have the right folks here to discuss it and uh to ask questions of and then we'll uh wait we're gonna hold off here for a second see if hi George hello I had some questions and we were getting started so if you want to get settled in and then and then I'm ready to ask you some questions

George make yourself joining us thanks for being here oh visual person and I know that when we had the public hearing there were two um options that were visually displayed um and there was some back and forth about um if it were going to be three dwelling units requiring two acres per dwelling the six acres right and so I I

just have a hard time without the the visual if this wording represents that okay and and because I wasn't clear coming out of that meeting where the planning board was going to go um and so obviously they've arrived at something so if you could just help me understand that I would appreciate it okay do you want me to talk about the detailed language or you just want me to talk about the policy and the principal or policy policy okay good so

basically the planning board came out after their public process uh looking at the comprehensive plan recommendation which said get more diverse housing but protect the town's character and then they looked at the LD 2003 state law on affordable housing and housing density that took away some of the town's authority to do that so where they came out with was basically saying the comprehensive plan recommendations indicate adding a second accessory apartment for any single family dwelling where right now you can only do one but those accessory Apartments have to be no more than 50% of the floor area of the main house and they have to either be attached to that house or they got to be in an accessory building like a garage or a barn so that makes it fit into the characters when you drive by you don't see this two or three houses all together so that will not require any increase in increase in lot size so

somebody will be able to do two accessory apartments with a single family on a 2 acre lot so current you want to ask a question about that just the one question I had and was can the is each uh accessory dwelling unit up to 50% or the two combined up each can go up to 50% the floor so 2,000 foot house you can put on uh an in-law apartment of 1,000 s ft and then put a th000 foot uh unit above a garage but you couldn't build two separate 1000 that makes a two family or duplex okay y okay so uh one

quick clarifying question there because I I feel like some folks might wonder so if someone let's say doesn't have the space to add it to their house but then they build a garage expressly for the purpose of putting a unit above there that's still okay yes okay y so the other side of the equation is the fact that the state says you have to allow up to three fullsize dwelling units on every lot where you now allow a single family so uh the planning board after going through the process of uh of taking some public input hearing concerns about the impacts of added housing in terms of school enrollments taxes uh larger larger homes accommodate larger families theoretically can have greater expenses to the town so uh you have to allow it because it's required by the state but the state law allows you to increase lot sizes when you add multiple units so the

planning board after discussing it and taking public input came out and said that to balance out the increase in housing uh if there somebody's going to propose a duplex and a s separate Standalone single family dwelling on the same lot they would have to have two acres for each of those units so that that is embedded into the language of this ordance draft okay yeah okay so in that example just to help Heather with Visual and think other people find it useful too if someone builds a 4,000 square foot structure with the intent of it being two 2,000t duplexes that now requires four acres correct and then they can do a separate structure for an accessory now when you do the accessory structure in that duplex scenario is it of so let me clarify whenever you're doing an accessory apartment that is only 50% of the size meets the definition it does not require any increase in lot size M only when you're putting in a fulls siiz

dwelling unit that doesn't meet the definition yes so if someone were to put in a duplex with an accessory apartment over a garage that would only require four acres and that accessory apartment over the garage does that have to be 50% the footprint of individual duplex unit or the whole build duplex unit as a the individual units okay so two 4,000 foot yep footprint two 2,000 foot duplexes the accessory dwellings 1,000 sare feet exact okay

question and there are graphics on the town's website that illustrate those yeah I saw those thank you George he um where did they land about a duplex in terms acres well currently the ordinance has single family with an accessory apartment two Aces for 20 plus years

however long the town has required an extra half acre if you do a duplex what the rationale behind that was I don't know but so the principle of increasing the LW size when you have multiple units is already in our ordinance this just changes that equation based on LD

okay any other questions George on the policy of this and I'm pretty sure I know the answer this but just want to ask here that still is operating under the assumption that people meet the standards needed for Road Frontage and um septic setbacks and all those sorts of things so it's not like if you don't have the space for that that doesn't necessarily mean you can put the units that's right they still have to meet setbacks they have but you can't have a greater setbacks these right same as single family they have to have 300t of Road Frontage they don't need more than 300t of Road Frontage but uh you they will just require that larger lot size where did they land with the driveway uh there were questions that came up at the public meetings about well how do you handle the driveways and I did provide there are answers on the on the website responding to that question so basically if you have up to two homes served by a

single driveway that can be classified as a driveway anything more than that it becomes a street so if somebody had one had three duplex and a single family home on six acres and they had one driveway going into that it would be treated basically like a private way so they put up a road sign and each of those would have their address on that so other than that if you had uh a duplex and a and a an accessory apartment with two separate driveways then they can just be treated as regular driveways and then they'll have the street address on the street so all the same rules for driveways still apply okay and so my understanding is that this warrant language gets voted on if it's accepted that's what becomes our standard but if it doesn't we revert to the state language the town attorney has given the code enforcement officer direction that whenever this local law uh conflicts with the state law he has

to follow the state law so as of July 1 if this these amendments don't pass someone will be able to do the duplex and a single family home on two acres okay can I just ask a question every time we talk about this I kind of go back and forth not sure which one I like is there any is is it worth discussing something

adding language that says you know we just saw it with uh the property taxes where the state um um enacted law stopping the property tax stabilization something in here that says this is what we have uh as long as this is it reverts back to what we originally had in land use ordinance if LD 2003 is somehow prevote well law can always be changed but I don't know that you can adopt a law that anticipates that and puts into an automatic trigger a change to your L use ordinance out just have to we'd have to have another uh another hearing on that and uh change it decide to change it back I mean there's a lot of these regulations that people have wanted to change for Years anyway so if you open the door again I'm not sure they rsion Clauses work yeah I don't think so we'd have to go back that's a good question now because they do

George on density just point of clarification do we vote then on whether we want to accept that as the language from the uh planning board at this time or is that going to be at a different meeting and this is just for separately or vote as well I would imagine we would vote for on each one of these separately right but I'm asking if that vote happens tonight or if this is Happ later I don't see any reason why it can't happen tonight if there's no other other questions about the policy I mean they've done their homework they've had their public meetings we can we can we can yeah I just understand we can we can we can vote and just say yes let's put this on as a war article and Jerry will go generate that article for us can I ask one more question then if we're going to go to that like if we're accepting this recommendation and that's the language that we want to put on do you know Geor after I brought up the

issue about the drive the driveway in terms of setbacks if that was discussed if they if the I had sent that like an email you were you were at raising a policy issue of whether there should be a setback for roads from prop and driveways and driveways from property lines but the planning board has not had any discussion that they didn't okay okay okay well I I move that we accept

the planning board's recommendation in language um yeah do I have a second I'll second Jos second any further discussion I have a question yeah this is their final draft this is what they want to go with right okay so if I went to the planning board tomorrow night and made my public comment about the driveway and Road setbacks that's not going to change this no okay thank you I appreciate your very clear answer any any further comment no I was just going to say I have attended most of their meetings on this or watched them and seen the public feedback and it seems like it was really well comprehensive thought out thing and I think that this is a sound policy and written well and now it's just up to letting the voters decide if they agree with it you know so I think that this is a good good holistic approach to give people the option okay all in favor all right unanimous

um housing diversity and density uh warrant article will be on the warrant this year as written planning board Town planner and others all right so Energy Systems do we have a question about any questions about solar energy systems I also read that and seemed pretty solid I did um I had one

question [Music] about they did did they did they set up fees in here or did we set fees in general there is uh the third part which is the codification of fees doesn't include solar energy systems so that would be treated through that and the fee schedule so so it was discussed that was all I wanted to know was that it was actually discussed some communities have done ordinances for this we've integrated it with our land use ordinance to avoid another ordinance so that will be covered through the Fe schedule par okay all right that's good that was my my question of the night on that does anybody have any other questions on the solar ordinances they're

one point and I'm not seeing it in here at one point it was brought up uh someone made a suggestion about um hours of like construction hours on weekdays and weekends um I know that the what I had heard you know I worked in the industry sometimes you run into blasting and stuff like that and then we all get phone calls cuz at 7 a.m. the blasting crew is going through some ledge yeah there again the here the proposal here is to integrate these regulations in with the rest of the ordinance so other parts of the ordinance control hours of construction for anything so you wouldn't add special yeah no I was just curious so that will just get tied into the existing instruction okay

concerns if not do I have a question is that okay yeah um I there there's a lot of work done here and I appreciate it um there's a lot of work that was done here um I'm seeing here the equipment will be placed 100 fet from a property line and then the visual that I looked at I think the buffer was like the vegetative buffer is 50 ft correct okay and then that's on all sides it's on sides where a visual impact analysis done by a registered landscape architect indicates there's a need for it so if there's Woods on the side of it you wouldn't if it's open road or a neighbor's house you would the planning board will you do those so in the example if someone's developing a field and they own 300 acres in the fields the first 20 acres towards the road they don't necessarily have to reestablish a vegetative buffer on the back end between the panels in the field in the woods assuming that no one lives y there

okay but if you were driving by that like if somebody did that in an open field and we driving by that would they make them buffer the road driving by okay okay 50 feet deep 50 foot wide buffer y designed by a landscape architect to be effective and are there I know you has a been through this like there's the fiveyear rule for my landscape plan like it's in effect for five years and then if all my trees di five years later I I had it for five years is there that kind of thing or is it required to maintain it as long as the field exists there is a requirement for a vegetative management plan uh first focused on within the solar farm itself one of the issues is wheat control vegetation growing up causing shade we want to make sure that's properly managed uh but it also includes the vegetative buffer has to be included in a vegetation management plan so as long as that facility is an operation it will be

required to maintain that buffer now obviously it's going to take enforcement monitoring but that's like any Landscaping plan that you put out there there but there's no requirement for like some communities in commercials uh projects they require a landscape maintenance Bond but those are really not very effective so can you explain what happens if the town vote this votes this down well the concern would be that you have no standards whatsoever so if someone proposes and we've had several inquiries everything from major battery storage systems like you've been reading about in the paper uh to large solar Farms 40 acres so we have no design standards so the only tool that the planning board has is the conditional use criteria and without specifics like

this to defend your decision uh your vulnerability to a legal challenge in the event of a denial or an approval uh if neighbors are challenging the decision uh is much more uh suspect than if you have clear standards and they've met all those standards and those standards address the issues so I think your your community is exposed if you do not have any standards which is the case and things like decommissioning is a big part of this these things have an expected life expectancy of about 20 years 30 years at the most and then these things are no longer uh efficient and so do they just abandon it and leave that to rot or do they are they required to go out and uh and take everything out and that's what this ordinance requires they have to have a decommissioning plan so without that there's nothing in your ordinance that gives you authority to require that um this is a question for the other

board members while I it's been very um minimally represented it has been represented that um some I'm not saying that I support this I just think you know we should probably just have a quick conversation about it um just a van on them and as a board say say that again we've had more than one public comment that the res a some people think there should be an all right all out ban on SOL like a like issue an ordinance that would suggest a ban on I'm not suggesting that I support that I'm just saying that has come before us and so in the event that the

town were to vote this down um what George is saying is that we have no standards to go by other than the conditional use permit and so I'm just wondering if the town were to vote this down does it then make sense to have a backup ban question um so that we're not in a situation where the conditional use permit and the no standards to decommission something something exists that's a really big question I know that I'm putting out there but when when I'm think I'm listening to what George is saying and and maybe people that are here from the Conservation Commission can speak to like the pulse of the town and whether or not they think that this is going to pass if this doesn't pass the other scenario scares me for the long term impact I I don't know if it's necessarily our job to figure out whether we think it's going to pass or not I think it's more our job to figure out whether we want to accept the

recommendation from the planning board is to let the town decide on this so I don't necessarily see it as appropriate for us to say let's also add a question where is if if this fails do you want to ban Solar Development if that's what you're asking so I I I wouldn't propose a

motion saying that if this doesn't if if if this doesn't pass we ban I would call it a moratorium for a year or two and say go back to the drawing board essentially to the planning board and conservation committee but uh at the same time um I think doing the two questions like that just sets you up one way or the other that's a good point is that does the select board have the authority to enact a moratorium no what you would do if this failed and you're concerned with the exposure of the town you would want to consider perhaps scheduling a special town meeting and then have a question for moratorium and I I think that when it comes to voting on ordinances one thing we sometimes always run into is well if this fails what what should we do next and I think that it's better to just use the process we have now get recommendations get feedback from the community have the vote and then cross that bridge when you get to

it because we we could say the same thing about this other ordinance on the housing well if this fails should we try to get another ordinance pulled together before that and I just think that that gets a little like at some point you got to make a decision on something no no I'm not saying that I support that I just I don't want to be left that scares me yeah but again I think that that's where we just put the an ordinance like this to the vote to the town and let them make that decision if the whole Community stands up and says we don't want this we want outright ban I think that feeds us information to say maybe we needed another town meeting or special town meeting to consider something like that but I don't I don't think adding in all the different okay scenarios of like well then if that fails do we do a moratorium and then if that fails do that so so so anyway so yeah I think we need to support what the

board's already done here absolutely and move forward with it and not worry about what the bell curve of the Town actually decides I think the bell curve is probably going to want ordinances versus not um because it does leave the town vable for anything so um I don't believe we need any contingency plan for this at all um I think this is a pretty well laid out plan that um puts us in lines with um you know how our how our town wants to move forward and and closes the loophole that we have out there now which is the important part I have a motion on the table at this point I think we have a motion

we don't go ahead I I'd move that we uh accept the planning board's recommendation as to the solar energy systems okay do have a second I'll second okay have seconds any further discussion none all right all in favor of the usual Mana all opposed I'm aain abstaining just because I hope L of it okay we have joeing and

four for motion carries for the solar energy systems ordinance to go before the town for vote as a warrant article okay and new coming thank you Michael good um I I'm just GNA be really you know Frank I disagree with the position of listing them I've I've looked and I know that that the I I wish that we also had the letter here from the attorney okay good I would love to see it just so you know we talked to him today okay oh please tell me what you what was said so

just so everybody understands this all this all started with the vote at the 2022 town meeting if you want to pass those around uh to create a separate fee schedule so that you didn't have anytime you wanted to update your feas in go toown meeting so that actually happened and then the year following that the select board got together and started work on the speed schedule Y and the select board raise questions in terms of does it have the authority to enact new fees that in the or that are not in the ordinance so that then led to requesting an opinion from uh the town attorney the town attorney and the highlighted uh one and two there says that the select board has the authority to assign a fee and calculate a fee for any fee that is referenced in the land use ordinance so I give the example of addressing when the town did E9 911 15 years ago however long it was they wanted people to change

their addresses people don't want to change their addresses so they didn't hit them with a fee to make them even matter so they took a policy no fees for addressing well now new houses are being built and every time the code officer spends half a day at least if not more setting up the e911 getting in touch with the public safety talking to the state e911 and he goes through a whole process that might C several hundred dollar and the town eats that cost now so the town attorney has said we just discussed this today Town manager and the code enforcement officer and I um that if you're going to any fee that's referenced in there and some are and some aren't you can include in the fee schedule if you're going to uh include new fees now obviously if you didn't put it in the ordinance and someone wanted to challenge it are they going to challenge it for $100 I don't think so but he was saying that you really better

off to make sure that it's supported in the org so he recommended adding this language tend to side with the lawyers okay so so my question then is I'm just going to use North yth as an example um the way that they have it referenced is a sentence basically that says the select board sets the fee schedule or sets the fees like that's what it's not listed out right so then when you and and here's my um evidence of that right they charge um three different fees for a mass Gathering and in their 428 page ordinance the word mass Gathering is not in there but they have pretty substantial like depending on how big it gets one of them is $5,000 do they have a separate Mass Gathering ordinance I don't believe so I'm going to look right this minute um because they may and that may establish the fee okay and so that and I there are a couple of I don't want to I don't want to argue with this you about this you're the professional

really it doesn't matter um doesn't matter to me I just I in my other examples that I've looked at I've I've seen where there the ordinance refers to the fee schedule set by the SL board and not have it listed out that could be and that that sentence is what is meets the requirement of um referencing it in the ordinance but part of the problem here is that if you go through the ordinance you'll see multiple places where it says there is a fee and that fee will be set by the select board in the fee schedule so I think it's harder for us to go through and say oh even though there's no fee mentioned for Street addressing permits or for driveway permits uh the select board can do it where it says here certain fees you can it doesn't say you can for the others so that's part of the confusion here so we looked at possibly going and scrubbing all of those and putting in a a single statement but we

were really caught up with some of these other policy issues and right didn't didn't want to you know make all these amendments to all these different sections just put the list at the end and we're covered so this is everything within our um land use ordinance that mentions there's a fee plus the addition of solar Y how many new ones are there here I say we got a through z well right now there's no fee for uh let me get that there's no fee for uh several of these M mentioned in the

ordinance sorry but it gives us an option later we want to establish a fee we could right now there is a fee for building Electrical Plumbing demolition reinspection occupancy after the fact permits uh there is for conditional use there there is none for subdivision sketch plan uh there is for preliminary subdivision final subdivision there is none for amended subdivision approval uh site plan review yes amended site plan review no uh peer review escros yes shorel zoning no permit right now listed no permit fee excuse me there was a permit uh solar energy systems were adding flood management there is a fee mentioned in there set by the uh select board in the fee schedule there are appeals fees graveyard junkyard automobile recycling Gravel Pit mobile home park there is nothing for insurance driveway permits so every time Calvin issues a new permit with a culvert going in does an inspection there's no fee for that uh

there is no fee for e911 addressing and there is a fine actually there's no fee the private road has to pay for the sign that Public Work this this list here came from the planning board reviewing the ordinances you and then getting feedback from the town code enforcement officer there's actually the code enforcement and officer and I that put this list together okay yeah so can I give you a scenario and you tell me how we would handle it let's say that we want to allow food trucks to rent space at the Eureka Center and we want to charge a fee for them to be able to do that how is that accomplished the way that we're doing this well first question is do you have an ordinance for Food Service licenses uh I don't think you do uh if you did what you would do is probably add that to the lane use ordinance and then add that to the list of the fees throw an amendment to the lane use ordinance so at this point if

someone I'm not saying it's good or bad or whatever I'm just asking for clarification if someone parked a food truck on Town property every day to sell food we there'd be no permit for them to be required to do that no fee and just they just can do it okay so uh I don't know if that's there are there are State there are State licensing requirements for all Food Service maybe that was a bad example I was no no it's a good one uh and the thing is about land use planning and land use regulation it's like when does a use become established right so if they go there for one day is that do they need a permit you know are you you really as the town attorneys that I've worked with in the past say there has to be some permanency to what's being done in order for you to regulate it as a land use so but that's that is probably not a good one but yeah yeah it just raises the challenge of how do you regulate stuff like that where do

you draw the lines can I read what how they dealt with this so it says section 3.7 fees amended 6 1921 the select Board Shop this is in their land use ordinance qu a clarification talking about North y yeah the and they have the same format of town government that we do the select board shall establish fees for all permits where permit fees have not been specified within this ordinance a copy of the fee schedule shall be available from the code enforcement officer that language is added to the ordinance correct that's in their L use ordinance that's right so that may be that does reference authorization to for the select board to that's what I want enact new fees I would like to do that for the food truck example for the mass Gathering EX for the any of the places where fees are not established to to add

that type of like eye rolls what's the problem I'm just thinking where this is like this is what we do we establish policy yeah no I just I'm thinking about that's an alternative I just wanted would want to check with the town attorney yeah I I would to make sure that that because just because they did it doesn't Ne Me must if you were asking me how to do that I would keep your list and just add another subsection that says and all other permits authorized by this ordinance not otherwise specified here in yeah that's what I was going to make a suggestion is because I think you know better than all of us with planning you can't plan for everything but sometimes the community may want something to be reacted on as soon as it pops up something new that we didn't expect and so I wasn't sure if there would be a way to have this set list also then so people know what it is but also have kind of that caveat in

there like Josh and Heather are alluding to you know and anything not listed here that's deemed requiring a permit or something like that two cautions I would offer is number one if you look at the language of the Town attorney's opinion uh that's what we know we can do you can do the other concern I would uh just get you to think about is okay how far do you take that so now are you going to allow a $2,000 impact fee School impact fee by

the by the purview of the select board or you know some people might raise a question well how far can you go because many towns have done Windham has a $400 per house recreational fee uh they have a council manager for a government so they can do that at the council level so just be be aware you may get some push back in terms of wait a minute now they can do any fee yeah and I'm also thinking that you know the idea of doing this was to get our fees in one place that we currently have established and not get into all the wh ifs of whether

Johnny's going to put a food truck over next door here I I I don't see that happening there are a lot of other things that people can do and if we get something that's that big then we need to probably put an ordinance in place and then assess a fee at that point but to Leave It Wide Open I'm not not sure that I'm all there to leave it leave it open to our purview to add something um you know in the fee schedule if you go and do an ordinance change you're going to go and update the fee schedule so as you add an ordinance you update the fee schedule I don't see why you'd leave the fee schedule open at all that's why uh the reason I suggested

what I suggested and worded it the way I worded it was because it's fees for permits uh mentioned or required under this land use ordinance yeah so it wouldn't allow for the that the impact Fe it would if it's required but it's somehow missed and not included in this list so take a full year to go back and say now we have to that yeah that's the catch all that is in you know 99% of the state statutes yeah uh and so that would be my only recommendation uh because or if you add something thing and you're trying to rush it through and you forget to you add you add to the ordinance you forget to add a fee that that's that's why I would suggest it I I trust that you you've done it and you've gone through and that someone will catch in the future is not added so it to me is not a big deal but that's why I would add it that makes it just to offer uh what we could do is if you want me to look at that language uh

a catch all and I could draft something up along the lines of what you just stated and I could run it by the town attorney and see if he thinks if that is then you could simply add that to this proposal well I mean trying to separate the the lawyer part but if we say for a fee for any permit authorized herein is not what he's saying we're allowed to do anyway so I'm not sure I mean you can go back to him but I'm not sure yeah because I get what you're saying is you're not saying we just want to establish broad authority to right the Kickball fee so can whatever but you want to make sure that if anything's missed that's in the ordinance you can say yeah we do have the authority to set a fee for that I'm not suggesting that we have the authority to do all of whatever we want to set a fee for make an impact feed blah blah blah I'm not suggesting that whatsoever what other towns that have this type of language do

is hold a public hearing before they adopt their um fee schedule for that year so if we were adding a mass Gathering fee or if we were adding a food truck fee or whatever we might a situation that comes up that we like the solar ordinance or you know whatever and obviously that's not a good example because we're actually changing an or ordinance which would include a fee right there's a public hearing that's held before they adopt their fee schedule so it's not just a a blanket like the select board has the authority to do this I think our fee schedule is so drastically behind what it C like so a m a conversation that I've had with Jerry multiple times is that when you look at the way that other towns do things is that people that are utilizing George's time are charged a hourly rate for George's time

and that George's time working on these things are not subsidized by the resident's tax dollars this is the type of thing that covers that that's an administrative thing that Jerry is to look at and bring up and go down that road but if we don't have this kind of language in there we're in a situation where we can't do that but but if there's no ordinance if there's no Mass Gathering ordinance how do we charge a fee for a permit when there's no standards that's my concern with that with with doing that you know is there anything is there's no ordinance that regulates the food truck at the Eureka Center so we're doing a permit but for what so that we have a record of who's

there I think I think there has to be an ordinance to go along with the fee in in this instance if you want to say let's do a mass Gathering permit fee it doesn't have to go in the land use ordinance because there's no ordinance affecting it I think that's a different topic that that we as a select board have the inherent authority to do anyway okay that's a good question is that right is that true I don't know I'm not a lawyer because that's what I want to do I want to I want to do permit fees I don't necessarily want to go write an ordinance to have for people to be able to have a mass Gathering I just want to be able to get to help bring Revenue in by by having per claric so you're saying we don't have a mass Gathering ordinance but is there a mass Gathering permit and there's no fee structure for that and you're saying that you want to be able well I believe we should have a mass Gathering permit because then I'm

not ask we should I'm saying what we what we do I'm saying we should because then depending on how big it is the chief has put on alert that there might be a public safety type of situation and yes that is the type of thing I mean most towns just to walk in the door to apply for a permit there's an administrative cost of $50 to cover this town staff's time that it takes to process these things that they're doing we're not doing any of that stuff that's all lost

and that to me that's what this Fe schedule is if that's two separate things then that's fine we can have this conversation at a different time if you think it's two separate things we can have this at a different time I think it's two separate things I think it's two separate things as well so put a pin because we're coming back to this

catch all too or no please find out about the catch all I think that that's important okay so what I'll do is draft some language and if you are comfortable without the town attorney bringing in on that you can do that if not we can give his opinion that's that's up to you I

motion well I don't think we can accept this if we're gonna have George rewrite something so are do you want us to make a motion to not accept this the way it is or how do what I don't I'm not sure what we need to do here is without going back with any clause in there you could direct staff to make an amendment to provide a a umbrella

discussion as to the the fees how it labeled the uh codification of new fees until our next next meeting okay under under the assumption that we get Amendment language provided second okay all in favor table it table it do you have a direction that you need George okay thank you thank you for being

right you knew I was going to do that George money is always a hard part right article overview so the budget committee uh met and made their recommendations so what you're getting right now is the only difference between the

budget committee to review okay so the only difference here was in the assessing budget committee instead of going with 60 they went with 140,000 and in the Union Church they took out the 9543 and made that zero so that was the only change just information for now I thought maybe with those changes you folks could either agree or disagree and vote for your your final recommendations however uh Mark updated the budget workbook to include the actuals um and there was a a couple lines in there that I think we need to discuss and maybe uh increase the AMS so

so real quick Jerry we had the just summarily taken out just a quick answer yes or no what's the question we had the 9,543 go for the Union Church they just took it out and so it's gone yeah so it wouldn't be part of the money that we we would consider trading over giving over to the the historical district commission the that's incorrect yeah is that correct no that's not not correct so the $9,000 is somewhere else they just took it out they just took it out of the the blind item they didn't include it can we recognize the the budget committee chair just to have him answered yeah I believe they they increased fund balance transfer well they did they did do that but they took it out of the the line item in the thing that's correct that's two separate things so back to my question is the shirt still getting $31,000 or not well that hasn't been decided yet no meaning is it in the budget for $31,000 to go to the church

currently no currently no so all that money is off to the side and we are there's 21,000 yeah in their account yeah and you and you as a select board kept the 95 to make the 31 hold that's correct the budget committee took that 9,000 to not make they made it zero right okay so what they've given back to us is less than $9,500 isn't anywhere else unless we decide to put it back there right okay thank you okay so the other two documents that I gave you are threee um was a description of the changes that um in the new

workbook you have a single sheet this sort of summarizes the changes the two budget workbooks is the one that was done on the 24th with your recommendations and the changes that are currently um with the currently in the workbook on the summary street so let me just go over that with you okay I'm more particularly concerned about the solid waste line okay so if you look at this so the way this sheet works if you look at it the 24 budget line adjustments all right so line 20 7354 dues in subscription we estimated before we did the adjustments 12,000 the actual was 14 1,166 so I'm now proposing

1,600 the actual came in at 1728 I'm proposing 1,800 27354 dues and subscriptions there we estimated 600 the actual was 1280 I'm proposing now 1,500 for that line uh uh the health insurance I'm not sure why there's a $50 difference but the we budgeted 2225 it came in at

2449 um I'm proposing 2500 Solid Waste this is the big one so we estimated 350,000 the actual is 36134 so I'm me I'm proposing now 375 for that line so that's a total of a increase of 28,00 875 with those adjustments the rest of the lines as you go down through the budget are pretty good there's not too many there wasn't anything like this um so we just need to I just need to get the board to decide if you like these amounts or if you want to change them just let me know uh what you'd like them to be and and then they'll have to go back to the budget committee to get their recommendations and then you'll be ready to vote on the article so that's just a little change in the okay and the

had a question I I I think this was a good catch Jerry um did the budget committee the extra 80,000 in the assessing that they wanted to put in is that what was uh being added to the um the fund balance yes so they were asking for 580,000 yes I thought we were talking about Jerry's adjustments here before we were going to go into the budget committee's changes well it's all re to me it's all relevant because I think the question for me is where's this money going to come from and and so my suggestion to the board would be I think that taking the other $80,000 for the assessing is is a good idea MH uh because I think that's costing I mean it's going to end up costing some people more money some people less money in the end with the taxes but I think it's got to even out uh but I would also suggest uh added to that 880,000 this uh 28875 um because I do think keeping the midle rate the same going into you know

I don't think we'll get the assessing done necessarily this year but going into that change is something that's Jerry about two questions the so the Inc the overd doubling of dues and subscriptions is that because of additional dues or subscriptions that were added in or they just didn't come in so we pay we don't pay December's bills get through January and I think this is just where it ended up I can't I don't have the detail of what subscription yeah I just wasn't sure if we added something or if it's just you know okay and then the um actual for 2023 On Solid Waste being uh 361,000 and

304 and then you budgeting 37,000 375,000 obviously there's a little bit of w fluff not fluff in there but a little bit of space in there for fluctuation do you think that based off of the trends should capture it or is it going to potentially push the limit there because I'm just thinking we should budget for you know what we think it might be

um so their proposal when they did gave us proposal they're going to go they're going to increase 5% every year or whatever the Consumer Price Index is for hauling trash whatever's higher so if you take the 361 and add that 5% to that that's an additional 18,000 um so it's it's kind of getting there in the in the ballpark five 5% of that actual

is $118,000 more yeah so I guess my question is it really so it really is you know how I don't have a crystal ball I don't know how much it's actually going to be so it's one of those it's one of those where it's kind of a single article it's better to have the money in there and not need it and need it not have it because you'll have to go back and ask for it if we run out so so looking at the 2023 budget that we budgeted

$370,000 so this is still less or it's right around the same number $375,000 so so we budgeted less this year than we well originally we've gone into it with less this year than we did the previous year so um yeah and I guess

my well I don't guess my point is that uh you know 5% on top of the 2023 actual would be more than 375 and so my thought is considering at least budgeting for the minimum which is 5% you know and it's hoping that it's the minimum the the cost index or the consumer cost index or whatever doesn't exceed that but knowing that it's at least going to be 5% I would Advocate to to bump that number a little bit like you said rather have it in there and not need it than the

that last year we did because our contract is from July 1st to June 31st and so we split whatever that year and then half of this contract to come up with our number I'm not trying to make things more complicated I'm just wondering if you did that here or not I did and in my notes in my Excel spreadsheet that number come to 372,000 okay so you really I mean you're you're really kind of splitting hairs at this point because you just don't know I mean that's just a difference of $3,000 and I

don't know how you want to kind of nail down an ex exact price you can't so you just kind of have to go with what it is Josh are you going to say something this Joe just look at that now um well first of all looking at the

budget committee's recommendations the uh first one on the list is the assessing um do do we all agree that we should push that sooner than later I think the answer has been yes um so unless there's any further discussion on that and then I was going to go to the union church next so do you want to vote on these one by one or let's go back let's just because I because we're going to have to vote at the end a on a whole number at the end so if we can you know yeah so the reason I ask is like I see the way the budget committee facilitates that they vote on each one I so I didn't know if you wanted to wait till the very end or if we wanted to vote on each individual change we'll do we'll do both I just want to have the discussion first so that's all right yeah well usually you make a motion and then you have the discussion on on the motion and premotion questions are just for um information Gathering so okay that's why

I'm asking just to determine you want make a motion go ahead I still ask a question after a motion's been made depends on what it is I just want to know if the RFP came back on the assessing yet uh no no they uh they're due on the 8th and we open them on the 12th February 8th yeah we've gotten one so far but it's not open I can't open until 12 yeah because with that answer I don't know if it's valuable and just waiting to see a rough estimate of what the bids are and then making that adjustment because I know that the I watched I was at the meeting the budget committee suggested adding 880,000 operating off uh old estimate of $160,000 or 140 something the old estim was right around 180 yeah and so I know that that's where they came up with that number in their it seemed that their intent in you know I'd ask the the chair who's here to to clarify me if I'm wrong that their intent was to raise enough to

cover the entire cost so we could potentially expedite the assessment process rather than saying split it up over the next few years and so if that's the intent and we agree with it I would think that we would want to wait until we get those quotes to understand if this is going to be enough money um because if the quotes come back at 200,000 or 210 or whatever we'd ra I'd rather see us if we're going to try to budget for the whole thing this year actually have a accurate number if you follow what I'm saying because it sounds like we will have time yep you you'll know what the assessing number is at your next meeting

yeah so would that answer I would be more inclined to table the discussion on that that line until we get those numbers unless we just think that it's not worth trying to budget for it in its entirety this year Jerry in your estimation um I know we'll get a number this year but the likelihood that it will get done within this budget is What Slim to nil oh I don't believe it'll get done within this budget more you're probably looking at 20 26 27 2026 27 and I I see what you're

saying is that like even if they come back and we get that number and we're not going to we're going to have to have another time meeting anyways my thought process is if we wait for the number we can get closer now than if we have to ask for more at the next town meeting it's less of an Ask um or we could wait and then split it 50/50

the difference like I'm just thinking that we're so close to having that number like it's we're talking two weeks why not just wait to make that adjust I don't think there's any harm in changing this number when you go forth and put the recommendations to the town when we vote on that whether or not we want to comply with the budget committee or whether we want to stand on our own number that's perfectly fine I don't think that has to be decided tonight yeah if we have the real number then put it out there and say this is what it's going to cost us and put make the warrant article the actual number at that point Josh do you have an opinion uh I mean to me there there's no difference because we're going to be waiting anyway if it were going to be done this year and we needed all the money uh to me it it makes no difference uh I think it's better to get this done and not have any hiccups on on

the budget uh we have got a month and a half to get it all settled um you know I I'd assume move it faster but yeah I mean my inclination is to talk about everything tonight my opinion would be to do everything tonight but that number and so then you're just voting on that after we get the bids and I'm only basing that off of the fact that from watching the budget committee meeting it seemed that they were recommending that number to meet the the quoted cost and so if that's what their their goal is and we're trying to expedite the the the meeting the the town meeting process by being in line with them let's just get ahead of it and it's my thought process so mil is that what the budget committee was actually thinking is to put it to the number that the actual cost was going to be or just to get us close to adding the yep to the assessing yeah

okay thank you all right all right we're g to table that one and get the quot in what yeah that was easy do you need a motion to table are we going to just wait on that one line we'll just wait on that line I don't leave any a motion for that to wait we're here to discuss and if we can make a decision great okay Union

zero dollars to be transferred over the Union Church in regard to the act the additional money the 9,543 that um was uh the estimated amount that was raised on the floor last year sh uh uh select board recommended 9,540 three um to U make the town whole on

providing that money that was go for last year so we have any discussion on this I'm trying really I was there and I really paid attention and I'm trying really hard to remember and the only thing that's coming to mind and maybe mil or phis can correct me was

that the gist was they removed that money because they felt like the Union Church convers conversation was convoluted to begin with and so they didn't want to make it even more complicated and so they just I think they wanted to just deal with the transfer of the union church and not the additional monies but I could be remembering that incorrectly

comment so mil why um excuse me so why why why the Z dollar again sorry put on the spot I have a clear in my notes so I'm drawing a blank I have that you know they voted down the repairs but when I'm looking at the fund balance transfer WR in parentheses includes Union insur so it seems to me that they're taking money somewhere else

can we just look at their total amount from their budget got a question I don't have a question but I I can see why the the budget committee can get it is a little bit you know a little bewildering when you kind of get into it kind of goes lead to things but in regards to that amount of money and the money that's in there because of the way the question has to be phrased I would just leave that open-ended question at the end after the $1 just to see if the town made a charitable donation $31,000 to the department uh the DHS for the restoration of the union church right then it wouldn't show up on the budget it wouldn't show up on the bud okay and it just keeps it cleaner then if we do it if we don't do it if there's that if we right so with that $31,000 though in that situation there's only 21,000 currently in their account we would just say we'd have to raise that 9,000 somewhere we don't necess we could

appropriate right yeah so what but so we know we're going to ask the town for that 9,000 but we're not going to budget anywhere for asking him for that 9 I didn't say that I would just keep it as one question rather than two and I'd probably phrase it of to um um oh I think I'm remembering what happened yeah you're remind yeah so the the reason you know this all stems back to the lawyers you know thing but so the reason for this is we know we have um the 9,534 was to get it up to the 31,000 yeah so to see if the town would appropriate let's just call it 21,000 of the historical as a charitable na donation and also provide 9,054 raised and or appropriated out of the general fund for a um charitable donation to DHS for the restoration of the church yeah I'm trying I think at the meeting Jill was getting at something like that when she made the suggestion because she was talking about not necessarily being against that 9,000 but

being against it being in that section of the budget can I just say why I think it's important to have it in there and that is if by chance the work doesn't get done do we have to keep voting on this every year this extra 9,543 whereas if it's in the reserve account it's there and uh it's not going to lapse back in to the fund balance um and it'll be there that for the I think I I I think think maybe I'm misunderstanding maybe I'm not saying this exactly I'm I'm putting this as a charitable donation but the donation is if the donation isn't made the donation is made just going to be so so you're saying no no stipulation sorry I so I I don't I

personally don't think that's the appropriate way to do it with the town's money because we're giving them the money saying we'd like you to use it for this but there's no strings attached they could use it however they want which it's not as I've said before it's not a lack of trust it's a um your lawyer deal with this you know I thought we had already established that if we were going to do that we were going to do it as which is why I don't think charitable donation is the language I would use which means if you use charitable donation and then hold it if it's not provided to them within the one year it lapses back into the general fund and we're going to have to have that same conversation again next year does necess say have to be one year to five to 10 years to do a charitable donation is it though because remember when we did we raised it before if it doesn't get spent it goes back into the

general fund that's why I don't we can be the custodians of it but it wouldn't be in a municipal account it be in a private account that we're in the custodians of and we can do that what happened with the remember I every time I bring up the flags people look at me like don't talk about that but I'm just saying remember when we there there flag the the fire Department flags and they were making donations to the town and then that was comp but that was to the town not out of the town right we were we were making a donation to the town to put flags on

Telephone polls like we typically do during the moral day and some of them were battered and so forth so we were actually people were like writing a check to town of dur it wasn't us writing the check to a thing okay okay okay how the the best way to do that Josh I don't I don't necessarily have clear answer what I was trying to do is um and by no means circumnavigate the issue but because of the fact that that money if we donate as far as a restoration from the restoration project it has to be used for public service and there's no way that this this can be you know

there's no way it can be classified as a public service by giving it to a yeah I recall your your your your point on that was that you know we can donate to The anets The J the Little League the the Scholarship Foundation but that if we're the way you were understanding it is that the way it was worded by the lawyer is that we would have to agree that it's providing a public service and you get into questions about occupancy with no second form of egress limited parking limited open hours and that you were just saying this would be a cleaner way to give them the money should the town and we get the town vote on it I think it's I think it's a cleaner way to give the money with the original intent but without um recognizing that it's being used for public service because it's it wouldn't really be used for public service

okay the the issue is I think it all should be in in the reserve account where this this 9,543 should be in with the other it doesn't last back into the fund balance seems like what you're just saying is that we keep that 9,000 in there taking it from the fund balance and populating the reserve and I think you can word it is donate if if you you know using the language on the sheet see the town will donate $31,000 uh 20, 457 uh from the uh current Union Church Reserve

account and the uh remaining 9,000 word it you can word it as one but I think it I I would like I I think in an additional nine yeah and I putting it into that c I just don't want it to lapse I don't want us have to vote on this year after year because I don't know how long it's going to take for this stuff to get done no absolutely and and I get what you're trying to say I just don't know if that fund balance as far as quote unquote the rest ation fund of a municipal fund could actually be I think this money has to go back into the general fund for us to give it because if we give it out of that fund we're committing that it's for public use I think right H we talked about that well I think I think if we do it after we've transferred it and there's no longer a union church either way we got a budget for that 9,000 anyway put my in my mind if I'm and maybe we need clarification from the budget Comm

but if they're removing that line but not decreasing the total amount of money we're budgeting for the year where they putting it because if you're saying we're taking that 9,000 out we're still going to spend the exact same amount of money that means they put it somewhere else in the budget and so I just wanted to take a look at their their budget and see if the total is the just 80,000 additionally or if it's

whatever Jerry didn't you say that yeah so they so they your recommendation was 500,000 to use out of fund balance yeah their recommendation was 580 and that was because they added 80 to out the 9,000 and they just took out the 9,000 I'm not sure where what where

they were going to raise that I don't know if they were going to plan on raising that to make the 31 hole or take it out of fund balance to make the 31 hole I'm not coming out of fund balance cuz they would have tabulated that here correct it would have said take 59,000 or or sorry 5 89,000 they would yeah they would have gone 89 540 or somewhere in that they would have used round numbers but they didn't do that based off what they're giving us they just remov that line my notes say minus take out right next to the number that I wrote at at their

I'm getting as regardless of where we put the dollars and how we facilitate that to the union church we should still budget if we want to do that we should still budget for that money kind of like what Josh is getting at like at least yeah maybe a fact is we're bu budgeting it and they're we're making a recommendation excuse me I can't talk to we're making a recommendation of $9,000 in the budget committee is simply making a zero and and that's 100% fine and then the town can vote whether they want that to be taken care of you know that's not uncom and I mean I know that we want to sorry being as as in line with them as possible but if our budgets are only off by $9,000 and because of one budget line that's giving the people the power to make the decision on whether they want that or not so I mean we could just say keep it in no I agree and then we get to figure out all the fun where it shuffles

or lands so we avoid last year's thing is not whether we give the 9,000 don't give the 9,000 I mean that's I could be persuaded either way it's just making sure we word it appropriately because I do think that one can come back to BU us yeah I think that's almost a little bit of a different discussion whereas here we're just saying do we still budget for the 9,000 or not and then we can figure out how we that don't mind which way we go with that yeah the the only oh Joe if I can make a comment Elsewhere on the budget the only thing I would be is I know it seems a little Annoying probably for Jerry for me to see that 375 number but I was going to recommend for the solid waste going up to 380 which does capture the 5% now I know that's 0.04% of our budget but I just like the idea of that precedent of if we know it's going to increase by 5% or the the index to just budget for that 5% until we see that the index is higher or lower

than it's they're never going to charge us less than 5% you know right so let me just so let me just you can shoot me down I mean I'm just throwing it up I I just want just make sure so when I did the math with the new contract and did the six months of the old and six months of the new using the exact same tonage amount it came to 372 okay so you know plus I looked at that so then I looked at that 5% you know that it's going to go up in the next six months I'm like well 375 seems like a good number the re the reason I get the 380 was because I did 361 304 plus 5% of that and that brings me to 379 36920 and so then I said round up the

631 I get it so I don't know if I did that math wrong because you're saying you I have the same numbers yeah thought you did y one more I I don't want to speak about a part that we're not speaking about it's on this page that I have something to say but it's not until we get down here so do you want me to wait until we get down here or should I are we just like putting it all out there right now um are we all set on Union Church we're all set on that we're all set on assessing so what was there anything else on this page that Jerry gave us um on my notes I have 16,700 written down under community services and when I go back and I look in the budget I think it's the $600 for general assistance and that's not listed in this for the 161 but in the book it's there's $600 there for general assistance Y and so I so this number it says 161 not

167 I see what you're saying um yeah but it's not really a it's not really a donation though is it well I I I I think I'm asking you because in the book If you look on page 13 right the total is 167 it says outside organization 161 and then 600 are we good yeah okay okay that's where yeah my question because it says here on our supplemental it says 16,100 page 13 line 697 807 and then when we come to 69 line 7807 yeah it still says that but we're just not adding in that General assistant on the supplemental she not general assistance isn't really a donation okay yeah so yeah it's still budgeted for in the total but just being categorized as something separate from right it's in a category right okay got it or yeah cuz that category is outside organization right where is right yeah thank you right

wait for the assessing estimate to come in see what that is and then adjust this number vote on that number at the next meeting uh Union Church we are we didn't get to a final decision on that other than consider just putting up each separate number for select board and budget committee and then I got a proposed number for solid waste to estimate that it uh either either go with the proposed now $375,000 or make that

which so I I think what might be the best for S to go through systematically just go through each of Jerry's line changes Y and just have a motion and vote on each one and then whatever we want to table we can or we can't we just go with

the budget committee had changed first and then we go over here but we're also with what the budget committee did all just making sure we're all set with that and then we can go down each one and and vote on that this book booklet that says as of 25

2024 these changes that are on this sheet are reflected in here so what can I just make a suggestion is that okay I what I think we should do is just go article by article and either and vote to accept the new number or not based on

I'm actually thinking that I want him to put these in the spreadsheet and send it P back over to the budget committee for them to well don't we have to adopt it first just thinking yeah yeah we do have to adopt it first I guess so the way that but but it's going to be held up because we don't have all the numbers so we're going to be to next meeting I'm just thinking that we wait till next meeting to vote on this why don't we just vote on everything we go through on everything and if we get to something we want to table we can so then we have one thing to do next meeting and we can vote on the rest of this while it's still fresh in our minds rather than having the same exact conversation next meeting

make a motion to accept the administrative budget of 473,000 $656,000 admin to recommend is that the word you want me to use the my problem is I don't know what line I don't know what line I'm looking page six page six of Jerry's new budget of the 25 2024 right and it's page six and then that number that I just said reflects the 145 which is the change to the dues and subscription line yeah we're pretty much just voting to accept Jerry's highlighted line

budget yeah okay right have a motion and Joe second any further discussion all in favor okay motion accept the municipal buildings budget of 22435 which is on page seven of 15 to reflect Jerry's change second okay motion I table for 22435 municipal buildings any discussion

I have a second sorry all in favor motion carries unanimous so if there's no change we can pass over if that recommendation doesn't change that's what I would do the assessment budget didn't change so we can pass that one

we're not changing yeah we're just voting to accept or reject J's changes all right that's fine that all set I'd like to make a motion to recommend $124,500 to the planning and codes enforcement budget second got a motioning codes for 124500 and second in

unanimous anyone else want to jump in on this motion right I don't want to take all the you guys are doing great all right I'll I'll move that we accept the fire department's budget of the number yeah it's 603 854 on page 9

of 15 no 45 I'm not trying to split hairs of you it says 45 right here you have 45 not 54 oh thank you you're welcome what did I say 54 yeah everyone's going to think I'm trying to get Chief six more bucks nine bucks to SL thought I was going to get you on that one I'm sorry I just like it to be got sorry um that's

department all in favor all unanimous all right I'm done okay all right I'll make a motion that we ac we accept the solid waste uh budget of 394,000 so change that 375 to 380 in the Sol in the uh hauling line I'll second that I'm sorry how much was it uh make it 380 so 394 394 total 394 than you all right do I I got a second Heather second um so I got a motion on here for solid waste for $394,000 even motion to seconded

discussion all in favor okay unanimous okay no you got that uh I make a motion that we um increase the uh addition to the fund balance it says here 525 but I would make it uh balance transfer by8 because he only increased at 25,000 but we just increased the entire we just increased the entire budget $33,860 no because that 525 already reflects your increases correct yes so if we voted to just accept everything Jerry did it would be 525 but since we voted to accept everything plus 5,000 that should just be

assessing you're right yeah so when I look at the budget from where it says as of 12 4 24 I'm looking at the 25 I I understand what you're looking at but what I'm saying what I'm what what I'm my motion is based on here you're looking at the the mill rate of 21. 348

with a $500,000 fund balance use of fals you come up to the 25 the 525 the mill rate goes up and what I'm think what I'm suggesting recommending moving is that it stay the same which is why I would make it the 533 875 because we didn't take any money out of the budget right but what we just voted on was to add $33,860 to the budget correct that's where I'm I'm losing you because when I'm my understanding and I could be completely wrong based on based on what Jerry handed us the line adjustments the total increase is $ 28,8 75 and we added 5,000 to that so the total increase of the budget is 33,8 right that that makes sense I'm just wondering why we only have 525 out of the fun balance because he put 525 in there we had it 500 I'm suggesting we do the 500 plus the

made the yellow highlights yeah that increased it by 28,8 75 but 20 but putting adding 25,000 makes the the uh tax be still so I'm sorry my my assumption which was wrong was that you were increasing all your increasing of the budget was going to come out of the fund balance but it looks like you just only took 25,000 out of the fund balance and the other 3,875 would be raised right okay well

and Josh is saying let's just take it all out of the fund balance well you raised more tonight than I have in here because you added more to the right but that $3,000 is difference and Jerry raised and Josh same transfer yeah that's I'm following that yes I was just yeah I get

if somebody didn't do that the math so I don't get I'm really confused so I just let me one this is why I want Jerry to go and one send it to us because I wanted everything on a piece of paper before vot on it so we started what the budget we approved previously called for $500,000 from use

to $500,000 from the fund balance yeah Jerry's number in this updated budget included an additional 25,000 what's that include on this list already no that's don't don't look at this list yet okay just in the fund balance on page one the additions to use of fund balance initially it was 500,000 that we approved Jerry's proposal tonight was 525 I'm saying we've raised that $33,860

the the total budget and we should take that money out of the fund balance but I don't know where the 525 came from that's what my so Jerry increased spending to adjust for actuals by $2 28,8 75 right when you look when you

look at the front page he said $25,000 of that increase spending should come out of the fund balance so that caused the fund balance to go to 525,000 that still leaves $3,875 unaccounted for which Jerry says we should take out of the property tax levy so if you look at 2524 property tax levy is

8, 27,0 and10 and so Josh is just saying that all adjustments based off of actuals plus what we just added should come out of the fund balance so the mill rate Remains the Same instead of raising the difference just transfer it all and so Jerry's budget it all he also increased by 3% the

the the funding sources the tax levy right and so I'm I I just think that should the total funding uh which which is why he had the difference but I I'm still advocating uh because we're talking I just like to make it a wash yeah I I I'm with just and at this moment I I could care

discussion I agree with Josh's motion so I'm I'm good with it we've got we've got done the math there so just wanted to make sure it clarified okay all in favor all oppos so what is the fund balance now that you're using 533 875 don't know 533

total increase plus the 5,000 that we increased on top of that okay it's to come out of the fund balance so the the mill rate doesn't change right mill rate and that 0.0 at the tax Li limit that's mhm we want to keep that at so so yeah that would still stick at the 20 124 number of 21 we're still going to have to vote on this

have to do this tonight we should have done a regular straight piece of paper that had all the numbers and voted on at the next meeting yes that's my point and I'm not going to be at the next meeting and so uh I would urge the board at the next meeting uh to uh in if if the

board's going to vote to increase the um assessing the assessing uh I would also urge the board to take that money out of the Reser the fund balance so the way we've done this now is when Jerry comes next meeting we'll have our entire budget and then we're voting whether we just add that 80,000 or not as opposed to what we did tonight and the 880,000 being worked into the conversation so it kind of segments it and I think it's be a little more streamlined that way well you know also hopefully have the budget committe recommendation so yeah according to your timeline budget committee has has a date reserved for meeting to now review these numbers right so I'm going to ask when I asked everyone their availability that was like most people can make a meeting unless this the town won't allow was for the Monday before your meeting but there a holid I hope that doesn't exclude us

15th is that a state holiday our meeting is our meeting is the 13th Monday's the 13th so that's Tuesday is the 13th I'm sorry the 19th the 19th is the be on the 12th the 12 the 12th is this Monday okay yes so I'll get an email out right away that will'll meet this Monday can I just really we won't we can only open the bids on the 12th and we don't meet until the 13th so we wouldn't be able to but but they can they can make a recommendation and then we can so I I think we ought to send this number to the budget committee for that day then they send us the new the number for the assessing that they want and then we say that number or the or the because you'll open those on the 12th Jerry right and so when they meet you can say these were the quotes we got and they can do whatever they want with that information so on the 12th they're voting to agree with us on this either reinforce their $80,000 line for the assessing or

increase or decrease depending on the quote so then on the 13th we're getting their recommendation based off what we've already done and their updated recommendation on the assessing and deciding whether we agree with that or not perfect okay all right we have any new

business um I just or if it would be more of a board member thing just looking at my personal schedule in our March and I didn't know if we could talk about maybe adjusting one meeting I've got called out of state for two assignments and they both are on the week of the uh select board meetings so I don't know if that's a new business discussion or a board member report

want to discuss this now or do you want to Yeah March we're pretty much set so yeah well all of our meetings are set for the second and the fourth Tuesday of the month but I have to go to Massachusetts for a work trip the 11th through the 13th and then Grand Rapids Michigan the 24th through the 29th so we don't have to move a meeting just because I can't make it but I know it's budget season it's leading right up to right before town meeting there's no opportunity for me to we don't have a policy line for me to zoom or teams in for a meeting so um you all can do the meetings without me I just saying I won't be here and if it's not too inconvenient for people to shift at least one of those meetings as we prep for town meeting I wouldn't would appreciate

moving yeah so my only issue is is that my wife is scheduled for trial I'll know for sure I think next week uh when it is so if you I mean we can talk about it next week and put it for our next we have a meeting next week but I just want to put it on people's radar I know that we don't need to move a meeting just because someone can't make it but with it being so close and then two in a row I just wanted to throw it out there so all right thanks Joe um me report Jerry you have anything

to report this week um yeah I just want to uh let you all know that most of the efficiency main lighting is in they just have a few outside to go on the center they had trouble mounting taking the old lights off the water fell inside the walls some stuff to to do there but hopefully that'll be done and wrapped up Friday um the only other thing I got that I want to just publicly thank the budget committee for they doing their due diligence and looking over the budget and I I thought the meetings went went really well um and I really appreciated the board being there to help answer the questions because it's you know you know that's important and I just want to thank Mill he did I thought he did an excellent job running the running the meeting because budgets and money can can throw some passion out there and sometimes it can be difficult to you know get your hands around so M did a great job so Mill runs a tight

ship over there he did good so that's that's about all I got everything's running good at the office it's busy um absentee voting is happening um Jessica's got a good good handle on that and uh that that's about it yeah okay thank you um I know that we've had one person turn in papers for um the election and I'm just wondering if I know that last year we ran last year they did the blurs about the candidates that were I was just wondering if they going do that okay and I think if I remember correctly it was a resident that um set up the like meet the candidates that wasn't done by the town yeah correct would okay okay you guys that okay we used to way back before I

was even on board way way back so seven years ago then some the previous board prior to me R it have the candidate come in before and each candidate we'd allow two and during the select board meeting for the select board members in the budget committee I don't know if they did the same thing as far as the selection we did do that in the past do you know why they stopped the practice just mostly because every time somebody ran in the past six seven years there's only been a few changes so it was always and there was also um caslo might be this time so sorry I really can't thought tonight um uncontested just one candidate yeah yeah I mean I don't think it's a bad idea to give anybody running the chance to yeah no it's not especially if it is a contest that I think I mean my first time it was like everybody there was two of each for everybody so I mean there was all kinds of people running so um if

there's just one candidate then it's pretty much a lock there are candidates for other boards besides our so correct yeah we just did the select board we never or excuse me that previous board not we I wasn't part of it they just did the select board but we have people who have turned in papers for Budget committee and for school board okay okay thank you okay all right uh board members report anybody have anything to report out that you've been to like classes or anything or

MMA no I was just go ahead no go you have you have something you attended no I just know that in the past we also used this as suggested agenda items for the following meeting uh we could do that yeah I know that we sent in our comments six weeks ago for the policies and so getting that on the agenda shortly would be y idea I am G to finish that up I uh actually my my report this

week will have to do with that so you good all right so um I went to fostering civil Civic dialogue uh with a number of chairs and surrounding towns um held by um GP C down in Portland out their Portland office um last week the week before all the the weeks blur together um so it was quite interesting hearing you know Durham's quite unique right now um you know we we we don't have zoom and and um our meetings are

quite civil after listening to these folks from people like Scarboro and uh Bridgton and and other areas around the state you know Scarboro has uh for instance two political action committees that show up at every single one of their select board meetings and proceed to take up most of their meetings with public comment um and and other input the two I'll call them factions for lack of a better word don't like each other nor does one of them like the select board at all so so it's quite an interesting little um U meeting um that they have down there as well as the zoom that they've allowed in in a lot of these towns they've been bombed so badly that um you know they have to have somebody there at the shut off spot because they get anti-semitic remarks and and other remarks that are just not called for in any public meeting or Forum so the lawyers put this presentation on for the for GP Cog two

two young lawyers has put this on and they B basically came down to which was quite interesting and this goes back to part of the uh regulations or the bylaws that we're putting together is that you know First Amendment rights stand loud and clear anybody can stand up and say anything they want I mean anything short of and I'll use the word putting child porn up on a screen in front of the people they're fine to go just about anywhere with anything they have to say at any time anywhere including board members and it was quite interesting to hear the lawyers talk about how they they have a number of cases where you can't kick people out you can't stop them from speaking their peace um they can do just about anything

in this public space um the chair can call order and eventually if that person is what the chair can have some decisions to make but it's not anything you want to write in an ordinance or or a rule or regulation that we're going to go and actually uh quell First Amendment rights of people so we need to be careful when we write up these bylaws that we don't infringe on um First Amendment rights of anybody so they can't be too restrictive um the three minute rule everybody has the three minute rule although sometimes do an hour of three minutes in the beginning and then an hour at the end because they run over on the number of people that want to stand up on the podium I don't see that being a problem here in Durham but it's it is something to think about when you say that you want to have like say public comment on every single item on the agenda it's it's it's not necessarily recommended by the lawyers to do that

you'll be there all night every night um and they in holding the meetings to to find 9:00 we're done take a vote if if anybody's going to go any further and you know end the meetings if you have to and continue it at another time so it was quite eye opening to see as these towns have said hey let's bring everybody in let's turn on Zoom let's have this open Forum how it's gotten out of control very very quickly um and some of the smaller towns have the same problem bigger towns have bigger issues way bigger issues than I hope we ever see but it but it was a very eye openening meeting to hear this uh hear these people basically spell out what they go through at every council meeting and every select board meeting um it's quite horrifying at times to hear some of the stories they have so so keep that in mind when we're going through this I will have that um I plan on doing that this weekend uh getting that off my

computer and then I can uh finish that up um so it was I did I was waiting for that meeting to occur to get back to it because I knew there'd be some very insightful things for us to kind of think about and bake in we can get that presentation I they they didn't hand it to us they just show it up on the screen but we can request it if anybody's looking for it I know Jerry can reach out to Christina um for that presentation if somebody wants to Breeze through it and we do have access to the lawyers Although our lawyer is just as good he understand First Amendment just as well as anybody else and you can explain to us if we have any questions but it's something like I said keep in the back in mind do some research on it and I'll adjust some of the word and to make sure we don't try not to step in that um and and and you know recommendation would be you know think hard about whether it be this board or a

future board about allowing zoom in these meetings and it's it's completely horrifying what goes on these meetings and so disruptive too but even if somebody held like a Milt sat there and no offense Milt I'm going make fun of you here for you use an example if he held a big sign up for his need or want he could sit right in this first chair right here and hold this big five by for sign up in front of us the whole time and we could not remove him we would have to conduct the meeting around somebody like him sitting right there in front of us with us thanks for the idea yeah it's a good idea is it yeah but you know so it's it's it's interesting it's like like I say it's kind of scary when you think about it but we we go yeah okay call you Dallas I know but anyways that was my two cents for the night um okay consent agenda uh

on the motion to accept the consent agenda in minutes all in favor okay that motion carries unanimously uh upcoming meeting select board meeting on 213 and 227 um budget committee you're move meeting Monday hopefully Monday evening on the 12th um will have select board representation yes thank you yeah uh planning board meeting is on 27

here these are all at the fire station uh do we have a reason for executive session this evening thank you Mil I I'd like to just go in real quick exective session talk about a personal matter it's only going to take five okay all right um I'd move that we go into executive session uh to discuss personal personal matters per Mr sa

456a second in by Joe all in favor okay unanimous we're going to Executive session that closes our public meeting portion of the meeting thank you mics during the executive session just walk down theall [Music] for [Music]