TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ February 10, 2026

Two months next week. One one. Let's get started. At the same time. All right. We have called this meeting to order at 6:30. We have a quorum. We'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All righty. Do we have any amendments to the agenda? No, no, it's there. Never mind. tonight. He has to get additional information uh regarding the uh request for expenditure out of reserve funds. So we're going to move that to next meeting and it's the end of the month anyways. So the uh board um I'm sorry the uh

directors of each uh I'm losing my brain. Department heads that's the word I'm looking for. Thank you John. Uh will be here anyways. So, under new business, we will have um we will not have item where is it, Jerry? Oh, has it already been removed?

6B. 6B. Is it in the frontal motor? Yeah. Yeah. 6B. No, that's for um debt service transfer. No, that's 6D. Wow. 6. I'm losing my brain. Bravo. All right. So, we'll remove that. All righty. A question on the agenda. Um, does would it be possible during the uh or the intent of the

uh timeline, the budget timeline to discuss uh someone who I think is here to to discuss that issue tonight, but the possibility of moving uh budget approval to the vote versus the town meeting. It may be too much to do tonight, but to to consider it. So,

oh, you mean like a a ballot vote? Yeah, I think we need to se that have to be a separate issue cuz that's a big that's a biggie big discussion. Yeah. Um, but we can definitely put it as a potential future topic because we've got some feedback around that.

Yeah, there's been a couple of people could make it a warning article on there. Just just tell me. Yeah, if it makes sense. I mean, it's there's No, I I I actually would really love to discuss that more. Um, but we'd want to make sure that that was a its own item and advertised in advance because I would imagine that would solicit public feedback that we want to make sure

we make space for. Um, any other amendments to the agenda? All right. Any public comment? Jill, how do we do it now? Can you sit at a table? Uh, we usually just have the person sit at the chair right here. Okay. Right here.

That's okay. Yeah, this this microphone picks things up pretty well. So, yeah. Um, Jill Gastonay stack pole road and I'm here as the co-chair of the budget committee. In early December, Joe and Josh met with Milton and myself to review the timeline for the budget process. At that meeting, I asked if the budget committee could receive an invitation at the table when the select board reviews the budget with the department heads.

The reason I requested this is because about five to six years ago, maybe longer due to my sense of time, we had a joint select board budget committee meeting. It dissolved the separation of parties and everyone had a sense that we were working together, not against one another. It also led to a better understanding of the budget because we were able to ask questions as they arose. Our questions often triggered a question from someone on the select board and vice versa. And interestingly enough, it was one of the only times I recall that the select board and the budget committee went to town meeting with the same budget recommendations. I know how intimidating it is to sit in front of a large group of people. In my opinion, the public works and fire department heads at the time did an amazing job, but I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable. If the select board doesn't feel having the entire budget

committee at the table is wise, then I request that you consider one to two representatives from the budget committee. We would not ask policy questions, but only ask financial questions if they were to arise. Thank you for bringing this discussion to the board this evening and I and the budget committee appreciate your consideration on this idea. Unless you think you may have questions for me when you discuss this tonight, I may elect to recuse myself. So eat dinner while you guys talk.

Well, what's for dinner? That's the big question. My husband me. He's amazing that. Thank you, Jill. Um we're gonna hop right into this right now. Uh the budget is the next thing on our agenda is on old business after we approve our meeting minutes. So um we'll be right into it if so it'll be the first thing we work on if you want to stick around. Okay, sure.

Cool. Um any other public comment? All right. Um and seeing no other public comment. Thank you, Jill. Uh do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes from January 27th? So moved. Motion by John. Do I have a second? I'll second. Deb, any questions on the motion? Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, unanimous.

Old B, old business. We're going to talk about the budget timeline and we should have that in our packet here. Um, is that obviously it's a new process because we're working off of a a fiscal year rather than a calendar year. And so the board decided that we wanted to lay out the process a ahead of time um and keep it really transparent and keep people informed. Um Josh and I had a little um meeting with Jill and Milt from the budget committee to go over the first draft and the feedback we had received from them was that they were really appreciative of um this process being laid out this far in advance because it helps with scheduling. Um but also in the past it's kind of been a hey next month pull pull together your committee and have some meetings and uh this gives everyone a really good idea of what's going on. So even if there's not um engagement between the two committees to later in the process

everyone sees what the process is going to look like. It's also helpful for us to know because we have our meetings scheduled here. And so just to quickly go over it, um some of the things that we had talked about differently this year would be rather than waiting on an invitation from the budget committee to have a select board representative attend and then answer questions um if the budget committee members decide to ask the questions. We wanted to say, hey, really this is the select board budget. It's the budget committee's job to comment on the select board's budget. we will pull together an event where we ask the budget committee to come in and ask us all their questions. Uh one thing that we discussed was um moving up the timeline of when we provide the budget committee documents in the past. Uh a sticking point um last year was members wanting to see the warrant language rather than just the budget numbers. We

wouldn't have that till later in the um budget season. And so instead, the budget committee uh members had said, the chair and the vice chair said that it would be fine to get that um the numbers ahead of the warrant language, knowing that the warrant language is really just putting a a sentence in front of the budget items. And then it's a bit of a different process now that we're not each article stating where those funds are coming from. It's all just raise and appropriate um as opposed to like moving around between accounts as we made this a more simple process. And so does anyone have any questions on what we have in front of you right here?

I'm good. Uh the timeline between when we present the budget to the U budget committee and when they have to have their final vote. Yeah. And it's it's a quick turnaround but doable I think. Yeah. So the timeline we have here is we're giving the budget committee the documents on the 16th of April. Um

and then on April 28th uh the select board is going to do a budget presentation to with the budget committee. And so that gives this uh budget committee from the 16th of April to the 28th of April to have their meetings uh and deliberate in whatever manner they feel necessary, prepare questions, prepare comments and meet with us on April 28th. Um and then it

would allow them another week and a half, two weeks before they have to provide their committee recommendations to the select board, which would be on May 7th. Um and from there the select board would have our final uh review of the budget on May 12th. So I think that's a good process because it gives them opportunity to work through it, ask us questions, go back, kind of um collaborate on whatever elements they want to collaborate on, send us the um recommendations and then we can consider their recommendations um ahead of our our acceptance of our uh our recommend our budget or warrant language. So,

and what is the date of the meeting that Jill was referencing in our opening remarks? Yeah, so when Josh and I had met um uh Jill and Milt had reference potentially asking the uh budget committee to be part of the meetings um that we have

ahead of our um presentation of documents to the budget committee. So if you look at 3:10, 324, and 4:14, that's when we are going to hear from the town manager, hear from the department heads. Um, and then 4:14 is when the select board will be um getting the finalized budget. And so um and and Jill, would it be correct in saying that you're ask was to be part of one of those meetings or all three of those meetings?

Um when we discussed it as a committee, we thought with the department heads I I would have Oh, sorry. But um has your committee met? Well, sorry. When Milton and I were talking about it, we were talking about it this weekend trying to remember what it was. He recalled it being with the department heads.

So, I didn't have a very good recollection to be honest with you. Yeah. My recommendation would be that it would be the 324 meeting so that we're part of the meeting, the first meeting with the department heads uh to hear the presentation to ask questions and then the next meeting uh the department heads are back where we're talking about what our final budget is going to be which is I think where we need to focus and if there's anything in the interim you know that's a good uh 3 weeks uh they can you

know send us those questions or those concerns what they have and then we can raise them. But I think I think that meeting where we finalize the budget is something that needs to be for us to focus on. So, you know, my recommendation was going to be that we invite uh you know, I I I would say the entire committee, but sort of maybe take a break at some point and and allow them to come up with some questions uh or something to to to ask the department heads or to ask us to ask, you know, something

so that you know, you know, if there's an issue, so so that department heads don't feel overwhelmed. uh which you know Jill Jill mentioned is a feeling that I don't know may may have happened in the past um but I think there are ways to work around it where we can work together so that you know they can raise questions and we can raise questions uh because I think uh my recollection from that meeting I don't think it was that long ago when it happened was that uh you know we were kind of going back and forth with questions and and uh um you know it led to a good discussion so I think It's important and and I do agree with Jill and Milt that uh it's it's a good idea to have how we do it. You know, if if if we just sort of roundt it together as sort of a workshop type thing or, you know, say, hey, this we're going to discuss, we're going to discuss other business while you go somewhere and chat

and come up with some questions to ask and then we do it that way. I, you know, to me it doesn't really matter as but I think opening up the discussion uh is is a good idea and something that should be done. Any other comments or questions? Uh

my thoughts would be um I like the I don't like the idea of of the entire budget committee. No, no offense to but that puts 13 or 14 people and everybody's likely to have an opinion or a question that would drag it out and maybe we lose a focus. to all my old friends on the budget committee. It's nothing personal, but I think I feel that Jill and Milt as the chair and vice chair uh are more than capable of of asking those questions and and bringing them forward. The other thing is uh for everybody Tom Peele and otherwise uh the whole process of the budget is going to be televised. So, you know, looking at it, watching the video in advance, uh, should help bring questions to to that meeting, you know,

so it wouldn't necessar that they could do it, they could pass them to the chair and vice chair. Um, and if we need to take a break and have the others, you know, like Josh said, step aside if new questions come up. But I think 14 people is a whole boatload for plus the department heads. That's just

I'm not a fan of big meetings, I guess. So I think having budget committee meet with department heads is jumping the gun a little bit because the budget committee's charge is to provide a recommendation on the select board budget. In that first meeting with the budget, the department heads, that's the department heads pre presenting a draft to us and that's where they're supposed to get feedback from the the select board on a policy direction of we'd like to see spending decrease. We'd like to see um these uh elements addressed a little bit more fine-tuned and stuff like that. So, I think that's a little preemptive for questions because it's still in a draft format. And so I don't think it's really uh uh wise to involve the budget committee until we have a final budget developed by the select board because it's really the select board needs to develop a budget and then the budget committee needs to provide

comments on the select board's budget that the the charge really isn't for the select board and budget committee to develop a budget together. That's not the the nature of the two the two entities. As for like having a meeting, joint meeting and then having them go off and collap deliberate, well, as an elected board, if they deliberate, that has to be a televised or public meeting. So, that adds a challenge. So, it's not like we could have a split um uh uh

event like that without having to go through the logistics of two public settings and things like that. And so, I feel that it's sufficient at the point uh of involving the budget committee after we've actually finalized our budget. I feel like before that would be uh inappropriate personally. So

So wait just can you clarify because here we have the so that will be after the 24th. Yeah. So what we have proposed here would be we as a select board uh finalize our budget on 414 and then forward the documents to the budget committee. The budget committee has from 4:16 to 4:28 to deliberate and then they

come to the select board meeting and they can ask the select the select board will run the meeting and then open it up for the budget committee to ask the select board any questions about the select board's budget because at that point it is the budget of the select board. It's not the town manager's budget. It's not the department head's budget. It's the select board budget and that's where we're now in the the the ownership seat there. Um, and then at those meetings when we have those meetings, Jerry is obviously present. Um, and so if the select board can't answer questions, uh, we will have Jerry, likely Mark the accountant to defer to. If we needed, uh, department heads there. If Jerry couldn't answer the questions, um, he could check with them. But I feel like the the process should be the budget committee asking the select board questions as opposed to going through questions with, uh,

department heads. I feel that's fine. I Yeah, I agree. I agree with you, John, also regarding the amount of people. Uh the only I guess if I've made it understood that what you're saying is the joint meeting would be on the 28th of April or did I miss?

Yeah. And that would be rather that would be where the select board we invite the budget committee to come and say hey you've had your um you know two weeks to prepare bring all the questions you've all gathered in your your deliberations the select board can answer all of those questions. From there, the budget committee then has um

another almost two weeks to make their recommendations based off the the feedback they get from us because at that point the select board has our budget and the questions are being asked about our budget, not about drafts of a budget that department heads are still working on.

Yeah, I think that would just be about a week. could be nine days. Mhm. Because if it's due on the 30th, which I mean, I would defer to the uh Well, and that's part of the reason why we're starting this conversation so early is that we want to make sure that everyone's well aware of the timeline and the expectations so you can schedule far in advance and the budget committee can schedule far in advance to accommodate um that schedule as well.

So, I I disagree. I I don't see an issue with inviting the budget committee. I think their questions are limited to pol to not to to policy but to the numbers and I think those questions are important because they're looking at it slightly differently from us and it's questions that we may not rise or raise

um I don't think it does any harm. I think that uh giving them a week or so to come up with questions and then raise it and then uh you know we have to have a decision um in two weeks. Uh it limits our ability. Uh I think that they the questions have raised that that they've raised in the past have changed our minds on things and we've changed budgets after those meetings. Uh and um that I think the timeline's short and I think um you know everybody understands that this is a presentation us for us to make the final decision but there are questions about what is this for? Where do these numbers come from that are are basic that you know we should probably be asking and if we're not they might think of these questions and I I don't see the harm in it. I think it uh raises goodwill between us and them and uh I

there's to me there's just no downside and um I think everyone can understand there's a difference between the budget presented to us which we then change if we want and add policies or take away things and uh the budget that we finally come up with. Um, so

I I tend to agree with Josh because the way I'm seeing this is having been on the budget committee recently, uh, I I think they have a lot to offer. Um, and and it would keep they've already we've already said not the policy issues about whatever that may be. So, I kind of think the 14th of April, we're we've we

the select board has kind of worked our way down to a, you know, final draft because on the 14th, we're going to finalize the budget. Um, we'll be finalizing our budget at the end of that meeting. Yeah. So I I'm fine with because there may be something they say that

here's my here's the one reason I want to make sure that we've got as many people um incorporate too is I guess we need the town's input as much as possible before that but also if you look at the goat screw that was Lisbon where everybody just rubber you know they nobody paid attention to it and I think our budget committee is another set of um neutral eyes whatever the right term is to look at it. Not that

Jerry or Mark or the budget, the guy's going to make a mistake, but somehow Lisbon managed to have a $2 million air. And I think having people look at it and question it and then when the town votes, if if we forward something that's different than the budget committee, at least it's been well beaten out and chance to change it. So, long story to say, I kind of favor the 14th.

I think that we have to think about the policy here, though. So the budget committee's charge is to comment on the select board's budget. So if we're asking them to comment on the budget before it's finalized, we're now moving outside of their com their uh committee's charge and that moves into a more of a policy development role, which is not the budget committee's role. It's the select board's role to develop the policy, develop the budget, and then the budget committee adds their comments to it. And so if we're having them make ask questions at the time with our department heads, um that's inserting them earlier in the process. And so that's where my concern deliberately inserting them earlier in the process, which is outside of the charge of the the budget committee. And just to piggyback on that, I mean, and I know that this is my first experience with budgeting, but they're going to have

their say again anyway. So, I don't understand why to have like what you said, John, so many voices in the room, for instance, the department heads are the ones who are reporting to us. So, shouldn't it just be us and them at that point? and the budget committee again can watch and they can have

their input and say and they can also always email us separately. So what's I don't understand what the big deal is not having them there. I'm looking at it the other way around is I'm not sure why we're pushing back so hard because they could come it is they do have the charge and they've in the past offered alternatives. Um, and so I think if there's an opportunity to ask the question is, you know, and I'm hoping we're not talking about, hey, why do you have $6,000 in screwdrivers on here? Uh, if you talk to to an old-timer, there was a time they asked the school board to count the number of pencils they had,

right? And I'm just I mean, so it could just end up what could be an hour I mean, I'm just throwing numbers out there, an hour conversation. We can push it into a 4-hour conversation. I don't see the point of that. I see. I It makes that's not common sense to me. I think it makes more sense just to have the department heads have a conversation finalize what they are telling us and the budget committee is still there. We're not kicking them out. They're just not physic they're not giving their input at that moment. They'll give their input later.

So I Yeah. And to your point, Rebecca, the budget committee is not in the chain of command of the department heads. So the department has to report to the town manager who reports to right the select board. And so to me it seems uh uh inappropriate to then take a committee who is never elected given the charge to ask questions of department heads inserting them into the process especially when the budget's not even finalized. So, when you talk about like transparency and confusion, you have people asking questions about a budget draft that we're not they're not even going to be commenting on because the question could be why are you going with this number instead of this number? But by the time we finalize that budget, that that budget line could be completely looking different. So, it's not really the charge of the committee to respond until the budget until the select board has a budget. But

and so this would be greatly expanding the authority of the budget committee which does not have any sort of statutory backing in in the town's policies to give them that authority. But you're taking it away from we're not taking anything away from them. They have zero authority in this.

Well, traditionally traditionally what they have for authority are two very different things. I know. Right now the expect expectation is to do what we've done we when I was on the budget committee have done in the past which is to look at it to question it and if disagree to present their own that that

that's fair but it's not I think bringing them in this early in the process takes away from what our role is with the department heads. Well, we'll take their before we finalize it on the 14th. I think that's what it is. We would take, you know, they would ask a question and we could use that as, hey, we missed that or we agree with you that we would cut that line of whatever it may be.

That's not the process. We don't take their recommendations ahead of finalizing our budget. We have to finalize our budget, then ask them for recommendations, not ask them, "What do you think we should do with the budget?" In the past, we have

because there's been times where it's come back to the select board and again I'm talking tradition or an expectation. So I mean I I think that I don't think we're throwing things way off if if they ask questions have another set of eyes look at it on the 14th and then it may be that you know we hear you but we're not going to take $100,000 out of the uh Union church is gone but whatever it may be. So I I think that getting them involved in other set of eyes they are we don't demean it they were elected to serve in that position

well not in the capacity you're describing they're elected to comment on the select board's finalized budget for a board that spends so much time at every one of its meetings saying so people at home understand so you understand so everybody understands to not allow another committee to ask questions so that there's additional feedback and conversation to me seems uh backwards and completely against what

I keep hearing at these meetings. We spend so much time explaining things for people at home. Um, and now we want people to come in so they can ask their questions um, and inform our decision-making because that's frankly what it does because we come to these meetings and I don't think in the four so years I've been on this committee that we've had more than maybe a handful of people that weren't on the budget committee come in and say anything in public disc in and um in public comment about our budget. This is a opportunity for us to sort of get those eyes at an early stage when we're uh we're making our budget and I don't see a harm in it especially when we spend all this time talking about so people understand this is exactly what that is and and I'm the first one to say if people at home don't understand they need to ask questions

and this is what that is and I think it's it's informative uh and um and helpful And I can't think of a year when there were suggestions that we hadn't at least considered from the budget committee that we haven't at least considered and talked about when making our final budget. And frankly, getting it done at an earlier stage uh to me is helpful. It's informative. It it guides us so we know what people are thinking and it seems like the smart thing to do. And by inviting them to comment or ask questions, it's not about policy. And I have to assume they're adults. They've been on that committee long enough to understand that when they come and ask these questions, it's about, you know, where is this money coming from? What are you doing? Why? Questions that we might not ask, but people might have questions, too.

Uh and and to me, it's helpful. It's an open discussion and it seems to be what at least you know you talk about it almost every meeting if not every meeting about that and so uh I think it's helpful. I I think getting the that eye when we're making it I I I don't I don't see the harm in it. I think it's I think it's helpful and it's it's worth the the time and frankly because they're not asking questions about policy I think the questions would be extremely limited because there is no budget for them to and there's every every every dollar we're talking about spending is going to be raised or it's going to come out of um the reserve account. Uh so

that's not really a question. The question would be why? And frankly, well, the question is why? That's a policy question. Why did you do this? And we're not saying that we're not allowing them to talk. We're saying we're asking

Can I finish though? Because last meeting I could not finish a thought or a statement without being interrupted. And I precise. You know what? If this is how you're going to lead the meeting, I make a motion that we remove Joe Roy from chairperson of this committee. Okay.

There's a motion on the floor. So my point is that on the 28th that meeting is inviting them to come comment on our budget. If we're inviting, I'm not saying we don't invite them at all. I'm saying let's invite them after we have our budget because the charge we're given is to develop a policy.

You make it concise because I understand you've said this three times and we were having a conversation. I was saying my point and if you don't want to listen to me, I don't want to listen to you repeat yourself. Just saying if you're saying we're not inviting to speak, I'm trying to process put a word in here because I haven't had a chance to speak. I actually am in favor of the proposal to have two budget well to make it two representatives of budget committee in early discussions. I don't think it hurts anything. Um, I understand your point, but we have, just like we made this detailed schedule, we really were trying to mend some of the tensions and frictions that we had in the last processes we used. So, I think this is just another way to get uh experienced

folks um involved early and I don't think it would hurt to have them uh the ability to answer or to ask questions that early. So, I will make a motion that we schedule the uh budget committee for the put my glasses on. Get the right date. The 14th of April meeting.

There's a motion on the table. I'll second. All right. Seconded by Deb. Any discussion on the motion? I think that it doesn't make sense to have them so early. we were still having their input, but to the point of the rules within the budget committee, it doesn't it's not how policy is done.

Mhm. That that's all I'm going to say. Yeah, that's my final point, too, is that it's outside of the charge of the committee. It's outside of what they were elected to do, and it's outside of our policy. So it this would be developing a new president that we're not asking the legislative body which is the voting members of the town to approve. And so if we wanted to involve them at this point I think that we would need to go to the town and ask if they want them to help us develop a budget rather than comment.

I disagree they've done it every year since you know the four years I was on the budget committee. They inputed that the department heads um went before. Yeah. And they also sat up here and said that the chief of the fire department wants it raised just because he's from Massachusetts. So that's the budget committee is behaved.

It you're going to get people who will say that on the floor or not. But I don't think the the misbehavior of the misstatement whatever of one person. So I guess we have a motion on the floor. I don't think it I don't see why it could possibly require the town because it's not different. We're not setting a new president. It's what we've done.

It's changing policy. That's not dictated in the town ordinance. We've been doing it for the four years I was on the budget. It only changes policy if we let them talk about policy. Y and the understanding is we're not letting them talk about policy. So it's not it it's keeping within their charge.

So how are the questions about the numbers not policy though? Like if you're asking how did you come up with this figure? cuz we're not because what you're implying is that we're asking them to check double check math. That's what I'm just trying to

I I do I in no way do I see this a change in what we've done in the past and uh the the town quite seriously the town meeting they look at for what the budget committee is recommending. So I think the motion's on the floor. I think we could probably argue this all night, but

well, do we have any other discussions or questions on the motion? So, I'll repeat the motion. The motion is to invite the budget committee to the 4:14 meeting with the department heads and the select board. Um, seeing no more discussion, all in favor of the motion.

Just want to clarify, not the whole committee, but representatives. Well, the motion was the committee, so that's what we're And if you want to provide a friendly amendment, I will friendly amendment to be uh while they're all invited, the participation would be limited to the chair and vice chair.

Okay. So, as amended, if if John's we're going to accept John's friendly amendment, the motion would be to invite the chair and vice chair of the budget committee to participate at the 4:14 select board meeting with the department heads and the select board to ask process uh process questions or sorry, not process questions, numerical questions about the budget. Is that surmisable?

No, I'm not saying that. I It would seem to me to be legit to say, um, why are you buying 6,000 screwdrivers? I don't think that's a policy question or why do you need $200,000 for whatever it may be, you know? So, that's not the same as we just

we disagree with your vote, your plan for a pay scale, a wage scale. That to me is a policy issue is like seek see seeking to understand questions not policy related. Yeah. But you can't say I don't I don't think we should buy a fire truck this year. I don't think we should I'm trying to think of some of the line items that are on there. I don't you know that the policy you know policy court they could for instance somebody if they decide that they don't want to put any money in reserves to hold the taxes down they just say we want zero dollars in the reserves

but that would be a policy recommendation no it's a dollar they to remove capital investment would be a policy recommendation well to the invest what they're going to what they're going to what we're going to put in there is I don't see that as a policy

but do you see how it gets pretty like a fine line no I don't if you're saying it's not policy question. If I ask why are we investing in capital, I would just say they can talk amongst themselves and they just can say as a committee we recommend 0. And so on the way of warrant it would say

but that's what we're having them do after our finalized budget with their full week of meetings. to say just limit it to numerical. Uh but that's the the essence of the motion was that it's a non-policy. Then how about how about I resolve this with one simple motion

that why don't we move the budget timeline up a week so that everything so that we talk about we get our budget uh the proposed budget from the town manager on the February 24th meeting which is in two weeks. The budget workshop with the department heads is March 10th. Then the uh

finalize the budget on March 24th and uh we present it and we have the meeting with the budget committee on April 14th and then at our April 28th meeting we approve the final uh budget and then we can deal with the warrants on the March 12 on May 12th meeting.

So Josh has made a motion to move the budget process up two weeks. Is there a second? I have to withdraw mine. I just want to make sure I understood the timing on it. So, uh, before I withdraw mine, so Josh, what you're saying is

on the 24, March 24th, we would come up with a final budget. Right. I think so. To me, I don't see an issue. I don't think this is as difficult for the budget committee to stay within their role to have this conversation. and I want to hear from them and I want to have time to digest and ask additional questions and we can't do that with the short timeline from uh when we meet with them they have their meeting they make their recommendations and then we have to vote the next meeting because that has often raised questions and I think there was at least one year where uh uh we couldn't get the answer to our question at that meeting we had to get it the next day uh and I don't want that situation I I want to hear from them I think it's important I think it's essential essentially uh the only public input we get for the most part.

Yeah, I agree. That's my concerns. Uh and and so uh or we hold a public meeting, which I don't think we'd want to do. People would show up. What are your thoughts? I think that that's a happy medium and that way they can see it uh and we can have time to get answers uh to their questions uh that might be directed at the department heads. So, would this remove the meeting we have scheduled with them where we were already doing that on the 28th?

It would move it to the 14th. So, I think it'd be challenging to ask the town staff to move their entire budgeting process up two weeks because that's a lot of uh work on staff, especially when we're dealing with department heads who are driving snow plows right now to try to keep the roads clear. I just don't think that'd be a fair ask.

So, so, so this timeline was presented as this is the timeline not as a So, this is we presented this as the budget timeline and then the question was do we invite the budget committee prior to the presented timeline and the question was do we invite the budget committee on the 14th

Yeah. So, is there a second to Josh's motion of moving on two weeks? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you did. No, I'm waiting to find out what what we're going to do here. Mhm. Because if Josh's motion doesn't pass, I'm going to re redo mine, I guess.

Well, yours was first, so I have to withdraw it, right? Yeah. I may formally I withdraw my motion. No worries. Robert's rules. I don't know pending the outcome of this. Okay, so John has withdrawn his motion. Give Josh just a second to catch up on the notes here. Y

and Josh has made a motion to move the budget timeline up two weeks. Do we have a second on Josh's motion? I'll second it. Okay, John has seconded the motion. Do we have any questions or discussions? I don't think that's fair for the town staff.

Yeah, Jerry, is that a something that you the staff would be able to accomodate? And so I I'm still waiting on state revenue. Last year they posted it on February 2nd. A year before that it was March 3rd. So you're probably not going to have all the numbers at that time.

Okay. Any other questions or discussions on the motion? I I'll withdraw my motion if if Jerry can't get it done. So then then I will re I'll remake my motion which is that we have the joint meeting uh with the budget committee on the 14

14th of April. It was something else and it would only we would ask that only the two or require only the chair and vice chair or two people they they want to have in case somebody said that. Just a point of clarification. Is that in addition to the April 28th meeting or instead of

just one second? I think it's in Louisville. I don't think we need to do We've already Well, we still have to give them the budget. Yeah. I mean, what we're going to do on the 14th is figure out what it should be, finalize it

and then uh present it at the at our next meeting. So, I would leave the actual formal presentation to the budget committee on the 28th. So, it would be in addition to it in addition to Yeah. Okay. Just that was just a clarification.

And the budget presentation to me is here's the budget here, you know, and and it's not just the budget committee on the 28th. We're telling the town what our what our budget's going to be, which is even more important. You know, we're we're focused on the budget committee, but having the uh presenting it to the town as early as possible is important.

So, do we have a second on Josh John's motion? I'll second. Okay. Any additional questions or comments on the motion? Okay. Okay. So, the motion is to add a extra meeting with the budget committee on 414. Um, you did not add any qualifiers to the questions that the budget committee can ask.

They've committed to not being policy and we can we can tell them that if you want to change the way scale, that's a policy change and we're not going to entertain that. Okay. I'm happy to do that. All righty. So there's a motion to allow the uh invite the budget committee to the April 14th select board meeting with the uh when the select board finalizes its budget uh to provide the chair and vice chair opportunity to ask questions of the uh select board. Is there any

other discussion on the motion? All in favor? Any opposition? Okay, that passes 3 to two. All righty. This sounds all righty. So, old business taken care of. New business updates from the agriculture committee. So, we've received a email from the ad committee. love to have you folks come on up and uh give us a presentation.

and I may have missed it too. Did I When did that email? They just sent it a little this afternoon. Okay. Um Okay. So, we'll add just Can you make sure that this gets added to the um uh agenda packet? Yeah. already? Jerry Jerry, can you forward it to us?

I don't see that I got a copy of that. So, if somebody would forward email to the select board, I believe um Oh, no. Went to me. Yeah. What was what was shared this morning or this afternoon by Christa um from Permanent Trust is background to

this proposal that we wanted to present to you all um from the Durham Agriculture Committee. So just as you know a little background uh the last time I think we were at the SLE board is when we were getting appointed. So that was believe in December of 2024. So, we've been meeting over the last year uh to really look at um issues and opportunities for agriculture in Durham. Um part of that process has been really getting clear on definitions of agriculture and we had originally have thought we would come forward to get some of those definitions changed um in this year's town meeting. Um but through discussions with George and the planning board uh recognized that um it might be better to spend more time and wait to um both look at those definition changes as well as potential ordinance changes um into 2027. Um and so that's really our intention at this point in time. Um is to you know have more communication with

you all and with the planning board and with the general public uh to um really see you know how how oriented changes could happen to best support agriculture uh in the town of Durham. With that said, um one thing that has come up in our discussions uh that has been a real challenge um for farmers is uh the

permitting fees for high tunnels and green houses. Um and so that's where we're coming to you today and from originally thought we might have grants to the town but through discussion um with both George and Jo Joe and um the

planning board saw that you know you all control the fees fee structure and it it was suggested that we bring this conversation here uh to the select board. Um and so this provides some background information. Maybe just before I get to the proposal, I'll just share a little bit of that background information. First of all, just says uh you can see on the first pages that the average cost of production per farm has increased by 24% between 2017 and 2022.

Uh so, you know, the expenses of farmers are going up. The expense of farmland is going up. Um and we're losing more and more farms every year. Um and so, you know, as a community that has committed in our comprehensive plan to preserve the rural ag um rural uh character of Durham, um you know, keeping farmland viable and working is important. Um and so, you know, that that's not just having the open land, but actually um supporting farmers in the cost of production as well. Um and yeah, you can

see on page five the challenges facing farm and farmer farmers again the cost production more extreme weather events high cost of land all the development pressures we see PAS contamination uh lack of access to on and off farm infrastructure and processing capacity farm labor shortages farm secession transfer to next generation and burdensome ordinance requirements. So why we are um coming to you to propose to reduce the um permitting or eliminate

the permitting fee for uh high tunnels and green houses um is on page six here. Um so it's often cost prohibitive for tunnels um currently adding up to 20 to 50% of the cost of the structure itself. Currently, um a high tunnel in Durham like recently has been permitted as a con as um commercial uh fees. So that's

$1 per square foot. So a 2,000 foot high tunnel, which is a pretty common size, $2,000 for a permit fee is what it currently is. Um and peer exemptions prevent confusion. Identify structures exempt from con conventional permitting or state review. Structures can be reasonably relocated or removed without material damage to the soil. So therefore they are temporary structures. These extend the growing season maximizing crop production. So increasing the availability of locally food here in Durham that we can feed to our neighbors offering. They also offer cost-effective livestock housing equipment storage and reduce cost administrative burdens increasing viability while adding flexibility for changing needs. So currently in Durham um agricultural buildings are considered a permitted use under article 3 and all districts accept resource protection in the shoreland zone where their conditional use and um there is an

exemption for agricultural buildings under site plan review and parenting board review is not required for agricultural uses. Um and in the a um the definition of agriculture in Durham includes green houses as well. Um and

then you can see in the state statutes as well that um title 10 9722 6B14 buildings used to house livestock, store crops or grow crops are exempt from MUB except for cannabis facilities and parts and buildings used for non-aggate purposes only electrical and building plumbing permits may be needed. So those are both the town and state. And if we look at some um on page eight here um just as a comparison um of what

some of our neighbors are doing. So in Warren and Auburn there's no permitting fees for any a building or structures. In min there's greenhouse has a flat fee of $35 a lot less those are both a whole lot less than 2,000. Barnes $35 plus the

five cents per square foot. Bowden and poop houses high tunnels are allowed. No permit or fee. Green houses under 10,000 square foot building permit only green houses over 10,000 foot plan review permit. And um and those those green houses have a permanent foundation a green system. And you can see here Auburn also changed their former model was a flat fee of $25 plus seven cents per square foot. They changed so to um the no permit. So that's just to give some background. So the proposal that we uh agreed upon unanimously last week and to present to you all was to add agricultural high tunnels and green houses 96 ft by 35 ft or smaller to

miscellaneous structures under the fee schedule with no fee for construction permits. That's what we wanted to share with you all today for um your discussion and further questions. And there is a lot more background in here too, but that's I got gave you the highlights. So,

yeah. Well, first off, thank you for working on this. Um, I think what this really shows is the value of your committee because you're bringing to us things that we won't know without uh without hearing from our citizens. So, I really appreciate it and I know a lot of time and effort has gone into this um and really concise uh presentation here and lots of details. Does anyone have any questions?

We'll discuss this in more detail down there. Yeah. Yeah. So with this just get with you getting us this this afternoon, we'll need to make it part of the public record and then we can add this as a topic to discuss again. Um but while we've got them here, we can ask some questions um if we have any. And so one question I had just to clarify, high tunnels um are maintained soil as the substrate under the tunnel, right? They don't have um a poured foundation or anything like that.

No. Okay. And I think that's what makes it a bit of a a big difference for me too is because it you just pop it up and you have your back to bare soil. Um I know that some federal programs high tunnels aren't allowed to be used for storage of equipment. They have to be used just for crops. But as it's written here, it includes storage, livestock, crop production.

Those are for cost shares. Yeah. For Yeah, that's what I mean. Sorry. Right. It's not a matter of that those can't be used for those things, but that they the the federal grants won't pay for them unless they're used for broad profit.

Okay. Yeah. So, you also can have heater and some other stipulations as well, but um I have I only have four tunnels now. I have five. I only have one that's working because we're not a commercial farm any longer. Sorry. I'm Could you introduce yourself or maybe Dave Bolson? I'm I'm on the Davis road. Uh our farm is called New Leaf Farm. We um sold commercial produce all over the area for about 30 years. Uh then I went to work for the main organic farmers and gardeners association sharing my knowledge and teaching for about 10 years and retired.

We use the property. We have a farm area farmer that hays it for us. So, uh on our property, we actually have a a solid greenhouse like what you're talking about. It's a building and it's solar and uh we're not talking about anything like that. Just these

uh driving pipes into the ground, putting up a bow covered with plastic. Yeah, that might be really helpful, I think, to make the distinction for folks who are listening and so when we can talk about this more, what makes a a a high tunnel in a greenhouse different? Is it like a square and a rectangle type scenario here or

is it uh 1985 I built my first homemade one? Mhm. was PVC pipe and uh wood frame and all that just to to try it out because people were using like low hoops back then and so this was just a bigger hoop, right? And uh so um let's see where was

I going with that? Um so they they've progressed since that period of time into anything else. So I think the use of greenhouse was just generic across the board. It could be one of the old glass houses. It could be a solar building like mine or you know or these plastic houses. So we've differentiated over the last 30 years since these have become ubiquitous on farms where we call them a high tunnel or a hoop house

and a greenhouse is is exactly what you're describing. foundation usually hot cold or running water, electricity and and um I introduced myself before Jonafig Bird 125 Bowie Hill Road at Celebration Tree Farm Wellness Center. I will also point to this document right here that's in the packet that's the from main department of agricult conservation forestry high tunnels and green houses a guide for municipalities. So this does provide more information of low lower caterpillar tunnel, high tunnel and

waved or they remove the fees that more of these structures would be built by farmers in the community or we would just be saving uh the farmer's expenses. definitely think that I mean there could definitely be more structures built um I mean it more and more farmers in Maine are building high tunnels um and you know it's to increase the extending the season um and also they can be good in terms of think about with various weather conditions that we have sometimes they can be you know ideal for different um changing weather patterns um and you know when we overall I mean part of Our charge as a committee is to support and promote agriculture in Durham. And so, you know, if if a farmer was looking at this and saying, "Well, I have to do I want to move to Durham and have a

have a farm where I have to pay $2,000 for that hoop house, or do I want to move to Warren or, you know, where I don't have to pay that $2,000 for that hoop house?" And, you know, often farmers don't have just one hoop house. they might have three or four or five um depending you know just what they want to do. So you're talking about you know costs increasing greatly um and you know and then that making it less available and accessible for a farmer who wants to have a successful fund.

I mean and couldn't it also benefit non-farming residents who want to put up a greenhouse for flower is in all that business today they'd pay a fee and with this change they would no longer pay this would this would change that as well. Yeah.

And these permit fees go right into the general fund. Yeah. And that's I mean one of the things just to say too within our committee is we're not only focused on commercial agriculture enterprises. We want to see more people gardening, homesteading, you know, um and supporting that as well.

Yeah. And so just a quick point of clarification here because and this is something that George had advised the committee because this is a a fee and the select board sets and manages fees the the ask here is to ask the select board to consider changing that fee. I think the ask here is a fee of zero. Um it's not a ordinance per se because the ordinance gives us the power to set and manage fees. So that's why it's here rather than at that. Um to me when I see a presentation like this what rings in my ear is uh rural nature right like we talk about that a lot in our our our plans in our municipalities. We want to maintain our rural nature um our rural character and I think hoop uh uh high tunnels low tunnels green houses all those things are are part of it. Um, you know, when I think about if you're a vegetable producer, a $2,000 extra fee on establishing a high tunnel comes into that's a pretty

big economic uh uh input there when you're determining whether it's going to be worth it. Um, you mentioned that it extends the growing season. Could you speak a little bit more to how that works or or how much so in your experience?

Sure. Uh part of the reason I started uh using or building a hoop house that originally we did those low tunnels and that was just in the early spring to get something like tomatoes or pepper co uh cold intolerant plants out early

uh no heat or anything and of course just some protection and uh but tomatoes grow best when you stake them or tie them up trellus them so they're off the found less disease that way. So, we thought, well, we want to keep them covered a longer period of time. So, we built this bigger um I guess it was like 12 by 30 originally. And what we found was that when we were growing them outside with no additional protection, meaning not nothing past that little low tunnel, we lost 50% of the crop due to

weather conditions, cracking from too much rain, disease, all kind, even insects. When you put them in the high tunnel, you have about 10% loss. So, right there, you've almost doubled your income from the same amount of tomatoes.

Mhm. I figure uh just trying to do in my head. I think I think right now we're producing maybe $3,000 worth of hay off of the property. That's off of 30 close to 30 acres of hay during the summer. I used to figure on our veggie fields that were about an

acre, I needed to make $25,000 to be worth doing planting things. A hoop house uh 30 by 96 will itself produce $25,000. So you see the value and that's why more people can speak to this. more more farms are going to protected growing

which are what these are in terms of extension you know we can get things in the ground earlier and have them later for cold weather crop or hot weather crops cold weather crops I've had amazing spinach this time of year I'm not doing it right now

you should have brought something that'd be a bribe so I mean we can't have spinach out on the table we we've We've got a rodent problem right now and they're getting into everything. So, I got to deal with them before I can grow winter crops.

But it seems like it increases yield and opens up potentially a new market for producers too in that winter crop. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and there's I mean, it's been incredible to see just in the last 20 years the amount of, you know, year round production or availability of of, you know, winter crops that have um been, you know, from all different farms in Maine. And so, you know, it's it's something that as we try to, you know, continue to increase the amount of local food eaten

by by our neighbors and and the communities around us, um, you know, having that production availability is important. Rea, Josh, John, any questions? No, actually I do. Yeah. Uh, not surprisingly, but uh, couple of questions for you. This is you're not talking about changing site plan review or anything like this is strictly phase to to build these.

There's no site plan review for agriculture period. So there's no Yeah, we're not And I mean we did share um with the you know the town of Warren and town of Auburn where they have no permitting fees for agricultural buildings. We're not proposing that at this point. We're just focusing on high tunnels and green houses. So I the question I following up is I think rather than just say select board you choose a number I think your recommend what you think is and I know you put a lot of examples in there and and maybe it's in there I just I just got this last minute so you know is there a recommendation from you all that we can take a look at compared to these

that's the one page proposal that we submitted in addition the packet so our proposal is that that we're good I mean as long as you've done it yeah that high tunnels and uh and green houses under that size have no fees. The other last question I got is is there any electrical plumbing

in these buildings? There can be and and that would be we see that you know then person would have to get electrical permit or plumbing permit. Um this is they can be constructed without any electrical or plumbing. Um if they choose to do that, they would they would choose to

recognition that electrical plumbing because we'd got to get the codes guy out. Yeah, that would be that would be its own own thing. Yeah. It wouldn't super I don't think it would you're not suggesting it would supersede the permit requirements for those. You're just saying the physical structure would not be charged at a dollar

a square foot under your recommendation. Yeah. We have water that we can put into the houses. I don't really consider that plumbing. I think plumbing would be more like waste water. I mean, I we have underground piping that so we can irrigate the fields. I just happen to set a greenhouse up over where some of that plumbing comes out of the ground or some of that water.

So, but I wouldn't consider Yeah, that's all I had. Good question. So, thank you, John. Thank you. Sorry. I just because I'm I'm not aware, are there any other fees that um barns do separate from your regular taxes? the other fees that are dedicated to towns that are paid. you know, our whatever our property taxes.

I mean, other than the taxes, I mean, like, so this is you have these fees for that you're trying to delete, but any other fees that you are you Well, if we were to build a non-aggricultural building, it would nothing else. Nothing else because I'm just not aware of.

Okay. I just didn't know if there was any other costs that you guys are associated with. Yeah. Nothing. Okay. I don't believe so. Okay. Well, this is really great info. Um, thank you for sending it along. Uh, I forwarded the email you sent me this afternoon to the board and to the town manager and to the clerk so we can get that as part of the packet and we'll put this on another meeting to actually have the vote on it. Um it's seeing as it doesn't have to be an ordinance change or something like that. It it doesn't have to be done like right now. Um but I also don't want us to wait on it forever. Um

but as you can see from our discussion earlier, we have a lot going on in the next few weeks. Um so we'll we'll put this on another uh uh meeting to have the vote, but this gives us a lot of great information. If folks want to review it, any questions you have, send to me and then I can send them to the the committee. Um and then if we were to need you to come back in, we could have you come back in or we could just move along there. Um but we really appreciate all this work. So

yeah. Yeah. And just one last thing too is um you know, as we said, we um are um looking towards some potential ordinance um changes in 2027. Um and so you know we really want to do that with with as much collaboration and uh coordination and communication with um both you all and the planning board. So um you know we're we'll be in touch further but think about you know maybe a joint workshop or meeting or something that you know whatever way that looks and best works within you know I know you all have a lot you know a lot on your schedule um so just but that's a desire to have that um so we can really you know be proactive about how we can best move forward those changes and bring you know bring in any of the considerations questions um throughout it.

Perfect. I think you all have seen the definitions we uh there's been a draft circulated um somewhere. Yeah. And that that gave some really good feedback and those are the things that were highlighting that we need to go through the ordinances and understand where those changes might be.

Yeah. George shared that. Yeah. Yeah. George shared that. Yeah. Great. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming in. Really appreciate it. move along here. So, the per our discussion last time, we obviously uh had a our next item is automated trash collection. Um,

yeah. Can we move Lois up just because she's here and Yeah, sure. Do you want to move the RSU5 appointment up to now if we could? I mean, she's just sitting here enjoying herself maybe. Yeah, sure. Uh do you want to make a motion?

I'll move that we amen the agenda to move uh 6F the RSC 5 board of directors appointment up to the next discussion. Perfect. Uh any second on the motion? I'll second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none. Lois, how are you?

I'm fine. No radio. I'm fantastic. Um so we have received one applicant for RSU5 uh vacancy. That document was sent to us uh in advance their their information. But is there anything you wanted to tell us about yourself, Lois?

I think I was pretty clear and I I included my resume and my letter of intent and so I came because I wasn't sure if any of you would have questions of me. Yeah. Does anyone have any questions for Lois? Yeah. Thank you for being so thorough with everything.

It helped a lot. My pleasure. Joe, not surprising. No, questions are good. Uh what are the the budget is always a big issue as you know a long time. So uh this is probably an open-ended question. What is I mean you obviously have strong teaching and other credentials. What's your feeling on the controlling the budget? I'm not sure the right term there for the school board.

So, so I don't know if you saw um I'm going to say just about a week ago in the paper and um on a number of different social media things, the new superintendent, Tom Gray, put a letter out to the community saying that before too much happened into the budget for the school district, he wanted input from the communities. And I'm all over

that. I think that we need to hear from the communities on what they think is important in education. I don't think they make the final decision, but I think you take the input and then the school committee makes the decision based on what they take away from the communities. Mhm.

So, um, and I am familiar with budgets. As the ME as the NEA president, I had a multi-million dollar budget. So um and I'm used to you know I won't take numbers maybe not as big as the RSU 5 budget. So, not asking you for commit, it seems to me that the years that I have been here, there's always a we got a gazillion new students coming and we need to raise the budget and and I recognize there are a lot of um things you have no control over that the state mandates, the feds mandate and put, you know, somewhat lesser extent for the town, but it seems to me we've often been increasing uh classrooms, hiring teachers, whatever that isn't necessarily justified. How do you see looking at that? I'm not asking you to commit today that you never vote for a school budget, but it is important that Durham voted against the school budget last year. They do.

Yeah. So, well, I think for the first year, but so there's a strong anti- tax select board, anti- school board, anti-county. What are your feelings on how do we get that uh as one person on a school board? One thing you'll learn about me is I do not hesitate to say what I believe.

That's what I'm asking. I believe that education is the most important thing that this town can put their money into. I think it's important that we do have enough educators, enough qualified educators, that we have enough space for our kids. If it means additions to buildings, I think all of that's important. I think paying people livable

salaries is important. When you look at what an edtech gets paid, it's not a livable wage for Southern A. I think money is important in the whole scheme of education. Okay. I appreciate your candidness. Any other questions for Lois? Will you advocate or at least raise concerns that you may not agree with because they you know what I'm asking?

Are you saying someone came to me from the town and said if you came to from to to me and said listen I'm really concerned about such and such and I disagree with you I would absolutely bring it up because that's what a a representative to the school committee should be doing. They shouldn't be bringing their own agenda. They should be making true of any committee. They shouldn't be bringing their own agenda. They should be representing the people who are their constituents.

So, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say and this is a very shortterm position. That's the other thing. This is only from if I assume tomorrow night from tomorrow night until the election in June and and that's it.

So it's short term. The reason I actually offered to do this and brought my application in is because I feel like for someone who's never been a part of education before, this the learning curve is pretty steep. Mh. because I've been in it for 40 years,

my learning curve is not going to be as steep. It will be somewhat steep because I've never been on a school committee before, but and that's a different perspective obviously. Um, but I come knowing the law and knowing the boundaries and so in

the next four months hopefully I won't make too many mistakes. Perfect. Are you saying you're not going to run again? I mean that and when the I would have to wait and see. Okay. I fair. I that's fair. Perfect. I'm doing the same thing. So that's fair.

Any other questions? Uh it's not a question. Thank you so much for your candidness. Um it's we did receive an email and so I think we should address the fact that we are moving quickly to fill this position because of the budget situation at RSU5 school district. So we need to and it's been out for two weeks now the call for applicants two or three weeks

it went out at the last meeting. So this is two weeks deadline to get it in. So that's plenty of time for people to have submitted. So I just want to put it out there so that we can be clear that we are not waiting any longer.

Yeah. Um, any other questions? All right. Seeing none, I'll make a motion to accept Lois uh is application for RSU5 board of directors. Do I have a second? I will second. Second from Rebecca. Any questions or discussions on the motion? All in favor?

Thank you. Any opposition? We have one. All right. Passes four to one. It's nothing personal. It's fiscal. So, it's okay. All righty. Thank you, Lois. Congratulations. Um, I think that you'll just need to reach out to Michelle. I believe they have a meeting tomorrow. Um, and I and I spoke with Michelle. Do you have her contact information?

She told me I could share it if you needed it. So, and Jess can get it to her. Yeah. Any comments? Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. All righty. I will represent their own best. We appreciate that.

next. So, we're bringing back up our automated trash discussion. So, we had a great presentation from Waste Zero last meeting. Um, you know, that was kind of and we also had a great presentation from the solid waste committee. So, we were um I I know that caused a lot of thought for me and I know it uh created a lot of social discord which is very good and we've gotten some I've the board's gotten some feedback from folks um both yay and nay which is is nice to see.

One thing I just want to clarify um because there's been a lot of discussion around it. Uh there's some folks who have reached out and said, "Well, I don't think the the municipality should be paying for trash pickup." Well, currently the municipality does pay for trash pickup. And so, this isn't moving into a model where we uh are just now paying for trash pickup. And I just want to clarify, trash pickup is funded through tax dollars and through revenue generated by the sale of trash tags. So, currently, everyone gets 26 trash tags. And I I hesitate to use the word for free because it's all comes out of your your taxes. So you get 26 trash tags up front and then any additional trash tags you need have to be purchased. Cherry, we average about $2,000 worth of trash tag purchases monthly roughly.

No, like 33,000 give or take. 33,000 a year. Yeah. Oh, so yeah. Yeah. 33,000 annually around somewhere around there. 27,000 this year. Yeah. And so the the concept is everyone gets a aotted trash tag and then if you are a household that needs to produce a more waste then there's an extra charge. The pay as you go bag system is is really the same concept except you're now paying per bag rather than per per barrel. And so I just want to clarify clarify that for folks who were uh wondering and we can make sure we follow up with more information about that. And so we received a presentation from Waste Zero uh last week that talked about the impacts analysis for um how trash

collection could look in Durham uh with a pay as you throw system. So, also want to clarify the pay as you throw bag system is being brought up because the uh uh trash pickup is going to be moving to an automated trash pickup where a robotic arm will grab a trash can and pour it into your into the back of the trash collector. So, there won't be anyone there to pull a tag off the bag off the the barrel. So um we received a great presentation

from waste zero. Um you know they gave us some projections here and they talked about projections with a trash bag being uh char uh costing $3 for a trash bag for like a 33gallon trash bag and then a reduced amount for a or at 176 for a

tall kitchen style trash bag. Just to clarify because I see all of us looking at different documents. So what are we looking at? Oh, the sensitivity analysis that you're different than you gave last the one that says 210 on the front. Yeah, there's an updated sensitivity analysis. Um questions we had asked were, well, there's got to be a floor for the bag price because you have to make the bags and that floor is 25. Um, that's what they charge for for the bags or it depends on the bag, but it's 28 to 38 cents. Um, the other question I received a lot of inquiry about was about the the thickness of the bag to make sure that they're not really thin bags. And my understanding is he said they were like 3 ms thick. And I know a 4 mil bag is

considered a reusable bag when that's what you get from like your grocery stores. So these are pretty pretty thick bags to accommodate the fact that people want to really fill them up. And so I think um the other part of the presentation that we received was he was saying that they have found that once you move to a pay as you throw system people generally start throwing out less waste. Um whether that means they decide to recycle more, they decide to take on composting, or they maybe start uh uh donating old clothing rather than throwing it out, or a variety of things. They project it's a decrease in about 30% of of the waste. And our contract is structured in a way that we have our annual fee for trash pickup that we pay, but we also have a tipping fee, which is determined by the tons of waste that are thrown out annually. And so a long discussion has been is there ways to decrease that tipping fee by decreasing

waste and this is a option to do so. Um does that seem to cover the discussion we had last meeting clearly and so the goal of this event meeting tonight is to discuss that further if folks have additional points that they want to discuss and also to develop questions for Cassella. So Cassella being the ones who are picking up the trash uh as opposed to the waste zero being the ones who provide the bags. So I want to open the floor first uh to have a discussion around pay as you throw and if there's any points that board members would like to make. And one of the questions that came up from the residents would be will the bags be available for purchase at the town office

whether consistently throughout the year in the beginning if are people going to get free bags or whatever. But that was a question that was brought up. He did talk about that last time and he said that they can be made available to

Sure. But I mean are what what do we think? We also talked about that adds in, you know, town effort or apply time in the town office when the bags could be uh just available at the store. You're buying bags anyway. Today we're buying bags at the store.

Yeah. Right. Um but it's a good question to raise and I think the answer is we the answer we think the answer could be yes. Yeah. So the the potential exists. So um but he said we would have to pre- purchase the bags and and build a new tile all the time.

Yeah. Can I just mention uh storage is very limited at the town office. Right now we get a box of 10,000 trash tags that's about this big. So rolls of like we don't know where we're going to put those. Yeah. And so that's a that's a good point to bring up too is a storage concern.

And then the other question was um would residents receive any free bags? Well, we'll use free lightly. um any free bags like we do get getting the 26 free tags so to speak free. Yeah, that's a good question because another question I had was people were asking would their existing trash tags be honored in some way whether it's an exchange system or something like that. Um, and so another good question,

but I think and my default position in the beginning too, and I heard a lot of this from residents and it was mostly on social media, but I did talk to a few people is we need to be able to clearly articulate why do we need bags anyway? I mean,

you know, especially at a $3 rate. um the revenue piece and all that but I think we need to be very clear in our communication if we go this way why it benefits us as a town to move into having residents buy eggs. Yeah, that's a good question. Um, and I thought about that a lot. And one thing I just would add to it and then open it up for discussion too is right now if we move away from the tag system, there is loss revenue that is utilized to help pay for um trash collection town services uh to the tune of 34,000 and change.

I think that's what close to 30. Yeah. And so if that revenue is lost, revenue has to be made up somewhere. And the other element too is the contract itself. This is the first year that it has the the bin pickup in it and there's uh an additional charge from the provider in built into the contract for that bin pickup. So we will need to make sure that cost gets accommodated. We could either do that just through a flat increase in that budget line on the trash collection or we could offset that increased cost through the pay as you go bag system. And in that way, one thing that I heard for feedback is people are saying, "Well, I don't want to have to pay more than my fair share of throwing out bags. I live by myself. I create one or two trash bags of trash a month." And so I think that the approach with the pay as you go system would say okay we have the expense of getting rid of trash. We have the revenue from tags

that goes towards that as well. We need to make sure we at minimum match those things. And this is an opportunity to shift it so those who utilize the service more pay a little bit more. Those who utilize the service less pay a little bit less. I know that a perennial concern is for folks on fixed income incomes especially retired folks. And generally speaking, you know, two retired individuals are producing a lot less trash than a family of five. And so this gives an opportunity to maybe shift some of that household economics to benefit our retired citizens a little bit more. And so I think that that's why it's important for us to talk about this. I think $3 is too high.

Yeah. But that's where I think that's the need for it. You know, Josh, Rebecca, any thoughts? So wait, just to go back to the pricing though, if we were to with the $3 a bag, Yeah. So in the um sensitivity analysis, he had prepared for us examples from

large bag of $3 all the way down to large bag of $2.25, tall kitchen bag of $1.80 80 cents all the way down to tall kitchen bag of $1.36. And then it shows the net annual revenue from that. couple of thoughts I have is is there a way how do we know that? I mean, they're obviously basing that on experience, but those towns that are now using it, what are they finding? You know, we've got 4500 people.

Uh, who else uses it? North the Arman has 3,500. What have they found for real savings? I think what he said last meeting was that they looked at all those towns and he also looked at our tipping fees and calculated out what the anticipated bag use would be. Um and he said, you know, they work with about 300 towns, so they have a pretty large data pool to pull from. So that's where these numbers came from. Um this is what he had said last meeting. So

the um and I think that to Rebecca and a couple other people's there is sensitivity of how much this is going to cost. Mhm. And so is there a way to say uh right now we have a a budget for trash pickup and if you divide that by 2500 homes whatever I always forget the number but 2500 homes that comes out to X per house. So with his sensitivity analysis

um it's going to come out to whatever the fee is left over there. Um, so like next year I suspect our weights to be at least 600,000 because I think we're at 550 or something now and it isn't getting cheaper. So it would be good to be able to say, okay, we're going to pay X amount of money um the way we're going now. That comes out to X amount per house. If we go to pay as you throw, we're still going to have to pay x amount of tasks, you know, because it looks like to me saying we get 162 163,000 back. So, I'm throwing

out $600,000 minus 163 divided by 2500 homes uh plus whatever they're going to pay for pay as you throw. Is that that make sense? So you're going to have I would I would note that it's it's not equally distributed across the homes in terms of the cost. It's variable because of the usage,

the t Yeah, the tax. That's true. The bags you could you you could and I don't know if he can tell us what that is. Uh so I got a gazillion yellow tags because my the previous owner, my brother-in-law, mother-in-law didn't produce a lot of garbage. So I got a ton of yellow old tags. But there are other people who you drive by and there's a ton of So I guess I'm trying to say is there is a fiscal amount that we can put to that say yes look at you're going to if you don't throw out a lot of garbage you're going to save money in this deal but we're still going to tax you at x amount

because there is I think that would be a hard number to figure out because we don't know individual trash usage. We just know the the tonnage across the town and we could say, well, if it's, you know, 50 tons of garbage divided by 2500, we anticipate that being spread equally around around those houses. We could say this is your share of that. Now, I think it'd be hard to extrapolate

plus to add the bags. Yeah. So, you could say that we're going to have we're going to tax you for 300,000 and your share of that is as a taxpayer is whatever it is, 25. you know, 2500 uh times whatever uh plus whatever you use. And so if you don't use a lot, you're going to save money at the state.

The way I look at this is it's very similar to like our EMS services. We have a baseline tax that everyone pays to contribute towards providing EMS services. And then if you utilize the service, you receive a bill for whatever you utilize, whether it's a hospital ride or whatever. So this is we're still agreeing that we're as a community paying our annual contract to Cassella, but now we're saying instead of everyone getting the same amount of tags and all that sort of stuff, those who produce more trash pay a slightly larger share than those who produce less trash. So um and and then the thing I like about this is oftent times when there's an expense put on people, they have relatively no control over mitigating that expense. Whereas if someone can now say good, I can now reduce my trash expense because I can compost, I can recycle, I can do all these things and it gives people a little bit more control over their

household economics from a standpoint of like municipal services. So I think that's where it's a big win. I think it would be hard to calculate those numbers out for for we come up with a figure of if you're a household of five who throws away x this is what your what your tax burden is now going to this new system that's what it's going to be

and then whatever trash you use uh figure that in uh a couple other comments um that I had was uh what are we going to do with the yellow the stickers that are left over I've written mine off but Um, and so I've had a couple of ideas. One is you use them till they're gone. You know, we don't sell anymore. And so that'd be a question for Gassella. Can you differentiate, you know, whatever we're going to do? Uh, and then an idea I have is that we've already committed tax dollars and other things to yellow tags to get us through June

and we have a budget for that. Do we continue to use yellow tags until 1 July, 15 June, whatever that right now? I mean, it could be we institute the automated system with no use of pay as you go bags for the first two or three months we and say that's that's giving you credit for your yellow tags starting,

you know, this date is when the pay as you go bags start kicking in. That's what I'm thinking. I know we've got there there's a lot more discussion that we probably have time to see because things that I have seen people say is when I bought these tags I was told that they never expired and now they're saying you're telling me that they are expiring. I understand that point you know um I know that right now if people come in to buy tags the town office says hey you might not want to buy 50 tags because there's a change coming.

It's a good thing to do. Um, and so I think your point there, John, would be a question for um, waste zero to say, do you have to begin your bag? Do we have to begin our bags with you the day automated trash pickup starts happening or can we stagger that a little bit? So, get people used to automated trash pickup and then get people used to

I think they said yes. But yeah. Yeah, I think he said, you know, you tell me when you want to be ready. They're just the manufacturer. make one April. Y he said turn around to six weeks. Yeah. Yeah. That's if we ask if we ask him we could.

So that would me that would I don't I don't want to say the word mess but that would change these sensitivity analysis a little bit because if we're saying in the next budget we're only using pay as you go for 40 weeks of the 52- week budget. That would have some effect on the numbers there. Um, but I think that that could be a good uh compromise to say we're crediting everyone's tags by saying there's no additional pay as you go until, you know, Q2.

My my thought is we've already got a budget. I mean, it'd be nice to save money on it, but we've already committed to to expenses. Would it mean for people who don't have tags up until that point that you want to implement would have to go buy more tags to that? No,

I'd say it it's like, hey, We could say automated trash pickup starts April 1, no tags, any bag until August August one, and then we're moving to this bag system. I'm just those are arbitrary dates, but it would just say and so you're you're throwing out your tag, but you're also getting multiple weeks of trash pickup for for for free to offset the fact that you have potentially purchased tags or you have leftover tags. Um

so just a question on that because do we pay I thought we pay for tonnage etc. Like so that's so people suddenly have an understanding that hey I can throw everything out we are incurring more cost. I would just keep using the the stickers until whatever day the budget is scheduled to run out which is I guess town meeting. Um

but will people honor that? Well no one can take the stickers on us. No, there's no way to take the sticker. I am not expecting that. I mean, you just say you got to have a sticker and hope 50% of the people put a sticker in there.

I mean, is there any way that Oh, okay. Um, it'd be a Cassella question, but it'd be really hard to look for that yellow sticker. Also, a question regarding compost. Does Cassella have compost abilities? I don't know. Um, oh, Jerry seems to shake his head. No,

they do not. You'll hear more about compost from the solid waste committee when they come. One of the charges of the solid waste committee was to figure out how to lower the tonnage. Yeah, great. I remember. Yeah. And Julia had mentioned that they had more info on that to come, but that they were just presenting on

the pay as you throw recommendation. The last thing is we got it all got an email this afternoon late so you may not have a chance to look at it. Um the the person does a very uh good analysis here. Uh Nory Arman ended up spending 17 grand on camera equipment

uh for compliance. Uh there are issues with the bags or she's concerned about that or he's concerned and a couple of communities Windam and Kenbach have dropped paying. No. So why I guess was there some way to ask them you know

was this analysis BS or you weren't supported well or whatever it may be I have asked a bunch of friends from Cumberland from Falmouth from Windom what their thoughts are on this and everyone has has been very positive with it because I've asked all sort because I was very skeptical and so everyone's response has been bags are fine I mean, granted, these are not these are families or individuals who don't have a lot of trash most likely. So, I can only assume it varies

depending on Yeah. Although, Linda did drop it, I guess. Yeah, I saw that article. So, yeah. Um, I think there's could be a plethora of reasons why municipalities would drop it or not. Um, but one thing I think we need to talk about is

if we move away from tags, it's a decrease in revenue of $34,000 a year and the contract itself, the increases because of the um maintenance of the uh uh um the bins. So I feel that our trash tag revenue needs to at least take those two numbers to increase contract cost of maintenance and the loss revenue and at minimum break even to have a net impact. It just shifts the burden to people who pay for use more trash are paying a larger proportion. People who use trash are paying a lower proportion. But at minimum I think we want to um say net net flat. You know what I'm saying?

Not lose money. Well, then I may have made a bad assumption because I assume that uh through the end of this fiscal year, we have a budget of I forget what it is, sorry, 530 something, whatever. Uh 50, 80, whatever. Uh is that are we now going to find increases in 1 of April that that budget may not be good that we're that it may cost us more from Cassella or are we good through

That's a good question for Cassella. When does the the the bin maintenance portion of the contract kick in? it'll be April. Yeah. And so that's when they'll start adding that expense to their No, they won't. They'll they they'll start adding it July 1st. So it's roughly 80,000 for the bin management.

But if you started in April, they're going to charge you for April, May, and June after July 1. So you're looking at about $101,000 for bin management in this next budget. Yeah. So they won't charge it won't hit this budget, but they'll say we'll give you April, May, June

on on us. So that's in addition to Yeah. the rate we pay. So technically we've been saying they're going to buy the bins, but well they have a bin maintenance and I mean it's part of their buy the bins. Yeah. And they maintain the trucks and all that sort of stuff. So the the annual amount will go up by roughly 80,000, which isn't a surprise. It was part of their when they fill out their RFP, they we knew the automated aspect was coming. And so in my mind, if it's going to be an extra $101,000 for management and a loss revenue of $40,000, $30,000, we need to be looking at a number that at minimum covers it.

The pay as you throw. pay as you throw system. Rather than just saying, okay, we're just going to add that extra $140,000 as an expense and then do nothing to offset it, we're saying we're rolling that into the budget and now we're adding a revenue line and rather than it being distributed equally, that extra $140,000 being distributed equally across 2500 households, it's being distributed in a manner representative of trash consumption per household.

And I think that gives ferris. I think that makes a little bit more equitable. Um, and it gives people the opportunity to take a little bit more control over that expense in their life as opposed to just a flat fee. I mean, because up in I don't I I'm not concerned about my trash. Up until now, I throw out one one container of trash a

month. I now throw out 60 diapers a week. So, it's different for me now. So, I'll be paying a lot more for trash, which is okay. Uh, but I had a resident reach out to me. She said, "I'm retired. I'm very frugal with my trash. I throw out one bag a week. I don't want to have to pay a new expense for all kinds of other bags." And I said, "Yeah, thank you for the feedback. We'll take this into consideration." So,

I think it's important to remember that two bids ago for trash, we had two bids. One was Cassella and one was another company who didn't even own any trucks, wanted to get into the business. Uh we went with Cassella and told the other company, you know, start doing something. We're not going to be your guinea pigs. Uh uh and then this last turn time it was only Cassella and it was a take it or leave it. And if we had left it, we would not have had townwide pickup.

Mhm. Uh for the last what is it two years or so? Yeah. Um, and so, you know, it's it's not something that the select board, I think, ever wanted to do and it was concerns and it's why, you know, the solid waste committee was charged with doing things.

Um, I I agree. I don't think we can eat this cost. Um, I think the cost for whenever we start through the end of this fiscal year is something we should look at coming out of the account and not adding to the taxes maybe as you know. uh but I think going forward we have to do something. I think uh you know

coming together with a plan for the uh compost uh is extremely important and it's something that we need to uh to you know to to work with this all waste committee to get done as quickly as possible. But, uh, you know, I I get the concerns. Um, but as soon as we start this, if we don't do tags or bag, I mean, we can't do tags. Uh, if we don't do bags starting whenever this starts, we're going to be spending more money for 3 months that we might not otherwise have. And, uh, you know,

yeah, we're stuck. Yeah. And it's, you know, I guess it's a choice. It's it it's it's our own decision doing that that the select board at that time, you know, we thought that keeping the townwide trash pickup was better than not having it at all.

The town voted for that, too. Uh and it was it was known at the meeting. Uh so, uh you know, we we knew this was coming. Uh and so so let's just be clear. How much money will we lose if we allow residents to continue with tax until the start of new fiscal? We I don't think we can figure that out because it's going to depend on how much extra trash people are throwing away.

Yeah, because you had a good point. If we say next two months, don't worry about tags. People start throwing away cinder blocks and TVs and all those sorts of things, it becomes challenge. Will we still have bulky waste?

Yeah. Now, I do think that the number of individuals who say, "Oh, now that I can throw away without a tag for the next month or two, I'm gonna, you know, generate 500 lb of trash weekly." Would probably be pretty low. Um, I think most people would just say, "All right, I'm going to throw out as expected and then start using the bags when it kicks in,

right?" because people are going to be paying the taxes on that. So, because it's not, you know, there's no free lunch here when it comes to throwing it throwing it out. I just do think that we need to make sure that we set the bag price at a rate that offsets the increase of the annual expenditure for trash pickup. And the nice thing too is the contract price is going up, but if this decreases tonnage, that can build a little bit of of um

a cushion moving forward. And we'll just be able to monitor annually. Yeah. And so if it's about $101,000 plus a loss of $34,000 of revenue, that puts us at like $135,000 needed to cover that um change in contract, which when we look at the sensitivity analysis to to cover that amount, it would be a a large bag, a 33gallon bag of $2.85, 85 and then a medium bag, which they're describing as a tall kitchen bag, which is similar to what you're using in your current uh trash can in your kitchen, of $1.71.

Um, if we went above that, it would be some additional revenue. Um, so, but the bin fee doesn't kick in until what, July, give or take, right? But they're going to charge us for April, May, and June bin fee. They'll just they're just prorating it.

We don't pay until we don't. So, in our next budget, we'll have to accommodate 15 months of BIN fees rather than just the 12 month of BIN fees because they're going to pro they're going to say, "You don't owe us until you start next year.

It's probably better just to bite the bullet and implement the whole thing at one time." Yeah. Bags, automation. Yeah. Yeah. it just it's gonna be a hard sell because a lot of the biggest thing I've got is what about my yellow tags? So, so I mean

the cost savings the 100,000 whatever it is is is part of the sales effort. Yeah. Conversation. Maybe you could submit all your old tags for a raffle and you win six months worth of bags or something. I mean that's something.

Yeah. I just want to make it I think we just need to make it as easy as possible and not store them in the town hall. Well, if people have a lot of extra tags, they probably didn't purchase them. They're just built up over time. You wouldn't have 25 because you got three boats a piece. It's just like I never use them.

Five years of tag saved up 10 tags a year. Maybe maybe we could do something like that. Turn them in. We'll give you a raffle ticket for every tag you turn in and we'll give you some free bags. I don't know. Yeah. Um I will say I do think we've addressed the concern of bag thickness because we talked to Waist Zero and they are very thick bags and so if someone had a different experience um it sounds like that has been addressed for for our town.

I'd like to actually see these bags. I mean, we talk about it, but there's nothing better than, okay, here's the small bag. This is how thick it is, you know, and people can say, well, all right, if I have today I put three bags like that in my bin with a $3 tag.

Tomorrow I'm going to be paying, you know, six bucks for all three of them and putting in a bin or I'll just get a bigger one because four of them fit in a bigger one. M I mean you know there there are some bags that are better than others as far as thickness right

well and you go to Hannifford to Topsome or Shaw of Freeport and say hey can I have the bags out right the same it's the same bags just different color I think that's a fair you know what I mean I I I'm not sure I don't need to see it I mean I think you know that's

I'm a visual yeah I understand so we could ask them. Um, so we've talked a lot of we had a great discussion here about pay as you throw. Do do people have questions for Cassella? And then we can loop back. I mean, we can decide tonight if

Josh's question. Yeah. Will they buy him new bins if the bins that are provided up front get broke? No, I think we need to know what roads are going to go what private roads or are they going to go up and down because that's a question that I've got a lot. Uh, in what side of the street?

Yeah. 125. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz she she said, you know what? We're supposed to do that. So, it doesn't doesn't have a swamp road or and like I drove um home on Route 9 and I drove the other day I went through North Yarmouth and they had trash bins on both sides of the road. People were putting them at their driveway. Um, and so like that to me is like, well that's safer than this. So big question because a lot of people have said that's a bigger bin than I normally use. I have to drag it across the road. So what I have for questions is what happens if the bins break? What private roads are you going to go up and down? What side of the road are the bins going to be on? And what is the plan for 125, 136, and Route 9?

Um, okay. I is there possibly an issue where do we have some private neighborhoods where everybody, you know, eight houses or multiple houses are bringing all of their bins to the end of the entrance? That's a question as to what they're going to do because if you have, you know, 3 ft between

30 bin, 20 bins, there's not enough room and you're going to be asking someone to walk up road. So, I think that's how how you handle that. And I understand you can the arm can reach up a driveway or up a private road or something.

Yeah. But u that's that's the big concern that I keep. Well, and they have said in the past because this question came up with the planning board that they will go into a private road subdivision as long as there's a turnaround at the end.

So I suspect we probably have old subdivisions that may not they should because it's more about fire than Yeah. Most of them have the the newer longer heads. the newer ones, the five years I was on the planning board, there was always a turnaround.

Maybe we can just somehow ID those risk areas. Well, we could ask Cell that because if they're supposed to do a drive around, right, they should probably have that answer of here's the problems, here's not. So, Oh, yeah. That's good. Um, so I'll formulate these questions,

send them to Jerry so he can send to Cassella and then we can invite Cassella in to answer these questions, but we can give them in advance to try to just make sure that they come prepared. Um, I'd like to do that at a soonish meeting. So maybe see what their availability is. Jerry,

that works for me. Okay. Does that work for everyone else? Yeah. So just again, so with the bags, because it is like a six week turnaround time and we're coming up pretty fast. Mhm. So I guess we're what? We're what what are we going to do though?

We're not going to make the deadline then if we want to have the bags and maintain revenue. I think we need to make a decision on the bags. I don't think we don't have enough time. Yeah. Um and so today is the 10th. So That puts us right at the beginning of April if we were to make a decision tonight for the bag turnaround. Um, which I think we need to do, you know.

community about costs and our options are don't go with bags and roll the entire cost of the changes into the tax bill that everyone has to cover or create this system so there's some variable charges depending on the amount of trash that you uh create. I'm a fan of the pay as you throw system because it gives people a little bit more control over this expense and it doesn't spread it equally because it's a service that's used variably.

Yeah, I am except I can't wrap my hand around start date. Is it for the throw as you go stuff? Is it one April? Is it one May? So the goal would be we give them the head the thumbs up and it's a six week turnaround time is kind of their minimum turnaround time. In my mind if we vote to approve it, it would then be happening the same time as the the automatic bag pickup. So it's all one

that was just question. We don't have we still don't have a set date as to when that started. No, it's April something. What what's that? Cassella the automated bag pick up what day have Cassella given a hard date on when they're want to start that

well I believe it's April they're going to start the auto I know that they had mentioned at last meeting April 1st but yeah somewhere in advance um I would imagine they might give us a little bit of grace if we say hey we've started this pay as you throw system can you wait until that's set up so we can begin that if it's just another week or two

yeah that's that's what they don't care about that and they don't care if you have tags They don't even care if you have bags cuz seller doesn't care one way or the other. They don't care. What they want is they want to deliver the bins.

Put your trash in the bins. If you don't go pay, put them in sandwich bags. They don't care. They're just going to dump it. So you can do you can do I mean Cassella, but they do want to be paid. Yeah. Well, they do. They do. And so so just keep in mind, you know, that

I got to we got to put a revenue line in the budget that starts July 1st. Yes. And so depending on what charge you do here across this sensitivity analysis will be what we put in for revenue. Got to understand this isn't an exact science right now because we don't have any town data.

He's developing this based on the numerous towns they've worked with in the past. So at some point you have to choose if you're going to go with pay as you throw then you have to choose one of these here so you put it in the budget.

Yeah. And so that's continue with the tags with the with the bins. Cassella doesn't care. That's you all. Yeah. But keep in mind you're only making 30,000 on the tags and you've just in you're increasing your budget by 80% just for the bin management. Plus, they're going up 5% every year on their hauling. So, you know, you got to you know, you got to get your you got to get your heads wrapped around this and start making some decisions because time's running out.

Yeah. And so, in that sense, I really think that the 180 a bag for a tall kitchen is the way to go. It gives $150,000 of revenue which can be used to offset the $80,000 $101,000 expense for the management fee and offset the loss revenue of $34,000 um and try to accommodate for a increase in hauling fees.

And and two, I just want to make this clear too by going with pay as you throw the data up there suggests that the tonnage will come down. M. So that'll that'll reduce your hauling cost. I don't need you to make a decision tonight

before we put it in the budget. I got because it's just a revenue line. Mhm. So, I would suggest that you take this home, look at it, and if you have questions, come see me, and then I can kind of like go over it with you, and then when you meet again next time, you'll kind of maybe have a better idea how this works instead of trying to all figure it out right here, right now.

You know what I'm saying? So, no, I mean, we can table it if folks want to table it. Yeah. Go with one may or I mean, you know, after next time we meet, right? So, just a question of something you said in terms of what Cassella picks up, can we require them not to as long as that they can see a tag, can we require them not to pick up a bag unless they see a tag for x amount of months or weeks or whatever?

We I can bring the rep in here. We can ask her, but what I've heard is there's no more people on the chalks than the driver. So the driver is going to have to see the tag and he's just not going to care. But he will see. But how how is he going to see necessarily see the bag?

He's not. So the bag system, there's two options. They said that at last meeting they said that you can choose to go with a camera and an AI system, but that um Waist Zero also comes out and does spot checks where they follow the trucks around and look for the proper colored bag. and they said that they generally have pretty good compliance, but that there needs to be something in place if there's a failure of compliances, there needs to be an action to be put in place. So,

yeah, let me try to like, you know, so you're talking about two, we're talking two different things. So, Cassella is going to an automated system. That's it. That's all you need to know about that, right? So the question then becomes, you know, what does the town want to do as far as paying for that system? So pay as you throw. The data shows that

if you go with this program, the more garbage you use, the more you pay. The less you use, the less you pay. and and depending on what you're gonna choose for charging your residents will determine what that revenue is. Okay. So, that's a that's kind of like a different discussion. The Cassella things all set. You don't really have a a whole lot of decisions or I mean I suppose you have questions. I mean the Primal Road stuff and all that I

I mean they've talked about it before. Yeah, they're two separate entities. It really is. Um, can we articulate how much each resident pays from their taxes to the uh waste waste pickup? Like am I paying $150 a year? Is it $500? Like every resident pays the same rate that goes into that budget for that.

Sure. With the current system. Sure. I think that I think Calvin may have brought that to the solid waste committee because I think right now I think we had the total I think we had the total but not necessarily per resident 420,000 a year roughly 400 let's call it 400 that's basically what you're paying right now 12 months that number you was talking about is an 18th month budgeting

400 divided by 17 by 17 it's not really divided by the number of residents The way you would figure it out is what percentage is 400,000 of the total budget? If it's 1% then 1% of your tax bill is going towards that because it's variable because of the way tax is that what you're

asking. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be like good for us to articulate, you know, because to the residents it's all about what's coming out of my pocket. What is this costing me now? You're making me go pay $3 a tag. Why do I have to do that? You know, we we need to be able to explain that. And I think this pay as you throw is

so the the pay as you throw program is a is a strategy to reduce tonnage. I agree. To bring to bring that down. That's that's the answer, right? That's why you're buying the real quick. $12 million budget, $400,000 is 3% of that budget. So 3% of your tax bill is what goes towards taxes.

So goes towards trash. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you have a Thank you for correcting me. $5,000 tax bill. Um you can uh you can figure that out. So, Yep. 150 bucks. 150 bucks, right? And so, um 150 bucks. Someone takes care of your trash every week,

right? And so, the more you use, the more you pay. Yeah. And this is just saying that now if you use more, you're paying more. If you use less, you're paying less. And I like it because it gives you some control over your expense, you know.

So other or or everybody's goes up from 3% to 4% or something and everyone's equally goes up to offset all these. Yeah. If it's a $12 million budget and it goes up to $500,000 by 12, goes towards trash. So you're seeing everybody everyone's goes up whereas

I'm seeing discussion around people saying that they want some control over they they're trash. So yeah. No no I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you but and those are just round figures obviously. Um but we're kind of run I recommend we postpone make a we make a decision on

24th whatever the day is uh the next meeting. Yeah. Yeah. No checking out. So motion to table or so we'll just it's not even tableabling. We just we were have tonight's goal is to have a discussion. And so now we can just say we're going to have a make a decision on pay as you throw in bag prices at the next meeting.

Y so I don't think we even need a motion. We can just move along. Yeah. Josh, can we just talk about how we're going to make up the loss, what we're losing in revenue, uh, if, you know, we don't make a decision, we can't get the bag of beforehand. Uh, because if it's six weeks, this puts us in the middle of April and if they start April 1st, we'll have a couple weeks. And so,

yeah. So, I'm going to one of the questions I'm going to send to Jerry to send to Cassella is just ask Cassella if they can hold off until we get the bags knowing that it's a six week turnaround time and we're going to decide at the end of February. So, we'd be asking them, can you hold off till May one to do automated because we need to get our ducks in a row?

Well, I'm Pel, I'm going to say and and lose money paying for the second person on your truck and just having this new truck sit here. Yeah. I mean, or maybe they recognize that it's they do the bin and we use the old I'm fine with if we need to make a decision.

I'm not sure. Or they use the bin and for the first two weeks of the bins there's no it's a it's anarchy for trash throwing and then the bags kick in. I mean, and that that's what I was trying to get to is like, do we want to have a decision that starts on day one or do we want to say we're okay if this doesn't start on day one if Cassella doesn't work with us?

Right. I mean, right. Do we really think we're not going to do the bags? Maybe we vote on Yeah, we'll do the bags, but we just don't we'll figure out the cost at the next meeting. Yeah. I mean, I think we're all in agreement that we have to do the bags.

So, that's a good point, Deb. We could make a motion tonight that we're going to go with pay as you go throw, but we're going to set the bag fee next meeting so you can let the person know to start the process. I mean, we're going to have to set the bag color and those sorts of things, too.

Yeah. So, I think that's um I'm fine with doing all of it and just be done with it. Yeah, I'm fine to vote on it, too, but whatever folks if folks want to wait on the dollar amount, no, just do it. Get it over with right now.

So, do we have a motion? dollar amount on the bags. That's that's that's I frankly I'd do the Well, $3 doesn't bother me because that's what we're doing now, but you know for 20 26 it bothers me. I mean I want to be a lot less but

that's what we're doing now for extra tenants. And I think one thing that we're talking about here is the goal here is not like we're trying to build excess revenue off the back of trash throwing. It's we're trying to build a model that covers the expense which has increased and just fund it rather than flat across everyone fund it at a variable rate based off of trash usage. So I mean I know that you know the messenger is going to get shot and that's us. But at the end of the day it's you all elected to still have trash pickup and this is what it costs and so we're telling you that this is how it's going to have to be paid for. Now, if you're upset about that number, you're upset about the cost of trash pickup and the only other option would be to get rid of trash pickup, you know,

and then if you throw out a bag every week, it's $156. Mhm. That you're not paying now. Yeah. And it's an additional to and I understand one of the things is, well, I get a $3 trash tag or two is it two or $3 for the trash tag?

$3 trash tag, but now I have to pay $3 per bag. But again, that $3 bag is 33 gallon with like a 3 mil bag. That thing is going to That's a lot of trash. That's the size of like one of the leaf bags. Yeah. Contractor bag. More like a contractor bag. So like that's a lot of trash. It's not um $3 for a little uh

you know, garbage pail, you know. So it's makes my logic of seeing the bag. Yeah, I can bring one in from my Well, yeah. Would you pay a dollar then? Well, I don't quote me on this because I don't pay attention when I'm swiping my groceries. I buy what I want. I put in the bag and I go home. So,

but the last time I swiped, well, not the last time. One time when I swiped the roll, it was uh $10 for 12 bag for it was $10. It was $12 for 10 bags. So, buck 20 a bag. And I do the small kitchen bags. I don't do the big ones. I

I just my the bags in a little underneath my counter my house and that's where I put my garbage. But I also recycle. So like me and my wife, we put one bag out every two weeks. Yeah. Two of us. So for for us it's a buck 20 every two weeks. That's what we because that's what one bag is.

So I put out two bags a month. Cost me $2.40. And that was tonight's discussion. But the other challenge to a lot of people is where do you keep your bin? You know, like for me, it's a long haul. So it that's just going to come up. I mean, it's already coming up is where do I keep my bin?

Mhm. And how do I get it down to the road? Well, people are doing that now anyways. They got to keep their current trash can somewhere and bring their current trash can to the end of the road. I for one just take it out of the trash can, put it in the back of my truck, and leave it on the road. Oh, you don't use a trash container?

Just during the week on Thursday, I I haul it out, put a tag on it, and drive it down. Oh, I see. So, now you have to use a Yep. So, I got to do some Okay. What are we doing? Yeah. All right. Do we have a motion? bag price of $3 for large bag and $1.80 80 cents for medium bag to uh per in and

then have Jerry budget a net annual revenue of $150,195. Do I have a second? I'll second. Second by Josh. Any discussion? I just want to note that the reason I picked that number is because I think that we need to make sure we're adequately covering the increased cost and trash pickup. that extrapolation that this number extrapolates that with a little bit of wiggle room of uh you know $15,000 or so. Um and we can re-evaluate

annually once we start getting some DURM specific data. But the intent here is not to make money off of people. It is to cover the trash expense. So that's all I'll have to say. Can we make sure that the meeting minutes on this topic are very clear with that instead of just like we approved, you know, the pay as you throw program?

Yes, I can come in and we can sit down and do a little bulleted one one fact sheet on this if that works. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because minutes are actions. You guys want additional information? Yeah. I'll come in and talk with you about it.

An attachment or something. Yeah. So, any other discussion? We got to decide what they say. put our faces on them. Yeah. Well, my joke last meeting was sell the average. So, do we have a Well, we should vote on the motion here. But all in favor,

any opposition seeing none, it passes unanimously. I was only half joking last meeting when I they said they can print anything on there. Can we sell the advertising rights to the bag and say someone prints their logo on there and pays us? But, all right. Okay. So, next meeting we're going to have to decide um

things like uh color, what's on there? Are we moving off that topic? I I think that's a it's a good idea. We should explore, you know, if there's anything we need to do to get that or ask for that or because Oh, we just need a spot. We probably just need a sponsor because the guy said whatever we want on.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's outside the box thinking, but No, he was saying because we could do the seal, but you can also get sponsored content because if someone's going to say, "Hey, you know, yes, that's that's 5,000 bags with my logo on it."

Mhm. Is that worth that? Maybe not worth $150,000, but it's worth a good chunk of that. We could lower the price of the bags. So, I think it's a good idea. We should figure out how to put a call out to local businesses. Maybe Hanford since we're going to sell the bags at Hannover

and Hanford's got new competition. I think it'd be better to um uh put out solicit local Durham businesses like a landscaping company or real estate agent or somebody. I I think we should confirm with the pay as you go waste zero guy that

that's a that's an option. I just mentioned it last time. He goes, I don't care. You can print anything you want on there. I don't know if how much he has really thought about that. Um, but either way, uh, we can add that as a question, too.

All right. Could you just die and see if if it's true, then we can put any anything we want and then you can send us an email and then we can figure out what we're going to do at the next meeting. Yeah. Well, Jerry and I can email them. So, whatever you like.

So, do we have to decide on color? I mean, the reason why we voted on this now is so we can get the bag alter. So, we can tell them we need the bags. We can tell them we we have something to budget with. Um, I would guess that we can probably wait till color and

if we if we need to choose a color, can we defer to Jerry and they're going to tell us here are the colors options? And I mean, do I don't I put my fullhearted trust into that. Can Jerry pick the color? Like you don't want blue because you buy blood.

Yeah, we thought I don't's hot pink or blaze orange works. But I like orange. Figure it out. So then it's very obvious if you're not using the bag. They'll know like who has the color around us and then I'll just give you all options what's left.

Yeah. So maybe you just go talk to them about this. Tell them we're going to move through and then if they have follow-up info they need from us, we can talk about it. I'll take care of that. Thanks. All right. Um, next thing here, item D, consider transfer of appropriations between budget line items. And the motion would be to exercise the authority granted under article 39 of the 2024 town warrant and approve the transfer of 2,363 from public works budget to debt services line item, thereby resolving an over expenditure and ensuring no over expenditures remain in the 2024 fiscal year audit. Jerry, could you add any background info there for us?

No, you have that. So, this is coming right out of your audit. the the audit almost done. Um, and I'm just recommending you do this before it's done. So, seven days. Mhm. Um, but just in terms of background information here, it's paying

moving money from public works to pay a debt service line. Yeah. So, all right. So, background. So, we miscalculated what the interest was on our debt. So it was $2,363 less. So we had to pay more than what we budgeted. We basically used the last audits normalization schedule and it wasn't it wasn't accurate.

So but that's what we used. Um so we were short. So to fix that, you have an article um a warrant article in year 24 when you can move up to 5% from other budget lines. So you can take it out of public works. They got 32,874 left and you can take that 206

2363 like you said, put it towards debt services. That makes that zero. Then you have no spenders audit. I will make a motion with reading this to exercise the authority granted under article 39 of the 2024 town warrant and approve the transfer of 2,363 on the public works budget to the debt service line item thereby resolving an overexpendure and ensuring no over expenditures remain for the 2024 fiscal year audit. All right, John has made a motion. Do we have a second?

Second. Say, excellently worded motion, John. I command I command whoever wrote this. So, um, any questions on the motion? The only thing that's going to change is the the net change essentially the fund balance is going to go down by $2,363,

right? No. No. It all stays the same because the you're just taking the money out of public works. It just so you're making it change the fund balance if public works had that amount of money available to uh right but the there was the variance of 69,000.

Is the surplus in the public works mostly due to uh being understaffed? No, no, no. That was this year. This is 2024. This is two years ago or a year and a half. Yeah. The the audits take some time and so it's always like a two cycles behind.

Oh, this was just 134 as much. It could have been a number of different spendable slightly lower. I see. Okay. less overtime than expected, those sorts of things. Okay. Any other questions? All right. All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, um that passes unanimously. Uh committee appointment. We have a committee appointment. I've lost my paper here

for uh sorry. Um sorry, I got it right here now. Uh interested in serving on the solid waste committee. has a lot of experience with agriculture or sorry with um as a professional engineer in dealing with landfill closure, solid waste perminating, erosion, sedimentation control, etc. Um does anybody uh want to

make a motion? Before I do, I think we have to make a motion for which committee? Oh, sorry. I thought it said um it says either or. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it said solid waste committee on here. So um I think the solid waste committee has an opening right now whereas the agriculture committ

I will make a motion that we approve Jay Pent. Uh is it an alternate position? It would be to be an alternate on the solid waste committee. John has made a motion. Is there a second? Second. All right. Uh any discussion?

And there's no openings on the agricultural committee at all. I called um Jonah. We should have asked him tonight to ask what cuz we have six members listed on the website. None of them say alternate. So I don't know if they I they did seven and nine or if they did five and one of those is supposed to be an alternate, you know, about packing.

Um so I'm not quite sure on their account. Well, and the reason I like the the solid solid waste committee is, you know, we're still maybe considering a transfer station his resume, his expertise would work well. That was that stood out to me as well.

Yeah. Um only one comment I will say it's really nice. We have se seen a lot of new names volunteering for stuff and that's awesome. So all in favor of the motion any opposition seeing none passes unanimously to the solid waste committee.

So just a question because if it comes back if the agricultural committee has no alternates and he is still interested in joining will he have to resubmit an application? I read the application as he said I'm interested in joining one of these two committees.

Please consider my application and that we're kind of plugging him in or or them in wherever they choose wherever we choose. So if they came back and said I just can't handle solid waste. Please give me egg. We can give me something else.

We can do something else. All right. Manage report. Jerry. All right. Thank you, Mr. Pman. Um got a couple things here. Few things. So, we uh full capacity at public works now. We hired a uh a gentleman by the name of Ashlin Blake.

Um so, he started February 2nd, I think that Monday, last week. So, uh pretty excited about that. He's he's of the younger generation, so it's good to get some youth in the in the department. So, it's uh uh we welcome him and hopefully he does well. Um, so the IRS, remember we had that issue of they they want their money. So we just paid uh $25,230

penalty for not submitting the right or not submitting the W3 forms for the 2022 payroll. So yeah, a little background on that. Um, so prior to Jerry's start, the previous administrator or manager um left at a time when paperwork needed to be sent to the IRS uh to show who was working here

and check a couple boxes. That paperwork uh didn't get sent. They came knocking for the funds four years later last year to the tune of $75,000. Yeah. 80ish. Jerry brought up to our board last year and submitted uh some paperwork to say, you know, here's the reason why. Can you consider waving it? Um and they came back and said, we'll re reduce it. Um and so unfortunately, we're just stuck holding the bag of a mistake made prior to anyone in this room's involvement in the in the municipality. So,

it's good that it got reduced. Yeah. Yeah. By a lot. Yeah. Um, so we we no longer have a cleaner, so we're going to uh kind of post that. It's a it's like 10 hours a week, so we're not going to really go to like MMA or anything like that. So, we're going to put it on our uh news blast

and the website and ask around. It's, you know, it's it's pretty flexible hours. You know, they they clean the um town office, public works, and the recoil when that needs it. Um, so just thought I'd let you know that we don't

we don't fund a law for it. So it's um getting a service is really expensive. So if we can find somebody that's just looking for a little side hustle, that would be the the best route to go. So all right. So the $75,000 grant that we received,

that project is pretty much underway. are ready to go. All right. So, George and I have talked about that. So, this is an economic development for planning. Okay. So, George and I are going to recommend to this board that you

get a interim economic development committee. All right. And it's a it's a really important committee because economic development is the town doesn't really have any this is a opportunity to see how to plan for it to see if the residents want want this to happen. And so this committee really needs to be what we're recommending is the committee be made up of one person from the select board, one person from the planning commit uh planning board, one from the ad committee, and one from um the conservation commission, and one community member at large that has some sort of business background or community if you can get it. Again, this is this is probably one of the more important all committees are important, but economic development is

Yeah, we really we really need to get this right. Yeah. Okay. So, um sooner we do this, hopefully we can have something to bring to the town meeting in 2027. So that's why we're recommending those five and that and those five will work with the greater Poland Council of the Governments because they'll be kind of leading this planning study.

Okay. So they'll work with them and hopefully get some public participation going, hopefully get some people involved that have some land use experience, that type of stuff. Uh so we're recommending that. Okay. Yep. Can you put that on agenda item for us at one of our upcoming meetings? You and I can talk about that.

Yes. Okay. I will say economic development has been a huge discussion over the last couple years because we understand that our ability to generate revenue for municipal expenses has been pretty limited to just property tax. So

it's right it's just it's an opportunity to get something going that's going to you know add you know take some taxes burden off the residents some sort of tax other base going and it's going to take some time. So this project even though it's 75,000 is kind of it's going to it could take 18 to 24 months

there's a lot of work and research that has to go on. So, but it's a start at least now that Don is starting to talk about it, which I think is really important. Yeah. Okay. Lastly, lastly, the code office issued a notice of violation for the pit up here on 1104 Hollow Road.

For the what? For the gravel pit up here on 1104 Hollow Road. The violation is a conditional use violation. um their condition of use was that they had to keep that pit uh within five acres. So the Department of Environmental Protection went up there and inspected it and they are now excavating 19.8 acres approximately.

So, what they're going to have to do is within 14 days of getting that letter, the date of that letter, they get in touch with George to talk about how they can come into compliance. So, how they can do it, there's really a couple ways they can do it. one's one's probably not that viable, but one way they can do it is uh they can they can go in front of the planning board and get an amended condition of use. So, they can go through that process. That's how they that's how they get that done. So, they'll have to apply and go through that whole process. The other way is that um they can bring it back to the five acres and reclaim the other area outside of that. They got like 30 days to do this.

So the reclaiming the outside of the five acres midFebruary ain't going to happen. They just can't. There's no way they can do it. So hopefully we'll see we'll see how they react to the to the letter and see if they What date was it issued? Well, it got mailed today and certified. So, I'm not sure if the code officer put today's date or if he ran it yesterday and it's got that date. But,

is there a penalty fee? Uh, there could be. They don't. We got to see how this plays out. There could be. Absolutely. So, that's all I got for you. Thank you. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. The Treasury, the 25 26,000. Where's that? What line is that coming out of? That comes right out of your general fund.

Okay. Is what do you want to call it? Yeah, that's Yeah, that's all. Yeah, I think we could discuss moving around things with the contingency fund if we wanted to talk about that. We have a $50,000 contingency fund for unexpected.

Um that's a reserve, too, isn't it? Yeah, but it was designed for if there's an unexpected unpredictable expense. And so, we could talk about that. I mean, it comes out of revenue, but then you got to backfill that. Well,

for general funds, you got to backfill that general fund. Well, just like just like here in uh 2024, public works had 32,000 left in their budget. So, you might be able to not even touch it. We'll see how that money left over.

With the vacancies, there should be Yeah. Right. But with those vacancies, there's over time, but well, not that those vacancies were over such a period of time that to get people to even come here, we had to offer them more money.

So that chewed up some of that vacancy money when they when it wasn't getting hit. So, so we don't know how it's going to shake out until the year is over when everything gets recon. So that if that's the case, then there would you would need if if there's not enough money to cover that expense out of general funds, you would need to come to us and ask for us to approve an expenditure out of

the contingency fund to cover it. But there's a lot of money in the in the general fund, right? There is. Right. And so that's where it's No, you're thinking the um um undesated fund balance. This is the same. It's kind of the same idea though to me. rose. I've lost track of a rose here on that one. But

so you're going to have options, but we don't we don't know where we're going to land until the budget is over. So there will be options. You may not have to you may not have to hit that. But you got to write a check to tomorrow for Right. It's already written. It's up against Yeah. I mean that we're not going to I mean we can't wait. I mean it's the IRS.

Yeah. Um before we move on to you, did you get any feedback from the safety representative who was here? I haven't. Um he he reached out to me and wanted to know if there was uh if it was recorded so he could make good on his what he was going to say bring to us. So

I sent him the link to the to the meeting and I Okay. Thank you for that. Um thank you for arranging that. So thank you Jerry. uh board member reports real quick so we can wrap this up on time. Um just a note to people, I saw that a resident of the community has taken upon themselves to run all of the transcript of all of our meetings through uh artificial intelligence to generate a kind of action report after meeting so it can talk about everything that was discussed. and they're having it automatically turned into a Spotify uh file. So, you can now listen to a uh robot read off the uh summary of all of our town all of our select board meetings every uh every week on Spotify. And so, I think it's great that someone's took it take taken that upon themselves. They also have published on a shared public drive the um AI overview of the last seven or eight meetings. and I took a quick review and it seems like really good

notetaking and I listened to the uh the Spotify episode of of our Durham uh AI news coverage and it was pretty accurate. I would just always tell people with AI verify and so I'm going to take it upon myself to listen to him every week and just double check to make sure that everything comes across as well. But they made it very clear that they intend for this to just be a facts and figures num basic no spin. Here's what happened. Um, other thing I just want to say really quickly is fire departments been working their butt off. Two structure fires in the last two weeks. Um, one in Durham, one mutual aid, and uh, the the one in Durham required a ton of mutual aid fighting fire at 0 degrees in middle of February at 1:00 in the morning. It's not easy for anybody and and chief and the folks over there have done a great job. And I just want to say we got a handwritten note um thanking the fire and rescue for

them responding to a call on Thanksgiving Day. Um first time they've ever had to call services while living here in Durham. And they were just floored by the professionalism of the staff and the um fact that they showed up leaving their families on Thanksgiving to come help somebody else. And they just wanted to say that they uh really appreciate the care and the service that they receive. So, I just wanted to make sure we publicly acknowledge that. And other than that, I have nothing else. Josh, no. Deb,

um, I did attend the funeral services for Peter Low, who is a 50-year um, member of the Durham Fire and Rescue Group. It was very well attended and um, our town representatives and volunteers. Um, was it was a really moving service and was very nice.

Thank you, Deb. Rebecca, no. John, no. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? A motion. Rebecca, do I have a second? Second, Deb. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, we have several upcoming meetings which I won't read off. Um, any need for an executive session? Uh, seeing none, a motion to adjurnn.

So moved. Uh, that's from John. Do we have a second? I'll second. Rebecca, any questions or discussions? All in favor? All post? Seeing none, passes unanimously. All right, let's just get our uh signatures here.