TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ April 5, 2017

stands one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Jeff since he's away since we're starting a new board. Um I guess we'll have the election of the chair. Jeff's not here, but I'm going to nominate Jeff Wakeman as the chairman of the board of selectman. I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor? Close. Okay, Jeff. [laughter]

agenda? Uh, about vice chair. Oh, yes. Vice chair. Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, I was trying to skip over that. It's not my first day. Okay. Nominate Mark Blake for vice chairman. I'd second that. Okay, it's been moved and second that Mark Blake gets to be the vice chair. Any discussion?

Seeing none. Seeing none. All [laughter] those in favor? Opposed? Not a friend in the house. That's it. And you're abstaining, right, Mark? Yes. Um, do we have any amendments to the agenda? Uh, no. None that I can think of.

We only have one that may or may not be here, right? We'll wait and see if that she shows up. Uh any public comments? We don't have much public tonight. Uh the consent agenda. I'll take a motion. that is that's basically everything that we got here in the bottom on this page. Everything's underneath that. Um unless anybody has any changes. I'll take a motion to Move we accept the consent agenda as presented.

Correct. Second. Move the secondary we accept the consent agenda as presented. Any more discussion? See none. All those in favor. Oh. All right. Uh the treasur's warrants. Okay. So that's I think you guys have a copy of that if you've already looked at it.

This one here. Yeah. Y kind of bills and Ruth has the big one that we'll have to sign at the end. Yep. With the receipts in there if you choose to look at them. So if you ever have any questions about what's on the treasur's warrant, um we have all the bills that back it up and you are free to look through any of this. All this is public information.

I mean it would be public to you. First page and a half is basically what's on the last two or three or four. Gives you a brief description of what it is. If you want to go deeper then which one is it, Ruth? I don't know.

It It's the one that looks like this. I think it was right on top of your list. No. Did I not? I gave you one. Is it underneath everything? Put it underneath. There you go. Ah, okay. These two. Are these both the same? Yeah, they should both be the same.

I guess I gave you an extra one. All right. Yeah. Approved. Somebody bought safety boots. Safety boots. Yep. Somebody bought some boots. car. Yep. it comes comes out of a different account cuz it's safety. So it gets paid tonight instead of in payroll. Whereas if they buy pants gets paid payroll I believe. So

so we pay we we give them yeah we give them allowance of footwear steel toes that we require and for pants and we give them shirts, t-shirts, sweatshirts. Uh what else do we That's it. I think that's it. Yeah. Anything else we provide if they have safety glasses or something like that which they do. I guess the boots falls on the safety. All right.

do use their own cell phones and we don't pay their bills, we give them a $20 a month stipen because um there's a good pay thing because they do use them. I think Kevin's heard about that some of the other meetings. Uh they get certain parts of towns the radios aren't so [clears throat] good and the trucks they don't come in so they use their own phones. So we do that

Yeah. The way technology is except my rocks don't pick up that much. uh if nobody has any questions or concerns or on it? We can have a motion to accept it as it is or whatever you would like. Uh, isn't that under? Yeah, that's under the consent agenda.

It is. Okay. Yeah. Yes, you guys have already accepted it. Yeah, we did accept it already. We accepted it. Sorry. [laughter] Had to explain that. You can still ask questions, but you did accept it. Yeah. Okay. Um, [snorts] let's go down. Who do you want to go down to now, Ruth? Since the

We'll table the the scholarship award. Okay. We'll table that one. That's the one we may be talking about. uh if they show up. Uh you have a copy in there of the mechanics uh job description. We're going to be looking for a new mechanic. Actually, there's probably a couple sheets. One of them is the one we have now. One of them is the revised one. This one right here is the one you we have now. [clears throat] And this one right here is the revised one, which actually better fits what we need.

This what we had. This is the revised one. Yeah. What is the differences? Can we Well, the difference is that our the original our our current one is uh basically is more designed for a mechanic that has a supervisor that works under works in the fleet. So, was told what to do, when to do it, was handed a slip and told to change the oilers. We're looking for more of a management position where somebody is um assessing the fleet and managing the fleet, letting me know what needs to be done and

okay, taking it's more of a giving more direction. So, I took uh from the town of Farmington and the city of Bangor took their two um and took out pieces and then added a few of my own. This is what we come up with. So this here will nail it right down to it just you could never say I didn't do it because I wasn't told [laughter] the only thing I had a question about on one of the I see it right here is uh on the second page here says the employee must frequently lift and or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and or move up to 100 pounds.

Is that common? Uh it's what they had on theirs. I 100 lb 50 would 50 makes more sense to me. I would like to see if they're going to do 100 pounds. I got help doing that. Yeah. I might have been able to do that when I was 17.

What page is that? Where is on the second? On the third page. Third page. Yeah. Oh, third page. Yeah. Third page. Yeah, cuz that must have been what it was in there cuz I know where I was before. We had 50 lbs. So, for some reason, I guess in Farmington they a little stronger up there.

They are normal. So, we can change that to 50. Yeah. So, that's a good idea. but once I got to reading this final one, I pretty much had it in there. So, for me, so we're looking for somebody that's kind of like Calvin said that they kind of uh set the schedule for the PMS on the trucks. You know, hey, your truck needs to come in for oil change. yours has got to have this or that. We don't want let necessarily let the drivers if the drivers notice it, they can tell them. But we want somebody to set the schedule. Kind of like what our company does. You know, we got a guy's in charge. He takes care of all the maintenance of it. And when your truck comes up, he gives you a call say, "Hey, we need that for sticker. We need it for tires. We need it whatever it is." And that's what we want. And we want a paper trail with it as well. So, we're trying to get it a little bit more proficient so that it's we don't have any hiccups

or as many as we can do without uh real people. Is he expected to come with his own tools? No, we have tools. We um we have tools. Yeah. Enough. Yeah. I mean, we've we we decided way back that it would be better if the town bought the tools for them because if they bring their own tools and then something starts missing, is it missing? Is it not? And this guy's got two or three of somebody's tools and this and we didn't want to. So, it's if the town owns the tools, we got the wet tools we need and that's what we've done.

How do you account for them? That's what we've done up till now. How do you account for the tools? Do you have like one of those gear lockers where they have to check them in and out or is it just open? I'm not sure how you

open drawer. It's an open drawer. the mechanic is supposed to be responsible for. Sure. So, okay. No, I lost them yet, but you know, you know, [laughter] well, you know, I don't see any being purchased. So, I mean, if I don't I don't don't see a lot of tools being bought, so they must

hasn't been an issue, right? But, I mean, you know, starting out maybe my preference, I probably would have said with your own tools, but now that we have them, it'd be hard to switch over now. So, now what if he came with his own tools? Most mechanics do. Uh that t this caliber mechanic probably has one ready to go

probably. And our last mechanic actually has but that's what we chose. He brought them in to gutas is what happened and used his and then I know like Donald they bought the tools where I worked before they bought the tools but I think you got to have your own tools and

it's different. Okay. talk to each town. If it became an issue, I well, in my opinion, if they're your tools, you're going to be you're going to make sure stuff's going to be accountable. So, if you're lending stuff out to other employees, you're going to make sure you get back.

But that's the way it's set up. So, no, I'm [clears throat] just asking a question. At some point, if it becomes a problem, I guess we could talk about a transition. But I don't know what you do with all the tools we have and how you I don't know.

We sell them to the mechanic. Sell them to the mechanic. [laughter] Yeah. Well, I thought about that, too. I don't how you work out a weekly buyback or Well, if we if it becomes a problem, I mean, we've had what, three years of it now. It hasn't been. So,

Yep. A lot of guys are pretty personal with their tools. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If and the other one of the issues we we talked about too is if if if the uh mechettic has its own tools and we thought about that a little bit and it's locked up and he's out sick on vacation and now we don't have no tools.

Yeah. So, you know, that was one of the other was trying to weigh it all out what made sense made everybody happy and that's what we come up with. Well, there always is that flip side. Yeah. Yeah. Calvin, just out of curiosity, is I'm just trying to decipher between the two, but is the this position the way it's worded now, you're looking for more of a supervisory position?

Well, not supervisory. No, management, just somebody to manage the fleet. But from a from a from a vehicle standpoint only, he's right. No, he wouldn't be supervising me. Only if uh only uh as stated here is if uh if uh I assigned some people to go

in and work on the trucks for the day, that's what we got to do. Then he he could supervise that work. Just help tell help tell people what to do. Okay. Kind of like a lead tech. He's the lead tech. So we have other folks that are going to be fixing these trucks too that he has essentially is what this third paragraph is saying. Supervised exercise

rally, but at times. So is other than you as the road commissioner, you have on here a working foreman. Is there another person inside that's running the garage for say that's going to be answering to this person or is this just maybe some added language? Uh well there' be just me working phoneman but it is what I was the way we had it set up is that if the mechanic has a project so I say go help the mechanic fix this then he would be in charge right that understandable so the mechanic is setting up all the PMS he's setting up all the um requirements needed to run the fleet correct he's not he's not necessarily um looking for your direction to set up those PMS.

Correct. Most likely with the amount of equipment we have, he's stuck inside, right? Well, unless you desperately need him outside. I saw that on the bottom here. That's a great question. I mean, is that common practice for the chief mechanic, per se, to be out plowing the roads also?

Is that pretty common in that fleet of our size? Yes. Sure. Okay. If we had if we were Auburn or Lewis didn't know, but a fleet of our size usually we need a full ton of mechanic. I'm doing a storm. Well, the way we've been doing it is maintain

mechanic comes in drops off his somebody comes in with a broken truck will come in and drop his truck off to the driver. I see other stuff is a little bit more. This might seem like silly questions, but don't know. [clears throat]

Some of them have been asked before, so that's No, that's fine. That's the way it's done in Po. That's the way we did where I came from before. Yeah, the small towns they that's, you know, they don't have a full-time they have a full-time mechanic basically, but he doesn't if he had a town this size, we got a full-time mechanic if we got problems.

Sure. Yeah. animal if that if that's all he did means that the PM is not getting Yeah. No, I understand. I I guess my this is going to be what the fourth person that we put in this position in the second. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Well, we have an interim guy that's in there doing it right now that that has worked in the past with our past mechanic up and on. Okay. But he's he was the only one really was qualified to work on it to keep things going until we decided what to do. So, and he may apply for this as well.

Sure. Okay. Because I know Ruth would like to get it in the paper as soon as she can the paper. Do you need it advertised for the position? I can't Well, anybody reads them anymore for new for jobs anymore? [snorts] You'd be [laughter] surprised

paper. set with this, I'll take a motion to accept this job description and we'll have take it from there. I second that. Moved and seconded that we accept this job description written. Uh amended. Pardon? As amended as amended with the

with the amendment down to 50 pounds. Correct. And who was the mover and who was the second? I was the mover. I second it. Todd was the shaker. Yeah. Discussion. And and this doesn't mean that over time if we see need for change we can revisit all these we have in the past. So

uh with that all those in favor opposed to vote. It's all yours. All right. All right. In the newspaper newspaper. Yeah. Next. Uh, oats. We have uh Ruth. This one little This one has everything except for these on it. Yep. Okay.

And and then chief's report has the other ones. Yeah. His is Yeah. Well, we can we can actually Well, we'll do these first. These every even though we have employees, every year we have to reappoint them out of the process.

So, these are all the people that have different jobs and the titles and who they are. So, what we'll need is a motion. And we can do these all and I'll big them up. We don't have to do them one at a time. We've got uh Do you need all the names specifically?

No, you could just make a motion to do all the the town and committee oats and then a motion to do all the election clerks and registars and presented. As presented. Yes. So moved. Second. Those in favor. Any more discussion? All those in favor?

I did. And then you also want to do the fire department. Yeah, we might as well do that one. That one's got three on it. This is fire was on this one. Uh just chief is on that one. Yeah, he has three uh he has some deputies. Deputy fire chief, deputy EMS, and assistant chief, assistant EMA director,

and that's on his fire report. Okay. uh I will move that we accept the positions of deputy fire chief, deputy EMF, EM chief, and assistant chief, assistant EMA director for the fire station. I'll seconded that we accept those three positions. Any discussion? All those in favor.

now treasurer's dispersement policy. No names on it. Just policy we have to accept. This is this one right here. Yep. Okay. So for most of our bills, please um we have to go through the process of the warrant. And so every two weeks we do this and you guys sign the warrant and then we can send out the checks. But we can make exception and the exception is for um revenue that we are required to pay for the state um there were motor vehicles, inland fisheries um vitals and also for payroll. So we can vote and that's what this one is where one of you can come in and sign that warrant. So we don't need to have a meeting and we don't need to say okay just one of you comes in and signs it and then we can we can pay people and uh pay the state.

Do we have to nominate one specific or just that as long as No, anyone can do it. Anyone's in I have been doing it because I just happened to stop here most Fridays. So they kind of the girls elected me to do it but I'm not the one

that actually started back when Janet was here. That's how I That's how I was uh given that job. Sure. They like seeing your signature on their check every Well, I don't know about that. [laughter] Yes, please. Yes, please.

I'd make a move to uh approve the policy on treasures dispersement warrants, the state fees, and employees wages. Second that. It's been moved and second that we accept the policy. Uh, any more discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Sorry, Jeff. And then we have the uh Tanodorm property tax payment policy.

Uh, in order for us to collect taxes as they are. In other words, the policy of the town has always been that if somebody put get gives me a payment, it goes to the oldest tax bill. And you want to do that anyways. And the reason being is because uh people don't realize it, but the the leans can foreclose. And so you want to give it to the oldest one so that the lean is is lifted before you pay the newer taxes because if you pay the current year taxes and not the old taxes, you could still lose your property.

Yeah. So we've always had that as a Is there any reason anybody ever comes in with where they wouldn't want that to be the case? somebody trying to insist that they we've had people request it, but um I don't know why you would,

right? But we still have to as a as a policy, we're supposed to just curious as to why somebody would want to do something other than Well, people do funny things. Yeah. [laughter] Maybe it makes them feel they're up to date.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean? uh you know like in a common land where there's multiple people that are maybe one person didn't pay their back share or something like that. That's the only time I could think of that would be triggered.

Yeah. Except for we don't really differentiate between I mean we we put in who pays that the person has that on the receipt but we don't really differentiate. The obligation doesn't change just right. Yeah. Right. Do we need a motion on that? Yes, we do.

Move we accept the uh 2017 property tax payment policy as presented. I'll second [clears throat] move and seconded that we accept the property tax payment policy for 2017. Any more discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Opposed? Sorry, Jeff. All right, that takes us down to departments and committees and the fire chief is he's got the top seat. I see this going to proceed.

copy of my written report. Do have a question to start off with. Made the assumption when I listed Keith, Lisa, and Curtis on this report that I heard I was on there, but is the part-time employee also on the other list? And do they need to be appointed on an annual basis?

appoint the public works guys. Okay. They're just hired. All right. Not appointed. Want to verify? No, I don't think so because it's not a specific They weren't official. No. [laughter] [clears throat] Okay. Um well then item number two, it uh the uh scheduled the meeting of the apparatus committee for this coming Monday at uh 7 o'clock. uh we have an eightp person committee counting myself that uh that usually reviews works on it makes recommendations and whatever. So anyways, it scheduled a meeting for them so that we could review the outcomes of town meeting uh and start the review process for looking at rescues and and reviewing the engine situation, but also at the same time I've printed out the response guidelines and I'm going to ask them to revisit the um see

if we can consolidate apparatus. That seemed to be kind of a a phrase that was coming out in quite a few corners. So, we'll take the response guidelines, see what we can do for still providing the same services but reducing the number of apparatus. I'll have to weigh in ISO requirements as well. Um, I don't want to fall behind ISO requirements and have the the town drop the class 10 rating because then our insuranceances will go up

substantially. So, um, but anyways, that's scheduled for Monday at 10:00. We're going to start it at that. We usually usually apparatus committee we start fairly early in the month in the season right after the previous town meeting because we usually meet at maybe once a month unless it gets intense.

Do you have Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Will you start the the truck that you were looking for? Is that is there another truck that's close to that and newer that that we own? Is there is there another first response truck comparable comparable to the one that you wanted [clears throat] to

You mean the engine? Just make sure I'm following what you're saying. Are you saying that for the engine we were looking to replace? Is there one that's already in the apartment that's close to uh there's actually two engines. Okay.

But engines engines, the phrase engine is kind of a catch all for anything that has a pump on it. So it uh [clears throat] there are two engines, but they're set up differently. And that's actually why I said I I printed the response guidelines for the committee

so that they could look because one of the engines is really not user friendly for structural responses. The one we were trying to replace is designed for structural responses. Okay. Low lower low profile. Everything's readily accessible. Has the full hose load that meets the NFA NFPA requirements and stuff like that. the other engine it's set up for it's our first one extrication responses and any of those special hazard situations like that. uh it backs up the other engine and it has a pump and it has a tank but it it's yeah

one of the things we'll be looking at to see and the other side of it is I need to where the ISO requirements come in is it's not just having a department as the baseline but you have to have certain equipment and certain response capabilities so you lose that class 9 rating so I'll need to look at that as well once we determine internally well hey wait maybe we could look at this this and this then we'll have to start doing. Okay. What the pros and cons for trying to do this, this, and that. So, that make sense.

Yeah. Exactly what I was wondering. Do you have any um uh is this is this the type of thing where maybe some external help might be warranted like with the companies that you know um [laughter] you work with the apparatus. You know what I mean? They want you to buy new.

Well, no. Yeah, but [clears throat] you know what I'm getting to is like for instance, you know, I don't think it's just a question of do you replace engine 22 or not, you know, right? It's like, okay, it's looking further down the road. I think, you know, for instance, one of the questions might be uh when there's because there's two vehicles on your schedule here looking at 2024, the the ladder truck and engine 21. So,

uh, there maybe maybe it's like, well, maybe we still need two engines, but we don't need the ladder truck, you know, or, you know, some other permutation. I'm sure there's a zillion different ways you can get. Yeah. No, it well, I guess to me, the external help doesn't come in yet. I mean, don't get me wrong by I mean vendors. I've talked to Bend some in regard to what the options might be,

but I guess first we need to determine internally what are these the services we do provide based on our response guidelines. Are we doing some that aren't on the response guidelines? Can any of those be consolidated? And then we need to make sure we have the equipment dispersed so that we can appropriately handle those. And then then we can start looking at the fleet and say well okay how could we perhaps change how the fleet is structured and organized so that we could maybe provide multiple functions with this particular piece of equipment. Then once we decide internally that well yeah we think we could make a workable system by doing this then the next step in it to me would be to bring in and we actually have two or three salesmen that live in the town of Durham that

Oh really? I know at least one of them would be more than willing to [laughter] help us and and not because of the sale. He actually he's he's helped us quite a bit and most of them are pretty good about helping us out and stuff. How much do you consider um mutual aid and equipment that neighboring towns have versus okay you know

well actually in all honesty no community has ample equipment to handle any major situation themselves um you know anything once you get and actually it's our response guidelines is structured that way we have we used to have mutual aid because of ISO not accepting mutual aid agreements we've had to put automatic aid agreements in place Because one of the insurance requirements that any one of your insurance companies is going to do to you, and it has done it to a lot of people in town, and they'll call and they'll say, "Well, no, we do have automatic aid." I'll kick them the agreement and oh, okay, you you have to be within 5 miles of a fire station. Even [clears throat]

and if you're not, you're considered unrated. You go to a class 10. Yep. If you go to a class 10, that's why many camps are not insured because they're in a class 10 and it just puts you can't after you pay that insurance for 5 or 10 years, it's cheaper to rebuild the camp than it is to insure it in the first place.

That's why. So the automatic aid takes care of that because if it [clears throat] you think of Durham and you think well okay five miles well maybe off towards Auburn line which that is the Auburn line on Auburn panel road is almost 8 miles it's over seven from the station about 7 and 12 7.7 something like that but that's our most difficult spot but with the automatic aid with Pel and the North Pel station that takes care of that. So we're able with the automatic aid as long as it's automatic aid agreement take care of it. Lisbon, believe it or not, Shiloh Road pieces of Shiloh Road and Day Road are beyond the five miles. And there's a piece of 125 that's beyond the five miles because of the road tra the travel distance. No matter which way you go, it's in no man's land. But

our automatic aid agreements with those other towns address that. So no community if you you ever watch whenever somebody has a structure fire it's like well they call out half the state. Yeah. Right. It's not just manpower based it's equipment based.

Unless you're in a hydrant area. One of the biggest reasons for that amount of equipment is water. Unless you have hydrants within your community. You you need to bring in water. it uh you know [clears throat] 4500 on wheels and and 4500 gallons on wheels it's you get a couple of room and contents going and and deepseated and you're going to use 4500 gallons on wheels. So anytime you have a structure fire if you go by a house and you see volumes coming out of a window and stuff the odds are good they're going to call a bunch of mutual aid and rely on it. But the other side of it is is where we're in the smaller communities and stuff like having that automatic aid in place. It's instantly toned. So we're all set up and trained so that you know if Paul comes in here and they're first off on one of our scenes, they're going to start the process. They're not going to stand there and wait for Durham to

show up. But it kind of gives you that good backup that contingency plan, which you will find the fire service is riddled with contingency plans. Yeah, we preach contingency plans, so we have to kind of be riddled with them as well.

Did that answer your question? Totally dance around it. No, no, no. That's good. That's good. You say a future rescue replacement. Yeah. Talking to the ambulance. Yeah. You know, the the rescue actually will have 12 years on it uh in 2019. So, I know it's only 17, but the committee to make a recommendation for 18's town meeting and the lead time on rescues is not quite as bad, but almost as bad as engines. Engines, it's a year

right now. So, seems like yesterday we bought that. [laughter] Well, actually, when I was doing the EMS report and I started putting that we started the first responder service in 97. Yep. That's 20 years ago. But, yep. [clears throat] Um yeah. [snorts] Uh yeah. So the the rescue will have 12 years. Typically you'll find most communities replace them between five and 10 years. So it's not just because of the mechanical thing, but I have to set up something for some kind of guidelines or projection. And typically you'll find communities, a lot of communities that use them on a regular basis. A lot of miles you're going to find they a lot of them actually go into a lease purchase agreement where they have five rescues every year. One of them's getting replaced. Something similar to that. So

5 to 10 years is about the lifespan of a rescue. I figured we tend to take very good care of our equipment and I figured it was cold volume and we we probably could get 12 out of it. I definitely would not on the the engine. I couldn't stand before people and say that it's a piece of junk. And I won't say the rescue is a piece of junk, but it is getting tired. We I we try to push it much on the rescue. We're on borrowed time.

Any particular reason? Is it just the way you set it up? But any particular reason why that one didn't get requested first? The rescue. The rescue. Yeah. Because actually the engine, if you think about it, if you my charts, it was supposed to be replaced when it was 20 years old, but we've been bumping it out every year for different reasons for the last two years,

two or three years. Three years. I think this might be the third town, the third time. I think one year it didn't make it to town meeting, right? And then the last two years it's made it to tow meeting and hasn't succeeded. So it it was it was spaced so

that wasn't completely smooth but with the savings plan we had a pretty smooth once we got the fleet up to where it is now. We had a pretty smooth even plane. Got a few ripples in it now but I think we can fix them. [clears throat] Hope we can

Yep. Good idea. [clears throat] Uh and then on the the other piece, Thursday evening at the I've requested we have equipment checks on the the first Thursday of every month. Um and the senior officers, the three you just appointed and myself are scheduled to start meeting on the pdium staffing far as the stipens and the other stuff. uh Diana and I the part-time person and I will have to work in our schedule for the so that we don't have as much we won't have as near the overlap we currently have. We'll have to adjust our schedule as we move forward with the PDM. So there will only be maybe four or five hours of overlap on our schedule each week. Um [clears throat] but then the stipen piece that piece should be pretty easy to to get into as far as the uh where that's mostly internal and we have somewhat of a process already in place. So I think I can just bring some recommendations forward the pdium piece

of it that's going to involve actually going out beyond the department and and posting advertising and recruitment and and things like that. So, uh, the next three over the course of the month of April, our hopes are to focus on the pdium staffing piece of it so that in your first meeting in May, I can come to you with recommendations and that hopefully by the hope I'd love to think that by the end of May, first part of June, we could be ready to start the process for the pdeium stipens. I'd actually like to see us start the first part of May. I think I can give you an outline on that stuff pretty easily. But um that yeah, that that's a pretty easy shift where that's internal people. It doesn't require bringing in new people or Yeah. So,

but anyways, that's what I've got laid out. So, we'll start working on [clears throat] that and I won't just wait till May 2nd to spring it on you. If we have pieces of it ironed out, I'll try to electronically ship it over so that you can have it to review and take a look at the work.

Yeah. Okay. At the hazard mitigation plan, we submitted our updated list of projects. Um, and it uh what can what is this? Hazard mitigation is uh instead of every year going to the swamp road because it floods um you raise the road

or something like that. So that like we've actually done it a lot but I don't think we've ever actually used hazard mitigation funds. There's uh it's a grant program. Good. requires a little bit of work and a project has to be in the plan in the first place, but if a project is in the plan um twice a year there's funds available and that you put in for the hazard mitigation project. So the I don't know if Calvin remembers off here but I think there's maybe 12 or 15 and they're all bow park estimates. You don't find tune them until you actually put in and get awarded. Uh so it's just kind of like a placeholder I guess.

Mhm. for certain projects and problem areas. What others are there? What others are there [clears throat] besides I I use Salt Road for an example? I'm not even 100% sure that it still is on the list. Some stuff on Auburn Pel Road. I actually think one of the pieces that was still in there was dam over the runaround pond.

There's a copy of the list here. Correct. I have my somewhere with me. [laughter] I can make sure we give you a copy of the list. It's too late to really change the list at this point. It's been submitted. Um, did you give me an updated copy after the meeting?

Not sure. I doubt it. I doubt it. It wasn't an electronic version. It was a a scribbled on version. So, I doubt if I did. Okay. And it won't the updated electronic version won't be ready until ABOG's the one that's actually putting it together. Okay. Okay. So, you were talking about possibly getting grants to help with that with the road over at Brown.

Yeah, we're applying. We could apply. There's no guarantee you're going to get them. Even if you apply, it's a prioritization and it depends on the availability of funds, but twice a year there's funds available. Um, yeah, I think Calvin's actually already working on a couple of grants and stuff. I'm sure he'll talk to that. So, but it'd be nice to see the applications going. It's We've always had a placeholder in the plan, but it is be nice to see us get something out of it.

We don't get it, somebody else is going to get it, so it might as well be us. Might as well be us. Yeah. Move on. Okay. Yeah. The other two items are just reports on the membership and their activities. We actually had one of them just complete fire officer one and two, which is a pro proboard accredited um state certification. So it's actually it becomes a national certification and it's pretty intense course. They actually they spend nine weeks up in Belfast and nine days up in Belfast for the the final week of the program at have to run write a bunch of reports. So pretty pleased with that. We now have a couple of them that have been through that and internally we're actually running a basic fire officer class. It's for Andrew County but we had eight students registered for the class and seven of them are still in the class. So, we're starting to get that uh leadership segment redeveloped, I guess.

[clears throat] So, anyways, that was my report. Unless you guys have questions for me, that was it. Any questions for Bill? Any more for us? All right, that was multiple. Thanks, Bill. Thank you. Move on to the uh code commissioner.

[laughter] Oh yeah. Oh, we already approved that. That was all part just approved it. Okay, that's all. Yep. since the last meeting. We've uh been doing our endless pothole uh patching, which this year is quite bad with all the frost and frost heaves we've had this year. It's uh just about a non-stop. I'm sure you've probably hit a couple already.

Mhm. If you haven't, you probably will. So, the next one, the uh job description for the mechanic. I guess we've already covered that. He got he got new boots. 2017 paving uh RFP was posted. bids are due this Thursday at 10:00 a.m.

and we're going to open them here at 11:00. So, is this is um this the time of year that RFPs typically go out or is this a little bit later than normal or this is the time for for surrounding towns? I mean, I guess we're

Oh, this is the not just because our town meeting is in April. We don't have to hold back on those or in fact, we're early because a lot of towns will hold off because the town meeting isn't until June, right? Or actually ahead of the ball game meeting,

right? Good. We want to get them first, right? Well, that's more expensive as time goes on. They go up as they as they fill their basket work. Mhm. I met with DOT uh last Thursday uh to discuss Route 125 and Melo Road intersection and uh I told him I would need a report from a traffic engineer just showing that what the benefits would be rather than just until I see something from an engineer. So, they were going to work on that. Uh the traffic engineer is going to get started on it and get back to me with uh [sighs]

I mean there's I don't know if you're familiar with the intersection. Oh yeah. Mhm. Quite well since Yeah. Yeah. You can give them a little background on that so they see where where we're going because there was some talk about trying to have that road closed. I stuck on thought was thought was um that we could just barricade the end of Meadow Road where it comes out onto 125. Mhm.

Uh and I told them, you know, I would talk to the people on that road, see what their input was and just before we even got started just to see if they were going to blow the maybe we go to the next step and and u but that would be up to the select board. But I said, you know, ultimately until we get something that says it's not going to create uh a bigger problem by adding more traffic to the other intersection. And so they're going to go

do all their measurements and put all their formulas to work and see how it comes out and get back to me with a report so I can give to you guys. And Kelvin, can you speculate why they want to close that? Well, right now

significant chief, is there a bunch of accidents up there or what are we missing? almost zero visibility. You got to pay attention. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. So, they're either going to redesign it, rebuild it, or um are they talking about that?

Yeah. And I did get a glimpse of square. They're going to bring it back about 200 feet closer to that house. So, it's a line of sight issue. Square line of sight. You look to the right, you can't see. That farmhouse is right there and you can't see. So this would be uh so we'll look at uh both options uh the new intersection as they proposed versus closing it [clears throat] see what the benefit would be and so I guess until I get that report back I really don't have much to tell you but

Bill you got something you want to input on that well just I want to comment on that it is a dangerous intersection I would agree with that it's dangerous and it is blind but most of the the accidents we respond on are actually a case of people going too fast for that

fast and right rather than necessarily blindly pulling out into the traffic. So I guess if you need that in in your interaction with them if you need that information I'd be happy to provide [clears throat] that information on the location of the accident. Most of them even though they come in for the intersection of metro road and pink road are actually a cause of excessive speed for the car.

Yeah. So they'll probably they'll probably reach out to you and ask you for your input as part of their report. Um so that's that's all I've got on that for right now. So and that would all be subject to public hearing and

Sure. What was just out of curiosity, you said you mentioned you stopped by some of the town folks that live over there. I haven't yet, but I haven't told them I would before. You know, if if I mean, if if if the neighbors were opposed to it, which I can't imagine they would be because a dead-end street would be would think would be better to have less through traffic coming by their house would be better.

I I don't I don't I don't think they'll be happy with it. My general uh most people that use that interception, we'll come up there, sit back and look first, pay attention, and then go. Yeah. Well, we'll see what the report comes back as and sure.

And that's uh and then you guys can make a decision if you want to put it out to public hearing or I'd start right with the people on that road and if they if they were opposed and I just bother requests of GP cog for the cooperative purchasing program. Um, that's where all the towns put in for the paint for the road center line. We have a bounty in town and for the last two years I've been here, everybody keeps people a lot of people keep requesting. I've get bunch of emails and so people have trouble seeing at night. Can't see the road on where they are want to know why the town's Brunswick's got it, New Glouester's got it, Auburn's got it. Why don't we have it? So, [clears throat] so this year uh both Panel and Durham are going to move forward with uh some striping. So we should have enough in the budget for about 6 and a half miles of road which would give us I'd like to get done is

um run around rabbit um Quaker meeting house all the way to Brunswick and Panel would go um their end of uh which is picket road to neglostster where their double yellow line starts in the glouester. that whole corridor going through would have a center line. Um the other option is a single white line on either side.

Mhm. Um so that be a fog line instead of a yellow line. So I find that to be better actually. Well, if you're looking at night headlights coming at your face, it's easier to find the white line to the right than it is to stay with a yellow line in the middle because you're blinded by those headlights.

Yeah, I think the white lines are a lot better. And not to mention some of the ditching. I mean, you want to keep people away from especially especially on those roads that you're talking. I mean, so bad. Some of those ditches are so deep they might not come back.

Yeah, they might not stay there for a while. I think it's more. u when those numbers come in, they'll give us a list of what each one costs. cents a foot and a double yellow is like seven. So be a penny more to do two whites versus a double yellow. I mean this year's price might be different. We'll find out when we come in.

so I've been working with Ruth and the assessor and streamlining the permitting and record keeping system. So, we've been redoing the U files and um got a book now where we keep all of the permits listed in the book so the assessor can just grab it, open it and go to the files. We had files, we'd have three different files for the same property. So, one in construction and one preconstruction, one post construction and one So, now they're all in one central location. Public works under CO. Um, Calvin's temporarily our interim co

I knew that. I was just trying to follow thought we were on public works and all of a sudden we're Well, I'm just giving you I appreciate it. Thank you. I got you now. We've been doing what we what I've been up to with um hope to um

hear from the D regarding the stream crossing grants this uh this month. Um hoping that they'll have an answer by the middle of April. If they do, um, we'll have to ask for a special town meeting and see what the board wants to do if they grant that, uh, if we do get, uh, a grant for the stream crossing. So,

well, what stream crossings are we talking about? Uh, Auburn Pound Road, two uh, big four big five foot culpins where sinking. Okay. So this is run I mean yeah run we we talked about putting it out there to the town before for the town meeting but we didn't have any numbers so it's kind of a host behind the c thing of the cart. So Jeff didn't really want to put that out there without really having some numbers. So see what happens.

It's a matching grant right? Um well it's up to 95,000. It's 90. It's a $95,000. You got a ballpark of what we could be looking at up there. And you're just about uh you'd be looking at about it would be about matching at 95. About 195 a piece.

195 a piece or 95 a piece? Well, it be 95 a piece for two of them. Yeah. Okay. Well, the total cost would be 195 with the grant would be 95. Okay. 100,000. I got you now. So, 100 grand if we get a grant. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If not, well, we wait till next year and see what we can do with that.

Keep putting disappearing dirt in. Well, they seem to have stopped. I think what happened last year was when we put the compactor over when we did the chip seal, it must have loosened up. Then we started seeing the holes appearing and they seem to have seemed to have slowed down. We put another patch in there. Oh, it's

full. Yeah. [laughter] Now we have a dam. Yeah. Divas are helping out. [laughter] Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Yeah. I'll be in Augusta for um uh personnel management training DOT. It's a uh program specifically tailored for uh DOT issues um public works issues. U there'll be a part two of that will be uh three days in May 15th, 16th and 17th. I know we had discussed putting Ron in there and u I had signed up originally in January. Didn't hear back from them. So I didn't assumed either they didn't get my request or something. So I reapplied last month with Ron and I both on there. I got an email back from them saying that my uh application was successful, Ron's was not, that the class was full, and that he was on a waiting list. So if there's a cancellation, they said he's number three. So, uh, that was the best they could give me on that.

I has a question. Um, and it's the chief might want to weigh in on this one, too. I There were I guess like three accidents within two days at that 136 Rabbit Road intersection last week, at least I heard about three. Was is there one, is that accurate? And two, was there what was going on in that intersection last night?

Oh, one that I heard of last we had to go fix the stop sign. Put a stop sign up. Yeah, that was Friday night, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I did see that one. I didn't see the other two was posted earlier in the morning. Yeah. So,

it's u it's it could be a Facebook thing, but the way it the way it was out there was like there was there was one one day and then two like the next day. it. They were actually the first one was not at the intersection. The the next two were at the intersection. The first one was actually further up just past the power lines. Okay.

Was in the area of 1355 Royalsboro Road. I know that. You might know that street. I don't. Was that your place? Where I grew up. [laughter] But it uh the other two were at the intersection with either one of them. Major Okay. accident. But that whole Carter is

our accidents are bad accidents used to be over by Quaker Comming Church since this Oh, I'm familiar with that. Three sessions of work there, we still have accidents there, but they're not the bad ones. Yeah. But I I'd be willing to bet in my career probably 50 to 75% of the bad accidents have been somewhere on that corridor, either at the intersections or on the road.

Yeah. the Quaker to rabbit to run around I've been hit almost twice there and I can tell you that the people that are coming through there don't even know where they are don't even know they they look they're just like this when they come up there one of them was halfway through the intersection before they realized where they were and luckily I was paying attention because

it wouldn't have been pretty they'd have been deboned and and I had another one that was actually a company guy was in a company vehicle he was doing the same thing. He didn't even He didn't even slow down, you know. Half the problem is this.

Yeah. And I cuz I I mean I'm sitting up in my truck and it's pretty clear to see and that's what they're doing. Have to pay attention. Most communities with similar area is because of that corridor. We that's actually one of we we probably do two or three major extrications on that corridor

and they love to pass there. all the [clears throat] time. I I don't get it. But they allow to do what? Pass. And it doesn't matter. Headed towards Freeport or headed back towards us. I'm on that quarter and they they right in front of the house. They're doing it all the time.

Oh yeah. Yeah. It doesn't seem to matter. I didn't know about the other two. Um [laughter] Yeah. Oh, I knew about it. They're not Facebook official. [laughter] Is this just something? It didn't happen. It didn't happen on Facebook.

These type of situations on long stretches like that. It's just is that just the typical norm that Well, if you think about that stretch of road one, it to me there's a bunch. It's not just the the tech because it's it's been there before. The cell phone thing was really predominant. It's just it's gotten worse. Um, but I I don't know if that's the cell phone or the volume of traffic that's going across there. But, um, if you think about it, the same thing we talked about the corner on 125, that corner on 125, you have two really nice straight stretches.

Yep. And then a a nasty corner in a community with no law enforcement that's usually patrolling it. Um, so most people that travel through Durham travel through Durham because it's a shortcut where you can make up time. Yeah, that's true. It's not necessarily always the shortest distance, but you can make up time. So, I think that's we've had some some of the nasty ones are in the middle of the the middle of the roadways. So, they're they're driver in attentiveness, speed

would be it's very rare that it's really road conditions. It's it's usually an attentiveness or speed or weather conditions. Would it help to put up u stop ahead striping on the road? Uh we are working on that. We've got stencils and we'll be putting those up this year.

I think we did that in a sec. Did we do that one? I know we did run around run the runaround to route nine. I believe that one there was I don't believe we got to that next one yet though. Did we? No. We got the stencils and that's I think it was waiting for the

I drove over some road that you put on there. Run around it. Yeah. But did I get to the other? I was The next thing is to go all the way through and do We just got those done just in time before they got too cold. But doesn't help if you're not paying attention.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think we'll wait till the surface pavement goes down. We'll hit that intersection in the next one. But, um Yeah. Cuz I know DOT just stepped in and they're going to put a light they're going to put a stop at u Route 9 in Elmwood and Powell. So

Route 9, right at the intersection in the town pal. Oh, okay. D is going to Oh, where the store is and everything right there. Make that a fourway four stop. Putting a putting a traffic light in. Really? Yeah. That's see a lot of problems there.

They they they monitor all the accidents. So I don't know how they find out. Do you notify DOT when it's an accident on the state numbered road? Somehow they know. So they know. By the way, I not usually and usually if there's damage that I've seen, I I go through you even though it needs to go to do for some of this.

Well, when we have the bad one over here, I know that DOT was there. They had a whole crew there analyzing there for that. Yeah, but how did DOT hear about it? I don't know. Augusta, they they told me August [clears throat] they can hear radio. talking.

Think about that one in particular. I mean, that one Route 9 in front of state medical, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not for that one. That's interesting. So, how they I don't know how they would know without getting reports from you people on every accident unless the police notify them.

I don't notify him. I'm responsible. [laughter] Well, when you meet with the traffic engineer, you can ask them. I'll have to find out how they know. Oh yeah. But anyway, so they so when when they determine an intersection has had too many accidents, they will step in. We had a request last summer from AFCO studying

GPCOD. GPC go to studying the what what intersection was it? The was 125 and uh yeah 125 and uh they wanted to know how the light what our intake. So they've gotten some they're doing some research on that one up there on Pink and Brook Road. But the one down in Elwood, I know that they did step in and say they're going they're just going to go ahead and put the light in. So they wanted the pound to pay the light bill for the light. [laughter]

um is there Ben any research on cerosis corner down Route 9? Nope. Not that's a DOT thing and I don't know the you haven't heard. Oh, it's probably the worst in the section in town, isn't it? It's a racist corner. Yeah, that's awful.

Yeah, but most people are cautious. The our actually that stretch we were just talking about is rapidly becoming not just the worst, but the most frequent down there. We have fender benders, but a lot of times it's it doesn't a lot of times it doesn't even involve us because it's usually most people have no idea where to go. So usually when you have no idea where to go, you either go really fast and scoop through or you slow down almost to stall. One of the two. So [clears throat] usually usually there will speed there. So even when we get called we have bikes bikes are usually the worst ones there because they'll they'll go down through there and they'll get gravel on the corner and they'll move it into the guard rails and stuff.

Yeah. You see a lot of bent up iron co. Yeah. So, they haven't done any research on changing that. I don't know. I mean, they may have. They don't tell me everything they're doing, but I I'm just asking. I haven't heard anything. So, they did extend the the dotted line further up around the corner. So, you're actually supposed to come up around the corner so you can see before you go. It's really not a straight shot. It's kind of up around the corner, then a little bit of a It's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't happen that way.

[laughter] Wow. If you see the cars coming out a small probe, they don't stop. No, they don't. They get going and they look to their right and they floor it. So, they get the momentum to get up. They told my wife's car with her in it.

Yeah. That way she was headed to headed to work and I never even stopped coming right across. Yeah. So, the only car we both what we had we both liked. [laughter] All right. Anything else for Kelvin? Anything else for us, Kelvin?

Nope. All right. And we shall move on to our upcoming meetings. Regular sections meetings will be administrator report. You skipped me. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, we did. I had a check mark. It was too big. I'm sorry. I don't generally have a written report and that's because everything that I want to talk about I put in the the agenda. Um, but I did hand you guys all out a revised budget overview

taking into account the uh the votes from town meeting. So this is what things look like that. So that 3.40 number towards the bottom under municipal mill rate. What is that number? Okay. So our total mill rate last year was 18.8.

Yeah. The 3.4 4 is the portion of that 18.8 that was the municipal mill rate from last year. Got it. Okay. And then the increase in the mill rate this year was 0.15 with the new budget which corresponds to about $15 per $100,000 of valuation. Now, this will change a little bit depending on our reimbursements from the state and um what the the uh RSU ends up doing because it's it's weighted differently.

Yeah. and the county we're 4.8 plus the schools, right? Schools looking to be around three percent. Yeah. 35 or something. Durham it's for Durham when it's net or well for all the towns combined it's five something but once you break it out by town because of what happened valuation how they figure that we're are we're looking at 3.05 05 I think is the estimate now

and I was talking to Brian Pike who's one of our school board representatives and that three that it's currently computed based upon zero dollars coming from Augusta it for school aid towards administration and they don't expect that to stand they think that there will eventually be some money state aid money for administration so it would bring those numbers hopefully down you know pro marginally it might be 3.02 2 or something like that, you know, anything else.

Yeah. Right. So, yep. What do If you guys have any questions for me, I can Do you have this? We have to sign this. Yes, I have that. You have a lot of things to sign. You guys are going to have writers cramp by the time you're done. Um, Ruth, are we going to put the code enforcement officer's job for bid or is that

Well, there's been several different um ideas regarding the code enforcement officer. Um, do we want to go into that tonight, Mark? We do, but not right now. I think we should touch on that, bring these guys up to date. Uh, we go into our executive session for personnel, we can I can kind of bring you up to date on that.

Okay. That's what I was looking for. Just get up to date. Anything else? I'm good. Anything else for Ruth? Anyone? All right. Sorry I skipped you. Up andcoming meetings, our regular suppments meetings will be held Tuesday, April 18th at 6:30 and Tuesday, May 2nd

at 6:30. And the public is always welcome to come and ask questions or add their two cents or whatever they wish. And with that, we'll go into executive session.