TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ May 14, 2024

perfect I just want to make sure our live stream's working so we don't run into any issues like we have a couple weeks ago um all righty hello everyone welcome to tonight's meeting here at the firehouse starting time of 6:30 and it's the 14th of May we'll start off with a called order establishment at Corum we get that and Pledge of

flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all keep all righty so any um amendments to the mentioning that the question and answer should be on the new business but to keep the folks from not waiting we moved it up to under all business yeah that's what I was just going to note I I like that we did that so they don't have to sit through all of our old business um any public comment tonight okay seeing no public comment let's go right into our first agenda item in the night question answers with property reevaluation companies um like Jerry said this would normally be under new business but we don't want to make them sit through everything so I figured I could um invite you know see how you folks want to do would you rather ask both all the representatives here questions at the same time or kind of hear from each one first and then ask

any followup questions you might have does anyone have any Jerry can we get those windows Clos just so it doesn't pick up the background much you just never know when the microphones they might pick up a car screaming across the road or something like that cool um well Jarry do you want to introduce who we have here with us tonight and we can let him speak one at a time uh yes over here to the left we have Justin uh po right uh from dero

have uh from KRT appraise and what' you say your name was Rob toer t z come up first and have a seat yep absolutely and let us know anything you might want us to know about this and we can then open up for any individual board member to ask some [Music] questions do you want start no let you okay so we're we're a a small appraisal firm um we do very um we really only do

like kind of one Ral at a time there just four of us than any um um subcontractor staff that we might hire to do uh the pickup work in the field but but there's four main people it's myself David uh Nicole Stenberg and Kathy mooy we all um um three of us come from uh main Revenue Services as we as we mentioned in our appraisal David was the director for work well you worked for the state for 40 years 39 30 39 years I worked

there um for uh six years three years director uh we have another we have Nicole was Municipal services manager so her job was to basically serve municipalities and they want um we've done a few currently we're doing their revaluation in readfield um Woolwich um Monroe uh David previously did one in Winterport uh we also serve as agents in several small communities as well we do agent work like you know like Donna does for you guys um I'm happy to answer any questions you have I'm not I'm not sure exactly what it is that you that that we can that I can help uh answer any questions that you'd like to have all righty thank you um do any of you have any questions about the process or any questions based off anything that they just said or any anything else that you'd like to ask oh am I not on no oh boy

trying to not always go first no I we would like to I'd defer to your questions because they're always good so year I see um we're talking about April tax year for 2027 correct that's what I mean right because they nobody said that they could get it done by 2026 and so this is sort of a question for you maybe for Donna um when I was reading through one or both of the packets I saw like a completion of August 13th or something like that and I'm just wondering when our bills go out that if it would if the the reval would hit the bills for the 2027 tax bill it would be as of April 1st of 27 okay it would be later than we usually commit but not by much we're also talking about changing to a fiscal year so it would fall in line that would kind of be a normal commitment time for a fiscal

year um but yes it would be as of April 1st of 27 okay and you're comfortable with that knowing that that we would be looking to do that you're comfortable with a completion date in order to make that happen yes okay um um well let me let me jump in real quick it effort to be completely Fair maybe we should sorry back up a little bit and let um Rob introduce himself as well and so we can pose the questions at the same time and let them each answer that's completely we don't want you to get all the questions and then Rob be studying in the backing not so if if you don't mind just scooting to the side and we'll bring maybe bring another microphone over for Rob too so we can you can sit or you can sit wherever you'd like there so Donna you can come up too yeah if we're gonna have questions for Donna too just so people can hear the answers it might be best to just sorry Debbie and I will just or Deb and

I will just yell because we'll share a microphone here so the sesting community is small so we all know each other outside of that so you know so we're happy to do I think right right Rob we're all friends here so it's like yeah yeah so I guess gu before we ask the questions we just let Rob you introduce your and give us your background as well

or so employees and uh doing this for 24 years um yeah we're happy to be the project and forward tonight and then that same question for you the completion in time for us to be able to do our commitment for the 2027 tax bills early mid August be done 27 okay thank you you want me to keep going yeah if you I want to make sure everyone knows that they can jump in with questions at any time but if you want to keep going that's fine um so I read in both of your

um proposals about the way that you notify um the residents that you're in the area um and one of our board members that wasn't here tonight brought that up also um I can't remember and I apologize I've reviewed all of this today um are your cars

certainly an option we would ask uh you what you are comfortable with whether you want it to say um Durham on it specifically our company name whatever it is that you want we can make it happen you know whether it's a magnet or something on the door we can do it in any way that you are comfortable with okay yeah we magnets they're probably big it says car to your appraisal assessing office below it okay always

have vehicles Mark as such they wear a yellow neon vest have a landard with their badge on it try to be you know hello here we are we're new NE today and and can I add that we also would take you know ID of of everybody uh and what type of car they're in and give it to the Sheriff's Office as as well so everybody if if somebody calls and says this a strange guy I mean we tried to make sure that they're idential no matter who it is uh to local police or Sheriff so okay yeah we'll post on the website of pictures of our data collectors with a little blur of their car information and what neighor are going to be in for those coming weeks okay I think that that's important we like based on some of the things that we see not on our official Town page but some of the comments that we see in our all things Town page there are definitely residents that are very aware if there's a vehicle that they don't recognize and very vocal

about it and it turns into a whole thing and so I just would really want to build that like PR relationship with the residents to let them know that this is happening and the expectations and um not not ju for everybody's safety also you know just so so that I I think that that is an important point to make um do find that when you are easily identifiable res I'm sorry that I'm a little bit ignorant to this process that people are less likely to let you into their

times um we're doing this work during the week so a lot of people aren't home okay to be honest so it's it's uh some people are more comfortable some people are proud to show you their house other people don't want you anywhere near it it really really does depend on the on the individual that you're coming and would you say that that's the same experience for you yeah that's the same we do our best to get into every property obviously it's not going to work it's 2024 people like their privacy these days which we respect um yeah we want to see as many properties as possible on the inside we're certainly knock and give them our Spiel and hope they allow us in and then if you don't if you're not able to enter Then you make educated guesses about like what kind of flooring is there you know like that type of again I just don't I guess this is process question no I think this is a good question cuz regardless of

what we might have access to I want people who are watching and people in the audience to hear exactly what this process looks like because I know questions we are going to get is do they have to come into my house what do they have to see how long are they going to be in my house do I have to be there are they going to take pictures um those sorts of things so if you could kind of describe each one of you go through and you know I'm sure it's similar so you can bounce off of each other but uh describe what the process looks like as on the receiving end as a homeowner who let's say lives on Pinkham Brook Road like when will I know you're coming what will it go like so Rob if you want to start sure so before we start we a postcard out to all the folks in a certain area you like to batch it into somewhere between 1 15 and 300 Parcels so we can do that over the next few weeks so we get a postcard in the mail

basically saying you know somebody from K appraise will be coming to your house in the next few weeks um with a little explanation of the process so our guys are going to show up um unannounced but they will that postcard ahead of them knock on the door ring the doorbell wave to the ring camera All That Jazz and uh ask for interior inspection if someone's home if not then we'll just measure the outside of the property measure the building take all of our notes verify that extra information and then at the end of the process we'll mail out a letter to all the folks who did have interior inspection asking for a phone call for an appointment to see the inside that'll take place in probably February to April of 27 so that's pretty much the nuts and bolts of know the life of mhm you don't look at any windows I mean no but if you're measuring a deck you walk by a slider you happen to look in we're not going to

be like you know sitting there with our hardwood FL okay just asking yeah yeah it's hard not to look if you're just walking by slider or something we got a full Vista you know Windows of course but that's pretty you say that's a ilar process as to how you do it or is there some differences there absolutely I I try to drive up to the property with with our door sign facing the house so you know if they haven't seen me then when they answer the door if they are they'll they'll see that I hand them a card that identifies who I am and who at the town office they can uh contact and the phone number at the town office that that they can call uh I've had very very very few problems with with people I've worked in a number of towns and uh I'm must have a friendly face or something I did have one guy pull a gun on us but that was I'm surprised it's only happened once I know that's part of why I was asking do you

all send postcards out in advance as well we can okay you can okay yeah we've uh like with wowit we sent the town sent a letter to everybody in town that said that we're going to be engaging with our work starting in a certain and we just sent it that all went out and that was it after that so it's like at some point from this point on there may be somebody knocking on your door so it just kind of depends what you're comfortable with and what you expect is how we kind of do it another question I know will get are you gonna do you have to get on folks roofs no no so people will ask that you know and uh do

anything like that okay do you compare the results to permits building permits I was reading something about building permits you know if you see an outside shed do you somehow see if there was a building permit uh with the town um if we show to a property and there's a shed there but there's no shed on the card we're just going to pick up the shed we're not going to get into was there a permit was there not a permit be chasing people around forever if you have to do that just pick up the shed new shed and after the card to get

card you mean there's existing cards for each property that have the information on it that you're going to look at and then compare ver I see yeah so we take what you currently have and we go out in the field we verify that what's on the card is correct and if there's anything else that we find while we're there we will add that to it I so somebody built a garage with no permit or for whatever reason Donna didn't know that it happened yeah we would pick that up and just add it

yeah is there a peer I'm sorry and the same is true if there was a shed and there's not one there you'll take it off correct absolutely is there a peer review of the data collected or once the you know you do 300 Properties or whatever is there some evaluation to make sure uh different assessors have similar uh perspectives of the outcome sure we do a lot of QC so basically um once getor visits the property there's a lot of folks that see that card before it gets uh finalized uh we'll do um quality control from our office we'll flip the cards as they come in just make sure this just Checker stupid basically make sure Dimensions aren't missing or nothing's missing and then once all that stuff datay entered and we run our original analysis we got into a field review basically drive by every property in town with the cards at the carard saying all right does this make sense what I'm seeing in front of me versus

what's here in the C checking data checking the value checking the subjective areas the uh the grade Quality Construction the condition of the home I we'll check that out the field yeah do you we're smaller so we are going to be the people doing it so there isn't going to be there isn't the same he he has a bigger company so he has more people to do the work so it's going to be me or David or Nicole um will'll be the ones doing the measuring and the listing and doing it so we don't working together for the first few days making sure we're on the same track before we split up and do our own territories oh it may bu up just depending on how it goes you how much time it takes so I thought Jessica was harassing my kid but she actually had a question for you um do you need space in the town office or other another place in town for the for for the work or we do not uh we don't require it but a little space to

like a small desk like something a little table to leave stuff may be helpful filing cab may be helpful but we don't need any of that stuff it's just our folks are going to check in in the morning the town hall just say hey we're here for the day you know about these neighborhoods whatnot so they may need to come in and do some sketching just have a place to you know call home for 15 20 minutes or so thank you all we would need is when we get to like the hearing point you guys can decide where that is but the hear yeah the hear whether that's here or some other location that you think is appropriate to meet with taxpayers that's all we would is that something that you attend on is that something that you attend those hearings um for the most part I

need to keep my mouth shut because the truth is they handle it and then once they are done it's me so um for the most part I will sit in but I don't have an opinion until until everybody's done with their job yeah and and I'm I'm personally ignorant to the process so I'm asking this for myself but also I know other people want to know what you mean when you say the hearing process so I canbe that okay yeah yeah you like so basically when the values are are set we send out a letter to all the folks in town saying you know based on the revaluation in 2027 you new assessments listed below uh please call number of any questions or to set up a hearing with one of our Representatives uh it'll have their old value their new value uh the number to call then folks will call us uh get on our schedule for uh a 15 minute block we'll go over the record card go over any questions that you have and just explain the process

make changes we needed uh if it requires a site visit we'll have a schedule available to go back up to the field and visit a property uh it's just the last process last stage of the process to really validate the information and to hear people's concerns about the work we did what the assessments wrong the DAT is wrong what not and if folks are comfortable with the letter they Reed do they have to set up a hearing with you or okay just double op do you ever see people that like you made assumptions because you didn't you weren't able to go in and you may be over assumed and people want that retracted to they now want you to come in because they don't have granite countertops or do you do you see people reaching out for those reasons yeah that could happen yeah so sometimes you have to make into you you look at what's currently on the card and you look at what the house is and you have to sometimes you have to make an educated

guess about this house is x amount of size I can see so many vent pipes I think there's three bathrooms and they may come back and say no I really only have two so you know sometimes you kind of have to do that that's part of the process that's the give and take that's why you have the hearing so that the home owner has the opportunity to tell you that what you collected was incorrect okay y thank you that is that fair Rob does that make sense well and and can I add the thing about the hearings is we also do not know what our tax rate is at at that time so when somebody gets a value that's three times what it was before most of it is also the fear that there's they can't tax right so it it's and it will be more of an education at that point to let everybody know just because it's three times more in no way means and because we are not going to estimate the mill rate until we're we're just not going to estimate

the mill rate right I think that's you know the resident's biggest fear my value goes up and I automatically equate that to my taxes are higher and I I read in your um information that you seems like you have a strong communication policy up front uh with what you do there but you you've probably experienced that in past uh reevaluations where people just feel like a please because it's been so long since our town has done this and the prices are so high right now yeah and even if we had done a revel in 17 would

still be in the same boat right right so it it's just the market now so yeah about three years between now and then so the market may stay we're seeing the values are still similar we're just seeing a lower inventory it's just nothing the market any to it's crazy but the values are holding uh so you know we don't Crystal all to determ what they're going to be in three years today

we end up with hard these hard C hard copy cards cards yes per residents yes and then both of you provide electronic data in some database that is provided to you Donna so there is a file for every every uh property in town and we have property record cards that date back into the 80s

70s and it's in that file right now we use Trio for our assessing package and it works because we're a small town and we don't I mean there's other programs that have all the bells and whistles and they're fabulous but tril works for us because everybody uses it and can use it it's easy so uh when we're talking about

the electronic form or of assessing it would be the trio assessing package that we use now we use it for tax collection and anything you do at the Town Office goes through tra okay so the the bid price includes both companies loading into Trio for us or okay yes and we're good there yes outside of the field visits we do most of our work Trail so we do is in in your system already oh you actually go out with I iPads or something and we we just

take copies of the cards town office okay and and take them out and find Find the Errors make the corrections pick up what hasn't been picked up in the past delete what needs to be deleted yeah and it's one of those things where you know you can you can update what we're doing is we're correcting records as we go right and you can use that in your system each year between now and 27 to to improve your records or we can just do a a a separate system a play System we put all our data entry until it comes time to finalize everything and are all the measurements that you take like just with a normal tape measure are you now into some kind of electronic point A to point B laser or something or other could you explain that our guys use both we have a 100 foot tape with a little reel in handle oh yeah and we have a little single laser pointer where you can just kind of you know Point here to the wall tell you

the distance comp here to the wall you bounce off something we got this big device called the Ze that for any really large property like a big commercial property it's this little magical wand you walk around with and it takes a 3D image of the structure and uh you can skip off the measurements from that and uh those are the three devices that we use tape laser and big laser okay everything except the big thing that he's talking about I'm a tape guy the manual tape guy

yeah yeah either of you put together any kind of like video explaining who you are and what you do and the process that towns can put on that website so they can click and say oh all right you know these Guy this is how it works have we ever done anything like that done video we did one in Bruns back in 17 where we actually showed videotape the data collector knocking on the door walking around the house doing the interior inspection getting the measurements we put that up online for a while we done but uh we do put like I said photos of our our folks on our website and information with the vehicles and what no we haven't made a video

no I mean I think I think the biggest issue whoever we choose is going to be notification to the town and uh you know you know that's you know and then you see like what happened in Brunswick and and that stuff but that's that's that's all conversation and people list and yeah some people are going to do it and some people aren't going to pay attention so and notifications are the big thing to me I mean I'm sure you all experience working in smaller municipalities where there's like a road where when your car turns down it's the first time a car that isn't one of six cars has driven down that road in months so people are all on high alert so just that's probably a lot on our our end too for outreach to make sure people know but also just making sure you know everyone has had ample opportunity to know that someone's going to come knocking on their door um I don't have any other questions do either of you

have additional questions I have two oh do you do either of you have any other project commitments for 2027 um I don't think anything sign might have M7 25 M M next [Laughter] year don't FL on me now that you have that you may have or do have signed is signed okay do folks have any other no our only other actually Redfield is oh is that is that supposed to be done for yeah I'm the assessing agent in readfield I've been working there since 17 um and and one of our partners uh

Kathleen and I are working on that Summers so I gave them a good price and said you know if we can do it over four Summers we'll honor this price and they took it but it's we're going to have 90% of the work done by 26 MH what's the actual

time frame it takes to do a town like Durham is it a three or four week process two mon process it really depends on the assets that you can throw at it if you have a lot of people I mean you can you can come through and you can hit all the houses in a matter of weeks if you have the uh staff do that for us it would be certainly it would be probably a year of doing a field collection for us cuz we would only probably hit you know 50 houses a week 60 houses a week 70 houses a week depending on uh when that was so it would take us from when when snow melts until the fall if you have more people you can obviously do it faster I mean if you can come in and you can um you might be able to explain that better because you guys are bigger than us so you guys can probably hit yeah we try to do it number of St a town minimum I don't to people here and haveone over here try Lim it to just a couple of data collectors and um yeah

we'll start out kind of slow maybe one day a week one day every two weeks and we'll ramp up as time draws near to completion probably finish dat collection February 27 my guess so it'll be a slow process okay but to to Deb's point it's not like there's just going to be this one month where everyone's going to get their nor door knocked on it's just going to be like hey over the next year there this is what's going to happen so yes that's correct and I know you mentioned that you batch things and send you said s something about sending things out um when you batch them will that give somebody will they get uh when they get contacted that'll give them a rough idea like in the in the metric of weeks to when you might be there or is everyone just going to be told hey sometime in 27 someone's going to knock on your door no I'll say in the next 45 to 60 days okay we narrow it down we'll once we get that patch done we'll go to

batch two new postcards B new post guards so we just keep cycling through the Bates and that's something we could probably post on our website as well right yeah it's on our website so you can certainly adds as well and how about for for you all similar different or whatever you want yeah yeah whatever you want to have we typically uh kind of work through the maps that you have so like you know we'll kind of start in one area town and we just kind of keep moving methodically through that process with the roads that make sense you know sometimes the map doesn't quite work because a subdivision might go into another one but you know you can kind of think about how you look at the town with the overall your overall tax map so we'll kind of work through that in some way that makes sense and then another question for both of you um because I know folks want to know what are your hours of operations and days so weekday

only weekdays and weekends evenings what what's that look like for folks just for us just weekdays we be Monday through Friday probably get into town around 8:30 kind of take a half an hour to your group regroup to get your stuff ready for the day and by: knock on the doors done by 4 430 on the season obviously we limited in the winter to Daylight um good same okay yeah we agree we're not going to be knocking on people's doors on Sundays or Saturday yeah I didn't think so but I fig i' ask everyone fair question yeah well Justin are you the current Town manager in Monmouth in mouth yeah when I read that I was like how does the town manager yeah well and the weird part is I work for him in so we work together there it's a very small like like yeah and Rob's done lots of rils for me in different places so he's doing my revil a mon yeah this is how this this is how he's going to do the reval for my wife who's the

assessor in Oakland he's doing that too so it's like we're all it's a very small community like I said when we started been blowing up we're getting phone calls every two to four weeks just asking for prices C why we're now into 2027 yeah and that's you know and we wanted 26 I mean we hope for there's no way we were going to have 26 so the whole idea now is you know yeah and speaking of that what would the

what when do you need to know in order for us to be able to lock in 27 when do you need a decision either one of you when would you need to know it sounds like you might have some other things pending but you know I just want to make sure that we don't wait and then all of a sudden you're like it's looking like 28 now so we'll lock it in 2 you take a

couple months a couple months not going to start anytime soon well right I was kind of hoping that maybe in the next couple of weeks between now right okay I'm not a for we're not going to yeah that way at least I know too and then we can have communication for whatever we need to do yeah we're in the same boat I mean a couple of months would be fine for us honestly so whatever you guys need to do can't you say like next week we can say it we can we can say it that's how we like great think I think that's how we get out of that situation where we just like kind of keep push push like I don't I don't think we're it's just easier for us to like deal with what's I'm just finding out if that it's like oh we've got two other people we need to know tomorrow you know it doesn't sound like that's the case so uh did you have another question and maybe this isn't even necessary for me to know but I just feel like I like to

understand things um so I ask a lot of questions maybe you got on to that um can you explain that like what what's happening here where these things are different what are these examples of what am I looking at I know that this is Trio I recognize that this is Trio I'm looking at the what's in there right and so they have different values like listed can you just explain what's going on here it's just it's just it's just an example of cost schedules okay Tre the the cost schedules for for pricing out structures is that what that is oh okay I like are how's this working are these like the different values in different towns and you're giving us an example of what the different values in different towns looks like where like in one town a regular lot is valued at 60

okay I understand now thank you appreciate that it's just an example of what cost schedule look we developed those for your community based on what we find in field basically got it thank you and so then um Town staff is not involved in the process at all you get the contract go do your thing you deliver hard copy cards you deliver electronic data in Trio it all goes to our town folks and we go from there and and can I can I answer that I've been here for a long time I was here with the last Ral in 2010 one of the things that happens is if somebody is upset over their value they come see me well you're upset you keep coming keep coming keep coming so when we have a re the whole idea is I am out of it we are paying people with fresh eyes to look at it come up with values you know it might be something I've looked at five times and I look at it the same way but somebody else will look at it and say right and the whole

town is redone that way we paid them to do a job until after the hearings and all of that information is turned back over we have no opinion of anything you will have certain things that you might need to make make decisions on whether or not we want to assess above ground pools or canvas sheds yeah those kind of things

the select board decides that is that what you're saying well you are the assessors right you know I will make recommendations to you but you live you you're the assessor so there's things that you'd have to decide but for the most part we stay out of it once they give it to us every appeal then comes to the town so we try really hard to get it right the first right and have let everybody do their thing we have faith in in both of these companies are great companies so I I have no problem with whatever we do and so The Upfront communication to the town like this is going to be happening and this what it means is that left up to the select board or when we sign a contract with either of you you're actually hoisting a board that communication piece which I think is important you know so people who have strong reservations about having their property reassessed just understand why it's the right thing to do what it means

what what's the potential impact to their pocketbook maybe but you know that just that upfront communication getting everyone to understand it when Heather mentioned this to me a while ago I was like oh my taxes are going to go on and then I went on YouTube and I found this awes like four minute explanation that no one could have probably said you know to me to understand I thought wow we should do the reassessment I mean it was really good I clearly I clearly didn't explain it well no no actually I could relate to what you did but just seeing it I'm just wondering I think that's a big part of just kind of calming people's concerns over this there's no question the town will like you're saying everybody that I've SE seen talk about this has been like why would we do a assment right now all of our values are going to be inflated and we're never going to be able to afford our taxes so we don't like if there's Outreach that

you all have available or material like that to present that's great or maybe that's going to fall off this might be just more of our discussion right now might fall us and they wouldn't start for a while because they're not even here so it would fall on the town early you know and we want to make sure that we put things in in the town report newslet and we have how many tax bills that are going out where we could say this is coming and here's your explanation and then we don't have to pay for extra mailing yeah three years that's right that's right right I have ideas and I don't want them to have to sit through that but I'm making my notes of like QR codes in the tax bill so does

that just to does that wrap up every question we have for you all and you look like you have something you want to say so I want to give you all the chance to tell us anything you think we need to hear too I worked for the state for a long time worked with with Municipal Assessors for a long time and we always talk about Equity we want Equity amongst the taxes you know we want fairness amongst amongst the taxes and we understand that but taxpayers generally don't then there was a one lady assessor came up with a saying she said she said we can all agree that property taxes are unfair it's the Assessor's job to make them equally unfair for everybody that's right that's 100%

and we we do have that on video so we can go um I just had one more question so I noticed in the back of your um packet of information like the lots of like digital enhancement type things um but I don't see Trio specifically mentioned in yours maybe I missed it I apologize if I did I just want to make sure that what the way that you're collecting your electronic data will work with our Trio system of course okay okay and it doesn't put more work on Donna to have to do entry like that would come from you no no no so so what is also in there is is a a great assessing program which

is Patriot Properties and we're going to we're going to use it in in Mammoth I'm going to go from another great program to to Patriot and normally I would say you know we need to up our game and and and get a better program but not in Durham Durham is a trio town they work great with what we have there's lots of people in the town office that kind of cross into into looking at real estate

side of it and then the tax collection if that is to come to to Durham it would be just mine I mean we wouldn't have anybody else that would be able to get in it it I want to say it's too high everything for what we use and I I mean that in a nice way I want everybody to be able to get in and and and see what we have and using Trio is the best for

lot of good information today um thank you all for coming and answering our questions and hopefully hear back from us it I doubt it will be two months before we get back to either one of um any any closing comments that you'd like to make no I just want to say i' love the work with you folks that's all I think qualified for the

having us thank you thank you take care thank you jna for being here welcome nice to see we haven't met but nice to see you technically new business let we move to Old business for the purposes of conversation we might want to just stick with this one before we move down our further line of old business and just come up with uh maybe discuss a timeline on when we would want to make a decision I think we got a lot of good information I don't think we're I'm not proposing we make a decision tonight I actually don't think we should I think we should kind of ruminate on this a little bit and also give uh Joe the chance to watch any the video um so he can he can chime in as well so I don't know if we want to talk about putting this on for decision for our next meeting or the meeting after or what folks think so and Jerry if you have any insight here too much appreciated yeah I think we the 28th

looks good to me I mean that's what I would try to it's going to be it's going to be a long hopefully it's a long meeting with a lot of presentations but um it might be I mean it might be a good time I to me I was asking Jerry if we should do it we need to go into an executive session to discuss this because I think we want to hear what Donna has to say in her that was what I was going to ask is that if we could ask her what her and so Jerry said she she could come back at the next meeting yeah she coming back oh she left she coming back she's out she's out parking yeah that was going to be my suggestion is that I know we have a very busy schedule for our next meeting um but I do think that it's important that we um lock this

grab her and ask her if she can stay for executive session just so that you can I don't think she was planning on it you can getting in her car leaving okay so I think we should I I think waiting I think what Joe said is waiting for yeah for we're good phis I think she'd be willing to come back on the 28 it going to go yeah or even or even if you had a conversation with her and came back and reported yeah can do that yeah that's what I was just going to say is I mean it sounds from what Donna is saying is she's worked with both of them comfortable with both of them this is just up for us to make some decisions review the proposals give Joe Tom time to watch the video and review if he has any questions as well and then we can just see if Donna will come the 28th and we can handle any necessary questions in an executive session and then we can make uh or if we're just comfortable making a decision but I'd like to make

the decision this month because we have a lot to do this year and this is kind of seems like an easier thing to check off the box and we can tuck it away and then we can talk about strategy and I don't want it to be a longterm like decide next couple months you know so I agree unless anyone else has a different opinion does that work for folks to no I I think it Dove Tails into the next topic yeah before we move on to the next topic though just a quick question does the the pricing that they um gave us fit what we put in the town meeting that got voted on okay yes it

does perfect okay see no more questions on this we're going to move to Old business B 2024 work priorities and board committees I just want to say I thought that it was excellent workshop last week I really feel like we got a lot down I think it was a good session for us to get input from everybody I think it was a great session for us to all share our our questions and concerns we certainly listed out more than a Year's worth of work so like Jerry said when he looked at the list at the end of the meeting like hopefully some things are getting put on uh the back burner um for for the following year instead and so I just wanted to go through the uh the list of things we have here and kind of get an idea of how we want to prioritize them and how we want to go about making those um those things happen so I thought maybe what we could do is set the set this back up and kind of just go through

and talk on each page and just kind of have a have a vote of what we want to list as our board's top three priorities for each each uh organization or each um group in town and then we can communicate to those groups this is what we want you to work on this year like I said if if the chairs or the or the members of that group then say this is not what we want to work on and they disagree with us we can have a separate oneon-one meeting with them but I think it's really important for folks to see that the decisions on the process are coming from the board as to what we should be focusing on at this point we can also highlight things that we're going to need additional resources for um like I said last meeting not everything if everything's a priority nothing's a priority so we should come up with a list and if we have must have if we have multiple situations where there's something all these things have to happen this year

and there's just no way we can make it happen we need to talk about how how we go about that and explore options whether it mean you know things we kicked around you know Finding assistance elsewhere or um putting some things on a moratorium type discussion temporarily those sorts of things so I think it's just important we think about that as we're going through so one we didn't talk about and I don't know if it was necessarily a fit for last week but Donna raised it today is going from the calendar year to a fiscal year yeah um and it sounds like um with this reevaluation in 2027 that might be the right time to get it set up so I think do you want to add it to the one that like didn't have a home so yeah so I think I think that might that's going to start with us um and trickle down but I think I would like to make that a priority based on this conversation tonight I wasn't a priority for me

before yeah but new information I think you're right I think but that's with us the boards and the Committees wouldn't be looking at that so can we just add it to that one that doesn't have a home the back page the very last page we just want to put that on there that I I just want I just want to put that out there because I think that's a conversation it will trickle down a little bit but it's like it's like me with the policies thing or the fee schedule that's us that's not them that's not them so it's separate and I think what we're doing here is if we're highlighting what's for each one of those groups we're picking up anything that either Falls for us or doesn't fit neatly in one of those so that's where we can add that so when we come up with a list it might be this is a conservation committee's main goals and objectives this is historical society or historic district commission and then we

will set what we are going to do as individual as a individual board as well yeah no and we had the law enforcement I think a couple other things but this wasn't mentioned but I want to add it to that right um so I want to maybe start

with planning board rather than Conservation Commission because we just know that some of the planning board stuff gets kicked to the Conservation Commission and in the past that's kind of been done by the planning board almost directing the Conservation Commission I would be more comfortable if that Direction came for both boards from us as opposed um and so we I want to start off here as to what our top

objectives are within here so Josh do you want to start and tell us what your sure top three would be the top three we have a marker there's some right here I think the top three and I think it was prioritized by by John would be the the battery storage the resource protection refinement I think that you know one a one B for me mine's

so tally there so battery storage resource uh RP refinement for you this is the top two do you have a third one that's your top and all the above yeah and and then the rest okay how about you Deb I have why is the battery energy storage system so high on the list I mean I don't know enough about it it's like is it something critical that's happening in the near term that we are that we are getting some inquiries and some and possibly some applications and and right now that would fall under the conditional use permit yeah and it's to catch really important to catch you up on our last year's stuff is what we realized is that we have the just a set mode of operation of things for permitting like you know building permits Road permits those sorts of things and everything else that doesn't fit neatly into something is put into the conditional use category which does not give enough guidance on some of

these new emerging things so like if someone wanted to put in a cell phone tower Tower or a wind turbine or a skyscraper or something like that we don't necessarily have those things and when we started looking at things that are happening in municipalities around the state Solar Development and battery storage is one of them and and so just to clarify a lot of folks when they hear battery storage they're thinking about as part of energy projects like oh we're putting up this generating facility let's put some battery storage but like I said at our Workshop some of this is just for uh infrastructure projects of just stashing big arrays of batteries to store power from the existing grid for for high volume needs or that's my at least understanding okay and the town can't just like okay let's defer that request until we have some yeah because then you're get into a situation where after you've received an

application people are saying well now you're changing the the rules so that's why it's up there with which is why I suggested potentially a moratorium if we needed it but that has to go before the town and they have to vote to put that in place and that's where we talked a little bit about moratoriums are more or less my understanding jur is to say we do not have adequate resources to address address this right now so you don't put a moratorium and then it's indefinite oh we're never going to get to it no I know you know that I'm just clarifying because I think sometimes when people hear moratorium they're like good we never have to think about this this being something that we talk about in town whereas I just want to clarify that's that's not it and you have to meet certain requirements to to get there you can't just you can't just do it right yeah okay then I would pick the same top to and

um I guess I guess as we talked about with the assessment if you're not happy with the results you can go to a hearing we're hearing public comment that they're not happy with the results I just I forgot to add the fee structure for the meetings that Heather you brought up that was you know for people keep coming back to to the planning board I think that's something that falls under our duties um and note that

to them so that they are a little bit more aware of the fact that we do have the ability to do that right and so that's something we do we decide we could do it once a year we could do it periodically so more you know as so as so that's something that we should discuss if it's if it's happening a lot then probably should be on a meeting sometime soon the issue of um not granting permits to people who owe back taxes too yeah I think that's on so I'm already seeing we're going to have a recurring theme of every page we're going to come up with things for them to do and then more for the back page and then we'll have more to dive in there but this is really important because we also don't have to think about this as a one-year goal like I think it's really good to think long term because some of these things build upon each other so I gave everyone three votes per page and people are only using two votes so do you have

a third what you would list as maybe your third priority of yours I think their codification issue where we at so that there that that's going to happen yeah that that's right but that's that's I think I think it's still good to show that we're setting priorities and we're making those things happen too so Heather where did you want to fall on this so um I agree with those three choices um is that where you want your telling yeah I just I want to make a comment about absolutely um two things

one I would entertain the idea I think Juliet brought it up about a possible consultant situation for the battery storage um because that is quickly becoming the top priority and if that was off the planning board's plate it frees them up to do some of the other work that um that we have to to work on so I would just while we're designing this and thinking of this I would also just like for people to keep in the back of their mind mind that we potentially should explore the third party option I think that's a good point but my question is Jerry for something like that when that have to have been budgeted for yes and so that's I think that that's a challenge right now I tend to agree on

that now that you mention it because I think that this is something that gets very technical very quickly like just like from like a engineering standpoint it's much more foreign than things that we're used to um so so how does that work like if we need technical expertise and I know that our planning board is amazing but I don't think that any of them have I mean I know we have George but like if we need technical expertise to be able to design an ordinance around something like that and we haven't budgeted for that how does that work well it's tough because we don't have the budget to do it so we would have to do it inhouse until we develop the budget or raise the money to do it so I have a question about that J sorry we do that I mean we can we can consult with whomever and while we're talking about these things I know that we got that paper when I first became a board member of um services that GP Cog offers

to municipalities whether by cost or not and I'm I'm just curious to know if we're ever cross referencing with what GP C offers for resources to be able to help with these types of things I would probably use them sparingly cuz they're another government agency that sort of you know they work for and they're stretched yeah

like they're a year behind just on this thing here okay so to get real good technical expertise you'd want to get a a consultant yeah you to to to right now we're diving a little bit into how we're accomplishing these things I just want to rank them right now okay but you did bring up a good question so not that I'm suggesting this as a solution but just to understand in if for any of these things if we find them to be an emerging issue that absolutely needs to be addressed but we're worried about not having the expertise or the time and you do go to the moratorium r that requires a special town meeting and at that same special town meeting does that could you do a Amendment to the budget to say we're putting on a moratorium explaining that a moratorium has a as an end date and that we're going to ask to raise additional funds or or move funds around to hire a consultant or yeah because that's just one of those things that

like this isn't like a a moratorium of six months isn't oh and then six months we think about it again you know we need to be very thoughtful on that so I don't want to dive too much into the how right now while we rank but did you have another thing I just want to follow up with what you said I don't think we could raise more right because we've already committed taxes but we could put pose a question to transfer um out out of the general fund or you know whatever we can't raise in the middle of when we've already committed tax s that's thank you for that's not what I was I wasn't trying to say raise but that's you clarified the the verbage there for me which is important so I appreciate that so having like a how do we get to it my top three are the battery storage definitely RP and then codification yep so that's going to be my three as well for me number one is the uh RP refinement just because to clarify for

anyone watching at home or anyone in the audience there was a um issue raised about the current resource Protection District and someone had a member of the uh state government come out and do an evaluation on their property and they discovered new information that wasn't available during the original resource protection drawing that is pertinent and several landowners have brought it up so I think that with our commitment to always going by the best available data and the best available information we should fall suit with that and focus on that so that's why that's a big one for me battery storage for everything that's been mentioned tonight is a big thing for me as well and then the codification which we know we have allocated the funding for and this will is one of those things that's important to me because I feel like anytime we can make something simpler and cut down on staff hours to figure out answer it saves US

money and allows us to do more things so now that we've talked about the planning board I want to go back to Conservation Commission because I think sometimes that this gets overlapped with and this is where we can start ranking

these for for them so we started with Josh last time start with you this time Deb if you want to rank your top three do you know I'm sorry do you know if they found out about the grant yet wasn't it weren't they supposed to find out this week yeah and I haven't heard yeah okay Jess you haven't heard no what what's say uh this is the a committee if formed so the agriculture committee that's being talked about by some members so I'm not exactly sure I think that the the note on here from our meeting was we would want them to work together okay so what I I actually took like detailed notes while we were talking and their um their note

about the egg was um working with them in the second phase of the solar ordinance to um do sighting like what SES would be appropriate and then what sites would not be appropriate appropriate given the fact that they valuable resource agricultural you know land we wouldn't necessarily want to put solar Farms or whatever on those properties okay and and having them help out with that process integrating yeah so um Deb do you want to start with your top three for this group um yeah another clarifying question though if we already voted have those other two things on I think that if we were to get in a scenario where we voted that it's a priority for this board and the planning board we could then direct one to work on that for the other so like if you if you were to say you know um B is really important here and you think that they're a better place for working on it this is I think where we would Mark

lead so when like for example with the resource protection that has to be done through the planning board but the leg work was done by the Conservation Commission and so I think that the reason this got put here was because the thought process might be the same that oh well the Conservation Commission should be involved in the leg work of that um whether we agree that the Conservation Commission should be involved in the leg work of that is kind of up for us to decide so I would say the open space grants Y and

the solar part two okay cool Josh well I think uh I think the leg work for the resource protection started with the conser conservation committee last time and it should start there again um and I also think the open space Grant and solar cool Heather uh RP so other than the planning board hosting I think that should go exactly like it went before where the Conservation Commission really drives that and then um and

then um knowledge or understanding of what the battery storage entails in terms of board's ability to like develop standards in terms of like buffering and stuff like that um but I do think that the Conservation Commission needs to be involved to make sure that we're not putting battery storage in areas of high priority and so I don't really know how to rank that my my understanding is why the Conservation Commission was involved with the solar ordinance is that because it's it's uses a large land space of land and that's and that the planning board did not have the capacity to take that project on last year so the planning board asked the Conservation Commission to do that for them I'm not entirely sure that coming up with the battery storage Falls neatly within the Conservation Commission is perview in the sense that outside of the fact that it just is put on currently potentially put on currently undeveloped land I

don't know what the conservation tie is to that um so what I wrote down for notes was joint planning board session potential battery storage projects in town that was what I put for a note and so I think those two committee they're going to work together already and so I mean my concern is saying well the conservation we want to direct the conservation committee to do this and pl Bo to do that is they're already working together they've shown the ability and and that includes you know the start commission like they all want to work together they all want to help out everybody so to me you know I voted for

the RP updates because it started with them they have that experience knowing that they're going to be working with the planning board I think the battery storage is something similar where they'll work together to sort of end with the open space um so I agree so to what you're saying Josh is if if this ends up getting the battery storage getting assigned to the planning board we would then say but please work with Conservation Commission and historic district um to come up with a plan so

because there're that's going to be something that they're all interested in participating so this might be better reserved for the planning Bo the planning board and then having them break it up equally okay because oh go

ahead so then those three things are the things that I would know as my top three things yeah and the RP update being well it's really hard like the open space Grant well no in my mind this has to happen this year there this is like almost non-negotiable in my mind in terms of most important thing that we have to do because of the severity resource protection update because of the severity of it because of we're getting a lot of feedback from the public and because we developed that data protocol and some new information has come to light and we need to make sure that we're being as fair and Equitable as possible that was in in because of the comp plan and so in my mind it's RP this open space thing here I think that's important if they capture those funds to then utilize them because that can help help drive a lot of discussion about things like this and this so this to me is like number

one and then this is number two to me um this is going to be a big lift the solar ordinance part two what the planning board and Conservation Commission brought up last time was talking about more or less creating like areas within town that are for lack I don't want to say zoned but essentially say this is an area where if they modeled it after like let's say Topson they would say this is an area where you're paying a mitigation fee of x amount of dollars per acre if

you go here that mitigation fee is two times that and if you go here it's three times that so just throwing a very broad example it might be if you're putting it in a field that has Prime agricultural soils it might be three times more expensive than if you're putting it in a a brown field or something like that now this is very that process that like topsum has is very intricate in the sense that it's more or less putting additional restrictions on some people's property and then it's also creating a fee structure that we don't currently have where does that money go towards what does that money go into so this is a big big lift if if that would involve I think our approval among along several different steps there so um and I don't know if this is a realistic lift if they're doing uh resource protection updates and they get the open space Grant and they end up getting pulled into battery storage so

so for me I I think where what needs to happen is and I I keep saying this right is that for a very long time I think that we've always been a reactive or living on one year at a time and so while while we're doing this and I think this is incredibly important and I love the trajectory that we're on I do think that we need to also like start getting a little little bit of planning that's happening out more than one year and so if we're moving towards that then I would say that might not happen this year but I'd like to see some movement on it in the right direction are we telling them that they have to do XYZ or we're saying these are our priorities these are the ones we'd like you to work on but if you can do RP updates open space Grant and one other thing you know that's up to you is we're we're saying here are our priorities they're going to have to figure out what they can and can't do because I think

these are all priorities these are our top priorities so you know I I understand you're saying I understand you're saying that you know they have to do this and this and this for the solar I'm say they have to do that that's just what they had vocalized but I still think we can call it a priority and and they have to figure out what they can and can't do understanding that it's one of I think at least three three of us have made that one of our top three priorities right uh and so they should if if they can't do it this year with the other things I think they need to start planning in the future and I think they can plan for next year while doing these other things and a perfect example to that Josh is why we got to this solar part two conversation anyways because last year they their priority was creating a solar ordinance they came up and re through the process realized we we're going to have to break this up

because we can't do it all at once so let's do this later and so I think what you're saying is if we're saying you have to do resource protection update and we then we prioritize open space and solar it's kind of up to them to then decide do we think we can take this on here we need additional resources or we need more time is that kind of what you're saying right and like you know I think resource protection updates was something that they said blendy Bo said we've said uh is number one yeah so I think we're all on the same page the other thing is I think they you know the open space Grant goes away if they can't if they don't get the grant right right that's true that's a good point job and so then you know then maybe they could do solar or maybe they're going to say we can't do solar but we can work with the ad committee and we can help out in this these phases of the battery storage yeah me when we started this discussion

it was here our priorities for them with the understanding that they're going to do what they can and you know I think the only one that work that I'm going to say has to be worked on is the RP updates U but I I expect them to to come back and say hey we did the RP updates we couldn't do X we couldn't do solar but we you know we could fit in this or this and this or this especially because some of this open space planning might drive the solar it all drives the solar the battery store it it does it all so I think are we in agreeance then that we're saying to the resour to Conservation Commission we need you to come up with a solution to the resource protection issue and then we want you to prioritize open space Grant and solar planning communicate with us with your needs and your timelines as you go along yes and then one one other point to that is that I think it's really important I think I had said this last year and I

just really want to make sure it happens this year is that we reach out to the other boards and committees the way that we do to the department heads in terms of I know it's CIP right and this doesn't fall under CIP but give them the opportunity ahead of when we're making the budget to be able to budget for these types of things like if we had money in the budget right if they if we like put out the request to these other boards like what do you need for resources in order to get the battery storage done and if they said we need a third party consultant and it's going to cost us $50,000 we need to know that ahead of budget season and so yeah and I think what George is for I think yeah but I think that that's part of what we're doing here is we're setting the priorities setting expectations that's getting diverted to boards and then people like the boards are going to be communicating with people like George

and Jerry and us and then we're going to find that out now moving forward so rather than just saying oh we can't get it done this year it's going to be what why and what do you need and then we can take that into consideration when we're developing the budget but when I'm looking when I'm thinking back to the budget season and like what the planning I don't remember what the heading was this year what that budget looked like I don't recall there being any extra it was basically salary planning board salaries right and then like map updates and stuff like that there was no there was no like budget to do any resources

for projects I that really needs to happen agree that's something that that George needs to ask us for I don't I don't think putting that on the the planning board is appropriate I think George needs to know this is what we're working on this what we need to work on here's what I need so is that direction we can give you and your pass that right put it in the budget it it helps when it's supported by the select board yeah we won't we have another one of the sessions like we had last week where we're all together and we get an update on you know these we got some maybe we should do it more than that's what that's right so my plan even after we come through this my my hope would be that to to kind of change the process of how we've done this you know looking back from what we've learned but looking forward to the future I'm planning we know that you know a lot of things have changed in durm a lot of different

pressures are existing so we're building something like this and rather than the the um discussion like it sometimes has been the passive you get what you can get you can get get to what you can get to and then we'll just move on it's saying these are priorities and not necessarily a priority of well we'll get to it at some point saying we would like these addressed and so addressing them might be we did number one we did number two and we're now presenting a plan on what we need to get number three done George is communicating that and we're just setting the expectation that we want these things worked on so then during the budget planning that's where we're doing the ask and that's where you're going into the town saying we're having all these needs you are all vocalizing this is very important for you to get done we do not have the resources to do it all right now the only way we can do that is either Kick

the Can down the road or acquire additional resources and I think that this is the basis of that rather than getting to the end of the year um kind of like what happened with the the um the reassessment where just at the very end of the year at a budget committee meeting someone said we should fund the entire thing this year and do it that wasn't really a process of of inclusion of the boards and the Committees that was just someone saying let's do it and then saying we we budgeted for it it's there now you know and I don't think that that's the way we want to do things you know so anything else on Conservation Commission so we've got planning board and conservation anything we want to add to the back page of select board to do list that we might need two pages for now all right um let's seeing

are some priorities here for folks uh Heather do you want to start because I think we working down the line here um communication okay and Jerry if you have any in here I do I'm just letting you f then I'll then I'll pipe in when yeah cuz I do have some stuff that's okay okay so for me um I would

say that um amending the land use ordinance which that also ends up falling on the planning board but they'll do the work to get there uh sorry it's me thinking out loud the name change um I mean Union Church is in the process so I'm not going to put that as a priority because we're like in that already um I would really love to see the but again this is the kind of thing where like they were going to have to ask for the budget to do the survey of the buildings but I would love to see an inventory of the Town mhm um I would

love to see an inventory so I know you're thinking out loud but that's the whole point of this process is like I'd like to see this done we know that that the resources aren't there right now but this is where we start building that demand and then finding the solutions so inventory of buildings those are hea's three Dad do you have any if there's if if you don't feel like you have any weight anything you want to add that's that's what okay as well Josh it wasn't name change until after last meeting because now I'm totally getting it confused every time I think about it yeah and I'm probably not helping throwing in it's it's I had I thought I had it down and now I'm I'm putting mine right there already but I the the land ordinance I think that they've already done they're just waiting for uh Jerry and George to sort of look at and go through uh in the survey of buildings I agree to get a plan going forward so

that we can get a a budget for that um because I think the other stuff you know the only other thing would be like communication to get out to the you know I think Lois mentioned that going to the school and and those education things which I think they love at least she loves to do I think from what what she said so so that that's where I'm getting here is like I think that everything that they have listed here are important things that they like to do but this is where I think we're making that priority so um Heather you had something else so just when we're talking about the land use amendments this I I know that right now like we talked about the permitting right like if it's in the historic district they have to sign off and the planning board has to sign off and there was a little bit of discussion around the fact that when there um is a historical property that's not in the historic district that they are informed

part of the process um whether or not that has to be part of the land use ordinance or if that become because I mean the process for when people go through what the conditional use permit and that type of thing right we have their standards listed like that process is part of that and so you know I brought up the Parker Schoolhouse being torn down and the historic the historic what is it District commission I usually get it right um sorry everyone they weren't they weren't privy to any of that and so when we're working on those amendments I feel like that that has to be a priority

that's a priority for me I don't know where they put land use amendments 5.1 for A2 I don't know if those things are going to get covered with what it is that I'm seeing but as part of any type of process that goes before the planning board if it has a historical component to it I want them to have the option to weigh in yeah I think the communication piece there I mean I I was surprised I don't know why I was surprised but you know Shiloh Chapel was on the pamphlet here I'm part of that that um area and uh I wasn't really connected with the fact that we may have to reach out to them on certain things or so I think U making sure the community understands what's covered under this umbrella and what it means to us yeah Jerry do you have anything to add here with this yeah so um the land use amendments so when when you're dealing with the historic district commission and the code enforcement it gets very confusing the

way it is in the ordinance right now so this needs to be looked at now George looked at it a year or two ago put together a report and it's sitting there I think you folks ought to have that and look at it and the commission has also worked on ordinances and I don't know how that meshes with what George did so I think to kind of move this along I think there needs to be a meeting with the board yeah with George and the commission to to to to straighten this out because this this is messy so that George meet with that group and then come here with what they believe is the right way to go yeah I think it would be better if we did it together yeah yeah the reports all done I mean George has done fair amount work on this so that's that's a priority for me because this needs to be this really needs to be addressed so that's the land use ordinance yeah so like put a mark on that like George wants to repeal

12 if he repeals 12 fixes 90% of the confusion others may not agree so that's why we need to get together and and really hash us out on how what this is going to look like so for me name change and addressing that concern right there are the number number one and number two name change because both of these deal with confusion and what I don't like is the way I think about it is our land use ordinance and our documents are our contract with the town as you know elected officials we're trying to see those rules followed and brought to fruition and everyone in the community should be able to access that information and know exactly how a process is supposed to work and if there's not Clarity there it makes things very frustrating and it makes communication very difficult and it makes you know you you bring questions of equity and proper process into place and I think that a lot of our Growing

Pains have been around things not meshing together super well so for me I think that this is a these two are things that are are my like these things have to happen this year knowing that they both would require a town vote doing it at the same time I'd like to think the name change wouldn't be a huge long debate but we never know but I would like to really think that we address these two things so that would be my number one and number two and then obviously this doesn't mean that they don't get to participate in everything else that they're doing but we already have something on the Shelf maybe blow the dust off that to a place where we all agree and uh and move forward so and then surveying the buildings is important one too so I think I would say this is number one well this is number one number two number three Jerry you're going to have to do all my uh I'm going have to translate this

for anything else on historic district commission and as a you well it's not de you and Josh mentioned like all of us getting back together I think that one thing that would be helpful is like the department heads give us monthly monthly or bonly updates I think that updates from the boards and commissions especially now that there's like priorities and goals set more frequently even if it's just a written update or something like that would be great because then we know in August we're hitting a brick wall on this as opposed to knowing in you know December that they're hitting a brick wall on it and so I think that that two-way communication makes us feel like we're always kind of moving things along or or identifying needs and that's the big thing is is we're going to have to find Solutions identifying the need and saying that need is based off of of a goal I think is really helpful so George puts

together a pretty good month about that stuff so so that's we've so far we've historic district commission planning first because I haven't started first yet I think just getting organized is important for me number one infancy and they're really just starting like all of these things are pretty important but I think getting organized determining what the options are and then um the direction short and long term are the important things for me because right now we just need to find out what's on the table and and um like Curtis said you know realistically you can say don't change anything get rid of trash collection collect differently get a transfer station like we just need to know what those are and then evaluate those in some ways determine a fiscal note associated with them and figure out which way we want to move so they just have a lot of leg work to do right now and so I think that this is someone we

might a group we might want to check in with pretty frequently even if it's just getting a written report from them as to what they're doing because this is also really on a lot of people's minds too yeah and the thing with this I think is you know time goes fast and I think in the email they talked about maybe a monthly meeting but they should really have um upfront Workshop to really organize themselves pretty heavy duty I think upfront I mean I think they met yester they did meet yesterday oh good I wonder how it went yeah there's a lot of people interested in this topic who won't be at the meetings or anything like that this is one of those groups that almost like a monthly report from them I think would be really important because this could quickly become a very convoluted or a very big fiscal note you know now and so I think that constant communication from them because and also I just want to

buffer them a little bit because there they're going to be a lot in the public eye right and so I want folks to know like you know this is work that they're doing on behalf of the board I mean them a maybe you know be a little

closer with them and give them a timeline to bring a some sort of deliverable to us within three months let's say we want an options graph of you know what you thought about what are the pros and cons of each idea and but give them enough time to put something together that they can present right are we at that point I mean I I feel like we're putting a burden on them and we're going to get people to say I don't want to do this if we start saying three months from now they're Gathering a lot of information right now I mean I gave them a bunch today I gave him a contract I've gave him Ecom main stuff I've given them the last five years of the tonage that we have I mean they're they're just getting they're data collecting right now I mean what what I would like to see from them is you know the organizing which it sounds like they're doing they're getting the information they need um the options which is something

that I think is going to take time they're going to have to talk to people and that might be where something like GP C can come in and say Here's what these other municipalities are doing or even hey uh this municipality can partner with you to do something and you can both save some money uh but but it's stuff that I don't think realistically is going to happen quickly I think they need to they need to figure out what they're doing which is what they did last night and the information you're providing them and then they need to come up with options and I think that's going to take time so you know as much as this is a big issue I don't want to put pressure on them to get it done quickly I want them to do it right uh and I think that's going to take time and so for me I Envision most of this first year being let's get the information let's talk to people let's gather the options and then you know the end of the first

year beginning of the second year is here are the short-term options that we could do to start saving money on the tonnage here are the longer term options after this contract ends um so for the first year for me you know yeah I'd love it if they figured it all out got it done but I don't think that's realistic and I don't want to put that much pressure on them because I think it's important and there are a number of options for every different thing they're looking at and I think that you know while time flies they do have some time because we're what five years with the current contract so they're really one of our longer looking boards because they're trying to come up with a solution for five years from now right and and so knowing that that's going to take time maybe an important intermediate step would be coming up with recommendations for ways to reduce tonnage right that's what I was going to

say is that like if I'm giving a is it my turn yeah absolutely um a priority I would like to see before like the short term and for the short term for me that means before the next town meeting is a way to reduce tonnage like a you know like either the composting if we're going to do that what does that look like like that type of thing and then long-term goals like I think there's a lot of things that they have on their list but one of the things that I would just say is like if we were going to entertain a transfer station where in town would be a probable site for that that was that's I think that if they're considering that like like it's kind of important to know if that's even something that could be a viable option here what I'm hearing from the group is and I agree with you Josh being really thorough here is important it sounds like spend they your recommendation Josh is getting them to

really spend this year getting their ducks in a row getting all the information they need getting organized getting structured as being a top priority and then from Heather what I'm hearing is the next priority would be at the same time also helping develop a strategy for tonnage reduction and that's where that could include other committees so does it sound like that is a reasonable talk too yeah cuz I'm I'm with do you de in terms terms of like I sorry Deb I'm with you in terms of like really liking to put some some timelines up in terms of goals because I think it helps keep keep us motivated but to Josh's Point too I'm sure that like this is there's a million moving parts and I don't want to scare anyone away from participating either so I think that just coming up with this is a good is a good strategy and good middle ground so so this will be

right any questions on anything so to them my goal my goal and I'm open to anyone's feedback on how they want us this to be done my goal was to be for us to set our policy objectives and then we can either send out an email to everyone because I feel like we all talked about these things we can either send out an email to each group and organization and and say this is what our policy objective are is for this year please focus on it or we can have another meeting where everyone sits down and we we share that it's just I know it's hard to get everyone together um but I want this to be kind of I want this to be communicated like in the next couple weeks like we set either set our policy objective tonight or next meeting but next meeting's already getting very busy I'm fine setting it tonight I mean and then we communicate that it's just how does it get communicated that's do you have does anyone have any suggestions I don't

know why it wouldn't just go in a letter from Jerry on behalf of the board saying here are the board's priorities here's what uh they've prioritized for your border committee U feel free to reach out to me and the board if you have questions or need more guidance as long as that works for you Jerry I your word I know that we like to when we think about the distribution it's like the Committees are kind of our staff whereas the town employees are kind of your staff so as long as you're comfortable communicating to the Committees and knowing that you can share that right put any Flack or feedback to us you know yep yeah I can s send something out to them and so have we made our objectives clear to you tonight you have I just want to talk about them a little bit when it comes to staff and that sort of thing um had a good conversation with George today all right so resource protection um that's really not a lot of heavy lift

in there cuz it's the ordinance is pretty much established it's really a map change he's already kind of gotten a un official map oh good so that's not that's not going to take a lot of time then probably should stay George could probably handle that mhm without the Conservation Commission getting involved because it's done yeah so once you remove the habitat plus six and George

works on that getting information from the state so it's really up there I thought that was gon to be a Light Lift but I didn't want it was so so so but what I think okay wait hold on pause for one second I just want to lifting the habitat plus six no it's just not a lot of heavy lifting to get that down right but we're not lifting the habitat plus six right we're just when you remove that Turtle occurrence that's the only place in town where the six plus co-occurrence had an impact on resource protection so by removing that turtle it's functionally removing that plus six component so it might still be listed in the ordinance as areas protected by plus six but there will functionally be no areas in town that have plus six because that was the only area that had it does that it does my only my only question about that is like it's related this is related specifically to the turtle but the turtle's not the only thing right now

it's the only thing MH right but we're not going to change the wording that the plus six is going to go away because if there's another thing that plus six I understand is what's what's happening is so if if something else pops up that creates a plus six scenario adding anything to the resource protection map would take the land use ordinance vote anyways like if if a new species of of

protection was found and and and it triggered that somewhere else that would be a whole another it would have to go to town meeting anyways it doesn't become automatic because that was the big thing that we talked about at town meeting this would just be saying that based off of surveys that happened earlier this year at the request of a landowner by the state of Maine inland fisheries and wildlife they've determined that that turtle that was originally thought to be there is unlikely a representative of a breeding population in the state has decided with that new information to say that they no longer recommend protecting that area based off that new survey that would then just say this map no longer has them on there and by removing that there's now no that area is no longer protected by the plus six because it's not it's only scoring Four Points so it doesn't remove plus six as a resource protection designation it's

just saying that that area no longer meets that threshold so it's being removed okay but we have to go to town meeting with that to vote because it's a map chain right but it's just not a lot of work to bring it to town are but are those people's properties in resource prot C until that change is voted on unless they go to the appeals board and okay got it okay okay understand thank you the other thing that you're going to want to consider do you want to change those maps and with buffers or without so in other words there are people's residents houses that are in resource protection so they can't add on they couldn't they couldn't they can't put an addition on they couldn't put they can do a 30% increase with yeah so do we want to put buffers around these houses my my thought process so that's something George would want to know because that'll cry a little bit more work yeah um but that's one of the

things my thought process on that is that there already is a mechanism for affected land owners to appeal that if they want to um so I don't know if we need to direct that right now or if since the map after being redone it could be a good opportunity to that's just it that's right that's right cuz you want to show that on the map the buffer around houses if that's what you want to provide MH so you have that to think about I you need a decision right now but yeah that's a good that's something to consider yeah um the battery energy storage stuff

uh that really probably should stay with a planning board if someone fills out on an application the planning board is the one that's going to go through the whole process um what the board will want to do is we'll have to put on the agenda uh soon is the fees because right now battery storage conditionally use permit is $225 um so we need to talk about that that needs to be on an agenda soon because that's yeah we'll have to adjust the fees now that we can do it periodically so the agriculture there were our understanding George and is they're working with the main farm land trust to kind of develop help them develop so I don't know if there's really much we're going to do with that until they work with them and and would they then have to approach us and ask to be made into a committee or commission that take a town vote I don't think so no you would appoint them it's just that they need their bylaws and so it kind of

sounds like what's happening right now is that and we just know about this that there are a group of individuals who are exploring an option to create an agriculture committee or commission or whatever and that at some point they're probably going to come to us and ask for that creation so really until then we should just let them know we're open to hearing anything that they have to say we we be supportive as we can but we can't really direct a group of people who aren't aren't any official entities right well I think it would just like in an advisory type of way like say to them that this is what I'm afraid of is that if we don't create the committee and appoint like and and then drive that

right that they've become completely established they've already done all of their leg work they come to us and it doesn't meet the criteria of the comp plan or they have um an agenda and I'm not saying that there's any you know like I'm just say yeah I'm just saying that I think that when they have very um

right that's not what I'm looking for experiences and goals like they're it's a very particular skill set that they're looking to right which is important but I think that the creation of that and the rules around or the you know that type of needs to um have more of like a

checks and balance kind of thing where it's it's going to be balanced against what other viewpoints might be right so like the historical district commission has this whole they're they're set out to create to protect the historical nature of things but we also have to balance what restrictions we're putting on the other homeowners around that as we're doing doing that and so I feel like if they come to us completely done and they're like here's our package this is what we want you to approve and we go through that and it's like this isn't really balanced I I I understand what you're saying I don't know if I'm super concerned about in this instance them coming to us with a proposal to become something that's total polar opposite because I we know that they're working with the main Farmland trust which I know has helped other organizations like this pop up we know that people involved have already been on other boards and

committees in town and we're part of the comprehensive planning process so in this instance I'm not super worried about that but I think it would be maybe good for us to potentially reach out and ask them if they wanted to chat at a meeting or do a presentation on what they were working on just so we can help you know support them to make sure that they're bringing forward a successful um proposal I would just like to see them go through the comp plan and check the boxes in the comp plan that that's what they're doing and then um so the only thing we can do is ask would you like to come talk to us because they're they're not a border commission so well the other option is to do what we did the solid waste committee where we put out a call for members of the community that want to be part of an agricultural committee and give them the same thing like we did with solid committee where here's a and I mean it

could even be the byw that they've already established that they provided us with your application was wasn't that the plan or my misremembering they were working to put together bylaws and then we had the discussion about how they'll have to fill out the application and be appointed right so I think we would then approve well we I mean I know if we would approve the bylaws but we would certainly be able to see them ahead of you know the only difference in this committee yeah the only difference here is instead of us as a board saying we want to create this agricultural committee like we said with the waste some other members of the community just started that first invited George to their meeting to have him answer some of their questions and so it's just I think that they're going through the exact same process as the agricultural as the uh as the waste Solid Waste committee it's just they're doing it on

their own initiative and then they're going to come to us as opposed to us saying your committee now go build the model my issue with that is that it's happening behind closed doors and not in a public forum and after they've already become established and come to us now we're going to call it a town committee I would like to see it from the beginning being driven at the Town level to be fair they won't be established until you establish that's what I'm saying but but to to be fair any group of individuals can band together and create a process where they do something and then come ask to come speak with us and say hey we would like to be a committee based off of this could you review this and give us approval like I I don't think we're in a position to tell people who aren't part of a border committee who are exploring how to promote agriculture in the town you have to come talk to us if you're going to be

asking questions about these sorts of things no I'm not saying that what I'm saying is that they can they're doing what they're doing and that's completely fine but if the end result is going to be that it's going to be a town committee I think that it should start at the town and right from the beginning be a public opportunity in and and also

the opportunity for any residents that want to be part of that committee to have that opportunity right from the very beginning we know that they've already started I would just like to have it become a situation where right from the beginning it's transparent and in full public view so I get that but we can't control whether handful of people we can we can put out a thing just like we did for the solid was committee to say we want to form an agricultural committee here are your if you want to make a motion for that we could do that but I'm just saying since we already know that there are people involved I'd be more apt to just wait and hear for their proposal and see as opposed to right now start another approach where we say hey we're putting out a call for proposals because we want to create an agriculture committee I mean you can do that if you want that's fine you know but I just think that it's kind of one of those

things where I understand where you're coming from of like you don't want it to seem like there's cuz if there's someone out there who says I want to be part of an agriculture committee and they call up someone who's working on it right now and they say no we don't want you involved that doesn't seem fair whereas if we were the ones starting it we could say we're putting out a call for volunteers I'm just I'm a little torn on it you know so you're right we'll start with a town so they're going to put together this proposal right and it's going to come to the board and the board's going to be like yeah okay do this and then then that starts the whole application process so they don't get to be all members if if we approve their proposal we can then say say okay okay we're now putting out a call for volunteers who want to be part of an agriculture committee and then they're still going to have to go through and create by laws

and still create the process and create all that and for our approval and then you get to pick the committee members how many you want five seven I mean I think before they had like 12 and we were like whoa whoa whoa wa 12 you know I think it was mentioned like maybe five yeah so if they I just like to do that earlier in the process than later before they've like got their whole thing going without any input or transparency or public opportunity for input like from the get-go I would like to see that happen sooner rather than

but this feels like it's a citizen Le initiative right now as opposed to the board putting up a call for a committee and so if you want to we can put out a call for a committee while we know there's already a citizen Le initiative and then hope that those are the same people who apply and go through the same process or maybe it's a new group of people who apply um I just think that that might for lack of better word ruffle some feathers knowing that there's some people who are already going about doing it who have projected what seems to be a pretty open process and whatnot so if you're more comfortable with that we could certainly enter entertain that motion and and discuss it more I think either way is reasonable for people to think that it would be good to do that up front but I think because they already started they have who you know is part of it I think we should just leave them go as is and you

know follow the lead will they'll bring we ultimately will still have all the approval right still approve who is who go joins it and for all we know if this organization if this group of people comes forward makes a presentation to us and says this is what we want to do and we say sure let's build a committee it might not even be the same people who put on who who has to be part of it and then the people who do has to be part of it will then have the opportunity to still say this is what I think our bylaws and stuff should be and then we would approve you know their mission and whatnot but I just think that with them going through it right now so much that just I'm waiting to hear what they have to say or reaching out to say could you come talk to us about what you're what you're hoping to doing because we just want to make sure every everyone who wants to be part of it has the opportunity and make sure that you are

you know if we would suggest that you open your doors to anyone who wants to be involved so I understand I understand where you're coming from you know I just we just we we've we've set the tone that things are going to be open and transparent and so I would like to see that continue and I would like to see it be done where the meetings are recorded the minutes are posted online the you know just just to follow the same the challenge is right now though they're not a committee so we can't record them just it's just a group of people who care about agriculture getting together we can move on say what you want to say and I'm going to be done so so I agree sham on us for not doing this before yeah U but we didn't and I don't know that well I I do know I could not articulate what the goal of this committee is I could not do that if you could do that and come with a presentation you know this is what the goal should be this is

what the comprehensive plan says is needed then I would say yes we should start that conversation and we can get or take some guidance from them with what they've come up with and what they've done um but for me uh I wouldn't be comfortable doing that now no I wouldn't either and so I

not and I think they I think they understood and as I understood it they're coming to us or will be coming to us with a plan we'll be saying yes or no and then if we when we eventually I'm assuming we'll say yes to something and then we'll be putting a call out uh for nominations and then we'll be appointing people and so I think at that point we are giving them the guidance and that's when it becomes open um I think they're doing some of the leg work for us so I don't don't have a huge concern about that openness at this point yeah um but I I will tell you if you can come in and create that for me um I would be opposed because I do think that you know some some of that than later because as we're having these conversations these other people also want their input right we want them to give input on the solar part too we want them to give input on the on the solid waste Committee of we want them to give

input on where important re uh agricultural resource land is that we don't want to put battery storage things there so as we're going through this list of these priorities that we're assigning to people that's why I think it's part of the comp plan for an ad cultural ad committee to exist and so for for those reasons I would just like to see them and I know we can't tell like so I think the strike a balance with what you're saying here cuz I I 100% agree with you maybe the best thing to do is for us to just reach out to whomever is heading that up and saying we'd like you to come to our meeting because we want to officially put out a call for this to be developed um and we want your guidance much like we do with solid waste committee we said we don't know what the issue is but we need to talk about Sol Wass does anyone want to be part of a committee and then build it right now we just know that there's a

citizen Le initiative to say we want to build the frame of a committee propose it get it approved and then staff it so may maybe we can just say there we we really really want to support this being started in line with our 2018 comprehensive plan we know you are all the citizens leading this initiative can you come in and can we get the ball rolling officially to make sure that it it's elevated to the public view does that seem like a a reasonable B have input in these things that we're putting as policy priorities and so not for the May meeting but for the June meeting could you ask them to come in is board member report you should put that your board member I I I I will say good idea though they themselves may not know what that looks like and that's why they're working with the main Farm landr to help with that so yes I will reach out and maybe with them in the meantime I'll go through the comp plan yeah and

I'll report to the board what the comp plan specifically says about what the agricultural boxes are that need to be checked and I think may move along if they know where we're talking about these things hopefully that'll be an incentive for them to get moving mhm and I think that that was a tense conversation but I think we just struck a pretty good balance I think that what we're saying is we we should have as a s as a s board before from 20 from sometime from 2019 to now should have said let's find our way to get this compreh this this comprehensive plan moving and get this committee we now know that there's a group of citizens who have led that initiative on their own so we're just inviting them into the fry of municipal government where they can volunteer more officially and I'm just bringing this up because of George's George's workload right so he's happy that they're working with the

mainland so he so he can kind of like just step aside for a little bit because this is why I'm talking just to let you know where we are with with staff okay so then if we work on with the uh Durham historic district commission and work on 12 and 5.1 George will be a part of that right um and then open space if they get that Grant you know he'll just sort of want to know and be kind of a liaison and just sort of help them where they need it of course he's going to be the liaison to codification and GP card for the community facility they're coming NE to the next meeting on the 28th to give you all kind of a uh synopsis of what that looks like what that means so George is kind of the liaison there too working with GP Cog so can you explain what that last thing was you said Community what are you talking about the GP Cog uh Community facilities oh the yes okay um so so um

Matt panil he's from he lives here in dur he works for GB C he'll be coming on the 28th to talk about what that looks like what that's going to entail so given all that with the resource protection with without buffers the battery storage as long as agriculture is working with with the main land trust and not with George tutu much um with the historic district commission and working that out codification working a little bit with the open space not a whole lot and that's he's got 24 hours that's georgetown's pretty tapped right there tapped right there with that GP Cog the codification resource protection

involvement in the battery storage if if the ad committee needs his bandwidth at all and then not to mention the just the standard duties of applications and stuff like that so it sounds like what we're we might have more hours of work for George than George has hours to give weekly with with this workload and that's but that's the whole point of this exercise is to highlight that so if we do need to figure out ways to push things get resources or put things on a temporary hold I think this is the time to kind of have that discuss question he thinks he can he he told me this afternoon for him he thinks this is doable including the battery storage yes okay yeah cuz he's the one feeling those questions right now so he thinks that he can handle the land use ordinance changes the codification his normal workload and help craft the battery storage yes cuz the the the with working with the um durm historic district commission that's

there's not he's already done the work it's just what directions does the board want to go and and looking at what the commission has done and put together for an ordinance as well so can we build a little timeline here then because from what you're saying you know knowing that this the the work for resource protection is a top priority and that the the work is done we just need to get it all written up and then it would have to be voted on at the April town meeting we know 80 to5 to 90% of that work is done but what might drive that discussion into into more work is if we as a board decide while we're redoing the map take a select group of the pars properties that are essentially going to be grandfathered and put a buffer around those right that is something I feel like we need to determine sooner than later is that something that we can maybe have George come to us in either the late June or first July meeting yes

to say hey this is the stuff that is just a check the Box we've already got from the state how do you want me to proceed just knowing that no matter what we decide none of that changes for the individual landowner till the April town meeting 2025 and it gets voted on you know yep so yep late June or July yeah

and then what do we think about the historic district landu stuff same boat that's already written up yep there just needs to be some direction from us and I don't want this to turn into come December we're finally getting back back to it and now there's direction from us coming and it's a I'd like to see what both the

commission and George have written to compare the two right um and then go from there what do we think about a timeline though like the first or second June meeting or do or do we want to push that to the July meeting I'm just trying to build a little timeline for us I think July we should get the information and then talk to George when he's here so he only has to come once right yeah yeah and that's my thought is if we're going to have the discussion about the resource protection and the historic district since those both deal with land use ordinance changes being useful of smart around utilizing George's time having him give those both at one meeting y I just want to make sure he has enough time to prepare so whether that's the first June meeting or the second June meeting I think would probably be a little bit driven by George's schedule because I think I think Lo will probably want to

be here to discuss that same time okay yep yeah so late June July is I can't read the room right now do everyone like this plan so far if you have feedback let me know I'm I'm just I just think I think we're in the minutia of things and it's 8:30 already we're on item two of our agenda and there's been a lot of time explaining things unnecessarily I think it's taking a long time and that's my concern right

now is that these meetings are going to start taking forever and well that's why I'm trying to plan out sched to I I spread it out I think we need we need to do our work and not explain it for everybody at home if they have questions they need to reach out is is what I'm getting at because it's getting I mean these meetings next if they keep going like this you know I think I think the proposed bylaws don't they have a timeline of like 9 900 p.m. we're not going to get through half of our agenda no yeah I understand that to be fair most of new business I think will be that's my that's my concern that's my concern right now is that we're spending a lot of time planning and and and rehashing things and we just need to start moving forward okay so sounds like we've got some scheduled items for Jun did you have anything else you want to add on these goals and objectives here no I think I'm all set mhm all right just

want to make sure we have that figured out so we can get people heading the right way all righty anything else for 24 work priorities that we want to discuss I would just like to put on the calendar we we said boards and committees I would like to do our board so we did the other boards but they had a whole page or two of stuff for us and so I don't want to have that conversation tonight but I would like to put that like very soon because I think we also need to know what we're going to work I think we have a very busy schedule next meeting if what we just recommended for George we do the second meeting of June maybe we can have that discussion of what we need to do for ourselves the first meeting in June so we can just figure out what we need to do in terms of developing a schedule because I agree with you Josh I don't want every meeting to go to 8:30 I just think that we need to do a little heavy

lift at the front end here and get hopefully into smooth ceiling especially during the summer time when folks want to be outside and doing fun stuff all right anything else from you Jerry on this list no I'm all said I've got I'm good and I think one thing that might be helpful is you maybe you and I can just meet to sketch sketch out a uh yeah a schedule so and then we can kind of have that maybe submitted to all of you next meeting of what our proposed next few meetings might have for topics so all right um with nothing else there on B let's move into adoption of Select board meeting minutes um we've talked about this a lot it's been through several iterations Deb thanks for catching a couple spelling errors today too that's that's always important uh I spoke with Joe Tom you all saw the email he sent to us saying that he's supportive of this these bylaws I would entertain a motion to approve the by approve and adopt the

bylaws as written some I have a second second any discussion all in favor all right any opposition seeing none I'll beat you to it Heather I think these should be posted on the website on our page so people can see it I agree all right the law enforcement question Jerry did you have an update at all for that I put that on for Heather

um to talk about remember you wanted it on the agenda because of the grant wanted to talk oh boy I can't even remember that conversation now hold on okay Jerry sent us an email that had a grant that needed has a deadline of June 12th I think um and it was to fund it was a 75%

and then the town was have been responsible to pick up 25% of the Grant and we're not in a position to be able to do that right because that has to be established at town meeting but Jerry said that that's a grant that is that has been historically given annually and so I asked to have that put on the agenda because I think this is one of the things that we had on our big list of things that we want right but a 75% grant for the startup is a huge um

is that a full Grant proposal or a pre pre-proposal years no I mean that the June 12th deadline is that a full proposal yeah that's a Federal grant that's because that's a big lift between now and then and so that's what Jerry and I said is that like you can't we we can't even apply for the grant because the town hasn't approved that they want to they want us to but this will be back opening in next year is what you're saying and this might be planning for next year Department of Justice and they they awarded some in 23 and they're just and they're going to award some in 24 I just think what this does is it should help us get moving on more discussion so get organized if we're trying to tailor a discussion around and we have this grant opportunity that's say 75% for 3 years as sort of a template of how we get from here to there um so that that's why I

asked Jerry to put it on there is because while I don't foresee any situation where we could be I mean right because the town hasn't approved yet I think that we need to look at the Grant and then we need to talk about a way to potentially get that before the voters at the next town meeting right and I think in talking about scheduling that meeting with the sheriff's office to see I think Josh had talked about that seeing what those costs are so we're all away can we put that on a July meeting first maybe first meeting in July uh to invite the sheriff's department or some for discussions or I don't think we should do that at a meeting I think that needs to be a workshop because I think we're going to invite the sheriff the chief Deputy will come I think uh Chief McGee will come I'd like to uh in invite um the chief from preport who lives in Durham there are a number of officers who live in Durham um

and I think that there should be an open invitation to them because I think there are so so many different options do we want 247 coverage do we want weekday during certain time coverage do we want it to change each day each week this is a discussion that could take a long time it could take multiple meetings uh so I think it needs to be a workshop and I think it needs to start sooner because I think um there are different options different ways to go forward uh and there is an expense which is going to be a shock to everybody it was it's going to be big number it floored me the the expense that they gave me um and uh and so we

need to have that discussion and um you know talk about realistically how this is going to happen because I don't think it's something that's going to happen next year and my understanding most municipalities they're Public Safety is the most expensive department or or one of the top public works but in terms of it's terms of set people's expectations it's a big number um well M who's the town manager was here they're the same size town we are they have a full uh police department when I looked at their budget the other day it's about 450 500,000 a year which would be for us the biggest startup would be more but once you get once you get established you know have that so real before you jump in Josh do you want to frame out a rough idea of what you think something like this should look you have the most experience with this just like who you think should be invited when you think we should meet

how you think we should meet and just let us know and we can pencil something in well I don't have any experience well no you have more experience with with law I think that we need to have a workshop when we need to invite uh people we need to invite the

well you know I didn't I spoke about this with the chief Deputy uh he said he would come he said the sheriff would be here because they'd both Beed having this discussion um I know they had a similar discussion years ago with Poland and Poland had the same reaction they voted for it and they've never been happier um uh you know I think we need to invite uh Chief McGee uh Nate from Freeport some other people just get their Insight uh in what they think is best because there are different options um and then I think we need to have uh you know some conversations with the community this is what it's going to look like this is the impact taxes this is the impact on safety is it worth taxes going up to have this public safety uh here are the drawbacks here are here thing so to to me this is a long conversation over multiple days that should start before July okay um Heather I want to hear what you have to

say and then I'm going to propose the workshop date so um when Josh when you said that you don't think that this is something that we could do by next year what I would like to see happen I'm not saying that we necessarily pose the question question in form of like budgeting for it for next year if that's not realistic but I do think we need to put the question out to the voters to know that they're going to approve it or that they want us to do it and we might not be able to budget for it within that year but at least we now have Town approval to start working to make it happen and then maybe the next year after that we go to the town so I would like to see this question on the warrant first I know that's a very preemptive statement before anybody gets here and gives us any data but just based on what we know already I would like to see the question go before the voters well at this point

I don't think we have I don't think we even have a question for him like and so I don't want us to put the cart for the horse so I do think we need to just meet with people and figure out what options are and what we I think we need to get a little bit more information and if we do that in early June that gives us several months to figure out if we're going to ask a question what it would look like or whether we do or not so so I don't think it goes on the warrant I think this is something where we get if we get our act together we can pose a question and give Jessica extra work in November at the election and say Here's a a local question uh because it's going to be a high turnout election we're going to get more than we get it to meeting and we be the biggest elction every four years we need we need to prepare for this the the town the taxpayers need to be prepared for what this expense is going to be and

how it's going to fluctuate and you know questions that I haven't asked include you know you're having there's Staffing troubles at departments across the state you know what's it going to look like if we lose somebody are you going to take somebody from uh Poland or somebody else on patrol and they're going to come here or are we just the short stick because they were working for us there's so many questions it takes time I think it's a question that goes it's a local advisory question in November which is the perfect time to do that I so I think that what you're getting at Josh is we need to identify some immediate needs and then come up if that there's a fiscal note there or there's any sort of exploratory question we can ask that in November and just because like you said I know a lot of times what we always hear is we don't want our taxes to go up and we also want Public Safety and that's not going to happen you're not

going to get stabilize your taxes with no increase and get Public Safety and like you said we think it's hard to find EMTs you look at some of the large municipalities who offer massive starting bonuses and can't get applicants so there's a lot of detail here what do you think about a workshop Josh and the rest of you between our TW meeting of the 28th and the 11th of June so uh a June 4th

people interested in tending just I agree with you if you think this needs to be done outside of a normal meeting it just we if we want to stick with the Tuesdays here we can either do a June 4 or June 18th Workshop um I'll just say

very openly and honestly that week is a very difficult week for me and and I don't have to be part of this I don't have to be part of it I can definitely watch and get the information that's Senior week and I know is that the fourth or the 18th week the fourth the week of the fourth is that whole week is booked every day with senior end of but I'm totally fine with that this is this is a conversation that I think it's important for all five of us to be here for Jerry to be here um you know this is one where I would you know for whoever is watching I would say come in so you can listen and there are no issues uh and then my proposal is going to be that we then have a sort of a more than a uh public comment session we sort of have another workshop with the public where they can come in and tell us tell us what they're looking for tell us what they're thinking where to go I don't want to set up a committee because this

is a big budget item that I think we need to take control we're the committee for this yeah but it's going to take a lot more time than we have put in than we put in in the past or on anything um and uh and we need if we're going to do this we need to do it right we need to do what's best for this community and uh what about another night the last week of May like just a different night like have our regular meeting maybe we don't maybe what right now I will circulate a I can I don't I just want to make sure this is above bar if I circulate a doodle poll or a wi to meet or something like that this week just to figure out what people's availability is um I think it also needs to go to the people that were intending to invite right like if there people that if if you want to choose a date tonight I will email them when I get home or tomorrow morning I'm going to see one or two of them tomorrow morning

so it sounds like you're passionate about this and you want us to get on this right away and I think that you're for good reasons so I agree I think that it's one of those things that if we set up a time that we can all meet I don't have my work schedule in front of me right now so I what about a Saturday morning is that like I can't do that no I think that not going to work it's not going to work for them okay no it's totally fine that's fine um do we want to set a meeting date tonight or can we circulate a poll online to see what people's additional do we know if there are any other meetings happening May 29th is there you check the on the to page oh Conservation Commission at the Eureka Center is that not cool to do it the same night I don't think that they have a line of people outside their do you that date works for you uh it's that's a rough week but I can make it work oh I'll make it work if it work

if it works let's get it done so because I think starting this conversation now is I mean I'm comfortable waiting until the week of June 16th through 22nd but if folks aren't comfortable waiting that long I do want folks to if it's going to be a rough week for you that first week I don't want I don't want this to be something that when we all show up we're squeezing it in we're burned out our brains are kind of fried from a heavy work week I want us to make sure we're all firing on the same cylinder here so if there's a way to schedule that in a way that works best for folks we can do it and if there's not we just do what we can do so whatever whatever works for for folks let just let me know let me just look is it okay if I just look really quickly as long as it's not the night of the the barbecue for the senior class then I could do that Tuesday let me just make sure that that's not what's

happening that day um we can move on while I look if you want just pick a different night that week let's do the 29th the 29th I could also do wedes 29th is fine 29th is fine I could do Wednesday the 5th too 29th of what may may or Wednesday June

vacation okay June 5th June 5th juneth does that work for you Josh I'll make it work y thank the individuals Josh you want to go through because I just want to defer to your judgment on this I think that you junis planning board meeting here oh

sorry I want to move that sorry uh I could do the six let just that's fire department meeting 18th does the 18th is the 18th where for folks yep Tuesday June 18th MH that's not one of our regular meetings no no can we start at you know

5 or 5:30 MH yeah we can do earlier if you prefer I I mean we this great schedule I'm 100% fine with whatever we need to do to make it work for people if there's times that are better let's let as long as it works can you get here for 5 yep so June 18th at 5 o' maybe if I have to I'll just call on sick to work just kidding I can't see that far ahead to see if there's anything else uh wait yes I

just I do want to say that um it's very common for boards to have you know their regular meeting one once a month in a workshop once a month rather than having two regular business meetings twice a month and there's a lot of communities that do that have a lot of work to do so just keep that in mind I mean it's it's very common there's nothing on the calendar on the town calendar for June 18th so June 18th at 5 o'clock M okay let me see let's just make sure put that

work schedule I get home make sure I'm not traveling or anything but um I'll confirm that with you all ASAP so all right anything else on the law enforcement discussion I we need to check with Joe yeah I'll we'll email Joe

enforcement discussion all right seeing none new business we have um two votes to make here just to authorize a switch to the website to a different J sceal website to a different host we already talked about that saves money brings more control inhouse and win-win for everyone and then the authorization to take pine trees in front of the office out

um I'm I would entertain a motion to approve both of them at the same time if anyone wants to make that motion if we're allowed to approve both of them at the same time we can approve them as a slate a second we didn't have motion oh I did I said oh you move okay perfect second any discussion on either one of these all right all in favor all opposed not seeing none both of those are approved um appointing GP Cog delegates May 30th is the GP Cog meeting we have three delegates currently it's Heather Joe Tom and myself I plan on attending May 30th the meetings at 2:30 um is

there anyone else who would Joe Tom said that he's currently a but he's fine with that being swapped up if someone else wants to take that spot as a delegate uh I'm just thinking Josh is that something you wanted being in Vice chair I can't go on the 30th okay so in in that case I can go represent us but if anyone else wants to go be listed as our official delegate speak now yeah I need to send them an email on who the Durham well if I'm still the alternate and Joe can't go or someone else doesn't go I'll go I can go Joe said he can go okay so I'm going to go and are there only two people going um I don't know Joe going Joe said that he could go I'm I'm planning on going so I think this going to be the Joe's and Jerry y okay um if and if that changes I'm happy to go and I can so do we want to vote to retain Joe R and Joe T as the delegates

with Heather as the alternate so moved right second any discussion all in favor all opposed perfect all right anything Jerry from manager report here I no I don't like gave one last week nothing this week are we skipping over the managing the question and answer oh sorry my B my bad the discussion managing the question and answer with representatives from legal firms yeah um Jerry and I spoke about this the challenge is we we want legal representation but we also want to be able to ask questions and with things like this where it's a where it's kind of a onetime service that pay for and it's we're just asking questions and we're moving along with the hiring new legal counsel it almost feels like you're interviewing somebody to hire that you might have a relationship with for decades so we were trying to just explore the options of should that be done individually one-on-one with each firm or representative from each firm in

an executive session should it be done at the same time we just weren't sure if it is common place to essentially be interviewing two people and asking them the questions in front of each other other at the same time so just open for feedback on that uh that so I thought it was appropriate although I haven't looked to do even what we did tonight in executive session so I was a little surprised we didn't do that but my expectation was if we can do an executive session uh that's the way for us to do it although I have noticed um this room isn't overly private with the pastor there um so we should have that conversation yeah so since we have 24-hour coverage now we could just ask that that during our executive session we keep the door closed and we keep the kitchen closed and people stay out of that so we have a little bit more privacy because they have their lodgings in that room so we can do that the question I was just

wondering is do we want to speak to the firms individually in executive session rather than at the same time because it just felt like that would be a weird thing to do them both at the same time to me yes and and how do we schedule that yeah how do you logistically do that like if you have four that you have the interview do you schedule them at different times do how do we want to do that become a little early that day and say I mean I can I can usually accommodate earlier on these days I'm I'm at the Town Office that's at our next meeting by 6 anyways is that right that's happening at our next meeting they were in excuse me in the RFP it said that they would could show up on the 28th but then I put on or upon request so have you gotten anything yet I haven't gotten anything back but I've sent them out to four different firms right now that I've requested them mhm so it's it's it's just managing that

it's like do we do do we do two a night and do it for two nights do we do all four in one night do we have one come in at five one come you remember how they did the town manager how that was how that went do you remember how that went sorry I'm rapid firing did we did

it all no we did it in back toback nights I think two nights so part of this is determined by how many people respond to the RFP I think that what we would just have what I think is appropriate way to do it is once we figure out how many people respond I think we should just plan that week on starting our meeting a little bit early and then we can go into executive session and just set a time frame where this person shows up we're just going to give them TW 10 minutes 20 minutes we set the time and once that time frame's up we're done that's the questions they leave and then the next person kind of comes in just like you would do for a job interview we just set those time constraints for ourselves and then we can always say we want to have an additional followup if we're not comfortable with getting all the answers we need or or anything so what are people's thoughts on that I think it's important to get it

done and have it so I would like to do it quickly it's um you know it's when you don't have representation is when something happens so y so do you want us to start our meeting on the 28th at 6 and then we can just schedule are we allowed to do executive session at the beginning if we wanted to move that around sure and so we can schedule them to get in here do immediately go into an executive session after we start a meeting schedule folks to be here from Josh that's the week that you said is a tough week for you is that yeah I mean no I it's just you know every week is busy that week is especially busy but I don't think starting at 6 I mean we have to remember these are professionals who are going to be have worked all day yeah that's whatever you you know but I I would it

it all depends I think we we should see how many people and then set it but I think you know and this is something that we can deal with through email because this is an administrative function correct this isn't we can like have the schedu I think the answer is yes but we should State how it's going to happen tonight so if we can schedule that saying I think that we just want to lock in tonight we're going to meet with them in the executive session we're going to set 20 minutes aside for each person we want to discuss with and we'll wait until we find out how many people respond to figure out if we need to start earlier and we can just set the time because that's just an administrative thing so from a fo perspective that's fine because we're not talking any details does that sound that work for you yeah so they're going to the the proposals are due on the 23rd at 2 okay so we'll

know by that time what how many we'll have and how many will are people comfortable with 30 minutes per applicant or or per respondent to ask questions is the 27th Memorial Day yes okay I think 30 minutes is Josh do you I think it's plenty of time I do you think depending on who comes I feel like I'm I'm going to know most The Firm so I don't don't look at me for this because well no I just I think it's hard to determine until we know how many applicants there are right if there were four then I might say well let's cut it down to 15 minutes if there are two well then I might say okay well let's do 30 minutes I I really feel like it's going to depend on how many applicants we get whether or not it's going to be longer or shorter maybe if it's there's four we want to like get a first impression of them out of the gate and then call two more back or something but not for too long because we don't have Services

after the 30th so I I I just think we should set up a a time frame that we want to meet with them by just like if we're doing a job application if I'm hiring someone I'm setting that up in advance yeah 20 minutes I think would work and then that way 20 minutes with an exe an executive session per applicant applicant yeah so I think I think we should say we're going to start the meeting at 5 for 5:30 have them come in for 20 minute blocks say we'll set

up five of them let them choose and then we'll put the public notice on that we're starting with the executive session the uh regular board meeting will start at X time and even if we have to wait with nothing to do we wait until that that time that way perfect we're being fair to everybody I think procedurally we just have to do our call to order public comment and then move into executive session so I don't think we have to do public comment first we can we can uh make an amendment to the agenda and put we we we we just we have to publicly start the meeting we can't start an executive session yeah so call the me to order then go into executive session after the Pledge of Allegiance and if we need to the two of you the two of you make the agenda and so you can do it that way or you can leave executive session at the end and I'll make a motion to amend the agenda to put it so technically in our bylaws

that we just adopted it's called to order Pledge of Allegiance followed by public comment and then motions to agenda so we would technically need to open up the meeting have a and then they have posted before that that the meeting is just an executive session they H that has been done before where they have held an executive session and that was what the public notice was right do you want to do that I mean I if that if that whatever we have to do procedurally to just feel to begin and respect these professionals time and say we're going to start at 5:30 show up at 5:30 for the fir we're g to interview people from 5:30 to 550 555 to I think we do a notice of public session a notice of executive session notice a meeting of executive session at 5:30 on the 28th and then do our regular

agenda as a separate thing a completely separate thing the way we always do it on the 28th starting at 6:30 okay that gives us an hour and so if we get four that's 15 minutes a group but maybe the start time will be dependent on how many we get and I can that's that's an administrative thing we can do online back I just want to make sure that the process is laid out here and so let's touch in on the 23rd after you hear from just let me know how many people I don't even need to know who just how many people maybe if you're around on that Thursday on the 23rd at 2 o' we'll see what we have and then we can we can schedule that perfect works for me and see how that how that plays out we we figure so cool everyone understand the process we're going to follow y works for me manager report Jerry you said you had nothing new right now uh board member reports the only thing I wanted to note is I just wanted to

um publicly acknowledge the fire department for a great save on the barnfire last week uh you know we hear a lot about Mutual Aid calls we received 10 departments responding to that including full-time departments 50,000 gallons of water a lot of Staff time went into that and saved someone's house no loss of life no loss of pets and I think they back living in the house this week already so just huge props to the fire department for that um and then the only other thing I wanted to add it was free Port High School sent us a letter Thanking us for the town thanking the town for their contribution to uh the free the the scholarship fund so I don't have anything else other than that um I would just like to say thank you to our town staff Jerry and um Alan

plumber specifically and the co uh animal control officer because we had a rabid Fox um that we needed to deal with this week and they came and really helped out with that situation um I own a daycare and it was this is a board member report but it's actually about me um and it was very scary and so I really

appreciate how willing and how quickly they were able to get there and help out perfect Joshua Deb you have anything no all right motion to approve a consent agenda still moved have a second second sorry all in favor any discussion all in favor any opposition seeing none upcoming meetings we have select board meeting 5282 24 we now have an additional 530 or five to

fiveish or 530 to 6:30 executive session that Jerry will note 18th department at what time did we say that was going to be five five at 5 P.M to discuss legal the TR town the TR Town annual budget meeting is tomorrow night at 6:30 okay here at Freeport High School oh okay and then tomorrow night is the trown annnual budget meeting at Freeport High School at

Town rsu5 school budget just to set it back all righty bulky waste day is Saturday yeah that's a big note for anyone paying attention still bulky waste day is Saturday all right seeing nothing else I'll pass these in Conservation Commission meets at the Eureka Center planning board meeting 65 is there an executive session needed no no and I take I would accept a motion to adjourn Mo do I have a second second all

right any discussion all in favor done all right let me these you guys did awesome we put the After Burner on there at the end no Anna did awesome just watching she forgot her home oh I remember that trick she me she be doing it