TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ January 28, 2025

is this on ready how come I always end up with a no on well we can just adjust for did you need batteries I think I do okay I I was are we live y Perfect all righty well thank you everyone for being here tonight we're going to start off our Tuesday January 28th sorry sorry select board meeting we have a quorum in the meeting is called to order right now at 6:31 and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right do we have any amendments to the agenda um we were going to have a discussion here with the town attorne attorney about historic district ordinance amendments uh she's not here yet so I was I would say that we just move that until she arrives if that works for folks uh other than other than

that I don't have any additional amendments to the agenda um either so anything from anyone else okay so we'll just move that public comment I don't see anyone here tonight so no public comment and then we're going to move into Old business so we're uh going to skip historic district ordinance amendments right now until the town attorney arrives and but we're going to jump here into the Durham historic district AR architectural survey budget discussion um so we were all forwarded this uh request the Durham historic district commission is requesting $10,000 for for the architectural survey um they sent along uh and we have it in our agenda packet this um kind of scope of work you know if we all recall they came to our meeting talked about the need had the questions about we had the questions about what the scope and scale were they wrote up this a written report submitted it to us um you know we

followed up on one of the things we followed up on this is like we're having the reevaluation done and all of this data is likely all if not most if not all of this data is going to be or these data are going to be collected as part of that reevaluation and so with that happening in 2027 personally I'm a little hesitant to pay for it to happen in 2026 um you know the reevaluation company isn't willing to do the paperwork of putting this in that um Karma system that this the commission talked about but in my mind that $10,000 based off of what we have here that that was going to be used to hire a consultant who would then recruit 20 25 volunteers have them go out and do all the data collection come back and then um the consultant would enter it into the karma system on the website and uh

in my mind knowing that there's only like 34 40 or 360 buildings I'd be more apt to say wait until we get the reevaluation done just take those buildings that have a construction date of prior to 1965 and then move take that set and

give and see what the consultant needs from from us at that point so if they have this all this money set aside to for their time to coordinate that's going to be cut like down a lot if we just already have this taken care of so I just would be interested to hear other people's thoughts so so if you there's part of this that is applies

to the existing District in Southwest Ben that could that is that problematic still think St I think that that discussion is going to be sorry the ordinance here well I I I know it's going to be part of the ordinance but is it is the properties in there do they need any further evaluation to re to complement

the ordinance that my understanding is that cont this architectural survey is designed to evaluate the properties regardless of whether they're in the current District or not and it would be the same evaluation process no I I I agree and what I what I'm what I'm leading up to is that would we want to do a smaller effort now for the existing

District just to complement the changes to the ordinances so that that is clear as to what staff and the various boards do with the existing properties that are already ex already on the register I'll say are already known to us forget the rest of them right I agree the rest of them wait till 2027 but is there a subset of this money that we should apply just to that little area down the street here and that's that's really my only question about the whole thing and what I thought about um when I I I think there's only like three or four buildings maybe it doesn't matter is really well I just I the way that things currently exist is that all of the homes that are in the historic district are subject to the historic district requirements so if we change those then and so it's not just the one ones that are already on the register or named for the register it's actually right now currently the way that this is

and I don't know if that changes based on what we accept our draft and it will I mean that's so maybe that's really my answer is it doesn't need to be done so maybe have we get through this conversation we'll hop over to that's fine we we'll hop back to the historic district ordinance Amendment now that our attorney is here um because the the

architectural survey based off my understanding of what it does it doesn't care whether your building's in a district whether it's not whatever it's just serving all buildings that are from before 1965 no I get it I get it well let's hop back to uh the old business no of historic district ordinance amendments so we have the copy here um and we'll let Kristen we always do this like Kristen gets here and we immediately like are you ready to go like ready to go start uh but um

I I hope everyone reviewed this in advance I really like the looks of it I think it um does a really good job of taking feedback we've heard from the legal side feedback we've heard from people who are part of the historic district uh commission and also our feedback and I think that this Blends things well so Kristen I can hand it off to you to to provide us with any additional information or if we want to go by section and tell us why things look the way they do here yeah I mean let's just start I I know the board has talked about this a little bit too but just structurally um just so everyone understands there are two Provisions in the existing ordinance that deal with historic resources I'll just use the broad category of that and there's section 5.14 which it sort of resembles what we have in the new version in terms of listing certain types of um buildings or structures that we deem to have historic

value and it sort of leaves it hanging there because it doesn't say okay well what do you do with these buildings what's a process for reviewing them who reviews you know some sort of project related to these things um so just as it stands section 5.14 is pretty problematic because it doesn't really accomplish anything in terms of those types of buildings and then we've got article 12 uh today which does establish the Southwest B historic district um as well as the historic um commission that is

you know pretty standard in terms of other towns ordinances where you have a historic district and you have a historic district commission whose job is to review projects that are located within the district um whether it's work to be done to an existing building or possibly demolishing or moving the building and um sorry and um the

basis of that portion of the ordinance really does come from the Department of interior standards which is you know your your basic underpinnings of a historic district so that piece of things is um sort of standard as it sits

in article 12 but the problem is a couple of things number one I think which you were probably just touching on when I walked in um it appears as though there hasn't really been a recent architectural survey of that District or of the the town in general and you really need to have that in order to have a functioning historic district um that's sort of really grounded in fact and makes sense um and then beyond that

you think of a historic district really as being cohesive um a bunch of historic properties tight close together and your goal goal is not only to maintain the sanctity of those properties but also to sort of maintain the look and feel and historic qualities of the whole area and right now um this is this is a turning point for me and my logic about this I had thought let's keep a historic district and then we'll have a different process for other historic properties outside of the district but when I learned that there are really only a few contributing structures in the district and they are not right up close together necessarily I'm not sure I see the point to have a district because the district again um if you look at a town like Kenna buunk I've worked with there's a lot for instance um the idea there again is you R viewing all the projects in the district even if it's not on a contributing structure

necessarily and this ordinance today specifically exempts all of that so it's only historic properties within the historic district that are getting that quality of review from the hist District commission yes and the existing ordinance so at that point it's like well if you're not treating it as a district and applying the standards throughout regardless of the property why have a district in the first place well and and if I can inject to be fair our comprehensive plan from 2018 suggests getting rid of districts as well yes so yeah that's another thing to no and and that's super important right because our zoning ordinance has to comport with the comprehensive plan comprehensive plan doesn't really seem to support the concept of a historic I'm pretty sure it says the comprehensive plan says to remove districts in Durham if I remember correctly so I just wasn't sure like are we out of like are our is

our ordinance currently out of line with a comprehensive plan like in what that means for the community if they're saying no districts and we're saying we still have one right so the way that would be um processed is if someone wanted to have a project in the historic district and they were refusing used a certificate of appropriateness by the commission they could challenge not only the basis for that decision but the whole underpinnings the whole ordinance because the ordinance doesn't comply with what the comprehensive plan said about not having districts um not to mention you know again when you have sort of an owner historic district you want to have a good public policy purpose for that district and again I'm not sure I'm still seeing that so well to me to like the untrained eye you don't mind me interjecting really quickly um I think about like an example of like when you drive through bath like

where all those old ship captains houses are like even without like being having training in this like when I go into the boat launch I'm like oh wow this is an old neighborhood like everyone's house looks like the same way and they have a lot of standards and that's what I think of when I think of a historic district whereas growing up in main my whole life I've seen dispersed historic buildings spread through communities without that district and just been like oh there's the old Grange hauler oh there's the you know the Johnson's old farmhouse but it's not like but the neighbor has like a manufactured home and then the right next to it's a Dollar General right like and so that's like where I'm trying to wrap my mind around our historic district right now and it just doesn't seem to align with that in my mind so I don't know what the rest of the boards thoughts are but um I'm just going to be the devil's

advocate for a second and say that when we approve the comp plan if I remember correctly we had other districts but this District remained because I believe we voted like how the all the other ones that were you were talking about the floating district and that they would be creating um unauthorized districts because we had voted those into existence this one we did vote into existence am I correct in saying that I'm not sure Kristen do you know you did certainly you I mean adopt the district as part of the ordinance um I'm not sure if that answers your question I I'm just say it it in terms of aligning with the comp plan the district existed and made it through the comp plan changes so does that still does that line of thinking still apply when well the comp plan doesn't make the ordinance changes the comp plan makes suggestions cuz like when the comp plan talked about re-evaluating um resource protection it

didn't enact resource protection no I understand that I understand that I'm just saying that when when we're talking about removing districts we went through the comp plant process this District existed and it and it other things change about like how your minimum requirements for acreage like the everybody everything went to rural residential like those changes did take place right the whole town wasn't rural residential before and after all of that happened it was rural residential except for the historic district and then what was resource protected yeah I understand that I mean the fact that the zoning stayed in place after the comp plan um was redone doesn't necessarily mean that it complies with the comprehensive plan it sort of just suggest that the the policy interests at the time were to keep the district and nobody was really looking to undo it at the time um so it's a big conversation right right and you know I

wouldn't say I'm looking through the comp plan right now this is the 200 oh never mind this is 2002 the 2018 comp yeah the 2018 one um cu the 2002 comp plan said to make a district and then the 2018 comp they get rid of district and that's what I was going to point out is if you look at the older comp plan um as compared which sort of really supports the idea of the district and then you look at the 2018 one all of that sort of goes away so there was what seems to me to be a pretty deliberate intention to move away from that that said you know there's still references to protecting historic properties um so I wouldn't want to undo historic protections entirely so that's where I sort of go back to if we're not concerned about the district as a cohesive District but we're really like the comp says concerned about protecting those specific properties then we already have the structure to do that

with some improvements to section 5.14 and we target those types of properties throughout town which I think gets a little bit closer to what the comp plan is saying of we want to protect historic properties throughout Town um and not worry so much about the district because the district is is written as if it's comprehensive for that area but in fact it's not it Just targets those specific properties within that district and and the comp plan says to update the town ordinance to protect significant historic and archaeological resources in the community with recognition of Need for reasonable and flexible treatment of property owners and then it talks about goes into talk about looking at um properties broadly across the community not just within one one area so I we're going to get into the details here but like that's where I think that this is conforming to that desire to protect properties but also

not say you know when you don't have the district there's no contributing Pro like I mean right now we don't like Kristen said it's like even the properties that receive protection within the district the adjacent properties don't have to mean any conforming standards as part of that District so it's not like the neighbor can't put you know a new metal roof on their property or whatever so I think that's the that part that one particular part is the reason that I would be on board with moving towards eliminating the district the reason why I would absolutely be against it is because I believe that that area of town has significant historical um value not because of the

buildings but because of the area itself if you go all the way back to our early Maps um that area of town was the center of town everything the General Store you know the um dance hall I mean it just historically the area itself has value

in my opinion and so for those reasons I feel like the area should be protected and I I still feel that way however if that's not even what our ordinance is accomplishing right now it seems like that's a mood Point yeah I think you have you know it would have two choices about the district as a concept you either lean in um and make it a true historic district and try to preserve whatever you can have a general feel of the place um or you lean away from it

and say we've got a few properties here that are really important we want to make sure that those are protected and preserved um but we're not going to worry about the district because there's really nothing to protect that's a unifying sort of quality of that area and so it sounds like right now we're like straddling this line of we're not protecting the district we're protecting the buildings and there's only a handful of buildings and that can be accomplished by just a broader policy that just focuses on yeah buildings exactly exactly um CU someone could put a pickle ball court in across from one of the historic buildings right now and it does not violate any historic District standards no correct and they don't need to check with the historic district as long as it's not a historic building right is that though there's a 1500 foot buffer that currently

exists I mean that that was another issue I'll just touch on that um the 1500t um it's a radius I believe radius yeah um around these historic properties creates their own sort of mini districts which wasn't called for by the comprehensive plan um certainly not the 2018 one so because that's not those

aren't zoning districts per se that were established properly right but those those in and of themselves that radius that it creates is a problem legally so I wanted to get rid of that to can you explain the legal problem yeah the legal problem is to establish districts you have to um have some reference to what you're trying to do in that District in the comprehensive plan plan um which we don't have here but then the other thing is you know you have to go through a specific process to adopt new districts were people notified I don't think they were um nor do I think the intention was really to create these little mini districts but that's in effect that's what it does so there are a bunch of reasons why that concept doesn't work great it's better it's better to either again have a district and the standards apply throughout the district or you maybe worry about what's on the property of a historic structure which is more

what we're moving toward with this amendment um radius thing it's huge it's at 3/4 of a mile diameter exactly and and it's encompassing you know a lot of properties that don't have any visual line necessarily with the protected structures so you just once you set those owner standards on those properties it's like well what are what's the rational basis to do that here right I'm fully in agreement with that 100% my only thing about that is

that the district I feel like is excluded from that conversation because the district exists right that that District was established does exist was voted into existence and so while I don't think that it should be a 1500 foot buffer around that District right that one isn't one that's a deao District like that District does exist it does exist and the question really is whether it should right yeah well it was established before 2018 and then the 2018 comp plan said we want to move away from districts and that's so it's not like and that's where I think what we're doing here fits that desire better

personally but we haven't even let Kristen get through Section A yet and that's partially my fault as usual so well so I was just talking about the the concept here and the concept um in part two is within the district you had this sort of robust certificate of appropriateness um procedure that applied to those properties only if they're in the district but then there is this sort of hanging thread in 5.14 that sort of suggested there might be approval but doesn't explain how or by whom um and if you're if you're going to read something into it about approval by the commission you would have to sort of refer back to the article 12 process but really that process is more geared towards district and it just um it it doesn't really work in the way that it it's structured today but what I thought we would do and the way the ordinance is structured in this draft is if we're concerned about protecting these individual properties

and preserving them um we would have a process that applies to those prop properties whether they're in the former District or outside and um it's going to be there's a permanent Authority like there is for any project whether it's the planning board or the code enforcement officer when the project involves one of these listed types of a structure um in section A here so if it's over 100 years old if it's a cemeter or grave marker if it's a church or a school that's more than 100 years old or if it's on historic register or um eligible for listing on the historic register that triggers the special review process where the code enforcement officer refers it to the historic commission to apply all of the standards that used to be in article 12 um and still are but we'll will'll be you know sort of Incorporated in this review process Kristen just from my understanding is that the do Department of interior

guidance is saying that just cuz we're listing it doesn't mean it needs to be protected so this is going above and beyond and saying we are suggesting that things that are listed or considered being considered for listing do get this review process correct which is above and beyond what doi's standards are it is and I'll say it's it's actually above and beyond what most towns even do um outside of a district it's um somewhat

unusual to have a review process that applies to historic buildings through out Town what you might see is um standards that say in a review you're to consider whether a development has undue adverse impact on historic resources so if you had that very old important structure across the street from something that was going to be big and ugly um does that have an undue impact on that original structure but it again it does go a little beyond what most towns do to say we're going to apply the special process and have this special board look at everything if it's eligible for listing if it's listed or it meets these other um categories so in that way it's actually pretty robust process that this would put in MH um but

it it does change the the referral that goes to the historic commission is going to be on an advisory basis so you're you've got this board of qualified people who know what they're talking about when it comes to historic properties looking at a project and determining whether it meets the standards and then it's going to make a recommendation to the permanent Authority whether it's the planning board or the code enforcement officer and in theory that you know that body or person can take it or leave it that advice from the historic commission but would be doing so at their Peril because they've got you know this body of people who know what they're talking about who are making these recommendations and if you're going to not take those recommendations you you'd have to have a pretty darn good reason why yes um so

right now something that's slightly analogous is like we have our Conservation Commission and the planning board can choose to ask the Conservation Commission if they want to provide feedback on something but it's not required for them to ask it's not required for them to take that into consideration would this be different in this in in the sense that the historic district Commission would need to be asked on things that are happening on those buildings correct so they have to be asked not oh we could ask you no it would be mandatory if it's one of these triggers it's mandatory that they have to pass judgment on it okay that's that's an important clarification I just wanted to make sure all our viewers here I have a question about maybe you're going to get there but if they're not in agreement what the process is at that point okay so the commission is going to make its recommendation let's just in this

let's pretend it's a building permit that the CEO is issuing so the CEO is going to say oh this building is over 100 years old I'm going to look it up and see if it's eligible for listing or if it's listed so let's say it's eligible for listing so the CEO then has to make the referral to the historic commission which will hold a meeting and

review the standards and then make a recommendation back to the CEO the recommendation is probably not going to be just like straight deny the pro the recommendation is probably going to be you know something like we don't like the siding materials it's not in keeping with the age of the home and we want to see you know this type of shingle and the CEO would take that and I would suspect in most cases would say that's reasonable I understand why that um would be recommended and I'm going to approve this with the condition that the siding has to be this if the CEO for whatever reason believes that the code the um commission didn't appropriately apply the standards went to far did something incorrect the CEO could say I understand that was their recommendation I don't think it's required by the ordinance standards so I am going to approve it without that condition without the sding now let's say a neighbor does not like

the fact that that building permit was issued the neighbor could say CEO you did wrong in issuing this permit because the commission looked at this and based on historic standards I feel that you know the commission was right and you CEO were wrong to not take their recommendation so I'm going to appeal on that basis and would go to board of appeals might go to Court whatever it's going to do but that's how that dispute there would get resolved um there's no

process baked into what we've written here about what happens if there's a disagreement if if we think that that's you know reasonably likely we can certainly build some process in and I would think that would be sort of referral to the board of automatic referral to the board of appeals before uh permit is issued or not issued my question though is there are a lot of activities people can partake when their their homes that are not permitted you know I don't believe you need a permit to change the siding on your home does this mean that if you are a owner of one of these buildings you now do need a permit to change a siding or is this only applicable for permanent activities extensions garages and stuff like that yeah it's only going to be where there's some requirement in ordinance already that you got to get a permit for what you're doing y because we' run into before with questions about like if

someone's changing out their window does it need to be reviewed and it's you know was part of what helped bring this to fruition so I think though our website under the permit section on that page says you know these are the permits required and not required but you need to check in with the historic information MH leading you to believe that the rules could be different that's yeah unclear yeah so is this document available on the website it's in our agenda packet yeah so it's available on the website so can we either let Christen read this whole thing to us which I don't think is necessary uh or let her explain and then ask questions because I think 90% of these questions are here and I personally can't stay all night

and and I feel like at the rate we're going we're going to be here all night just on this one topic and I think so I think we have the responsibility to due diligence when we're making an ordinance change and just saying read the website has not been a a useful strategy for us in the past so the questions I'm asking are questions that I anticipate being asked by the community so we can have a a record of those questions being asked and answered so people have the option to either read or go watch the video to see the questions that's why I'm asking questions I've read it I understand it but I'm asking questions for the edification of the community so and for what it's worth I think we've already touched on on the process and

what that looks like really the only thing that we haven't talked about is the standards themselves that the commission is going to be applying um in its advisory review and by the way the pering authority is applying these same standards too so they are taken 100% from the existing article 12 so these are you know what the commission is used to applying to these projects when it goes before them and they look at things like you know is there visual compatibility buildings similar height similar roof shape um the

easiest way to um exemplify this is you know the historic Cape that's getting a barn Edition on it um are we going to put a three-story metal garage attachment on it no we're not going to do that because it's not in keeping with what's already there it detracts from the historic value of it but it's you know there there is a fair amount of subjectivity and relativity baked into these standards um and it is Broad enough in the right circumstances to allow a cool modern Barn attachment to an existing historic structure as long as the sort of architectural cues are still there so does it have a similar type of peaked roof does it have um references in terms of the types modern farmhouses are all rage right now exactly um and you see in historic even in the the tightest um historic districts you see these projects get greenlighted because you know things things progress and um new building processes and materials are

adopted but the idea is we kind of keep that sort of visual Harmony and we don't you know do anything that really makes the original building lesser in its value um so anyway that you know that's what the commission is going to be looking at we're not Reinventing the wheel when it comes to these standards um and there are special processes for

if a building is going to be demolished or reload located um and it is delayed for a little while the building is posted so that people driving by are aware that it's um slated for possible removal or moving um so that people have an opportunity to comment on it before the historic commission does so that's the only distinction between those types of projects and the runof-the-mill building permit type of a project and um again though in all those

cases including moving or removing a structure um your CEO or the planning board is going to be the one who ultimately gives the thumbs up or thumbs down on that Project based on what the commission has said so that is that um I will say you

know I don't think it has happened here much but historic district um processes are notorious for being really fraught um and prolonged and really expensive for people and uh there is this perception in some of these communities where they have these really tight districts that the historic commission runs a muck and there's no one else like looking over their work um so this provides a sort of check and balance it gives them with their credible backgrounds and experience a really strong role in this but it also gives someone um you know some degree of a check and balance to say I get it but I I don't think it meets the standard for what ever reason or I do this also would change the name of our or the the board from historic district commission to Historic Commission because there's no longer there's no District which was one of the goals highlighted for this this year as well my real quick before you ask your

question Heather my only question here is under um section 121 C four where it says process it says where review by the historic commission is required then code enforce officer shall forward the application and is should that say the code enforcement officer or planning board because if it's a situation where the planning board is doing the the review do we need to call that out separately or do we need to say like the issuing body or I I'm just I'm not a lawyer I'm just asking no I I I did that deliberately because um I want this to go to Historic commission as early in the process as possible because you don't want it to go to the planning board and have a whole meeting complet this meeting before it even starts that referral process perfect that I understand that yeah so enforement officer the first person who gets it so they're saying immediately then go exactly and the planning P process can proceed too you know you can

do them on Dual tracks um but the CEO is used to taking in an application and making a determination of okay you know where does this fall in the chart does it go to the planning board do I issue the permit so as part of that same process he's going to be determining doesn't need to go to the commission um as well as planning board I'm G let Heather go first you had hand up um I have two things I do think it's important if there's a disagreement to have the process outlined as part of it because we have been in that situation multiple times and I just do think it's important for everybody's safe for that to be outlined the other thing is that I'm look I'm all about buffering in terms of um maintaining our

rural character and also to in this particular situation especially if we're going to not have the district um I always call out the example on the way to Auburn that church and then those um multi-units that are built right there and I'm not seeing so please call it out if I'm missing it where there's any type of buffering standard as part of this Al when you talk about buffering that's going to be buffering on a property that is not on the same lot as a historic building so then you go to the general approval standards under the ordinance um and I cannot call out exactly where it would be right now but I can guarantee there's something in there that says as a permitting standard that it's not going to have an undue impact on a historic resource which would be anything that falls into this section um and I will take a look real quick and read you what it

a question um one thing that I I think was missing here or maybe I missed it but the act of communicating to people that they own a home that is historic or if someone buys a home I mean we had that situation that we talked about a few meetings ago where someone replaced windows and they didn't know they you know I think that's kind of rampant maybe across the board and all permitting and stuff but there's you know who is is there anyone responsible to ensure that the people that fall under this the home home owners that fall under this understand it yeah that's a really good question because like for example when we made changes to the when the town voted to make a change to the resource protection anyone who is subject to a change received notification and my question here is like does this are we going to send notification to anyone who has a known stone wall over 100 years or a school or a church over a 100 years or

any of these registered places cuz there's only handful of registered places it's like what do you remember the number off the top of your head it's less than 20 um it might even be less than 10 and when you said registered that me main historic preservation commission or natural register register of historic places it might it's like less than 10 it's like the I think the Quaker Meeting House I think there's five on and then there's like three more that are eligible yeah yeah and so I just don't want this to seem like we're proposing to your point like hey here's this new ordinance on property that you own that you were not aware of you know what I mean right I just didn't see that fall as a responsibility for isn't that the point of the survey we were talking about before and they get noticed through that right they will get noticed at the end of the survey saying we through a surve this is separate from

the survey but you're talking about notice of these buildings and they would likely that information would fall under the survey which they would then have access to in the meantime you take them one at a time whether you do the survey or not if somebody comes up with a permit then yeah well we have the known buildings now yeah and so well the known the known buildings you know but you that's a good point you could incorporate the communication of that that's when you would do it and and up until that time you do the survey you're not you don't really know right I mean you could you could have the CEO do his do a bunch of research ahead of time when he gets a permit on you know look at the record say this is 100 years old or not you know period mhm I mean it's either on the tax books for 100 years or it hasn't been I don't I don't think it's a hard thing if it's noted in there in there you know yeah the only reason I'm

bringing it up is because if someone's saying hey you're going to create this Rule and then all sudden we do a survey I find out my house qualifies under the criteria laid out in historic resources section A here now I have this new let's say bur exists yeah and so I'm just trying to clarify here lot Fires at 99 years so um if it's not a concern I just

wanted to flag it but it seems here we're just limited really to the historic preservation commission main historic preservation commission listing National register of historic places 100y old churches or schools cemeteries and then stone walls or Granite markers and then they're only the standard is only being applied if the activi already permitted require activity that requires a permit to to change it you know so so that that one thing right there like given the window right like the 9 over9 or the 12 over 12 or whatever it is when it comes to the Windows like that if you don't need a permit to change your windows in your home but if you're making an alteration to Windows in one of these buildings I mean that changes that so that part of it I don't that part I'm having a little bit of a hard time wrapping my brain

convoluted but I mean we literally just had that example happen yeah and I just if you go to the code enforcement page it leads you to believe you you have to get it perit or you have to get it approved well if there's even if there's no permit required yeah but I don't think that Authority is then handed out in the ordinance though that's the Challenge and that's where that's where this whole misunderstanding between the boards and commissions started was I thought you were supposed to come to me for this like well no technically not you know I think this is saying yes you you do for permanent activities you have to go through CEO now and historic commission

non-permanent activities you don't have control this passes then correct me if I'm wrong but notice is presumed and people are going to have to take it upon themselves until the survey comes out that if they have if they think they might be in one of these categories they have to check and uh you know at some point we have to figure out

when we can't just hand feed people the information and they have to do some work on their own uh and I think it comes to this is passing there's notice of this in our meetings there will be notice of this for the town meeting uh there will be other meetings where this is discussed and if there's a concern they think they can do their own research they can ask code enforcement officer and if it passes you know they have to do it and if not you know at some point we just have to say too bad can I ask a process question is the goal tonight to like vote on this as it stands right we we need to hand this off to the planning board ASAP because they need to have U they need to get up to speed on it and then it needs to be ready for a public Hearing in advance of the town meeting is it a situation where we can vote with proposed edits if

everyone agrees to add the if there's a they're not in agreement with the recommend the process that I'm talking about if they're not in agreement have that laid out and then I I mean I do have concerns around the buffering thing um yeah and actually to to the point of whether people need to be notified or not I just wanted to point out that the that list of structures that are required to have special review is already in the ordinance it's just there wasn't a good process to deal with it so that's not changing anything in terms of you know it was covered by some special review but um I I do think you

know if you want to make sure that you can't for instance change it out windows um in a historic structure without going through this process I don't think that that language is in here today um the article 12 standards that are in there today say that a certificate of appropriateness is required for any change in exterior appearance of any building or structure and it doesn't you know the the draft that we have in front of us today does not say that it says where you need a permit which would be more of a true structural alteration which is my preference personally like I think the idea of creating an onerous process for swapping your doors and windows is is problematic I would be more concerned about that if we had a true historic district where there is all this like contributing activity around that looks like a historic part of town but when you have dispersed individual buildings like that are old

that to me making someone go through the process and now telling like you can't replace your siding with vinyl you have to go Cedar clapboard because you're the one building that's I just no but we're talking about the buildings that meet this criteria and applying the standards to the buildings that meet this criteria yeah and I'm saying I don't necessarily agree that any change to any building those buildings should have to go through a permanent process if you want to change your window because someone threw a rock through it you now have to go through this process of getting a certificate for those eight properties I do yeah and that's just a disagreement yeah so for those eight properties I definitely feel that way that they should I do and that's where my question is if we're over and above the current permitting right and that's my question is perit for a new roof right and so my question there is if the the the desire

is to say any structural change to that building or any change to that building is now requires a permit I think that puts us in a category of like need to provide notifications and stuff like that because I don't think it needs to have a a permit I'm what was the thing that you just said right before that Kristen the what it any change to the exterior appearance of any building or structure today it's in a historic district today it's the district not the it's the older it's the listed buildings in the district not all listed buildings in the community right so it would be a significant change if not this but if we added if you yeah if you added that permitting requirement to all historic buildings throughout because the permitting requirement is the this the the the letter of um certificate of certificate of appropriateness is triggered by a permit and so if it's not if it's not permanent

activity they don't need it so now for saying if you're one of these buildings any change to the exterior of your building becomes a permanent activity I think that's overstepping the bounds of this and now we're getting into we need to send out notifications and have public hearings because you're now changing what's someone can legally do with their own home or their own property much like what we did with the um environmental does that apply to the ones that are on the register or

eligible if you have a property that is on the register my understanding is there are restrictions on what you can do with the property anywhere right you don't need a planning board or code enforcement officer or commission to tell you what you right I I I thought A4 covers what you're talking about I I don't know why if it does then I'm fine with that I mean anything that's already on the list or eligible for the list or eligible for the list is already going to have have to go you can't change the windows you can't change I mean that's the whole idea of it Christ do you agree with that that's not true that's not true it's only if the project itself needs a permit from this right and the department of interior is very clear that a listing of a building does not create a regulation of it it's just saying we acknowledge that this is a historic building this does not mean there has to be a

regulation so right now if you have so they could board up the window and they could paint it over to make it look like a window and call it a day they can do whatever they want because it's not authentic it's not a permanent activity so if you own a main historic preservation commission listed house or a national register of historic places house in the town does not have an ordinance requiring you to get a permit to change doors windows sidings gutters roofs you don't need to meet any additional standard you could take that house and put vinyl pink vinyl siding and a purple metal roof on it and LED lights all over the front of it it's not there's no regulation to me that does not align with protecting our historical

letter that's where you get the letter of appropriateness for things that require those changes but like we that's a whole another thing if we're now saying you can't change any of the facade of your building without having a permit that that broadly expands what we're looking at right

so I'm fine with this going to the the planning board the way it is now I'm comfortable with that personally this is for any expansion of buildings or anything that's listed as a permanent activity within our our requirements so Kristen do you have anything else to add on the discussion no I'm here to do

whatever on a policy you know basis board wants to do with this yeah so at this you have concerns or things you want incorporated or change I could certainly take them to the planning board so at this point I think what we need to do is we either need to vote to hand this off to the planning board as is vote to make a change or vote to table it for a later date if there's no can I can I ask a couple more things or point out in uh two two H

and I are both title roof shapes they're the same so I think one of them can come out and then um in the is it 12.1 A2 I think it should say that the first five members have uh staggering terms and also uh I would note that the current commission uh there's I can't remember if it's requirement or suggestions that they have some type of specialized training uh and you know I don't think we've been able to find people with that specialized training but you put me on that commission and I'm not going to tell you what siding matches and what color and all that stuff uh so so I think if we're not going to be looking for those people we should require some type of training in this and I think it should be required here so that people have to do it and there's no question about it well 12182 does say appointment based on demonstrating interest ability experience and desire to promote historic preservation in town so it does

lay out a few criteria what do that mean ability I I have the ability to do it at some point with training I have the do I have the experience I I haven't been on a commission to do that but I don't know who has uh and a desire I I think so I have an i a suggestion just going to say that's where the appointed the the the elected officials are doing the appointment and that's where it's a policy decision and if people want to express that as part of their policy platform when they run for office that like I want to make sure we only have certified you know inspectors or whatever that's part of it but like that I think that outlining specific criteria right now would be challenging personally so I have a suggestion to go along with what Josh said where when Dave was here and he was talking about getting the certification through that organization which I'm not recalling what the acronym was now right that

requires that the people that are part of the commission have training and meet these criteria for certification so if we added to this that the commission be certified by whatever that entity is that takes care of those people they they have to maintain that to be able to continue to be certified by that organization so if we added to this that the commission needs to be part of whatever that entity is that would take care of what Josh's concern is and they they desire to do that it also opens up grant opportunities for them well after today who knows but um I think yeah I think that could be extra expense to the town yeah I think there could be a fiscal note there and I think that keeping it as broad as personally I think keeping it with the broad thing here now provides flexibility for this board or future iterations of the board to set those standards and and Es especially when it's all volunteer capacity there

are going to be times where you have volunteers who have a variety of different capacities and if the board in the future says we want to pursue this training I think it's important but I think that calling it out would be difficult now at this point in the in the in the process first it's difficult how what's the name of the organization what's the training certification what's the criteria those are the things how about this how about this any member appointed to this uh this commission shall within three months have undertaken training to gain knowledge of this or sign up for training to do this if if that training has not been made available to them in that three months but that just moves the previous question of what does undertaking training mean does undertaking training mean I self-educated by reading the historic district handbook or like if we're not calling out a specific criteria in that

case I move to table this discussion until we can get that information so as you were talking I wrote a line my line was the select board may require training and historic Pres has a condition of anyy so if you get somebody who is excited about the prospect but doesn't really have background you could say for that person you know we love your enthusiasm but we want you as a condition of your appointment to do X training in my period of time so it gives you the flexibility to add it frankly I think you would have had had it anyway but calling it out here that kind of brid the Gap that does for me I I think that this is important to have this discussion though because it it's a different Commission because it does have some requirement to provide input as opposed to our other commissions that don't so we don't have to do the same thing for those commissions but I think that that's broad enough language to cover my

concerns well I literally said to you that I felt like that situation is should be required for all for all well committees boards commissions all that different I know it is I'm just saying I was Josh's line of thinking with this I think should apply to everything but we can have that conversation at a way we will struggle to get volunteers for all the boards and stuff like that if we were toact something like that on the question of Staggering I'm hoping that they are already staggered because when they're appointed we can check on that but if they were already staggered the idea is those people roll over historic commission seat so that staggering will be baked in Jessica you were noding that they are staggering

things besides those things that you called out no I think I think the biggest issue is what you were asking uh and frankly I mean I don't know that I was asking about the the windows and the sighting so that wouldn't be on visual compatibility huh if it doesn't currently require a permit it wouldn't be subject to anything in 5.14 section 12 whether people want that or not I you know again I'm no expert I I look at a building I yeah it's it is what it is I'm not going to judge it B based on the siding or what the windows look like uh um so I'm I'm I'm not an expert so I won't speak on that but I I understand why you're raising that and uh you know I would be interested in getting other people's opinion on that but we don't have the time so so this is going to go to the planning board and they're going to review this as well or they just it needs to go to the planning board because they're doing their public

meeting for all uh warrant language right but are they going to review this first yeah we'll get their input and they'll get input from the community and then we'll have to draft then it comes back to us and we can make changes it's the same process as that so we're just taking on this step for them now because of their workload um and so I will I will vote if we can you can

make a note of my concerns the concern about what happens if they disagree the concern around buffering and the concern about the window you know you have a clear sense of what it was that I was bringing up right the issues okay it's a question of applicability um do we want it to only be when it's a permit required event or do we want to broaden it to be any exterior changes like Artic 12 um then

beyond that there's this question of um there just scanning through I think the ordinance might already have a little deficiency and they're about protection of historic resources because it it really just talks about on the property as opposed to off the property unless it's a sub application right so my issue around that is that I think currently what it says is that it has to provide a vegetative bu off but like one of the members of the commission was saying a you know a low growing blueberry bush counts as it that doesn't accomplish like the visual buffering to alleviate the situation like om 136 again that's not a concern of M because we don't have a historic district that has a contributing factors outside of but do you want an Irving Gas Station to go in across the street from a union church it's not a concern of mine no well I think it is a concern of some people so I would just like for a

second I'm sorry but I I'm I don't think it's helpful for you to say it's not a concern to mine when she's raising a concern because it's obviously a concern to Heather so I just like to let her finish and and and raise it without feeling I I feel like she's being attacked I don't know if that's your intent I don't think it is but I just think she needs to be able to say what she's thinking and and yeah I'm saying I I understand your concern I don't share it and that's we have to vocalize our differ I just I think if we're eliminating the 1 1500t buffer right for all area but whatever I just think if all of that those protections are going to go away with this it's important for us to consider buffering and screening requirements and I beat that drum about everything not just about historic resources and I I just don't want that to be overlooked because once we get rid of it we can't undo it right and so an

Irving could go in across the street from the Bliss Farm or from the Methodist Church and maybe that's fine with everybody but once that's gone it's gone and we can't get it back so it doesn't exist in our ordinance now right now there's nothing that prevents someone from doing that on a property that's across the road from that in the historic district it does only in the historic district but like the Bliss Farm the um almost only like two of or

one of the buildings listed on the historic preservation is in the historic district nothing else is in there I disagree because there was all of that discrepancy when those subdivisions went in well subdivision is separate I think right Kristen Sor the subdivision is a separate consideration for that 1500 F but nothing else is right the sub the subdivision has better standards about impact on yeah historic things it's it's when you get to a development that's like it's a single building permit or it's a site plan kind of thing so just I think we could strengthen that for our understanding because I want to make sure we're like and this isn't an attacking your position just trying to understand right now within that 1500t buffer if someone wants to put a a building across the street there's no special requirement that they're allow that that they have to meet there clearly was the intent that there be but

there isn't but there isn't okay unless it's a subdivision then unless it's a subdivision but it's not because of the radius that's the issue it's just the subdivision standards okay standards are we comfortable sending this with those notes to the planning board to get additional feedback and information from the community that that's the process that yeah so that's what happens they go and people are going to be able to give feedback to the planning board board's going to hold a public hearing on this and all the other land dis ordinance changes um they'll give the planning board will give it own feed as part of that but also hear from the public and hopefully incorporate anything that's sort of a common them mhm and then it comes back to us with that feedback we have to craft the warrant language but then the warrant language goes to the to another hearing prior to the town meeting yeah it may

um this is always a difficult thing about whether you're supposed to go back to a second public hearing you make changes usually boards want to do it if time permits just so people have you know a fresh look at whatever has has been a change but um as long as it's there's been a hearing and the changes came out of that hearing I am okay with bypassing the second public hearing it's just going to be up to the board the time all that so if this go big and sweeping the changes out so if this goes to the planning board they hold their public hearing they come back and say this is our feedback then we craft language based off of this and that feedback it doesn't need to go to another it may or may not I'm going to hedge on that because it kind of depends for me on was it within the scope of the stuff that we already had in here tweaking it or we going crazy and changing the reason I ask is because if

the feedback is require permitting for all exterior changes that becomes a significant change to property rights and right I I think that that becomes an entirely different ordinance than what you have presented in front of us just going to use that as my example if if this comes back with a recommendation that we have it broaden to be any project whether it confirmed or not I would want to go back to the second public hearing if it's if it's we like the district we want the district reinserted that would you know well the reason the reason I'm asking is because it comes a time concern here because it's January 28th so it's February this the public hearing for the Warren language would have to be no later than four weeks no sooner than two weeks so we're in with our April 1 town meeting we're in that window in two weeks and so we would need to have a public hearing and then the notice requirements for a

second public hearing to be done two weeks prior to and I'm just concerned about the time if there's still and and that's where I feel there's wiggle room sometimes depending on how it all shakes out time wise I might say it's completely fine to not do the two weeks of publish notice for the public hearing we can take it down to one week because it's not the official public hearing at that point it's sort of a follow even if there is a substantive change to the scope and scale okay are more conservative about this and that is my advice in the way I read the statute the statute says the public shall be heard in the development of a zoning ordinance I think when you have that hearing got that standard okay that yeah I'm not disagreeing I'm just sure I understand yeah but just just in case somebody were to call me Municipal Association give a more you know get a more conservative um angle there that's

mine okay so do I have a motion to send I ask one more u in 5.14 A4 uh should there be a comma after um the second on in that sentence before the national register of historic places uh yeah deemed eligible any structure or site listed on deemed eligible it should be for listing by

that because I think there have been talk about listing by the main historic preservation commission but there's no listing it's deem if it's deemed eligible for listing by them on the National Historic this to the planning board with the attached notes and the scrier edits so move we have any additional discussion I think it's good feedback so really appreciate the work on this I want to send it to tomorrow their next meeting is febru February 5th so and what I'm going to do right now then to send this to George and he'll get that to the planning board I assume I will do my best to attend that meeting so I can this yeah I can pull it up here right now so and have George watch this speed George always watches he does yeah

meeting meeting he leaves that the day after yeah yeah um yeah they're meeting February 5th to go over I think he emailed you that Kristen as well um did he vote no we're still in discussion yeah there the planning board will be taking public input on contract zoning and historic preservation at the upcoming meeting on February 5th

discussion all right all in favor of the motion any opposition seeing none the motion passes um I don't think we need Kristen for the architectural survey unless folks want to ask her questions about the discussion we just had with the questions about notice is important to get it done um part of my concern is is that my recollection from our meeting when this issue was raised the first time was we were asking for more information we were asking for it by a certain time and they missed that time mhm um so that's a little frustrating to

me um well and and my concern too is that the quote is based off of a one conversation um and round number based off of one conversation that just that's that's hard to approach the community on personally especially when there's the opportunity to gather this information thank you Kristen thank you gather this information eight months later that's part of something we're already paying for and so I'm not necessarily opposed to just putting this as its own separate question at the town meeting and letting the voters decide if they want to incur that but I just I just have a really hard time from a fiscal responsibility standpoint budgeting to do this twice I know one of their concerns was that they wouldn't be able to ask for money again until July of uh or June of 2026 or 2020

yeah 2026 because of the budget being an 18mth um and I I don't share in that concern because if in 2027 the process is starting anyways I think that we can wait that long personally so happy to hear what other folks putting $10,000 in the budget for this right now based on my conversation yeah and I I I think I think it's a really Noble effort putting forward and and that sort of stuff but just we have a lot of elements right now and you know we we our our direction to Jerry a few meetings ago was you very much limit anything new as part of the budget cycle um and so I'd be more inclined to delay on this until

with this idea we would tell them no get more information get us a a solid quote something in writing uh and uh I mean saying this after my daughter just brought the packet back from her his historic tour with with Tia that she did it uh that I've already read twice uh it's amazing work uh and the importance of this I mean I think is obvious but if it I if Jerry came to us with this I would say no uh and so I I I I agree I just don't think it's not fleshed out a lot it's not it's not something I would be comfortable saying hey let's give $110,000 well is that enough I don't know I'm hoping so oh yeah and and so that that's my concern and MH Joe did you have something to add no I'm fine with letting this part of it go is there anything else that they would need money for in regards to if the ordinance passed they haven't requested anything I I realize that but uh they not seeing past the MH uh the haze um so to speak

um that you know if we were to go this route and they would have to let's say hire an expert to come in and look at one of the structures that they're modifying would they need money for that I'm just looking at like you say 18 months is a long time should we set aside I mean just in general I know it's off topic a little bit but they are asking for money for this but they have really asked for money for you know bringing an expert if they have to do some sort of mediation over a property or is that coming under the planning board perview at that point if it gets to that far I think if it get to something that intense that would be more under like an application's like um escrow account okay because the the way that the ordinance that Kristen uh just shared with us that we voted to send to the planning board States like it's their job to provide the input based off of their experience if they're in a

position where it's to a scale that they can't that to me that likely seems like it's in an in a large scale development that's already going through maybe a site review or something like that that would have an escrow I I also think if if that were to pass and their recommendation was we need an expert right then they can put that on the applicant to say that it's their responsibility to pay for it I think it's a really good point it is a long time and and it is and so I get that part of it and you know things come up I think is a good question you know but anyways but I I'm fine with yeah not not creating any new legislation always creates unexpected discoveries down the road I would say wait pay for it once in 2027 and wait if we know what our properties are already that we have to worry about downtown here yeah so I would just like to add one comment about this I think the the $10,000 I I think it would actually and

if we wait and do it in 2027 that figure included the professional training all of the volunteers and so that part of it would not come under this expense because the reval company would be the ones that are doing the field right they're collecting the data which is what she would have had to have trained someone to do the 25 volunteers to do it so I do think that this is actually going to end up being less expensive that's why I don't want to pay for it twice and I don't want to pay for it when it becomes because at that point it's it's the professional compiling all of that data doing the written report and then entering it into the karma system yeah cuz that 10,000 it was a lot of it was just like you said teaching people how to get that and bring them the information to write the report and now it's like here's all the information right you're just writing the report at this point so um I would take a motion

to um reject this request for $10,000 so move do I have a second second sure any additional discussion um yeah I just I don't have any other points to make I think we just covered them do I have a mo U all in favor of the motion any opposition seeing

Durham current the Durham historic district commission to inform them of that even though I'm imagine someone at least one of them is watching the meeting tonight so I think it's important to officially communicate from 100% yeah

to the budget review and Amendment so um last week we got through a good chunk of these and asking questions about about the um the changes uh and we got I believe to J you remember what point we dropped off at I think we got most it was everything but the um the reserves yeah yeah and so

just to reminder for folks watching at home this is an 18-month budget um so some expenses are incurred twice in that 18 months some expenses are incurred once some expenses are you know the same monthly uh and so we've gone through the process of annualizing those changes here in the uh budget uh sheet and so

when by annualized I mean that is the one onee cost which includes whether the amount went up because of the cost of doing business you know diesel expenses increasing or whatever or the amount is representative of two payments of that service versus one payment of that service so that's what we mean by annualized and when we meet with the budget committee next week we'll go over that line by line if they have those questions and make sure we make that super clear as to what what that number represents um in the 18-month timeline

so um Joe I know you watched from home did you have any questions on anything we discussed last time around no like I said I I think I sent it an email to the board that I thought the thought the um this was excellent work by the by the um by Jerry and and his staff yeah um fabulous uh budget and um exactly what we asked for um yeah and uh I thought it was a really good blend of um using um fund balance uh and uh yeah no questions really and

one thing I want to point about using the fund balance is if we look at the um fund balance amount it is very close to the uh Reserve account amount in terms of what we're populating the reserve account with so the vast majority of the fund balance is just allocating funds for future Capital which saves US money because it re removes the need to finance or borrow in the future and it also creates uh a level funding of those capital accounts which is a thing that Jerry was tasked with last year and so that's where we're seeing most of those fund balance that most of that fund balance be uh amount being kind of allocated for I mean it doesn't get allocated for that but when you look at the amount that we're funding in the fund balance it lays out with that pretty well um so let's hop here onto

the Reser reserves in community budget information Jerry did you have anything you want to add on this before we started chatting about it no I I have nothing nothing really to add you have your supplemental budget your budget 995 that 598 500 which is what I've been

in here for your reserve account so I didn't I didn't really PL in anything for these other um Reserve accounts like uh like gazebo has been something that has been brought up I didn't put any money out back to you folks to that I mean in wor case that falls under the town building right right hold on and then like down below that when you see the community services donation I only put a th000 in for uh for general assistance um Durham new Fai ball has asked for 2500 but you've got a recreation account you can pull that from the snow bill Club has asked for their 1100 you can pull that from the recreation account so that's why I didn't add anything taxes um the only

thing that you really have left is if you want to um donate to the free Court scholarship like you did last year I have not heard from them this year they haven't asked so really you just you all have to figure out what you want to do here add to it take from it yeah whatever you want so to Jerry's point there I think that in the past we've called out these individual community services and donations but when we already have a recreation account we can pull requests at out of that should they come in and the should the us as policy makers find that that is important so um you know if Duram youth youth baseball makes that request we don't have to allocate that right now we already have that Reserve account um that Recreation account currently uh where what line are we at 23,000 23,000 in it you know and so in the past we just haven't pulled from that right and we budgeted separately and so I think that if we've already got

that money there that's a good place to pull from for that personally and so that means we can still meet that Community need without having to budget additional funds um this year and to that point as well I was looking through some of these um accounts and like same thing with like um we have the Gazebo here which has been we we've received some emails from people in the community saying that they want us to consider doing something with that um we've got some I think Calvin's got had a couple people look at that right Jerry to take a look at the replacement cost and fixing cost and stuff like that but that really Falls within a town a town building mhm and and we already have that town building Reserve account populated and if we look here um what number is

sorry real quick Joe the municipal public building Capital reserves line 77 on page 19 already has $90,000 in it so those those are expenses that we can draw from there should should we we get the fee back and people decide that they want us to approach that you know what I mean so we don't need to separate funds for it m so let me just so it's it's the actual 70,000 sorry 70,000 71 yeah sorry line

77 7,886 and I don't remember you uh page 19 and I don't remember what the exact quote you Calvin had said a while back but it it wasn't 70,000 just but so so my question is is when you when we talked about the use of BU building capital reserve account we had some ideas of what that would be for was the Gazebo part of that initial estimation it's a municipal build yeah so so it's part all Lo together yeah and when the capital the 10-year Capital plan came out that if I recall correctly that was really based off of like Public Works fire department there in town buildings and I remember remember that Calvin mentioned you know at some point something's going to need to be done with that so it was something that we had already expressed to the community is you know we understand that we're building Capital there um and so I think that that's a good way to do that so in my mind while I think that these are

really good Services Under community service donations I think we already have Capital set aside for it in in these other Reserve you can tell Calvin to go do it now you don't even need to get well if the I think if we all voted on it yeah we could instruct Cal or talk

to Jerry about you saying yeah the select board would be supportive of having something done there I think we'd probably want options explored and presented to us yeah do you want a separate article asking the towns that's what I was going to that's what I was going to get to is that while we have money allocated since we have this meeting coming right up and since we've had a lot of people vocalize interest in it we could say do does the um Community want the select board to pursue uh Bandstand improvements during

the upcoming budget cycle does does that P I think the important question to ask is about the actual preservation right because we've been having the conversation about how a lot of that has already turned over and we're not actually preserving I think it's important for us to know like I think Calvin said when he was here that the roof is original and pretty much every other part of that has already been replaced I think he said it was only even it was only part of the roof was original I think I think those are important details right because that is really going to determine the type of what the function of what ends up happening is it just a rebuild or or an order and replace or are we actually attempting to preserve and I think that that needs to be flushed out what if we asked the community if we wanted we don't have to but I think it's a good idea to ask is do you want the you know

select board to pursue that and what if that was a task assigned to the historic commission or we stood up a committee a gazebo refurbishment committee and they could do that homework there and come to us and say and I know it's kind of gets to death by committee but there's a lot of really passionate voices about this um and so maybe that would be a good opportunity to get people's input to say hey there's nothing original here what if we just take it down and put something of the same footprint there or hey we want to you know put the roof on a new structure like again it gets that more input like so I I think that building that that structure needs to be something needs to be done with it it needs to be done sooner with all due respects to those commissions if if we're looking for Community input uh we have the town election we have the town meeting uh we can put something with the ballots again

or have uh a tally sheet or something at the town meeting or uh do an article at the town meeting um you know but I I don't think we need to get more I think we need to get this and see if people want to spend the extra money to try to revive what little is actually original or if we want something that's going to be in in 150 years is going to be original to times yeah which you know at that point will be just as important as that is yeah so I think what you're getting is we have money set aside already why don't we just write some warant language that asks do you want this to be addressed this like we to pursue address restore it or start from scratch and rebuild it and have it look the same and we can hammer out that language after in February it would be good if we knew the current yes we need to know what's original like what is Calvin got that I think we invite Calvin or the next time

he's coming to a meeting we have Calvin tell us and we can put it on the agenda and say here we're discussing it and have people come in yeah yeah I I don't know if he can tell you what's original though I think that's I think the notes he sent had that had an indication as to what was and wasn't original and it was a lot less than people were saying I think he got an email stating that that gazebo laid in a ditch for 70 years so take

that for what it's worth so we can do our best to give you the information you want but yeah I mean go i' go take some pictures put it on a slide here's what we know we'll put it at the town meeting that people vote I think that answers the the fiscal note question here though the other so the other thing I wanted to talk about um so that smells good whatever you're cooking sorry the other thing I want to talk about here is so if we look on page 19 and we just go through these reserves there's a couple things that stand out to me so telecommunication Reserve has 88,500 and this is line 73 has $885 127 in it and we don't have anything slated for what to spend that on and it just it accumulates funds every year and so um I think that we need to talk about removing that line and reallocating those funds to different Reserve accounts and so that won't have any impact on the the cost of our budget

but it will then help s put some money in some of those accounts and that's where I think we can move some of that money to Durham youth or sorry to the um um Recreation account but I also think we could move money to the N line 70 emergency Reserve account and that could be used as a contingency type line I was looking at the main State Statute and it's allowable under main State Statute to have something called a credit Reserve account and it can be up to 5% of your Municipal budget and it is in place to allow boards in um commit

the the select board to allocate funds out of there for unexpected expenses in an effort to make sure that there doesn't need to be a tax increase so somebody quits and we have to pay or someone leaves and we have to pay unemployment or some drastic thing happens and there's some funds that need to be brought up there we have that already populated with uh with $16

reserve line 37 reallocated some of that to our um emergency reserve and the rest and some of it to our um Recreation Reserve we could build up a balance in those accounts and solve some of the um contingency issues that we we know exist and also then have some money set aside for the community needs as they arise I have a question yeah does the reallocating does that get put before the voters to vote on yeah 100% okay but I think it's important for us to tell them like we have this telecommunication reserve and there's nothing there's no plan with for it and it money gets put in it every year and there's $888,000 in it and so we can't give Durham Youth

Baseball we can't give um uh a scholarship out of that telecommunication but if we were to reallocate that where the community think is valuable that gives us that opportunity to have that flexibility throughout the year yeah and we we can go into the emergency reserve and a perfect example there is if we end up having you know some sort of um opportunity come up or or if we need to manage something with cash flow or we have an opportunity come up that we hav't a grant opportunity that we haven't allocated funds for that helps increase efficiency and decrease expenses we can allocate money out of that so I just think that there's some some opportunity there so I don't remember what specifically that account is for but I also think if we could use it for you know connecting the Eureka center with internet and that sort of Technology uh which is something we need to get out of this building in this space well

separate to that we have the r account yes but to me we're adding that for us for the meetings not for the building itself because we made the decision to take our meeting space and use it as office space rather than expanding the the building so the town office so uh when you first raise the issue the emergency Reserve account was where I thought the money should go I do think putting some money into the um uh the recreation account is fine but I also think some money should be left for telecommunication purposes and specifically uh the eurek owner because I think you know we're talking about improvements to that building and multiple meetings about getting out of this building because the meeting because it could interfere with Public Safety uh we can't do that until we have that and I think you know if we have this money that is essentially Revenue because it's not coming out of the taxpayer uh wallet we should use it for

that purpose we should be careful not to call it Revenue because it's not yeah it's it's just allocating um it's allocating yeah Revenue to this Reserve account money that comes in from the franchise agreement so it's it's Revenue that goes goes directly to this account well I'm saying like if we allocate it out of the reserve we we we should be careful just not to call it Revenue so because it's allocation out of a reserve but no I'm talking about how the money gets in there mhm and the money gets in there from revenue we receive from the tele from for the franchise fees so it it is

I think but it doesn't um I agree with that point I think that I mean and maybe this isn't the time to have the conversation about what amounts are going where no I think it is oh okay um I think that if we we could accomplish the things that everybody's saying by doing um some to the emergency Reserve

or if we're calling that going to name that something different and then if that went into if a lot you know more went into the Eureka capital reserve it we could use that for the upgrades that need to happen at not have to call that specifically telecommunications there's more than just the telecommunication stuff that needs to happen over there to get that meeting space ready so I've done some some math here already to your point Heather and and you said exactly what I was getting ready to say so I think that it would be wise for us to bring the emergency Reserve take the telecommunication account telecommunication Reserve which has a $888,000 balance I personally would like to see us bring the e Reserve up to $50,000 that would leave us with 30,000 or that would leave us still with um uh you can do the math but 3,480 in the telecommunication account and then we can move some of that into

the um uh Recreation is that necessary though why they already has $23,000 in there the well I'm just saying because it could fund for future needs and questions because there's a lot of discussion right now about the recreation facilities in town and so it just could you're Mark some of that I'm not saying it needs to go higher because last year we gave out 167 there's already 23,000 in that so you could say put zero in it but then we could put the whatever the balance is after we square up emergency Reserve into the Eureka Capital I'll get you Joe is there anything left that we need to pay for currently for AO telecommunications yes okay yes the server $5,295 so we should leave $6,000 in there in case so right so your real number instead of 88527 83 233 yeah but I don't want to bring it down to the line leave some money in there leave $67,000 in there for the server and that way you'll have

a little bit left over in case something else comes up yeah if we left um 6,000 in there to your recommendation Joe that would leave us with 82,000 527 to move around yeah or even or even leave 10 in there because remember you're doing an 18-month cycle here so leave some extra money if we just did 80 well no oh whatever yeah I mean just just leave some amount of money in there knowing you're going to pay 5,000 Plus for the server so and then you might have to buy another server years year but you know I know

it's going to refill like Josh ising $9,700 a revenue a year right now so what if we left what brought that left that balance at 8,527 okay and then took that 80,000 that's available and then make the suggestion to reallocate it to emergency Reserve Recreation and Eureka Center and we can have a discussion about what those numbers could look like do you what do you folks think about that I'm bored with that and so I would recommend bringing the emergency Reserve up to 50,000 which would be 80 I got 33047 would have to

move um yeah okay so bring emergency Reserve up to 50,000 and so like you said we'd have to move 33807 you said to put either in to put in Eureka capital reserve and then or uh or some $46,000 left to split between Eureka capital reserve and um Recreation

reserve and whatever folks think for that because to your point Heather you know last year we gave out 16,700 there it has $23,000 in the account right now so there's enough if the same amount of requests were to come in the the 16,000 is all of that

so scholarship yeah that that didn't come out of recreation no that and the general assistance wouldn't come out of the general assist so the only thing that came out of recreation was the 2500 and the 1100 right so if we're giving out you know 3600 a year and that has 23742 in it there's you know 7 years of liquidity there at that rate you know that's what I'm saying we need right that's what I'm saying I think what's going to happen at Eureka is more important than trying to put money in that account there's do we want to put the rest of that into that the rest of the amount after we bring emergency up to 50,000 so 46953 put the rest of that into Eureka or do we we still need to call out the general assistant I a lot I just have one question so eure is a municipal building mhm so do you want to combine those into just one Municipal Building

want to put your money into what building personally the answer for me there is yes because I think having fewer Reserve accounts makes it easier to track but I could see the argument being that that's a a space that serves the community a little bit differently and so maybe how we allocate funds there could be different that's I I'm could be convinced either

my comment about that is that in terms of um efficiency I think it makes more sense to do what you're suggesting the you know because I'm always The Devil's Advocate my only thing is that last year we went to the voters we asked them specifically about putting money into the Eureka reserve and they voted in favor of doing that and so I feel like consolidating that then let's say the roof blew off this building and we had to use all of it for that the voters actually voted for that money to go to Eureka that's that's my only that's a good that's a really good point yeah I'd rather just stick with the keeping it in the you know add either adding to the you know U Capital keeping that separate so if the roof blew off the town office would you be able to use Thea money to help pay for that no no no and so it's that's the one thing is like I understand that we want to fund improvements at Eureka but if a true

emergency does happen our wants kind of fall down below our needs and so maybe there is a value to just putting it into the building and they are going to revote if we're going to do that they're going to revote to do that they have to vote to move that right what all it does is it just gives you more fle yeah that's all that's the only seat I want play Josh you were going to say something after me uh I think that I mean we're getting close to emergency time with that building uh and we need to decide if we're going to put the money in it or not and uh I think seeing this separate and and deciding uh to me is it's worth keeping

separate because frankly we need to do something with that building uh because I think we're wearing out our welcome here in this space and we're not the only ones meeting here and I think it's time for us to listen to that working group uh and do something and so I think

we need to start taking that seriously and I think there needs to be that dedicated account for that building because I do think it's Unique um and if an emergency comes up then we can have that conversation again but um well in that case do we have a motion to combine them cuz if not then we can just keep it as is so does anyone want to make a motion to combine Eureka Center to public uh the the other Public Works building or the municipal buildings seeing none let's keep it there okay so what do we want to put for money in there I I also don't think you know what other telecommunications systems do we have other than the server there's the systems here at the fire department you have you know you'll have laptops and computers to replace everything right and so six seven as come so oh and so I

again I think I mean it's going to repopulate to some extent every year but um this is a I think leaving extra there for is again to work on the te the Telecommunications which I think the next big budget item is to connect the Eureka Center but that's not until we figure out what we're doing and how to fix the building so we can make it usable for Town needs but so I think

leaving just the 8527 is not the right decision so are you suggesting move the 33 to bring the emergency up to 50 and then leave the rest of it in telecommunications yeah or if you want to move some to put the recreation account to a a a round number 30,000

35,000 but I think I don't feel I mean personally I think that the Eureka situation is I mean it's going to take us seven years to get through that Recreation budget I don't see that as a priority to to me I understand the emergency Reserve but the for for me the most important account we have is the Eureka Center because that is something I mean God forbid what happens if we're they're having a public meeting in this space and then there's a fire and something happens and are we affecting Public Safety uh you know I didn't realize it was such a concern until I went to that meeting a few weeks ago uh I never heard and then you know the whole security thing here which I never heard the chief mention before uh to me getting that y center Center ready for us to have these meetings um because I don't think it's or or we have to start looking elsewhere uh and and that's the school and then the only

other place would be and which I don't think would be practical for them to have with the number of meetings we have or say hey Calvin we're going to use your garage get a heater and uh you know when there's no snowstorms and you're not going out we're going to have meetings in your garage so that's the only other place that's big we need to wait for that Community en visioning process to drive drive where we invest the money and so I think that just at this Midnight Hour arbitrarily just saying we need to give all this money to R center it's that that's what happened with the doors last year and then there is an argument as to whether we should actually do the doors this year after we added it last year so I think that putting some money in there to help build it up with the anticipation that there is going to be a need there is important but I do think we should bring up the emergency Reserve because that is

a big concern for me and so if we bring that to 50,000 we just need to remove 33,000 from telecommunication that leaves us with 46,9 53 in telecommunication that we could either move some some of that to Eureka or some of that could stay there or whatever number there so so if I were if I were able to finish my thought process I would have said we move the money to the emergency Reserve account and we leave the rest in telecommunications because uh you know it will be there and we can reallocate it when we have a better idea of where it needs to go I think leaving in telecommunications though kind of puts a lot of constraints on it whereas if we were to move it to a different account that provides more like right now if it's in telecommunications and you wanted to do uh a video monitor in eure Center yeah you can do that but if you want to do anything else there you can so I'm just I think that putting it in account that

allows more flexibility could be beneficial so so move it to the emergency reserve put another $20,000 and the emergency Reserve bring it up to $70,000 then you can use it for anything you want I think that does give more flexibility for those big big items that could pop up $26,000 for an emergency but you I don't know or just leave it at 4 but like you just said like it sounds like you're declaring that eure Center could become an emergency and so I think it m passes the straight face test on that it would if we have to go jump over there for some reason that right that was de safety related of that nature we could

you know um I just think the more we leave in telecommunication the more it puts a really big constraint on what can be used for and I think that's a good idea for the time being until we get an idea of what we want to use it for because I think there are things that is going to be needed for we don't know what they are we don't know what they're going to

emergency Reserve list the motion I'll make a motion to increase the emergency Reserve account to $70,000 so that would move $21,000 so of the Telecommunications Reserve to emergency Reserve so you'd leave add 53,0 47 into the tele into the

emergency Reserve is there a second on the motion I'll second it um so the motion on the table is to move $53,000 and4 emergency Reserve to bring that balance to $70,000 and that would 35,40 in the telecommunication we move the well there's not quite 8 88527 83 233 am I looking at the wrong

no cuz the server has to get paid for get paid for we going to yeah well I mean but if we we leave we're leaving yeah 35,000 480 in in that account yeah yeah so we would move $ 53,486 motion any opposition all right and the motion passes 4 to one okay so Jerry would you just make that adjustment there that gives it little I have to write it in the war yeah but so when but

we will have to be reflected on the budget though for the budget committee to see that that transfer is proposed you do the the you have to do another list here for we're voting to increase the account amount but we're not voting to increase funds it just be a transfer so we would need to have a warant article for the transfer but it's not part of you would do it on this sheet yeah yeah you would just do

the Telecommunications budget Reserve account is on on this but I think you'd have to add it and we we have money I just say reserve accounts and not do capital reserve accounts and list all the reserve accounts right and Jerry in this current budget where does the general assistance line live um that's on

all right as long as as long as it's in there we're good P yeah 69 Community Services general assistance yep see that right there and this would so right now we have outside organization 16,100 that disappears in the 2026 budget bringing that's why that's a decrease of 100% online uh 697 807 right perfect so

that 16,100 is you know that M all that and and as a like so we've covered we know we have plenty of money now for the baseball snow wheel Club um you know if the inet were to come and ask for a generator we don't have funds allocated in a in a reserve account for that but they haven't made that request ahead of this year they replaced their generator right but they replaced it but they haven't come and made I should have said if someone comes with another request like that now the Freeport scholarship we haven't heard from anything from them but if you recall last year they were trying to build a principal amount of an endowment and once they had that they weren't going to have to fund raise they were just going to give scholarships out off of that endowment and so if they haven't come and spoken to us I I imagine that means that they um met that and last year when they came and spoke to us we

made our budget timeline very clear to them so at this point like we haven't heard from them their goal was to just get an endowment set up and then be done with it so I don't feel like we need to really tap any money for that anywhere and so that was the only thing that I had for changes on the reserve accounts

so should we vote to put a war article on uh moving or paying the durm youth baseball and the some Club the requested funds from the recreation Reserve [Music] account so yeah that's an option um we don't have to put that but we do have the meeting come up coming up so because right now we can disperse those out of the reserve account without having to have a special vote on it so I would make that motion so your motion is to add a warrant article to um to

distribute 2500 to Durham youth baseball and 1,100 to the snowmobile club yes is there a second on the motion I'll second that second Joe any questions on the motion yeah I was going to say we don't have to but when we have an audience we might as well it's not a bad idea do that and say Hey you know so all in favor any opposition so right now Jerry warant article to um ask if people want a gazebo the Gazebo addressed we'll have to work this language a little bit more a warrant article to ask if um we can move

uh the allocated amount out of telecommunications into emergency reserve and then a warrant article um based off of Josh's motion y my next question and I know want get some eye rolls cuz a little nitpicky but Heather might have my back you like nitpicky right so we have our current Reserve account called emergency reserve and in the legisl in in the state statute they res refer to this as a credit Reserve account do we want to change the name of that emergency Reserve to match what is listed in State Statute because that it just highlights in that that that is deliberately for an action that that is an emergency which um I can just read it off right here I pulled it up

called credit Reserve account it's called the credit Reserve it's under title 30A part two subpart nine chapter 223 Municipal finances says provide a reserve which may be applied in periods of financial emergency to assist in continuing its normal operation without an increased tax rate and and then subsection a here says the annual Appropriations for this purpose may not exceed 5% of the current tax commitment and then B says when the municipal legislative body determines that a financial emergency exists it may order the withdrawal of necessary amounts from the account okay well that part of it says the legislative body has to determine that it's an emergency when the municipal legislative body determines okay that's true so that means that we would have to go get a special town meeting to have them vote right is that what that means didn't didn't and didn't that it sounded like operation account where we're talking

about having e money for emergency repairs and other things so I think it could be I think emergency would Define that anything that would require an increase in the tax rate to cover but I think my my understanding of this Reserve account as it sits right now is that if there's an emergency that happens during the year and money is not allocated for that emergency then this money can be used for it it's not money that's going to be used to help lower the taxes well no help not help prevent increasing the taxes right because if an emergency rose right now and we didn't have anything budgeted for it and we had to pay for it we then have to go the next year and ask to reappropriate money that we've already spent correct that would be increasing and the intent of this Reserve account is to say hey we have this money so we can cover this with money we already have and we don't need to raise any more money unless we

want to add money to this Reserve account by raising taxes so I I don't think changing it is if we don't I just wanted to ask if well my my only thing is that right now we have the authority to spend money out of our existing emergency Reserve if there's an emergency if we change it to align with that that says that the legislative body and then so do we have to hold a special town meeting they have to vote to approve it I I don't think so because right now at our regular town meeting they're voting to give us the ability to expend out of Reserve accounts without going to the legislative body which is different which we did for the first time last year I don't know if you can do that when if you're following the statute and you're citing to the statute and the statute says a legislative body I think you got to follow the statute maybe it's safer just to leave it as is what does it say Joe again read B that's

the part provide a Res three says provide a reserve which may be applied in Period of financial emergency to assist in continuing its normal operations without increasing the tax rate and then a says the annual Appropriations for this purpose may not exceed 5% of the current tax commitment and B says when the municipal legislative body determines the financial emergency exist it may order the withdrawal of a necessary amounts of the account right so the legislative body will determine if it's an emery yeah but in in that same statute it says

you know just establishment of any reserve account says the municipality May establish a reserve fund consisting of one or more accounts by appropriating money or by authorizing the transfer un encumbered Surplus fundes at the end of any fiscal year for the following purposes Capital Improvements Capital Equipment credit Reserve account so it's a subsection of saying how you establish Reserve accounts in my understanding and I'm could be completely wrong so that's why I'm trying to bring it up I'm not trying to fight or anything like that is that if the town is already voting to give us the permission to ex expend funds out of these Reserve accounts which this is a sub part of that uh part of the statute then that would qualify but if we don't feel like it's a concern that's fine too so so I I just wanted to bring it up and if it's no it's no problem this is for to assist in continuing its normal operation so that

mean this is for if we don't raise enough money to continue not which I again again if if we want to have money in that account that's fine but I don't think the emergency Reserve account which is what we've talked about being used in cases of emergencies I don't think we want to limit it to just that use okay and that's fine I just bringing it

questions or recommendations on the um reserve and Community budget information page mine I don't know if this is the page it would fall under because I don't think it falls under any page but when we're talking about these types of reserves and I recall the Conservation Commission coming and asking for money to fix the bridges and whatnot and we did give direction not to fund anything over and above what it takes to operate at normal service level I'm just wondering like you know my thing is that if the if we don't budget for anything that any of those that might come up then where does that money come from when they come to us and ask for that stuff or if they have any plans or I I just didn't see any of that reflected anywhere and so I'm asking the question I think that would from the recreation account like in that example because it's the the bridges and the walking paths and stuff like that are Recreation

which that's the answer for that example but like I'm just saying across the board like if the solid waste committee needed money where would we get that from and we don't have anything budgeted for the because we don't anticipate that they will have those needs because like if they need to print something that comes out of our budget from um the admin side already if we needed to if someone said I want to fix the the if we want to fix up the building that's at the River Park that would come out of the buildings because it's a town building if we wanted to do someone wanted to go in and I don't need 30 examples I just wanted to make sure it was on our radar I think that we have that covered through the other Reserve accounts but I think it's a really good question thank you any other questions on the budget so the process here is Jerry you can make those adjustments for us and the um budget committee wants to get a copy of

it email to them Thursday uh is that reasonable yeah yep and we're also going to provide them with I think printed copies because they had Rec they had referenced that the other night um and so all we're going to provide them is this budget sheet in this format which is a PDF file that will be emailed to them and a printed version of this can I have a process conversation we they make recommendations based on our budget but we haven't voted to accept I'm talking about process and then if we vote this is how it goes so I wanted to describe the process and then we can vote on the budget if that works and so this is all I think we should send them this and um in PDF format and the uh and then print off a copy for them in the past people have asked for an Excel format one of the challenges with that is last time that was handing over people um manipulated the numbers in the Excel format and then then we now not

comparing Apples to Apples so someone had created their own column where they were doing their own calculations and then they're like well based off my calculations these numbers are wrong and then everyone was like oh can I see what page is that on they said oh it's my own calculations and I think to just avoid that if we're all working off of the shared same budget sheet that that avoids that so does that sound mhm I'm

that yeah okay and so that's the process the they're going to do a review starting to Tuesday of next week um I think it would be great if all of us who are available could attend that meeting um Jerry and I will obviously be there to answer questions I think that if we're sitting here as a board saying this is our budget I they talked last night I'll do a budget presentation much like what Jerry gave to us and then they can direct questions if as the chair I can't answer the question or someone from the board feels like they could answer it better I think then then we can I can um coordinate with that person cuz like with Milt meetings he'll say does any I have these questions does anyone have this question he calls on someone they ask the select board chair the select board chair needs an answer from town manager or budget Committee Member or a uh department head member I think that we can facilitate it

that way but I would love to have us all there um if possible not everyone has to be there minimum I have to be there um but I would encourage everyone to attend Tuesday so if you're going to be you have to post it CU you're calling it together so does anyone else to attend so you want to attend de are you all right so if there's going to be three of us then we have to post it so um cool

all right so that's the process they have the they sent us an email with the meetings a while back so it's essentially this Tuesday a week from today and then I think the follow the Tuesday after our next Bo meeting as well 10th the following Monday the following Monday yeah I wrote them down right here yep oh perfect yep following Monday um and so we can kind of have a meeting after our next meeting to see if we want everyone to still go there so again so we can post that if that work have a vote next meeting so all right that all being said on process do we have a vote on we want we need to have a vote on this budget as uh as amended so I think we have to vote article by AR you want to do article by article fine do we not have to okay I I think if if you would be more comfortable with that we I don't care I just want to follow the rules sure let's do article by article if we don't have any major changes this is not pro not

not an issue if we don't need to do article by article it's fine that's up to you okay so I I'll make a motion that we amend the emergency Reserve account or Joe already made that motion so we made that so we've edited the document and now I would make I would entertain a motion to approve the budget as

edited so moved yeah I'm asking have a second I'll second perfect so do we have any discussions all right so them uh I again would just like to thank Jerry and his staff for the work that went into this um I learned a lot myself going through it and uh you did a great job presenting it the first time for us I really understood all the details and the department heads input at our meeting that we had on this was very good so just an acknowledgement and thank you for your team yeah and I think you did a really great job this year with these visuals I think that's huge uh in color to really see that and then laying out the fix cost versus where the wiggle where where the non-fixed costs are I think helps provide a lot of perspective when you realize you know our um total fix costs are pretty locked in there's not a lot of room here to make adjustments so I think that was great and I think that with our direction to

you being bring us back a you know base line nothing new with the exception of some more staff capacity for um HR when we said bring us back a budget that has another HR person and you said I figured out how to do it at a a fraction of the cost with a consultant that is a huge savings opportunity there which I know I appreciate a lot finding those opportunities even when we kind of gave you guidance to go further along so I'm really happy with this and I know it was a ton of work going through and figuring out to annualize ation part so all right seeing no more discussion all in favor of the budget as [Music] amended any opposition so I will send uh Jerry will get this ready Thursday and I will send in in from us as a board to the budget committee and see in have once you see it on it so perfect all

business and we just have uh abatements to sign and that was sent in our packet does anyone have any questions about the abatements I think we have to move to the board of assessors oh yeah sorry do I have a motion to move into the board of assessors sove have a Joe Joe moved it I'll second it second it all right all in favor any opposition seeing none all right we now as we are now functioning as the board of assessors so new business number a an abatement to map 7 lot 79 do we have any questions on that it's just a sorry map I read that

wrong thing backwards map five lot 79 um this is pretty straightforward just an abatement amount of $47.90 from an acreage era that was calculated so do we have any questions on that I would I would entertain a motion to approve the abatement make a motion to um approve the abatement for is it m five L9 M five lot 79 for $47.90 cents uh John Christina P perfect

do I have a second second all right any questions on the motion see none all in favor any opposition we're good um I'll sign it and pass it abatement for map 7 my map map five flot 79 oh sorry that was the only one service agreement for animal control that's the in new business oh we got move do I have a motion to end the board of assessors exit the board of assessors meeting so moved do I have a second second all right any discussion all in favor any opposition seeing none we have moved out of the board of uh assessors so we're back into our select board meeting all right so we have a mo we have a service agreement here for um animal control that needs to be signed Jerry do you have any extra info for us on this no that's just a carry over from

uh to elbon they do control serves and that's just perfect so I have a motion to approve the service agreement uh uh as presented to us for animal control so move do I have a second second any question on the motion all in favor any opposition seeing none that's going to

right says inhabitants of Lisbon and date s Sign Sealed in presence of page for yeah there's a page for us too I thought on there it doesn't have the names of us it doesn't have the names it just says it says uh inhabitants of town livz been signed sealed and delivered in presence of in the date so there's two lines do you want us to just write our name in and then sign because there's two different the bottom one say inhabitants of durh durh my

writing yeah and uh I got nothing else here for new business so manager report okay a couple of things um next couple of meetings we've got to meetings left to kind of review that and get it done so I'll have a copy of the next meeting for you to if there's any changes andu then and then I'll have the final draft for you at the end of

February you can do a draft draft is what speaking of that when when do you need um there might have been an email when do you need the select boards uh the board chair's report uary 15th February 15th so I was going to write that up but I wanted to distribute it to the board prior just to get some input so I'll have that prepared before our next meeting for us to uh talk about in case I miss adding anything so that's going have put that on the agenda yep um up one couple things town office generator is installed officeat when we had today never lose power again thank you you should put that out on the BL yeah that would be really great put on the newsl and on the and on the Facebook page yeah there was a lot of people really concerned about that and especially tell about the good deal we got yeah I mean it didn't come in on budget too we paid 9,937 and 3000 back from MMA so awesome

that that's good the other one the other thing I want to mention isuse doors are being install so that's mhm you know there's when you look at that AR C there some major problems the sill that one the door sits on top of is just completely gone and red so he had that spray about four in of it it was just ra and then we put some CR treatment back in there and support it but they look pretty good um so he should wrap up this week the doors I don't know if you've been in there a little bit but I was in there today kind of talking to if you you walk in the front door and you kind of go over to the right and look left that whole floor gets down it's got to be about 4 in yeah there are some major

issues yeah like in that Community me and Calvin pointed out that it's half of it's a stone foundation and when it rains water pours through the side of the building and then is absorbed in the uh dirt floor yeah so there's a lot going on no those are the two good things that have been in the works for a while they're getting done and that's uh that's good news y any effects to any grants we got with

all the changes this week with our new Administration and the white really and I think they're just on hold now until there's a lot on hold there's a lot of on hold and I think MMA sent out an email today did you all get yeah I didn't read it but yet yeah do we get any do we yeah is there anything outstanding that we're going to lose I think since we spent down arpa already and that was already um allocated okay I I I'm not aware of us have any federal okay I saw a bunch of Grants on the chief's report and the big question will be though is with education Y and what that's going to look like for their bud that's not going to be pretty and and what that would look like for us if there's a a halt in in anything there so I know that MMA is paying a lot of attention to this and I would be interested to hear what the school has to say just curious if we had anything that we knew all the more reason for the

fiscal year change yeah yeah that concludes my report awesome thank you um board member reports I just want to quickly say the a uh agriculture committee I met with them at the beginning of the month and they're up and running they're really excited they're already going through um some some internal facilitation of prioritization they approv their their own um um Charter there and they we just

got an application for another member because they need an alternate and so someone just sent that in just today so really eager group of a of of producers and farmers in in our community it was really great to meet with them all so um I've got nothing else Josh do you have anything uh just Calvin did a great Calvin uh George did a great job with that uh downtown uh meeting he did last last week last week yeah uh I didn't get to stay for the whole thing but I thought the part of his presentation that I saw was great so thank thank him for me because I didn't get a chance

for the whole thing and it was a really good exercise thought thought it was excellent and I I think I wrote you a note about it as well uh it's cool that there's $ 15,000 more dollars coming towards the downtown envisioning process with GP Cog and I think that's really great to note because that alone right there almost doubles our investment in the GP Cog du's annually which is huge yeah so add that to your list of all the grant money that you're going to tally 23 no I mean townwide all of them but

just GP Cog alone we pay $88,000 in dues and we've gotten $23,000 from them so I would love that sort of return on investment with my dollars they do a great job yeah yeah yeah she did a good job at being too she did a wonderful job yeah it's everybody did George did Christina did she's a fantastic facilitator yep is um Heather Heather

did you have anything I think Jerry wanted to say something yeah I did so I sent you the informational thing y all like that I know I the 18mon budget yeah did that did that make sense to you CU what we're going to do next is I'm going to we're going to print that out we're going to give it to some of the folks at the window and kind of use them ask them read this and let me know this makes sense to you before we send it out um town you know because we want we

want people to be able to understand it we want to get I did send Jerry a change though because in the top left on the screen it wasn't wasn't fin gone yeah and what's I think what's going on there is there's been like eight iterations of that so that's a text box so when you made the last edit R you blocked off that thing and so when I got cuz I didn't even pick that up I was looking for the other edits that you made but and when that gets printed so I think it's really important that we send it out through all things Durham every week from the time it goes out to the time I mean the the the Durham News blast sorry um every every time that that Weekly Newsletter goes out that should be in it every week up until the the the town meeting okay an electronic version of it and then I think putting it an electronic version of it on our town Facebook page is important too on the town website and if we can print some

copies off and see if we can put them at the get and go maybe to and see if they're okay with that because just want to make sure that everyone is getting access to this piece of information unless you hadn't plan to mail it to every single person but and

so that's another I thought you said we were going to mail it to everyone we are going to mail it to everyone but oh sorry yeah but e regardless I think that having it in all those places is going to be really important because there's been a lot of complaints about mail and stuff like that so um we're going to have to write an warant article to get the time to vote on when the new town meeting will be so the reason why we pick this second second well so we want toine it with the rsu5 school budget election then we can be back onto that ballot the municipal officers because we do a bated town meeting we just have to have the municipal officer election within 14 days of town meeting so we can have the election on that Tuesday with budget ref and perfect so that's why

that I thought that was good the second as opposed to later in the month because you get it sometimes you could get close to like a 4th of July weekend uh or something like that being right at the end you know so people's vacation time June's a tough time because everyone wants to be outside but yeah and we may have another opportunity where GP C could put you and I in front of the camera in a telepro talking we should do that can be a video and we know they'll they'll help us with that if you're interested in doing that as well absolutely working on that perfect all right Deb did you have anything to add uh just that I also attended the community event for the space whatever it's called um and

there was a lot of good involvement from community members Not only was it facilitated well but all the Comm community members basically spoke about their ideas it was a really my drawing I didn't realize how many people got married at the Eureka Center um so I just say that I also wanted to just acknowledge in the chief's report he had a lot of good things in here but this inspection that they did that he said p with fine colors and now it's a four-year I mean a number of us can understand the issue of somebody coming in and auditing and inspecting and how important that is so just acknowledging that piece although there was a lot of good things I did attend the uh recent training the required training that you suggested was an online thing this I think it was this week I remember I did attend that so you'll be get okay um and we need to make sure the

next February meeting for the solid waste committee is in the books in the records I don't I know like scheduled he is it the second Monday I'm not sure what the date is that's what he told me when I met okay always the second Monday of the month okay so as long as we make sure we get it in the that's the same night as the budget committee

Eureka yeah we can they can do Eureka as opposed to here yeah yeah because that that's a meeting that isn't currently required to be recorded you'll have to choose which one is this the role that I'm playing I mean isn't the chair well don't you attend us Sol new you're I do but do I I I have not been taking ownership of leaving any anything there I've just been attending yeah that's that's what your role is you just right Le yeah so you can choose which one you want to go we want we want you to Bud oh for me to I see yes okay okay um but your training thing made me think um last night the budget committee was asking about foa training and so could you send me the link to the FAA we talked about the FAA document that you have to read and sign off on if if someone can point me to where that lives I just wanted to send it to them um to have them do that so uh they said last night that they weren't going to do any

FAA training until they were told explicitly by us to do forward training so I just wanted to send that all elected officials to do it they made it very and that's a valid way to do it on that the challenge those was last night they made it very clear that they don't need to get our permission or ask us for anything and they don't feel that they need to do FAA training until they get that instruction from us but they don't think that they should get instruction from us so I'm at a loss as to what they want so I'm just going to send them the foa training and say this is the requirement for state law I mean I just quickly pulled up the the the their mention with Municipal officers CL Treasures assessors and budget committee members so they're required to do it planning board to yeah and they did claim that they weren't on that list yeah and then there was oh we haven't we've never done before so we just got

to send it along you know um so I'll send that along and that's it so uh do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved all in favor any opposition see none that's member report he already he no I just no I just piled on all right upcoming Jos mentioned yeah good perfect upcoming meetings budget committee meeting February 4th and February 10th at 5:30 at 6:30 at the fire station planning board meeting February 5th at the fire station at 6:30 that's going to be open for public comment on the contract zoning in the Durham historic district uh or the historic district commission's changes um select board meeting February 11th and the 25th and historic district committee meeting February 13th at the r Center at 6 pm. and is there any need for an executive session seeing none do I have a motion to adjourn how motion to adjourn do have do I have a second there second Heather any discussion all in favor

any opposition seeing none we journ at 8:56 p.m. I'm going to go steal some whatever they cooking over there