TranscriptSelect Board Meeting & Workshop ~ May 7, 2024

but there's no waight but there's no uh video actually showing you guys are on in there might be a delay want to something you're live yeah yeah we're good everything's coming through all right all right perfect should probably just make it a habit of making sure we're uh working before we start moving forward so got to love technology all righty uh it is 6:03 on May 7th and just going

to call to order our uh kind of truncated board meeting before our select board Workshop tonight we're starting a few minutes late just because of some technical difficulties so call the order I see that we have a quorum and uh begin with the Pledge of [Music]

of United States America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for righty do we have any amendments to the agenda no nothing from Jerry anything from any board members all right perfect no amendments to the agenda uh we'll move into public comment um before we begin public comment just as a reminder for everyone watching this is really a period of time to solicit information from the members of the community not necessarily A question or answer back and forth but uh really to just share information so that can be shared here in public comment or via email to any of the board members or to some of Jerry's uh afternoon coffee talks so any public comment tonight yeah yep yeah just come please come forward take a seat um if you press the button the microphone should be on and then it's not on right now no it's not on right now there you go all right

if you pull a little tting testing if you pull a little closer it should work so um so I'm John Benedict I live on run around Pawn Road and uh at corner Route 9 I've been there about 27 years John bring that really close to you because otherwise it won't pick you up how's that thank you and uh so I was here at the last select board meeting and obviously the audio had a problem and didn't get heard and so I wanted to come back and do a do over so because I what I have to say I want others to hear um so the what I have to say is the

majority of my property was rezoned into resource protection at last after last year's town meeting I had no idea at the time that this was being proposed the process of resoning this area into resource protection was riddled with inaccurate data and lack of due process the endangered Landing Turtle should never have been recognized on the beginning with habitat maps and Durham there was never any trapping survey or research to verify its existence here the town has no evidence of any current population here considering all the resources effort and time of those involved in planning and finally putting before the voters this resource protection Zone article that not one board or Committee Member was curious enough or thought it prudent to practice some due diligence to seek proof to verify the actual existence of the turtle being here I mean after all it's an endangered species and Derm I

find that completely unbelievable and very irresponsible it seems as though the only people that wanted to know more about the endangered Turtle were the attentive neighboring land owners that attended prior board and committee meetings requesting more information and evidence of the turtle being here but none was ever provided after viewing one planning board meeting in particular February 15th 2023 it is disturbing to watch how

the board dealt with the concerns and questions of the attending land owners seemingly viewed as obstacles to their plan and treated as an annoyance one conservation Committee Member that that also works for the Department of Inland fishery and wildlife in the beginning with habitat program which is responsible for producing the co co-occurrence maps for Durham and now your board chairman seems to be and seemed to be the major drive driving force behind this plan and should have known the truth when responding to a concerned land owner's question stated that there has been a survey done and the turtles were found during the survey they have been found and they are there and they are known to be the most northern population deceptively misleading the residents and board members that were probably relying on his standing to be credible and ultimately influencing their beliefs and opinions and decisions since when is

that okay having the burden placed upon us we spent much time and effort to get to the truth about the turtle hoping now that without the three-point value Turtle subtracted from the six plus Point criteria requirement for resource protection our lands would be taken out of resource protection but I watched the recent select board meeting where the conservation committee requested permission to apply for a $50,000 Grant to identify valuable open space in Durham few details were given and fewer questions were asked but I can only be left to imagine that you will now adopt open space as a valuable resource to take the place of the turtle to keep our lands in resource protection my problem is that I view my land to be my personal private property that I thought my taxes should protect but when the Town claims it as resource protection it becomes more of a town Nature Preserve that I must sponsor with

no tax reduction no consideration for compensation for the loss of my full property rights or the significant appreciation in its market value it's not right it's not fair and should have no place in a real rural community we need to have rural values to have rural character and this town has changed a lot in the last 5 years and if this is any indication of the underhanded unfair one-sided methods used in taking land owners inherent rights away that this current Town governance continues to support in pursuit of carrying out the comprehensive plan I for one and truly concerned for the few residents that own property this town seeks to preserve and uh and these are not bases baseless allegations that I made up but they're actual facts that can be documented that are documented unlike the turtle thank you for listen thank you for the comment John it's much appreciated do we have any other public

just come forward sit down and please tell us your name and address or name and Street Jeff dit 96 run around John's neighbor um that was a little harsh and sometimes the truth hurts but I was at the Feb I was involved with the meetings as well and I listened and and asked questions and I I guess the the big biggest beef for us as land owners and there's several of us in here yeah we want a preserve open space and we want the town we want it to remain a rural community but we feel like we've been violated in a way where this is our property we've been here for a long time 20 30 40 years some of us and you know I heard talk about tax relief or some what John said is there was really no consideration to us we tried to ask questions we kind of shut down and it's unfortunate when you get in I love the town meeting setting but there's a danger because you can prevent him you can present information and if

the information is not accurate or it could be misleading and then you've got a whole you know it all goes through and then you've got folks like the hagars who's had to spend a lot of their own personal resources to do something up there and run around Pond they should have been able to do you know she they would have been able to do it hadn't had they not been put into resource protection so I get and I understand that there's you're still looking at that resource protection or there's more to be done apparently and I'm hoping that it can be productive and that you'll listen to what we're saying because there are other people that that aren't here that we've talked with and they feel the same way I mean we're all neighbors we're family really but we're not we're upset so let's try and work it out thank you as well for that comment we all really appreciate public comment at these meetings and it's it's nice to get

more of it so thank you for advocating for yourselves and for the members of your your neighborhood we really appreciate that and definitely have that on our our minds moving forward especially into our upcoming workshops so any else public

hear from folks so Chesley and I live on runaround Pawn road I was part of what um of the meetings I guess that I call them the Gatherings that we had to talk about um the impact of the resource protection that went into effect in 2023 and I realized that there were public hearings I I did know that it was coming I just didn't know how it was going to impact and I didn't attend those meetings I would say that every Community member should attend those meetings um because certainly I missed a lot I would like to say though that I contacted Becky ORF and Derek York at um

Inland Fisheries and I'm sure that they're colleagues of um Joe's so um the answer that we got back because I did a fo you on the blending turtle the answer answers that we got back was that there is no sustainable um population of planing turtles in Durham there was one Turtle perhaps a Blanding turtle it was judged by the shape of its shell in a photograph and I have the photograph it's a gentleman holding it he's standing in the middle of Chesley Hill Road he's holding a turtle how one would know that it's a Blanding turtle other than if you're a turtle specialist I don't know but at this point Derek York

responded through Becky ORF to say that there is no blending Turtle population in Durham and therefore anything going forward should assume that there are none because they haven't seen them since the early 2000s there was one turtle in early 2000s um and nothing since did somebody have a pet one and let it go maybe did one Wander from Cumberland

County to Durham doubtful because the northernmost point at which the turtles habitat is is within Cumberland County so somehow a turtle was transported or moved or maybe gave up his urban life and moved to to Durham and one turtle was here 25 years

ago so I hope that when you consider the impact that it has on my neighbors I'm not part of it I'm on the other side of the road I've got the pit next to me but my neighbors have fields and it does impact them when you take property that

probably wouldn't be built on but could have been possibly when you take it out of their hands and put it into the hands of the town and I agree that people's property should be people's property they pay the taxes on it thank

Lois Lois thanks Lois we really appreciate that uh public comment and we always appreciate too when folks are speaking on behalf of members who may not be able to make it tonight it's uh it's always good to hear from everyone about these important considerations so do we have any other public

move into Old business we don't have anything listed here for old business do we have any old business folks want to bring sure the because we talked about legals under new business yes that's okay okay never mind we're good yeah sorry all righty new business uh review request for proposal for legal service um I know that that came through Jerry did you want to provide us with any little background information on this before we talk about it yes I got a I got a phone call from the town attorney um saying that they are closing up shop and they will no longer be providing Services after May 31st so we must go out for a new uh Town

attorney and I've got an RFP pretty much ready to go uh what I did was I I put a um question out there to the main town city managers group if anyone had an RFP for legal services and I got I got six or seven back and three of them were the exact same and the three of them are the one and the one that I chose to go with is the one that you have right now so I pretty much have changed the language in the document to reflect Durham um so what I need from you folks is if you reviewed it do you like it are there any edits do you want things added taken away um it would be best to get

this out ASAP um one thing that I did add at the request I think of Josh was what's involved that any firm or attorney submitting a proposal should be expected to be here on the 28th to answer questions MH so other than that this is pretty boiler plate uh with a lot of what other towns have used and I'm just looking for some guidance on what what you want to do awesome um so the way want to process this if anyone has any process or detail oriented questions for Jerry on this now would be a time to ask them and then we can entertain a motion to accept this format and then discuss any other minuti there so does anyone have any questions for Jerry Josh uh so two things one I I thought you said there was something that you wanted us to check specifically to look out for I changed it I think we're good and I recommended the March May 28th meeting because I think that you wanted to have have have the the attorneys come in and

meet with us yes that's so okay yes but and and so you know I I think I said before and I'll say it again in my experience these these things come up out of the blue you don't expect them uh and I don't think it's appropriate for us to be without an attorney for any period of time yeah I would strongly agree with that yeah I agree with that as well any other questions for Jerry or

comments on this I just have I guess this would be a process question so we we're going to put this out you going to get the proposals they're going to come the 28th ahead of them coming will we have the opportunity to review the proposals absolutely okay yeah I yeah I will I don't have the date for here but I'll put it out for two weeks I've try to get this out this week give a twoe period get them back okay and uh have them come to this meeting if they're going to submit so you folks can ask them questions and okay about their firm and I just wanted to make sure that we were going to have the opportunity to to review that before they're sitting in front of us okay absolutely thank you that's all I have all righty so in other words you just need approval from us Jerry to use this as the RFP yeah yeah I just I just want to know if you're happy with it yeah um we'll run with it yeah so it seemed that more questions for

Jerry an entertaining motion to approve the RFP as written so moved do have a second second all right any additional discussion on the RFP as written right all in favor of the motion any opposition cool yes thank you yeah I agree with Josh don't want to be without Legal Services long at all so everyone be on

our best behavior till the TW 28th right um let's see any any other new business I have none all right manager report anything else I've got yeah I've got a few things here so just to let you know I did go to the the our current current office today and I picked up all of our legal documents M so they're in my office right now once we get a new attorney I will just give them that box so they'll have that for for their records um Paving um no decisions or anything need to be made tonight but Paving has come up um we were going to pave the auin P Road well there's a massive CMP

project that's going on and they're going to be hauling a bunch of heavy equipment across that road so I'm encouraging Calvin to pull it until that project is done we don't want to lay a nice fresh mat out there for heavy trucks 100 100,000 lb 80,000 lbs to ride over it so we may have to up with a different plan Calvin's talking to the paving contractor as we speak not right now but working with them to see what we can do um he does have a project on to finish up Quaker Meeting House may be able to do that but if we pull the plug on that I would I'm going to recommend that we carry that money over or we take that Paving money and put it aside so we have it for next year and not roll that back into the UND designated fun balance so we'll talk about that later it's just kind of a information thing right now we just got one of it Calvin just told me this week about it so I just want to let you know that the paving

road and it's not appropriate to ask one it's not appropriate to ask a question is that appropriate yeah yeah I was going to ask a follow-up question as well but if you wanted to ask one first yeah so I think that what we have we have a schedule right the of like what roads are coming next and so is it possible that like this year was supposed to be Arin pel Road whatever next year was supposed to be is it possible to just flop them and do whatever we were going to do next year this year and then do Auburn panel next year Calvin's looking at that okay so like I said he just told me this yesterday and the only reason why I feel like maybe that would be and again obviously you guys are the professionals right and we're going to hear what your recommendations are um is that the price will just continue to go up and so I I would like to see us get in Paving this year at this price versus Bank the money

and then have the the price go up next year yeah it it gets a little bit more complicated than that because when they bid they're bidding on 2.4 miles straight ahead and they're going so when you change that and if they have to mobilize a little bit more that's just going to add to the money that's why we're talking to the paving contractor now to see what we can do if it can be for the same it's still going I just wanted to inform you that because we have a big project it makes no sense to put a fresh mat down I definitely agree with that we can't do that I definitely agree and and what we're and just so you know we're going to film the Road video the road as it is now and we'll video it afterwards and if they break it up crush it up we'll have them fix it before we even pay that's what I was going to say I was going to ask I just want you to all be informed in case you get asked yeah I was going to ask if there was any

opportunity to see if CMP would support certain Road repairs knowing that they're moving heavy equipment through there so we're getting a million dollar Bond okay so we're setting it all up again we're we're doing good we're getting all of our ducks in a row yeah speaking of ducks I'm going to talk about ducks here in a minute but we're getting all our ducks in a row so I just wanted to inform you okay cuz I just got informed so I'm just keep have to date and so clarification question more for our edification it sounds like the Auburn panel road is what the this year's Paving contractor gave as an estim estimate for that road in particular and that's why it might not be as simple because two two and a half miles of straight shot budgeted close to where maybe close to where they are is different than two and a half miles of winding road so that's where you're going to a road here and then mobilize

and do a road that's possibly where you might be able to talk contractor and say we' contracted you 2 and half miles at this price is there any way we can shift you okay once we get I get more information I'll keep it up to speed on that perfect okay anyone else got any questions on that issue before Jerry moves into some more stuff what's the schedule timeline for that big project on that road it could take up to a year oh really yeah it's all going to depend on how quick they can get their permitting MH um so

you know we talked about doing it and if they break it up then they'll fix it anyway but you still don't want to do that you don't want to put saw marks and a brand new pavement because you're just opening up um joints into your pavement

you just want one nice clean mag going the whole way but we'll we'll keep it up to date on that the dock situation um so the the code enforcement officer talked to the property owner this week and said no more parking you're done and he's gonna he he said he's going to issue a violation just give give the property owner half the stop they were a little concerned because they wanted to park there but they're creating access off the road they don't have a permitted access can you just clarify what what location you're talking okay so we're talking at the corner of Rabbit Road runaround Pawn Road and Route n so they've been parking there and it's a safety hazard so Allen finally caught up with the the CEO finally got caught up with a property owner and said this needs to stop so she

listened and we'll see where that goes from now but he's on it um actually the the Animal control officer called this was a while back and has informed the state about it as well so there's several people looking at this situation so we'll see what develops the property owner could apply for a permit to have like a driveway there no I she they could not maybe in that exact spot where they're going but I know it's a very tricky intersection yeah I okay yeah I don't I don't think she's interested in doing that she just didn't know the whole legalities of that but it is a huge safety concern and it's been brought to the homeowners and attention right thanks for that update Jer because I know that there's been a lot of public chatter about the safety of that intersection um don't need any answers here but GP Cog is looking for delegates this year I don't know if you want to keep them the same we do pay dues to

them they're sending emails who are they going to be think about it amongst yourself just so I can send them right now it's Joe Joe and Heather are the three I believe so that's I believe that's what the email said so keep it that way they need three I I thought it was two but it was three I thought it was an alternate that's maybe that's what I thought I was that I was an alternate but yeah she didn't identify you know voting or alternate there was just three people there so okay I'd like to get back to them folks decide who you want the delegates to be and that would be super yeah we can put that on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting next week because they have a meeting coming right up I Joe and I went to it last year yeah it's the 20 or May 30th yeah all right couple other things uh the trees out in front of town office those pine trees MH um couple of them are dead uh couple of them have big holes in

them um so I would like to cut them down we got a price to cut down all of them there's 10 of them but $3500 so I you know they are kind of a hazard and somewhat they're old um but that's that's going to be up to you folks um whether we cut them it's a really good price it's a really good price I just had them come to my property to cut down 16 trees and it was $15,000 right so that is an exceptional price and with and one of the trees goes up and it splits and the electrical wi is go right between the two two things so it would be good to get them I think and then maybe we can talk about maybe in another year or so putting a split reel fence maybe plant some sort of ornamental trees kind of dress it up a little bit but anyway mhm when do you when would you like your decision on that the sooner the better if you want to the the contractor is waiting yeah I mean I'm open to discuss are we allow is that is

it are we allowed to do that in this meeting it's not on the agenda if you want we put it on the agenda next week because we'll getting close to Workshop time and kind of discuss it I think he can wait a week but I just put that on the agenda put on the agenda that and the the assigning delegates yep um the last thing that I want to mention is um I want to change the company who does our website um there's another company out there that's local um it'll be less money and the website that they do is much more cleaner than the one that we have um it also gives us full 100% to

all the information right now that if we want to put in there right now if if uh Kimberly wants to change like some logo or time she has to call them to get it done um if you want to know what the website looks like you can look at basor Livermore or Solen um I would highly recommend that you let me do this um it's going to be a much better website not only for us but for the residents to navigate it's just a cleaner nicer page and it also does your agendas so once you once you have your agenda set it's just a matter of whatever documents we have we we just drop and drag it into either old business and it just automatically creates a Boer it typically they were saying it typically saves towns about four hours of work putting that sort of stuff together so um I would really like recommend that we that we change it's a local company here in Maine so when you call you get a person you don't get if

you want this press one if you need this press two do you need approval from us to do that or is that just operational change at least say yeah to do that um it's so right now we pay about 2700 a year and we're going to get three years for 5,000 so we're saving a little bit of money and it's a much better cleaner site yeah I I looked at it it was was it was nice it's a nice setup yeah I mean in my mind things like this that are just operational day-to-day how the town

functions i' defer to you as you know if you find a light bulb that saves money I don't feel like we need to approve said light bulb but if the board is more comfortable because this is our mode of Public Communication and us giving a KN of approval um can we put that also on next week agenda and it gives the board members time to to look at the examples um you know when you tell me it saves time saves money and it's better checks a lot of boxes right there for me but it it is our way to communicate to the public so I just want to make sure everyone here is comfortable with with how that looks so I know the policy with the with the money and everything you know the you know the 5,000 departments 10,000 but I'm really not supposed to bind the town into a contract without approval from the board yeah the payroll was different I had to move on it because we need to pay our employees so I just but this I would like I would

like a know that's fair that's fair thank you for that clarification you know what I'm saying that was that was more of an emergency than this is y there's no current contract with the company well we it's up for Renewal right now so we we need to move quick because they want all their money up front which which I understand but then they'll prate it and I'd rather hold off on the payment the payment's due like now so M for the old company or the new yeah the old one the old okay I see so I well the sooner we sooner I get the nod then um the sooner I can terminate and that sort of thing let's let's add that to the agenda for next week okay um give folks a chance to take a look at some of the examples in case there's anything glaring I mean it sounds like Joe you've looked at it and like the looks of it I'm familiar with those town websites as well but um since it is a contract I do want to save that for a an old business

or new business next week so okay is that good with everyone yeah Y Cool anything else for us J that's all I got for you for now um any board member reports no so I just wanted to say I really appreciated the public comment tonight I'm I'm bummed that the individuals left uh I think that it's something that we're going to bring into our Workshop which we about to start I would not classify every statement made as 100% factual but I do really appreciate people taking time out of their day to come share some of their feelings on the subject matter it's a important process so I'm very excited to incorporate some new findings and some of their um experiences into our workshops and that we're going to start here in a few minutes to uh really set a policy agenda for the year so anything else for board member reports just that Jessica asked me at the beginning and I forgot we should have I I should have

asked to amend the agenda to include a vote on the I think it was AP get done okay we add uping meeting upcoming meetings to say Solid Waste committee will meet May 13th at 6:30 here at the fire station and um I'll let you retroactively add in the AP warrant thank you so I have one other thing if yeah so Heather you have a question on the CEO report would you like me to address that now um if I'm I'm

comfortable waiting if you feel like we need to move yeah okay okay um so want to remove from the consent to do we need an executive session no I would just add I I would have sorry I would have added the AP warrant and P warrant the cons set agenda We'll add that then is that a motion AP warrant and payal warrant um can I do just one other thing that we did get our meeting minutes correct from our last meeting and so can we just add that also the AP warrant payroll and meeting minutes from help me with the date just April 23rd y all right so I think we have to vote to add that to the consent agenda if that if that's if someone i' entertain a motion to add all those all right any second all in favor or sorry any discussion all in favor all oppos all right those have been added and uh do we need an executive session all right I would accept a motion to adjourn do we have to approve the consent agenda oh sorry yeah accept

a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second all right any discussion all in favor all opposed all righty and I would accept a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn second all in favor any opposition all right adjourn

but if anyone wants to take a couple minutes to use the restroom or get something to drink or something like that that would be now would be the time Jessica I didn't know if you were breaking this up into now a separate link okay perfect so we set this up as a round table

so I see all red light light except for on John's microphone so as long as we get those have a workshop here on the SE May 7th at 6:30 we're starting a little bit late to kind of bring together all the board and commissions and organizations that do the great work that we do here in Durham together to talk about goals and objectives and set some strategies for 2024 uh in terms of in terms of format um I'd like to run this where we're going to go through and have everyone introduce themselves and say What entity they're representing and then uh I'm going to facilitate a discussion where after that introduction and after an introduction from all of us we're going to go through one organization at a time and ask us what ask them what their policy objectives are for the year like what the burning ticket items are that they want to get done this year um and then we will have

an opportunity for select board members to ask questions about that maybe solicit some input from folks like uh um Jerry or George as to what the backend work looks like for that helped judge a little bit of our town capacity and then from there um we're going to kind of hear everyone out the selectboard board is going to vocalize some of their goals and objectives and then take all that information combine it together with things like public comments that we've received over the year so far and then next meeting the select board is going to set the policy objectives for for each organiz each board and say you know based off what you're saying when you you think what you need done based off of the needs we think we need done here's how we're going to proceed for the next year and what we're going to work on and then we'll kind of come up with a plan um that's mutually agreed upon and so that shows the members of

the community that the policy decisions and the policy planning are really coming from the select board and then being facilitated through all the different organizations that are structured to kind of do some of the groundwork do we have any questions on the process for tonight all right cool so we'll start um I think we all know each other but I do think for anyone watching it's important that we do an introduction to the uh to who whom we are so my name is Joseph Roy I'm the chair of the Durham select board and I live on pink and Brook Road Josh Klein golden the vice chair of the select board I live on new Brook Road Joe Tom selp

a uh Jerry Douglas Town manager George star Town planner Mike friendley run around Road I'm on the D Conservation Commission and Lois Kilby Chesley I live on runaround Pond Road and I'm the chair of the Durham historic district commission I'm Jess Costa I'm on Brianna drive and I'm the chair of the Conservation Commission Juliet Klinger Vice chair of the planning board on royb road John talet stack Road chair of the planning board uh Curtis dick chair of the solid ways committee I live on Emerson Road are we going yeah I'm Heather Roy I'm on the select board I live on Hollow Road I live in dur I'm de I'm Debbie Oliver I'm on the select board and I live on Cottage Woods Road on what road Cottage Woods you all

righty um so from here I just want to go around the room and start uh at this end with Michael and Jess from the Conservation Commission and if you could please share uh your primary goals and objectives for this year and and share any sort of other info you would like the select board to know pertaining to what you're hoping to get done what sort of resource needs you might have or any concerns or or trends that you want to share with us so all right I'll start um so we're g to

find out next week if we're going to get that may weight climate action Grant um and that would be working with a consultant if we get the grant to develop an open space plan which um would have um a number of community events um and activities and it would ultimately help identify areas that are um vulnerable to climate change in town um you know things like flooding and Other Extreme uh weather events um and then also help identify priority areas for conservation in the town um and maybe come up with um management plans for um town-owned Parcels um and hopefully getting those um getting the community more access to some of those Parcels um and it will set a um percent

land conservation goal of the Town um and it may be used ultimately to update the to help update the next comprehensive plan um so so we'll find out again we'll find out next week if we get that Grant or not um and then another priority um is kind of uh second phase

um look at the solar ordinance um we were interested in coming up with a sighting map of suitable locations for and and locations that shouldn't be um used for Solar Development um and we wanted to take another look at the um maybe coming up with a mitigation fee structure for different size projects so we wanted to do some more research on that um we do want to work with the agricultural commission if they get formed um on that knowing that you know

we want to avoid areas of um high quality agricultural lands so um you know that's something we know maybe you know we won't get all the way through with this this year um and we do want to kind of work with the agricultural commission um when they're formed um and we want to uh support a next round of updates to the resource protection zoning working with George on that um recognizing um there's

some updates to the beginning with habitat maps in the town of Durham and um beginning with habitat developed areas they the past year they come came up with some um revised maps of areas that are considered developed so we would be kind of hoping to support George in in that um in that

update um and then we are interested in maybe working jointly with the planning board um um on a research session um maybe a couple extra additional meetings um from some representatives from the planning board and the Conservation Commission on um potential battery storage projects in town just to to get more information on what those are what the impacts are what the risks are and if there's any potential benefits at all um to having them come to town okay

does anyone have any questions just on anything that Jess just said not necessarily at this point discussing the merits of any of those things but just some clarification questions um I open it up to the board first but then I would also open it up to other members of the the panel here tonight to ask questions too so Heather um I have a clarifying question based on some public comment that we've had about the new climate action Grant um I I want to make sure that I have a clear understanding about whether this grant I I hear what you're saying about priority areas for conservation in the town um that would be it once they were

they were um identified reaching out to the homeowners that own that land and seeing if they're interested in conserving their land but the but the uh P town-owned parcels um then that's something like the town would vote on is that correct am I stating that correctly yeah I mean there would be multiple mechanisms for conservation and some of them would be um potentially getting more land owners to do easements um and then yeah um figuring

out if there's ways to uh connect Town own Parcels or other areas that are conserved with other habitats so yeah um multiple mechanisms for conserving land um anything else yeah that was I was going to follow up real quick on that because my question was based off like what Heather said based off of um you know some public comments as well like when you say uh conserve lands if

do you have a definition that you're working with you know my experience that doesn't mean necessarily anything to do with regulation it could be voluntary it could be plans I just wasn't sure what you are all thinking when you say conserve land I I think we're looking at every mechanism that exists I mean there's there's a town mechanism that allows that we need we're going to distribute information on that gives a tax benefit for people who will consider their land as open and allow access for it so that's one thing we wanted to distribute information to people that that program is not really being used they're only three people in town who have used that program so that's one option just to clarify you're talking about the open space current use tax program correct yeah okay correct um so there are multiple sort of benefits based upon what you will allow in your property and the the property's utility in that

regard I think the second thing is working with the local land conservation groups both Royal River and Western Durham and um Anders Scot and land trust sort of on the Eastern side of Durham um I think those two organizations are interested in U preservation and conservation easements and then I think you know one thing that we haven't really done much of um because there's really no funding or discussion of at this point is you know a lot of towns have set aside funds for acquisition of property for Parks Etc that's you know I think something that we can discuss in the future um one way we want to tie in with that is with our um solar ordinance

bill is a lot of several towns have mitigation fees and those fees are then turned around to conserve since some property is going to be you know if you have hundreds and hundreds of Acres that are put in solar Farms um one way of mitigating that is to use

fees in turn to conserve high priority land which we were hoping hoping we get this grant so that we can identify those places so I think there are multiple mechanisms I don't think we have focused on just one but to me what it sounds like you're focusing on is voluntary methods for conservation at this

point yeah and you know kind of any mechanism new mechanisms in the town I understand there's no fee structure for like accepting mation and how those could be allocated so there's no system not just for solar but for other types of development um you that's what like topm does they have mitigation fees for other types of development too awesome Heather you have a question in the workshop format I'm going to be extremely blunt and just because I feel like that's the fastest way to get to what the information is that I feel like needs to be said um there are people who

I believe are falsely assuming that land that just went into resource protection is going to fall under some caveat that it can be that this grant is being sought after to now turn their land into open space and so I just want to right I understand that I just want to make sure that that is said in the public forum that that's not what this is seeking right totally separate absolutely separate um resource protection is a different thing it's um it's not what we're talking about when we're talking about conservation goals um moving forward coming up the plan yeah that's that's a good question though and I think it's good to always raise public comments in these sorts of workshops so we can get answers like that down for folks to understand what the goals are yeah it be a great thing for us to clarify yes that's when you get to the education piece to make sure that people clearly understand that this

is a voluntary situation we we are going to go back and look at land and resource protection but that's a SE as as Jess said that's a separate issue there are new maps that have come out from um Maine Department of inland fisheries and wildlife and they're they're different than the ones we voted on at the last town meeting so um there properties now in resource protection that may not be in the future so we want to revisit that because we wanted to we sort of agreed that we were going to let the science lead us and right I think that is that is a goal of ours but a separate goal perfect thank you for clarifying thank you awesome I have a question um so what does the open space plan or strategy mean to me as a land owner it's hopefully you know something that you know we'll learn more about areas that we can recreate in um and why

open space is valuable to us us as land owners to have access to these areas and areas that may you know you know more protection of riparian areas that um can help um buffer situations like extreme flooding um I think it also means hunting if you're a hunter that these are properties that are open for hunting they're open for snowmobiling they're open for recreation um with land owners permission I see so it kind of sounds like it's a trying to develop an inventory of what there is for open space and what folks are interested in doing with set open space and knowing what your neighbors are doing as well yeah and targeting potential new areas that could be protected but it sounds too like letting folks know you know there are land trusts and if you want to conserve your land that is something that you might be able to do but it's up to you to have those conversations okay does anyone else from

the panel have questions for the conservation commission or Jerry or George or to the Conservation Commission but to um the agricultural commission or agricultural committee is this a fully formed committee now um just because it was brought up and I think it's going to potentially be part of my understanding is that they're in the process of going through forming and that sort of stuff but it's not a current existing official committee it is something that was recommended in the 2018 comprehensive plan so I think that they're working towards that I wonder if we should talk like they're going to form you know or if we yeah if Heather you want to so they um they're quote unquote chair their leader this is not coming out well anyways they came to they came to our meeting um at our last board meeting and they presented us with um bylaws and their Charter um and

we have the discussion which will be taking up at our next meeting of I think I hope that's on the agenda um that because it is outlined in the comp plan that I I want to make sure that we're checking the boxes to make sure that it's not something that should be driven by the select board which in my personal opinion I think that it should be the way that we have developed well we didn't develop the planning board but the Conservation Commission and the historical commission um rather than having this group come to us and tell us what they would like to be um and so I think that we'll work together to make sure that all the boxes are being checked but instead of them initiating

the which they've done but that it needs to come from the select board as um the way that these other commissions and committees have been developed um and so anyway that is in the works he did come to our last meeting and we we did ask them to come

thanks yeah all right um anything else from the Conservation Commission or any other questions about the their focus again not necessarily discussing merits of their ideas right now I think we just want to create a space where everyone can get their ideas out so Jo I just want to make a comment we we have started putting together a book of town owned properties so you start there if you oh great are looking I put it together for very different reasons but I'm still willing to share that would be great resource thanks awesome alrighty uh next

Lois thank you I'm here for the Durham historic district commission not the Durham Historical Society they're two different organizations the historical society is a nonprofit that's separate from the town the historic district commission is appointed by the select board M so I

brought a few things um and I didn't know how many people were going to be here so I brought enough of the select board and Jerry and I have a copy that I think can go also to um to George I think when those go around those are front to back so they should be okay so I if you give that one if you take those those are the front to backs this one's actually the double copy that I was going to work from but um I'll give that to George and I brought a handful of these

because these are informational pamphlets that we put past but this is much more professional looking and it was put together in time for town meeting so there are enough of those I believe that this group was going to meet in January um we took it upon ourselves in January to go ahead and set our goals for 2024 we edited them in February and at the top of the sheet that you've got

um is um the list of five goals that we set for ourselves so the first goal that we've set is to identify preserve inform and communicate to Durham citizens the importance of protecting its past resources and historical Heritage and by the way we took these from the land use ordinances and from the comp plan we reviewed all of that to pull our um our goals from

what we see as our charge from the residents of Duram because both both of those documents were voted through by the residents of Durham in the past at Town meetings so we use those as our um Baseline the second is to communicate more frequently with the community on the work and role of the Durham historic district commission so people know what we do the third is to work with organizations and members of the community that have an interest in historic resources the fourth is to continue to work work for the appropriate future use and restoration of the union church now that's still on our goals but now it'll be a little bit different because now the town doesn't own the union well in the future the town won't own the Union Church we're waiting for the deed to be drawn up and number five is to strive to develop a working relationship with Town officials in which we are all supporting the historical resources of durm and we

added that in there and it is actually part of the comp it does say that we have to play together in the sandbox um but in the past it's and so we as the commission have the goal of trying to um heal some of that so that we can all get along a little bit better um and then I also included for you our mission statement and the bylaws just just because I wanted to make sure that everyone had access to those when you um when you look at the um land use

ordinances about historic resources the two that you want to focus on and I I do have them printable but I didn't bring them because I was printing them at home and it's long and I didn't want to make six copies of 25 Pages um but it's on

the website it's in the land use ordinances that you can access that anybody in town can access digitally um but the two articles that are specific to the historic district commission are article 5.14 and article 12 as well as the definitions that are

some of the definitions that are in Article 19 at the end so we've been working in the historic district commission we've been working on editing at the request of George because George used to come to our meetings and I know now he's not paid for those and so his time is different I think that's what I understood you to say is that if you come to that there you're either overtime or you have to give up your time on some other day so we have not been asking George to come on a regular basis um but we have continued to work through the um the land use ordinances that applied to the historic district commission we anticipated presenting at or giving it

to the to you for consideration at the town meeting in 2024 but we hadn't had input from the town employees on any of it and so rather than push things forward without talking to George without talking to this the codes enforcement officer Jerry and I talk on a pretty regular basis but um without getting input from the other people in the in the town office which we think is important we decided to hold it until 2025 so we're I'm going to say we're pretty much done although there may be a lot of editing that ends up being done in the next n months as well but that's pretty much where we are um I I won't go historically back into happened in 2021 and 2022 but

um it was um uncovered any questions from the board for Lois Josh you had s us an email about a name change yes I did did you get an answer to that I did not uh so I emailed George and he and I came up with the same I think answer and that is it has to go in front of the town at a town meeting okay um Y and so I would like to add that to their list okay because I can't remember the reising off the top of my head other than I think it was confusion it's just confusion because historical society and historical commission forget it people don't know the difference can you remind me of what the name was that you well I mean I threw out so Josh and I I threw out sort of what George so two years ago George had proposed to the commission that we change our name and he had put forth the Durham historical preservation

preservation my problem is the word historical because soon as people start you calling two different committees a historical committee it's confused and so I threw out the possibility of calling it The Durham Heritage preservation committee or commission I don't care whether it's committee or Commission myself there are Commissioners who do um but so we will

what we will present at the next town meeting I think it has to get on to the next the an article at the next town meeting okay right for name change and okay I I don't want to speak for everybody else but for me please don't leave the name suggestion up to us because oh okay I'm walking out the door if if it's left to us and let it although I do like I I I think I would have gone with just a germ preservation commission just commission hey to me you want the name change up to us I don't want throw sorry I know I said that but then I start other the on you mentioned that that's the one I like that's that's what I want to go as long as we understand that there historical preservation as opposed to conservation preservation or solar and that's why I told you to leave I get it yeah real real quick before you George could you just put like a little star or something next to name change that CU Josh mentioned as a goal from

one of us as well so that way we know J yeah the only thing I was going to say it's not really a qu necessarily a question directly to lowest but um I'd like to see us clean up the ordinance to make the planning board um responsible for you know the historic district as well still have the society or the the

not the society sorry not the commission District commission be responsible for you know advisory um but not have two independent parties be responsible for approval approval of what I think that of his we're getting a little bit into the weeds it is it is weedy but so I want to sa that till after this first round where we kind of bring some select board ideas and then we can get some questions but for this first round I kind of want to stick to just getting the ideas and goals from the boards and then we'll follow up after that because if especially for things like that where it might span two boards it we'll have to identify where we want to Tas that so be because of my processing issues if I can have an clarification of what he means I'll to process it but right now that doesn't yeah we're going to hold that I think we'll take that table it until the next section of this meeting after we talk about just getting every

just get I don't want this to I don't want us to muddy our ideas with your ideas so I want to just kind of get everyone of your ideas on the board we just ask clarification questions so we understand can ask some follow-ups when we didn't share with you all some of our ideas so please note that joke cuz I do want to hear about it but I feel like it just helps us stay a little bit more distinct um can I ask a clarify sure so are we all coming back no no I'm saying like right after you all share your ideas yeah we're going to come through as a board as individual board m share our ideas for each one of your your boards and then provide you the same opportunity to ask us questions to clarify and then if we can't hammer out exact then next week the select board will kind of meet say here are our goals for each one of these boards and committees if there's a disagreement between each board and committee with

what the select board is kind of assigning for work then we can have a separate one-on-one with that board and committee to find consensus so but I just think it's important that we can have this and then people can watch it and if someone wants to email us feedback as well we can incorporate that into our next meeting so so right now if you have a clarification question for Lois on any of that that's a good time to ask too

everyone follow kind of what I'm putting down awesome can I say one other thing sure okay before we move on to the next committee um so one of the charges that we had was through the main preservation through the main historic preservation Commission in Augusta was to do a survey of all

the um buildings at one time it was 100 years old but that was about 25 years ago so we're looking at before trying to save the town money so if you can imagine it's not going to be like an a revaluation the cost is not something like that but there would be in that

charge that we have of doing a survey there could there could be a charge a cost for that so several years ago I'm going to say decade ago probably the commiss Commissioners did a survey and went around and took pictures of the houses in town that we thought were older than 1900 and probably got

most of them um and now George has a copy of those I have a copy of those and um if you would like a copy of those so that you can go through them I can certainly get you a copy but um to really make it useful it needs to be redone and there would probably be so it sounds like what I'm hearing as a goal might be to determine the fiscal note to do some of what you just said yeah I don't even know yeah I don't even know where to start to tell you the truth yeah research as a goal it would be the main preservation commission would be the group that would be able to get it started awesome so could you write that down then oh s awesome um I have a couple clarification questions for some points but I want to make sure everyone on the board has a chance to speak before before me if there's another clarification question okay seeing that I'll just ask real quick so you said one of the goals is education on historic district

commission work and working with other groups yes does that mean does that look like you know just being a resource for anyone who might have a really old house or barn or building that they can come to you and say I might not be in this District but I I'm I'm interested how to go about preservation or you know leverage some of your all's experience about working with people who on historic buildings is that my understanding that or is that a we don't have the authority to do that oh well I mean like if someone came and asked you or I just want to make sure said I've got a barn that needs to be redone and what would the requirements be to it because it's within 1500 ft of a of a National Registry building we could tell them but anything that's not okay in ordinance we have no authority to say you know what you should do that as a posting beam or you should yep no that's just what I'm just was clarifying

soome so we don't have that authority to do that unless it's within 1500 ft of a National Registry and then it's supposed to go through the codes officer and but without here I can't speak for him but you clarified my question yeah but I had another question on different item so this is what you just said this is about what you just said okay yeah go ahead so I think I'm I'm not trying to speak for you so you can clarify what I'm saying is accurate or not the education piece I think is sort of like what the Conservation Commission was saying where they want to educate residents on the work that they're doing like there's been a lot of post on the Facebook page and stuff like that about you know multiple just giving out opportunities for people to become educated about our heritage here in Durham is perfect correct okay and often what happens is someone reaches out to the Historical Society for instance the T the school

reached out to the Historical Society for information about Durham's history we would it's actually part of our charge and so we would like to be seen as a resource as well as a historical society but the confusion is where's the boundary okay um and my other question was when you said you're working on changes within the land use ordinance that's just draft changes that you all feel should be proposed for to to edit the document to better reflect what you all have for a purpose correct so we've been editing it for two years yep perfect that uh that answers my clarification questions for sure so thank you one more question yeah so we've been trying to get somebody from the select board to come to our meetings but we were told at one point that nobody from the select board should come to our meetings I'm not sure what the boundary is between the select board members and the um commission but then

in March Joe did come but it would be nice to have somebody at the meetings like I know you go to the conservation committee meetings because you're I used to I'm not anymore but yeah oh you aren't on it anymore okay well well would you still go to the committee it sounds like that's falling under increased communication between you the board and that's could be I would hope so so okay cool yeah and I I think we're having further discussions um with our new policy on

how people are from the select board are in involving themselves in those so um definitely noted Here There and on all the other notes so it helps with communication yeah absolutely thank you did you have another question Heather I was just going to talk about the fact that we've been talking about that awesome does anyone from you all have questions for for Lois about anything there all righty seeing no questions move to the planning board okay I'll defer to to you John or J to jump in if I say something stupid um good John talet uh I'd like to start with uh if I may a little off topic but I think an important one is some new folks here but as a reminder the process to get before the town meeting is is very formal and

so that even if you just want to change the name of an organization it has to go has to be drafted as an article generally and I go through what we did last year that worked well but it does require a public hearing prior to yeah we're totally aware of the process and and that's why I think it's good that it's being brought up now that there's that desire so we can make sure all those are Fallen y so and we had a good Pro start also say we had a great process last year with conservation and the solar uh and that I think is a good model for going forward because one of the concerns I've got is um how much Broadband there is to do everything we'd like to do and yeah and that's the goal of this meeting is to is is always George and it would been a great help to us so I'll start with that the um we had the opportunity and the I think the five or six items that you have that I think George the town

planner provided we reviewed those as a planning board last Wednesday and we kind of came up with our prior what we thought were high priorities low priorities whatever um and then we had a zoom Juliet and I uh Jess and Michael on

Sunday evening to kind of talk about I guess we start sorting out that Broadband a little bit what could we work together on on uh because I think at the end of the day this the stuff that's on your work list are things that we'd all like to see and we've talked about over the last year uh sighting on solar farms uh cell towers uh battery storage came up late in the process last year um and so in resource protection so I think if I may um our priority what the goals that we'd like to work on and then I also have to say we've gotten really busy on applications and projects right now so we went extra long on one meeting and then we had a separate meeting just to kind of clear the deck a little bit but we so that is also something that we have to figure into our workload um so our two I think goals or priorities are the solar U excuse me battery storage I think that's a real challenge out there there's all kinds of

things there's been fires New York's put them on hold and I'm not I won't give you my opinion on them but I think that's something the town really needs to study and actually come up with a with a article on because I think there is some developer pressure we've had people come to the town and say we'd like to build a storage uh facility where can we do that and like I said there may be some issues so that's a goal with us we'd also believe very strongly that the resource protection refinement that's on there is a goal that we would and we would work with uh conservation uh if they would have us on um battery storage and uh refinement of the U the U resource protection MH and

then there's others that are on your list like cell phone towers we punted it last year we punted it the year before and we'll punt it this year because we're just really not sure there's any developer pressure uh out there and there of all the things we've got to work on that's probably not a super high priority to us um and I think that we also as a group came up with working on roads as a as a possibility it did not make your list it is a it is a fairly complicated subject it's everything from a 300 foot Frontage to building it to town standards to so the whole back that opens the back lot Pandora so that's something that we may not be able to accomplish this year Juliet uh do we want to mention the um digital codification ah yes thank you um and also I know George is the lead on digital codification and um the study of the downtown this area here with J JP Cog so while we may not get involved in the

early phases it is something that uh our key guy is going to keep him real busy and that we'll help him and but keep our keep our eye on for lack of a better term and when the codification comes along it'll be a a major effort to get through the town meeting in the process thank you do that have something to add yeah you have something add go ahead yeah um regarding the solar energy sighting um that's going to be a big one and if um just a

thought if the agricultural committee is forming it we might be able to work with them on that um and then also the grant the morea here you talk about this grant there could be some overlap like with easements and the mitigation fees you talk about so I wonder if pushing that another year we have the ordinance in place um we don't have solar developers knocking on our door right now but like we do have that orance in place I feel like maybe we get started or we start looking at it but it's going to be a longer term thing or maybe have that idea that it will be a longer term thing and then if we take that off our you know priority plate now we would have more time for the other things that we just mentioned yeah does anyone from the board have any questions about clarification questions on anything that either one of them just

and just to your point John like this is why we're doing this Workshop because we also know that um your board the both of you are responsible for set work that has to be done and that these extra things take time and resources and that's the whole purpose of today is to identify the needs and identify the best way to get it done with the limited time and resources so that's what we're doing today and appreciate this uh this list here did you was that a hand raised Joe did you have okay cool does any do anyone of you have clarification questions for the planning board or Jerry or or George or anybody I got a question yeah what's this battery storage I keep he yeah like industrial so there's discussions at the um um really everywhere about like creating large battery Banks to either store uh energy that comes from renewable resources that aren't always used during the peak uh need or even to

just create storage facilities for Batteries to hold electricity off of our trans normal transmission lines and normal energy production to tap into during times of need when there's a surge in need and there might not be as much electricity or just provide some some that and the the concerns a lot of communities have is that large battery storages have things like fire risk but they're also very large they have a visual risk well have a visual issues and there's a sound component and so a lot of different municipalities have kind of tucked them into their industrial zones which we don't really have and so it just kind of like from a visual and sound and and safety standpoint that's a concern that was brought up last year they're not always paired with the solar or wind project but there is some discussion to just build stronger grids to just plop them along different transmission corridors

throughout the entire state to have some backup so we're not talking little car batteries we're talking big big things so gorbs is going to be five acres yeah it's 156 40ft trailer SI so but C out there is they can be smaller yeah that's a big one they range and so that's kind of what the the the battery issue is just we don't have anything on the books right now saying what the setbacks are what the visual things are and we that's want to keep a rural town you know we have to have a discussion do we want to put a a big small medium or whatever battery storage facility right along the side of a road that everyone can see or something like that so any other detail related questions from anybody on planning board mine I

I've typed a question but it was for Jess or Michael I allowed to backtrack to one we or we can get through and then maybe I can just ask a question after is that yeah let's just get through yep it's Curtis's turn just as he takes a sip so I just put you on the spot sorry Curtis does he know that he's like got most of us or at least Heather and I most interested yeah you're the you're in the Hut SE I was going to answer a lot of questions I was unar that's fine just give us your ideas well first my first plan is to have a meeting we have not had a a meeting yet so I don't want

to say too much so that I don't let the cat out of the bag and sure change the committee from learning all this stuff um I I guess we have to lay out a program we're going to try to approach is one of the first things do we want to look at a transfer facility or a place

to put um Goods so to speak until they're uh disposed of um I found out a couple things on licensing you don't have to be licensed to start doing some of this stuff you don't have to be called a transfer facility or a recycling facility um you can be non-licensed the only downside to that is you can only hold your goods for 30 days no more so

if you collect batteries 30 days they got to be going there's a lot of paperwork involved in keeping track of all this stuff um so the there's lots of options and when when the um we first got this this was this I think the goals were more or less to come up with what direction we were headed because these are all different directions there's maintain status quot which I'm assuming we have to because we have a fiveyear contract um look at a transfer facility partnering with partner with a neighboring Community which I would assume would be like pound um then you have uh town of Durham

collect their own trash uh as a division of Public Works um town no longer provide roadside service residents hire their own roadside service um and then opportunities and incentives for reducing tonnage through recycling composting programs I do have a ton of stuff to give the committee on that so that that's probably the first direction we're going to hit is reducing some tonage um some of them are non-cost of the Town they're product stewardship programs um there are a few that have a cost to so that would have to go through the whatever process budgeting process

um and then if you know there's different directions ahead and and I think lessening some of the tonnage we already have the contract we have to abide by it um and then there's going to be a lot of um advertising promotion stuff to get some of these other programs going um so I think that's going to be that's probably going to take us a better part of the [Music] year my question real quick for you is do you feel like you have all the direct ction you need from the select board to just get started on that first meeting I think I do um unless there's something that you want to add to it unless we hit you with a curve ball this this evening but I just want to make sure so far you feel you have your ducks in a row so I think we're ready to proceed I just need a we we need to look at a concrete Direction because I don't one want to waste the committee's time and I don't want to put a lot of effort

into going down a rabbit hole that we're never going to M come out on the other end awesome I think we should so I know that we're going to meet next week after this discussion and and kind of set our goals as well and communicate those and I know your first meeting is the 30th or uh next Monday sorry oh sorry we're meeting the day 13th we're meeting the day after you but we can follow up there it sounds like you're just doing some intro work at that meeting anyway so um does anyone have from the S board have questions for Curtis on the details of anything that he just presented I know that you're going to be like the popular guy this year in Durham because if any if our town meeting tells anything what the most talked about item is almost always waste disposal so and I'm not trying to promote or not promote a transfer facility or a recycling facility uh but I think that after our first meeting

I'll probably take this list of five or six things and if I can go to the next select men's meting meeting and present us with some stuff to take right off the table because there's some stuff on here that's I don't think is realistic like the town not providing service I don't think that's a realistic U Avenue to go down and I don't want to be heading up that committee be honest we might lose some volunteers on that one can I actually ask yeah we don't have any questions you can all ask some questions I'm I'm on the committee and um unfortunately I'm not going to be able to make the meeting next week but that's okay you're on vacation right I know yeah um what is

just for everyone what is the goal of the Sol W Committee in general I think what if tell me if I'm right here we just signed that contract got the new one for the next haven't signed it yet but or we're going to Cella um but what's after that right like kind of is that the the bigger the bigger longterm my my my thoughts and I'll invite anyone from our board to hop in here to provide Clarity or like John said if I say anything stupid they can clear it up for me um my my thoughts is that we have

received a lot of public comment about P about the trash disposal in the town and that we you know seem to have ourselves in a situation where we only got one request uh for proposal answered and that's for contract that's going to set us in for 5 years but we want to examine what the long-term Solutions are to trash pickup or trash disposal in Durham and really start with everything on the table you know focusing on reducing the amount of trash to reduce the cost or focus on different mechanisms to pick up or collect or move or c a trash before it goes out the door so really just understand that based off of the public feedback just doing this for 5 years and then doing it for another 5 years might not be whatever everyone wants so to make sure we have options and I would encourage you all and then every other committee too to like throw the big ideas on the table even if they sound crazy and examine them because if this

turns into a two three four five or longer year plan you know it's important to to have that so does that answer yes okay does anyone on the board want to add anything to my I would just add that when Curtis came to or I don't I don't remember if it happened at the meeting that CS came to but we provided uh sample bylaws for

you guys to look at as a committee and either adopt or not and oh did you okay yeah so in that first article or second article the purpose that we set in that and then I believe you guys adopted right were to look at those things um when we did the committee for the Union Church we we were asking them to make a

recommendation to the board of what the the best outcome for the Union Church would be um looking at all of the the financial impact the um being able to preserve the building whether the town should maintain ownership or um pass it to the historical whatever and they they created a 200 Page report

giving us all the information hitting all of the boxes of all the the things that we needed so we could make a data driven decision and I think that that's what our board wants is the data to be able to know what we should be putting on the warant in front of the voters okay so I to Dum it down for me because that's a lot sorry and here's here's what I expect and I all right the most coste effective way for the town to

uh to be involved in waste disclosure whether it's to hire somebody Transfer Facility something like that yeah how how to make it most cost effective for the town and keep keep uh the town people I don't want to say happy necessarily but you know uh in a method that's going to be S that we can a majority of people can agree upon right so the only thing I would add to that is cost effective but also

environmentally sound MH some people only care about the financial piece some people only care about the environmental impact I'm a person who cares about both Jerry I think essentially what you're doing with those options is just providing a cost benefit analysis you know of you know what's the cost benefit of status qua what's the cost benefit of a transfer station what's the cost benefit of not picking it up anymore more in the that's the cheapest option don't the residents hiring in their own so it's kind of looking at those and what's what what what are those cost benefit analysis is really what it amounts to okay yeah everything's everything's on the table right now you know and this is a decision that you know I think that the board will want to have public participation in once you all do the research and you know obviously we think that people are going to want trash pickup but uh

you know not having trash pickup is an option that someone but like Curtis said if you you all come to us and we can say these are some things to take right off the table you know great thank you and I think as you're looking through options I've I've studied up on some grants that may be out there just to understand where there's potential that um we can get some support in the startup of something new and you know they tell you all these criteria you have to meet and deadlines and stuff so it's important to keep that in mind is you yeah I think we're looking for members so after we have our well how many members do you have because it's five with two alternates to vote but that doesn't mean like at town meeting we told people yeah go they're going to they're going to meet so go if this is something that you're interested in even if they're not a voting member I think they're are people who can like

actively participate and once we figure out what our decision is about what the select board's role is going to be I fully intend even if I just sit there and keep my mouth shut I I fully intend to be part of can I ask one thing just because my phone must have heard me talking about composting uh and so I keep getting ads for these different and because I don't I don't feel know that I feel comfortable doing it on my own so I and I don't know that I want to spend that money uh but one of the things that someone talked about was sort of Town composting thing yeah we talked about I mean I want to know yeah yeah totally that's what got me really interested in in in the committee over the last week because it just kept coming otherwise I'm going to bring it all the Joe's house I don't know how we'd like that yeah and and I think I flipped you guys already link to uh a larger composter uh

similar to those Mill things that are online that cost quite a bit of money but um they some larger units you can install that create compost for so going to look at I'd like to do it at the Public Works location and then sell it because you know I'm always looking for a revenue Source we all looking forward to your your comments though this even yeah yeah I was going to say we're definitely getting in the Weeds now um so does anyone else have questions for Curtis anyone at this point in time okay if not I'd like to I don't know if we have a set end time but I'd like to spend maybe the next hour at most um where we will all kind of talk a little bit about our personal ideas and get feedback and then again we'll take again this is kind of our ideas not necessarily getting into the weeds with with you all at this moment but then we'll take those and then we can combine them at our next meeting and then at our

next meeting on Tuesday the board can kind of say or the board will come out and say here are our policy objectives for each organization a and if at that point the organiz each one of your committees or groups is uncomfortable with that direction then we can meet separately or we can just say yep go go right ahead because uh I think that that just shows a good like flow of where the polic is coming from so I'd want to flip back to oh did you have a question I do if there was another committee to be that the community might think is important to be put together

how does that does that come from us does that come from you does that come from the community how does that process work because and I'll tell you why because I came to a meeting here maybe I don't know five weeks ago and the chief of police from Lisbon was here and did a presentation to the select board about law enforcement in this town and it was pretty damning that we

in Durham have no law enforcement which we know how does a committee come to yeah for that did you you did you want to take this Char so that was something I want to set up a separate meeting to discuss um I've already spoken with um the deputy chief at the sheriff's department um the sheriff um I

think I actually I ran into him in the hallway a couple weeks ago when we started talking about it uh there are two police Chiefs that live in town for other communities there are a number of officers and and I'd like to invite some of them and I've spoken to some of them to come and talk about it talk what the needs are because when the sheriff comes and tells you the cost it's astonishing um and so I want

and and that's full-time however many hours a week what do we need and that's what I want to get to before we start blowing it up but I think it's something that I want to have presented to the town of the next town meeting yeah we're definitely going to explore it as a board and I think that the best way to bring a committee to fruition is to send us public send us comments saying I feel that this is an important consideration come to the meeting public comment or like in the example of like the agriculture committee they kind of just a group of people who live in town who had a shared interest got together and started talking about how to better that their concerns and then made that approach to say how how does this process go so that I think that that's the way to kind of establish any new committee or anything like that and that's something that I want to keep with us because I want to keep it on the

front burner have it talked about and have it presented at meetings because there's a number of moving Parts who's who's going to do it cost how much all that stuff um and I agree and it's a conversation I've had um with the district attorney with the uh the uh Superior Court Justice I've raised that you know that's something that the town should be looking into and will be looking into uh because it's going to increase things for the court um that's that's already overburdened um and so I think it's important y thank you um but

any other questions about the process we're about to begin here all right well thank you for that question anyways it's good good thing to we heard it we heard him loud and clear um so I want to just now flip back to the front page here of the first organization that spoke and that'll be the Conservation Commission and I want to give each select board member a chance to I'll let you all go first and then I'll go last sh a chance to share what their um if there's anything that they want to add to this list if there's anything that on this list that is their hot burning issue and we can kind of just note that on there and then I'll let all of us ruminate on that and then we'll come together next week and kind of come up with with our our approach for the year so Joe you're the closest to the to the sheet I'll let you take the first stab if you're interested so the battery storage although the

Conservation Commission is going to look at that I think the focus might want to be more on planning board ordinances surrounding that I think the input needs to be there but I'm not sure it needs to be necessary on their on their list maybe maybe more so for um um

uh where not to put it yeah would be more more input that I'd expect the Conservation Commission to do so I mean I think battery swor I think is probably a a heavy hitter in general across the different groups um committees in town as well as uh might be a planning board um lead on that is what I was

back to you too yeah I mean I I I didn't have any more input on that as far as I mean if you're looking for order um yeah and that's something that we you can provide us with um your order of those things you want next week but this is I just want to make sure that this is where individual selectboard members can share their ideas you all can com ask us clarification questions on what we mean not necessarily get into the mar of it and then we'll talk about next week so did you have ideas Josh uh so no I I I'm hopeful that you get the grant um because it sounds like something I hadn't thought of is how it's going to work with so many other things um and so you know my my priority

would be assuming you get that which I'm hopeful um is is you make that a priority with whatever work you have to do because um it sounds like that that's going to help almost everything everybody else is doing whether it comes to the transfer facility the battery storage that sort of thing it can be used for that uh so that's exciting um and I also think you know especially based on the the conversations we've had with the public comments recently the resource protection updates U because it sounds like that's something that would address some of those concerns that were raised at least something you'd be looking into I know this work with the planning board but you know historically you you've all worked together I appreciate that I like that I think that's good for the town uh and so um you know I think the plan that you brought forth is good personally would have liked to see the solar ordinance a

little higher up maybe but understand that's for the future I get why on the other things I think probably are more important um and so I just say uh I like your plan and however we can articulated I think think uh things focusing in on that Grant I also think uh we we should all think a lot about the community's understanding of what we're doing at each step and when we talk about communication you know how does that all work through the I you know through the H Town Weekly Newsletter or you know people making Facebook posts or whatever um but I think we're really headed in the right direction and I was really um

um moved by the community comments tonight and I actually had our last meeting too when I went home and I was really reflecting thinking we really need to remember about restrictions that we place on the community and do we really do we really need to move out and in certain areas I mean we need to think hard about that across the board for all of us I mean that was pretty moving um so that's my my comment thank you thanks anything else Heather

um first of all thank you for all the work that you guys have done over the last year second um I'm excited about the Grant I think I and I had touched on it it's the education piece and clarifying exactly what that is about is going to be really important um and my question or what I

would like to see I know previously the resiliency piece was active and we were working with two other towns I think and I I don't know what the end outcome of that was and so that was what my question was going to be is like what's the status of that and then I think the resiliency piece which also goes along with the climate action in terms of like the flooding and um you know some of the really significant storms that we've had this year and how um there are multiple residents in our community that don't have support um and whether that's a charge for you guys I'm not sure but when we talked about the resiliency piece it was the Conservation Commission that came up um and so where that's going to fall and who's going to be responsible for that I'm not sure if and if it's you guys you know I just think that based on the amount of storms that we had this year and how many residents did not feel supported that that has to

be someone's priority MH that can can she update on the resiliency Grant is that that was what my question was earlier yeah sure yeah so it's the same Grant um and we were looking at working with other towns because if you can um work with other towns you're more likely to get awarded like a joint Grant if you have the same priority um same type of Grant you're going for um but the I think you know

they different towns kind of went in different directions ultimately and um this open space plan Grant still has the resiliency um kind of piece to it because it's identifying climate stressed areas places that are vulnerable to climate change um you know like flooding and um you know and so yeah um but yeah it's

the same this is the same same main won weight climate action Grant but we just ultimately kind of went in a different direction that is more in line with the conservation committee's Charter and our priorities um to kind of set a conservation strategy um and goals we we had talked about warming centers and some sort of emergency response to flooding but we thought we you know there only five of us we we don't really have finances or any of that set set up and we thought this is sort of well beyond the our sort of our capabilities and Charter okay so

that's important yeah that's I think is important for us from a public safety standpoint because I think the angle you're getting at is if this funding is coming through because of the climate resiliency and if we know that these increased frequencies and storms are causing a public safety hazard I think that that falls on to us as a board to explore what our Public Safety options are what our networks are so there even if it's a network of connecting people to places or making sure that we have power at the town to make sure that people can get some services or making sure that there's Wellness checks for single dwelling individuals or folks who are elderly or have access because all of us are on Wells and when people don't have power they don't have access to water you know just that okay so yeah what I'm hearing is that that feeli the resiliency piece in terms of those components feels too like too much for

your group to also put on your plate okay and so can you make note of that and we'll put we're note of that and and then we're going to put that on something else okay thank you I appreciate your honest feedback about that because I think it is something that we just can't not address can I make it just a thing so I think like that is it's all related but we can only do so much right we're saying and like we focused on one piece of it that piece is so important that we've all just seen this past year like that is almost a separate I need to say it's like a public health separate like committee like commission like oh it's like law enforcement at this stage right like looking at that there's funding there's grants in that is what like but that could be thema related State related like that's but it's all yeah so I've added that with the law enforcement coverage is kind of like if this Workshop identifies anything that don't

have a a neat space I think that we can add that here that helps us determine maybe some of our additional needs well there's obviously overlap between those two yeah yeah and that's just one of those things is already what I'm hearing with that is yeah we think that's a need and it's tangental to what we do but there's no way we can handle that and the other things that we have on our plate so there's a comment here about Road planning as well I'll just put that

while we're talking if there's something that pops up that isn't something that we've talked about that you don't think has a home feel empowered to come up here and just write it down um and we can look at those later so when I asked 12 more than 12 months ago about warming centers because we had lost the electricity and we were out for several days in 20 22 I think I was directed to the chief of the fire department

emergency he's a public safety officer person and so that's in his ballpark to decide whether or not it's worth it to open a warming Center or a soup kitchen to feed people who can't cook or a bathroom so that people can do what they need to do and

so is that something that you can expand on within not right now but I think that it's the reason I put it here is that it's just a need that was identified and that ra we'll just note that that's something that is on our our our plan for looking forward and it's the fire department Chief's responsibility and we'll take a we'll dive into it and then figure out the best way rather than to to focus on how it was done how it can be done moving forward so I think that this is a good chance to just just put that idea down there and we can evaluate it so I just want to pck you back on what you just said is that what I hope that people are recognizing out of this board is that we're not doing things the way that things have always been done excellent we're really looking to delegate and to be more of a round table representative here we recognize we can only do so much you can only do so much and and it's just all going to work

better together and we have great town staff as resources and that's also helping us move in this direction to move Durham forward and so I I hope that that's what everyone recognizes out of this meeting and the way that we're trying to get the um the bullet points of what we need to address as a board whether or not we can do it we're going to try to find a way to bring more people in to help accomplish these things that was all I had for Conservation Commission um I have some thoughts on Conservation Commission for me the number one objective for this year in my mind is addressing changes in resource protection mapping you know 2018 the comprehensive plan went through a lot of work and it was developed and then it was put on the Conservation Commission shoulders to bring to fruition and so where when when you're the one carrying something you're also the one who who carries the public face

of it since that I think that we need to make sure we address conc concerns that were made for comments today like for example um communication should probably increase so folks know these are you should be reading the things you get in the mail when you do read them we do want participation and to raise concerns earlier rather than later and knowing that recently there's been additional survey work that's taken place um you know when we first developed the resource Protection District we said as a community well we don't want to necessarily just change things every time something changes but knowing that after after the resource Protection District went through someone had a request to a state biologist who came out and did additional surveys and gathered more data that wasn't known in 2018 I think it's important that um when we find that that data has now suggested that certain elements should not be

included that that's taken very seriously because we this whole process we started was utilizing the best data we have to make the resource Protection District because we as a community felt the previous resource Protection District was just some people who Drew blobs and said this is a swamp this is a important and so I for me anytime you're getting new data points that are showing that someone is erroneously included in resource protection that's a really really important thing to address and and in my mind it's elevated to the point that even if it takes a special town meeting just to vote on something like that that's how serious I take it um so for me that would be the big Numero Uno is addressing you know the new information that came out you know I wouldn't necessarily be this advocating for that to be addressed so hard if this was oh some new surveys were done and something new was found but since some

survey new surveys were done and something was found to be no longer considered important um we should be taking that very very seriously so that's like you know I I think this grant opportunity is a timely thing that needs to be done but for me like this is something that I would hope that the resource protection uh or the Conservation Commission or the the planning board is addressing like l early at the next meeting uh and so I think that's really important for me and then the next thing too is um you know

communication increasing communication I think that the both the planning board and the Conservation Commission have done a really good job over the last couple years of communicating exactly how a process works but I think that making it even more Crystal Clear CU public comments I've heard tonight and previous nights are well I got that in the mail but I didn't think it mattered or I didn't think this was going to impact me even though for two years I was receiving things in the mail saying you may be impacted and there's even even if we think we're communicating clearly as a Conservation Commission or as a board if people are telling us it's not clear then we need to reevaluate that so I think just evaluating the communication there so even if it's on the website or something like that so resource protection updates communication and then um the the those are the two big ones for me and then the

and then the grant opportunity so and figuring out how that can help other boards as well are kind of one two three for me so can I speak to the communication piece absolutely um like when I first started on the commission we got an opportunity to kind of comment on a application for a gravel pit and and and um the DC DCC really appreciates

like opportunities to weigh in on proposed developments like that and even um subdivisions so MH is there any way like commission can be kept into the loop on things like that so we can provide comments um I think that's something we can put down on the list here and consider it because I think that we have our structure for how our review process works and that might require either some sort of edit into that how that review process works to consult with other commissions and Boards so I don't know if there's a unilateral ability to just say that's how it should work moving forward but I think it's an important thing to put down as something to think about um moving forward especially on you know because I I do remember there was at least one instance where it was really helpful input and that I feel like kind of is what kicked off a couple years worth of Conservation Commission and planning board working so well together

realizing that they can share in some things so um we should add it great point it's a great point for those who are listening at home if I may while he's getting up the drugs there we do have a lot of stuff on the website um and we maybe need to take a look at that but there's an awful lot of information that goes on the website and other places that's conservation been great to work with but it's available we meet monthly that's the first Wednesday of the month and so certainly and I think yeah we've done a good job of asking and we follow up with conservation you know we ask the road commissioner we ask the fire chief we ask Cod guy we can certainly ask the conservation folks this is coming up do you have any comments yeah and I I just want to be clear I think you all are doing a fantastic job on communication and Outreach you're following the letter of our organizational structure and our

land use ordinance um and have exceeded the minimum expectations with the number of mailings the number of public hearings you know we're talking over the last two years almost I think six public hearings and two if not three or more mailings but if folks are still saying that they're not feeling like they're getting that communication it might just be worth evaluating because while that might be a change in you know communication from the town just saying make sure you are reading these things and if you can't make it please reach out to us with your comments or whatever um but I'm just making sure that I'm highlighting in this venue the public comments we've received you know so can I just make sure that um we're sharing that with like what you hear with the boards like when you hear it like what they didn't get or you know because yeah because the last what I'm just getting at for the Conservation Commission

because you are all volunteers and the planning board as well is that um I don't want to see you all kind of take some of the public brunt of you never told me this was how it was going to work this is I never expected this to happen when we as a SLI board know that those Communications did go out but if we're just hearing that people are saying the minimum requirements and the exceeding requirements that you all have done are still not meeting the standard at some point you can't force someone to read something or you can't force someone to participate but you can say we sent it to you two times we only had to send it to you once we had three public hearings you know at the conservation commission's request and that John's request we had an additional public Workshop like just making sure we're communicating that the best way and open to new modes of communication I know that we have official modes of

communication but or just Word of Mouth other people sharing things is going to be an important consideration as well so I think one of the things that you kind of pivoted with was when you did the survey right so there was there's a lot of people who are very active online right and and wanted to be able to provide feedback that way now some people you know dissed that for lack of a better word because it only got 100 responses or whatever it was but I mean that's pretty close to the amount of people that are actually at Town meetings so to me I thought that that was great there's not 100 people coming to a public hearing making public comment but 100 people or about am I wrong in my number 200 people 200 there's more there's more people responded than came to this year's town right so that while that wasn't perfect right and it by comparison that was a lot of feedback that was received and so

I think that's the way that and that was generated by the comments that you were receiving you know that people are engaged online let's go that route to get more feedback I I would suggest that maybe there some of the people who are saying they're not getting this are not M right I mean if you were to and I have no idea the people here tonight but are you do you do Facebook do you look at the town's website you know these are the kinds of things because if you don't it's hard and then we have an official certified M but I think we I think rather I know we're running we can take a look at you're always going to have somebody I five people come up after the town meeting and say gosh I wish I had participated earlier they knew all about Sol but you know they and these are people who were on committees and other things Y and I just wanted to use this time to address that we understand that that communication is an important part

and I don't want you to all feel like it's you did anything wrong just want to make sure that you know we're hearing those comments and we're constantly trying to figure out better commun so like for like me a thema all boards is just continued good communication as a priority every year and at some point if you're emailing someone sending them something in the mail calling them and knocking on their door and they're still not coming like you did everything you could you know so but depending on an depending on a website that's as bad as Durham's website is a joke I can go in there and know what I'm looking for put it up in the search engine piece

and nothing comes up yeah part of and so I'm looking forward to the time when we have a decent website where hopefully PE it draws people in rather than pushes people away and that's all part of our communication because what happens very often is like what we're seeing tonight people come and make a public comment and then leave and even though we're here to address their concerns tonight they're not they're not here and so if they don't watch online if they don't review our minuts in their mind they may have spoken they didn't hear so I just want to make sure that if they're going online and saying I did check and I'm not seeing that we can help make sure okay we're gonna fix that problem you know and we also understand most of our work is done nights and nights not everyone has that freedom to attend it so the better we can do across all the boards I think is good so I don't want to beat this to death here I want to

move on because I'd like to wrap up in the next 23 minutes or so to the other boards and commissions just to make sure that we're giving you our thoughts on it and then we can kind of dive in a little a little bit more so can we flip the so while he's flipping I do post the minutes and I do post the agendas when I go to look at other committees minutes and agendas they're not there okay so that is a definite problem I like to read the minutes I don't like to watch three hours of this so I but I like to read through why Jerry's saying what he's saying is that right now for us to add stuff we have to call in and blah this will give us the ability to be able to make edits to the website without having to do that which will hopefully make that process easier but then yes but if people aren't turning minutes in right that's fair they can't be posted and I asked about that and was the answer I got was one of the Committees

expected the town to be typing up their well I think that's an expectation because that's what used to happen yeah and again this is all things that we're adding to make changes and we're looking to the the future just going to get out to make make sure that we're hearing this and and working on it so if you want people to understand what's going on in the town you've got to make sure that you hit every possible Communications method and for some of us visually the minutes help us understand absolutely all right so same deal I'll start on Heather side of the room this time cuz we started on Joe side of the room again um any thoughts on goals and objectives from the s side of things for historic district commission I have to run to the restroom so Josh if you can share along there um I think the name change is a priority for me for sure that's not just this is no order whatsoever okay um and

then I I I think all of these I appreciate the fact that you guys have put the work in ahead of time to establish what your com are for the year um wait a minute maybe start with me I just lost my par thought there was oh I I I feel strongly about um the

um reviewing historical permits property I I I feel strongly about that so if there's going to be a change to that um I just want people to know that I feel strongly that they need to be involved and then the second second thing that I want to say is that um I don't know how the process works but I want there to be increased communication um like I'm thinking of an example of the Parker Schoolhouse where the historic district commission wasn't informed that that building had been permitted to be torn down um and so I think that there was just a a communication breakdown that took place um and so again just like hitting home that communication piece that that we need to do a better job improving those lines of communication to make sure that things like that don't happen and I think that that goes back to the planning boards seeking out the advisement of the

other boards where like if that's one of the boxes that you're checking on every application that situation doesn't occur that's where I'm at with this committee commission thank you I think um this pamphlet is really well done I picked this up at the town meeting it was really impressive um I don't know a lot about all of this so um this upfront information was was very good so I look forward to hearing more about what your team is doing Josh uh no I the name

change I thought it was a good idea now I'm so confused with the other names I have no idea anymore uh so I have no idea if you can come up with a good one I'm all I'm all on board but don't confuse me anymore um uh I'm I'm uh

looking forward to the changes to the land use ordinance I'd like that you are holding it for review and have asking the town to review it before you present it to us or um uh I I like that everything you said was my my or I was just copying George's work communication education work with other groups work in relationships I think that's good I agree with Heather that there needs to be some input whether it's permitting or certificate whatever it is um I I do agree that that that second set of eyes is important um and then the idea to survey of the building well when you someone goes on take that pictur can I go along because I find that fascinating that's all I been think about that and composting and you're going to get more ads now on that both well I didn't realize how much on composting I keep they give me like 15 a day and I go through and try to hope they change prices Amazon will change

your life tomorrow all right nothing else Joe um yeah the only thing I'll go back to the comment I made earlier about the performance requirements of um you know I I I agree that the historical commission should be looking at uh the

permits or any any other building or um upgrades to anything within that District I think that's a good thing I think I think the problem I'm having is that the way the ordinances are written it it creates two I'll say boards that

look at somebody's permit it's not in one spot it's not one board that have to go to to get approval I think the they well I shouldn't say that it's two boards they need approval from there's they they got to stop at both locations where I think that the planning board should manage that which is really what I'm trying to get is is get the get the planning board to be responsible for the performance requirements surrounding the district and then if there's any special circumstances that need to go to the commission it just streamlines it for people when they're looking at the ordinances that that's kind of really all I was getting at um you know I think what what the I think they're they on uh what they're going to be doing next year is is great it's going to be great work um so I have no problem with the the priorities but it's just something we should think about as a town to just put it one one

spot aome thank you say one I say this with some trepidation but I review a lot of search warrants and I like the red lining in word um on this on one of the folds it there's a spelling oh there he is can you tell me what it is please it says churches or school buildings older than 100 years of age may not be torn down of altered accept with the intent to restore should be or o yes it should be thank you yes I always have a hard time with should I should I do it or should I not but always do it always do it because I you know me I was a teacher you know that it drives me nuts well I I don't have anything to add for the historic district commission uh so might as well just flip our chart over here and hop back into

continued Snake Here thing Joe Joe you can start no I'm good I I batter battery storage is definitely top of the list there Josh I mean why can't you do it all I I can it's George runs out of our so because when you talk about the planning board or whatever you're really talking yeah no he's a very very capable guy but I I know I know I and I think your priorities me I'd like to see more but I understand the time commment and so I think you're putting the priorities I can't argue with I'll show them now y I'm good as well thank you for you everyone's getting tired her Curtis turned the heat up to kind of push this all out right um you please tell me if this is not the proper place to have to say my opinion of

additional meetings and not being charged for them I and so I would like for that to be addressed I think that when people come to you and they are unprepared and the can gets kicked down the road and it gets kicked down the road and it gets kicked down the road that's disrespectful of you your time as a board and also our town staff's time and so I would like to see a very hard line drawn that if an applicant has come to you and they don't have what they need to be able to proceed with that meeting they are then charged for the next meeting to eliminate an entire year

of a project being kicked down the road for a la of being prepared um and maybe that becomes a policy issue or maybe that feedback is just something that you take to your board and that's a change that you make on your own I don't really know that's the part of this that I need someone to tell me if I'm wrong um other towns do it other towns do it and I think that we should absolutely be doing it um I would like to see the planning board um as a

priority on applications have infrastructure Trail systems for open space if we're talking about subdivisions I would like to see all of of those boxes checked and completed first I I'm watching projects happen around town where I feel like they're

getting their cake and eating it too where and the town is being left with a mess and so I think the order of operation should be that the infrastructure Place pieces needs needs to happen first before you move through um just and

then in terms of the priority of projects I I feel like all of that makes sense um I I think that with the data from Conservation Commission looking at the RP I agree with Joe I think that for the town's credibility to be basing decisions on science and data that that has to happen this year in order to maintain that level of trust with the residents um that we are going to make decisions based on data and infrastructure oh this might be a process question you can tell me if this is inappropriate or not and it's completely fine and I want you to tell me I I have a real issue with property owners that are before the board for projects that have multiple back taxes owed being issued the being issued permits to do what they want to do I think that is I don't know if that's a policy that needs to change I I would love to see that situation go away I think it's not okay without speaking to a specific project there is a part of

our Tech list that talks about financial stability ability what the right term is that may be an appropriate place to look at yeah so we've already been talking about that okay there are two projects right now that are taking place where both both projects are they owe multiple years back taxes M so again I think like without getting into the details here this is a good space to bring up those questions and concerns maybe they don't fall into the planning board maybe that's a policy thing maybe that's something that gets worked on in the land use ordinance or or fee structure or whatever but I think it's really good to get this out there and let us all here know that that we're talking about it but also let anyone who's watching or reviewing the meetings know that these things are being talked about Heather did you have anything else for planning board I could go on for days but I'll leave it at

that yeah um I would just say again for me Priority again I know that we talked about this with Conservation Commission but is for me definitely the the resource protection thing you know um I think that there's some trust concerns there I don't agree with all the public comments about what I knew or didn't know or what members of the conservation did or didn't know um I think that it's important to to address this to make sure it's shown to light that there's no nefarious actions and that everyone was just working with the best available data from 2018 and if we want to use with the best available data if we know that there's been a change we need to stick to that ethos of using the best available data there's now more data available so while I don't think we need to just jump into resource protection every time someone spots a a new bird or a new thing walking around town I think when we have a very big issue like this

and then a new survey done and something removed from the state specialist that it's important that we we reflect that uh in in in in our policy because we like to move forward like Jerry says he's a fact and figures guy so we want to move forward with the data and make sure we're addressing it other than that I I agree with some of these questions of things that Heather has posed um whether they fall to the planning board very busy schedule is a totally other option and if we find that there's a lot of things that we feel are super super necessary but aren't going to be able to fall into your year all's busy schedule we can we can put those things on uh somewhere else or at least planned for them in in the future quick review planning board one more time can I ask a quick question while you're flipping about planning board it's actually not about planning just about planning board I I want to put this out there into to

the world for all of the people that are here because we all have a stake in the ordinance right the land use ordinance and you could speak to the specific George about what the process is um I'm just going to put it out there because again I'm being blunt right it's just it's who I am that I believe we could put it on the warrant and I wonder what people's opinions are about a moratorium until we get our ducks in a row moratorium of what a permitting for solar battery are you talking subdivisions not just subdivisions I've I feel I'm for me I feel like and I've been saying this for many years that we need to hit pause and reset and get ourselves in order um and

I feel strongly about that but I'm one person I'm I'm looking I'm listening to everyone's concerns around the volume of work that needs to take place board's feeling taxed with the amount that they're being taxed with plus having to review an increase in applications what we're charging George with um on a less

than full-time schedule and the fact that we're about to go through I've heard people say codification and what's the other way that people PR what's theic what's the correct way to pronounce it codification okay um and I just am interested in exploring that I don't know am I the only person that thinks a pause would work right now in this situation I mean George you really carry a lot of this if I may you know we we quote the comp plan as the Bible right which I don't necessarily agree with but the comp plant says specifically 45 building permits a year and 100 uh lots lots and

that's that's the kickoff so that's already kind of gone through a lot of town Town betting M um and again the applications I probably whine too much about it but it's right now we're hot sometimes we go a couple months without any um so that's kind of my feeling on moratorium is I'm I'm not sure we're we're there yet um because it we all have to remember that we could talk about subdivisions but if somebody wants to split a lot they file an application that come to us and so this isn't just the developer or I'm not I'm not talking about just subdivisions I know I know that I speak out a lot about subdivision development um and that's not because I'm anti-development that I'm I'm Pro responsible growth and I feel like we don't necessarily have the tools that we need in place sometimes to be able to be responsible about it um but but three of

the four applications we dealt with for businesses right and only one was a four lot additional thing so I guess we just need there is a cause and effect or is a moratorium only on subdivisions if we were if we were to do how can you explain the process for a Mortor putting you on the spot George I apologize if you're not ready to answer that question it's fine um so under state law there are development moratoriums and rules for doing them generally you can't just say we want to stop and just take a breath you have typically you have to be facing a community challenge such as solar Farms some communities have adopted moratoria but under main law you have a specific time frame within which usually six months which can be extended to come up with here's the plan to deal with it so but just a general moratorium to say all of our systems are kind of not working uh and we need time to get our

act together I don't think you can do that okay because there are legal requirements for doing permit reviews with planning Bo and building permits and other permits I I actually think like what we're doing right now is getting us towards that we're doing the codification now and like having these types of workshops where we talk about these issues is what we need to be doing right more of honestly like to go through these issues and I think some of these are going to be small tweaks to the ordinance they will require that town meeting but others will take more thought but I think we're on on the path getting there versus a moratorium you know yeah but I do think to to your point Heather and to taking in the Insight that George just provided us is that this is one of those things that might come out of our meeting next week is if we see this really long list of things that need to be done and you know I'm of the mindset

that if you make a list of priorities it can't be five things long it needs to be one or two things because if everything's a priority nothing's a priority if we get to that feeling where it's like this needs to be done this needs to be done and this needs to be done but number four still needs to be done and that might be batteries that is where I think that you might have that discussion around we're processing so many applications we're working on our solar ordinance we're working on all this stuff if a battery project would come up right now we wouldn't be able to handle it but we know we need to hit an ordinance so maybe there is a oneyear moratorium to buy time for those sorts of things so I think that that might be a little bit more like that discreet and measurable need and the challenge that we can highlight so if we're worried about them amount of housing maybe we have to put a block on some of the other

stuff that we are not prepared to handle and I think that that is part of what this this conversation tonight's trying to highlight is if it ends if we end up with six must happen this year priorities for the planning board we need to talk about how to turn that into two right you know and that might be where we get to like what you're saying Julian but like maybe if we could just if we're going to do that just go back because a lot of these on this list are not priorities like we've mentioned like cell towers is not we lowered it roads is a big thing but I think we figured out like we're going to push that we're going to push other things there was really only two we had two high priorities two high priorities that we which I think match with with conservation yeah and that's that's the whole point tonight yeah is we're hearing what your high priority things are I've noted it like I I wrote down

everything that's been said but I'm noting this is number one this is number two we have the video to refer to so next week when we go in and talk about the set priorities are going to be for the year I don't imagine any of us are going to be like well we need to figure out this this cell tower thing because no one talks about that as number one priority so I I totally hear that and so I don't want you to think that because it's on the board here it's a priority this is the big picture throw everything at the wall and then we're going to pull those things out at our next meeting based off of your feedback based off of the public feedback based off of our feedback and based off of T staff capacity so my question is for George if we were to the say that we all agreed that we thought the hypothetical that a battery storage moratorium that's something that has to go to the town to vote that's not something the select

board votes on you probably call special okay thank you that was a process question I just want thank you and actually on that note question if when could we do that moratorium if someone comes to us with an application uh you can adopt new regulations and you can do moratory uh and you can make them retroactive under certain circumstances so okay okay but it's a very it's safe to say it's a very narrow uh certain certain circum and also realize that once you declare the moratorium that moves that item up to the top right because you have to focus on it during that six months or whatever it is right right yeah and that's where I know I've seen some folks do a one-year moratoria I don't know if that was legal but it was just you can do it six months and then extend it yeah and that's and that's where I do hear when we talk about like options we're hearing a lot of things that need to be done we're

creating a structure to do it we might run into not having enough Staffing to do it it's probably easier in some cases to not do something than try to add additional Staffing right now so that's where I think that we just got to consider that as an option for some things if we if we really end up feeling like there's a bunch of stuff that has to be done this year and there's not going to be enough time to do it especially and I'm looking at you planning board because like you said you can have all these great goals and aspirations but then if three more applications that take up a lot of your time and expertise and efforts come in those automatically move to a rung of has to be done has a deadline has has to happen and so you can have a great meeting plan to talk about batteries but you either need to have an extra meeting now or you need to hand because you have to handle the and I will say that the

plan the members of the planning board and George have been superb to work with I mean oh yeah no I don't think I think that I think that you are a well efficient well oiled machine that gets a lot of work done but even the most efficient machine can only do its full capacity and sometimes there just too much you know we don't want people getting burned out because we have great board members who and your board takes a lot of practice to get up to speed and when you lose someone the next person who steps in might take 6 months a year to fully get back up to speed and we don't want to lose people because of burnout and stuff like that so all right one more one thing left on planning board then we got to talk to Curtis my last thing just to blow up the room is um our comp plan we're making all of these things we're making all of these decisions we're doing all of this work around a comp plan that was from 2018

and our town has changed incredibly since then so I think at some point everybody needs to consider that we need to update our comp plan because most towns do it every five years and we don't count the co years the other thing I forgot wait a minute hold on comp why don't I write stuff down cuz my memory can't well you can bring it up next meeting too if you if you don't remember so okay oh zoning zoning that's what it was zoning

start with Heather and work our way back around and then we'll wrap up here I feel like I've had a lot of input for solid we so I'm going to ask well I mean I would just note that right now they're still getting ready to meet and so they're going to have to kind they're they're you know in a little bit different situation than everyone else who is already established and stuff like that so they're going to have a lot of these discussions Monday but if anyone wants to share from the board what is their number one priority like if there's anyone here says my number one priority is to get rid of trash pickup speak now or forever hold your P did I start last time yeah we're doing we're starting with doing we're our way back so my number one priority is in the inter room to have a composting reduced tonnage situation in

between now and when our five-year contract is up that's that's what I would like to see all right in the interum and I think having the community know where we are at the starting point to have some set goal 25% reduction or something and work towards that be good Josh I I think Josh just wants this picked up and he wants to compos and I are are not friends yet but you know we're becoming closer uh no I'm I mean I I'm fascinated by the composting all of a sudden so I just looking forward to it go from there yeah no I think you guys got your M I'm good with the the way they're heading yeah I mean for me something I

think that Curtis talked about exploring things that cost no money I like those things um before we explore things that cost money and I've heard multiple public comments about um compost because wet food waste is so heavy and I went through this whole thought experiment last week of how much the cumulative apple cores and banana peels I eat each year cost and I did the math and like if everyone just took those out we could save literal tons if everyone eats as many apples and bananas as I do um but I think that there could be an opportunity to create uh and this could be something that we could talk to the ad committee or commission when they're formed there could be the opportunity to to even if it's a loose Network or just a a gathering page to create compost receivers and compost producers I know that members of like the budget committee said composting is easy I said can we just drop it off on your lawn you

know and what I mean with that is like I would gladly accept the compost of several neighbors around me right now and feed my livestock with it you know so uh those are the kind of early opportunities I think we can can capture um and that ties into the Royal character so and I'm just excited to hear all of their options from zero dollar to lots of zeros after the dollar sign

popular or very known this year well some of the question I've already gotten questions what are we going to do about trash and ends up on the end of a dirt road yeah I don't know that's why but that is a serious consideration because when you get rid of easy access to dispose of trash it turns into I mean literally in the years that I've lived here the one year that we didn't have bulky waist pickup was the year that I literally just I watched someone pull over on the side of the road and just start throwing uh their trash out of the back of the truck onto a gravel spot and it's like there's like five spots that people just drop it off so we end up spending more money because we're sending people over to the boat launches and every back alley driveway or whatever so just a question that I I don't want to make it a but it may not be the right place when you know route n there's been stuff on Route n for quite

a while somebody dumped up like they backed up a truckload of household stuff and dumped it on the road so is a town going to clean these spots up as Public Works maybe haul them up to Auburn the town pays for it I don't want to open a can of worms that people are trash on the side of the road but um we're leaving it there why a I don't have an answer to that but along those lines of questions I've been getting recently the town used to pick up after these storms all the branches and trees yes I have gotten that someone was talking about how their neighbor just has a huge pile who can't even see the house anymore out front and is that going to get picked up and if it is I'd like to know because I moved it all in the woods and I will move it all back out was talking about there's or something I think that's a good question and I think you got to be careful trash stuff I don't know about brush I I don't know what the

answer we do something with that I don't know what the answer there is and I'm hesitant to say oh yeah if you dump your trash on the side of the road we'll come pick it up because yeah that could be a full-time Town pickup real quick so um

Jerry do you know the answer there for that sort of stuff had that week where you could get the free bag yeah well here's so if on a Town Public Works to pick it up the question or the I guess the philosophy not philosophy but if it's on a state road should the state pick it up or should the town pick it up I think the Town should pick it up because it's the town of Durham and we don't want trash on the the road if we don't want to wait for the state right so that's if I hear of trash being on the side of a state road in within the Durham Town lines I will ask Works pick it out I haven't heard of anything maybe they don't tell me maybe they know I'm come they don't tell me I don't know down by you down on down the down on the water there in the yeah almost to Terry Kirks left to bend in the road after Pawn Road y I've seen it there for a couple [Music] weeks curious because that's kind of the

questions I've been getting is what are we going to do above trash on the side of the den I don't know yeah that's that's a good point and we don't want you to if you tell us if you're getting a lot of that stuff cuz I don't we don't want you to turn into like the trash warden for the town of Durham we don't want you to be Fielding like hey what do I do I want more trash tags or whatever so if you're getting those questions let us know cuz we don't want you to get overburdened with stuff that's not your responsibility so um and interest of time I want to wrap up but I quickly wanted to give Jerry and George if there's anything that you want to add to any of this or if you want to collect your thoughts and bring them to next meeting and add them or or whatever on priorities or things that you're saying going to be so much time we can never finish it let us know now or at any point during the process so oh I

there's certainly nothing I want to add um I'm kind of looking forward to seeing some of it go away yeah yeah yeah just because of resources yep so when when once we wi this down to what we're actually going to work on then I might have more yeah that's fair too yeah because it's just for you all to know my goal next week is that we'll just on each one of these boards I'm giving each one of us like two stickers and put it next to the one you want we add add it up and figure out our priorities but we're not we're going to just have to look at two maybe three priorities I I was looking at you not that I know you were I saw I I I was trying to look the room so couple of thoughts uh one in terms of limiting factors um the town meeting format is a real limitation because most towns that have Council manager forms of government they're dealing with this stuff every month as opposed to once a year so you

can get a lot of these lists done quickly but the town meeting is a major to doing things quickly the second point is that in terms of the process um somebody used the term negotiation I think we did that in our meeting uh you got to recognize the public input can require changes in the direction so the part of this process is for whatever the select board and the boards agree upon in terms of here's the policy adjustments will need to be made as you go go through that process so I think that's something to really recognize early on and having that kind of modification the third thing is that in terms of this issue of the resource protection realignment one of the things that was discussed in the process was who should be responsible for making sure the data

is accurate and going into the last round that burden was put on the individual land owners land owners were saying no the town ought to be paying for that so the good news is what's actually happening now is instead of having each individual landowner have to do that the state is basically doing it on a townwide basis and that leads to the final offering that that would make and that is when you're talking about how can you manage all of this stuff um it may not be adding staff but it may be hiring a consultant to deal with one of one or more of these areas and have that consultant work with a committee to do the leg work that I'm doing for all the committies but just for projects like whether it's battery energy storage or open space plan or and it may need to go beyond the limited uh we're going to apply for Grant yeah because that that number one takes more time and number two it's it's

more limited and number three you don't get a lot done compared to what other towns do you know communities I work for $100,000 a year for planning projects is more uh so that's just something the town's going to have to really deal with if you're going to deal with these issues because they're all complex yeah and that's kind of to the point that I was making earlier like when we were having the discussion about moratorium or whatever is that if we come up with these discret immeasurable tasks that have you know you just get to start here and end here and this isn't a a rolling project that's where we can try to say maybe this is the opportunity to explore what options there are for Consultants now or in the future to help address those needs but I think that this was really productive tonight getting everyone's like big wish list on the table here we'll save this you know we will certainly go through and take a lot off

of it uh next week at our meeting and then if there's things that we feel like we have to take off but also still need to get done that's where we can start exploring other options to make sure we get them done and uh then we'll present it to each one of your organizations to take it take it and that will kind of be our policy objectives for the year so and like I said if you if after we do that you don't like the list that we're providing in terms of our expectations for each board and committee please reach out and then if we need to we can set up a separate oneon-one that board and committee with our board to to figure out what the the hangup is so stole a lot of your all's time tonight but I appreciate it I feel this was really productive um and looking forward to this more increased communication and collaboration so uh it's not a work it's not a meeting so I don't think we need a motion to

agend adjourn I don't think anyone would argue against one but I'll just say we're we're done so there's not minutes from this correct okay thank you for the opportunity thank you yeah absolutely