TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ November 8, 2022

stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so uh we do have a little a couple of amendments to the agenda um under public comments there's a bullet point for board and commission comments and that really should have been its own number on the agenda so we'll make that 3A um and that'll be a uh report and comments uh from John Talbot on the planning board and from Lois Kilby Chesley from the historic district commission um and and then before we actually get into the agenda uh I'll note that we do have public comments number three so if somebody has uh something that they want to express to the board that's a good time to do it although if it's about arpa funds we do have a separate item on the agenda number five for that so I

would ask that you wait for number five to talk about arpa funds but if you've got something else you want to make public comments about that would be um number three okay any other amendments to the agenda from board members

so now we are at number three uh any public comments on something that's uh not related to arpa funding ideas all right so we'll go into 3A boarding commission reports and planning board chair John Talbot please survey that was on the table but there's extra copies

records John Talbot 636 stackpole Road uh in the beautiful town of Durham and this is sort of a couple of things my monthly update to you on what we've we've done in the past month and then um talk to you a little bit about one of the articles that we've been working on or just a quick update on that so the things we've worked on in the last month is uh celebration Tree Farm came in and asked for a conditional use on having agribusiness for lack of a better term uh on their thing and so that was approved by the planning board and so they'll they'll be doing kind of what we talked about for the educational stuff a couple of uh music events some no more than two a month everything's over by nine PM so we we were they were and we're very conscious about not too much noise for the neighbors they were very good good to work with so that's approved and done and uh and then Deer Creek came back to us last month which

is Deer Creek is the cluster subdivision up the road on nine uh with their final plan for final plan approval we reviewed completeness and they saw the completeness review is not do we like your plans or your plans are there issues with your plans but do you have everything you're supposed to have as your submission and we found there were a couple of big things that ticket items that they were missing um and so we voted incomplete they can come if they get it fixed between now and the our December meeting they'll be back we'll review the completeness and say hey you're complete hopefully or not and then we'll get into the substantive uh review uh what we've done this time

um and again I command George the town planner for putting all this together as we did a peer review of their final plan submission and that's done that was done by a girl and Palmer if I finally got it right George okay so goral and Palmer at the car at the expense of the developer and there's a fairly long list of things that they need to work on not bad things a couple of things like Corps of engineer permit that they've got to get to have a stream Crossing so they need to work on that and that was one of the things that they were incomplete on so that's kind of where we are in girl Palmer did a good job the develop our Engineers is working with them on those things so I think that's a positive and uh they looked at things like the connection to Route 9 is that a traffic issue trying to avoid what may have happened in a previous subdivision so that's where Deer Creek is uh the other topic and so a lot of you have came to

our informational meeting this is the um really bad name but affordable housing uh uh article that that we'd like to write for the folks in the audience who may not know and you've all heard it multiple times the state changed their law uh or created a law that says the short version is that on a lot you have to allow up to three living units so on a single family lot you have the house and then you have to we have to allow as a town to additional living units um and so right now on a single family lot Durham a lot and if you're looking at the the handout this was at the town uh at the voting today Fair number of people stopped by uh most of them were what do you what are you doing explain it to me we're open-minded someone just said well hell no we're going to vote no and I said you're welcome to do that but then you see now number option two that's what that's the state law so uh I think most people were open to doing

that most of them actually appreciate the town giving them given the option so we talked through the survey which many of you have seen with the three options uh if you all were just asking if you have any comments questions if not if they are we'll we'll tweak it a little bit if not Devin's already set it up on the computer we're doing some test runs to make sure that the the survey actually works and the survey is what you see here and um we'll turn it live we'll notify people on the Durham blast the news email and people can start commenting or start doing the survey my gut feeling after talking to everybody is much like the informational meeting we have it's going to be very split between what people want to do so but they were good they were good this is what I want to do this is why I want to do it so then it'll really come down to the planning board picking a choice and why and being all back to work with you on

the writing of the article and I think Jerry and George are going to talk to you about process on those kinds of things after this but being ready for that April town meeting and getting an article out there and having public hearings and all that stuff on that so you do plan on so in addition to the survey there's also a plan to have like public hearings where people can in person ask questions they've done that once uh and and so I don't know that we would do it again okay with edit for an informational meeting we will we're required to have the public hearing and so we'll at that point the questions already the question is already written right but it's I told everybody today is do the survey and contact us and say I want to tweak it this way I mean one guy to they had option one is apartments and he said well can you do option one with tiny houses and so those are the kinds of discussions we can have so yeah okay any

other questions or comments I think I think correct me if I'm wrong John but I think he's just it's we don't need to vote or anything it's just kind of a check in with us letting us know he's gonna do this survey and it's an opportunity for us if we have any you know comments or concerns or whatever about it to kind of place them before they actually release the hounds on this thing so I thought that was some good good concerns brought up during the public session we had a couple weeks back and you know having another one certainly would would probably help um you know if somebody else has additional questions as they read more about it um and I'm only being survey is great being halfway facetious my plan is at the town meeting get up and reduce that and if somebody gets off this I didn't know anything about it I'm going to take their name and see when did you vote or two if you voted you're one of the many people who

walked by and looked at the ground to make sure you couldn't make eye contact so the word is out there I guess what I'm saying is there um is in addition to the survey is there just like like some sort of information packet that kind of explains this or maybe in maybe even like a frequently asked questions document so that people can kind of go to the website and learn about it on their own they right now we're not planning to but I think we could certainly if we start getting feedback we could then try to think of a commonly asked question is when do we have to do it but two can you put a stay at a detached an option one can you have a detached house uh what is if we increase the acreage what are we thinking about or this is what I recommend or whatever so right now we don't have that built in but certainly I'm turning the church does all the work so I turn over there to make sure George

is uh is in agreement I think we could probably come up with something like that put it on the on the website and say you know or if you have a put it on there that if you have a question this is the email and yeah and all that helps I just think any anytime you have a fairly complicated um issue that you got to want people to show up and vote on and decide you know I mean the the survey is great and the um the specific time and place opportunities are great but you know um neither one really offers the opportunity for someone to really like research and dig in and understand and maybe um trigger follow-up questions or whatever yeah and as you saw what we see at Town meaning if people are confused they vote no yes and that's our goal is that's what we've been shooting for is you can vote no but you're not going to vote no because you you weren't aware of it I guess is for lack of a better term

so yeah no George if we can maybe we'll figure something out there to do that so that's where we are on this one I think there's a couple more that they'll probably talk to you about Conservation District and some others that are still coming so are there any questions no I think you've got a number of the big bullets in here and sentence form even just politizing those might just bring up the highlights good on the Forefront and we'll give them an opportunity an email I mean it could be my John Talbot at Durham whatever it may be so okay great thank you thanks

from the historic uh District Commission good evening run around Pond Road which is right next to the West Durham Methodist Church arbor request would you like me to hold it or do it now four things you're going to talk about okay first thing that I wanted to bring up was that um on November 23rd of 2021

this board voted to put together a committee to uh keep tabs on what was needed and what should be done to the Union Church which is the church over on 136 at the top of the hill that used to be the Old Town Hall and if you remember in May I came in and asked where the committee was and being implemented and I was told you'd get back to me so I'm here again now it's been a year and I guess I'm curious what the implementation plan is for the committee that would be overseeing the Union Church in the meantime of course we know another year of deterioration we know from talking to Calvin I learned that the Sills need to be replaced it's pretty obvious because there's a six inch hole as you mentioned last year a year ago it was in the newspaper that Mr bullia had said that it was a six inch hole in the cell and there is um so I would request that there be some

movement in in a relatively short time I realized that when I sent an email to Kevin I don't it was probably January of last year he said that because we were in the process of getting a new um a new town manager that we had to push things off a little bit in the meantime we've done three town managers and so it seems like it might be appropriate now to move along with that committee we were going to put I believe we were going to put planning board a person from the planning board a person from the select board at least one person from the historic district and then residents more than one I don't know but it was um I think it was Mr bully who I I had heard was interested in being on that committee so that's my first request

arpa but I'll push it off so um the third one is yeah I don't know how long ago to be honest with you several years ago there was a restoration fund that was started for the buildings at that time in the town that were owned by the town and there were at least two because there was the West Durham Methodist Church and the union church and there was a restoration fund and funding on a fairly regular yearly basis at town meeting there was ten thousand dollars that was put into that fund it got up to around 65 66 000 is my

understanding it's now 12 because nothing's been put into the restoration fund for a number of years and so my request would be and I don't I'm unsure how to go about this I wanted to bring it to you first but my my request would be or the commission's request would be that we consider putting ten thousand dollars into the town budget this year to start building that restoration fund back up again because as was said and quoted in the newspaper last year when you have a building that's not heated the deterioration becomes faster we know that it's damp in there it's musty in there and the building is starting to deteriorate now luckily

roof on it because it was leaking it was an emergency had to be done they dipped into the money that was the form of restoration to me a roof is maintenance but not restoration but that's a little bit of semantics Maybe but um so that took out about I think it was eighteen thousand dollars that Calvin told me that the the roof came in about eighteen thousand dollars so that came out there have been other things that were done Jim Litchfield did some repairs on the um on the steepo there have been other things that have been done in them so the monies just disappeared over the years and it's time in the commission's opinion um it's time to start building that money back up again

the other thing that I wanted to um just update you on is the work that the historic district commission's been doing for the last several months came in in May and spoke to you and let you know then but I know it wasn't a full committee at the uh in that evening um so I just wanted to let you know what we've been doing so we've met with George on May 12th and

on October 6th um in the interim time we worked on article the commission worked on article 12 and article 5.14 which has to do with historic resources so we worked on that over the summer because we wanted to edit it one to so that they were aligned but also so that the there was a lot of clarity in the language because there are some terms in there and some definitions in there that it basically is up to whoever's reading it on what that means so what what some of the terms mean so we um we're trying to clarify trying to make the language simpler and we had planned on meeting with George after Labor Day and sharing with him what we'd done over the summer and then have a report um ready that rep that represented the commission's work um so that we could have it presented so

um when we met George on October 6th we got the report and in going through it between October and November's meetings we met again last Wednesday night we found there's a lot of discrepancies between what we had done in our work

through the summer and what the report was reporting so um we had him as I say as I said we had a meeting last Wednesday and we decided at that time that trying to change any of the ordinances now with the discrepancies there isn't the time to do it and do a thorough job of it our work doesn't align with what was presented in the report we went line by line through that report and I have documented comments on just about every line and every topic that's in there um from the commission where the things that we did agree with the things we didn't agree with but what we had what we feel now is that it's best for us to

continue to work on the ordinances and bring it to the town for changes in 2024 which sounds like it's so far away but it really isn't um we would have had to have had a meeting with the property owners that would be affected because they're either buildings that are on the registry on the National Historic registry or that are identified by the main historic preservation commission as being eligible there are 10 properties in the town we would have had to have had meetings we felt with meetings with those property members and the butters because they would also be affected by any changes so let me start what now are you looking

to change the role of the historic district Commission I would say expand it yes okay and under what direction are you doing that under the ability for us to submit an ordinance George started with us and we took it from there

disagreements one of the disagreements that between the report and the commission is that we would do away with the historic district mm-hmm and it would become a an advisory commission rather than an a commission with authority which we have authority now to meet with people you have recommendation Authority you don't have you don't have yes no okay not okay Authority we have Authority for the people in the district they have to bring their plans on changes to us and we they do but you don't have approval Authority or deny Authority on those plans would you like to tell me who does uh ultimately it's the code enforcement officer and the planning board you're the historic district commission is an advisory committee in the process that when something is proposed to be changed within the historic district then it goes before the historic district commission for review to see if those changes are in alignment with

um whatever the requirements are for historic district commission and you present your opinion but ultimately it's a decision of code enforcement in the planning board on whether things are okay or not it's not up to the historic district commission so we have a certificate that we give them with recommended changes yeah recommended right but it's not it's not binding it's not it's still ultimately the the decision maker is and it goes to the planning board well it depends on the issue you know it depends it's either code enforcement and that if it's goes beyond code enforcement it would be planning board

not how we've been doing it but okay well that might be true um but in in reading the ordinance I mean that it's and I know George and I worked on this whoo a year two years ago when we had a lot of conversations on this and um you know that's that's what it is that's what the historic district commission is and I don't think there's been any um I know there's been no direction from the board to expand that or to bring more properties under the purview of the historic district commission is that what you're proposing that is what was proposed in the report yes

district Commission and to have it become the Durham historic preservation commission with oversight of the 10 properties in in the town so does mean that's a much bigger discussion um and this that was uh this is not the forum for that discussion um I would like you to ask at some point the town plan or what the idea was you

don't have to ask it now but right yeah the the the uh because go ahead I was gonna say because the commission would like to keep the district that's one of the things we would like to do is keep the district well my understanding is that that wasn't the view of the commission until there was a leadership change of the commission there was a re-vote

someone who voted in the affirmative requests or reconsideration yeah it can be reconsidered and we did um okay uh yeah I think well I think there's probably a a workshop or something at some point in order to talk this through um because I I can tell you I'll always speak for myself you know I I personally am not going to be supportive of anything that puts any restrictions on somebody's property that they don't welcome themselves so if somebody owns one of those 10 properties and you know

they're not interested in being under the historic umbrella I certainly don't want to pass an ordinance that would force them to be there we we wouldn't be able to force them to be there okay great so right right so yeah so I think what excuse me but what the for instance

one of the things that's in the current ordinance is that there's a 25-foot buffer between any building that's on the registry and onto the a Butters property so it limits what the butter can do right it limits what the butter can do because the 25 feet I came and spoke to both the codes officer and the planning the town planner and they described it as starting at the property line onto the butters property so there's a 25 foot buffer what I wanted was a definition of buffer when I talked yesterday when I came in and talked to Jerry is it a 25-foot buffer of used vehicles is it a 25-foot buffer of hedges

is it a 25 foot buffer of 14 foot should there be a buffer at all like why should my property be impacted by the neighbors just because they're an historic Park it's already in the ordinance I know but I'm saying maybe it shouldn't be yeah maybe yeah I can't see how that could even be illegal so anyway we're definitely getting there weeds here um but so there's a lot here to talk through so um yep it sounds like we're not looking at an ordinance change for 23. correct we are requested you're not the George may feel otherwise I mean I mean we may there may still be something proposed to go on the war and I'm not sure but in your your opinion is that we shouldn't do something in 2023 correct you correctly that we need to slow down that we need to reassess what was in the report

thought that the report was going to put together what the commission had done the work the commission had done but what it did was took last Springs information and and it was put into a report we also thought that the report was going to come to us after Labor Day but apparently it was mailed out in August who who wrote the report George oh

George the bird who's the town planner [Music] all right so um do you want to move on to your Opera request I would love to thank you so um in pretty tough shape because we we understand now that the select board decided that non-profits would not be eligible only Town Projects would be eligible for Arbor funds and since the union Church's Town owned it's quite clear that we would fall under that so um so we would request that the Union Church get a hundred thousand dollars of the arpa funds that are available apparent where does a hundred thousand dollar come from what was that number hold on apparently um last year in November 2021 Todd had

contacted some contractors at that time for estimates and his quote was that um just painting the church alone would cost upwards of twenty five thousand dollars and it does need a paint job um the sill replacement I don't have exact numbers on that but I can tell you that I replaced or the friends of the West Durham Methodist Church replaced one side of the church's cells and if we have to replace any more than just one cell it will be more than twenty five thousand dollars for the sill work it's very expensive to replace a sill like that um and the work that was done three years ago the work that was done on the foundation where the granite was removed and cinder blocks or cement blocks were put in in place of the Granite they were removed um they weren't removed the granite wasn't removed it's not there now it was gone a long time before that

Foundation that was there was it before okay well because that's on the registry and because in talking to people about what the requirements are for the registry including George the barge the town planner um it visually has to align with what the style of the building is and Granite would be what would

be what needs to be there that'd be great but and I believe if we look I at one point at least the granite had been pushed down the hill toward the river I'm not sure close to the river by this point yeah yeah I think probably does yeah I don't yeah yeah yeah I remember seeing it out there but we're not gonna get down there to get it a long ways down

repair as I said Was Eighteen thousand dollars so um so the numbers add up pretty quickly when you're repairing an old building so we were asking for a hundred thousand dollars in the hopes that that would be enough to bring the Union Church back to its original Glory um can I ask for what purpose well that's a good question because Jerry and I talked about that yesterday because we he said that you had actually asked for what purpose yeah so I don't own that building to your point I'll go back to you know one of the reasons I think that the board like stopped asking for contributions and to there is uh it's it's not a restoration fund there's a fund specifically for the union church it's not for like any building there is a municipal Capital account fund that can be used for any building you know Fire Department Public Works this building Union Church you know that's that's for like you know capital

projects on those buildings but as far as a specific fund the Union Church does have a specific fund and I think your numbers were essentially right in terms of what was there and and what's there now but I think one of the reasons sure they work is Calvin gave them two yeah right so the uh but the reason I think the board in recent years hasn't asked for more money is because I think the feeling is you know it it didn't feel right to keep asking the town for money for this building that there's really not much that can be done with it at least that we're aware of I mean maybe there's something we're not thinking of but because of the its position on the road and the lack of parking and um the fact that there's you know no heat uh in the building or Plumbing as far as I know and you know that's like why at the end of the day what is the town getting for spending that money on the building and

is is taxpayer money really the appropriate vehicle for bringing that building back or should it be more you know Grant based fundraising based so I think that's that's why you haven't seen questions on the warrant in recent years certainly Grant grants work if someone's willing to write the grants but it would because the building's owned by the town the building becomes the town's responsibility for upkeep you could leave it and in 40 years tear it down I

mean certainly that's the Legacy that has happened to lots of the buildings in town we know that happened to the to the school on uh Bowie Hill Road it just fell into its Foundation basically so but when the town owns a building that is on the registry

responsibility for taking care of that building and maintaining it and renovating it and bringing it back to life and as for what it could be used for I would say there are innumerable things it could be used for I would say storage is not one of them right so putting old books upstairs or

whatever they just become musty they become moldy and then and they become damp Western Methodist Church as an example our plan is to have a small Museum to have a small lending library of antique books and to use it for the community when Once the building is safe so we've already collected

71 000 350 dollars in Grants and donations and it will take probably another seventy thousand dollars or so to bring that building back but eventually the town will have a legacy and we'll turn it back over to the town to the um historical society as the agreement was when they sold it to the friends for a dollar so we'll put it back together and then we'll give it to the Historical Society because that was the agreement Historical Society is a private organization it wouldn't be a talent building correct okay all right so I thought I heard you say turn it back to the town no I said turn back to the Historical Society um

point about it's a town-owned building and um and I think the town has you know probably taught especially has been you know as you mentioned you know we've been doing kind of the necessary fixes like the roof and the foundation and things of that sort and you know to your your uh question earlier about the committee so yeah I was when the it was when uh

we did ask the first town manager to start that committee up again but then we all know that whole situation blew up right before budget season and and we did have correspondence about that but we all and then we also had additional correspondence where I indicated that when this town manager was was coming on that um the focus is Mission critical stuff like you know understanding how the town works and and focusing on budget and all

of those things and that it probably wasn't going to be until we got past the first town meeting that he's a part of that we were going to be able to kind of go to the next level down of um you know other nice to do uh types of projects so and I and I would include the uh formation of the committee for the Union Church in that but I think I think it is important that we get that committee up and running because I think as the inboard discussions in the past one of the things that we would ask that committee to do would be to do some work Gathering input within the town on what is the town's vision for that building and what do they what do they think it could be and how much are they willing to invest in that you know like it's you know who's going to say no to oh wouldn't it shouldn't we preserve this old building yeah of course yeah we should okay are you willing to spend five hundred thousand dollars to do it

and then have really very limited uh uses for that building well that might change the equation somewhat in people's minds so we need to do that work and figure out you know what is the vision what will it what will the community get behind and be willing to support um and then go in that direction and I think the formation of the committee is going to be critical to that and then depending on what happens doing follow-up work in terms of Grants and putting together some sort of a project plan for you know what to do with that building there have been grandiose and then I'll be done there'll be one grandiose suggestion that I think I'll credit the town manager with it that you know if we really want to do something with that building and have it truly be usable it needs to be moved it needs to be on a different piece of land and maybe in this you know we own all this land here um maybe it comes over here somewhere

and it can actually be part of the town you know Center complex you know those are the types of things like out of the box thinking and um that I think that people might get behind I don't know but those but those are the types of things that we would look for that committee to um cool to work on who owns all the stuff in the building because it's more of a storage area right now so it was the

usage of the building was given to the Durham Historical Society so all that stuff in there that you see on the first floor is and it's they are things that were donated by people in the town for the legacy of Durham and if you go in there and start looking around there's a whole lot of stuff so everything there is we were just there a few weeks ago yeah so I think my point in answering that question is you asked who's going to fill out the grant applications and stuff yeah I think you know that that's a place to start the Historical Society they're not the owners well no they're the tenants though but they're they can still help well in filling out the grants that I filled out which is probably 15 of them in the last couple of years they ask who owns the building not who the tenants are of the building right so I mean it'd probably be a Cooperative thing I mean that'd be great I think that the historical society

would appreciate some cooperation with working together with with you on it but I I'm not speaking for the Historical Society because I'm only a member I'm not the chair of it but my point would be that to get the ball rolling because I think Kevin is right working carrying slowly and starting at this level and then working his way down is the appropriate way to do it coming in the situation he was in and I think getting the ball rolling through that Society starting finding the app finding the grants starting the paperwork asking for what information that that's needed is a way to get that started and a way to get in front of things and so that's I I would urge you as a member to bring that and and start that because that's the way to get it started because you know I think we'd all like to see something happen and have that building preserved but where does the money come from and how much is it and and that's the way I

think it needs to start yeah I mean yeah and my I visited as well and and my you know sitting there for about half an hour with the traffic going by and having the access to the building is is completely horrendous in that location it's great for a single family home that might be about it um but moving the building is probably one of the better ideas into a piece of town owned property Swamp Road was one property that came up as a as a Contender or moving it to over here buying the piece of property at the corner once you come up with a plan for what you're gonna do with it then going out and getting the money to go focus on that rather than just you know if you're going to put all this money into it and then move it I'm not sure that's the right the right priority decide you want to move it or and put it in a spot where it's very usable like like the Eureka Center that's very usable it's got parking around it and if

you you've got to create parking in order to be have it be used access to the public you know handicap access and Etc it needs to all be put in place you know in in you know I don't know about putting a septic system up on that spot I I I'd be you'd be hard-pressed to do that without filling in the whole embankment so you'll you're almost

forced to move the building if you want to preserve it unless you're just going to preserve it to look at it every time we drive by so if you if the town were to move forward with that idea I would encourage you to check the federal guidelines for buildings on the registry before you make any plans I don't know what the I I'm not even going to pretend to know that I what the rules are around moving a building that's on the registry I don't know so but I'm sure there's somebody who has that answer maybe the main historic preservation commission could be this is there a lease with this or is it just a no it was uh I can't remember how many years ago it was quite a while ago uh there was an actual um vote at town meeting um it was a war an article on the warrant that basically um authorize the historic uh Society to use

the building we don't they don't pay any rent or anything like that I don't know what they would pay for there's no utilities there already well I'm just thinking I was on a non-profit board where we rented it for a dollar a year in a sort of building and we were given the option to do it and essentially step in the role of the town for Grants and things like that oh and so that would be another option if if there's a concern about this society's ability to do that step into the town in that role that might be another option yep yep but I think like and you kind of touched on this I think I think it's I think whether Historic Society or what or this committee or whoever is they're probably going to need to run point on actually finding grants to apply for and and putting together a plan um uh for for funding um and then I think the town can assist with that and if we have to be the ones to apply for

the grant then we can be the name applying for the grant but the legwork is going to have to come from probably the Historic Society or so or the or a committee that's formed specifically for that purpose yeah I don't represent the Historical Society so I'm not even going to nod my head on that I'm just going to say it's owned by the town so it's up to the town to decide how to handle that so this I mean this you know good discussion it probably went a little bit deeper than we um you know ideally probably should have had it go at this meeting but um I think you know there's yeah obviously more uh to discuss and I think we will look um you know as soon as we think it's a good time you know Pro you know within the next few months that get that committee um formed and uh some sort of a mission statement for them um and hopefully we can get it get it going so just to clarify I did not realize that

the committee was not going to be available until after the town meeting I had I didn't get that piece so um the fact that yesterday I brought it up in our conversation I apologize if I put more in your plate then no that's okay I mean I'm I'm learning a lot too as I uh every day I learned something something new me too and I'm not even in this office that's okay we will you know you can pile it on the plate and some of it's going to fall off but um I mean if we want to get the committee going I mean we we can do that but as the chairman has said you know going into budget season being new I have a I have a pretty full plate trying to figure out how how the town does its finances so but I'm more than willing to help and as far as grants I'm here to help with that as well I mean I'm trying to get together put together an efficiency main Grant too but that stuff takes time so any any help from residents or organizations is

only beneficial and will get done quicker and looking at the state historic preservation commission regulations they allow movement of that building yeah it's clear in here you can move it if you've got a plan so that's not off the table what's that buildings like that yeah they moved all the time to preserve them just for this purpose yeah so it it's all in here and yeah it would be good to have a plan yeah and it would because you'll get much better buy-in from anyone here trying to expect money from when you have a plan it would preserve it and get it used which is what everybody wants for their money these days right it's we want to use it yeah it's gonna be a nice addition well it was the town hall

time all right thank you thank you Lois ordinance Amendment articles on number three of public comment I didn't have agenda and I was looking at the gentleman's shoulder for open comment for father comments I didn't get a chance to speak I are you speaking about something other than arpa funds yes okay thank you mind George yeah go ahead come on up Chad quick um Chad Burke uh 1043 pink and Brook Road um she's got a question in regards I didn't see it on the agenda but for BYOB permit for the AmVets I dropped it off last week I didn't see the um on the agenda for this week so at our at our last meeting we basically authorized the town manager to take care of BYOB permits going forward and they don't need to be on the agenda fantastic okay so drop it off Tuesday you've seen it already yeah you're going to be all set I just got to have the chief and uh codes put an eyeball on it okay fantastic now we could streamline that

yeah yeah no that's that's great yeah I know that that was an option either select board or the television and historically we didn't have a town managers right so we voted at our last meeting to let him do it he's got to check some boxes with uh Fire Chief and public works and codes and all that but for for you guys it's pretty much well in this case the event is Friday night yeah so you'll be all sad all right so come in tomorrow are you gonna be in tomorrow yes fantastic all right well guys taking more of your time no problem in front guys thank you

what's new you want me to Dive Right In yeah you might as well Jerry had suggested that I come tonight just to kind of give you an update in about just about a year ago at this time I was doing the same thing and talking to you about amendments to the land use ordinance and uh I think one of the very positive things at the difference from this year is that as you can see the Committees are engaged and it's great that they're having communication with the select board because last year that wasn't happening right and I think that was part of the problem going into the town meeting so I'm encouraged that there is good communication hard communication but good communication so I know that's that's the key to making all this work so just a quick recap how we get here was uh 2018 the town adopted a new comprehensive plan that kind of re-shifted focus from the state idea of having growth in rural areas and doing

all kinds of stuff that the town just didn't have the capability so that actually went to town meeting and was passed unanimously which is just amazing and and incredible and that set the direction keep the whole town rural uh get into compliance with uh all the state regulations on development and uh basically

improve the system to effectively manage the growth that's happening in town and development within a framework of keeping the basic character of the town and working within the limitations of the town so that's what we've been doing for the last four years and uh the first thing we did was to just overhaul the land use ordinance which was unusable it was unreadable it was just impossible to to do the regulation so we we overhauled it we fixed a couple of the key pieces for the planning board to have effective tools to review development proposals which is working now the last year of them are almost a year been working with them to develop the systems to to handle very complicated development proposals effectively and efficiently so I think we're making a lot of progress on that front as well so what I've also been tracking is to try to address some of the broken parts of the land use policy program of the

town and the three particular ones that uh I've been working on uh one of which has been kind of uh circum imposed by the state New State's new law affordable housing that has just kind of jumped on to the scene and we we have to deal with it but one of the recommendations of the new comprehensive plan is to look at that issue when you got rid of the growth area in terms of providing housing opportunities within the community it said you used to allow multi-family in that area three and four unit and you couldn't do it because you didn't have the density and you didn't have the infrastructure but there there is a place in a community like this and so the comprehensive plan talks about very much in line with what the state has imposed on the town and there are some things you can do to make it work better for the town rather than just accepting the state mandate so that's one of the things I've been looking at

with the planning board we went through the town meeting process for fixing the compre the resource Protection District which is based on great part some really bad data from outdated sources and as you know went to town meeting last year and it was a it was a really uh I in my my observation a disagreement on the procedure that was being used as opposed to the substance and so I've been working with a Conservation Commission uh met with them just a couple of weeks ago to try to keep that policy processed so that when we get to town meeting we at least have Clarity of what the issue is and not all of these confusing questions of process and notifications and all those things and and to have an effective public participation process so we sent out letters last year we were prepared updated lists because the phase two is now being looked at simultaneously the Conservation Commission is is scheduled a public

informational meeting and we're hoping to send out the postcards to all the affected properties to let them know that this is going to be going on so that's the second track and then the third is I have been working with the historic district commission and just for the record uh candy I saw you here she asked me to help in terms of the historic district issue I didn't inject myself and she really looked at the comprehensive plan recommendations and just some of the confusion tonight about what does a historic commission approved what does the planning board approve what does the code officer there's all these overlapping jurisdictions and it's not clear who is responsible and has been conflict between planning board code officer and Commission because of this it's it's really not a very clear system and the regulations are even more unclear so what I've been trying to do is is help the the town the the historic

district commission just Wade through all of that stuff and come up with hopefully a more effective way of doing it so I did work with the commission over uh almost a year and came back to last spring and came in with some recommendations which they reviewed discussed debated and then voted on it and so I told them at that time that I was going to prepare a report for them and presented after Labor Day meanwhile they had a change of leadership through the summer they they decided that that was not necessarily the best direction to go and so they did a lot of work had a lot of meetings and I met with them just a month ago and and basically they presented to me what they had done I presented to them their report and it was clear that we weren't on the same page in terms of the direction so I agree with Lois that it would be really really helpful to to get together and one of the things that Jerry and I

have discussed is this concept of an ordinance committee and I've kind of shared that idea with him he might have shared some of the concept with you to basically um at this time of year uh get do what we're doing getting agreement on what these questions are going to be that are going to be presented and so that all the Committees are on the same page on the policy Direction now it goes up to the vote it could come out differently but at least we don't go in with everybody talking in opposite directions and then after town meeting have the committee which would consist of the chairs of each of the groups that are affected and administer so the planning board the board of appeals the historic district commission the Conservation Commission any any group that has you know has to carry out the ordinances whatever the area is that where the members of the committee come from is it well my thoughts my the simplest concept

that I could think of because you don't want to create a whole nother committee process right we can't get people yeah but you have you have dedicated volunteers for each of these groups have their leadership come meet right after town meeting it's okay look here's what happened if like for instance the failed initiatives last time okay what are the priorities for moving forward and then kind of discuss the priorities and then delegate you know okay like the planning board has has asked the Conservation Commission to take on the resource protection the planning board is focusing on affordable housing and so they've kind of assigned the responsibility to prepare something for the next town meeting and then right after Labor Day come back together report to the select board see where these different parts are and then basically say okay this is what should be put on the town meeting ballot so

twice a year have the leadership of each of the Committees come together just after town meeting and then in the fall to prepare for the next town meeting that's the ordinance committee this will be the ordinance okay all right so it's not like hey who wants to be on the ordinance committee no okay all right okay yeah I have a better understanding of that yeah yeah but I think that would help because all the groups would would really and discuss what's important and what the priorities are so that was an idea be comparable almost like too it's almost like a department ad meeting you know like yeah something like that yeah yeah yeah I think that's a good idea okay yeah so at this point what it's looking at you know the affordable housing I think is definitely going to be on because the town has until next July uh

and if you don't do something this the state automatically imposes their their new zoning on you for the multi-family I'm confident the Conservation Commission is going to be prepared to go and present to the planning board a proposal for moving forward with phase one and phase two they are still struggling with the idea of having two separate questions they're still struggling with that idea at least the last meeting that I was with them so uh one of the thoughts that I just wanted to present to you is that you know this is a this is not the issue you want to have debated at the town meeting once one question or two and uh there's good reasons for doing it the way it's proposed I offered those pros and cons to you which is about a year ago and I still think that having it as two separate questions is is appropriate but I can understand there are concerns that if you only do that and then you lose

resource protection for some areas you won't you'll you won't get it for the others right if that's the way the town votes that's the way the town votes yes I understand so so one of the questions that I discussed with them at that last meeting is that rather than have a debate about that issue one of the things we could do like we're doing with the survey on the affordable housing is just put that as a survey question is that a concern for you and if the survey results indicate overwhelmingly it's not an issue then but what in the survey whether it should be one question or two the question of should these be voted on separately or as one item well that's that's that strikes me as really getting into the weeds of sausage making in the process to it feels like too finite of a question to survey and in my opinion yeah just if you presented it in pretty much the same way we're presenting three options for affordable

housing either being less restrictive being more restrictive or being neutral you could have the issue of do you think that it's unfair to landowners to have this as a combined issue and then do you think that you're concern are you concerned that if it's two issues that's going to result in less land be protected those seems to me to be the two countering arguments and viewpoints and just giving people an opportunity to weigh in on that in a survey hopefully I think could just say we don't need to discuss that at town meeting

it wouldn't be a discussion at town meeting because I mean somebody could bring it up and say they could express their displeasure that it's for the sake of argument that it's two questions but ultimately they'd be voting on the questions not whether it should be one or two which is what we thought was going to happen last time well last time the difference was we didn't even put we didn't put both questions on last time there was only one question on that and can't they I mean I agree that that's an issue that the commission should be doing and not taking input on but if they're so concerned about that can't they phrase the questions in a way that they both have to pass or neither passes if that's if that's their concern which I tend to agree let the voters decide and however the dice fall they fall but if that's their concern there's a way to phrase it might get started I think and this was the problem

I had with essentially turning this over to the Conservation Commission because they come at it from a very particular point of view and so the the concern and it's largely a Conservation Commission concern is that people will vote to take stuff out of resource protection but they won't vote to put stuff in and the where we were last year so for you two guys who weren't on the board at that time was that um we felt very strongly

that it was not right to essentially hold some Property Owners hostage for having getting their properties that is Mis labeled Miss shown on the map as resource protection when it shouldn't be and have a condition of having that fixed be that this other land goes into resource protection I mean that to me is a very um it's an unethical approach and I will I don't care what a survey says there is no way I'm supporting that and I'm just one guy and yeah so well I'm not going to take a position one way or the other in that regard but I think if that's a concern they have to make the decision I don't think it should be going out to other people well and and since it was delegated to them well was it delegated to that they don't have a decision to make right they're not a decision-making body they they're not even a quasi-judicial body you know this is this is on the um on the outskirts of to put it politely of their

mission and so ultimately it's this board that has to determine or approve the wording uh of the questions that go on the the war and it's not it's not the Conservation Commission but they're making recommendations to this board right yes well I don't know if they're making it directly or if they're no the agent of the planning board and they they and again In fairness to the Conservation Commission they accepted this delegation from the planning board right the planning board asked them to take this on because they didn't have the time to focus on all these issues and and they agreed to take it on it because it is they recognize it's their area of expertise and uh so therefore they have they have looked at going for with the process I just wanted to say it at the meeting a couple of weeks ago they're still struggling with that question they're not saying don't do it they're just saying they're that right but the

core of why they're struggling is because their their concerned that the town won't vote to add property to Resource protection and they want that linked to taking other people's property out of resource protection and again that's just that's just not right it's just not fair to the people that whose property is you know mislabeled on the map as being resource protection and they they have restrictions on them that shouldn't be there to say that we're not going to lift those restrictions and fix that error and it is an error that we're not going to fix that unless voters agree to put this other property that meets certain criteria for going in to Resource protection it's two completely separate questions

the update that's where we are with that question um I have drafted the map amendments for both phases uh the language is all ready to go I've got the three alternatives for the affordable housing which we're still working on progress so uh and although the historic district commission has indicated their desire to hold off which is fine I've done most of the research on that front as well so in all three topics I've done the research two of the three I've prepared amendments that I think will be ready to go and those are probably we talked about other other issues like roads that was my question I thought was there going to be something yeah okay so where we came out on the roads was that you know we had talked about going a proposal and John will tell you he got feedback at the at the election today about the cost of building a road to us to a Backlot a hundred thousand dollars people are saying this is this is uh

unsustainable so we had talked about about changing that just taking that back not getting into you know do gravel roads need to be paved or not paved that was the other sticking point so where we've come out and I've talked to the the staff Town manager and the other staff is that just simply uh and they had talked about going forward with a proposal to create to do 16-foot driveways for a backlog for a single home but then the state law comes in and says you've got to allow at least you know two units or more so that kind of through that wrench and that works so where we came out from a staff standpoint is to say is to say look let's just simplify and clarify what you have to do to get a private road outside of a subdivision approved right now code officer is involved Road commissioner is involved and it also requires an approval by the planning board three different agencies have to get together

to approve a simple common driveway so do that so simplify clarify and reduce the bureaucracy is probably what we're going to do and include that clarification which was the other issue that you cannot get a road accepted in town except that town meeting that was the big that was one of the big ones that they got hung up on was yeah okay so that's where we are and I'm I'm moving forward on all three fronts working with these groups and I think we can hopefully uh continue to make good progress okay any other questions or comments

very strong opinion about the questions on the conservation did anybody else have comments or a contrary opinion to that that they wanna that they wanna I would agree it should be two questions I agree I'm even okay we can ask we can you know we can ask the uh do you want to put stuff in question first if they want that's fine we can ask that one first um on the you know it's from when we order the questions on the warrant you know I just where I struggle is if someone's property is misidentified and not and is in an area that's not resource protection why isn't it immediately removed I mean why do we have to have a bottle that's a foddering system to get somebody's property missed that's mislatable that's a good question if it is truly mislabeled why why can't the why can't that just be fixed because my understanding correct me if I'm wrong because we've already had at least one challenge that went to the board of

appeals that and they won because you know just because the map was wrong you know but under the actual criteria they weren't in resource protection so they won I don't know if that's happened more than once yes but if we don't it just seems like without fixing that map that's just it's just going to happen over and over they're always going to win you know actually the last one that went did not get there did not get the amendment and the reason that they didn't is the board of appeals said they'd question whether they had the authority to change the zoning map and the fact that the uh vote

at last town meeting did not change it and it was coming up again they didn't want to supersede the legislative process that was the statement so yeah they agreed the and and here's another angle on this is that some of these areas are mislabeled but that doesn't mean that there's no natural resource basis for having it in some level of protection so for example an objective question right because it depends on how many factors or what criteria you want to use that's see that's where I they need to be separate questions because right here you this the property that's coming out it's a black and white does not meet the conditions the what do we want to put in that is a much more subjective question because it the beyond the Shoreland zoning it which is like the minimum you there are it depends on how many additional criteria the town wants to apply to that so it's a more subject and there are other mechanisms for

protection right there are clustered subdivision requirements where you have to set aside certain parts as open space there's land acquisition programs there's voluntary donation so resource protection is like the most severe restrictive that you can use and you don't have to use that and you use it for the most important resources so that that is part of the other under it's not just like there's no basis whatsoever for putting it in resource protection yeah so yeah all right thank you George really good really good work thank you you're welcome it's all hard but it's all reward yeah okay all right so now we are at number five this is um if anybody has um public input regarding the use of arpa funds if you're here to speak to that then have a seat and state your name and address and your idea or your thoughts

I originally was going to talk about the union church but I think there's been enough discussion about that and not a plan out there to come to any real conclusion the other item I want to talk about is the Eureka Center and a lot of discussion certainly that has happened here at select board meetings has been the need for additional office space and meeting space and I believe that with the Eureka center right now there is an issue with the underpinning or some of the Lolly columns that may not be supporting the floor that need to be addressed I think that would be a great place to be utilizing those funds and if we are going to turn that actually into a meeting room I would certainly suggest that that parking area be paved

then it would stop people from using the gravels for bullets against the building which we had in the past so and also I don't know whether the restroom there is Ada approved or not uh that's something else that would have to be addressed if we're going to be make that a meeting room right I'm pretty sure one is yeah I'm not positive but it's a good point we need a different part yeah and you know in lumping that in together if that does come to fruition we would actually be taking this room here and hopefully making it into possibly two office spaces so we can alleviate the crowding and the other about three people in a what eight by ten yeah something like that yeah it's all that that's one you know and I look at these Opera funds and I certainly would not be recommending utilizing them for something that doesn't exist we have so many things in this town that exists now that can utilize the funds

and not impact the actual annual taxes to the townspeople yeah um move on then uh to CIP requests in Five-Year Plan discussion what we're doing here is kind of a for basically anything we might want to call out or um address or clarify before all this stuff gets handed off to the CIP committee for the more detailed work so

start do you want me to start with the town office stuff or well um so basically I think when we met uh last time we um so I think we've gone through all the individual requests okay I noticed um the chief amended the total on his to the one to the 125 for the the cost of refurbished well they actually you and I we did talk about um that on that one and maybe I don't know if you already talked to the chief about this but the um keep the the Quint refurb for 125.

that's that's on your schedule to be done in 2024 right I think that's what I saw frame so are you looking to do that work in 23 in 23 yes okay okay for for a quint also known as the latter that's a standard in the industry not written in NFPA code or standard but the industry across America's 30-year lifespan so I'd like it budgeted for

again and then out to bid and then fixed for that 30 year which should prolong it seven to ten more years it's funny you bring that up thank you I just had the Quint certified so all our ladders all our portable ladders there's 14 of those and the Quint itself private company comes in under nine hundred dollars and certifies the Hydraulics the latter all of it yeah and they were impressed a really third party independent and I'll get the report to you of the condition of that truck okay so just if you're looking through your packet on the the fire department's schedule it's it's this one looks like a little spreadsheet so there's two things on there so it sounds like it should be the fiscal year for the refurb quintroc 24 should be 2023 not 2024 if I'm here in the cheap days and it's not a million dollars it's a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars all right

changes before it goes to the CIP committee because that and Jerry and I talked about this the the um it says new cost on that column you know because quite honestly Chief before you were here um the concept of a refurb wasn't even on the radar nobody had even brought that up as a possibility so it was always new new new new and um so I think that's I think we're changing that column to just estimated cost and you said it was 125 right is that 125 to to rehab that truck yeah the way the committee has has yeah okay thought right right we just want to make sure we're sure cleaner clearing that up before it goes to I did put in there I think concurrent terminology to replace that truck with anything new is a million to start yeah just so the public knows that's not Pie in the Sky that's legitimate two-year build now and a million just a style yeah that's good I know I get it yeah okay

worth it I mean you get to lie but I'm just saying he put together the with the department heads put together the schedules that we had asked for in our last meeting and and um and the requests and um and the paving plan and our purpose is not to go through these in detail tonight but it's just more of a you know hopefully everybody got a chance to look at it and see if they had any questions before tonight and um I get we've I would look for uh

either bring up an issue or a question or we say yeah this is good to go to the CIP uh committee capital project requests are right here yeah yeah so this so that um and were we going to take actually uh were we going to take the codes office one out of here take that out got his proposal to me yesterday at 3 30. so I didn't include it and that was the one we talked about we were just going to do that we're just gonna do the scan okay yeah so to follow up on that uh he doesn't quite have well he has already now it wasn't ready but one of the other so we wanted him to kind of bring us the specifics like which scanner how much yada yada right and then the other thing we needed to check was just to confirm that there was actually money in the municipal Capital account which we have it's like 97 000 so on your sheet here the bull up at the top on your Capital request those The Reserve balance that's just that's

what that's what we have to do so Public Works looks shiny now but I already took the truck that's coming out yeah because that was a 22 right uh 21 expense actually gone or allocated so any uh and this is not our last look at this so now the next step is this packet essentially goes to the CIP committee a lot of this like the schedules and everything is just is kind of context for them um and then they will review these individual requests and prioritize them

um and uh then they'll come back to us and we'll we'll determine basically as a board okay well how far down the list can we go and um and then and then we would also have a conversation of how do we want to fund it like do we want to use like where appropriate do we want to use arpa funds or we want to raise taxes or whatever so that that will come later after they come back to us with their prioritization the red in here Jerry is the new items or something in this big sheet right here big sheet yeah the red of the is what it is the cost of of the it's an expenditure it's what it would cost it's a to do the mine item okay so the stream costing is you know it's 150 but Calvin's got another 150 coming in a grant correct we hold so these are just the expenditures that they're these red numbers should match what you see on your sheet okay on your project sheet now two there's a cup there's a couple

that are missing that Chief's working on which is the uh generators that could that didn't work oh yeah um so we're still getting him for what oh we're going to get another request on that yeah it was still because of the storm that we had recently and finding out that they weren't working properly and that road we're working on getting okay

for that Jerry and then were you chief were you going to submit uh remember um just a request for just a contribution to your Capital Reserves because you don't have that in here right now well I not for 23 he doesn't Okay that well that's what I'm asking okay yeah okay I I believe on that working with the town manager maybe Ruth and other people have identified um sort of what's there what what the capital maybe Reserve is yep fire department and we were fine okay all right I just want to make sure no I I appreciate the opportunity but um I had I had just a question regards in terms of the I think it might just be a mispering just for clarification on the um for replenishment for the reserve for the public works to have estimated cost of 200 request is for a hundred is that just uh which one is it is it that first record on this one yeah so when we started going over the actual what the actual

balances were going to be we were going to be in the red so I upped it so is this 200 000 you're going to ask for 200 000 keeping in mind that we cannot use arpa funds for reserves yeah you might get nothing we can make it work yeah just keep us in the black so well so is that 265 after the addition of the 200 or would you have 265 now because the way I read this you have 265 and asking for another 200. no we have 65 after we pay for that truck that's coming okay we got 65 up top we replenished 200 now we're at 265. we spend 150 we're at 115. we spend 105 we're at 10. that's how you read across that okay so okay so okay and 23 we're looking to buy a dump truck for a hundred and five thousand yup and that is and we have a request here for that yes and we're looking to buy in the Stream Crossing you have a request for that you have a request for that yep so those are separate things those don't

require anything from that 200 000 reserves to fund because those will be um while those will be questions on the ballot on the ballot so it doesn't make any sense to have a vote to tax people two hundred thousand dollars to deposit into Capital reserves and then vote again on the same warrant to then buy a truck or and then buy a

um uh do the stream Crossing because this is yeah because then then you're just um it's muddying the water so be really what there should be here is if if if the thing is we need the 255 000 to fund the the dump truck and the stream Crossing then then those are the two questions you know it's like the any reserve request would be what do we want to put in the account Beyond that 255 so they'll be because because in this case we're going to have to tax people for the capital Reserves right and so then it doesn't make sense hey we're going to tax you for the capital reserves and put it in the bank and then we're going to ask you to approve a truck and we're going to take the money out of capital reserves that we just tax you for to pay for it because that that's what I'm seeing I think 105 of the truck was where you're looking for Opera funds on that um or a possibility so really well that's going to raise you're looking to

raise if you're not you're looking to raise 400 plus thousand dollars so you ask them for the hours and we can't use Opera for the stream Crossing because you can't use it against other grants but you could for the truck and that was my original interpretation because if not you're asking you're asking for you know Christmas is right so keep in mind the first time I was trying to keep you in the black Calvin and I were us because I had you in the red in the beginning and then yeah but it's only if that yeah but it's only in the red if all if you if the assumption is that everything's that everything's being paid for out of reserves and what I'm saying is if there's if this if the money's not already in reserve then then you don't have it to pay for the truck it is it it's and then choose to vote to put it into reserves and then take it out of the reserves immediately like before it even gets cold you know

uh you know what I mean like it's it's like a current version so you just rather have them ask for the 150 and 105. except for a question and separate questions well those are gonna those would have to be separate questions anyway right so so I think the the stream Crossing Grant um I think you're looking at raising that so that's going to be a because we can't use um arpa for that and then I think on the dump truck you're also looking at raising that because you don't have a hundred and five thousand dollars in reserves to cover it and then what I would do is say okay you've got 65 000 what am I going to ask for on 20 in 23 to build on that yeah and

like so that might be 50 or 100 000 to get that balance up to kind of 165 or 115. you know what I mean I do it's kind of how we had it the first time yeah I think I think the way you did this and I get where you're coming from is that you you were kind of assuming that sorry all these expenditures always come out of reserves right because and then you know and you're looking for another they might in a future say you're never I shouldn't say never you never say never but um

to put money into reserves and then spend it the same year you put it in because you're putting it in reserve you're taxing people to do that so just tax people for what you're going to spend it on yeah and then that's the way that's the way we had it because the followers here no no just like get on the road like presumably that might be a balance of reserves in um uh you know of two three hundred thousand dollars or whatever like it's been in the past where we've just we've put a question on we want to get a dump truck a plow truck and we've got money in reserves we're gonna fund it out of reserves and then we're going to raise the rest right yeah if there's a balance yeah so we had it kind of right the first time but what I wanted to ask you about though is based on our conversation the other day is we started talking about you know when it comes to the trucks and stuff that maybe we should be talking about leasing right

not um and maybe 23 is not the year to do that maybe it's too soon right but you know um because that was that would help cash flow and yeah with us because it wouldn't be putting you know 250 000 out in one shot right and you you you you lease it over five years if it's 250 000 truck it's 50 000 a year coming right out of your expense budget because you leased it right paid off in five years and you can pay it early if we you know it if we could right there are scenarios that could come back and look bad the other way and you have more yeah we need to look into it I'm not I'm not saying we should do no big conversation but we but because of the way Durham is in a calendar year we run into

problems at in June where where we're borrowing money with interest to get through our expenses with a tan so oh yeah no I get it you know so amazing guys so don't yeah so leasing can help with that cash flow to help us maybe get out of that situation right so we we should have that but it's something we should look at probably for 24. not for 23. it's kind of late at this point I can you know what I'll do is I'll bring in a person that is really familiar with it the guy at the bank and he can explain it all to us really well more of at least to own is what you're talking about so right least to own yeah exactly I think the I think kind of the way these proposals are now where you have you have one in here for the screen Crossing you have one in here for the for your truck and then you have a separate one for a hundred thousand dollars to put into Reserve I think that's probably fine you know but not

the 200 000 for themselves yeah it was it was that way at first but then we were like in the red and we were like do we really want to show that we're in the red so we flipped it on yeah well in the red the red might simply indicate that we don't have reserves to cover this so this is going to have to be taxed right right I'm getting it okay big Santa Claus list yeah the only other question I had Calvin all this was pretty well done that this was the only question that I I really had and the last one I had outside of the 200 000 would be excuse me I apologize um in regards to the stream Crossing because I know where it gets a little foggy for me on the sheet and versus that is we had monies that we allocated for the steam Crossing where is that on this spreadsheet that went away right Calvin you don't know there's one I don't know where that money is it's in our general account yeah that one-on-one that they approved

correct so that money was already raised so I know we can't yeah and I'll defer to you on this Kevin that's where my question lies is that money in Calvin's capital reserve or is that earmarked for just general capital reserve somewhere so that was an article so I thought it was an article so that's why I would assume it would be in capital works right so that's in the general fund with everything else well it's in the general it's in the general fund in terms of the bank account right isn't it wasn't it it was it yeah it's in a spreadsheet somewhere being right what I'm getting at is voted on to spend it on X right it wasn't voted on us put into a capital fund to someday spend on excellent Crossing or a streaming so that's where that form in that particular request gets a little yeah that should be in the I would think that should be easy as in the capital reserves for Public Works does that disappear on January 1st no no

no well we can no not if it's in capital reserves and even if it weren't in capital reserves there's a process called encumbrance which we can use to hold that money over um like for if you just haven't executed the you know contract or whatever yet within that year um so we can do it but if it's uh I'm trying to I'm trying to look through the warrant from last year and see uh same question um oh the capital ones were up front weren't they so that's good no this helps me it just I just assumed so I should assume but I know you were here so it's very hard to understand and believe me I've been on this board I can't juggle all this stuff but it's just I don't know how that all flows and then when I didn't see that money that was quasi here not quad it was earmarked for the screen Crossing so they said yeah to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate 101 000 for stream Crossing Culvert Replacements on Swamp

Road and Quaker Meeting House right Municipal share 101 000 State share from stream Crossing Grant 250 000. so it um and it's just under yeah because this is under the section Capital Improvement articles and it's clearly for a capital project that hundred and one thousand should be showing as part of the balance in the public works for that project and

didn't we go to special town meeting and ask for more yes that was two projects two or three years ago yeah oh that was yeah that was that was no that was the Auburn panel Auburn stuff there was 289 in in his 289 000 roughly

in his capital reserve his Capital account that 101 that got approved last year never got put into the assigned fund that's what I'm saying that so I should I wouldn't know that I didn't see it so I didn't make it as part of this number so well but it should be it should be right absolutely right not in the red as much as you think right exactly but but that 101 is for the screen but when we go to fund it that article should be saying like when we go to uh so maybe actually that as I say this out loud when you already have you should be asking for 49 right well I think because eventually because it's a 49 000 increase and we need to increase we need the funding the increase we're not looking to do the whole project we already funded the project right we just don't have enough to complete the project right right exactly if we can't use our performance you can on this one we need 300 000 no um 250

and federal or state or so this year the grant that's in place or the not in place the application that's in place is for 125. 125 000. so uh that's for one stream Crossing or two so it would be uh so the the idea was that they went up so the idea would be that there would be the idea here was that there would be uh 150 raised or or 150 from Accra and and uh uh 150 for the grand okay so we would still have the dep Grant yeah and then so we would still need the 150 euros but Calvin it's 49 because you already you got your 100. already so we'll raise it somehow or yeah you can still put it on here as a as a uh CIP there's a capital right yeah

you can't use arpa against Grant right so you're getting half Grant if you got it you can't supplement to another Grant right that's just part of the condition which makes sense because it's kind of like great it's Federal a couple different but didn't uh we won't say we had 250 000 and matching

or was that what we were looking for time that's what we were doing a state share from stream Crossing Grant was 250 000 right is that that's still true no that was we were doing of them became cost prohibitive and it's going to take a lot more engineering and it won't get done this year so okay so we so we'll just do one we're just gonna do one and 125 from the state and so you still

have the 125 came back from the state that's the application that's the application good question I don't know yeah we had the original one was 250 000 for two correct it's cost prohibitive to do two the one that we can do correct me if I'm wrong is 150 it's going to be 300 or 300 cost for just one now yeah that was due to the the uh so the poor changes yeah no no no so that original 250 really doesn't hold water because that was for two projects correct correct so the two projects now in total would be what 700 000. we're only talking one though yeah I know right yes right so that just one project now is 250 000 300 300 000 okay so 300K

and we already allocated 100 100 101k yeah so we're I'm not pushing back that's the wrong word the only thing I just question is we asked for 100 that money for two projects is really one project well that's the other remember this came up and we we uh we actually Mitch did it I think it was when Mitch was here we had him uh reach out because I think you raised this question before somebody did reached out to Jack the town attorney and said you know that you know because the question was could we if we're only doing one can we still spend all the money that was approved on that and he came back and told us yeah as long as you're you're still doing essentially the same thing the same type of work that that's that we were good yeah no um I do remember that and you're correct and that is it just it just looks the

Optics of it that's why I just wanted it for clarification because if if you ask for 250 000 and the town's raising 125 of it or whatever and all of a sudden now the the two projects are 700 000 it's like how did we get that far off before we even went to the top it changed after that's what I mean yeah the prices of everything right I think we I guess what I'm getting at is even myself who sits here too uh too much but we just need to be really clarify this when we go to the town California that's probably going to be your job to you know really explain to them what exactly happened or Jerry because there's going to be some questions on that yeah just the permitting process changed dramatically which which priced the project right out of the water yeah no I get that budget permitting is permanent I just think you know you got any like like Rich uh just did you know you got to kind of walk

people through the progression like this is where we started this is what happened this is where we are now this is why you know we need um you know another you know fifty thousand dollars to um to complete the work on this one Culvert the second one is a much turns out that's a much larger project with needs more engineering and whatever and there's no ask on the table for that one at this point yeah that's just I think that's the real big thing like this has nothing to do with the and and what the question that's going to come up with it's going to be like well how far out are we on that one that's going to run us probably by the time we do it a million dollars well it's correct me if I'm wrong this isn't even something that we are required to do right it's like we can there's the opportunity you know to get it done because there's matching Grant funds to do it but it's not something that we're being mandated to

do right right it's like we we could just right we can just well we already applied for the grant but that it's all voluntary right we we didn't need to do that correct right there wasn't a safety issue involved anymore well that that was the regioning behind why because it's if it's three hundred thousand dollars and well it's 250 000 will come from the state so it's a non-matching grant actually but it's just not a cost happens to be see what I mean it costs more than a match yeah you're right okay yeah so it's not technically a matching Grant but it's a on a 300 000 project at least that's what we think at this point um it'll match 50 this well no I think he said oh it's a it's 150 000 for 150 000 you do what you want and if it ends up costing four hundred thousand dollars we're on the hook for 250 right

uh the engineer and I went over the numbers and based on what we got for last uh last time I went up to bid and then the subsequent changes 300 000 of the comfortable number that's what we're what we believe because you'll know for sure once it goes up to bid which it was about the first of the year so and just to play Devil's Advocate if it went out to bed and it came back much higher We could decide we're not going to do that and return the grant funds right okay

general no it would stay in your Capital Capital Public Works um yeah actually you know you raise your point I mean we might need we might need a town vote to return the grant fund right um if we since we collected a hundred thousand for that for that purpose by the time we get to town meeting we'll know about January maybe right if he puts out in January maybe right we should be okay maybe I don't I you would think on what we have for information at the time well that was outside of the bid process that changed it but the bid specs that you went out last time have been consistent and nothing's changed so I guess from my perspective I don't want to ask the town twice for a project and then come to the third time and say hey we still didn't get it done right yeah so I want to make sure if we ask the town for this additional 49 000 that there's at least one Crossing going in and that's going to be that's going to

get it done yeah so I think I think the um yeah I agree um I don't want to come back here next year and say Hey or have a special meeting we're going to need another 75 000 no we should we should know right actually goes on the warrant correct Okay the reason why we can't send it out to bid now if you get ahead of it yeah contractors don't but they're still focused on this year and if you're not authorized to spend the money until next April well what we typically do is we say subject to approval if they wouldn't hold it the bid wouldn't hold that they would know that yeah but the bid wouldn't hold that yeah no I'm fine with the price like I said I don't want I just as long as we get it done on this whack I'm good with that I understand the last complexities of the last three four years in terms of the change the rapid change in our economy inflation you know let's say it's for 50 000 but by the time we

actually approached have meeting and are finalizing the warrant we might we might have more definitive information and it might be less so we might say you know what we have to amend this amount to you know 75 000 because it's going to be more than we thought or we decided you know what we're not going to do it at all you got to put that to bed just and this is my last thing we haven't accepted any grant money as of yet we didn't do that correct is that correct we haven't gotten one dime from this corner okay okay thanks all right those are my only two I'm sorry it took so long no no that's good that's exactly the type of stuff we should be talking through yeah yeah helps me tremendously yep

okay anything else on CIP all right I think we're good go to the next step and send it Downstream to the committee all right I'll do the updates yep send it to him okay uh next on the agenda is the town managers reports so let me get organized here

chairman by the way um first up as I told you last time I'd give you an update on the funding on our Opera projects that went to special town meeting Okay so the total for the um special town meeting for article three four five and six was a total of 118 730 dollars okay so today we have spent fifty one thousand oh 17 and 56 cents

okay so there's a remaining balance of that 118 of 67 712 and 44 cents of the of the money allocated at a special meeting that's what's left so what's what that's going to buy is the computers the computers are now at bek getting set up we should

how many did you end up getting this time around we made eight okay good out a trio so the total funds was like 422 000 to 13.87. so with what's been spent I'm sorry say that number again 22 213 and 87 cents they literally

like went down to the penny at 87 cents okay so yeah um so somebody had their personality we do we have to allocate something that ends in 87 cents so so today with with the work being done in this building fire um the uh the gis stuff we haven't that's

still outstanding we have 371 money that hasn't been spent so that is kind of Untouchable at this point right so you're not going to touch that so you really want the 67. from 422 is really what our the 118 730 my taken from the 422 to 13.

from the fire chief he has to respond cool I think I think we're good in his private vehicle okay all right well played sir he is one sharp dude I tell you so the so the town office and fire station HVAC and the insulation that all came to uh forty six thousand two eighty four sixteen now where did we wind up with the installation of this we end up 18 inches deep yeah I was pretty close we're about this far away from the from the heater yeah the furnace but

thank you good job Todd one more time in a t-shirt in the middle of winter all right go ahead sorry we're getting so I'm getting a little Punchy it's been a couple hours yeah so I guess you know I guess the as far as the special town meeting and what they've approved

are you thinking that when all said and done and actually it's kind of article by article right so if you like for instance what there were four different articles right so if the do you anticipate any unspent funds for any of the four articles going back into the Opera pool yep okay all right so we don't need to know what those numbers are right now but it will it'll be good to know that when we come around to actually the budget and the capital items and how we're going to fund those we'll want to know how much how much we have to play with right some yeah I'm opening this mail checks out for the 87 cents

send us a bill um another thing that I'll share so I checked with the uh with MMA on the ice rink and unimproved land so any Town property that is unimproved we are protected under the total claims liability okay um unless we're really negligent in doing something really dumb so if we have a nice rank which you can have and we're plowing it and we hit a kid but they're not going to protect you that right but you are protecting the tree here so if we have an ice rink in some kid falls and breaks his arm we're all set okay the law you can read it here but the law is there but it all has to do with unimproved land that basically an ice rink wouldn't be improved yeah isn't that an improvement no because you're just really flooding an area that oh okay so we're not talking about putting up like a right what's it called oh plus there's also a um land buildings structures facilities or equipment designed for use primarily by

the public in connection with public outdoor recreation okay right yeah we're good we're coming under okay unless we're really negligent okay like anything common sense of plus right applies in this case it's not always the case

my packet here um MMA the work is calm so I had a discussion with them and it turns out that our work is calm it's really through the roof we're paying if you take an average town we are paying a hundred and thirteen percent higher than your average town yeah geez it's a lot we're paying about we're paying roughly about 96 98 000 a year we should be paying around 55. so what got us there so we've had some claims which I can't really talk about but claims will do it um and we don't really necessarily have a return to work policy so the longer you're going to claim when you remain on workman's comp the higher that rate goes up so fire does have a return to work policy I'm I've got one from MMA we're going to get together and kind of adopt one of course we'll share with you guys you folks will be the ones to to adopt them but that's one thing that you need so MMA has an incentive program which is

what I included in your packet so part of the part of getting that rate down is to let MMA who's our insurer say that safety is a priority for us right now they have nothing from the town that's saying yeah we believe in safety and we're going to do everything we can to work safer and and sort of bring that down um what are some of those things that we do we get a Safety Committee it could be like and it's right in your packet here what what that what that means there's three different tiers that we can meet I think what we're already doing this stuff MMA just doesn't know it so Chief is already doing safety committee meetings it's just that Calvin hasn't been part of it and Leadership has to be a product so I have to be part of those meetings you have to have take minutes and you just have to prove that you're you're doing you're you're talking about this stuff you're filling out the first

incident report which is what they do MMA doesn't know what so we just got to let MMA know and if we check off each one of these tiers the first one saves you five percent the second one if you meet all those saves you seven and a half percent the last one if we meet those you save ten percent on your on your on your rate that stuff adds up but the return to work policy that's another little feather in our cap to because we don't have one efficiently um and that's what's driving up the moderate we can do better than that I didn't if people get hurt and some of them you know they if they get hurt really bad and they can't work then they can't work but if if they can we need to try to get them back to work even if it's even if they're just doing training or they're light duty because right the longer they're on the longer they're out on call the more it's going to drive up our rate we're paying

a pretty pretty hefty rate okay do we have one rate for everyone in the town or are there classifications yeah so like fire is like 10.48 um office workers were 0.38 you've had yeah and then uh Public Works is they're a little less than fire fire is the bigger bigger rate yeah what happened why this all came about is

we got a uh I got a bill from MMA for sixteen thousand dollars for an audit and I'm like what is this and I was asking people in here because I didn't know they're like well I don't know so we ended up paying it you know we worked with MMA right so I'm doing a little investigation well what happened every year they want you to estimate what the wages are going to be so they can adjust your workman's comp last year from January to April they tried to get in touch with someone here and there was no response so what they did was they adjusted it twenty percent oh

so I'm like when he came and met with me I'm like man I would love to get a 20 raise but that ain't gonna happen so but that's what jacked it all up and made it 16 000 dollars more than what we paid so workman's calm you pay what you pay you

estimate if you're over they'll send you a check if you're under we owe them at the end of the year so that's why we was over so much because they did their audit jacked it up 20 and they do that because the workers comp board tells MMA that's what you do I get I get it but like you just said once the audit is done and what you expend for payroll that you should if it wasn't truly that number you should be getting a refund we'll be getting now that they have the numbers we'll be getting more than 16 000 . go back I didn't know because you know maybe I don't even know you can correct me on those year here you know a couple years ago we had maybe uh we had an individual that maybe took advantage not take advantage bad word sorry um he had an individual like a department head that gave people raises and things like that and as a town we added like per diem staff over at the fire department and I didn't know if that

number boosted up the um total Town payroll so much that that's where that that increase was that we didn't really necessarily account for it I don't believe so yeah it would not bat magnets no no no not that but that's a huge I mean I've been here for couple years now we we've had a few claims um that's a lot they stay well they stay on the they stay on the books for three years right so hopefully they fall off that'll help bring it down too but just getting into this safety incentive program MMA that yeah because we're doing this I mean it's not a heavy lift no it's not heavy oh it doesn't matter either it's just saying yeah Calvin correct me if I'm wrong wasn't it two years ago I I think you know with a little bit of Rob's tutelage you guys went through all this and redid everything and revamped the whole work comp over there this is work I mean this is main Municipal Association what we do is through Maine

Department of Labor is because you're talking about that safety okay I'm confusing the two yeah but it will probably feed right into that yeah what we went over a few years ago there yeah you're just taking credit for it you didn't send it to the government on a form it didn't happen exactly yeah

third one right uh second one all departments meet main Department of Labor compliance directives check so he's they're in there right do you say they're doing this they're doing it yeah so we can already say five percent just just by checking the Box you sign this yeah I send this in I checked the box and send it into a manila automatically Steve well it says a test by governing board so yeah that this one I think this one you you really do have to sign so anyway I just wanted you to just be aware of that because what we have to do uh is really get that bond rate that's that's too high that is it really is I mean 113 will be our average Town yeah yeah that average of all towns or average pounds our size well most towns in this average of towns like they have like and they call it a factor of one when it's average yeah yeah we're 2.13

is there any choice is there any other choice for workers call there's the only one choice for the state I mean as far as in this carrier yeah could you give it well but your mma's rates are really good uh okay they're pretty phenomenal explored they're non-profit so they're not going to be making any kind of Marcus Ballou came in and it it went over with me and

MMA getting Insurance to MMA is a good yeah is a good place to be I mean most times no I don't but you're basically saying I mean we're paying double yeah you know so I mean that's let's just call it fifty thousand dollars a year extra pain exactly I I don't remember anybody you know passing away or anything on the job fifty thousand dollar premium per year because that's like a heavy tax for a couple of

figure that 20 rate money on the wages added along is a big part of it that's a big part of that because they didn't get no response or they're like well this is what we're doing we're going to make sure I got you so they'll they'll they'll reduce and I I can keep you posted as that that goes but yeah they all do that by the way if you don't respond to them they add an additional 20 30 on them good and censored to respond next yeah I use the workman's and I don't know if you could ask them if and it might be hard for the town to do this but how I do my workman's comp is I pay every week by payroll so whatever my payroll is is what my workman's comp bill is so I don't get hit with big surpluses or hey by the way you owe us another 15 grand at the end of the year so we pay it based off payroll on a weekly basis we pay quarterly for the town but is it quarterly for the insurance for the year

or is it quarterly based off of your quarterly taxes that's what for the year right so what I'm saying is if even if you take it quarterly rather than on a projected number a hard number every quarter you would make that you would actually so you're you're almost audited quarterly that makes sense yeah so you're paying based off the amount of payroll that you expend not exactly an estimated amount of payroll they're asking for that information yeah they're asking for an estimated amount of what your hypothesis is for the year of how much you're going to spend on payroll right then but then at the end of the year to make it right to either we pay them or they pay us right there exactly from us and all the codes for the employees like the federal income taxes the 1099s for people that work there as the withholding or whatever and right what I'm getting at is you can you can set it up either off quarterly or a

weekly basis so you'll never have any surprises plus or minus but through MMA you think uh that I don't know not every company offers that but and once we get it it might be tough for you with your payroll department might not be once once he gets gets it kind of fixed you know unless we have incidents things are pretty stable this we shouldn't really see it should drop in a rock yeah you know as long as the answer hopefully in 2024 we'll see a pretty significant difference yeah nobody answered that call during Colvin so they got a whole bunch of surplus money over there so I'm just going to ask you guys to sign this this party that can send us so I can get this going and get us on the books okay so whatever you want that's something to tell them oh okay if you haven't had one in three years so you don't have any more incidents that's I can't remember though other than like three years ago I remember the warrants

somebody slipped out of a truck that was the last one more thing all right that was a big one a few years about five years ago yeah yeah so okay moving on guys so just the last thing that I really just want to report just make you aware of is is the front office workloads this this

half of the registered voters in Durham voted for today that's great so that put a lot of strain on well Jessica the whole huge as a matter of fact she couldn't get her petitions done so that was so she was in contact with the Secretary of State what does that mean didn't get the petition so certify signatures yes I just didn't have time she just didn't have time to do them and is unfortunate because one of the petitioners got angry with her and told her to do her job I I didn't happen to be here probably a good thing because I probably reacted real well to that because I know how you know they've been looking straight out yeah so in light of that I think when we move forward to the next election like especially the presidential election I think to help with that if we could maybe set this room up as the voting room and maybe hopefully get some nice Volunteers in town to kind of man the voting so with that we're not taxing

the window because you're still you know registering vehicles and getting permits and marriage license and this and that and they they did it outstanding do we need to like deputies deputize somebody to to authorize absentee ballots and we can do that because I you know I live in Brunswick and that's what of course I couldn't go vote day to day so I did absentee ballot when you're going to their Council and they got big long tables and they got five or six ladies behind those tables and I know they're volunteers they're not city employees doing that so we may need to look at next year we can kind of do it as a as a what I would consider it's not really a dry run but it's going to be a referendum yeah so that might not be that big a turnout because presidential turnout will be huge

give a big shout out to it yeah that's good yeah they um that is more than half yeah because two years ago it was a lot more 50 or 25 plus plus slide balancing today right that's unprecedented Tom Durham for sure yeah I think that's I think that's right yeah so just just a shout out to the staff they did good yeah they really that's a big load that absolutely it's huge it's so inefficient you know and I get that people want to do it but I don't I don't know if they fully get how much of a burden it puts on staff and how do you tell the residents just how big a load that does how can you quantify the time that Jess spent on one thing you know I think we'll look into this more over the last couple of years um but like we were talking a little bit today like I think in some places you know there's a difference between early voting and absentee vote right and I think there can be maybe slightly

different processes for that it's like you don't have to process every early voter as an in-person absentee maybe I don't know I think maybe there's things we can look at there to just make it a little bit more efficient I don't know what's what the law even allows but we'll have to look into that all right is that it that's it all right that's it thank you okay uh I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented

favor hey upcoming meetings select board uh 11 22 and 12 13 at 6 30 p.m here at Town Hall I don't believe we need an executive session tonight nope I think we're here good all right so guys don't leave before we sign the actual warrant when you do that but I would entertain a motion to adjourn Rich moves to German Joe seconds all in

favor all right we are adjourned