TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ November 14, 2023

just tuning in as we are um we had started this meeting a little earlier and we had to switch platforms because of some audio visual issues that we're having um within the town system so we are streaming this currently with a iPhone so at this time we've already done the Pledge of Allegiance and so forth and there was a motion made to exclude approving the minutes from um the agenda the consent agenda due to um us not having um the three

people that were here from last week to approve it um other than that we're just starting this meeting from the top so at this time um we are going to welcome public comment if there's anyone here for public comment please come on up to the podium and speak your name

we will close the public comment session and we'll move into Old business nothing at this time okay having nothing there we will now move into new business and first up on the docket tonight is the rsu5 scholarship fund Miss Stephanie P will be joining

to say that we're actually part of the Freeport High School Scholarship Foundation which is a 501c3 that was um started in 2021 to provide scholarships so um I just want to give you a little information about that I am honored to be here this evening and um next to me is somebody that probably people know but we're so excited she's just join our board it's former superintendent Becky Foley so um that was a real coup for us

we're excited to have her here we appreciate the opportunity to address you all and ask you to consider including funding in this year's budget for $10,000 to support the Freeport high school graduates whether they choose to

go onto a certificate program vocational training or a two or four year program in 2021 we awarded two Scholarships in 2022 we were able to increase it to three recipients and this year we awarded two additional scholarships currently we are supporting seven students six of whom will receive $5,000 a year for four years and we are supporting seven currently we are supporting seven students three of whom are from Durham who are studying everything from nursing to welding to theater to civil engineering as we all know education is the key to unlocking the potential of our youth shaping the future of our community unfortunately Financial barriers often limit students opportunities to pursue higher education and fulfill their dreams that's where the Freeport High School Scholarship Foundation comes in our foundation was established with the primary goal of providing financial assistance to deserving students who demonstrate

academic Excellence leadership potential and a commitment to their community and have a financial need we currently have $1.1 million with a goal of reaching $2 million to award four new scholarships annually if the $2 million goal is reached we will fund 16 students a year in perpetuity these scholarships will help cover a portion of tuition fees related expenses throughout their entire postsecondary Journey however our commitment extends Beyond financial aid we understand that scholarships alone are not sufficient to ensure success therefore our foundation places a great emphasis on mentorship programs as a vital component of the support system we match mentors with student interests for example one of our students from dur Durham is currently paired with a much beloved retired teacher Diane Whitmore they both share a love of theater this mentorship aspect is what sets our foundation apart and

our and other community scholarships that are available to preport high school students as well as the four-year funding we hope that the scholarship to access the goal of postsecondary training um will help students who may otherwise

be deterred because of cost by supporting our foundation the select board would be investing in the future of collective our Collective communities enabling talented young individuals to reach their full potential and become valuable contributors to society thank you for considering our proposal and we hope that you Grant preport High School Scholarship Foundation the requested amount of $10,000 this investment will provide financial aid to serving students additionally it provides meaningful mentoring to young adults during their transition to adulthood together we can empower the Next Generation and a brighter future for students in rsu5 thank you for your consideration thank you there questions from the board I just had one question um when I went on the website and I looked at all of the information that was there um and I'm wondering if this is the kind of thing that's appropriate to put in our news La so that

additionally from um the request for the board that that might help them um disseminate the information to town people that might be interested in Dona on their own sure we actually have puted one before and I'm working with himim and she is um that's actually me that's actually me um and and um we're working with her

to get some photos some recent photos and put in a a little bit of a a story about um one of the student D students and then um so we're going to put that out and we have been additionally putting I've done it in the pel and free for news blast um and we were at the polls the other day and we also um went to the craft fair at the school in the spring so just trying to get the word out because it's not only I mean we would love the support of the town I think that would send a real message but we also one of the key parts of this is the mentorship program and Becky actually is going to be um taking that role over and recruiting a great pool of mentors who are then we able were able to pair with students so we have a good match for instance we have a young woman studying nursing and she's paired with an ER Doc and during her senior year she was able to Shadow she did her senior project um and has

been just a really great experience for both of them so getting out into the community and finding those people who might be interested so if we have a a kid who wants to study welding we have somebody maybe who's in that who does that location and we could pair with them so really trying to get people involved in the mentorship and then we really really would love um somebody at least one person from Durham to serve on our board because I think that that would also send another message and it be a great way for us to be engage this community because it has we have we've done a really good job of sort of getting the word out in Freeport but trying to get it out pel and durh has been more of a challenge for us so I'm glad to hear that you're working with him get the word out that way yes so I think that because you know it's so nice now that we got things like email block right we actually are trying to do a quarterly

newsletter so that could be something that could be put actually in that we could Showcase with students that would be great that would be terrific and then we um have brochures and I just put some out here and I don't know if there's any other place in town where people think that that might be worthwhile

what was first OVA it's the um Farm that's on 136 also possibly all the Christmas tree farms we have because they're about to get a lot of attention oh that's a good idea that's a good idea if you want to leave some extras we can okay great yeah I'll leave I'll leave a bunch here but um you know any any we just really want people to know about it because we also want students to know about it they talk about it early and often at the at at school and um Jen gko who's the principal at the high school is on our board as well and so um she's really working hard to get the word out and last year I think we had 32 kids apply for um we ended up just giving two scholarships we do some vocational scholarships as well as if if it's available but with free um community college right now that need has sort of died down so we're trying to get educate kids around what's available you know that it may not be just a coule

tuition we also like award the scholarship in their junior year so they'll know that they'll for some students for some students that so that they know as they apply to college that they'll have this additional financial help do you intend for like like you were saying because I was going to ask with the Vocational School while community colleges being free do you intend of the mentorship program for those students yes and so what we just did we had a a young woman um studying welding and she did the certificate program which was free um but we also are looking at ways to support those students because obviously it's not really free they need to get there if they're going to do live at at the community Clause that part isn't included it's the tuition so how can we support them or if they need certain equipment for that next chapter if if to be come you know a welder for instance you need special boots I know and need some

special tools that we um are interested in supporting kids in that way um it's not as cut and dry as the kid who goes to a foure school and we send a tuition check to the school but we are trying to be really creative so that we can support kids going into um not just foro programs but some of the certificate or vocational training program and they definitely have mentors also as part of

raised a million a little over a million so far has that been mostly through contributions from donors or towns so it's been um private donations mostly um there was some money in a scholarship fund that um was under the town of Freeport that when we started this 501 C3 it wasn't really um they were giving

it not every year necessarily and so now it's it's been put under ours and all of our funds are managed by B savings so um they're professionally managed and invested um because the idea is that it's an endowed scholarship so we want this to go on forever um and the reason we originally were going to raise a million and the reason we went to is we knew the need was there we had a lot kids applying and felt like you know we could do so much more if we raised two so ambitiously raised our goal and about 20 to 25% I would say yearly of our students in rsu5 are are uh Freedom reduced laun so we know that the need is definitely there and we don't want the money to be a barrier to them

going on to college and so a lot of students are probably like first generation thank you for both I think this fantastic organization just to gives a layer of little context here you folks were here um you came right before our budget season last year we have pretty much already started the processes on the budget so this year at least we got in front of this so we could actually get this to the town voters this year I don't unless this board would object to it moving forward which I can't imagine least give them the opportunity to vote for um at least we can put it in front of them this this coming April for you great thank you and thanks for the opportunity and um just spread the word and again if anyone who hears this is interested in learning more we have a website um brocher will be in this office um but they certainly can reach out to me my phone number all my contact information is on the website and I'd

love to talk to them about any part of this thank you so much thank you so much for the opportunity want to support schar fund that would be Ved on at meeting or can well what we can do we can do actually I think we could probably go right now if we want to I would have a problem with this I do think it's important people that make all good decision voters is just to say hey when it comes time to um present the questions for the voters that we will include this um in

the upcoming for the upcoming I think Jerry includes it in the proposed budget that he creates right correct yeah because I would be supportive of whatever motion needs to be made to to put that forward can I just give a little so I actually went back and looked at we used to do this not for this um this specific

Foundation but people would come in and request and we would put it on as an article and and break out the different places that we're asking for specific amounts and then it it reads to will vote to raise SL and or appropriate for social and Community Service agents and then the ones that are listed there so I assume that what we could do is have to read something similar to that but it would be specific to this unless you're suggesting it goes in like the budget articles for like the administrative budget or whatever the way that we give to the baseball team yeah the baseball right program right I I'm not necess I I would be in favor of either way I was I honestly was thinking um because it's somewhat of a a different animal than the um the other ones um that it would be its own question but i' I'd be content we don't i' be content with either way this is the last time that we did this right but

if somebody like let's say for example baseball does happen to come in this year and ask they didn't I don't believe last year's but if somebody was or the snowmobile club there's been few other organizations in town then we we definitely would have something like that we would have to um but I I don't I guess what I'm getting at I think personally I was just thinking it's it's broader and it gives these folks the opportunity we could ask them to speak on behalf of the organization and get them by doing it that way that's why I was thinking if we separated it out um I think you I think you could achieve it either way um and I wouldn't be against doing it either way I was just we didn't do that last year so I was thinking this would be its own separate one I don't think we did that last year because any right but I think I think but I do think it has to be separated out in the for an individual V I don't think it

should be lumped in with I don't either so yeah I'm good with that so is there anything we need to do in terms of a motion to put that on there or just we keep in the back of our mind going into the budget what does Jerry prefer let's go that way well I think you put it in as an article so I mean we can talk about that the budget right how much you want that so we just need the Air Market put this in as an AR right in the in the baseball in you know baseball they request like 2500 a year and that get put into the parket right right the budget so at least it did last year it has consistently lived there but I also think that's more appropriate there than something like this would be because they actually use the town property for the field so I think having that in that that part makes um but I I agree with Rich I think that this should be its own article yeah simply because it's you know two two train of thoughts there is

one again it gives them it affs them we can have them speak on their behalf which you could kind of do it the other way too but it gets a little con you have three parties or three separate entities in one particular bracket um but and it's also it's not where those other organizations are actual physic Town organizations this is aai Town organization it's part of the same RSU per se but it's not actually part of the town so I mean I I think I I would I think I would prefer it but I could go either way if it was so separate line we can discuss that once once we ear mark it and say hey let's make sure we get I just wasn't sure what the process make sure we get it on the docking for La of better words well I I've already wrote my notes possibly put on tell me want I think the intent of the last board was to just it just came in it came in too

please um State who you are and Y you can go from there okay hello to everyone thank you for pointing us on the agenda I'm cinski and I have with me Michael friendley we're both from the ger Conservation Commission and this is Rachel Lynn Ronson of 207 permaculture and she is helping us join the community resilience partnership which I will explain later she's our service provider so I hope you don't mind I have to read there's no other way it um so our purpose today is for the

board to consider approval of a resolution which you should have in front of you I believe to fulfill the final step for joining the partnership after we join we're eligible to apply for no match funding through the governor's office of policy innovation in the future so we already begun this process

this is the last step and um on March 22nd 2022 the select board began the process by approving a letter of support for 207 permaculture so that started the process so the funding provides up to $50,000 no match for projects to avoid

the impacts and cost of failure to adequately prepare for future extreme weather events uh gray and new bler are partnering with us on this it's usually U more than one town that Partners together and if we identify projects in common will be eligible for additional

funding um everyone's going through the process separately but we could identify uh similar projects um so there are three steps to complete to be eligible are there any questions so far everyone has material we do have what you're talking about in front of us yes okay so the first step is to complete a self assessment to assess what planning we're already doing and identify what still needs to be addressed Chief trip and our

town manager Jerry D um a self assessment with added comments from the Conservation Commission so we have the self evaluation step one step two is hold a public Workshop to help us prioritize projects we held this workshop on March 15 2023 at uh the Durham school um I

can't remember how many community members we had there I don't know I was very impress the turn not quite sure there was I I would say at least 40 yeah I really can't remember but we um I think at least 10 pizzas were we discussed actually the questions that the tables were the same as um surveys that we had online um we also conducted interviews with dur residents we held a Municipal Employee workshop on July 25th of this past 2023 And We Gather results like I

said from an online survey um so the third step and this is what we're here for tonight is to adopt a municipal resolution that establishes or designates either a citizen committee or municipal employee to coordinate activities to make the community more resilient to climate change to be clear I'm referring here to

emerging risks such as increase flooding extreme weather drought and public health impacts so when you look back on historical risks that we had we're doing pretty well our fire department participates in emergency preparations through the anders gon County Hazard mitigation plan um the first section of the resolution actually I guess you should get the resolution you do have that um identifies the type of actions we're proposing and then there's another sheet there list of community actions that's the one with the I believe depending on sign um these are the different strategy areas that we had to choose from um and each of these strategy areas

has a number of actions that a town can take and again these are actions that if you want the no match funding you have to uh choose the actions that the uh state has laid out um you could choose other actions but then it requires match from the town so we actually 10% 10% is

what it is so we didn't pursue those just we took the easier route um so from our research what Rose to the top was the designing for resilience area and within this area itself there were projects to choose from and um then if you look at the colored chart the yellow these are the projects we identified that would add to capacity for the town um I could go through each

of those checked projects and um what we have for that but does anyone have any questions about that so far anything um mysterious about the project and we have um lots of stuff available the self assessment I could share with anyone on request um because we have a lot of background work some of the subject matter experts that um Rachel Lyn has

hired did a review of a the comprehensive plan to led up with the main W weight strategies and we have it was census material for um vulnerability for vulnerability social vulnerability yeah social vulnerability so there's back more background information everything's available we had a a packet um that we handed out at the community meeting and um so so did you

F based on that all of that information collectively collectively it's not super scientific what we went through we looked through the interviews um we looked through people's comments and we basically sort of checked off like um that looks like the you know these strategy areas were uh like a through I think H and we basically checked off like oh that that seems like B that seems like C you know oh I see what you're saying so like out of the feedback that you got you categorized it in the section that you felt it felt and then in addition to that information you use census information and those types of things or was vulnerability yeah okay so choosing F wasn't just based on um resident feedback it was also based on other data that you used or was it just based I don't know if that data was really used for the choice of the projects I wouldn't say it's just it's it would be sort of a head start to um some of the

actions that we actually took them I see okay thank you thank yeah the the municipal meeting was really pivotal in helping me clarify your yeah I mean we spoke to the chief a lot about um things that are being done in town and um in general it seemed like

for lowrisk events you know a culvert goes out or something we're doing a lot of planning for that but you know if we get a hurricane and like uh one of the uh let's see which one it was F4 was for uh storm debris management and um um basically you know

Public Works will pick up the trees they have one company they bring it to they grind it up but what if we have lots and lots of trees and um you know you might need to identify contractors that can help you pick up the trees it might not just be trees it might be houses all over the street you know so it's again it's like towards the emerging thre and um F1 would kind of that would if we

had a climate resilience plan for the town it would identify what we're doing and um what might be coming up the pipe that we should be planning for and um there are gaps um and I it would identify community members different types of vulnerabilities like a lot of times you look at elderly populations but um if someone doesn't have a car they can't get to a heating or cooling center for instance um and then another

project is um maybe having a peer-to-peer program and um you know then you could if you identify people in the community who might not be able to get to a heating cooling center they might not have air conditioning uh they their electricity might be out you know you could call them up and say do you have a way to get to the pooling Center um and another

thing for early warning systems and Community evacuation plans everyone I've talked to at the Town Office you even through years has said they would love to have a sign for maybe the Eureka Center um if there's going to be an extreme weather event happening um where the cooling center is where the heating Center is and I assume people were speaking like an electronic type of lit P message

yeah um and I can't say for sure that the funding would fund that um however you know that's one of the possible things and also I'm G to ask Rael Lynn as far as um I believe the state chooses the um out of what we have identified they will choose one or two or All You Can Be You

can put all your projects in one GR appliation right but then they uh will approve of whatever they approve of I believe I think so but I think they've got a track record of approving the whole package package if it's a strong Grant right they might accept it with they might approve it with modification right but you've brought up a lot of good points about the storm debris um as you know as SP board members private roads Town can't help private residences Town can't help but they Roberta has Uncovered what's that organization of vet Ron Ron it's a veterans organization

they go all over the world and um they come handle after a major event they'll go clean up and um you know individual community members their personal homes clean out from flood and all kinds of things and um so the representative for

main for the volunteer portion is at uh ranova Farm after I spoke to uh Calvin I went and spoke to her I was it's like a wonderful asset to have yeah even if even if it's not the exact organization that model when you start looking at peer to peer that model starts to open up okay how can we be more resent as a community and how can we direct These funds to develop and what is the role of the Conservation Commission versus Public Works versus you know just to Durham has a wonderful history and I did I did love learning about Durham in this process but the history of you know caring for our neighbors that's a live endur it's it's intense here and so I feel like there I feel like you've just picked the right projects yeah and people really wanted to engage in the community that's what came out of that um our meeting with the community is people want opportunities to engage if we had a peer-to peer

program what a wonderful way to engage with the community you know I did see that last year when we had some um pretty significant weather events happening that an individual resident tried to establish something um of that nature um um because they were concerned about some of the elderly people in town and it it was basically like trying to get this group together to be able to serve this purpose and so I think if it was shephered by the Conservation Commission or you know the town um that just becomes something that

has structure around it and is available to everyone versus just maybe the people that are seeing that post in a group somewhere yeah informally and I'd love to get for that person actually could you explain the process a little bit so we're on you're saying step three which is the municipality needs to adopt a resolution so what you're saying is we would vote and if we adopt this resolution you're then creating a Grant application that is trying to tackle some of these issues F1 through 4 and f13 through 15 yeah we'll be part of the partnership and then the Grant application comes after after that and you could delay the Grant application if you need to but um you're now eligible to um apply yes if you pass the

resolution tonight for say we're not asking you to approve the Grant application you want to make more another presentation for that right so the resolution would essentially say we identify either an existing commission like the Conservation Commission or town stff person to lead the next step which is actually picking some of these and applying for the grant and then they would come back to the SL and say Here's what we've decided would be the best fit based off all the information and then we would have the second chance to improve that the project myself and I'm glad you were asked to clarify that because I had been confused about this forever some towns do it all at once but I think it's advantageous to tease it apart and have really Del intentional conversations it also just sounds like like whomever you were just talking about might be someone interested in helping participate sorts of

discussions Jerry can I ask you a question um this designates the Conservation Commission to coordinate planning imple implementation monitoring of energy and resilient projects to be the primary point of contact to the community resilience partnership did say Muny are you comfortable with us designating or do

you have information that you would like to share on what the implications would be if we designate the Conservation Commission versus a Municipal Employees no I was actually the one that put the Conservation Commission in there as the as the point of contact just because staff we have lied staff so putting more on their PL okay they're now as it is thank you my

other question for you is um the $50,000 Grant that's a no match Grant and but our partnership would be with those two other communities so would that $50,000 be shared between all three communities or that's where the additional funding comes in if we pull those other two communities in right and we can and it can it be both can it be we get $50,000 to work on our specific Community need and then also so further if we join with the other two communities we could potentially be involved with projects with that or is it one or the other great question want me to answer answer I'm not sure I know the answer to that how the additional money is applied yeah it's either or either you go in independently or you go with the other towns okay um I think that some towns have done both but maybe not at the same moment um but the the that you get is

125,000 when you join with one or more other towns and um the the projects that have been funded um in that manner have been say um sharing a sustainability planner to add capacity to the municipality to do some of the um research involved and the planning involved and the conversations in the community um around vulnerab and infastructure and everything um and some

of them are you know they might join and say you know we want to build a green economy we want to maximize Agriculture and Forestry in our communities and they might go in on something creative together in that regard but um waste management is another one they might decide that the community is really going to be vulnerable if if waste can't be picked up so there's a lot opportunity with this it's really

the first uh piece of joining gets you in the door where you might be eligible for things that you might have things on your agenda in the next six months that the commission didn't identify but they become priorities through your process then you be like oh well let's see if let's throw this to the commission see if the partnership can help with this something like that yeah and really I should have put a link somewhere um to the partnership so that you can look at there's 72 actions yeah in like all

these areas um the F1 project is the one that all three towns have identified right now independently so what the obvious question for me is is does it make sense for a sub Regional cohort of these three towns and maybe add a couple other towns to do a resiliency plan and a full vulnerability assessment across towns just gives you that little bit of an edge where you're contextualizing your Town's needs with the assets and the challenges of other towns so it's not a gpcog level of uh cooperation intertown cooperation but it is a rural um sub

region and it was gray and new Blaster you sounds like there's still a lot of work to be done but that this is the next thing to have the volunteers continue that work so I would move I move that we vote to support the resolution and adopt it with the Conservation Commission

discussion before moving forward I mean that was pretty quick but did anybody else have any questions no everybody hard hard to see a downside to money that's to beginning with with that so Sunday was was further discussion um all those in

say would think it would be great the conservation sure that open door for other community members who wanted to help some of the stuff like the person you were talking about maybe if Waste Management's on the table don't we have a committee on that now as well so I think this is the kind of thing too and I don't know what process ising um if it's not something stop but um like under the Conservation Commission Section of the website it would be wonderful if it like add this information to it if that information that you guys pulled from your survey exist in some kind of report or format that people could look at I I think that as we try to drum up interest for this and community support for it any information that we can share with people that way um would be [Music]

the panel just one have you that I would love to I just I'm just asking they lost P more rural like we are yes they are they would cast go too sort of like this rural um sub region of our region I think that would be great to talk to P especially now that you've got a resolution passed and you're just about to join a partnership it would be nice to say hey you guys look at this and when they're talking about like these um Partnerships County don't come into play they haven't been a problem okay they haven't been a problem at all yeah and you should really go online because you can look at all the different projects that towns have um had and actually uh do fox uh do fox

crop has a similar one although they concentrated on the heating and the cooling centers and upgrading their IC ities or that but it was similar yeah you could upgrade the eure center you could do community Agro forestry which was a big Hot Topic at the workshop yes yes but that's not priority yet right so yeah definitely I look forward to more conversations and thank you everyone and get moving thank you good work appreciate you coming in tonight than so thank you so much for all the help on this really appreciate it thank

on the budget timeline yes so I don't have much to discuss it's all over here I just wanted to forward kind heads upes for the budget but the the budget workshop on 1212 yes is that going to be before our meeting during our meeting that is um the meeting I think is going to be chewed up quite a bit by questions um what it was the reason why this come up was there was some folks on the budget committee that didn't understand the audit didn't agree with their notes so they then they had a bunch of questions and and it and it gets complicated Mark has to answer those questions so I invited Mark um to come with the budget committee and this folks to to get answers about the budget because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of the budget and how

audit is as as of uh December 31st that changes the very next day with revenues cash flows in cash flows out I mean that's an extreme example but it's not the same so they had requested it I think it's important that they do understand it and I think it's important that we all understand it moving into budget season I don't know how long that would is going to take so I didn't we can add things it to the agenda but this was the most important but it'll still be a regular 6:30 right when you look down through the schedule I haven't asked um the board to attend any other meetings other than their regularly scheduled meetings now we'll have to take care of the business you know the consent agenda and that sort of thing in that meeting before we get into um under Mark the Q&A

with Mark we do that then that's going to open it up and I just I just don't have a good sense of how long that's going to take or how many questions is going to be or um so that's why that's stuck on that 122d we had talked at our last meeting about um the 1226 day and so I suggestion that I had

when looking at this schedule is that for the month of December move our meetings to 125 and 1219 and then that would get that would basically the 1212 would move to 125 and 1216 we moveed I mean 1226 would move to 1219 it would bump everything a week earlier so that we're not in that Christmas week well 1212 wasn't in the Christmas week I I Mark schedule to be here I don't really want to that that's a regularly y that's fine I was just trying not to have a back to back which I'm completely fine with I don't care but I I thought if we move one to the 5th and one to the 20 or the 19th that would get rid of the Christmas week and we wouldn't have back to back meetings but I'm completely fine having back to back meeting right so 12:26 I agree whatever you want to do there if you want to have a meeting the day after Christmas week can do it I won't be here week I'm out of state so want to decide on what another meeting date

would be I think I think how we left it last week like we can do a if there's let's say three of us here we can do a quick meeting just to sign what's needed on behalf of the Town it doesn't have to be to you know explore things or to discuss things with organizations or committees Etc it was just it really would just be a meat to um to perform business for the

town that would be it if not we would have to either maybe find three people that can push it up a week prior to and we've done this in the past it's literally a you know it's it's like a 10-minute meeting it's and I think that's completely fine it was also for the sake of the Town staff trying to not have them have to come in the day after Christmas well yeah and that's that's another that's a that's a whole different Ang I mean I don't know how that falls with this town's policy um as far as whether that's a work day or not I do have specific ones well we have Monday off yeah and that's the day that we observe Christmas now I I don't have any problem giving them the next but I want the board support on you I think you have to so we can talk about we talk about that on the 12 if the board wants to right when we get closer and I may have some questions regarding the budget on that day as we get close like um how much do

you want to put in the article for free right that type of stuff I might have some other ones to just to get some guid 1226 to 129 and gets rid any concerns I mean I know I'm Gone the week 24 through 30 so I won't be here I don't know other people be taking vacation or anything I'm here I'll make it work Ive

I serve while I can make it work your is your plan for the the office to be open on the 26th that yes it was cuz it CU that's a nothing it's a word day Christmas is the 25th and that's on Monday right and the 26th is a work you

plan to have to be over business well I wasn't planning well yeah only because it's a work day you know so we can talk about that I mean if you maybe that's a good Christmas gift from the board say why you take Tuesday off too that's a you know let's look into that cuz there is some sometimes there is some things with that as far as like what the town has granted for days off paid days off like we could say hey it's an optional you could use a vacation day or a personal day or something like that but I don't know and I'm not saying we can't I just there's a lot of things we can do but there's sometimes things that we do that can be frowned upon and sometimes people I mean I don't no I think I think that's totally fair I again my my idea about moving was because I was assuming I don't know why I was assuming that that day was a day that we wouldn't be open and therefore was trying to avoid Town staff

having to come in just to do the meeting but right now if Christmas was on Sunday that following day Monday we wouldn't be open because that's when we ser right but where it's on Monday so you wouldn't be open monday' be open Tuesday Monday will close right yeah Monday you would be closed but Friday you're closed so it essentially gives a full day weekend um I mean we can like I said I I'll put it on the agenda the only reason I asked about my schedule is I wasn't sure pushing budget season whether there's more budget related discussions that need to be had I know that I won't be here so I know that oneing meeting meeting can't happen but

just figur that we we could we could wait and see like how the budget thing is playing out and see if the 26 scheduled meeting currently if that's a meeting where we do have to have some kind of budget discussions then we might want to go the week earlier so that we can all participate but we could see where we're Landing with the budget discussions at that point I don't I can't remember exactly the what was I I my thing was just let's not have a meeting during that week because it doesn't make sense people plan on traveling things of that nature it's the same with kind of a wash week for a while yeah it it really is it's it's a it's a nonproductive week even if you try to be productive um best we for me to do it yeah but I I don't I don't have a problem holding a short meeting or scheduling a meeting if if the board is in favor of that we can um we can set something up tentatively right now for

the 19 to move that and we can you know we can keep that to basically an Essentials meeting meaning we're just going to unless something really comes up that uh warrants attention it could just be quote unquote on the 19th we're going to have an essential meeting to come in to improve minutes warrants and Etc I'm and we need three people to do that 26 and you could I thought we agreed to move the 26 last week colle I think we were all in favor of we were waiting for everybody to come okay so I make a motion to move the December 26th meeting to December

me than I I don't know if I can do the 19th I'll try my wife is in trial the week of the 12th and the 19th it's a trial week for me so I might be in trial uh so it's already but so I'm opposed here should we wait and see what where Joe lands well you could you could retract it but again I if it's just a business we're just doing a an Essentials meeting so again just for hopefully if as long as three of us know we're going to be here I don't think we should be putting anything on the docket that's going to involve heavy votes and things of that nature it's more just to approve the payroll and keep the town functioning that's really all okay so yeah that's I mean my just concern was like you know if it's going to be a meeting where any sort of think the budget comes up and we have to get into things I think that all of us being is beneficial but if it's if it's you know approving payroll accepting the consent agenda and going

like you so I would like to keep my motion on the table because not that I don't want you to be there in the event that the day after Christmas for whatever reason we decide that the office isn't going to be open I think it makes sense for that reason to move to the 19th if it's just going to be a business meeting and not a substanti discussion meeting yeah because if we do decide that they're not going to be open then you you're automatically forced to move in because it's Town staff can't commit close right but that we can talk about later and if it's and really too if it's just going to be a matter of sign in the warrant we can prepare you can come in anytime sign yeah that's what it mean that's another thing you could do and just it sounds like if it's just sign the warrs nothing else pops up whether it's the 19th or 26th it might be as easy as people just coming in and signing things during the week and so

just Skip sounds like the goal is for that meeting to be pretty truncated exactly because of the nature of so by that so by that rale do we need me or are we just going to come in and sign the warrants well I can't remember there's one I know we used to be able to come in like one person would just come in to sign like payroll or something once a week or something we had to do that then we were able to change something the law changed or something that yeah it would be we'll have it ready but if you could all just take time to come in and sign we'll have it that 26 meeting well that's what I to say entirely so we had one meeting in DEC and then everyone puts an effort to come in and sign the warrant on and our one meeting in December is going to be the meeting that we have the mark of the budget so

we have to to get through then I can add them to the agenda and when Mark's done and I'd rather have one big meeting in December than can can def two small meetings yeah and again we can we can just we can I think the next meeting is 12 12 yeah we we can we can certainly decide this also the 12 doesn't necessarily have to be tonight if the 12 is

you want to leave it on the 26th and then we decide at a later date if we're going to just remove that meeting entirely well when when you have your meeting dates I mean these are young meetings so you you tell me what you want to do and I'll make it happen I mean just based on the fact that but I really budget stuff budget stuff doesn't happen until January I will propose the budget on January okay so I was feeling nervous about only having one meeting in December for but just because it's like we're going into budget season but we're not actually going to talk about the budget until January January before budget season yeah that's true so let's leave it as it is and then I'll make motion but we'll leave it as it is and then potentially just remove that meeting and only have the meeting on the so on the 12th We could decide whether we exceed Mar in 201 yeah because in the meantime something comes

up that's got your motion I withdraw my motion 12 two you asked about the and then you said you had quick question I know may this was noted in the previous meeting I missed um so the 24th the select board does the initial review of CIP materials that last meeting on October 24th that was the packet that were sent from the different department heads and so had that already gone through the CIP at that point or did they send that directly to us and now it's sitting with the CIP to rank them right so that process you initially the board initially at least this has been the process in the past kind of St to it initially the board reviews the CIP committee kind of the request kind of gives Lessing and then it can send on to the okay so the idea there is that if there's a hard stop in there for the board there's no point in the CIP even ranking it and we're just like we don't like that that's a good question I don't

know why so before the capital requests go to the CIP we get like that initial look at which was on the 24th of last month and so is the intent of that just to be like if there's something in there the whole board is like there's no way we're interested this you know discussion at the CIP level but since everything went well last meeting that's now in the hands of the CIP and they'll make their recommendations and then come back to us with here's what we recommend is that I'm just trying to understand the process right so they rank them yeah and then they kind of get filled into the budget after we do the operating and then they kind of well at least that's what they've done in the past but and they kind of rank and then they put them in there the best they can in ranking order right but you in ranking order but you may you may decide to put as a board as this board you may decide to put one none or all of them

yeah no I understand that I'm understand that yeah so we did also have a little bit extra discussion around that about how our existing CIP policy came into being when we had a Town Administrator and not a town manager and that further discussion would need to be had about whether or not that first layer coming to us was necessary um because when that process was created it was created with a Town Administrator that the board really had to do that part to say yes we're sending it but now we have a town manager and and so that part that

actual step that you're asking about that may go away if we update that policy when we go through and up things to the town manager plan then that may go away and that may be Jared's job and then it just comes to us after they've been ranked right so the process changes

because of the way the government has changed because you now have all the have town is going to present a budget now with the capital request in there basically going in IR racking water because that's why we have the capital commit the board once I do it and hand it off to the to the selectable now it's yours to do what you want with you can you can say no we ain't doing this we're doing this doing that doing this that's your I mean that's the board's prerogative to do that but once I do my budget I'm not because I'm not going to I'm not going to hand you a budget like for instance if I give you the proposed budget I'll do a whole presentation on it and everything that's that's my budget and and that's going to stick it's not just my budget it's the Chiefs it's it's Roy going to

help us with it so once you have it and we go through it you all might decide well I don't really like that number I think Jerry we should go up or down yeah yeah yeah that's fine my budget stays put it changes your budget so you'll get the when you get your budget it's going to be exactly like and you can change the numbers within that budget and then once that budget is set now it goes to the budget committee for them to bet but they bet your budget not mine if if if the budget changes between me and this board they're going to vet the select Bo's budget and that's where sometimes you end up with a budget committee making different recommendations from the select not like last

well that's I know but they but that's not how it really is designed to work I mean in Trio you've got a manager budget select board's budget and a budget committee budget and state satue actually does say that they make recommendations on the because in the past it was exactly so we I just want to continue to just do the way it was design to be set up and you know yeah so that's how one

more question so just CU I want to make sure I fully understand this I understand what you're saying there but right now we're just in the stage early stage where it's like the boards or the you know Calvin and Chief and all them have made their Capital requests or what they might thinking say with you and now we took a view view at him on the 24th everything looked good now there was you sent them back to CIP CIP has a goes with the ranking process so we're really in stage of the budget right now it's just kind of those Capital things and that when do those come when do those requests those get presented in your budget like when do we know what the ranking is and do we I will present in my budget you get you'll get the mat to look at it as well um I'm just going to put what the manager I'm just see since here 11:30 C committee forwards final ranking to the select board via Town manager so that's on that 1212 meeting

get from you what what their rankings are so you'll have that for your own data but we don't vote on anything at that meeting it's more just like we just know what they're right okay thank you yeah typically in the pass you'll get presented and then we'll have another meeting there after and that's when we'll have discuss yeah we'll have discussion on what we as a board want to either adopt change Etc

right so M oneor okay no it's fine um this 122 meeting we're hearing from the CIP committee forwarding the final rankings to the select board or sorry they're sending them to you we wa not 122 on 11:30 they're sending them to you and then on 12:12 our next meeting is when you're showing us what the um CIP is recommended um I'm not going to show you I'm you're going to get the you'll have it you'll have it you can reveal you can see it my question is then on 15 it says budget packets complete and ready for pick up at the town office so it says the town manager proposed budget and supporting documents okay so then on one five we're not having we're not working on our budget until January but you're presenting a budget to us on5 or at least the pack pack here so we'll get the package get the package viwed ahead of time so you can kind of see you get you get a look at the budget before I present it and

typically what will happen also is if because we've had the material to review beforehand and I'm speaking as a budget Committee Member I haven't done this process as a s Bo member but um the chair of the CIP committee could come if people had questions the way that we could question the town manager or whatever to explain their ranking process or their reasoning behind it or whatever if people on the board felt like they had those questions to ask so you get that documentation and you read through it and something seems like it doesn't make sense if we wanted Paul to come to the table and explain that to us he is definitely done that in the past okay so I can't think of when we don't have them they typically kind of present their findings to us so it has been that way in the past but we we we got a transition to the town manager form where that really

comes from should come from the manager you know what I'm saying so we'll do it slowly we don't want to just do it change it too quick so you really Jerry started the whole process off and you're building the first budget and then starting in early January that's when we're working on things and the budget committe is working on things but you're the all right I'm just making sure that I'm allocating enough Jerry's kind of the gatekeeper here I'm just I mostly I'm asking these questions so I make sure that I allocate for pretty amounts of time in January and February yeah and this window this our window here is is tight

that's why we we really need to try to stick to this because how you put it together is you go to town meeting and you work backwards a lot of towns that have um July 1st budgets that need to be passed by July 1 Stop their budget process in February March I mean there's a lot of meetings bger there a lot more there's more department so you need that time to to do that here it's it's it's

really really pretty small so we we can do it but still it's it's a we're pinch for time to get everything on the warrant get it printed I mean we're it's hustle we have the hustle during that time to get it all question in your in your explanation about the process um where I noticed that we're having our meeting um and and the presentation from the town manager and the department has does not include the budget committee where we have a few times at least since I've been on the budget committee done that collectively but but hearing your explanation you're presenting your budget to us we're presenting our budget to them for them to make recommendations on our budget and so if they want you to sit at their table and answer their questions or you know whatever then you're going to do that but this year we're not going to do that as one big group I will be here in all the meetings to answer any questions from any of the

groups it's just right so once the select board has adopted their budget and they want to hand it over to the budget committee to present it I can help with that I'm here to answer questions it's just that it's you budget that they will scrutinize if for lack of a better word or bet I guess is a better word I think that format will it will end up being maybe more work for you and the department heads or and maybe you're just doing that and not well what because what I'm saying is those meetings typically end up being like four or five hours long because there's so many people at the table asking questions whereas I think if it's split up we're going to have the opportunity and then they're going to have the opportunity not going to be 15 people asking questions all at the same time right okay so thank you that was one thing um and the budget committee when on on any member of the budget committee on

one night will come to the Mee yeah there they do they definitely will I mean they did in the past before we did it collectively they came and sat and listened like to have um a conversation about we don't need to do that now we can wait until Joe's back because it wouldn't be until probably March I feel like when we're going into town meeting we're having um public information sessions on

the ordinance changes or those types of things and I think that it would be beneficial for it doesn't need necessarily have to be all of us um right because when they hold their information sessions it's typically the the board that does it and the planner and whatnot um to have an informational session ahead of town meeting for residents to be able to come and hear

like how the Conservation Commission did that informational session about resource protection or how we're about to do one about land use ordinance it I think this is something that we're asking people to vote on and just putting the information with numbers attached to it in the Warr I I feel like it would be beneficial to at least offer the opportunity for us to do an informational session around the budget before we go time meeting and we don't have I I just want to put that on people's Radars that I think that that's something that we should

there because it really was I don't have a I don't have I really truly don't have a preference I I would I would say I would defer because you're right it typically is the chair if he wants to do something like that and you guys want to do that I mean the beautiful thing about our our form of town government is

everything is hatched out on the floor so anybody that's there gets is affording pretty much all the information that they want to be affording but I have more information overload is there's nothing about I I mean I like the idea of oh something in advance because in theory someone could ask their questions there it saves time at the town meeting now whether someone is going to attend that or just ask this question anyways at town meeting I mean I just noticed like with the L use thing there's a lot of questions that were asked at that session and then people who didn't attend the session ask the same questions that Tommy so I don't know if it actually saves time but yeah I think my my only push back it's not really to push back my only thing is we we need to be um we need to be

understand like a lot of these questions sometimes have to be answered by Town staff members so you're already having them come in on Saturdays and all these budget meetings and so forth and now we're going to have another meeting all these meetings are are filmed all these meetings are online and again everybody has afforded the option to come and talk and ask whatever questions they want on the individual departments the town manager the select board the budget committee all in that beautiful Saturday morning in April

about though it's definitely something to think like I said I'm not objective to it I'm just there there are a lot more pieces to it that I think we think there are espe from a time constraint with the time staff and so forth because you really need them if you're going to have a true it can't just be you really need people that know I mean my only concern is I think there's going to be lot of like meetings leading I mean on Surface I'm a fan of it but I know there's going to be a lot of meetings leading up with the housing stuff and solar stuff so now it's like you're starting to figure out like all right there's already going to be something at the Eureka Center on the Tuesday and the Thursday so I just don't know if we end up overloading people with stuff but T again people might be like I'm not concerned about this I want to go see that but I understand your point because like sometimes you show up and it's like

where did this 10,000 number even come from what's that mean so ask why ask if she doesn't Michelle will ask and if Michelle doesn't ask we'll get somebody to ask but usually those questions typically on the on the floor typically get answered pretty thoroughly yeah definitely yeah that's all I I I just yeah my whole thing is just the infrastructure that it takes to put something like that together because it's it's a it can be some information you don't it's already on like let's use we popping on Calvin like he get hit with storms that time of year during budget season now we're going to request him on a Saturday and I'm going to request one more day for them to go to a special meeting and it's just um I I think there's always room in government for a layer of redundancy but sometimes we just need to be um cautious that we don't overdo it as far as taxing the minimal staff that we have that's all I

want say that I think that's fair I wasn't considering that the department had there to answer the question that was really just putting that on theard but I can see why that would be necessary probably have 15 car accidents I mean by the time we get to that point it's been vetted two or three times everybody should really know most of the answers to any questions that are going to come on yeah at the end should be provide them a link to the video that answers the question watch this meeting orever the to these people are electing

us and members of the budget committee to do this for them as where to help correct you answer those questions you should get first crack at it yeah okay but any that's so that's just the schedule I just wanted to share it with you so you was just kind of aware

credit for I sto from budget timeline no I answered all of now all set all right moving on next uh we will talk about the Eureka Center discussion yeah so this was something that was brought up last week I think wanted on the uh so this going on Old business well no because the old business was the rate and yeah okay increase and I think this is just general discussion of the rec that's the way I took it this was where because remember when we had the CIP thing and we talked about moving the meetings to the uh fire station I think that this is what he's referring to now was interesting talk about the year it's use going forward is that what we're talking I I'll start off with this last week I I I think it was Jerry who um

said you know in the it's always been um previous boards discussions and and maybe members of this panel um that we were improving the infrastructure of the Eureka Center to um for possibly having these meetings in the future over there for expansion getting a bigger venue etc etc um and then I think during the CIP presentation it was brought up that correct me if I'm wrong Jerry um Jerry thought it would be more agous to now put the infrastructure or potentially plan around for the future venue to be the fire department is that correct not yes but not like forever it's just until we figure out because if we split this room in half and make one an office and move some stuff around then we need a place to hold the meetings and right now the fire station is the best place for doing that yeah and so my my thing was also like I think

you know from that perspective I I I get what you're saying but I think the discussion prior to that would have in my opinion would have come up what is how does the board feel about splitting this room in half moving forward to make more offices or Etc investing more into this particular space I don't think this board's ever had that discussion well I think if we go back and look at the goals last year one of them was to reconfigure the town office yeah no question a new board so now that's what you don't want to and this is really the only place you can refigure it I mean there's no other place to do it well you say that but I mean a lot of this discussion last year was incorporating this room back here there was talk and I don't know how much of the stuff has been vetted on your end or or whether it's even been approach through MMA or whatever processes that go forward in terms of doing that but

you know walking out to one of the bathrooms and expanding from the break Hall and things of that nature and where the stuff is stored in the back room there there are quite a bit of components to it so um it's just I don't have a problem with it either way um but the discussion in the past up until the past meeting had previously been focused on improving the Eureka Center for future I think we had de doing some work over there etc etc that's changed that's fine I don't know if everybody's up to par what your view or what your plan or or maybe what your you know thought process is in terms of moving forward on maybe utilizing this space and utilizing in interm the fire so if you want maybe give us a quick over that so when I got here there was there was a a idea or a goal to reconfigure the town office to more office space that room back there has the server there's really no other place

to put it plus you have to knock a hole in the wall and put a window there you have to have you can put you know a person in there without a without a window and you just don't have any place to put the stuff that's in there now anywhere else bathroom yeah you could do the bathroom bathroom is really small again you would have to knock on a window youd have to to put a window in it really it's just really not sufficient um then you'd have one bathroom it would be unisex and I know people have issues about that even though we have unisex bathrooms in our homes but in a public setting that's something that you all would have to decide do you want to have the bathroom intersect I I think they should be separate because of the public that comes in and want to use it but I'd have to look into that the storage room is already packed we can't use that if you use that room you have to put another hole wall to put

in the window we got to have that storage in we don't have really any other place that gets full that was part of the reason why we wanted to get that scanner was to get the plans out actually out of the office that at the planner the codes where it's now but once they're scanned they go back into that stor so there's just no real other good way or more economical way to do it other than just other than to um petition this off and have an office in a smaller conference room and then we can do some J juggling around um so moving that forward we need to have a play if we do that we need to have place to hold meetings at least temporarily until we figure out is that what you really want to do over at the UR center it's going to cost quite a bit of money to get that um up and running as as I'm meeting right now the heat the furnace has been disconnected so the heat pumps is the only thing running yeah it's it's

insufficient they're not it's not keeping up with really cold weather now someone might argue that they don't know how to run the heat pump so they I don't know that information I just know that during cold weather the water froze it leaked it got everywhere um you've got four poles right in the middle of the community center and it is a community center it's not I wouldn't call it a boardroom for for a town they play

cribbage over there on Tuesday night I don't know if they're bringing like I said cupcakes or drinks but we're going to have to send a staff person over there when they get done to set up the boardroom and I think a boardroom I think Durham or pretty much any town of this capacity should have a boardroom that's set up so when you walk in like we try to do here doesn't always work you flip on the mics you flip on the cameras the desks are ready to go and we're moving so from an efficiency standpoint I guess the town of the board do you want to have that staff person every time there's a board meeting over to the Eureka Center and send it out as a board meeting typically in most towns it's already set up somewhere in their town where they're not putting out plastic chairs and plastic tables and visual so that's and I don't really necessarily care what you do I'll Implement whatever you want it's really up to you but I

just think a town should have a legit so go ahead you just so I'm I like the idea of the Eureka Center being it will serve more purposes like updating it so you know it's climate control is better and people can use that for stuff but I see your point Jerry with it does seem nice to know that your town has a dedicated boardroom like I like that idea but if we need to turn this space into offices I don't know if this is a whole another candle worms but is there any space at the public works that could be utilized as a as a boardroom because I know when we did a tour there there's a lot of space upstairs that's kind of being used for downstairs office is the size well and again I'm not trying to say we got to pull Calvin's office Calvin's office is the size of the build this building and I just wonder if maybe there's opportunity to do that cuz like at the same time if you're talking about the

dedicated boardroom if we turn this into something and then start using the fire department um for the meetings it's like fire department has meetings fire department I also see the value for a town our said of the fire department having its own space is kind of its own thing too because it's like then what if there's a fire call during the meeting so now we're stopping the meeting because fire department's piling in there or piling out or if that's our cooling and heating facility for for the community we're having meeting there and all that's the time that there's some storm and everyone wants to try to have a cooling thing so I see value in improving the Eureka Center but I also think that maybe we're doing something here the public works could be a place for the board I don't know that might be a whole another can of

like to say on this first um I'm wondering if if there's if you are considering not necessar for a boardroom but are there any Town staff members that could do their work from the Public Works building if we add an if we did split Calvin's office into two offices would it be appropriate for the codes or the planner or any other person that's taking up an office space here to be able to do their work at an office at Public Works and and you don't have to answer that now maybe that's something that you want to give thought to or or maybe you know the the answer is no it doesn't make sense to have anybody else over there working from that office building I I do think there's a lot of space over there that could potentially be utilized better um and I I actually brought up those points about like if there was a fire call and we were having a meeting and you know how that would work um well that room also too is like after there's

a fire call and everyone's in there debriefing and getting water and that's kind of turns into space of ising to so you just feel like it add a little complication I do appreciate that you want to have a dedicated Board Room I I

have concerns about Eureka around I mean if if that is what we're going to do and and upgrade Eureka I do think that we have to spend money to do it we don't have Internet over there right now but and I I'm not sure that you know and I don't even know if this is ADA Compliant or whatever but like those chairs in the hallway get getting to the bathrooms over there I don't I I don't know I I have concerns around that um so the other point that I would like to make is that I feel like we need to do and maybe you've done this an inventory of what our spaces are we were doing the like we did the tour of um public works because we were new on the board but then like we got busy and that stopped we didn't keep touring spaces um an

inventory of what we have for space and how that could be used effectively and then arrive at a plan of where we're going to go from there um and so I I just think that that is a more like holistic conversation that needs to take place but I don't feel like I what I feel like is that you do that you're the town manager you look at our facilities and you say this can be better used in this way and you give

that to us and then we you know say yes or no I don't that that's what I feel like you're here for I don't know if Public Works can be used for anything other than what it's currently being used for I feel like that's what what you are going to tell us and maybe that's what you're telling us but kind of have given you what I okay so you so you plan okay so and that

and maybe that was just a question that I needed to have asked is there any other person that could go over to Public Works and have that the additional office space but that if you've considered that and that's not an option and this is what you feel is the best playing forward then I think we have to either agree or go talk about

something instead I mean I can we can look at sending codes over there he does get a lot of um traffic he gets too many people coming in yeah right he get they got equipment coming in and out and I you know so I guess let me just a couple things so let me just say back in 2006 this was an issue and the town did a study on adding on to this building where there was a board room so this is this is something that's been discussed for the last 17 years on maybe it was discussed 17 years ago it's been tabled since um but but there was talking an issue back then I vetted the chief about the idea and he didn't have a problem with it so I would never propose something like that without talking to him first and saying would this work until we either figure out if we're going to go over to the Eureka Center or whatever because you going to take some it's going to take some money to get it up and run get internet over there

that's not very much at all it's 100 bucks and it's 164 a month that's easy but it's getting the infrastructure in there the tables and people rent it out for for different events but yet it's our boardroom I and that and that's if that's what you want that's fine it just kind of makes I don't know if we want to be renting out a community center that is our boardroom maybe you do I I I don't know but be the be one of the first I mean um when Paul Paul was vetting the

stuff and they was talking to that Community Center their Community Center in newon is a community center it's not their boardroom their boardroom is it's within the town office so we don't have that we're running out of space so I can dust off that plan and we can all that if you want to look at that down the road and and it's not and I wouldn't do that and I don't want you thinking that's that I want you to add on to this building for me if the day I leave here if another manager comes in and you add it on and they get that s that's fine with me it just we're running out of room we're just running out of room so would your recommendation right now then be if this is to be turned into extra office space to then utilize the fire department as the temporary boardroom until a longterm plan could be yeah and so to Heather's point about like evaluating space would you then start evaluating right away like where's

the future of the boardroom is that it sounds like you're saying you don't think Eureka Center is a great fit for the reasons you stated which I I can agree with that I can see what you're saying you know if it's a community center we're automatically pulling it out two nights a month and then you know sending a sta person over to clean up after cribbage and whatnot get ready for a board meeting I mean my initial thought I want Calvin's not here but my initial thought is can Calvin move upstairs at at that facility and we turn that into the boardroom his office into the boardroom cuz that's bigger than this room is already like see you got the same thing going on during snowstorms you got plows coming in and out and you got people parking and so so my my two cents is I

think it's more important for this town staff to have ample space so that they can do the work of the town and they can work for the citizens I don't love the idea of the fire department right I don't love the idea of Public Works the same reason um but I think to allow the staff to have a

better working environment and help the town is um is worth us taking uh a look at different spaces and and figure out a long-term solution in My Hope was by having the select board meetings temporarily over that fire station would kind of push that along say we can't do this forever we need to get about finding a alternative that's part of the that's kind of part of the reason I don't think you can move codes I I think that would be well Frank I think it would be stupid right uh and and I would be 100% opposed to it and I don't think there's anything anyone could say to change my mind about moving codes or anybody else in this building out out of this building yeah um and so um I think we

that's going to happen and I understand it's busy few months for you but I think that's something that has to take a priority because um you know them the lack of space has been an issue the meeting space for codes in the planner has been an issue um and frankly those are two roles that I think they they needle space to do their job uh so I don't love the idea well I don't I don't like it frankly I don't like it but um I think

for us to suffer a few months hopefully only a few months um and a not ideal meeting space is worth it to give them the space that they need um and so I would support you on that I would just ask that you start looking for a more ideal a plan for better space for

not only our board to be but all the other boards so logistically though like so we move in there and then we're trying to develop a plan for where to meet in the future if it involves spending any money at all we're talking about it taking another year before the next town meeting corre so if we're saying oh we need to upgrade Eureka to make it our board room and that's going to cost $80,000 it's not like we can do that after three months of being in the fire department right

to take you know it's going to be April when approved to partition this room and however long it's going to take to do that so you've got a couple months after that yeah I just don't if I just I mean I just don't see a scenario where we only utilize the fire depart space for a few

it's not to just moving codes you have to move planning with them because they work just like that together right so that's you know that's now now you're moving them down there you can't do that people come in they don't make appointments for that sort of I mean what's what's stopping us from just pulling the tables out of here and putting cubicle dividers in here that aren't that expensive I mean do they need a shut door office um I mean I work in a cube and we we figured it out

well I I I need to shut door I know you but like if we just take the back corner there where planning and codes are just put in a cubicle divider in here and someone has a desk there and someone has a desk here or here desk here in a small space there and they can use that for part of the idea is to get me out of there because I I get into confidential conversations I was having someone s not too long ago you can really hear like they can hear me I can hear them even with a door shut I can hear their conversation so it's kind of a little you know unsettling when I'm trying to have a conversation with an attorney and I've got to talk like really low or if I got to have a Frank conversation with an employee I don't want other employees to hear it so it's it's trying to get away trying to get the town manager regardless if it's me or not just that because that role is important and they got to have those conversations I don't

want to have them where I'm in airshot of other employees I mean I suppose I could take them outside or we could go for a ride or do that but I don't want to get into that it's just it's just not it's not ideal and I know we don't live in an ideal world but I'm just trying to like bring ideas for that we need to talk about so we can just accommodate uh what we do you know so are you are you thinking like and maybe you're not I don't know but I'm just curious like that if this is what's happening and we're moving over to fire station and that is going to be considered a temporary situation do you have any are you are do you think you're going to suggest adding on to this building or what I just feel confused about like if that you know that that's temporary situation and these are all the buildings that we have I'm I'm just trying right so that's that's a bigger discussion right I mean I don't I mean I

can propose all the things in the in the world to you but I want Direction with that so I can so I'm just not spinning my wheels you know proposing these things and you're are none of you are on board with it at all like I I mean I serve the town I'm just giving you what my ideas is I mean I I can't go out and do all of this work and then bring it to you folks and then you say this isn't at all what we want well I need to know what that is prior to doing that if if it's upgrading eure and you want to set up every week I'm okay with it it's not going to make me upset at all right I think we just want to plan I think and and so you know the the thought right through my head right now in this session is um is it premature to put this in front in a budget partitioning this if we don't have a long-term plan then we're then then the employees AR don't have their adequate space well so I right so that's why sorry and and so

that's why you know figure out next the next step and do it quickly and make a recommendation okay because I think I think you're the one who has to do that I we could I can create a new committee to say Hey how do we find more space do we add on do we find build something what do we do but frankly uh I I think it should belong in your hands to make that recommendation to us okay I can dust off the plan that was done in 2006 bring that back to you and say this was the plan that is you know is that what you think is best is how I I mean it's a recommendation from you and so if you don't think that plan is the best then I don't want you to get I don't want you to give it to us yeah I see what you're saying know I don't I don't want to create a new committee to do this and spend six months I I want you because you're the one who theoretically knows the employees the town the space best and can say this is

what what is needed and here are different options right but I would like the board to recognize that we are running out of space and you and you and you want me to do that to come up with a plan and be something that I'm just coming up with on my own I think you raised good point to space so that's all you know if say you like if one of the board members of the board says Jerry listen we're running out of space we need a plan can you put a plan together or can we look at and I'd be more than happy to do it I'd love to do it uh Chelsea T Chelsea is doing it right now they've got a office similar to this and uh they just put out a design bill for contractor

to to look at adding on to to suit I mean we can do that but I but I if that's what you're interested in having me do I'll be I'll be glad to do it I mean me personally yes I'd like to have I I would like to have a plan in place before we start we start peac mailing a plan but at the same time I understand the importance of getting into that space so would I be willing to make an exception to that hesitation I'm feeling about peac mailing it together yes but I also think yes I think this board has said on multiple occasions in just my year and a half yes uh we need more space yes we

support it um and maybe it hasn't been explosively said but it should have been come up with a plan give us something um you know we have the uh the issue uh that the CIP will be ranking that you submitted to CIP and you'll put in your budget um about partitioning this space tell us

what you need to come to be able to come up with a plan to create the space that you're taking away from all the Committees that meet in this room to give us and those committees and those boards adequate space to have have their meetings right that you know it doesn't need to be you know know Nat Mahal meeting spaces but something that um you know and maybe you feel that we need more than you know for me a space is a space um as long as we can get the business done I'm not going to complain but you know something reasonable that's and I think I think we all feel that way um and so so I guess

then my question is do you want to stick to the plan that you that you have been beating around for the last couple of years and just do it at the or Center because I can put that plan together for you too I want to do I I want to know what your recommendation is and I understand your concerns about e that's valid I also heard you know I I had the same concerns that Joe and Heather raised about the fire station and about and the same same concerns you had about public works I mean if you hit those on the Run night you're going to have call after call after call you're going to have a snowstorm um parking is going to be issue an issue at both places if you get you know more people at the meetings um of course it could be an issue at the Eureka Center too M um uh

and so I want to know what your recommendation is I I want you to come to us and say I've looked at the Eureka Center I've looked at fire station I've looked at Public Works uh I don't think those are feasible here's what I think is is the best thing here's uh what I need to go forward and make in order to get a proposal or or here's my proposal you know whichever whichever way you want to do it but that's that's what I want I want you know and it's putting more work on you at a time where you don't need more more work I understand that um but uh I think you're right that that

space is an issue and we need more of it and um and yeah we should have had this conversation sooner but let's have it now I'm all about it that's that's my position okay has a question um there I feel like I remember that you said that there was a grant and I think it was like for $8,000 and it was to talk about this area and how is that

potentially something that you could use to have somebody come in look at the space design something just putting that on your radar as potentially an option y they were going they are looking at all that they didn't get to this time it's a it's a GPC okay Brant um he sent me two timelines he

hasn't fulfilled it yet I asked George about it he's kind of work with George on that okay and so the the plan that you were talking about in terms of altering this room does that create one office okay so if just again idea putting it out there right this doesn't change and we add an

office what that might look like then we don't lose the space it's already here it already exists you an office gets added on that can become your office that's soundproof that whatever whatever and then we don't none of that other stuff comes into play right so right now when we have larger meetings where the budget committee meets with us this really isn't adequate space for those meetings so I have to meet somewhere else anyway okay so in in in tus with what um Josh said what do

you need from us to go for do you need a vote from the board no votes I just just some sort of general direction that you want to go in so I don't spin my wheels doing something that that's you don't want to happen like if if you want me to I mean it sounds like I mean Josh has pointed out a lot of things you all have I mean we're limited to what we can do it's either if you don't want to hold the um

the select board meetings the planning board meetings I mean the meetings that really the you like official business of the town like Conservation Commission the when the ad hoc committee gets developed with Union Church Eureka s is fine that we don't have to like stream all those types of these ones um

we should I mean and so they don't all have to meet at the fire station you know it's kind of like you know they meet over there I met with the um historical commission just the other day at the eure Su and that those types of meetings are fine they not film that're just we're just meeting that's a good place if it's not being r out are being currently being used the uh Solid Waste commit meeting

was kind of me over there um but no meeting happened here so they came over they came over here so they're good for some of those meetings but uh we would just have to set it up e Center to to for official business um which would mean setting up cameras and everything that's the same thing where temporarily right now it works better in the fire station so what what I'm hearing is we're running out of space and you want me to come up with a plan the plan would be to add on to the building I mean I I I don't if you don't want to go to the Eureka Center if you're hard on going to the Eureka Center we'll Implement that plan we I'll work with Calvin we'll get somebody over there to look at it what do we need to to do to get over there what do we do with the kitchen you know it's I wonder if it would be cheaper to add on here than the eure you know what I'm saying so it's those types things I just need direction that's all cuz I

know there's Ada issues with the center as well right yeah I think I think whatever we do there's two components that we need to be cautious of first of all it's kind of a big ordeal right so don't want microwave the process and it almost sounds like we're trying to microwave it a little bit so we can maybe meet a budget season or something that AG I think we need to be careful so I agree that we need to move forward in trying to figure out you you know the the office space etc for the future but in the inter term we're going to obviously need a temporary fix so you know couple options that I've thrown on the past and other people have thrown on the past um one um you could move plans and codes one of the arguments about plan planning and codes being down at the um Public Works is the fact that well a lot of people they have to pay for the permits and they have to be inconvenience have to back here same

what Josh mentions like nobody's really there so they might show up we can't just have set hours where he's just going to sit in there because you could have to little a call so I mean one of the options another option was you know we could take the modular and put that here and put plans out there you could in the intern like Williams and Scott or something you could rent a mobile office until we actually come up on an actual feasibility study and so forth moving forward to see what type of infrastructure is going to be required looking into the next 15 20 years whatever we want to project out but the big thing is not to M wave it and do something in the short term which could help us in the long term is all I'm get the long story that I'm trying to make sure I even thought about moving the mod what's that I didn't even thought about well it's just an option because then you could and then they could

legitimately just walk in here to pay there's no real inconvenience and so forth but then sometimes you say yeah not necessarily but you know you can rent a nice like we do like uh like Williams and I think it's Williams and Scott I rent their cargo container sometimes like they rent offices for temporary offices for things like that in other towns that use stuff like that municipalities and so forth Just For The interm Fix until you have a long-term plan just so you have you put the right due diligence in the right foot going forward so again you don't microwave and actually do something cut off our nose to save our facee or something of that nature um so we we actually take the time to develop it right rather than a plan from 2006 that's been collected dust on the Shelf since then right why why why why go through that planning process and then have it sit on a shelf col like us I can't answer that in6 I

think I had a couple three three years in the town at that point so that's why I was asking too about what because if this is something that you see as a I mean obviously right we have a situation so requests together and and the CIP request is to just part partition this off my question is why was the CIP request not to do an expansion or not to do you know

what I mean like if I think we need to think long term we don't want to just like short you know right that's a bigger discussion with with this board so so let what answer so so let's just let's just recap how we work okay so you're the elected officials you run the town and I manage it right so you have to give me some sort of Direction on which way you want to go to give me something to manage and sometimes I'm hearing you want me to do that I that's

you know what I mean that's I need direction if it's the URI sen I'll for you if you want to look at adding on to this building I'll I'll manage that and get you that information if it's something else I'm happy to do that but it's like you're looking to me to make the decision that I think the board should be making on the direction you want to go I'm I'm coming to you saying

we don't have enough space we need to do something about this what can we do what do you want to do what's feasible what do you what's acceptable and then I can run with it but without that input I I'm just I hear that I think the best option honestly is to just look towards what expanding this building is it's like I mean we're kind of beating around the issue because we all are all thinking about the money thing in the long run whatever but it's like we don't have enough space we need more space I agree with Jerry's viewpoint on like we probably should have a dedicated board space for a town this size that's only growing and it seems like the only way to do that is to get more space and it would

seems like it would be better to have something purpose built versus trying to convert a community center into a part-time board room and like I think that this boardroom looks professional like if you're watching on video this looks like a boardroom this looks good whereas the eure center doesn't have that same aesthetic and I think with a growing Community you want a boardroom maybe a couple more Ros of seats I mean look when the baseball softball team we here it's people standing around so I think that the we're just beating around the bush like we need to build more space but we don't it's you know trying to sell that to the community is difficult so I would be more inclined to just say Jerry explore the option of adding on to this building because I didn't even think about things like you said like Cube here doesn't work because you need private conversations and you're not even getting them over there and then all of

a sudden if you have to have a tough conversation with an employee they're stepping right out and sitting in their desk 2 feet from where they just had the conversation with right they could be not growing they would do that but that's I'm separated from that which a lot of town manager offices are that you know they just kind of got to do their do their thing around the offices sometimes there most of the time it's great conversation but sometime there is an unpleasant one but I don't like the idea of just trying to if if we're spending in the short term to put a bandaid on something that we're just still going to have to have surgery on later let's just look towards the long term in my in my mind I know that might not be popular with everyone but I got the problem I just think it's uh it would be very um stressful probably mostly for to try to get that long-term plan in place to have a decision by

let's say that's all I'm saying it's not that's what I mean by microwaving the process so the intern we need to find something to pacify the employees and Jerry in the term until we can actually fulfill what we're what our long-term expectation is I think we have to decide as a board uh is it more important for us to have this meeting space or for the employees to have the space that they need I think it's more important for the employees to have the space I I think that our intern plan should just cost less money because I don't want our intern plan to be come in here put in a divider we move over to Eureka we move over to the fire department and then we expand on this building and just to tear this office space down and reconfigure it like I'd rather we have a thought process on like if you follow what I'm saying like don't partition this if we know that it's only going to work for a year and then we're

doing something different or two years or doing something different so I'm fine with us moving into the UR in the short term if it opens up space for employees because you want people to be comfortable and happy when they come to

meeting wherever we need to move to make I'm with Josh like wherever we need to go to make it so employees are more comfortable and have the space that they need I'd rather us have a less than ideal meeting space for a year or so versus employees being another year okay but that's still to get the employees they need here it's still a petition here regardless if you I mean but what if you just turn this into your office and you shut the door and then the two people that back corner office now one of them moves into your existing office so even without adding in a partition here you just move into here as your office and your office opens up for codes and then planning stay don't you need to you need to use the space for other things you need that space you need that little bit of a meaning because some people need to they AB they come in at V uh Alan and George need to meet with people and look at Maps um so

you kind of and I have staff meetings too where I well I kind of I'm a cherleader so I bring my name kind of chair lead but that opportunity to do that just kind of sit around the table so you sort of have that little if you go with the wall and knock off the wall you get your two windows you have an egress in the back you have another separate room for that and you have a full size if you just went this way you have that space for beating to this space that's what I was just thinking right from the door frame to from window frame to door frame a wall this is Jerry's office and then you have a small space right there and that's a a cheaper option it's not very much at all really and I don't know if you need you know more privacy in terms of um like volume or

sound control but filling these Bays with sure filling the Bays with spray foam because it's quite the new I would insulate just and Jerry if you could like and I know you probably don't have a definite answer that's fine but as far as that Grant feasibility study where someone would come in and the space based off demographics of the town boyes of the Town Etc what would be an expected

possible dat that that can be done yeah that's probably not got to happen now until spring right so that's what I'm saying so are we looking at like maybe a year out 6 months out yeah I know a lot of the stuff is going to be tough to even try to IDE um but that's that's why like I I think it I think it just needs a layer of a municipal touch um off site um I just think it

needs a municipal um mind like firm that needs to really look at this rather than just uh select more panel that's I I'm not trying to offend anybody but lay people in regards to the municipality world what's actually needed for the infrastructure of a town of this size and for the employees so that that's why I was kind of a bigger proponent of getting somebody on a professional level to to look at it and in the meantime occupy one of these moving forward if that's what needed if we had to make something quick so that's a good point so we can do that we can have somebody kind of now that planning study is a little bit different than what that we have with GP they're they're looking at the whole this whole like triangle the school looking at maybe some walking just add some activity they are going to look at the size of the buildings and R with employees they are going to do that but we we can bring somebody in to do a more

comprehensive and people do that I mean towns towns will will will do that the only reason why I'm starting it now is to is because one it was it was a goal that has been talked about and two I would like to get employees in a more ergonomical station so that was really the only of ergonomical

right right so that was that's really the most cost effective way to do it now if we put it on hold right we put it on hold this is this is the outcome of that the employees still remain in that no I get it but I I just think it just takes a layer maybe above some of our pay rates figure out so Heather I had an idea while we were talking we do the thing right that for the inter room or however long it stays for while we figure out what we need to do for a longterm plan while it wouldn't always work we have had meetings at the

we can stream it over the school board does their budget meetings over the we could use the school I mean won't be any scheduling conflict I don't know I mean like when we've had public information sessions over there when we did the community partner they in the cafeteria so if there's something going on in the gym we're not impacting that it's it's very unusual that in the evening something would be happening in caeria over there but all of those capabilities exist and we have done it there in the past I can look that's now that's I I we can look into that whenever we anticipate a big meeting like for example like the last one I think we did was um that required that was um we did marijuana over there because we're anticipating a lot of folks to show up um and we did the uh comp there yeah um several years

ago so I mean we we do have access to that and we were able to I think we brought in I from F Camp I think we brought in some a okay I'm get some ideas too so I I I think that an effort to give like to to Jerry's point to give him Direction I think that like Here's my thought we can you can all throw it back at me I know I haven't been here for a month so I think we should have Jerry explore the cost it would take to turn this space into the office that he needs find us a temporary space whether that's the school or the fire department all knowing that there'll be a longterm plan to explore the option to expand this building in the next couple years that's what's currently on the table yeah and so I think that we should just but I think that we should just say like you said we've talked about it but it should just be Jerry here's the directive tell us what you need to do to fix this into your building put us in

another space and then come up with a plan using Rich's suggestion of bringing in a designer to do this so we for the next year year and a half we'll be either at the school or the fire department you'll get your space here and then we'll have a long-term plan for um a bigger expansion here the meeting space over at the school I'm all about it if we can make it work and that's want to explore that I can explore it see see if it's doable it's definitely better yeah we can we can do that now

there's no fire fire calls or I think what we could do what I just thoughted this what we could do in this room even temporarily is we could just get regular petition it might not be the privacy but I can shut that door and then if I have to have any private conversations I can have them and then just don't come in but then when they want to have a meeting and it's okay but but even still if I'm in here and they're in here having a meeting I'm trying to think of all the Alternatives rather than how petition in I I think you need to do it right because I think your right to privacy needs is important and I think that I think it has to done right in that regard and so I don't think you can SK and save money I don't think the wall here is going to cost a lot of I don't yeah run the wall from that this window here there and that leaves half the room for their conference space and you have a quiet it's very convenient that the heat

register stops right there and everything we booked move the fire got it two I think think do you feel like you have clear Direction yeah yeah yeah you want to look into the school so I can do that for you see if that works the fire station is still an option we don't have to do it you could also ask anets I don't know what the deal is over there but the upstairs of anets has been completely redone yeah the upstairs of vet has been completely redone and on a week night I that might also be an option mics and cameras and streaming and all that can happen over there I I think we got some ideas some stuff on the table so um think we I think for tonight better I think we're going to move on from there and we're going to you know maybe Jerry can get back with us in the next meeting on how we wanted to proceed forward I think everybody had a chance you have a contact at the school we didn't spend much time talking

about we'll close that out as U mov along to uh the manager report is there anything to report tonight yeah things out to um so the I quoted the structural uh report for the Union Church to you all got that so I forwarded that on to uh

Bill Snider so he has it hopefully he's going to call a meeting and kind of talk about that report move that forward I see no reason right now they can't deadline and come to the board the 12th maybe maybe if I can get a whole of and they can I'll meet I'll follow up with him and just see if that can be I only ask CU if we're potentially not only having one meeting that would be crucial if we could get it in by right absolutely yeah so follow with him on um so I've been meeting too with the historic district Commission and U we met the other day it was a good meeting and so where we are now with that is Lois is willing to step back to being the chair so um Lois is willing to continue

to be the chair or go she resigned yes so that she would have to be re you know they would have to elect her to be the chair okay okay um she's still on the commission because she's been appointed terms she just resigned to be the chair so she's will the chair again okay so

they will be able to conduct their meetings or review permits if one gets pulled at the district so that's that's the latest on the historic district commission okay prior to that if there was not going to be any chair Bill par

from Main preservation was one to come the meeting in the event there was a permanent poll because they're on illegal should to right now I think Lois wants to and I think the committee wants her to do the the chair work so um that's where that stands and I'll keep you updated as it they want me to call the Mee I'm just going to call Havey meeting and just think boards and committees they need to understand that they boards privy but I don't mind helping out you know this is what you're going to do but really they follow the direction of of the board so I would just like to you know say that I appreciate that Lois is willing to do that and given that it would cost the town money to have to pay someone to come in to moderate um their meetings so um I I just want to say that

I appreciate that she's willing to go back into that role thanks um so the the financial is Mark Roy has got pretty much everything all set we're about 95% there there's just a few other things that we're looking at a few other things that we need to change as far as what accounts go where and how we're going set up the next um budget it's going to look a little bit different but we're we're just about there and it was quite a process to transition over because we had our own coding we're changing the coding we have to do that translation and um but everything is looking really good by the time we get into January 1 you all will start receiving the budget to actuals and you'll have better financial information when forc on you I still have some questions and if I gave you those reports right now you would probably have questions and they might be the same questions that I have don't have answers for them yet so I don't so we're

going to start on January 1st to give you that but just to give you why where we are right now financially okay so at this point in the year we should have about 16.67 remaining in each Department's fund because we're getting close we get close to December so the Administration has 22.4% remaining so this is one of those things so we we have a municipal bill buildings account that's the heat electricity the uh Fuel and all that with -4% on that

okay so assessing is at uh 27.6 remaining telecommunications is at 26.9 remaining planning is at 39.2 remaining fire department is at 16% animal controls at 1% but that's a that's a fixed cost just that Public Works is at 17.8% remaining Solid Waste is at 21.6 remaining parks and recck is at 36.3 remaining and Eureka is at 19.6 remaining what was the one you said that was at negative uh municipal

the total budget all right for the town um is 10 million 33 number actual expenditures to date is 8,763 765 so the percent remaining in the whole budget is 15.2% right now so that's County School the whole mine has so do we have school pay by the end of the year yeah we'll have for this budget yes that's what I sh yeah so I shared this with you now because this is I me this is the kind of stuff we're going to be getting now so when we get on January 1st when he does an AP he's going to send Bud to actual and you're also going to get those I they won't be really for discussion unless you you tell me you want to discuss it but it's more for your information so you can keep a breast of what's going on which I'm not sure if that was happening in the past I think what um what should probably take place I mean unless it's like something things so once people get that they have a question they can email

you R specifically and and or marked collectively but it really shouldn't be a discussion like hey here's the budget and everybody start firing off email should go directly to right I mean because you can get into the weeds the you can get into the weeds real fast these are just the bigger num of whe we have we're looking Prett good we should be okay okay so the postage Line's going to make it I think sost line make it and and really really why we4 on Miss because we just didn't do a good enough job estimating what CMP was going to be or what the fuel cost it's hard to C was a big hike it was no question it was um but just so just so you know too like today it happened um so we were paying CMP like 16 17

kilowatt hour but I got on this uh Cooperative electricity bidding and we're now start in December and now to pay 10 cents per Kow hour so that'll help you know reduce some reduce some of the cost CU I mean it's expensive now CMP I think they may come down a little bit price but I don't think they come

I get off the subject but as part of my report we also got into a uh fixed cost on fuel so last year when I got here was uh rack Rack plus there were times when we were paying $3 in some sense we're like down I I have to look I don't want quar right now but we did pretty good which when you lock in now it's more budget stable now we can know what we do for gallons and where it fluctuates who knows what you're going to end up paying so we did all right there too by getting into these Cooperative bits to many power options to to Market it's just easier a budget and you get better pricing more you buy more you buy once you so those good news is there anything else to report nothing else is there any questions for Town manager I had a question about uh the chair of the planning board posted that the meeting tomorrow night on affordable housing would be at the fire department correct but it's not

going to be live streamed and I and people asked that specifically if it was going to be live streamed and I and I don't know what the answer is as to why it's not going to be live this we don't have the capability to live stream it okay but if we end up going over to the fire dep we will put the infrastructure in SO meetings can then be live streamed okay thank you um and then I just to put it on the radar when we're talking about December because we had that big conversation where the union church right and we also ask the solid police committee to come back to us by December with so I just want to make sure that we're only having one meeting and Mark's going to be at that be a big meeting yeah just anyways I just want to put that on the radar so that you can effectively schedule what we have I we've asked them to come back to us by then right so they had they met yesterday K come in he sits there just

as an advisory uh so he came to me today and their question what to him was so what's up purpose the S way committee they don't really know what their purpose is you all know what that purpose is yeah my understanding is to explore

the options for uh trash removal knowing that the only person who's willing to do it for us is tell us we have to buy on a truck to do it um moving forward are you almost gesturing towards me like no I did not mean to I trash business yeah that was my understanding my understanding was at our meeting we the got the people from wherever it came and said yeah we're not doing these contracts anymore without the automatic up and we need to explore those options my understanding is that they were going to be vetting long-term options and then coming to us with what those potential long-term options would be whether it's strictly Cella whether invol different organizations like the Sal the g whatever it is I can never remember the name of it e and the the compost to

Garden or whatever you know those Collective things if we're going to like how North armouth has the three different sectors that they use to deal with their trash um and that they were going to have I thought it was going to the contract was going to go out to bid so that they would be able to have numbers associated with the things that they were talking about that was what my understanding was yep so they have all the numbers oh and then potentially which people because that original post of when we were trying to get people to come apply for the committee said potential like getting rid of trash pickup or a transfer station and so I don't know if they're entertaining any of those ideas or talking about any of that stuff because maybe as a committee they DEC that that's not a viable long-term plan no no no I asked you folks to make sure that I was on the same page because that's what I told in

the first meeting so what I just say basically you're you're exploring options for a long-term plan right to De with solid waste and uh but they asked cvin that so I couldn't be at the meeting so I'll just reiterate to that's that's what that's what you're looking at and I'm not trying to speak for everybody is that're the same page um yeah no I I think that was

pretty clear I'm not sure where the disconnect happened um but obviously there's a disconnect how many meetings have they had two so the first one was to bring them together and I kind of explain to them what they were doing and that yeah yeah they had some bylaws to look at and then they um you know that's the meeting they picked their chair and vice chair and secretary and then then there was the second meeting and I prepared for them the second meeting was the tonnage and the price totally

year price of what we paid for for that so they at least have that plus they have the contract to look over uh that's got to go out soon you know they they may make some edits to it I don't know what those are hav't seen them um but I'll be responsible for putting that out and making sure that it's that's what putting out an RFP yes collec yeah yeah because right that has to be backed by January yeah I want it back before yeah before January like mid to third week of December so we can have it as a budget do M right yeah absolutely

okay so I'm not going to give them you know I mean three weeks is enough time to put put a price on and we'll we'll go from there but it really is looking at but what's your recommendation to the longterm the longterm Solid Waste Management hey may conservation commiss come recycling TR so um so the one other thing is that we I don't know if we got away with like upcoming agenda is it on it's not on there no oh sorry it should be it's okay so um I

thought that it was going to be on this agenda but we we had people who needed to come and talk to us tonight so I but I want to again this is the thing where Jerry keeps reiterating you know these are our meetings and we're giving him Direction I Would like to give like the explicit Direction as a board if everyone feels the same way which I think we all agreed on last week but now there's more people weren't here so I would like to have that collectively that we would like to do workshops um policies um in a workshop you know like we start our meeting we can go into the workshop format so that it can be a round table discussion and work on policies that need to be

was discussed and I obviously we have no I don't think anybody has any problem with doing that I think it's just a matter of setting up the tenative schedule to do that I think one of the suggestions that I might have had is first things first is the town managers should be looking at our policies that are currently reflective upon being our government being a town administrative government and getting those changed over and getting those to us so we can approve those so we can at least be on par with what the structure of our entity is and then moving forward with what are the other policies I know there were discussions of people wanting policies in regards to you know like Zoom policies and things of that nature um moving to that but I think the priority I think should be making sure our policies are in line with our current structure of government and then moving forward from there well even

tonight a couple times Jerry mentioned like well correct as a administrator we did this but as a manager we do this but I think First Step would just be to get an inventory of existing written policies so we can figure out what's there imediately fixed administrator versus manager typ policies and then figure out where our gaps are for creating new policies to how how meanings flow that sort of thing and and In fairness I mean this might be you know again it should be a process to microwave so this might be a process that's kind of you know have to wait until after the budget season and so forth be exceptional I do think the priority should be on getting policy updates to in regards to the administrator versus so I have almost got the Personnel policy done so I'll be bringing that to you but I'll bring it to you an appropriate time because you're right we are getting into budget season and

that that's yeah it takes precedent and because there could be some discussions over that will chew up some time which is understandable you got to bet that process that's that's policy it's pretty important the other thing that I would like to do when we're doing this is send out the opportunity for the other department heads to let us know what policies they feel they are lacking to be able to effectively do their job right they need to go to a JY for that right yeah no that's what I'm saying give him the directive to then that's his directive to me though is what I'm getting that's a that's a Personnel issue that that's that's totally in his core that's not that doesn't get to us until he wants to change their particular policies well I'm not talking about like employment policies I'm talking about like say if we have um a public health situation and the fire chief can't effectively deal with that because we

don't have a policy around dealing with a public health situation that he's the health officer so you know I we can have this discussion as far as like policies and stuff like that what you know we we could physically add this to an agenda but right now I mean if if we were just asking to put something on the agenda for the future that's all we should be really doing right now so if there's something that we want to add to next week's agenda or something of that nature let's do that um but as far as like any other further discussion so forth you know we we we got to look at this as far as it's already 5 after 9 at night we're already know overtime here so um are there items that we need to be adding to the Future as far as agenda

gos you mean for the next meia because that's the way I thought this was starting on like we were looking for items from upcoming agendas yeah I wanted to put policies on the agenda for the next meeting and it sounds like that's not going to happen so no I don't that's up to you folks if that's what you want on the agenda I thought that's what we had talked about at the last meeting but maybe I was mis mistaken which is fine what's our next meeting 28th and do we have anything that's coming up on the 28th that you foresee being a on that meeting because the budget season isn't going to start and our conversations around that aren't going to start until January I putting policy needs on the next meeting item is a good idea yeah it's fine if you can have the stuff done what stuff what policy exactly

that's that's that's what I I think that what you're getting at Heather is that might be where we talk about the policy needs at next meeting saying here's is that what you're saying like I I would like to identify what policies need to be addressed what what I would like to identify if if we're you're working on the ones that are already in existence then that's fine I I've said this before and I will say it again I am more than happy to tackle some type of structure around any policy that needs to be written for us to review and make work

you know the this what I don't want to keep talking about it and then have no action follow it I would like action to happen and so I would like to have this as an agenda item to be able to establish an action that's going to take place and who's going to be respons responsible for it that's what I would like we can again we can put policy on

the next meeting but we needed this Jerry probably needs to go through exactly the policies to see what we're bringing forth and what needs to be changed I don't think we can bring the whole suitcase of every policy that the town has and go through them one by one in one particular night they should be addressed in a matter of urgency whether that's personnel which it sounds on the table now yeah I think that's one of the more right more and and conquer them it's not going to be something that's going to be conquered at one meeting is what I'm getting at right and some of them are pretty simple I mean like the no smoking policy I mean those those are pretty simple it's when you but the Personnel policy there are some minor changes in there that I'm going to propose well I already did one right the uh yeah uh but other than that it's really changing them from Town Administrator to manager and just it's

it's it's really bad that what I'm doing with the old policy new policies I mean there's all kinds of ones that we do we can do an undesignated F policy we whatever whatever the board would like to is that a policy that you would like to have in place before we head into budget season um I don't because you have to Hash it out a little bit I mean I can get you one to

look at is that something that you all want to have see again you are the elected officials if that's something that you want I can do that for you because I because I served you and you're asking me what you want me I'm asking for your

recommendation on whether or not you feel having an undated undesignated policy in existence is would that be your recommendation and you don't have to tell me that now you have that conversation with the agenda I think I

think it's a good idea I just don't think it has to happen right away with I think because we're going into budget season after we get through that and that gets we're we're happy then the door is wide open to kind of like put all kinds of different things on the agenda to have those discussions on what do you want the polic to say like for instance undesignated I can put something together and and put what I think should be and it could be between two and three months of expenditures but is that what you want and I would rather have you tell me what you want so I do it once and not twice or three times or

four times just discuss it tell me what you want and we'll put it in there and then you can review it to see how it I think we're getting into the weeds of policies people talk about right now so I I think that what I was just going to ask is can we put a policy discussion on the agenda for the next meeting and Jerry do you have time in the interm between this meeting and next meeting to collect our existing written policies bring them to us and possibly make recommendations on things that you might see as immediate needs and then we can evaluate those and say here what we need to do next and so because like I feel like sometimes we just get into this position where we start talking about what we want to talk about and we dive into the specifics and so I think if we had a packet that had our existing policies and maybe if you say here the seven that I'm most worried about and then at that next meeting we can approve

those changes and then say here's our our needs based off of budget season based off Personnel based off things like that I mean the policies are in a black binder I can photo copy yeah I like I just personally haven't seen them so if we if I can get copies of them and then we can talk about that at the next meeting that works for me does that work for everyone else yes because I just think it would be tough to without putting it on an agenda item to talk about what policies we need to have presented before we can actually what stuff you don't even know what policies you have yeah I think it's just a little bit of work cart before the hor situation because I have ideas of what I think should be policies but I don't necessarily know if that is there or not already so there not a time there not a lot

poliy so yeah that's easy it's in a black binder there's I don't know maybe but I also understand the idea of what you're saying is like we need to tell you what to do but at the same time like I want you're the one dealing in the trenches every day we want to hear what you think is a gap you identify one absolutely so if we we don't necessarily need you to come and say Here's the exact policy I need to be written but you might say we don't have an undesignated fund policy and I think that that is something that needs to be address and then we can decide right which is sort of what I did with this with the with the vacation me it was like there was a hole there didn't make sense so I brought it to the board I don't know if you we got it again right if we want to add a policy discussion to the next meeting let's just add a and let's have the discussions that we're having now and if they need to get deeper in the weeds in

the next meeting it's not necessarily my report as you folks know um so we're down a stack person um so it's not like when that happens here the wheels come off but it it is a it is a major loss if you will because that person is you know pretty um has pretty important role in the in the organization so uh I don't have can share a lot of details of what happened to her but just know that when we have that person out or any person that not a when there a small staff um sometimes

things get a little sler typal so she's fine but uh sometimes it's a little destruction what we can get done and how quick we get it done just Staff right now especially when we when we're on full we're doing fine but you know when that staff person has the expertise and knows exactly how it's supposed to be to get done and other people that don't typically do it now have to step up to it things can kind of get a little it's kind of a perfect storm your short staff and you're going into your busiest season of the year right just don't matter not a baby

I got any other questions for jar Aaron all right uh consent agenda I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda after we have already um remove the approval of the minutes from 10 2423 so the motion would be to app sign November 10th and November 14th warrants both pable and second discussion

regard to the minutes just because you don't you're not at the meeting they are film can review the meeting approve minutes in other words you don't you don't necessarily have to be at the meeting to know approve minutes you can just view the meeting online and thenew the meting huh what you well

sometimes but there's no law saying that you or you don't get slapped on the hand the meeting minutes seem reasonable you can't you can't accept them V on have meeting 1128 2023 and 12223 planning will convene on 12623 I assume that's at

executive session uh I wanted one is it too late to have one it's up to you guys I know I'm I'm awake I mean is it is it long is too uh is it uh just so I can call it is it for personnel yes okay so we will go into executive session pursuit to when MRSA 4056