TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ September 23, 2025

[Music] All righty. Still wait for Jerry. We are we are we are good in line. All right. Cool. Let's get our meeting started here. We're going to call to order the September 23rd select board meeting at 6:30 here at the town office. We do have a quorum. So we will begin uh with the pledge of allegiance

America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Um, we amendment to the agenda under I'm going to make a motion under new business item B to uh table that uh

because we need a public um notice before that occurs. So, we'll table that until next meeting. Do I have a second on the motion? Any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor of the motion? Any opposition? Okay. Uh public comment. Do we have any public comment? I don't think you all are here for public comment but can have to stay for three minutes should you wish to.

Okay. Uh do I have a motion to approve the previous meeting minutes as submitted from September 9th? Oh we have a motion from Deb. Uh second Josh. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none that passes. Just in time all business. So turn to read baseball guys

name is fine Michael Clark president of baseball Awesome. All righty. Yeah tell us what we got here tonight. So, just to recap for folks at home, we at you all had mentioned wanting to get a batting cage and we said, "Bring us some numbers and we can discuss and figure out where we're sitting at."

Yeah. So, yeah, I know that was a few months ago. Um, we did reach out to a handful of companies. Um, we only had a couple, a couple places respond to us. Uh, one was, was it a Lic Fence or Fence? Uristic Fence, I think.

And then Mainline Fence. Um, so yeah, Kyle put together a nice deck there, um, with with some background information. So, um, we got from a roostic fence, uh, a quote for essentially a chain link batting cage, uh, 12 high by 14 wide and

60 long, I think of the dimensions. Kind of memory here. Um, yeah, 14 by 12 by 14 wide, 60 ft long. Um for theirs they would just do the perimeter um and a gate for that. Uh they they did not or would not provide any netting. They said that that would be on us to basically source an install for the top keep balls from from flying out. I guess it's too tall to put a chain link uh topping on that. Um, Mainline in my conversations

with them seems to have quite a bit of of experience in doing batting cages, uh, they gave us a couple of options. One being a similar, uh, same dimensions, chain link option, a couple of gates, um, entry and exit points on each end. Uh, as well as sourcing and installing the netting on the top. Um, so it'll be all complete with them for that. Um, so they were a little more expensive than than the Arustic quote for kind of a similar chain link thing there. Um, I think the the netting alone is a few thousand bucks uh for that athletic type of netting where they did the installation. Um and then they offered us a cheaper option which is um kind of

a embedded posts into the ground permanent uh cemented in with uh fencing or not fencing um netting around the sides and top. So that's a little more cost effective. I don't know. Um, you know, durability wise, they said that the netting should last, uh, I think they said 7 8 years on that. Um, and then, you know, a few thousand to replace. I I don't, one thing I haven't asked them is if that's something that would be required to kind of take down and put back up each year, you know, to kind of bring it in from the winter weather. I would hope not. I would think we could just leave that netting out.

Yeah. Um, I feel like I've seen other batting cage where they do pull that knitting down. So, that is an addition. Um, so yeah. So, I mean, those were the options that we got. Kyle has some illustrations in there, uh, as well as some pictures of, you know, what those potentially may look like. U, dimensions are the same for all of them. Uh I think that full netting option at line came in 13,000 or so. Um they were over 20 I

think for the chain like 23 grand for change auction where was at 14 145 1475 for theirs without the netting. Um, you know, personally, I I don't really want to be uh I I don't want us to have to try to, you know, install that stuff. Um, as far as a board, as far as installing the netting. Um, but, uh, you know, that's kind of where we're at. So, um, you know, looking to get the board's opinion and then, you know, as a baseball board, you know, with whatever you guys are willing to help us with, we'll go back as a board and decide which route we want to go and do we want to uh, you know, put our own funds towards it, to either do,

you know, whatever option we got to decide. That's yeah, that's comfortable. Sorry. Did they give you an indication of how long the batting pages usually last for like the gal or the the best one? It wasn't we didn't get a shelf life on the materials uh you know if left out in the winter over the winter months or just weathering in general. Um no. So yeah, I mean I would assume for the

Yeah, I didn't ask about the the fencing option as far as you know shelf life for that for the netting. Uh they did say expected around eight years on that before replacement. Um you know the fencing I you know I would think that could last a long time you know decades

probably if it's taken care of properly. Is the intent that it would be accessible for kids all the time. Okay. So not just for Yeah. I mean just like the field I mean during the baseball season of course the league would have priority over it. Yeah.

Um but yeah, I mean just like the baseball field, it wouldn't be locked up. Um you know, so if if people want to go in and use it, then you know, they'd be welcome to do it. It is on town public property. So I mean, unless the town had issues with that. Um we have no intentions of keeping it locked up from people that want to use it. I mean, if that was a request of the board, we would certainly do that. So, you know, if there was any vandalism or anything like that, we would have another conversation potentially about locking it up. Not that, you know, it's an issue um with the field, but since we fenced it in, there hasn't really been any.

Before the field was fenced in completely, we had recreational vehicles go around the field and kind of destroy some stuff. So, we don't we don't, you know, anticipate that, but you never know. Um, so what I'm seeing here is a rustic fence company can essentially build something that looks similar to your mainline structure one with no um roof on it.

Correct. How critical is that roof? I mean really critical I would say flying off the top of Yeah. So, I mean, I'm just like thinking it as an option that like right now we have no batting cage. A batting cage with no roof and picking up some pop-ups outside of it. It's better than no batting cage. You know, if we had to go that option, would you would you agree?

I mean, I think we'd prefer to have the netting for that reason, but that's not to say if this is the direction we do decide to go that the the board couldn't, you know, the board is the source of netting. You know, that's probably not preferred,

right? You said it was like a couple thousand dollar for the netting or to like throw on top. Yeah. So I've asked um well that was what mainline told us um you know few grand for the netting and install top. Yeah cuz I like the chain link sides more.

Um the rustic is significantly cheaper than mainline for the chain link. Um, and so I'm I I lean towards the chain loop just for the structure there. But you know, as long as the top netting is 10 grand or less, it's cheaper than using mainline for the whole kitty koodle,

right? But that top netting price is, you know, to be determined, right? Um, does anyone else have any questions? That top line is chain link on that structure. Yes. Does the top line has chain link and has does the top line chain link for the ceiling too?

Uh for the mainline option, it would be netting on the ceiling. So I think that that picture is kind of just illustration purposes only. We we source that. That's not something that mainline. Yeah. So that's just kind of give you guys an idea as to what we'd be looking at. That would be it would be athletic um netting. That's kind of specific to

Yeah. Yeah, I've seen these. Yeah. Um, did any indication on how close you could run that along the right field fence line? No, I mean I think we do have the space for it. Um, yeah. So, I don't know. Yeah. So, it would be Yeah, behind Yeah, we were thinking Yeah, behind the right field fence in front of a parking lot. Um, I mean, we do have an entry point gate there where um,

you know, the town goes in and out the field. So, we need to make sure that they still have space to to get in and out of there. But, yeah, we should get it as tight as Would you be wanting to run it parallel to that right field or

I would say probably perpendicular. I think if we did it perpendicular or cut out some room for parking that's my thought. So the reason I'm asking these questions is town's going through this as you all are aware this whole down downtown visioning thing

that timeline is going to be a year years long but I don't want to be in a scenario where something we put in now now has to be moved and so if this is something that can run parallel along the right field line in there maybe put some green boards and make a little mini green monster on the back of the right field there

yeah there is a picture of the deck back as to, you know, how we were envisioning where we're located. That's how Okay, that's Yeah, that's good point. Um, any other questions for them all so far? So to me, this seems like it's addressing a need about being able to increase the the use because it sounds like that's a big constraint right now is getting time and at least at this point there could be people doing batting practice while a different team is working in the field and kind of like increase our use of that area which is a goal of the board is to build more you know public use in the downtown thing. So I think it's really a good idea.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think we spoke last time about was the number of teams and kids that we have. Um, between having to hold home games during the week and weekends, um, trying to get practice time for the kids, it is it's tough to try to squeeze in two practices, you know, with after school or, you know, before daylight ends. Um, so if we could run two teams over there on the one field, one fielding, one hitting, and then, you know, kind of switch them out. Um, yeah, that would certainly help us, you know, logistically that way.

Um, so for me, I don't see us being able to do mainline option one if if we were to cover the full expense at 23410. We have a little over 21,000 available for all recreational uh balance uh in our in our recreational balance right now for the town. Um, if we had to cover all that, this would have to be budgeted for a later date. I think we could have a discussion about looking at your uh less expensive options or providing some matching funds towards whatever funds you all may have available to to put it there. So, um wanted to know what your all's thoughts were.

So, has anybody talked to the insurance company or your lawyer about liability for the town? I operate on the assumption it would be the same as a baseball field. Yeah, I don't know why I wouldn't. I mean, and again, structure to climb on, right? That's 12 feet high. Right. And how many kids are out there climbing the fences now

in at night during the day? It's right. It's it's a whole another structure. I think, you know, that's that's a concern that I have. We should I mean, if they say, you know, put these signs up, don't climb, something like that. Well, that you know I think there's in my mind there's still more work to be done before we start talking about about it because it's to me there's a significant liability for the town.

J are you aware of our liability policy what how it covers things and now well to talk claims you the town's fairly protected. I mean they could climb on the on the backs stop. I can certainly call the insurance company just

at least to verify. Yeah cuz I town would have to be negligent big time to do this. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Would it be I mean, is there a claim that would be made by somebody, you know, for somebody's stupidity of climbing the fence, you know?

How many times have you been to court and watch what's been bought? Yeah. Right. I mean, everybody thought the McDonald's and the hot coffee was stupid, right? Right. That was successful. That's I mean, that's that's my point is I think we need to do our due diligence. Um, any other questions?

Are you asking us for the full cost for these or or No, no. So, I know when we came a few months ago, we had asked for a 10. Um, so, you know, I mean, we are more than appreciative of anything that the town will give us. And you know if if you guys say we'll provide 10 towards the cost of this and we as a board decide we want to come up with extra funds to do you know one of these other options then that that's what we'll do. Um but yeah I mean it is a big expense. It would be um you know something permanent that would be there for the town for hopefully years and years to come for league going forward. Um

it addresses a big issue too. It does. It does. and and so I'm inclined for us to consider funding at least uh towards one of the hard chain ones. That's my personal opinion. Uh the exact amount I guess would be you know determined based off what you all are bringing. I think that for me $10,000 seems reasonable. Um you know I don't have the same concern you have Josh about the liability but I think that doing our due diligence isn't a bad idea either. So we could just double check on that. Um, I hate to bring you all back again, but we do have to make sure we're checking all our eyes.

Yeah. No, I I get it. I 100% understand. And, um, you know, it took us a little while to get this info together. I mean, we're hoping to try to get it installed this fall if we could to be ready to go for the spring. Um, you know, both of the places said they have the ability to do that.

Yeah. For us. Um, yeah. I mean, if you guys need us to put signs on it that say, you know, stay up fast, don't climb, you know, bigs, that's that's easy for us to do. get some signs up and attach it and it's probably it's probably a smart thing to do regardless. So

yeah, I mean what I'm getting at with the price point for me is I would rather I would like to see us end up with a galvanized chain fence version as opposed to a a net version. I don't disagree with that. So, I would like to make sure that if we're as a town voting to uh as a board voting to provide funds that it's going towards that, not towards I mean because if we like not that I don't trust the the group, but it's like if we say, "Hey, here's $10,000 for this." And then you decide, "Oh, we'd rather just go with the the the rope or the uh the the netting one." I'd be a little disappointed. So I would be more of saying that we'd be contingent on providing up to a certain amount for the aristic fence company or up to a cohort up to a certain amount for the main line towards the chain link option.

Yeah, because I do think that um it could just be a really nice piece that we could add over there increase ability to do some work. Um now do you guys have money in your budget as well that maybe could cover the remaining of the cost?

We we yeah we we we do have some funds we can put towards it for sure. I mean, we've been pretty successful last couple years with uh some decent farm racing efforts and having a field um you know, we've been selling advertising signage and things like that.

Hey, this is some more re real estate for advertising signage. True. Yeah, I didn't think about that. All I'm saying is I picture you know it's the right field, not the left field, but it could be a big like I said kind of like a big monster.

Put some signs up there and something could be a little little Durham flare on the field if you need, right? You could do some sort of fundraising where you know how people bought the bricks for the school buy or something for around your name you know $250 or something.

here. Yeah. So so that's another thing. Um so we have again out of our own funds over the last couple of years um you know put quite a bit of money into the field with with the other fencing and stuff that's there. We did have the infield um kind

of dug out and resurfaced last year. Um, we used tried to, you know, tried to have some some people donate time and do it that aren't, you know, necessarily, uh, don't work on sports fields particularly, but, you know, help the league. Um, in hindsight, maybe we should just paid, you know, for somebody that focuses on that. Um, but I don't know if you guys have been over there. It's kind of all weed. It's grown in. Um, so Sports Field, Inc. actually kind I don't know if you want to speak to this cuz you don't want to actually talk with them.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Sports Field, Inc. is out of Monmouth. Uh they specialize in uh you know rehabbing fields and making sure the maintenance is keep kept up on the infield. Um they would essentially uh when the field was built uh the base pass and the home plate was built crooked. So, it's not like an actual, you know, doesn't have the correct dimensions. The little league field would come and they would uh they would align the field correctly. They would uh cut the infield edges as well as take care of some of the weeding on there. And they'll provide some top soil um you know for drainage and things like that and just address the field and uh make it look make it look really nice like a actual ball field as opposed to I was just over there on Saturday and it is it's like a forest over there despite all the rain habitat. Um yeah, it's it's it grows very quickly and uh these guys would come in, they would align the

bases, they would cut the infield, they would provide that top level dressing um and uh that would help things like drainage and just an overall better playing experience for the kids. So are you looking for additional funds or is that something that is coming out of what you guys have?

Uh it could it could um you know Yeah. So I think we just put that in there. um you're really more for your information to say, "Hey, these are the things that we have uh kind of on the agenda that we want to get done this fall um or before next season." Um so any money that the town is willing to provide would be uh you know bas put towards these two projects and whatever we need to come up with uh in addition then we would discuss that on the board and fill in the gaps there. So just to do let's say a rustic fence company 14,000 plus this infield work what you all have available what do you need from us to to do those two things would you have to go back to the board and have that discussion or

um I mean again I think if you guys are willing to provide the 10 or you know even if you know you said then you know we we definitely be able to work with that. Yeah. I know traditionally we it's been 2500 that we've done, right?

Yeah. Um the last few years uh and so this would essentially the like we had said you know if the request for more comes in we have to see why. Now, like I just said, for me, I don't feel as comfortable about just voting to say, "Hey, here's a blanket 10. Do what you need to do." Like we have with the 25. That's fine.

But with this, I'd like to say we are as a select, we're voting to approve money to go towards the batting cage, go towards that infield work. And so I think Joshua, we should, like you said, check up on liability. At this point, I'm comfortable contingent on hearing from that that liability um policy on approving at least $10,000 to go towards this. It's a vote we could take next meeting, but I would like to give these folks a bit of an idea of where we sit before um you all go home. want to bring you.

Yeah, I think if we know if we have a a commitment, a general commitment, um we can then go and line up the work and you know, if it's a matter of you guys want to wait until you see that there's an actual chain link structure going in before you cut the check, then

you know, that's fine. say, "Oh, we're not going to have to make a payment to these people until So, you're saying it could work as like a reimburseable payment from us or would you you're thinking that they could start the work without you have what they need to start?"

Yeah, I mean, they'll probably need a deposit, you know, to start, but it won't be all due up front. In terms of the infield maintenance, is that do you foresee that as a yearly thing? I mean, you were saying that the bases weren't to scale. So, that obviously is going to be taken care of on a yearly basis. Are you going to need that 30,000?

So, no. Um, part of the perk of that, and I don't think that was included in the original quote, was that they would be able to maintain it uh once in the middle of the season as well. Um, you depending on field conditions after it gets run all over and things, we'd probably just take another look at it. Um, but I don't anticipate having to pay that uh every season. Yeah. So I think um I mean as far as you're right once the once the bases are are remeasured and set those are permanent or semi-permanent they'll be there um not move but yeah as far as field maintenance I mean there would be some maintenance done each year but that if the town is willing to continue to support at the level going forward outside of this bigger project then that would certainly help us towards that. But you know I mean we have again we do raise funds to you know do some of this stuff or like other things that we've

already done. So we understand I think with that initial aspect is just getting the right company to do it right the first time has it set up and not have someone who's not as experienced as a sets up sports fields is probably

yeah you got to fix it and then it's easier to maintain it after it's correctly done. What other requests do we get that are tapping into this recreation? Um well the recreation fund's new in the sense that we've combined um some prior accounts to to create that. Oh no we don't really get any other requests out of it.

The snowmobile club and baseball are the only two requests we get out of it. And how many um kids are in the league at Durham kids? So we had this year 105 yeah this year. So we had uh we had six T-ball teams, two um 8U teams,

very full team. Uh two U10 teams and one one U12 team this year. So um that's been that's been pretty stable last couple years. I would expect that to continue is and that's co. Yep. I think you all are like the biggest um single community program

and it's investing in the kid the future of the kids. I mean, you bring up I think I know where you're going. You bring up a good point that I I would be I'm not put my words out, but I would actually even be inclined to go higher than $10,000 for something like this just based off what those expenditures

have been in the past. So, can we can we slow down for a second? And I know I'm like the downer tonight, but we're not putting money into this account every year. Yes, we are. year? 2500. No, in in the recreation. No, there's no revenue in the recreation account. We took out $2,500.

Okay. Sorry. Yeah. to give. So, this is a essentially a new funding mandate we're going to do if we're going to continue to give in the 2500 or we're going to run out of money in a couple of years. And so, I think we need to keep in mind that we've got a lot of changes coming and taxes are going to be, you know, people are complaining about the 9 month taxes are paying and not understanding how it works. Um, but in

two years we're going to have uh new tax bills and they're going to look different for pretty much everybody. And so that's about the time you're going to be looking at, oh, we need to start funding this accountably. So I think we need to keep that in mind. I agree it's a good idea, but I think even good ideas need to come with some type of realistic plan for the future. and we're talking about putting more money in and for 105 kids out of how

many at the school. Uh again, I support it, but I think we need to start watching how much money we spend and we're just throwing money at all these other things. So, I I would push back on that because we're in that discussion phase now. They came and made a presentation. We asked them to bring that information so we could examine that and that's where I think we are now. This money's already been budgeted for for them. So, we can disperse it at $2,500 a year for the next 10 years or we could disperse a larger amount now for

it's not just for them but is where we make a decision for where the best expenditure for recreational funds are. Seeing as the only place we've expended recreational funds for the last half a decade has been the baseball club and the snowmobile club. rather than having them come in and ask for $2,500 a year. I think that this is a good opportunity for us to do an investment in downtown at a larger amount that has a benefit for 100 kids. So, I feel like we're at that stage right now. You know, anything we vote on this year for you all would not be come back next year and ask for the same amount. Every year budget is a budget. We have to make adjustments.

Some years we're going to have to pull up the the the the waistband a little tighter than others. Um Yeah. And um I yeah I will say I mean I don't think that as a board we have any intention of coming back with another request this big um certainly not in the near term and there's been there's been years in the past I think it was a different board um that the 2500 wasn't even provided. I mean we've not been given that every year we've asked for it which you know helps the league but there have been times where the town has has not paid that out for one reason or another. So cool.

What I like about your proposal that you brought here is that this increases the ability to use the space. And so you can go from one team being there and waiting for the other team to leave to two teams being there, one team in the batting cage, one team. And so that's for me why this why this elevates to something that we want to consider more so than an annual contribution for operation um and stuff like that. So,

or maybe too, you could say, you know, this um nearterm funding with the note that it is unlikely that we'll be providing $2,500 for the next over the next five years. I mean, you could do something like that. So, it's Yeah. I mean, that's

you're just pulling it earlier. Yeah. Yeah. And and we as a board understand, you know, the most we can do is ask and the worst you guys can tell us is no, you know, and and we get that. So to Deb's point, like would the board rather see a um a $15,000 contribution

now and nothing for a handful of years so you can get this or would they rather see a $2,500 contribution annually for the next, you know, foreseeable future? None none of which being guaranteed. Yum. Right. So, do we have any other questions for these folks? Um, I would like to earmark $15,000 for uh to go towards a uh a batting cage

for them. Personally, I don't share the same concern about the um um liability insurance because we already have a taller than 12t fence as part of the baseball field. So, I'm operating under the assumption that it would fall under the same insurance policy. Um, but if people aren't comfortable voting on that tonight, I at least want to make my position known and we can do some due diligence and come back to it. So, are folks not comfortable voting tonight?

I think 15,000 really depletes the account though. There still will be a little under$10,000 left in it be $6,242. There's $21,242. So, 15,000, sorry, $6,000. Yeah. I just look at the annual expenditures out of it. The last few years it's been baseball and snowmobile club and I don't even know snowmobile club is asked every year and so I understand that. Um but we we save our recreation fund for recreation expenditure. So that's just my position.

It's okay if there is. I'd feel more comfortable with 10. Okay. seeing how the budget is right now what we have to look forward to. So I will say expending out of this does not impact the future budget because this is already allocated for and so it's not like we have to then rebudget for it. We don't have to budget for any recreation funds annually. Um this is what's left in our recreation balance right now just waiting for people to come request it. I would feel a little bit differently if we had six different clubs that were coming to request money from us every single year. We just haven't had that. It's been two. Um,

yeah. I mean, honestly, I think we're the only youth sports recreation um activity left that doesn't run through the R34. So, what that's worth. what we're giving you to like $2,500 a year pretty much consistently? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been great. Yeah, it's been allocated to a bunch of different operating stuffs season. The maintenance for the fields uh where we can where we can get it um and um knowing which general approach to pulling more kids in? I mean with your advertisements and everything right now we're doing the best we can on getting more kids involved.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think I feel like our younger our younger side T-ball has never been bigger. I mean all engaged group this year which you bow well for future. Yeah. Um yeah we we get flyers out in school first of the year um you know to to Durham. Um

we have not reached out uh historically. Freeport has their own league. I know you guys probably maybe see signs around town from Trytown Little League up here in the beginning of the year to try to get our kids sign up down there. We haven't gotten into that. We can take free four kids, but we don't advertise down there. Um, you know, maybe we can, but uh we've tried to just keep it to local Durham Dur kids, Durham families.

Um, and keep things local here. It's good to hear that there's more participation. I mean, part of it is I imagine as the participation increases, you have to be concerned about the space, too. And I recall that's kind of what you came prompted this discussion,

right? Exactly. I'd love to come ask you for 400 grand for a new complex baseball field, but uh don't maybe um cool. Do we have any more questions for these folks? Um so let's hear back from the insurance policy and then put this on an agenda for next meeting to um finalize what amount we are interested uh putting towards this um

they don't have to um you more than welcome to don't you don't feel like you have to you want to send me an email the results will be on the and and our our whatever we have motion. If there's anything contingent like this is explicitly for a batting cage, not just for general funds, we'll we'll make sure that's clearly delineated in the motion.

And if it's for a deliverable like this, we may say that the payout happens after the construction starts or something just so we see the um is this something where it would be a permanent structure over there? We going to need to get a permit for that.

That's another good question to ask, too. Yep. your head, do you? Are there any other funding sources available? Like are there as far as funding grants or anything like that or surprised at what the right now we're like we're we're basically committing taxpayer funds for using this budget when um

yeah but I mean those funds were budgeted for recreation you know nonprofit too. We try to raise funds. We we produce fundraising opportunities all year. So, um did really good with Snapchat raffle tickets we do. We support local businesses through the the calendar raffle that we have every season. Um

I mean we do winter clinics that go towards those funds as well. Um yeah, we provide a lot of fundraising opportunities to try and grow. Yeah. Having deals with my big part. I know that that's really helped the league in raising funds. So like to see it continue.

Yeah. Well, thank you for coming in. We'll pick this up next week once we have those questions answered. Yeah. If you need anything else from us, just got my contact info. So yeah. And if in the meantime, if you do get a a firmer quote on what that netting would cost at the top, that could just be more information. And could we just date this and include it add it to the meeting information that's online? I don't think this was Oh, it was on there. Wasn't package. It

was in the packet. Yep. Awesome. Thank you. All right, guys. Appreciate the time. Thank you. Thanks for due diligence here. We appreciate that. All righty. Um uh we're going to move into new business here. We need a motion to move into the board of assessors.

assessors. Do we have a second? Second, Rebecca. Any questions? All right. All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, that's unanimous. Um, we have an abatement for property to uh for two homestead exemptions that were upon error. We've attached necessary paperwork here for our signature. Um, you know, map 8 lot 16 for abatement of $444.94

as well. Uh, any questions about this abatement? approve the homestead exemption abatement as presented? A motion. Do I have a second? A second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none. All right. Do I uh we have moved the uh GA maximums to a uh to later to we

tabled it to next meeting. But uh do I have a motion to exit the uh board of assessors? Dad, do I have a second? I'll second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none. All right, we're back into uh new business. All right, we have here our discussion on economic development. So, uh one of the topics we had was establishing an economic development committee. Mr. Barge, happy to have you here.

we'll say that we have George. There we go. That's tonight. So, um, as you can see here, we've, uh, got some information here from GP Cog, uh, to help guide this sort of downtown envisioning. Is can you kind of go over a little bit with us, you or Jerry? Well, you want to introduce.

Yeah. So, George and I have talked about this. So, as part of one of your goals for economic development, it's uh it's definitely a worthy goal, definitely worthy of talking about um we have or George has applied for two different grants, one for 75,000 and one for 20

through GPCOG. GPCOG is actually the one applying for the grants to look at this. and it's it's looking at um alternative energy and agriculture and how we might be able to mix the two. Um if we get those two grants um the we wouldn't need the

proposal because it would be embedded in with the GPO staff. Okay. So, if we don't get those grants, which we don't know yet, to help move the economic development process along, because it's it's a it's important, you we're going to need some professional staff to help us um and be and kind of and run that committee. Um, it's just George doesn't have the time to to to run economic development committee and you really need to get somebody that knows Dur because it's it's it's complicated here like it like other towns where they have water and sewer. It's it's a little bit more viable. But we're here

it we just need some help. um and how we formed that committee, you know, would really need to get some, you know, some folks on that committee that maybe are chairs of other committees like the planning board chair and the conservation division chair and George and I could maybe sit on that committee as well because it is important.

I think you bring up a good point when we talk about economic development because like you were saying, we don't have town sewer, we don't have town water. So, when you start dealing with commercial or light commercial, that's a challenge. And I think you brought that up a couple times before, George. Um, you know, not only considering our proximity to the highway and, you know, trucks and stuff like that, like that's just it's a this requires some expertise.

Yes. And the timing of it is pretty good, too, because we're going to be facing uh having to redo our comp plan. So, the work that we do out in front of that, like this work right here, will help feed that that comp plan as well. So, um I don't know if George has a lot

more. Yeah, I would just go back to this framework that I presented to you back in July that kind of shows how all of these major initiatives that are going right now, the open space plan, the agriculture committees up and running and trying to do some stuff. We got the housing the latest housing mandate mandate that's coming in. We do have these uh grant opportunities that GP COG brought to our attention. Uh one through the state and one through the federal and the first grant is the that we applied for was the uh energy one alternative energy which we kind of look at the framework. We've had this battery energy storage proposal major facility. We've uh we've looked at the uh optimum locations for solar farms. We've adopted regulations for both of those things. So we're pretty well poised and through that whole process we kind of looked at that whole area down where that storage system was proposed on the power line.

That whole area has a lot of economic development going on right now. Gravel pits. There's some wood processing companies down there already. We got the the KOA campground. And the other uh good thing about it is there's relatively limited residential development because when you start looking at economic development, that's always a concern that people who live in the area are going to be concerned that it's going to alter their way of life. And obviously you need to balance out those issues and be sensitive to that. But uh the other thing that this area in addition to the power line, the existing economic development uses, it also has a salmon uh gravel acquer. We don't know the potential of that, but I know the one in Lisbon, they've got one there that does their whole downtown plus some commercial development over there as well. And you need public ideally to do robust economic development programs.

you need water and sewer uh to do the type of development density and the special industrial processes. You don't have any of that. And but what you do have is you have power lines, two major corridors, and you've got an acryer that you could generate a semi-public water supply to meet the needs of whether it's agriculture where they were great irrigation. Obviously that was the issue this summer

uh even for the existing ones or something more like along the um springworks lettuce that type which would generate more tax revenues than just uh field agriculture. So, those are all things that will be looked at. Uh, and try and what's I think hopefully going to help the town score well on the grant application is trying to integrate the natural resourcebased industry uh potential with the energy which you know that pushes a lot of buttons at Augusta in terms of funding. So, that the first grant would be to look at the specifically the energy aspects and then the second part would be to look at the more comprehensive economic development district. So I have done economic development in other communities uh fairly big projects in several in Falmouth I can explain to you nothing of that scale would be doable here with the limitations but at the same time we've discovered over the last few years uh

with all these initiatives we we've been working on there are some real opportunities here uh if you tap into what what is workable and unfortunately many communities try to go for something that just isn't realistic. You know, wouldn't it be great if we could do a shopping here in town? Wouldn't it be great if we had coffee shops? All of these things that you have in more traditional downtowns. It's very hard to do from many different aspects, including marketing uh to get capital investment for those types of developments. But here, you have these opportunities already uh in the works and a lot of background work that's already been done to set the stage for pursuing it fairly uh quickly. And I guess that's another issue. Many communities want to, you know, do townwide analysis and then we begin to, you know, have lots of public participation. Um, you know, town can do that, but recognize that before anything

starts generating tax revenues, you've got to go through the planning process and then the review process, uh, planning board reviews. So before something actually gets built, it could be a year or two out in the future. the longer you take to to get that ball rolling, the the slower it's going to be to have those tax returns coming in.

I mean, what I like about what you're saying here is that one thing we're hearing all the time from residents is we need more economic development to to help address tax burden, but at the same time, we want to stay keep a rural community and we don't want to make ourselves I mean, no, not disparaging any local communities, but I hear people say we don't want to be like Freeport, we don't want to be like Brunswick. And I think what you're bringing up is that a lot of the economic development is kind of like saying, "Hey, here's your neighboring downtown. Copy paste over here. Let's make it work." You know, and I don't think that that's what the community is asking from us. And so what I what you've described to me seems like a really novel approach that is saying what resources does Durham have? What does Durham want? We have the gravel pits, which is, you know, aid land that can be used for other things. We have uh

the access to the grid very quickly. we have a potential semi public water supply. I think it's really great to start pursuing stuff like this. And to me, this is all like cookie cutter things too in the sense that the deliverable from this can be copy and pasted as a section of a future comprehensive plan which is 2028 timeline for us. Um I like it. Um, I think it's important for us to get professional assistance on this just because you need to have a staff person really carrying this committee from from step to step in my mind and we just don't have that capacity right now. So I think pursuing grant opportunities to do that um would be really important and I think really kind of critical and necessary for us to develop an economic development committee is to have some of that professional support. What other folks think

through a grant I hope. Yeah. Is that a federal grant? One is federal uh that's the energy one. The other one's state through the same funding program that's doing the open space plan. I think we're hitting the correct buzzwords on this application for for that state funding, you know, um especially when it's looking at, you know, gravel extraction is kind of the final some people call it the final harvest from your uh from your landscape because you're there's not you're limited after. So that'd be interesting. Um,

well, we saw the value of having an expert facilitator when we were dealing with this piece over here. Not only getting this residents involved, but the presentation of the results and really driving home. I mean, yeah, let's face it, we're not home experts in every area. This is an area that if you're serious about it, it pays to have a consultant come in and

Yeah. lead this charge. I could see you co-lead the charge. Yeah, I I could see if we didn't have someone and we just propped up an economic development committee without professional support. I see that committee spinning wheels for for for years.

Um we and what I like too with and I'm a little partial of GP COG right now is that they've now done a lot of stuff in the town and I think that their staff that they assign here really have a good understanding of the culture of our town, the goals and desires of our town. um you know and so I think that that gives us an opportunity to just keep building upon those successes and build upon that trust that the community started to develop with with that vendor. So I'm I'm really interested in in this. Um what do you need from us today?

We just wanted to give you an update and and understand the two grants come come to fruition then the the consultant is kind of embedded in that. Mhm. If not, then we're going to have to go this route and we'll have to fund it in the next budget. So, just

what is the timing for the grant? Like when do they expect? You didn't really tell us. So, I'm not exactly sure. You've already GP cog is the applicant. Oh, I see. And we are partnering with them. So, that kind of puts the onus on them too. And they're very good. This is what they do.

So, that that's beneficial. Fingers crossed because I really like I think this could be a really like novel approach to economic development for a rural community could be really impactful and very unique and if we do anything in Durham we like to reinvent the wheel and build our own wheel and I think that this would be our chance to do that you know um so this is exciting to me

but it's all about raising the tax base to minimize the burden off the residents. We have to do something. Yeah. But we also have to make sure people know that that's why we're doing it. So if we if we don't get the funding, we need to be very upfront in

saying with this money that's being put towards it, it's because we are less at the long like the long picture, big picture, we will be lessening the tax burden. Yeah. Because I I'm I'm seeing the money. So if we don't get good grants, that's going to cause a problem. Well, that would be voted on.

Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. We'd have to budget. And we realize that just a one-year contract or whatever with this 20 grand fee or 25,000 grand fee. Um it doesn't nec the outcome is not, you know, four businesses sign the line and we're up and running. It's really just preparing the the town to be

able to accept new businesses quickly and get things off the run of, you know, the goal line to supporting the new businesses coming in and getting that revenue in here moving, right? Yeah. And I think what what like right now every business anybody who wants to come develop a business in town, it's kind of a you know, tell us what you think and let's figure out how it would work. Whereas economic development like what you're talking about could be like we've created an opportunity to do X Y and Z A B and Z

and a streamlined process in this area but it could also be an out I mean couldn't the some of the activity under this be an outreach to a certain type of business and then say hey we're that's a big part of it because you have to recognize economic development is a very competitive thing

and you get communities ities obviously like Freeport Scarboro they're going for industry and they're very competitive but even within the agricultural uh industrial process they're you know you're going to have to be competitive to get those and that's why putting together this plan is going to put you in a position to compete with other communities that may be offering tax incentives

to businesses to get them to build I mean perfect example is we know that there are other communities around us who were approached by battery energy storage and have moved along much faster than anything. We we've kind of just been waiting. Other communities are are moving forward on that because they had a system in place to allow certain options better, you know, and so if in this market if people are saying, well, I can go here and get a benefit or I can go here and get nothing. the benefit is the tipping point there, you know, especially when we're looking at where we physically are in terms of access to other things and our amenities. So, I think you're right. This could be a how does Durham invite business? How does Dur invite the type of business that Durham is interested in? you know, working with those wherever this development area is. Working with land owners to say we're not trying to put a an economic develop

like open for business sign on your property and have someone come in and try to bully you around. Like you're in this area. How how are how are you feeling about these sorts of developments? Is this something that you can help engage with? So, I think there's just a lot of things we don't know how to do and this is a good way to address it. George, are you finding or I don't know if you know the answer to this with GP COG with solar

companies or energy looking to expand with the current situation in government with funding running out and tariffs. Are things slowing down? Are we kind of Well, according to uh Julia Klinger is on planning group and she actually works in the solar industry. what she said was that uh obviously the prior uh federal administration was putting in a lot of money into alternative energy and the current administration is kind of moving in away from that. However, um they're just part of the fund pole funding cycle. The company that we were working with that was interested uh for the battery energy storage system is uh is an international energy company with windmills or windmill C. So, uh, there's a whole global energy industry and

capital investment system that has that has made the federal funding part of there. So, what she explained was that what's happening is they're not abandoning the projects. They're just having to re because all the financing is based on those types of, you know, mixes and now they're just having to reformulate it. So, it's delaying it. Um the other thing to recognize is the current state administration is is really really aggressively pursuing alternative energy. So the grants that one of the the biggest grant we're going for is through one of those programs for alternative energy. So currently the situation in in Maine is very deposited for this. Of course that could change in the future as well. And I do think that this gives us that unique opportunity to say, well, we can't necessarily control what sort of incentives are at the tiers of government above us, but we can say here's some opportunities here in town.

And like my understanding would follow the energy industry, too, is there's certain projects that are marginal without support from certain programs. There's certain projects that are they're perfect and they're not going to need those support. And that's where those energy companies are kind of saying, "All right, where where does it go here?" Where I look at a town like Durm is a lot of times with energy infrastructure, the transmission line from the the generation to the distribution is an expense. And we have two transmission corridors going through town that can be easily plugged right in. So that's that in itself kind of turns on a green light. We have a lot of phase three power in town. That in itself turns on a green light. Um, you know, those are the sorts of things that I think we can adjust here. Yeah,

I get that. I'm just I'm curious. I was just curious what in terms of are we Yeah. So, thank you. Um Well, this looks really good. I'm excited to hear back on the uh the uh the grant status because that's I think that's I don't really think we can do economic development without a professional service. So I think in terms of how we move forward on this goal right now it's wait to hear on this grant if we don't get it come up with a plan to pursue funding for a professionally facilitated service. Um what are your thoughts? Can I just also explain that? So really the opportunities immediately in terms of the the funding re getting the resources plugged into the economic development program is the first is these grants which if you get that you're off and running and you need to form an economic development committee to be kind for conduct of those studies.

Uh but if if the funding for those grants or one more is not coming through then you have that alternative backup of putting something into the next budget. But in the interim, you will recall that uh Christina Egan mentioned that they are getting some economic development funding and I think she mentioned that it would be 10,000 available. So in the interim we can still get the ball out the program

like build the committee and at least get people connected and we can we can begin to some of the agricultural committee members have connections up in Augusta in the department of agriculture and economic development. We can we could still begin to do some stuff fee while we're waiting to see if these uh if these grants come through.

You mean by because we have this $10,000 that may be indicated in an email to Jerry before you apply for these grants which would basically pay staff time one staff they would provide a staff person. Oh, they would provide a staff person.

So they're getting a grant to produce some economic because that's where I was going to go. I mean, we if we have economic development as a goal, which we do, like we can't just wait until we get the development plan up and running through the grants or get a vote for this this expenditure here. We need to decide what is it that we want to get done, you know, with what we have right now and get moving.

Yeah. And I've kind of put together a plan and presented it to you. So, we're just going to keep moving that forward and keeping you in the loop of what we're doing and then uh you know, make sure you're in sync with where we're heading. If if you want us to shift direction, we're certainly always willing to do that.

Well, should we put the reach out to create a committee? I think it's premature at this point. No, I was thinking the same thing like do we start now? But like then I thought about it a little bit more today as I was coming over. All right. I feel like we want to like for some the the level the volunteer we could get. Yeah. If we form it now, there's not, you know, you're losing that momentum if we're still waiting a little bit.

What it what it's going to do is without some outside consultants or other assistance. It'll peel me away from other stuff and it may be less effective in every round. That's part of the problem. We haven't figured out how to uh duplicate George yet. So is this something though that you and Jerry should be putting together sort of uh this is what the the committee should look like this is final that sort of thing so that when it's time we can just jump right in would you be on that

well um seeing that you don't need anything else from us I think this is a fantastic update I'm really excited to um see how this moves forward and keeping our fingers crossed for those grants because uh I think it would a game changer for our community for sure.

Any other questions for George? I would just say George, your attention to detail on all this stuff and you know your report was very detailed too this time around as always. Just want to say we appreciate that. Yes, our first certain are subject matter.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All righty. Uh, our next our next item here is u going paperless. So, Jerry, uh, you know, one thing Jerry and I had kind of discussed just in past was, uh, we get a lot of stuff printed out to us. We have all of our previous agendas and things like that. And we have our new system here. Like, I have it open on my phone right now. I have the agenda. I have links for all of the documents we need. and have we have reliable internet

and I wanted to have a discussion here um just about how we feel about moving to try to be more of a paperless board um through the issuance of uh board member electronic devices probably like a tablet or something like that so we can just get that and work off of that with our agendas with our budgeting work all that sort of stuff um looking at a lot of other municipalities issued devices are not uncommon. Um there's also the ability to then uh have us be more working on an issue device for all town business. So in the event of a FOA uh request, everything is right there on an issue device. Um and then upon completion of someone's term, the device could be issued back to the municipality. So it's not issued to that person, but issued to that role. And so I just wanted to have that discussion here. I kind of mentioned it to Jerry. Jerry, did you have anything pulled up?

No, we did some some uh Deon did a quick um research and we could probably get you something uh like an Apple tablet. Um five of them for all five of you. and place the charger which is in a which is in a box where they all get down and

you'd be under 2500 bucks total. Yeah. 2500 for five. Yeah. Apple. Yeah. Interesting. Would that would all of the um like the uh Microsoft Yep. be separate or included? Well, I didn't ask them that. Yeah, that's the only thing when you say Apple, it makes me wonder about the Microsoft suite of

Yeah, I asked them the same thing. So, it's not a problem. But I mean that Okay, I mean, isn't it as simple as we all have the data on our phones through the notes that we get through the email? I mean is another option to just have someone here that has a laptop and we're projecting too and we're have our phone and we're looking at things on the overhead.

Yeah. I mean I think that's an option but like when we're sitting here going through some like something in the packet right now it's printed off. we might all be reading at a different pace or at a different look, different spot. And my thought would be to just, you know, remove the amount of printing that we're doing now and just have those issued devices. So when we sit down, we just pull out our device, we have what we need there. And then we're doing more work on those issued devices and reducing the amount of paper that we're printing off. And then especially if Jerry has to make adjustments um to information and he's linking it in the agenda, we just have it right there because I think we keep every now and then get to a whole like, oh, this wasn't printed off. Could we get that printed off next time? Or, oh, I don't have this. I need to pull out my computer, pull out a personal device.

And my only concern with that is any sort of um damage done and the insurance that would have to be paid towards it. And what ramifications we pay for page printing, right? Is that what we said before? Right. We we Well, we pay for the

the copier the copier, but we don't pay the right? So, yeah, we're just paying staff time and paper. Yeah. In paper. And we're we're printing these off and then we're just recycling them after we get done. That's really what it amounts to.

So, is it more economical or environmentally friendly to have paper and printing or tablets? Right. That's what you said. Yeah. Yeah. The reason I brought the idea up is that um it's just kind of a standard practice. We're seeing more and more municipalities, more and more organizations move towards issued devices and then they can just use those for all the business needs, all of the the work needs and then it removes the the need to print. So, um and my thought process was just to get a rough idea of the estimated cost and then we had that discussion like is it is it worth $2,500 five devices uh no longer needed to do the printing that we're doing. Um, I'm I'm I'm obviously in favor of it, but wanted to know what other people's thoughts were.

I mean, saving 50 plus dollars an hour for someone standing there twice a month to print stuff. Um, yeah, but it's more than that. I mean, that's part I get it. But my point is that that alone is what, 24? So, you're talking

Uh, I can't even do the math in my head, but you're talking over $1,000 just in time. If you're at $50 an hour for everybody printing twice a month, that's over $1,000. So, in two years, you pay off the tablets. That doesn't include the ink, the toner, the paper,

right? Uh, and you pay for the recycling. Um, I mean, I I hate us all sitting in front of a tablet and looking at that and not looking at people and um I hate it at work. I like having the paper in front of me, but from a financial standpoint, it just makes a lot of sense because I think within a couple of year, two, three years, you're start saving money on the long run. I think you bring up a good point just about staff time too because not only is there that dollar expense, there's the opportunity cost of, you know, if this reduces, you know, staff member time by a couple hours to prep for this meeting, that's just something that buys someone some time to do something a little bit more top of license, something more important. And one thing we've talked a lot about here is trying to and Jerry has done an amazing job is finding efficiencies in that office, finding ways to do things with less money, finding ways to do

things um in a faster time frame. This just seems like a natural progression to me if it just saves time. Cuz I mean when I look at what we have right here besides the stuff we have to sign, everything you have here is already linked within the agenda. So when you're done making that, you're ready for the meeting. There's no, "Hey, Jessica, can you go print this off?" Oh, shoot. This printed the wrong side. Go print it again. I just think that even from the lack of paper, just the time component is a huge savings there. I mean, how much time do you think it takes you to prep for one of these meetings for us just in the printing side of things? Um,

not to put you on the spot. Yeah, probably 25 to 30 minutes to final size the meeting. And if like you said like something gets shuffled in like tonight I I was afraid something got shuffled into the baseball so I went through each packet and made sure there was all the right pages and

Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention like we're thinking like you know going into budget season like I think we do a lot of spreadsheet printing you just reference that. Yeah. Another perk too is it'll be tied to your emails. So emails that get sent to you, docs that get sent to you, things you'll be able to look them right up. So So if I send you

the latest budget or I send you something and I like I didn't bring that to you back, you can just look it right up and boom, there it is. Yeah. And I know we can do that right now on our personal phones, but for me, and I agree with you, Josh, when people are sitting there on devices, it's like like while I was talking to the baseball committee, I was pulling up something on my device that was relating to them. that feels more like, oh, I'm distracted. Whereas, if it's like it's a tablet in front of us and I'm talking to him and we're looking at this thing, that feels a little bit more interpersonal to me. So, um, just my thoughts on it. Is he intended for us to take them home? Leave them here.

Leave them leave them in here. And it's pretty cool. There's this box where you put them in kind of like the microphone. Yeah. And it actually charges them. Yeah. Then you pull them out like school. Yeah. Yeah. It's going up the computer cart. Is is it he a a package buy that he

looked up? Like you you buy the whole package then? Well, you would buy each tablet on its own and buy the charging thing separate. and and then we'll just like we do right now. We'll set up for you. We'll bring them out. You come in, you just log in as you're you know, we'll set you up. You'll log right in and you'll be up and running. It's just an electronic notebook.

Right. Basically, exactly. Okay. wait? Where is the money going to come out out of this? Well, you got the we don't have it in the in the operating budget. Might be something that we have to fund in the next budget. Um would this be able to fall under telecommunication?

You don't have any. Oh, sorry. Um I got moved to the building. Yeah. So, um process here was if we think it's a good idea, if you could take a look at to see if there's anyone in the existing budget we could fit it. If not, something to budget for for a future meeting.

Right. I I would probably look more towards the end of the year to see what we had and then at that point we just find out the next budget. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I like the idea. Sounds like we're going to the next level. Yeah, I know. Well, I think that's indicative of Jerry's time on the board is just elevating our our our Jerry's time in his role is elevating us as board members uh year after year. We'll have our our uh Wi-Fi enabled glasses at some point and we'll just be able to run through it all right there, you know.

Cool. Um, Deb, I put this, you brought it up a couple times, uh, uh, the new business e, you had mentioned a couple meetings ago talking about a name tag for the lightboard. Yes. Um, and so I wanted to put that on for discussion here. I was thinking about what you were saying about, you know, there's plenty of times I go to something and not identify as a select board member. And when you after you brought that up, I thought about I've been to a bunch of this GP cog stuff and there's a lot of other people who are representing their town that have some some of them even have like a polo shirt and it says like town unit or in their name or something like that. Um but I wanted to know did you want to talk a little bit about your because you had mentioned the name tag during your last board.

I actually just a full of one that I have from the American Museum. It's very simple. Mhm. In fact, we could probably make them ourselves. I don't know. But um just a magnetized. But it's not just about the name tag. It's

getting a way to identify ourselves. And then maybe I know I need to do it. Just be more visible to community events. We had a couple this weekend that I couldn't make either or either of them. And it would be nice to be able to go and say, "Hey, remember member?" Yeah.

So, I did I don't know if you had a chance to take a look or Yeah, we've got a couple of different kits that we can get so we could reproduce them. So, we were just buying like, you know, buy five and then, you know, next year buy two more. So, or we could just um we could print your name and then slide it in. There's a metal option and there's like a plastic option. So, yeah. Avery, the company.

Yeah. So, you have the Durham emblem or something your title. So, we're on a path to get an airport for relatively reasonable prices, I'm sure. Definitely cheap. Yeah, I think it's a great idea and I just figured we should acknowledge it here and so if it's something we're going to ask the Jerry to do and through through the staff that we kind of have that officially come from us. Does everyone else like the idea there to presume the name tags?

I'll go along with it. All right. Well, that works for me. If that works for you, hey, we can give you a name tag. You don't have to wear it if you don't want to. That's exactly what would my mind. All right. Um, I'm not saying wear it every day, but you happen to go to open house at the fire station.

Perfect. All righty. Next up for business, um, discussion regarding cash in lie of health insurance. So, uh, we talked about, uh, identified this in our, um, employee handbook. We were talking a little bit about. Jerry, do you have anything to add about this?

No, you all got that spreadsheet that Yeah. decision that you folks need to Yeah, I want to open the um I got to pull up the spreadsheet here, but I want to open that up to it be nice to have a tablet to do this, but I want to open that up to discussion to members of the board to see where where you all sit on that. Um let me find the email. Sorry.

on 8:25. Yeah, it was. was it? 825. It was with the green wage study. Okay. Yeah. about here is right now when we uh have a employee when we This is not big enough for me to see very well. Right. Right now when somebody has a job here, we budget for a fully encumbered uh staff person. So that includes a uh budgeting for the expenditure associated with a full family insurance, excuse me,

a full family insurance plan. And there in some communities, in some businesses, if you choose to not take the full insurance, you just take the single single insurance or sorry, you take no insurance at all. um they give you a proportion of the budgeted um insurance

amount as in cash in lie of that benefit to say hey you know if Deb takes a full if Deb's a fully incumbent employee with full family insurance she in theory is getting more of a benefit than Joe who might be doing the same exact job and not taking insurance because I'm not getting that added benefit of the insurance because I may not need it and so different communities have handled a little bit differently um and made a recommendation of a percentage of the uh single insurance amount. So, if

it's $1,200 to do uh to pro $1,200 out of pocket for the town for the single insurance, they may say you get all of that in lie of of benefit, you get a partial amount of that in lie of benefit. And so, where we're at is we just need to make a recommendation because we talked about this in the in the employee handbook that was drafted. Um, do you recall what the HR consultant's recommendation was?

50%. 50% of the single insured um, rate. And do you recall what that number was for single insured? Yeah, it's more like right up there around 17 I think. So total 1,700. for the single insure. Yeah. And what is our current

half of that? Yeah. What's our current current? 1,200. 1,200. So, right now we're at 1,200. 650 or 7. Yes. 6. Wow, I'm having a brain fart. 8,500 would be 50% of that. Um so that's a big difference between what we have right now and that this would have a budget implication

for us or a very major one. Um so I I think that we need to have a discussion here around where we think that would be because that recommendation of the 50% is very would be very high and so we would have to change our budget next year to accommodate that and I don't think we could we couldn't absorb that right now if we made that change. Oh, no. No. The budget, anything that really impacts the budget won't go into effect until the next budget.

So, can I Yeah, absolutely. I guess what I would recommend is is that we take a look at this in like a workshop type thing and and go over different scenarios so you know that impact. Well, and that's what I was hoping to tonight is that we could come up with some questions that we need answered so we can dive in this a little bit more. And so what I would like to see is what um the fiscal impact would be if we switched over to um you know 50% 40% 30%

20% 10% of that um you know that's what that's what I would like to see because I do think that we um are start thinking about like we have open we have vacancies in public works we start thinking about how to become more competitive we start thinking about employee retention you know, when we budget for a position, if it comes in and the person doesn't need that family insurance, we save a lot of money there, but they they may be looking at a position at another municipality where they're offering them 30% of the of that uh insurance cost. So, those are the pieces of information that I would like to get for a further uh workshop. Does anyone else have any other pieces of information they would like to get? I think we already have this um data sheet that shows what other uh states other municipalities are doing which I think you know we know from our MMA guidance that it's always good to at

least consider uh surrounding municipalities when you're trying to develop a policy like this. We have a recommendation from the um HR consultant. Do we want at a workshop to have her in the meeting so we can discuss this more so with her or do you think that this is something we should just make a decision on and then and then propose uh and put forward to the the handbook?

I don't know if we need her. Okay. I don't know if we do or not. I just want to check propose. I'd also like to see like past trends like let's say if we had been doing this for the last four years how many employees would have been taking advantage of it and if

we did gave them 50% of the rate like what what type of impact is it fiscally because what we're trying to do I think here is come up with strategies that keep retention if we can help with retention and maybe make more like decision when

people are deciding whether to work in Durham or work elsewhere. This could be a a factor in that decision to slide them towards working here in in Durham because but I don't know if how big of an impact is it two people is it seven people is it half the staff because there's a lot of companies that don't do this.

Yeah. If your husband and wife work at the same company, one gets insurance, the other doesn't. Nobody's handed this guy over here, you know, three whatever $6,000 a year because, you know, Yeah. But in on the public sector, for example, if two people both work for the state of Maine.

And that's what I'm saying. There's like all these different and I'm not saying that as a criticism. I'm saying there's all these different iterations. And I think what we're just saying right now is we hired this HR consultant, we're making some changes. How do we think about this holistically? So I think your trend question is important. The other thing too is it's you know I saw Jess put up four hands people who don't don't currently take the insurance. The other question is you make a change in a policy like this does that make people reconsider their when it comes time for annual enrollment to reconsider their their choices to say hey if we are now at 50%. the economics work out now that it is better for me to hop on my spouse's insurance um or because I can now do the math and it works out more. So, we can't necessarily just say, "Oh, this would only be an impact on four employees." It could end up at

thatending it could end up people being saying, "Oh, you know, my spouse's insurance has changed and stuff like that." So, I think it would be important for us, Jerry, to look at the expensive every employee was taking when we look at this. So when you come to us for this workshop, what I would like to have is that 50 30 50 40 30 201 10% and numbers

on what it would have for a budget impact if all sudden everyone changed. Um um and so we can kind of start running some numbers to see what what that looked like because I think you do have to think about that which could be a benefit. could be a benefit because if if your employer came forward right now and said, "Hey,

you know, if you got rid of your insurance, we're going to give you an extra $8,000." It might be like, "Well, it's only 2,000 more to hop on my spouses. That's more money in my pocket." You know, um, and I think that those are serious things to consider because we want to offer good benefits, but at the same time, we still have a fiscal responsibility.

Um, and maybe that 1,200 is just bumped up to a set figure of 2,000. I don't know, you know, but I think that these are the pieces of information that I need to have this discussion a little bit more. Seems like a lot of work for an issue that I don't think really impacts employee retention. I think time is better spent with the wage table when I mean what

I've seen is I used to give here's what we pay each month for me to be added to my wife's insurance and I got reimbured for that. Um to to me there are better ways to address the issue of employee hiring and retention that are going to be more attractive to people because um my guess is for the most part the insurance for the town is going to be better than most private employee employers. Um, and so I think we need to get to the root of the issue and then figure out where to put the money if that's what

I think this is a retention thing. I think it's an and not a not an or situation because we have this employee handbook. There is a recommendation. So we need to come up with some sort of approval or say remove that remove that all together. Um, we do have vacancies. We do struggle to fill vacancies. Um we do have turnover. We do have people you know who are feeling external pressures at other competing municipalities. Like I think we need to think have all options on the table. I do think it's a valuable expenditure of our of our time and resources to to go through this personally. Um and so I would like to still keep it on as a future uh workshop with with additional information.

Do you agree? Yeah. I just I think every little bit helps. So, um I I don't think it's the end all be all of what we'll pertain, but I do think that it's icing on the cake that helps. I mean, I think I think it's a big I think that if a policy were to come out and say 50%, which is what is being considered now, and all of a sudden your compensation goes up $8,000 when you start look and I'm not saying vote on that. I think that has a major impact on people's interest in in a position. you know, when we look at what our current wage tables are at, that's, you know, in many cases more than a 10% increase right there. Um,

and so I think it's uh it's an important consideration. Uh, so Jerry, do you think you can all that? Do you have Yeah, I'll clearly understand what we're asking for. Yeah, I'll get you to date and we'll I'll talk with you. We can put it on agenda sometime, you know,

and this Yeah, go ahead. And just We'll work it also be prepared to to all have it. If we're going to spend time on this though, can we talk about more than just the one issue that and talk about the root of the issue and how how to address it?

Sure. That's the issue. Well, I don't know. That's the question is we're talking about one issue and I'm willing to bet the people who are leaving are not leaving over $8,000. Yeah, I would disagree with that. Okay. Yeah,

we could discuss it. I think it's important. I'm just I'm making a request and we don't have to do what I've asked. I think the root of the issue is just making getting more money to pay everybody and I think we need to address how to how to address it and one issue to in my opinion is not enough. There are other ways to do it and we should look at what the best way to do that is and that's the point I'm trying to make. So, but because this is in the employee handbook

in the draft employee handbook, it's not our employee handbook at this point. We do need to approve an employee handbook. together and I want to make sure we're putting in there everything that we need to do for our employees. And just because this is in the draft given to us doesn't mean that's what we have to do.

And so, there are other ways to do it. And what I'm asking is if we can if we're going to have the substantive conversation, if we can include everything and not just one issue, what I don't think we're saying we can't everything or more things associated to employee retention and hiring broad. It's it's we're talking about one way, one issue and one possible solution, but there have to be others and I would like to discuss all of them and get figure out what those are and which one is best for us.

Yeah, I know. Is it is it just saying, hey, instead of doing this, we're going to give everybody a a dollar or two more an hour. What is it? We don't know. So, that is what I would like to explore. Josh, we we have been doing this. I mean, we talked about the personal schedule. We talked about the holiday schedule. So, we're going through, we hired the consultant to make recommendations and now we're going through their recommendations and saying, "How does this fit through the town of Derm." So, we are taking

Don't look into it. It was my request. Don't do it. I don't at this point if it's if it's that big of a deal. Well, I'm saying if there's additional things she wants to look into, we can just figure out what they are. And that's what I'm asking to do. figure we we have a human we have a human resource person

and I'm asking her if if this is one issue that she's raised what are the other ones they're in the employee handbook and that's what we're trying to work through okay then if there's other issues she's raised in there that you want us to work through just we can highlight those I just picked this one

and all the issues she's identified are in the employee handbook there are no other ones that we could address we can ask her we can ask her certainly but we have the reason I put this on the agenda is because we We had a discussion about this a couple meetings ago when we sat down with her. These are issues that everyone on the board raised as something they wanted to address and so I'm putting it on the agenda so we can address them as they come up and so I don't feel the abil feel that it's my role to skip over your doll's recommendations for these considerations. So this is one thing that we noted as an important discussion point and so I'm just saying let's continue down that path. If there's other things that are important, um, I think that would be great. And if we want to send her another email and just ask her, is there anything else she thinks should be addressed for retention that's not included in the employee

handbook, that's fine, too. Yeah, absolutely. See what else comes to the table. But in the interim, I do still want to get that information for proceeding with um a discussion which is not a we're not setting a policy. We're just discussing the cash and loan policy insurance.

So, do you understand exactly what we're looking for, Jerry? It'll be a work in progress. I'll put something together. I'll show you. You want tweaks to it, then we'll tweak it. Yeah, as long as we as long as we talk about this

um prior to really getting into the budget season and that's part of the reason why I want us to so we got some time but we want to put it on you know we want to have this so resolved by December. Oh yeah I was thinking that this would be something we put on to workshop in November and maybe whatever we hear back from the HR consultant on um topics between now and then we could pursue more. So

yeah, because again these were the things we peeled out that are recommendations in the current employee handbook that had a fiscal note whereas things like the personal days didn't have a fiscal note. So all right um anything else on that topic that folks have questions about?

All right, manager report Jerry. Oh, it's me. I'm All right. Well, thank you. So, we're still down to public works despite raising the uh truck driver snowplow labor to 24 an hour without getting any hits. When was that raised?

Uh 3 weeks ago. What What was the raise amount? What was it? How much an hour? Well, it was it was different because the two that left had two different rates. So they they the the the vacant ones, the vacant positions went from like 2173 to 24, which meant the two people that were there that were making the 2173 had to be bumped up to like 26 because they've got six and nine years of service in. So, but we have it in the budget because we haven't we're down we've been down two people for most of the summer, but we're still not getting really any anybody applying. And it's not just Durham. So, I don't think it's some a Durham problem. This is a problem across a lot of different public works. It's just when you're when you're a midsize town with a small town staff and you're down two, that's a lot. like you know Lisbon's down to you know they've got enough employees to make it up a startup

a bigger concern but CDL particularly adds an additional challenge because you're competing against the private enterprise that has a lot more uh capital behind uh supporting positions that require a CDL and then due to state law versus federal law regarding things like cannabis and stuff like that that has another impact on the pool of applicants for jobs that require CDLs. So,

so the the $24 is right in line with starting pay for municipalities in the city. Even even less than 3 all of starting all their CDLs, if they're just new, that's right around where it is. So, we're not now we're not too low

and we're not way above. And so, we're right where we need to be. It's just there's just not a lot of CDL drivers out there and people getting their CDL. The good news is is Calvin went to a meeting or conference or something and they're now starting to make trucks, plow trucks where you don't need a CDL.

So in in the future, you know, that that'll be good. But right now we're a lot of towns are struggling. So it's it's not just so we're doing the best we can. So how about Sorry. Go ahead. Is there an option to um have the wreck be part-time hours? Right now it's a 40hour week wreck, right?

But maybe there we could draw in people if it was maybe part time. Maybe some retirees. We do have some part times and we've got some on calls. Okay. Even on these two wrecks. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. they come in because if it's a long duration storm, you got to call somebody in,

right, to kind of switch. So, we have that. But, uh, yeah, it's it's an issue across the the city. Um, so we're we're paving a panel road right now. So, that's that's happening. Got rained out a little bit today. Going to be a two-day project, but it might stretch in three because of the weather. Um, so tomorrow in this room right here from 11 to 2, we're having training. So we're going to just close for 2 hours and uh we're going to have lunch for the employees and the fire chief is going to do fire extinguisher training and that a tree training for us. So um you're more than welcome to stop by if you're in the area. We're going to have some sandwiches and um

What kind of sandwiches? They're just cold cuts. They're just cold cut sandwiches. I need to know the lunch before I decide to commit. But the train is it the lunch first and then the training or like if we come we might be

No. Yeah. I mean the fire extinguisher training will be outside anyway. So it's just to kind of we call it employee recognition although we don't really have any pins or anything. We probably should start to do that because we've got some 5 10 year.

Yeah. We need to stop, but I haven't got it into the budget. So, but we should maybe I'll do it this time. But we do that every year. We usually um we do it at public works and cook out some dogs for a little special, but they didn't want to they wanted to switch it up this year, so we just

do like call the cut sandwiches chips. Wait, when was that at? Uh from 11 to 1. Okay. And if if it's here, people can go see the the UTV, which was the fire department. Um, chief says it's very fast. So, but the main municipal association conference this year is on October 8th, and I'd like to send the staff. They didn't go last year. Um,

the whole staff. Yeah, all three of them. Um, so we'll have to close the office that day. It's on a Wednesday so they can go to that. Where is it at? It's in Bangor. I'll drive them up. Was that was that was in Augusta? Did

you Augusta a couple years ago and I remember you all went to it that day. But this is a good opportunity for them to meet colleagues of their same job. They go and there is training in those too. They can go to sessions during the conference. And even the booths, I know, for example, a lot of clerks will go up to the IFNW booth and ask about the Moses system or those sorts of changes and get answers about that sort of stuff. So,

that's all part of it. Retention too. Is that in the newsletter on Friday? Just aware, making people aware. I don't I think she just I think we just put it in the agenda for the first time. Okay. about the Okay. But it will be

Yeah, we can put it ahead of like I know, but that should that should be a warning. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, it'll be a text message, too. Danger will run. So, Northeast Wildlife Services will end up taking care of the remediation of the bats either next week or the week after. Um, we got some other quotes that were

were less, but the job was a lot less, too. They didn't want to do the thorough job that this person wanted to do. So, and then one was a lot more because they wanted to rip down the the labs and stuff like that. We didn't want to get to that either. So, we're pretty comfortable with that what they're going to do. All right, the last one. remember the um

IRS deal where they were gonna find us? Well, they got back in touch with me and so now they said that they want to find us I was on the phone from 10 minutes of 1 and they listening to music and they finally picked up at 10 4. Um, got a lady on the line and explained I said, "Look, you know, we're we're we're a town. I mean, these are tax dollars. I mean, we sent a nice little letter to explain the situation. We had max citizen down. Folks did the best they could. and they it didn't get done, but you now have them. Quick turn around. Now we have payroll services. And so then she says, "Oh, okay." She transferred me to another guy. Wasn't as pleasant. And I explained it to him. He says, "Oh, you need to fill out a 843 form."

843. So I filled out the 843, gave him the same package, just basically turned it around in the same day. Mhm. So, I'm hoping and and it's an abatement or refund of a penalty or addition to tax to reasonable cause. And I think there is a reasonable cause here. So, I'm fighting

and we'll see what becomes of this. So, that's the update that I can give you on that. Thank you. We appreciate we'll see on this journey. I'm hoping. can't promise anything, but we turned it right around in, like I said, in the same day.

Yeah. Um, so I'm sorry to report that, but um, it is what it is. So hopefully, let's keep our fingers crossed. Um, we didn't know about the 843 before, so now we do. And I think the IRS does like their forms, so maybe this will

maybe this will help. So, perfect. Um, that's all I got for you this week. All righty. Thanks, Sherry. Uh, board member reports. I don't have anything spectacular to add. Josh, do you have anything? Nope. consent agenda? So, move by Josh. I have a second.

I'll second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, upcoming meetings. Planning board is meeting October 1st, 2025. Ad committees meeting October 21st at the Rica Center at 7:00 p.m. Um, town office is going to be closed October 8th to allow TAP staff to attend the main municipal association's con convention for training. Town offices will be closed on Monday, October 13th for the holiday. The select board next select board meeting is going to be October 14th at fire station at 6:30 and the next select board meeting we're going to be discussing.

Um Jess, the solid waste committee meeting minutes have some notes about their next meeting should probably be in this list too. It's not the first Sunday in October, but it's the second and that's Columbus Day. So do you know if they're going to

I don't know the exact date that it's in the meeting and etc. I think are posted. Okay. I did I looked I did look at it tonight. Yeah, I did look at it tonight and I checked and the second Monday was the holiday. So, I didn't know if they were just not going to meet in October or if it's for November.

I'll check the minutes. Um, next meeting October 14th, we're going to be discussing the budget process. So, please come with any ideas on how we think we can uh better address that process. Um, it's crazy to think we're already thinking about budget again. On October 28th, the uh uh

conservation commission is going to provide us with an update on the open space plan. And then uh on October 28th, we're also going to have a discussion on communication policy and stuff like that. We're going to let Rebecca look at that discussion.

No, no, no, no. So, I'm going to be sending uh this document around that needs a lot of editing ahead of time and we can go from there. Awesome. So not to be discussed just to just for consideration. Yeah. Perfect. Same thing on that uh budget process. Again, um not having any discussions outside the meeting, but something to just think about. So if you have any questions between now and the 14th about how has this worked in the past or what does it look like, you can send those to myself or Jerry and we can just answer those simple questions, not opinion based questions, but if the question is how many members are on the committee, how many times do you meet? Those sorts of things we can answer. All right. Uh, do we have any need for an executive session?

Wait, it says Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, we do need to do an executive session pursuant to um 4056A personnel matter. Um, I don't think we will need long though. So, do I have a motion to move into executive session? A motion.

Deb, do I have a second? Second. Rebecca, all in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none. Okay, cool. Um, yeah, just we'll shoot you up. We'll just maintain the information, let you know.