TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ August 22, 2023

call this meeting to order the Durham select board uh I have a full Quorum tonight and liberty and justice for all this evening I don't have any amendments I just wanted to make one point that the people that are sitting on the back side of the table are very very difficult to hear so if everybody wanted to pull their microphones closer to them that might help right and then if maybe Jessica I know that last time Devin was texting you so please feel free to like wave at us if anybody's letting you know that they can't hear us yeah I'm accused of shopping paper too much okay thank you heather all right um anybody here for public commentary Puritan

my name is Alan Puritan I live on Day Road it's actually on your agenda tonight thought solves waste committee the potential of developing one one area that you may not be a bit uh aware of is with subdivisions and because not complaining about subdivisions I'm just thinking about

subdivisions is because I live right across the road from one there are nine houses in it and they're going to be three more houses in it and those nine houses bring all the trash down to the curb and I guess the question that I have is there any restriction from Casella going into subdivisions and picking it up curbside at each individual home it's not an issue right now and they have a complaint nobody but once this winter comes if those other three this is only one subdivision in town that we're talking about if you could look at boy Hill there are multiple houses going in up there once winter comes and plowing it could become a big issue as to getting access in and out of those subdivisions if you're going to have multiple containers there and I know that Casella granted it's a couple years down the road seller brought information to you people that they're going to be providing two 64 gallon

containers and I re-reviewed the meeting that they had with you and they stated that those have to be three feet apart it's because the arm is going to go around and grab it and tip it over and I totally understand where they're going uh not saying that we're going to continue to do business with Casella but that's where the industry is so again my concern is a restriction from the seller going down subdivisions

during the three minute but yes those are very good points that you made we do need to consider that as we're moving forward during the during the negotiations with whoever we we contract with moving forward but the other concern there though is not not and I know our contract is extended right now and what about this winter what is going to hit us before we know it and I'd rather see and I can I think guys have always been proactive versus reactive and that's why I wanted to bring it to your attention to hopefully be able to address it prior to it becoming a problem

and Heather Hutchison I live about a mile down Hallowell Road um I wrote some things down because I'm not so good off groups in town but today I'm just speaking as a community feel mainly from elected and appointed Town officials and not overwhelmingly from Durham residents and the opinion is that Durham's historic buildings and structures need to serve a purpose specifically a financial purpose in order to be cared for by the town as if these places are not worthy of town funds for preservation as historic landmarks to tell stories of our past community in town that somehow the long fascinating history of Durham's historic buildings isn't worth saving the lesson seems to be is if history serves as an indicator that if the town owns a building unless it serves an immediate need of the select board the building falls into disrepair the question begs what about the wants and of the residents that the select

board represents with regards to the Union Church itself it was inducted into the national register of historic places on August 2nd 2001. Still Still repair quotes were brought before the select board at that time and nothing has been done cost of materials and labor have escalated as has a continued extent of rot since regular maintenance has not been performed any building historic or modern needs maintenance buildings need new roofs properly patched holes and exterior cladding and paint so yes the town will have to continue put to put money into the union church if they are to maintain hold on it the fact that this disrepair has been allowed to occur to this extent is inexcusable to me had maintenance been performed at appropriate intervals the building would not be in a position it is now and community members would not have to step in once again to save a building that was entrusted to the town stewardship

I know many of the select board members are new to the board so mentioning past Trends May distance the current members but many opinions shared recently seem no different from the indifferent mindsets that allowed historical rot these historic buildings serve a community that has a long memory and connections with the former and present stores shops schools and churches in particular inclusion to the National registers such as the Union Church recognizes a building as and I quote part of the historical and cultural heritage of our nation and should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development when asked what the union Church's purpose is first and foremost is that and re-asking the question what use is the building to the town implies that this preservation is of no interest to the town itself and discredits the history that often is only touted seemingly when convenient for connecting

with community members or demonstration of responsible public office [Music] anybody else public comment all right uh so I'm not sure what Mr Talbot's plan is in being here but when we give her a solid waste committee part if we had a question about subdivision ordinance related to Solid Waste would it be appropriate for him to be able to answer a question if we need him to we'll call on them okay okay thank you absolutely first

commissioner or the fire chief I'll let you guys flip a coin what's going on between 125 and Middle Road uh there's a lot of traffic I think a lot of people are going that way instead of going 125. of course the added traffic from the Swamp Road being closed that's that was that was a lot of fun [Music] please uh finished uh rebuilding all the town picnic tables and we've added the handicap table that we built uh overhangs the top overhangs the frame by it three feet on one end so the wheelchairs can get into the end of the table we put that at River Bar

Department to visit all the town properties other than the union church we had a few minor things that we would need to address I'm going to get those in the works they're going to send a written report Action over Mr Jerry they want things like vegetation cut over near the little building at the River Park

[Music] I'm gonna get that replaced that's about that the world Memorial Park some bent uh trim and the salt shed so just minor housekeeping things that need to get done they basically said to me that the union church after looking at the back of walls and paint and

obvious issues with the back of the building that they're gonna lately recommend an engineer and I don't know how that all works but it doesn't show the chemical report on the Bay has a sorry to mandate that or as our insurance company or whether it will just be a recommendation I'm not sure assume that that's in the works but them

I do know that they didn't like the idea the chimney wasn't lined and someone had used the stove I said no nobody's used that stove in here and says you don't think so and then you open the door up and there's stuff in there that's been burned and there's remnants of the letters and stuff then we went up to the second floor and looked at the backside of the chimney and there's tinfoil in there and he said pull that out I pulled it out took pictures of it you could see where it was on fire and there's no liner it's just bricks in there so I'm sure they're going to say they want that stove but she pretty much did top they want that stove they want that chimney uh disabled and disconnected from the stove at the very least so we will get that to I don't know when that report comes in it'll get distributed to the committee's boards the

the mic closer my fan base says you can't I can't hear you okay I met with the transportation director for rsu5 regarding the bus routes with all the projects and construction we've got around town about how they're going to get across Swamp Road and a reroute the buses so that they can accommodate that so we've got that all in the works Ripley and Fletcher delivered our 550 it's sitting out there on the other side of the parking lot if anybody wants to see it it's all wettered and painted just trying to get a bill out of them and that's that's not as easy as getting the truck doctor they might give us a truck but a bill that I've been working on getting that now for some time so should have that by the next meeting and uh Jerry will bring you a request for a check I'm sure

scheduled for the 19th of September we are looking at about 21 miles of Road this year which you know when I started here eight nine years ago there wasn't any paint anywhere in town and people were always complaining about traveling at night not being able to see and so it's I think it's really made the roads a lot safer at night it has reflective material in the in the paint so that it reflects at night

of schedule the actual we actually finished the deck and put the gravel over today so um pretty much the we're waiting for Paving that's scheduled for the for the 30th of so next week Paving and if we can get that done the engineers telling us that we probably could open it um out the god rail being in yet if we put barrels down both sides leave proper signage up so we're going to look at that see because other than that that's not scheduled until

guardrail so but it's still a month ahead of schedule so that's good news wrote this but today we did ditching on 125 and sopa road we had a change of covert at the end a ditched down around the corner to get to the Cross called that on 125. and flagging both of those roads working right up the intersection and it's going to pose a problem we didn't have the manpower to do it so dot sent a bunch of flaggers over they they took care of 125 we shared radios with them so our crew could talk with theirs it worked beautifully today so I'm just going to go back and do a little bit of erosion control by hand so that went well yes there we go great thank you Calvin any questions Calvin Heather um Calvin I just wanted to put it on your radar that if um in case it fell off because I know that you've been really busy about the warning lights at Dead Man's Curve I did look at those and I do know that when

you come out of uh when you come out of a swamp rope you cannot see the light is working because I stood there and I moved over one side of the camera and I'm thinking it was never intended to be seen I'm waiting for a call back from one of the D.O.T people I'm thinking that when you're sitting in that Swamp Road new account you can clearly see the entire Hill so I'm thinking that they didn't think you needed to see I can tell whether to go or not when I'm sitting at Swamp Road pulling out I see perfectly fine looking to the right and I can see perfectly fine look so I'm thinking the fact that it's not flashing when you're sitting at Swamp Road probably is no surprise to them so

can clearly see the top of the hill from it's more or less when you're coming up Route 9 and I have yet to find that not working other than that one time when you come up Route 9 from the bridge from Lisbon that's flashing to tell me something's coming from the right I know I've been told it hasn't worked a couple of times and that one time I did go check it it was because we just went too long without any sun and so no I know that you had been out I think more what I was asking about was you had mentioned maybe getting power to the sensor versus the solar panel yeah and it's still on my okay still in my pile okay

okay hi Calvin thank you one I think he's trying to outdo me some nights um yeah my agenda we'll uh table I believe that first sentence until later we're already planning a school visit and an open house at the fire station to coincide with fire prevention week coming up in October 9th through the 13th

Regional training recently this month with New Gloucester and Lisbon fire uh several members six members traveled to New Gloucester on a Sunday morning to participate in a tank or Shuttle water delivery drill I also went over several members participated this past Sunday in a swift water rescue class that was held in conjunction with Lisbon fire so we went into the river I got wet with them both Boats were in the river and we were taught by a national instructor that happens to be on one of the Departments for Swift water every year both departments are averaging two rescues out of that River there last year of course just down river in Topsham they had a fatality so it's used I've already been on one rescue this year so it's a Target Hazard for us we take that area seriously and when we get called we call Lisbon and vice versa just for the staffing and the extra equipment

medical Durham we were joined across the street with Lisbon EMS sabatus I think green was there to train on the latest Narcan also called naloxone overdose data and that was provided by Maine EMS so we had a main EMS representative come in and train all three four departments about the latest data as you know we have had fatality overdoses in Durham and we're just keep it statistically upon best practices for the opioid crisis some of you may have seen on Facebook or social media that our fire Crews went over to Freeport these past two Saturdays they've had two fires over there on Saturdays and we sent Crews including myself on both of them one was at 4 am in self-report and then most recently on the other side poor gentlemen lost everything but we provide Crews to the scene so

through recently with the planning committee of the Leisure Center with the planning board that was eye-opening for me I hadn't been in there um so I appreciate the chair John Talbot's invite and working well with other committee members so just know you know on these um planned expansions or housing

developments that were getting in there early with our concerns room and at home Sunday September 3rd at one o'clock your fire department Color Guard will be posting the colors at the Portland Sea Dogs game and all townspeople are invited I expect everyone to wear a Durham shirt everyone in the room's invited I'm not paying for tickets and beer but we'll find somebody but it is a big night for the color guard to post colors at the game so we're proud of those guys [Music] sure do

you can get like a box of 10 tickets type of thing I think that's in the Outfield um tickets were provided for the color guard they're bringing families it's sort of a family fun day for the fire department and and to show our appreciation of the color guard

chief next on the agenda old business uh we have a presentation by the code enforcement officer on signs hello Allen Plummer code enforcement officer last time I was at the select award you asked me to get the opinion of the town's attorney on the signed ordinance which I did um you have the report from him pretty much he concurred with Maine Municipal Association and he did more specific details um so there are no signs allowed in Durham off-premises so that is what he determined so I will be getting in touch with the people that I have on on my list that have put signs out um there are some signs that are allowed so a temporary sign is allowed

through the main state sign law and what that means is it has a specific date involved for example and he put it in his letter um replenova Farm had a sign out that had an event a specific event so they're kind of within the ordinance so what I'm going to do with those people is I'm going to tell them you can put those signs out for the event I just need you the date you put it out and the person that puts a sign out on the sign itself so if you have that contact information on it you can have temporary science off-premises another example of that is the Durham Consolidated School had a some kind of fair going on it was a specific date and they put signs around again if they put the date that they put it out and contact person those are allowed the signs that are not allowed for example the sign for Old Crow Ranch Meat Market is not allowed they are allowed to have a sign but it has to be the DOT

sign so I'll get in touch with them about that as well the signs that aren't allowed the signs that have all kinds of people that are doing work in town they put them on the street corners around at every intersection Roofing signs tree removal that kind of stuff those aren't temporary those aren't allowed through our ordinance I suggest if people don't like the way the Ordinance Works work on changing that because if you don't like the way the ordinances change it because I'm going to follow the ordinance as best I can the way the ornament says so um just a reminder this is just one of our ordinances that's a little bit confusing so even in when we were sitting in the select board meeting last time there are five of you and I don't think any of you agreed on what the signed ordinance said that's only five people so that's unfortunate yes

related to the public way and so my question would only my question would then be if someone is allowing a sign on their property that's not in the public way only unanswered question after reading this and thank you for for following up with him sure um so out of the public way is a very big area if you're talking about the state roads so there's a determination there's a map that delineates where that where the right-of-way is so 50 feet off the center line is a long ways I probably won't even see signs that are in there because I don't pay that much attention unless I need to pay attention to a specific property so if it's off premise it the intent of this is to be restrictive so there aren't signs all over Durham right so I probably am not going to see signs that outer uh are out of the right-of-way so I I guess I don't have an answer that it's it's their private property at that point and they can put things up

um that they are willing to have a sign even though it's off-premises for a business on their property and I just that just feels like a really gray area that I wanted to make sure that we were looking at well this is America and that that talks about the right of way you can do what you want on your property okay there are limits there's my question there are limits in the law though actually yes there's a size limit for the size sign you can put on your private property thought so I just had a couple clarifying questions so if someone has a yard sale it then they have a date this Saturday nine to five that's okay on like the corners and stuff yard sales are exempt anyway you can have a yard sale sign up for seven days okay and then I'm thinking about like contractors who are doing work on some

it's a main road that has to be 50 feet off the center line and my question for that is I know like Richard brought up like sometimes those signs are before the delivery companies to know where I understand that material and and I can I'll work with that so right now under temporary because if I'm actively doing construction and I have a sign saying you know Joe Smith Roofing so the solution to that is talk to the addressing officer for the town I'm the addressing officer I can get you an address you can put a post out in front with a number on it so that that clarifies and I can do that when construction starts okay if you have need an address I can get that for you and you can put your post out immediately so then my follow-up question for that is like after someone's had some work done like there are folks who just leave the contractor sign up for free advertising but technically if it's within 50 feet of

the center line now it's problematic so I'm not I I have I'm not going to be jumping on all these signs tomorrow although I've I've bumped into people and said well if you don't want to get a violation notice you you should take it out before Wednesday because I'm going to talk to the select board and then I'm going to start enforcing these so I don't I have other things to do these are things that I see when I'm driving along um the ordinance says they're not allowed if someone has it there for a couple weeks I see it for a couple weeks that's fine if it's up there for three or four weeks and it's I notice there's one that's down by the get and go they probably had a roof done three months ago but that's that's something I'd say hey you know you can't really have that sign up there for that long and my last question I'm assuming real estate science for sale that's on their property so they're not

on premises so that's where I'm confused about if it's within 50 feet of the center line of the main road it's their property okay it's they uh these are all this is all referring to off-premises sign so if it's a business you can't have a sign at the corner because it's not your business so okay if if it's a

if it's a business um this this sign thing started because someone wanted to sell bird houses and they asked about signs and I said let me look into that so bird houses is not a big business if you're selling bird houses on the weekend you sell birdhouses can I have a sign at the end of my driveway absolutely yes but I can't put a sign saying Heather's selling birdhouse don't don't have signs all over town saying birdhouse is this way because that's it's off-premise competitive birdhouse market right

so I asked for this to be on the agenda so I'll we had a meeting last week with the chairperson MS Kilby Chesley and I thought there was a good conversation later in the week I believe it was that Friday or so we got an email where she said if we wanted her to do the grant writing um she would charge 100 or 10 of them ran and um

email the attitude in the email um I thought it was someone inappropriate but I also wanted to draw the attention um this board who was who hasn't received that email and the paperwork that we were that she provided us at that meeting last week um in uh section 12.6 maintenance towards the end of that section talks about the commission she'll work with public and private parties to assist any owner in finding the resources necessary to prevent such state of this repair and when we had the conversation about the grant writing that was the reference and that's what we were talking about and so I wanted to make it clear that that was a conversation that nobody on this board expected

is the commission working with public and private parties to assist you in order it was a comment I made because I know that the chairperson is writing grants for another property and um and so that was a compound and um

email I I'm well I'll just say it wasn't at the end of it and later with that I didn't think it was appropriate yeah and and yeah and I'll I'll follow up I I was not very pleased with the email exchange there that um went along um they came after that it was um disappointing because I I do feel as though the commission's job and what we've set the commission out to go do is to actually perform that grant writing and look for those opportunities to to help sustain uh the property that's under their their their their their their effective control um and bring us those opportunities in if if there are grants available if we need to go out and get grants written we'll we'll go out and do that through the town manager it's it did set about uh yeah again I I

wasn't very happy with the towing either but um you know it's as far as the commission is concerned we need we need to keep going um and um the properties and to use the properties when we keep saying the same thing it's why we have another commission assembled to go look at you s and what we need to do for that Union Church so you know the idea that we don't care about the church I I think I might have heard that earlier that we do care about the church we want to do something that makes the church available to all usable by all and that's the main goal here and

and one inch tight for everybody so it is a we need to be fiscally responsible when spending the town's money on any building in town not just the church we get called to the carpet continuously on public buildings So eventually

if we keep the union church and go keep and maintain it as everybody would like that is going to be a hefty bill so it's not taken lightly by the board at all so any insinuation that we don't care about the historic properties that I don't believe is absolutely true I think that the town has been very fiscally Frugal over the years where money hasn't been allocated to these historic structures I get it everybody has to repair the stuff along the way and you have to prioritize what that is and and sometimes it means getting an ambulance before fixing up an older building it's that simple of a of a calculation in many people's minds and I think that's where part of the problem is and if we want to go and fix all these buildings up I find with it we won't put that in front of the townspeople to go and vote on that but we're going to go do it in a logical process that's laid out in front of us

and we're going to take one thing at a time and take it off the list all these projects including these older buildings I think they are important I think everything's important inside them I've been in the building it's it's a beautiful building and and I think it can be used in the future but we just need to step through it very carefully the whole process

um people that are on the historic commission and some of the other boards or committees in town because we do have a lot of documentation that they have come before the board for a number of years and I think that part of the tone of this email um is out of frustration of having come before boards that were not made up of the people sitting here um and you know we we are not responsible for the decisions that were made 20 years ago I think that we are taking an active stance by creating the

commission that or the what's the name of the new one thank you um you know to try to arrive and like when we're reiterating what Joe was saying in a systematic logical manner of what we are going to put out to the townspeople I know that you attempted last year to go through the process to be able to get the question in front of the voters and it didn't pan out the way that the process didn't work correctly last year last year and I know that you sat before us and you were asking for specific Direction and I think that the tone of this email while I agree I was very surprised when I read it um because that to arrive at this email based off of what our conversation was that was a that was a big leap um for me to even get to this based off that conversation but I recognized that you are here asking for specific Direction and I and I do hear the frustration coming out of these committees and so I would just like to

be the Devil's Advocate and say that that there are there is a presence here that is trying to work the process properly so that it does go in front of the voters and the voters can decide chance to respond get a chance to respond

yeah all right members I think that we asked to have the historic Commission on the agenda and it I feel like allowing a response is appropriate but that's my opinion and I'm just one person so I welcome what other people feel I agree go ahead Lord the conversation that I came to speak to you about about the com from the commission had nothing to do with grant writing

that I do in my retirement and it's it has nothing to do with the commission Josh's point that in 12.6 it says we will the commission will help public and private landowners find help in repairing their buildings has nothing to do with my grant writing I would not write a grant for mrsipus back here who lives in the district I would not write a grant for her I would not write a grant for Linda and Jan Litchfield nor will I write a grant for the Union Church unless and it's not ten percent it's eight percent and it's not a hundred and fifty dollars an hour it's 175. unless

will write a contract that I will do a grant for the town that's a Private Industry that I have it's a private business that I do and have I raised a hundred thousand dollars or more absolutely much more but I do it because have contracts or in the case of the western Methodist Church which is the other one in town that I do grants for because I choose to do that for nothing

me that I have to write a grant well nobody was telling me excuse me I listened politely with what the commission needs to do the commission has a responsibility under 12.6 voices is helpful that's my regular tone my regular voice

bring to the codes officer a building in the district that's in disrepair that needs to be fixed and the owner is given the opportunity to fix it if they ask for help the commission will give them help that's what the ordinance says who is the owner of the Union Church not the commission

ordinance the way the ordinance is written we would be sending the town a notice of violation because the building is in disrepair if we want to follow that ordinance I'm sure that the commission will go right ahead but we're trying to do this outside of sending the town a violation notice and going through the codes officer and asking the codes officer to tell the select board that the building is no longer within code

the Optics came out because we were talking about building and talking and then then we get an email about the services so it's no different than a contract of being on the board here and saying well let's go do it this way and oh by the way I can go do that for you for ten thousand dollars that's how it came across it came across as as an opportunist type thing and that was what rubbed the rubbed me the wrong way so like it's it's ha yeah if you had it again it's the Optics of how that all transpired that what we're having with having a problem with so I get the ordinances but it it

left a bad taste in my mouth well I'll just take it a step further because several people reached out to me after they watched last time and they had watched the baseball interaction with the gentleman and then they watched the interaction that we had and guess what word came up misogynists and I'd rather than take that as the point of our discussion decided to take it to the fact that someone was trying to use humor by asking me if I would do

first a grant then five grants then 10 grants then someone said uh it's only cotton paste and then someone said oh all you have to do is press Ctrl C control V and it's done that isn't how grant writing works and for anyone that's ever written a grant they know that I'm done

okay let's move on to the Union Church report update please them thank you just so the boards made aware you hired our fire chief that's certified credentialed and experienced in inspections and also with um occupancies on the registry so coming from Duxbury Mass founded by the pilgrims 200 years before the union church I'm quite experienced over 25 years of of inspecting these occupancies

um I was tasked by the town manager by you all to do a Life Safety Code inspection of the Union Church I decided to call in the fire marshal just out of respect out of transparency out of not having a dog in the fight I I

didn't need them and I also let Lois know the time that Marshall was going to be there just out of respect for the commission I'm certainly not up on divisions of commissions and Union Church and whatnot but anyways you all tasked me with it with a inspection I do these frequently around town so Town buildings and vets um that type of thing you have in front of you my inspection form this is a common form this is what I'm looking at right here a common form that I use it sort of gives you uh hints so I'll just go right down through it you know I found the fire alarm system with no inspection history every year it should be tested certified there's two smoke detector heads in there I think they're tied also to the uh burglar assist system I didn't take those down but they have to be within 10 years new in order to be but but that takes a third-party alarm system not the fire chief to go in there test it

inspect it take it down and give us a report on that and that's annually I checked all my files at the fire department because we do do inspections I couldn't find any history of that so it needs a current inspection there's no address numbers on the building at all I believe the official address 744 Roseboro so it would need a 744 placed on there

they are up to date but they need markings signage that says you know extinguisher here that they are in the correct locations one of them is hidden by the door so if you go in there there's double doors that open up and it does uh sort of obscure where the fire extinguishers are they may have to be moved we found storage within two feet of the ceiling that's against code so a lot of closets upstairs it has to be at two feet free from the CNN level any storage and there's a lot of storage up there that needs to be moved I found excess of waste storage on the second floor very hard to maneuver up there um that's the common inspection that I found the Marshall representative did have a discussion uh with Lois at the time that building has had several uses if you look back in time so it started as a church that's an assembly use that's out of a Life Safety Code NFPA 101 and then

it changed in the 20s to the town hall right until the 80s so a town hall like this building is a business occupancy they're held to a different standard just like our restaurants held to a different standard and now the union church is really being used again as an assembly meetings gatherings I saw the word Museum used but the Marshall along with me did

conclude that it's an assembly use occupancy and that means something that means you have to look up assembly use requirements so the first email that you saw from the Marshall and again so everyone's on the same page I was tasked by the town manager my boss and sent him this information privately knowing that he would send it to you that's the only way this went um so on record the first email from the State Fire Marshal after completing an inspection at the above mentioned address it has been determined that the Historical Society plans to use this building as an assembly and then I believe they were made aware of a possible Gathering next month in the works and they did request the the Marshall requested a license be obtained if that was gonna transpire within a short amount of days the Marshall went to her boss and I they

another email came to me that says and again the Marshall works for me and then I pass it on to Jerry but the church being used as an assembly will have to obtain a construction permit through our plans review division here is the link for the online application she alluded to um the need of a second means of egress from that building So currently there's only a double door entrance with the occupancy in that

occupancy is based on square footage of the floor divided by 15 square foot per person because of the assembly occupancy they would exceed 50 people in there it's a it's an assembly use so they they want a second means of egress built in before any Gatherings or use of that building I'm working with Alan the codes and Jerry so before any Gatherings or anything else you need a second means of egress built into that Church or building right now not including all the other stuff that have fun

do this um at our facility what about posting a fire watch for the assembly I didn't ask that there's there's more I think concerns as the health agent there's no running water there's no bathroom facilities if you're having a gathering or children there's no porta-potties there's no you know hand washing it's it's not currently usable

for gatherings does that include meetings or just larger gatherings for you all to determine sort of your tolerance of of the use of the Town bill I believe the Marshall's words were you know three to five is a is a meeting and anything after that is is is an assembly um again working with codes and Allen this is just from the Marshall

that exist because it's a historical building not an exemption that I'm aware of for for assemblies that is almost Aesthetics so I I know if you were to put a second means of egress it would have to match the clapboards and um you know you almost have to bring it up to ADA Compliant American Disabilities Act yeah from an ada perspective yeah yeah typically historical buildings are I rent a Ada building okay

however I'll have to get with Alan again as the fire chief inspections constructions a little out um off the top of my head you know as I think we've learned tonight words matter sentences definitions everything matters so I I've been studying this so you're talking NFPA fire code nfpa1 is that

thick as it relates to this building the life safety code is just as thick I remind the board that the fire chief is the authority having jurisdiction in this building yes sir well that rationale earlier the statement was made what classifies how many people can be there and work into that nature typically the fire marshal states that occupancy required under the code under the code so so as an example I only bring that up to you sure you kind of reflected it back to us like that would be up to you guys as interpretation but it's really your interpretation of what can be allowed to go on

um it's my opinion with the being the authority having jurisdiction you can't if you give an inch you take it take a mile you can't say I only want three usually occupancies have a occupancy number on them like like a plate that says I'll get right to you yep um so you can't say I I just want three to five because there's there's no oversight of somebody like a nightclub now you're at seven um so it's very difficult it is an assembly and they do it just as history there's like five types of assembly really four or five types in the code and it goes by is it fixed seating is it movable seating is it chairs you know that type of stuff so so there is there is some movable Parts in that building currently pews chairs

um Museum quality pieces display cases that type of thing again all concurred by the by the Marshall yes so my question is when the Marshal referred to three an assembly if if there were members however it worked whatever the rules or the parameters were right that wanted to address some of these things that are in violation like the excess storage or the storage that's within two feet my question is how would it be determined because you're saying there's no oversight that that those things can be rectified sure if we're not if we're in a situation where we're not allowing people in the building this is one step in this process I believe that the next step before I

can give you a answer on that is an engineering inspection of the building again words matter they certainly matter to me so unsafe um you know raw falling down these are all words that I've just heard um through discussions I believe uh the town managers working on an

engineer it'll be in his report so before I can give you that Heather I would again want an engineering before we allow people in I mean is it structurally stable that's not my Prairie I can't tell you that you know and you're talking snow loads you're talking look the building worries me for the fact that it's right on the entrance is right on the road if anything were to happen as somebody's pulling in or out because of the sight lines are difficult if car smashed into those front steps you can't get out um those windows are really not meant to be of the side windows as exits I'm sure they don't open all discussions all the discussion that I had with the Marshall yesterday windows I was going to ask in terms of second mode of egress like I manage a building that when we had to do second mode of egress it just had to do with window size to a room so are there options like that especially whether

it's a historic building you don't want to change the nature or is it just like the or yeah and then trying to make it match there may be people may want to preserve sure really historic things so if it's just a bigger window or a different kind of window the escape window you know there may be and I would certainly bring the marshalling on it and Alan needs to weigh in on it and more research needs to be done on on all that yeah because I know like in my example we just to increase the size of the window and make sure that it was opened large enough for someone to rather than another door I wasn't sure thanks it's it's a multi-style I don't have a time frame a multi-step process [Music] when we get to your report yeah well I'm

gonna update right okay okay I'm coming right up as soon as about it and then after he gives us the update if we wanted to talk to Chief again engineering goes I've talked to two different firms um one was uh Criterium I talked to Corey Riggs they gave us a estimate of a

hard 2200 bucks to go in there and do the inspection and I talked to a gentleman by the name of Eric Dube out of Trillium engineering they said they go in there between a thousand and two thousand by the hour the fire marshal that the chief forwarded to me after talking to both of them I had Trillium air to be on uh scheduled

to go on that that four to six weeks out between the time they look at and the same thing with Trillium both of them you know they weren't going to drop what they're doing to do what we're doing so they they're four to six weeks up between the time they look at that and get the report to us

how far out before they could get there if it's four or six Rivers it's a couple weeks before they're going to have scheduled uh site business like six to eight weeks no four to six from that time so two weeks till they get there yeah maybe another two to four I get the report it's like four to six weeks from right now and I also in the meantime in all this I applied for a grant at MMA to help pay for that that's a risk reduction Grant I submitted that hopefully won't get a bill before they admit the grant because if they do the Grant's going to be no good so October 1st is the deadline for the game I should appreciate here so I put the Grant in for 2200 bucks because that was the hard number I'm so we'll wait to see what they see if we get the ground yeah like I said or to pay for it I didn't want to stick the taxpayers so

hello thank you for following up immediately after our last meeting I know that we all recognize that there was some time sensitivity attached to it so thank you um just circle back now to what we were saying I just want to make sure that I understand correctly you're not comfortable with people being there until the engineer goes out even if it's a small number of people to address some of these things you want to wait

think it just boils down to liability if someone in there gets hurt and he's done the report who's really liable it's the town that's liable that's right no I as the professional that's why I'm asking him that question I appreciate his professional opinion in that instance I'm not trying to put you in the hot seat I actually value your opinion tremendously I I agree I'm asking you for it I appreciate that um for those that don't know the fire chief's job is very rarely putting out fires it so to speak it's literally protecting the talent from liability in all things that have to do with human resources OSHA Bureau standard you know Labor Standard all of it in in this case a full

inspection has been done of a town-owned building there are deficiencies that need to be corrected we are still waiting uh your choice about an engineer structural engineer so I I would borrow access until you have all those questions because of liability um again as the town manager says you know if the alarm system's not up to to standard or code or hasn't been inspected we now know that there's no reason people should be in there well I agree that's what I was tasked for and again it's specific by code and standards

they have an event planned I know that we can't have the event I'm hearing that very clearly um is there any pathway that they can get their items out of there to be able to host their event in a different building but have those things available to them

I think probably not tonight but a discussion it'd be my opinion now a discussion with the town manager or you know who runs the day-to-day the fire chief the codes we can possibly come up with certainly um ideas aspects something to help

session to discuss the union church building under uh Title One MRSA section 405 estate is it allows us to discuss real estate buildings as an executive session okay do they do that now or do we do it at the end call part now is that what you're doing yes okay thank you I'm just asking no that's fine nope all right any other discussion and uh I had a second all of favor okay motion carries um is that something you need me in the room for or no okay

playing [Music] um yeah thank you session regular session out of executive session okay um so I think the um the only thing that we you know we don't even have to vote on but just uh follow up on the Union Church report but yeah that's that's that's that building is to be closed until further notice Jerry um and um we're you know awaiting the

structural analysis um at this point nobody in and out but we'll um into the Union Church yep um and and then there was no action on the executive session otherwise okay just so everybody knows that no entry into that Union Church until further notice um I just want to be crystal clear about that um if there's anybody's personal stuff in there that he's talked to the town manager but as far as any of the other contents in there when I mean personal stuff if somebody forgot their cell phone or pocketbook or or a wallet in there while they were working that would be the only thing I would consider personal at this point otherwise there's no entry into the building until further notice are we able to comment

sorry I'm going to move on to new business we've got a codification discussion Zach come on in Zach so I wanted to bring Zach and just talk about ordinance qualification [Music] as you know we ordinances are old there's been a lot of copying and pasting going on so just to kind of give you a heads up I'm more than likely going to be putting in a capital request to do this and run it through the process but I wanted you folks to get a an idea

of what quantification is how it works how many towns have done it and uh brings Zach into this so you so you know more what that involves it's not about writing new ordinances or anything like that it's about getting our existing audiences lined up with state law and there's been some changes in this town I mean you've got a you've got a town manager now under the town management plan and the title 30A many audiences references that anymore we got to follow that law so it's it's updating in those types so thank you Zach for coming in my pleasure would you like going to just start or yeah go ahead so my name is hacker Dumont I work for a company called General code for division you know the building code fire code mechanical all that General code focuses with local municipalities to codify their existing legislation provide recommendations on how to bring them in line with current state statutes and eliminate any

conflicts you know sometimes it might be as simple as you pass some ordinances and dog captures but now we call them Animal Control Officers you might want to update that language so it's clear across the board other times we might find stuff where what you have on the book is a little bit out of standards you might be able to go more stricter or more looser with new state policy so we say hey this is what's out there it's up to you how you want to do it but the idea is we take everything that's outstanding everything that's ever been passed at town meeting and is currently being enforced we compile it organize it give it a logical flow that's easy to parse and understand so essentially all of your building ordinances will go into a buildings chapter every animal ordinance or going to an animals chapter by the time we're all said and done we build new municipal code book it's a book of laws it flows

very nicely from A to Z and theoretically everything in there will have been up to date because it's been reviewed and analyzed by our experts General code has three editors that work primarily in the state of Maine we have currently 31 codes available online that are publicly accessible we have a couple communities who are in progress right now we just started with the town of China and the town of Bucksport both of them are about two months into an 18-month project by the time they're done they'll have something looks very similar and right now I believe there are three communities that are outstanding where we're um expecting to start before the end of this year so that's kind of a long and short of it do you have any questions

um so this is so what it will do is it will go through our ordinance and then anywhere that we're not in line with State Standards you know that would get pointed out to us exactly and then we're a town meeting format in order to make changes and so at that point any changes that would need to be made that are not in alignment that all has to go before the town meeting format to get voted on to make those changes exactly so this is the process of highlighting where those discrepancies are so that we can bring that to the voters generally what we find what works best is we build you a draft code we analyze the draft that's everything that you've ever passed that you want included in then we'll go through we'll give you a series of questions typically saying hey in chapter one section B we found this in chapter 181 we found XYZ problem will

give you a list of correct that or bring it in mind you make those comments you make those edits and then we take a finalized version of that two times say it's not meeting hey look this was out of the line that this was out of alignment we corrected them here's all the information if you want to adopt the new code yes or no do you want to adopt the code but not this change or that change Etc assuming it passes that town meeting that's your new code that goes for other communities they want to see what's out there but they don't want to make any changes they just want to get structure together and then either through the select board or it's various committees they'll work on new legislation over the ensuing years to bring those so there are a couple of ways to do it but generally we like to identify the problems so you know what should be addressed in the example where you said you'd create like a draft

and then you share it from the select board or whatever and then it's going to a town meeting do you does your organization send someone to the tummy to answer questions and explain or is it kind of you just handing off to the select board usually I wasn't sure how the process no no it's okay usually will identify a project manager Within within the pool oversee communication between between project manager manager and then whomever is going to handle it on the town side will give you all of the resources and by the time you're answering every question that comes up occasionally we'll send folks out but in most cases it's not needed because you'll either have like a small working group of people who will be there at town meeting whether it's a couple people from planning board a couple of people who select forward account administrator code officer there are a couple of different ways to do it it's

whatever works best for the town but we're going to give you every single piece of adoptive legislation you would need at town meeting we're going to give you explanations and show you what we we're working with what we've made it look like and what we think adopt you're welcome not very long ago we redid shorelands only and that was all done I think at

the state level they had to review all of what our changes would be before we put that out to voters and it was determined that it was all in alignment and that we were good to go yeah and so we just did that and then there are other places where um what we have already passed is a little bit stricter than state law and so when you're giving us the report back

this is what the state law is this is what you voted on that's stricter but it's still an alignment because we're allowed to do that yeah generally what I would say is um this is the code this is what we had a comment on and that sometimes it might be as simple as the state allows you to do up to X you have done that if you don't want to make any changes Mark leave as is or hey we want to make one edit please revise as so we're going to go through look at that State level look at the relevant case law around it and if we see that you did something that was allowed but might be different than normal we're going to highlight it so you can see it but if you're happy with it you're happy with it our goal is to give you an idea of what's out there how to improve your ordinances and make it so that you have a succinct book that one person can go into town and say I have a question about our dogs chapter great here's the

book read through it it's all right there so my other question is that do you also take a consideration our comp plan because I think State statue says that any changes that we have to make to our land use ordinance has to align with our complex so when you're doing that referencing are you also referencing our comp plan we don't codify comprehensive plans but if you provide it to us for us to read through and go through we'll definitely take it into consideration sometimes towns will have like a bylaw committee or an ordinance committee where they've already started some of this work internally and they'll give us a list of all of the problems or deficiencies or concerns that they have and they'll tell us this is what we'd like to see can you provide us with XYZ at the the documents that we want you to look the editor will go through the review on a lot of communication back and forth but the idea is to make sure

that we hear everything that you have to say because we're here to help you that's all we're that's why we're in the business of doing this just get the ordinances so most people can understand what they say and line up with what what it actually says take the sign coordinates for references that you're going to follow state statute well then it says no signs well those conflict with one another so we just want to clean those those types of things up and bringing things to town meeting that follows State Statute yeah you've got to do it I hope that the townspeople won't vote against it because then they basically voting against not following the law so it's really just it's really just getting things up to speed with what laws have passed over the years and getting that ordinances to reflect that but it's also reorganizing yeah oh absolutely and finding ambiguities between the thing like if they got

changed over here and it should have gotten changed over here but it didn't get changed over here and now it conflicts yeah that tends to be one of the because we'll take every question that we have your digital digital code manuscript it's going to go online anybody who works for the town can get a login to look at it to see all of the work that we've done so if you have a couple members from select board a couple members from planning and maybe Conservation Commission or whatnot you have somebody who wants to be involved with the project everybody can go online they'll see everything that we've identified and you'll go uh as you go through you'll see where let's say Sadie's your editor I noticed in chapters two three and four you make reference to this law but that actual law is entitled this way or isn't numbered this way do you want to make these changes so it lines up as and as we build your code we'll stick in

editor's notes adoptive histories and other comments through there so people can easily navigate through the code and say oh okay this was talked about here for more information I gotta look at this chapter to get the rest of them it's it is in-depth work and it's very boring work that's why I have introduce you to it but oh this is right at my alley I would love this see this is this is perfect and you know I we have George we but George doesn't have the time to do this kind of thing that's busy doing stuff with the planning board and subdivision this this um this would this is a quite a process that the town could go through it so that's out there it's available I I don't know how many people have copied and pasted into the ordinance stuff but I know that that's happened I've heard it the the other thing that you'll probably find is useful is you have a consistent style and format and then

moving or do you want to bring a new warrant article to town meeting to make changes send us an email to say hey this is what we're thinking about uh sending to town meeting is this formatted correctly or where in the code when we want to insert the sign language writers will tell you hey put in this chapter in this section in reference the fact that you're amending XYZ we have that happen in um Westboro Massachusetts two three weeks ago Dottie sent me an email I sent it over to the editor we sent it back to Dottie now they're ready for their special uh fall down meeting easy peasy

town to do this town and ask them to adopt Ive one more I'm putting in a capital request to do it yep how far you want to take it and maybe I looked at what I could find online which I think was a lock box or a lock box ordinance on the 2005 zoning coordinates uh there's something about for our town for your town okay it was under ten thousand dollars to build the code analyze it to code review get those edits and updates in there and go to town meeting everything um the only thing that I couldn't identify is if there were other outstanding ordinances that you have that just weren't posted to the website you looked at our 236 page land use ordinance and you're saying to do this process it's going to be around ten thousand dollars based on what you saw online yeah it should be under 10. okay yeah thank you it's some towns it's

expensive I quoted a community in northern Maine it was 32 000 they had a 1250 page set of ordinances so it's a lot of work you guys two 300 Pages it's really not that much new ordinance town meeting suck bird however you do it you send us the ordinance we'll codify it into the code it's called the supplement you're having supplementary code material we'll print new pages if you decide if you wanted to have an online version

simple as saying this is the new set of ordinances we passed 10 of them at the 2025 Springtown meeting please update the code editors will go through they'll make sure they go into the right spots if there's something that let's say there is an on the four Amendment at town meeting to make a change and somebody had the wrong citation the editor will call you and say hey you guys amended XYZ but that number's not correct what should be the correct number that you want us to use we have one that we so you're going to have that expertise there to help you going on to adopt you to maintain your code and add a new adopted ordinances

next 20 years worth of legislation and I'll give you a really good example the town of Alfred just started a recountification project oh for me Alfred Maine five days ago I got the proposal to start the work we're going to get everything underway in the next 20 days their code was last looked at almost 20 years ago we gave them some updates and some changes that we recommended the first time we did it they made some of those changes they didn't make all of them now going through 20 years later two decades uh yeah two decades we know that we're going to find some problems that are in there that they know that they have to address and we're going to figure out every other change that they've made over the years is there anything else that's not currently up to date problems or concerns but when they first did this 20 years ago they they knew that they were going to have two decades worth of time

set up their code for future success now 20 years later we're doing this process again we're going to give them the next 20 years so we're in 2023 now in 2043 if I'm still doing this I'm going to call them up and say let's take another hard look at your code it's the way we look at this is it's an investment for the Next Generation or two of your town your residents your developers you know anybody who wants to come through town and do something here whether it's put a sign on the side of the road because they're selling birdhouses or you know maybe they want to do something more expansive so the your code is public is a public record your citizens have a right to know what's in there U.S Municipal officials have a right to know what's in there we want to make sure that everybody's comfortable with it

rulemaking do you notify the town during the code project we'll let you know after the code project we expect that you are aware of changes at the stable what we do offer is Standalone analyzes of codes so that if let's say five six seven years down the line you did you did a ton of changes we can go through it takes about six months we'll give you an entire roadmap of things that we found problems with city of Pittsfield Mass started one in January of this year end of I want to say April early may we gave them 350 their code hadn't been touched since the early 90s but now they know what to work on and how to move forward their Bible committee is going to go through that because now they have an idea of what change at the state level and what's still on the book so when you do this clarification with

the online version will there be all hot links to the every code that's actually called out in there to the state level will those links be there are links within the code itself to other parts of the code it does not hyperlink to States not every state has a

some states do invest in that but because it's not consistent we don't have a way to specifically hyperlink let's say there's a reference to to Maine 2025 Shoreland revision Act we might leave that editor's note saying this was amended at the state level the town made XYZ changes in XYZ so they'll build in those editors notes to make it helpful the neat part with the online platform is you can append notes and documents and a code so it so material that you want to enhance the code experience for the average everyday person that's better than looking through a 300 page book you can do that you just tell your Town Administrator you tell clerk hate we have a couple items that we think should be highly I have one town in in Connecticut where they want a lawsuit regarding accessory dwelling units they offended the legal decision for that lawsuit so when Town residents complained why can't I do this but look

at the code we won the lawsuit we're right and here's the judge's ruling about I could raise your hand there sorry Alan sorry go ahead can you um tell them that we can get resources from other towns town so if we're looking for a social coordinates um you have if you go with the online version of your code we call it e-code 360. you have access to our entire code Library we work with about 4 000 communities across the country we have about 3 300 10 code some people are paper only but

um in the state of Maine I mentioned we have 31 active codes right now could look and say hey we want to have a dispensary in town in town we don't know how to how to regulate or set up a language for this who has done that in the state of Maine can look at every single one of our codes in our database stamping your fingers you can pull it up if you wanted to see what other people have done for shortland zoning you can you can Shoreline zoning chapters and to search the terms that you're trying to find and it'll tell you hey Alfred has this Raymond has this uh Bangor or Bar Harbor have these so you have those additional resources you can you can download word copies of the code that are not cut and pasted so it still maintains the format just turn on track changes and it'll Mark your edits then when you give it to your clerk to get ready for town meeting day it still has the look and feel of

code and it's not just a two Notepad for hearing me out thank you a call I'm right down the road all right my question about this is uh you kind of piggybacking out that you're asking earlier which is like we bring this to town attempt do you all want to vote on the codification process but if it's under ten thousand dollars I would say this kind of seems like a no-brainer we should just start the process I mean it's just it's fixing errors that you know we've had discussions about it just makes sense to me and I think that one thing I hear a lot is people are like you know our resources aren't always approachable for a lay person for Rebecca look like a better word so you end up cross-referencing this and that and I think this just makes sense to go with it it's state law so I mean I think it just makes sense anyway right I think it would save frustration amongst multiple levels yes I agree completely I think

same thing you can do it ten thousand expectations they're not going to be getting passed at this next meeting because there is a process of public hearings and . let's talk about yeah I'm talking about yeah just going starting the process of getting the codification done I'm not talking about the ordinances there so I'm just advocating for us to do this start the process sooner than later

line ourselves up well enough to bring this to the 25 time meeting with the changes we just allocated up to yeah I was meeting and I'd like to see what we spend on that before we start saying this thing hopefully you won't special

so well that's going to be the problem if we're if I do know that GP Cog does have grants associated with this type of thing and I'm more than happy to like read through the information on that and bring that back to the board if people would be inclined for me to do that yeah I mean I guess I I hear what you're seeing saying Heather um and also are there are there any other options so I realize this is one one organization that does it um are there other other options and what other I know we've talked about MMA doing some of this for us as well uh at one point so I just is there a is there a mix that can happen here that actually maybe reduces the cost a little bit or is it just uh you pick one shop and go mix it the left hand won't know what the right hand no I I I know I get it I

said we you did 10 000 last week you need to be careful how much this board starts Ellen's excitement was palpable sorry for the money we all jumped on the coattails chew on it and Michael said if I have to it will be a capital request because we'll we'll have some Opera money left over and that sort of thing so just just just chew on it I think it's a good thing to do but we'll let's go slow I know it's exciting because because it is it's hard I mean but I also think like fiscally like if we're talking about like Financial piece of it the the fact that they have some of these ordinances that we want to work on that already exist that are in alignment with state law right that that helps George that frees up George yeah because he doesn't have to necessarily like do all of that work ridiculous yeah so what I was what I was just going to say is I think that that the investment the return on investments pretty quick

because even with I don't know how much time you spent on on the the whole sign ordinance thing but if the price point is ten thousand dollars and we're cutting down several hundred hours of Staff time and then freeing up their time to then work on things that are more valuable use of their time and expertise I see this as kind of just like an investment in Savings in the future so absolutely I mean that that's why I just say you know I'm I even before the presentation today a big fan of codification I think it makes sense so I think that you know the process looks like getting additional um quotes or something like that I think that that's something we should explore and support absolutely as soon as possible I just think it's a high priority I mean everything comes down to well does our code allow this or is this allowed or should Allen do this or should John do this it's like we have a book that just makes it plain

and simple it only saves a lot of time and time is so you got to bring back some home are you going to do some homework and then come back to us in the future new meeting with some more information on this yeah can you spell off no if there's

other companies result and part of this is trying to minimize the calls to the attorneys saying hey can you tell us what this ordinance says explain what the ordinance is and how habit an attorneys say well you know like what Allen had to do another one I just want to Circle back to because I know that we've had discussions about whether or not we're acting as an individual or acting as a board I'm formally asking the board for

permission to look at grant opportunities around this situation and I just want to make sure that if we need to take a vote on that if we need to whatever needs to happen to make sure that I'm you know rightfully seeking out that information that I'm not going to be doing that in a way that's not appropriate I think you can find them in Jerry

reaching out to MMA and I'm asking questions no that's all fine with everyone that's fine okay yep thank you you just can't commit it engages actually you know I'm not gonna like sign the dotted line is reach out to GP cards are there any grants available for the next one yes that's that's

actual far once um ordinances that are already currently written correct and we just want to make sure they line up with the state right yeah do we have to go through if we elect to go this way which it sounds like there's already this board wants to do that and what process has to take place prior to adopting per se the borders is it just simply a town meeting or is it sounds like that's what he was saying is that after we have the document it's written but it's not adopted and then we go to town meeting and say we've had this codified here are the changes as the town vote too I accept these changes I think what rich is asking is the same thing like when we did the RP changes we had to have public input we had to have a public hearing we had to have those things and I think I do I agree that that is what has to happen I feel like the substantive change though this is yeah then that's fair yeah

it seems like to me like he said if it says dog catcher and it's supposed to say code enforcement officer if it says you know uh to do this but state law says to do that that's just lining it up but if our ordinance is completely opposite of the state

I think I never think that's a bad thing anyway I think doing that regardless is always a good thing for me the process right I was just curious as to what questions to take place to adopt the codification that might be determined too by what they find if it's just semantics and stuff like that or if they find oh this would require you to change your ordinance to meet with state law but then again I don't know if it's against state law

there are things that George and I talk about just on a regular that can be right because it just can't it came it's not right you're gonna have things that's gonna have to change because that doesn't make any sense because it says it over there it says it over there right and here we are probably just assume that it has to go through the same process but that's resource protection went through well today it would be a good idea anyway

what is a what is because yeah right oh yeah the chance to try this is exciting this is my favorite thing that's happened since I've been a board member I love it give me Solid Waste is it okay it's all the ways committed

hello so I would like to propose the idea of creating a solid assault that is in you know uh school of thought that we did with the Union Church committee like our Solid Waste situation is a big deal we've learned from Casella in a recent meeting that they're looking for a five-year contract um and so I feel as though creating a solid waste committee to figure out what the long-term this is part this is the thing that's in our comprehensive plan figuring out what our long-term solution plan trajectory for solid waste is um is one of the things that that's in there and I mean Jerry has said you know we do have a situation around solid solids and so I think that this is a way to get um as much information as we can and utilize members of the town that are interested I know that a previous budget Committee Member really felt very strongly about this um and wanted to head that up and so this is I think this is an

opportunity where we can get you know some good research and options um and involve other people in the community to look at this situation sure I like the idea I think that like the Union Church community I think having some sort of like deadline of like please come up with find the information on options for solid waste for our municipality by this date to report to the select board

because it's like hear a lot about Solid Waste through social media through people just asking me through public comments so it's clearly something that people have a lot of thoughts and opinions on so if it saves us Time by having a group of individuals who are passionate about Solid Waste um groundwork I think it's just a good idea

committee um so what we've heard what we've heard from so far is is Casella they're moving to an automated system they want a five-year contract that's like really the only option that we've been presented with I don't realize that yep and so I know that um I had seen a grant posted through Eco Maine and because Durham is for the school um and Freeport and pound all are both towns that are part of Eco Maine but Durham is not and so the RSU won't entertain or seek any of those grants through ego Maine for the schools because they can't do that equitably across all three towns and so Jerry has a very full plea and you know I so I just feel like there's people who are really invested in this and and I'm not just saying Eco Maine I'm just saying I know that there are other things out there and I I want to bring a group of people to the table that are really invested in this that can research what those other options

are and then give us a more holistic picture of what our potential Solid Waste there are also people who talk about wanting to have a transfer station in town and so it's those kinds of questions that I feel like I would like to create a committee around to to come back to us the way that the Union Church committee is with what other options are out there besides potentially if I've maybe we have to do the five-year contract with Casella as a bridge to get to wherever we're going I just want to know what the other options are

we always wrap s all over this hasn't gone out to RFP for a while um you know the way in the past the town startup company apply and one of the one of the one of the issues with that was we were going to have to buy trucks and so forth for them to um call Trash Away they were a little cheaper they were going to be cheaper than um Casella at the time I believe but the issue was we were going to be buying the trucks well based on what console laid out yes exactly we're going to be buying trucks so I guess if we're in the business of buying trucks if we put this out as an RFP um you know very similar to the RFP in in everybody's going to that standard as far as the um the non-labor standard of picking up trash as far as the robotic standard I guess then we should go that route see where we're at because I guess my question for the committee would be is this for budgetary purposes is it for

environmental purposes is it for doing a study on you know whether or not we should have a transfer station in town I mean there's just so many assets to this little a lot of area problems it is we're looking for we're looking for the best bang for our buck for the trash are we looking for all of the above because or or I mean potentially what we're looking for is you know if we're going out to RFP about five years is a long time we don't typically do a five-year contract we've done three years and we've done an extension right and I get that they want to do the five years because we're essentially buying them a truck when he said that I was like whoa well but at the same time music premium

trash well no I think that's what my point well that's right I want to see like they they may not be the only one that we might be required by a truck but other people might be able to offer the service for Less so if it's from a from a financial standpoint then put it onto RFP but if it's from financial aid environmental and so forth and so forth like I said there's there's so many facets to quote unquote trash whether it's all trash or recycling I mean there's just there's so many elements to it that um I don't necessarily I don't fully grasp yet what we're going to try to find here as far as a committee I guess would this committee then just essentially be exploratory for what the town's opinion is on what we should do with Waste Management moving forward like you could just be I don't know if they function similarly to like how the Conservation Commission doesn't the survey or the town questionnaire or town

hearing just to gather information because some people may say I don't I want roadside some people may say I want this some people may say something totally different you know it's interesting to give us some information the town may have changed historically the town has wanted pretty overwhelmingly curbside pickup yeah so what if we just what if we all you know we

uh advantageous free what is the most environmentally what what are the I know that like North Yarmouth they do a mix they have a equal Main component they have a green to Garden to I don't know what it is Casella and so what does that look like you know like to me I'm assuming that that's like the environmentally friendly route right so if we just come up with like we did for the Union Church three or four this is what we're looking for for information one of those could be what does it look like if we move to a transfer station you know if you'll if you know if we if we did do a committee looking at the options for comparing the options of a transfer facility to going with I'll call it the mixed waste route using a a multitude of companies as well as

looking at rolling in um you know what would it take to roll in I'll call them the private road the roads that aren't currently under the town hospices of public roads because I think that that also May pose problems for certain types of pickup [Music] that um

station I already mentioned you guys mentioned so we're looking at those I mean I'm not saying that that's what I'm advocating for but that is potentially an option yeah no I think you know sometimes what I was trying to say is is the root cause of this the cost of what Casella is proposing if so we should go to RFP first we don't have to accept anything that comes back but at least minimally see what options are okay from a financial perspective I actually kind of like that idea and then formulate a committee per se going forward

[Music] and they're not can I could we could can we just know what the when the planning board reviews the subdivision what what happens around solid base trash out at the end to get picky at the nearest public way and is there any is there anything legal legally that prevents them from going down a private road

but more than likely it's due to they they wouldn't want to be liable for ruining that road so they won't go down it so if it's a dirt road or some Road that's not up to standards they could you know dump a truck into a big pit so so they they have a liability in in

the people on that road not a liability that nobody wants to be burdened with so I think that's mostly why that doesn't occur until it's accepted Mr Taylor asked earlier there is nothing in the land use orness and it's definitely Clues picking up trash on the private road right doesn't mean that it's probably more of a Casella it could be a could be more of a contractual discussion with the companies that we have to have but it is in what they come up with that is where do you draw the line what's a private road so if you've got a guy that has a 700 foot driveway you're going to drive down to Wisconsin yeah so into it but there's a lot and there's a lot Rich was your suggestion more or less just for us to open up an RFP for trash collection for the town of Durham and then based off of that maybe then you say what we want to pull together a committee that looks at these options and gives us some feedback or

who knows we might just like what's playing on the table so well and it scratches all the itches be careful with that negotiating no I mean because you had mentioned you could negotiate but you don't have to accept our appease

but if you didn't like what I was getting at is you didn't like any of them and you had an extended you know contract with say for the next two years then you could formulate a committee during that time I was trying to get to the point of if this is what you're doing and you're planning ahead who doesn't want to come back into these rfps two three four times oh no that's why you just asked for one I mean that's you just don't have to accept it as what I'm getting at and then it's not a suitable option for you from a financial or whatever situation it may be just then you could formulate a committee my question really was are we formulating the committee because of the cost of Casella or is it being triggered by other reasons that's why I think it's more the option it's

not sure auction any uh it's gonna it's gonna cost us we're seeing is costing them a lot of money to do that Rich the your answer from me is the ego main is what originally when I was seeking out the grant that was originally what got me then I started doing a little bit of research and I was like oh other towns are doing these multi-resource ways of dealing with this then castella came and talked to us and he sounded like it was a hard line for a five-year contract and and then the truck conversation and so I just want to make sure that everybody else recalls that conversation the same way that I did that is that true that what we heard him say was a was a five-year contract yeah we specifically asked him okay so that and then that's where I was a little bit confused after because I did speak with some well I called panel and I talked to panel and and they and he was saying that there were no other

towns that were in the situation when I was saying are we gonna buy the truck and he said that he was trying to like get towns that were close to each other to be able to basically like pull resources to do that Connell just signed a contract with them but their contractors for three years well that's what did you talk to Becky I did she told me three years in years three four and five don't have a price to it because they're gonna up the price on the Consumer Price Index for collecting trash maybe that's what she was referring to was that it wasn't a fixed price for five years

where like I'm not yeah I'm fine with either way I was just curious as to what the trigger was as far as so I I you know I just wanted to talk about it because I talked to Becky too because towns are are dealing with this now so they're putting out there on Maine town city let's survey do you have this do you have that um so one of the things the committee could work on if you have one is a trash ordinance so I've got a couple for examples Becky did go out to bed five years to sell it was the only person the only company that bid I said Triano or none of them bid they said no they don't want to get into the residential trash pickup Casella was yeah and that's when she said he has three four and five no price they're gonna up it or do whatever they do based on that so yes three four and five they don't even know what it's going to cost power so that's kind of like what you're looking at and every every town like I

grab some information from the town of bowenham because they're in the same same boat we are to they're trying to Grapple with where are we going so right so you have to go out with that kind of money you have a global RFP that is that has to be the way it goes you can just see what happens so do we make a motion to do that and then yeah well so we're gonna probably want to know as we get into the budget season we want to wait too too long so at least we have at least some numbers to go on to put the budget together between so they're up in July so if we went up to bid say

so we had at least a price to put into the budget I mean that's up to you folks I'm just thinking this how you want to do it so if we're gonna wait and to do this based on numbers then I I would like to like pull back and go back to I want to form a solid waste I would like to form a solid waste committee now because our contract is up in the end of

June right we need to know going into budget season what we're going to do because our contract is up in June and so I think that we should form the committee put the details and the parameters and the time limit around it so that when we're having that conversation because if we wait to do this and then our contract is up in June and the only option that we have is a five-year contract I'm not saying that this is some I know everybody like I'm in a hurry all the time right I understand that I'm not saying that the five-year contract can't be a bridge to whatever our long-term solution is but I don't want to wait until we've committed to a five-year contract and then do the solid waste this information could potentially change if we're going to do a pooled resource or if we're gonna do you see what I'm saying yeah with that said though I don't know what the life expected this part of that so once you buy and

pay for the initial valuation three years right you you might you might seem significant savings after three or four years potentially I'm not saying that's going to be the case I just there's so many variables here and stuff right so let's get a committee and tell us what they are foreign

sorry oh no I'm sorry I interrupted you answer your problem with the committee the RRP needs you know there's not a lot of time and and so I don't you know that's my only exercise yeah I think anything else is going to be a long-term we're still going to have to have to bridge as you mentioned the meant whether we do a transfer station but you could include in the RFP um at least at least ask me about the private roads and then and then the RFP could indicate environmental options

being as a say a stub out to a you know we can take multiple bids right send it up so it's sex now for trash only environmental items like you know this is a second you know or section out that word and Jerry I don't want to read the reads on this because you know it's I think the question really is do a former committee or not but I was just curious as to is MMA giving any directives as to what towns in terms of planning for and or combining resources Etc moving forward because I'm guessing we're not the only small town in the state of Maine this is going to be yeah with this particular problem guys one day is MMA saying anything that's what his question started I haven't heard anything from so it's MMA as far as regionalization MMA or even maybe even a GP card and send this up because I mean I would think that GP Cog I could reach out to them to see what they're hearing is as far as I mean

sometimes just given or giving it up they just pull their hands up and say hey we got to go with well I'm just throwing up and say take care of your old trash you know I'm not saying I'm not saying that but that's what's up I mean Auburn got rid of their what um they said we're not doing it anymore I mean it's the sauce right there's no savings yeah it is the cost of I if I remember correctly from budget season they said that it actually

recycle than it does to just throw everything in the regular trash recycling in in Eco Maine is more of being is a I think can we do both is that can we just like do both can we put it out to RFP and then also form the committee I thought that's what Richard suggested yeah yeah I think so okay perfect

exactly okay what what the purpose is more important what was the trigger for formulating the committee okay and to me it sounds like just information gathering about trash collections offices they might say this company can do trash only this company can do recycling it costs this or this company can do both or it sounds like our RFP is going to get that the one bit that has a magical price that changes every year five years but I think we're on full amount of committee um we should probably put some verbage around what that committee is going to do yeah which yeah well Justin and I can get the applications going see who wants to sit on this Committee just need direction from you folks on I think we should do five members and two alternates thank you

yeah I think we should do the things that you wrote down yeah the the transfer station option okay incorporation of I'll say all roads private in public environmental options and then also looking at the trash organs when you see environmental options meaning all the recycling composting what are all the options available to us to possibly go after separating everything out even more and maybe some some benefit in that if we you know Eco vein or anti and a trash separate trash collection yeah because I was just going to say do we even need to get that fine detail there if we just say create a committee that explores options for solid waste and you could go that simple just just making sure Jerry had the right scope of what we will have a committee to look at when he puts out the word I'm sure there are people in town that like to talk trash yeah do you have

and dear to your heart are you sure okay Josh doesn't care as long as the trash gets picked up customer service yeah if I were adding things to this committee's to-do list it would be to follow up and check on their customer service

yes so what what does that entail for us to become part of that so that the school can apply for those grand dollars that's probably one particular task yes that's what it is we need to vote on this yeah solid waste Committee of five members and two alternates and that they will report back to us

all the things that we just said what are what are we comfortable with December 1st I've got to say October 1st yeah I'm like into shorts okay I'm I was okay with January 1 because then it will be within budget conversation this year okay is that yeah we work for me okay so by January 1st

and but let's take vote for a second yeah [Music] seconds there you go further discussions about the five members of two alternates that doesn't automatically members of this board or any other board right we would have to apply yeah are you interested in having a liaison or I just wasn't thought there was discussion go ahead no this discussion do you want one of them no I don't no I'm just let me finish my question do you want a member of this board to sit on that board or not sit on that board and would you like a liaison to this board no I thought there was a discussion last meeting or when this first got laid out that there was going to be a selected that's why okay okay

of a select board members could not attend um and participate I think it's a subject that's everybody near and dear everybody's heart so I would persuade a member not to go maybe helpful the one other thing that I would like to add to the discussion is that if you could open up the applications as soon as possible so that when we get to our next agenda item it pertains to that that's the only other thing I'd like to add all right so we have a motion on the table to

solid waste committee to be formed look at various options of possibly time transfer station including all roads in the town environmental type options such as composting and other and other environmental friendly options available to the town and the trash ordinance among other things that will fall into place there when they start talking all in favor usually Mana okay motion carries unanimously almost always committing okay

chief on that subject I would I understand members of that committee you just all need to fill out a form or an application yes I was just reached out by the assistant fire chief who was the manager of the Yarmouth transfer station would like to throw his hat in the ring can be a member so wonderful contact but okay thank you uh we're watching on you know

jeez we got a large fan following here tonight hey sometimes we get like 110 over 100 yeah I know it's great I love it nine times that's right that's true taking notes all right public uh public posting we used to do this uh what you're looking at in front of you which are postings that happen in the news uh the news section or what is it called on the website upcoming upcoming yes in the news blast and also on the town website whenever we had um you know subdivision site walks those types of things that were happening we were posting those meetings um on the website and in the newsletter and in the um on Facebook yes and so what you have here are examples of those postings for whatever reason that's that's not happening anymore um and I think that it's really important for that to be happening on a regular basis as part of our um operation or process or whatever you want to call it of how we do this

um personally I believe that every final decision that's made deserves the right to have um at the very least public comment um and I feel like we can do a better job of making sure that residents in the community know when these types of meetings are happening especially site walks because that's really the only opportunity for for people to be able to see what projects look like what the what the area looks like and for notice like this to not be widespread um I I take issue with that and so I don't know what needs to happen if it's something that we need to vote on as a directive if there's a conversation that needs to take place if you know Jerry takes his direction from us for his staff and so I I believe that this is very very important and I would like to see this happening the way that it used to happen I'm not sure why it doesn't happen anymore

kind of saying that I mean I like I'm just I pulled up a website while you were talking I'm just saying that there is Town news and there's a town calendar are we just seeing that we want that posted on the town calendar it is currently posted on the town calendar but that's the only place that it's posted it used to be posted on the town calendar and then also shared in various places that are much more visible the only way to see this now is if you go into the town calendar you right but when it's posted in in this way it's almost like newspaper like it's it's more readily available more people see it I I'm not sure why this this stopped I don't even need to know why it stopped but

secretary he took care of that there's no yeah full time this was done by the information Tech right the person who did that job and isn't don't we have a person who currently sits in that role yeah we do um but they're at that window 16 hours a week they're only budgeted for 20. so four hours they take care of putting things on the website that sort of things news blast whatever it is and she and she actually puts it on the calendar but doesn't do go into this detail I'm assuming the person that did this before as the planning secretary was the same person correct so she's probably doing it right at while she was at the meeting so it's so I don't even I'm not even necessarily caring about the detail of this but if we're sharing like meetings that are happening at AmVet or we're sharing you know these other types of things that are happening this this to me it holds equal importance and so I I

feel like this needs to be shared and ghosted so let me ask you so you got mostly this is the plenty more do you want the same thing to happen to the select boys we used to do the agenda they would like it would be like this right here shared in a post Facebook post

town website I I can't recall on the what's it called uh whether it was posted separately on Facebook yeah when I go on the website if I operate under the assumption that the the thing up front that says Town news is going to provide me with the most the pertinent information and you know I know that if I go to town calendar you can see all the meetings and stuff like that like in the example of like sidewalks I don't go to the town calendar and then start clicking on everyone's meeting and saying is there any site walk going on this week or what or whatever so I can see value in that sort of information being in this kind of landing page that's kind of like the kind of stuff that traditionally before the internet would just be pinned to the to the board in the in the meeting stuff like that so I I like the idea of making sure people know that those sorts of things are happening making it easier to find rather than

like when there was an appeal the appeal would get posted on the Marquee out at the road I'm not saying that that needs to happen but they had to do like multiple Avenues of posting and so one of them was the Marquee out at the end of the driveway for appeals meetings yeah so like for example like in terms of finding information or recent site walk for a proposed change to a to a

that's hard information to find information has been shared in the past problem with this I don't I don't see any things wrong with it I just I guess my question only my question my only question is are we meeting the legal requirement that is required for us when we have site walks plannable reviews Etc et cetera et cetera and that's really yes okay

four hours for posting and stuff every week can't we just ask George or the planning board chair or somebody to say here's the upcoming meeting I mean she posts our agenda to the website so putting it out on Facebook should be a simple five second pass here's the agenda to the next meeting this is such a data at 6 30 on August can we say you know I don't know how often the Plenty board is doing sidewalks but you know be as simple as the thing we're telling Kimberly pretty simple as that so that's what we want I could care less either way but if that's what we want then I don't know

bringing this to your attention is because there was a final decision made on something and it wasn't it wasn't posted and there are a lot of people who are really frustrated that there was a project that went on for a very long time and when it was finally at the point where the final decision was going to be made and the public was going to now which has typically historically if you look back at this had the opportunity to make a public comment on a project it that didn't happen and I there's a lot of people who are frustrated about that and so hearing those frustrations I'm bringing this before everyone to say I I would like for us to follow this process that we've always followed and that when the final decision is going to be made the public has the opportunity to make a public comment and the way that they know that that's happening is by the posting

a problem with that I'm not trying to say but I think we need to Define exactly what the process is because what you may think is the process when I may think of the process and what you know someone else might think of the process may be different I mean if we're meeting the legal requirements versus meeting the minimum legal requirements versus going above and beyond I think that's two different things I have no problem with directing the town to do something specific as far as but exactly what is it that I mean there's a lot of things that quote unquote could be posted if you're posting every time award makes a decision right I mean are we going to do this with a select rule that we're going to do it with all the other boards I mean what what where do we and you tell me I just want to know I mean to me the easy solution that is aren't all of the agendas for every board posted on the website or

so they're on the website the agendas are on their website yeah yeah exactly so can we just ask Kimberly to them when she gets it again then she's posting it to do that next step and post it Facebook no no all right so do we need something do you need something no no I'm just gonna I'll talk to Kimberly and I'll talk to George and we'll just try to get everything out there on all the beautiful yeah Kimberly went through our sentence her something put it on which is usually pretty good yeah right but but I guess the question about the comment though I sometimes these meetings don't allow for a comment at that time I don't know I'd have to look at the planning bullets agenda I know specifically that that final at least the other past ex you know thing and I really went back and I looked because I don't I I want my word to be to mean something when I say it right and so when there have been final we were

arrived at the final decision of our project and along the way public comment is not taken it's taken initially when the project is proposed there's that opportunity right and then throughout when they're doing their business they're not accepting public comment and then when it's the meeting where the final decision is going to be made historically that people have had the opportunity to make a final to make a public comment sure

because Georgia's real stickler practice I start charging a bill right when that hasn't done before it's nice to have a notice that says right and so so now if we're no longer allowing public comment at a final decision it because that's following the rules they were people were waiting for that opportunity and so if following the rules means that that opportunity doesn't exist I think we need to state that usually the butters are notified they're notified at the I I thought that there was a another notification when the final situation got to it but it's out of the gate originally when the public and that's when the public comment s so it sounds like we're in a situation where we had previously gone above and beyond so people adopt that as the new norm and so meeting the minute changing to meet the minimum caught people off guard so they were like oh where's the notice for this and it's like oh well we don't actually have

to do that it's kind of like our public comment we used to allow public comment we Capital probably two years ago please understand you had a full time oh yeah yeah creation officer that could do this and now yeah that's all she did and that's fine I just feel like you know if if we're not gonna do that anymore

yeah that's cool I mean I just I've been I've been to our town and I've been I've been before planning boards and other towns and usually the notifications involved in that first meeting is when the people get to stay there you know what their heart problem is or non-problem is with it and that's typically it is it are we talking about two different things though I mean I don't want to believe her this morning but yeah and and the public comment at the planning board is an issue for the planning board and not for us right I agree I agree so yeah okay so that's it so Jerry you're gonna take a look at it yeah we'll get Kimberly right on it yeah okay thank you yeah um so the next subject is uh do we need another meeting oh that's me too well yeah I used to go

so part of why I was asking for another meeting is because you're going to be gone for the first two weeks of October and we have a lot of business to take care of and now if we're doing the solid lease committee I think if we don't schedule another meeting we're going to be pushing off making those appointments for too long based on the timeline that they have and so and not and then additionally we had all said that we were interested in going through the comp plan and kind of checking the boxes of what's been done and what you know whatever and I know we're dealing with a lot of stuff I just think that another meeting is important because of making those appointments and the fact that Jerry is going to be gone for two weeks my father is to unless anyone feels much of us to hold off and see how this goes I think Jerry's probably got a plan for coverage turning his outage so [Music] probably September 30th the first two

years businesses like laundry that never really ever gets done is that you can you can do laundry 24 hours a day seven days a week if you got a couple of babies at home you're still never getting caught up I mean we're still gonna meet and Jerry's not going to be here

unless it gets really stacked up you know we have put other meetings in between depending on what's going on um that could be an option Jerry can you tell us what you have on deck for the next meeting do you know okay I'm sorry I'm not trying to put you on the spot I apologize sorry I did I

apologize for this meeting and then next meeting as we get the agenda going and get the Committees going if we revisit it we can revisit it uh okay so our next meeting right now would be scheduled for September 12th is that correct yes September 12th and September 26th

what again his agenda [Music] what our genders if there's a point and I and now we need to post my account oh you're saying before the 12th you get here on the 12th okay so so what I was saying is that if we wait until the 12th to have a meeting we're not going to be making appointments to that Solid Waste committee until September 12th and we told them that we want their work completed by January 1st everybody's comfortable with that okay can we please put it on the agenda for the 12th that will make appointments for the solid waste committee okay so are we down to number eight then oh sorry no I was talking about the extra meaning so you want to you want um to talk about what on the next meeting I would like to make the appointments to the solid waste committee on September 12th okay please we can do that um just one question what if we don't get enough Apple I think it's not going to be hard okay

until September 11th yeah um okay so yeah let me just brief you on that so Neil um Neil are touching the Neil Berry asked if he uh he fill out his application to be a full voting member huh yeah it doesn't have to be well didn't we just do that with Brian though but we don't have to but we didn't do Brian oh we just talked about it no Brian no I'm just like he's an alternate he's and someone leaves he's now not an alternate and now we can put out a

option to say no I want to stay an alternate I don't want to yeah right so I'm just letting you know that he's letting us know that he wants to be that whole voting member that's between him and the board I mean that's that's not really that's not really us okay our option is they're short a body are are we putting out that that particular Board needs another body and then we're accepting applications for that that's what our rewards okay thank you for letting us know all right stepping up

all know is because of uh the town's excellent safety performance the the no seriously the MMA has discounted our workman's comp like 10 because we've kind of met there uh workers comp incentive program so we're doing a bunch of things they've been doing it I mean good job they have been doing it uh it's just a matter of filling out the right paperwork talking to the right people getting the right things in place and uh they just notified the other day that uh January 1st we'll get a 10 discount that's awesome that's pretty good good job yeah they do they do a great job employees are going through that training and every day and every week every week another thing that I want to bring to your attention I just got a voicemail yesterday and I just got this letter today at DP so you see it's dated August 22nd so I don't have a ton of information but what this is is DD's coming through town and they're going to

want to test the Farms that have spread sludge on their property and they're going to want to test their groundwater and in there in the crowd so I don't have I'll put that on the website I call the dep today I didn't get anybody because I had some questions like what specific properties are they going to and that sort of thing but I didn't get a call back but I'll keep you updated okay so if anybody is going to have any questions regard to this there is a phone number um and the guy that you're going to want to talk to his name is David madore he's the Deputy Commissioner of the communications director for dep his number is 207-287-5842 so they come knocking on your door or send a letter and they want to test your property test your groundwater this is the reason why I mean this has been going on for a couple years now Durham was in tier three out of tier 4 for the dep so again I don't have a ton of information right now

because I just got this I just want you all and I want the residents to be aware of that they're coming through so if you're interested in specific properties there is a database and that you can click on our town and you can see exactly what yeah what properties they state has marked as properties that have

permit to 30 years ago so then depending family spread or how often and so this goes back to our contribution is that it's still in our land use ordinance but that's allowed when obviously what's not allowed but we'll have it I think they did my Palace in all my neighbors house they probably eight or ten months ago did the Native work and all the little dots on the back so

were then going to start expanding away from the tops like my dad looks like what that is so there's that um I thought there was something else but you know I'm toast and I can't remember what it was a big vacation I know can you remember yeah I think you were going to remind him that tonight's your year anniversary oh yeah yeah that's right you guys want to go into the executive session tonight give me a review no just kidding thank you

I know and that is part of his contract and so we should I'm not saying we should do that tonight but I'm just saying we should outline a process for that to happen right his contract I don't disagree it was on my mind the other day typically like maybe and this is just a suggestion to be like for example next week a executive section you would not be part of it we could say our clothes grow into plates and happiness and chair gets the beauty of writing a nice review and then we can look at it and then he can sit down with the town manager what I was going to ask everybody and I like I said I had thought about this is yes dude write something up in paragraph form and shamble all that now we can have a discussion so you get it to me in a week I've got to do the same I'll probably add a it's got a previous chair to write a paragraph as well because he had a lot to do with Jerry's first year so we get

input from him and we'll collect that all together and have ourselves a little discussion discussion could we also include Jerry doing a self-assessment because we had talked last time about how we don't we're not involved in the day of day operations right so could that also be part of it that his goal setting for next year really good yeah yeah I'd be happy to talk about my boss

I have thought about that as well the staff we've really got a good team going here and we're we're firing on all some of this we're communicating things are really really pretty good and if it wasn't for the staff that do all the work this town it would be struggling and when we're doing pretty good we really are I think all of that is also a testament to you wow that you've really changed the culture here a lot I I really do like cool things that I I can see it's significant difference in a year and I think a lot of that has to do with being here so thank you it's a team it really is and they're just great so I I couldn't be happy I they're they're awesome so that's all I got thank you so that goes into our next thing so we will put that on the agenda for next next meeting were there any other meeting items yeah the only thing I want to put on the agenda is discussing like what the process is if I

want to suggest moving a meeting okay just because I was looking at my October schedule and I'm on vacation with both of our actually can we like okay [Music] only reason I bring it up um okay consent agenda uh throughout a motion to accept the content motion to accept ance or I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda some of them are so Joe seconds it any discussion

does the warrants to sign upcoming meetings uh conservation communities on 8 30. um human Church committee 831 those are both at the Town Office planning board meeting on 9-6 at the town office and we have our next select board meeting on 9 12 and a follow-on meeting on 9 29. six already in September um we have I don't believe any reason to go into executive session we're all set do I have a motion to adjourn can I ask a process question thank you um it's my understanding that we're not recording I'm asking because of these upcoming meetings that we're not recording all the meetings we're trying to I believe aren't we yeah what yeah yep okay right

were two meeting two specific Conservation Commission in Union Church that were not so last year church was done off site church outside okay so that recorded okay conservation wouldn't do all is it like because you have to be here to do that or is it someone someone can it be someone on the committee that does it someone has to never has to set it up in the software so the first step that's how many years to be responsible for being able to go to the computer and do it but there's two different versions of streaming and then there's the support as you go right so I think streaming to set it up a little bit more time and then record as you go you would just report it and

that's tasked with recording and then it gets set up whenever the I mean and then it gets posted whenever the person is here that can post is that is that reasonable yeah okay you have to we'd have to train all the secretaries I think we like spend the money like the arbor funds to like up

asking about it so I think if it's not a difficult thing and it doesn't require any additional staff time I think it's we should yeah because you're on it and you already have a key yeah but I might not be on be honest right in the interim we can talk about it later

okay for this evening yes