TranscriptDurham Town Meeting 2025

town of Muro. Um, I'd like to call to order things going. Thank you all for coming. It's great to see everybody. This is our break out during mud season and do something. Um, I'd like to let you know that I'm moderator on Bill Schneider. My pleasure to be moderator here. I've been sworn in. I'd like to have the uh the select board and the budget committee introduce themselves if they [Music] [Applause]

I that we use the main moderator's manual as a guide. procedure for this meeting. Does anybody object? Terrific. I'll do that. Um, next, I'd like to announce the election results from yesterday's election. For budget committee, we had three seats open for three-year terms. And the winners were Jill Gway, John Talbot, and Jeffrey Wakeman. For RSU 5 board of directors, a three-year term. the winner was Michelle Richardson for RSU5 board of directors a two-year term was Stephanie W for select board three-year terms were Joshua Kle and Rebecca Pster and there was a survey question on the uh on the ballot with respect to the band scan and the survey results were yes 118 votes which is 67% and no 59

votes which is 33%. So, the survey question was answered in the [Music] affirmative. Uh, next I'd like to recognize the town fire chief, Chief the colors. [Music] Ready. Gary go. arms. Prepare to present color. allegiance. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisibley for all.

department for posting the scholarship presentation by Joe take a moment to recognize this recipient of our scholarship and this year our recipient after a really close review of all theates in a really tight competition is Isabella George. And so we could have Isabella come up and [Applause]

So, Isabella has a very impressive resume already before evening college. Uh, she is a leader in school. She's in the department of student leadership at Corore High School since 2022. She's a junior volunteer at the Central Center in the summer of 2023 and the summer of 2024. She had an internship uh the institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center of Constructive Communication in the summer of 2023 and 2024 and she worked with researchers and students from other schools to test and design a social dialogue app that they use in the high school. student members. She's a student member of the RS advisor team planning committee from fall 2024 to now. A student advisory of the year at the Freeport High School from 2022. President, a student mentor at Freeport High School from 2023. President, a Spanish tutor at the Freeport High School from 2022. Now, she's been on honor role all through high school,

including high honors in 2021 through 2022, 2022 through 2023. She's the main Smith book award recipient in 2023 to 2024 from Smith College. She has award for excellence in Spanish from 2023 to 2024. Now on to the second page of acade 10th grade life science excellence award 11th grade life science excellence awards softball player since 2021 and been a member of the all main honorable mention conference and the all conference second team softball and she's got a whole list of colleges that she's already been accepted to and she hasn't quite decided yet but it sounds like we're leaning maybe towards Stoneville College and majoring in the really easy topic of neuroscience. and also a minor in Spanish. And she was also accepted to Bates College, University of New Hampshire, D University, College of Holy Cross College, and waiting to hear back from others. So really awesome resume. We're really happy to give her this award for

college. [Applause] right now into our uh presentation to begin the year or to begin the town thank you all for being here today. Uh I think what we'll see here is there's a lot of folks up here put a lot of work into making today happen. A lot of prep going into everything you're going to see on the screen here. And we're looking forward to having some really respectful and conversations about this as we make the decision for what the next 18 months is going to look like here in

is everyone should get something in the mail about fiscal year change. Um, and we're going to be going over into an 18 month budget this year to get from our onto a fiscal year that better matches the uh county tax and the school um the

school budget cycle as well. And so it's going to be a little bit different different than in the past where we've had a 12 month budget. This year we're having an 18month budget. So we're going to go through we're going to talk a little bit about everything we're going to cover today. One thing I want to point out is uh something we might hear a lot we might hear a lot today is annualized. And so when we're looking at these budget numbers, we try to take it, it's really hard to make a comparison apples to apples because we're looking at an 18month budget this this cycle as opposed to a 12 month budget and an effort to help correct for that. And so we understand what we're looking at as a yeartoyear change where we annualize these budget numbers. And when you're annualizing budget numbers, what you're really looking at is what is the percent change representative of 12 months compared to the previous 12 months. Now,

some of our budget items are built to us multiple times in in an 18month period. Other of our budget items are only build once in an 18month period. And so, we've tried to adjust for that as well as for any increase or decrease in the number that we're spending. And so we can talk about all these items and clarify if anyone has any questions when we get to an item whether this is something that's built monthly, something that's built once during the 18month period, something is built twice. We've gone through we made those adjustments. So when we look at the percent change, it gives you an idea of what the actual percent change is compared to a normal 12 month budget cycle. Even though a lot of these numbers would be higher because we're using 18 month. So, what we're going to talk about today is all the aspects of our our municipal budget, but we have to remember that our municipal budget um is

just our municipal budget. That doesn't include the RSU assessment or county tax or any overlay we we end up putting on at the time of commitment. And so, really, this is a vote just on our municipal spending. Uh this is a a snapshot of the proposed budget for the uh the next 18 months. Uh, as you can see, these are those annualized numbers where we talked about the changes over here. And you'll see that there's a some some changes are a higher percentage, others might be a lower percentage, a negative percentage, things like debt services where we have some debts that are paid um twice during this 18month period, others that might only be paid for might only be paid once. And you'll see our total uh appropriations for our municipal budget on a 18-month basis is

decrease of 5.4% just of the municipal budget. We annualize it, taking in consideration, like I said, some things are being paid once, some things are being paid twice, some things might being paid 18 times, you know, once each

our our tax levy, our our revenues. We've uh projected our revenues for the next 18 months. You can see it's not much of a change of of 4%. Um, but you also see our municipal tax levy. We are down to annualize at annualized numbers for our municipal operations and then we'll kind of look at what we have estimated for uh the cost for education over the next 18 months which you'll see is is up 9.7%.

You'll see here that our county tax it says it's down minus 26.7% but that is something that we're only paying once in this next 18 month cycle. And you'll see that the select budget has a total increase of 3.5%. And I just want to make it clear our municipal budget is down 5.4%. But when we accommodate for the increases in the education but uh the school budget and with the increases in county tax that represents 3.5% change after we've accompated all of that and included our estimated revenues and our and our use of fund balance. So the 3.5 is a percent change of the entirety of everything. Whereas when we go back here the the the actual municipal budget is down 5.4% %

minimized. And so what we want to show here two is just how things are looking for where your tax dollars go. So as you can see, the vast majority of our tax dollars go to our the school district, which is about 73% of your tax bill at in fiscal year 2024. 18% goes to the municipality and 9% goes to county tax. And as we come into this next 18 month budget cycle that we have budgeted out and projected, you'll see that our education is 78% of our tax bill and our municipal tax is now down to 16% of our tax bill and county tax down to 6%. So what we're talking about today is this 16%. Um, and so when you think about it as a dollar amount, we have 77.5% going towards education. So every dollar of your t of your taxes that's collected 77 or 78 cents is going to school, 16 cents is going to the town and six uh cents is going to your county

more about the general fund balance today. And so we've had a lot of discussions over the last year or so about the use of fund balance in preparing for future capital expenses. And as you can see here, we have a fund balance is roughly 3.3 million. These are funds that aren't designated towards any sort of budget item and can be utilized for the town to uh pay for capital, invest in future capital expenditures, or just budget for for other uses in town. When you're looking at your fund balance, uh you really want to see that fund balance uh be at an amount that's about 15 to 25% of your your annual expenses. And so in the town of Durham, that will put our fund balance goal of 1.6 5 million and 2.7 to

2.75 million. And right now we're at 3.3 million. And the reason we want to spend down that fund balance is because that's made up of dollars that we've already collected from the taxpayers. And so when we're going through a budgeting process and coming up with our needs for expenses, we want to make sure that we are utilizing money that we've already collected before we start raising and appropriating additional funds. And so we've got a plan here over the last 10 for the next 10 years that we developed starting last year to help keep our fund balance in this target range. So as you can see our fund balance in FY22 was right around 3.5 million and went up in FY23. We started to use some of the fund balance here in FY24. We're paying it down through FY26. We're now paying the net fund balance down a little bit more getting it into the upper end of that uh target range. which is highlighted in

yellow right here. And then in 2027, this is where we project the fund balance will be sitting as we begin the budget process. So what you can see here is that our fund balance is uh is healthy and it's over right within the range that we see and the budget we're going to be voting on today is some use of fund balance to help um spend that fund balance down and plan for future capital. This is our long-term debt. And you can see here that our debt is uh slowly being paid off with a lot of things coming off of FY2029, FY30. Uh our

attempt to give you a rough rough idea, this current debt that we have right now, it's about $106,000 annually in trust. And so our use of fund balance that we're going to talk about today is really to help offset um uh prevent us need to borrow additional funds in the future. So we a have borrow and pay

interest. As we talked a little bit about the fund balance that's helped go towards some of our capital, one thing we've also done now for the last uh two years is have a long-term capital plan. And so this is the plan where each department has come forward with their capital needs over the next 10 years. When I'm talking about capital needs, we're talking about the vehicle needs or equipment or things like that. They're usually quite expensive and are going to be we need in a department head has done a really good job of going through and looking at the rate that most things how long those things can last. You know, how knows how long we can expect to get out of the cloud so we can estimate when we're going to need another resource like that or chief knows how long we can expect to get out of one of the fire apparatuses and we know when we might need to have a replacement schedule built in for that. And so rather than

being reactive and coming to you all in the beginning of a budget cycle and saying oh we need this this year we're trying to be proactive and say let's maintain a good healthy capital reserve that we're planning for future capital expenditures so we don't have to see a big increase when we go to purchase a piece of equipment because we slowly throughout the 10-year process. What you'll see here with these numbers is this is the annual allocation to the uh each one of these long-term capital planning um accounts. So, we're annually putting $10,000 into the municipal building uh capital reserve, annually putting $25,000 into public works, and annually putting $180,000 in fire and rescue. On the budget we're looking at today, we are looking at one and a half years worth of investment into these capital reserve accounts. So these numbers on the sheets that you've seen for the budget sheet will be 1.5 times

the amount that we are are using on an annual basis. So we have our annual needs and we're just budgeting to put one and a half years worth of those needs into the budget uh this year. This is a a um kind of a graph here that we're going to go through for each each one of these capital uh reserve plans and accounts and show you what the what the schedule is. So the white line which you see right here is a flat level of funding of what we're scheduled to raise annually. Whereas this blue line is the expenditures out of those accounts. And so as you can see, we'll have some years where there's no anticipated expenditure out of capital reserve accounts and then other years where there's a lot of expenditure expected. And by maintaining this nice level funded line of inputs into those capital reserve accounts, we can help stabilize tax bills and not have to react to those those needs as they come

up. We're preparing for them. And just to give you um here. What was used out of these capital accounts this year in 2024, some of the funds were used to help purchase an office generator. We were able to get some grant funding to offset a large portion of that office generator, which was majority of the rest of the office generator was paid for out of these capital reserve funds. And you can see here plan for 2026, um some outlays for the town office, septic system, repairs and upgrades, and a fire station boiler. And so this is shows the really flexibility we have with these accounts and these reserves because we don't need to raise or appropriate additionally uh because we've been putting away these expected expenses in the in the future. Public works. This is the same idea. Uh you will see that we have a flat level funding of this capital reserve at $25,000 annually planned for the next 10

years. uh note expenses like example no expenses plan in 2028 but as you see other expenses pop up and things on the replacement schedule that number will increase but again we have this flat level funded capital reserve account that will help offset that expense. Uh in 2024 there was no capital expenditures out of the public works reserve and in 2026 for this 18month budget period. Things that are uh being planned are a pickup truck, a loader and a flat flat. And those are things that if we get throughout this cycle and we find that we need to replace those, we we have that schedule. Now just because something is on the replacement schedule does not guarantee that it's going to be expended out of capital. Um our Our department heads do a really good job of getting the full usable life out of their equipment. And they now with this new system don't have to come and ask for a piece of equipment at the

beginning of the budget cycle with the expectation that they're going to need to replace it if it breaks. You know, now we're in a situation where they can say, "We think we're going to need this year, but we were actually able to refurbish it or we were able to maintain it in a way that we get another year out of it before needing to replace it." And so what you as a planned expense. Doesn't necessarily mean every one of those expenses is slated to come out of capital reserves in the next next few months, but it gives us that flexibility. Same deal with the uh fire rescue reserve. You can see we have this nice level flat funding and we have peaks and valleys of expected capital expenditures out of that. In 2024, we had no purchases out of capital expenditures for the fire department. And in 2026, some plan we have plans for uh a computer aiding dispatch of equipment. So other time reserves we have are

re-evaluation reserve. As we know that we're in the process of waiting for our time reevaluation to start in the future. It won't be started during this budget cycle, but we had put money aside each year for the last couple years to prepare for that expense and that has a balance of 220,000. We have a contingency balance reserves and this is used for unplanned expenses and allows the town to be more flexible to respond to unexpanded unexpected events and that has a balance of 16,953. We have a grant matching reserve which has a balance of 26,848 and this is used to uh help us apply for grants uh and expend grants that require town matching funds. So oftent times when you receive a grant we will have to have some contributing funds to that grant that are matched by the grant agency and this is but we have that money set aside. So grant opportunities come up we have some cash on hand to pursue those and get those

matching funds. A lot of times those returns might be a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. So we want to make sure that when we have those opportunities arise, we can bring those grant dollars back into our community and we have those funds available. And we have money set aside for the use to pay for the restoration of the Union Church. And that's currently a balance of

talk about today is three land use ordinance amendments. And I will just go over them really briefly right here. But I want everyone to know before we vote on either any of these, our town planner will be giving a presentation on each one. And then we'll go into the discussion and the vote on that article. And then he will give a presentation on the next one. And so things that we're going to be voting on here are boundary adjustments in article 19 to boundary adjustments that are based off of some new data we've received from main department inland fisheries and wildlife and some new evaluations we have on in. This is going to remove about 1,500 is proposed to remove about 1500 acres of uh resource protection that was added in 2023 because some resources that were thought to have been on the property have now been re-evaluated and you see that there's been a change and that those resources aren't of concern

anymore. And this facilitates um a process that will allow our uh private property owners who are now in resource protection to have a uh buffer around their properties to allow them for expansion and development without having to go through an ownorous process of of permitting. We're also going to talk about contract zoning for large energy systems in article 20. As most of you are aware, we are currently in a moratorum on battery energy storage systems. And this article 20 is to adopt battery and energy storage systems uh regulations and provide the town with a permitting authority to uh review and reject uh projects or approve projects based off quality of the project. George is gonna have a little bit more of a presentation on this, but United States were to expire, we don't have the authority or the ability to reject project sightings standards. This this uh is set up in place to help us have those sorts

of tools to give the community that opportunity to reject projects or review projects in a way that we haven't had before. And then we also have some proposed changes in R 21 on the historic preservation process and standards as an effort to follow up on the town's comprehensive plan and recommendations out of that and bring our standards uh revise our standards to meet the federal and state requirements and shift focus from our focus from districts to individual historic properties and uh streamline our system to due process and property rights for our our land owners who own those properties. So like I All of this stuff will be covered by presentations by our town planner. We've had a lot of uh town meetings on or town events on this already. We've had public hearings. Uh we've had information sessions and everything here has been available online. But again, right before we go on and discuss either one

of these, our town will give a short presentation on each item. I just want to say thank you all for being here and participating today. I know it's a Saturday. I know it's the beginning of spring. Uh, but this is a really important process for our community. I really appreciate everyone taking time out of their schedule to be here and contributing to to our community and bring all of your expertise and experience living in the town of Durham and all of your perspective for us all here and learn. So without further ado, we'll begin the rest of the meeting. But this is our presation.

[Music] Thank you, Mr. Roy, for that presentation. It was very uh very useful and informative. Okay. I'd like to lay out some rules for the debate today. Um, just kind of to help keep things moving along and help keep things civil and friendly. Um, only one person at a time will be allowed to speak. Uh, I'll recognize you if you come to the mic and I'll ask you to speak. I'll ask you to introduce yourself and tell us where you live. You should speak to me, not to the select people or not to the board of the budget committee speak to me and

uh and I will relay things to the audience as necessary. Uh ask questions of me. If you're if you have a question for the chairman of the select board, tell me that question and I'll relay it to the chairman of the select board. That'll help keep things moving along. Uh I'll try to find somebody to answer any other questions that you might have. Please keep your remarks brief and to the point. um that's required in the in the moderator's manual. So, uh just stay to the topic. Don't wander around too much. Uh there are 31 articles today. Uh

and please remember that we're all neighbors here. Uh we're here because we we love Durham and we care about Durham. And the meeting will be best if everybody is kind and orderly and friendly. And I think we're going to have our buying time our way through the war. Um, I'd like to mention also that if anybody gets hungry, I understand there are some really nice goodies for sale out of the I would encourage you to go uh satisfy your hunger there. Uh, so we'll start with the business of the meeting. Uh, article three is to see if the town will allow non-residents who have information pertaining to any following articles speak when And I've been not notified that the following non-residents may have information that we'd like to hear. Jerry Douglas the town manager, Calvin Bolier, the road commissioner, Robert Trip, the fire chief, George the barge the town planner, and Mark Roy the town. Would somebody like to make a motion on

this article? So moved. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that we allow these presence to speak. Um, if you would take out your green card and if you agree, please hold it up in the air. Terrific. If you don't agree, please hold it up in the air. Thank you. Motion article three

passes. Article four is to see if the town of Durham will vote to raise an appropriated amount not to exceed one and a half times the 2024 Durham municipal budget for any budget. articles not approved in this form. Is there a motion? So, is there a second?

Second. Article. Oh, and before we go any further, article 4 has been moved and second. I just want to mention that we're working off the warrant that was handed out at the at the door. The one in the uh in the town report is a little bit different. So the warrant that we're working from today is the one that was handed out. So our report has been moved and seconded to see if the town of Durham will vote to raise the appropriate amount not to exceed one and a half times the 2024 Durham municipal budget for any budget articles not approved in this. Is there discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor, please raise your green cards. All opposed, please raise your green cards. Article four passes. Moving on to article five to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate

a motion? It's been moved and seconded that the town votes to raise and appropriate [Music] 1,143,60 for general government. Is there discussion? I'll recognize Mr. understands that some budget increases are unavoidable such as the increased costs in healthcare coverage, the increases and cost of doing uh day-to-day business. However, considering the many uncertainties that we are now all facing such as weekly rises in food prices and the anticipation of many more retail price increase thanks to the wide range of tariffs that went into place this week. The uncertainties associated with the town's upcoming revaluation along with the confusion that comes with undertaking an 18th month budget. The majority of budget committee members felt this year was not the time for the town to be taking on such new spending as $20,000 for an outside human resource specialist. raising our legal budget to $15,000 a year in order to put the

town's lawyer on a retainer. When the fact is our cost for legal services for the past three years was only $8,55 in 2024, $3,088 in 2023, and $2,992 in uh 2022. In addition, the majority of the budget committee is opposed to a two-year contract for an $8,000 texting service to provide notifications about meetings at community events when the town already has the capability of doing email blasts. So, the need for a texting service is redundant and the cost is unnecessary. In addition, a majority of the budget committee is opposed to the 6.4 4% salary increase given to the town manager this past fall, especially considering that this same position was given a 13.4% increase just one year ago. Lastly, the majority of the budget committee is opposed to pay increases of 4% and higher and a general municipal tax increase of 3.5% as proposed by the select board. Considering this year's social security

cost of living increase was just 2.5% and is projected to be even lower next year at around 2.2 to 2.3%. And the fact that just this last week our own state government approved a new budget would which included a mere 1.9% cost of living pay increase. Should

the town vote in should the town vote the motion down and vote in favor of the budget committee recommendation for this article, the result will be a 2.9% increase in next year's property tax levy and mill rate instead of the 3.5% increase proposed by the select board which will actually be I believe around 4.6% increase if the current proposed school budget is approved. On behalf of the budget committee, I urge you to vote on this current motion in favor of the budget committee recommendation. Thank you. Yes, please. Mr. My name is Alan Car. I live

on. The concern I have is with homestead exemption, which relates specifically to assessing on this particular article. All of our bills that we receive every year, we have an exemption which that exemption actually reduces our taxes. And that exemption this past year was 66%. In other words, there was 33% it was not we were not able to take advantage of by reducing our taxes. My taxes last year just because of that were up $175. My question is, you can relate it to whomever you want as you request it. I understand that when we are not able to, we being the town of Durham residents are not able to take advantage of a $25,000 exemption when our valuation meets the market value of housing. My question

is is how did we get into this position to begin with and what are we doing policywise to make sure we don't get into this position again so that we can take full advantage of a total $25,000 exemption? Is there something you can answer? Yes. Yeah. So, um in terms of what we can do to address that concern, the board's already initiated the property reevaluation process which will take place in 2027. Unfortunately, there's only a handful of companies in the region that do property reevaluation and we put a a request for proposals out. We received a few proposals. The soonest any of them can start was in 2027. And so once that reealation process goes down, you get more in line with the state requirements and then you can see that full percentage of your homestead exemption being available to the in the property. Uh I can't speak for the actions of the previous select boards or previous uh management of the town prior

to our involvement, but when we began, most of us are relatively new. When we began on the select board, we identified that as concern and when to address it and this is the length of time it takes to get those concerns addressed due to just how few people do this reevaluation process. So, I don't know why the evaluation wasn't done um sooner, but we're trying to do it as soon as we possibly can. Yes, please. I just like to add to that. Um we had it on in previous years where they weren't going to do a full rebound. They were going to do I don't know what the difference is versus a fullness. Um and then Jerry looked at that situation, our town manager and assessor and said that at that point it had gone too long and that's why we need to do a full rebattle at this point in order to be able to claim the full state attention and so I just want to reiterate that there was a plan it was sort of a hack plan to get

us up at a higher value but now since it's been so long a full necessary and then that will bring us to the full amount that we can I understand what you your proposal is for the couple of years and having that rebell done. But my other question over and above that would be what will we have policywise in place so that we do not get into this position say five years down the road so that we stay at that highest market value as we possibly can.

Yes. I can't speak for what will be voted on my policies by future iterations of this board. Um but I would intend that we would I my assumption is that we work with the reevaluation company in 2027. We discuss with them and our town assessor as to what a more appropriate schedule is and then could develop plan to start uh setting money aside and scheduling in more in advance future reevaluations to make sure that we into this situation. Uh this is a situation that's happened to a lot of municipalities. You may have heard some of this on the news where folks went a really long time without a reevaluation and then they had this exact problem. And so our goal in the future will be to develop a policy that's more proactive rather than reactive, which is the situation we find ourselves in right now. Thank you. I appreciate those comments though.

couple things on the the general budget information. If you're like me, and I think you guys have this in front of your your report, and you look at general government spending and public safety and public works, they're all up. And I used to be asked, how can the budget go down and spending go up? Because make no mistake about spending is going up and down. budget went down because there was at least $230,000 of spent last year for capital plot stuff that didn't get done this year. Like we put $160,000 aside for um

the revaluation fund and there was another 60 or 7,000 I can tell you what it is if you want to hear it that didn't get transferred this year to the budget. Plus the way things are paid uh one time this year or two times this year affected the total budget. So spending is going up. The budget's not going down. Spending is going up. And it wasn't real clear to me, but the select the budget committee offering terms in the budget and it

Yes. 1065,375. Can I amend this motion? Do we have to vote the motion? You can move to amend it and if there's a second, we'll deal with the amendment. Okay. So, uh I move that we amend this motion to the budget committee recommendation of 1 million. This is in

the general government 1,65,375. been moved and seconded that we amend this article to substitute the number because the uh budget committee chair mentioned u pay raises for the employees um in that budget uh speech, I'm going to take it upon myself to uh speak for the 11 town employees full-time. Uh one of them, the town manager is under a contract with his five bosses. So uh that's between them. I'm not worried about that. uh I believe he mentioned uh 2.5% for social security. As you know the town employees are not under social security, do not pay into social security, have nothing to do with social security. It's really due point. Um in 2023, you can Google this. Social Security actually gave out 8.7%. Um because of the inflation rate, I didn't see a single budget member vote for an 8.7% increase for the town employees. Uh nobody suggested. So, it's great. I I call it stat pole math is

what I call it when they can find a low number and throw them out there. Um the town's health care costs went up 9%. But that also includes the town employees health care costs went up 9% out of their own pocket. So, the town has offered a 3.5% cola, a cost of living adjustment. That's not a pay raise. That's actually going backwards to to keep the employees current with the cost of living adjustment. Again, on a raise um going forward, that's over 18 months for the town employees. Listen, 18month budget, no raise, just adjustment for

for the last year. Um I I suggest uh just as the fire chief that we keep the the town municipal budget the same and we do not try to save money on the back of the employees. Thank you. Thank you. so far. One couple things I want to point out. I think that the fire chief just made some of the points that I wanted to address. Uh It is not a 4%

increase in employee compensation in retal. It's a 2.5% cost of living adjustment. And currently there's a new piece of legislation that would enact at the state level that requires a uh um family leave to be funded by the

uh state employ the the workers at 0.5% of their wages and the uh municipality or the business has to provide.5% of the wages as well. uh we chose to adopt that.5% uh cost for the staff as well to mean that this town has a 1% adjustment. Um and in part we feel that it's important to consider a a 3.5% cost of living adjustment as being fair because we are going into an 18month budget period. And so generally after the 12-month budget, there would be an opportunity to re-evaluate staff compensation, but we are not uh going to be doing that. So this is a 18month adjustment, and we do not know what the cost of living will look like after this next 12-month period. Another thing I want to point out is it's not a valid uh point to bring up the state's compensation, the state's cost of living adjustment, but the state employees are on the payment schedule and it's a payment chart that automatically

increases. So while the cost of living for state staff state employees might go up 1% the step raises in between each one of their annual raises is three for five three to 5% depending on that. So that's not really a point that I want us to put much time considering. The consideration of the of re-evaluation as a reason to adjust the budget we have right now doesn't seem valid to me because the reevaluation process will not start until 2027. In regards to compensation for town manager, we did a market analysis to determine what the average compensation is for a town manager um in the immediate towns to our community as well as to the towns to our community and we found that even at this assessment uh we are below what the market would provide to a town manager in adjacent communities. Um additionally our town manager holds far more responsibilities. Most of the town managers in these in the regional

communities has have assistant town managers and they have other staff that are dedicated full-time to wearing the multiple hats that our town manager has. So, we have a heck of a bargain with our town manager here. Uh, as chief went up, health insurance premiums have increased 9%. Um, and uh, we are having to adopt

that. This budget also reflects that we have new cleaning services provided for our town because of the exiting of our previous cleaning contract. Those costs have gone up. And the number you see in front of you from the select board is really the cost of doing business for the next 1.5 uh uh uh years and not a um

uh projected percentage change that was determined and proposed previously by the uh the budget committee during our uh discussions. It's really important to us that we increase communication to our community. That is something we have heard is vital for people to get. Not everyone in our community utilizes email as their primary form of communication. And when the power is down, if you live in my household, you'll find that once you don't have your Wi-Fi connection, internet doesn't work that well. And it's still important that we get messages out to our community. So, we are utilizing this texting service, uh, which is pretty standard for most municipalities and gives people the opportunity to opt in to receive information and critical information, especially in the case of natural disasters or flooding or hazards or e that might arise that we want to make sure it's really important that members

of the community get that sort of information. As the select board, one of the most important things for us to do and our town manager to do is man mitigate risk. And when mitigating mitigating risk isn't a fun thing because if you do it really well, no one will ever know you did your job well because you have mitigated all these problems. And so when you don't mitigate risk well and you get into serious issues, everyone knows you did a really poor job. And two of the major risks when you're dealing with the music municipalities employment in general are human resource services and legal services. And it is really important for us to be able to go through the process of updating our employee onboarding, our employee training, our tax, our wage tables and all these aspects to help make sure that we are in line with very complex human resource laws that are managed really just by specialists in

that field. And this board had asked the budget the the town manager to go get us a proposal for bringing a staff person on to do that because we understand that that is a huge risk. While the town manager came back and said, you know, I can we can do this much cheaper by coming up with a contract service and using a consultant who can provide us these services as needed to help mitigate these really big risks. And I think we probably all can with a quick Google search see really easily all the nightmares that other municipalities and other businesses have gone through when they don't have proper HR services. So that's really important for us as as uh with regards to legal services. We felt like it was really important for our town to be better protected with all the resource protection changes we've had, the land use changes we've had, and the possibility of things like contract zoning being available in the future and

uh infrastructure projects coming along that require a really specialized municipal lawyer. We felt that it was really important that we utilize that lawyer to our full extent. And so with our lawyer recently retiring, our new legal counsel, we've already them quite a bit both for training in house to train staff on on regulations that we need to be aware of training select board and we've determined that based off of our anticipated use of that legal services over the next 18 months it would be better to have them on retainer but that we will be using them more um and that would be a cheaper option for us as opposed to utilizing them on an on call basis which is charged hourly and can add up really quickly We want to make sure that we have that lawyer available to help us. And so kind of in conclusion, what I'll tell you is that the the numbers you're seeing in front of you from the select board have gone

through and painstakingly determined the cost at each budget line. And it's not a desire to just increase or decrease by a certain percentage. I do want to say no matter what other individuals have to say, the municipal budget has decreased. You just can't say that it's increased when it hasn't. The municipal budget percent has decreased based off of the annualized rate that we had in the past. That's all I have. Thank you, Jill. Jill stack or Jill Gast. Um, so moderator, I'm a little

concerned and confused by that last statement because according to the chart that was put up, the municipal budget went up 14%. And we were told those were annualized numbers. Last year, the municipal budget went up 9.7%. Um, I made this comment last year and I'm going to make it again this year. This was one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to make sure at least some of the budget numbers weren't the same for the budget committee and select board because I think the town trusts us a lot and they don't realize some things if we're all on the same page. Um, we do have our fund

balance, which is an ample amount of money right now, but that money is going to get down to our minimum as the select board chair pointed out in 2026 or 2027. And this is not stackable math. Um, I confirm this with our town accountant that at that time it is going to be money raised that needs to come up with a difference unless the town in this short period of time raises enough in the way of permits and fees to cover that cost. My other concern is that there's been a large focus so far on um employee wages.

We over the past few years have been instructed that when we make changes to the budget, it is not line by line. That the select board and the department heads have the right to determine where that money is going to be spent and how it's going to be allocated. So to say that this decrease is automatically going to be a decrease in raises, I think is a scare tactic and not appropriate. Um, some of the ways money could be saved is they did develop the safety text messaging system. Unfortunately, I've seen no safety text out of it. What I have seen is letting me know when the town office is closed. Um, last minute notifications of a town meeting, but when roads and or when multiple cars and school buses were off the roads, no text messages were sent out. When Route 9 was closed, by 125. No

text messages were sent out. When we were advised to avoid um pink road, no text messages were sent out. My other concern is that I wanted to raise communication because the select board is making a lot of decisions that are changes that affect our budget not just once but year to year. Um and I Just want to make sure everyone's aware and that we're on board with the select board's choices. We are currently already under a contract with a lawyer. That was a big financial budget change. Um, we're already under contract with IT services. That was a big financial change. I'm not saying that they were unwarranted or they were warranted. I just want to make sure that the public is aware and is making an educated decision when they go today. Um, concern is that the request of hiring an HR consultant. A few years ago, the select board informed us that we needed a town manager because the select board can no

longer handle the volume of HR concerns. Now, we're being told that the town manager and select board cannot handle an HR consultant. want to do some different the employee wages I don't think it's a scare tactic I think this budget last year was extremely close we were within 1% of total budget um there was very little leeway if unex unexpected came up and uh I think I

don't think it's a scare tax to say that the first item that's going to be looked at and said we're not going to do this right now is the employee uh wages. Um, one, the town voted on the the town voted on the town manager at one of these meetings a few years ago. And what he's not getting credit for is all the money he saved us, which has more than covered his salary for the past few years. He saved us money in moving moving our the town's money around collecting I don't know higher interest rates that were 50 75 100% higher than they had been in the past right astronomically higher uh he's uh found increases in uh workers comp and has saved money there gotten less money back uh increased grants I know the fire chief just got a grant here about Tuesday meeting. Um these are all things that take time, take work. Uh and so he has done a fantastic job and it was the select board that prior iteration we weren't on the select board

um uh that that recommended it and it was the town that voted on it because the need was there. One thing that we keep hearing about from the budget committee and other members of the community is why what are we doing to collect the back taxes that takes time and one of the reasons one of the reasons that Jerry can't focus on that as much as he wants to he has told us is because there is so much HR work that is being done. So again, this expense that he's recommended is something that will hopefully make us more money or bring in more revenue for us in the future. Um, and I just want to say if we keep taking away things from these town employees, they're going to leave. Uh, as a state employee, I know I could go into private practice right now, do less work, and make three times the amount of money I'm doing right now. Um, and

We have 11 full-time employees. They are paid less than they would get paid, I think, any of the neighboring communities. They're here because they love this town like the rest of us. Um, and if we lose them, I don't know if we can get a get somebody to come in and fill that position and b if we can fill it the same level that we we see now. And so it's important to protect our employees. We need them so that we can keep going. So thank you for the 11 plus of you and all the the other employees out there.

percentages and the way that some of the stuff is getting explained kind of like my head a little bit sometimes. I'm just going to give you guys an example of um let's talk about the HR situation within like actual numbers and stuff. So when

the Jerry ident his job as a talent manager identified the HR situation risk that needs to be mitigated the select board decided that that was worthy of looking for pulling in a staff member. Um a full-time HR person could range 50 to $75,000 a year. On top of that, you have to pay for their um vacation, insurance, all the benefits that go along with being a full-time employee. So, you can arrive at what

kind of expense that would be. Going the consultant route, it's a 20,000, right? 20,000 $20,000 expense. We have no sick time that we pay, no vacation time that we pay, no benefits that get paid on top of that. When HR person has come in and identified all the things in the office that need to be um in line with state law at that point going forward we can utilize that person on an hourly consulting type basis as there so if

you're looking at that situation Jerry did his job perfectly the select board said go find a human resource person which could have cost the town upward of $100,000 and put all of those costs involved he figured out a for $20,000. So when we're talking about his raise and whether or not his raise is worth it, there's one example where he more than paid for that raise. Additionally, Josh touched on interest. Jerry changed our accounts into um a higher paying interest rate on our fund balance and earned $120,000 this year interest. Is that correct? I remember right. Okay. So the difference there again, this man is doing a phenomenal job managing this account. Um, in terms of legal services, another real numbers for you, $250 to $300 an hour to contract to to hire a lawyer, right? Our agreement with her is

$1,250 a month to have her volunteer. We are definitely utilizing our town attorneys more than five hours a month. Okay. So, if you do the numbers again, this is another way that Jerry has figured out that we'll be able to utilize the town attorney as much as we need to at the cost of $5 an hour if we were paying her by the hour. And we are definitely utilizing services more than five hours a month.

question for you. Don't we have a motion on the floor that we should vote on? We have a motion and an amendment. Okay. So, we vote on that. We're discussing the amendment now. I missed the discussion on the but only had half a couple today. So,

the previous speakers uh discussion points uh the reason this this board is not a weaponized meeting our town voice who are doing a really good job here is really important to us. But when uh the chief uh example being on the budget committee when they're reading off their grievances against this their reasons for promoting a amendment is that wages are increasing 4%. Their amendment does not address the wages in this town. This this portion of the budget we're voting on is only representative of employees. So when you're raising concern that you don't think that employees need a 4% or 3.5% salary adjustment because of the social security adjustment, they don't carry that uh that that reasoning through the rest of the budget. They're only making that recommendation here in one place. And so it's important for us to take that into consideration, but that's not even addressing those concerns. Um as

for the safety concerns with our um text service, we the text service is very new. We're getting more and more people signed up and we're communicating with people around what what they like to see for text, what they don't want to see for text. So, we don't want to imitate people with text messages because if they receive a million text from us, it's just like every other million sorts of emails and text you receive, you'll ignore it. So, we're working on a policy once you text out those services. And that's why we still think it's important to change. So, thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Good morning. just way I it seems like we're debating a lot between the select board and the we're hearing a lot from the select board and the budget committee members but as someone who is just trying to get up to speed on all this having read through the book in advance um I want to thank everyone involved in the creation of this budget I think the tackling of an 18month uh an 18month budget is a challenge in and of itself and to be able to come forward with a budget of half% uh for an 18month budget is commendable. Um I don't agree that that a 4% increase um regardless of where they fall in the budget is un unreasonable in the terms in the time that we're in right now particularly when exactly as the chair of the budget committee said we don't know what's happening and the cost of our stuff h coming in over the next year or so. So, a uh a three and a half or a four depending on how we calculate it with

PBI would be the increase of the of the the pay leave fee that the town is picking up from their employees. I appreciate you doing that for the employees. Uh I think it's fair to say that most of these folks could go somewhere else and get paid more than they did here. So, the things that we can do to keep them here is important. I appreciate the work that the um that the town manager has done since he joined us. I think it's been Uh, you know, we've seen the fruits of having that that full-time manager here, and I appreciate that, and we want to keep him here. Um, and, you know, the idea of mitigating risk as as someone who works uh uh in the school board, I fully understand the goal is to never have to need to, you know, be on the front page of the paper because you had an HR issue or a legal issue that could cost far more than $35,000 between HR and and legal services. So I am not in favor of

the amendment on the floor and I am in favor of the school excuse me the select boards recommen the select board how to spend money. We're just simply saying instead of a 14% increase we propose a 6.4% increase. They can spend the money any way they want to. It's easy to run a town or organization have a blank checkbook. We're simply saying whether that check work. A couple more things on on the big picture. So, with our proposal and the

current school funding estimate that's in the budget, our proposal would be 2.9% uh tax revenue increase. The sweatboard will be 3.5. With a current school board proposal, it's $150,000 over what we used. is going to be close to a 5% tax increase tax increase and history says they'll probably get what they want. So you can expect a 5% increase if you vote for the SW budget just fine. This this is one department. It affects the total budget by less than 1%. So I think it's a reasonable request. And by the way, the the the use of fund balance is going to go away sooner or later or soon or be reduced. If we didn't use the fund balance this year to pay it out in taxes, our tax increase would be 10%. I think it's 9.8, something like that. It'd be a lot using $740,000 of the fund balance to decrease taxes. Eventually, we can't do that. Thank you, Mr.

So this isn't a blank checkbook because you are all voting on what our checkbook total amount that we can spend here is to the point of the um previous speaker uh this 1% change which saying isn't very much is a lot for a department of this size and for a department that has these needs. And so this is an example of us being asked to change a uh six million budget by $70,000 spread across various departments where we can make choices like do we decrease uh uh paying, do we decrease other services. This is being asked to make it out of a department that has very discreet and measurable objectives and very discreet and measurable responsibilities and there just frankly isn't that savings in this department. Um, and we don't have the ability to uh do what we need to do next year at the budget committee's recommended numbers and maintain a safe uh operation and mitigate the risk. There's a lot of discussion right now

about the fund balance and you can always say well if we didn't have the fund balance this would be a different budget and it's correct. we didn't have the fund balance, we would budget differently and would have to have a totally different conversation around the expenditures and investments into future capital and we wouldn't budget very differently. But we aren't in a situation where we don't have that fund balance because we already collected those dollars from it's important for us to utilize them as moving forward and help operate a stable budget. And so I think that it's really important that we reject this amendment because we really do need this dollar am in this department in order to function at the town and mitate all of our risks in the town needs. Yes, sir. Simpson call. Well, I think you're the last person who wishes to speak. So, uh I think we're going to have a vote in.

whether to amend article five to re to raise and appropriate 1,65,000 for three or 1,65,3 $375. Um, and if you're in favor of the amendment of changing the article, please raise your green done. If we not in favor of changing the article of amending the article. Please raise your It's clear to me that the uh the uh motion to amend fails. So what's still on the floor is the Can we count to have a count? We can do

it. Let's let's uh have the counters ready. the amendment, if you're in favor of changing the article to read raise and appropriate 1 card and keep it 45. Okay. I'll now ask you if you are against amending the article and you want to keep the motion the way it was, please raise your green card. and keep it up.

you. The motion to amend fails by 45 to 63. So, we're back to the original motion, which was to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate in favor of that, please raise your green down. If you're opposed, please raise your green card. That motion

town will raise or vote to raise and appropriate 1 million $55,000 So, is there a second? Second. Is there discussion? money, we've always uh informed towns people as to what we're going to be buying with capital monies and I would certainly appreciate it. We have I believe three or four articles here today which this one specifically talks about expenditures of what we in the past called capital improvement and it's still capital improvement but we need to identify in a specific so I would really appreciate it if it's identified as to what monies in

this particular one which were using that what are we going to be expending for capital Mr. I just want to clarify this uh budget plan does not have capital expenditures because we move to a capital plan. Capital expenditures come out of capital improvement plan. So it's not um within this budget. So it will be in this particular one it be article 10 I think I understand there's two different articles here. addressing was article six and there's another article 10 article 10 be correct

article 10 is related to the population of the of the thank you is there further discussion okay I'll go to a vote if you're in favor of voting to raise and appropriate 1 million5500 920 for public safety. Please raise your green card

that motion, please put your card up. Okay, the motion will want to raise appropriate [Music] $2,880,550 for public works. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there vote. You're voting whether to raise an appropriate

please raise your green You disagree with these free. Okay. Thank you. That motion passes. Art to see if the town will want to raise and appropriate $1,000 for community services. Is there a move? Is there a second? Second.

It's been moved and seconded that article 8 to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate $1,000 for community services. If you're in favor of that, please raise your green card. Thank you. Please vote. If you are not in favor of that, please raise your green card. Thank you. That motion

vote to raise and appropriate vote? Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that article 9 is passed. Is there discussion? Sorry. No problem. Please ch um on debt service there's a reduction of 30%. Looking at the chart I saw of our debt, did we have a reduction in our actual debt? We still have those obligations and the reduction we're seeing in our budget is only the timing of our payments. Mr. Y is it has to do with the timing of the payments. So some of them are paid um twice during this uh this 18month cycle. Some of them have a payment towards principal twice but only towards interest once. So it just has to do with the time. Thank you. Is there further discussion?

none, if you're in favor of raising an appropriate $85,318 for debt service, please raise your green card. Thank you. Please. If you are not in favor, please raise your green card. Article 9 passes. raise appropriate to $70,000 for the fire department capital reserve and existing non-lapsing capital reserve fund for which the select form may expend the designated purpose of reserve. Is there a motion? So is there a second?

Yes, Mr. B. appropriate we identify what specific capital improvement will be expended for this particular item. The reason I'm asking is this many times in the past when we talk about each individual property we have talked

about what additional new equipment is out there and just wanted to be very transparent as to what's going on with people in town know exactly what's going on. M I'll defer to the uh fire chief to make his first comment. So with us having moved to a uh annual funding of

capital uh reserve accounts there is the proposed schedule but that does not mean that that is everything uh that will be expended or does not mean that those will be expended. So we do have proposed things that are coming up this year, but if it's not needed to replace getting more lifespan out of a piece of equipment or there's a technology technology change that allows us to repair something that proposed to replace it that provides us with the opportunity but I do want to defer to these questions to the department head to share what they have proposed for the for the saf

Yes, G. I appreciate Al because it does matter to the budget people, to the voters, and I appreciate the opportunity. Um, I have identified a 10-year capital improvement plan currently as we sit, as we all know today, those prices are changing. You're trying to figure them out as being a little bit more difficult regardless of which side you're on. Um, so that 1.8 8 million for 10 years that becomes 180,000 per year. Sort of like a level funding. Uh the 270 you see in front of you is 18 months annualized. Um we're not purchasing anything this year. Not purchasing anything next year. My next uh purchase request will be for

2029 uh a new ambulance also rescue uh and then keeping the one we have. At that point, our airboards will be 10 years old. It'll have more than 100,000 miles on it. Um, that's usually when they're replaced. We're starting to actually spend money on that rescue more than the maintenance about things are breaking and failing. Um, we're also putting money away for rehab. Currently, the ladder is being rehab and that was with our funds. I appreciate that. But our our six fire trucks are now aging out. They're 15 and a half years old. as far as the six average goes. Um, so we're putting money away to rehab those things. Um, what the select board chair

mentioned hasn't even made public yet, but I'm doing due diligence with replacement. So, I'm not trying to spend a million dollar lap try 2 million now, a million dollar pump. We're trying to be at uh Tuesday, the select board will be uh informed and given out that the town of Durham just received a $26,000 firehouse grant for a new rescue boat. So, the town's getting a new rescue boat on a grant on the backs of Captain Salvi and the town staff putting that together. Um we just got 16,000 this week in other monetary grants. It's due diligence, but I assure you everything we can do to put money aside to rehab. Again, the next purchase is in 29. The problem with that is next year I'll need to sign for a rescue if that's approved um to keep that cost at 2026 cost because it's a three-year build for our ambulance. So, we have even though this money is being collected every year, we're looking out 10 years. We

have to sign possibly next year if approved uh for a three-year build. Pumper trucks are full. So Alan, does that suffice your questions? I I appreciate the segue because the town's people should know where it's going. Thank you to you,

This year's budget process has been extremely extremely frustrating for me personally um because I felt like as much as we are trying to be transparent there are things that are not fair um I commend every department for having a tenure lookout I think that's wonderful I think that's responsible where the disconnect seems to be coming from is the town's people don't seem to have

the right to vote or to to know what we're going on. Today when they put it up on the screen was the first time and I've asked three times. It was the first time that it was disclosed that it's a pickup, a flatbed and a front end that we were purchasing. We used to have something called a CIP group which was made up by I believe towns people and the department heads would put in like five of their most needed items and this group was rated and decide what we going to purchase. Right now that's out of those hands and it is now up to the select board um or Jerry or the town. I'm not even sure who's responsible but it just seems like that has away from the town people. Um, I find it very frustrating. I asked her to be as transparent as possible. They said, "Don't worry. It will be all put out there." Well, I think one line on that screen is not enough information for me as a taxpayer.

I just want to actually say thank you, Jane, for advocating so much to get that um on the website. I think you know it's something that we we're all still working um at a lot of the transparency issues that we're trying to correct and Jated relentlessly for the capital improvement plan for each department to be on our website and that is available on our website at this point. Um it's right underneath the annual town meeting. You can click on that. You can see the tenure plan. and see exactly what's being what's um being proposed to be purchased each year and what that amount is. We also ask that that live there permanently so that at any point in the year any resident has the ability to go on our website and see exactly what the tenure plan looks like and as the department has updated that tenure plan that information will also be updated on the website as well. So Jane, thank you for your advocacy. I think it

it really helps bring that to the forefront and get that information available to the residents. Is there further discussion? Okay, seeing none, I'll call for vote. This is your vote. See if the town will vote to raise $270,000 for the fire department capital reserve. If you agree with that, please raise your green card. Thank you. If you disagree, please raise your green card. Thank you. The motion

the town will want to raise and appropriate $35,500 of the public works capital reserve. This is an existing non-live capital reserve fund from which the select board may expend for the designated purpose of the reserve. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that we raise the appropriate return of $5,500. Is there discussion?

wish. when I initially had said specifically about three different improvement. A motion is put on the floor. No more explanation for the person that put the motion on the floor. So therefore, I feel obligated to come up here and ask the question again. What is going on with public works? If anything, granted, there may be money's going in, but maybe nothing's coming out. Please explain that. So, somebody would like to address that.

saw the screen presented shows the pickup truck that I talked here. That's why we didn't find it last year. That's what's good about we can ways. And it also was article 11 to see if the town will look to raise and appropriate $35,500 of the public works capital reserve. If you agree with that, please raise your green cards. Thank you very much. If you disagree with that, please raise your green card. Thank you very much. Article 11

to raise and appropriate $15,000 for the mun municipal buildings capital reserve an existing non-lapsing capital reserve fund from which the select board may expend for designated purposes of the reserve. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and second town raise $15,000 municipal capital this year. Is there discussion?

today. I'm I'm not objecting to any of these things. I'm just asking when we're looking at capital reserve. I think it's very proactive. I'm glad to see it. I've always been an advocate of showing us that 10 year plan and and that's what's being done. But sharing that, sharing the reward of doing things like this is what I'm trying to the town's people that this is very positive thing that's going on. So, you know, pat yourself on the back when putting this motion in and really push it out there and be

Yes. stay seated. There's been um I can't think of the term a research group, a committee that's been looking at what to do with our town center and a lot of conversation of um either renovating or building a new town hall, but chart that was presented in the beginning of today and $15,000. Um I presume we're not proactively saving for that and so I am I correct to

assume that it would be a bond issue. Can anybody answer that destroy? Yes. So, uh, replacing a town office or building a new town office isn't in the 10ear capital plan. It was a grand opportunity to have a facilitated conversation to receive impact and input from the entire community on what they would like to see done in a um downtown center area. Anything that comes out of that is yet to make it to whiteboard and just be considered um based off what those inputs are, but we're not make any ass.

So, is it safe to assume once we get the information it would be put into a plan to save for it or should we be assuming there? anything because do not know what the recommendation from that committee is. If the recommendation is to create something in the next 20 years, then it would give us ample time to save for it. So I don't think it's safe to assume that we would have foration.

you. Is there further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for vote. You're voting to see if the town will vote to raise incorporate $15,000 for the municipal building and capital reserve. If you agree with that, please raise your green card. Thank you very much. If you disagree, please raise your green card. Thank you very much. Article 12

if the town will raise appropriate $3,152 for the grants matching reserve. This is an existing non-lapsing capital reserve fund from which the select board may expend for the designated purpose of reserv. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that article 13 be passed. Is there

vote. You're voting to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate $3,152 for grants matching reserve. If you agree, please raise your green card. Please put it down. If you disagree, please raise your green card. Thank you very much. Article 13

passes. Article 14 is the city of the town will vote to reduce the amounts authorized to be raised in taxes in the previous war articles by tax redisco. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that town vote to reduce the amounts authorized to be raised in taxes in the previous war articles by

revenue line. I'm sorry. I picked up in your presentation earlier. It seemed like a pretty large increase from 62 in the current year to 50 to 52 I think of the 18 months. Just curious what that can somebody handle that question. Yes. The select board addresses the fee schedule. Oh, sorry. Um the select board address the fee schedule. Um and that the rate that

people are paying for permits and that contributed to the other answer. No, I'm not. so the assumption was that rates would stay consistent over the next 18 months. We don't have a crystal ball. discussion? You're voting to see if the town will vote to reduce the amounts authorized to be raised in taxes in the previous board articles by

article, please raise your green card. Thank you. If you disagree with this article, please raise your green card. Thank you. will authorize the select board to appropriate up to $740,000 the general fund's existing fund balance to reduce the amounts authorized to be raised in taxes in the previous article. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. 15 passes. Is there discussion? Yes,

Staff. I just want to share an opinion. I don't expect it to affect the vote. So it was pointed out at the beginning of the meeting that the town has a very healthy fund balance. That fund balance right now is making interest for the town at a fairly

healthy rate. I believe our CDs have only 4.5% but of course will change over time. I'm I'm of the opinion that it's best to let your money make money for you. It's an easy way of making of of earning money. Um, I'm enjoying retirement right

now because the money I invested over decades is making enough money to live a nice lifestyle. The town has a very healthy fund balance. If we weren't to touch it, it would keep making us enough money so that many of the expenses that we're voting on, it would pay for those. But instead, we're voting down for you to to use that fund balance. So eventually we will

have to be raising taxes to pay for the things the town needs and wants. I don't expect the town to change its recommendation for this year by taking out $740,000 out of the funds, but how much money could that $740,000 be making for the town? And that is a discussion that rarely came up. It was only there was only one question regarding that asked to the

another strategy is like is not touching your money and letting it make you money to cut down on your expenses down the road. So at the at the the risk of being with them today, the reason why we're we're going to vote to use $740,000 from the fund balance is because it's going to keep our taxes at now sounds like we'll be above a 3 and a half to 4% increase. Because if you voted not to

use this $740,000 from the fund balance your tax increase on I'm only guessing by about double. So this is really a bandaid approach where we're we we have money available to make us money which will help in the long run cut down our

expenses. Instead, we're going to use the money right now to cut down the expenses over the next 18 months, but we're looking at a significant raise in taxes for Thank you, M. Okay, Mr. No relation. Um, so one thing I just want to say has a very good point. Uh, in in our personal finances, the goal is to build a large principal amount and account and live off of the um interest rate proportion in retirement. Uh

municipal finances function differently. And so in order for us to have an investment that is yielding the uh $6.5 million for our next 18 month municipal budget or $12 million for our entire town cost, that principal amount would have to be astonishingly large. And in this situation, you know, 4% interest on $750,000 is $29,000. And so we think that it's important to uh rather than come forward and ask you all to give the town money to populate an account that will then be built up into a large principle that we set offset the entire cost of um running municipality which would take decades or unless everyone put a lot of money up front. It's better to spend down that amount into help mitigate the annual increase in taxes. Now, one thing I want to make clear is these uh these allocations for future capital, those still remain in our account and they're not taken out of. So, when we are putting $270,000 in the capital reserve

account, that then goes to make interest for us as well. Those dollars aren't expended. So, we actually buy we still have interest income from that. And we just feel it's not appropriate in municipal funding to carry this large balance and ask folks even though we We have your your tax dollars. We want more of your tax dollars to build this this account. It's not really a feasible strategy at the scale of our budget. Thank you. Is there further discussion? Yes.

is gone in five years any increases will not be mitigated or offset by this amount increase your taxes. So the discussion that came up was maybe weigh in what were increases so that when we get to that point we don't have built in our budget that we can't um we can't address that

in huge increase because we have no money to offset. So just keep that in mind. Thank you. Yes sir. trouble like you know 10 years ago whatever we have too much of a balance in our general fund and then also if we're not up to date on our current valuations of property it also affects state funding coming back matching school system or grants that kind of stuff that's why I thought you know one answer that questions we had to like pay down some of our debt from the general fund years ago I know we kind of forget history, but I can't remember for sure the year that that happened. But I just want to know if anybody all of you been in public service for a long time. Maybe you remember that recall. I just want to make sure that that's issue that we've addressed. So it might

Can somebody address this question? Yes, please. statute includes a maximum on our unfunded undesated fund balance, but the school undesated fund balance does. So, it could be back prior to the RSU. It fell to the town for that. Um, this the schools are not required to um keep a maximum. The statute states uh it's varied over the years. It was as low as 3%. It was as high as 9% during co uh it's this upcoming year is 5% of your of your total budget. And the risk of having more than that in undesated fund balance, excuse me, is the state has the ability to uh offset some of your uh subsidy. So if you have too much in your savings account, they say, "Well, okay, we don't need subsidy from the state." And so historically, they have not done that. to my understanding in the 12 years I've been on the board that has not been um it's not been a lever that they have they have utilized but it is in the statute to to maintain a maximum

a designated fund balance obviously significantly less than what the town has recommended of 15 to 25 on the municipal side for the schools for the school side it's 5% thank you so much very uh Mr. I just want to address a couple. Thank you for that answer, but I also just want to address the concern about spending down the fund balance in that uh what happens in five years. At the same time, we're spending down debt. So, right now, our annual debt expenditure is $85,000. Um we pay uh off almost all of that by 2030. So as we're paying off our debt, we're setting aside this capital which we then will have lower expenses in terms of debt that gives us different budgeting opportunities in the future. And so that's why we're comfortable spending this down at the rate which recommended and we work with our account to come up with what is a reasonable amount of money to be to help manage cash flow and expenditures like that.

That's why we're very comfortable with this number of select and budget committee. Thank you. Is there further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. You're voting to see if the town will authorize the select board to appropriate up to $740,000 from the town for the general fund's existing bucket balance to reduce the amounts authorized to raise in taxes and previous. If you agree with this, please raise your green card.

with this, please yours is Thank you very much. Article 15 will vote to consolidate the commission's reserve and uh Greek capital center reserve with the municipal buildings capital reserve and to revise the stated purpose of the reserve as follows. Municipal buildings Reserve shall be used to pay for acquisitions, construction or approvals of municipal buildings and grounds including equipment, furniture, information, technology and other necessary items furnishing equipment. Unexpended benefits of the reserve shall not lapse fiscal year but shall instead carry it forward from year to year. Is there a motion? So is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that article 16 passes. Is there discussion?

Yeah. So the reason this we're making this recommendation is because the Eureka Center is a municipal building and so we felt rather than two separate reserves made more sense to house all municipal buildings under the same reserve. So the dollars available to work on all the municipal buildings

accounts we have. Thank you. Is there further discussion? Yes. The telecommunications reserve is being that? Well, the telecommunication needs are often associated with municipal build. discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for vote article 16. You're voting to see if the town will vote to consolidate several reserve. If you're in favor of this, please raise your green card.

raise your green card. Okay. Article 16 passes. Article 17 to see if the town will vote to rename the emergency reserver as the contingency reserve and to establish the stated purpose of the reserve as follows. The contingency reserve shall be used to play pay for unplanned, unbudgeted or underbudgeted expenditures if they arise during the fiscal year. unexpended balances of the reserve shall not lapse at the end of the fiscal year but shall instead carry forward from year to year. Is there a motion? So move. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that article 17 passes. Uh is there discussion? Yes,

uh Contingency fund have the same restrictions as the emergency fund. If I remember correctly from being on the light board, the emergency fund could only be expended with a vote from the budget committee. Will that remain?

they weren't looking at the numbers. The current balance of the emergency reserve is 16,9. this will function like all the other correct. So that's one more tax in my comment that sled had authority over emergency fund exclusively based on last year's town meeting that's I guess expires this year so somebody needs to do something about that I'm not sure about that but um but the other thing is there's not much in in the realm of emergencies that the capital funds wouldn't cover if we need a roof and the transmission or something like that the capital funds will pay for that and the library has control over those already. So I don't think there's anything in the emergency world significant that couldn't wait to external meeting. So I don't see that this would need to happen and my opinion is if you get this is human nature. If you give this whiteboard $50,000 he'll spend it. Thank you M.

could be classified as an emergency. Um There are also things that don't classify as an emergency that funds we need to cover. For example, if you remember back when our previous town manager resigned and we need to hire a new town manager, that was an $8,000 expense um to be able to recruit and hire a new town manager. Our audit this

year that was done produced that the budget had a 1% um what's the right variance and the recommended amount is yeah basically you're very thin a very small margin um to be able to utilize and so this gives the town the select board the town manager the the ability to be able to cover any of those types of things that would happen within this 18mon cycle that don't that are not defined by an emergency. Yes, please. I I this seems completely reasonable. It's not a large dollar. They're not looking to put $50,000 into this emergency fund. Uh could you share how much has been spent since last year when you did have the authority to spend these? Can somebody answer that? Zero. No. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.

so the $8,000 that was used to hire the new town manager, if I remember correctly, didn't go over their department budget. And in the past, the ones that are doing all the department budget was the fire department and when it comes to town meeting, we vote to cover that. So, I'm still confused why

we need this fund since we already have procedures in place either to cover small amounts or since it's $10,000, it can be paid by capital. Can somebody alleviate her confusion? Mr. Roy, we don't think that it's an appropriate measure to say, well, if we just go, we can forgiveness. We want to try to be in line with the budget that the town proposes and this would provide us with a little bit of opportunity to accommodate emergencies. So emergencies could look like a variety of things, but also anyone who's been making purchases over the last couple weeks have seen fluctuations in expenses. And so if there is a major fluctuation in expense for need, we want to be able to supplement that a little bit if necessary. and capital improvement capital are really important capital what we've all discussed today and not to pull from to accommodate for an emergency and when we have an issue of expense that's been arised and and then

that department still being under budget often times that means it remains under budget at the expense of some other item so something else was skipped something else was notable because they had to cover that unexpected expense

discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. We're voting to see if the town will rename the emergency reserves as the contingency reserve and establish the state department. If you're agreeing with that, please raise your green

with that, please raise your green card. think we should have 17 to regain the emergency reserves and establish the purpose, please raise your green card and leave it up. Okay, please put it down. If you disagree with article 17 and you'd rather not rename the emergency reserve, please raise your card and hold it up.

were 38. So, article 17 passes. Thank you. Article 18 to see if the town will vote to transfer $33,047 from the municipal buildings capital reserve to the contingency reserve to bring the contingency reserve balance to $50,000. Is there a motion? So, is there a second? Been moved and seconded that article is pass. Is there discussion? Yes.

under the understanding that these funds will come from the telecomunications. You assume that that goes a big chunk of money. put the 33,000 and once again this takes the vote away from the tax. combine those and not raise it money any money just reallocate to an emergency reserve as well.

unbudgeted. Correct. Mr. Roy. Yes. And we felt like that was important seeing as we have 18 month budget. We were within 1% of spending on last budget cycle. There's a lot of things that have been popping up recently due to the expenses and possibly business municipality that this would be a good way to have money set with approval from municipal voters to address those concerns rather

Uh follow James question. If indeed the in the telecommunication account, why wasn't awarded that way? sure I can fully understand the question. a little bit later question previously asked if the 33,000 $47 was the amount discussed during a budget committee meeting and that was the money that was in the telecommunications fund that the

board wished to transfer to the um I can't remember to transfer transfer to emergency. They wanted to they wanted to transfer to the emergency fund. My question is if this is the $33,047 that was discussed during the budget committee meeting. This is the [Music] $33,47 which was originally in the telecommunications fund. Why wasn't that word? Why? [Music]

Royal people. I think the way the warrants were written is they assume the previous ones are approved. Otherwise, you would have to amend all of your so you have to make an assumption one way or the other. Generally, they are passed in the affirmative. So they're written such that so if this was written and it said telecommunication will telecommunication preserve no longer exists because we are incoded to to consolidated into the municipal same way not referring to the emergency fund it's referred to as a contingency. I think the way we write warrants that's that's typically how it's done. Thank you. So if people want to follow along with my thought on page 19 of the report we

just voted to add telecommunication reserve in the amount of $48,816 for a total of building reserve which is a total of 1933. And the current question that we're asking is if you will allow 50,000 No, not true. $33,47 transfer from that

193,233 that we all just compiled together into the reserve. M and just to follow up on that what the previous speaker said these articles are under the assumption the previous article passes and if that previous article doesn't pass then there's no need to vote on the subsequent article the previous articles are what if that failed we would not have had subsection

agree with article 18 to see if the town will vote to transfer $33,47 the municipal buildings capital reserve to the contingency reserve, please raise your passed. Can you call the count, please? Can you call a count, please?

Okay, my counters will go down on the floor. article 18 that is to see if the town transfer reserve. Please raise your green card and hold it up. Please raise your heart and keep them up. 45 in the negative. So, uh, article

1810, what purpose do you rise? Just a question based on previous meetings. past, we would have two sets of counters. So that I mean it looked like right now we had two counters. One counted the back the bleacher area, one counter, one counted the people seated, but in previous meetings we would have two sets of counters to make sure that those numbers agree. So for instance, we'd have two people counting the people who were seated and two people would count the people who were in the bleachers. and that and then there was a then there was a come together to make sure that those numbers were in agreement. I'm just wondering why we do that this year. That's a fine question. I I think either way is permissible. I don't know uh I don't I'm not aware of any rule or or statute that would require us to do it one way or the other. I think uh if we're required to do account we're asked to do account. I think if we come up

with a reason to reliably doing it, I think we're Nancy and also one of the counties. Um, I've been working with elections for a long time and I've been here at the town meetings for a bunch of years. I can't remember. Anyway, uh, we've done both. There have been a few times but it's true but to be honest most of the time it's like we've done it today. Thank you very much.

break just to allow the town planner to get set up and of course let's take a let's take a 8 minute break until front cash is any [Music] We'll move on to article the land use ordinances as set forth in the document town of Durham land use ordinances adopted in town meeting April 6, 2024. Proposed revision for town meeting April 5th, 2025. Part one, draft amendments and resource protection district to match the latest state data and give for buildings in the RP district. Article 2 and zoning be in action. Do I have a motion?

see? Yes. I just wanted to make sure. It's been moved and seconded that article 19 has passed. Um, Mr. Bur has been requested to give a brief presentation about Thank you, Mr. Moderator. garage uh terminal service planner and I'm going to be presenting the recommendations of the planning board and conservation commission working group for amendments to the resource protection district. So uh they did a study over the last year and came to the following key findings. The first is that the based on recommendations of the 20 of the 2018 comprehensive plan u in

2023, the resource protection district was revise to incorporate um findings and research of the state provided on natural resources in Durham and based on that information uh the current resource protection district boundary was uh established. Uh public input during the process leading up to the 2023 amendments indicated concerns over the accuracy of the state data. Uh and then the second concern that came up was the impact on people with existing buildings in resource protection uh requiring them for any expansion whatsoever to have to go through either the board of appeals or the planning board. So um in as a result of that

public input on the concerns for the accuracy of the state data uh and wildlife did a customized analysis of Durham that got much more fine-tuned and robust studies done and determined that a significant portion of the land uh based on one of their criteria uh did not actually meet the standards for designation resource protection. So as uh Mr. Roy indicated approximately 1500 acres of one of the categories of resource protection beginning with habitat uh co occurrence of natural resources will be removed through these amendments. Uh in terms of the impact on existing buildings, uh the working group is recommending that uh a development buffer be put around those existing buildings in order to allow expansions without having to go to the uh for boards for relief in terms of projects they want to do. So as far as those uh changes, this map represents the changes to the resource protection district. You

can see uh yellow coloration uh is the areas that were designated as resource protection that will be removed through these amenities. And then the customized uh analysis there were based on the study approximately uh there were 18 buildings in the uh areas designated

based on that state data that will be removed. Those are shown on this slide in purple. uh and then there were uh 34 locations where buildings were in resource protection for other reasons. So the working group is recommended for those other buildings that uh if they were in a flood plane that's the reason they're in resource protection uh they have a 100 foot buffer around those buildings uh for development purposes and uh that would still be subject to federal, state and local flood plane management uh requirements for those

uh if they are in a designated forested wetland area based on the state mapping. Similarly, there would be 100 foot distance from all their existing buildings that they would be able to expand into uh subject to federal and state regulations. uh the working groups are a different approach for screen buffers and uh another category I'll explain and for those areas they felt that it was important not to further compromise uh the uh buffer above that more sensitive natural resource and so they are recommending that the boundary be pulled off those buildings and that they be allowed to expand as long as they go no closer to the resource. And then finally, the fourth category is sim same thing. Uh certainly important waterfall uh breeding habitat areas. Uh there's only a couple of these in the whole town where there's a building intruding into that 250T buffer. So again, similarly,

uh they would need to expand that building the elevator as long as they don't go any further into the buffer. So with those changes uh that will remove uh the areas that were formerly designated beginning with habitat 6 plus currents and it will also remove those from RP subject to those specific buffers which will all be shown

Joe, last Sunday road, were any I know I see things were removed. Was anything added? Can anybody answer that question? No. Is that next year? There's no plans to add. discussion? Okay. Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. You are voting on article 19 amendments to land use ordinance regarding the resource protection district. If you favor this article, please raise your green card. Thank you for if you do not favor this article, please raise your green card. Thank you. Article 19

to the land use ordinance as set forth in the document town of Durham land use ordinance as adopted at town meeting April 6, 2024. Proposed revisions for town meeting April 5th, 2025 part two draft amendments to apply contract zoning to a large battery energy storage or solar energy system and enact best I

think that should read best standards. Lo articles 2 3 and 19 be enacted. Do I have a motion? So move. It's been do I have a second? It's been moved and seconded that article 20 is passed. Uh would somebody like to make an uh an amendment? Would I like to move an amendment to change best to best? A point of clarification. It it should read ESbreviation for battery energy storage system. My my error. So no uh

no. So it's been moved and seconded that article 20 should pass. Is there any Mr. present some background information for the voters to understand this uh complicated issue. Um so the recommendations for amendments to the land use ordinance are coming from the planning board as well as the select board after their review of these issues and this was kind of precipitated u these are kind of key findings that we put together just to summarize how the town got to this point. Uh the town's forum uh two years ago approved a utility scale better energy storage system uh 5 acres 175 megaww next to CMP

substation uh in an industrial park and Durham has received inquiries about doing a similar facility here in this community even larger. So as a result uh the town attorney advised the select board that application actually meets the definition of uh essential service and would be a permitted use anywhere in Durham other than in the resource protection district. So uh the other problem and even norm has this problem is that they have no standards for this particular uh developing very intensive use technology. Uh and as permitted uh the only standards that the planning board would apply to one of these facilities if they were proposed for Durham would be the site plan review standards which are completely silent on this particular development form. Uh so

uh based on experiences in other states u particularly New York research we looked at indicated that there are significant uh fire safety, noise and environmental concerns associated with these systems and as I said currently has no standards to apply to address those issues. So based on these facts uh the select board uh called for a special meeting back in November and the town a six-month moratorum to allow us to try to put together these uh these regulations which the planning board had already been working on. Uh and so we were in a good position to move fairly rapidly and put this together based on a lot of research that we were able to look at. So since that time the planning board and the select board have been working with the staff to put together these draft amendments consisting of proposed standards for battery energy storage systems as well as contract

battery energy storage systems coming from the planning board review. They recommend that the town establish a three tier system arranging everything from someone has an electric vehicle and they have a or solar panels on their roof and they just have one of these battery storage systems in their garage that will be a T1. Uh and that would be small scale residential and business someone has a business that has a high energy sustain they would be in that first tier as well. And then you have the medium scale which was a project that went in in Cumberland where they have an office building fairly large and they have a solar field and if they have battery energy storage system to support their their needs that might go up to a tier 2 and tier three would be like the Gorum 575 megawatt classification. So all of the best systems whether they be the Tesla in the garage or the energy storage system like one in Gorum,

they would have to meet all of the latest uh safety uh standards for start to finish. Uh the connections to the power line, the internal connections within the system, the monitoring, the alarms, the the suppression, fire suppression. There are there are new standards uh and even for the individual batteries that we're going there all kinds of standards that are referenced in the ordinance. So the plan will and code officer and other town staff will have the the needed standards to apply. Uh the proposed amendments will allow tier one home applications uh to be approved just by the code officer with an electrical permit and by all of those safety standards will be applied to that. Tier two will and tier three would have to go through a plan board site plan review process uh which will focus primarily on screening noise control and emergency access. And then if a project gets up to the size of a

tier three, it would require industrial scale. That would be the fire chief gave gave a lot of input on this uh their concern not just having a water fire water source of fire protection but having redundant supply. So that if the wind is blowing in a certain direction, they can have multiple points to get water from to deal with an emergency. And also having what they call an emergency operations plan where immediately if they monitor any type of problem within the facility, it shuts down as much as possible internally, but the emergency personnel are notified and experts from the operator are brought in to help them deal with that those some of those special issues.

concern for any uh of these types of developments. Uh and so this follows work that we did with the solar farms and would require extensive screening where there are visual impacts and would also make them provide for eventual decommissioning of the project if necessary. So the other part of this select board worked with the town attorney who suggested and recommended that the town consider contract zone for these large scale energy projects. And as I said uh norm uh it was in an industrial park location so it was not particularly controversial. Uh but in the case of green this isn't the one in green but a similar scale. uh the town of Green had a proposal to build a 600 acre solar farm and that just sent the town into spin of you know how do we deal with this? So, uh the uh this conservation

commission had been working on uh looking doing an analysis to determine where so large solar farms uh where it was appropriate or inappropriate. And so the town attorney suggested that contract zoning is is authorized under state law. Just says, look, any once you set a certain threshold, any project would have to go to town for approval for contract zoning. So that's what the selector is recommending and the basic framework for that would be that uh any largecale energy storage system uh proposed anywhere is currently permitted use anywhere along those two power lines. Uh and this would change uh and as I said the conservation commission had been exploring suitable locations for large scale solar systems and this would address that as well. Uh both forms of development do have potential benefits for the community both in terms of facilitating alternative energy sources uh as well as potential tax benefits for

the town but at the same time they also can have a significant impact on rural character and environmental quality that would be addressed through these amendments. Contract zoning is that mechanism to consider these on a case-byase basis where those factors can all be evaluated and then brought to a town meeting to decide if this project is in the best interest of the town and uh in those proposals there's a process outlining the ordinance amendments for the negotiation of that review by the planning board and the select board and then presentation at the town meeting for a number down the road. Draft amendments will require that any best system with a capacity of more than one megawatt and that is about one of those shipping container size uh project components. Anything more than that would have to go go to a town meeting and uh after a lot of public discussion and input the select board

eventually arrived at anything any solar farm of 20 acres or more would also have to go through that contracting process. And those are amendments in summary. much. Is there further discussion? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. New Brunswick Road Dump Road to people

that have been in town for a while. Um, so we're we're on the cusp of uh joining the uh getting the benefits of solar power, whichever side of the issue you fall on that. Um I'm glad that it will be left to a town meeting. Um it's a relatively new technology and um I would just want to bring up the point that I think fire protection uh and the potential for fire is a significant issue with these especially in the conic size containers that store the batteries. The batteries are primarily lithium and lithium is a class D fire and most suppression systems including inner earing systems and teenaged systems are not ulisted or

approved to extinguish a class B fire and a class B fires is extremely dangerous and can propagate very very quickly. Of course, if you put enough water on any type of fire, it will eventually be extinguished, but you would need an extraordinary amount of wire of water to extinguish a significant class B fire. Um, there are chemical agents available that are class B fire extinguishers and I believe the NFPA codes uh provide

considerable guidance in addressing this type of fire. And I hope that the uh town fathers and fire department of course uh will insist that the NFPA codes that are not adopted by every jurisdiction for these solar projects be rigorously enforced. We're going to put that type of hazard within the boundaries of our town. Thank you. Thank you, sir. M

them. Who would who would choose to answer that? Mr. Roy, if this ordinance was adopted, it would provide the timely opportunity to apply those standards where this Okay. And is the wording such that they have to keep up to date and compliant not just the year they got the permit but every year they need to be making upgrades as we run more things about this. Mr. if this ordinance is adopted all those criteria will be developed by the select planning board and ultimately the town by the town vote and that is something that could be required during that process. That's only if it hits contract. Correct. Otherwise, I would refer to the basic safety standards that they have built into the ordinance as well. Okay. So, for the minor ones, are they being required to meet the latest and greatest fire standards? Mr. Burge can answer.

Yes. The draft amendments include a requirement that the systems and again the home uh application is a whole different animal than these large utility scale when most of those problems have happened. So for the for the larger systems they're required to do an annual inspection uh by an engineer to test all of the system and make sure that they're following those requirements. So every year we will be monitored and if the standards change we'll have to stand. Thank you. Would the Gorum project have fallen under contract if it was done in Durham? Yes. Okay. Um, and is cleanup

being considered as well? Because if there is a fire, there's a lot of chemicals that get into the ground into the water source. Mr. Burns, can you answer? That would be covered under the requirements for the emergency operations plan to deal with everything. from initial notifications to uh dealing with the emergency and then in the aftermath as well. That's all spelled out in direct in terms of the process. Thank you. And as we learn new things about this, I know the larger projects they have um evacuation that's required with the smaller projects. as we learn new information, are they going to have to be in the standards of evacuation as well? And is the select board going to take that into consideration when you need to think about that there's daycarees and things like that that can be in the area of these buses. Someone here to answer

the emergency operations plan. So any developer of this facility will have to work closely with the fire chief and the fire department to look at all of these issues in terms of evacuation contingencies uh alarms. Uh and also addressing and partly benefit contract zoning is obviously one of the things driving this is the limited capacities compared to or

some of those larger municipalities. So, uh, under contract zoning, anything over one of those containers, uh, if there are certain equipment, uh, service needs of the fire department, uh, that can be a requirement, uh, negotiated through the contract zoning process. And if they do not provide the resources to the satisfaction of the fire chief, the select board planning board town meeting, they would not be able to build the facility in Europe. Thank you, Mr. And another thing to add uh in relation to like the location of a project u with concerns around daycarees or things like that. Under the current proposed ordinance, it would give the uh town the authority to reject a project simply based off of its location and the town that appropriate location for it. Whereas if you did not have the contract zoning, if someone met the minimum safety standards and the minimum construction criteria, the planning

board would not have the ability to reject them purely because they don't want that project cited near particular resource. So this would give board that ability to negotiate the town to approve without it. They can put it wherever as long as it met the construction standards. Yes, ma'am.

Drag. Um, I'm in support of adopting best standards because this a best project work to be improved in our town. The standards would help minimize safety issues associated with this type of development specifically. Um, same safety issues don't necessarily apply to solar projects right now. Um, and I'm also in favor of having a permitting approval framework like contract zoning for development in Durham. Um, and I understand bass and solar projects are a priority right now as expressed interest by developers in our town. However, I think other large development types like gravel kits for mineral extraction should also be included under contracts in the future. And I think gravel have a much greater impact on the environment and are a much greater source of disturbances such as noise to the public than these other types of projects we're talking about today. Um, so I hope next year at town we're

looking to add gravel pits and other large developments like maybe even potentially certain subdivisions that wouldn't qualify as affordable housing because of the cost of the houses. um end up selling that like to see these added to contract zoning. Um if we're going to have any type of um development under contract zoning, we should have all large um development under contract z. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am.

all, I really think we should recognize our attorney's foresight in picking up on this and developing this whole process. I I know many many people come and and very very pleased to see that. Um so I want to say thank you to that. Um we do have what one more month left. I believe six months. 6 months rather than um is there an extension possible? Is it another 6 months I believe? Okay. And um what I was looking

at and I appreciate your presentation on that uh as an uninitiated person. Uh I was reading through um part two on the contract zoning section B the application process number three in line 13 which is I'm not sure what to any proposed battery or solar storage.

people. It's ma'am. Can you give your reference again? Yes, please. And I apologize to not address. [Music] It's part two contracts on section B, the application [Music] process. It's number three. 13 I'm sorry to do this detail but I

think it's important I don't waste your time um notification of a butter any battery or solar storage system is 500 ft customary distance is but my observation of Durham is a lot of properties with significant frontage and how many people would be directly notified as a butters. Yes, they of others, but should that distance be a greater distance to notify more people close to the development site considering the risks and consequences involved in the character of the neighborhood. So I would ask for a larger notification. The setback line 13 the setback is 100 ft is what I

understand if I'm correct. So you're looking at 100 foot setback. Add to that 500 ft of notification. Um you could potentially be within two football fields of a battery storage system with your phone. And if the majority of the town decided that it was tax that's advantage and so forth and you were in the minority this is what would happen if it

was there be many many other requirements but I just urging caution potential I don't know what the process is monitor if this amend if this can be amended to a greater distance if it requires going back to the um to the whole process that we've done to date. It it can't be amended at a town meeting. That's right. What would have to happen if you're concerned about elements of it is that you would vote against it and if it fails the selection board and the town planner would kind of have to go back to the ground zero and work on developing it again. Okay. I want to monitor the work that's been done. I'm not here to throw one at you. I just want more more protection for citizens. We can't we can't amend ordinance articles because the wording is is super important because those become the town statute. Correct. So, uh the way to do it is if if you disagree with something that's contained in the

proposed ordinance, you vote against it and if it fails, they kind of have to go back to Detroit. So, Mr. answer the process might be. If we did make change to this, would the process be including an extended monitoring in order to get that work done and then brought

before Thank you. notification of the butters that came from the town attorney based on it's pretty much a standard across all of Maine zoning that you have a notification of directs. Uh but this would be required beyond that to any property within 500 ft. So, it's not uh if you have a 20 acre facility and they're located on the back 10 acres, uh the entire property, anything within 500 ft of that property would have to be notified. And just recognize that these are the people that are going to be most impacted potentially, but the entire town is going to be impacted. and that's why it's going to be going through a fairly extensive and very broadly publicized process uh of the town meeting contract zone proposal. So, uh I think that the 500 ft is is uh is you know again coming from the town attorney that's a standard. Uh but also in terms of changes uh as with any ordinance uh you know if if you want to make

modifications to it once it's in place you can do that. making modifications on the solar by that end as contract zoning this year from the amendments approved last year. So I don't think it needs to affect the cost in order to make changes in the future. Thank you very much.

I appreciate your comment and I recognize your concern. Um, I think not passing the ordinance puts the town at much more risk than passing the ordinance with perhaps a buffer that maybe people don't feel is satisfactory. And I'd just like to point out that when we pass the resource protection last year, we went through the process was a lot for last year. Yeah. Last year. And then when new data and lots of town feedback came to board about the fact that like co six plus model um didn't represent what the majority of the town wanted. We addressed that and we made those changes at this town meeting. So putting in the passing this ordinance even though that perhaps that buffer might not be what the town considers big enough, it's it's better to get this in place and protect us now and then be able to go back and revisit if we want to extend that. buffer um versus not having place.

Um, I guess I would say I'm in favor of the best ordinance and I understand why you might want to require contract zoning for the best ordinance because of the real risk of fires and chemical spills that people have talked to at this point. However, I don't think solar should be included in contract zoning. And I say that for a few reasons. one, um, solar would have real benefits

to our tax infrastructure. There's an installation going on in Farmington that they estimate would generate $700,000 in local taxes, which would make a huge impact on our budgetary uh issues. Um, solar is safe. There are no risks of chemical spills. There are no risk suppliers. It's very quiet. It's been around for decades. Um, we

should be doing everything we should can to encourage solar development in our town. I think people are concerned about uh visual impacts, but I would point to the fact that the solar ordinance that passed last year has uh visual impact uh

regulations in it and large buffers that would protect um the uh rural appearance of the town. So, I don't think that's a real issue. I think there are other ways to control sighting aside from contract zoning. Um the as pointed out the

conservation commission has been looking into that um and I think we should pursue that but I think it's a mistake to link solar and best because they have very different risks and very different benefits for the town. Thank you. Thank you sir. Is there further discussion? Yes sir.

everything that Mr. Fley said, but I would just like to know if you could clarify if we pass this amendment but decided to take the solar aspect of it out at a later meeting. Can that be done easily or and at what in what time frame? Solar the best I agree with. There's so much that will go with that for the contract. It is possible, it's permissible to pass um a warrant article and then request at

some future time that it be amended. Um I would expect that, you know, if if the select board decides that it is meritorious, if they want to amend it, it would probably happen at the next town meeting or maybe was just addator said um in regards to that I don't know if I would use the word difficult versus not difficult. That's entirely dependent on what the voters in municipality are. But the process itself would be either a special town meeting or a normal town meeting where that prior to this will be open all recommendations on anything we talk about today after after this meeting. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I just wanted clarification. Um I assume town meeting approval would be the April town meeting, but now hearing special, I just would like clarification. I don't know what you're asking under the contract zoning would it be the town meeting that is held annually currently in April actually now

it would be what June or would we be holding a special town meeting Mr. Roy my understanding is the ordinance as you proposed would allow for either of those would be determined uh to be a county meeting so if the uh select came to the recommendation that we want to have a special town meeting that notification process is required or waiting for the process to come up with the next town meeting. Okay. Um, I would like you guys to lean towards waiting for the annual town meeting because you at least get 5% of the town population, whereas

when you do it as a special zone meeting, you tend to only get about 1% I think of the town. Um, so that's just my two cents. Thank you, Mr. Yeah, that's a really great recommendation. Um, you know, if you throughout the rest of the ordinance, you'll see that during even the proposal process, there's a public hearing that is uh would be an even better time to bring up if people wanted something to be wait to wait until a regular town meeting or if someone would suggest like were considered a um special town meeting. Our board is very aware of the difference in attendance and the intent of this uh this ordinance is to give the voters the the biggest Okay. And I without speaking to the entire board, I would imagine that we would want to facilitate a process that we expected to get the largest response from from the towns. Thank you. Is there further discussion? Yes, Mr. Mr. moderator John 636, chairman of the planning board. Um,

and I would like I was against this. you go back and you look at the TV uh in October, November, I was not in favor of a battery in any story for some of the reasons that were here. But what convinced me over time to support this was uh a couple things. One is the great work the superars did, the fire chief did and looking at things like safety and also a realization that as we sit today if somebody came in with a thousand acre or 600 acre guy from green decided to move to Durham or wanted to put in battery energy storage there's not much we could do the planning board's hands would be fairly tied into turning that down and with combination of contract zoning and battery energy storage I think we will if it's approved by the town and the town at the end of the day has the right to say yay or nay and there's also an extensive process that includes a public hear the public notification that this

is going through so it's a much stronger position the town will be in after this is approved and I am in fact now after many months thank you Mr. I just wanted to echo what Mr. just said uh what was really important to us when we're thinking about this is developing it for the hard work of the planning board conservation commission town attorney town planner fire chief I don't think there anyone who didn't touch this during the the process of developing it uh what was really important to us was that giving that authority to the municipality and giving the authority to the municipality in a way where they could leverage the most benefit out of a proposed project should one make it to our town and this process, not only would there be a very um forward facing process that involves lots of public hearings, not a better notification, but also give the opportunity for the municipality to ask for certain elements that the

municipality can't ask for when a project being considered. So, it can ask for a plan to address water supply should that be a concern or address that may need to be purchased in order to provide public safety or recommendations for requirements that access roads be much more robust that they would be required for other development. So because of that because of all the work that's why we came to a

post or this planning board really thank know why the solar component was added, but I understand the best component and why there's such a need for this ordinance. I'm just curious as to why the solar was locked in because they are completely different. Mr. Roy, that's a really good question. Um, initially the recommendation was to include a 10acre development profile for solar and we got feedback from Fish Commission and others that 20 acres is really um the minimum that should be considered for that. The reason we were considering it is just due of the size of the um of the development and impact compared to other land uses in town. So there aren't a lot of other land uses that are proposed currently that have an immediate 20 acre or larger impact. You know, our subdivision with the clearing usually is less than that. There's very few 20 acre pits being proposed or going in. And so we felt that in order to help

characteristic is that that 20 acre threshold warranted additional sighting tools. Um not due to a safety component or safety concern, but due to that. But you can mitigate the the cosmetics of the main issue with the safety factors of it. But so I think the main reason we have this ordinance you're asking for is for safety. So to lump those two together just seems a little bit unfair. Yeah, I understand. But we were also concerned about the sighting. So right now we receive a lot of diverse impact of opinions from folks as to where things should go. We have a very robust buffer standard. But right now as it's proposed, you know, there's no sighting tool to limit large development in really important agricultural lands or areas that are high traffic and things like that. So while the conservation commission and others will develop a sighting tool through the next year or so, we felt that it was better to park this in there

for the sighting reasons, not for the safety reasons and then take into consideration further proposals when there's more time to develop those. question, correct me if I'm wrong, that at that threshold that reaches a commercial level versus community or individual. And so at that point, it's like also considering the potential financial gain that could happen to the town if it were at a commercial level and what we would be able to leverage to be able to get the resources that we would in order to work with that size development. And so we felt like we wanted to include it at that size because of the commercial potential impact and the investment that can happen down at that level. I think that's great. I just think it should be separated. I think the best is a completely different organ that you know causes things that are triggered. I I think that ordinance what you're seeking of should actually just be

implied or actually to our overall ordinances. So you have that approach and control but these two things are very separate. Thank you. Thank you very enthusiasm of folks for for solar power. Um but the ordinance we're really focusing our concern uh rightly so on large projects

u 20 or more acres of land is a significant amount of land and I do believe that it will have possibly an impact on rural character of town also as solar technology increases to make solar power viable uh We want the solar

farms to be able to supply energy when the sun doesn't shine. In order to do that, they need these battery storage uh units uh in the large solar projects. So, uh again, giving the residents of the town of Durham a little more say in such an impactful project. I don't think you can have one without the other. Especially in an industrial application, a home, a business that has some solar panels on a roof, absolutely love it. Go for it. But when you see something that is going to uh take a significant amount of land away from any other use and you're going to put these battery storage uh systems in there in order for them to produce sun or supply power to the grid when the sun is not shining. You have to have both components. We can't parse that out. I think looking at the project as a whole uh and getting that consideration citizens of the town to do what we feel is best for our community is the way to go. I like the

amendment the way it's been presented. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, Just want to give my little input here. Um I absolutely think we need contract zoning. I absolutely think that we need uh good standards. Um I even agree that large scale solar systems 20 acres or more probably should be including contract zoning. Um my issue I just want to point out kind of echo Mr. George a little bit. Um these are all related.

They're all separate. And I think that by combining them into one warrant article and trying to force the vote on all three things that are separate issues is disingenuous. That's all I have. Thank you, sir. Is there further discussion? Yes, ma'am. Just Brianna Drag. I just want to make an important clarification that you don't need battery energy storage to have a solar project. solar doesn't need a large um battery storage system to operate. Um for example, a project that's in near Unity main that doesn't have an associated large um vest system. So I just want to make that important clarification. Solar does not have the same um safety concerns as battery

energy storage and the two are not linked together. Um thank you. Thank you. Yes, um I member of the planning board. Um I'm in favor of the best standards as well as contracts only. I think they're both very valable tools, but I agree that um with Mr. Dur that I don't think that they should be um together. I would prefer they were kind of two separate works. Um and agreeing with Miss Costa's

comment that there are many other pieces that can fall under contract zoning. I think it's going to be a great tool once we have it. Um and my question Mr. moderator is the board the SL board acknowledged that um there's a month left maybe a month left of the moratorum um and that it could be extended another six months but if this fails today will the board

I can't speak to the entire board especially because of today's meeting you'll get a different make of the board but I would imagine discussion? thing I do want to notice we held a lot of public hearings on this and had a very large information um outreach component and encourage a lot of input. The reason we have the 20 acre threshold because that's the feedback we got at the last meeting up until we had all this developed. So, we went from a 10 acre threshold to a 20 acre threshold already put in some of that public feedback. And I just want to let you know this was did take into consideration the feedback that we did receive when we had those public hearings and those information sessions. Thank you. Is if there's no further discussion, we'll call a vote. You're voting on article 20. Shall amendments to the land use ordinance set forth from the document town of Durham land use ordinance as adopted at town

meeting April 6, 2024. Proposed revisions for town meeting April 5th, 2025. Part two, draft amendments to apply contract zoning to enlarge battery energy storage or solar energy system and enact best standards LO articles 2, 3, 5, and 19 be enacted.

If you favor this uh article, please raise your green not favor this article, please raise your green card. passed. Article 21. Shall amendments to the land use ordinance is set forth from document county journal land use ordinances adopted town meeting April 6, 2024. Proposed revision town meeting April 5th, 2025. Part four draft amendments to revise the process and standards for projects involving historic properties. Wo articles 51 12

and 19 will be enacted. Is there a motion? Is there a second? Second been moved and seconded that article 21 is taken up this is the select board to make a short presentation on the draft for historic preservation. Uh these are coming at the recommendation of the town attorney as well as the select board and her fairly extensive process of review. Uh just to give a little bit of background information, the town currently has one official historic district. Uh within that district uh which is the southwest vend district there are three buildings uh out of 33 buildings that are actually officially designated as historic uh in terms of the preservation requirements. Uh there are five other properties scattered across town friends uh the west Methodist church the two house and house on road

uh and under the current ordinance. Any project within,500 ft of any of those eight properties is technically required to go through a review for potential impacts on these properties. And the town of Attorney's really concerned that that that yellow circle up there 1500 ft around any of those properties is basically creating facto historic preservation district without going through the process called out for in the ordinance. So that one of the proposed changes that we're reviewing. Um, and as I said, all the any project for any construction within any within a quarter of a mile, any of those has to be reviewed whether there's anything historically involved or not. Um, and the other concern is that uh the town put this in place back in 2005 and there's no clear record of the reviews that were done to justify the designation of the historic district or um any review in terms of the very detailed historical preservation

technical analysis. And so the town lacks documentation. Uh if any of these projects were challenged in court, the town attorney believes that the town's position very compromised in terms of defending and enforcement decision. Um so as a result of that, the uh recommendation of the select board under advice from the county attorney and the town is to eliminate that 1500 foot

district uh to repeal the current Southwest end district uh that does not meet the documentation requirements for a historic district. We've instead focused the regulations on the official recognized documented historic properties those eight and the select board as a result of participation process included the properties surrounding those would also uh be considered in terms of the process of of development on those properties. Uh the county attorney has also pro provided the draft amendments that will uh revise the statements and procedures to follow uh federal and state requirements for historic preservation programs. and the select board retained in the historic commission but uh reconstituted it from a regulatory board like the planning board of appeals to an advisory uh capacity and they their review for any project uh either on those eight properties or problems of budding them would require an advisory opinion from

the historic commission uh reviewing the historic uh issu standards and potential impacts and making recommendations to the either the code officer if it's a building permit or to the planning board if it's a commercial project or a subdivision. Uh they would be required to consider those recommendations. These changes in summary will streamline the review process for the property owners and the program still goes beyond what most towns do in terms of just protecting historic resources. Thank you very much. Is there further discussion? Yes. Hollow road. The chair of the historic district commission could not be present today and asked me to read a statement on behalf of the historic district commission. Please do. We, the historic district commission, as fellow residents of Durham that care about our history and heritage, do not support adopting the newly proposed ordinances for article 12 and

5.14. Removing the protections of the historic district about assessments the town's heritage at risk. We believe appropriate updates need to be made to the code, but due diligence in the form of of a formal historic survey should be completed before these ordinance changes. The commission, the town and the town planner have all expressed the need for a more detailed evaluation of properties for historic significance by qualified experts. For this reason, we advise the town to vote against the proposal until a formal historic survey is conducted of the town. With HC action, no risk of losing their own historic character. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Hi, good afternoon. I'm Case. I run 735 right across from the historical church. I've admired it for many years and after looking at about 50 homes from Yarn to West Cassid, I found my home. It's exactly what I want. I love what it looks like. I love what it stands for.

I'm proud to be part of the historical district. I bought it in 2014 and started fostering children in order to find my daughter. Um, I was told that I couldn't have a pool. I couldn't have a pool because I was 1,000 ft from the historical church. Well, the pool's going in the backyard. So, no, can't have it because it could be seen. So, one summer day, I went I stood on the porch of the church and my light

it up. house. It's mine. I'm a single woman who's looking to start my life in a town where I don't really want to live anywhere else but during, except the baby in the winter, Florida, right? Um, stood in my in the parking lot of the church. You couldn't see the pool. So, at the time, the court official says, "Look, give me 25, you know, put your pool, but you got to take it down in the winter. Okay. So, for 11 years, I've taken that cool down. Started out about 300 bucks to fill that pool of water. Last year, I paid

modern life? It's a pool. I didn't paint my door pan or add a farmer's porch to a home in 1880. Hi, did you say earlier that there were eight buildings that are currently designated? requirements of section 5.14, a building would either have to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places or determined by a qualifying historic preservationist to be eligible for listing. So, it means any of those either of those classifications that will be subject to the uh regulations. Uh currently for the main historic preservation commission, we have documentation that there are eight structures uh five of which are listed and three of which are eligible for listing. Do we know if the band stand is part of that listing? The band stand is not listed as

a historical building. So does that mean that If we vote to pass these and lift these whatever they want with the band stand. Mr. Roy, yeah, I can answer that. Uh, and it's a time question because we just asked the time it wanted to expand. Fun fact, uh, one of our sub members looked up the same exact question of what to do with was on the 1923 or 1933 Taiwan. So, this has been a conversation that happened for a long time. Um, if this as is now time to modify the band stand, the town could remove the band if it was a human hazard. Um, this wouldn't change that if it was enacted the same sort of approach for that. Um, it would not it's not considered a historic building at this time. And if if I misspoke on any of that, Mr. Please jump in. So, the current historic district regulations would require if there's any changes to the band stand that it be approved by the historic commission.

here would then still have that be approved by the historic commission as an advisory as an advisory commission to the uh depending on the change to the code enforcement officer who's issuing the permit or if it's a planning board issued permit to have advisory there. Currently uh they have to take that as a they can take the historic district permissions input into consideration. This legislation would require or this ordinance would require those staff to take the advisory commission's recommendation and there is a process to evaluate if the advisory commission which in this case would be the historic commission disagrees with what the enforcement officer planning to put in place. So is there any connection between the

band stand's current state as it's in the historical district and the timing of this proposal to lift historical district standards? No, the fate of the band stand and the historic district commissioner distinct uh issues that we're trying to address separately, but will they because they're historic district? Regardless of the historic district status, we still recognize the band is an important historic component of the town. That's why we're asking for feedback. So this change would not make it so one way or the other would be easier to modify or harder to modify. It doesn't sound It doesn't sound like it would make it easier or harder. It It sounds like we're lifting the regulations. So there's really nothing in the way of the town doing what it wants. I think Miss Roy would like to address that. There's just one point of clarification that I'd like to add and it addresses what you've already stated

that the band stand is not one of the eight properties. So something was said in error, George, correct me if I'm wrong, that when you you just stated that if this goes into effect, it wouldn't impact the band. it would in fact impact the band because the bandan is not one of the eight properties. I just want to be clear. Thank you for that. That's my point. Thank you. I do agree with what he's saying though that these things are not timed up. I know that it may seem that way. It does. It does. This has actually been before the district commission for three maybe four years and that was before the band stand conversation. But I want to be very transparent about that that these two things are not timed up and related. This ordinance has been in work for multiple years. Mr. Roy, is there anyone that can provide clarification on the status of the band in modifications currently with

the historic district commission because my understanding is that historic district not ability to make modifications to advance now. So my understanding is that that doesn't change going forward to provide some clarification.

officially eight structures within Durham that qualify either for listing or are in fact listed is not one of those. Uh, under the current regulations, uh, if any work to be done on that structure, either demolition, modification, replacement, uh, then the it would have to get a permit from the historic district commission if the code officer I think currently it's still makes a determination that it is a contributing structure and the problem is right now there are no criteria for making that determination this is one of the things that this county attorney and I keep focusing on you have no documentation to determine uh is it eligible for listing the main department of transportation did a study uh uh 10:03 I think is the fairy road right on the corner. Uh that's that's officially designated as eligible for listening. Uh band stand they reviewed every structure along there and did not determine that it met

the criteria for designation as a historic historic property subject to protection under federal uh act for for those things for federal highway funding. So someone at some point looked at it and determined that not meet the criteria for for listing it on the national register. Five in the current district there is this clause of a contributing structure and probably if they voted on it in 1933 it would be classified as a contributing structure. So now under the so under it would currently require uh a certificate of appropriateness by the historical district commission. If these amendments go forward, depending on uh what the nature of the project is, uh if planning board has to be dealing because it's a non residential structure, uh then the being a budding 103 ferry road

would trigger that the historic commission would have to invoke the the advisory opinion for the plan or to consider uh if that project goes forward. So, it's a little you know depending on the getting the specifics of the situation. uh but currently it would probably qualify but no one's determined as a contributing structure but it would be very hard to have that whole

just said so if the reviewing authority in this case the code enforcement officer were to say well when this was evaluated it wasn't considered historic so it's not a contributing um structure then it would not have that advisor um letter from. Yeah. And again you have to understand this is related to property property rights impacts on property rights the town of Texas regulatory police authority over activities on private or public property. You have to have legal basis for doing that and unfortunately the current ordinance is so uh outdated and not particularly well designed for Durham. Uh the town attorney is very concerned that it would be very hard to defend a decision in either direction if it ever went to court. That's what we're trying to uh to address for these amendments. And so to address the previous speaker's uh point about the the structure itself, right now it is in

the air or undetermined as to whether that would be a historic district commission letter of appropriateness at it current that call without any training or understanding of these technical requirements. Yes, ma'am. historic district commission for the last 10 years." Just a little bit of history. Um, on the the band stand,

uh, when the flag pole went up, I think everybody probably was about 5 years ago. The band stand was considered a contributing uh structure. We did go through the certificate of appropriateness. flags and I think the walkway could be. So I think if you go ahead and don't approve this then the land scanner could end up in the hands of the planning board and they can do whatever they want or the codes officer if it's if we keep what we have. It has I I see it as has history

contributing and the um historic district commission would then have to approve what happens to it before the code officer and the plan board control. Um as I understood the town attorney said the historic district was legal because one of established in 2005 it was established legal. I sat there for the meeting and she said that and I think it was misheard later on and perhaps we could not do this um vote

against this today and bring it up again next year. Um the commission's been working on those amendments for the last three years. The planning board and um town planner kind of got involved in the last year just as they saw fit. So I as a member

of the district commission please. Thank you very much. Yes. I just want to take a moment to say we appreciate the district commission's contributions over the last few years on these amendments. And at the beginning of this process the light board received those recommendations from them. We received recommendations from town staff and then we received recommendations from the town board. The challenge is just because we have a a desired amendment put forward by one of either the town staff or town board commission does not mean that it's legally enforceable. And so when the lawyer reviewed the recommendations made by both the town staff and by the town uh for uh the current historic district commission, we had to uh combine the two of them, removing language that would make it uh uh not completely enforceable ordinance. So what you're seeing in front of us took those things into consideration, but is still

designed to provide protection while still being appropriate in the letter of the state and federal office. Thank you. Is there further discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for vote. You're voting on article 21 which uh govern whether amendments to the land use ordinance shall be made regarding to revise the process and standards for projects involving historic properties in accordance with Lo 51

12. If you approve this article please raise your green do not approve this article, please raise your green cards. The approvals outnumber the not approvals. Uh, this article passes. to authorize the select board to accept a deed from the Durham Cemetery Association for the cemetery property described in a deed from seven association according to the Anderson County registry of deeds as book 7532 page 346 and depicted on the town

map as map 006 lot CM and to take all actions necessary to contracts and other responsibilities related care management. We have all so we have a second. It's been moved and seconded that article 22 is approved. Mr. Perry, I have a question doesn't directly relate to this article on

in general potentially. So the question is this um my I'm asking because my understanding more authority expire the next annual county like items. So last year we had an article that authorizes board to spend money and we didn't have that this year which leaves two reserve times recreation and revaluation. um I guess unressed if you will. So

maybe I thought that discussion now. Well, I'll ask if that's necessary. I still question. Um, did I'm having a hard time hearing. Did you ask a question and did you give an answer? and we already have I made a point that the question is about reserve accounts.

I'm going to rule the uh question out of order because we're talking about a cemetery right now. Okay. Can I ask another time? Yes. when we get the article that covers it. isn't. Oh, all right then. I think uh your question is out of order. Um I'm

article 22. Yes, ma'am. You wish to speak on article 22? Yes, please. Please do. Can you hear me? Yes. Um, I am virtually pass 1015 How Road. I am secretary of the General Cemetery Association. I just wanted to explain to the town that it is a very hard decision that we have this right now for the town. We worked very hard for many years. Um it's a family thing for me. We took

over a committee for my mother when she passed in 2006. Um we've worked hard to remain a committee to keep the association going. Our we're all getting up age. We don't have new people coming forward to learn the ropes of the president. and there's a lot to it to um keep this

going. Our funds are dwindling. Um and that's the biggest reason um we would really like that's hard to say but for the town to take this on for us. We do have veterans in that cemetery. So, I'm just um just wanted to give a little more information on that cemetery and why we have this article before time. Well, thank you. Thank you for your work on the Is there further discussion? Okay. You're voting on article 22 to see if the council will vote to authorize the select board to accept the dean from the Durham Cemetery Association for this cemetery. If you favor this article, please raise your green cards. Thank you for that. If you do not favor this article, please raise your green cards. True. Thank you. Article 22 is

passed. Article 23. See if the town will vote to change the annual town meeting from the first Saturday in April to the second Saturday of June starting on June 13, 2026. Do we have a motion? May I make a motion to accept the rest of the business articles as one? You may. Do we have a second and that motion? I'll do this by unanimous consent. Does anybody object to doing the remainder of the business articles with one vote? I'll read through each one of them and then we'll have one vote at the end. Does anybody

them. So, art 23 is to see if the will vote to change the annual town meeting from the first Saturday in April to the second Saturday of June starting with June 13, 2026. Article 24 see if the town will vote to authorize the select board to seek accept dispersed grant funds from private, state, or federal agencies for the purpose so designated each specific grant. Article 25 to see what action the town will take in regard to fixing interest on delinquent taxes and establishing a date for interest to start. Interest shall begin to acrew on paid taxes 45 days after the date taxes are committed. The interest rate on delinquent taxes shall be the maximum allowable by state law. Article 26 to see if the town will vote to authorize the select boards to town owned property which they determine is no longer needed or usable by the town on such terms as they deem advisable. Article 27. See if the town

will vote to authorize the select board on behalf of the town to sell and/or dispose of any property acquired by tax lean expression as permitted by law and to allow the select board to authorize the treasurer to wave automatically for foreclosures when it is in the best interest of the town. R28 to see if the town will vote to set the interest rate to be paid by the town on over taxes at

2% pursuant to 36 MRS section 5068. to authorize the tax collector or treasurer to accept prepayment of taxes not yet or assessed and to pay interest thereon at an interest rate of 0% return to 36 MRS6506 article 30 to see if the town will authorize the select board to resolve any disputes with parties having interest at first that of the town which should not involve the expenditure of funds or where there are sufficient funds in budgeted accounts allow payment of any claim which is to be settled. Article 31 to see if the town will authorize the select board to move up to 5% of budget lines that have unexpended appropriations to other budget lines as they deem necessary to avoid individual budget lines being

through 31. Is there discussion about any of those? Well, actually, no, we need a Would someone care to move those uh those articles? Someone would someone care to second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded that articles 23 through 31 be

uh taken up. Yes, ma'am. Jill Gastro. My concern is with the second Saturday in June. That is when graduation is usually held and it also tends to be weekend. So, you're really asking for a very low turn voter turnout if you elect to do it. Thank you. Yes. Just a point of clarification, Father's Day weekend is usually the third is it's usually the third Sunday, so it most often fall on Father's Day.

Okay. Thank you very much. graduation this year is second Saturday. Sunday. Sunday. Oh, it's Friday. Right. Um, so this year it that if it was this year, if we were having a meeting this year, they would form the same thing again. Oh, no, they wouldn't. This year they would because it would be the seventh, which would be the first Saturday, but that's only because I think it could create a conflict. Thank you. Also, depending on when we start before Thank you, Mr. I'm going to do second clarification here. So, Father's Day weekend is always celebrated the third Sunday in June. It just happens to be that this year is celebrated on the 14th, which happens to be the third Sunday, but it has to do with generally we're not doing

meeting on Sunday. Sunday is Father's Day and graduation also held on Sunday. will be held on Saturday and it's scheduled this way to align with the school budget vote and that way we don't have to have an additional um the cost of two votes, right? So like right now we have the cost of town being held and we also have cost of the school referendum and when we put both of those things together we do that at one time.

elections would occur on that Tuesday prior. Yes. Yeah. at the same time schools. around um the election of the officials that currently have um slots that expire before that date is what's the plan for that? Like association and they said when that occurs the term just goes until the next election

elections and town meeting have to occur within 14 days of each other. Tuesday. Town meeting would be the following Saturday. Yes. So be considered moving town meeting. It has to be within 14 days of the election. Thank you very much. Is there further

We're voting on articles 23 through 31. If you approve these articles, please raise your green If you do not approve all of these articles, please raise your green card. Thank you. All these articles are passed. Do I have another motion from the uh select?

That motion is not debatable. So we will move promptly to a vote. Everybody who wants to adjourn the meeting, please raise your green card. Everybody who doesn't want to