Select Board Meeting ~ July 8, 2025

2025-07-08 · Select Board · 2:46:04 · watch on YouTube →

The Select Board met on July 8, 2025 with a quorum and gave almost the whole meeting to a roles and responsibilities workshop run by the Greater Portland Council of Governments, presented by Christina, its executive director, and Tony Plant, its director of municipal collaboration and a former town manager. The workshop covered Durham's form of government under the town manager plan, the division of authority between town meeting, the Select Board and the town manager, the legal standing of the budget committee, and ten practices for board members on preparation, budgeting, conduct and communication. Board members and the town manager each said what they wanted to do differently, including more contact between individual members and the town manager and a clearer way of tracking action items out of meetings. After the workshop the board extended the meeting to 9:15, removed the applications for appointment from the consent agenda so it could speak with the applicants on July 22, and approved the rest of the consent agenda. The town manager's report covered a dispatch services contract for 2026, a new public works hire, the Eureka Center and the town's new financial software.

No written minutes could be matched to this meeting. The transcript records that the speaker changed but never who was speaking, so any name attached to a statement below is inferred from context and is marked (?).

What was discussed

1. 0:11
   Opening, minutes and start of the workshop

   Joe (?) opened the meeting at 6:30 p.m. with a quorum, and the board took up a motion to approve the previous meeting's minutes. There was no old business, and the single item of new business was a roles and responsibilities workshop facilitated by the Greater Portland Council of Governments, rendered in the transcript as 'GBO'. Christina, its executive director, and Tony Plant, its director of municipal collaboration and a former town manager of 22 years in Windham, introduced themselves and the organisation.

2. 5:26
   What board members wanted from the workshop

   Members were asked what they hoped to get out of the session. Rebecca (?) asked for best practices on how a board communicates with residents and responds to emails; Joe (?) asked for an explanation of how the select board and town manager form works that viewers could follow; Josh (?) asked about efficiency and getting things done; Jerry (?) raised understanding what staff have the capacity and funding to deliver.

3. 11:24
   Durham's form of government

   Tony Plant set out the forms of municipal government in Maine and where Durham sits: town meeting is the legislative body and approves the budget and ordinances, the Select Board is the governing body, and the town manager runs the departments under the town manager plan adopted about four years ago. He said the board's only employee is the town manager and that individual members have no authority acting alone.

4. 28:30
   The budget committee's legal standing

   Asked how towns use budget committees, Tony Plant (?) said they are not required by state law and the only statutory provision he could find is that where a town has one, its recommendation must appear on any appropriation article. He cited the statute as Title 38; elsewhere in the recording the town manager plan is cited as 30-A. Durham's budget committee was established by vote of town meeting close to 100 years ago and has never been disestablished.

5. 34:15
   Town meeting attendance and forms of government

   Josh (?) said Durham's town meetings draw roughly the same ten people, many of them budget committee members or people there for one cause, and asked the pros and cons of Durham's system against a council form like Freeport's. He said he stopped attending town meeting after his first one, when the meeting declined to fix the roads. The presenters said a council form puts the biggest decisions with people elected to study them, while town meeting keeps them with voters who have less time to be informed.

6. 45:26
   Whether an ordinance could define the budget committee

   The board discussed that without a local ordinance the budget committee's role rests on precedent and practice. Tony Plant (?) said the town could adopt an ordinance at town meeting establishing a budget committee and setting out the process, and that the Select Board can recommend such an ordinance. Christina (?) suggested that short of any structural change the board could hold joint workshops so the committee works from the same information as the board and staff.

7. 50:59
   Habits of effective board members

   The presenters went through practices for elected members: learn how the town works and how the budget works, understand that decisions are made only as a body, read the packet and put questions to the town manager in advance rather than at the table, and seek out residents whose views the board does not usually hear. Tony Plant (?) said that when one member asks for information he would send it to every member so the board is equally prepared. Joe (?) said members should signal in advance what material they intend to raise rather than produce it at the meeting.

8. 1:01:54
   Seeking public input and social media

   A board member asked whether it is acceptable to post on the town's community Facebook page seeking resident input on an agenda item. The presenters said yes, provided the request is not framed to slant the answer or organise opposition, and pointed to the survey and meetings run for the facility study as an example. They added that members should hold themselves to a factual standard when posting and can explain their own vote after the fact.

9. 1:07:44
   Conflicts of interest and recusal

   The board asked how to handle a member who may have a conflict but has not recused. The presenters said it falls on the member to declare it, that another member can call for recusal and the rest of the board then votes on it, and that the conversation is better had privately before the meeting. Josh (?) noted that with land use matters everyone in the room owns land, and the distinction is between an ordinance of general application and one that applies specifically.

10. 1:13:09
    The budget as a statement of priorities

    Tony Plant defined a budget as a plan for what you intend to do expressed in dollars and cents, and said the board's job is to set priorities the manager's budget then reflects. He said starting from a fixed target such as a zero percent increase without saying what would be cut hands the decision back to the manager. Christina gave last year's HR services request as an example of the board setting a priority and the manager returning with a way to meet it.

11. 1:30:35
    Board and town manager reflections

    Members said what they would do differently. Rebecca (?) said she needed to meet the town manager more often and learn the town's businesses; Joe (?) said the board should convert discussion into direction to the manager rather than talking a topic over and moving on, and that as chair he could set out what each agenda item is meant to accomplish. Jerry (?) said he would be more patient with elected members and more communicative about what happens in the town office, and that questions put to him off the cuff at a meeting are hard to answer.

12. 1:36:14
    Meeting length and workload

    Members said meetings are scheduled to end at 9 p.m. and run past that more than half the time, on top of a full working day. Joe (?) gave last year's fee schedule review as an example, where one item on a four-item agenda took most of three meetings and was started at 8:30 at night. Members said one recent meeting ran 52 minutes and that a first meeting for a new member had run close to three hours.

13. 1:41:39
    The board as employer and cost-of-living benchmarking

    The presenters said the board appoints, supervises and reviews the town manager and sets his contract, while the manager hires and reviews all other staff. Jerry (?) described the monthly gathering of southern Maine managers convened by Tony Plant, at which managers report what cost-of-living adjustment they are planning, and said the results are circulated to all of them. Members asked whether managers use the Northeast CPI; the answer was that many do.

14. 1:47:00
    Town manager turnover and staff retention

    The presenters said the region has seen more town manager turnover than they have seen before, from retirements and from what they described as a harsher political environment, and that the University of Maine's town management programme has closed, reducing the supply of trained managers. Joe (?) said he does not want Durham to be a farm team for larger municipalities and asked how to support and retain staff. Christina (?) said appreciation matters nearly as much as pay.

15. 1:52:47
    Goal setting and the July 22 committee meeting

    Joe (?) described the board's second year of a goal-setting process: each board and committee reporting to the Select Board is asked for two priorities, members have already exchanged their own, and all of it will be heard at a meeting on July 22 before priorities are set. The presenters said the goals should be specific and measurable and warned against over-committing staff time, and offered to send a worksheet. Joe (?) said the goals and progress against them should be posted on the town website, which they currently are not.

16. 2:04:02
    Agenda preparation and meeting practice

    Members said the new agenda system and the packets prepared by staff work well and that members generally come prepared. Joe (?) said he speaks or meets with the town manager the Thursday before each meeting and that Josh feeds him items. Jerry (?) said he would rather a member came to see him when something the board asked for will not work, so that he is not contradicting the board in open session.

17. 2:09:39
    Action items and follow-up after meetings

    Deb (?) said the board has never settled a way of tracking action items out of its discussions, that an earlier attempt to keep a rolling list in a spreadsheet was not connected to the agenda, and that the board sometimes does not know whether something it asked for was done. Members were uneasy about anything that looked like a weekly checklist for the town manager and his staff. The presenters suggested the chair instead agree a date for the manager to report back on a specific item.

18. 2:20:25
    Direction versus execution

    The board asked whether it should review documents such as an RFP for the open space plan or a grant application before they go out. Christina (?) said the board sets what the work should accomplish and the manager writes and runs the process; the presenters said reviewing final wording mostly delays the document. Joe (?) said some residents expect such requests to come from the elected board rather than an appointed manager.

19. 2:30:45
    Communications and code of conduct

    Tony Plant (?) said the town should use its own channels to correct misinformation calmly and factually, and that members taking a personal position must make clear they are speaking as one member and not for the board. He said a member may disagree publicly with a decision but should not work to undermine it once made. Asked about a code of conduct, Joe (?) said the board's bylaws cover only how meetings are run; Tony Plant (?) said some boards include a code of conduct in their rules of procedure.

20. 2:35:52
    Consent agenda, appointments and upcoming meetings

    The board voted to extend the meeting to 9:15, then took the applications for appointment out of the consent agenda so members could speak with the applicants first, noting there had not been a turnover on the Planning Board in a long time. The rest of the consent agenda was approved. Upcoming meetings listed were the Solid Waste Committee on July 14 at the Eureka Center, the Select Board on July 22 at the fire station for board and committee goals, the Planning Board and the agriculture committee on August 6, and August 12 for tax commitment and review of the employee handbook.

21. 2:41:06
    Town manager's report

    Jerry (?) asked for authority to sign a dispatch services contract running January 1 to December 31, 2026. He reported that Calvin has hired Jason Thompson as a truck driver and labourer starting the next day, that the town is still looking for a mechanic, that the Eureka Center will not be included in the Cabin Masters application because the town has no budget or plan for it, and that the new financial software is live with Kim working on it. He also said he would not be at the July 22 meeting.

What was decided

• 0:11
  Approve the minutes of the previous meetingoutcome unclear
• 2:35:52
  Extend the meeting to 9:15, moved by Joshpassed
• 2:35:52
  Table part B of the consent agenda, the applications for appointment, to the July 22 meeting so the board can speak with the applicantspassed
• 2:35:52
  Approve the consent agenda as modifiedpassed
• 2:41:06
  Authorise the town manager to sign the dispatch services contract for January 1 to December 31, 2026passed

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Worth knowing

• 28:30
  Tony Plant (?) said state law does not require a town to have a budget committee, and the only statutory provision he could find is that where one exists its recommendation must appear on any appropriation article. Durham's budget committee was created by vote of town meeting close to 100 years ago and has no local ordinance defining its role.
• 1:36:14
  Board members said their meetings are scheduled to end at 9 p.m. and run past that more than half the time, on top of a full working day.
• 2:41:06
  The dispatch services contract the town manager was authorised to sign runs January 1 to December 31, 2026. The price is given in the recording as $224,912.81, a figure the transcript may have garbled.
• 2:41:06
  The Eureka Center will not be included in the Cabin Masters application because the town has no budget or plan for the building; the project will go forward as the gazebo and bandstand only.

Motion language found in the transcript

Located by pattern matching, with no model involved: "I move that", "I'll second", "all those in favour". This is an independent check on the summary above: 5 passages of motion language, against 5 decisions summarised.

Elsewhere

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