TranscriptApril 28, 2020 ~ Select Board Meeting

at that point at some point we'd have to play catchup on you know the the difference in the contracts for July, August, whatever that might be. Uh the the big thing for us and I've talked to you guys about this several times now is right the recycling market and what's going on with that stuff. Um, so what I've been asked to do is at the very least try to um work with you guys as far as holding the collection process till you can get uh some sort of a vote in place. Uh, but we need some help on covering off on the recycling piece of things. Um it's it's something that's just um you know it's it's a big number as as you guys I think are well aware of uh that frankly you know we've been funding due to contracts not just you guys but with everybody um but we'd like to at least be able to cover off the cost of the recycling disposal and then we can play catchup on the the new contract as far as the collection piece

goes. So, do you mean do you mean uh before we're actually able to vote on and approve a new contract to um basically even in July before we've had the town meeting pay more for recycling that month? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Cover off the disposal on the recycling. Uh the way we bid it was the you know formula process that that fluctuates monthtomonth. Um, you know, kind of the compromise would be that, you know, we're we're willing to, um, obviously work with you guys have a long-term partnership and we can work with you on the vote and the the new contract, but we need some we need some help on the the recycling piece.

Are you sure about that, Rob? Yeah. What uh refresh my memory about what we can sign for contracts? We can't sign an annual contract without town meeting approval or what term could we go to? You you can't sound sign a multi-year contract and the reason being is um you can't um make future boards committed to this.

So why couldn't we just sign like a six-month agreement on the terms that were presented and then you know essentially get us through to next town meeting. I mean, I I I think we we've already gone through the RFP process. We've negotiated pricing. We've we've done all that. It's just a matter of we can't sign the contract. Um but we know what the terms are, so why couldn't we do a short-term contract to just get us through?

Um I'm not Do we have the power to do that, Rouge? Yeah, you guys could do that. Um the sticking point's going to be the budget. Um so our last payment on this contract is actually in July. So, the new contract payment with the uh inflated recycling prices wouldn't hit us until August. And so, um

you know, I we could talk about this more later, but I I I would think that by August, at some point, hopefully we'll be able to do some sort of a vote to try and figure out um what we're going to do. I just think I mean I I'd rather do that and stay with it than delay payments and fall behind and then have to make it up at some point. I mean the cost is what the cost is. So that's kind of my thought. But

so what so are you thinking Rob? Are you suggesting that we sign a six-month contract at the rate that the first year of the new contract would be? Yeah. And then after six months, we can either extend it another six months till we get through town meeting or uh or you know, we can we can work from there or do two years after that or something like that. But just my thought because we've we've got it. It's all their proposal outlines everything by the year. So numbers are all pretty easy to work up. It wouldn't take much to draft up a six-month agreement.

Other board members have thoughts on this. What does Pine Tree Waste think of that? Are you guys okay with a six-month contract? Yeah. No, we're we're we're definitely willing to work. We, you know, we understand the situation. Um, you know, these are different times for sure. Um, we we presented our numbers, however that works for you guys. If you want to do a six month, see what happens. If you can get your meeting in, we got to do an, you know, an addendum to that for six more months. You know, we're okay with that. Um our our biggest thing is just the the the new found um expenses that comes with this whole collection. Everything from the commodities to you know what we now have to pay drivers to cost of you know trucks and maintenance and all that type of stuff. So our numbers are our numbers. If you guys want to uh cut and cut and paste it, we can do that. Um you know we're in here for the for the long term. So we'll

we'll certainly work with you. We just got to we we just got to kind of cover off some of those big costs, you know, starting July 1. Our contracts is till August 1st, correct? June 30th. June 30th. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

that? uh six month contract idea board members. Oh, you were so close. No. So, if not, then I might say um uh Nate and Erica, perhaps if you want to uh draft up a six-month contract um basically at um you know, the monthly rate at what year one of your proposal, your three-year proposal, um was to the town. Um then the board can review that and vote on it at our next meeting. Sure. Do you want language in there that says it's a six-month contract with these options potential another six month and then years two and three or do you want to keep revisiting this? We can do it however works for you guys.

something there? I would say it doesn't hurt to just keep the options in there. I mean, who knows what we're going to see in six months, but um yeah, it's not hard to to pick up the option at that point or if we go to town meeting, we're already rolling. So,

yep. No, that's fine. So, so from my perspective, right, so I have to this goes through my corporate legal team and I'd rather just do it once and give us all the options that work for you guys and not have to, you know, keep doing the legal jargon every six months.

Yeah. Okay. Y um what about should we talk about um bulky waste day because I know it's come up um people it's usually it's the end of May but um it's it's um it's kind of on the uh it's kind of under consideration to potentially be cut I think from the budget. Um uh but that was one of the things we wanted to ask you know talk about at town meeting was uh how people felt about the bulky waste day. But are you guys even doing those right now or planning those?

So the other one we do in May is North Yarmouth. Um and at this point they have moved theirs out to September best case for 2020. Okay. So I think we could um would that would we be able to do the same if we decided to have one? We're talking September probably. Yeah, we I mean we priced it out as as a separate item. So whenever you guys want to do it, that's fine by us.

Okay. All right. At least we can let people know that it's not going to happen this spring or this summer. So So my question would be that um you know the bulky waste the third Saturday in May would have been included in this contract. So if we do it in September with the new contract, would it be covered by the first this year's contract or or or would it be in addition to?

That's a good question. because we've we've already paid for it, right? So to speak. Yeah. Theoretically. Yeah. The theoretically you've had a good deal. Um yeah, but it's our deal. Exactly. What does that mean? Um yeah, we'll work with you guys on that. Okay.

related to the contracts, but uh for the last month, we haven't been tagging our trash. Have you heard any feedback from drivers or we seeing a major increase or any problems with that? So, I pulled some numbers uh for you guys. So essentially your trash has gone up um call it you know a ton ton and a half um per week and recycling about a ton. Um hard to say you know if it's due to that change you guys made generally speaking this is what we're seeing across all municipalities because of people working from home no restaurants that type of stuff. I don't think your numbers are skewed by a lot of one free bag.

Yeah. I think it's all the online, you know, the packaging from the online deliveries and yeah, people eating out, you know, it's eating at home or and more take out. I mean, that's probably generating a lot more. Yeah, I think you guys were I think you guys were fair actually giving one bag free. Um, for example, like the city of Portland who just did away with a page of throw temporarily, the tonnages have just gone through the roof. So I you know I think you guys did it kind of right giving people a little bit of a break but anything over one you know you still have to have the tags is kind of my opinion.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Was that number that increase compared to this time last year or is it just kind of more than our average? More than your average. Yeah. More than um you know call it March. So a little a little jump from March to April when everybody's been home.

Yeah. And sometimes people start spring cleanup and stuff in April anyway. So, exactly. And if you figure, you know, a ton is 2,000 pounds divided by how many homes is probably I didn't do the math. It's probably, you know, four or five pounds, six pounds per home, something like that.

Okay. Maybe a little bit more. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. All right. Anything else on this subject? um show uh being with us tonight and for your flexibility and helping us uh navigate uh this issue. I appreciate it. No problem. We'll get something drawn up and we'll get we'll get it over to Ruth.

Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your night. All right. Thank you, guys. Yeah, I didn't say much, but thanks, guys. You kept Nate honest. Yeah, right. Keeping him on his toes. All right. All right. Bye. Take care. Bye.

All right. Continuing uh continuing on the trash theme, the next um item on the agenda is discussion of trash tags for the month of May. I think when we first instituted the one free bag uh policy um it was pretty much for the month of April and we said uh depending we would revisit it um at the end of April to see if it needed to be um extended based upon uh what was going on. Um, anybody

have any comments? I mean, I would think since the town office is still closed, I would Yeah, I guess I would move that we extend that policy one month through the end of May. Yeah, I'd agree. Is that a second then, Todd?

Yes. All right. So, moved by me, second by Todd. The uh any further discussion on that? No. Okay. So, the motion is to extend the uh one tagless bag uh for the through the month of May. Um Oh, I got to do roll call. So, if you're in favor, say yes. If you're not, say no. Rob,

yes. Rich, yes. Todd, yes. Mark, yes. And I am also a yes. Okay. So, we're extending that for um the month of May. Next is a discussion of the Memorial Day parade. Is Ruse still on the line? Oh, yeah. I'm here. Okay, there you are. Um, I know is this a is this a discussion of whether to have it at all or about the new committee you were trying to form?

No, whether to have it at all. So, the the governor today um uh let me see if I can remember this correctly. uh continued the stay-at-home order till the end of May um and allows Hold on. Sorry, I hadn't seen that. Yeah. Unbelievable.

Hold on. But so she's allowing um certain businesses to open. Um and she has a checklist of the things that um the businesses should do. But in any case, um the limit on large gatherings uh is going to be probably uh 50 at the most through the end of probably July or August. And for the foreseeable future, I think it's 10 for May and then after that it goes up to the 50. But um either way, I I'm wondering if we just need to to either cancel or hopefully postpone and have a different parade later on in the summer. Yeah, I would say we just cancel it and and leave any discussion of any other parade to a point where we have more certain knowledge of uh when we would actually be able to do it. So,

yeah, maybe we could have a Labor Day parade. I'm sorry, Todd. What was that? Maybe we could have a Labor Day parade. Yeah, maybe by then we'll be able to. As we get closer, we'll know whether we can do that or not. right? So, I' I would second Kevin's motion. I think it needs to

There's no point. Yeah, I would like to do it just in spite, but that's just me. But, okay, I'm with you, man. Let's get in that golf cart and go. Yeah, I would. But I I would agree with I would I would second Kevin's motion. I think we should postpone it until further notice.

All right. Any further discussion on that? I just had one thought that like what about a uh like an automobile uh professional like not do floats and everything, but put the public works trucks, the fire trucks, you know, a few fancy cars in there and do like a higher speed drive around town and just blare in the horns. Um, you know, and just not

high speed, but like you know what I'm saying? Cruising. That sounds like fun. Cruising. I mean, they line up a hundred cars for a funeral. Like, we could line up 20, 30 cars and and hit, you know, most of the roads in town and tell people to just uh hang out at the end of their own driveway. But

yeah, is a thought. I don't I'm fine with can't with postponing, too. But well, I think the other complication is that we the state of our Memorial Day parade committee is not good. So, it's not like we've got this group like

ready to go, you know, and to do something like that. But, well, we could combine it with Heather's idea and put a senior in every car and let them ride around and, you know, get get a little attention. So, we do have a very dedicated Memorial Day committee. It's small, but it is it is dedicated.

Yeah. I I didn't mean to speak disparagingly. That that was my intent, but I think weren't we looking for members? Did they have a couple people that were kind of rotating out and were looking for more help? Uh, not really rotating out. We just were trying to look for some more help for the the three that are are die hards.

Okay. All right. All right. Well, the motion is to um post uh on that's on the floor right now is to postpone our annual uh not postpone but to cancel our annual Memorial Day uh parade and it has been seconded by Rich. So, any further discussion? All right. If you're in favor of cancelling the parade, uh, say yes. Rob,

yes. Rich, yes. Todd, yes. Mark, yes. And I am a yes as well. Okay. Hopefully next year or maybe even September. So, shoot for Fourth of July. Yeah. Well, she's already told us we can't do Yeah. If we get released, I say we have a parade just on the release of this BS that we got going on. That's what I said.

I'll bring the fireworks. Freedom parade. That's what we need is a freedom parade. There we go. Been emancipated. Yeah. We're gonna have a new Independence Day. It's not going to be the right. All right. Um Okay. 5D is to discuss town meeting

options. Um, and as we just heard from Ruth, uh, I because I hadn't actually heard the update, um, today. Um, I was working all day. Uh, I guess we can't we're not going to have any be able to have gatherings over 50 through the end of the summer. Anyway,

wh might be you, Ruth. Yeah. Sorry. You're all right. Do we need to call anybody? It's I think it's my son in the background yelling at his video people. Okay, they tend to do that. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I met with Ruth earlier in the week and, um, just to talk about options

and, um, pretty much if we want to actually have a town meeting, you know, and have people vote on stuff, pretty much our only option at this point is a, um, secret ballot referendum style town meeting where, uh, any warrant article we want people to vote on would go on a secret ballot. Um uh to Ruth today as part of the update did she did the governor mention whether um all elections were going to be secret ballot only? Uh I haven't had a chance to really look over the whole

I didn't hear that when I listened to it but okay that that was one of the things under consideration that I think actually uh uh GP COG and main municipal association had advocated for is to you know the July state election to have it be um essentially secret ballot only meaning no open polling places you would it would be all absentee um so but I think sounds like they haven't really gotten to that point yet but Um that's I think you know in email earlier today and and I'm not sure um u maybe I misread it but uh there's really not much doubt that a referendum style town

meeting uh and budget vote is legal because lots of towns do it. I think if there is a question, it's what and this is kind of dovetales into 5e is um somewhat is what format the warrant articles um need to be in in terms of how they ask the question. Uh Ruth, do you have any more um

Well, so I have been um asking around different people um regarding and obviously a lot of towns are are thinking about this. Richmond is doing it. Um Fairfield was told that they can't do it. Um and they're uh by whom? By their lawyers. Um and they had said

that because um there's a part of 30A which talks about needing to have a vote uh 30 days before uh 90 days before the town meeting uh allowing for a secret ballot. But um I've heard both sides. I have to I have to get uh MMA's uh take on it and I need to uh talk to Jack, too. So, I haven't had a chance to do that, but my assumption is we can.

Yeah. Because I think what they're talking about there is and Durham has already done this. If you're a town that has not adopted secret ballot voting for um for instance um election of your officers like a lot of towns have not. If you have not done that then you then ruse right then you can't do a secret ballot referendum question but if you have done that which Durham did several years ago then you are um good to use uh

you can send any question out to a referendum secret ballot. So let's let's move forward under the assumption that we can do that and if and we'll still keep we'll keep looking and digging and and if for some reason we find out we can't we'll we'll adjust. Um but I think then the question becomes um what do we want to actually put on the warrant? So let's let's leave leave um the form format aside. We'll we'll get to that in a little bit. But for instance, um I think Ruth's initial thought was that we would if we were going to do a secret ballot because keep in mind, you know, this is, you know, could be 25 to 40 questions that you're asking people to vote on on a ballot. Um and we're going to handc count all these. So, uh and we have limited public hearing capabilities. We can do a Zoom public hearing. Um, that's perfectly legal. Um, but we uh the suggestion was maybe we wait on some of the things like the land

use ordinance stuff that was going to be on the warrant articles and the marijuana stuff that was going to be on there. and we we can talk about whether we want to um keep the town manager question on the ballot or not and and potentially just keep it just to the budget articles and the kind of business articles if you will. The you know the kind of housekeeping ones that are all at the end that um are just usually kind

of rubber stamp on things that the board powers that the board has throughout the course of the year. So, um, open it up for discussion on that. People's thoughts. the land use for later and the town manager for later. What about marijuana? Do you you want to pull that one too?

Just keep it to the basics. It was on here much later. Yeah. just just the minimum stuff we need to get through I think at this point. know, thought other than that? Do we have to keep all the Warren articles separate or can we just do like the school does and present a budget and vote it up or down?

Well, the the thing about the school uh budget vote is that's a validation referendum. So prior to that there there is an actual town meeting three town meeting where they vote on every article just like our town meetings the that budget validation referendum is just an additional step. So it doesn't replace u they still go article by article in that three town meeting.

So Kevin, do you have any idea if they're going to be able to have that three town meeting though? I imagine they could. Yeah, I don't know Ruth. I think they I think they're probably wrestling with the the same questions we are right now. They I think they found out today they're not going to be able to because they um they were tenatively planning on June 17th, I believe

uh to do that. So they they are probably they're probably going to have to do a secret ballot as well. And um and then I don't I don't know how that works. I I know that they're shooting they were shooting for the validation referendum July 14th in

coordination with the state election day. Um but if they they may have to do too they may have to do secret ballot well there was there was also talk they were going to ask the governor to wave the budget validation referendum vote this year. Um so I think there's still a lot of moving pieces there. So I'm not I'm not sure what they'll do. Um

I had thought Todd and I will be looking into the idea or Todd or Rob whichever one you suggested it as to whether we can consolidate some of the the the budget articles into um smaller articles or less articles. Yeah, I think we want to um consolidate where we can, but um but we don't want

to consolidate to the point where we're making it difficult for voters who might be in favor of something but not in favor of something else. And if we put them in the same question, you know, what do they do? you know so

so let me ask just another question like do we need to do this I mean as things are right now we can operate off of previous year's budget the budget we're proposing for next year as far as spending items is actually less than what this year was um with the exception of the bond payments that come due. But why can't we just keep operating like this indefinitely under the executive order and then pull together a town meeting when it's allowed or skip to next year if we have to?

Um we could that that would be an option. Um it does create some issues in that um we already we know we have an increase. We can what we can do is we can we can keep going under last year's budget, but the thing is it's at some point we're going to have to um commit taxes and we probably can't wait and any later than the end of July to do that. Um and you can only commit taxes once. So if we if

we commit um then that's what we live with uh for the rest of the year and the first three months of next year. Um it does does committing taxes limit expenses or just limit cash flow? It limits the amount of money you can raise from taxpayers. So for instance, we could only we could basically um send the same tax bill we sent last year basically. And but the problem with that, one of the problems with that is that we already have an increase from county. We're probably going to have some sort of an increase uh small one right now. It's look looking like a little under 2% from the schools and um

so that but so that comes out of that money and so it kind of it eats into what's left for municipal. There's also issues with it's it's not just an it's it's not that you can just continue under last year's total amount. It's under last year's budget. And so that means by article. So like if if and we could clean this up at next year's town meeting, but it would mean that for instance, we know that we were needed to spend more in administrative this year um for election expenses primarily and the hiring uh and training of a new town clerk. So we would very very likely

overspend that administrative um budget if we had to go with last year's number for that. So Ruth, do you want to add anything else to that? I leave something out. Well, I you know, and I don't know whether I'm right, but my assumption was that you would commit taxes um for the municipality at the same level as it was last year, which does not necessarily um

uh in other words, the the municipal commitment would not necessarily been less than last year. It's just that the tax rate would be higher because of the increase of the school and the and the county. Oh, we That's how I read it.

Yeah, I didn't read it like that. I think we'd have to get an opinion. I think I think you cannot raise any more money than you did under the previous budget, but we we should get clarification on that. Okay. When do we normally get the county assessment? Is that in

we've got that. That's usually the first thing we get. So that on that on those budget spreadsheets that Ruth was sending around and at the bottom with the tax impact that that county number is a real number. Okay. And providing the school is passed that's a real number too.

Sorry. I I put my hand up, but I don't know if we're using that. I don't even know if it works. Um, if we elected to use the same budget from last year, do we have to fall do we have to follow the same criteria that we set forth with that budget? For example, if you allocated uh 600,000 for public works and 100,000 for the fire department, could you reallocate those monies or do you have to stay within the framework of what the original budget was set for?

Yeah, the that Yeah, that um that's what I was um just trying to explain. I I think it's that you have to stay in the framework because it it says the budget of last year shall be the budget um that you work with and so the budget is an article by article thing. So as as I understand it yeah and well that's what I was talking about. We would probably overspend administration. Um, yeah, that's what I meant. Like, so I didn't know if we could cut from a specific area that maybe we don't need as much from to put more money towards administration, but if you have to stay within those particular guidelines of each individual,

you do technically you do, but we know there is a mechanism and uh that we had to use for a minor overages overage from the fire department last year. Um, that if you do, you just you just have to go to town meeting and get voter approval to kind of kind of clean it up. Um,

yeah. But you, you know, it's not something you want to do, but No, absolutely not. It's not something you want to do, but being that we're in times that nobody's ever, to my knowledge, faced before, I I think we're kind of writing the book as we go and some of the stuff.

Yeah. Ruth. Um Ruth, as far as the um committing taxes, um at the end of July, is there any scenario that you can think of where may you know that it would um make sense to um wait another month, the end of August, although wait, what did the governor say today on the 50? Um,

so the the the 50 um I don't remember whether it goes into effect the June 1st or July 1st. Um, but that is is she hasn't set an end date for that. Yeah, it's probably indefinite. So, it's kind of like if we want to if we want to at some point have um residents vote on a budget, then we're not there's probably no time in this calendar year where we're going to be able to have a regular size town meeting in a gym. Um so, if we want to have a

vote on a budget, it's probably it's going to have to be secret ballot. And so I guess that's the option is to go through that process and just kind of piggyback on the July 14th um state election and or not not put a budget vote out there at all and just um at some point commit um at last year's level so hard.

Yeah. if you elect to do the secret ballot and I I wasn't quite sure how um that was explained a couple minutes ago, but could we use for say the form that the computer actually counts? I know they said they had to be hand counted structure so it's vote yes or no on one of those scans computer

scans. It's not that we can't um do that. It's that Ruth, you want to explain? Ruth's Ruth's thinking that we don't have time. I I'm thinking we don't have the time to do that. So, um, there's these thumb drives that go into the voting machine and the thumb drives have to be programmed. Um, and the company has to do the ballots and print them and and it's fairly expensive. But beyond that, um, you know, with the the state changing their date and everybody else trying to change everything, um, I think we'd be hardressed to holding up something hard set.

That is correct. That is exactly right. Okay. Um, yeah. So, so I think we'd be hardressed to get a ballot printed and the thumb drives uh programmed by the July 14th date. Okay. Thank you. by moving it out, how what how does that what's the major impact by doing that? Mostly it's a cash flow impa impact. Uh we're lucky this year actually in that we're a calendar year um because we have through December 31st to recoup all of the revenue that's been lost right now. Um and also we have a pretty good projection of of what we would put into our commitment for the revenue sharing. But um but cash flow is going to be an issue. you know, we're going to talk about getting a tan later. Um, if we wanted to to think about pushing it out another month, um, we might have to take out a bigger tan, which, you know, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I'm not sure if putting it off is going to make much of a difference. Yeah. Well, I think it's important to have a pretty good idea of how much we need before we commit because you don't want to be stuck um short and you don't want to put a lot of pressure on the taxpayers.

Yeah. But could if we have a have a ballot on July 14th, could we commit on the 15th? Could you give me a week? Yeah, that would that would be the plan, Todd, would be to uh that's what we've been talking about is commit right away, you know, after the

vote on the 14th. Yes. Which would put us about a mo, you know, around a month later than we normally are. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I see. But Ruth, I think you raised a good question though that I think um we need an answer to is or a clarification on is you know um is it a total amount raised limit um to Ly um or is it is that just for um

municipal the just for the municipal portion and then whatever we get assessed for school and county we just pass it on. We I that that's something we would need to get clarification on. Yeah. Because the county and the the school are both assessments which we have no control over.

Right. Right. So that would um that'd be good. Yeah. So so I think we need to get clarification on that. We also need to get clarification on um if we did want to go to secret ballot the format of the article questions. Like for instance, um I see I was looking at a bunch of different towns over the weekend and and um some of them put it just almost exactly the way we do on our regular warrant. They say to see what some the town wants to raise, selectmen recommend X and U budget committee recommends Y. Um and but I

what what we don't know is what other options have to be presented. So, because for instance, do we have to present a none of the above option or can we put language on the on there that says if neither the selectman or budget

committees u recommendation is approved by voters, you know, the amount reverts to last year's budget. We there are towns that do those types of things, but they're oftentimes uh the power to do that either comes from a charter or an ordinance that they've passed. And we don't really have either one of those with how it relates to um budget article questions. So, we

need to get some more definitive um direction on how we would need to structure those questions. My my understanding and and I I also need more direction on this, but my understanding is that we probably would have to have a warrant article saying at the very beginning, you know, if if this does not pass, if the warrant articles do not pass for the amounts indicated, you know, do you want to revert to last year's budget? And I believe we do need a none of the above option.

Yeah. Well, it's we can believe and speculate all night. We need to find out for sure. So, right. Yeah. I agree. Question. Does the budget committee have to get back together, too? That's another question. I I don't I don't think they have to, but I think we should they they're

they can if they want to because um all we would be doing is altering our recommendation and they uh I think we would if if we were gonna move forward, I think then what we would want to do is say we're revisiting things. we are um uh

we're going to be uh altering maybe altering in some cases our recommendation um and then it's up to them if they want to get together and amend their recommendations uh that's up to them. It's okay. Okay. Then I think if we the one thing that we would need to do though is if we do a secret ballot um budget vote, one of the

things that I consistently read about the importance of um getting some information out there to voters and we would have to talk about whether we want to go so far as to put a sample ballot with a a little narrative explanation together and mail it or do something. But just, you know, two or three sentences per article about, you know, if there's a big change or or, you know, why is this up, why is this down, what does this mean? Um, having providing that context, especially when there's no real discussion like you would have in a town meeting uh would be pretty important.

What What would it look like to have a Zoom town meeting? That is actually not allowed in the in the at least under Yep. under the under the law right now the um what was exempted from being able to do public meetings was uh the legislature legislative committees and meetings of municipalities legislative bodies and so that in our case that is a town meeting

or more like a hearing I guess we can do a hearing not voting up or down like a hearing and we would we pro we would do a uh we would try to do a hearing so we would have to build that into the schedule. Yeah, I think that would help to get a lot of the

information out. That was a question I had, Ruth. Um, and you might already know the answer to this one, but when you have secret ballots, um, the law requires a public hearing at least the law, it says at least 10 days before the vote. Does that mean 10 days before the scheduled uh polling place

election or 10 days before the start of absentee voting? Uh you know I don't know what the law says but I think you would want to do it at least before 10 days before the absentee voting starts. I know that other municipalities are doing that

10 days before because you you want even the absentee voter to have all the information when they get the ballot. So, if if we're we um and we're going to talk about this in a little bit, but there's not a lot of time here even for a July 14th meeting because if you start backing things up from that, if if the um July 14th is the call it the final day of voting or voting at the polls, whichever it happens to be, absentee ballots have to be available a month before that on June 14th. your public hearing has to be at least 10 days before that and your um you have to notice the hearing at least seven days before that. So, we're backing up into late May now um with this schedule here. So, um we won't have uh a ton of time to

um execute this if we decide um that we want to do it. I might propose that we um there was talk about maybe we shouldn't wait two weeks before we meet again. um that uh and we can talk about this at the end, but I might suggest that we kind of tenatively plan to meet next Tuesday and get a little bit use the time to get a little bit firmer answers on formats of of um warrant articles and maybe even um maybe even have a draft warrant um uh ready to work

with um next week. And then um then we can kind of make a call next week on whether we want to stand pat with what we've um with last year's numbers or go ahead and try to get a um a new budget approved. Does that sound reasonable to folks or

Yeah. Yeah. Works for me. Okay. um discussion of warrant articles. Um I think we we've largely talked about this one. If I heard uh I think what I heard and somebody jump in if I'm not if I if what I'm saying isn't what you're thinking that the articles that we if we did do a secret ballot um it would just be the budget articles and the business articles uh not the marijuana stuff, not the town manager stuff, not the land use ordinance stuff. Um but budget and by budget I'm in I include the capital I in my mind I'm including the capital items in ter in budget articles. Um is that jive with others thinking?

And and probably the contract with pine tree. Yeah. I consider that a budget article too. Okay. Yeah. So okay. Anything else on 5e? I think we could table I'm I'm thinking we could table five F until next week until we kind of have a more of an idea of what we might want to do. What do you think, Ruth? Do you want to get into numbers details tonight? Uh maybe just a real short overview.

Okay. Um I'm thinking maybe just you know I' I've spent you know a lot of time going over this year's budget and looking at the budget uh line items and there's not a huge of wiggle room anywhere in the budget. Um we we budget pretty tightly. Um so that would mean that the things that would would be cut in order to keep the the um tax rate down would be things like capital improvement contributions to the capital accounts um and possibly maintenance paving. So, um, those are the things that we were looking at and and I sent out the the budget sheets. And so, if you guys have more time in the next week to take a look at those, um, then we would be able to, uh, talk in depth about the possibilities.

Yeah. I think Ruth, thank you. She did a great job putting together some options. Um and and really the big the big lever that we have really the only big lever we have is maintenance paving. And there's a scenario where we're only leaving $60,000 in the maintenance paving uh budget. Um there's another scenario that um basically spends half of the paving budget. Um and then there's various scenarios with regard to um how much we

use undesated funds for. So um I think uh I think we want to be one thing we want to be careful about is going too far this year so that next year is a huge shock to people. So, for instance, if we um if we cut the maintenance paving budget too much this year and use too much undesated funds

for what are kind of inline budget items um that year after year, next year when we likely, you know, if we weren't going to cut back on maintenance paving and we weren't going to use as much undesated fund, that becomes a big change versus this year. So, as you're thinking about what you think might make sense, um, keep that in mind in terms of if you were if you're going to pay for something with undesated funds this year, is that a one-time expense and you wouldn't be using it next year for that anyway, or is it an ongoing thing? Um, and you will have to pay that bill next year and do you think you'll want to use undesated funds again? Yeah, Rich. Um, with regards to the um, maintenance

paving, I just had two questions. One, Calvin, did you have any paving scheduled for the next week or so? I know it's that time of year where you start to gear up. Um, is there anything going on immediately? No, we've got at least a month of ditching before we'd be ready for any paving.

Okay. And secondly, if we were to post home ma maintenance paving or the way I kind of just understood what Kevin would just say, would we would pile on this year's with next year's maintenance? Wouldn't we just postpone maintenance paving for one year and start it again next year?

Yeah. No, sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant was if you if you don't if you like normally we've been spending 375,000 or so a year. So if we took that to down to 60,000 this year and then go right back up to 375,000 next year, then that's a big delta.

Okay. Yep. So whereas if we maybe did um I think there are scenarios where we could you know do maybe half the maintenance paving budget and then if it goes back to normal 375 next year um that's much less of a one-year um shock to people.

So I think there's different ways to play around with it. Um I think too that you have to keep in in in mind that um the hit on our revenue stream is is going to be next year. So the revenue stream meaning revenue sharing and um possibly the homestead exemption reimbursement and um and uh excise tax

which are some of our biggest revenues. Um the big hit is going to be for our next year's budget. Y right. about um I'll put on the table that I think and I'm not looking for a decision tonight, but I think ought to be considered um is a pay freeze for all municipal employees for for 2020. Um I think uh many many

people are certainly not getting a raise and in fact don't have their job at all or are getting you know uh their pay reduced by 20% or so. Um so I I think I think it's something that should be on the table in terms of uh a money saver for 2020 that we do a municipal pay freeze for for 2020.

I would agree with that, Kevin. I would also um I think eventually the board needs to look at in terms of what's essential as far as employees right now and what's not. Maybe we need to make some cutbacks. I think that needs to be on the table.

Yep. I think Ruth I actually when I met with Ruth this week I asked her to mock up some numbers on that and um is that on the is that a separate agenda item today or is it um No, I don't I don't think I put it as a separate agenda item. I just sent you guys out the things. Uh

yep. But she sent she sent some numbers. So, um uh digest those a little bit. And Ruth, do you want to uh talk briefly about um because this was new learning for me. I had no idea it worked this way. Would you talk about how unemployment works in the for a municipal setting versus a a private uh business?

Right. So, so the town of Durham does not pay into the unemployment uh fund and so we have no unemployment insurance. So, we're considered a direct payer. So, that means that if we lay off somebody um and they receive unemployment, uh whatever they receive unemployment, we pay directly to the state. Um so, say they get $200 a week

for unemployment, then then we would actually write a check to the state for $200 a week. Now, um it does seem that in the federal um uh program that the the federal government will pick up uh 50% of that for direct payer entities.

Um so that's not in stone yet, but if that were to happen, that would cut it down to $100 a week, you know, and that's just an example. It's not a real number. Ruth, is that something that municipalities elect or is that standard with all municipalities? It's standard with most municipalities. Um, some people go through MMA. They have an unemployment um, program that you can go through. Um, but most municipalities have a direct payer plan.

heard. Um, Ruth and I both this week have sat in on two or three um different um, budget type meetings with GP COG and main municipal association. And that's been a consistent u theme of of uh how the unemployment um system works for municipalities. So

So it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to lay somebody off. You pay them. Well, Ruth, yeah, it's it's it's uh it depend. A big factor is whether that 50% federal reimbursement kicks in. Um but Ruth's part of the in the number she sent two or three or four days ago Um, one of the sheets that she sent has some numbers on what would it be like and it's by employee. Um, if you laid them off one day a week or if you laid them off for a whole week, you know. So, um, I think it's definitely worth looking at um, uh, especially when you know. So, sorry. Go ahead, Ruth.

The other question that I I I had asked today in the the webinar that didn't actually get answered um, was how long does the 50%. So say the 50% for the federal government goes through does that only include the first eight weeks you know which is considered the COVID time or does that go for until the person receives a new job because u we would be liable for the unemployment um I think it's for quite a while Kevin it's like for as long as they are on unemployment until they get a job

right usually six months isn't it or is it different for municipalities uh I think it's 15 months Yeah. Well, we'd have to we'd have to get that. Let's see. Let's add that to the list of things we need to get um more definitive answer to.

Yep. Yes. Public works is that why would we do anything with public works at this point? Wouldn't we other than just trying to save cost? But I mean, they can still work, right? And still do anything we need to do in town.

Yeah. I think it's a matter of uh yeah, there's no question they can keep working, but if you have less revenue coming in, you know, maybe you say, well, yeah, we're going to have less work done, you know, but we can only afford four days of work. We can't afford five days of work right now,

right? But you're right, they can keep Well, and it's really it's similar with um the town office. I mean, they're still they're still uh helping people a lot with stuff over the phone and and online and there's, you know, there's still a payroll to be done and bills to be paid and so there's still there's not the desk the front desk traffic of course, but um there's still work to be done,

but not probably not as much as normal, right? It's amazing how much there is to be done still. Yeah, guys did a heck of a job on that back records room. So, yeah. Well, we're going to have to do some more work because we're working towards uh trying to figure out what we're going to do when we reopen. So, that that's the planning stage. We'll probably end up more in depth with that next meeting.

Yep. Um why don't we unless if there's nothing else on on the budget. So we kind of you know so think about what your thoughts are on you know paving and using undesated funds and you know pay freezes or reduced work strategies or you know um kind of get your head around those and and we'll um uh probably talk about those uh uh next week.

5G Ruth. Well, uh we're always pretty close to it with our cash uh flow. Um and the fact that we're going to be committing taxes uh a month late this year is going to cause our cash flow. Not to mention the fact that, you know, we usually make about $250,000 in a month. This month we brought in 100,000 which actually wasn't bad considering.

Um so so we're going to have a cash flow problem. Um and uh so we're looking at the possibility of taking out a tax anticipation note to hold us over until we can commit taxes um and so we can still pay our bills. a cash flow projection. Um the most that we can bother borrow according to my my projection is a little over $1 million.

how does that how much would we need? Well, it would be on a revolving um so so we would set up so that we would draw down what we needed. that in your last email this evening, but um I think I don't think those attachments were there. So, if you want to send those out.

Okay. We can wait till next week. That'll be fine. Yep. excuse me. Letter of support for upgrade of the Androskagan River. So just to frame it up for people that might be watching friends of Mary Meeting Bay are trying to get the rating

of a stretch of the Androskagan River from essentially Lisbon down to Mary Meeting Bay upgraded from a category C to a category B. um and they're asking us as a town to offer a letter of support for those efforts to the um main department of environmental protection. So, any members have um comments on that? Ruth sent out a slightly uh not slightly, but a different version of a letter um in her uh email this evening. I don't know if people had a chance to see that, but any thoughts on the concept at all of sending a letter at all? And if you do want to send a letter, um, you know, any any thoughts, members? I don't have any desire to send a letter, not from here, from both parties in in a forum such as this or something of that nature. Um, I think this board has learned their lesson from the past, but I I have no desire to send out a letter.

I am 100% in agreement with Rich. mean, I'm not against clean water. I think we everything should be done to have the water as clean as possible, but we're not we're not qualified. qualified. Yeah. And I was actually I think I want to thank Rob for sending a little I want to thank Rob for sending us some information um uh from an engineering firm that did some work um on this issue and um I thought it was very helpful in my mind um to come to the decision where I I don't think it's appropriate to send a letter.

no motion to send a letter, I don't think we need to vote to not send a letter. So, we're just sounds like we're not taking action on this and we're not sending a letter. So, all right. So, I'm going to move us on. Um, we are through the action and discussion items. Uh, department committee reports. The fire chief is up first tonight.

Good evening, everybody. Hey, chief. I uh I sent my uh report on Friday. I really don't have anything else to to add to it other than we'll just wait to see what happens with the RFP for the well and the septic. Um not sure if anyone has any questions on what I sent or any other questions, but

right now business as usual for us. Okay, Chief, I have one question and it's not to it's not to imply anything. I just want to pre-emphasize that. a majority of the town's volunteer firefighters in um working or not working. Are they in the neighborhoods now or is a lot of your staff still working full-time jobs?

Um a lot of my staff still working full-time jobs. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for the chief? Thank you, Chief. That was a perfect report. Thank you. Yes. I liked it. Yeah, you don't need essay. Yep. Because we can read. Um

Calvin, road commissioner, you're up next. So, we've got to continue working on cleaning up of the town properties. Um we've really been set back by u the the last couple of northeast we've had caused a lot of tree damage all around town. We've just been going from road to road cleaning it up out of the ditches and and then while we're there last fall uh or over the winter as one tree has been all over town dumping trees and leaving them in the ditches. So we having to pick those up at the same time we're going right by. There's no sense in leaving them in the ditch. Um but that's just taking up a lot of time in those last two storms. The amount that came down is incredible. Uh, and the thing with leaving them in the ditch is if you have a significant rain event or that if the water can't get through the ditch, it works its way around and undermines the pavement, takes up the shoulder of the road, and

that's very expensive. So, we don't want that to happen. U, I was just shocked when I came back and looked at the difference that that made. It looked like a new road already, but it does. So that that that certainly doesn't even look like the same neighborhood though. Um so we've got that part done. Um

um when are they going to start on it? I haven't gotten an answer. Um I I know they've done the dig safe. They've marked it out. They just keep telling me they want to wait till they know for sure it's dry enough. And um I I tried

to call them today to get an answer. I haven't I haven't got an answer. A couple of weeks ago, they wanted to start yesterday and and so maybe something came in. I'm not sure, but uh soon that they'll be ready to go on it.

Uh year's ditching for the Deer Veil neighborhood and the U Rangale neighborhood. Uh both of them have a significant amount of underground pretty much all underground power. Um and so that's that takes that that's slow and tedious ditching for us because we have to work around things under the ground guessing how deep they are. They won't tell you how deep they are. They just tell you the location but they won't give you a depth. So we have to hand dig a lot. But uh we're having trouble with uh having trouble with um um with the uh dig safe. They normally we've never had this trouble before, but I've been this is the third time today I've had to call the dig safe in for Deer Veil Road. The PUC is coming down in the morning at 7:30 to go over with me and look at it. Um they're just three times now they've told us it's clear and go ahead and dig. And we can see clearly that that's not the case. and they said

they're just having a lot of trouble. They've got rid of on target who used to do and apparently this new company outbid them or something and they're they're just having a lot of problems. So PUC really wants to come down and see it um because it it goes hand uh goes in

hand with what they've already suspect and so the problems are already having it's an ongoing issue. So um but I I just know that I am not going to dig u in there with the markings the way they are. It's the third time and I still missed two routes. So hopefully we get that straightened out or we will get it straightened out. I'm not digging until we do. But um spoke with the engineer on Route 9 uh met with them uh today over at the by the school on Route 9 and measured everything. There is enough room to get two 5 foot uh shoulders in there. uh certainly doesn't look at it to drive through, but there is room to move that the guardrail. Part of it's going to be new and part of it's going to be a replacement of existing, but um we measured and there is going to be room to move those back. They may have to do a little stabilization on the uh inslope to support it, but they're going to move the Gabriel back on both sides to get a

five- foot pave shoulder through there. So, I said, "If you can get another foot and another six inches and whatever you can get extra, we'll take it." They said they would try and because as you go through there it's going to give the appearance that you're narrowing in but you you're going to maintain that five five feet

do you know is the plan on that project for a paved shoulder all the way through town to Yarmouth. Yes. All the way. Yeah. Yeah. And so I asked them specifically if that was going to be a bike lane today and they said they kind of looked at each other and kind of said well because initially I was told it was and they said well we can't call it a bike lane. People will use it as a bike lane but for whatever reason and and they asked each other what the criteria was and one of them said four feet was the criteria. So it's going to be five. So I would assume but for whatever reason they were reluctant to classify it as a bike lane. So they said, "Well, the bikes are using it now." And so

Heather Roy is smiling. had already been talking to them about that section. In addition to that, there's the right hand lane, the southbound lane is uh has a a dramatic uh it it drops right off and it pulls our trucks right into the guardrail when we're going over in Black to load the trucks. So, they're going to correct that profile as well. Um, so that's that's about I've got I mean the ditching there's going to be we're moving into some neighborhoods now that have a lot of underground power, a lot of driveways, a lot going on. So um it's going to be a little bit slower but rather than you know different than the long rural roads that u we we've been more accustomed to than these tight neighborhoods. So it's going to be a lot of work. Uh the three miles of uh road to get ditched in the season is a pretty aggressive. I know last year we never came up for air. It was just every day every day everything else kind

of had to take a backseat and we focused on getting it all done to to get those roads because we trying to stay on trying to stay on par with that on our course for that uh paving plan that we've set in place. And uh I I don't want to get behind, but at the very least, we need to get the ditching and be ready for the paving, get it done, and get the driveway done. So, Calvin, with with regard to paving, um I think it would be helpful, you know, uh if you could um uh by the end of the week, um

take a look at what your maintenance paving plan was uh for next year. Um and maybe uh on that list of roads, maybe you could um give us a sense of how urgent the work was uh in your mind on that road. Like is it like for instance when we start to talk about potentially uh cutting back on um the p the maintenance paving budget um for the year? you know, if there's if there's a couple of things that you think are like, boy, really critical, like if we don't get to it this year, then we risk a much more expensive rebuild in the near future. Um, if there's if there's anything like that, you know, it would just be good to know um what risk level we might be taking on in deferring um some of the road maintenance. You think you could put that together and email it out to the board by the end of the week?

Yep. Yep. I will uh look at that. That's like for example, I mean you say, well, how come some some of the roads need some box cutting this year because those roads were already those sections of roads were already gone and these other roads were relatively good that we did last year that I wanted to save from getting into this condition and so it's why they got priority.

Yeah. So I think just you know what is there anything I mean we know it's all important and it all needs to be done but you know if there's like what's you know or or maybe we approach it like if you only had if you had half the budget what you know what would be the priority or whatever however you want to frame it up so that we kind of understand

right the biggest bang for your buck would be X and Y okay yeah I'll put that together in a priority Thank you. Anything else for Calvin? Thank you. Anything left, Ruth? No, not much. Okay. So, so the only thing actually that I have left um is that our our web hosting uh company Civic Plus has sent me a contract that they would like us to sign. Uh we were with virtual um towns and uh they were actually taken over by Civic Plus. So, it's really just a formality. Um and the the the amount that's in the contract is the amount that I was expecting. Uh so, I just uh need approval of the contract and approval for me to sign the contract.

authorize Ruth to sign the uh Civic Plus contract. I'll second it. All right. Hey, Todd. Second. Any questions or discussion on that? roll call vote. Yes, if you're in favor. Was there a question there? Okay. Uh Rob, yes. Rich,

yes. Todd, yes. Mark, yes. And I'm also a Yes. Yep, that takes care of it. All right. And anything else on your list? I think that was your whole list, right? That was my whole list. just uh just you know working on uh plans to to uh deal

with the crowd when we open. So what what did um so what did the governor say again about so she the stay at home's extended through the end of May? End of May. Yes, the stay at home is extended through the end of May. However, there are um checklist. I I haven't had a chance to really look closely yet, but there's a checklist that allows you to open if you can uh complete all the things things like the pex plexiglass going up and and uh six foot distancing. So, we would have to figure out how to do that um with such a small external office, you know, with the inside where we sit, it's it's not such a big deal, but with the the residents come in, um it would be an issue. And so I think what we're going to end up having to do is is just only allowing the people at the window into the building um and figuring out some way to to line up the rest of the people uh in six foot separations like they do

pretty much at the grocery store. Some kind of markings or something. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Maybe we could get some traffic cones from public works or something like that. I'm sure we could. Oh, yellow tape. I was thinking red.

Yeah, red duct tape. Yeah, red tape at town hall. There you go. All right. So, uh, consent agenda. I would take a motion on the consent agenda I'd make a motion to accept the consent. All right. So, Rich Rich move Todd second.

Any uh All right. Any discussion? There's nothing anybody needs to pull out. No, I had one question on a warrant article. Um Calvin, what was the like $900 and something dollars for the electrician at public works? What was that one?

Uh we had to have a bunch of electrical done in the uh in the cold storage. We had to have um Uh, we couldn't plug the trucks in. They were tripping breakers and the engineer told us we shouldn't be keeping the trucks in here where it's warm because the salt has a deteriorate

steel at a much faster rate than it does in the heat than it does in the cold. So, yeah, I was not aware of that. So, we've been trying to keep them out in the colder air. Okay. All right. That's all. All right. So, uh, we'll take the vote on the consent agenda. If you're in favor, say yes. Rob,

yes. Rich, yes. Todd, yes. Mark, yes. And I'm a yes. Okay. So, upcoming meetings, um, is, uh, there's been some talk about, um, uh, meeting next week and not waiting until May 12th. Uh, is there anybody that can't do that?

but I should be able to make it at some point. Yeah. Okay. So, I think we'll go ahead and and schedule a a meeting for what would that make it? May 5th. Um that Tuesday uh May 5th at 6:30 be another Zoom. I think I think it'll be a Zoom meeting. Although um if we're if if we're allowed to I think um and I

think Tammyy's still here. Tammy, we should be exploring from a technology point of view. How would we make it work if the board and only the board um and department heads were in the building but the public still had to join virtually. Um, I know there's some issues with that because um board members might um I don't know if we have speakers in there that that we would be able to hear um people and if but if we had to use our laptops then that you can get feedback issues with multiple laptops and speakers and stuff going. So if you could kind of noodle around how that might work

um for for for when the time comes when we're able to do that. That's probably our next step. Yeah, I think it's definitely feasible. Yep. Okay. Uh but for right now, we'll tenatively plan on uh Zoom and if we as soon as we can safely make it work to um actually be in the same room, then we we will do that. So, okay. So, next meetings, uh Tuesday, May 5th at 6:30. Tuesday, uh and then we'll probably make a call at that point. We'll probably need to meet on Tuesday, May 12th as well. um and Tuesday, May 26th at 6:30. So, take a motion to adjurnn. Rich moves adjournment.

I'll second that motion or Rob does. Um in favor of adjournment, Rob, yes. Rich, yes. Todd, yes. Mark, yes. And I'm also a yes. We are adjourned.