TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ May 12, 2026

towards them um to move the process along. And so at this point, you know, we don't get into details because it's ongoing legal proceeding. We want to be respectful of all parties involved. Um but due due to recorded two recorded violations and a stop work order, we're now at a point where legal action is uh needs to be taken.

Um any other questions on the motion? Discussion. Okay. All in favor of the motion. Any opposition? Seeing none, that passes unanimously. So now let's discuss um the request would be to this is new information as of 5:45 today and as of this meeting but the town attorney has met with uh Missa and we

they have are starting to work on some sort of consent agreement by the sounds of it. The question would be, do we want to delegate that authority to the the town manager to approve that should a consent agreement be uh met between the two attorneys? Generally speaking, that is something our board has done in the past. And so that would be essentially saying we're fine with the town manager doing working through that um with with the lawyer without us need involved in another meeting. Our next meeting is scheduled for

26. The 26th, two of us will be absent from that. Um, and so that would be a three-person meeting. And uh, so we need to decide. I mean, I'd like to Jared, do you have a comfort level that you you sit with this? I'll work with it, Jerry.

Yeah. And so um, you know, the pit was permitted for 5 acres. It's beyond that. questions coming into where they can work or where they can't work. Uh, I'm comfortable with delegating that authority to Jerry, the town manager, because it will be done in conjunction with the attorney, but also we will be kept up to date. Um and so this would just be that if an agreement is how to move forward in terms of operations related to the stop work authority not that doesn't give him the that's not an agreement for uh fines or fees or anything like that in terms of the violation itself. Right now the operation is at a standstill and we have a you know issued a stop work authority because they have failed to meet they have broken the uh constraints of their permit. Giving Jerry the authority to work with the attorney to come up with a consent agreement for opening the pit for operations does not change the fact that

there's been a violation that's going to be pursued separately. Is that is that correct? Yeah. Okay. So that would be still pursued. It would just be can they come to an agreement for what opening the pit looks like in the interm. So before we have any sort of motion, did people have any questions or discussion on that that they'd like to either ask myself or Jerry? Have you received any emails from constituents from people in Durham nearby the neighbors that the

um I've received complaints about continued operation that happened uh earlier this week after the stop work authority but I haven't received any other so to confirm they're still working even after they received the stop order

not as of today yesterday is what I received that's the email that I received other than that um have not received any sort of other communication So, Emma, did you have something? If it's helpful, my client um has followed the stop work order today and intends to continue to do so until this is resolved with

when did they receive the stop work order? Thursday and they last Thursday and they continue to work even after. Yes, they've stopped this morning. Yeah, this morning. received. Um, so you're just basically authorizing the attorney to work with

this with Emmer is really all you're doing. Yeah. And that's separate from the violation. That would still be moved forward. So we give legal authority to move forward on that, but saying working with Emma to find something that allows them to open the pick and move forward while all the other legal ramifications are being determined.

The attorney's not going to work unless you authorize it. We just can't go on our own and say, "Okay, I'll do all or maybe we hold the ground and say we issued a stop work and work will stop until it's resolved and don't have a consent agreement that they can do partial work on two acres or or something like that."

That might be part of the consent agreement. Mhm. So, I I think to add to it, Jerry's the two lawyers would work something out. And are we saying that in front of the jury is the uh he would bless that, right? And so the two lawyers would work something out,

obviously our lawyer acting on behalf of the town's interest and then rather than us having to come back and have a meeting to approve the consent agreement, we could preemptively issue Jerry that authority to sign off on the consent agreement. Where I'm comfortable with that is, you know, we hired the lawyer. We know the lawyer we have and we know the way she operates and and works in our best interest. And so if she feels like this is fair, she brings it to Jerry, Jerry feels like it's fair, then he can sign off on it. If either one of them say this isn't a fair, we don't think the select board would approve of this. Jerry could say, "I'm I'm not comfortable signing off on this." And we would say, "Send it to us at that point at our next meeting." Um, but I have enough trust in and I'm not saying no one else here doesn't. I I placed enough trust in Jerry and our lawyer to get us to that point and try

to um move forward on this personally. So, we we can't have public comment right now, unfortunately. But um I'm sorry. [clears throat] I'm fine with it. I mean, if at any point in time we come to an agreement and they violate it, then we stop all over again,

which I would think would be part of we would, you know, so I mean, we can say yes to Jerry. We can say yes to this now and direct Jerry to that authority, but we can vocalize to you things that are important to us. That being being one of them.

Yeah. So, I'm I'm fine with the plan. Okay. So, do we have a motion? Oh, I thought we have No, we just a brief premotion discussion. Oh, I'm sorry. I will move that we authorize uh our attorney to work with the what uh Jaden Pit folks uh to come

up with a uh plan and that uh Jerry be authorized to approve it on our behalf. Does that sound right? Do we have a second? I'll second. Second from that. So discussion um questions. So what I would say is we're making a motion to authorize Jerry to sign and approve a consent agreement. that consent agreement as long as it's agreed upon by the two parties. Jerry, we would ask that you um obviously if you don't agree with it, reach out to us and we can make sure we meet pronto to to review it. Things that are important to me though is that we don't have any additional violations and we work to make sure that this a consent agreement gets us into operations within the scope of the original permit um and not absolving the the party from any sort of uh recognition of violation prior to that is what's important to me in that. So any other questions or discussion? Okay. All in favor of the motion.

Any opposition? Seeing none, that passes unanimously. Emma, thank you for your time. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good evening. Second part. We have to do it tonight. No, that was so we we we made the motion to pursue legal action and we've now made the motion to give Gary the and the town attorney authority to enter into a consent agreement um as long as they feel like it's fair to. itself and that

covers the legal action with the it. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Next on our topic, we are working now. Okay, for those of you just tuning in, sorry for the technical difficulties, but I hope you enjoyed the live stream of the bird feeder that apparently popped up.

Um, an owl. Okay, that's still a bird. All righty. Our next topic is to review and discuss land use ordinance proposed changes. And we have George uh the barge here and Brian from the um uh planning board. So I will have you both introduce yourself on camera. Our microphone's working.

Great. Good evening select board. My name is Brian Lwa. I'm the chairman of the um planning board here in town. I'm with Mr. SARS. Um so um uh what's in front of you tonight is um the action of the PL the planning board has taken in the past year maybe even more than a year uh for enhancements to the land use ordinance. Um we've been I know we have a very busy agenda tonight and I feel like we've been uh transparent throughout the process. So I'm going to just quickly go into a summary. Um there are three parts to this and um feel free to uh chime in if there's any questions that you have. Uh George will probably elaborate on some of the some of the questions you might have but um uh there are minor policy changes, administrative changes and uh changes uh codification process.

Brian, can I interject just briefly for the folks at home? This is a process that was identified when we began the codification process of our land use ordinance and this has been a lot of uh hard work of from staff and the planning board identifying those characteristic. So we talked about changes the minor and the and the administrative and then uh land use code. So this is a finishing off a task that we've been going on for about 18 months at this point. So just to give everyone a reminder where we're at. Thank you.

Thank you. Um [clears throat] so the first part uh proposed minor policy changes. Uh we have back lots and private ways to uh streamline the review process. Um we have code officer approval for single back lots, planning board approval for private ways serving multiple lots and to reduce single back lot driveway width from 20 ft to 16 ft. on expansion.

Number two, expansion of non-conforming structures uh which is to simplify the standards for residential expansions and eliminate confusing language. Remove planning board reviews of issues typically reviewed for the board of appeals. Uh the third is subdivision road buffers uh which grants the planning board discretion to require vegetative buffers where new subdivision roads above existing homes. The fourth is fire protection water supply which would eliminate uh water storage systems as an option and uh allows for fire ponds, existing water sources or residential sprinklers and subdivisions. Five, uh cannabis cultivation facilities, which establishes clear definitions and prohibits aggregated growing operations that are exempt from state permitting requirements. The sixth, manufactured housing and accessory apartments, which brings local standards into compliance with state law on tiny homes and standalone accessory

apartments, placement of mobile homes on individual lots and mobile home parks. The seventh, road frontage determination. This was added a little bit late, but um again, I think you all have heard most of this before, which clarifies how road frontage is measured on lots with curved frontage, corner lots, and um uh on the turnaround,

part two, administrative changes. Can we give folks per opportunity to ask questions on part one? Does anyone have any questions on part one? The only question I had, you talked to the the fire chief about the making the width of the the back block the the driveway to the back blocks four feet smaller cuz I remember that was an issue.

He's shaking his head behind you. So and he's shaking it this way. Well, I know that you and Chief all shook in the same direction. So that seems like three votes in the affirmative. Yes. Yes, we have Josh. Yeah, I figured it, but I thought I should ask. We'll tell you if chief starts doing this behind us.

Um, okay. Any other questions on part one, the minor policy changes? Okay. Uh, part two, administrative changes, uh, subdivision road standards, uh, updating the design standards to reflect current engineering practices. Number two, driveway standards, which clarifies the applicability of standards to roads and town. update for safety and adopt MDOT site distance standards. Number three, zoning bound boundary interpretation which assigns interpretation authority to the planning board which uh previously was um on the

board of appeals, right? Uh solid waste management number four which requires a readiness to serve letter from internal solid waste management collections and subdivisions. [snorts] Uh number five, campground reviews. Um this is a state requirement. Um not much we could do here, but we're going to comply with state requirements that reduce the scope of code reviews to avoid um duplication of state permitting. Number six, uh general planning board uh subdivision uh submission requirements. Sorry. Uh this adjusts deadlines and reduce printed copies. Um right now the deadline is pretty short in term of turnaround. Um this gives us a couple another week for for review. Um number seven, ordinance correction provisions which delegates the authority to the select board for nons substantive text corrections. Um it kind of falls in line with codification but um yeah number eight proof of payment of taxes. Uh this is a new

requirement um which would require proof of tax payment with the planning board applications. We just want to make sure that everybody's um paying their fair share before they move forward with any development. Number nine, conditional use submissions um added uh detailed submission requirements to the ordinance text.

Number 10, this was also a late addition. Tree clearing and subdivisions. Uh this clarifies that tree clearing trees for development purposes prior to finals approval is a violation. I have two questions. Um, well, first one thing to note because I always like to note this when something says delegate authority to the select, uh, non-substantive text corrections really are like not changing the intent of the the rule, but it's like I think of things like we've changed in the past or wanted to change in the past where it sometimes says select men, select board, board of selectment. So, it's three different ways the same say the same thing. who said let's just consolidate it or for when you know there's swers errors or stuff like that. So that does I just want to make sure folks know that this doesn't give the select board any authority to make like a policy change. It's it's lit it's more like a

grammatical change. Um question on number eight proof of taxes when you have people or entities that how how are we tracking that? So, like if we have entities that, you know, have a separate PLLC for different subdivisions, is that being looked into or is it just if this applicant has a current set of lots that they haven't paid their taxes on, we don't even consider their application? Like, do you have any a similar question? Well, but is that more work for the town staff? Like what you're asking? That's I think jumps on. That's my Is this something that George does or

Yeah, my question is more because this is a complaint for at least two or three years. We've heard when people get their uh um annual uh town annual report and you see, you know, that there's a a sub someone who's doing the subdivision that isn't paying their property taxes and essentially we're managing as a town their cash flow for them. Um and that's a problem um in my opinion and we've heard a lot of feedback on that. So, I'm happy to see that here. But I know there's also instances of, you know, a developer through two different organiz entities potentially applying um for two different projects. One might not being paid. So, are we going that deep when we're looking into it?

If I can just get back to your first comment. Sorry. Um yes. Um the um delegated authority of the select board. Um I just want to elaborate a little bit on that that um there will be some planning board review of of what you're um uh presoping to change as well. So there's going to be some duplicate uh coordination going forward there with that.

Um on the second part um tax payment. Um it's kind of tricky. We did talk about this in our on our discussions where um if I'm a developer, I'm buying prop your property um but it's contingent on playing board approval. We want to make sure that those taxes have been paid by somebody in in some way or form.

Okay. I hope that answers your who who does that? I mean, yeah, I I I picture this as being more work for for just I think we put it on the applicant to prove to us that they've paid their taxes, right? Whether it's a receipt

I still feel like you're going to be at least I have to go into the computer and print stuff out. That's that's my biggest concern. So, like it's the daily request like I get those calls like from you know title companies.

So, it would just be like a normal request. I would just print off the account detail, give it to them, they can submit it with the application. It's not a lot of work. But even if the application is signed by an engineer or an LLC or something and there's a person behind it that's name is not on the application. I mean

it's really the property that's being put before the property. So even if they haven't paid tax Yeah. It doesn't matter who pays as long as it's paid. No, but if they the developer has not paid taxes on a different subdivision or a different property, you are still granting them the right even if they are paying taxes on a different one.

It just applies to the property at issue. It doesn't So to my question was like when we have a situation where someone has a subdivision, they haven't sold all the lots, they're not paying lots and now they're putting in a second.

Yeah, let me clarify how we looked at that. Okay. So, one of the criteria for approval is that the applicant has to demonstrate financial capacity to carry forward the project. And so, primapacia evidence of inability is non-payment of taxes.

Could be on other properties. That's correct. So, if they're not current on taxes, they clearly don't have the money to proceed with further development. And I just wanted my concern was is if the name is something over here on this property and the application even though this guy is behind it has an engineer's name or an LLC

and again this won't be perfect but it will certainly help establish where it's clearly a problem. Yeah. We'll have some way to deal with it. Right now the town has no authority to say we're Yeah. which is a big complaint we've received a lot which

So if if I buy Joe's house and I plan to put a subdivision, you're going to check and make sure my own property taxes are paid. No. Well, unless it's a clear indication that you don't have financial capacity to do the subdivision.

But who's going to do who's going to do that? When when is that decided? It it to me the way it was presented makes it sound like you're only going to check the property at issue. Make sure those property taxes initially. Mhm.

That would be the first check. The second check is if you can see there's five other subdivisions they haven't paid taxes on. They haven't got approval of this subdivision. So that's not an issue. But that would be an indication that they don't have the financial capacity to do the project.

And so in those in Oh, sorry, Josh. Do you have a followup? it would be thank you for your application. we won't even consider it for completeness until you're squared away elsewhere or the burden is on the applicant to prove

I guess my question is does that happen at the completeness review or does it say all right this is a complete application but we need you we'll move forward you go pay your bill and then we'll come back and we'll do a substantive review

or it would come in during the substantive review yeah that's and I'm just wondering where does this clarify where that would come in because in my my viewpoint it the earlier in the process the Yeah, because I don't want you all spend a month or two working

and then yeah, we're going to pay that tax bill. Oh, never mind. We can't do it. And now we've tied town resources up. It will be added to the preliminary plan. Preliminary. Okay, perfect. That's that's good for me. Uh my final question here, number 10, tree clearing and subdivision. Um, so you know, my understanding with forestry laws, if someone does a clearing and they say, I put in a 10 acre clearcut, which is a permissible under main state forestry. Oh, I decided some law a year later, now it's going to be a subdivision. My understanding is there's a 5-year wait period from clearing to when you can change the land use from a forestry practice land use to um a subdivision.

How is this different? Okay. My understanding of the subdivision law is that if that if liquidation harvesting like you described has been done in the prior five years, they have to provide a forers certification that that was done according to the state laws for timber harvesting.

So as long as they provide that certified letter that satisfies the ordinance and they can go forward with the subdivision after 5 years. No, at that time as long as they provide the certification that any harvesting done in the prior 5 years followed the forestry department rules.

Okay. Now, uh, this is dealing with where you have the subdivision that may not have had any clue, but this prevents them from because they can't start any construction of of roads, infrastructure, or anything else until they get their final approval because if the planning board denies the application, but the language is not clear right now. The town attorney has suggested or stated she believes it is a violation for them to go in and start cutting the trees for the roaded. Mhm.

Even though the ordinance isn't clear on that. So, this is just to clarify the town attorney's opinion to to put everybody on notice of in the development community that you can't go in and start clearing the lots or the road or any of the infrastructure because they and one of the issues that's precipitating this is the the relatively new application of the bat uh breeding roosting uh season where developers are not allowed if they get a D approval to clear any trees within a certain window which is the prime construction window.

So, there's a real motivation for developers to go and clear the areas that have to be cut while they before they are stopped. Yeah. And the town attorney has said they just got to work that out. It's like June 1 to August 15th, I believe. Yeah. Um, so I don't want perfect to be the enemy of good here, but where I do see challenges with this is that you can reasonably you can meet all forestry regulations and reasonably do a harvest that looks exactly like a subdivision lot. Like I did a

gravel fourseason road so I can get my equipment in there and I cut four 1acre patch cuts to promote hardwood tolerant hardwood or tolerant hardwood regeneration. that's very easy to do and then I just happen next year to decide h maybe I'll sell it that so this I don't think will prevent that in its entirety but I think it's a good step and that's just still something to be liable because there's a couple examples in town where we're seeing

right just let me clarify this is once they file their subdivision application okay so this is saying you can't forestry after you've submitted you can't start cutting trees once you file your application while the project is under review

they're going to want to get applications in sooner if the completion of the harvest has to be prior to June 1 or then they're not starting till after August 15th. But part of the reason for that is that um the storm water calculations are based on how much disturbed land there is.

And so the planning board's reviewing the engineering plans based on those areas being wooded and now they've been cleared. It changes everything. So this is to clarify once you start your application process, you can't be out there clearing for any purposes. That answers my long three long- winded questions. I appreciate that.

That that is the most important part this update. Yeah. Section. I think it's a big one. Awesome. So, number three or question. Oh, sorry. Um, did you all have any recent conversations with the town attorney about inserting something for applicants on compliance audits? compliance audits

uh maybe for some high-risk related request um on this Jaden Pit issue that is a completely separate issue I know but a person gets planning board approval for certain criteria and on a high-risk item which might be a gravel pit might be something else inserting some language where there'll be some compliance

and there was There is a provision in the subdivision regulations that says if they are in violation of a of subdivision regulations on another project that gives the planning board authority not to process their permit for subdivision. It does not extend to other parts of the ordinance. We clarified that. Okay. But she did say that if this person is in violation of other ordinances that can be a factor in deciding whether they have the technical capacity to do the project in keeping with the ordinance. So if they're violating the ordinance somewhere then that is a basis for saying what's to prevent you from violating the ordinance here. Obviously you don't have the technical ability to follow the ordinances. So until you prove to us you can so indirectly they can consider those violations of other parts.

I think that we will need to get to your larger issue separate of the codification process. I see right I think it's important to note that you know the ship is pretty much sailed. you know, any changes we make now will hold up the whole process

because the public notice says for we're we're in the window for we either like this or or we miss this this year. So, yeah. Um thank you. This is a really I want to be back on that. Give George something he probably has something to work on.

Add to George's list. Um real quick. So, actually, you know what? We'll keep moving, by the way. It's not related. So, part three. We're all done with part two. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So, part three, uh, codifi codified land use. Um uh too many things to get into detail here, but um basically just um putting punctuation in the right spots, making grammatical errors, changing things from [snorts] select men to select board, that type of thing. Um very very thorough. Um as it says here, over 100 different um edits to that. um just to

really clarify and and um bring it into compliance. Um there were there were several other um topics that we punted this year. Um they're on our uh list for next time we we once we get past the town town meeting. Um, and you know, we'll do this again in a year, but um, we won't get into those details now, but there's always something there's always something we can improve on,

and we're going to continue to do that. Um Um, so next is uh May 20th, we have a public our last public meeting, and it's basically just to say here's where we're at. Here's what it is. Uh, we can't make any changes at this point, but just to keep everybody informed. Um, you've been provided with the draft language that will be presented at town meeting for vote. Um, just didn't know if you had any questions on that part.

Sure. No, I don't think that's part of the package and I with the Warren article. Yeah, it's right here. Thank you. Um, well, first off, this is a lot of work and you you all have done a fantastic job paying on this. This has been a long process. I remember when we first approved the, you know, contract what feels like, you know, a lifetime ago. Um, so I really appreciate your both of your leadership on this and the hard work of the whole committee. Um, keeping us up to date the whole time through, always being public and open and transparent. So, um, I think this is a really prime example of how municipal government can work effect effectively and really well. So, I just want to applaud you all with that. Um, this is awesome. I'm all good with it as I as we see it here, especially with our clarification questions. Does anyone else have any questions?

Just a comment if somebody wants to see the details. It's on the town meeting link. So if you want to really get into Yeah, they did a great job explaining it tonight, but if you want to dig further in there to the folks up there. So

yeah, some of I I've looked I know when we first talked about some of those like editorial details, it's like a lot of like peacemeal, you know, lack of consistency, not in ideology, but in verbiage and stuff like that. And uh one thing I'm happy for getting all that fixed is I use the search function a lot. All right. And so like I start by looking for something and I'm typing select board select men just board. It's just going to be nice to be able to just type in what I'm looking for and find all the results. So um

well see no other questions. We just need a motion to we don't actually approve anything on this. We'll approve the warrant language article. We won't approve this move forward either. But yeah, we can do a motion to move the article warrant language forward. Um,

make that motion. That's made by Josh. Do you have a second? Second. Do we have any other comments or questions? Thank [clears throat] you for the warranty. Doesn't seem like any work at all. Nice and easy, right? No. This this task, John, was this why you switched boards? I mean, this was getting

I miss all of them. So, yeah, they were more fun. Oh, boy. That lawyer humor. All righty. Um well, any questions or discussion? All in favor of the motion? Any opposition? Perfect. Did you all have any questions, comments for us?

I I do. Um this presentation that we made tonight, I plan on duplicating this at town meeting. Yeah. Is that more or less than you would expect or Well, that meets the expectations because that is what's like we always advertise our agendas and public comment, but we're a routine meeting. So, I don't feel like as many people always like pay attention to that aspect, but when the planning board says we're going to present on the ordinance changes and the warrant language, that reaches a certain threshold. So, I think duplicating it for the people who might be watching or the people in the room is is still worth it. So

appreciate the question. Thanks. Good job. Good job. Thank you. Thanks, George. All righty. Thanks, Ryan. discussion of EMT service funding. So, uh we can have Chief come up here, but I'll kick it off for us. uh more or less

talking with she or Jerry kind of informing that we we are could use a little bit more money in part-time wages to cover the um em the needs of the EMT so we can continue to offer a 24-hour EMT service in town. Um a lot of shifts are going unfilled right now because of the the wage issue. Um but that can be offset by new charges. Um, you know, I actually just was talking with Chief earlier today. We're not charging CMP, for example, when we uh do traffic control for them for two hours because they've got a transformer that blew up. Um, I don't know anyone else's experience, but CMP charges me for everything they do. So, we can return the favor a little bit on that. Uh, car accidents, we're not charging uh the insurance companies when we respond to car accidents. Definitely not charging when we're doing extractions and stuff like that. And so, uh, chief is going to give us a little bit update on the

numbers here, um, and make a suggestion to our final budget here, but it's going to be a net zero impact because it will be all completely offset by a new revenue stream. So, uh, I don't want to steal all your thunder, chief, but

you want me to do it. So, yeah, let me refer you to page uh, 13 in the budget. I think you have it. And I just want to know, so this is more just for bringing the budget because it changed. Real quick, just because I know we do have budget committee members. This information has come to fruition since uh we handed the packet over to you. So uh this was not withheld. This is this is new. Um but we're on page 13.

Yeah, the the public safety page. You got see that? So, in talking with the chief and learning more about his line of business, EMTs get paid at different levels depending on their license or basic and uh those holes aren't getting filled, which means he's going on. So, we did a really sort of deep dive into that that line and what he's doing and all of the calls and that sort of thing. And after working with Mark

line 3720, he got Mark Roy the line that was 296770 7 01307020 part-time staff wages. Yeah. Budget we had 296770. Mhm. That's now 300,000. So it was So that's like a 3230 difference. So 3,230 bucks difference. So it's really for transparency. And then if you go to page seven, which is the revenue side, his ambulance fees is now um it was 125, it's now 129. So

it washes out. Actually, we're 800 bucks into the positive. So it just sort of washes out that. So your budget impact is still 135. So there's really no change. Yeah. So, page seven, um, ambulance fees line 01 0006470. We, uh, we're up to 129.

Yeah. 129,000. Yeah. It's It's not a lot of change, but I think it gives the the chief, you know, a little bit more flexibility depending on who answers those calls, depending on the degree of license. But chief can explain more about it.

We spent several hours talking about this. Yeah. Well, and ultimately there's an expectation provide 24-hour ambulance coverage and we need to meet that expectation. If we're failing to meet that as a liability concern um and so adjusting the wages for the PDM coverage there is

necessary. Thankfully, it can be offset by the revenue. So, um did anyone have any questions? I I'm sorry. We did the original budget that we approved was 125,000 for for uh for ambulance fees. Yeah, actually for the revenue.

Yeah. Yep. And now it's 129. So that's a $4,000 increase, not $34,000. Yeah. No, 4,000. No, the the 3230 is the expend on the expenditure side. Yes. So, but by increasing the revenue 4,000, we're increasing expenditures 34,000. No. 3,200. Okay. Thank you for helping with my math.

Yeah. Yeah. So, we're pay we're we're positive $770 on this on this change. Excellent. Thank you. And all in 10. It's a wash. It doesn't impact like the budget committee's recommendations um because it's not it's not a net increase or decrease $700 over the course of the $13 million budget. I guess 700 is, but um it just brings that line up 3,200 and

offsets it with 4,000 in revenue. Did you have anything you want to add, Chief? That was on me. That was just math with uh EMT stipens coming up for the new year. All on me. Um, the I have to say the invaluable of being able to call the town accountant that we use, Mark Roy, who can pull up the last ambulance revenue receipts. Um, because usually you all see him year by year. He can pull up um amounts received last 15 months, average them out, excuse me, because of the 20% increase that that you guys authorized in March.

20% on our build services. fillable services for ambulance. So, we haven't even gotten into cost recovery for motor vehicle accident CMP. Um, that's coming. You authorized that investigation dealing with the town manager. So, there'll be more fees if you will, but cost recovery for car wrecks, but that 4,000 is legitimately um common to the town. So, so it is

but full transparency because I had to change it up. So this is just gonna this is going to adjust the wages for is it just the just EMTs second shift and weekends just EMTs. So um we break the shifts 12 hours day and night.

Yep. Uh so your EMT license so firefighters all those guys support they're all under um minimum wage statutes. So that went up in January won't go back up until the fall in January. You clarified that. So that isn't up for discuss the fire. Correct. fire like so when there's a fire and people respond firefighters everyone there is paid minimum wage who responds but that's not a wage we set that's through the association

so this is just EMT lensure yes EMT basic advanced and paramedics but if someone is a volunteer firefighter and they also have their EMT certification and they show up to a fire to fight the fire as a firefighter they're paid the firefighter wage correct

no they they are always at the EMT a higher standard. So, a blended rate. Yep. Okay. If you will. Perfect. And my question um when we talk about fee recovery here that is some of that those are new to Durham. Are those new to the industry? Like

no. So, so we haven't implemented that. That'll be a contract for you to all review. Um and that might be a policy change again for the select board. Not new to the industry. the uh Turner uh Freeport does it on their own. I I mean there's a lot of towns around here that that that do billable services. So extrication, which doesn't happen. It happened about three times in Durham last year. Um directing traffic. So if you're out there for an hour or two directing traffic, you built for flaggers. You're providing we did this weekend in front of the get-go. Um one lane of operation, fluid hazard mitigation, cleanup. um CMP I I think it

was the same day uh it was just by self-directing traffic but they had a pole fire on Rapid Road. I think you saw effects on that to go out that there'd be a loss of power in the area. Um they get build for that. So CP is used to seeing bills like that for municipalities. It's not like they're going to tell us go pounders.

Correct. Uh and this is a third party um vendor that that provides with our documentation the bill uh with a fantastic success rate and they're based out of me. Yeah. Awesome. Again, you'll be seeing that across your Mhm.

uh desk. Sure. Perfect. Okay. Um, well, we probably ought to make a motion to approve the uh we were talking about finalizing our budget later, so we can carry over this uh to approve in our budget recommendation which is next. Um, so any other questions for Chief or Jerry on ENT EMT service funding or anything like that?

Awesome. Well, thank you all for the hard work that you appreciate Jerry and and certainly Mark presentation. [clears throat] Thank you, Chase. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Well, next we have the final budget. Um, so the we have received budget committee recommendations from uh we received recommendations from the budget committee to the select board. Uh, but also this is our opportunity to review all recommendations and information we've received to date and make any adjustments um on the budget before we

um send it to the warrant. So, I'll uh were either one of you here to speak on behalf of this budget committee tonight? Okay. Um, so I'll just read I have an email here from Milt, the chair, uh Mil Simon, the chairman person of the budget committee, and they have their recommendations. So, this will all be on our website if it isn't already. It was all part of the packet that you can find on the website, excuse me. But I will vocalize the changes here and that the impact that that has. So um for the general government line, the budget committee has recommended um $763,39

recommendation of $821,165. a $57,856 provided some written documentation as to why um they want to see the wage table implemented over a two-year figure uh uh period rather than the wage now. They want to see the town managers raise decreased to 6%. And they said, "We understand the contract was already created." Um and so they acknowledged that that can't be changed, but they made that recommendation. They want to remove our line for unemployment because they they that the miscellaneous fund line is enough to cover that as a contingency. Um they want to they said human resources was budgeted at 20,000 due to many projects planned but it's only now needed for employee HR issues beyond the town manager's ability. So with that in mind, they want to decrease business services um which are our human resources and our accountant. Uh they want to remove the text messaging service because we only sent

out three messages per month and they felt that that was not a good use of money. They want to decrease our heart or the the top hardware line particularly removing 2500 which is scheduled to use to purchase tablets for the select board. Um they request that the select board try to find a grant for that. Um I'm not familiar grants for that for the select board but that was the request. They want to reduce a current full-time staff person the part-time and take away their benefits. um as part part of that and so they understand that the person's already been hired um and but they would like to see those hours reduced and just clarify that person is filling an existing vacancy so it was no net increase on hours um and they want to decrease dues and subscriptions for services. So that's what is recommended in the general government mind. The next recommendation from them was public safety where they want to raise an appropriate

$745,485 for a decrease of $26,745. heads raise to 6% which they feel is still enough above COLA to make it uh um competitive. um they want to do tiered increases of the wage table for all other staff as well. And so they're suggesting those cuts come out of payroll for for public safety. um public works the budget committee has recommended $1,922,727

$1,959,352 They would like to see that come out of department heads wages. Um but they did feel like the if they they said we didn't change the full-time raises as it's the only department that we have been told is truly having a hard time even employees due to wages and they want to suggest that road painting and strengthening be kept at maintenance amount. And so that's a total reduction there of 36,625. And then they recommended reducing um uh

raising an appropriate 40 raising and appropriating 40,000 for the fire department capital reserve which is compared to the um town's capital reserve of 100 or the select board's recommendation of 140,000. That's a 40 $100,000 decrease on the capital reserve. Um, and they said it's because they don't see any expenditures planned for 27 or 28, 2027 or 2028. Um, and they want to zero out the municipal buildings capital reserve, which is a reduction of $5,000 and they feel that there are ample funds available in the capital municipal building capital reserve. Their final recommendation is to use $350,000

of fund balance, which is $150,000 less than the select board's recommended $500,000. So total, that's a net change on our budget of $76,226 reduction in mill rate. Um so less than 1% reduction overall. Um the majority of that being taken from

fire department uh capital reserve and public safety. Um so that's their recommendations that we received. We'll provide this information as well um and put that on the website. Any questions? A question? Yeah. um what is the net effect of that decrease on the average home in general?

Yeah, so I actually I'll send this to everyone. I ran some numbers personally. Um so if you have a home that's valued at and I I sent I did this calculation myself and I'll have it double checked by the accountant and we'll put on the website. And so this is I haven't shared this with anyone. I just did it myself. If you have a home that's t valued at $300,000 after your um deduction from

things like uh homestead exemption and stuff like that, the budget committee will save you over the course of the year uh $5869. So about $4.89 a month. If you have a home valued at $400,000, you will see a $7825 saving or $6.52 saving per month. Um,

and if you have a home that's valued at $500,000, you'll see a $97.81 yearly saving or $8.15 a month. So, I didn't I didn't expect an answer tonight on that question. So, thank you. Oh, no. I ran the numbers cuz that's how

I have that right here. I actually was not expecting No, no. I I and I wasn't expecting anyone to ask it. I just did it myself because I was reviewing some other municipalities um annual reports and they oftent times will show this is the budget impact of this budget versus this budget for houses. And so I ran and I'll make it public, but I ran the numbers for everything from a $100,000 valuation to a million dollar valuation. Um, and so if you have a million dollar valuation, which somehow does exist in Durham, that is only a $19563 savings. So $16.30 for the bond. So

okay, I'm asking this again. My my followup question was going to peak and I don't expect an answer this fall. Yeah. the the average I can't imagine at this point it's more than three or 400,000 at most average. I can answer part of that actually. So in the last 12 months the median sale price in Durham has been $42,000. That's sale price. So that's not valuation priced and that's just the last 12 months which have been I would say probably artificially high compared to the normal valuation. So I've pulled up the assessing tax assessment report that's on the website and I was going to painstakingly go through and look at every valuation and then average it by households to come up with a rough number. But I based off of my rough ocular assessment and using like sale assessment, I think we're somewhere around an average home price in the $300,000 range. Inventory up until recently between $150 and $300,000 was

kind of where most the sale prices were were going. Um, and so, you know, if you are closer to that $200,000 mark, you're talking a $39 annual decrease in taxes. And if you're at $150, you're looking at um or $150,000, you're looking at like a $19 thou $19 annual decrease. So I think it's what I want to do is make sure that this table numbers are all correct and pretty much show everything from about 200,000 to really about 600,000, which I think captures 95% of the homes in Durham under our current valuation. So um very small difference.

Yeah, I I mean it's surprisingly small, I think. Um the the numbers you threw out were they mean we're now at a $25 mill rate versus 22 or 23 last year. So are you talking the numbers you threw out were the difference between select board and

so the the select board is a $2542 and the budget committee is $2522. So a 19 or 20 cent difference between the mill rates. And so the numbers that I put out are calculated at the select board value being $2542 and the budget committee being $2522.

So but but not the $3 $2 difference from last year and overall bill. No, no. I'm comparing the proposed changes from both both boards. Yeah. So yeah, it's there's no getting around. It's either a 13.5 from percent change from the select board or a 12 U eight change from the budget committee. There's no there's no getting around the fact that can't sugarcoat a a double digit um tax increase, which is the first one I can recall in Durham in a very long time. What it shows to me is that we've been really tight for a long time.

Yeah. And uh I think everybody agrees that there are services that need to be provided. Uh and they need they continue to need to be provided at the level that they are being provided at. Now some might say they should be provided at a higher level more hours at a time office. that sort of thing. But, um, to me, that's a positive. And I might take some flack for this, but I'm going to say it anyway. What disappoints me is the budget committee recommendations are dealing with with a lot of policy considerations that don't belong there. And so it's secondguessing or I'll call it second guessing decisions that we've made as a board uh which is not what I think the role of the budget committee is or was intended to be. Um

and those things I think these things when we were discussing them and that's when that appropriate conversation should be and that's what I would I you know I I think that's the appropriate time and not in this um like but I I throw that out there for increased participation in our meetings and discussions um and maybe that means we need to figure out a way when we're talking about polic certain policy changes that we need to find a way to incorporate more public comment.

Mhm. Uh I mean we've had the discussions about uh getting information out there and I don't think we've come up with a way to do it. Uh I mean I I I for one will tell you that uh yeah we don't use the text messaging services very often and rabbit road doesn't affect me. Uh but still uh it's nice to know that if I

were going that direction to expect this or to go a different way. Uh update on bulky ways. Uh you know, can I say something real quick about the text to to your point? I have never used the fire extinguisher in my kitchen, but I still want it to be there, right? right now. I mean, that's that's the way I mean, the way that I look at that is we're in I say this an older town, right? I think

I think we've discussed many of the residents are are older. Um many I don't know if that's the right word, but you know uh uh and if my parents live here, I would want that. I think it's a great idea. I think it's helpful. I think it provides information to people who they have the ability to get information that's out there in a way that uh you know I don't go on Facebook all the time. Uh I don't go to the town website every day or every week. I look at the the email Friday morning at 8:00. I expect it at 8:00 and once I have 5 minutes free Friday mornings I go and look at it. Uh the text messages I think are helpful and a reminder and I think it would be a damn shame to get rid of them. But should we I I don't think we need to discuss individual line items. So I agree with you 100%. It is very frustrating that people don't come out you know we had a great deal of participation and whatever

on uh throwing away your garbage bags uh which are we just got to talk trash more. Well which are minor compared to you know millions of dollars of increases in our taxes. So that is frustrating. Not millions of dollars from us though.

What's that? not millions of dollars from our budget from the overall but we don't control 70 something% of but I mean it is but I think we don't we have not I mean there are a couple of folks here who always here and always participate stuff like that

but you know hopefully we'll get more than 120 people at the town meeting but that's how we get there you know more people to show up when when we're making decisions to add people by this or that it would be nice if people came out and said no you know we don't want you to do that

point of clarification we didn't add anybody we just transfer but I see your point JC increase that that salary but I mean there we didn't get any participation on that and so it is frust I don't again we're not going to solve that tonight because I know long before I joined the board you all were working on it

well I do think you're getting to a really good point both of you about participation is that ultimately I think that in the last five years we've made the ability to part participate much easier between our new website putting the agendas on so you always know what we're talking about and us adhering to that. Our live streaming which sometimes they do get a couple hundred views. Um our text service, our news blast, all those sorts of things. Um, but ultimately like you know I was talking with the chairperson of the school board and she was saying like they were offering like dinner at some of their meetings in the past and they still didn't get people people out there and so it's tough, you know, and I think that but this goes to show as I know that we've talked about this and I know one of the people here tonight have made public comment like the the talk about um a voter referendum um on the

budget moving towards a model like that which I think we should put on their straw poll in November because you know we'll see that I think that the most participated in process was during co when people were able to vote on everything at the polls that was like you know the last few years

I think the highest participation I've seen at a town meeting it's like 150 that was like a record 165 165 yeah that was a few years ago um and you know we have the we have the ability to do special town meetings but I just feel like we got to reserve that so much cuz sometimes 40 people show up, you know, and it's like, but I do think one thing that is good though, regardless of getting participation, is that all of this stuff has been on the website for a long time and we've been super transparent. So, if people want to be informed, they can be, we have, we get a lot of questions from the same folks, which is good of seek more questions from other folks, too. Um, but I don't think we can fix fix that, but I think that um decreasing our outreach wouldn't never be beneficial for that either. So I don't have any questions. I have requested some additional follow-up information um particularly around recommendations

pursuant to staff wages because we had provided the um wage study and on the one on the one meeting that was recorded I watched it and there's a lot of discussion about um research if we would call it that done by individual board members on the budget committee and I've asked for that to be sent to me. that's been sent in an incomplete manner. I've asked twice now for some follow-up information with no response. And so, um, that's not really their role is to set staff wages, but I did want to make sure we have all that information to be transparent. Uh, but everything we have from our side will be up and ready to go. And, uh, this is I encourage people to review all of this and we are available to ask questions. Um, I'm [clears throat] going to do some more outreach on on my own via the social media posts. Uh, and also I was thinking about maybe opening up um an afternoon where I can come into the town office

and do office hours just if anyone wants to come in and ask questions about the budget. I know Jerry has had office hours for a long time, but the budget's really the select board budget, not the town manager budget. So, um, opportunity to just have office hours for people to come and say, can you just explain this? I don't really want to hash it out in an online format or something like that. So, do our best to get that information out and it will be in our award-winning annual report. So,

I have one other question. Yeah. Do we track how much money we spend on printing like all this paperwork for us? Because my I I I feel like I have so much of it, I have no place to keep it. So, every few months I'm like, I got to just get rid of it.

Yeah. Uh, and I have to imagine over the course of a year, I don't know that number, but I know in my wife's work when they switched the tablets, it dropped their printing and ink records so low their vendor called and said, "Have you switched um vendors because we haven't heard from you

recently. You haven't been buying anything." And they said, "No, we just don't print anymore." You know, when when that idea was first floated, you had said how much you had gone through. I don't remember a lot of paper, but it had it I mean

and the wear and tear on the copier. And case in point tonight when I was printing off all this, it jammed the copier during business hours and almost it was it fixed itself, but it almost looked like it was going to be a major problem. Well, we were going to be without the copier for a day.

No, this time this is 20 pages and this is the eighth version I've had printed off for me and six of us have received that and I think that there's still a place for printing. You know, I'm I'm a tree farmer. I want pulp to go to the market. Don't don't get me wrong,

right? Well, people will be attending. We need to print things off. But for the most part, we have a lot of paper that is basically a waste of spend. Should we take $5,000 out of our printing money then? Painting. I think that that's something we could look at in the future.

25 It's 2500 for 2500. But I I think that that's something we could look at. Um if we get the tablets, evaluate that the following year. Um because toner is expensive, too. So you know, printing is the annual report or any other additional stuff. Remember when we did the uh

little brochure that that's what the printing does. It's not printing for this. That's not Yeah, but that's getting absorbed. That cost is getting absorbed in. This is paper isn't supplies. Printing is actually printing services.

Yeah. But I guess what we're getting might be using the word printing, but what we're talking about is like supplies monthly, you know. Yeah. I mean, a 25 $100 reduction at this point might get us down to might shave 4100s of a penny.

Still $2,500 less. I mean, I don't think it would be even realized in the mill rate though because if you got, you know, it's not just about that. It's about, you know, we talked about $3,200 in added expenses and $4,000. We balance that off. So, that's something we could we could look at is balancing that, you know, take that $2,500.

Yeah, more than happy to have that discussion um when we do that next. But either way, um do want to say I appreciate the budget committee's work on providing us with all this stuff. Um, you know, we sat down with the chair and the vice chair. I think Josh and I had a informal meeting with them in was it November and December of last year and laid out a timeline. Um, that timeline was adhered to with a couple of minor changes due like typical scheduling things that pop up. So, I appreciate um their participation in this providing us with all these documents. would have liked to see more recording occur. Um but uh we will be able to better delineate that in the future and um move move on from there. So any more any questions on this before we move it? So, we're still the same um budget or same uh agenda item, but I want to move on from reviewing the budget committee's recommendations to finalizing anything we want to now that

we've received our final recommendations. And that I should clarify because like John had reached out and said, is this the meeting to bring up last minute finalizations? that has always been transparent to everyone that ultimately the select board creates a budget, send it to the budget committee, the budget committee creates a recommendation, sends it back, and the select board has one final opportunity to choose if they want to rectify uh to make budget changes taking into consideration the budget committee's um uh recommendation. So, moving into the budget process now. Anyone have any recommendations or any part of the budget they want to talk about before we move towards um a uh to adopting it? I do know, John, that you had emailed about the um

since Juliet and her daughter are both here to support bulky trash. Yeah, I will say Deb and I were at bulky waste day. Um it was great participation this year. A lot of folks coming three or four times. um which uh extended it quite a bit. Um but I will tell you that no donut was left uneaten from that event. We brought in plenty of supplies.

The guys did and gal did a great job. So yeah. Uh I guess I'd like to reconsider um bulky trash day for next year. Can you remind me what line that is? Well, it's it's missing, but there's a line item. It's just not there's no

it's highlighted because it's a change. Okay. Oh. Um, that's not line item 01427815. Thank you, ma'am. That highlighted mic there. Okay. Um, yeah. So, would you like to make a motion? Uh, yes. I would once again make a motion that we reinstate bulky waste day. Uh, I think last time we talked about it, uh, we were talking 20.

Are you Do you want to make a motion for an amount or just reinstate and then talk about whichever whichever your preference? I I would do both. I would, uh, make a motion that we reinstate for the amount of $20,000. We'll kill two birds.

I will second that motion. So, um, open up the floor discussion. John, pick it up to expensive. We we thought um the tipping fees this year might be more than planned and maybe we thought maybe that was because we didn't have bulky baits last year so people had things piling up.

We had it last year. No, we had it last year. What? Three years. Sorry. We thought that it might be higher. Oh, that's right. We had it last year. It was raining. That's right. Mhm. But part of I think a concern about it being higher was that there was going to be a preemptive exodus of bulky waste in the town ahead of the pay as you throw system kicking in. And one thing I did not expect that I saw a lot of is there was a lot of trash barrels thrown away

um on bulky ways like a lot of people brought in their old old barrels that they used to use for trash and threw them out there. And so I I would say I saw at least 40. Really? Yeah. I was greeting people as they came in um as they drove in and I heard a lot of very positive comments about about Vulky Waist Day and people were very appreciative that we have it. I did hear some there were some comments where maybe we should have it twice a year. Someone said, "I don't think we should be having this at all, but I'm taking advantage of it because you're doing it."

[laughter] There was all kinds, but the majority of people were very happy to be have an avenue to get rid of a lot of their trash. There was a lot of stuff coming through. That would be interesting to see the total count, right?

But the first time I went around 9:15, I stopped just past Avets. The second time I went at 11:15, I was, you know, tailgating Avets. Yeah, we were we were busy until uh 1150. Yeah, I will say while I agree doesn't surprise me the people who went to bulky ways they like bulky waste day. So I did talk with them all as well. And then we have received um and John thank you for using social forms to kind of prompt some some feedback. I think that's a really good use there. We have received some emails. We have received some some social media outreach about um I would I'd say about 99% of the commentary has been positive. Um my one concern and I just based off

of my observation is I I hate to be accusatory but there was definitely some instances of it being used outside of the um intent of what I think bulky waste day is. And so we had instances of people who had rental trucks who were coming in three and four times. Um some instances of people coming in with what was clearly a bit the truck logoed with a business on the side and throwing what looked to be construction material out for free. Um instances of double axle 16T trailers filled literally 7 ft tall completely admired over. And so my understanding is that initially and bulky waste day predates me is that bulky waist day was intended for that couple items you can't get rid of kicking around your house. when we see people come in and they have entire truck beds filled with sections of carpet rolled up and apparently, you know, are doing a building demolition somewhere. Or we hear rumors, I'll leave it that, of people

who are offering to for cash go clean your yard up for you and then throwing it away for free at bulky waste day. that raises a little bit of a red flag for me. Um because I think well maybe there's a system to address some of that and I know you had done a lot of work earlier in the year John about like maybe there's pay for certain items because we already have that for tires we already have that for um we already have that for uh uh anything with freon I think but they only take like refrigerators I mean

yeah air conditioners and stuff like that and so I don't want to go through the process of adding on a whole litany of other price points. But I do think we could I would be supportive of your recommendation if we could offset a portion of that via revenue through a a tag you have to pay for a trip. Um

I think Juliet had a good recommendation of I think $20. And to give you an example, I before Bulky Waste Day because I've done some construction demo two weeks ago, I loaded up my horse trailer and went over to the dump and it's 50 bucks for me to go to the dump. I threw $250 worth of general trash at the dump and it was a a $50 even charge for that day and that was 250 pounds of a little bit of metal, a little bit of sheetrock, a little bit of wood, that sort of stuff. So that is

if that was my only trip to the dump this year, that cost me $100. I'm not suggesting we do a $100. We want this to be if it we're going to have this I think we want it to be a service that is easier and more approachable. Um, but I think that even a per trip, like we take the ticket as you come in and it goes and then if you come back, you need another ticket and we change the color and we make sure people aren't making fake golden tickets or you know.

Yeah, I mean I think that's a good idea. But to that price point of 10 $15 is kind of what I was thinking in addition to any per um item disposal like tires or freon or stuff like that. That was where what I was thinking about because you got you I think you brought up a good point of a lot of positive feedback

and I and I don't I think it's like you said if you live in Freeport it going to cost you a heck of a lot more than that. Well, we can just doubled all there. So I think a reasonable fee and we could probably discuss that. I mean we have the authority to set that I think

uh post the town meeting to to find a way to help offset it. So, I don't know that we're going to get $20,000, but uh you know, if we get four, you know, I don't know how many we probably had a couple hundred trucks go through there, at least vehicles, if not more.

So, my concern with charging and having that take place is this is additional work for the staff. They don't have bandwidth for this. I mean, already it's pretty spent. the layout of however we make it of, you know, buying a ticket, having the ticket, showing up. Jess is there, you guys are there, but like Calvin's there. It's just it's it's a lot to ask of them to do

on Saturday. I'm not sure it I mean, it depends on how you do it obviously. Yeah. You know, if you start charging my original idea of Okay, let's see. You got a refrigerator and a but that that gets to be expensive. But if we're talking about a simple 105 $20 fee,

but just back to the budget, we're it's putting $20,000 in. Are we going to put a revenue line in for the potential? That's what I That's what I'm getting at is that my support would be contingent on offsetting a portion of it with revenue by a ticket sale. Personally,

I I think that we will be lucky if we break even with it. Well, I don't think the intent is to break even. I think it's just I think that what we've heard is that in the So, not last year, but the year before we got rid of bulky waste, it was one year and then everyone said, "No, no, we want bulky waste." And then there's, you know, examples of trash getting dumped on the boat launch and stuff like that.

And so now we're saying, well, we do want bulky waste. It's like, well, maybe there's a balance between have a bulky waste day, but it's not entirely included in the taxes. there is an element of like participatory fee to help offset part of that plus there's a little bit of revenue from tires um and that sort of stuff and so I think that if we could offset try to shoot for a quarter of it to offset that could be maybe a balance and my int my design

with the the tag is largely to prevent people from abusing it and you know and I know that it's just a worm cuz a can of worms cuz it's like, oh, is it $10 for, you know, a a Honda 1998 Honda Civic with a bag of trash in the back, but it's also $10 for an F350 with a 20 foot flatbed?

I would say 10 and 20. $10 for your car. I mean, I used to haul a lot of stuff in my Forester when I first got here, but 10 for a car, 10 for We could, if we go that way, we could have a pretty good calendar of photos of ridiculous stacked vehicles in bulky waste. So

Josh, I didn't get to go. It seems that we have basketball every and baseball too. Yeah. Uh so you know we had to travel out of town for basketball. We had an 8:30 game. Had to drive by everybody in line and my wife said, "Oh, don't you want to go?" And I said, "Can I turn around?" She said, "No." Um I do think it's a service. I do think up that, you know, instead of doing tags, we could have somebody uh standing there taking the cash or check.

We're going to do that. Uh I I do I think that's just a better way to do it than Yeah. I basically done it when I was in my thought would be if it's 20 uh cost and five we get five in revenue we figure out how many people how many you can't we don't know how many trucks but 20 for a truck or whatever the right number we can figure that out over the next year.

Yeah. You know we have 10 months to figure that piece of it out. I also and how to do it. What's the right way to Sorry, Jerry had something if you don't mind Josh. I I'm thinking that if you could decide on what you want to do moneywise, you can debate this other time because you're getting way ahead.

Yeah, I agree. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. So, um yeah, I will say it was I think that we should also back it up with us as a selector being there to help like and I know we all have scheduling conflicts so I'm not that's not a shot at anybody, but it was chaotic. You know, there was a a lot going on. Um, and there are some fiery attitudes from some of the Cassella staff that made it a little bit even more

stupid because the comments I heard were didn't well my experience was they were all all good people. So, all right. So, John, could you would you accept a friendly amendment to say to greenstate bulge waste at 20,000 and offset it with 5,000 in revenue? I will withdraw my original motion and make a new motion that we add $20,000 in cost

and 5,000 in revenue. And we call it the Julia Kaper and her daughter trash day. Yeah. Perfect. So, so comments are forwarded to Juliet when I get emails tomorrow morning. Okay. I'll second it. All right. Do we have any other additional questions or discussions on the topic?

Any opposition? It's going to pass to one. may ask or just No, I wish I could have been there, but I just think it's still not fair to other residents who do put into it. And I hope that when we have this discussion for charging that yeah it'll be

much better. It'll offset the cost and it'll help some taxpayers but the goal is also to reduce the budget and this isn't really doing it. So okay but I would have said I said the same thing anyway. We'll go to text message that thing.

No time to move on. I will say uh we should try to target when Girl Scout cookies get for sale again because Girl Scouts made a killing in the past on cookies for and I my uh my daughter was there long her first volunteer hours at four at 5 months old and so I you know no one was mean to me in the line girl [laughter] that wasn't the intent but it ended up being the results. So,

all righty. Does anyone else have anything else they want to address in the budget um before we move? And thank you Julian for that comment and thank you everyone who did submit comment. We received quite a bit of public.

Thank you D for coming voluntarily or otherwise. All right. Do we have any other um recommendations anyone wants to make uh before we finalize our budget? And I just want to be Jerry you've noted exactly and and and you will that um revenue stream the function of that to be determined.

So we'll figure that out at a later date. Well, we know the amount, but how we're going to get there, we'll figure out at a later date. How we get there? Any other recommendations for the budget? I um about the capital reserve area at all um

given what came in from the budget committee and if there is any opportunity to lower in any spot with minimize without adding any risk to uh long-term planning in their municipal budget or municipal building capital reserve.

Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. They had reduction of $5,000 in consideration. There's ample funds available for the next 5year schedule of expenditures. I mean, if we can if it would make sense to lower that amount that we're putting in this year, maybe that could offset some of the waste.

I'll let you take John. Go for a So, so I have multiple concerns with that. One is you take that out, I think you're also taking out some portion of the interest income that's included in in the budget. take out or reduce.

If you reduce or take out that that the interest income that we have in the budget goes down. Okay. Um so it's if you talk about the 105,000, you know, I'm not going to do the math, but it's more than 105,000. Yeah. Right. two uh

say something happens next year. You know the reason for for decreasing the fire department uh reserve capital reserve was that there are no expenditures scheduled until 2029. What happens if there's a change? What happens if something happens to you take it out now? it's going to have to get added on to the 2027 or the 20 or the 2028 or the 2029 budget and it's going to it's passing the buck uh and so you know

passing the buck plus interest plus interest. Uh so you're passing the buck to a later budget to increase it by this amount plus you're you know you're lowering the interest which is going to lower the interest income this year which means it'll lower the interest next year and the year after. Uh I we

came up I well we came up we implemented this capital reserve funding for a reason. Yes. Uh and to me it was one of if not the most important things that we as a board have done in the last few years because this has the money. it's there.

If say, you know, you're looking at 2029 and all of a su and in 2028 prices come down for some reason and you say, "Holy cow," you know, and then they start going back up. Let's let's do it now a little early. I mean, it takes so many things that could be income cost-saving measures out of our hands because we're pushing we're passing the buck to later years and it's going to increase the taxes that much in later years. And so I understand that

this is an in an increase in our budget. We have been so tight in our budgets less than 1% left over which is and a half right which is which is a phenomenal number at the work that Jerry and Mark have been putting into our budgets uh and is something frankly that's been

two or three years going and I think is is a remarkable fe I can't imagine it's going to keep going much longer because at some point something's going to happen right I mean yeah But I I I understand you want to lower the budget, but let's not forget the major increase in our budget is not from what we're doing. It's not from ensuring that the employees are going to have a raise so they want to stay. It's from the things outside of our control. And so we talk about these increases. is down. Let's not forget also because of what we're doing with these capital reserve accounts, our debt payments are going to go down year after year and eventually hopefully reach zero.

Mhm. Right. Right. So, I think, you know, I understand it's easy to get rid of because, you know, it's for a future date, but it affects so many things. I think it's a terrible idea. Absolutely terrible. And so, that's so

that's good. That's kind of the discussion I wanted. Yeah, I agree with you, Josh. So, I can understand. So, first off, the answer is could we get rid of capital investment? Absolutely. We could say we're not investing in the future of the town at all. And that could be a place that we get rid of it. But I think that the comments received kind of go against the logical framework of long-term capital planning. So we have 10 years in front of us of expected expenses to our our

capital expenses for each department. And those aren't made up numbers. Those are facts and figures. So 2000 the 2004 so the 22year-old pumper will be refurbished at the tune of $150,000 at in 2029. Refurbish is the correct word there. So that's we're valuing that at $150,000 if we did that today. We're planning that in 2029 that's going to be $159,000. We have an ending balance right now of $77,000 in the fire department capital. So you say, "Oh, no problem. Next year we'll just take take that out of there and we'll still have 550 grand left over." 2030 the $700,000 ambulance purchase needs to take place. So we we have $700,000 in there now. We put $0 in there and we pull $150,000 $160,000 out next year. What are we doing the following year? We get into 2029 and saying, "Well, we're going to put $300,000 to make it back." In my experience, putting your money away and investing your money now saves

you in the future. Not only because you are gaining the opportunity to invest it, you are avoiding the interest fee. So if we're getting a 3% return and we're avoiding a 6% interest fee, that gap widens even more and it gives us the ability to remain flexible. So if in 2029 or 2028 an F550 ambulance comes on

the market for sale at 20% discount for some reason. Maybe there's a liquidation at a a town next to us and they need to offload something. We have the flexibility to acquire that at a greater value. And so the idea of capital planning is you every year invest a set amount so you have it available over the course of the next 10 years. To remove one year goes completely counter to capital planning and moves back into a model where you're trying to figure out the next year's purchases and then you're borrowing money. And so this is not a solution. It is kicking the can down the road and when we go to pick that can off later, it's going to cost a lot more money. And so I just don't think that that's the right place to to take money out. Um and so I'm not supportive of any cuts to

capital improvement um because that's where we need to be responsible in the long term personally. Did you Rebecca or John, did you have anything? Good discussion. Thank you. an informational video on long-term capital planning and explaining how it works. So, any other questions on well, so that we talked a little bit there about the fire department capital, the municipal building capital reserve. If anything, we're underfunding capital needs in municipal buildings. If we look at the granite at the Eureka Center that has water running through it or the you know the guano filled attic that we got addressed this year. And when we look at the municipal buildings capital reserve there are expenditures planned for I think the public works um heating

heating uh system for for next year. And so if the town wants to cut money, they're cutting it at our own expense in the future. And I I just I think it would be irresponsible for us to support that now. Um and if they want to make that change at the town meeting, we'll explain the logic as to why we don't agree with it, but ultimately it's the perview of the town voters. Um but the supporting documentation we received from the budget committee just um doesn't follow the logical foundation of long-term capital planning. So but that's all I have to say about that. Um any other recommendations around the budget?

I'll I'll make a motion to adopt the budget as amended this evening. Jerry, you got those two minor changes. Do you want to hear them? Yes, please. Right. So, your fire department budget now go from 749 630 to 752860. Mhm. Okay. um your solid waste hauling will go from

50150 to 52150 should be raised to 20,000 right and I'm looking at the warrant here it was 16500 that'll be now 164500 because we added 4,000 to revenue Okay. And then your other revenues will be it was 160,000 now be 165 because

you're going to make 5,000 in the bulky waste program. So ultimately the net changes we have increased spending $23,260 20,000. Yeah. Plus the 3,000 is what we're increasing spending. Well, the fire department is 3,000. It's not just an even 3,000.

3,230. Yes. And then it's plus 20,000 to bulky waste day, which is a total increase of $23,230. But we are increasing revenue by 9,000. So that's giving us a $14,230 net increase. Does that sound right? Yeah. And we'll have to put this in the budget. I you know, you're probably going to be looking at I don't have an electronic, but you're probably looking at a 135 still, maybe 136 impact

because the 3200 [clears throat] doesn't include FICA or some of whatever else goes with salaries. I mean, it's not much. No, that includes it. That's just adjusting the salary rate up. So, the that in that that's built in.

Yeah. And so it's a it's we got a 23,230 minus 9,000. It's a net change of 14,000. We know it's about 100,000 to move 1%. So we're talking about a.14. My math's right. I think it's a good one cuz when we had 20,000 in there before with bulky waste

and we took it out, it was onetenth of a percent. So it went from like 136 down to 135. Yeah. which will affect the percent change difference between our number and the budget committee's number by a similar percentage, but we're still going to be within 1% of each other.

Yeah. And once I I'll send this to you once we plug it all in, I'll I'll reprint it and send it right off to you. Um, so my motion is to adopt the budget as amended. Second. Do we have any other discussions or comments? All in favor? Any opposition? I wish I had a Gavin opposition

for the same reasons I didn't vote for it for the first time. So, didn't want to rehash them. Yeah. Um, what I will say is obviously there is no sugar coating that this is the biggest increase we've seen in quite some time. And so, no one on this committee is going to try to sit here and say that it's not an increase. Um, I think that we've provided ample documentation showing where that increase is. We've shown a consistent decrease in municipal portion of the budget over the last five years to the tune of down like negative uh 8% but we're seeing a consistent increase in the operation on the side of school and county taxes which um I've we're we're

working on that at the GP COG level. I do say this is a really stressful time of year for everybody and I just wanted to tell everyone I'm really appreciative especially of the board members and the committee members but also of the staff for putting up with this stress. There's no easy way to ask people to give you money even if it's break even. Um, and I

think that what we've shown here is we're being extremely responsible in the way we spend and we're going over every eye, every tea, dotting and crossing them. Um, but unfortunately the fi financial constraints that are placed upon us are what they are largely out of our control. So that's my final soap box of the bud on the budget until town meeting. So

um all right, that is we're moving into our final item of new business for the night. The review and discuss the town meeting warrant. Jerry just kind of alluded to it there. um making a couple of adjustments. Uh and [snorts] so we

will need to vote to approve the town warrant as amended. Um and Jerry will double check that. Mark will double check that, but we can vote on that tonight. Is there any other questions about the town warrant that people want to address? Article 18 sort of leaves open the possibility of the it's it's about the appropriation and transfer of the Penguins mobile club not to exceed the total funds received by the town from the state's home registrations but it leaves open uh such trails shall be open to the public during snow season or at all times for outdoor recreational use at no charge. That's something that needs to be decided tonight.

Um you could amend it if you'd like, but this was recommended by MMA. Yeah, I am surprised that it says slash at all times because a lot of time snowmobiles get to operate because they're never on the ground of the prop private property and a lot of snowmobile trails are seasonal because they go through agricultural fields that have um livestock in them during the season. So, uh I would say that we strike at all times and leave during the snow season. I say this as a person who deals with private land owners every single day for my job. That would be a hard no for for a lot of people because that's why a lot of snowmobile trails aren't also four-wheeler trails because the impact on the land owner is much different.

Yeah. I thought it was for walking or biking. Yeah. But this I think this opens up a bit of a can of worms, too. Because some people allow snowmobile access across their property, but they're not going to allow walking and biking across their property.

It's implying at all times during the snowmobile season. Well, that's not how I read it. So, I mean, we can amend this to say at all times during the snow season. why don't we just So I I know that this feels pedantic, but I this I deal with this every day.

So you want to say at all times during snow season, just reverse the at all times during the snow season. But here's the other, and again, I'm not trying to be pitic here, but it also says for outdoor recreational use at no charge. A lot of snowmobile trails don't open their

trails to dog sledders, scajorers, um, uh, uh, snow snow uh, snowshoers. And so there there is a precedent here that being a pretty important distinction. And so I just think that we need to clarify here that provide that such trails are always open to the public for snowmmoiling during snow season at all times during snow season. So I I will said more uh provided open to the public

show to the rules of the club. That's Yeah. Right. So that Yeah. But what if the club changes their rules? So these trails don't get used by side by sides in the summer. No, it's very that's that is a very hot topic. We don't have committees in Augusta dealing on this. That's very hot topic. I I thought when they came in this last time they talked he I can't remember his name but they talked about

when it's open at other times of the year he mentioned that they usually allow people to walk but what what the challenge here or red flag is the red flag of outdoor recreational use. So then they say, "Hey, no, you can't bring your four-wheeler across here." And they say, "Well, then you're not allowed the money from the town because it says open to outdoor recreational use." And in in part part of these trails aren't even accessible outside of the frozen ground season because they go over wetlands that you couldn't go through.

Yeah. I I think I think the snowmobile snow club is one thing, but I think there's a lot of land owners who are willing to let the snowmobiles run and not that's the preponderance of land. Yeah. I mean, they they don't want an ATV going through there at 11:00 at night, you know, and I think we would they would do more harm than good by opening to everybody.

So, I'm going to make a motion here that says so men are 18. So the last line says, "Provided that such trail shall be open to this public to snowmobile at all times during snow season." Do I have a second? Wait, hold on.

Yeah. What if there's no snow on the trails and they don't get to use them? Cuz that's that damage is landowned property. right? I don't think you can. I I I to Joe's point, I don't know if you could do that. So my motion is so it says provided that such trails shall be open to the public to snowmobiles at all times during the snow season.

I'll second it. Okay. And you want to take out for outdoor recreational use? Yes. Because outdoor recreational use is a whole different set of uses. Yep. Um, and so generally trails determine when a clubs determine when a trail is open. Yep.

Driven by frozen ground conditions, but also snow cover. No, no, I get it. I just was clarifying. So that's the motion. I mean, I can go into great detail why this language is problematic or you can all trust me that this is what I deal with professionally daily and it's you you won't even get ATV clubs and snowmobile trails to agree on the same use language because of this. is such a hot button topic topic running.

All right. All right. Any other questions or discussion on the motion? I will point out though that this does not apply to all of the uh people in Durham. So that is a much like trash day select group, but they are the ones who are paying the snowmobile registration. So they're paying to as they go. So

I'm fine. All right. All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none, that passes. Well, can you just read the motion real slow so we can get this? I'm better at talking than reading, but I'll go slow. So, get to the uh colon at the end.

Yeah. Provided that such trails shall be open to the public to snowmobile at all times during the snow season at no charge. at all times. before. Sorry. Then I will make sure my during during snow season. I meant to just say to insert to the snowmobile at all times during the snow season at no charge. That's my was my intended motion.

Okay. Cuz you cuz you didn't say then I'll amend my motion to say provided that such trails be open to the public to snowmobile at all times during the snow season at no charge. Okay. Amended motion. Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you caught it. So, do we have a second on the motion as amended?

Second. Any questions in discussion? All in favor? Any opposition? Seeing none. I saw Jerry that we have highlighted article 4. Yeah, cuz that's a change. All right. So, anything that's got a yellow on it is a change from the previous year because we're going from an 18th budget to a 12-month budget.

Yep. This is a So, this was a question that came up from the budget committee. What happens if no articles budget articles pass? What do you revert to? In the past, the answer was the previous year's budget. Well, the previous year's the previous budget was 18 months. So, this is specifying 12 month the 12-month rate of the previous budget. If everyone voted down those two articles and the 18month budget, that'd be a substantial increase.

Um, so that is a change there. And then um thank you for putting in the paving reserve account. Yes. Mhm. 27 to see this. If the town will vote to establish a paving reserve account for the purposes of funding road con construction, reconstruction and maintenance and to authorize select board to transfer any unexpended balances remaining in paving related appropriations at the end of 2027 fiscal year and to send reserve account such funds to be expended for future improvements in subsequent fiscal years and to authorize [snorts] select to expend fronts from send accounts for those purposes. So the intent of this is if asphalt prices remain ridiculously high and for what would normally buy us a mile and a half a road, we're only getting a half mile and we say we want to wait on paving. This allows us to move those dollars into a reserve account to automatically be available for paving next year in addition to

whatever we budget for next year. This does not immediately appropriate funds for that account and switch paving to a reserve to a reserve account. It just gives us that mechanism. Should asphalt, you know, be 700 thou $700 a ton this this paving season. Um, article 28, see the town authorizes select to transfer proceeds from any sale of capital assets into the town's related capital reserve funds. So that would be like when we sell the front end loader that goes into the municipal reserves. If you know when chief sold the fire sold the boat um last year that would go into the fire reserves. So it's bringing that those dollars back because you know those dollars are then important for outfitting the new equipment.

school board members to start on the 30th day of June and immediately following an election. And then the final thing that is new is to see if the town of D the town of Durham will vote to change his main public employees retirement system main purse plan to adopt regular plan AC for full-time eligible employees and appointed official July 1, 2026 for future service only. So that's what we talked about that adds the cost of living adjustment to folks pension. So um that cannot be decided by the board that has to be decided at town vote. So those are the new things. So I

I do have a comment. Yeah. This is not a comment about jury. But I don't think as a practice we should put name person's names. It should just say authorize detail manager. I mean not that you know the jury's here decided it or you know that the town manager which is a designated position in person.

So let me just speak to that. So this came right from the main pairs and it said title and name. So I withdraw my comment. [clears throat] Wait someone at main purse answered the phone when you called them. No, no, they no. When the human resources person was working with them on this,

they main said, you know, this is the language that we want to see. Very specific. Um, what's that? Very specific. Very specific language, right? She, you know, they wanted this. They want to see that voted. There's probably a lawyer who decided that that's the way it should go. So,

I'm fine. We should listen to him. All right. Well, I make a motion to approve the article uh to approve the articles as amended. Second. Any other questions? Sorry. Is this and I does this include the um budget changes?

No, the um what did you put that before? The uh policy changes. Yes. The ordinance changes. Yeah. Yeah. So, we've adopted the ordinance changes. Now, we've put them in here. We've adjusted the budget. We've adjusted this. They'll rectify it, but we've adopted it as a Yep.

I have a motion to adopt it as amended. So, I made that motion. Josh, you seconded this. Do we have any additional questions or discussions on the motion? Just a comment that this was uh thumbs up by the attorney. So, it's been as

awesome. All right. Seeing no other questions or discussion. All in favor? I voted favor but not agree to the I agree. [clears throat] Not that important. I don't want to uh renegotiate. They could have voted against it. So, [clears throat] all I'm hearing is John voted for the budget.

manager report. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have really one thing. We have a new administrative assistant working with us now. Today was day six for her. Her name is Melinda Nolla. And I would encourage you to stop by the town office and say hello.

Novella. Novella. Yeah. Who I think Josh knows. I do. Long time. Yeah. So that's all I got. That's that her like where she's seated. She's sitting right where the code officer sat. So it's behind the glass. And um she really replaced the code officer cuz we have a code officer. So well it's working out good. Awesome.

Congratulations. I heard nothing but good things about Are we 100% in truck drivers? No. Yes, we are. Yeah, we just I Yeah. So, we had a uh uh public works employee start this week. Um so we have we are full right now. Good.

So hopefully that works out. Um fingers crossed there. His name is Brandon Wyman. um liv. So he was the second guy that we had to pick because the first guy backed him and I think it's because uh he was a school bus driver and the school bus drivers just got a really good deal uh like I don't know Chief Miller what did the bus drivers get for the school?

They settled for a cola uh side raise and five additional sick days. Once he found that out, he said, "I'm sorry. I'm not commenting." That's overs the school year, right? Five additional schools, right? Right. So, then we went to we went to Brandon. So, hopefully it works out. I met him. Seems like a nice guy.

Awesome. We're fully staffed there right now. Great. Perfect. All right. Uh, board member report. I just want to say once again, this is the most stressful time for all municipalities. Um, there's no way you pass a budget that makes everybody happy. There's no way you talk about a budget that makes everybody happy. So, just, you know, everyone keep your chin up, feel proud of everything we did here. Um, if you get questions, feel free to answer them. If you, if you don't feel comfortable answering, send them to Jerry or I. But I'm really uh appreciative of the staff and of the budget committee and the select board and everyone involved who made this budget season possible. and I look forward to impairing year to year from year moving up after this after we're done with our 18month budget.

Um, and I know he's not here tonight, but as always, Mark is like the superman of bud of accounting and I really appreciative of everything he's done for us. Um, and Jared and Jared. Uh, I will say I think Oh, that was last meeting. I already covered that. Um Rebecca and I attended a candidates forum as a members of GP COG in the topics of discussion that the 10 members who participated were pressed on for it was school expenses, county tax, property tax, variety of uh issues, but those that transportation and housing that is the those are the four pillars of GP COG's uh uh legislative outreach moving forward. And um I'm happy that we're participating because we are the more more rural town in in the uh who send uh people to participate and they do make an uh disproportionate amount of time and space for us because I'm good at yapping. So Josh, you have anything to add?

Ditto. That I'm good at yapping. Well, thanks. I would say about the yapping important for me, but yeah. No, I I agree with all all that you said. Cool. do um I did it the historical society silent auction. Oh, how was it?

Kudos to Tia Wilson and her team. I mean, it was really well put together. I didn't stay too long. Um but the location was great and the au um the auction items that they had. I we didn't get any numbers, I don't think, from her. I don't think she posted anything. But um it's really good to have people so passionate about the history of our town and willing to take the lead and organized as a big effort. It's a big effort and I'm I'm sure it was very successful. Um and with that said too, now that that's over will have some time to work with me on the band project. So I'll be connected up either this week or next week and we'll get that started. Kind of get that moving a little bit. And then just again um to Calvin and his team on the solid waste day. Thank goodness we had good weather, but it was a good day and it was really it was really enjoyable for me to be there and welcome people as they came in. So I

appreciated the opportunity to do that. And that's it. Thank you. Thanks, Tim. Rebecca, uh tomorrow is the RSU 5 school budget vote. I just want to remind people about that. So I will be there just to vote and encourage other people to go and vote

raise our paddles. Is that posted on our site and everything about Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Their budget their budget packet. It's been available for some time. Though I will say there is one slight error in that budget packet in reference to Durham is they are saying that their their impact on our mill rate is very small because they use the 18-month budget mill rate and so it says that they they're saying oh it's only impact that I didn't even notice that

no I just noticed it the other day. So they they take each town's mill rate and say here's what this new value how it impacts your town previous mill rate. I said why is it only going up 1.8%. And then I looked and they had our $33 18-month mil rate uh in there, so we're not giving them those kudos.

try to go there as well, but I have a conference to not John. Uh nothing. We'll make a motion. Oh, we have to do the AP war. Yeah. I mean, do you want to make a motion? I'll make a motion we approve the AP warrant. Yeah. Our consent agenda is total. So we got John Josh. All in fa are any questions or discussion? Seeing none. All in favor. Any opposition? Seeing none. Passes unanimously. All right. Upcoming town meetings. Uh agriculture committee May 13th Eureki Center at 7:00 public hearing for land use ordinance changes. May 20th here at the fire station. Just reminder that's the public that's the um uh planning board's meeting. So we can be in attendance uh but we are not participants. And just I a friendly reminder I give to people is if you show up and you realize that there's two or more other board members to uh not sit together and not congregate so it doesn't appear as a uh illegal meeting. Um I'm on vacation so I

won't be there. Uh time for Memorial Day on the 25th. So like we're meeting again on the 26th at the fire station. I will be absent and I think Rebecca you said you'll be absent and I may be okay. My first grandchild is is due somewhere in that window.

Congratulations. We'll wait until it shows up. I'm going to tell them in a second. What's that? So on the 26th, a warrant needs to be signed at that meeting. We need Can Well, three Does it need to be signed at a meeting or can three people come in and sign it?

It's always been signed at a meeting. I'll have to research it, but it's always been signed at a meeting. Do you have to go to Ohio to Indiana? I may. And as much as I love all of you, no. No, absolutely not. 26 is a hard sign.

Well, it's the meeting date, right? So, it's just kind of like it's a stepboard meeting. We're going to It has to be posted 7 days prior. So, you you could come in. We was just trying to make it as part of a select board meeting like like that. You guys can do what you got to do.

Well, if it's approved, can't we come? you know, could So, what I'm getting at real quick, and I know we're moving into this, but if there's if two of us are gone and potentially a third on the 26th, do we just want to cancel that meeting and we could do a June um 2nd

instead? I one of the Well, I guess the others again. Yeah, I'd post it on the third. You post it on the third and that gives you nine days. Yeah. And then we would have And then we would have another meeting on the 9th. So there would be a meeting on the second and um

we could go without the meeting on the 9th because I would be gone that day as well. That's also the election. Do if we've already approved it, do we couldn't we just sign it come in the office? You probably we could but we have always had a practice of doing it at the meeting because we don't want anyone to be like oh you signed the private you know

I mean I just don't know. I may be here on the 26th or I may it may not be here on the second. So not that I don't want you to be included but I know that we will have three on the second and it sounds like And so we can cancel the 26 and cancel June 9th and just have a meeting June 2nd.

If it's a short meeting, I can make it. But I I won't put much on it besides this because everything else that anyone has asked to do, the audit present presentation, there's only one that came in within scope and budget. um or or maybe a couple a few um but the uh the

the A can wait until after the town meeting. Anything Deb you connect with on band stand can wait till after the town meeting. So we really won't have anything to do besides just sign documents that day. So you do it on the 2nd because I had the auditors or if they want to come while you talk about the the proposals that was going to be on the 26th. So if you do it on the second, that's fine. I just left.

So it would we could either not do the auditors and just do the vote or do the auditors. Um I think that the audit presentation would be very quick. Yeah. Take a while. So are people okay with us cancelling the 22nd? Yep.

And canceling the 9th and just meeting June 2nd. Yeah. Because the 9th is the election day anyways. Yeah. which we so we can't really do that if the staff are taxed not not taxed wrong busy that day. Josh, does that not work well?

All right. Well, I'll make a motion that we cancel our meeting on the 26th and June May 26th and June 9th and we meet on June 2nd for our final meeting before town meeting at you at uh the fire station at 6:30. Do we have a second?

A second. Second. Uh, any discussions or questions? You sent a text message out so I remember. Yeah. Okay. All in favor? Changes. Any opposition? Hey, that should be a calendar. [laughter] Before I make a motion to hear that gentleman has sat patiently through all of this.

Oh, are you happy just sitting there? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Ken. All right. Uh, focus group meeting. It's by GP COGS May 28th, the Eureka Center at the 5th. Can we have a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. All in favor? Any opposition?

See none. No executive. No executive. Okay. And