TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ July 23, 2024

oh agenda second I'm totally fine okay uh seeing none we are open for public comment do we have any public oh sorry excuse me Joe I just might have heard that we had no volume it was all static oh okay okay just as a head up well someone videotaped the whole thing anyways so I got it we sorry I just just wanted to let everybody good now sorry guys probably

it was probably a lot of feedback from clapping and all the mics on or something making sure we're back onine are we are we good now though yeah yeah I just asked if yeah I got pictures too so we can do a write up also thank you Joe yep any other amendments to the agenda for the only thing I was going to say I think we're adding into the consent agenda approval of the 611 meeting minutes I can't remember if that was on here already it's not I I don't see it I don't see it either but we'll add that in to we also approves uh 611 minutes there was there's some edits that need to take place that we have since done all right anything else for amendments all right seeing none uh public comment do we have any public comment tonight yep come on up uh yeah you oh our table's gone um I think it's fine there yeah you can just say it from there and I always do reminder for public comment as always this is a

chance for folks to provide um up to 3 minutes of feedback to the town we're not answering questions so if we don't answer it's not that we're being rude we're just here to get some information hear from you and uh appreciate public comment so please just your name um the street you live on and your public comment Michael OA Davis Road and it's regarding the Q&A of July 9 I realize this will most likely be dismissed as sour grapes on the heels of the July 9 Q&A decision regarding the rsu5 vacancy however I've received considerable considerable feedback since that meeting so I feel compelled to speak out if for no other reason to provide a voice to parents and grandparents who feel exceedingly marginalized and disenfranchised first by the rsu5 committee now this select board those Reaching Out Feel the Q&A of July 9 with nothing more than a superficial appeasement designed to allow the select board members to Pat

each other on the back rather than honor 100 79 votes cast in my favor I can't say I disagree while my supporters and I con seeed the select board was bound by Statute to render a decision five members usurp the voice of 179 Durham residents no other way to spin this than to say expedience has ruled the day going door too throughout February and March Durham parents and grandparents made it clear that education within rsu5 was focused more on the latest ideological craze in lie of the basics of reading science and math adding insult to injury many of these parents and Grandparents were escorted out of school board meetings having their voices silenced these St parents and grandparents have once again had their voices silenced in consideration of the decision on July 9 courtesy of this board throughout the 90s Megan education K through 12 ranked at or near the top in Proficiency in math science

and reading as of 2022 may now ranks in the bottom third nationally these statistics are posted by the NC nap Census Bureau and oecd while proficiency levels have dropped precipitously over the past 30 years cost continues to rise in Maine Maine is currently 22% higher than the national average regarding cost per pupil granted no one person is to blame for the state of education and cost in Maine however this board had an opportunity to inject new blood and a fresh perspective to education and cost within rsu5 the select board unfortunately appointed a candidate who has been part part of a systemic failure appointing someone who has been part of the problem and not the solution is expedient not prudent rewarding failure is not the message the select word should be sending least of all to students my one hope and prayer is that I gave a voice to the parents and grandparents within our community

hopefully that voice will resonate with at least one board member thank you for the public comment any additional public righty seeing no more public comment we're going to move into Old business um what we have here is our continued discussion on select board goals for 2024 uh Heather had sent out a uh

spreadsheet that kind of highlighted our uh information from our flip sheet did you want to pull that up Heather yeah cool and then I just just wanted to start off little open format if there's anything from those goals and objectives that folks wanted to bring up as kind of like a personal Focus or interest or something like that let me know um but

definitely open to just discussing how we think we can move forward for the rest of the year it's kind of crazy to think we've only been this is only July so we've only really been doing this as this iteration of the board since April which feels like it's been a lot longer than that but why can't I see

does anybody else have a laptop Joe can you just reply to it so that it will I'm looking for it now I can reply to to your mail yeah so that it'll come I only have like new my inbox I can't see my scent box oh I got it I got it I got it

see okay I got it do you want me to read sure is you want to go kind of take a the point on this for fre um okay so I came and got the flip charts and took a screenshot of each of the flip charts and then I just went um our the things that were specifically for the select board and then maybe some that had a little bit of crossover and then I split it up by each of the boards and committees that were in attendance at our um round table that we did that night so for select board um there was fee structure Public Safety which was to include law enforcement storm resiliency and Resident support checkin um and what resources may be available to them during those times Road planning I don't recall the conversation around that so maybe somebody could drop my memory um planning board bandwidth and capacity comp PL SL zoning um the fact that all of town is taxed as rural residential Economic Development uh Revenue

generating ideas under that board SL committee Liaisons um policies fiscal year transition gravel pits codification and um agricultural committee formation do you want me to go through each one or just uh one second on here we've obviously made some uh

progress on so yeah we can start I rather than going right from the top well ironically we can't here I just wanted to go through and talk a little bit about the things that we have listed that we've already made some movement on so like fee structure obviously we' had the last couple meetings where we've gone through and had a pretty robust discussion and made some adjustments to fee structure uh with everything besides gravel gravel pits um Public Safety is

one I want us to talk about a little bit here right off the bat um well thank you to those who were involved with getting the the sheriff here I think that was really um great presentation and answered a lot of questions I think that um it was eye opening to many of us that how few sheriff's deputies there are patrolling at any given time and some of the challenges associated with that and so uh I know that we kind of discussed in sorry I feel like I keep my back I know that we kind of discussed this about how we want to proceed and I'm open to hearing how folks think we want to proceed you know judging by the public comment and feedback seems like there's a lot of interest a lot of um people being vocal

on this issue and I think that what we had decided was that it might be best to have this go up for disc a vote in November because it will it will likely be a larger large turnout because if it's a presidential election and that's always better than the smaller turnout we have just to ask if folks want us to proceed further down this just to get that public input and I want to know how folks felt about that process and we can highlight that and then the other thing to is if we are going to proceed in any direction that could include actually doing something rather than just taking it off the table I think it would be good for us as a board to create a little a bullet pointed sheet of some of the highlights of what was talked about in our last meeting because there's a lot of questions that I know we're answered there but to ask folks to watch a three-hour meeting is a lot so either way what do people think about the best

way to proceed on the public safety and on the sheriff's issue and joshh you want to start off sure so my you know I do think that having sort of a non-binding res whatever you want to call it November is the way to go but I also think before that we should have um some type of public meeting where the sheriff is invited where the chief is invited and the public can ask questions because I think uh the meeting we had based on comments I've received and seen I wonder how much people have watched or or or read things um or understood so I think we need to before November sort of let people ask questions um and because you know I keep talking and I keep going back and forth to you know depending on on what which side of the person is talking to me is on uh so I mean I see it both ways um and and so

I I think we need to get some more public education before November but I think that's the way to do it I I like that that you said have a a hearing or have a meeting with the chief prior to November because what what was I was challenging to write wrap my head around is what does the question say in November do you want us to continue to pursue law enforcement for the town and there's a lot of questions of like well what's that cost so we're not probably not going to put do you want us to continue to pursue law enforcement in the town with a rough estimate of this much per year we're probably not going to put that on the vote but at the same same time I want to make sure that we do put this up because like you said I'm very much torn on this issue like I know that we could vote to put it onto the budget if we wanted I don't know if today I would vote to put on the budget just based off of what I'm hearing and

seeing I don't know if that's where I think we need to move but I know that this is a big topic to a lot of people and like you said a lot of folks it's like I understand why it's like watching a meeting if you say hey all those questions we've seen you ask you can just watch the three-hour meeting and they're answered this is a good chance I think for so if we did something like that before and then in November very broad like do you want us to keep to attain an estimate to budget for 2025

I mean I I think we need to put in the information that we have so see I don't so let me go back uh for me right now if I were asked I would say yes make it an item uh at the town meeting which way I would vote I still don't know if I could vote both ways that's proba I don't know as a poll or as a no a town meeting but as a poll question or a poll question in November okay okay oh town meeting in April you're saying I sorry thank you for clarifying but as a poll question I think we need to put in there all of the information so I think I think it should be just like the question you know it's not going to be exact numbers and that but have it like that question so this is you know this is all the information we have this is new to us it's almost you almost you know here's the information we have would you would would you do you want us to pursue this further so that it can be voted on with more information at town

meeting in April yeah something like that because I don't think by November uh you know I think for me I would want November to be used as a yes we're interested the majority of the Town folks are interested in this in which case we need to do some we you know we up up to us you know how many when they'd be here those things uh which don't necessarily have to be decided by April but are things we need to ask and may affect you know if you're working nights you're going to get paid more than you during the day uh so well some of the other things too there is like if if we are getting an indication from the town yes obviously we need to budget for the services but then we also need to talk about like we know that that person would need an office space where's that space going to be and do we need to add anything to budget to accommodate for improving a modular or building some space out here so I think that that's a

good point I think before we ask the residents to weigh in on this topic I think we need to do another session where we're Maybe Workshop or whatever where we're putting together an information packet there's a lot of questions and you're right people aren't going to watch the video and even if they did watch the overview from the law enforcement folks that were here the message might not get across I mean just like Joe at the last town meeting when you did that presentation in up up front it kind of grounded the whole Community about what to expect I I think that would serve us

better if we had something like that whether we had did the prep work and then had a public meeting and then had the vote or did the prep work and put it out on our website beforehand but there were a lot of really good questions and really good concerns and you know all these social media threads that could be addressed you know why and do we need to or what if we don't and yeah you know what problem are we solving those types of things I have a comment on that but Joe you had your hand out some make sure you have no I agree I mean we we need to lay out what the benefit is that you know or even the why why are we having this conversation well I mean I mean I think it came up before so I mean I think it's a valid question of you know we should be looking into this but uh I'm still by looking at say just the call volume and not getting into the cut of it but you look at the call volume and like all

right well the sheriff needs to handle all this stuff anyways why am I what is the compelling reason why what's the danger level that that that is out there that we feel will be solved by having the Sher catching Speeders isn't it I'll tell you that right I mean that's just not that's not the compelling reason to bring the sheriff into town just not that doesn't work it's proving over time and time again that does not work the speeding problem that's a different issue so you take that off the table and say all right what else you got well and then would be prevented off that list and you don't find much other than covering the fire chief that the town employees I think is one of your major compelling reasons why you'd want law enforcement closer than farther away that's a compelling reason those type of reasons I agree need to be put on paper and then go from there so that's one of the things that I was thinking is

that you know some people I've seen cuz I I agree with what a lot of what you said right they like yeah it might be a thousand calls but how many of those are response like some of them are I saw a dog run across the road there might but the whole an additional first responder and then you know someone there for you know there's a drunk driver and you have aggressive weaponized drunk driver and you have our volunteers that's where I get a little bit more but even without getting those weeds I think that what you two has made a really good point is maybe we need to just what I like the idea of just coming up with a bullet list of like one page or something that go on the website or in the news blast of why we had this conversation at all because some of the feedback I'm seeing is well this is a solution in search of a problem or why is this even coming up and it's like well the town is growing

we are seeing an increased volume whether we think that that increased volume results in needing more of this I agree with you one person driving around for 12 hours a day is not going to make everyone on 125 Route 9 and 136 go the

speed limit it's not going to happen there will be one zone of people following the speed limit around that per Sheriff wherever they are in town but there I do see other benefits and it's just one of those I think that we can at least say here's why this conversation started a lot of folks like some of the comments were like well why don't we just have the sheriff come for a couple hours in the mornings and it's like we ask that question and the answer is there's only three sheriffs and they can say yeah our guy signed on in Turner and he's going to drive down to at 7:00 a.m. but then there's a car accident on Route 4 and then over in liore there was a cat Cat stuck in a tree or something they I I don't know but it's one of those things it's like they like you said we send people down and then frankly we're just in a situation where every town north of us has police and so the idea how often

does they do they come through all the other towns that have police coverage to get to us and then loot back it's just you know so I think there's a lot there but I think maybe the best bet would be for us to come up with an informational page here's why we're having the conversation here's why this isn't currently covered by what the sheriff provides us questions I saw people were saying like well why doesn't the state police help out more and we know that since 2020 the state police no longer provides that coverage and that's why we don't see the state police patrolling Durham anymore so like answer these questions as to the why or just the basic and that's not so much policy that's just information gathering yes call volume's gone up 20% State Police no longer assists there's only three shares covering the whole County this is how much 12 hours would cost this is how much 24 hours would cost just the facts like Jerry

says the facts and figures then the policy of Are We concerned with that call volume are we okay with the risks to our current First Responders is something that can people can sus out and discuss maybe at a public hearing with the fire with with the sheriff so I'm kind of thinking that one piece of paper we can put out and then add in a public hearing for um call the chief the the sheriff

not chief sheriff back have a public hearing and then put something on the November or do you think that we need to have another workshop with the Sheriff before I don't think we need it with the sheriff and I would be happy to volunteer to put together like a template of the information that I think is important for us to see in black and white what would we be presenting to the community and we might look at it and say you know what our vote collectively is don't do it or do it you know we might decide it you know it's not the way to go once we actually see it and kind of talk it through we haven't had really a collective discussion on what we heard from that

yeah um so I'm in agreement with everything that everyone is saying I am recalling that if we wanted I appreciate your offer if you can do that though but oh I I'm not offering to do that that I don't want to do that but you yes but what what I was going to say in um conjunction with that is that I do remember them saying that they had people that were on staff that also helped with their PR and so maybe they already have a type of if if after we do our assessment of that before we put something out on the website or whatever to get their input as to what they have because I mean they have done research around this right and so they would know what information it is that they put before the public um going into this type of situation because this isn't the first time that they've done this yeah um so I think that we should utilize them as a resource can I just say one more thing before I finish um the only

thing that I want to say in terms of the process of us doing this tonight is and I'm completely fine just going down the thing I didn't know if we wanted to like prioritize and then get into discussion about the ones that we find as the top priority I know this one is one of our I wanted to quickly I wanted to start off with this and then let this discussion determine how much else we can get to because I think that this is the most pertinent one right now and so I think that's a good point after we get through this we can kind of figure out what we want to talk about next but this is just a big one I'm fine if one person from the board just wants to engage with the sheriff's office and ask what sort of PR material do you have when you're going about these questions and or if we wanted to come up with questions that we have I feel confident that most of the questions I have they answered at our

meeting it's just a matter of putting them on on the table so I don't necessarily have additional questions um but I do think that we can just distill that information down into a more digestible format for other people ahead of the sheriff's meeting because asking people to come to a special meeting on Wednesday night at the Eureka or whatever it takes up their time so if we have that short list some people might say oh all my questions are answered right there I don't need to go to the meeting or whatever so um I don't I don't know yeah yeah I mean like rewatch I would Envision rewatch the video what are the key messages and the key takeaways go look at some of the social media comments and put them categorize them into concerns and then just address that put it in at some package whether it's one sheet with five bullets or a few PowerPoint slides and then our team review that together and then determine

where to go next including getting some information from the sheriff's office they probably have some good stuff one thing that like if we were reaching out to them that like I would have as probably my only question coming out of that meeting that we had with them is that we did ask the question of do you think that we're at the point where this needs to happen right now and they they said that we were kind of like on the cusp right and we were being proactive about it and I I don't have a point of reference to be able to gauge how far away from now being less proactive and being more reactionary like I don't know how close to that line we are and how that's determined is it based on call volume is it based on you know I don't know so that that's one thing that I I would be interested to know what the difference between being considered proactive and you're you're late you need to get going yeah and to

to that point like he said you're proactive until there's a situation and he said you know not to be morbid but unfortunately it usually is with a a firefighter a first responder you know and then it's like oh you know you look back and it's like if some if someone gets shot next year first responding to a injury because it was a domestic assault and then we look back and go man we we said no the year before we could have had someone there helping in that moment that's a question to be had you know now whether that incident happens when there would be coverage or wouldn't be coverage is a whole different thing if we only have 12 hours but uh so what I'm putting on the the list is informational page as action steps informational page public hearing straw yeah is that sound reasonable I think what we need to do now is determine who's going to distill that information create the informational page and then

we need to get in information from the sheriff on whether they have additional information to add to our info page and then schedule a time for them to come to a public meeting because they did say they were open to public meetings so I think we should review whatever we put together at a select board meeting before we do anything else make sure we all understand it well yeah that could be done I'm just thinking about the turnaround time of when we would want we to to work backwards if we're going to ask someone to vote on this November 7 we're going to want to make sure that they have time we're going to at the absolute latest sometime in October would need to be that public hearing with the sheriff's department so if we

it's not like an official well how long do we need to get the bot sorry I forget it's a b it would go injunction withot starts October 5th so this would need to happen when would you need at least at least 45 days before November 5th you'd want to have that straw October so that'd be late September which means that we'd have to have the chief or the sheriff in in early September for um to get those questions

answered if we want to put it or we can just plan on putting it on the ballot and plan accordingly for that that having them vote to whe Town vote to whether they want to pursue it or not we can plan on doing that make sure you have the information but even if the hearing with the the town hearing with the sheriff isn't until after that September deadline it doesn't really matter if we we're not going to it doesn't I doubt that we're going to have the town hearing and then say we're not going to bother putting anything on the ballot I think that we kind of are of the mindset if I'm speaking out of line here let me know of the mindset that this question is going to go on the ballot you follow what I'm saying and so we don't necessarily need to meet with the sheriff first then get the language together to put on the ballot we can just put it on plan on putting it on the ballot having it ready for those

absentee ballots and then sometime in O September or October have that meeting with I think it would have to the the meeting would have to be before absentee voting starts which is October 5th they would have to have the same information available but what I'm saying we need to have it before the ballot language needs to be no I just think it needs to be before October 5th yeah so that would mean that we would have to and I agree with your timeline we would have to pull something together in one of our August meetings review it have them come meet with us in the September meeting and then it'd be looking at like SE the second week of September for the September 10th is our meeting yeah this is yeah that works for me

because I'll be gone so maybe defer to your the point on this I mean I think the timing is you know between the 10th and the you know the 24th I I think earlier the better but uh do we want do it at one of our meetings or do we have a special meeting sometime on a weekend in the middle of the week it's the beginning of the school year um you know it's so tough because sometimes these will throw a Wednesday night meeting at the Eureka Center in 45 or 50 people will show up other times seven do you can I ask Jessica a question do you recall if when we did the stroll P poll sorry for the marijuana and there was another one I don't remember what it was did they hold a public hearing I'm not sure okay um so you think I would imagine they did

it was okay what do you think that we should do one during the week at night and then also on the weekend so that more people have the opportunity of I mean that's that's something I'd have to run you have to run by the sheriff and the deputy I would be more apt to have them do one if if we we're putting out the to to be respectful sorry Josh I interjected go ahead I mean I I could ask and say that this is an option would you be okay and let them decide and I can reach out to them tonight or tomorrow okay I mean if they're fine with two that's thing fine but I don't want them to feel pressured either I I'm more apt of asking them for their time once knowing that we've already had this one meeting it is recorded we're having an information packet going out that is going to answer a lot of questions we will have another public meeting which will also be recorded and that meeting will just be on this so

there should be the mechanism for people to get the information they want if they truly want it um I don't know if saying a Saturday meeting works because my experience with planning things on the weekends is if it rains and it's a thunderstorm yeah people show up but if all of a sudden it's the best last day of the summer people might not show up and then you ask a lot of people to get involved and when your board members and your speakers are outnumbering by two to one the people attending how useful is that if it's just repeating the same information so so my thought process would be for us to have them come meet sometime in September um we could either do it at our September 10th meeting and do that instead of our September 10th meeting just sign AP warrants and Lead that or have a separate meeting either sometime during the September 10th week or the September 17th week I think that September 24th is

a little too late because that gives mean the next week some people are getting their absentee ballots and so I I think I think the decision comes down to do we want to do it at our 10th meeting or on a different night I think that's what needs to be I won't be here I will leave that up to you all because it doesn't matter when we do it in September um I can tell you that I think my wife is going to be in trial that week so one one one night's better one night's better for me but I mean the September 10th but yeah okay I'm fine with that is Joe and Deb are you is that Jerry do you feel so in L of this meeting we'd have a meeting at the Eureka center right we'll do our business just our quick business meeting and then they this would it would turn into a public hearing after that yeah maybe we could do Center maybe should we plan on our business meeting at 6 and then having this start at 6:30 I'd

rather start at 6 if we're expecting a lot of people yeah our regular meeting at 600 no I'd rather start at 5:30 and okay can other people do that I can do that is that fine Jerry yes okay I won't be on this continent we all do it sorry I just kind of quarterback that but you said you out of it so I was like I'm just going to go there's no point in my input if I'm not going to be there okay and so okay let's plan on a SE well first off we do have to make sure that works for the sheriff or the deputy sheriff um but it would be September 5th the meeting would start at 530 September 5th September 10th sorry meeting starts at 5:30 with a 6 p.m hearing

start so it would be a truncated meeting got do it at your Rec probably do it at Eureka to accommodate space but it's harder to stream and stuff over there that's the only challenge yeah you can't um we can record over there right and then upload I could stream from my phone I'm just thinking space isn't that much different here why not just keep it why not just keep it here or can we ask or if we're expecting something bigger how about we ask the school if they can give us space there yeah yeah because it's the beginning of the year and they probably don't have too much going on yeah you just is that the second even if you use the cafeteria yeah that's a lot better space and there's Wi-Fi and parking and we're not in their way yeah cuz my concern about doing it here was if there's 50 people people who show up and all of a sudden there's a fire and they're trying to yeah so I this is a question I'm not

again I'm not trying to quarterback I think we would be able to gauge if we were going to have a lot of people if we put out the the as soon as we get the yes from the sheriff that they can attend that we can make a Facebook invite the way that they did for the the horiculture the main 207 horiculture thing and we held that in the cafeteria at the school and you put that out as soon as we know that it's happening and then we get a sense of how many people are going to actually come at least one of them will be there on September 10th okay oh okay great Perfect all right so let's let's go with September 10th let's what's the official process for inquiring for the school so through rc5 commun programs you have to submit an application for facility use let's just plan on using that let's plan on the biggest space and if we have too much space that's better do I'm happy to do that

idea um why don't you start with rsu5 okay um Jessica does the town have the ability to do a Facebook invite from the town Facebook page it's okay if you don't know we okay are are people okay with that yeah okay I want participation here because just if you're judging the social media comments on it people have a lot of thoughts and questions and I think we're doing a really good job of trying to answer all those whether that's getting communicated to them or not it's a totally different thing so I want people to attend it so if we have to send out passenger pigeons to get people to show up our signal fires I'm fine with that so we'll start with the school and then we'll go to anv as the backup can I give you guys some a little bit of information so um one of our resents is officer and um I was helping counter and he mentioned to me that he could give us some data on um calls that they've

responded to um I think he gave you three or four years of data yeah that would be good to grab as well is willing to come if we invite him because I know there has been times where like the fire departments had drunk drivers and car accidents and free port or Lisbon come over to just do a little bit of coverage there for safety and I just sent a message to Chief McGee so we can coordinate and get all that information okay so I'm putting down that I'm going to secure the meeting space and Deb you're going to work on the informational page okay can help with that too and you've already done your notices I've and they did say at least one of them will be here okay uh Heather to secure meeting space so your suggestion is that after we get the bullet points together as a board we have at a meeting and discussion about that and get it out so let's let's plann for that for the one of the August meetings not the 13th but

the meeting after the 13th August 27th 27th can we put that on the agenda J is the 13th of the historic district commission yes okay and the 27th is Mark Roy and Donna Don talking about I I I would like to think that this won't be a super lengthy discussion on the fact sheet because we're not really discussing merits or policy it's just do we all agree that this is the stuff that came out of that meeting that should be distilled to the community right or do we think that that would be a quick process I I think you should be quick but I think also before we present it I would like the sheriff to look at them over once and just give its blessing so we can do that at I I was just when I suggested it I think even for me personally I feel I almost need to be convinced it's worth spending money on based on where we are today and so in order to give me or a resident

enough information to make you feel like a it's worth it you know we need to talk about it and that's where I'm in in in this thing in my mind I'm almost thinking like we're putting that policy decision making back in that ball back in the court of the the general public because we could just without doing any of this buying stuff but put in our Ash J to put in the budget the money for for this and put it out to vote and and go go that route we're saying before we go that route we want to get some input because I'm not entirely convinced I would vote Yes to add it because it's a lot of money and I wonder is this the next best $330,000 a year to spend so I'm thinking that this informational thing is not to try to sway yes no or maybe it's just information you all asked a bunch of questions about our meeting rather than making you watch the three-hour meeting we will go through and just say why are we having this

discussion there's only three sheriffs that respond to the whole County and our call volume has increased 20% how much does it cost it would cost roughly $330,000 for 12 hours roughly 660,000 for 24 yep would they have their own cars yes they' each have their own car do they need an office yes they need an office facts and figures Jerry style you know I I also think that putting the question out now doesn't necessarily mean that it has to go on the budget for April of 2025 I actually personally if if the vote were to be yes I would actually personally prefer that we hold off so that we can explore the startup Grant opportunity exactly but I don't want us to invest that time if the answer is right two to one I think we need to find that out but I also feel like we if if the answer is yes then it's our responsibility to do our due diligence of how to bring that to fruition inally responsible way maybe

that isn't in April maybe that's the following April but we need to know if that if we're pursuing that especially in light of the fact that the sheriff had said we're not in an immediate need situation so even if the that's a good point for everyone listening at home even if the answer is yes that does not mean it's necessarily being budgeted for in April 2025 it's we need to have a serious discussion on the best way to get to to that but just with a lot more data from folks so yeah do we need vote on any of the action items sorry Joe I didn't Joe real quick let Joe go so yeah and I'd be really careful about putting a number out there too Pro prematurely I mean we have a number but I'd be really hesitant to even put that on a piece of paper because you know as we've seen everything go up drastically you know whatever number you put out there even if it's in November it will go up in April and it'll go up the following

April too well it will but they have a contract and so get it's a little more steady than the I think you have to put the number in there because if I look at it without the number I'm going to be I'm going to ask what's the number so I respectfully disagree I think it should be there but I think you're right got be estimate it clear that it's an estimate that's what I was going to say if we don't put if we don't put out a number everyone's going to say well how much do we think this is going to cost and someone's going to dig out of our meeting like I have seen people communicate unting it's going to cost $650,000 and they're not communicating that is the most expensive option so I I do think what's your point is like putting out a number anytime is scary because then if it changes they're saying you said this but it's like I think putting out a really rough estimate making it very clear that the Baseline cost for

this would be at least x amount of dollars to give people that idea cuz I know someone's going to say if you're asking like you're asking to vote on this how do I know whether I want to vote Yes or no I don't know what this implication is for my taxes you know right in terms of action items and voting on it I don't think we need to vote on anything here um but we'll just write down we're going to September 10th we're going to have the hearing at the August 13th meeting is when we're going to do a quick workshop on Deb's fact sheet so in terms of action items that that fact sheet Deb and I can work on that um cuz I've already got I'll send you what I have for bullets of things that I think we need to cover so as long as you are all comfortable Deb and I kind of workshopping that and then we'll send it to the group wait I wrote August 27th for the discussion yes info package coming back here sorry August 27th yeah

corre um sorry go ahead Joe and then I'll ask my question so it'll be August 27th will be the review of the info and we'll make sure that the sheriff gets a chance to look at that as well to make sure that it's reflecting there their

review and then September 10th at 5:30 either at the school or the anet which everyone can accommodate us starting with the school will be our regular meeting followed by a public hearing at 6 with the sheriff and that'll be open to the public to ask questions recorded live streamed the whole K canoodle well possibly live stream if it's available Poss live stream pending technological abilities he this is when we're done with this this one are we done with this one are do we feel like we're done with that so okay action items leave so can I get the flip chart out write these things on the flip chart we put our star on our top three the way that we did for the other committees to prioritize and then and then once we have our priorities established I think that each one of those gets their own meeting what I'm not again you you decide how you want to do this I'm just thinking we still have fee schedule and stuff tonight so I

don't think we can go through all of the I quickly what I was thinking is we could go through and just briefly talk about things that we've already taken action on like we've like we've already taken action on the fee fee schedule and we can determine do we need more work yes or no and if the answer is yes let's say we'll come back to that like Public Safety we're good we we're doing we're good with the law enforcement part the law enforcement part which I think is the big one for us um you know

policies that's something we started off on gravel pit we started off on yeah I guess I see what you're saying is we should just talk about prioritize as a group tonight what are the few we want to go over and then kick these others to a later date so is it I can do it on the white board that's is that fine yeah and then we can just all pick our three is that what we did for the other things sure yeah Josh I was just say I don't think you need to put up the fiscal year because I think we're already scheduled to talk about that yeah exactly so I'm not going to put fee structure I will put we don't need to put Fe police we don't need to put fee structure because we've already addressed that and gravel pits is already pulled out on its own which is the only thing we haven't addressed in there um the codification process is the wheels are moving on that so I don't think we need to put that either uh we have an update on the

agriculture you can't read the I mean I can enough to be able to just a handful of things to write it up can anyone remember what road planning was what was what does anybody remember what to work on a road and then that changed and then we talked about the paving they were going to pave a section of road but now the CMP is going to be messing around there we're holding off and then the question was what do we do with those two miles of road we were planning on Paving this year do something else or put in a budget for the future that was the discussion surrounding Jer you're briefing right so now we moved that to

the C Pawn Ro is actually okay cool we're done with that then so yeah so I don't know what take that right off there hey I like checking things out we did a great job team the I don't know why we would have been micromanaging that anyway that seems like that's not our so you know Calvin has his list of roads and he does have a Paving plan but he doesn't he doesn't get too far ahead of himself with a Paving plan because what happens is people will see that their roads getting paved in 2026 andoun anounce to them the CMP project comes in and now it's start getting paid but you told them that's when it's going to get done so have to be really careful with those sort of things so he has his list he it's a it's a it's a pretty comprehensive list of when they're in order but uh it's really

and and and pricing and all that really comes into play when you're determining what you're going to be Paving so we we kind of do have a Paving plan that's in existence now keep in mind we got 40 mil a row and we're only Paving 2 miles that's a 20year rotation so that's we don't use 20e pavement do we we don't we don't so that's not sustainable so there's but we're doing the best we can I think that that I think that that's what the discussion was is Calvin and Jerry had both mentioned that we're paving at a rate much slower than we're having for attrition and so um okay so what I have up here based off of what we've taken out uh uh Public Safety storm resiliency policies planning board bandwidth comp plan zoning Economic Development and board slash committee leaon does anyone feel that I missed any or need one added up here for the board to consider no that looks good to me

Jerry no everything looks good to me I it's it's where you go with it is where I might have yeah so in terms of what we want to prioritize we can do the little everyone put a x next to their top three and then we'll count the x's and that's where we'll start so Heather you can go first there you don't have to explain why just put the X and then we'll I'm going to go with of course you have a marker that's invisible I do I can see it how come you guys can't see it I'll go to Blue um

Economic Development I'll let you Public Safety storms boy can only pick three ah these are a tie for me but I'm going to go with this one in the short term because I know that that's a long term okay I'm Economic comp plan and zoning and Public Safety Joe I'll let you go next can you see him from there public safety policies planning board bandwidth comp plan zoning Economic Development board committee Liaisons I think this is a discussion more than it is a goal B

what was the top one Public Public Safety okay storm like Stu policy planning board bandlet comp plan zoning Economic Development board committee liaison and you can V you can put two stars next to one thing if you're that passionate about it as well

from the bottom B there um from the bottom that's Economic Development yeah no the next one up comp plan zoning comp plan zoning yes is that include the resource protection that I think the planning board no that's on their thing and their that's PRI that I just so I do Public Service Economic

say I I'll even it out and say policies because I think I I agree with you that those two were yeah like 3A and 3B so yeah for me uh planning board bandwidth or planning bandwidth is my thing um and then uh I'd say Economic

Development and then the public safety the challenge with that is there was they that we did not get selected for the reason ien grant that the Conservation Commission was going for so either way cool okay so it looks like so that's two different things to me though the what they were going for was resiliency in terms of like flooding and con like the that type of stuff to me this is more like um okay how do we check on vulnerable oh then move my to move my vote to policies for away from here yeah except made me look bad how do we check on vulnerable people and I'm like move mine out of there yeah that's not what I mean it's okay okay so this

one has the most can I also say that the public safety thing is something we should bring up with the sheriff yeah this one two policies is three this is four which I mean honestly I think this is working out because this turns into like a you know this isn't a quick long term yeah mhm this is yeah so this is and then I honestly I'm excited about this because I feel like this and this are discussions mhm I feel like those two things can be dealt with with discussion while these things are more like we need some robust

structure around yeah thank you for drawing all these up this is really helpful can you take a photo of it phot going to add it to where she so if we want to start economic development that is um I'm I'm not a useful resource there I do not know how to develop the economy of a municipality um but I think that what we're seeing here obviously in town is we don't we have very limited business in terms of like retail business um we have you know some daycare providers we have some garages and stuff like that but with would that lack of business and everything we we don't really have a lot going on in terms of generating income for cost and we're a growing Community I don't know what the answer is you know it's I I know we want to stay rural we do have over 4,000 people I look at a lot of other towns that have 4,000 people and they've got you know grocery stores and stuff like that we don't necessarily need that because we're so

close to other towns but we have a lot of road traffic we have three state state roads going through I don't know what the answer is is is for they have to have somebody who can come in and help us right and talk to us and part of that I know is that some of that might come out of this downtown envisioning because it could open up some do grants and start talking about like what the vision is for the town but like I don't know what to do here and like you're saying Josh maybe it's get some people who can help with that to come in and talk with us Heather your hand what's up so I'm just going to go back to what I had said before where my my thing why I wanted this to be an agenda item is because I wanted us to be able to identify what our goals were and then I think each one of those goals maybe based on priority or whatever gets gets its own agenda and

then and then we figure out what our action step is going to be on that item at that meeting um I definitely have ideas around Economic Development and Public Safety and how we should maybe like get that ball rolling but I don't know that that's the discussion for tonight I think that those things get an agenda I think that's fair but to understand the lift or the process I don't necessarily want us to get to the meeting where we're talking about Economic Development and then we're like okay so what do we got to do you know I think that if you have some thoughts on whether it's new Jerry or anyone have some thoughts on who we should be inviting to that meeting when we're talking about economic development in the community or maybe it is something we're just working on on our own or we do bring in GP Cog or somebody to to to has something to say you know so what is your comp plan I haven't that's what I

was just going to bring up it says to it says to create an economic development committee which is where I was going to start with like how we do with that with a solid waste and whatever and then and then that goes back to that next thing with the board liaison I think I think we set up a board we aison that wants to go on those committees to make the conversation back and forth between the committee and the work that they're doing and what the select board is tasking them to do um but our comp plan does say to establish an economic development yep um committee and I think

that that's well we could get some experts then right I mean look what happened with the steering committee look at the resume of those people that turned you know that's like so exting so but this brings us to our perennial question of like do we craft the committee bylaws and rules for them and then give that to them and task them with a discret measurable action like and so it sounds like if the if the planning board if the comp plan says to have a Economic Development Committee I think that whatever I don't know when we would put it on the agenda here but when this goes on there the first meeting will just be us developing the objectives of that committee and the details around that so we're setting someone up for Success so for me if we're talking about setting up a committee ideally we would be meeting with experts who would say this is what you're looking for this is what you need here are some resumés of people I think

you need to have represented on this committee you know I don't think it should all be you know markers business people that I think it needs to be a diverse group but there might be specific professions that we want to make sure are represented and so you know like for example a business professional a business owner so we can know what they're looking at what um but I also think because we've had the issue with solid waste we had the issue with other committies we need to with the help hopefully possibly of these experts come up with a um a uh scope scope and what they're

going to do and time frame and what a reasonable time frame is um and so I I for me um I want someone to come in and say this is what you need to look at here are things you need to consider uh and then I would ask a question well if we want to start a new border committee who should we be looking for High people what time frame what sort of things how do we help them um and so I think we just start with a meeting where someone comes in and talks to us Jerry do you think GP Cog has a they must have some economic development Wing when we went to their little thing annual thing yeah Standish they had mentioned that they were going to be reaching out to towns and asking you know how can how can we help you MH so that I think is the opportunity right there to say yeah we need some economic development AKA Revenue development help so could you come in and and guide us and so just a process question is that

something that you want to come from one of us board members to GP c i I'm talking to the director on Thursday anyway yeah tell them to help us make a bunch of money and have awesome businesses simple stuff it's all Heather you had your hand and then I'll go to you Josh so I think of an expert that like GP Cog or whatever because I do foresee issues with our current

zoning and economic development and so when I'm looking at our goals and comp zoning is four and economic development is one we may have those reversed but I think that's going to be driven out of this economic develop because if they say the first rule is you need a business district that's a whole that's going to drive that but that's what I'm saying is that I we need someone who knows to tell us if can you even have Economic Development in a town that is all rural residential other than resource protection yeah that's a we'll get some answers there Jos I think we should also I mean Lisbon Leon Auburn all have economic I'm I'm I'm assuming free port and tops some do as well um and those are all communities that border us and I think um you know maybe a little bit with Lisbon you know but the other communities are much larger and are probably looking at development in a different scale we are so I think

working with them and getting them involved wouldn't be a bad idea either so I think we need to use our our partners yeah I think this is the community collaboration component you know and it's just the one challenge we have is we're like a small fish in a pond of big fish because it's like our borders are Auburn Lisbon Freeport Brunswick there's a lot more going on but we can we can learn I do agree that at some point in the process we have to talk about the yeah so I think that's maybe not right at the beginning but something we have to keep I mean this comp plan SL zoning being number four might become part of that Economic Development and rather than saying oh it's switching it's just it might say like to lay the framework for economic development you have to create incentives an incentive through a business whatever so sounds like what our goals here go ahead I was going to say what I'm putting down for an action

item is that Jerry's going to contact GP Cog under yeah and then is there anything else in between when we're going to get I say we'll just Jerry we'll wait to hear back from what you say and if they say yeah we have someone who can come meet with you all we can get them on a scheduled meeting for the our summer is filling up already but probably fall this is not something we're solving between now and next town meeting anyways but we can get something on the meeting if they have the resource and if they don't then we'll have to have a meeting where we just figure out what how to get those resources can we also ask them about potential like a statement of work format or do they have anything that they can give us as an example of another town that was in this situation and this is the paperwork they started with this is the checklist or something that can help us like get off the ground with you know and if there

are any grants available to support communities in doing yeah research and the things that we I'd hope that if they had an economic develop Wing they would be able to help us for something like that you know okay um I just want to make like one com it's good that you're starting to talk about this now because in 2026 you're gonna have to start looking at updating your comp plan because it's going to be coming due so a lot of this of what you're talking about here will be part of your comp plan they're all in front of it so I'm glad to and I think a really a really nice thing about that is that if you look at other communities sometimes they have people on these boards and committees that are addressing issues and then those people are so in the weeds and not knowable that by the time that comp plan review comes along those folks are rolling into the comp plan committee as well CU they're like well I've been

working diligently on X Y and Z I can help out there so and you we will have to hire a consultant and gpcog I believe helped the town last time and did a pretty nice job from what I understand so it's good to get this ball rolling getting out you're getting out in front of it it's good to that it's good and we're we're using the money we spent on GP getting something back yeah exactly they just they just put a regional Prosperity plan in place at GP Cog stting in 2023 through 2028 they have a five-year plan they do have an economic development committee I do feel like they can help us I I I hope we got to tap them a little bit more because I think that sometimes what happens is we're like the northern tip of their service area and there's there's a lot of other communities that have a lot more complexity and I sometimes think that it's easy to forget about little a little Durham so we kind of kind of be

like hey be the squeaky wheel you know to tap into some of those resources like what you said right there Joe um cool so that's our Economic Development Public Safety out so could someone clarify what they mean outside of just the the law enforcement there because we have well Storm so for me when when I put Public Safety on the list as a goal for me it it was stemming from a lot of public comment around the storms that we had had not necessarily um like what was

physically taking place but their inability to access resources or their inability to not feel vulnerable in those situations and and have resources available to them and so um when I using the word resiliency yes be resil like the Conservation Commission was doing resiliency based on like um protecting certain areas of town from that type of stuff more about about people you're saying like someone knows how do I know that the warming station's open how I know the cooling station's open what happens if I can't get off my road those sorts of things right or or people that are elderly that don't don't have social media and how are we making sure that you know they're taking care of mhm you had talked about the U push notific push notifications I don't remember what we had said about that yeah I was looking some for some feedback we can we we we should talk about that yeah I think that that's the low lowest hanging fruit

right right there is push so push notifications you know people have to sign up for those um so I'm not sure how many so this has been my thought process lately I'm not sure how many people would actually sign up for these notifications 3,500 people joined the Facebook page so the all about all things durh them and so like I think that there's a i i i while I do agree not everyone is on social media I think that we see that people from the age of 14 to 99 and the town are using social media so that is an element there most people have some sort of a lot of people have some sort of smartphone so I think we got to try to capture the largest population that we can and then focus on what those other groups need because I know in the past we had the TV channel or I don't know you know broadcast on AM radio or whatever um but I think that that P notification is the the first step there and we have three opport unities every

year where the town is having something we have our town meeting we have the November election we have the April election and then we have and and we have you know notifications at the get and go where you can say sign up get your neighbors tell everybody uh to me I you know you like it I I like it I didn't I got I didn't like the cost when we first talk about it but raising this issue made me immediately go to that and think you know it's or just like when there was a head-on I'm sorry I interrupted you there was the head-on accident and the road was closed right H like that is a perfect opportunity for people who are at work traveling home and they're not going to know that until they get there and the road is closed unless they're on all things Durham or in that instance like I am not checking I do not have notifications turned on so I get notified anytime something get posted all things during right CU it would be

so this would be an opportunity for especially like during traveling hours where people would get a notification that there's been an accident and the road is closed or this road is flooded or this covert washed out and it's not a pass you know just anything like that we use the tool at BW for you know 5,000 employees and the like the messages coming from the president of the company on all things so it's very effective I'm in favor yeah I think we need to take advantage of I mean the taxes have gone out those go out to what everybody right even if even if my compan is paying my taxes I still get my tax bill I still open it up I still look and if it's in there I'm going to say oh I should sign up for this yeah and if we you say code

but you also have a really good point Josh is that we people show up for the November election people show up for the April town meeting we have the municipal election I would be willing to sit at the November election with at a table and say ask me about push notifications if I need to walk someone's mem off through signing up on her iPad or something like that like this is important enough to me that if we have that set up I can do that you know okay so should we we should have a vote on the push notifications though okay if we're going to do this can we just R find know what it's going to cost that's what I do we need to get that well so there'll be priority this year depending on what month we get in but the yearly cost is $ 3900 mhm and how would that be paid for this year without budgeting for it I we have some money left over in our software and Hardware line so lines up with that lines up with that I think we

can I think we can uh yeah swing it especially this year because it'll be such a plus they want us so bad they're going to give us like two months free yeah so it really wouldn't be all that expensive moving to to December but then once January starts we'll be into that F year payment but we can budget yeah we can budget for it Heather is it about push notifications okay um if we can get a QR code for it and sorry no no keep

going um and then who and I'm not trying to micromanage your job and you can say that's my job to worry about it so don't worry about it who is respon who like who's responsible for that I don't want to put something like that on Chief while he's responding to right so who's is it do we have a person in that role that will be able to do that for it to be effective I think there's have to be multiple well multiple option we'll work out those Logistics on who does that because there'll be different push notifications for different reasons right I mean so we'll we'll work out those Logistics but I have a feeling that it would be me Jessica Kimberly Chief if he can I mean he he he may I mean but we'll we'll see we Chief knows how to use a

work that out okay yeah okay so I'll make a motion to vote on authorizing what how do we do this i' just make a motion to authorize Jerry to sign us up for push notifications so moved a second second all right so further discussion yeah should we get a contract and maybe I mean are you 3900

is estimate no that's the that's what it is yeah and I'm and that is kind we can I mean I just that's for the year though like for the for this year and is it a one-year contract yearly is it a fiveyear contract it's year year I mean we could I can confirm that but uh I me we can drop it any so really we could try it out well that's what my thought too is and then if we don't want it next year exactly y $3,900 the year pro rated for

this year because we only got like we only be 5 months and we're probably only going to pay for question and and this company came to us I mean are there other options is there a free service no well no there there's no free service there are other type of um services but

they're back and forth and I don't want I would just you don't kind of want that you already have that on offense Durham you want back and forth all right we were talking about this is where you can just project that information there's not a comment section it's not yeah just a and so I think that the benefit here is if we like this and we want to move forward with this if it's a year-to-year contract we can then evaluate we like this do we want to find a different vendor do we want to look at different option or do we now that we've you know tried it and we realize we like it we're and so it's kind of sounds like the best deal we can have for this first few months in my mind and I would encourage us to use it even if it's not an emergency use it for anything just to get it out there and get the people us seeing it and that way you'll get the feedback right away like I like this I don't like this and then you can

reassess it kind perfect thing just like you know if there's a very important issue on a board meeting that we really hope people are going to come to it's like hey keep in mind you know s board's meeting tonight and we're going over you know potential law enforcement you know okay long as we're not overdoing it yeah right okay we got to vote oh we have a yeah we have a motion second that's all the discussion uh see no more discussion all in favor any opposition cool push notifications so give it a shot um but to figure out what the a meeting for Public Safety else would have to be I think I'm with Heather on um elderly or needy residents um whether they have social media or not or get a push notification is there anything that we can do as a town to have a program that supports them in crisis there's got to be or is it just 911 I'll give you the history of that from from what I understand the town

larger towns use like a senior center but volunteers we don't have the staff in our bu um what used to be in the chief's office was literally a book with phone numbers and again we just don't have the Staffing and then it it's it's upkeep of those phone numbers right it's it's people moving people passing uh people not wanting to be involved anymore that type of thing uh the sheriff I don't know if it's Andrew Garden County they have like sort of a reverse call every day that can check on loved ones that you have to answer and then when they don't answer they either send out a sheriff or or an ambulance to say hey it's a well-being check um so there's services but durm pre-staff limited as far as making phone calls you know to someone's grandmother are you okay do you need services that type of stuff so social media is if you will or technology is really taking over for that gap for the smaller towns um the

Jerry sent me to a shelter course and a shelter uh more than a tri town so from Brunswick to topsom uh everyone was invited and and we had several meetings on that and it's the difference between Sheltering because that's a definition and a cent warming cooling center which the Eureka Center would be um recently last year we lost power for days um you

know when you lose power especially when it's cable based sometimes you lose sort of communications so we again don't have the staff to go out and check on people but if they could come here we could give them services for the two 12-hour periods we did on a warming Center we had zero participants so that's fire department cost you know volunteers but at a minimum cost water and and some light snacks but we had zero participants um same thing with the the cooling center we were open I've been talking to the town manager about it letting them know we do do a blast on our social media um which isn't as prevalent as all things during but we try to tag it if you will um but again no participation from Town's people um so that's difficult right I mean how how far do you go right type of stuff I was talking to other towns they're really partnering with churches faith base um so Shiloh Church for us they

sort of offer that overnight accommodations but we as a town can't get into Sheltering that that's a term overnight accommodations a lot of legal food um somebody there constant uh child care you need to make accommodations for pets were just not suitable regardless of Grants the liability goes yeah for the time it does to centers yeah my thanks Chief that's good info my what you're getting at to me is it makes me think it's like more of like a network akin to like something that you would see in a small community is maybe that there is a committee I I hate to say another committee but like a committee of folks who are like oh we're the you know you know Durham I don't want to sound mean just an elderly Community or senior Durham senior Society or something like that where you have that like okay I I know

that I'm going to go check on these three people like the to we can't do that with Town staff but it's like if someone says I can go check on these three people or I'll call these three people and they're going to call two people like a phone tree I just don't know what our role is Heather and then Josh um I'd like to ask Roberta to come in I know that she had started the idea she's on the Conservation Commission um and she had started the idea of of this type of thing I mean without saying another committee but basically that's where I was going to go with this is a resilien does some work or something in that a resiliency committee where I'm I'm definitely not asking us to open a shelter or or anything of that nature but like when we have residents that have gone 5 days with a shower and there are people who are willing and they post it on all things durum and maybe those are the people that want to be part of

the committee that are willing to allow people to come to their house and shower I'm not I'm just saying I see what you're saying or even if you don't have the vehicle to transport yourself to the cooling station but someone says I'm going to go over I can give you a ride I'll be there for an hour right I I know that Roberta had like started that she definitely has some mhm uh so momentum

thank that's word so I mean to me isn't this something that uh the an emergency management should have some knowledge and helpful information in and I don't want to ask you to do more work or you to ask Chief to do more work but isn't that a conversation where they could provide some information and possibly work with us or somebody else you want to tell them or you go ahead your timing uh yesterday Jerry and I met with the new Andrew Sten County EMA director so just getting his feet wet really still just talking about grants and EMA um that that is deeper down the line I think for for the new EMA director but you must see that

there are Services we just need to suggest provide give a phone number and sign up people and you're right I think you're on to something and I can help too when you're doing the voting when you do doing the town meetings you know these are all services look at them these are free these will help I I A lot of times get phone calls from from adult children about their parents um but the fire department as you know legally to check on them that a well-being check is one thing but um services are different right but that's you know that's the conversation they're calling you you say hey we have this push notification they sign up no I think you're right if that's provided we can do that yeah and I and I think you know if if andot County can't I think the state Emergency Management should be able to provide some information yeah so to to get to the point where we're moving on on next steps sounds like you know like you were

saying Heather we're going to have to have a meeting about this we're just having a rough outline discussion of what sort of things we need to have that meaning what I'm thinking is when we look at numbers 1 2 3 4 5 six we can just start putting these on agenda items starting at this point October um and just making sure that leading up to the week that we just set someone up Jerry whatever you hear back from GP Cog we can get someone on the schedule to come either late September early October to talk econ development and then kind of get that Fallout of what that entails and then at at the following meeting we can do Public Safety discussion because this is not a Year's worth of work this is several years worth of work here lot um I know that I've heard Jerry and Jess have both mentioned some towns will do some select boards will do a meeting one week and then their second meeting of the week is AP warrants and a workshop

and so if we're finding that we have this kind of work laid out for us we could take that approach where we kind of have like a business meeting the first T the second Tuesday of the month and then the fourth Tuesday of the month is more of a working on some of these action items things what folks think about that sort of model cuz I mean I'm looking at this is enough to keep us busy for a while it's a lot there yeah on top of fires that just pop up other things that are going to come up that I'll top about my but either way I think that we don't need to go too much further down the line here of like these extended discussions on each one of these just to be thoughtful of time but we just have this and we need to start picking off when this is going to be on our schedule and we have this prioritization here Heather so we have August and September

rolled out for the law enforcement y moving forward right and then you're going to find out about the economic development and so that I think is getting pushed into October yes so Cherry can report back next week meeting and say this is what I found when I heard when I asked GP COG Economic Development if it's yeah we can send someone to me talk with you let's put them on an October meeting if it's no we don't have anything like that we need to talk a little bit more on how to get those next steps I think going into the winter even if I I would like to schedule Roberta like if we could at October 8 um at the October 8th meeting

um just to see how much work she had already started on this and and what she was was able to find out and you know um well I think that's a good point too because if there's a community-based approach for this uh aging at home thing I know we're just all banking on like there's going to be a lot of foot traffic in November at the election so if there's a hey sign up if you want to be part of the Durham Community Network of elderly I

don't know some acronym or something I think it having that in line for that November 7th or even if you're just interested in being part of it right so that we can start getting some kind of list together of people that might want to take part and and anyway I I think we should have I don't want to keep talking about this stuff because we're I I think we should put it on October 8 if that works for everyone and then do you want to reach out to rera yes can you maybe she could send us an email with just a summary of what she's done today where she thinks we need to go that would be good information because I do think there's a point there with um the local the durm churches and getting some input from them and um also Leo maybe there's something that we want to talk to Leo about what Leo Lisbon

Area Christian Outreach which is a I think there's n they do the fantry okay Yeahs 13 churches 13 churches three new location not yet so what I have down for action items under the resiliency Public Safety resiliency Storm part is push QR code push notification I'm going to contact Roberta are there any other action items before our next meeting that need to go on that list do you want the EMA or are we going to default to when they say the timing is right I think it's up up to the two of them I'll just write it so it's there and then they can run with that um okay I don't I want to move off

of this yep now that we've cut a couple things planned out we we can pick up this conversation about when to get to number three number four number five and number six once we've actually started number one and number two in my mind does that work for folks M cool all right next thing would be um continue discussing on adjusting the fee schedule I think we get through everything but the gravel pits and I had a bunch of questions about how to proceed around gravel pits I don't I doubt we have any answers for those this week um you know my question is just

trying to better understand the the function of a fee in addition to like the scope of it so we don't there's no sounds like we have an annual fee for gravel pits and it sounds like it has not been collected a long time and so

first off how do we go about saying we need to collect fees that we advertise our annual fees you know uh the the cone enforcement officer last time said he just reached out to like um trailer parks and said hey you owe your fee and they said okay cool yep let's pay it but he hasn't done that with gravel pits in my mind if we're supposed to be collecting an annual fee it's not necessarily our fault that previous iterations of the Town didn't do that we need to start collecting what we have for annual fees you know that's that's just fair um especially when some people are getting assessed Annual fees and some Industries aren't even though they're both on the same line as under annual fees my question about the fees is we've

had this kind of discussion in terms of gravel pits may have a o oversized impact on the roads that they're on especially if they're on a a Town Road versus a state road or if the transportation of gravel in and out of them has to utilize more town roads how's that impacting the roads and does that come into our calculus around

what the fee amount should be $35 is very little money for anything nowadays like I spent more than that at McDonald's now I do eat a lot but uh $35 is not a lot of money so the idea that that's an annual fee for a 25 acre hit seems really off to me but is the annual fee where you come where where you're supposed to get those dollars from an extractive industry like that I don't know the answer can I interrupt you for one second I thought we we we did not that I don't want to have this discussion because I think this is a bigger discussion that needs to be had but I thought at the end of our meeting we adopted the 165 165 55 I misspoke on the

$35 that's what it was when we started right okay but we just talked about how we don't have a very good um handle on where is that on where um where to go with that we talked a little bit about how is you know in theory the town generates income from the excise tax on the equipment that is used to extract gravel through registrations right like our dump trucks if they're registered in in Durham that doesn't capture anybody who's coming from with vehicles outside of Durham to take that out of there there's no tonnage fear anything like that that the town gathers there's not it's not taxed as property because it's considered undevelopable land so they're not getting taxed the same property tax that everybody else is getting they're not getting that mill rate so I just want it sounds like we need to have a bigger discussion about what's going on with the gravel pits so Josh did you have something you

wanted to I one question on the bottom of page two where it says end fee schedule can we take out that second a because it's really bothering me I've seen it which pack I there's a couple of things that need to right here sorry there so I can I piggy back that or you want to finish and then two point so we we right here stre so we said uh

that we were voting to approve the fee schedule based on the edit I think it's really important for us to either one see it before that happens or um I'm not really sure what the right process or mechanism is I think we we voted to do what we were talking about in terms of the edits that we had made but then what came out of that it is not necessarily what I think we voted on and so I'm not sure how to remedy that situation it it it's not big things but like up at the top it was initial administrative fee for the first permit I've already I've already talked to Alan about this but we said permit slash application right so the way that this edit reads is that it's only applying to permits and not to applications and that's not what we talked about and then the other thing is under residential construction all residential construction that adds square footage to the lot it's not the lot it's the structure and so I think

that we need to review the this before we approve this because this is already on the website I know that's what I'm having a hard time with yeah yeah cuz I see what you're saying right here right here the old one the red line says right at the top any application SL administration fee we set that and like you said but then it was written initial administration fee so I don't know why there is some sort of change there so I think what might be best you seem to have a Keen Eye for these edits if you want to go through an annotate where there was a m not a not a change in policy but mistake between what we voted on and what we um have in front of us right now if you can just annotate that or something and then send it to the whole board and then we can make sure that goes to Jerry and so Allan and everyone can get that squared away okay I'm I'm happy because this is not those edits aren't changing the the

nature of what we approved it's just saying No this is we approv slash administration fee right and you didn't include that but I do want the board to look at it because I I don't want to be the one saying this is what I believe our intent was I want everyone to have eyes on it is that allowed to happen online cuz it's not changing it's not setting any policy it's just clarifying or does that have to happen just making edits to something are there other changes yes a lot um I mean enough that I feel like I want to sit down and go through it with a fine tooth comb yeah so you're saying that you saw enough with an initial look over that you feel like it probably just it's like the thing that with the parking development like how we caught that in the meeting but I I feel like I really want to sit and look very closely at it send what I see have everybody put their eyes on it and then call if there's a way that we

could stamp this draft for now I think that would be okay so I'm fine with this if you were to do that and then send it something to us as a board we're not discussing the merits of any policy we're just saying yes or no this is what we were and then if we can get that annotated version available edited fin correctly for next meeting we'll then approve it and then say these are the changes we made based off of our just grammatical edits and stuff like that Josh you still had a comment that I

sorry yeah I'm trying to remember what it was uh looks like Joe's got some edits too already so he's catching I guess it's a question I should have asked last time but uh the public hearing if so requested by the select board for gra bit that's part of the ordinance it says that we have to uh it says that we shall or the wording says at our discretion to hold a public hearing on the renewal of a gravel pit because maybe a new neighbor has moved in maybe you know whatever and so we're supposed to hold a public hearing have the opportunity have the opportunity when we're renewing a gravel pit um so that's what that's referring to it's directly from our langage ordinance and I think what you're putting in here was just that that is establishing a fee if we choose to do that yeah carbon copied this Gravel Pit fee structure from pel MH and then if so

requested by do you want that to read differently I can bring up our ordinance and say what it says so that they I I'm just I I just read it last time and I forgot to ask that question because I'm trying to picture the time where I'm going to say here say I want to have a hearing on that graph pit like why I think it's more that when when like I was saying if a a neighbor changes or whatever or maybe increase traffic or some some concern from or expanding there's a bunch of blasting or there's just I mean if something's changing that's causing people from the public to be saying I don't like what's going on here it gives us the opportunity if we feel that those are valid reasons to have a hearing to have a hearing we could this we could never utilize that you know could just add an aster to that and then just you know document the code the code that references that requirement that's a good idea too

simple okay okay I'm putting this on my to-do list there's enough things that just need to be double checked in here to not go through it right now right um so we'll have you go through that Heather if anyone else has edits that they see that need to be made on this feel free to send them electronically to the group um we'll just disc we won't discuss anything other than yes that's what it's was supposed to say no we're not going to get into discussion on any sort of policy or anything like that yeah the agenda technically says the front office and I think that this was what we were going to talk about more we haven't the board as a whole hasn't talked about these fees the foa a the copy Fe the

that I think that this is am I wrong no you're okay yeah it's this highlighted one or the non-lighted one mine's not highlighted I don't know if yeah mine's not highlighted was front and back or two pages mine's two pages stapled not highlighted yeah they're probably the same because I don't think that Y no that's it I just had my last week's one as well Okay cool so did is there anything that stands out here on the front office fees that we are folks are concerned with Heather um after talking with Town staff one of the things that um the notary services is that we charge a flat fee of $5 um for nonresidents and residents are free um what has what has been talked

about with Town staff is that the first page be free some people come in with very long documents and every single page needs to be notorized and that turns into a different situation in terms of Staff time in terms of notarizing a one-page document versus a very long document and some people come in with multiple family members because they're signing a will this doesn't say anything about residents under the notary services correct because right now residents are free correct and so I'm not suggesting that residents should not be free I think the first page should be free and then I think if it's turning into a situation where it's more than one page that's what's utilizing staff time and where we need to be charge question I have there so maybe Jessica you can answer this $5 notary service for non-residents is that whether they bring in one page or 100 pages I mean I interpreted how you how

you would I Just5 and notarize whatever they bring in okay and so the only thing is if we're saying first page is free for Resident for non for residents how do we start charging them after that just $5 for the rest of it how often do people come in for notary notary service for residents is is quite busy and sometimes very busy especially when L something happens at L I have a lot of um but yeah on a weekly basis we

notary service is Prett active um non-residents um almost zero to be honest with you it's mostly residents can I'm there quite happy when it's a quick one page but um like Heather was saying like I'll get instances where like she said it's families come in I bring I used to bring them into the meeting room I'm notarizing a will um what's power of

attorney living will exactly and all Josh stuff right I mean I mean look people make fun of my signature and and and you know and and I tell them you know that was from notorized mortgages and other and so I get it so do we think that first page free and

then $5 after document I think is better not first document free and then $5 for initial for additional when you per additional document when you say document though are you are you saying like one will is a document yeah that's

what I would say I would use their discretion to what they consider a document so if they have to notorized it in two spaces but it's the same document that seems to be like a mortgage you notarize the mortgage but you have to do like 10 other documents that are you sign with the mortgage that are notorized but I don't want it to turn it into you get your mortgage notorized it's $50 because there's 10 other documents you know I mean you're not going to come to do a a mortgage but but I know you're not going to do a mortgage here I guess that's not a good example but can I give you an example of what other towns do sure $2.50 to $5 per page

that's what that's how it's listed notary fee per page $2.50 and then the other town is $5 in our direct neighbors I'm not per page I'm not saying that we need to do that I'm just saying that's what our direct neighbors are doing I think it should be document on page because I don't know you that by Page a will could be three pages it could be 20 so how about this oh go ahead so what are we actually notorized we're notorized the signature on the page right regardless of the size of the content you just notorized that's why I think document is cleaner so how about uh non notary services resident 0 for first document

$5 per each additional document so move any second a second for discussion yep Jessica can you weigh in is are you comfortable with that scenario does that feel like that makes sense to you based on what you do for work in in that

signing situation and say you know $25 and it would be per person so if there's multiple family members you're going to charge they'll get that first document free and then if you're doing no because they're all signing the same docum are they is that how it works well you're only notorized it theorizing the person and then also Bena

right so sometimes there's three people sign but the argument there is if we use the word document you're notarizing that one document even if three people are signing it you're not notarizing three separate documents so it's not like they're saying oh hey on top now it's saying oh I'm getting my will done can you also notarize a b and c because I'm I'm here you're going to say well like five bucks for 250 or whatever per page after or per document after the first one I think it's and what did I what was the motion 250 or five five free for the first document $5 for each additional doc toize things and I think that should be resident I think we should get rid of the non-resident resident thing because she's saying that she doesn't get resident traffic so it would just be and that's how this is listed it's just notary fee it's not well we have the motion for the for the resident right now we have um so the motion is zero do

we have the we're in discussion on the motion of zero doar for residents for the first document and then $5 for every document after if we want to address the non-resident we would have to adjust modify the motion or um no

that's fine yeah okay so resident so the motion is resident first document is free every additional document is $5 okay any more discussion Josh yeah uh Joe I think Josh and Josh and Joe yeah no I for discussion sorry oh yeah you did sorry okay any additional discussion no all in favor of the motion any opposition seeing none cool um I would just say leaving non-resident there at $5 is there so if you do have the Rarity of someone pulling in we have on the paper yep you charge five bucks yeah I'm assuming is this $5 per document yeah so I moved that non-resident says $5 per document Nothing free for non is that enough all in favor or sorry

any discussion any opposition are in favor boom if this was happening more I'd want to get the do that figured out more okay anything else on this fee here the only thing I would say this is a pet peeve of mine and maybe I'm not grammatically correct but when we have a scent symbol and it says Cent do10 that reads to me it's on10th of a cent whereas if it was 10 cents it would be a dollar sign do one0 oh I see I see I see so this how it says cent. one this should be a dollar not that I'm going to come in and cut up my pennies black and white PES same thing up the top yeah yeah we'll have original has probably been here since that was the uh old hand crank machine yeah how often do we serve the residents with making copies of things Jess how often do people come in and ask for copies um not not too often we'll get real and cards why I'm retired um does

$1 cover the cost of a 8 and 1 half by 11 color copy on this because I know for what one $1 the cost of a color copy for residents the co the cost of C having something copied right here should just cover the cost of the paper and the cop and the ink and the ink yeah and and and if it maybe a few cents for the time it takes someone to press the button so if $1 is what it costs us to make one color copy I'm fine with those numbers I'm just looking quickly what Staples charges for a color copy I think everywhere CU our contract we don't pay for copies just pay one flat fee for the police we used to pay for copies color copies don't happen hard ever all right in black and white copies we got so 0. five cents ours is in line with what neighboring towns are perfect we're good I don't have any other questions in

someone's not coming in and copying so much that we're losing out on on the the material cost uh anything else on this front off Jessica can I ask Jessica yeah did you spoke about birth certificate was it birth certificates something was oh a non-certified copy no one's ever asked for one but um I'm not like I don't I'm

we added it I don't think that we officially had that on there when we put $3 it's basically would print out the um certificate not on safety paper so I just have to go into the database find the person print it $3 fee that's listed there for that I guess my question here would be Jerry or Jessica are there is there any number here that you are not comfortable with above the Eureka Center rental payment the only thing I want to point out is um I don't know if you guys want to alter it um trash tags been3 AE discussion don't know I mention it I'm just going to point that out and that's a discussion we'll talk about later soon right yeah on the agenda let's let's hold that to the next agenda item the other thing that you might want to look at is um a marriage ceremony I mean you do perform quite a few marriages every once in a while so really it's $30 I didn't get any invites I got married at our town office

it's very brief ceremony I mean it does take staff a little bit extra time I mean it does it probably Tak me about half an hour where is that here Cy marriage certificates is down by the bottom certified copy marriage marriage license what's theere on here cere under notary

services for performing a marriage oh notary service for performing marriage is $30 $30 and it takes you a half hour that seems fair to me I want to promote more people getting married with Town so I probably should have done it should have freaking said i' pay up to 50 I have questions about a burial permit is it I don't thinky I'm I'm getting I'm not pay it the barri one but um birth marage I those set by the state and then cemetery

lots how you see in the town you see in the town report like I don't know when maybe last not last year but the year before there was one Cemetery lot that was sold since I've been paying attention I saw one and it was $200 I think yeah I think it's the same yeah it's $200 okay so that's not that's a we own cemetery lots that we can sell I didn't know it work that way so any of the I would have to ask I didn't realize we own can I just tell you what the other towns are doing sure so lots established after 2015 resident lots are $300 um and then Perpetual care is

$200 and then non-resident is$ to make an educated on this so we can leave that to be determined and then we could have and I just found out now a cemetery lot okay and that hasn't happened since you worked here right okay we're just really healthy I think we should know which cemeteries in durm are owned by the town oh I have a list okay can we get the list I just don't know it's like a lot really I have a list in my office I mean that Cemetery I don't know what the name of is is right when you entered the Shiloh Pleasant Hill Cemetery there's one right here there's one right here that one to dog cemetery the town maintain them

know what they are or how does it work like Perpetual care do they pay $200 a year every well catch that on the m so other towns charge that that helps the budget line right but who pays it that's what I don't so can we get more Perpetual care they pay that annually to help I don't know that's what I'm asking you if you have a cemeter you pay $300 for the law and then you pay $200 for Perpetual care I'm not suggesting that we do that I just don't know I don't know what that means and and who pays it yeah I would guess the person that buys the lot but what if a lot well it's probably just one it sounds like it's just a one time well how does how do private like how do Church ceremonies churches work you you pay for your lot and then once you're in the ground they keep they keep the upkeep so I mean it kind of feels like it's the same way here yeah can you look into that sorry I'm not trying to

um dog registration is that governed by the state okay so the rest of the oh Eureka building is it $100 it is M we up it um not long ago yeah like last year yeah does that how I my concern my only question is how much time did it take Town staff to deal with getting that ready for people who want to rent it like how so a lot of it is Pearl who the volunteer Pearl um so we take the applications we process the payment we collect insurance then we contact her let her know everything's okay then she contacts the person gives them the Code tells them any information they need they go in they have their function they leave Pearl tells us everything's okay we give them their refund back and then C comes in and C so is it fair to say that takes you all less than an hour of town staff time and the cleaner who pays for the cleaner we do we do that comes out of this Fe yeah and so I'm what I'm hearing is if it's less than an hour

what we think is our hourly rate plus whatever gets us to $100 should cover the cleaning does that sound about right yeah this number seems good to me I like the idea of having an affordable rental space in town for people they also have to get insurance so it's not just $100

I I don't have any quals with any of this here unless it's the nonprofit right if it's theit nonprofit so I would like to itemize that out I would like on the schedule for it to say nonprofit no are we not even doing an admin fee for the for nonprofits if that

it's fine but I would say no fee right and then residents $100 and I'd like to see a non-resident go to 200 do we have non-residents rent it yes okay I'm fine with that that would be my suggestion so is that a motion yes I'd like do I need to say it officially I'd like to make a motion that the eure community building rental um line read free for nonprofits $100 for residents and $200 for non-residents do you have a second I'll second okay any discussion Jos is it free for nonprofits or they still have to pay for the cleaning oh and the insurance right good I good so my that's my question there too is that say Insurance required non like they have their own insurance so yeah that covers them when they're there what my question I think is more in what Josh is saying is if I'm a nonprofit organization I host it there make a mess and then leave and we're paying to have it cleaned that's a cost incurred by the

town so I'm fine with us waving the admin cost the hour it takes us to manage that for our nonprofits but if we're still paying for cleaning that's an incurred cost on the town do we clean the place every week or is it only after there's an event so if the Girl Scouts meet there once a week the cleaner comes in when it gets us as we clean it we take a deposit from nonprofits for the cleaning fee so maybe this is a procedural thing that needs to change like if we took a deposit and it said deposit and then after everything's cool deposit refundable but at the same time it's not I mean she cleans regardless she's gonna clean that building once a week regardless Okay then if she's doing that regardless even even if no one uses it she's going to go clean what she already cleaned I mean she might spend

right at this point I'm fine with just the motion as is because that's what we're doing but it's at least explicitly calling it out here we're saying we're already giving it to the nonprofits for free let's make sure our fee schedule says that and we're now adding it uh doubling the fee for for out of Out of Towners I'm fine with that and if we need to dive in more on the cleaning do we have an idea of like out of town is what what we mean by that like who's right that's good because it could be like the parents of somebody who's getting married or something like that that I wouldn't want baby shower get a baby shower for a res in town that's that's why I'm asking I think I trust them to use their discretion around that uh yeah what I would say is like in my mind if if my in-laws want to throw me a party I'd say I'll rent the thing out or

my wife would be the one who rents it out on behalf of my in-laws save 100 bucks you know but um I I I'm okay with I I see what you're saying though it's like if this is Grandpa Grandma are throwing a birthday party you don't want to say oh right so how many other Out of Towners are doing that yeah that's I'm not trying to make it complicated I don't know when there's like local what I wonder about is when there's like reg like Tri Town organizations that will be like oh we're going to go rent for our event or whatever I don't know can I just show you all an example happy to design something like this even though I don't think we need something like this but this is how like residents of anyone not living in nonprofit and then business private public operating and then if it's under two hours for the nonprofit they don't do any charge for that and it just is not applicable it goes up based on whatever like if

somebody wants to use Eureka just for the meeting space but doesn't want to use it for the kitchen like they have that spelled complicated I'm just this is what we think we need I'd rather have this fleshed out and then okay us talk about it rather than trying to go from the fly right now so I'd be more inclined to like if that's something you want to pull together and bring to a meeting okay and then the numbers can change I could just do the format okay so do you want to withdraw your motion oh I withdraw my motion I forgot I had made one sorry cool um do we have to second the withdraw or is it just if if the if the person who made the motion withdraws their motion you don't need to Second it okay so Robert so I don't have any edits on the second page is that correct there's nothing changing on so far the only thing we've changed is the milary services okay all

right let's save gravel pits for another day are we saving trash bags for another day too well we're going to talk a little bit about uh trash on the next agenda item okay we got a half hour we got a boogie y um where am I at waste committee saw waste committee updates uh so it's been brought to my attention that Sol waste committee has not met for the last they've canceled their last two meetings um and that there seems to be a lack of uh understanding of the direction that they feel like they're supposed to take whereas I think we had communicated to them we need you to come up with some options for short-term savings and then long-term savings and I guess they're saying that they're waiting for us to tell them what we need to do and so they've canceled their last two meetings and some folks are concerned so I think we need to have a discussion with them about what the next steps are and it

just makes me think of a broader discussion around we have all these boards and committees that report to us but we don't have frequent check-in points with them and so I think we need to talk about getting monthly check-in points with our outstanding boards and committees to avoid these sorts of situations what are folks thoughts Josh I think a monthly update to Jerry like we do with the fire department and public works if that's a concern and they're not meeting and we need to know about it and then Jerry can say hey we need to add this to an agenda so Jerry and I me talked about that a little bit but the challenge with the Committees is the Committees are supposed to report to us whereas the town departments report to Jerry and so it makes sense for fire

department to report to Jerry and and Public Works to deport to report to him and not us because he's their quote unquote supervisor whereas the Committees are supposed to report through us and that's where I think having them come to our us to report and then we can ask questions because like right now when we see the the the report from Chief or from Calvin through Jerry we're not asking Chief or Calvin questions you're right and I apologize I should have been more clear but I think the reports go to Jerry who brings SS them to us as part of our agenda we see them if we have questions we invite them in or if he ask questions he says hey you need to invite them in um but I don't think sending them directly to us I think having Jerry and delegating that task to Jerry to stay on top of it for us is within the job description and something that is probably better suited than having all this direct communication

with us when we shouldn't be responding he um I think that the historic district commission has done this on occasion where they will send us an a a report and it comes to us in our agenda packet um I agree with what Josh is saying I think that they should send it to Jerry it should come to us in our packet so that it can then also be directly part of what is online for everybody to see um so that other people who are interested what solid waste is doing that report is as is part of the packet and they have access to be able to see that as well but so that's where I am on there um can't with a new website can each committee be you know triggered to put a monthly update like a highlight page there where then we'll spit out on the agenda so it is actually part of the record as well of their committee yeah if they want to send a written update we can add it to the websites just like we do with

um with these if it's going to be okay an update to you folks every month all once a month but they can't put it on the website Kim Kimberly will have to do that yeah I think the difference between just having them or Kimberly doing that versus a report coming to us is that it gives us the ability to read it and then if we've we've outlined this goal for them and we have like a a format of this is what what your goal is this is what your action steps are this is what you've done and that isn't moving then

we get the report and we can see nothing had H has happened on that action item and so now we need to find out why where vers is just putting the information up there for people to see I think I think we do need to be able to to make sure that things are moving forward and and then bring them in if it's not if they're not yeah um I I get your point but also as a resident if I want to go in and see what's the solid waste committee up to I'm going to go into that section of the site and if I look at it and say wow you're not making much progress but the select board is on it just because the process is there I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that regardless of what the content is of the report slow progress or heavy duty that is available to the residents yeah so I think that they should be there should be already being taken and that are going but I'm just thinking that we need to establish some

sort of monthly reporting process with our outstanding boards and committees you know I'm thinking planning board Conservation Commission uh appeals board when they're meeting and those sorts of things just because my observation is that a lot of these committees kind of are working in their own distinct Silo and we're not getting sorts of this sort of information and then this is how Something Like This falls through the cracks and so if that's in the form of a report that is just sent to town staff and it's given to us so like the other reports we get those but knowing that as a select board on boards and committees that report to us we can say any select board member can say when we get the packet I have some additional questions could you please ask so a representative from that board or committee to come in this next me meeting does that sound better to folks because right now if I have questions for not that I ever do

but if I had questions about a report that Calvin wrote I wouldn't say Jerry could you please have Calvin come in and answer questions for the board we would just ask Jerry those questions whereas the to delineate this communication between us and the boards that should come from us if we have questions for the boards rather than Jerry because it's like like Jerry has always said Town staff are kind of Jerry staff boards and committees are our staff because we're appointed by us so yeah I I just want to caution like something like the planning board or the appeals board where they're more Judiciary judicial you know watching over the town in regards to the ordinances having you know I know they've given us updates once in a while I wouldn't want to necessarily see an update we see their meeting minutes um you know they hold more formal meetings um and you know they're required to so you know you

might want to think about like in our charters for these committees put in that they have to give us an update every month um you know versus just ask put it in there as this is the way we're going to go forward with with with all these committees in general um for the Committees not the boards the boards us

interfering with the board business is not what we're what we're here for I do think it is to extent do something bad of course we're going to interject ourselves but if they're following the letter of the law from the ordinance standpoint and they're and they're um their chot I'll call it for what they're supposed to be doing for the town then we need to be in a position where we do not interfere with that so I think that with the boards working at and the staff working at the discretion of the selectboard there is some sort of supervisory role there and now there is a line be drawn between the Quasi judicial responsibilities and some of the other responsibilities so perfect example planning board's one of those they're crafting and doing all the groundwork for ordinance creation for us we have some significant input there we might not be saying why did this happen on this application or whatever so I think that

there is the the the the idea that there's they all work alone in their silos without supervision or without touching in with us I think is is how things may have used to been done but not necessarily how things are supposed to move forward because like we've talked about before there's distinct responsibilities between the Quasi judicial and and and the other responsibilities so that's where I do think monthly feedback and at least asking questions on what we're seeing from them or giving that opportunity to say just curiosity why did this go this way why did this go that way why are you working on this just cuz like even this year we had that meeting at the the beginning of the year where we delineated and I'll I'll get you right after this we delineated task for them to do whereas in previous years they came to the board and said here are the task we're going to do so I think we're just kind

of moving more towards the framework of how it's really kind of laid out for the tasks I agree but for the non-ask for the official business we need to St that Heather um I agree with what both of you are saying I think that in terms of like the land use ordinance changes and that type of thing updates on that is appropriate and necessary and we we need to be in the know about that stuff where where that is and if they're you know whatever the other thing that while I don't think we should have any knowledge necessarily of specific applications I think it's an an important mechanism for them to be able to say to us we've had 10 conditional use applications in this thing maybe you guys need to look at a policy around XYZ not specific to an application but um trends that they might be seeing or there's a lot of stuff happening in this specific area in town what you know like why where we have more resources

available to us than well an example I think of with that to jump in real quick is also if they're saying we're starting to get a lot of requests around a certain type of activity that we don't have and it's really a stretch for our subject matter expertise here are there any additional resources that they might not be asking for now because they don't want to bother and ask for but that we could be like yeah we need to think about that for when we just because I hear every time we have a meeting with the planning board chair and the town planner like we have limited time and we have a lot of workload so this is our way of trying to start being better as the board who can help fix some of those issues for them categorizing that sort of stuff and getting that feedbook in my opinion Josh can we get back to the agenda item though with the solid waste committee upes yeah so I think that we need to

have the solid waste committee come in and talk to us about what's going on or what what what's the lack of what's going on and I think that should happen um within the next couple meetings uh even if we have to add it on because I think that that's going to be a big ticket issue I feel I feel like we've given them Direction and there shouldn't be any confusion as to what the expectations are likewise so if they look at the help is it appropriate for one of our board members to reach out to them and say listen what's going on and and how can we help you and and nominate Heather to reach out to them or reach reach out to the chair right I mean the leader is responsible for I do the team okay yeah I'll I'll reach out to the chair and say you know what's going on yeah how can you help okay and then um

I'm not going to I'll go I'll say it on my board report let's keep going so Solid Waste action here I'm going to reach out to the chair of the subcommittee and just probably ask them to come in or ask what they what they need from us so we can reiterate that sort of

business we um and I might ask Jessica to explain this a little bit but essentially we had somebody buy a trailer realize that they didn't pay they registered their trailer realized that they couldn't actually haul it with their truck or something return the trailer and they want us to reimburse them for the excise tax they paid on the trailer registration because they returned the trailer and they don't own the trailer anymore and they never used it and they never used it CU I that Jessica called last week to ask about this and I wanted to clarify that this is not a situation of someone got the the trailer drove it to their house unloaded it and then said I'm never going to move this again I I want to unregister it it's like they physically registered it and then went to pick it up and realized they couldn't and then returned it the B refunded the state fees yeah and so we got copies that show

that this individual returned the trailer doesn't own the trailer didn't use the trailer and they're just asking that we reimburse them for the excise tax that they paid to register said trailer that they no longer that they never use and no longer own so we have to approve to do that and it would be to the amount of

Heather I was going to make a motion oh perfect then then Joe do we have to be Assessors for this or not I don't think so there not an assessment thing okay just make it sure all right so do we have a motion I'll make a motion to accept the reimbursement of the um EX tax to that Resident so we have a second in the amount of 11298 11298 second all right any further discuss any questions any discussion all right all in favor of returning 11298 all right see no

opposition I was motion by Deb and seconded by report okay well thank you um again I'm returning this week after a few days off last week so uh again the staff did great um one thing I want to make you aware of I had a conversation with the town of pel uh they started their automated Solid Waste um recently um and they're having

issues so you talk the trucks the trucks the automated trucks I talked to Becky and uh well she actually called me just kind of wanted to let me know that the it's you know with the automated system her phone has been ringing off the hook missing missing bends all kinds of different issues so I just want you we all to have an awareness that when we're probably going to run into some of those some of those same issues cuz it's it's going to be a change I mean one thing that we did that's going to help is they're managing the bins P decided to manage the bins themselves so that's that's a tough one so cassella knows that there there's issues so I just want to know you I've had that conversation another part of that conversation is that she knows that we have a solid ways committee they have a solid waste committee they are they they've had it with a solid waste collection so they are really interested in

regionalizing with us somehow some way talking what can we do in the future moving forward because they're in a 5year contract too but and their's just started so they're they're a year end of theirs ours is just started so they're willing to meet with our Solid Waste committee together to kind of like brainstorm together how is there something between the two towns that we can do they're they're entertaining even talking transfer station that type of stuff a Durham pel transfer station now I talked to mouth a few months ago they have a transer station they're kind of like our sister organization about the same size same amount of people cost them $400,000 to run a transfer station that roughly that's what it cost we're at 380 right now now with the collection in don't so I would quick question is that 400,000 with a transfer station and pickup or everyone's bringing their trash everybody brings their trash to

the transfer station so I would encourage this Solid Waste committee to get in touch with their Solid Waste committee and in the long term try and work together if there's anything we can do together in in that sort of situation so it was a good conversation but it's it's been a a tough transition my guess is when we transition to our phones will probably ring so do you have any contacts in communities that are in year two or three of that transition to see if some of that volume goes down I don't I don't I was going to say give the town of Harrison a call because they they they indicated to me that they'd be willing to talk to us about the transfer facility over there they put one in first class system God it's been 15 20 20 years price similar to North they do everything Harrison's quite a ways away though it is but about the same side 500 3,000 Oh I thought you were saying like sharing a transfer station oh sorry

information the whole the whole idea of and the cost of what it runs and you know they make some money on some of that stuff right and there's ways to do that so there's there's a lot of conversation that can be had around that and planning um and we think you know five years is a long time but you know you all have had kids and whatnot it goes quick you know one day they're born the next day they're graduating high school and a blink of an ey so five years happens pretty fast so uh I think this is good a

good opportunity to work with pel work with the next town and see what we can do so that's really unexpected Fe not not the the feedback you got was not unexpected but it is still disheartening so right so and we're gonna have you know I just but with push notifications we get them we can really do some good Outreach and that sort of thing so that was really the the phone call that I got that I just wanted to share with with the board and just make you aware of that sort of stuff so other than that that's that's really all I got everything's still everything's going good we're still we're still plugging away y all righty um board member reports does anyone have anything other um I just wanted to I know that the chief's report talked about it but I don't think that necessarily all the residents get the opportunity to look at Chief's report um we did have an uptick in car accidents

um since our last meeting and I've had some residents reach out to me with concerns around um you know like always like speeding and and that but I think it's more the ongoing concerns which I also share around like the safety of the of the way that people are driving um and what we can do to get Andrew scogan to be more

present here um and I don't other than what has already happened which uh Chief said in his report is that he's asked for more um service to be here I don't know what other steps we can we can take if there's any other than you know continuing to explore this rout I just think that the I I want to owledge that people are reaching out with ongoing concerns about the lack

of um safe driving that's taking place on our roads and how many accidents we're having I know that ju said last time Jerry that we have like one of the top 12 worst intersections in the state oh I'm glad you mentioned that let me get back to my report yeah so here's the mic all right so I

also got a call from dot today we had talked about the intersection on 136 Rabbit Road in qu so dot wants to come to the board and do their presentation on why they want to make that go from a two-way to an Allway stop sign yeah um I will never understand why that's such a dangerous interception it's the third worst in the state Quaker Meeting House Rabbit

Freeport people some people come over it and the people who are creeping out real slow it's running the stop sign CU that's the two people I know who were accidents was they ran someone R the stop sign they on3 hit them and a four-way four-way stop sign is not going to do anything to fix that issue so dot needs about 20 minutes to a half hour to kind of go over the data with you uh and they want to do it as soon as we can I actually scheduled them for August 27th but boy we've got a lot on our PL with if they only need 20 minutes 20 minutes they want to do like I said a presentation I would be open to add in that for that meeting just because this is something we get talked about a lot are they going to bring suggestions for improvement oh well the Improvement is making it an all way a fourway stop are they asking our permission are they doing it anyway well there's going to probably there could be a light or

something we may have they may ask us to maintain some of that stuff so like like the others right exactly so they just they just want to reach out to the town it's just sort of their whole like letting you letting us know not just pushing it on us I'm fine with them coming in that's what that's what they would like to do yeah so August 27th we want to fit it in on that because that's what I schedule um and and then I just want to back up with the solid was again because there's another point we need to make tags they're no longer going to be usable when they go to the automated system because there's not going to be a human to rip the tag off can I sell to another time probably could hey just make your fake ones and even and just let you know even pel got rid of their throw as you go bags because no one's monitoring the bags The Machine's picking up they're dumping it and they're going so we're

going to have to kind of find a way to offset that I mean we're we're making some Revenue by selling the tags so just keep that in mind as we as we get into budget season how we're GNA isn't the automation after the 5year Mark it's not coming up in it's coming up coming to right it's coming up in like year two mhm trucks beened one more year right I'd like to make a suggestion to start the meeting if possible at 6 o'clock on Tuesday the 27th because we have Mark Donna law enforcement and Dot on that night and I don't think that we'll get that all in in two and a half hours on August August 27th it's Mark Roy Donna

hey is the assessor law enforcement and do is that work for me La action items I told them September 10th yeah no they're not coming we're going over the informational we're going to have no the information if you're not worried think so just 30 we're fine okay okay ignore yeah move on so okay all righty back uh thank you sorry for the no worries back to board member reports Heather you had it that was a Joe um I just want to thank the board and the staff um I wasn't at the meeting that you talked about the Homestead Act and then in the two follow-up durm notes or newsletters there's information there I am going to share that what is our policy about sharing the Durham newsletter to the Durham friends Facebook page is there any reason why the town can't when they post it on the website share it there there's probably a log inside or something but or could one of us share it there it's so good

everyone needs to be reading it I would say that as individuals you can put whatever you want on social media but I think that it would I would caution and this is Jerry your decision but I would caution the town's official communication to communicate with unofficial okay no worries me as a select board member can I share the news you can do we cannot limmit your First Amendment right to free speech in any way shape or form so and I just want to note thank you for the discussion while I was out on that topic and having Donna speak about it and then the followup in the newsletter I really appreciate that any other board member reports um I will just say we got into

it a little bit but I would like to continue the discussion in the future as to what our reporting processes is going to look like for other boards and committees and and things like that because I think it's a valuable discussion to be had but not tonight all right so consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended with the approval of the 61124 notes added that's see so move all right second all in favor any opposition all right upcoming meetings we got the select board meeting August 13th and then August 27th the August 27th meeting is going to be starting at 600 p.m. not 6:30 p.m. the resource protection meeting is July 21st the fire station and the planning board meeting is August 7th the fire station um an an

executive session needed uh no but um for today tonight no but maybe on either August 13th or the 27th because my other review was up mhm wow that was fast okay yeah how you how'd you do we got to figure out still out on that I think um when do you all want to do that we we are super

written down on the 13th is the historic district let's plan on that on the I'm just saying that's what I have WR yeah the 27th is the busy meeting but let's plan on the 13th all right so let me just capture this so August 13th we're starting at 6:30 still okay and that's when the ex and August 27th is 6 o'cl six o'clock yeah okay I thought we backed off on that but we can do that you said that the law enforcement conversation was going to be quick because it's just going over the informational bullet points but August 27th 6 o' CU we are going to have the all that we're at we have the we had already moved it to six before I suggested that I thought we had already moved it to six and especially now that we're having the do come okay oh I did yes 6 PM public hearing no that no that was for September 10th 530 6 o'clock on the 27th

okay got it all right um do I have a motion to adjourn all right any discussion all in favor any opposition seeing none all right we just need our signatures here we're good