TranscriptSelect Board Meeting ~ March 15, 2022

foreign thank you do we have a new intercom yes so all right I'll call this meeting at the Durham Board of selecting to order on March 15th uh rescheduled from our normal date uh due to the snowstorm uh please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] Allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

four members uh slapping bullia is excused tonight in the amendments to the agenda from anyone no no okay you are have a seat at the table and state your name and the street you live on and and uh say what you have to say

yeah question I guess about the resource protection I thought it was going to be according to the handouts we were given two different parts one to give relief to some landowners [Music] um and all of a sudden two times more into one question again yep it has um and I should say yeah happy to answer your question because it's very pertinent thing but public comment is it's it's not a like open discussion forum it's like you say your piece and and that's it but in this case but there are there are exceptions and this would be one of them um so yes the planning board at a meeting the night after the last select board meeting did change their recommendation um and I think there'll be more you'll hear more about this when the board discusses voting on the final version of the warrant uh to send to town meeting that it it was creating more confusion than

and [Music] um the idea was to help with make it easier and it was actually making it more confusing and it was it there was both on the part of the public and even in the planning board meeting the night after I was at that meeting along with Joe and two other select board members were there and and the planning board and at one point we kind of started you know the the 10 people in town that are probably most familiar with this issue are are confused by it and talking in circles around it what is that going to look like on Town floor and so um we uh the recommendation from the planning board is to go with the one question and that question will ask essentially it's going to ask does the town want to put into the ordinance text the criteria for resource protection that the town approved as part of the comprehensive plan um yes or no and uh so with that that's the recommendation from the planning

board and tonight the board will discuss whether we agree with that or not or um whether we would go against that uh recommendation okay so my comments would be interesting like in the two separate issues you know one is to ride along the other is to possibility

the other comment I would have is that when you present this sort of stuff to the to the voters um I wonder if it's folks in town really understand the scope you know of what's being proposed here I mean it was mentioned at one of the meetings by someone on the conservation committee that oh it's about equal you know what's coming out of resource and what's going back in is about the same if you look at the maps that is not what I see it looks like you know a little bit is coming out and rightfully could and then a ton you know a green light stuff going in and I have

a feeling of a lot of fair-minded people and town might say whoa that's that's quite a lot and the maps on the topic too I don't know that they all seem to represent really the actuality and make people more fluent and does this make sense you know it's a little difficult it needs to be a little more clear before people you know it's going to affect a lot of lives okay thank you

comment is the only other the only other place where we have other than board members speaking is on the agenda there's a discussion with regard to the the softball field um so if you're here for to say your piece about and something other than that now is the time

all probably expect my public comment is just consider accepting the planning board's recommendation as discussed at their last meeting and put forward so that's all I have today and I just want to also just thank the uh planning board and select board for the process and the way it's gone this year and the ample opportunity for everyone to ask questions and stuff like that I know a lot of people from town have really appreciated appreciated that and Win Lose or Draw and I think everyone has had the opportunity a little bit more this year to give feedback and I know that I've heard a lot of really positive stuff about this board and the planning board because of that so a rare uh compliment for the select board from a constituents thank you

foreign comment portion is closed we'll move on to agenda item four and this is about use of the ball fields behind the Eureka Center and um and by that yeah this what what has historically been the girls softball field and right now um we have two organizations that are both making proposals um to in essence have use of that field

um I think you know the board's typical practice is um very rarely if ever would we we presented with something and vote on it in the same meeting I think so tonight will be to hear from people representing both proposals the board has an opportunity to ask questions um there might be some further information we might ask for from you know one or both of the proposing parties and and we'll see uh where it goes but I think what what people should not expect is a is a vote from the board tonight on the final resolution of what um what would happen with that field for this year so um so I think just for no other reason and that's the order that they're uh on the agenda is that I think um I would invite Mike Clark from Durham Youth Baseball to come up and I would uh you know kind of take us through your uh your proposal and

um what's your what's your hoping uh to see happen and then board members can um can ask questions and then we'll do the same thing with the next next proposal yeah no thanks for the time uh tonight uh Michael Clark for those of you that don't know me I've been involved with during his baseball for 10 years now um recently president as of as of this year so during baseball been around for a long time like I said I've been involved for 10 years whether it be a board member or a coach and one of the biggest challenges that we've had as an organization um is is field space or use of uh Fields

um we've always worked around with the RSU and the school field here with the girls softball team and working around uh them and having use of the school field um with softball in the town having had a lease on the existing field uh that the town has and I understand there's been some changes with softball I think Dave Stewart is here tonight um and is willing to you know kind of talk about that um if he could I believe he's the one that had the lease on the field um but what Durham baseball would love to have the opportunity to do would be to take over the lease on that field for the town um and basically take over the maintenance as well as making some upgrades to that field as well so uh I

think it looks like you guys all have copies I have extras if anybody needs them but um really what we kind of laid out here is you know initially for this year our season is starting up uh very soon here with scheduling for games and so forth starting up in just a couple weeks here at the beginning of April so um you know any upgrades this year I think might be uh

could do pretty easy as far as um replacing some things within the Dugout metal fencing Over The Dugout facing to kind of prevent injury I think right now there's some kind of loose netting up there that I saw just kind of flattening and bring by here so you know preventing injury from Fall balls and things like that like that replacing any any wood rot that might be there on those dugouts repainting things of that nature resurfacing the infield what we'd like to do in the fall if possible would be to reloan we see the elf field there I

know water might be a bit of an issue so we have to figure out I guess kind of a water source for watering that and see but that's something that you know we could certainly discuss um providing Port-A-Potty for the league obviously while the season is in use you know on us as well um and then you know kind of longer term looking out um you know whether it be again depending upon what the town might allow us to do in regards to the fence if it was used for uh baseball use maybe backing up uh that fence making it feels a little bit bigger for some of the older kids um to to be able to play on there um and then you know like I said just kind of maintaining the field the mowing maintenance resurfacing uh things of that nature um

the big things that we would really be looking to do uh the infield and so forth be resurfaced on an annual basis um but just really kind of upgrading and maintaining uh that feel to make it a nice place for kids to be able to have a place to play ball we had last year I think we had 120 or 130 kids uh in our league from t-ball through age 12 um and again everything was done through sharing of the RSU field and I know

um you know I know the other organization that's here tonight um you know does have some some Durham kids in their league I know that they're not um you know a Durham based League we are 100 Durham families and kids uh and Durham taxpayers um and I think that that is certainly important to consider I will say I believe the other organization does also have a field of their own as in Freeport as well as use of uh Freeborn middle school and also use of Durham community school now as well so you know we're really limited to the space that we have so I think it's really important if we want our kids to continue to play in Durham uh to have the space here

Dave Stewart uh I've been involved in Durham softball for the last 14 years coaching uh president of the league uh booster club president a lot of things and then some things have changed this year other another group came in and was looking to obtain players coaches and I are I'm just I'm not in it for the conflict I don't have any kids never had any kids I have no skin in this game that's true and I I wasn't looking for a fight for players and sponsors and Fields any of it uh I've always been the softball guy uh but now I'm going to be the Durham guy and throw my support behind Durham baseball uh I do have a receipt from 2018 for a seven year lease uh that we took on with you uh I would like to see at least brought up and given to Durham baseball or if not I know I have a lot of you know me you've had daughters that played for me you coached for me uh even if you wanted to give me the power and authority to sublet that lease

till the end of it I would take that on providing they have insurance uh sexual abuse waivers everything and we could treat the lease that way I'll sublet to Durham baseball if you don't feel the need or want to make a decision in this matter and you want to lay it on my hands so I'll take it I'm sure there's people in this room people watching this that are surprised that I'm sitting here doing this right now because I've been the Durham softball guy I've had other towns come and sit my meetings and ask to join and I said what's it going to be called it's not going to be Durham softball is it and I'm at the point where I can't do it anymore but I think Durham baseball I've had this lease I've turned them away time and time and time again because it's you can't have more than one program share that field if you have 60 girls and five teams that's every night of the week it just isn't practical any other

way uh I'll throw up more support behind them that if you let me sublet to them or you choose to let Durham softball take on that lease all all shelving trash materials field care maintenance equipment I'll donate great to them they'll have it they'll be off and running and they'll be ready to keep a Durham program you want which is what I'm hoping for with regard to the lease I think I don't think it's a matter of whether the board would allow it or not I think it that that would be dictated by whatever language is in the lease right so I don't know I have two questions about the lease and we'd have to get a copy and see what it actually says one I don't know if there's language in there that allows the whoever find the lease to sublet it and then and I don't know if the lease was to you as a person or to Durham softball as an organization entity I was here with Zach Zan and it was actually uh to Durham booster club

right and then we changed our name and uh Purpose with the state to Durham softball so I think my I'm not a lawyer but my my initial reaction would be that the lease was with an entity that no longer exists therefore there is no longer a lease well we changed our name and purpose with the state is basically what we did it's still the same entity The Entity still exists yeah I still have a 501c with the state okay all right so the entity is still exists it may not be active but it exists okay yeah well it was active up until January okay and now I'm looking I'm looking to avoid conflict yeah no but I just and I'm only looking to um making sure that whatever we do is my 501c with the state accordance yeah so so that might answer that question but then it still is does the lease allow for right a sub left and if if there's not a language and they're allowing that then the board would probably need to

draw up a new lease I would think yeah I don't know that's that's my purpose here today any other uh you guys have any other uh any questions for on this proposal so how does the maintenance work today on that well how has it worked in the past the town is the Outfield in the past uh

infield I've used uh Jay Emerson and he comes every year and he resurfaces the field and takes care of that part of things uh we also uh maintain the Dugout and things like that usually we get uh someone who's doing like works of credit for school and they can they'll paint the dugouts and stuff like that and usually it's a group effort of parents and and volunteers that maintain the dugouts in the field it might currently under under your program um how many how many kids athletes do you have currently in your program um well so our registrations are open to the end of the month so we don't have final numbers for this year yet but last year we were let's say I think around 120 we had five t-ball teams we had uh

two teams in each of our older age group levels which is rookies which is seven and eight two teams of minors which is ages 9 and 10 and two full teams with Majors which was 11 and 12. so you know those those older groups alone I mean between those six teams was probably 70 75

and again you know to kind of to Dave's Point around um you know sharing I mean if you got that many teams you're trying to have practices and things like that I mean it is it would be tough um you know for five or six times practices and that's just kind of the thing that we've not really been able to have as an organization is is a consistent place that we could go without having to work around somebody else's schedule to be able to give these kids the practice time of field time that they deserve um so it would be nice for for the kids to have that yeah and to that as well uh there are I mean I know other communities are joining together to make a new program or or grow a program and there are other facilities three four pound all places like this this is this isn't the RSU this isn't this is the town of Durham town of Durham field on a different property program

I'm hoping these guys but if they don't then nobody will uh well the next days yes who's looking for uh well we have two proposals looking to use it so right somebody's gonna end up yeah but if there's a lease open question well and if there is you're right if there's a lease

leaseholder power sublet it's not even our decision right it's the leaseholders decision you know even even if even if the lease isn't in you know it gives them the right to sublet he can still operate he can still grant that way used to that he'd be the key holder for lack of better words to that if he in fact has a valid least yeah that might yeah that might be the case so I think what regardless it's going to require a review to see where the the receipt is dated 4 12 18. yeah it's not just about the oh I know the amount of language what the specific language is in there so where's um where's uh term youth baseball's been playing the last bunch of years so we've we've used the school field the school softball field um you know Saturdays when school obviously doesn't have games um and we've tried to coordinate practices around the girls softball schedule um evenings after they are done practice

or nights if they don't have games we would try to get you know one weeknight game up there a week usually on a day that they're either away game or something like that um but our t-ball uh kids our age is four to six historically um last year they use kind of the the grass area off the soccer field here at the school um and then prior to that for many years uh Shiloh Chapel let us use their their field um over there um but yeah so our t-ball kids have never been able to have the experience of being on an actual baseball field you know which would be really nice they've kind of been running around and and tick tick covered Fields that's true but uh

yeah I mean we've we've been able to make do with with what we've had um you know hasn't been ideal and our our organization has grown uh numbers wise a lot in the 10 years that I've been here in town been involved with you people feel like we ever you know kind of conflicted with Dave around uh the use of that field or you know we understood that there was a lease there and we worked with what we had and what we could and thank you but uh but it is it you know it's going to be tougher for us this year with um you know pre-board or what's now tri-town um like I said they've already gotten approval to use the School Durham school softball field as well which you know was never uh the case before it was always during baseball and school so having to try to split that between three organizations now when you count the school um you know that just that squeezes us even more for opportunity and field space

of them on the spot but I don't know if you guys have anything to say or add if they're open to that I don't know if you guys yeah I think yeah this was kind of a workshop type thing so if somebody if president um just wanted to sit down and see if you had any questions for me um with Mike here I let Mike kind of run this since I'm helping out part of the board this year um all support trying to get these guys up and running that way I could step aside because I've been doing it quite a while um been through four different presidents before me so um any questions for me I actually have a question about you said like in some age groups you said you had like two teams so do you play other towns or so it's not just the same two teams playing each other right no no so yeah we play um you know like Brunswick bath um last year at Richmond Wisconsin see I kind of surrounding towns are part of the Cal work good baseball league okay

okay yeah we if we based everything off plane ourselves we wouldn't have any field time for the other teams so it's you have to travel and you have to split that up especially working on the um School softball team you know when they have games nobody goes to the field when they have practice we are allowed to get on after they're done so work around that type of thing but you know it makes it difficult yeah okay

um yeah I think you know the follow-up question might come to like based upon other discussions but I think um I think the plan would be you know we'll uh kind of digest this and and give people a chance to make comments at the next board meeting on the 28th as well and 28th right yeah and I would anticipate probably some sort of a vote then to give us a chance to check out the lease terms and stuff too so okay all right great thank you all right

all right next uh name I have on the agenda is uh Matt Walsh from the tri-town Little League to talk about uh their proposals um I represent uh tri-town little league and uh the players for the softball side um BPS softball uh as of last year so I'm kind of stepping into this new uh it's a it's a bit of a challenge so uh you guys got my uh proposal there you know honestly I

don't have a lot of of uh different items to add to Mike's um presentation I mean taking care of the fields um we would do very similar things I mentioned it in there I'm not going to rehash it um you know we take care of the field we do uh spring and fall maintenance over at Hunter Road we put a lot of money into them a lot of time a lot of volunteer hours um you know taking care of the fields I think I think we have a good handle on if you have any questions around that I can go into it a little bit more um so last year uh we ran

um oh I gotta remember hang on a second we we basically had uh 70 growth this year with the softball side of Durham coming over um and um I know that that was a a whole different piece that we can talk about but I think I'm here to represent the Durham players that came over to tri-town um they grew up playing on this field uh parents watching them and I think those girls uh should have an opportunity to play on that field no matter what organization they're playing for right they're Durham kids it's a Durham field right um it's not a Durham team field it's a Durham player field and that's my um that's really what I'm here for is just to support them and the parents uh to be able to play that um our organization or the softball side is made up of 45 Durham players right now so we have panel players we have Freeport players uh we have one uh so talking about Fields um I just want to correct something here um last I heard

from Peter Wagner the RSU coordinator the Durham softball field wasn't is not reserved it was originally reserved we reached out to him we asked if it was available uh back in February he said yep nobody's reserved it we reserved it once uh I think Mike you can correct me if I'm wrong you reached out to uh Peter Peter then released that lease and basically said to the two organizations you guys work it out let me know what you figure out um so that's where it stands so it's not reserved at the moment um we do have uh other fields but we also have 300 kids we're a larger organization over a baseball and softball right so we have more fields we have more kids how many total Fields I didn't mean to pay off but how many total Fields do you have uh so there's three over at Hunter Road yep we got Middle School uh free Falmouth Middle School Freeport Middle School um there is two other fields panel

Elementary field which I don't know if you've been over there is is not really a field uh it's basically grass and then pound a road field um but those are you know Town Fields they're not for us we can go out and reserve them if we want to just like anybody else can I believe that's my understanding so five so that sounds right yeah so with our growth on the baseball and softball side we would be in the same uh situation where t-ball is going to be playing on grass it's just it's the way it is with the shortage of fields in the three towns um so yeah I mean any questions on that part yeah

so with the gains the games that would be played here yeah would it so I'm assuming that that you know Durham kids are mixed in with the other kids and they're like Durham specific teams we like to mix them in because yeah so um so some of the so some of their games might might be here but some would be in Freeport or other to other towns other towns yep sophomore place other towns in literally yeah yeah other towns would be coming to Durham for home games yeah could be Yarmouth Cumberland yeah it could be all of them yeah yeah I think you know I there was a I I just want to make sure that the girls have a chance to play on the field that they grew up playing on that's really why so how's the field reservation thing work because you know some of the fields both uh everybody's mentioned are rsu-5 Fields versus Town owned fields

so what's what's the difference in reserving the town owned meaning you know you know for this I know the RSU he has some strict guidelines around you know use of the facilities so what's the difference between the ability to reserve those fields uh it's

a bit convoluted and I don't think I can speak very well to it I can research it and maybe have um somebody that's a little bit more knowledgeable in the difference between the two um I I know that you know reaching out to Peter Wagner uh he works with the

um the Durham school regarding the softball field and the baseball field and I know the softball field was available and that's why he he reserved it before us um I can figure out more I'm not it was essentially RSU Fields get reserved through the RSU office and the town Fields get reserved through the Freeport town office it's not it's not a no a single looking uh I realize it's

definitely convoluted yeah yeah um so that used to be um many years ago that we would just to use this field we would go through basically DCS we did it's been the last probably three four years where you had to get into this reservation thing with the the rsu-5 fields

um for the softball field for the softball field decentralized I see which is which is really good I mean in some capacity but it does also limit it has limited in the past kids of this town for having opportunities to play on this field yeah um in particular I can remember even last year in the year prior like kids weren't afforded to use that because these fields are being rented out to entities outside sure so now you strip the kids of the community even more so um who so you go through the town is there a town Rec or you go to the town specifically to rent like the hunter field or something and things of that nature again I I I that's more uh the president handles that situation I don't know exactly but I believe there's a standing reservation for Hunter Road fields and in the past um and maybe this has changed and maybe you know maybe you don't know um but when the town of Durham were the

players of Durham have tried to reserve the Hunter Road fields in the past they were denied yeah I don't yeah I wish I knew I I really don't again I'm coming into this kind of green so um yeah I appreciate that thank you

um um if I'm hearing you correctly you're you're your primary motivation is more about giving Durham girls the opportunity to play some of their games on this field it's not as much of just a pure capacity oh it's both for sure but my primary definitely is to support the girls to be able to play on the softball field that they grew up playing on um and yes capacity is definitely a problem uh the two the fields over at Hunter Road is one softball two baseball they play baseball on the softball field at middle school so I don't get to use that for the softball side that leaves me one field and that's why I was hoping to get the Durham softball field um and I reserve that otherwise if we don't get use of the Eureka field or the Durham uh uh School field we're playing we're having two teams of practice on the same field um and I don't know how I'll work that out I'll figure it out but um it's definitely a capacity piece as

well but my primary reason is it's the Durham players I don't want to get too far into the Weeds on this or absolutely but may I just ask if if capacity was limited why'd you take on more players we we welcome any players and also if

you uh I don't know if you know but the Freeport Middle School does not have a softball team and it's sad it really is I want to grow this program uh the best I can unfortunately um you know over the past five years there wasn't a lot of eyes on it and so it dwindled and and I think uh both the middle school and high school teams are suffering for that reason and so my primary focus is to try to develop softball in the three towns well that's appreciated it could be it definitely could be I'm a big softball guy at heart most of these guys these baseball guys know that but I've also coached baseball also but um you're right there's there's been an issue and there's also about a lag over there in terms of and some of that has been quite frankly you know I don't I don't want to speak out of term here and I'm not trying to get absolutely Durham was never welcome it's been tried and sometimes the kids were shunned

basically to say hey that's a shame and and I'm here to change that to be honest I I I don't understand why and it doesn't make sense well it shouldn't happen you know why it's always an issue with parents kids suffer but the issue is the parents unfortunately that's the reality of it I'm a peacemaker you know and I appreciate that it's a tough job I it really is um anybody who stepped into that whether you know and thanks for micro doing that and yourself and um because it's it's a thankless job and it's it's mostly just constantly heat more so than praise what it should be is praise what you guys do so I appreciate that thank you

yeah yeah no sure like I said this was kind of a workshop thing so anybody that's so my name is Tim kieger I live on Bully Hill Road for three years Dave's done a good job running the softball program for Durham softball and I appreciate all the work he's done with that um Mike Mike's a coach too we've all been a coach we've all put a lot in there the whole purpose why one of the decisions why I went to it Matt and I had hours of conversation prior to moving is nothing again what Dave was doing because Dave did his job but the Little League that the girls were playing in in Anders goggin County was a mess it was you'd go to their field you play by their rules it was not a good organization the tri-town while some of us were yeah we don't we want to stay Durham identity based and be Durham itself the infrastructure is way better we've had clinics we've already had um we're doing clinics clinics

year-round are pretty much year round yeah fall baseball summer baseball a secondary postseason all that stuff is available with the Androscoggin Little League it was six weeks you had your first practice the week before the end of April your first game was the last weekend in April and you were done June 16th and it was seven teams all Fielding that

field six days a week uh and even occasionally on a Sunday afternoon it was a pickup so we had reservations joining it because we didn't want to lose identity of that field and Matt gave his word to us and he was going to fight like hell to make sure we needed that field for them to work so we all went there with that idea of we'll still have it we got other parents on board of hey this is a great program they've got Winter Skills programs winter clinics that we're doing right now uh and even a secondary Clinic that they're doing Thursday nights with the RSU so it's a better organizational infrastructure with a more supportive like League um again nothing with all the work that Dave's done with everything he's done he's I can't thank you for giving our kids a great opportunity

is we wanted to get out of the league we wanted to get out of the androscogic league because it just it wasn't a good program so so our we're we're not really here to get involved in this league or that League where what our role is you

know we have a field we have two organizations that are asking for to use the field um I'll speak only for myself but I think it's probably true of other board members too is like what's in the best interest of Durham kids is ultimately what's going to drive at least my how where I come down on this I I don't care about if it's a Durham League or a Freeport League or Androscoggin or Cumberland County I personally don't care about any of that it's like what's what's going to be the ultimate best end result for the kids and and unfortunately it's like there's it some group of Durham kids one way or the other is going to come out on the short end here right because if you go one way right you've got Durham you know baseball kids benefit but the softball kids don't and if you go the other way it's the other way around and you can also have those kids that are in the t-ball with the Durham program that once

they're done with t-ball are gonna have to get shoved somewhere else as well yeah so um one one question I have and and I don't I mean it would open up logistical challenges and it might might not be realistic but you know um if they were you know you talk about the opportunity for girls to play um on that field and you know is there

an opportunity to share the field if practices are not part of it like if we're just talking about playing games on that field and like the field was reserved like for games and you guys could figure out okay on you know Monday Wednesday Friday it's baseball and on Tuesday Thursday Saturday a softball or some other thing and you guys can schedule games there um but you know practices you figure it out somewhere else I mean um it's just a thought it's just an idea to maybe kind of I used to when I coached and I've coached softball for many many years on many levels during the high school all the way down to um let's go to the middle school team I've coached for Dave um I coach Kevin's kid actually um she hasn't played anymore she doesn't play anymore

play the games here right I mean that's that's always in the past even with just softball you couldn't have a practice I used to personally on my own time would contact Beaver Park in Lisbon and bring the kids over there because there is no way in this town to have practices and games and things of that nature and that's that's that's the bigger problem here is the kids are suffering because you know whether it's Freeport or this town or more so Paul I mean what is what does Paulo have nothing um we haven't we haven't created infrastructure for kids in the recreational department um but I think one of the bigger issues well I'll save that for next week I guess when you're talking about just the game situation it was that way even when it was just Durham softball the only night available for practice was literally Friday because Saturday everybody played it was eight o'clock nine o'clock ten o'clock you know I'd

get there at seven o'clock in the morning prep the field for our first game and then try to clean it up so you know the next set of kids and you're talking softball right now yeah okay softball softball so so softball it ran we had two games a week and we did what we do last year was it Tuesday Saturday softball we have games Monday Tuesday Wednesday nights and then and then practices would be Thursday Friday Saturday games on Saturday so what it really comes down to is there's 60-ish girls that played Durham softball last year and now that there's no Durham softball those same 60 year olds are playing tri-town softball so who's where do they play now okay five teams five teams yep two uh one U ten and two u-12 last year to Mike's point I think you know those girls came over to Triton they're still Durham girls

program that's your that's also request in the field is 100 durable yeah and it's an organization absolutely a non-profit organization in the town yeah Durham so um things have gone differently in January there'd still be a Durham softball yeah I mean like I said I don't want to get into the weeds of the Durham softball thing because that I I I can feel the tension without even I'm sure but I mean like to your point if you guys don't like the organization like the Androscoggin League or something well join another one I guess but I mean there's that's that exists on all levels whether it's little league or softball hell perhaps you've seen the Middle School level where you go there in this different rules okay um that's always going to exist no matter what organization you sharing it depends on whose home court you're on Mike were you trying to get something in no I I was just going to say I mean if

decision is made to leave the town to join a different organization to then say well the infrastructure isn't there that organization is supported so we need to go back to our town for that infrastructure to me that that's that's not right especially when I mean admittedly 55 60 of their kids are non-durham kids and we're 100 Durham I mean that's what I would I would ask the the board to consider um we're all Durham taxpayers in our organization we want to stay in Durham our kids want to play in Durham um many of our parents don't want to go down this report and and I feel like that's 45 of 300. that that's what we're hearing or the software right as well so now part of that but they want to come back and still play here and you know it's unfortunate that it affects my daughter too I mean she's a softball player and you know it's unfortunate what happened but yeah you got me in the middle here my kid's a

softball player my son plays baseball he signed up to play for the dry town I mean I'm I'm right in the thing but it's just it's it's a it's a quagmire I wish there was again 98.9 percent of the times in my tenure in sports as far as these schools this issue doesn't reside with towns or Fields it's a parent conflict and it only affects the kids and when parents start looking for their kids rather in their own personal interest these things go a lot better oh

proposals from board members no I just want to say the least yeah no that's that's part of the follow-up is to review the lease and then how the whole funding thing in fact Jerry I think it would be um it'd be worth having the the town attorney review the lease and and see if he has an opinion on whether um one whether the lease is still valid given the state of the organization and two if it is do they have the authority to essentially sublet or whatever that whatever the term is subleasing or whatever yeah the only thing the only thing I would add that to that Kevin though is I mean the real question you know maybe only Dave can answer that maybe he has his filings done is is that organization still an organization yeah I think that's one of the questions yeah so I don't if that's if that's the case I don't know how you pull somebody's lease it doesn't matter what they're doing that might be true but I think we

should get the attorney's opinion on because I I don't know that for a fact I mean if I rent you a house just because you don't want to live there anymore sublease he's not asking a sublease he's just letting people be racist he can have company you just can't yeah yeah yeah right if it's not a subject that might be that might be how would end up happening so I don't know but yeah but let's let's just let's get the uh hey Rich can I represent maybe like a third group just for a second no we're only taking two proposals what else you got

me because I'm sorry I have one boy who wants to do baseball and three girls who want to do softball so I'm kind of like 75 on 1 and 25 on the other obviously the ideal view in my eyes is can something can we just work out an arrangement where everybody can share can everybody just get along that's like perfect for me because I like my girls to be able to continue to play air like a player so as a parent who's kind of walk in the middle that's one um you know from the from the baseball side of things I definitely respect that uh you know condition of not having enough field space with all the players that you guys have had somehow you've been able to make your league work pretty much entirely with just what is right over there which is not enough and your program has grown a little bit so this is a great chance to kind of hey can we get our foot in the door and get some time at Eureka field makes perfect sense

also you know on the softball side you got like softball had entirely used up every minute of this field last year from every single Durham girl and uh with no wiggle room whatsoever in all those same girls pretty much all have re-signed up again to play this year albeit from a tri-town entity which is not a Durham entity but to me it's the same because they're still playing with all their same friends they're still playing with all their same grades you know Matt's done everything that I think that he can from that position to like make everyone feel welcome when I first moved so I was in Freeport for three years and moved then moved to Durham and um I always heard four or five years ago that Durham that baseball and softball oil and water fighting over this fighting over money fighting over fields it was this thing that some of you may have all lived part of that and it seems like there's definitely still that heat

left from that prior generation and it would just be awesome if somehow we could Start Anew and you know our kid if we all want to be part of this for five or ten years we're all gonna have kids like I just don't want to be part of the

parents that kind of ruin it for this always the problem um so they do need more field time than they have now softball can't completely lose the field 100 because then the girls have nowhere to play this is kind of personal for Dave he did everything you know ran that thing single-handedly I hope that I I get the feeling from you like that this is kind of like more personal I know you don't have kids in the program um just whatever it is like make it and I want to sound cliche but like think about all the kids take the parent personal side out of it let the kids play with their friends I'm sure there's a world where you know you can look at the field time and say okay you have 60 of the 100 players you get 60 of the field you have 40 to 100 players you have 40 percent of the field sit down on the pen and paper map out a schedule it's only for a month and a half I think we can get along for a month and a half

I don't know you said so you guys I'm gonna I'm gonna put the kibosh on that right now because you got this this is not the forum for a personal conversation back and forth so you know it would be great if two weeks from now when we're going to talk this through and vote on something if you guys work it out on your own and come to us and say this is we have a Cooperative agreement and this is what we're proposing I think that would be great um but in the absence of that and then depending upon what we find out about the lease or whatever then you know we'll have to you know probably do one or the other I do have I do have one question is uh one is the baseball program is that is that all boys or is that co-ed uh so well it's technically co-ed I mean our t-ball is boys and girls we've had girls that have opted to play baseball right now my kid did uh other than softball I mean I had um I I had a girl on my team with my

oldest son Landon that played right after she was 12 years old so yeah so it's mixed okay all right so I just wanted I just wanted to make sure we didn't have my daughter played there boys girls elements to this as well so okay um one last thing if I could just um in addition to you know kind of one last argument for baseball um you know in addition to us just being purely Durham as I mentioned um what I did here was that Triton Freeport does have access to I think I counted five Fields um maybe five and a half count Durham community school now um to us having access to zero to half of a field Durham County Schools so I feel that's important to take into consideration to that point chart town is is much larger with many more players um our softball program is almost the size of I think I'm like what did you say yours was 120 or 114 into County

ball so our softball program is the same size as their whole program and our baseball program is too easily twice the size I think we're well over 300 now um so um you know and to Mike's Point I'm all about we can work something out I feel like we can to your point Tuesday Thursday Saturday every other Saturday twice on Sundays whatever I I'm willing to work I just want to make sure that the girls do get a chance to play on the field they grow up okay any other final questions okay guys thank you very much thank you thank you all right

I'm just getting warmed up that's just the appetizer buddy code enforcement officer okay yeah Alan how we doing buddy good enough good enough thank you you don't have it I have one slowing down at all yes a little bit yes

a little bit yeah yeah uh we're getting ready great what I'm getting ready to ramp up again oh yeah yeah yeah is that time of year the worst time it is the worst March has become the best ski month this last week of the year it's fantastic um 35 bucks some good deals out there too I love that it is I just bought our passes for next year it's up Sunday River yeah Sunday River we spend more time at Sugarloaf now than we do I've never been a short love yeah I hear we haven't been there

I was like I like this they got a better beer selection now uh so uh code enforcement officer um Alan Plummer is here uh it's two people remember that in last year's town meeting we put into ordinance that um we basically broke a bunch of fees out from various places in the ordinance and we're going to put it in a single fee schedule that the board will approve has the opportunity to approve annually and Alan has recommended changes to the fee schedule for us to consider tonight all right so first thing up is there's a correction on page three of your packet [Music] where it says instant entrance driveway permit that should not be 100 that should be fifty dollars okay I wondered about that stuck in there maybe you were like average or below and all of a sudden yeah you got something against driveway yeah

I get into this packet um first of all I want to bring to your attention that reinspection fees are already a part of the ordinance in Durham um for failure to to uh uh for failure due to code violations that's already a part um the re-inspection fees are first reinspection fee due to failure is 50 second reinspection fee is uh a hundred dollars that to my knowledge has not really been enforced

um so there is a reinspection fee in the ordinance already and that is 50 and 100 for first and second reinspection so I have done some reinspection fees since I've been here but I haven't done a lot of them but I could have done a lot more and what happens is people call me for an inspection especially contractors and get me to look over their work

I'm happy to go and inspect and make sure everything is up to snuff but when they do it time and time again that's a law of time so I'm just gonna let you know that I'm gonna start enforcing the reinspection fees the only thing I would recommend with that is that you start providing an upfront communication when you issue the original permit that says just so you know we're going to start so that it's not a surprise and I've already started that through word of mouth as I talk to people yeah Alan is this when you say reinspection they're calling to do a final for occupancy and you got to go back so if they're calling to do a final they're not I just want to make sure they're not calling you like hey we got two we got half the house trained and we got some Sheetrock up can you come by and let us know if this is or is it they call them for a final okay thank you contractor building uh I can't get too specific

called me and the ground fault interrupt circuits aren't by the kitchen sink they're basic it's like they're not they stalled at all they're regular Outlets they're not GFI protected so anywhere within six feet of that so that this is a contractor and they did all of the work they've done all of the work they had an electrician come in and do the an electrician master electrician do all the work and those kind of things are blatant really not great things for a crowned contractor and they're supposed they're GC they're looking at this stuff and hiring people in to do all that stuff they're in charge they should look at that stuff and say yeah we're all set to get a certificate of occupancy come on over and we'll do this star so when I have to go back over two and three times that's odd you don't catch something like that on like a rough a roughing until they're just wired and just pre-wired yeah so you fail them at that

point how is that that would feel yeah absolutely oh no I get that but is there I guess I'm talking like a formal failure you you give them a piece of paper and say I won't give them a certificate of occupancy unless they can occupy the building yeah period because that's what that says right so they're calling you over the occupancy permit you walk in there's no Outlets that are correct and you're at that point saying I can't give it to you but uh what what is it that we give them indicating that that was a quote-unquote uh failed I can write that on the Forum generally I don't I wrote I make a note on the form saying this needs to be done this needs to be done this needs to be done and I'll go back to another inspection when those are all done you document it for yourself though it goes in the file okay so you have so you know that that's what you're going back for right yeah I know where you're all

right that's where I'm trying to get to it's like how do we how do we keep track and that you know unless things have changed that that's that's been a normal process since I was building houses and it sounds like he's it is that it's even in the ordinance but it hasn't really been no it's not executed that way now with that said I mean there's a lot of towns like

towns won't give you an occupancy on the first route so they do have to come back um and I've probably built in nine different towns I've never been charged a reinspection fee if I got hit on let's say let's say stairs because they're easy it's not electrical just that is the main Carpenter he's the thing one's a quarter inch out of compared to the rest of them it's stereo geometry is always biting people on the butt um redo the stairs and I'll be back let me know when they're done but it's never been hey you got to pay another fee well yeah well I mean that's I think we heard from the town that they want to make sure we're collecting fees that we can you know in an appropriate amount yeah I I no one I understand I agree with that 100 I I agree with that but there's some things like

and so forth and they're they're relying on pods guy for an electrician that they hired yeah they might be a general per se but that doesn't necessarily give them a plumbing license or something of that nature so if a general who builds a house gets hit because that's a 22 and it should have been a long 45 on the plumbing he might not know that but a code officer is going to know that and a plumber is going to know that and you know ultimately it or better yet a homeowner does his own thing and he comes back and he thinks he's ready because he can do it that's different and I get that and I I I really try to be reasonable sure and use logic okay as long as we're being reasonable I mean what percentage here's another it doesn't happen very often but the people that it's happening with is is

so I I checked I came to do a insulation inspection and I went back three times the second time I went back they had the vapor barrier was open insulation was exposed exposed in the heated room and they had taken a triangular piece of class and stapled it to a stud and I said you're kidding no okay you're failing again you can have them come back and do that over sure because it's it's just it's the co it's it's the code it's minimum standard because the code is minimum standards right so when they put that piece up there and just stapled it to a stud they're not trying they're they're seeing what's going to happen when I come back for a third time I agree with you on that so I'm really not even asking that question because it's part of your ordinance now right and you're not proposing a change in those I'm just saying I'm gonna start enforcing that and it's going to be for those egregious things when a homeowner

does it I always go oh okay I'm gonna look at your inspection and I'm gonna tell them things that they need to do if I have to come back repeatedly yeah I'm gonna charge them an inspection you just have to make sure and I'm sure you will but just make sure you're on Solid Ground because if you're if it's if you're going to be subjective about it and not like always do it or never do

it if you're going to do it based on such in a situational basis you just got to be careful with you're not leaving yourself open to well why you charge this person a late fee but a reinspection fee but not this other person

attorney's biggest things that he's constantly nailing me on is there's nothing worse than having a policy and not following the policy so if it's been in the policy and then we're only going to choose to enforce it when we choose to that's not a good policy I I yeah thank you does that sound like

it for all that's kind of where I'm at and but I do think you know the communication ones is important I would start with any new I would I would actually I can put that on informational things or even on the permit even better yeah so they that's it if it's in the policy you can't you can't be subjective of when the policy is going to be it has to be either policy or not policy and then just the over communication you can't over communicate enough oh you can but it's just cold water sometimes okay all right okay so that might help solve your problem yeah right yeah a couple of reasons so the second thing is double fees for starting work for the permanence issues already in the ordinance but I've seen no evidence of enforcing that to date so same thing people are doing work they're not getting a permit and I'll see you and go hey you're building an addition on there yeah do I need to do something about that

well yeah you do you got to get a building Burma so those two things yeah haven't really happened but they need to start happening and I would say yeah I would say like if if it's in the ordinance all cities policy pause that's the ordinance is what the town has deciding and so it's our we're charged with enforcing the ordinance whether we like it or agree with it I think most people will know that but if it's policies policy right nothing worse than having a policy I'll follow the policy yeah okay great so now to the packet

and um the birds the planner has given me lots of information and that's included in this package so you have two things the example house and what that example house would cost in the different um local um [Music] example and what would happen in those different times for their different feeds and the next page page seven says uh feed comparison so Durham and these are roughly their fees listed out there so you have that stuff that you can peruse so hopefully you already looked it over because you've had this so the first change up I wanted to say something else um I'm just bringing this information to you based on what I have for experience and at this point I've been a code officer for four different times and the information that George has provided um so it doesn't matter to me what you guys pick it's completely up to you guys if you have questions I can answer those for you um but it doesn't matter to me what you

guys decide so first of all building permits so right now we charge 25 cents for new construction a square foot yeah I'm going to propose 40 cents per square foot for construction and that is to include actually and this is a little different um for anything that adds square footage to the property it's a new construction fee so right now our ordinance says if you build your house now there's new construction fee for that permit and later you come back in a year and want to build a garage that's a new that's not a new construction fee that's a cheaper fee so you get cheaper if you build it a year later as opposed to when you build a new construction okay typical but if that's what the order got to say if that's what the ordinance says that's what we need to do

stuff like that that's very unusual any time in in other towns if it's new construction you're a new construction fee for that yeah and oh yeah right that that may very well be 100 yeah I don't doubt that at all but it if the ordinance says something different it doesn't matter so then you can cross out the seconds to George and whatever for future consideration of a change but yeah yeah just just real real quick Ellen is it the fees that he has on page six are those the new represented fees or that what it is today that's what it is today okay all right so this this new proposal would up that yeah I guess okay so those lines underneath construction will change new construction so you can cross that out

required for residential Cosmetics alterations such as vinyl siding replacing windows and all that kind of stuff so are you talking so in the current fee schedule it just says residential construction 25 cents per square foot you're proposing 12. to go to 40. okay

yep right any other questions about that is renovation the same thing as addition to residential structures renovation because we can't change that so you're not you're not proposing to raise the conditions to residential structures from 15 to 20. we can you can do that if

you want I would I would suggest changing the ordinance and making that okay then we all right so yeah I would say forget that okay all right buddy currently we charge them an electric electric permit electrical permit fee for any time they do something to a Cellular Tower when they're adding things on when they're adding square footage within the within the fence those kind of things um

and ask about the fee and and they said basically so these are big companies they said the guy I talked to or the company said you can charge us anything you want it that seems really cheap for a Cellular Tower yeah so right now we charge 75 if they're gonna put one new antenna on it or six new antennas on it with that fee with that permit 75 bucks 75 or 100 75 bucks we charge them currently 75 dollars it's an electric permit today oh that's not a separate cell tower correct no it's all on the existing Tower so if they were going to put a new cell tower they have to go through the conditional use process

um compared to 75 I figured one to five editions would be a hundred dollars and six to on uh six to Fifteen would be 150 dollars but still pretty darn low is it is that each or is that one a hundred dollars an hour away numbers if that's what you want to do so that's who's adding like so there's but there's no correct me if I'm wrong there's no Cellular Tower fee in the ordinance right now correct

they should get for changing this hour and it's been that they get a electric permit right so there's but so yeah so it's not what I don't know is it doesn't list anywhere right I don't know if we have the power to add a fee that's not in the

ordinance well okay I don't I don't know part of me thinks we might but I'm not sure about that well do we just not a so we're not obviously a new tower like that's that gets me a little confused when we use the word tower for fees because I mean we're adding a tower I and I think most people want to think it's a tower um but this is more or less upgrading like we're going 4G to 5G and we're changing out this little panel on the tower correct you know new antennas on there right we're not adding a whole lot of Tower right gotcha there so I mean it is essentially electrical work but we don't I mean just like I'm assuming electrical I I could be wrong I haven't run the ordinance on this you know a 200 amp panel versus a 500 amp electrical panel in town for like a commercial building might cost differently correct no no not in this time parent okay currently if you're going to put in a new circuit in your house yes 75 once if

you're gonna wire a new house it's 75 yeah I get that component but I just I didn't understand okay so would it be so if they changed 10 things on that Tower is it seven seventy five dollars per items change or is that a one-time fee one permit that's what they're doing at this time so would you need the ordinance to say per fixture for that to change for you to charge more like if they're if they're changing out the whole Tower and basically retrofitting this Tower let's say I don't know I don't know anything about Towers okay other than I got some light bulbs in them and I get my cell phone reception that's about it but let's just say they have 10 amplifiers on there for 4G and those amplifiers they want to now change out because everybody's going 5G right does that make sense yeah could you charge could the ordinance doesn't allow to charge per like is each amplifier its own separate entity per se

I've only done from what's happened previously okay and that is charge them a permit one permit for an electrical 75 dollars you said that's what was done previously is that how you would do it based on the ordinance if that's how I'm doing it based on what it's based on what that's not my question my question is forget about what was done in the past forget about what you did today if you read the ordinance right now how would you choose to do it you don't need a fee go ahead and do it yeah that's what I'm reading too and it's not it's really it's a utility so this whole process is kind of um

I think the scope is broader than the intent I think the intent was out this amount do this amount we want to increase it I mean if there are other ordinance things to be considered then that's a separate that's a separate deal okay so Alan and George and I have talked about maybe forming an ordinance Review Committee to look at our audiences and see if they're in line for 15 years now in 20 years oh but the process the process

moving forward we should think about that to look at our own instances because some They Don't Really and I what I and we should get clarification on the question of you know because I just I was just reading the Warren article question from last year where we made this change where the board could approve a fee schedule um but it references the ordinance language and we'd have to look at it so I'd like to get an opinion um is probably George and Jack talking in with Alan and does the board have uh the power to for instance um add a fee to the fee schedule that's not otherwise expressed in the ordinance because and part of me thinks the board will have that power because the ordinance gives the board the power to set the fee schedule you know so um but it would be good to get clarification on that um because then that that could take care of the you know the Cellular Tower thing and and you know a couple of other

things you've mentioned well there's more stuff coming up yeah and that may be true but I and I think so this might be kind of a two-step process yeah it's kind of like for the fees that we have now on our current schedule you know what what changes are being proposed and then if there are things kind of beyond that you know that's kind of like a kind of like a part two right okay um so I think maybe for the next meeting maybe if we could get like just a one-page summary really simple Excel spreadsheet there's something like from Two for the okay for whatever um you know or actually you know whatever the whatever the new fee schedule is because we'll want to adopt the schedule as a whole with with maybe a separate page that summarizes the changes like this goes from 25 cents to 40 cents you know this goes from 10 bucks to 50 bucks you know and then the the new fee schedule because that's what

the board need would need to adopt is the fee schedule out of that you'll end up with a list that of things that we probably want to consider for our future not out of that discussion separated out I think that's a separate that that would be offline work that then would come to the board later for yeah I don't think you want to do that brainstorming of well maybe we should do this and maybe we should do that yeah

board meeting either so if I just won't summarize we should look at what our ordinance says and which allows us to make those changes from 30 cents yeah and bring that to you first right I think that was the intent yeah I mean yeah I think we're we're you know the way the micro macro then we're looking at this is right because we we purposely pulled the fees out of the ordinance text and then authorize the board to do a fee schedule but the part that I'm foggy on is are you can you do a a new fee cellular

towers the best example that wasn't even mentioned before or is the fact that the board is empowered to set the fee schedule mean we can determine what's on the schedule or not so invent peace we're inventing them we're creating or we're trying to lack of better words but there was also the the desire to make sure that you know that our fee schedule is kind of in line with with what's the

norm out there yeah modern day fee schedule and it might be that what's the norm out there as we've heard a couple times is that particular fees that we're missing sure you don't ask that maybe we should so cool all right okay all right thank you very much um so you guys have looked at some of those things though because I I just want to comment on a couple of them so some are more urgent than others I would say um for example the solar array I know that

there's a company that's interested in putting the solar array large scale in Durham and they've been talking to a property owner for at least two years so if you don't have a fee schedule or ordinance for solar arrays then you are at the at the Willard what's a ladder issue yeah right yeah I mean we as a board unless there was an ordinance created we can't there's nothing we're not afraid of ordinance correct we're powerless powerless comes to that right so that's that's significant that's that's coming um and some other ones um

inspection so that would go in line and you could say that one or the other one for reinspection fees so I don't charge for the occupancy inspection there's no fee right now at all but if I have to go back and back and back like that then the reinspection fee or an occupancy inspection fee specifically would need to be warranted and I'm just I put those things in there because those occupy a large amount of my time and I don't have the time to do that with I work 34 hours and I do the best I can but those things that take up an inordinate amount of time cost the Town Money yep um so 9-1-1 addressing fee we don't charge for that right now um to give someone an address I have to go measure the road get the GPS coordinate measure and do calculation as to what the number is for them takes a lot of time out of my day to do that yeah I think the one thing we want to oh sorry yeah one thing we want to you know

balance here is the you know because um it's one thing to be charging a developer a fee that you know that is just part of their revenue stream from the property that they sell and whatever um other things like that are just like a hit to Residents I think we need to balance that initially you know yeah you say there's a cost of the town but if I'm that person so yeah but I I pay taxes that's why I pay taxes so that there would be that service right so I think you have to balance I know I know it's the same principle right it's like at what point do you is like kind of a certain level of service kind of part of what you're paying for your taxes and at what point does it become well you know that's kind of beyond what you should expect for your taxes and you need to pay a little bit extra for that you know trash tags is the classic example right everybody gets 26 but if you produce more trash than that you pay

a little bit more you know so it's kind of like that so just something to watch out for and in terms of new fees being proposed for things in the justification well it takes my time well yeah everything takes time but should it just be considered part of what the taxes are paying for so and I think that's why we've been discussing you know looking at all these ordinance maybe getting a committee together through George yeah is this there are land use and I think that's great let's get the low hanging right the existing fee schedule what do we want to change about that let's be ready to vote on that next week okay okay good thank you all right

okay speaking of ordinances yes all right so this could be this can be pretty quick so we all have the final version of the warrants um it's all the budget articles are the same that we as we um kind of gave our consensus approval to go out on the draft the business article I'm going to skip over the uh the same thing for the capital Improvement articles actually we'll just go right through it the ordinance warrant articles there's two the um the first one is and you kind of heard in the response to the question from uh the lady during public comment

about the um the resource protection question the planning board has changed the recommendation to go with the single question um it's basically asking do you want to put into the ordinance the criteria for resource protection that the town approved as part of the comprehensive plan in 2018. no secondary question it's just kind of up or down on that one and if it's no regroup and look at different approaches for for the future um and then the second one is pretty simple it's just is putting out there in black and white um so it requires a town meeting vote approval for the town to adopt maintenance responsibilities for uh for a new road so that was their budget articles are the same as we've um as we've already been through the business articles are the same except for the addition of uh the article 32 which is the question where we're asking the town if they want to reduce the number of seats in the

budget committee from nine to seven but other than that it's the same ones um that have been there so um we can take them we can we could if somebody wanted to we could have a motion to um approve the warrant as presented or but if there are individual things that uh what articles or whatever that a board member wants to discuss um and vote on individually we can do that too I read them I was I was looking over I really I didn't look for spelling mistakes or anything like that so it was that would be my only concern assuming somebody else did I did okay I I sent what seven or eight so I've looked at that until my eyes were blurry so yeah it's that's the if you have I I looked at it and didn't think about spelling but didn't even think about that I was just looking for Content so I guess the big question is is a board are we you know the biggest changes instead of the two questions about resource protection were at one

you know that's that's really the big change from the last time we talked about this and so does anybody have anything they want to say or offer about that I think that's right way to go okay [Music] okay I'm not gonna ask Joe to speak again but I thought what he said the other week made a lot of sense and I think it's you know for me the way that I look at it is this was passed in 2018 it's you know we either implemented or we come back to the driver next year and change it right uh so it's you know it was passed it should have been implemented it needs to be or needs to change and this is the put up or shut up stage in my eyes yeah are the comments

that's I I'm I'm in a similar boat you know and I've been on you know I was you know I've been on all over the place on this one you know as I learn more and talk to more people but ultimately what it came down to me is that the town should have the opportunity to vote on

to put into ordinance or not what they've already expressed in the comprehensive plan I mean that is that is the role of the comprehensive plan is to provide the framework for supporting ordinances because comp plans don't have the power of ordinance only ordinance has that so if the town says no to this uh resource protection uh article then it's kind of it's kind of back to the drawing boards you know so yeah I have my I have my own you know which is you know it doesn't really matter I have my own personal feelings about the ordinance itself and I think many people do but what I will say is the way this is written now compared to the Way It Was Written in the past at least in my opinion and I'm nobody to really make this as an official but it's at least an average person can read this it's not so convoluted that you know it's I'm gonna have to call 13 different attorneys and all in 12 of the 13 are

going to give me a different opinion that's the way I read it in the past so I I command the um the board and looks like Joe and so forth had worked hard on this and I think they did a nice job cleaning up the language compared to where we're at and what we're presenting to the town yeah when I was observing the whole process that's when it came to me it was that yeah we had the nine well he was in the room almost literally right literally and and yeah it was well presented by by Joe Roy during that in pros and cons of how these were laid out and why um yeah I I agree with Josh with the the um you know the comprehensive plan is there for purpose this is now the implementation of that plan that everybody already voted on um you know it isn't necessarily a one-for-one swap as it's been alluded to it's it's a it's a it's an application of the ordinance that everybody and the comprehensive plan that everybody's put

into place you know the state changed their map yeah and now we're implementing according to how we decide to push the town forward with their comprehensive plan they say push the town voted it in right to go this way yeah so the town was all in on this and this this does represent that direction at this point so it is yeah you can a Layman can read this now yeah that's me I speak for the lay people all right so does somebody want to make them uh well okay so I raised out are there any other individual articles that anybody feels a need to discuss

want to make a motion that we set the uh 2023 Durham Town warrant particles as presented and I will second one any further discussion all in favor okay so we we need to sign the this copy let's do this now so we don't forget that we send the wrong one no I got the right one this one doesn't say draft on it my red pen away [Music]

we should get five different colors um [Music] report okay well thank you um just just a couple things the MMA workers comp we did that audit this year for 2022 um and we were we overpaid so we got a check for uh 4 500 dollars back the other day um the 2022 the audit actually got done in time this year so just wanted to share that with you and along those same lines so on the 22nd of this month uh there's a gentleman coming from MMA enlisted service this services to talk to us about basically our work is comp moderate what we can do to bring that down um and what he's going to share with us is different plans and processes that we can have in place to to do that like like a plan uh policy on lifting ladder safety bloodborne pathogens and just have that sort of stuff in a file um for their policy policy yeah and you know slip trips and falls and just sort of you know kind of train our employees on those

um have meetings and that sort of thing and in doing that we can reduce our our performance car by you know five and ten percent okay on top of hopefully not getting her and getting out on workman's comp one of the one of the biggest things is a return to work policy if you get hurt but you can come to work and maybe I don't know late Duty like Duty sort of stuff as long as you're off the workman's compost that helps our our policy to get it down so it's it's things like that he's gonna actually meet with myself uh Road commissioner uh

and fire chief and kind of talk about because those are really the three plays and Diana is kind of the she's in the committee too so we do have sort of a Safety Committee we meet quarterly we sort of talk about that thing so he's going to view he's going to walk around each each facility the public uh town office Public Works and the fire station just kind of look around and just ask for you know what do you have for policies how are you keeping track of this and that sort of just to get us up and going and once we do we should start seeing some some of our cost of workman's comp drop next year we're going to stop what we got now but that's just a good way to try to help save the town some some money and they're simple and MMA has all of the example policies so it literally it's like going in there and changing the town name to Durham yeah so what's your what the board will see is once I get

these going I'll be bringing these to to the meetings for you to review to make sure you're good with them and that sort of thing correct me if I'm wrong Kevin and I I usually am but uh Public Works I believe we did this and adopted these MMA policies four or five years ago they might have been uh we'll see because it might have been the Bureau of Labor it was it was and they have they have like which is part of this if you're if you're um it's part of that tier we had to do this yes exactly and we had to do this to get our workman's comp down because it got to a point for it yeah we're we're we're paying 113 more than your average town so we can get we we're at 2.13 we really want to try to get that down closer to one and what you're talking about is yes it is what three tiers or something and well that's like a subset of tier one well the Bureau of labor standards has what they call compliance directives and

it's all about making sure that your fire extinguishers checked and your stickers are on your ladder in Europe outlets on ground and out and you're not using extension cord it's all those sort of things that you do monthly to just check and you just check them off sign it put it in the folder so if MMA comes in here once a year they'll want to see that folder to make sure that you're doing it just to keep it well when you mentioned MMA that's what's running my Bell because that's why I thought what we did it for was for our workman's comp yeah it was it was more it wasn't for the town specifically it was mostly back then specifically for public works so we we have a program that actually it's all of course it's online and you go in the safety talks get pitched to you and you have to do them X number of them every month and you go in you check the box that you rented and looked at it and so it doesn't become as I'll say as

manual as what you're describing but it becomes a little more automated and undecking what's that never mind yeah in that so uh so yeah yeah very familiar with that yeah the next level of we do it daily musters every day for five minutes in the morning with the into all the teams do it yeah signature are you a chair like Walmart no

where they have online that's on there yeah they call it I believe they call their online university where they have those uh training programs that you can go and view you know like sexual harassment all of that sort of stuff yeah and you know and we really should be doing that just just to keep us [Music] um in compliance really with safety standards and I mean that's one of the reasons why you know a lot of the time this board was so such an advocate it happened someone like yourself represent this now because of things like this fall into the cracks right it takes a little time to get there but once we're there then it just becomes yes so so there's that so we'll have that going um the other thing is I finally got my notary public so we're good to go on that if we congratulations you didn't bring like donuts and punch to celebrate right what what I mean just so what I'm waiting on right now is they give you a

number so then I can order my stamp and yeah putting this warrant together going back a few times with Kimberly and Jessica and they all work pretty hard on that and I say um so just a touch base you know so we're all set on the gym I'm assuming and moderator is going to be billions okay great um we will we need to make sure this this is always a little bit of a kerfuffle every year we need to make sure that we're able to project from a laptop onto the screen yeah and then we have the ability to get the screen up and down and control the lights in the room and stuff like that

hotter moments in his tenure had said something about at the school if you're gonna do something like that the background has to be white so people can see it oh no well yeah no that was me so okay no actually it's the other way around what you want because that room is so bright at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning in April that you want your PowerPoint slides to be dark background with white text okay that's called highlights in there

my end too so so other than that things are things are good great anybody have any questions Jerry okay all right so uh consent agenda has the minutes and the um warrant I take a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented unless somebody wants to pull something out for discussion so move no motion is there a second Joe seconds all in favor okay all right uh upcoming meetings uh

we will need an executive session tonight guys just so you know um upcoming meetings uh select board meeting March 28th and April 11th uh at the 6 30 p.m here at the Town Office annual town meeting April 1st 9 A.M at the Toronto Community School the day before that is our annual election was that's 31st right March 31st at the Eureka Center we're doing it at Eureka Center I believe yeah I'll have that's what the warrant says right is it yes okay

on the ordinance changes resource protection and and the roads you know both of them but I think most of the discussion will be for the resource protection uh is March 22nd at 6 30 at the Eureka Center um and that's really an informational thing at this point the the wording is finalized it's going on the warrant it's going to voters so it's really an opportunity if you still have questions um it's not really I don't think it would really be worth people's time to be talking for or against necessarily at that hearing because that vote's a town meeting um and it's and that's that's when the decision will be made on that and so on um okay at this point I will move us into executive session uh pursuant to one MRSA 405 6A for the purposes of discussing committee appointments