Androscoggin CountyMainePopulation 4,262Sourced from U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2013-2024
Durham in Data

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Select Board Meeting ~ June 25, 2024

2024-06-25 · Select Board · 2:43:22 · watch on YouTube →

The Select Board met on June 25, 2024 with three of five members present and a quorum declared. The main business was the 2024 tax commitment: Donna Hays presented the tax rate calculator and the board selected a mil rate of 21.75, up 40 cents from the prior year's 21.35, with an overlay of about $19,750. The board also authorized a consent letter to the mortgage company of a couple building at 356 Swamp Road, whose framed house was found to sit inside the front setback because the land use ordinance's setback section and its definitions measure from different points. The board authorized the town manager to sign the solid waste contract, signed the revaluation contract, and heard that the Historic District Commission and the town planner have separate sets of proposed ordinance changes, which will be taken up at a workshop. Most of the meeting was spent going through the land use fee schedule; the board approved changes to the residential construction and electrical sections and tabled the rest to a later meeting. Steering committee appointments were tabled to July 9, the June 11 minutes were pulled for further review, and the board entered executive session on a personnel matter at 9:10.

Who was there. The town's written minutes record these people present: Joe Roy (Chair), Josh Klein-Golden (Vice Chair), Heather Roy, Jerry Douglass (Town Manager). Names in this summary are checked against that list.

What was discussed

  1. 2:50
    Call to order and amendments to the agenda

    Three members were present with two excused absences, so a quorum was declared. Josh Klein-Golden asked to add the downtown revitalization steering committee as item H and to move the setback consent agreement up to follow item B so the residents involved would not have to wait through the whole meeting. An executive session for a personnel matter was also added.

  2. 2:50
    Public comment on the RSU 5 school board vacancy

    Two residents spoke. A resident of Orchard Lane (?) described the school board's stated roles and code of ethics, said any of four of the candidates would do, and objected to Michael Osa (?) on the grounds that his stated aim of restoring values from more than a hundred years ago fits a legislative role rather than a school board seat. A resident of Brookside Drive (?) spoke in support of Michael Osa (?), citing his long residence in Durham, his availability, and the value of a perspective not already tied to the existing board.

  3. 2:50
    Legal services contract

    Jerry Douglass asked for authorization to sign a legal services contract and send it on to the attorney. A motion was made and the chair called for a vote; the transcript does not record a stated result.

  4. 2:50
    Tax commitment and mil rate options

    Donna Hays reported the town picked up $5 million in new value and that its percentage of market value dropped from 67% to 57%, which reduces the homestead exemption's worth to $25,000. The tax rate calculator gave four options: 21.70 (a negative overlay, which she called unrealistic), 21.75, 21.80 and 21.85. She and the board favored the lowest rate that still leaves an overlay.

  5. 18:51
    Setting the 2024 mil rate

    The board noted total appropriations are exactly $1 million higher than last year, with the county share up and the municipal share down about half a million. A motion was made for 21.75, described as the lowest rate with any overlay and a 40-cent increase over last year's 21.35, and the board signed the commitment as the Board of Assessors.

  6. 23:59
    Homestead exemption questions

    Answering questions relayed from an absent board member, Deb, Donna Hays said the town has 1,142 homestead exemptions, 71% of what she counts as residential properties, and that the state reimburses the town 76%. She said she pushes the exemption at the counter and in field work but has not done a mailing. The board discussed adding a line to the tax bill, a town-wide email or news blast, and handouts at the town office, and noted the mailing budget is already committed.

  7. 29:13
    Moving to a July-June fiscal year

    Jerry Douglass and Donna Hays said they plan to bring the change to an August meeting so the board can see how it would work. It would require either an 18-month budget or a budget year followed by a six-month year, and would line the town up with the state, the school and the county. Whether to make the change before or after the revaluation was raised but not settled; Josh Klein-Golden asked that voter education be planned around the November election.

  8. 34:16
    Consent agreement for setback violation, 356 Swamp Road

    Alan Plummer said Skylar Larochelle came to him in November 2023 saying the previous code enforcement officer had given a verbal go-ahead, of which there is no written record beyond a driveway permit. A consultant, Maine Soils LLC, found the resource protection zone had been mapped in error and established a building envelope of about 40,046 square feet against a 40,000 square foot requirement. Paul Larochelle said he had sold the land to his son Darren, who gave it to the couple.

  9. 39:43
    How the front setback is measured

    Alan Plummer said page 10 of the land use ordinance states a 50-foot front lot line setback and he measured 72 feet from the edge of the road and 82 feet from the centerline. A mortgage survey by Dave Hughes of Livingston Hughes found only 40 feet from the right-of-way line, because the ordinance definitions measure setback from the right of way and Swamp Road is a four-rod road, 66 feet wide, or 33 feet either side of the centerline. Plummer said the ordinance conflict is a mistake on his part and that the ordinance needs to be changed.

  10. 50:34
    Applicants' statement and consent agreement

    Caitlyn Belanger read a statement saying the house is framed with doors on, that the bank's surveyor forced a halt after the first draw, and that they are too far along to move or tear down the building. Board members said they believed the applicants had done their due diligence and that the error was not theirs. Alan Plummer said the surveyor only needs a letter, and agreed to produce it that week.

  11. 50:34
    Revaluation contract

    Donna Hays said she and Jerry Douglass had read the contract and saw no red flags. The board members present signed it and the two absent members were to come in and sign. The board said the contractor was selected through a public process and the revaluation was described as coming in 2027, with outreach and education planned.

  12. 56:11
    Solid waste contract

    Jerry Douglass said the contract was sent to the board late and is essentially an extension of the existing one, which runs out in a few days. The board discussed whether to sign it themselves or authorize the town manager, and settled on authorizing him because the contract has room for one signature.

  13. 56:11
    Historic district provisions, land use articles 5.14 and 12

    Jerry Douglass said overlapping jurisdictions between the code officer, the Historic District Commission and the planning board have caused constant confusion over who does what, quoting a report by the town planner, George. Lois Kilby-Chesley said the commission has been working on its own set of changes for three years, including definitions, and agreed to email them to the board. Josh Klein-Golden said the discussion would be more useful with both sets of proposed changes in hand, and the board agreed to hold a dedicated workshop, probably in August, with the planner, the code officer, the planning board and the commission.

  14. 1:13:14
    Land use fee schedule review

    Alan Plummer walked the board through his proposed changes to the permit fee schedule, against a comparison of area towns dated August 2022. The board went through it section by section rather than voting on the whole.

  15. 1:18:38
    Residential construction fees and structures under 200 square feet

    Plummer proposed that all residential construction adding square footage be billed at the residential structures rate, removing the 15 cents per square foot line for garages, barns and miscellaneous structures. The board raised that structures under 200 square feet need no building permit while a tiny house is defined as under 400 square feet and the state minimum for an accessory dwelling unit is 190 square feet, leaving a gap where someone could build and live in a sub-200-square-foot structure. Plummer said he would follow up on a complaint but has no jurisdiction if refused entry; the board agreed the question needs to come back separately.

  16. 1:24:14
    Occupancy permit and flood zone permit fees

    Plummer proposed a $50 occupancy permit fee, in line with other towns, and said banks require the permit. The board asked that it read per visit rather than one time, so a failed inspection requiring a return trip is charged again. On the flood zone permit, Plummer said he goes back four times for elevation checks; the board noted the resource protection district overlaps the FEMA 100-year floodplain, so no permanent building can currently occur in the floodplain, and asked him to check whether the line is still relevant.

  17. 1:29:40
    Electrical permit fees

    Plummer said the current $120 minimum is too much for small jobs and proposed $75 for one to ten openings, and 8 cents per square foot with a $120 minimum above ten openings. The board pressed for the schedule to state that the square footage is that of the whole structure being wired, giving $160 for a 2,000 square foot house, and noted the attached-versus-detached garage question is unresolved. A duplicated line for replacing an electrical service panel or meter socket and generator installation was identified as a typo.

  18. 1:34:41
    Road entrance, e911 address and private road sign fees

    Plummer proposed a $125 town road entrance permit where there is currently no fee, a $125 fee for issuing an e911 address, and a private road sign fee of $245 per sign instead of the current $126, which covers only the sign and not the post or installation. He said he arrived at $125 from his hours and salary. After-the-fact permits would be charged at double the permit fee.

  19. 1:39:58
    Forestry access roads converted to permanent access

    Heather Roy said access created under a forest operation notification is later used as a permanent driveway or to manufacture road frontage, without a town entrance permit and without sight lines being checked. The board discussed whether the town can require a permit at the point the use changes, and agreed a line for entrance conversions should be added to the fee schedule and the Maine Forest Service checked. Plummer noted forestry notifications are now confidential and do not tell the town where the harvest is.

  20. 1:56:22
    Reinspection fees

    The schedule charges nothing for the first reinspection and $100 for the second. The board asked that it be worded so every subsequent visit incurs a fee, suggested as $150 for the third and a further charge for each visit after, so that repeat visits are not effectively free.

  21. 2:01:51
    Planning board and board of appeals fees

    Josh Klein-Golden noted the board of appeals line says $70 plus abutter notification but the planning board lines say nothing about notification, and asked that the schedule match the land use ordinance since it will live on the website. Plummer said he wants the board of appeals figure raised to $200 because $70 does not cover the legal ads.

  22. 2:01:51
    Peer review escrow

    The schedule sets peer review escrow at $250 per lot, which works out to $3,250 for a 13-lot subdivision. Heather Roy argued the figure is too low, that consultants bill around $125 an hour, and that an administrative fee should cover front office time spent invoicing a developer, so that no part of a permit application costs staff time without compensation. Josh Klein-Golden said the developer pays either way and called it a mountain out of a molehill; town staff said the consultant invoices the town and the town pays, that the ordinance does not allow the escrow to be replenished until it is depleted, and that one escrow account was already running low.

  23. 2:17:53
    Board agrees to stop and take the rest as a workshop

    With the meeting at 8:45 and more sections outstanding, including questions about select board fees such as the $50 gravel pit annual registration, the board agreed to approve the sections they had settled and take the rest up separately. The second July meeting was proposed as a fee structure workshop with the town planner present.

  24. 2:29:45
    Administrative fees held over

    Plummer said the front office administrative fees sit on a separate sheet and that some are wrong, giving as an example a copy charge of 50 cents when a law passed two years ago caps charges for information at 10 cents a copy. The board took the sheet to look at later.

  25. 2:29:45
    Downtown revitalization steering committee appointments

    The application window for the community steering committee that will work on downtown revitalization has closed. The board did not take up the applications.

  26. 2:29:45
    RSU 5 school board vacancy applicants

    The board said it had received all applications. The count was first given as three applicants and then corrected to four; the names as recorded are Michael Osa (?), Candace Deus (?) and Rebecca Pollster (?), with a fourth name too garbled in the recording to give. The candidates will be invited to the July 9 meeting to say why they want the seat and answer board questions as a panel, with public comment taken at the start of the meeting and no questions from the public to the candidates.

  27. 2:34:54
    Town manager report: push notification app

    Jerry Douglass proposed a push notification service, a town-branded app for Android and iPhone that residents opt into, used for road closures, structure fires and meeting notices, with a calendar. It costs $3,900 a year, takes four weeks to set up, and the vendor would credit a month, making this year roughly $1,300. Notifications would post automatically to the website, Facebook and the news blast; the board asked to see the paperwork and discuss it at a later meeting.

  28. 2:34:54
    Board member reports

    Heather Roy raised whether law enforcement should be present at the next board meeting given how contentious the school board seat has become, and suggested the chair and town manager discuss it. She also asked to pull the June 11, 2024 minutes from the consent agenda, saying they do not read the way she remembers the meeting and she wants more time to review them.

  29. 2:39:59
    Consent agenda, meeting extension and executive session

    The board pulled the June 11 minutes, approved the remainder of the consent agenda and signed the AP warrants. Under the new bylaw the meeting had to be extended past 9:00, which the board did to 9:30. Upcoming meetings were listed as select board on July 9 and July 23 and planning board on July 10, and the board then moved into executive session on a personnel matter at 9:10.

What was decided

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

Motions the minutes record

The town's own written account of what was decided, taken from sb-meeting-minutes-06_25_24.txt. It owes nothing to the recording or to a model: the clerk typed it, with the vote. Where the summary above claims a decision this list does not carry, the summary is the part to doubt.

Worth knowing

Motion language found in the transcript

Located by pattern matching, with no model involved: "I move that", "I'll second", "all those in favour". This is an independent check on the summary above: 11 passages of motion language, against 13 decisions summarised.

Show the 11 passages

Elsewhere

← 2024-06-18 Select Board2024-07-09 Select Board →All meetings

Source & method

Town of Durham meeting recordings, YouTube auto-captions, and the town's written minutes
Captions cleaned into timestamped transcripts; topics and motions found by pattern matching; summaries written by a language model and required to cite the second each item begins. Every name attached to speech is checked against the attendance list in the minutes, and marked (?) where no record confirms it
https://www.youtube.com/@durhammaine/videos
Summary written by claude-opus-5. Attendance from sb-meeting-minutes-06_25_24.txt.
Data as of 25 August 2026 (the date of the newest recorded meeting in the index); retrieved 2 September 2026.