if you could start there thank you very much okay welcome everyone I am going to call to order the town of andov board of selectman meeting for Monday May 13th and our agenda calls this a special meeting but it is not a special meeting it is a regularly scheduled monthly meeting we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag 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 thank you very much we're g to move on to item two public speak and we'll start with Jeff Ballard I want to thank the board of Selectmen for supporting the community garden we seem to be making a lot of progress I am here tonight to request the original fence proposal which was 10 feet from the front front of the beds I gotten at the at the the last meeting it was okay to put the fence
five feet away from the front of the beds I'm asking for an additional five feet in front of the beds to give us access for vehicles from the rear for composting for bringing in soil for a small truck to be able to access the community garden I've already at the time that I requested the five feet it was not staked out where the leeching field was that was previous to the senior center getting their their leeching field established where they had staked it out and speaking with dad King the day that it was that that was approved for the town I was clear with him about what I could and couldn't do I am not
I am staying five feet away from the leeching field with any post holes and I showed built and and constructed a model for how I'm going to get around the corner of the leeching field that is affected and on top of the ground okay all right I I do believe we have that on the agenda so we'll deal with that okay we will move on to Michael and Kathy pazi before we get going Mike thank you very much for all the you know I know we gave your wife some props at our town meeting but we also need to give you some some props for all the time and hard work you've put in you've been involved in the the car program for as long as I've been involved and and I know it's probably another 10 or 15 years so thank you very much for everything you've done it's not a problem I enjoy doing it all right you guys got anything else you want to
give to us tonight I have nothing nothing no okay all right thank you Linda fish all set all right Diane grer H can you hear me yes oh you know I always have problems that no I'm doing fine no no complaints thank you very much okay all right Bill pen good evening I'm here just to for a couple issues one is to reiterate my support for eventually getting a trail in on the Joshua's trust Skinner Hill preserve proper prop the second item I'm I'd like toh support is the is the proposal for the ebike program that Erica's Erica's put together you know there there are literally hundreds of programs similar to this around the country so you know I think it' be it
it's really showing some Initiative for a small town like Andover to to go forward and get something like this in place and hopefully over the years is we can even expand on it but I think this ties in nicely with our new community center and having the program administered and all all that so thank you for your time all right thank you Bill Christie McHugh hi sorry trying to loud video there we go hi I'm just listening in tonight because I knew that U one of the agenda items would be that trail in the The Preserve that's located immediately behind my house so I naturally have some concerns I know there's some other folks on the phone who are in the same situation as we are and want to just raise the concern that that's not something that we would particularly want here in our neighborhood okay all right thank you James Cole thanks I am here for two reasons one is to voice my support for the trail that is proposed to occur on the Joshua's trust property and the Skinner Hill preserve and secondly to voice my support for the ebite program that Eric Anderson is proposing and I'll leave it at that all right thank you very Hutchinson yes this just listening for now thank you all right Andre rurak I apologize if I mispronounced that hello sorry having a bad connection here my work right now I'm here to express my concern about the tray I have a little kid that work in my backyard every day my I have some safety concerns that kind of people that tra is ATT track in our backyards since my backyard is going to be very close to
the trail as and also some privacy concerns as well so against the trail okay Ed asked but I'm assuming that's Ed czzle yeah I can you hear me we can oh hello yeah okay I had to update my Zoom software here supporting the ebike proposal I think if our country our state our town will be much better off if we get out of our internal combustion engines and take a bicycle for a mile to town hall or wherever we're going in town many of us have worked on the bike walk Andover committee that hopefully we'll get
started back up again and having ebikes available to especially seniors like myself will get people healthier as Eric has explained and also Al it just not only the health benefit but just the town as a whole to be more environmentally friendly and green I think it's a great idea other towns are doing it cities have been doing it it's time for Andover to catch up with being able to bike and walk our town the hills in town allow seniors or require seniors to have an ebike and you just use a little bit of it you don't need to speed like a motorcycle I've been doing it for years go to meeting on them it's the best way to do it so I support the ebike proposal for town of Andover thank you right thank you very much and
then there is a cell phone that is connected ends in 5475 I do not know who that is that's Leanne that's Leanne hi yes this is Leanne thanks again okay so she's connected twice did I miss anyone for public speak okay I'm going to go to 2A which is going to be additions and deletions because this is not a special meeting so do we have any additions or deletions from any of the board members I will sit there and make an addition we need to sit there and talk about the establishment of a a date for the charter revision
committee well we need to add the charter revision committee to the agenda for the purposes of establishing the initial public hearing second thought all right all anything else or do we just well all those in favor I I I all right do we have anything else that we need to add or delete from the agenda Eric is there anything that we need to add or delete from the agenda not that I know of Jeff okay and actually the item that we did let's put that one let's put that as 9e and we'll also U expand that to discussions of the charter revision committee and issues that the board would like them the committee to address so 9e Charter revision okay all right let's move on with item three board and commission presentations the library board of directors is anyone going Diane was that put on Eric for a reason were they requesting to be that is me me that was carried over from last meeting where you wanted pictures of the Daniel Bernett clock and I had for I had had copies forwarded of the packet concerning the history and Appraisal of Daniel burnap clock and seeking permission for another place to put it other than the wall to the right of the library exit in the first floor just as a side thing Jeff when when do you need a decision on that so it's being renovated right now or it's being stored I mean when does the decision on this need to be made because I mean I personally don't feel as if we should sit there and make a decision on the new community center until we're in the community center and understand you
know at least a little bit of understanding of how that building flows so when do you need a a flat out yes or no on it's on is it's it's being tabled the the man that is working on Mr crumb who's rebuilding and restoring the The Works of the clock with the proper weight material for the brass pulley it's on hold and we're not we're requesting a space in the old community room not in the Senior Center or or any alternative to that entrance space he's requesting an alternative the for a better traffic pattern no that's it's it's it's this has been in the work since last fall and I expect it to be in the works for a much longer time all right we'll try not to have that happen okay so we'll move on to item 3B the Garden Club budget request I mean that's done we gave you that's done I'm very I'm I'm let let's let's talk about the fencing here I'm assuming that that that's in the so you're you're asking to expand the distance between the beds and the the fence and I'm assuming you're going to encroach additionally on not only the septic the leech field but also on the new community center no no if if you go back to when over the first proposal for the fence was probably last fall before the first of the year it that was the original proposal but I could not not knowing where the the leeching
fields were because it was never marked out it was also part of my request along with that package for the budget and so I moved it back five feet to try and stay away from leeching Fields not knowing where they were that King from the Eastern Highlands health district has said that what I propose is not a problem I yes it brings it five feet closer to the senior center it it basically follows the the the anchor fence it's there now I had marked it out and Eric said came to me and said you know you got permission for 5 feet and now you're you've got to go back and get permission for the extra five feet to make it to 10 the original
10 okay Eric I I have to just ask because you're down there and you're dealing with and Scott please chime in where does are these marked out right now like the fence lines and where we're currently at is it all staked in the ground so you guys see it correct there is there are markings there yes okay right they're proposing to put it okay and so from from your standpoint the two of you what what are the what are the negatives of this additional request well from my perspective two things I want to actually minimize the number of people driving back there period I'm not sure I want people driving all the way back to the back end of the community gardens I think we set it up so they could drive up to the fence of the community garden but I think trying to set that place up so you can drive all the way into the back to me that's problematic frankly because even if you make it 10 feet you know now a car is a little over eight so you know do you really want cars backing in there number one and number two there's a pretty limited space behind that building and if you think about all the the recreation activities that are likely to be back there as soon as you put a fence up you're blocking everything else so it's a question of allocating space back there and how much gets allocated to community garden versus how much gets allocated to the rest of the community center those are my two takes on that okay Scott right now we have it set up so that he can back a truck up to the first
bed you know Eric has some valid concerns it it depends on what everybody else think I'm only one voice that's okay that's why we're asking you you're the most knowledgeable on the topic I think that they're I think that they have access to the beds now okay and we approved five feet correct yeah last meeting does anyone want to make a motion to expand this okay Jeff without hearing a motion to expand it I would sit there and recommend to you to sit there and and and take the five feet and sit there and put the fence around it appropriately and get started because the more we encroach on the community center which is a significant ass new asset for the town you know if you know I I would just tell you you you've gotten approval for for the last meeting for five feet that's where we're
we're going to stay at right else okay for appointments for a consideration of appointing three advisory boards for for the senior in the community center Eric had put these in our in our package he had requested three different groups to advise the new employee the recommission a five person senior Advisory board and the community center advis advisory committee now I am not suggesting that you do that at this meeting No I gave you a couple people that might be appropriate for those commissions that I thought would probably want to serve on it I'm just giving you the outline so that when we have a community a senior community center director in place The Advisory committees are all ready to go and they can just plug in and work with that person well the question is do we want one advisory committee or we want three separate ones and your recommendation is three separate ones to advise on three separate topics to the individual that's my guess what would be what would be the reason for three separate advisory boards because we're
essentially giving this person Three Hats Senior Center Director Community Center Director Rec Center Director is if we keep it three separate entities is this how I'm trying to understand is this person GNA meet with them or are they gonna yeah I would presume they'd meet with them you know once or twice a month with each board sure I I I don't have a problem how Eric laid it out I I worry about who's in control of when they tell this individual what to do their advisory boards it doesn't get done they're going to end up coming back to the board of Selectmen or to Eric and sit there and complain especially from a negative perspective so but to be really honest Eric's logic is is sound because he's really breaking it down to the recreation committee the rec commit Rec commission would control Sports and and and different community activities the senior group would would advise for the young in heart and all of the senior activities the senior lunch in and and have input in there the third one I know you said a community advisory committee but just Express to me what your thought is related to that group that's the only group and what would they what would their focus be for the new individual so the the question becomes is that the the seniors will advocate for their own programming and rightfully so and the
rec commission will advocate for recreational programs but there's a lot of people that a aren't going to be part of the rec programs and B are not seniors and we're building this as a senior and a community center so there should be some kind of group that works on stuff related to a community center and understands what a community center should be doing as as functions as opposed to a senior center or specifically Recreation so I mean those are my recommendations you can you can ver that any way You' like if if the recre recreation committee let's just say this if the recreation committee has has an issue with the how the director is U doing doing Recreation who's who's the boss who's the chief you Recreation director or the committee who do you want to be the boss in IDs in Ence we're we're the board of directors and Eric is the CEO who has to deal with them on a day-to-day basis okay so just just those two let's say because it's gonna come up oh it's gonna come told you to do this and you're not doing this that happens every day though that happens every day with a lot of different who's the the chief those two I think if we wrote this up we would write this up as that these groups would advise the new director in in these areas and it would only be an advisory capacity what they'll do as residents is if they don't see their
needs being taken care of they're going to complain and the first person they're going to go to is not the director they're going to go to Eric and then or they're going to go to Yus Scott so it's just the same pattern that we deal with all the time the question is they're advisory groups not Direct Control groups and what they're advising on is my had specific things that mean something to the people that are participating in those committees and that one point is the is the director going to need any more advice from these three boards I'm sure this board is going to give that individual advice as well well along long as I'm I'm I'm thinking that
right now it's there to help this new director get on board yeah some point it also gives them gives the director a group of committed hopefully committed individuals that are willing to lend a hand because the new director is going to need assistance from various groups including us so I I don't really have a problem with it I think what we would want to do is we would want to ask for volunteers potentially for those committees and sit there and see how it goes it's just a question of are we all willing to support hat anybody nobody yeah I I kind of had this the same question that Scott did just how long we thought that they would be advising this person so that pretty valid point you know forever I mean I I don't think the seniors are gonna want to give up say in what they do and instead of having 40 seniors I'll go to a director and give them issues you have one group of seniors that's empowered to work with that person to come up with what programming the seniors think are appropriate I don't necessarily want a director to tell the seniors what programming they're going to get I want a senior center director to work with them to get the programs they want plus some stuff I want you know I think we're gonna get we're gonna probably get questions it's good to have this conversation because I'm just thinking if I'm a Senior Transport ation driver I want to know like what what is my role or what things would I be talking to this person about I think we don't have to talk about this tonight but just continue to
say this is what we we think this person would give value to the new director I I think that's what I'm kind of struggling with is trying to understand because I'm I'm not in the mix of this every day may I mean maybe these people already have an idea in mind of what they'll share with the director but that's just my thoughts right now but I I think it's I think it's great because you're giving you're giving the director insight for people that are already doing it and and then the seniors can input their thoughts into some of these people like you said so it's not multiple people going to the director so I like the idea yeah and my goal in that was to provide a wide off essentially of senior issues and Senior programs you got to put Kathy pazi on it because she's been sitting in that role essentially for a long time so if anybody can advise somebody on what the town has done up to this point it's her so if she's willing to serve she would be an obvious one the young at heart is probably the second biggest program that we run and so I would put Sue Schmidt because Su Schmidt runs that program currently well okay let's let's back up this is not for us to sit there and say who we would want on these committees they all have to submit you know a notice that they're interested in the question for the board is are we willing to establish these three new committees to assist the director of the community side and if we are we just need to make
a motion to do it okay if no one else is gonna I I'll make a motion that we establish three committees to assist and advise the new Community Center Director those three committees would be a a wre committee a senior Advisory Board and a community advisory committee I will second that okay further discussion all those in favor I I okay all right five nothing and so Eric what I would request is that you publish these with Carol and ask for potential members and obviously there's there's some groups that you feel strongly about and I please ask you to reach out to those individuals and sit there and see if they'd put their names in all right sure anybody anybody else have any other issues related to that I just have one quick question since the wreck commission already exists and it's a fully formed board do you want to ask again or what is it that you want to do related to the wreck commission well personally you can leave that group Al as The Advisory Group for that that's fine because they're
already in I mean unless anybody has a issue I mean you or myself or any Resident can go to a Rec commission meeting and sit there and tell them things that they would like to be considered for the new community center so and then that group and the chairperson can go to the to the Community Center Director and tell them what's up but so I I have no problem with that I don't think you need to okay for a new group there but the other two you do sure okay any other issues on that no okay 4 B cart Don lunberg so in your packet you have both a resignation from Mike Bazi and then don Lundberg has graciously agreed to take over the cart program so my suggestion would be that you appoint officially appoint Don Lundberg as the Andover representative for the cart or the endover person running the cart program somebody want to make that motion I make that I make the motion to accept Don lunberg as the new cart volunteer seconded okay all those in favor I all right five nothing thank you very much okay item five resignations there was a resignation in the packet from Mike plazy resigning from the cart program which we just discussed again I'd like to just thank Mike for all his time and everything that he's done for the community related to this program and everything else so thank you very much for your your time thank you Mike right item six town administrative report okay I'm gonna share my screen
here larger okay I'm just going to go over the things that have changed or modified since I put together the packet number one July 4th we scheduled an employee meeting in the town hall just to go over the benefit information changes and presumably we'll have a budget so J June June 4th sorry you're right June 4th after that we're going to have a cookout we scheduled it then because the following day the young at heart program is having their cookout and since we got to get the grill out anyway we might as well grill out for both so Board of Selectmen are certainly invited to both meeting and the cookout afterward if any of you could make it that would be great I did submit for a congressional appropriation through Senators Murphy and blue Fall's office it would be for approximately $410,000 which would complete the community center and also pay for the installation of the backup generator that would cover the fire department the town hall and the community center so we've done a lot of the background electrical and conduit work to make that happen because some of that had to go in now while the community center was being built it's a fairly large expensive project putting the generator in so I'm hoping to fund it congressionally that'll allow us to stretch the money that we have put aside for the community center and get both the Community Center
completed as well as the backup generator for the complex I also submitted a grant through the State Department of Aging they had some arpa funds that they allotted to senior centers and proposed to use that money to buy a lot of the equipment for the kitchen that way even before we have time to do permanent installs at least we'll have functional refrigerators freezers you know and an ice maker and microwave that kind of stuff however shortly after I submitted the Grant I got a note from the Department of Aging saying the governor is considering canceling that program and reusing the money elsewhere so it's unclear whether they're going through with that frankly the reason why I held off submitting it towards near the end of the program cycle was because I wanted the community center as far along as we could get before we submitted it so we knew better what we what we got that may have been a mistake maybe I should have submitted the thing you know six months ago but you know I was well before the end of the program deadline so I wasn't really worried
about it at the time HVAC work is ongoing at the Town Hall they should be done by June 1 the electrical work is largely commute completed and the fire department HVAC work is going to start pretty quickly the propane tanks were installed today they've left the pressure test on them Thursday they should come back and do final hookups and put the regulator ERS in I am working to find an MEP which is an engineer that specializes mechanical electrical and plumbing issues to give us a schematic and a repair plan for the endover elementary school Plumbing issues I have been touch with a bunch of the engineering
firms most of them have frankly told me they're way too busy to be even considering about something if we want to consider construction this summer I did find one firm out of Hartford that thinks they have enough bandwidth to get it done reasonably called Aztec Engineers so they're going to be out Thursday and hopefully we'll get a proposal back from them on what it would cost to to design the updates okay so as far as I know and I was trying to puru through all the state laws that have cleared both the House and Senate it does appear that they passed a state law that allows schools to keep 2% of their Surplus if they're un under budget so this will bypass the board of Finance which has always been the the agency which determined whether they were allowed to do that or not there's a lot of other legislation that may or may not get signed by the governor still trying to figure all that out some of it still up in the air so that's it's been a kind of a crazy legislative session as far as Bunker Hill Bridge goes next on May 29th we're going to be doing interviews for the for the inspection construction inspection services so we invited four companies to
bid SLR WMC AI engineers and Michael Baker International the review panel is myself Mark Burns representing the state of Connecticut two other Mark St Germaine is a retired Connecticut do engineer and Todd penny is the engineer for the town of centry and Ed Sisley is also on that panel so that was the panel that I was able to get approved by the state do and they get final approval of the panel since they're the people that are actually paying for the work before you leave that because it it involves Bunker Hill Road can you sit there and ask Todd Penny how the
potential Al gunin pipeline project will impact that road because I want to make sure that if there there's something that is being built in that area that it doesn't impact traffic in the town of Andover so I'd like to get as much information on that as we possibly can understood I mean where the pipeline crosses Bunker Hill is still in the town of Andover not in the town of centry so yeah what's this pipeline project Jeff excuse me what's the pipeline project there is a pipeline project that since I don't read the paper I get all my news on the phone a nice local resident I won't name names Diane granier sent us a a newspaper article on it and she sent it to us today so it is I don't I what I went online to look for some more information it's not
saying as to what type of project it doesn't appear to be the type of project that was proposed in Ando but we just don't have enough information so my concern is that that project which is scheduled got potentially for Bunker Hill Road and what was the other cross feeder Eric hop River Road hop River Road that that property is fairly close to Andover and while I obviously have a problem with the expansion and we all did in town of VOR have problem with the expansion of the pipeline and the work my concern my biggest concern is traffic and if their plan is to put something in that area and they expect to drive a significant amount of trucks down Bunker Hill Road I have a problem so anyway let's find out more information it's on the agenda it's it's not on the agenda but it's it's it's got to be on our minds because we don't want it to negatively impact Handover understood so we still have about 12 a half thousand left in the original do connectivity Grant if we do approve the ebike loner program I would plan on spending a portion of that on that project if not you know we should probably start thinking about what else we should what we could consider getting for the ball fields or potentially the jump start equipment for the playground so just to be thinking about that the second thing is Public Works installed the new pet waste dispensers that you had asked for a while back at the Veterans Memorial Field and they also put up the additional signage and then as Jay was driving away after just putting up the signage he sent me a couple photos
of a resident who showed up right after that and was walking playing with his German Shepherd on the middle of the field which is what we said before is that you can put up all the signage you want so my intention is to send those pictures on to the resident State tropper and I I don't think since I don't believe we actually have an ordinance that prohibits it he can go talk to the individual but I don't know what else he could really do I mean you can't arrest him I don't think so that's where we're at with that can we pass a minor or ordinance on that yes then let's for the next meeting let's put that on the agenda I don't think you can p well we just passed the ability fine that wouldn't be a minor ordinance and if there's no fine what's your enforcement mechanism okay so we can't we have to have a major ordinance to place a fine and we got to go to town meeting correct okay perfect all right keep going and that's basically all I have for my report unless you have questions for me what's the chance of getting the $410,000 from I think actually it's reasonably good because it's a request that's right
in the middle of one it's we're not asking for a lot of money compared to most of the requests that come through that program it's actually a very modest request through that particular agency and two because we haven't ever really applied for any sort of congressional funding before they're more likely to give it to us than somebody else and three it was actually a pretty well written proposal so I think we stand a reasonably good chance of doing it but it also depends on how the legislative sessions go overall as most of you know they this should be something that goes through in September or October but this year they didn't make their minds up on anything until April so there's a significant chance the way Congress has been working lately that any funding rest request would be delayed but it's also the first time I've tried for this type of funding so so I think we have a reasonable chance but but I don't know anybody have any additional questions for Eric and and actually part of the reason why I wanted to go that route is because one of our concerns is that because we just built the community center anything we do now in terms of major construction activities is going to trip over into
prevailing wage but if it's a congressional appropriation we're required to use prevailing wage anyway so this is all bid at prevailing you know all the bid numbers are at prevailing wage so I don't care whether it's a prevailing wage job because it's Federal money that that would be spent on so that's kind of one of the reasons why I pursued that route you know okay any other questions for Eric okay all right Eric thank you very much y item seven a discussion with the assessor John chaponis regarding information that we've seen the last few months so I know John is on the meeting or was on the meeting is he on the meeting there he is there we go my computer locked up for a second okay all right John thank you for joining us certainly over the last couple months Eric has been providing us some information that we requested regarding property taxes for structures and then property taxes for personal property or the tax the assessment for the personal property taxes and then also we requested last month the a summary of the top 20 taxpayers for Motor Vehicles by Resident if all possible we did not get that in our package but that's something we'd like to get but and that's that is totally my fault I did not pass that on to John for that I apologize no problem we we can I mean listen I said this at one of the last meetings this is the John's
John's role and the assessor role is very important in that it generates all of our tax funding but we as a board need to do a little bit better job of understanding how that base goes up and down and how the work is done because John's role is very difficult to evaluate and you know one of my first questions to you John is how do other communities evaluate the work of the assessors I'm not sure I understand the question you're asking okay so everybody who sits there and does a job and especially when it's a complicated job like yours there has to be some way to evaluate the work
being done so I'm asking you do other communities because I know Andover doesn't do it does do other communities how do they evaluate the work being done by their assessor's office I mean I don't think they treat this office different than any other office I mean you know in my fulltime town we have a meeting once a year where you get evaluated but you're getting evaluated on you know if you show up for work on time and if you're not using too much sick time and if if you're treating people with respect I mean those are the kind of things we get evaluated on everything else when like when it comes to real estate appraisal that's an opinion of value so you're not getting you're not getting evaluated on the appraised value that you set on a property if that's your question so BAS basically the mechanisms that the assessor office in every Community uses the part of it is is not you know you know in my field it's you add and subtract and you sit there and you do it and Jeff Murray's field it's engineering there's certain rules that are followed my question is how do we as a community
especially a volunteer board try to understand how you go at and how your assessor's office goes at and calculates out different things and and John what I'm getting is you're going to tell me that's not possible but I really do want to get down to understanding it better because I've been involved in a in town for a while and I still don't exactly understand how the calculations are done and where you go but I'll even skip that for right now my question on the property owners that are available to us for all the properties how does the assessed value
on any rental property work so someone like Dollar General or I mean they may own that property outright but like the Kings Kingsley Drive apartments that that location is making is charging rent on a number of units how does how does the assessed value change based upon any rental income collected okay so I'll back up to your first question before I answer the second one there are some benchmarks in regards to what you just said for example when we do a townwide reevaluation it has to be meet the performance-based revaluation standards with the state of Connecticut also I mean there are certain things like state reports that have to be filed timely or or there are penalties that get assessed against the town so there are some things like that I guess they just don't pop to to the top of my mind when when you hit me with the question for the first time in regards to how property is appraised there's three different methods there's the sales comparison approach there's the cost approach and there's the income approach the sales comparison approach and cost approach can be used on any kind of property the income approach is typically reserved for that of a a commercial property with the thought process being that nobody buys a 30 unit apartment building to live in it essentially what they're buying is the income stream they're they're buying the right to collect you know
$20,000 a month in in rent or whatever you know the rent may be what's also important is the expenses because you could have two different apartment buildings that are both 30 units and one the owner could provide heat and hot water to all of them and the second one could have individual units where they get their own bill so it's not just the gross rent that comes into play it's it's what we call Net operating income it's the gross income and then subtract all the expenses and what are you actually left with and then that goes into a a real estate formula called the income capitalization approach to Value which is based on a anticipated return on investment so you know the investor is expecting a certain percent return on their money over the holding period and all those all
those consideration go into the capitalization approach so sales cost and income so a property such as the Kingsley apartment you might take all three of those into account and then determine the value that you you come up with to determine the total taxes paid you you wouldn't use the sales approach because you don't have enough sales in town and the cost appro approach is certainly the the least reliable unless you're dealing with something that's really really fairly new and a good example of something for the cost approach would be like a hospital something that that doesn't sell and doesn't rent and you know might be a newer it's probably the least of the three approaches that get utilized in and over with our commercial property we predominantly used income approach okay and just so we as a board understand that income approach you send out forms to all of those types of properties and they complete them from a standpoint of a similar to a tax return where it's it's a independent or self-reporting all commercial property owners are required to file the income and expense statement in the state of iate annually they have to file it by May 1st or there's a 10% assessment penalty that gets applied we get a very
successful return on the on the I that we send out in endover versus larger communities tend to get a worse return the city of Harford gets about 75% compliance meaning they have 25% of the people who are willing to eat a 10% penalty rather than divulge the data if they divulge false data then they get the 10% penalty anyway okay and and how many of those do we have in town I can't answer that question off the top of my head I mean I'd have to go back and look but it's a small number because Andover is a small town with a very small commercial base yeah and and when you say commercial based just so we all understand that includes the apartment complexes in town or Does it include I think we only have two apartment complexes in to yeah you get that yeah okay all right and then so we'll we'll sit there and we'll come back to that and thank you very much for coming because it's always helpful to hear it from you so we can understand what we're dealing with when you move down to the property taxes personal property taxes can you just explain to us how those reports are filed when they're
filed and then the work that's done on the I'm sorry let me go back one step first permits how are permits evaluated on all those properties like what work does your office do when someone files a permit on any property within Town sure so we get a copy of every permit in town and we put them in map and lot order and I go out and and take a look at every single property we get permits for solar and solar isn't tax but I still drive by and take a look at the property sometimes you get a permit for electrical and you get out there and there's a pool and a deck and and a bunch of stuff but the electrician pulled the permit for the ground fall so you never really know what you're going to get sometimes we get a permit for a roof and typically a roof by itself isn't something that I would increase the assessment on but when you get to the property you find out they did a new roof siding shutters gutters Windows Doors you know the garage doors the works and you're seeing
a lot of properties getting that facelift these days so if they do a multitude of those items you're talking about 40,000 $50,000 sometimes maybe more depending on the size of the house so we do go out at every permit and you know if I'm going to be on the street anyway and they're map and lot order it only takes a few more seconds to drive by a house that added solar and see that you know it looks the same and it doesn't look like anything else was added so I do drive by and look at those as well right thank you it's not the only you know Source we use for discover list and value you know the definition of my role is the fair administration of
the local property tax and and the easiest way to make it fair is to discover list and value everything that's taxable and make sure you're not omitting anyone so another thing that we do is we look at realtor.com once a week and I used to do it once a month you can't anymore because they get listed on Thursday and they're under last best offers by Sunday these days so you know when people put something up on realtor.com that's the only time they don't come in and tell me that there's cracks in the base and you know everything that's wrong this is when they're telling you everything that they've remodeled everything that's been replaced and they're boasting about you know the the the finer attributes of of the property so we look at TH those and we compare them with our own data to see if there's any work that was done without Hermits and and if you're you're looking at that information and you're looking at sales data do you automatically increase the assessment if the sales pric is above your assessed value no so the law on the state of Connecticut says that you have to appraise every property as of the same date and that date has to be the date of your last townwide revaluation so our last townwide reval was for October 1st 2021 so let's say there was a a brand new street with a bunch of new houses and they were all identical and they
were all selling for 450,000 on October 1st of 21 and now this year they built two more and they sold for 650 we still would value them at 450,000 because the the thought process is if you value everyone as of the same date taxation will be fair it wouldn't be fair if we were to crank those other the two new ones up to 650 and everybody else stayed at 450 okay but in the next revalue that that 650 would then become the potential value for all the remaining houses in that complex it would but I mean you know it's a sliding scale if your grand
list goes up 20% you know your Mill rate's coming down 20% you it's a fallacy that a lot of people think we make money off rebound we meaning the town get additional tax dollars we do not I try to give an example of it's more like everybody in town went out to dinner and the check came and we we divvy it up over you know who who pays what portion of it you really shift around who pays what at our last rebal some properties on Andover Lake had tax bills that may may have doubled I mean they went way up because the sales on the lake were going way up and and that wasn't true in the rest of of town the rest of the Town might have went up 10 or 15% but the lake went up sub substantially so that's what revaluation is designed to do it it's designed to in Connecticut we tax people at vorum which is Latin for according to value and because value changes over time they picked five years as the time frame in which every years we'll take a new look and we'll revalue everyone and and some people will go up and some people will go down at reval we actually have people whose tax bills go down after revaluation yeah when you're dealing with personal property taxes I know we got I was on that for a second but I went back to the other thing on permits can you explain to us how personal
property taxes work in town so we can understand the mechanism and then let's walk through a couple things certainly so I think everybody knows that we tax real estate and that we tax Motor Vehicles personal property is kind of the one thing that gets forgotten because it it doesn't typically ever touch the average residential homeowner businesses in Connecticut have to file a personal property declaration and pay tax on the equipment that they own so something that you or I might own like a lawn mower and a leaf blower and a weed whacker wouldn't be taxed but the minute you know I open John's Landscaping you know and I start doing it as a business those items
become taxable same for household Furniture you know it's exempt in in a residence but it's taxable when it's you know used by a business so they have to file a declaration once every year it's called the personal property declaration or state form M15 and they file that in our office and they declare everything that they have and it's it's a cost times depreciation excuse me mechanism that values it so it's basically if you bought it this year it's 95% last year 90 three years ago 80 70 60 and it goes down to a 30% residual if it's EDP electronic data processing equipment like computers or printers it has an accelerated depreciation table because that the the used value on that stuff falls off the shelf quickly so that goes 86 60 40 down to a 20% residual after four years so first the first the values depreciate then you add them all up and you take 70% for Taxation and that's if you know there's no exemptions that were applicable because the state of Connecticut is is constantly passing more and more exemptions and sort of having carve outs for specific things that we can't ta we can no longer tax okay so if we sat there and and looked at two two that are at the bottom of this list the 7-Eleven which is the gas station that's on Route Six so just for everybody's understanding that $999,000 is the current depreciated value of all the internal and external items that is
needed to run that business so you're looking at 7-Eleven yep and you have what 99290 yes yeah I need glasses it's so fine to read it so first thing we would do is 99 to Eric could you share that please sure it's in the packet on page 13 I know yeah so the first thing you would do is equalize it so if you take that number and you divide by S or 70% it inflates it to the 100% value which is basically 140 42,000 141 843 that's the 100% depreciated value so if everything they owned was seven years old or older it would be about a half a million dollars worth of property so
unless you know the exact ages of all the different you know items it's it's difficult to put to sit here and say exactly what they have for a grand total no understanding just just trying to get everybody to understand how it works so the pumps that are utilized to pump gas are they considered personal property yes okay are the coolers that are in the facility considered personal property that's part of the real estate the coolers the built-ins yeah if they have a freestanding one that's standing in the corner sure but the ones that are built into the walls that you can load from the back as part of the real estate
okay all right but the pumps would be considered personal property okay would and so how so so your office takes the the returns that are completed by the taxpayer evaluates them how many audits do you perform just so we understand just mentally any no assessor's office I know of except for two that employ an auditor actually do their own in-house audits in Colchester we hire out a firm that does them and we spent $5,000 doing audits last year on five properties and it brought in $36,000 in Revenue brought in about 15,000 a year but we go back we do a look back for three years all right and then so anything along the lines of manufacturing within the community there's manufacturing exemptions that are provided to them that's one of the many exemptions that have been passed in the last few years and a lot of them when they're passed you know they start out with State reimbursement so when the manufacturing machinery and equipment exemption was first created might have been about 12 or 14 years ago it was only for 5 years and the
state would reimburse the municipality and I used to file a a state report with a claim and I used to get reimbursement let's see I'm going to say it was about 2007 or 2008 when the state really started struggling with their budgets and you know they weren't even making their pension payments and they started cutting Aid to municipalities everywhere and they eliminated the reimbursement on and Manufacturing machinery and equipment I it was really bad for towns like East Hartford and Stratford with Pratt and sakori aircraft they lost like six and eight million dollars a year in in reimbursement it's not that bad in and over but still it is a revenue loss we have other exemptions they've eliminated too the elderly lowincome elderly tax Ben benefit or some people call it circuit breaker we used to get reimbursed for that they eliminated it veterans exemptions they eliminated the reimbursement on and even now you know with a general fund balance or they like to call it the
rainy day fund in the state of Connecticut it's up to 3.9 billion up from 3.3 billion last year it's the highest it's ever been in the state of Connecticut you would think they would reinstitute the funding on some of these programs that they created that were their program and they were supposed to pay for but that has not happened last year they threw $100 million at Motor Vehicle tax relief but it only went to towns who had a mill rate in excess of 32 and $32 and 46 cents it's it's weird that they picked that number but they picked that number because that's how high they could go and spend exactly $100 million so we didn't see any of the motor mot vehicle relief
money okay and then I know we don't have the motor vehicle information but just so you can explain to everybody the motor vehicle Motor Vehicles how our Motor Vehicles are taxed within the town or assessed I'm sorry sure so whereas real estate is based on fair market value as of a given date Motor Vehicles are not it would be impossible for us to actually appraise motor vehicle for starters we're not used car salespeople and you know everybody has their car at work when when when we're available to look at them during the day so they're not taxed on you know their condition their mileage and all those factors they're taxed on 100% of the clean retail value out of the NADA book and then we take that value and we multiply times 70% for an assessment so if the clean retail is 20 grand we're going to assess it at 14,000 and honestly I mean sometimes that vehicle assessed at 14,000 is only worth 125 I mean or even less the older the car gets the further it the further it gets away from being anywhere near a fair market value but once again it's not designed to be a fair market value I try to explain it as a use Texs you know it's just it it's the mechanism that they've chosen and they would have the same assessment on and each car all of us
would in any town in the state of Connecticut we're not doing anything differently here the pretty much everything I've said tonight is how it's done Statewide across the board now there's a law that passed two years ago and it goes into effect this October 1 and it says that commercial vehicles will no longer be taxed the way they were in the past that commercial property owners would have to report those Motor Vehicles on their personal property declaration and give their actual cost of of what they paid for for the motor vehicle they actually tried to chain strip that out this year and last year and both both attempts failed it actually passed the house this year and in the Senate I'm not kidding the very last night the 11th Hour it might have been 78 n o'clock somebody put an amendment on it and they passed it in the Senate with an amendment so it was something different than what was passed in the house they tried to send it back to the house and pass it with an amendment and that didn't happen so right now we're still going forward under the premise that that would be the law this year we change the way commercial Motor Vehicles are taxed and I was in a meeting today that was about an hour and a half and and it had people from Harford including three members from the governor's office it was on zoom and we talked about this long and hard because I'm not sure we're actually ready to implement this our software vendors are not prepared for this but as of right now that's the direction we're heading all right so can I can I ask y so could you go
over the cell towers and and I see like AT&T and T-Mobile are those the ones that have the arrays on the on the cell towers so there's couple different components with cell tower taxation the first one is the real estate let's say that you know there's two houses side by side and one of them gets a cell tower built in the backyard because the land buts Route Six and it's kind of up on a hill and it's a great spot and they wanted to put a cell tower there even though it's a residential property we're going to go back and we're going to we're going to increase the value of that real estate because they have a 20year land lease with the cell tower company and they're cre they're collecting somewhere between 12 and 1,800 bucks a month sometimes even more than that if it's a really hot location and and you know if you were looking at those two houses Scott you know maybe you wouldn't want to sell Tower in the backyard but you know if you knew they were going to pay 1,800 bucks a month you might say I'd rather take that house and I'd be willing to pay more it usually equates to about $10 to $200,000 more that we appraised the real estate for just for having the land leased for the pad that's the real estate owner rarely do the cell towers own the real estate so there's first that component the second component is
the the tower itself which believe it or not those monopoles are not all that expensive and that personal property can be taxed one of two ways they can either a reported on the personal property declaration to the municipality or they're allowed to report it to the state of Connecticut and pay on a $41 mill rate and then the town gets reimbursed when they pay at the state of Connecticut they they they use a much f depreciation table and excuse me that is also like EDP electronic data processing computerized equipment that depreciates quite quickly and gets replaced quite quickly so those are the the two different ways of cell tower will will get taxed there's the land and then there's the personal property itself but all correct me if I'm wrong but you have both like friend inst crown castle owns the tower and then each particular company like AT&T whatever owns their own transmitters correct and those are taxed separately they are but
they're they're not you know this isn't million dollars worth of equipment it's not as expensive as you might think and and with when four or five different people sign on to a tower that's when the landowner gets more and more that's why I said they could be getting anywhere from 1,200 to 1,800 00 or or or even two grand or 2200 depending on how many people put an antenna on the tower my experience is the majority of the time the guy who owns the tower the pole itself is not one of those companies he he owns that pole and he offers it out for Verizon and T-Mobile and those companies to drop one of their antennas on them and sometimes you'll next time you look at a tower look you might see one at one level where it's like coming off here and then there's another one here and another one a little bit higher those are the different antennas and and they're at different altitudes on purpose so crown castle is the owner of the pole who's Crown crown castle I honestly don't oh okay yes it says right there in the notes cell tower so they
might own I'd have to pull the Declaration to look at exactly what they have I don't who put the notes there because I didn't do that I put the notes there after talking to Berta okay and then there's a cellco partnership says cell phone tower also that one I know for a fact is a tower company but you know all our towers are over they're over seven years old they're fully depreciated they're probably down to 20% Then times 70% for taxation that's why it's so low and but they're not as expensive right out of the gate as you might think you'd be surprised but but if that was the case then don't you go on to the income formula to sit there and see yeah change change how you tax them then I I mean listen we're just trying to understand this so we'll we'll Circle back to this because I don't want to over I don't want to K this well before we Circle away let's be clear that you can't use the income approach on personal property when we talked about the income approach we were talking about real estate and everything that we do is strictly governed by State Statute so all I can do is what the law allows for okay but they also on the cell towers they're also updating all of their equipment you
know all the time to make it a better and I mean they don't leave it and be stagnant they sit there and update like Eric wants to do with all our truck Le you know might be a different analogy but they're going to change every five years so they're really going to a higher level of dollars related to this new equipment that they bring in and that's only if they tell you okay so I when it comes to National tenants my experience in being in this business they they're usually 100% spoton And A lot of times they have a firm that's filing it for them they absolutely do upgrade their equipment Jeff and it's probably every four to five years when I said Tower I meant the tower I didn't mean the antennas the tower is just an aluminum pole and those are all more than 10 years old so you have the tower company as number one then you have the different cell companies and then you have the land owner underneath we actually do use the income approach on the income that's given to the land owner that's how we end up adding anywhere from 180 to $250,000 to the value of the real estate so trust me if it's out there I'm taxing it all right did anyone else have any questions for John before we let him go John thank you very much for coming it's something that we probably need to do more often because we all need to be better educated as to how we're taxing the community and understanding how it's working and sit there and see if there's anything that we're identifying out there that's a little different and Eric if you can for the
next meeting please please obtain the the highest paying motor vehicle residences so we can understand that or businesses because I'm more interested in the businesses than I really am the residents but it would help I mean this information is great for us to get a better understanding of of who's getting taxt what within the community so thank you John John thank you very much have a good evening thanks John okay all right we're gonna move on to item eight old business 8A the Joshua trust discussion I'll start this one I spoke to I'm sorry I forgot John's last name
Eric H John henen from Josh trust today and I spoke to him about the the different options related to the properties and I talked to him specifically about the fact that because there was so much opposition and I know there's a lot of people that are in favor of the potential Trail but because there's so much opposition at this point in time and because the flip-flopping back and forth between where it goes and what parking lot to use and not use I told him that I didn't think that it would pass so unless someone from this board wants to make a motion to sit there and vote on it I would like to move on okay hearing none we'll move on to item 8B Community Center construction update okay so the community center construction is going pretty well overall we have had to go back and revise some of the engineering sketches for the sidewalk locations because we ran into a couple things one literal one figurative the literal one being the pathway connected to the town hall right at a column and since most people are not capable of going through a column we had to redesign it so that
the pathway went around the column the second thing so I think the plan that we had and I sent to you depicted the new location of the pathway I could certainly share my screen if you wanted to discuss that portion of it and then we're getting fairly close to the the end of the contract with Leading Edge they seem to think they're two to three weeks out from having a turnover to the town hall there's obviously quite a few things on the punch list that still has to be done but they have time frames for most of those things at this point so that's my take on it I'm happy to share my screen with the the image I gave you or entertain questions or or whatever before we get started thank you for the information that you sent but I would recommend that you get back with all of the committee members in including all of the committee members on that information and make sure that that they are in sync with what your changes are and what you're doing so that's what I I would ask I mean I I saw the information this this morning and I I think it'd be appropriate for you to share that with Adrian Scott I know Scott seen it but any of the other members of the community that were involved in that committee it would be beneficial to get their input rather than my personal input so just letting you know that okay are you at asking for a delay in
construction because I mean we're we're talking about pouring those sidewalks probably in the next couple of days okay so Scott is arle aison from the board of Selectmen are you okay with where those sidewalks are G yeah I was I was there when we were discussing the location of those sidewalks wasn't I here all right and then and then the the the retaining wall being removed are you okay with that Scott yes I am sir okay so I still would tell you Eric before you know if those theall sidewalk in the back it there print there's a couple other did did you read my email I I did and when when I sent that to you what I said was that was meant to depict the location of just the front sidewalk and the reason that was done was because our town engineer didn't use the latest print when you know when he added the new sidewalk locations in grades so we don't actually have a map that shows all of the things that have changed in the past plus the front so this was only meant to to give the contractor guideline elevations for putting that front sidewalk in that alone that's kind of why I passed this on to you and I I said that to you guys at the time that that's
what that depicted so yes there's there's a sidewalk in the back that's not represented on that the location of one of the basins and cleanouts is not located on that there's a bunch of things that aren't indicated on on that that print okay he didn't have time is that what happened he started with an an old print well part of the reason he started with an over older print Scott is once we went back to the final print in the in what we presented to the boards showed the wall in place so but when we took out the retaining wall because we frankly didn't have the money to afford the retaining wall and we eliminated the patio again for the same reason they went back to the last design that had grading in Contours showing no retaining wall there and he started with that one and that was before we had made all the changes to where the rear sidewalks went and some of the drainage structure so that that was just that addition was just to show grading in and around where the sidewalks were so we had accurate numbers for the contractor that's what that picture was meant for okay well if Scott is good with it I'm good with it so Scott if you're good with it good okay so Eric please don't put construction on hold please don't do that yeah don't insinuate that no but I mean if you were going to tell me that I had to get that approved before the sidewalks go in that's what I would have had to do I thought that decision had already been made but that's okay but Eric if if Scott is good u i as a
member of the board are good and I would hope the other members of the board are good so anybody have any issues okay the fit out of the building Eric in your in the package you you listed what your intentions were I don't I personally don't have any problems with it I'm sure there's going to be lots of things that we need to sit there and add to this the question is anyone going to have any problems if we use contingency to to do this to some at some level not 100% but some level if Eric needs it [Music] anybody no okay so then Eric continue to to go through and do what you're doing
and just don't put us in U Financial Jeopardy so and I know you won't so I won't put you in financial Jeopardy so go the qu the fit out of the kitchen any additions is going to be added to the overall cost isn't it not if we what we would do with the kitchen Scott right now is we would buy the equipment and because the for instance the ice maker is technically on Wheels the refrigerator is movable the the the freezer is movable those are not built in so we can get away with purchasing them without having to sweat it's just an expense it's not so we can do that without sweating prevailing wage over that so the only things I think where we're starting to get into a concern would be the Audi visual stuff you know because we saw thatt and I thought that we we couldn't add that well but the other thing is that as long as our own guys are installing it and we're just buying the equipment I think we're going to be okay with that well how do we find out that you're certain I think makes me concerned well let's evaluate we don't have to have this conversation in our meeting Eric please please look at it
and make sure that you're good with what we're doing but the way that you broke it out in your list of how you wanted to attack it I was fine with it there's just a financial component that we're all concerned about so what about the floor in the kitchen yeah yeah what what about it what are we gonna still put the epoxy in there yes okay yeah I would have stripped it out if we absolutely had had to but at this point there's no reason to I mean if Leading Edge is willing to sit there and tell us they have two to four weeks left you got to be really close they they know what's coming right there's no big
surprises hopefully we're we're down to the very end and we understand exactly what we're dealing with and all of the items that Eric has laid out will end up getting done in an appropriate timeline okay okay is there anything on that list that you're not comfortable with purchasing presuming it's not going to get us in hot water with prevailing wage that's that's my question for you is there anything in that fit out that you're uncomfortable with or you don't want to spend on how tight is it right now if you're going to buy the audio visual equipment and before you weren't going to well right now we got about a $115,000 pusher y okay so can we wait until Leading Edge is done and then you'll really know what you got we can the the only issue and I do understand you want it outfitted so that July 1 when we have a new person there they're ready to go leading edges is
going to turn it over to June 1st or June 15th somewhere between those two dates is my guess okay but we're wired for all this stuff correct we are okay so I wouldn't sweat it I mean I would just wait till the building's completely done and then just buy the equipment okay let me I I don't I'd be interested in helping with that actually because I'm kind of a technical home home theater so yeah you know what Jee you and I haven't talked yet but Eric was Eric and I were talking some about some speakers and stuff and I said you were the better I could be on those conversations but I felt like you were the better person to kind of lead that so yeah let's just get together have a meeting and we can decide what our requirements are and I can probably go out and find us some pretty good pricing on some equipment right and if you saw in my email that's exactly what I said I was hoping the two of you would give me a fit out list for that because that a my my cup of tea let's just get to the Finish Line first
and then we'll work on it maybe I can meet with you maybe in a week or two we can go over the room and stuff and see what the the wish list is okay all right any other questions related to the community center all right Eric thank you 8 C discussion of blight and level involvement is there anything specific that anybody wants to talk about Eric are there any issues that are out there that are new to the situations not new directly related to blight okay I have a question if I could about the Barnett property you talked about that I I was told that the Barnet property was up to snow everything is fine out there I certainly don't believe so I've made it clear to the zoning agent that he needs to keep working on that owner and a get him to pay the
lean that we have against his property and B keep cleaning all the the junk that he has accumulated on his property so it isn't finished then no no as far as I'm concerned it's slightly better but he still has a couple dozen tractor trailers worth of crap to take out of there okay Scott if you can Circle back with Eric on any specific property questions that you have you can report about it next month y 8D The ebike Loner program so just from from my standpoint on this and Eric I'll ask you this question to begin with if I understood the initial part of this program there was a grant just for the bikes is that accurate correct we got a grant to purchase the bikes and then we got a little Grant from the health department for the supporting equipment and then we'd spend some of the money out of our old connectivity Grant fund to purchase the bike Walkers okay but from from my what I understood is that there were grants to
assist with the potential purchase of the bikes correct okay all right okay all right we'll we'll have we we we need to have a discussion on on this program so I know at our last meeting we discussed kerma and kerma giving a blessing on a potential ebike program and in your information I am assuming that you got kerma to give blessing on the type of program that we're we're discussing with a corresponding waiver for anyone that utilizes one of the bikes correct and subsequent to that at about 6:30 their attorney emailed me a revised waiver form that meets their language which I'm happy to share I I can't say that I've even fully reviewed it yet I I don't think I don't think we need to see it right now we need to talk about the overarching issues related to the potential program but just so I understand at our last meeting the way I understood it was there was a grant avail able our request was to sit there and determine if kerma would ensure the program and minimize the town's liability and is the answer is yes with appropriate waivers to be filed or signed by users correct they were happy with the design the overall design of the program and what we were trying to accomplish okay so now we'll
just talk about individual opinions on type of program from my perspective I think it's just an opportunity for the town to expand its offerings I don't necessarily look at it as a a negative I I always look at if the insurance company is is going to sit there and and allow us to be covered and and and this doesn't have to do with whether somebody gets hurt or not get hurt that's not what I'm after I'm I'm looking at it going the the insurance company understands the program understands the the equipment that we're talking about and hopefully it it is ebike specific if it's Grant funded and it doesn't cost the town any money I'm in favor of it so and I and I know everybody else can have their opinion on it but if it doesn't cost us money and even if it had to be shut down the town now has assets that it can be utilized so that didn't cost the residents any money go ahead anybody else want to talk about this well you know my concerns and it's not that that we're going to be insured it's just that you know it's it's a liability I mean these people are going to be using these bikes they're going to be operating speeds way above their Fitness that they could pedal on a normal bicycle and I've really got concerns over this and you're going to put
Nava cyclist I mean I've been riding for 30 years on the road and I have a lot of experience and I wouldn't put my wife out there on any bike and traffic in today's roads with the speeds that things are going so that it's just we don't we just don't have a full-time person I you know I brought the concerns up about if we get a flat tire or mechanical on the bike and you will get flat tires you will run over screws and stuff in the road and you will get flats and and and Eric says you could just pedal these things back well these bikes are about 80 pounds and you're not going to be able to Pedal this thing back when you're talking to somebody in limited shape so you know between you know just liability wise if somebody who seriously gets hurt or killed it's not if we're going to get sued it's going to be when we're going to get sued and I don't want to put the residents to that type of liability I mean I I always said I'm a cyclist but I just don't think the town has a
place doing this to be honest with you especially ebikes it was regular bikes it'd be a whole different story but I mean these are these things are capable of traveling 20 miles an hour uphill on Flats with people that could probably with their Fitness pedal 8 to 10 miles an hour and they're not they don't have the skills or you know knowledge to handle a bike at that speed around corners through stop signs I mean I raced a bunch of years and and I have pretty decent handling skills and I've had to do some pretty evasive maneuvers by you know cars cutting off
in front and other things so I mean that's just my opinion like I said I I'm cyclist I support cycling but from a toal's perspective it's just I just don't think it's a good idea with the stabbing levels we have iove and also I just want to add one more thing this grant program they also it's not just bicycles they'll buy helmets safety vests all kinds of other things so if we decided we weren't going to do this program we could probably provide every child under 16 even adults with free helmets in the whole town if we chose to go that route instead so that's just another option Scott I I rode some ebikes about a week ago me and my wife rode them I was very surprised at how fast they were how fast you could get them going was amazing I was amazed new technology and and you know I'm I think that I'm a I have a bicycle of my own I I just know that they're very fast I don't have if the if the waiver is good enough for the I mean I don't have a problem with anything but liability the only problem I have did you sign a waiver no I didn't did you just go to a bike store and and test drive oh friends friends friends I gota okay well I think all of us are in the same page it's all about the liability
right we just don't want to have the town exposed in any way so it really in my head it always came down to Kera now Jeff has other issues that he's not wrong you know are do we we have appropriate level of personnel what happens when we have some flat and some tires those are all things to me they're actual they're they're issues that's the reality I think they can be they can be overcome my my issue is is if the liability if the town does not absorb any significant level of liability and Eric what I would ask kerma is and when is your due date on the grant what is the timeline well what do you mean by that well if we don't approve this if we don't approve this tonight and and we pushed it to June are you in you in an issue related to the grant I don't know whether they would would I don't know well this we already have the grant when do when do we need the acceptance signatures what sorry I was I was talking when we already have the grant when do you need acceptance signatures they wanted them a couple of weeks ago okay well listen I I if kerma sign the waiver the next question I would ask
kerma I would just ask kerma if someone died what is the exposure to the community I I would just go all the way to the very end and just say what if what if someone what if the worst thing happened person had ebike they were riding got struck killed what would the town face none of us want that but there's liability in anything that gets done in the community everybody walking across roads I mean know and obviously there's liability structures for for walkways and all that stuff but this is a different issue this is something we're just concerned about I think
everybody's concerned about it if kerma came back and said if someone died you know this is then they signed the waiver this is what would occur I I would be okay with it so Jeff I wouldn't have a problem if we had a mechanic or somebody verifying these bikes were in great mechanical condition every time they were taken out the problem happens if somebody uses it and causes damage to it doesn't say anything Returns the bike and it is damaged the brakes or something like that and it's not caught and somebody does take the bicycle out and gets in an accident we are liable because you know we're we're giving that the impression that that bikee is is in good mechanical condition and ready for the road and and that's what kind of worries me that we don't have anybody there that's capable of verifying that they're
in good shape and they're in suitable condition to be out on the road and another thing is I'd be more comfortable with kerma if you know we did take these models of bikes we sent them pictures and say these are the models of bikes we're going to have are you still okay with this because I don't I think there's a fun fundamental disconnect there over over what an ebike is and the speeds that these bikes are going to be going and I just want to make sure that we're going to be insured for that because if if kerma comes back and says well those aren't the bikes we were
thinking about but that's not what you told us I want to make sure that we're going to get insured for those models and those types of bikes okay if had a regular pedal bike and I left the town hall and I went left by the time I hit the base of that Hill I'd be going twice the maximum governed speed of an ebike so Eric Eric totally understand totally get it and and you got you and Jeff are total cyclists the rest of us are trying to understand what's up what what Jeff is asking you what Jeff is asking you is legitimate request even the waivers need to specifically identify the the the the the U bikes that we're going to be if we do this be using in the program because he he you know he's not wrong I mean I know the insurance companies you know it comes down to us understanding the insurance company understands every aspect of what we're trying to get to and and really it comes down to somebody gets killed are we covered somebody gets killed and we're covered with these bikes and I have no problem I personally have no problem doing it because Jeff on I I don't think what if the mechanic didn't what if the mechanic didn't properly tighten up the disc brake in the front and the guy smash the manufacturer could have done the same thing and and then you know you go through the whole thing when people sue people Sue but the issue is that I
would also I would go we don't have to loan the bikes out to anyone we don't have to rent the bikes out to anyone right we can sit there and say you're not qualified now the question is who's doing that in town and that's the employee issue that Jeff raises which are all good things but I still come back to I would still go through it because everything's a risk everything's a gamble if it's being paid for out not outside of tax dollars other than than managing the program I'm I am good with it because we're offering up something different some other type of recreation to mostly seniors and I would assume Eric we're going to have a age limit on these yeah wouldn't let anybody rent one older than 90 I mean well was what I was asking I wasn't asking for a top L end like 18 18 to I mean make it adults you what age do you want to set to it 21 21 fine done I yeah go ahead can I put in my two cents here sure I guess I'm not thinking so much about maybe the liability I'm thinking about the roads in our town most of them are narrow no shoulders no sidewalks and where are people going to go with these things if you have a rental thing or loan or thing
you're going to end up with all these people on the road with bikes and it's going to cause all sorts of congestion and just as a driver in a car I don't like having to go around bikes like this I I'm I'm not for it because I don't care to see that many bikes on the road I rode bikes as a kid I bikes until I was my 20 how many bikes not in a country town like this are we talking two bikes three bikes probably three yeah I don't necessarily know that three bikes will cause congestion within our town and and that's a good I think Eric has done a very good job trying to identify bikes and trying to put bike signs up all over the place I mean I personally dislike cars that get too close to Walkers and bikers it bothers me immensely but three bikes is not going to cause congestion on and over roads no I mean I shouldn't have used that term probably I guess don't care to add any bikes onto the road okay okay that's your opinion I I I I'm okay with it I just don't
I'm just to correct that the state law has bikes have the same rights and duties as cars and it's just that the cars don't give the bikes enough room a lot of the time I mean commuting I'm going to ride to work tomorrow morning to East Harford and it's I I get a close call every day it's just it's a given somebody's gonna pull out in front of me somebody's right turn into me it's it's a given and if you don't anticipate it you're gonna get hit and that's one thing I'm concerned about somebody's buzzing Along on these things and they're not really paying attention because they're not really putting the work in and somebody's going to cut in front of and they're not going to have the handling skills to stop in time or avoid it and we're going to have a collision did and and and listen we're not making a decision today in my mind we're having this conversation so everybody can voice their opinion and Eric I would sit there and I would ask you to go back to Kera
put the brands and the types of bikes that that that were going to be potentially used in this program in the waiver and then ask the specific question if someone dies what is the exposure the town what is the liability the town could face and just give us answer on that and then we can vote on it up or down because I don't think anybody I mean we might have two negative votes already we might have three negative votes already but it's a it's a grant it's somebody else's it's state money or federal money and I think it's something that we really should consider will there be let I'm just I'm asking us to take like 16 steps backwards here just because of the timing of things will there be another opport for a grant like this like what if we I know we want to we want to answer that question you know what happens God forbid somebody dies but what if we go with Jeff Murray's suggestion on taking the grant money this time and using it for something different get all our answers and our concerns in place with who's going to be the mechanic and where we're going to house these will there be another grant that maybe we can use in the future I I just I don't want to rush into this I I have no idea Paula I got this because I was willing to jump on it within a week or two of when the state released the first funding because they had a very fast initial deadline and I met that and I got it do I know in
a month from now I know they're pushing to have all the money spent by the end of the fiscal year so can I turn around and write a another grant for something completely different and get it funded I don't know if you turn it down today I'm going to notify kog that we're turning down the Grant I don't really have any other option because they're not going to sit there sit on the money for us to spend the next you know six months deciding whether we wanted to program and look you're the board if you decide you're not comfortable with this vote it up vote it down let's move on because I mean this is you know it's a pretty simple program kera's told us they're going to cover us you know and they've said what they want to see in the waiver to maximize
their protection as an insurance company there's not a whole lot else I can give you so if it's not acceptable this month putting it off a month isn't going to do any good anyway so if you're not comfortable with it vote it down let's move on I think we're just yeah we're just trying to understand we're we've got two cyclists that are giving us conflicting info that this is my my thoughts and what I'm trying to understand I have two people that I that I trust that are cyclists I'm getting conflicting info so I'm just trying to understand yep and I commute daily on an ebike so couple more last questions and then we'll move on are I I think this was already answered but I wanted to have a quick discussion are there other towns in the area that have this program with ebikes not exactly like this not locally I gave you all contact information for a program that's been running for many years in Ohio that is starting to adopt ebikes they've been running ebikes for about a year on a program fairly similar to what they are other than they use their Librarians and they check out bikes like like books yeah Paul there's no program in Connecticut or New England that I could find and most of these companies that do this are are third-party private companies that go into places like line bike and Harford and some of these
rental scooter companies and in Boston and Nashville and some of the bigger cities and they're they just basically contract with the city to provide the bikes and they're a standalone company and so the municipalities don't run it so I was trying to find something in this in the whole area that was similar to this and we would be the first of anybody in New England doing this or even this east of the this in the Eastern Seaboard so that's why I'm a little nervous about it there's no model or success rate of these things and you know the crash data and everything just got me a little nervous that's all and I just really I just really don't want to
expose the taxpayers in town to that kind of liability I love I love the idea but Jeff you made me excited we would be we would be leaders we would be leaders first we' be the first one soon oh my God I'd be so excited but there's a reason that other towns aren't doing it and we need to find out why Eric from from my please please find out the issues with the in the last two issues I have for the insurance company are the issues that Jeff raised understanding that these are the bike the bikes the actual models and the speeds and everything else so we're talking about class one ebikes which is the lowest rated class of ebikes I I'm great but what Jeff Mur what Jeff Murray is expressing is accurate these are the
exact bikes you're riding the waiver for these exact bikes okay you know what I'll just turn the grant down and we'll move on we're not Eric Eric Eric I'm asking you to do two things it's not really hard they'll bikes in the waiver make sure the kerma understands it and what happens if someone gets in an accident and dies that's it you can send us an email tomorrow and we can all correspond on this and make a decision yeah if if if it comes back fine are we all on board with the bbike program then well if you want to make a motion if those two things are are are done it's a question of honestly whether you me and Paul all vote together because Jeff Murray's stated his opinion no an has stated her opinion no I mean that's is just a question I'll make a motion I'll make a motion move forward with the ebike program contingent on Eric getting
kerma to approve the exact models to be purchased and to give us a an understanding of a catastrophic incident and what would occur to the town's taxpayers and you can add to this this won't start until we get a an appropriate person run the correct I mean that's that's to be understood that it's not going to start unless we get an affirmative answer on both those questions that they'll cover the bikes and that the exposure to the town is not catastrophic yeah and to and to me catastrophic is any extra money okay well I will reach out to to Prague and if they're willing to delay implementation I will ask those questions of kerma because I kind of agreed I would give them a response tomorrow morning you can tell them what we said we're and we're gonna if did you second that Scott did you second that yes okay so as a board any further discussion on this all right all those in favor I I okay all those opposed all those that abstain and abstains okay all right so a 311 Eric please get us the information email it all to us and then we can sit there and and work our way
through that all right I'll see whether Cog will sit on it for another well you're not telling kog they're going to sit on it you're telling kog that you're getting one more piece of information for the board of Selectmen and it's been approved right and if it gets if you get a negative answer from kerma then we're going to tell you okay then tell kog it's we're not GNA take it but mind we're taking it as long as you get us positive answers okay all right nine new business discussing back on the following and 9A road closure for Cider Mill Memorial Day Road Board of Selectmen acting as a local traffic Authority do we need to make a motion on this Eric if you want to allow him to close the road then yes I did not see that in our package that motion no was it did I miss it no there is no motion they asked me whether they could close the road I said that's not my choice that's the local tra traffic Authority so make a motion that we allow the road the road closure for Cider Mill for the Memorial Day
Parade a second all right all those further discussion all those in favor I I on on along on the same topic I've talked to some of you about the parade so the thought process was maybe we all March together so I don't know if we want to talk about that tonight or another time but John McCall is looking to get some information back to him on who's available and what we're going to be doing that day so I will get you my schedule I know I saw Jeff Murray respond on the car issue so I know there's other some of us that may may or may not be here so if we can all communicate with Paula individually that would be great okay nineb the job description for the senior community center director I read it it was in our package does anybody have any issues related to the job description all right so I'll make a motion that we authorize Eric to utilize the job description to hire a community center director I'll second second all right all those in favor I okay five nothing can I ask one further question related to that is who do you want the interview panel to be for that position well well you would be on it and we'll sit there and identify where
we're at what What's the timing so it's May 13th are you anticipating putting this out and then having the interview sometime in June what is your plan well it's going to depends somewhat on tomorrow but presuming the budget passes tomorrow I would plan on this going in the River East not this Friday but the following Friday and then advertising it Statewide through CCM and crop why don't you reach out to I mean I I would I would participate if if you needed it I would sit there and just reach out to individuals that you might want I mean you know interview panels of more than three you know five are kind unre wieldly unwieldly wieldly is it unwieldly or wieldly no not a good idea how about that not a good idea yeah so Reach Out Eric and and whoever wants to participate as long as they meet your criteria for the numbers no problem and you probably should reach out to one of the other communities Columbia or Hein and get somebody from their Rec Department to sit there and assist with the interviews okay 9C proposed Community Center policies I didn't see that really in the package I would ask you Eric to send out your that's page 31 of the packet if they're in page 31 and I didn't see them what I would ask is I would like to sit
there and evaluate them I thought that was all part of your qualifications no the job description no so my my concern is I've got a lot of requests from various different groups who all are convinced they're going to be allowed to store stuff in the community it was your storage policy then oh policy I was stage policy yes Le let's go back on that because you and I had a conversation about the new stage policy take it's going to take a while to get built but the new facility for the buses at the old Community Center the old fire that's where storage has to be I mean that's the only place it's going to work it's not going to go in the new community center we're not going to let people sit there and dump stuff in that building you and I Eric had a conversation about extending the height on the second floor of that that building where the buses are going to be parked so we could have garage doors and then identify a garage door for each group that needs it so the seniors can get one the recommission can get another the town can get another you know just as a a storage place and and that I think mentally is the only place I can Envision where storage really will work in town because it can't go in the town
hall it can't go to the new community center and anybody asking for storage is has to understand that we're not going to let it become cluttered unless anybody's against that theory no when we were doing the whole bus thing we decided that with upstairs was going to be mostly for yeah it should be and and I had touched Eric Eric and I I forgot when we were doing it but I was like we raised the roof to be the the second floor so that you can provide additional storage for Community organizations and just say Hey listen this is your 100 square feet or 200 square feet or whatever you can give them and here's your garage door access and in the middle put chain link fence to to separate side to side that's cheapest way it works at warehouse that I've had to deal with and go from [Music] there but anybody that's asking you for storage at the new community center you can tell them the board of Select at least I would assume you're all we're all on the same page you can tell them the board of selectman is not going to allow that facility to get cluttered all right period are there any other issues on the the
proposed Community Center storage policies nope are you okay with signing it and putting that actually in place or do you just want to keep it oral tradition or what do you want to do thought you already signed it let let me read it let me read it and I'm pretty sure I'll I'll sign it does anybody on the board of Selectmen have a problem with me signing that letter or something close okay good we'll get it done Eric we'll get it done this week okay all right there was a vendor permit in here for Solar Company William bars from Trinity solar hadn't this been hadn't Trinity solar been up before or is this a new company no I I believe it's just a different person from the same company I don't know I I never met the individual so I I really don't know them okay I believe we approved the last one does anyone want to make a motion to approve this I make a motion to approve I don't what are we calling this vendor permit vendor permit vendor permit for William bars of Trinity solar I'll second okay all those in favor I I okay those oppos no all those abstain no okay 9e Charter revision committee we need to make a motion to establish the initial hearing dat yeah public hearing date so do you want me to put up the
town's attorney's motion what he's recommending you approve put up the motion and the legal notice for publication in the River East okay I think that's it that's it so that just sat there and you know erot it U so I'll just make a motion that we we I'll make a motion to implement the legal requirements of the charter revision commission and authorize legal notice to be posted by the town clerk to a set a special meeting to be held on May 22nd and using the the the language provided by the town attorney second time all those in favor I I okay so Eric you'll sit there and give I know Carol has the legal notice so the motion was written by Dennis you can date it approved five nothing and then because of the timing of that hearing I I think it's appropriate the the board discussed items that we would like the charter division commission to to look at as Dennis discussed at the the previous meeting that we held to appoint committee members if we can sit there and have those issues we can sit there and and request that the charter revision commission U look at those issues anybody right from from my standpoint I'm there are a lot of dates that I sit there and look at from the charter that I would like to sit there and see Consolidated or or timed out appropriately so we are in line one of those is November
codifying the November elections so that we have November elections within our town and then one of the other things as far as far as timing goes is trying to get the trying to get the budget referendums to line up with the ram budget referendum so that there's only one day of voting if at all possible that and just governmental efficiencies that I would like to sit there and see be put in place to sit there and make us work as efficiently as we possibly can anybody else you have my list okay we'll provide your list to the to the group anybody else okay so the timing of what's going to occur is the legal notice is
going to go in the paper we'll have a meeting on the 22nd of May that meeting will fall into three Parts there'll be one the beginning of the meeting will be for the committee to elect a chairperson and a vice chairperson there'll be the public hearing to get community input as to Charter revision and what it means and what they would like to see and then there'll be a meeting after that of the charter revision committee to sit there and set a schedule as to how to get together and what to do that's it anybody have anything else related to the Charter revision committee did we specifically say just now what what is going to be F it's all verbal Paula so you can say anything you want and they're going to sit there and evaluate Jeff Murray wrote his down because he did that before we even established the charter revision committee to begin with I mean if you'd like to you write them down I mean Dennis what Dennis didn't want to have happen was that the board as a total group wrote six or seven things that they had to undertake and then those things have to be sat there and specifically undertaken by the board or by the committee so he was like I mean just like we did the last time we didn't write anything down we just told the chairperson what we were interested in doing and they executed
it okay my my concern or thought is just everybody knows that we've got a limited amount of time I just don't want to overload the committee with a bunch of tasks y that's that's my thought I I agree with you I think we should streamline as best as we can the number of meetings with having people come and vote and doing things like that for sure so but I don't want to give them verbally five different tasks to to try and accomplish in a shorter period of time so understood so the verbal tasks that we're talking about tonight as soon as they come out
of our mouth they're well you're gonna be able to obtain you're going to be able to attend all the meetings if you choose to anyway but you know the goal of the last group was you know what we expressed was a potential bifurcation of the budget that went to the town the the the charter revision committee and that actually got executed and it came back and it got passed by the voter so it ended up being five things that that Charter revision committee did or six things that they put out and five of them got approved and I would anticipate that that would be the same way that this would occur this time they would be small sections to sit there and get voted on and sit there and see what we can do the biggest issue is that as Jeff has expressed and Paul has expressed trying not to do too much but if we stretch a little bit and we're the first out there and it gets voted down it gets voted down that's de democracy I mean to be really honest I wasn't in favor of the bifurcation we put it up to allow people to vote on it it got voted on and won that's part of the charter so that's right I'm okay I'm okay with the Democratic process if if you lose you lose so right okay we all
work together all right we can move on to item 10 now approval of the minute the meeting minutes for 411 2024 they were it was a special meeting anybody want make a motion I'm looking for I make a motion to accept the special meeting minutes of April 11th 2024 second rightor may seconded all those in favor I okay so now we're going to go on to the treasurer's report does anybody have any specific questions related to the treasurer's report okay Eric just just a question for me are the revenues the revenues are not split in the budget line that's the total year-to date so right now we have uncollected we're short $115,000 in total revenue correct that wouldn't surprise me hang on I fast forward it too far it's page 45 of the packet so I just want to make sure that this is the year-to day budget number it's 12, 434 12, were as of April so we have May and June to collect 115,000 to be equal with our budgeted number or exceed it yeah that seems about right right and then if I and then if I go down to the tax collector side right the tax collector wrote us some information saying how much money we had to collect we still have we still have $370,000 of total taxes to collect for
last year Accord so you're wondering why those two numbers aren't the same in no no no no it's a budget I'm not asking that what I'm asking is we are really close to our Revenue number with two months to go that's all I'm saying correct but there there's two factors into that the first is in any given year we don't collect 100% of the taxes so that's that shows up as a deficit but we also don't account for the supplemental appropriate not supplemental appropriation but the supplemental tax bill and those two every year just about balance each other out so that's why you see us 100,000 down now while we haven't collected 300 something thousand in taxes because we've gotten in a couple hundred, on the of supplemental taxes which we're not accounting for it's a simplification but those two things usually just about balance out every year okay actually let's look at hat yeah it's pretty close I [Music]
mean if you go and bounce I mean this is just for for accounting kind of nerds things don't line up things make sense don't make sense so right now the the the page 45 says we collected 9,934 367 of taxes including leans supplemental motor vehicle and then you go to the tax collector's report and those numbers that are in the middle of the page don't it says 9, 660,000 so those are always where I have problems where things don't match but we'll get on it but I like the information provided by the treasurer in that department and if we you know and in this information that's on page 45 reconciles to the bank and Eric we are reconciling we are reconciling so we are reconciled for the
month of April far as I know Perfect all right anybody else have any other questions related to the treasurer's reports nope so we go all the way to the bottom which is page 50 I mean we have other things that we have to spend those transfers are already made okay right Eric what any information you can provide us next month as to if we're short anywhere or I would assume next month you're going to come to us with any internal transfers you need to make yes maybe it's the only month you got left Eric I I understand that but but we can actually do the transfers after July one we just gotta stop
spending money after July one got it all right Tax Collector's report which starts on page 57 so as I was saying that this is the information page 57 is the information off of the what's the name of the software Eric oh God you're killing me I mean it's used by the assessor's office and the text color and the tax collector I'm blanking on it at the moment I'm sorry I blanked on it too not Vision appraisal it's the other one it's it's the company that that sends out all of the the bills and right they do all that work so okay I should know it so $10 million of total billing 9 million6 of collections $370,000 of remaining to be collected for from the current year there's other bills that are out there if you look at page 58 you look at the bottom of page 58 there's $684,000 of uncollected taxes and it lists all the years that relate to and and then the tax color sent us information about delinquent tax bills and what her plan is related to that does anyone have any questions related to that okay so are you generally in favor of authorizing the tax collector to use a state Marshall to do Alias tax warrants to actually go after people and I am what are the related fees to that so the related fees are paid by the person that owes the taxes not the town the town is held harmless with this whatever they collect the town gets okay I would I have no problem doing it
but what you know especially car taxes go get it because if you know what about leans have we applied leans on all of the old delinquent real estate taxes there should be leans on everything other than the latest round the ones that were just delinquent as of May 1 those there's a specific date cut off they've all been sent delinquency notices and told that they're about to get put on the they're about to get lean in fact I've gotten a couple Panic calls from residents that are very upset that their property is going to get lean but that's not is life it's it's a certain number of days after it's due and I don't remember what that exact date is is I want to say it's 35 but I could be wrong on that but yeah they do get automatically filed I mean I know we probably haven't done Alias tax warrants in years when's the last time we did them five or six years ago Alias tax warrants we haven't done under since I've been here we were used a collection agency to go after people but that wasn't really all that successful they didn't really collect all that much you know they got a lot of people wound up but they didn't get a lot of cash so just so that you know a state Marshall has the ability to seize bank accounts to pay the bills so if he can figure out where a person is and and figure out who they bank with he
can go in and seize the money that they have to pay the town's debts so it's it's definitely a a fairly aggressive okay anybody have a problem with that like a great I'll make a motion that we allow the tax collector to to utilize the Alias tax warrant process I'll all right further well we'll give it to you Scott further discussion on this topic no all those in favor I okay all right there were departmental reports within our package anybody have any questions on any of them one more thing we need to apply there's a I make a motion that we
provide a tax refund for excess payments to Enterprise FM Trust of $467 7 I'll second all a second so all those in favor I okay anybody have any other questions on Department reports okay Eric is there anything that you want to point out on any of the department reports to us nope nothing in particular what's that so just so we understand this because we talked to the assessor let's talk about this page U page 64 Eric that is the board of assessment appeals or what is this baac summary are those are those reductions and assessment granted by the board of assessment appeals or those granted by the assessors those some of those are by if it says baa change those are ones where the board of assessment appeals has lowered the assessment of a property if it's just C it's something else it's either sold to a different owner or something that got added or something got subtracted by the
office because they realized there was an error or a car got added or subtracted okay so when I'm looking at the the 353 Lake Road property there's a $91,000 reduction granted by the board of assessment appeals is that on the house that has the three-car garage or is that that the one that has the structure that has issues that is the one that is currently does not have a certificate of occupancy that's the new one okay they appealed their assessment and use the same appraiser everybody does when they want to show that their house is worthless and the baa agreed with them okay but those are the only two that came to the ba and got approved as far as I know in this period yes okay anybody else have any other questions any other questions on any of the department reports all right Eric is there any correspondence the only correspondence I had was related to Joshua trust that's in the packet and I did get a letter from Mrs post who seems to be mad at quite a few things most most of which is under the control of zoning so I have
file F followed up with both the zoning agent and the wetlands agent to attempt to address her concerns she also had some concerns over the future of Hutchinson room I I I've been handling that situation just to let everybody know okay for Mrs post for Mrs post or for the town for I was helping Mrs Serenity Post yes her agent Scott so you're on the zoning board and you're helping Mrs no no no no no no no I I I went down there and inspected something for her and then then that she asked me to check for and I checked into it and then I got the appropriate people down there and they went and did their due diligence okay so so more this the taxpayer reached out to you as your role and as your relationship with her exactly assisting to sit there and get the right decisions made assisting the town yeah the town went and did exactly right thing and everything is handled okay and is she happy with her current situation yes okay [Music] Eric what are the pictures at the bottom like of the of the Culvert which Culvert are we dealing with so that was a cul that was repaired on Bunker Hill Road yeah a smaller Culver on Bunker Hill Road that had some significant erosion at the downstream part of the pipe that public works then filled in and rebuilt the banks okay got it with approval of all that all of that rock input is
public works corre rocks in there rebuild the wall correct okay so if there's no correspondence and and we're good I think we'll move on to public speak one second I'm just trying to fit through my stuff so we'll start with Diane Grenier I'm all set thank you very much always entertaining you're welcome Diane glad we can make you laugh I would guess is what we probably do Bill Penn I think I going to say but I think I'll just let them pass thank you all for your time and energy and addressing all these things for the town thank you all right thank you Bill Leanne [Music] Hutchinson yes I'd like to address a couple of things that you spoke about tonight one is the Senior Center and the community center and the other is to Bunker Hill and hop River natural gas activity which apparently it sounds like just came to some people's attention including mine tonight I appreciate as far as that item goes that you are going to look into it quite a bit more it sounds like to back up for a second I living on Bunker Hill Road I can't imagine that the road is proposed to be closed for as long as it is just due to the small size
of the bridge so I'm hoping that anything that can alleviate that will be done because it's already stressful for people to have to travel around and then also it's it's stressful to worry about the fire and Emergency Services possibly having to come from centry due to any closure on Bunker Hill Road Bridge as it is so I appreciate whatever you can do with this natural gas activity I don't know what else to call it on Hop River Road because if there is going to be increased traffic people in Bunker Hill Road if there's any issue with going down to Parker Bridge Road or if you're going toward the Willam manic area some people do use hop River Road so again if there's some sort of project going on there any information we could have and traffic control if that becomes an issue it's is going to be very helpful regarding the senior center I understand that you want to do as much as possible with volunteers and that's I ideal I used to work in a senior center I did programming it's programming itself there were things that go on you know several times a week card games exercises those are usually done all the time and there are things like trips and onetime speakers and onetime activities that are a
different category of programming and I was going to use the word unwielding until Jeff or somebody used it already but I just my thought at reading this at first is that having as many people and I know you've already voted tonight is going to be a little bit unwieldy especially since this is a new project for everyone so I just as a citizen I'm wondering if a couple of these committees who already do important work could have more emphasis maybe later on like maybe the library and the beautification Committees because while they have a role I just wouldn't want to see a senior senator director come in and as you already discussed again tonight who's going to be in charge and again with regard to committees and volunteers especially with Kathy pazzy with all the work that she does stepping back I hope there's going to be a focus on not just volunteering but somebody in charge of Transportation somebody in charge of something as it sounds basic but it's
important as a receptionist somebody answering the phone I know Eric has an awful lot on his plate and usually answers his own phone so I really appreciate that but you know again because it's new I think a lot of it is unknown and I think if we have a little more Direction that's going to be very helpful all right appreciate it thank you very much Ed sizzle yes good evening everyone I want to compliment or add on to Bill pens thank you for all of your hard dedicated hours of volunteer work for the town it's amazing how much work you guys get done and just want to address the concerns valid many valid concerns raised by Jeff and an regarding safety and traffic congestion with bicycles on the road to both of those comments I'd like to say that if we can get the eventually get our Muse pathway down Route 316 obviously we can get all the bikes off the road and go down multi use dedicated pathway onto the rail trail and get to all forers four corners of our town on an ebike safely to address the safety concerns and we could even of course guar U request and that the initial users of those bikes stay on the safe area such as the bike paths around Andover Lake the multi used pathway and the rail trail and keep them off these streets for starters anyway so we can we can we can address those concerns in creative ways and in terms of Jeff Maguire's comment I really like his idea of being Innovative and being the first to do something like this I think it's worth our while thank you okay Joanne Ebert gosh I hate to follow that because
I'm kind of the total opposite opinion I appreciate the idea and you know thinking outside the box and bringing more things to Andover but I just think that the whole liability thing is I couldn't agree with Jeff Murray more I have a couple Bic bicyclists enthusiasts and my family too they're constantly working on their bikes too to maintain them and keep them ready for whether it's in the trails or on the roads or whatever and I I'm more worried for the town right now because we for such a small town we have so many projects going and I just want to see them all run well and I don't know who would oversee the ebikes I just don't find it necessary you know is it going to be one of those things that hopefully it's the community director or whatever who's going to know who's out I understand there's only three of them I just think it's unnecessary I'm really worried about the liability whether there's a waiver or not because we all know things that go to law lawsuits
anyways and if it was so Innovative and exciting in such a New England part of the country that loves hiking and biking and all those kind of things we would see it in at least one other town and we don't and there's a reason so that's my opinion thank you all right thank you very much and last but not least we have Steve okay Steve you got five seconds one two three four five sold all right thank you very much everyone for attending and the public for providing necessary backup for us and let us understand what's what everybody's thinking that's it em 16 is executive session but we don't have anything to to go into executive session about today do we Eric not that I know of there there was one thing I was contemplating but I didn't get my act together to present it anyway so all right doesn't matter so
now we're on to item 17 adjournment ation toour a second all a second all those in favor I all right thank you very much everybody we'll be communicating on the other other issues thank you