Okay, I'm going to call to order the town of Andover Board of Selectmen a regular meeting for a May on Monday, May 12th at 700 p.m. And our first order of business is 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. Okay, I want to move on to item two, public speak. I'm going to start with Kathy Plausy. Good evening. I have some good news. Lois Papoff, our oldest active senior, will be turning 100 on, July 25th. And I know it's a little early, but I would like to invite the board of selectman and the town administrator to attend a little party that we would like to give her at the senior center on Wednesday, July 30th. Now, some of you may even be on vacation. I don't know. But I wanted to let you know about that. And we wanted to invite all of you. It would be very early from 12:30 to 2:00. So, I will be in contact with the board of the town administrator asking if we may use the town the senior building that day. Thank you very much. Thank you. Diane Grer, thank you very much. again, I see you have a a a large agenda, so I will keep my comments brief. I'm I'm happy to see that you have the Andover's finest on there. You're going to be discussing that. That's good. I also would like at some future point, you don't have to do it tonight. an update on the Bernap
clock that where is it and what's what's happening. again, just an update on that. And one more thing is I'm delighted that you have these meetings Zoom so that people can zoom in from their homes. It's very convenient and also the fact that they're being recorded. I know a lot of people will watch this tomorrow who can't get there tonight. So I think Zoom meetings are very important and thank you for doing that. Thank you. Britney Comtock who's our assistant town clerk. Hello everyone. I wanted to introduce you myself. Thank you, Jeff. My name is Britney Brittney Comacock. I'm the assistant town clerk as of January 2nd and I'm the acting town clerk as of February. I'm a I was born and raised in the town of Andover. And I went through the Andover Elementary School, Middle School, and the high school. And coming this fall, I'm for November, I'm going to be running for the town clerk. So, if I already haven't already had the chance to see even the town clerk's office, I look forward to seeing those who are going to be coming in for their dog licenses and their transfer station stickers. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you, Jay Tuttle. All set at this time. All right, you got it. Wally. Wally Barton. Nothing at this time, Jeff. Thank you. Hi, Wally. Liz Locatch. Hi, everyone. I I'm all set for tonight. Thank you. All right. Louise Goodwin, I'm all set as well. Thank you, Kimberly
Persan. I'm all set right now. Thank you, Jeff. Tessra, no comment for now. Thank you. Linda Fish, all set. Haley Praau. Okay, we'll come back to Haley Pra. is this Ed Serizley? Yes, thanks. All set. Okay. Jeff Murik is here. Good. Leanne Hutchinson. Yes. Hi. I wanted to talk briefly about the senior advisory committee. I was named to it when you named that committee in the community subcommittee last July that was supposed to be more oriented toward the recreation commission aspect of the community and senior center. And I wasn't at last month's board of selectman meeting, but I listened to it the next day and I noticed that some people were mentioned and thanked about a meeting that apparently happened the same day last month in April at your selectman's meeting and there was a vote to ask to be for the committee to be dissolved and this was prior to the status of the senior center director. So my main point is this I hope this committee is still in place. I don't think it was dissolved last month and I just didn't want people to have the impression that I had dropped off the committee or lost interest or didn't have availability because that's not the case. Apparently, the person who helped schedule the April
meeting, the most recent meeting of the senior advisory committee was given the information that I was actually named to the community advisory subcommittee if that's the proper name. So, any anyway, my main point is well, two things. one, I'm prepared to continue if the committee is left in the way it is. And two, I didn't drop off for any reason. Linda Derek, I'm good. Glad to be here. All right. and Attorney O'Brien, I believe you're on 2345. That's him. That's him. That's him. He can't unmute himself. I find that funny. I'm sorry. I should laugh that. Haley, Proto, I'm sure you're holding out till later if that's accurate. Okay. And is there anyone I missed? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. who who I miss. this is Ellen Repay and Hi. And I'm interested I was glad to see that there's going to be some discussion about a director for the senior or the community senior center I should say. so that things continue to progress as they were progressing before. So, I'll wait and hear what you all have to say until I give my comments. So, thank you. Okay. is there anyone else I missed? Okay. All right. we're going to move on to item three, additions and changes to the agenda. Does any of the members, any of the other members have anything they'd like to add to the agenda? Yes, Jeff. I'd like to add the ones that we spoke about via email. Okay. I have them. I was going to wait.
Ann, do you have anything you want to add? Carol Scott, thank you. Okay. So, I'm going to make a motion that we add 5A discussion and possible action on public works supervisor contract. And I would like to add 9 JC discussion and possible action on community center staff hiring committee. Second that. Okay. anything else that we need to add? Okay. All those in favor? I I That's five to nothing for who's doing the minutes. 500. okay. So, let's move on to item four, board and commission presentations. Eric, I don't believe we have any. None that I know of. Okay. item five, appointments. I don't see any in the packet. Am I missing anything? Nope. Okay. So, now we're going to move on to item 5A, discussion and possible action on public works
supervisor contract. Well, there there is one resignation, the deputy fire marshal. That's item six. I'll get to it in a second. We'll get to it. so we're we're doing 5A discussion and possible action on public works supervisor contract. So at our last meeting, we approved a a one-year contract for for Jay Tuttle. and Jay was, you know, he wanted to sit there and come back to us and review the status and he all sent us an email that everyone received on May 2nd requesting that we reconsider and talk about a the two-year contract that was initially submitted. so I'm just going to make a motion and we can then discuss it. I'm going to make a motion that we approve a two-year contract for the Jay Tuttle to be the director of public works for a two-year term with 3% incremental raises for each year. Second that. Yeah. Okay. So, and and one thing that we had discussed before was that you know, there wasn't really precedent for setting a contract for a non-union employee with a raise built in, but that's actually not true. We actually do that for the the library director and those rate those are built in and we do it with every union contract that we have in front of us as a community. So being that this is Jay's and Jay I'll let you confirm this but this would
be your last contract with us. Yes. Okay. and that our goal would be to potentially train your successor within the timeline of other this contract if at all possible as you know is that accurate that would be part of what we would get done. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. Okay. So, I do think we should consider I do think we should approve it and that's where I'm at. Was any anyone else want to have at related to this contract? I tend to agree with that. After the our last meeting, I was thinking about it
some more and I felt like we in other like I say in other areas we do give non-union people a two-year contract. So I felt we should reconsider too. Okay. Any further discussion? Yeah. thread, you know, after further, you know, like what Ann said as well, it's I'll support this as long as we have a succession plan because I don't want to be here in May of the end of his two-year contract and not have a candidate identified. I'd like to do identify a candidate early on and be able to tra if it's going to be an internal candidate, get that candidate
up to speed. If there's no internal candidates you know interested in the position then we would look outside but we definitely need to identify somebody before his contract is up. So you know January of 202 was 2026 we would look at getting identifying the contract the contract's going to go to July 2026. It's going to go to 2027 if I'm not mistaken correct. So January 20 January 1st, 2027, we would we would have a candidate identified or we would be looking for a person to replace him. Okay. any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor of authorizing the town administrator to
Well, I've already made the motion. All those in favor? I. All right. So, that was five. That was five nothing. Britney, thank you for your vote. That's appreciated. You're good, though. Thank you. all right. So, let's move on from there to resignations now. So, item six, resignation. So, Eric, we received a resignation from the deputy fire marshal. Hey, Jeff. I I just want to say thank you to everyone and appreciate it and looking forward to working with everybody for another two. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Thank you. all right. so we received a a resignation from Stephen Pastam Sky. I don't know how to say that. I apologize to him. [Music] Eric, what are what are the plans? [Music] are you going to replace the deputy or is the the fire marshall going to replace the deputy? What is the plan? So, I don't have a firm plan for that yet, but what I would say is we have a three town agreement among the area fire marshals to all provide coverage. So, there's less immediate emphasis in having a backup for fire marshall because we do have an existing inter town agreement to back up that position. So that will be a discussion between me and the fire marshal, but it's not something we need to be worried about instantly. Can I just say something? Mike Lester
came in. John Call is the deputy fire marshal for Andover. Mike Lester already came in and said he would be the deputy fire marshal. Okay. so if we don't need them, Eric, please just reach out to Mike Lester or have Mike Rester, Carol reach out to to Eric so that Eric can go through the process correctly and determine if we're going to appoint anyone moving forward. He did leave a business card, so I do have all the contact information in the clerk's office. Okay. All right. item seven, town administrator report. So, I apologize. I sent you the report late and not part of the packet.
I think the the two main things we're going to get to later in agenda items, so I won't repeat those here. I did want to talk a little bit about a couple things. the first thing is that the resident trooper the other day said to me that for the first time he's seen a noticeable reduction in speeding on Long Hill Road. Apparently he's given out enough tickets at that location that everybody's wise enough not to speed through that area and buy the ballpark. I have asked him to shift his enforcement priorities now that it's getting summer and there's more pedestrians there to the Lake District as well as other areas in the town. But but more targeted enforcement in the Lake District because that seems to be where we get the most complaints you know for people speeding. he has said that he's been sitting at the stop sign that you know is the intersection of Lake and Lakeside and has been you know handing out a fair number of tickets there both for running the red light running the speed running the stop sign and running the stop sign traveling at above the speed limit. So we get nice twofur tickets there. you get them for speeding and for running a red light. so I asked the resident
state trooper when he first came to Andover to attend the state police bicycle enforcement course. he did get a slot later in a couple of weeks and I also think in the Lake District that would be valuable for community policing. not all the time, but at least occasionally get out there because you have a lot more you're going much slower and you actually have a lot more ability to engage with the residents. So, I think those two will both help to some extent in the Lake District. I think we could also potentially relocate our last remaining speed feedback sign to the Lake District if the board is interested in doing that. I mean, my only reticence to doing that is the last time we had one in the lake, you know, our friends and neighbors destroyed it with the baseball bat. so we're down to one of the
three we had. however, it looks like we are getting a couple more from the state from a grant program. So, we can consider doing that. I don't know what anybody else's feelings. I know we're going to talk a little bit later in the agenda on speed humps and I sent you a bunch of information regarding that. So, the destratification fans, we had some initial hiccups when we put those in. The controller itself was faulty. we finally got them to send us a non-falty controller that is in installed and working correctly. and Scott, who's the head custodian there, has been trained in how to use it. So, that's up and running. so we had a second meeting with OSHA to discuss the ongoing violations. I was there, Jay Cuttle was there, and Kathy D. Roa was there representing the library. so we got pretty much back the same thing. we got last time. supposedly
in the next week or so, we'll get the official list of violations and the official fine schedule at which point we will start we will schedule a followup with them to discuss and try to argue down our fines. Jay and I together have drafted a bunch of new forms. What? One second. I'm sorry. What were the fines? We don't know yet. He didn't even tell you a preliminary number. No. Nope. So, you had the meeting, he walked through your corrective actions and he didn't give you any information. Correct. Pretty much. Yes. Okay. So, they tend to draw this process out apparently. So, hey Eric, he he mentioned that it's got to go to his supervisor for them to review before they send us the final. Right. Remember that? Yeah. I think
that's that's part of why he didn't exactly say what our fines were. Yep. So, Jay and I have been working to draft a lot of the the forms that they're requiring us to have. we're waiting on Mystic Air to come in and do the asbestous evaluation for the town buildings. He preliminarily told me he thought he could get in here at the end of this week, but now it's looking like next week for that. that's an ongoing process. As soon as I have more final, at least initial numbers I will give it to you. they have said for a small town we actually did very well. but that doesn't mean we're not getting fined in the process. They got to justify their salaries somehow. So the other thing I wanted to say is both Jay and I have received and I'm sure all of you have received complaints about some of the new signage that the Connecticut Department of Transportation put up on town roads. many of you that have been on the board for a while will probably remember back in 2020, as the local traffic authority, you approved, the town, agreeing to the state putting up enhanced road curvature signage on down roads. frankly, we hadn't heard about any about it in five years. And then this spring, they said, "Oh, by the way, we're going to start putting that in." Unfortunately, they really didn't consult with us on what got put in or where. So, there are some things I think we can adjust the placement of that will eliminate some
of the concerns by the residents. it was not a particularly smooth process, I think. but it's also not a process we internally really have any control over. I don't know if anybody you've any of you have questions about that. I think since they are on town roads, not state roads, I feel like we have the ability to modify them as we deem necessary as long as you as the local traffic authority are okay with that. and I don't have specific ones I want to adjust at this point. I think, you know, we leave them in for a month or two and then take a look at it and see which ones we're still getting complaints of. you know, then, so that's kind of my plan going forward for that, unless you have any other guidance. Can I just ask, is Bunker Hill Road one of the roads? Because someone had complained it's really narrow and where the signs are, if two trucks are passing, it's almost like they have to nearly hit mirrors to get by. I don't know. I didn't drive up Bunker Hill, so I I don't know. I'm just saying what I received in an email. I don't know if anyone else did. Yeah, I I did drive down Bunker Hill. I mean, I didn't see that as a safety concern. I did see that the placement of them was directly in the line of sight of a couple people's, you know, backyards. and I
could see why visually it would they would be concerned about it. so I and there's a couple on Bear Swamp that I think are probably worthy of adjustment. Jay, I don't know if you have any feedback on other ones you want to consider moving. I No, not at this time. I'm still looking at a few of them. I had one on a resident had a concern on Gilead and that Yeah. So, still under review. So, yeah. And I we we got to put our list together. Exactly. So, put your list together and bring it back to us so that we understand what you're looking for. And if you can at least tell us before the next meeting so maybe we can drive around and see those signs. Okay. All right. Sure. Okay. talked about that talked about hat. So the other thing is that we did get back and I sent it to the board the draft financial statement for the town. So you should have all had a copy of that. I think we're probably a week or two away from having a final [Music] you know, a final completed audit.
There certainly aren't any more hurdles to the audit at this point. so I just wanted to give you a super quick snapshot of what we had in that year, which is the financial year that ended in July, correction, June 30th of 2024. The total difference between expenditures and revenues was $46,000. and on the revenue side that number was $226,000 which is 1.8% of total revenue. So the major causes of that were the change to the stiff account first occurred in that year. that was a net difference of $126,000 by switching over to the stiff account when we hadn't budgeted for
that. the second thing is that the the state overall had a very good budget year. and because of that we got a municipal revenue sharing grant of $79,000 $79,600 that we were not anticipating or budgeting for. and the third third thing was that overall taxation and tax collection was up about $31,000. Now, the general taxation or the general tax collection between the grand list and the supplemental grand list was actually $85,000 below what we predicted. however, the increase in back tax collection because Kate has been a lot more aggressive with collecting back taxes was enough that we collected a total of $31,000 more than we inspect expected. So, that's on the revenue side. So, on the expense side, we spent $180,000 less than we anticipated. so the biggest chunks of that were, you know, the contingency fund, which we really didn't have to spend anything of. approximately $33,000 was employee benefits. there's a couple reasons for that, but one of the reasons is we have been very aggressive at getting employees to take the fee in lie of and every employee that takes fee in lie of is a pretty significant savings of money to the town. $17,000 of that was the decision not to hire a replacement admin assistant for myself and to sign a contract with Kate to do that as a additional responsibility as opposed to a standalone you know position. $21,000 was the savings from the resident state trooper, which is the difference between the estimate the state gave us and their final bill. $10,000 was elections. And a big part of that was the fact that we did get a pretty significant state grant that
covered most of the costs of early voting. $10,000 was undersspending in the town clerk's budget and $10,000 was snow removal. so that that basically was what we where we were in last year's budget. So of that money $190,000 went into the to offset taxation in the current year. So, and that's basically all I had for my report unless you have questions for me. So, none of the under expenditures were they were all items that were estimated pretty much. So, if you had 50,000 for contingencies, that was to protect us in case we needed it. Correct. And then you go through the benefits. That's based. Okay. I mean, was there anything that I missed in my listening that was we just you totally or we totally mis hit the budget? because the state trooper we just get a number from the state troopers office
and that's the number and we hope they come near it. Right. But the the problem with the state troopers budget and I looked back over say a six the sixyear period I I've had and the most we've paid in any one year has been about $170,000 and the least we've paid is I think $117,000. So, and because we don't really have any control over who our resident trooper is, and we don't have really control about what indirect rate they charged us, that's a highly variable number. We usually set it at what the state police gives us for an estimate. but they're over or under, you know, $20,000 pretty regularly or more. Okay. Anyone else have any questions related to the budget for Eric or to the financial statements and where we ended up? Okay. Eric, do you have anything else that you want to bring to us? nope. Not not that's not already on the agenda other than I do have one thing that came in today. I did get a draft
technology services agreement from South Windsor for next year's IT bill. If you remember, they we tend to run three-year contracts and it's been up. their board has just agreed to the fee schedules for all the towns. So, I will share that with the board, but since none of you have had the opportunity to review it, I'd like you all to get a look at it before we have that conversation. I would like to get it signed sooner rather than later. but it's not something we have to do tonight. Can we put it off to our next meeting in June? I know the contract starts in July. Or will that be problematic? I think that would be problematic. they're looking for us to sign it sooner rather than later. so we had to go back to South Windsor because what South Windsor originally proposed was definitely above what the board of finance was willing to fund. So, we've gone back and kind of renegotiated that to come up with a number that we have available for us from the board of finance. Okay. Do any of the members have a problem if we answer Eric by email on that that contract or have you read if we have time? We can review it. Yeah. I mean, so what I'd like to do is have each one of us read it and then respond back if you are a yes or a no. That acceptable to everybody and
then we'll vote on it at our next meeting, but it'll give Eric our authority to sit there and sign the contract. Can I just ask, is it higher than it has been in the past? Yes. substantially or not substantially somewhat higher. How much percentage? How much money dollars? It's the the total contract is for $15,000 annually. And what was it last year? I mean $15,000 for IT services for is not excessive to be really I think it was around we were paying around 12,000 a year last year. Do you have a problem with your your services? yes, but I would ask if you want to
discuss that we do that in executive session and I would be happy to explain why, but I don't want to have that conversation in the open. Understood. Okay. let's just say this contract includes a bunch of things at our request and that's part of the reason why there's an increase to this Okay. Does anybody have any problem with us going to an executive session at the end of this meeting to just quickly discuss that issue? No. Do we have to vote to add that? I think we can just sit there and make a motion to go in executive session after public speak. Okay. And we'll vote on it then. Okay. Let's see. So [Music] 15A. Okay. Anybody else have any questions for Eric? Okay, Eric. Thank you. item eight, old business community center signage discussion. again, I I failed. So, I have to get that to that. I will do that. I'll do that this month. I I will get with Elaine Bukart and to deal with the sign gentleman who has done the sign down on six. item 8B, discussion of blight and level of involvement. We have a document in our packet on that. any questions related to the status? Is the Longhill property was that Longill property one of the
ones in the tax sale? I don't believe so, but I'm not absolutely sure. All right. I I will look at it down the line. okay. Anybody have any problems with any of the issues? Scott, Jeff, I know you guys are I see there's one new one. I'm glad that they're keeping up with it. Okay. And is at the bottom of the list. 130 Bunker Hill. I think it was towards the top of the list. There was a new one. Current status. Oh, Aspenol. All right. If nobody has any further questions on that, we'll move on to item 8 C, Veterans Field renovation update. We have a letter in the packet from the chair people, Mike Russo and Christine Rendazzo. It relates to the water to go to the softball field across the street. One question that we should probably talk about tonight. Yeah. listen, I I I have no problem if we don't connect up the the irrigation system across the street. We haven't used that field. It hasn't been renovated. It's probably not going to get renovated. we don't have any youth groups that want to use it. We don't have any adult groups that can use it. anybody have a problem with the fact that they don't do that? Scott, you're on the board of No, I No, I'm good with it. You're right. They haven't used it. We thought we'd do it during the construction process, but nobody uses it. Okay. Anybody have a problem with not connecting up the irrigation the water to the other side? Okay. So, I'll make a motion that we authorize the Veterans Field
Committee to forego the connection of the irrigation system to the softball field on the opposite side of Riverside Drive. Second that, Jeff. Okay. Further discussion? All those in favor? I I I All right. Five nothing on that vote. [Music] Scott or Eric, I mean, we have the plans in here. They look good. I mean, where are we with the RFP? We just we need to finalize all the RFPs, but there's been a significant amount of work done in the last week or so on the RFPs. Eric's got to find time to be able to go over the RFPs and put his two cents in to them. Yeah. So, so I did jog Department of Labor again today because they still have not done one of the things that is required by Department of Economic and Community Development and that is send us an official letter stating whether this is a prevailing wage project or not. so I have not gotten a response from them. We've had some correspondence back and forth. after that two basic things have to happen. The first is we have to send all the proposed RFPs to DEC for their review and they have to make sure that they comply with their regulations for RFP drafts. Secondarily, we have to submit to the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights our plan for ensuring that we have the proper amount of small business and minority and womanowned business contracts you know as part of the project. So those two things are, you know, on the paperwork end. but they're both fairly lengthy in terms of, amount of time it takes to do them. So those are both partially in the works at this
point. but I need to carve out some time to address them. Scott, is the is the current the area where you control the the current irrigation outside of the playground? Is it right there on the corner? Where is it in the print? Yeah, it's it's there towards the river. Toward the river. It is outside the playground itself. So if you're looking at the schematic of the playground where the playground takes a little L-shaped jog, right next to that is the apparatus. so that's where the irrigation valve is. And that box that's right there in that cutout is the correct irrigation system. And and there's going to be a shed over the electrical panel. Okay. So that's what I was that's the other thing. So, the electrical panel
that's off on the right next to the remove box, you're putting a a cabinet or a shed over that. A shed. In real life shed. Yeah. Okay. Real life. Remember in the beginning it was supposed to be covered. We were going to cover it and it never happened. It'd be much better if it was undercover. Okay. All right. It looks good. Are you guys happy with the playground equipment? Yeah, there's a lot to playground equipment. Okay. More than you know or want to know. Okay. All right. Anybody else have any questions regarding the plans or anything related to the committee? Okay. It actually looks very good. I thought the plans were nice. And and Scott, you're happy with your pickle ball courts? They're not mine. They're your pickle ball courts, Scott. It's going to be pickle ball ball facility. No. Okay. All right. let's move on to 8D traffic around the lake.
so Eric, you provided us with some information related to what it would take to put speed humps around the lake area. correct. So, the only other thing I wanted to say relative to that is Jay was able to get Abby Construction to give us a firm estimate because they've installed enough of them to know what their costs are. And Abby has basically given us a cost of $5,000 per speed hump installed. That doesn't include signage or anything else. Just the actual paving, just the keying of the existing pavement, installing the hump, and rolling it. so that's good. That's less than we
were anticipating, but it's still quite a bit of money. That That's 20 times 28, correct? $140,000. Correct. without signage. I mean, it's definitely listen, I walk the lake every day. The people go fast. they go too fast. I'm sure speed humps would stop them. I'm just not sure that it would be convenient for all the residents. And I'm sure that Jay is going to have some issues with the plows. So, I think it's something and that we should keep and consider and then look for either grants or you really got to get the people on in the lake area to buy off on speed homes. Yeah. I What other traffic coming things are there? Eric, did you did you did everybody see my email I sent about Marorrow and what they're doing? Yeah. I mean, I think we should really watch what's going on over there and see what
how they make out with that arrangement with the with the cameras and see what you know, speed bumps they actually run into trying to get that passed. And you know, if it's if it's a pretty easy thing for them, maybe we should look at it because it would probably be cheaper and it would be a guaranteed revenue for the town. So, be a win-win. Well, I I don't think it's actually the revenue source of the town. what they're saying is that it will almost break even. In other words, your cost to put the the speed cameras in should just about pay for themselves through the revenues. secondly, as far as I know, only one town in the state of Connecticut, in the last year, a little over a year, they've been allowed in the state has actually managed to get, all the way through the approval process for the state. So, that's not a quick Yeah, I'm not saying it's it's a, you know,
something that's going to work out. I'm just it's something we should just take a look at because you know Marorrow is a similar town to ours and you know they're they're having the same issues. So let's just keep an eye on how they make out with their process and you know if it's something that that actually works out for them and actually calms the speed in the town with a little involvement then it might be might be something we want to do. So just something we want to look at. Yeah. The the situations on our lake and where they're putting theirs are very generous. Can we can we honor owner is okay I think that took care of it. Thank you. Yeah. So I also put in the back of the packet if anybody wants to go. I'm planning on attending the road safety assessment training course which is June 18th in Weathersfield. You guys are all the local traffic authority. If you want me to pass these on because you want to get firsthand knowledge of them, that's that's certainly good and the town will make sure that you get scheduled if that's of interest to you. And I think Jay had a something he wanted to say regarding that. Yeah, I just like to comment on the speed humps. you know, I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate for you on the other side. So, it I'm not going to I'm not going to tell you
that they don't have their place, but I worked in a town where we had a lot of speed humps. And if somebody if if you guys really want to do some localized traveling of speed humps, drive through Mansfield, Depot Road, East Road, West Road, Connavville Road. I will tell you that speed humps are high maintenance. They not only is the cost to put them in, but you've got a lot of signage you got to have in there. you got pavement markings that you have to constantly do. They tend to get beat up by not only the cars going over them. but also the plows will take nicks out of them sometimes and you know they just it's a constant maintenance before you really make some hard decisions. I just encourage you to take to drive around and to some of these areas and start driving them. when m when Mansfield put in their speed humps, you know, they did the study and they did the canvas the neighborhoods and they had a vote. and it it wasn't easy for quite a while. Did people get used to it after a while and then people would go around and not go through the neighborhoods? That was that was part of the outcome. But I will tell you it is tough on the equipment in the winter time. So broken springs, you forget a speed hump and you know people are getting launched
into the ceiling. So it it those are some of the things that I just want you to understand. or think about. that's really all I got to say. Hey Jay, did you ever have a complaints from the neighbors about noise? Because we we looked at this I think Eric it was probably about five or six years ago we looked at this. Sure. See I was on my bike and I rode up in the man's field and I was on some of the roads with the speed humps where there happened to be some neighbors outside. So I asked them about the speed bumps and they said they were kind of annoyed that all during, you know, the night and during the day all they'd hear is chunk chunk chunk chunk chunk chunk with the tires. Oh. Oh yeah. And and you know some people would get mad enough, you know, they would be blowing their horn the whole way through and and then they do burnouts in between. and then there would be a contest to see who could go the fastest. we had bike accidents on some of them. you know and I again a maintenance thing you know you get a little chip of
pavement out of it and it's a rough spot in a bicycle tire or one instance was a moped and the you know the handlebars went crossways and the guy went over and you know people complained of chip teeth and all kinds of things. So, they have on the maintenance side of things, you have to make sure because the liability to the town, signage has got to be correct, markings have to be correct, and just maintenance on them and making sure that they're always in, you know, good shape because if like anything, if it's un they're unmaintained, now you're controlling traffic. it's not just a pothole in the road or something, you know. So, anyway, that's my two cents. if you could include that information in a like a traffic authority folder so as we bring these things back up we at least have that information so that we can access it at a different time because I don't think anyone has really the appetite to sit there and put 50
speed humps around Lake Road, you know, and I know we need to do some community outreach to sit there and see if it would be feasible. I mean, I know the last time we did the traffic study and we talked about a lake, we talked about a traffic circle over on the lake road, lakeside intersection where people just roll through that stop sign and you know, while be you know, and we talked about doing some tests, some tests as put out things that without building out a traffic circle or without doing things and we got a lot of push back anyway. So, yes, we did. You know, while I do believe that, we should try to find some ways to sit there and reduce traffic. I think, for reduce speed, I think our best bet would be to take advantage of the state trooper and you know, have the state trooper do some work for us. He slowed the traffic down on Long Hill. Well, that's what I that's why I was suggesting the cameras because they're there all the time and you know like if it did a good it had a
really good effect on Long Hill, I can tell you because I down at the ball fields and I people have definitely slowed down. They're not going 50 60 miles an hour down the hill anymore. So, if people know those are cameras are around and they can be anywhere then it would definitely curb the the speeding. So, and unfortunately, we can't do movable ones like No, but if if they're in the area and you just say, you know, there's you put the sign up and people know they're there. it will definitely curb the speeding. See, Jeff, even if even if they're not active or not, just the signs alone, even if we didn't have them active, they don't know if they're active or not. I I told Eric today that I need a wearable radar and and a GoPro on my head and I need a vest that sits there and flashes the speed at the oncoming traffic. So, well, Jeeoff,
if we could get one of these signs we're going to get on the grant, we can put some straps around it and you can wear some straps around me. Get you some batteries and you can hook you up. I thought about it. all right. Portable speed sign with radar and cameras. Yeah, you could set it up in different spots in town, chain it to a something and see, but Eric Eric is is is truly the pessimist and he's like, "Somebody will will damage the sign and we will have other issues." So, hey, we'll put a game camera on it. It's not a problem. Well, we had three and
now we had one. And the last time we tried the game camera thing, the resident trooper had a bunch of his game cameras stolen. And at one point he even put hid one game camera looking at to try to catch the guy stealing his other camera and he got them both stolen. So our luck with that has not been superior. Unfortunately, two out of the three speed sign feedback signs that we have had have both been destroyed. you know, and at four to six thousand bucks a pop. All right. Even though we didn't pay for them, that's still a unfortunate. Okay. anyone else have any other conversation they want to have around the traffic around the lake? Can I add one more thing? Sure. Go ahead. And that is that speaking of future grant opportunities, within the proposed plan of conservation and development, we do have a fairly extensive section that deals with complete streets and vision zero and traffic safety in general. And part of the reason that we made sure that was in there is because for future grant applications, I want to be able to point directly to the plan of conservation and development and say, "We're asking for money and here's why." So, we're laying the groundwork for
future grant submissions regarding traffic safety in the town through the plan of conservation development. Ann, you had something else? I was just going to say I I know I last month spoke about maybe putting in speed humps. I know that no probably no solution is perfect. and people will say, "Oh, we need to do something about the speed, but then when you put something in, they'll be one of the first ones complaining that it's annoying or something like that." Nothing is perfect, but I do think it's good that we keep looking and maybe see what's going on with the cameras in Marboro. working with a state trooper, all these things will be useful. And my experience with speed humps had been like one speed hump on a mileong stretch of road. It was curvy like it is around the lake. And that did help to slow people down at that point. sure. It didn't help slow them down all the way around, but it
helped. So, we'll keep looking. Okay. All right. 8E Bunker Hill Bridge update. So, we got through the initial problem with dealing with the telecom companies. That's been resolved. They're back working on the bridge. As we know, we had a lot of rain, so they had about a week where they couldn't work because it's over the the flood dam. so you can't pump out the water when it's flowing over the top of the retaining wall. so that should be down low enough today that they can start working. So the first thing that's got to happen is that very first culvert has to be removed. They didn't get to that before it flooded the last time. So hopefully this week that gets removed and then they start moving the channel barrier so they can remove the other two culverts in the road. So we're still on track. We had a couple of delays, but nothing really super critical at this point. Much time did we lose with the telecom people? Just want to get that recorded. Okay. Any any questions related to the Bunker Hill project? Okay. We're going to move on to item 8F, the OSHA update. Eric provided pretty much his OSHA update and in his tongue administrator's report. Anyone have any additional questions for him? Okay. let's move on to item 9 a Andover's finest update. [Music] Eric had given us some information
that's in our packet related to Andover's finest. I think all of us on the board should engage with people in the community like Diane Grineer or some of the Kathy Plazy and some of the older citizens and we should sit there and come back with some internal recommendations that I would like us to just email internally so that we can communicate on this project. and and I mean we have some some tremendous candidates that we should sit there and consider for Andover's finest. And the one thing that we really need to do is we need to determine how we're going to honor them and where we're going to honor them. So, if you guys want to think about that, I think it's it's something that we should do that I think we need to get around to being positive
and having people that we we applaud for their efforts. Can I just ask I know that Paula had brought this up. I think it was last year. I was trying to do some research on it. Was there criteria set up? I know that I saw a little bit but I didn't know if there was like criteria as to, you know, if they've served the town for five years without compensation. There wasn't any criteria like that, Carol. But I I will sit there and get with Paula and I'll sit there and see what she she has still in her her folders. U but we didn't I don't think we had any criteria because Scott
who were the individuals and I apologize. Who are the individuals that we did recognize? And I know there were they were they were I think we we did Mrs. Gasper. I think we did John Hanfield and John Hanfield at the time. I think those were the three. We're Are we going to think of an alternative to the bricks or No, actually that's See, now you bring my mind to it. Yeah, we were we were going to do bricks. I remember that. We were going to do a walkway at the community center. Do we have an area that we can do that or do we want to do that, Eric? Do we have an area where we can do that still? we certainly as part of the community center planned on eventually taking the
sidewalks and filling in the remaining area with bricks to produce a patio. So we could still do that if that's what the town wants to do. Yeah. And Jeeoff, we could use we could just blank it out with bricks and then then fill them in with names as we you know people. I'm just wondering, should this be a committee thing or should this be just a board of selectment thing? I'm just wondering if we should have committee of five people nominating or putting forth names that they feel should be considered. Yeah. Considered. We don't we don't really have we don't really have the full picture of the town and you know, maybe there's other people that see other things that are going on and would have other individuals that should be nominated. I think that they that Paul asked it to be brought to the board to be vetted, but I think online I think it was an online it was it was an online submission form originally on the website. [Music] I think it's still there. Yep. I I'll tell you what. Let's let's each and I have no problem with that because I know there's there's people like Scott and Carol and Diane Grineer that have been in this town a lot longer than I have been and and understand a lot more of the history. so I I have no problem with a committee bringing recommendations to the board. I mean they get we get the submissions through the website and they
review them and then they bring recommendations to us and we just vote, you know, we vote. Okay. Yes or no? I'm just it would be it'd be a good way to get the community involved and and and keep it moving forward. Okay. so let's sit there and request [Music] let's put out a request for committee members for Andover's finest. If we can do that, Eric, that would be great. And then we should stare and you know you know I believe we should do them like once once every six months or once one person a quarter one person
every six months so that we're not overwhelming and we can at least try to work to tell the story of that individual because I do think it's important for people to understand let's say like a gentleman like Percy Cook and how much land he donated for the benefit of the community and I know Mrs. Mrs. Gasper put in a tremendous amount of time. John Hanfield with the walls and yeah, John Hanfield did a lot of volunteer work to sit there and for the benefit of the community. So, and and beautifification all the flowers he did. Yeah. The heart down at the old town hall on the on the road, which is a very nice touch in that area. Makes it look very nice. the town website still has on it the eligibility criteria suggestions and things like that still on there. Well, maybe if we sit there and get some people to participate outside of the board, we'll get more of a flow of information and opportunities to sit there and put people into, you know, the ring of honor for Andover, let's call it. So, or the bricks of honor. The bricks of honor. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Does anybody have any other issues related to that? Okay, we'll move on to 9B, vendor permit. we have a permit from Trinity Solar for a salesperson by the name of Jason Brer. Any issues related to the approving the vendor per Trinity Solder Solar?
Do we need more Trinity Solars? I mean, we've already authorized either two or three Trinity Solar reps in the town of Andover. I feel like we're kind of at saturation personally. Well, I talked to one of them and they said these people keep getting promoted into other positions. So, then the new people come and look for the the approval to work in town. Yeah. So that's is that So are they a replacement or are they the third rep that we're going to have walking around the top? I think they're mostly replacements. Okay. You can check with Trinity Solar, but I asked a guy that came around the neighborhood and asked him about that. mean, at least they come and they register. Yeah. At least they're doing their due diligence. Yeah. I mean, so I don't really have a problem with proving it because I'm assuming what Ann says is accurate in that we're not getting four reps in town. We're just getting a continuous replacement and the position keeps getting turned over and what they're doing is doing their, as Jeff said, their due diligence and just signing up for their license.
[Music] So, I have no problem. I'll make a motion that we approve the the Trinity vendor license for the Trinity Solar Rep Jason Breer for the period of April 2025 through April of 2026. Seconded. All right. Further discussion. All those in favor? I That is five nothing as well. Okay. item 9 C, an event permit. We have an event permit for the Funky Monkey Artisan Fair that is being to be held. And [Music] so I can talk you through the only thing that really requires the only reason why they're really even submitting an event permit because they're not really parking on town property. they've done this a number of times is that every year they ask for help from the circ team and because of this Amber who runs the cert team requested that you know they get the blessing of the town therefore they can the cert team she can fill out ascend it into the state for the cert so that's predominantly what this is for listen, I have no no problem with and over over and over and the Fitch family farms throwing this event. I think it's a great thing for the community. Let's make the motion. Yeah. I'll make a motion that we approve the town of Andover event permit for the Funky Monkey Artisan Fair to be held well, it's going to be held twice.
It's going to be held in June of 2025 and October of 2025. Seconded. All those in favor or further discussion? Anybody? Sorry. Further. All those in favor? I I 5 nothing. Okay. On 9E, review of assessments change changed by building permit inspections. there's one more before this. I'm sorry. 9D. registar of voter request. So we have a request in our packet from the register of voters who are both on this meeting. I'll read it. We have we we have now received all the new voting equipment. The six tabulators have filled the space in the downstairs storage closet. We need to offload three of them in order to keep the space accessible and OSHA compliant. We propose that the bounce house and the popcorn machine that are currently being stored in the downstairs vault be located to the downstairs of the community center to clear space for these three tabulators, two computers, two printers, and all that require storage. Thanks for your consideration, Linda and Wall-E. [Music] I guess Carol, I would ask you because those pieces of equipment are related to the recreation committee commission. Is there any problem with moving them to the downstairs of the community center? The only concern is if there's mice there. And the only other concern too is that lower vault is supposed to be kept locked. We've just been leaving it open, unlocked. so that's the only other thing. Well, I would hope that it would get locked with the voting machines in there. Well, what what are your comments on this? Oh, Eric. I requested the rec commission move it to the community center multiple times, so I I have no issues with it. there's space designated for it. so I think that's appropriate. Okay. But I'm not the one that made this
request. That came from the registars. No. Carol has a point though. Let's ask let's have we ever gone to a pest control? I mean, first of all, I don't think there's any real food issues over there, but have we Eric, have you considered going to like Erlic or or one of the pest control places to just put out traps just to make sure that we don't have a pest control issue at the I mean, do we even do it at school? I don't even know. Like, I'm just Yeah, Jeff, it's not food. They sometimes they like the taste of the plastic and stuff. No, no, no. I understand that. But what I'm saying is like for for my facilities, we you know for food issu food the base station safety issues you have services that
provide traps around the exterior of the building and do some pest control in advance and you know might be something that we think about just to make sure we don't have any mice that want to get in that area or and I'm sure Carol we could probably sit there and put something down there that would keep mice out anyway. it's a brand new building. It's It's not mouse proof. It's got to be mouse proof, but you never know. You can get in anywhere. They can get anywhere. the fire department has people come in. I don't know if it's monthly, but they do come in for the mice. Okay. So, we we do currently have pest control services, but only at the transfer station station because it's the only building that we've I mean, occasionally we've had issues in the town hall. To my knowledge, we've never seen any evidence of issues in the community center. If we did, we would address it at that point. We could add them pretty quickly. it's just a phone call. if you want to do it preemptively, we can certainly do that, too. Well, I'm not sitting there saying do it. I'm sitting there saying get the price on it and then let's sit there and see if it it will, you know, potentially solve any future problems. But I do think, Carol, we should move those to the community center and and carve out. I mean, this goes into storage space that I, you know, I've been talking about related to the construction that will eventually take place at the old firehouse. but I'm assuming, Carol, you would rather
for the recck commission keep the popcorn maker and the bounce house as close to where you're going to set it up as possible. So, we may as well keep it in that area. I mean, it's it's it's too bad Eric doesn't have an extra bike locker because that'd be the perfect place to put that bounce house because you could just put it right out. So, you pull it right out and set it up. But, unfortunately, we don't have one. But that would be a great that would be a great solution. I I would Wouldn't you think the bike locker would be more prone to mice? No, they're pretty tight. Pretty tight. Okay. [Music] does does anyone have a problem with us requesting that the space in the vaults be freed up for the voting machines? Okay. I mean, Carol, do we need to make a
motion? I don't think so. No. Okay. so let's let's have those moved so we can move that on. all right. 9E, review of assessments changed by building department permit inspections. So Jeff, this was a request by you last month for an explanation of how John Chaponis goes about assessing new structures or changes based on building permits or other things. So I asked him to write out and give me three examples of how he modified based on permits that were pulled. So that's what he did. So I I read it and I understand what he's saying, but my question was if you go down into the actual reports there there were 29 building permits this month, right? 26 building permits processed. And my question really was is did he evaluate all 26 and if necessary did he change all the valuations? I mean I know he says it I know he says it processing b building permits because what his report does is
tied to the building department's report and I get that. What I'm I'm I was asking is that's his process, but but do all 29 or 26 of the permits, you know, how many of those 26 of the permits that were generated turn into additional assessed value, reassessment. Well, he gave us three examples. Yeah. That's why it was nice before we could see what they were doing to their house, how much they were spending, and then you could really tell whether or not their assessment would go up. We don't get that anymore. We just get a number of permits and then you get a value with the permits. Yeah. I mean, I was really looking at if if there's 26 per building permits issued in the town, did the assessor's office increase on 13
of them? Did they increase on 15 of them? Did they increase on three of them? Yeah. Or any of them? I mean, yeah. I mean, so and and not every one of his examples is truly a building permit. you know, he gave us an example where the owner failed to get the certificate off and then there's one where the they they didn't get a permit and he identified it online from realtor.com, you know, and he went after them to increase their their assessment. And to be really honest, in the packet, if you guys go all the way to the bottom, that report at the end was extremely interesting. If you really Let's go back. Let's go down if you guys all can to page 139. The OPM what? Yeah, the OPM. Yeah, I was going to ask questions about that from Eric today. Yeah, the the assessment is supposed to be 70%, isn't it? Correct. And and none of them are 70. well, some of them are low. A lot of them are low. most of them are 45. you know, houses, they're, you know, 45 or somewhere in there 50. Yeah. I mean, you have Why is that? Well, look at all the non-usable ones where you're sitting there with and I'm assuming that's land, Eric. Is that accurate? what? Tell me where you're at. And
what on in the packet, it's the last two pages. Page 141. Remember how I asked you at one point in time that I wanted to sit there and see all of the home sales for a certain period of time and how they they shake out this this report and and and listen, I I I found the information. I didn't wait for you. I already got it. But this is very interesting and great information for the community, great information for Eric, great information to sit there and go back and tie back to the assessor because you know like I'll give
you, you know, I mean, you have the 10 Pine Ridge Road. Well, it's assessed at 124 and it's sold for 330. What the assessor do is do a fair market value. Fair market value is not getting to assessed value. Now, he also did the same. It also has the same thing on 355 Lake Road, which has a higher value and had a lower assessed value, but sold for 950. And and I know that one was under that's a problem one, but if you look at all of them, it was really interesting. You know, you had you had and this goes into my whole thing. Let's look at the one Lakeside Road, which is at the bottom of page 141. that was at 99% of its correct value. And this goes into what I have said all along related to the entire assessment process is that an area like Lakeside gets assessed at 100% of its value. And that doesn't happen all the time, I will grant you. But there are certain houses in the Lake area that are at the max of their sale value. And there are a lot of homes that are not. And this is this goes into my whole concept of the all boats need to float equally to get the right value for taxation. And this was a great report and and Eric you put it at the very end and I was like wow like this is not sure why. Yeah. If you want to sit there and give people an understanding of what's up and how, you know, you know, and and listen, it's what the assessor does is is not simple, but this is an example of it not being totally equal for every taxpayer. And
it's not it's not equal for the town, Jeff. I mean, look at the Bazula Road property. I mean that was that's an interesting one. So and and actually that's a question this is really the question I wanted to ask you on this and it's something that has to be tied back into the reports. Is the assessed value 70% of the number or is it is it the the value after assessment? It has to be 70%. That's what it has to be. But I was really interested in this report, Scott and Carol, Jeff. It was really interesting information as to like 55 Pineriidge Road. It's assessed at $154,000. Okay, you take that and you want to get to 70% and the house sold for 355. That was in that's really really interesting information. So, if
you get all boats to float equally and you get your assessments in a in a in a better state, then everybody feels as if they're what they're paying taxes on is is appropriate because some of us don't feel that way to be really honest. Okay, let's move on from that. But that is something else that I'd like the assessor to sit there and take a look at. let us know what he thinks about the report from OPM if possible. Scott got kicked off of the meeting so he lost his internet connection so let's see if he can get back on but we'll keep moving. discussion. Eric, where are we and how who's the website review committee right now? It is no one right now. you asked to put it on the agenda for this meeting to see whether the board wanted to consider a review committee for the website. I absolutely think we should [Music] the only person who said anything to me about that is Scott Soyette after he heard that commentary volunteered for it. So well that's all I can give you. What we should do is advertise for that as well as far as a committee goes. Okay. How many people do you want on the committee and what is their mandate? no more than five. And and to give us appropriate recommendations as to
improvements to the website and any support that they can give us to help that get executed. Anybody else have any items there what they would like to see added to that committee? And are you looking for a complete update to the website and are you willing to finance that or are you looking for lesser suggestions? What is it? What is your goal? a complete revamp of the website because that's typically done about every five years or do you want something less extensive? I would like to Jeb, I'd like to see any navigation issues just easier ways to find information if there's any roadblocks to or there's any hidden information just ways that people can access information easier, right? And any recommendations they would have and that would just be hyperlinks and just adding pages. I don't think it would be a full revamp. Well, you can you can call it do a a a thorough review of all websites functions and features and then you know listen if if people sat there and said that [Music] u we needed to do a complete revamp of the website I would listen to it. I mean, we'd have to find the funding for it, but I have no problem with that. So, I mean, listen, anybody that is good at website and and has done their own website or is in that industry, they're going to come and tell us there's like 50 things that we should do. And Jeff, there's a there's a how do I section, right? If you put a drop down
like how do I and put a bunch of things in there like how do I pay my taxes? How do I find events in town? How do I you know make a click to send you certain places. Okay. I I have they can come up with every I will listen to every recommendation. I mean if we can afford it we'll do it and if we can't we sit there and try to put it in a future budget. Okay. Scott joined us back. is there any other issues related to the town website review committee discussion other than ask for volunteers and give them a a preliminary mandate as to what we'd like to see happen? Okay. 9G mowing contracts. Okay. So, as some of you probably know and others of you don't, the town has been, subbing out their mowing to Andover Landscaping for quite a bit longer than I've been the town administrator. Andover Landscaping has gotten out of the mowing business because they were losing money on it. So, I went out and solicited bids from four vendors for mowing. I asked for a bid from Naturcape. I asked for a bid from A Cut Above. I asked for a bid from Sears and Suns and VIP Lawn and Land
Care, which is not in Andover, but is right over the border in Coventry on South Street. Naturcape has decided that they didn't want to bid on it. I had verbally corresponded and followed up with a couple of emails with Sears and Suns, but I had not really gotten they initially expressed interest, but they've never gotten back to me. I got a quote back from a cut above, which is the Fitch family, and I got a quote back from VIP Lawn and Landscape. a cut above was significantly less expensive, but it is quite a bit more expensive than what we used to pay for and over landscaping. but I think that's in part the reason why they've stopped offering that service is because they weren't making any money on it. So the question and concern I have for you is that because so my preference would be to use Fitch because he's an andover resin and he's the low bidder. However I know the board has had concerns in the past with businesses that are in a rears of their taxes and I would tell you that that is the case with them. So my question to you is how do you as a board want to proceed or what do you
want to do? How much more is it than our budgeted amount? well our budgeted amount includes we just lump the mowing in with with the field mowing and the field mowing is the majority of the costs. I would say this is going to be2 to3,000 a year more than what we were paying in in the past. What did VIP give you for the number? they were let's see about 240 bucks so mowing higher than cut above another $3,000. correct. I have no problem with you with with the contract being awarded to cut above. He's he's not going anywhere. And eventually if we can help an Andover
resident, you know, this is going to help him. So why not? Why else? Okay. I'll make a motion that we award the mowing contract for is it when does it start, Eric? So, like right now, I'll make a motion that we we award the mowing contract for the for the town of Andover to a cut above. I'll second that, Jeff. Okay, so Carol Lee seconded. further discussion on this. All those in favor? I I All right. Five nothing. And we'll talk to Mr. Fitch about paying his taxes more timely. Understood. Thank you. All right. 9H water found at the Andover Museum. Okay. This got kicked off because somebody who's actually not a resident but has donated to the Andover Museum multiple times in the past approached Scott and asked whether the town would consider putting in a water fountain because he was also a rail trail user at that location. so and he would be
willing to foot the cost for the water fountain slashbottle filler and installation. so and then I also reached out to DEP as well as the Hop River Trail Alliance to explore with both of those organizations whether they would be willing to pay for the annual water quality testing because it would then become a public water supply. so Deep has not responded yet, but David Buckley said they would likely only do it if we located the water fountain on DP property. But as you know, part of DP property comes within say 8 feet of the side of the actual building. So we could do that if we had to. but I think the Hop River Trail Alliance would agree to reimburse the town for the cost of the annual water monitoring if it got put to the board of directors. and that would make more sense because then we could put it right in front of the museum as opposed to sticking it off the side. But before I pursue that
further and ask them officially, that would be a municipal improvement. I would like you guys to be on board and and that be something you would want to consider. and then I will work on an 824 referral to planning and zoning and get all our ducks in a row to do that and come back with a full proposal. I just don't want to do that if that's not something you as a board want to pursue. You should first get the water tested. I mean, what's the status of the well down there that I mean, it's the water we use to it's it's what we use to water the grass. Yeah. Is it potable? Is it potable? Exactly. So, and another question. How would we winterize this? Well, I don't think that was one of the questions I had. because there's an existing manhole and everything drains back to the manhole anyway. The drinking fountain would be set up the same way. It would just drain back and at the same time we take the filtration system and disconnect the irrigation every year. We would do the same thing for the fountain. Yeah. It would have to be blown out either with air or put antifreeze in it. So that's just something we'd have to consider as an additional cost. So, yep. I mean, does anybody have a
problem with this in theory of putting a water fountain on the trail? I think it would be a great addition to the trail. I think it'd be a great addition, too. But it's just I would want to make sure we get the water test. If the water's potable and we can do it, let's let's move ahead. But I probably the best thing to do would probably get the water tested first. Make sure we don't have any caulifform or any other bacteria in there. [Music] Well, if if you want to authorize me to do a water quality testing there, I'm happy to do it to see whether the project moves forward. I mean, what's the cost? Couple hundred bucks. $60 dollars or something, I think. Last time I had it done, I think. Now, last time we had it done at public works, it was considerably more than that, but yeah, it was more like the $350 range. in the past, we've used Colombia Environmental Laboratory. When they were in business, they were super cheap, but they're no longer in business. So, that's the last time I've had mine done. Don't we have access to I mean we could bring it to Phoenix Laboratories in Manchester and get it tested, right? And like I said the last time well they would want to come out here and sample it. They're going to
certify it as a public water supply. But we could just have them do it the next time they're testing locally if you want to do that. Yeah, let's let's sit there and give them a call or give somebody a call and sit there and see what it's going to cost us. And if it's if it's under $200 or $250, does anybody have a problem with Eric doing it? No, I think it's I think it's a great idea and I, you know, I would move ahead with the other, you know, the other steps while in parallel with the testing, you know, and if it if if it comes back contaminated or something like that, then we just we would have to stop the project. But if
everything tests okay, we can just move ahead. Okay. Okay. That's that's my take on it. Anybody else have a problem with trying to put water on the trail? Oh, it's a great idea, but I've seen that water. [Laughter] I mean, there's definitely sediment issues in that water. I I don't think there's any question about that. so it would not go in without a filtration system. That's for sure. I think Jeff Murray's issue about col whatever colorform or chloroform is more of the issue. We don't want to get people sick. Just make sure it's a healthy drinking source and and then if it if it tests good then like let's let's move ahead with it. And like I said, you can do those you can do your other stuff with the trail lines and everything in parallel with that. Okay. At least put the fuel. Just the one thing, Scott. Is that a deep well? That's a shallow well, isn't it? It's going up, right? I think it was like 125 or something when we put that pump in it. All right. That's not bad. Okay. was yellow.
[Laughter] All right. 9 I senior transportation rules for pickup. I know Eric put them in our our packet. This is something we had talked about beforehand. Does anybody have a problem with the rules for pickup? And Eric, are you asking us for us to approve them again or you just wanted to have us see them? No, you guys had some questions about what our policy was in terms of curb to curb or what measures we used and how we decided what we could and couldn't provide. So, that's kind of what the the conclusions we came to. and it's been modified a few times based on concerns we've had with some things that have happened with the seniors. So, that's kind of what we're putting out. but if you have modifications you want to make to it, now's a now's the time to discuss it. I mean, I know with the last time we had a discussion with this, we were trying to talk about plowing and and getting wheelchairbound residents or impaired mobility residents from a nonshoeveled walk to an accessible area for the van to get them in. And that was the last conversation I remember related to this. Sure. Sure. But this has come up and and frankly we have gotten several complaints or we got several complaints from that resident who is very unhappy that we were not providing them service. but you know at the time we all looked at it and said this is not
something that we can safely get them from the house to the vehicle. and that was what the decision was you know made for. So when you when when you get complaints, where do they go? depends what the complaint is about. Transportation complaints, where do they go? Do they go I mean, are they accumulated so that at some point in time we can get a briefing on them or an email on them just because your complaints are going to let us know if there's a problem with the the rules of pickup. I mean, because we realize that the people that are going to complain the louder. are the people that that violate one or more of the rules. And then we have to just sit there and as a group, I mean, you're doing it yourself. You're sitting there and evaluating if that resident is is in violation of certain items from the code of conduct or safety or whatever the issues are. I mean, but I think it would be helpful for the board if if we did get a list of complaints at some point in time. So then we can sit there and see because I can't tell you I I wouldn't be able to tell you what items on here need to be addressed. I mean, maybe Carol has a different opinion or Ann of things that might want to be removed or added, but I'm just wondering if we checked with other towns to see what they have for their transportation policies and codes of
conducts. [Music] I'm assuming that this was this was based off of another town's as a starting point. That was Yeah. I think last time we also talked about that one person that couldn't get to the bus, right? Yeah. Right. What could and what we could do to get that person to the bus. What What town can I ask that this was based off of? I I don't know. Okay. Because I did go over and check in Colombia. they don't really have one. So, that was the only town I was able to get to since once we I had the policy and code of conduct, I was only had time to go to one town. So, but I was going to try to go to other towns just to see what they do for their policies and code of conduct for people. Colombia actually does doortodoor is what they told me. The drivers will help the people to the door. They just can't step inside the house. Yeah. I think our problem was not necessarily going door to door. Our problem way to get from the door to the road or the door to the driveway, right? The wheelchair. Nothing nothing had been shuffled was our issue. So, I mean, when I read this, I didn't see anything that really I thought was excessive or out of line. I mean, how many how many complaints you get a month, Eric, on the rules? No. I mean, so if you take one resident who's no longer a resident of Andover, who complained to me six or seven times, I would say
I've gotten complaints from basically two people. One was regarding access, not being able to get a resident from the house to the vehicle. and then the other one complained about sequentially about all the drivers we had at one time or another. you know, about a wide range of things. Okay. All right. But I don't think they were complaining about any of the rules because they don't know what the rules are, right? They're not in effect yet. So, people were just complaining about not being able to get from their door to the vehicle. Well, if we could Yeah. I mean, ordinarily I mean, I think offering it curb to curb to me is done strictly for liability reasons. Personally, I don't want to own getting somebody out of their house or getting somebody down a ramp or anything like that. And I remember when I was, you know, in a wheelchair, Ellie made it very clear
that it was my job to get myself across my gravel driveway, you know, to the ramp and then, you know, she would take over from there. But in terms of getting myself down the ramp from the house or out the door, that was on me. And I thought that was reasonable at the time when I was going. Okay. I guess the question would be how many people are we not servicing that need the service and then we have to determine if we can adjust the rules or bend the rules you know and I know we don't want to do that but that's just something if we don't
understand what the the comments are from the writers or from the seniors and we can't tell you what to do or not to do right I mean like I said you know I've gotten complaints basically from two individuals. Okay. you know regarding this well I would recommend that the other members let's read this in more detail and we'll we'll put it on again next month's agenda and if we have if we hear from any seniors that are using the service and there's an issue with any of these [Music] I mean everybody signs this document that rides the has everyone signed the document that rides the buses as far as I No. Yes. All right. Now, have they read that document? If they signed it, they hopefully can read. Doesn't mean they read it. Just means they signed it. Okay. So, let's take a a look at that and then Eric, if you have any issues and if anyone on the board hears of any comments, then we can address the individual items on on the code of conduct, policies and code of conduct. Okay. All right. let's move
on to item 9J, senior center updates. the item a transportation. So very simply, I sent this to you separately, but what I would like to do is hire Linda Derek at least in the interim to take over the senior schedule. given that we're going to be continue to be pretty restricted in hours for a senior center director, I would like to take the scheduling portion out of out of the director's role and whoever the director is will still maintain overall control of the senior center but won't be doing day-to-day scheduling because that is a pretty significant time suck. you know for whoever has to do that and we weren't moving towards that with the old director. we just didn't get there before we changed approach. So this would be a temporary hire or what what's your plan? Tell us what your thought is. My plan is let's lock that up for three months and see how it goes. And at the end of that three-month period, if that individual is still willing to do it, Linda is still willing to do it, and we're satisfied with it, we keep going. But I think I sort of feel like whoever is the permanent replacement for the senior center director should have a say in in how that scheduling is done and who she oversees. That's my personal take on. Okay. [Music] does anybody internally on the board have a problem with filling the transportation position for or the senior transportation position with Linda Derek? Any issues, comments, discussion? Interim, excuse me, as interim for three
months. Yep. the only the only concern I have is I would like to almost advertise for this position and just make her monthtomonth and then if she comes out to be the candidate that we want to move forward with then we could appoint her at that point. I mean that would be my feeling because I would like to give other residents an opportunity for the position as well. I don't want to make it seem like we're locking into one individual. Well, that was the whole goal with me making it clear in the proposal that it was a temporary position. Okay. So, if it's three months, I mean, to be honest, by the time we advertise for it, we interview for that position and we make
an offer, we're probably looking at 90 days anyway. Absolutely. At a minimum. Yeah. Yep. Well, especially if what Eric is saying is accurate is that he would want to hire the senior center director first and then have the senior center director be engaged in the discussions on who the permanent person in the transportation side would. So 90 days seems like a legitimate real. All right. So what So Jeff, I'm just going to play devil's advocate here and say let's just go say we go past 90 days. So, is this going to be a 90-day contract and then it's monthto monthth after that? Because let's just say we don't we don't find somebody in 30 in 90 days. Well, sure. But this is also going to give Linda the opportunity to determine if she doesn't want to keep doing it. So, but we should probably actually advertise. We should we should advertise for the position as well. We should we should advertise for people that would want to sit there and hold that position. are you saying advertise for the temporary position, Jeff? no. I think what we we need to do is we need to we need to advertise for the senior center director first and then at the same time advertise for the transportation director on a part-time basis. And then we get the names of people that would want to fill in for both. And then you know we sit there and evaluate who's the best for that position. I mean be but what Carol what Eric is really asking is that if the
person is going to supervise that individual should have at least a seat at the table to sit there and say okay that person will work well with me or not well with me and you know and that's what he's aying even though yeah I I think what you do is you try to hire you go through you know we're going to talk about the hiring committee or I forgot what that was. We'll do that later, but we were going to do that right after we finish the the other position. But so this this will get is looking for interim interim people. It would really be like 90 90 days would be the max for the interim position and theniring. So this would start May 15th. It would get us through June, July and August to get
us through the middle of August. The con the offer letter as written expires August 14th. Okay. But if we did do it monthto month, then Linda could do that longer. Correct. Well, what Jeff was saying is we do a 90 initial 90-day contract with 30-day extensions if we don't have someone identified identified for the position. But if we did it monthtomonth, it wouldn't have a deadline on it. So, right, it would also not I mean honestly I mean this is up to Linda, but it it you would want to lock Linda in or someone in for 90 days so you could go through the hiring process. So, if you did you do it monthto month, then Linda could leave after 30 days and then we're back in the same position. Yeah. But if Linda doesn't like it, then she's locked in for three months. I don't think Linda would leave us. Okay. to say anything. I'm just Yes. Hi, Linda. Hi, Linda. How are you? I didn't see you. I'm good. She's She's good. just a couple things about about me. I just had a chance to meet with the drivers. They're a little shaken, right? It's it's hard to not have consistency. And so I think you want to give them and the people who use this program consistency and assurance. So I think the three months is good. Honestly, for me
personally, I'm not sure how much beyond 3 months I can do. I start teaching again in September. and it's very timeconsuming. So, I'm willing to give full attention for 3 months or or less if you don't need me, but probably wouldn't be able to go much further than that. So, that's just me. So, Linda, you're you're just thinking a three months three months and out type of thing. I just wanted to help until we get to the real plan. which is to hire the new director and move forward. Okay, that's all. I'll sign off. So, we need to do this as this is not a permanent This is not a permanent situation. This is a temporary three months situation for me. No, I'm just No, I'm talking as I'm talking to the board, Linda. I'm just saying I'm I'm off. Yeah, we're going to need to we're going to need to do something relatively quickly to make sure that that position is filled. Okay. Well, that's we're going to talk about permanent bas on a permanent basis. Yes. So, I I'll make a motion that we u authorize the town administrator to hire Lind Derek as the temporary transfer senior transportation coordinator. At what rate? $20 per hour. No benefits provided. Okay. Just so it's on the record. And wasn't it how many hours a week was it for Eric? Was it 10? Up up to 10 hours a week. Up to 10. Okay. I'll second that. So authorize Eric to to Yep. I thought you made a motion already. Eric,
20 $20 an hour at 10 hours per week. I'll second that. Okay. Further discussion. All those in favor? I I I have nothing. Okay. JB interim director Eric. So I also sent you all a copy of a revised job description again for a temporary director. So realistically, it's going to take 90 days to make a decision on what you want to do because you all have a lot of homework to do on figuring out exactly what you want out of this position. So my suggestion to you is that you go with the revised job description that I submitted to you and consider hiring Haley Proto as an interim director. again for a threemonth period to stabilize that long enough for you to make a permanent come up with a hiring process, come up with a final job description and make a permanent decision. Now, I suspect Haley would like to be considered for the permanent position, but I also made it clear that what we were doing at this point is signing an interim agreement. you know, so that's basically what I have to say on that. So Haley lives in Andover and I'm just curious, was there something out there about this part-time? Because
Haley's letter to us is dated the 2nd of May. Was there something put out there to hire for this position? It was not, but I had spoken to all of the contractors that the town was employing for yoga and other things. And in my conversations with her, she said that was something she would consider. And I asked her at the time to submit to me a resume and an offer letter. We're so you're employing the contractors at the community center or they're just coming in as private contractors and we take a portion of what they collect. Is that correct? Regardless of how you want to view it, we have arrangements with these with yoga instructors. We had one for Tai Chi, you know, everything from haircuts to you name it. And so Haley provided you the resume, you provided us the resume, and what you're looking to do is do the same thing with Haley to fill the void until the hiring committee hires someone. Correct. Okay. how many hours would this position be now that you're splitting it? 20 hours a week. Okay. I think maybe we should keep it at 19, especially if it's going to be a temporary, you can do 19, but I think related to MURF, if you're only
hiring temporary employees, you're not, and I could check on this, you're not required to pay MURF if it's a temporary employee. Okay. So, our issue, but if you want 19 hours instead of 20 hours, that's up to the board. Wow. I just think if we're going to do anything with it, and I would just hesitate on this one, hiring a three-month temp because if we advertise and we get someone that comes in that stands out and, you know, we're tied into a three-month contract. But if we were to just do week to week the n up to 19 hours a week as needed because it might not be needed 19 hours a week with Linda doing the transportation. Well, isn't the point to have the building open? I mean, so 19, but I believe four hours a day. Most of the contractors have the keys. So, like when they're having the chair yoga on Monday, I know some of the evening Linda I think is the only one with an evening program. I think she has a key. Okay. Is there just so I understand it, I know we used to have 19 hours as a ballpark for a lot of different reasons to not sit there and have benefit issues. listen, if that's if that's the choice, let's let's do it. If we can sit there
and move forward, I think it's in the community's best interest. So, if someone wants to make a motion on Haley, that would be great. Go ahead, Jeff. make the motion. You know, when Bob Burbank was on this board, he never made one motion. Okay. He never made a motion ever. You make I'll second it. Yeah, I get it. Motion to make Haley the interim director for 19 hours a week for for a three-month period. For a three-month period at what rate, Eric? $20 an hour. Eric, what's the hourly rate? $34 an hour. $34 an hour. Got made the motion for 20, though. I'm going to I'm going to change my motion. Hang on a second. I I'll motion to have Hi. Haley Proto be the interim director for three months for $34 an hour for a threemonth period. 19 hours per week. 19 hours a week. I'll second that. Okay. Further discussion. I just have one thing. Haley, is that acceptable to you? Well, she can. I don't have Oh, she is sir. That is acceptable. Okay, that's acceptable to me, sir. discussion. All those in favor? I So that's five nothing as well. Okay. 9JC discussion and possible action on community community center staff hiring committee. So Eric provided us the previous or provided us an email since this was being added. I asked him to provide us information as to who was on the previous committee. There's a four member committee. Derek, when did you do that? You did it late in the day, did you? I can't
find it now. Yeah, I sent it late. well, you asked me late, so I sent it to you late. Yes, you sent it to the other one. So, there were four people on that committee. One was Eric. one was myself. the grant commission chose Anarie Dagel. And there was an outside person who is Ann Marie Sunard who is the human services coordinator and past community center director for Coventry. Correct. Coventry that's correct. And you as a board approved that hiring committee u prior to us doing that and you know you were the board's selection. Eric, we're we're yes, the board did and the board approved all the hiring issues and everything else related to it. So, Eric gave us an email and now the question is is what does
this board and who does this board want as part of the hiring committee for moving forward? I think I mean let's let's do the group of people like we want an outside person who has experience right yes of the senior center we would we would like one member of the board of selectmen we should get one member from the rec commission and well are we going to continue to have the wreck commission part of the purview for this job because it sounds like based on previous discussions You're not really on board with that. Are there other members of the board that are not on board with having the community center director work with the rec commission if we can get it done this time? I'd love to see the rec director work with the rec commission. Okay. think that would be good to work with the rec commission, but we may also need a part-time person to do the evening programs that the rec commission would probably be involved with. Okay, that is absolutely true, but let's deal with the hiring committee. So, I' I'd like to see that something put out for various positions, see who we get for resumes, and let the committee come back to us with their recommendations. And what we tell them is we want to have coverage at in the evenings. We want to have coverage during the day. We want to have oversight of the senior transportation director or that position, whoever takes that 10-hour spot. Okay. Works with the rec commission. Okay. So, we need an outside person, someone from the rec commission, and we should have two members from the board of selectmen because we're not
going to have Eric be part of the hiring committee to move forward. Anybody on the board have a problem with that configuration? No, I'm just saying I'd be happy to serve on that. should it should it be five members, Jeff, just in case we have a stalemate or you I think that was probably Yeah, be a great idea. We have a fifth member. well, let's maybe from the public. Let's let's get somebody from the public at large. Someone someone at large. Maybe Diane Grineer would participate. Yeah, exactly. Okay. and maybe not Diane Grineer, but someone from outside of the elected circle. Correct. Okay. Somebody from the somebody that has a good sense of the community. All right. So, maybe Linda Derek would do it. So we will sit there and say two members of the board of selectmen a member of the rec commission and then we would sit there and have an outside individual with experience within community center senior center for other for another town. I just wanted to say if Colombia was willing to do it, she was very nice, the director. I was actually extremely impressed with the woman from Coventry. I She was she was very I didn't meet her. I didn't know if she'd want to do it again, but I'm just saying I did talk with her over there. Okay. Well, we'll find someone and Eric, we'll put that on you to find an appropriate municipal representative. That's possible. if that's okay with everybody, that would be a five member hiring committee. That hiring committee would come back and refer back to the board of selectmen the the the chosen candidate just like was done last time. And then it would be to the board of selectmen to approve the
hiring of th that candidate. And then from there, we would move on to unless you want to do it at the same time. Well, that's that's not what Eric has in mind, but as soon as we would also be taking job or candidates for the director for the transportation program at the same time. And Jeff, I know you mentioned we also could take job candidates for an evening. I mean, that position needs to really be filled by someone truly. Like, you know, if we could fill all the positions with people in town, that would be great. But the evening one
definitely has to be filled by somebody in town. I I just think we need to put the ad out and you know advertise and see who we get that's interested and then we can I think that I think the good goal I think the goal of the community would be to find the right fit for those individuals for what they could serve at the community center what times. All right. So, I'll make a motion that we appoint a hiring committee made up of two members of the board of selected, a member of the rec commission, a a member of the community at large, and a local municipal employee who has experience in senior center and wreck center background. Seconded. Right. And I'm going to add to that and we advertise for the local representative. And can we do that for
this week? Can we put that in the river this week? It's Monday, so we should be able to put it in tomorrow. Yeah, let's get it. Let's get it in as soon as possible. All right. So, well, hold on. Hold on. You don't have a job description yet. So, you're gonna have to come up with a job description. This is This is for the person to serve at large. on the hiring committee. okay. This is not for the job description that we're going to work with you on to sit there and get ready so that we can advertise for people to apply. Actually, all the committees, all these committees that we decided on tonight should be in the River East for Friday. Correct. Yes. And and that's why we're giving 90 days because we have plenty of time to to form this committee and make this decision. Okay. So, do we have any further discussion on the the committee and the the makeup of the committee, the hiring committee? Anything? Anybody have any issues? All right. I just kind of have one thing. If I were you, I would consider putting together a panel of senior center and community center directors from other towns because I personally think your expectations are probably somewhat unrealistic. But I don't want you hearing that from me. I think you should
have that discussion with people who actually do this job and come to whatever conclusions you're going to come to about staffing and priorities. I I I think that's a great idea and I think that what we should do is we should take our preliminary job description and go to individuals like that and have them evaluate it and tell us what they think our expectations are because personally my expect I don't have expectations related to job description because I don't have it in front of them. So I think I don't think we're there yet Eric is what I'm saying. So this is about the hiring committee and and first step moving
forward which is to fill out the hiring committee and then once we fill out the hiring committee we'll sit there and work on the next step which is a job description and then we'll go from job description to advertise for the people and move on. But yes do do I think it would be a great idea to get some input from Colombia's senior center director and Bolton's and Coventry. Yes, I I think that it's all good ideas. So who committee members are I mean if I happen to serve on this committee I will definitely be reaching out to other centers and getting a good feel for what is needed. So I'm going to visit other senior centers too like Marboro. I've been looking at a lot of their stuff online. They have a great morning program where they have two and three year olds come into the sen the center with the seniors. And I was just in Colchester the other day, so I have a good feeling for what's going on. I I went to go I was there with a family member. So I got to get a good feeling of what's going on there. And that will give us better insight too going around and just asking questions. okay. So we have not voted. we have not voted on the on the makeup of the committee. So, if there's no further discussion, I'd like to get that motion off the floor. So, all those in favor of the committee establishment, two members of the board of selectmen, a member of the rec commission, a a member of the atlarge citizens non-elected official, and a an employee of a local community center. That was how it
was worded in that ballpark, those five individuals. We all good? All those in favor? Hi. All right. 5 nothing. so, I think, when does the rec commission meet, Carol? Tomorrow night. Just before the town meeting. Just before the town meeting. Okay. [Music] let's let's get the two people selected. So, I know that I would sit there and do it. I did the last one. I thought it was fine. I know Carol sat there and said she'd do it. Jeff said that he said he do it. Scott, are we all willing to do it? And now we have to come down to two. Who? Jeff. Is Ann willing to do it? Yes. Jeff and Jeff?
Ann's willing to do it though. Correct. So, we have all of us. Okay. I'm fine with any one of us doing it. If it's not me, it's fine. Well, to be really honest, we should split this up. There should be one from the yeses and one from the nos. It's fine with me. Okay. Who wants to do it? So, out of out of the other side, who wants to have one of the people make a motion to nominate someone that you want on there? Well, since since Carol's on the rec commission, she may end up being one of the for the red commission. I don't know, unless you want to do it, Carol. I'm fine with Ann doing. I will nominate Carol Lee for I would be fine. I'd be fine. I'd be fine with Anne doing it as well. I would be so that we do not have that conflict of Carol being the nominee from
the wreck commission. Okay. Somebody want to second that one? Second that. Okay. So, so Carol would be one of the one of So, we're going to vote right now to put Carol, right? So, all those in favor of having Carol Lee be appointed to the the hiring committee, I Okay. And then and Carol of course is gonna abstain because she can abstain. Yep. But just for just for the record, Carol's abstained. Okay. So it's zero 401 that Carol be appointed. Okay. So Scott, do you want to do this or do I want to do this? Maguire, you're Okay. So you may you go ahead and nominate me. I nominate Jeff Magcguire for the candidate for the yeses. The yeses. The nos committee. I'll I'll second that. We were the nos. All right. Okay. All those in favor. All right. All All those opposed, I'll abstain. So 401. Okay. [Music] so that is the end of that item. 9J 9K set a date for a special election for a town clerk. So based upon, you know, where we're currently at within the town clerk's office, and because we need the appropriate amount of time, we need to really set a an
election date which would correspond to the state and local elections to be held November, and I don't know the exact date, but Carol, do you know that date? I don't. Dennis O'Brien, do you know the date that we're holding the November elections? Yeah, I'll find out. I don't I don't know. I I thought it was the seventh, but maybe that was last year. I I I think I have the election calendar somewhere on my desk. Yeah. Give me one second. I might have it. The first It's in the secretary's election calendar. No, that's not it. First Tuesday after the first Monday in November. November 4th, 2025. It's the fourth. Okay. November 4th. So, from what I understand, we have we have an election November 4th, and what we need to do is put the town clerk on the ballot for that period, and we need to allow the parties to nominate candidates because the way that the timing works is is they'd have to nominate candidates in J July, then there'd be a potential primaries in August and there would be individuals on the ballot for November. And I believe that that's the the fairest way for us to do this at this point in time rather than sitting there and appointing any one for the remainder of the term. anybody have any problems with us
doing this in this manner? All right. and then I'll make a motion that we inform the Connecticut Secretary of State and the local party chairpeople that we will be holding an election for town clerk in the 2025 municipal election to be held November 4th. I'll second that. All right. Further discussion on this topic. All those in favor? I five nothing. Okay. So we will move on from that. so before we get off that subject since that is the way you want to word it then we do need to officially sign a employment letter with Britney Comtock. I sent a copy of that to you. I would like you to authorize me to sign that as the assistant town clerk. as the assistant part-time as the assistant town clerk a union position in local 1303-368 at an hourly wage of $2060 per hour per appendix A of the ASME contract and the only thing that I'm going to suggest as part of that is because the existing contract states that if the town clerk is gone for any reason, the assistant is allowed to work
extra hours if and only if the town clerk sends a letter requesting that from the town administrator. And since there's no town clerk, my suggestion is that in the office letter, I state explicitly that she's allowed to exceed those hours as needed up to the 34 hours. because I don't there's nobody to authorize her to work extra hours other than herself, right? So I would like to do it as a blanket policy. and I sent that to you a couple of days ago to review. Okay. I I don't I don't have a problem with the contract. I have a problem with the hours and and what I'm after what what that that'll be impacted by is the Carol billing in the situation. So, can I can I chime in on this on on a on a tangential issue that I've been looking at if if you don't mind. and
that is the question of whether town attorney Dennis O'Brien. Thank you. that is the question of whether Britney as assistant town clerk can appoint other assistants which might take at least one other assistant which might take care of the problem you have with her having to work extra hours. I believe that it's more likely than not that general statute 7-9 since there is no since she is authorized since there is no town clerk official town clerk she is not she is authorized to do whatever the town clerk can do and I believe that would include appointing assistants under another separate statute. So that that is something that I've grappled with for about a week off and on because it is a complex issue. But I think that
given 7-9 that statute I believe that she could appoint assistance and that would that would enable her to work less than you know the the the number of hours that Eric is suggesting. If that's a problem. Yeah, that's a problem. So, I think I think common sense common sense tells me that's a problem. I think I just gave you the answer. Yeah. Okay. If you want to accept it, I'm just an adviser. Okay. So, just a solution. What was your solution? Other than telling us that she could hire an assistant. That's it. That would that that would give you more hours in the You're already You're already going to have Well, Eric brought I I'm I'm sitting there in my head and Carol, I'm just going to sit there and go like I don't I don't want to have that office have additional hours if at all like that are not necessary. So it is a very convoluted issue because we have to deal with with the next step with the next piece of this. So okay we're going to need some extra because we're going to be we've got the trans we got the stickers coming up too. So yeah, I mean I don't I don't have I don't have I will I will personally and listen, I don't mind you signing a contract with Britney. I mean, but she's already the
assistant Tom Clark and she's already part of the union, right? That is correct. I don't remember ever signing Have we signed contracts with any of the other assistants? Yeah. Have we signed offer letters? Yeah, we've signed offer letters with every other assistant. Okay. Well, let's sign an offer letter with her, even though I know this has already been done. And to be really honest, approval of those extra hours really should go and I know the town clerk is separate. I mean this is this is where it gets convoluted but we cannot allow Britney to work excessive amounts of hours even though she can't. She has three children. It's not going to happen. But reality is the way you worded it was an
unlimited hours and that doesn't work for me. It was not unlimited. to 34. 34. Since there is no currently no town clerk and the employee is the acting town clerk, this is a blanket authorization to work up to 34 hours per week from 26 as needed until such time as a town clerk is elected or appointed. Okay. Period. All right. I have no problem with that then. and sign the off get an offer letter prepared and and send it to the board so that we can see it before it goes to Britney. Does anybody have a problem with that? I did send that was one of the documents I sent you. I'm going to have to reread that and get back to you. Okay. So, I'm not authorized to sign it yet. You're gonna the board is going to do what? You're gonna we'll email you and just read it. Makes it real. Is Dennis Is is Dennis is Dennis read that contract? No, I I have not been consulted about this because he he has a labor attorney that he uses to give him advice on
labor law, which I'm not an expert on. I know some, but I don't know. I I've never majored in labor law. And most towns I've ever worked in, I have not done labor law. But I'll tell you, I I I I am bothered by the fact that this position is in the union. It it is bothersome to me. If it's required, okay, I I don't know the answer to that. Listen, Dennis, you can't We have positions in our town that are in the union that are bothersome above and beyond this one. Well, this is a pointed a position appointed by the town clerk. I know. It's just it's just ridiculous. An assistant town clerk position. So, it's it's Give us to give us to read it and can we all respond back to to Eric if there's any problems with that offer letter? Sure. Do we want to give him a deadline? Like can we do it by Wednesday? Why Wednesday? Fine. By Wednesday. So, let's all just get back to him and make sure that none of us have any major reservations. I don't think Is all right. Is it all right if I make a written comment to the board on it on on the suggestion I made before? You can do that, Dennis. Yeah, you. Okay. Because I think the solution that I offered you is a better one than what Eric is is offering. Okay. then explain it to me because I didn't understand it. And I my it's simple. Well, it's it's I believe that under certain stat a certain statute, Britney as assistant town clerk can appoint another assistant town clerk, thereby decreasing her need to work at additional hours herself.
It's a it's a that's why I didn't understand it because we're going to go on to this next issue related to Carol which is Okay. Okay. I'll wait for them. All right. Well, well, Dennis, you haven't seen the the contract letter that Eric has, right? So, Eric needs to send that to you first and then you can come. I haven't seen it. No. Yeah. So, Eric need to send that to Dennis and let Dennis respond. Yeah. What Dennis is saying is she can appoint somebody else as an assistant because she's having the I mean, this is this is where this whole thing Okay, let's move on to this next one. So, all right. So, we need to let's respond by midnight Wednesday to Eric so he he can make a decision for our guest. No problem. All right. Thank you. Move on to 9L. Discussion of services provided by Carol Lee to train the assistant town clerk. So, Carol, since your resignation as the town clerk, you've been working in the town clerk's office and I'm assuming the majority of what you're doing is training Britney. Is that accurate? That is correct. Okay. And you've been billing the town $19 19 hours a week. Correct. At a $60 an hour rate and I'm just trying to get the timeline of when the first bill was presented. The contract that Eric gave me was the beginning of February. The contract that Eric gave you, right, was he gave me the contract I was was in advance. He jumped the gun because that contract as I had wanted it was for you to stay as town clerk and you remained as town clerk. But now then we switched this
whole process and you're now on the board of selectments. So I told him as soon as we saw that to stop that. But yes, you have the contract and you have $60 an hour. Eric did present that to you. I'm I'm not debating that but I am telling you there is a lot of things that happened in between everything that we were doing. so the question I have is just so everybody in the community is aware the timing of it. there it is. So the first one was submitted February 3rd to February 6th for 19 hours and one has been submitted every week since then for $1,140. Right. I think there was one week lower. What was that one? I think there was one week that was lower amount lower. Okay. so my [Music] just so we all understand, is all of
your time being spent training Britney? Yes. Okay. All of your time is spent training Britney. I would I I would sit there and I would go, "How long how much longer are we anticipating having to have your assistance in training, Britney? Maybe get her through another Yeah, you're you're you're outside. Can't hear you. maybe maybe get her through another referendum and some of the election process. Okay. Would it be acceptable to the board that Carol stays to the end of the fiscal year? I I mean really my issue in in the the problem that I've always had related to this is that one of the things that I always believed was the town clerk the town clerk was the last paid official within the community and it is not there's always issues there's been issues in the past with elected officials being paid and so my goal Well, my my thought, my hope is that we as a board could sit there and get through the end of this fiscal year and Carol continues to train Britney and then we're going to run into the same problems if Britney does not win the election that we're going to have the same problems that we're going to have someone that falls into this position that that is not trained and we have other issues. But so Jeff, can you define fiscal year? June 30th. June 30th, 2025. Okay. Is that acceptable, Carol? I mean, you could donate your time. You know that you could donate your time just as I was asked to donate my time. I I mean, my biggest problem
is in in the sense is that if you're training Britney, Britney needs to be there when you're there. And I know there's some times when there's one or the other in the office and and that does that does happen, but we need to try to minimize that because of what we're doing. So, anybody have a problem? Any other member of the board have a problem with at? So, it's May 12th right now. So, it's an additional 45 days and we would reimburse Carol and get the treasurer's office to to get those off the books because the treasurer, you know, I got a notice. I got an information that they wanted to acrue all of those payments thinking that we wouldn't make a decision by the end of the fiscal year. And I'm like, no, I want to make a decision before the end of the fiscal year and be move on to what we need to do. So then there would
be a position available if need be for an assistant to cover any time as we go forward. But that that's what my hope is. So, we compensate Carol for all of the the submissions that she's made currently and we expire the contract at the end of June 2025 when we have the money in the budget. And then we'll have a time frame from June or July 1st to November 4th when we don't have a town clerk on the books. Oh, we'll have an acting town clerk. We'll have an acting town clerk. So, Britney right now is in essence the assistant town clerk who has the authority of an acting town clerk. And can I just ask too, when Britney is moved up to acting town clerk, she probably should be moved up to the town clerk salary because she's basically taking on everything at that point in time and that's only fair. [Music] That's a that's a different issue to address and we can address it later. I did just want to point that out to be fair. We can point out it to be fair, but hat would take a union negotiation. Not if she becomes acting town clerk. She's no longer assistant. You have just named her acting town clerk. But that's that's that's the point of having the special election. So, Right. So, Let's deal with that one. Let's deal with that one later and we can actually even talk about that amongst ourselves between now and our next meeting because we don't need to do that right now. Okay. Right. I would tell you though
I support an increase in compensation for the assistant because although we increased it once, we're still considerably below neighboring communities. And this is a position that we've had six bodies in in six years. So it makes, you know, it's something we do need to address regardless of who ends up as the town clerk and who ends up as the assistant. If you're going to keep an assistant long term, you're going to have to increase the compensation for that position. Well, that was great. That's great thought, but we should have done that in our budget then. Well, I asked you to consider it at the beginning of the budget season and you could do that. We could do that before Jul we could do that from July 1st to November 4th because Well, there's going to be a town clerk salary line item in there and Oh, no, no, no. The issue of of giving Britney more money to compensate for the extra responsibilities is a different issue. And and I'm not against that. What Eric is asking us to do is to raise not just the town clerk's salary, which we wouldn't raise, that's set, but that
is raise raise the union contracted rate for the assistant because he wants to be able to hire and keep someone in that spot. So, I mean, we had the same issue when the last assistant left who was really good and went to work for another town. And so, First issue on the table is the current training the bills for Carol that are in in-house and a timeline to end the training period. So, so, so Jeeoff, I would support that, but I think we should we should probably reexamine this in June just to make sure and talk to Carol and make sure that she's up to speed before we end that contract with her just to make sure that, you know, she's up to because I don't want to go three or four months before a special election and make sure that, you know, make I want to make sure that she's going to be totally capable of fulfilling that role. we can always re-evaluate everything. but I'd like to sit there and at least get our board to approve the current requisitions, pay requisitions that are in place and get them committed through the end of June so that we can at least have a timeline to move this forward.
Okay. I don't want this acred. I want it over with. I want it moved forward so that we can cross another thing off our lists and move on. Okay. so I'll make a motion that we approve the pay requisitions for Carol Lee for assistant town clerk training from the period of February 3rd through June 30th, 2025. Seconded. All those in favor? I Okay. All those opposed and abstain. So that was 4 01 with Carol Lee abstaining. Okay. item 10, approval of minute meetings for March 10th, 2025, March 26, 2025, April 14th, 2025, April 17, 2025, and April 24th, Is Sure. I'll second it. Anybody have any issues? So moved. Yes. Anybody have any issues with the minutes? I don't have issues with the minutes, but I can't I'd have to abstain from the two in March. Yes. Understood. Okay. So, let's make a motion to approve the March 10th, 2025 regular minutes and the March 26, 2025 special meeting minutes. Second. [Music] I know there's probably mistakes, but all those in favor? I Okay, all those opposed, all those abstaining. So, the the motion passed 401 with Carol Lee abstaining. All right. I'll make a motion to approve the April 14th, 2025
regular minute meetings. the April 17th, 2025 special meeting minutes and the April 24th, 2025 special minute meetings. Second that, Jeff. Scott Person seconded. All those in favor? I I I have you. Okay, we'll go back. A problem. I have a problem on the minutes of April 14th on page four under I think it's 9H it's talking about roads to be chip sealed and they say long hill road and then some roads off of long hill road and I think it must have been something else not long talked about Gilead and something else and it's not that's not awful long hill if it doesn't have to deal with a vote I'm not really too worried about it because Eric is dealing with that. If if that's okay, Ann. I mean, if it dealt with a vote or dealt with something that you said personally or that you wanted to contradict what was written about what I said, I'm okay with it. all right. But if you don't know what that should be changed to, then what are we doing? Yeah, I just need to find out. Jay Jay's on, so let's let let's let Jay answer that real quick. Se section of Long Hill between Hendy and Skinner. Skinner Hill
Road. Okay. Gilead Road, Cone Road. Okay. So, you're saying it is Long Hill, that piece up there. When you mentioned Gilead, I thought it was a road off of Gilead. I'm sorry. No, thank you. Okay. So, welcome. So, it's okay. So, we're good. Okay. So, all those in favor? I I So, five nothing. Okay. Okay. item 11, the treasurer's report. [Music] okay. The treasurer's report. Anybody have any issues related to the treasurer's report? Eric, are there any issues where where you have concerns about being over budget? There are individual line items that are certainly going to be over budget. The biggest is going to be planning and zoning on legal and professional services, but that's because of an ongoing lawsuit. it looked for a while like the property in question had been sold and we were going to be able to recoup our expenses in this budget year, but it looks like that fell through. So I suspect the litigation will drag on past this fiscal year. So we will run over fairly considerably
by the tune of probably $15,000 in that line item, but we are able to absorb that elsewhere at this point. So nothing overall the budget should come in under budget overall and it looks like we will be at or over in total revenue once we get our ECS dollars based on the collections in this month from the tax collector. So I think we're we're quite solid with where we need to be in this fiscal year. Can I just ask where we're going to absorb? You said we could absorb that 50,000 in another area. Where is that? It was 15. Damn. 15. Yeah. I mean, first of all, we could take it straight out of contingency and not worry about it. we also, it seems unlikely that we're going to be in construction in this fiscal year for the the playground in that. So, we could take it out of the
construction administration line item for that. Off the top of my head, that would absorb it. you know, but there are other areas where where we're you know, under budget. So, actually, I would personally rather take it out of contingency, but like when you're under budget on a line item like that with the bridge construction, what happens to that? I mean, that money just rolls back into our general fund. How do we are Aren't we going to have those administrative costs in the next cycle and it's going to push up? Yeah. No, not the one for the bridge fund. This is just the one for construction administration for the work the pickle ball courts in the playground stuff. so that was me giving up my admin
assistant and using Kate in addition to our tax collector role as opposed to hiring in exchange for paying for construction administration. So that it doesn't look like we're going to be in construction by then. So that's pretty likely to be under spent. Okay. Okay. any other questions for you know that OP OPM notification? Is there any way that we can get some somebody to talk to us about that? You know, the last two pages of that of our actually that's for the assessor's office. Is that correct? And that's what I'm saying is can he explain that to us? Who OPM? No. No. OPM sent out. John explained to us the information that's there and how he reads it. Okay. Okay. So on page on page 69 starts the tax collectors report. You got the monthly dashboard and then the report for uncollected taxes. So, there's still $389,000 of uncollected taxes for this current cycle. And there's another, you know, $300,000 of older year taxes that Kate's been trying to work on. So, total $630,880.13. She also sat there and gave us a report on her tax sales and she said six properties are scheduled for the tax sale. [Music] do we know the three properties that paid in full? And why was that left out? [Music] What left out? She she told us how much it was, but she didn't tell us the properties that actually paid. Okay. And you want to know well what what what what she should do is when she gives us an update on the u this you know we should know which ones are
really going to the tax sale. I mean I know like I went through this list and like the jab group owns that property over near network if I remember correctly and you know correct this is they owe 40. this is not the first time that they've gone through this and they paid I think the last time that we did the tax sale and then they don't pay. but I I it would be good just to have like on her on her list, there's not that many of them. There's a total of there were a total of nine properties that were going to go to tax sale. And if we get a report before the tax sale, which is still in July, she could give us here are the nine properties and these three have paid and these these still have an outstanding fix are still going to go. Yes. Just on her memo that would at least we wouldn't have to go through like I I was flipping through
this list trying to see which properties are on it and obviously we know some of them and yeah anyway anybody have any questions related to the potential tax sales and the tax collector's report? Okay. on page 96 there is a tax refunds that need to be given. So, my favorite thing to do. Let's I'll make a motion that we approve $2,493.91 of tax refunds for the period through May 12th, 2025. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion on the tax refunds? All those in favor? I 5 nothing. Okay. Department reports. First up is the assessor's office. [Music] 11 property conveyance, 26 building permits, motor vehicle. That's the amount of transactions that have been handled by the assessor's office during the month of April. Any questions? Okay, there's a couple other things on page 98. There's the building department report. The building department, oh, I'm sorry, not 98, 100, my
bad. Building department generated $15,69616 during the month of April. 26 building permits, three total zoning applications, one special permit, 10 public works right away permits, one driveway permit for a total of 41 permits, [Music] $15,69616. Okay, any questions on that? Okay. Then from page [Music] 101 and when does that end? That's Gilead. That's still 101 to 125 is a public works department report. Any questions on that? Jay, I I know you were out. vacuuming up the the grates and the How far along are you on that? And I shouldn't say grates, but the catch basin cleaning. There you go. Yeah. So, we're we're just a little more more than a week into it. So, how long does that go? well, we just started into the lake area from Bunker Hill. So, and I text it
hasn't even been a week yet. So, we just started. So, that usually goes well, we only have one truck right now. So, I don't know if two trucks are coming in, but it usually takes two three weeks. Okay. The material go Jay to our pit. Do you And what do you do with it there? You reuse it or can you do anything with it? No, that just becomes part of the spoils. Okay. most of it's most of it's water and just muddy leaves. Some sediment that builds up. Okay. Well, the water is freely flowing in the last couple weeks. So, most of your catch basins are are running pretty good. Yep. You got any bad? The the clear the clear we keep them, the better off the water flows. Yeah. Yeah. Jay? Okay. [Music] oh, so after that we moved down to correspondence and included was a letter in here from the senior from senior transportation drivers that we had all received. So it was included within our packet. and then after that we had the second amendment to the solar power
service agreement. Is there any reason that that's in here? Eric, is that been approved or where is that? What's the status on that? that was a draft. Dennis can speak to that better that we got a revised draft back between Dennis and the school. Okay. Yeah, I can speak to that briefly. that was essentially based on the second amendment that I wrote and I and the results of the town meeting when we when we talked about it with the board of ed and the and the town towns people and we came up with some changes, but that is essentially what was in the initial draft plus the vote that was taken at the town meeting about the other portion of the roof that had to be addressed. and I worked with the attorneys for the board of education. There's one person in particular whose name is Matt Renelli. He is an expert on solar array litigation and you know processes and whatnot and was easy to work with. Then we came together on this draft and which is includes everything that we wanted in there and he wrote a cover letter to Green Skies which went out last week along with the draft and we're waiting for a reply from Green Skies. So, we just as you you asked and I think wisely I was able to work together with the board of education attorneys in a very positive way and get this done and
hopefully it'll it'll work out and we'll see what happens with these projects anyway because I think I've heard many people say some of these may not get done because of what what's happening in Washington. I don't know. But that's not anything I can control or you either. I don't think so. That's all that's all I have on that. That's moving forward. Okay. So, so that document is still in play and we're waiting for Green Skies to sit there and respond. Okay. That's right. I ran it by I ran it by the first selectman. You looked at it and said, "Looks good." And then we we sent it out. Well, to be really honest, we all looked at it and we all sent it to you and then our response was to sit there and have the the board of education attorney work with you to get the draft. That's what we did. That's what you did. Okay. Thank you. All right. I think we're good there. And then I don't think there's anything else down here. There was the whole issue related to OPM. So, what do we got? So, that's that. I just asked a question. I thought there was something on there, Eric, about renting the community center or was that in a separate email? No, you skipped over that a long time ago. We
skipped over it because I thought because I had picked up some information from Colombia about how they rent out their senior center and you know what they charge and they actually have where they people are renting it out. they have to purchase insurance, a liability insurance policy, and they gave me the whole packet on the tulip insurance and you know, then they have a hold harmless form. Well, let's actually sit there and and that is something that we should come back next month and really talk about because I know we have to determine rates, but we also need to determine if we're willing to have alcohol in the building. Right. Is there something Carol and I and like a couple other people can get together and we can come up with some recommendation for the next meeting. Sure. Because on Colombia's form they do have alcohol, you know, whether you're going to have it or not. But of course, we have to decide if we're going to allow that on town property. But there's additional rules if they are going to have the alcohol, at least here in Colombia. and they charge $300. $100 of that is just a security deposit to make sure that everything is cleaned up and put back in
the same order it was. But the insurance, you know, the liability coverage that they have there, it looks it's it's reasonable for someone to buy if they're renting it. And it has good coverage for the town. I think our agreement is one insurance for alcohol and one insurance for non-alcohol. Right, Eric? So, I don't have a You guys before said you were less interested in the insurance and the waiverss and more interested in a simplified procedure, which is part of why I gave you a simpler document than what you were presented with originally. I don't, you know, it depends on what your comfort level is really and what you want. I mean, are you going to charge require the Cub Scouts to get event insurance to be in the building? Probably not. No. If it's a if it's a community if it's a if it's an organization that benefits the community at large, then I don't think there should be a charge. If it's going to be a private function, a party, anniversary, reunion, something like that, family get together, that that's that's non town oriented. That should be a charge. And I think Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and things like that have their own insurance anyway. why don't why don't like Jeff had recommended we you we get together and you know you sit there and do an analysis and Carol you have some good information from some other centers and we come and we evaluate what Eric
has in place and next month we get something that we consider or we feel positive about that that okay anybody else want to get together with that because we could have three I mean what's a quorum Three. Three is a forum. Yeah. Three is a couple of us. It doesn't matter. We can we can I mean you can also send it back and forth between emails. Yes. Yes. So, Carol, if you want to put something together and send it out, I guess we can comment. Okay. All right. I was going to try to get to Marboro and a couple others this week. Okay. All right. And then Eric, you're
going to sit there and and give the the office of policy and management information to the assessor and have him give us a little bit of comment on that. That would be appreciative. All right. So, we have one last thing. item 15. well, we're going to do public speak for who's left. so, if no one has any other issues or discussion points they want to talk, I'm just going to go through the list. Okay. Diane Grener, you're still on. I'm still here. I have no life. basically, good job. Long meeting. well wellrun meeting. Thank you very much. I applaud your professionalism. It was a good meeting. just one comment about the Andover's finest. there was a a large list that was assembled back in July of 2023 of recommendations people had sent in that I think it went to Paula King. So, you do have a a good list already if you just need to go chase it down. I may have a copy of it as well. I will reach out to Paul and see if I can get it. Okay, fine. Thank you very much. Okay, Liz Latchet. Yeah, I'm still hanging out here, too. good meeting. Lots of great information. Thank you all for everything. guys are doing a great job. Okay. Wally Barton. Yeah. One comment. the fire marshall under state statute. If the town has a fire commission, that is the appointing authority for the fire marshal and deputy fire marshal. And I think that the commission will go along with whatever Mike has for an assistant. But technically that doesn't fall under
the selectman. It does fall under the fire commission. Wall-E, I couldn't be any happier to hear that. You'll good news. Have a good night all test cross no comment. phone number ending in 1663. Okay, we'll move on. Ed, I'm sorry. Yeah, go back. You gohead. I just wanted to say that I'm very impressed with all of you because it sounds like this is the town business is very complicated and you're all volunteers and we should all appreciate what you're doing and I'm glad that you're moving forward. forward with hiring or dealing with the community senior center because it's a wonderful resource for the town that a lot of people would like to take advantage of that haven't yet. But in talking to people around they've been looking forward to being able to use it, go into it, have activities in it. So, what happened was un is unfortunate, but, I'm glad that the town is going to move forward with it. Okay. And I just want to make sure that was Ellen Repe, right? That was me. Yeah, you got it. All right. Ed S, I'm assuming is that Ed Crizzley or
Edley? Edrizley. Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. And thank you everyone on the both employees and volunteers for continuing to try to get our new community senior center up and running smoothly. It took a 45 40-year journey to get where we are. It's going to take a while to get things up and running smoothly. In terms of Carol's research with the town of Marorrow, getting the elementary school kids working with the seniors, want to remind everybody that eight years ago when the committee first started working on this, we tried to do that concept with the fourth grade wing being asked to put the seniors there and we of course were denied by the school to do that. And then the most recent committee I worked on for four years, we cited the building where it is with one of the advantages of being near the elementary school despite their opposition to be able to do that as a community and have
three generations working together at that building facility. So hopefully after a couple years of getting things running smoothly, we'll be able to accomplish those goals. And again, thanks to everyone to trying to get this thing up and running after 40 years need. Okay. Ed, thank you. Ed, thank you. you everyone knows I don't like to bother talk during public speak but I have to because there's been there's a lot of a lot of things that are said that you know just slightly twisted and Ed the school board was on board with using the the wing and it was not the school board at the time that defeated that. Just so you're aware, like let's not have the board of education take any more hits than it needs to take. The school board and the board of selectmen were in approval of utilizing that fourth grade that wing the four classrooms for seen the seniors and there was a group of parents that came out and defeated that. Just to be clear, corrected. I I got it. In my view, it was the elementary school that stopped the good idea we had to save the town money. Correct. As it is, it was not it was not it was not the school board and it was not the school. It was it was a group of of parents that caused that havoc.
Just let I don't like to do that and I apologize, but Well, no, that's okay. It's like it's like saying it's like saying Jeff Magcguire and Scott Person voted no on every candidate up for the board of selectment. Those type of comments are always really good for us. So, okay, I stand corrected on that. And then was my comment correct? The four years of battling citing the building where it does exist. I know that I'm with you 100%, Ed. You know that building the current building the current building and where it ended up was not supported. was not supported 100% by the school
board. Yeah. And to add to your point, Jeeoff, I think Sally was the one that proposed having the seniors up there at the school. Sally realized that she was going to have a population problem and she was trying to make the So, yes, it was the past superintendent the space. Yeah. So, and it also cost town $140,000 in engineering costs. So anyway, let's move on. We got to keep moving on. We got your positive point was hopefully we could eventually get the school children involved with the seniors. That's the point I was trying to make. And you'd actually know they have been to be really they they there there are events where the and Ellen Repay who was on here before. there are school children that go over there and do things this they they have been working at that end. Yeah, let's go on because we got to get out of here because I got to get off of here before Leanne Hutchinson. Hi. three different things. One is according to your minutes of November 2023, Kurt Dowling was the third person who was named as one of the initial Andover's finest. Correct. Addition to Percy Cook and Dean Gather. And I was
pleased to see at the budget vote last week on the paper ballot itself that there was a place to to you could put down that you thought either the AES or the town of Vandover budget was just right. I've heard people say in the past, you know, why do I have to pick too high or too low? What if I like it the way it is? so I think I I don't know if we did that last year, but I I don't believe it's been done for very long. So I think that was u a useful tool. And my third comment is regarding this situation with the senior center. again as I said in the first section of public speak I hope that the senior advisory committee does not get dissolved. I think it certainly changes things not having a director now. I'm trying to understand you, the board of Fleckman collected resumeés and named people to the community aspect of the community advisory committee and the senior advisory committee and you spent a fair amount of time tonight trying to decide who was going to be on a selection and interview panel for a permanent director. So, I'm not quite understanding why the interim position wasn't advertised to the public. So, you collect the resumes for people who are supposed to advise somebody. And I understand that there's a time crunch, and I understand that this is just an
interim director, but I'm not fully understanding why an an advertisement wasn't placed, opening it up to the public. in the River East or, you know, what have you, and one or more places, it could have been done the week following the termination of the contract of the previous director. and if you had to hold a special meeting or two, it just you know, I'm just not quite understanding. As I said, I have some experience with the senior population. I've worked in a senior center before and I'm just not I'm not saying it's not going to work out. I certainly hope it works out. I'm just it just doesn't just seems a little strange. That's my thought. Understood. Thank you. did I miss anyone on here? Because I think the owner is Dennis is Dennis O'Brien. you miss me. But I just want to say that I agree with you and I'm glad you brought it up because when Ed spoke, Ed Serizley, I I worked on that project for quite a while with the attorneys from the board of education. And that was we worked in cooperation with the board of ed just as you said, Jeff Magcguire and Jeff Murray. And that was one project that the board of selectman and board of education worked on together in harmony just like we're working in harmony now on the roof on the solar array on the roof and and that's really good for the town and thank you for that
clarification Jeff and Jeff and Jeff appreciate it. All right. did I miss anyone? All right. So, we have one last item which is 19 15 in the executive session IT contract which will be very short. so can we so I'd like to make a motion that we move into executive session to discuss the IT contract and invite Eric Anderson and attorney O'Brien. Second. all those in favor? I. All right. everyone else, thank you for joining us. really appreciate staying till the end and enjoy the rest of your evening, however short it is. Eric, if you can stop the recording or pause the recording, that would be great. And