I'm going to call to order the Town of Andover Board of Selectmen regular meeting for Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 700 p.m. Our first item of order is to recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you very much. Item two, a public speak. Kathy Palazi. Thank you. we have nothing this evening. Okay, Diane Grineer. thank you. just a couple of things. One is I'm saddened to hear about the resignations of Jay Tuttle and Rick Kaufman. I think they served the town well and it'll be a loss to see both of those guys leave. also I'd like to comment again as I have often about I'm delighted to to be able to read the town administrator's report that's always attached to the meetings here. I think it provides me with a plethora of information that very easy to obtain and I I love seeing it. So I thank you for that. And
the third thing is I'm still sort of looking to see on your agenda at some point an update on the Bernap clock where it is and just an update what what happened to it. it just sort of seems to have fallen off the the chart here. So some some point in time if you could just update us on that I'd appreciate that. So thank you very much. That's it. Okay. Test cross. Nothing for me. Thank you. Okay. Haley Praau. Nothing for me. Thank you. Kathy D. Roer. All set. Thank you. Marcy Miner. Hi. I know I see you have a lot going on tonight, so I won't spend any time commenting. Thanks. Okay. Malena. Hello. Yes, my name's actually Aiden Ford. I couldn't figure out how to change the name on the Zoom. I just wanted to propose a solicitor permit from Trinity Solar. I do know that in the past you guys have gotten a lot of permits sent to you from Trinity Solar, but I would like to make sure you guys know that I would be replacing all the past representatives that have been in in Andover. Okay. Thank you, Valerie Berno. I'm all set. Thank you.
Janet Stefanitis. Janet, I'm not sure if your volume's up or your speaker is working or your microphone. Okay, Janet, we'll come back to you if you can figure that out. Kimberly Persan, I'm all set right now. Thank you. Leanne Hutchinson. Hi, I'm just wondering what the direction is going to be for the senior center advisory committee board. you know with I had inquired last month and it's my understanding that it was asked to be dissolved two or three months ago and that that didn't take place and in the meantime we've had a change in senior center directors. So, I just wanted to, you know, and say that my interest is ongoing and was wondering what the role is going to be with the interim and with a permanent replacement. Thank you. All right, Joanne Heert. Hi. Yes. I just have a quick comment. I was surprised to see on the agenda tonight that there was a resignation from Jay Tuttle, who's the, you know,
current public works supervisor. I won't, you know, I know well enough that we shouldn't talk personnel issues, so I'm going to keep it very general and what I hope to see in the future. It's just, you know, I'm usually a really good read of people and understand what they're trying to do, but this one kind of surprised me just because of the way all of you were asked to consider either a one-year or a two-year contract, and it went back and forth. And, you know, every time that he came on, he spoke of really wanting to stay in in Andover and needing that 2-year contract, which I couldn't understand. and I missed last month's meeting where I know you all resolved to change your mind and give him the 2-year contract. So, clearly that was used as a bargaining chip somewhere. so, all I want to do and I I don't want to say anything bad about anyone. I appreciate all he did. seems like everyone likes him as an employee and he did a good job. But this gives you all a chance to rethink how you do contracts, what you want to put in them. you know, definitely with a public works supervisor, I hope that you put in some kind of health clause. That's what I see
in all kinds of towns. That's what worried me about the 2-year not knowing he was going to resign was just put in. You know, I know that usually they have to pass a physical and things of that nature, but yeah, just a little shocked. So, looking forward forward to your conversation regarding that issue. Certainly people are allowed to leave towns. That's not my thing. Nobody did anything wrong. I think you all did a great job in in entertaining everything that he wanted. I feel a little bad on the other end that I don't think the same was delivered to you. So, good luck in the future with that. Thank you, Okay, I'll get back to you, Jay. And I believe the other phone number is Dennis O'Brien. Yeah, I'm here. Sorry. Okay, Jay, if you Yeah, I'm here, too. Okay, great. Jay, if you'd like to wait or would you like to speak and respond? What would you like to do, Jay? I'll wait. Okay. I didn't I didn't hear I just got on, so apologize. I'd be a little late. No, that's good timing. Okay. Did I miss anyone else in public speak? Okay. A couple of issues. Jeff Murray might may be joining us later. He has a a baseball game to attend which he should be attending. So that will be okay. We'll hopefully he can catch up
with us later in the meeting. And Eric had to step away for a personal issue. I'm not sure if he's back yet. you're back. Okay. All right. So we're going to move on. item three, additions and changes to the agenda. Do any of the board members have any items that they would like to add or delete? Yes, I would move to delete 9A the discussion and possible action on the draft draft audit report and so on to do with the AF capital fund. We read information less than 24 hours ahead and we haven't had time to look at it and make any serious decisions yet. I really think we need to hold off on till next month on that. So I move that we delete that 9A. Okay. Any other items? Carol, nothing. Scott, nothing. U I suppose also we might want to add Trinity Solar, the approval of the new person for Trinity since that wasn't on the agenda yet. Yes. Thank you very much. Do we have an application for that, Eric? [Music] not in the packet. There was one last month that you decided not to act
on because we had signed already for four Trinity Solar employees in the last year. Okay. let's separate those out. We can add we can add Trinity Solar to 9F if it approves. So, give me one second. if I if I may, I don't. No, you may not. You may not put yourself on mute if you would. Thank you. And that's not going to work. Oh, it's not going to work. Okay. Okay. So, does anyone want to second the deletion of 9A? I'll second that because did we even get a copy of the draft audit report that we're being asked to vote on with this?
Well, we're not being asked to vote on with it. That that's discussion and possible action. Sure. But the possible action is to estab. It is not an issue of not wanting to approve it. It's an it's an issue of what is the proper procedure according to our charter and according to state statute. That's all this is about. Okay. But again, we didn't get a copy of the draft audit report. At least I didn't. We did. You did? Yeah. Let me find the date for you. But regardless of that issue, if the draft audit wasn't received, I will get it to you. But I'm pretty sure that it came to all of us. Sorry, I have to work around a couple things. Eric, when did that go out? And I don't know if it went out from Mark Brinker or if it went out from you. I think it went out from you, Eric. I'm looking. So on 513, Eric sent that out. And Eric, did you not send it out to everybody or did it go out under the board of finance special meeting? Did not appear to be seriously hurt. Still, it could have been a lot worse. And the image of militariz Perfect. Thank you. I don't know off the top of my head what date I sent it. I thought I sent it to
both boards and commissions. I'll look for it. It actually doesn't appear to be that. It appears they sent it to So, Carol, you are 100% correct. I will send it to you right now. Thank you. Yeah. Aunt May, Scott Person, and Jeff Murray. Okay. So, back to the issue. The issue is not, listen, this is not about not wanting to approve this. This is about doing it the correct way. And I requested an opinion from the town attorney. I spoke to the board of finance chairperson and I expressed my concerns and we can vote on not having it there. But it is not a this is not a negative. This is not an attempt to sit there and not put the money in the fund. This is an attempt to sit there and do it the correct way because it is actually not even a board of selectman issue to
sit there and approve the money going into that. It is a town meeting because that is our form of government and that is the appropriate legislative authority not the board of finance and not the board of selectmen. There's certain ways these things should be done and we need to start doing these things correctly because we've had a habit of not doing things in a correct manner and working together to do it according to what the appropriate procedures that have been outlined by either state statute or by the town charter. So, well, I still feel that we need to postpone the dis discussion on that because we haven't had time to look through what we received from Dennis this morning. So, that's why I put forward that motion. I would rather not sit there and well, we're going to just vote on it. So, all those in favor of deleting item 9A from the agenda. All those in favor? Okay. All those opposed. Okay. 22. we'll discuss it at the point in time. So, we will sit there and have a vote on whether we schedule a town meeting and then we'll sit there and and postpone it. Can I just ask one question on that? Sure. Was this already approved by the board of finance to do
this because this was an audit report ending fiscal year of No, no, no, Carol. It's not about the audit report. I'm not No, no, I understand. But was this transfer already? We we'll do it authorized approved or whatever. Whether it's right or wrong the procedure that it was done, I'm not we'll talk we'll talk we'll talk about it at 9A, Carol, and and just not deleted. So we'll talk about it at 9A and it'll just whether we action on it. Okay, fair enough. Okay. So the other item was to add 9F Trinity Solar permit application to the the agenda. further discussion on 9F adding 9F. All those in favor? I I Okay. All right. Let's move on to item four, board and commission presentations. Eric, do we have any? not that I know of. Okay. we'll move on to item five, which is appointments. Can I just add something to that? All of the board and commission terms expire June 30th of this year. There's a notice in the River East for any elector and notices were sent out to the board and commission chairs just to pull their members to see who would like to continue to serve. So, we're going to be reappointing all boards and commissions hopefully at our next month because I know three of the commissions have sent
in their reply with the members who want to continue and we haven't received anything from the public that I'm aware of yet. Okay. I I understand that and I'm in agreement with you, but on the library board, is it really are you? The library board can appoint their own alternates. We that's not under us. The library has the board of directors have the authority to reappoint. That authority is given to all boards and commissions to fill their vacancies, okay? By their membership, not us. Okay. So, are you sitting there saying that we don't need to sit there and just approve the board of the libraries board's request? Charter doesn't say that we have to approve anything. They have the authority. If they've appointed the alternates, they're alternates. Well, they're actually replacing board members. Okay. But if they've if they've already voted them in, then they're in. Okay, I have no problem because I was just going to vote to approve. So, the one thing that I would like to sit there and say is I'd like to thank Diane Grer for all her years of service on the library board and you know she's been a great asset to the community and I really don't have any problem with any of the members of the board library board and what they're requesting. So, if it's not something we need to approve, then we won't need to take a vote on it. we're going to move on to item six,
resignations. We received two resignations in the last month. Jay Tuttle is, the director of public works and, Ricky Kaufman is a senior transportation as a driver for senior transportation. Jay is here with us and Jay I I did speak with you after receiving the resignation and I did tell you that I would hope that you would come to this meeting to sit there and just share with the board the things that we should be considering as we move forward to replace the director of public works. Well, I thank you for reaching out, Jeff, and I'm assuming everybody got my my letter. Okay, that's not me. I thought there was a tree down
somewhere, Jay, and you had Oh, well, I had one the other night. Okay. anyway, Lake Road. Lake Road. no, actually it was Parker Bridge. So, happened while I was up in New Hampshire. So, anyway, I if you I'd like to share a little bit of time with you and a little bit of explanation of where I started and where where how I came to make this decision. and allow me a few minutes of your time. When I first came on board almost five years ago, it was made clear to me by most everyone involved that you wanted to see our public works modernized and get up to speed to current standards so we can better serve the town and its infrastructure. You wanted a plan and I was up to the challenge. By day one, we first started by cleaning the facility just so we could function somewhat efficiently so we could do our day-to-day activities. Since then, we have made many incremental improvements to this facility every year, bringing it up to the standards of today and making it a facility that we can all be proud of. In the beginning, I couldn't even think about a plan until I had some time to evaluate the town's in infrastructure and what resources we have. There were a
lot of fires to put out, and some still remain. I sometimes wonder if anyone remembers what condition the roads were in when I first started. This department had run so lean and unsupported for so many years that it was going to take quite some time to get caught up to where things are manageable. I had a lot of work ahead of me. With the amount of funding allocated, we had to rethink the past and how things were going to be done. Political individuals started coming to me in person, calling me on the phone to express what they would like to see or have done with the department. Individuals would tell me, "Don't worry about funding. We'll get it for you." Some even went so far as if a certain someone gives you a hard time, you come to me. Don't worry about that person. I'll handle them. I soon discovered how the political environment was going to be. I decided then not to let that influence me because even though there were differences of opinion, it was okay because at the time this department was being supported by both sides of the aisle and I could deal with that. Both parties could see that change needed to happen. I just had to listen, understand, find a way to make it work while retaining a functionality that would best serve my crew, this department, and the town's needs as a whole. First of my goals were to to get the
roads back into shape and shed water so the surface drainage could again collect the waterhed as it was designed to go as it was designed to go in the first place. to get the drainage swells and ditches cleared, cleaned and reshaped to move water away from our roads, get the travelability back and make them safer to drive on. I believe we have mostly accomplished that at at the same time we had to start addressing town equipment and how we were going to continue to modernize the department. At that time, a multi-year purchasing plan was already in place and I was asked to review I changed it up some mostly thinking that everything was on point. I added some items thinking this would be beneficial to the department making us more efficient while allowing us to do more for the town and it was accepted. I presented a new plan. I presented the new plan tweaking the old one and was accepted by all the boards. But at the same time, keeping them in mind, telling everyone, keeping in mind things can happen such as a breakdown or wanting to save dollars to purchase now versus next year. Sometimes change to a wellthoughtout plan can be in the town's best interest. regard to equipment. I believe this department to be in the best shape it has been been in for a long time. But this is where the political climate first took a turn for me and change my outlook for the future. When presentations are made, discussed and approved by all the boards,
one would think that the taxpayer is properly informed. But I found that not as that is not always the case. Not always is proper information or supported reasoning behind a purchase or repair was provided to the resident so they can make a well-informed decision. Partly possibility to a fault of my own. Sometimes all the hard work that is required to make a presentation to the boards, we then find only parts of the information getting to the taxpayer. sometimes feels like we are set up to fail because of per purposeful misinformation. What really started to change my view was when several years ago we were in the process and planning of buying a new plow truck a year out because a truck because truck chassis at the time were hard to get and any new funding at that time wouldn't be available till then as well. During that time, I was approached by two board members that are no longer
board members that had heard it might be possible to get a chassis that year. He said, 'I don't know, but I'll ask the dealer. Turned out that they had build slots available at 95% and were 95% sure we could get a truck ready to go before that winter, saving some dollars as well if purchased earlier. I brought the information back to those members and they said, "If the dealer would put put us in on a build slot, we'll get you the money and it has to be painted green." Purchasing a year ahead would have saved us about $20,000. So, I talked with the dealer, asked if they had slots, and they would put us in the lineup, and they agreed. Mind you, I never signed for anything. I knew better than that. About midepptember of that year, I got a call that the truck chassis was in. I thought, great, we're going to get a truck a little early, save the town some money. But not to my surprise when I told the board members involved, I found out that they haven't even tried to get the money
approved early or we even willing to try. How was I feel about that? I felt like I was being set up. I don't know but in the best interest of myself the department and bring anything to light I left it alone. Ever since then I have been cautious on the cautious side of anything. I came to public service from private construction and have over 30 years of public works from the bottom up. Almost 10 of those years have been in the supervisory director's role while retaining the ability to jump back in to help the crew any way I can. My current position with you for almost 5 years now is a 247 365 position. Is a 247 365 position that has no help. I'm married to a phone. It's never off. I take it
wherever I go, including vacation. It is it is the job. Please don't misunderstand the no help comment. I have help and it's from my crew. They are the ones that I call on when the need arises. But make no mistake, I am first point of contact and and required to answer. I watch the weather. I decide if my wife and I get to have a night out. Never mind whether or not I go to one of my grandchildren's birthday parties. I'm the one that calls myself in to check road conditions. I'm the one that has to inspect and clear emergency call before you dig calls. Someone calls in the middle of the night, I'm the one that goes out and inspects it. I can count almost on one hand the amount of times I've had to have someone be on call for me in my absolute absence. by the sudden interest that someone having or not having a town vehicle truck. It's a requirement of the job. The truck is used for town business. It's 24/7 365 on the job ready to respond. The truck has never been out on a personal use. No matter where someone might have seen it, no one has ever come to me to ask, but lately that's all I've heard. Whether you wanted to discuss, be informed, or just to ask a question, agree or disagree, I have never turned
anyone away. But what has increasingly been an issue for me are the critics. I know they are there. They always have been, and that's okay. I have even made invites, but some never show. Do they want to understand why or what we do? Initially four maybe five months ago now I initially decide to retire at the end of June due to the changes in our pension program. At that time many people including residents came to me and asked why you can't retire yet. We still need you. So I started to rethink. I still needed to work a couple of years yet anyway. My contract with contract with the town was up in July. so I had to start negotiating a new term and I was looking for a two-year contract with guaranteed increments each year. It started out being a no to what I asked for and when there was an almost verbal agreement but non-committing while waiting for the approval of an additional selectment. Then came the meeting a couple of months ago where I guess I was illprepared for that meeting's outcome. across the board and I left with only
one year proposal to think about it. Then at last me month's meeting after I sent the a letter asking to reconsider, you all agreed to the two-year contract, but still I wasn't sure how everyone felt or why they changed their mind. While all this was happening, I had put out some resumes to other potential employers while you were deciding to grant me a two-year or not. I had a poss I had possible opportunities that could move me in another direction and I looked into that further. Over the past few months, the increasingly clear shifting of the political climate and indecisiveness with the boards, I have found it no longer aligning with my values that had originally drew me to the town of Andal. The environment and stress levels put upon me are increasingly unhealthy, have made it challenging for me to serve you effectively. I hope my departure can make room for new voices that reflect the department's current direction and whoever fills this position will receive full support of board members for its continued success. I believe I will be leaving the public works department town of Andover better condition than when I arrived. I remain proud of the work my crew and I have accomplished together in my short time here and I trust that the majority of residents are proud too. Thank you Jay. Thank you. Jay, just a couple questions that I wanted to ask it and really what I was hoping to to sit there and do is when you say it's 247 and and we look
for a replacement for you, what should we as a board be considering? well, you know, somebody that's committed to the town. you know some of the things that I was hoping that we would you know in future depending on there really needs to be a second needs to be a second on call on on call person you know the person that sits here in this seat needs to have the ability to have a life you know I mean it's ometimes it's hard to juggle life. You know, we all would like things to do or do things. And you know, if I can't like this weekend, I was in New Hampshire watching my granddaughter's soccer games. you know, we were out to dinner and just as we sat out to dinner, I got the phone call from Talon dispatch which wasn't that big of a deal. Still an interruption. gotta go outside, get away from all the noise as best I could. And you know, I called, you know, I called the guys in. you know, when you when you leave for the weekend or you try to have plans, it' be nice to leave it with somebody and and not have to worry about the thinking of others. Okay. And the the position that you took you took in private sector. Correct. And as we move forward, you put in your resignation letter that you would be happy to assist as we move forward to help Eric and to have us get to a new person in that in your seat. Y anything you can do to help us would be greatly appreciated. So yeah, I I I would have no problem helping out, you
know, if I gota come here Sunday evening or something, you know, on, you know, keep the keep the books, so to speak, keep everything in order, later in the evening, meet somebody here to for some training, and I might be able to duck out a day or two here or there to, help out as well, so we can we can discuss how you know that can happen. Okay. And for the end of for me to for I greatly appreciate everything you've done because I've been here the five years that you've been here and I was here the five years before you were here. So, I definitely understand the work that you and Eric have done together to at least have a plan for our roads in town. and and it's not that we as a community have a tremendous amount of resources to spend to redo all of our roads from the ground up, but truly you guys have done a very good job maintaining our roads and and and improving them. So, thank you. Right. You're welcome. It it all takes time and and if if the town I feel like what we've accomplished and the amount of funding that has been available that you guys have put to the department for your roads and you know just the up maintenance we're we've kind of leveled off and it's it works. It just now we got to start to move or the town needs to to move to look to how what's the next step in your incorporate other things, you know, like other paving reclamation, you know, now
that you got things where you can drive around safely, now you start move to other processes and see where that fits in. Sometimes you might have to spend more in one year and not in another. Okay. any of the other members have anything for Jay before we let him go? Like just thank you again publicly, Jay. You did a great job for the town. You really did. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Welcome. Thanks, Jeff. You're muted. Carol, thank you, Carol. Jay, thank you. welcome, Eric. I don't I didn't see anything in the packet from from Ricky. That accurate? He just took another job in a different town. Okay. All right. let's move on to item seven, the administrator's report. Okay. So, I'm not going to go over my entire report because it's in the packet. I'm just going to highlight a couple things. as per this discussion, I Jay has indicated he would be willing to continue working for the town in a limited capacity during the transition. I would like permission to negotiate with them as to how that would look and bring that back to the board of selectman for
approval. we are immediately advertising for a new driver to replace our missing senior transportation driver. And so, you know, Ricky himself drove about half the total hours driven by senior transportation. So, we have a big hole in our capability with Ricky not on board. So, that's going to be in the last few times we've tried to hire a new driver. It's taken on average six to eight months to find a new driver to replace. So, it's not going to be a quick transition. but we will start working on it as soon as possible. I also want to thank Jay very kindly for all his years working in public works. it's not always a fun job, that's for sure. he's done a fantastic job managing his budgets presenting the information in a clear way. you know, we've occasionally disagreed over exact specifications and things like that, but I found he's been a very flexible and great partner to the town. So, I really appreciate all his years of service to the town of Andover. And I
also appreciate how much driving Ricky has done for the town. He's been a real asset to the senior transportation program. So, we're losing two good people this month. I something was sent around to the board of selectmen from Mary Duval regarding the radio event for ham operators. I met with Ma Mary after she sent that to you. Carol forwarded me that that email from her. there are no conflicts with the field usage and I also discussed with her the pop possibility of using the area behind the senior center. So I gave her both those possibilities and said the the board of selectmen would accommodate or the the
town would accommodate her in what they need and this is something they've done in previous years too. So, I would like permission to instead of filling a formal application for use, just sign that on behalf of the town and not bring that back to the board of selectment given the limited time. I don't know how other board of selectmen members feel about this, but I look at it this as any other use of the community center. it's a fairly low impact to the town or to the the field area. so regarding zoning changes, it looks now that Governor Lamont has not signed the housing omnibus bill and appears to be backing off on signing it. you might all have seen a lot in the paper regarding that the last couple weeks. It would have made some fairly drastic changes to zoning law in the state of Connecticut. that probably would have had some negative impacts to the town. Other areas of it would probably be positive impacts. It was geared more towards urban areas than it was towards rural
areas. So, it looks like they're going back for a rethink on that. As far as the state budget goes, the state budget, I pulled the town by town finance projections and they held us harmless with ECS funding which was certainly a worry about that and they did increase the annual aotment to town aid road for the first time in about about 20 years. So that was really good. the other thing I would like to discuss with the board is the state is moving up the timeline for the replacement of the Longill Road branch. that will be under construction next April with a 9-month construction season. so that's good. it's also bad. And the bad part is the fact that we already have the other bridge on Lake Road at Basola scheduled for the same time. But I think in this case, the Longill Road bridge has to take priority because that's a federal local bridge. and we just don't have the ability to pay the difference for two bridge projects at at once. we could be out for a federal local bridge project at any one time up to, you know, say $6 to $800,000 and, you know, almost the same for a local bridge. And we just don't have the, you know, $1 to2 million of swing room unless you're willing to consider some sort of a grant anticipation bond, which is expensive. So my suggestion is that we formally vote to put off for one year the replacement of the lake road culver at Basola so that we can do the federal local bridge program now. So that would be something I'd like the board to consider. I also wanted to
let you know I am taking some vacation time. I'll be gone June 16th and 17th, July 31st through August 4th, and August 18th through 27th. other things, I did authorize the cool program to store some of their stuff temporarily in the community center. They're having difficulty finding storage room in the elementary school and they've assured me that they're planning on building an auxiliary storage building, but in the meantime, they needed to place put some stuff. So, since we have the room available in the basement storage room, I granted that request. we were extremely fortunate to get a series of grants that have been announced. we've got three grants from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. the first was a $5,000 grant for the Andover Beautification Commission, and I'd like to thank Kathy D. Roa for submitting that grant on behalf of the town. the second one was the recreation commission received a $5,000 grant towards the youth basketball program. And I would like to thank Megan Lai for submitting that grant on behalf of the town. And the Veterans Monument Field Committee received a $10,000 grant towards the playground and the pavilion at the athletic field. And I'd like to thank the field committee for submitting that grant. the other big one that we found out about as part of the budget process in the spring, I had asked our legislative representatives to fund a series of projects in the town of Andover and Senator Ramen representing Andover as part of the fourth district
did get us a legislative grant that will help pay for the recreation field improvement. ments and that is a $250,000 grant each of the next two budget cycles. So that is basically a half million towards recreational improvements in the town of Andover. So that is really good news. and I would like to sincerely show my appreciation to MD for his continued support for Andover. and lastly, Governor Lamont paid a visit to town hall last Wednesday. And I would like to thank Selectman Murray and Selectman Lee for being able to meet at short notice with the governor as well as the town's attorney, Dennis O'Brien. we were able to talk about some of the issues that affect Andover directly with the governor and I thought that was a very productive meeting. and afterward we brought the governor to the community center which was full of seniors playing bingo. And I think he got a kick out of meeting with the seniors and the seniors were really excited to be able to ask the governor questions directly and quite surprised that the governor showed up in Little Wandover Senior
Center. Eric Eric just went I don't want to interrupt but Scott Prasan was there as well. So was Sorry. Did you forget me? So, Scott was there meeting with the governor as well. So, let's let's You're right. Kudos. I apologize for that, Scott. Oh, before we before we leave that part, the governor sat there and called you the morning that he was coming, Eric. Right. Correct. I just want to let you know that attorney O'Brien is friends with the governor and he was incredibly impressed by Eric's performance of discussing the housing issues that are in front of the state. And so I think the governor came away with a very positive impression of the town of Andover that he may not have had before his visit. So Eric, thank you very much for doing such a good job. and Jeff and Scott and Carol for for attending on such short notice. And Ann, I I have no problem with you. I was out of state traveling when Eric called me, so don't feel I was out of state, too. So, yeah. And I I just want to tell you that and thank you, Attorney O'Brien, for taking my call that morning and showing up that morning. it was greatly appreciated that you could make the governor's visit to Andover as as positive as it it appeared to have gone. So thank you. When when we the governor asked us what he could do for us, we should have thought to ask him to help us with
that Hendy Road light. He he could have he could have talked to the DOT and got that pushed along. I think that's one we're better off doing a little bit more subtly than that. I think I sat down and did have a a meeting with Krog's transportation chief and who, you know, the guy that runs DOT traffic division now used to work for him. So I I think they have a a personal relationship and Prague has done a good job with helping me develop the metrics to bring to DOT to change their mind on this issue. so I'm not saying we're going to be able to do it, but I'm saying we're working pretty hard to do that right now because I I recognize that for many people that will be a significant inconvenience. you know, when we funnel all that traffic onto Hendy, I would expect that will be problematic for residents. And to add to Jeff's comments, I mentioned the the housing bill, then Eric actually went on to my comments
and you know, it it sounds like Governor Lamont actually listened and it sounds like there was some changes done to that bill and he's proposing some changes based on our conversations that we had with the governor in our town hall. So there's some positive things happening when he was meeting with us. So I just want to mention that and I think that's going to be a a positive thing going forward for us in in inover. So ther questions for me? Are you done with your Did they increase the tire count? Yeah. How much money? How much money? Town Aid Road. Town Road. it's going up from around 183,000 to around $250,000 a year. I don't have the exact figures, but figure an extra $60,000 a year we can spend on road. So that's that's nice. Town a road has not kept track. And if you look at what Connecticut allocates to its towns compared to our neighboring states, it's fairly woeful, but this helps.
Okay. so I think we had two things to really actionable items in your report. One was the movement of the the solar road culvert from 2026 to 2027 and the other and the other one was the ham radio. The ham radio. Thank you Carol Lee. Carol writing down things. Maybe I should take you up on that, Carol. Yeah. And the third thing is just an understanding that if I go back and work out a contract with Jay for, you know, essentially partial cover while we're transitioning to a new new person, that that's something the the board of selectmen would consider on on that one. We'd consider email us any anything that you want and we should just vote and sit there and try to do it. Okay. All right. so I'll make a motion that we allow the town administrator to approve the
location of the ham radio. Eric, what is that called? I mean it's not a ham. This is the ham radio and you could call it the annual gathering. I don't know what the the exact the annual gathering of the ham radio enthusiasts and I think they were doing something for estate purposes but the motion will be to allow Eric to provide town facility for the use by the ham radio annual gathering. Second, Jeff Murray seconded. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor? I I. That's five nothing on that one. And then u was what was the other one? Carol, I wrote on ham radio. Eric, what was the other one you wanted us to do? Was it the bridge? Oh, yes. So, the the other one would be to authorize me to put off the Lake Road bridge project for one year. Yeah.
All right. So, I make a motion that we move the prospective date of the Baza Lake Road Bazora Culver project from 2025 to 2026. Actually, from 2026 to 2026 to 2027. And that's safe. That's going to be safe to do, Eric. I hope so. So, so the reason Yeah. Well, does that someone want to second that and we'll have further discussion? I'll second that. And KMA seconded. so Carol what I was understanding was that because lake long hill is a federal project the concern from the state is that we don't get funded for the for the federal portion of the long hill bridge and so the state is pushing Eric to sit there and say we're doing this next year regardless. So the issue for us, Eric, is it we could do Bizola Road next year, but it would be done at the same time as the Long Hill Bridge project, correct?
And so then there would be some there'd be a cash crunch in doing that, right? Yeah. if we wanted to risk it, we could take, you know, we could basically agree to utilize extra money from the unencumbered fund balance to do it. but that's somewhat risky in that that is essentially our emergency reserve. So, we could dip into the emergency reserve if that's what you wanted to do as an option. but it's it's risky. So, so our our our gamble is obviously one is a financial gamble that we probably would get through. We could probably do it with the res with the fund balance that we currently have, but we'd be putting added pressure on not only public works, but on transportation within the community over two areas as opposed to one. I mean, because right now we have Bunker Hill Road closed to get that bridge done. That bridge will be completed November, December. Sure. Okay. borrowing anything any unusual delays. Okay. And the state is telling you that they want to start Long Hill when they want to start construction on Long Hill April 1, possibly even try to push utility relocation before then, which is the same thing we tried to do with Bunker Hill. Okay. And just before we vote on this, where are we at with the design process on Long Hill? we I received the 70% design files about two hours ago. I will forward them to the board, but I just didn't want to do it right before the meeting. So I will f I will send all those to you. You
can view them. I gave them a cursory review. They're not anything we didn't expect from the 30% design review. It's the same structure type. It's the same width. it's just the actual nuts and bolts details of the bridge. Okay. So, listen, as a as a board, I think it it's only prudent that we sit there and we move the Bola road bridge project back simply to allow I mean, what is the gamble that we're taking? That culvert is not in great condition, you know? Correct. But it's the gamble is is we lose the downstream side of that bridge and during a really heavy rain event we slump and lose part of the roadway and the downstream side of the culvert and we either close it or we neck that down to one lane which is the same thing we did with Hutchinson Road when that culvert failed and that's been necked down to one lane for almost six years now. anybody's anyone else have any other issues? Any other members? I'm wondering, do we get any funding at all for the Basil Road Bridge? Yes, that's 50% state funding, 50% town funding. it does not look like one of the things
the legislature was debating this year, which I was kind of trying to get them to debate, and got council of small towns and the capital region council of governments to support was increasing the percentage of funding for small bridge replacement to 75% state 25%. because that is even with 50% match that's still you know a shade over $900,000 that comes out of and over taxpayers and you said it was going up to 75% they're look considering they were considering it but it didn't make it through the so unless there's a special legislative agenda I think that's dead for at least one year potentially two
years so okay I was hoping to see that go through but you know it did not. So Carol, the issue would be if it does pass, we'd be pushing our culvert back to potentially get additional funding from the state. Well, I don't I think even if they make that change now, I don't know that we would they would make it retroactive because those bond funding has already gone through a bond appropriation. So, I don't think they're likely to revisit that. you know, the only thing it would do is it would make potentially our next Culbert project easier to fund because my intention, just just so everybody knows, we have basically two pools of money right now. One was dedicated for the Bunker Hill Bridge project and one is a bridge and culvert fund dedicated to smaller culverts. And you could say just for numbers purposes they both have around 600 well com between the two of them there's about a million dollars. So in
the case of the Bunker Hill Bridge we the contractors send us invoices. We pay the invoice. As soon as we proved we've paid the invoice we ask the state to refund that money. So, we're getting a 100% rebate on that bill, but there's a time gap. right now we have pay requisitions today for about $340,000 outstanding that we're going to mail checks for within the next couple of days. we'll probably wait five to six weeks before we get that money back from the state. So, that's our swing period. right now we're okay, but when we get the prefab bridge structures, those are expensive and those have to be paid for before they deliver them.
There's going to be one or two month increments where our bill is going to be more like six or $700,000 in a month. So, we have to make sure we build the state as fast as we can, get the money back so we can spend six or $700,000 in one month and then wait to get reimbursed for that. So, we have enough money to do that right now. We would not if we're doing a state local bridge program and a federal local bridge program because some of that money is going to be the town's match for the state local bridge program. you know, there we're going to spend $1.8 million, but we're only going to get $900,000 of that back. So, that's going to eat into that fund as we go along. So, this way is definitely safer. and then at the end of both of those, at the end of if we do Bunker Hill first and then we do the Culver project, at the end of that period, the money that we have set aside for the large bridge projects, which will be close to a half a million dollars, will then be freed up to start the financing for the next culvert. Because remember, we've got at least four failing culverts we have to address and they're all going to be, you know, between, you know, 1.2 and 1.8 million or $2 million each. So, we're going to have a series of these we have to do as
fast as we can with whatever money we have. So, that's kind of how I'm trying to schedule everything out. but it also requires us to get the bridges in the culverts qualified into the the state local bridge program. and right now there's no guarantee of that because only about 30% of the bridges that, you know, get apply for the grant funding get it. So, it's kind of a, you know, did that answer your question? Sorry, that was kind of long-winded. It was, it was, it was the right information for us to understand. I mean, and just so the board understands, I mean, we would probably have the ability to fund both of them. In my head, for the amount of money we have available, it just would be risky. It would be a
gamble that's not worth taking. So, we may as well push the bridge off and hope that the Lake Road Bazula culvert stands up. It's not a guarantee that it will, but that's probably the best bet. And just so everybody in town understands, Bunker Hill is going to cost the town nothing. Correct. Long Hill is going to cost the town nothing. Correct. And so in a 10-year window, we have every crossing of the Hop River completed with a new bridge within the last 10 years. well, we'll have three of the four crossings within 10 years. Hendy Road crossing. That's an older That's a mid80s. 87, I think. Do you remember what year that failed, Carol? I thought that was earlier than that. Earlier than that, is it? Okay. 82 or three somewhere in there, I think. Oh, the failing of Hendy, the Hindi road crossing. Well, the rebuilding of it was around the early 80s, I think. Okay. So, what are the four crossings? Because I'm missing one because I know we did one within the last Times Farm. Times Farms. So, Hendy Road, Long Hill Road, and Bunker Hill Road. And times farm was done. Times farm was completed in 17. 17. kind of. All right. So that's the one I was thinking of because I remember that that we did that one. So we did that one then Bunker Hill and now we'll end up with
Long Hill done in 2026. Correct. As two no cost to the town. Correct. Okay. All right. So, there's a motion on the floor regarding the movement of the Lake Road, Basula Road Culver to 2027. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I I Okay, so that was also five nothing. Eric, thank you. Okay. Is there anything else that we should deal with related to your report? Anybody else have any questions for Eric? Okay. 8A, community signage discussion. I still have to sit there and deal with Elaine and I will promise that I will get that done before our July meeting. I was going to say if you really too busy, I'll take it on. No, I'll deal with Elaine. I'll call her. I told her about that at when I saw her at the the town meeting. And I told her I needed to get with her. I just had not done it. 8B discussion of blight and level of involvement. We have documentation in our packet from the blight enforcement officer. Anybody have any questions regarding Wayne's report? If Wayne could add the number of the street in the report, then we would know, you know, all he has is a street. No number. Anybody have any questions related to that for Eric or Well, my thought is I
look at that and there's a lot of things listed and 90% of them seem to be settled. So why do we still see them all on the list? Shouldn't it be just the most current things that are being worked on, haven't been settled yet, etc. or just were settled? I actually think this list was the inspections that he's done in the month of May. I don't think we can get the list from the prior ones that he kept everything on there, but to be really honest mostly because I got tired of looking at the things that were months and months and months. I didn't look at this month. I was so correct. But the the request from the board members that that were into the blight issue that we've had that that was that was a request of board members to keep that list going ongoing so that we could sit there and see if things had been moved or not moved. But in this month what he did was he provided and I think this is Wayne's first one. Is that not true? It is. Correct. Okay. Wayne sat there and gave us the inspections that he did so
that we could understand what he was seeing when he was out there trying to do blight enforcement. I like seeing all the names and numbers and everything. All that big list. The board of selectment did that. I I think it's a celebration to me. We get to see all the light enforcement that we've achieved. I agree with Scott. I think it's I think it's good to see this. I mean, there is a lot of things that Yeah. that we've that have been attempted to get done and blight enforcement has now become a little bit of a more of a priority and I think Eric and the blight enforcement agent has done a good job even in the previous blight enforcement officer. So, yes. So, I had no problem with Wayne's report. It was, it was interesting to me. So, just add some numbers. All right. 8C assessor's analysis on current valuations. I see the assessor provided us information. we don't have the state report that was here. a couple questions for me, Eric, and and two things is, there are some land valuations that are out here, specifically some land valuations from Gilead and Cone Road. and I would just like an answer on this and that, you know, that property was sold for it appears sold for in 2024 for somewhere in the range of 1 point I think it was $1.5 million if if I'm not
wrong. three different parcels on that property. so you're asking why the valuation is so low. The answer to that is it's in it's all that land is in PA490. So it's either in forestry or a agricultural land. I do understand that. And but normally PA490 properties come out of PA490 in first year and was it and and then it and it doesn't appear to be on the PA490 list that John puts out every year. So I am sure there's a reason and I'd like to understand that. but since that property had transferred among family members for a period of time, I'd like to understand when it got outside of the family members. Was the PA490 reissued? And Carol, since you were in
the town clerk's office, do you remember? I checked, Jeff. I checked. Was it done? It is back in 490 when within a couple months of when it was purchased. Okay. Okay. And is that property, just from my understanding, is that property still part of the state program, Scott? Yeah. It is part of the state program. Okay. So, it can never be developed. No. Okay. All right. Just because I couldn't see it there. Thank you, Scott, for finding that information out for me. And then, Eric, just on the assessors, two other things on the assessor. one is the assessor sponsored a bill to sit there and eliminate board of assessment appeals. And I don't know if that has passed if it got passed but it's interesting to me that that that occurred because it's always difficult for me to understand how to evaluate the assessor and and I would like Eric for
you to sit there and ask him because I was hoping he'd be on here is like how do we evaluate the job that the assessor is doing for the community because there's no specific you I know he comes up with these percentages and that we're supposed to get to these percentages. I just don't understand how to evaluate the performance of the assessor's office and the assessor and it would be helpful if there's some way that we as a board could understand that and understand how it could be done. so he's not here to explain it to us. but the other part too is you should have included the state report that was part of what he is answering his questions to. That's in the last packet. So Oh, but it was just in the last packet. Oh, I understand. In this packet also. Yeah, you should have put that two-page report in this packet also. Because all of the things he's talking about here, we've got to reference back to the other side of it. So, I'll sit there and go over this in my my my
point about that land, the agricultural land up there is if it's sold for even a million dollars, it it's only if it's assessed for 250 or something, how could its value is actually what it was sold for? Not even though it's in 490, there still is a high per acre price on agricultural land and it's somewhere around 6 or 7 $8,000 cuz I know a lot of people that buy agricultural land and that's what they're paying for it. So I can't believe that that the assessment can be so low if that's what its real value is. But I don't think I mean that's the whole point of the PA490 program. It is just like every other tax credit and every other rebate to veterans and this group and that group and you know why the biggest manufacturer in the town of Andover pays almost no personal property tax because all his machinery is exempt. Those are all state you know things that the state has imposed. Scott, it's it's a it's a you know, I've always I always thought that when someone sells a property within the town, that's the pre that's the price that has been established and set. and you're trying to get to a threshold at all properties that they are reasonably assessed because the state has this theory that you got to come to a 70% threshold. But what happens in in inover is certain properties are assessed at a much higher than 70% rate and and other
properties are assessed at a much lower than 70% rate. So, you're trying to be fair and get to a flat 70% across the board. And I've had this conversation with Eric where it's all about all boats float equally. You can't have a certain area that is at 100% and then a certain area that is lower than 70%. And it's just not fair. And and even with the board of assessment appeals, it's extremely difficult to get to the root problem with in my head with related to all of this, which is all of the properties need to be evaluated together. And the assessor will tell you he does that and and that's okay. But some of the data doesn't always shake out that way though. Well, what you will see, I think just looking at other towns that have gone through V Reval in the last year that the housing market for high-end homes has cooled off and the lower-end starter homes are going for a lot more money. Their real estate value has increased a lot comparatively. So I suspect in the next reval cycle the people with starter homes you know are going to see a large increase in their their evaluation their rebal. That seems to be the trend that other towns are seeing. and that's been a cycle if you look back at 20 years of data that's been a cycle. you know, when the housing market is cooling off, you start to see the starter homes, you know, raise in value much more disproportionately. And when the housing market is really on fire,
like it has been for a while, the expensive homes go up the most in valuation. So, this doesn't seem to be an abnormal trend to me by any means. Okay. All right. we'll move on to 8D. A traffic around the lake. Are there any issues related to the traffic around the lake that we want to talk about? no. Ann asked that that stay on as a discussion point on the agenda. So, we left it on there. I don't have anything else to say other than I'm hoping to get the resident state trooper out on a bicycle patrolling in that area and also step up more you know more traffic enforcement specifically in the lake area especially during summer. Okay. let's move on to 8E the Bunker Hill Bridge update. so Bunker Hill Bridge update, I've given you most of it. They're around 23% according to the construction estimator around 23% complete. what that means is they've put in the
water dams to channelize the river. They've removed all three of the old culverts on the side facing Route Six. They've replaced the bottom, dug the bottom out and replaced it with streamlike material. and they're working on doing the other side the same way. And they've they've done the first what's called a micro pile. And a micro pile is basically just a foundation pile that goes down through about 45 ft of sand and then a certain depth into bedrock. and what they have to do is they have to do a test pile first, which they've done and they've grouted it and now they wait in in a couple more days. It will be set up enough they essentially use another machine and try to pull it out. and based on the stress, you know, the bending stress of doing that, they make the final depth for the other pilings. and they should start drilling for the other micro pilings within a day or so on the Route Six side of the bridge. and the goal is to basically move them directly from that side to the next side and remobilize to the other side of the river as soon as they're done. hopefully within the next two weeks we'll be pretty much done with the micro piles and on to pouring the actual footings for the bridge. Okay, any other questions for Eric on Bunker Hill Bridge. All right, 8F OSHA update. So we did finally got our official OSHA citation. I believe I passed that on to all the board members. the long and the short of it, it was our
total initial fine was about $4,000, which was actually very low. I was pleased to see compared to what many of our other surrounding towns have experienced. we've addressed basically all of their concerns at this point. We are planning on setting up a meeting with the director of Konosha with the intention to further negotiate the fines down and explain you know what we've done to mitigate and you know why we should get out of a significant portion of those fines. So hopefully in the next month or so I'll have the the final report for you on that. All right. 8G the ROV request. Didn't we vote on this last month? yes we did. Last month we took care of that. I forgot what the ROV request was. Moving the bounce house and the popcorn machine. Okay. All right. So, we can take that off. didn't we vote on 8H water fountain? Yes, we did. Yeah, I just left it so that I would have an update. we had the water company scheduled to come out and do the testing, but somebody smacked the pipe coming out of the ground today at some point. so the main valves are shut off and we have the plumber in to evaluate and figure out what has to fix it. So, that got deleted probably, you know, a week because I don't know when I can get them back out to test, but that is in the works. Okay. 8 I discuss and act upon new committee members for number one, the community and senior center hiring committee. just as a question before that,
Eric, do you have a job description that has been prepared for this? Is there a d I should ask it in a different way. Is there a job description that's out there that is available for the members of the board? Even not that I know of even from other members of the board. So I think we have the old job description that we can go on and we have to advertise for it. So we I think we can still act and appoint someone to be on this committee and then just work on the job description. But we also if you have if you have the basic job description, Carol, can you share it with all the members? I can, but I don't know how to do it while I'm on this. So I no, not right now. after the meeting. Okay, tomorrow would be perfect if you could. So, are we going to make a motion to nominate? Yeah, this was just before we got into it because I know the job description is important to this whole process. So, even if we hire somebody, we would want
to share it with who we put on the hiring committee. And so, before we do this, let's let's talk about the makeup of the hiring committee. so for the rep commission and Marie Dagel said she'll serve back again. Okay. So so the two members of our board were myself and you Carol and Marie. We need one person from the public and we need one person from senior center. You said community center town. So Eric, do you have someone that you can refer us to for that position? Well, I think if you look at everybody of the people that volunteered for the hiring committee, certainly Joe King, Julie Havl, and Louise Goodwin are all
seniors. No, no, no. I I wasn't talking about those individuals. I was talking about a senior center director from another town. if you could sit there and work with us to find that that other member that would be a we would want on there, someone that actually serves in a position. So, in the past, the previous time we had the individual from Coventry, maybe she's available, maybe she's not. If we could sit there and work that out and you could sit there and come back to us and email us on a potential options, that would be great. And now we can go through the other members. So, there's four members, and I'm assuming everybody on the board is familiar with all four members. Yes. Right. they're all good individuals. I I I wouldn't have a problem with any of them. so right now we have Carol, we have Ann Marie, we have Jeff, we have to add someone that of these four and then we have another individual for a person working in that environment. Is that agreeable to everybody? Yes, that's what we decided on last month. Okay. So, who would somebody like to nominate from those four individuals? I'd like to
nominate Marcy Miner. I'll second it. Okay. further discussion on Marcy. Did we lose Scott? Yeah, I think we did. We'll have to get Scott back. I know we lost Dennis. Dennis texted me that he got kicked out. He's not back yet, is he? I don't think so. No, I don't see him. can you check Eric on if people are waiting or if we got any problems? I don't have anybody that I can see in the waiting room, so I don't know what the issue would be. Okay. Is that phone number? There's Dennis. There you go. Okay. let's just text Scott. I just text him. You texted Scott? Yes. I just asked if
you lost internet or what happened. Okay, Scott's now in the waiting room, so I will admit him. If you're talking to us, Jeff, you're muted. All right, Scott, you could hear us, right? Good. Now, yeah. Okay. So, Scott, were you here? Carol nominated Marcy Miner for the position and she w Marcy was seconded by Anne Cre for the hiring committee. I did not hear that. Okay. So that that is where we're at. So we're waiting for you to get back. any dis any discussion related to Marcy? Okay. All those in favor of Marcy Miner for the hiring committee. I I Jeff, did I miss your vote? Jeff, I'm an I. Okay. So that was 5 nothing. Okay. So 8 I2 website review committee. do we have a member from the board of selectmen that would like to be on that? Okay. don't know much about websites. I could just give comments. Yeah. since no one wants to do that, I I will sit there and be on that. I will volunteer to be on that. If anyone has a problem with that and personally, I think you should we should accept all three individuals on that board. Good idea. Candidates are excellent. I'll make a motion that we appoint to the website review committee Jay Camus, Megan Lai, and
Scott Soette. I'll second. All right. All those in favor? I I I I. That is also five nothing. and then discussion and act upon new committee members for Andover's finest. We will push that off for another month. Anybody have a problem with that? Okay. Can I just ask a question on that? We didn't have committee the last time, right? We just advertised to the public and we asked the public to submit their people who they felt should be recognized. And that's correct. I'm just This has just been going on. It's been going on for two years. This started in 2023. I looked that up. Well, we actually put people on the We actually have three people. We just had since then. I I know. But I'm just saying rather than keep Well, the reason the reason that happened was we ran out of money with to do the paving the patio there. So, that's why this is on hold. Well, we need to move it off hold. I'm with Carol. We need to do something besides a paving a patio, but maybe
make a plaque and post people's names on that in the community center somewhere because we do have the criteria still out there on the website and I just think we should encourage people to put the names forward and then we start voting on this monthly because it's been two years. So, and I understand if you know the finances were an issue. I know the bricks could get costly. it wasn't really that bad though when we were selling the bricks for down doing the Veterans Monument Park. So, I think Carol, you're right. We should take applications and nominations all the time to be really honest. We don't have to vote every month to appoint or to put somebody on Andover's finest, but we should just continue to take nominations. I think we are doing it every six months. Yeah, six months, every quarter. Something like that would work. Six months. Okay. So, how do we let's sit there and we'll work with the website review committee to get more nominations and applications to sit there and be put forth. There was some paperwork that had to be filled out also. I think. Okay. it's it's like a Hall of Fame. We don't want to sit there and have too many people. I mean, you don't want to put like Jeff Magguire in it every other quarter. It's not going to work. Right. Right. There be every other brick would be Jeff Maguire. That's not how it's going to work. Okay. All right. let's move on to nine. A new business discuss upon the following. a discussion and possible action on the draft audit report for the period ending June 30th, 2024 regarding the transfer of unexpended board of
education appropriations to the AS capital fund. So just so everybody understands the reason that the draft audit report came out, there is that money there. the way that that was done was the board of finance voted to sit there and move the unexpended board of education money less the 2% lapsing fund into the AES capital fund. And personally, I don't really I I I know we have an issue with the bathroom there, but the way that it's done does not agree with me from how it got accomplished. So, just so you can understand, the money was from the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year. Correct. Correct. and it went all the way to the end and the board of education had gone to the
board of finance and the board of finance voted and it's now going back into the audit. So, it never reached the legislative group within the town which is the town meeting. So, nowhere did the town meeting vote on approval of moving that money there. So, the reality to me is that the town meeting should have been voted, it should have been voted on at the town meeting when we had all of this budget work that we just did and it didn't get done there. And so, shame on us for not getting that done in advance. I I spoke to Mark Brinker about that o over the weekend and and asked him because I had missed one of the town meetings and I had asked him if it had been voted on and he said it had not been voted on. And to me, the board of finance does not have that legislative authority to do that unilaterally and the board of fin the board of selectment does not even have the authority unilaterally to move that money. the only group and the only the only thing in our town in our town charter and Carol you can comment on this is the town meeting that has the authority to approve the movement of those funds from unexpended because the reality in my head is the way it should have went from an accounting perspective is it should have went back into the general fund and within this budget cycle that money should have been moved to the AES capital fund and then what would have happened is we would have taken it out
of the general fund without taxing the taxpayers and then the taxpayers could have voted on that. That's how in my head it should have happened but it didn't. but I do believe that because it's such a large amount of money and because we need to start doing things correctly, that needs to go in front of a town meeting and it needs to go in front of a town meeting quickly. So, I asked the town attorney for an opinion on that last week. He provided it. I provided it for you. I realize you haven't had time to research and go over all of that. but I just think from a common sense perspective, you should be able to understand what we're dealing with. and that's why I wanted to bring it up for discussion purposes. So, this is a long letter or or whatever the legal opinion is. very long and we haven't had time to to look at it to read it because we just got it this morning. it's it's five pages. Yeah. And getting through five pages of legal stuff is not easy. We're not lawyers, but we do want to figure out what's going on before we vote on anything, even to run a PL town meeting. Okay, Carol, can I just ask so the board of finance already approved this transfer of funds from one budget line to no not a budget line, not a budget
line to another budget line went excess funds at the end of the year to transfer into the capital account. Correct. So they already voted to do this. Correct. And and this is the 2024 audit that we just received a draft copy of a couple of weeks ago. It had been in the Yes. the board of finance and and Eric had had that from Mahoney and Sable and the board of finance was looking to schedule a meeting with the auditor to approve the audit and to sit there and set the mill rate like one of the legislative authorities that the board of finance has is to set the mill rate. So they were actually doing that. Can I ask was that a finding in the audit? No, no, no, no. The auditor The auditor put it in the fund and the auditor put it in the fund. So it wasn't noted as a finding by our auditor. No, because because the auditor
believe the auditor Carol and this goes for you. The auditor is not looking at who has legislative authority to approve it. It was done in the board of finance meeting to approve it and he just made the accounting transaction on it. So, this would be something good for you, Carol, to sit there and look through the charter and to make sure that and to make sure that I'm missing to not make sure that I'm not missing something related to how the charter works. Now, Dennis went through and did this the state statutes and everything related to the board of finance and what the true authority is related to the board of finance. So the true authority for the board of finance is really to set an upper threshold in my head. It's always been this to set an upper threshold for a budget amount to be spent and then it
goes to the legislative body which is the town meeting. And the town meeting cannot increase the spending amount above what the board of finance has set but they can decrease it. And so you you have these these issues of who has who has legislative authority over certain things. So with the board of selectmen, it's really what's out there with ordinances and how our charter reads. And with the board of finance, it's it's what our charter read and what state statute says. So in my head, what I'm after, what I'm totally after is I cannot see us continuing. I can't see a future board of selectmen having to continue to go through processes like we were going through and have these types of transactions because it's going to happen again. And it's got to be done correctly. So that's my only issue. I I was I was talking about this at the last town meeting. It's I I know we didn't vote on it. I know the board of selectman didn't vote on it. And to be really honest, even if the board of selectment voted on, it wouldn't have been right anyway. It had to be in front of the town meeting. And the problem that mentally I'm dealing with and Eric, you Mahoney and Sable wants to get the audit finalized, right? Because they have to get it to the state. They've already submitted it to the state. They've submitted to the state. All they are
doing is having a meeting, scheduling a meeting with the board of finance to discuss the audit and their audit findings, which is not to say they couldn't issue a correction if one was needed, but as far as Mahoney Sable's concerned, the audit is filed. Well, the problem that I see is if it doesn't get done and we don't have a town meeting and we go back through and we go to the auditor and he reads the opinion of the attorney and understands what the attorney is saying and what I believe is accurate, then that money really needed to go to the general fund. So, I would recommend that we have a town meeting to get it approved. So my question in the charter under 806 right D it says that has the town administrator through the board of selectment may request within the last three months. But then it says this section shall not affect the local board of education shall have the power to make its own transfers provided that such transfers are reported to the board of finance. So but you're saying the board of finance approved that well transfer or whatever you would like to call that. Yeah. Dennis, he's waving his hand. Dennis, you're gonna explain something to me. He doesn't want to let me talk, but I know he doesn't. No, it's not that I don't like when Dennis talks because I
listen to Dennis. It's Dennis Brett, be brief. We were hoping to get out of here at 9ine. So, yeah, I I wanted to get out, too. that that section she's talking about is it applies to the board of education handling its budget during the during the year during the fiscal year, not at the end of the fiscal year when it doesn't spend money. That money automatically goes into the into the town fund. It's a it's town money. It's not becomes town money. It's not board of ed money. And that money is you know and the board of finance has no authority whatsoever to make a to take action on that money. It's it there's no good solution. There's no good process. Going to a town meeting is not ideal. I recommend in my opinion that an ordinance be passed. Giving the power to the board of selectmen which is the the board of selectman is the is the top agency on the town side. No question. Board of Finance is not The Board of Finance has special responsibilities, but they don't include handling you know, taking town money and giving it back to putting it in a in a a special fund. They can recommend it. They're they're they're all about recommending. If you look through the statutes, the word recommend appears everywhere. They're not f they don't have the final say on very much. One thing to have the final say on, as Jeff said, is to set a ceiling on the budget when the budget is acted on by the by the town, including the town meeting. And then, you know, and then when it
goes to referendum, they they set the ceiling on the budget. They're there to make sure the town can afford the budget. That's what they do. And they do it well. But they're not there to transfer money from the Carol down to the to any a special fund. That's not by themselves. Okay. Carol, your issue your issue on those that charter section is transfer between expenditure funds. We cannot no one within the town can tell the board of education how to tr they can transfer their money between any expenditure line item. So an expenditure line item. But what we're dealing with here is the board of education was under budget by a certain amount of money for the fiscal year ending in 2024. And what happened to that money is they took the 2% non-lapsing money which they have the authority by state statute to move the 2% into a a non-lapsing account. No one can do anything about that. But the remaining money
the remaining money was voted on to was voted to move to the AES capital fund. So that is not a transfer that the board of finance or the board of education can do. The only entity that can approve that is really the town meeting. Okay. it. The only thing that's throwing me is that first sentence in 806 C that says when an agency excluding the local board of ed shall desire to transfer funds within its appropriation from funds set apart for one purpose to another. Such agency shall file a request with the town administrator. Right? So it says excluding right the local board of education appropriation from the funds set apart for one purpose to another. And then within the last three months is when this can be done. So all I'm saying
is I thought our charter gave more authority to our board of finance and that's all I'm saying. If the board of finance voted to do that, should we really be undoing what they did? And I know with the statutes and the authorities and that that they give to the board of finance, but I also know that our charter can give more authority to different boards and commissions. And I think that our charter did give the board of finance more authority, separate authority from the authority of the board of select. That's my only question. And it they've already done it. It's in the audit. I don't know that I I'm just asking. And again, like Ann said, this packet, everything came out late on Thursday. Well, about 11:30 Thursday morning, so we really don't have time to research anything. And then Dennis's opinion you sent to us this morning at 9:30. I didn't even see it in the email till 12:30 because the office was a little bit crazy. that's my only issue is some of the questions. Listen, you guys, you guys can research this. We can have a a quick meeting. I am just telling you that in my I mean, I've never I've never I mean, listen, think of it this way, Carol. I'll just
use your common sense thing. Imagine if the board of selectmen moved money into a fund and sat there and said, "Okay, we're under budget. we're going to move it into this fund in any significant manner like this and what would occur. So I'm just I I am I am looking at this in a very simple way. We have to understand what is right and what is wrong moving forward. And you can have you can have time to sit there and do this. But I would tell you it would be appropriate for us to do this and and make the make have a town meeting because it is the legislative body within the town not the board of selectmen and vote on this. So because in the future I don't really want to sit there and see this continuously happening that the because what's going on is the board of finance well the board of the board of education is going to the board of finance and trying to have the board of finance make a legislative decision for the community that this is the best use of the funds without balancing that out amongst every organiz organization within the town and I can't I don't believe we should allow that to happen in the future. I think there has to be a balance and you know because next year let's sit there and say we don't know I mean we haven't gotten any information from the board of education if they're going to be under budget or overbudget. Let's say they're under budget because they'll probably be under budget and we don't know but let's let's look at it this way. What the
board of education will do is go to the board of finance and have the board of finance vote on it. And if we sit there and allow it to happen this year, it'll happen next year and it'll continue to happen every other year that we move forward. So remember, the board of education isn't like patting people's salaries or doing crazy things with the money. They're only putting it into their capital fund so they can fix things like the building, the plumbing, having a a elevator that works so the handicap kids can get up and down. That's that is federally required. You know, it's not like they're wasting money. They're only making use of it. I I agree with you, Ann. But I what what is occurring is those dollars the the underbudget amount that it is occurring sits there and comes back and you have to evaluate it within the total needs of the town. Now I'm not sitting there saying I agree that I would put that money in that fund. But I am sitting there and I am telling everyone I'm sitting there in my head going I've read the stuff and I've looked at the stuff. The ultimate board to make that decision is the town meeting. And the town meeting never had the opportunity to vote a yes or no on that issue because Are you saying that every year they have to have a town meeting in order to move this money or is to be to be really honest and if if
they allowed it to go in the right way, the money just would have went back into the general fund and there would have been nothing on the town meeting. There would be no vote. there would be no requirement because the the board of education was under budget. The money should have gone to the general fund and then a decision could have been made and voted on at town meeting if we wanted to fund $500,000 to the Andover AS capital fund. It would have been voted on by the town meeting and truly it should have ended up going to the budget referendum. This did not get to the budget referendum ever in any manner. So
I'm looking at this simply because we need to be we need to do a better job as a board of selectmen and how this whole thing works together and it's got to be done correctly and reality is reality is we're a town town meeting form of government. So that is correct. We haven't always gone to town meeting. Look at the community center. It was built a million dollars. It never went to a town meeting or referendum for a vote. it actually did get on our budget. It did get on our budget referendum that year. We actually talked about it in great detail as to what was going on at that
meeting. So, the rules the rules they never voted on it. Now the rules for that ARPA money were for the board of selectment or the governing body of the town to make the right decision on where that money went. Governing body. Now you're saying the governing body is it's the board of selectment was the board of selectment. Okay. So then why did we have to bring this thing with the board of ed to a town meeting? in the charter that says that those under expenditures are supposed to go back to the general fund and we can either vote on it or it would go back to the general fund and I would rather vote on it. I'm trying to but I am telling I got it to go to the motion the motion at the town meeting would be to move the money to the Andover AES capital fund. I think the board of finance has already made a decision with it. So I feel they're the ones that deal with the finance more than we do. They have certain limitations as to what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to evaluate again they're supposed to set an upper limit as to what the organizations can spend. And each year they should evaluate what we spend and how we spend it to determine if our amount is is appropriate for the taxpayers of the town to spend. They should be evaluating expenditures of the board of education. They should be evaluating expenditures of the town and they should set the
upper limit of what can and can't be afforded by the taxpayers of the town. They should not be making a decision to sit there and put money into a fund that is a capital fund. It's just not what they should be doing. All that I'm saying is if it was already done by the board of finance, the draft audit is completed. I understand if it was done incorrectly, then it does need to be corrected for the future. But should we be undoing what the board of finance did, what's already audited? I I didn't even, to be honest with you, read get a chance to read the board of finance minutes when this transfer took place. I didn't have time to do any of the research on that as to how it was done or anything else. And not that I'm arguing, obviously, you know, Dennis is our town attorney, but I didn't even really get a chance to look at that and go back and forth. How about we push this off to next week? But my point is, we really do need to vote on it before the end of the month. And can I ask why it's the end of this month that we have to now we're going to cross into another fiscal year if we let it go past January or June 30th. But it was 2020. It was fiscal year ending June 3024.
Correct. Which is already just being issued. Jeff, wasn't there another vote taken in March of this year to transfer more money into that fund by the board of finance? So that would that happened during this fiscal year? Well, the approval of that money to move into that fund was done to try to get through the audit and get approval for the audit. Okay. Well, it was 360 grand. Yeah. I'm not saying that I'm opposed to it either. I'm I'm just I'm just telling Listen, I am not I I I need everybody to understand I'm not opposed to this. And so again, just so you understand, I am not opposed to the money going there. Listen, the board of the board of selectmen, the board of selectmen makes the recommendations to what moves into the capital funds. The board of selectmen sat there and recommended that $100,000 go into that AES capital fund before we understood that the Andover Board of Education was overbudget by $400 and some odd thousand underbudget, excuse me, by $400 and somehat thousand dollars. So I just sitting there and go, we're doing it wrong. We're going to we're going to allow it to be done incorrectly. I I'm not I'm not in agreement with that. It needs to be done correctly so that in
the future as this occurs, things get done in an appropriate manner because the board of finance really should have just pushed that back into should have pushed that back into the general fund. And on this budget, we should have put that money in to it should have been put back into the capital fund in an appropriate level to cover the requirements of the school to do the bathroom. And then Ann, the question I'd ask you, I'd go right to you go, are we doing that this year? Has anyone been in communication with the town regarding the the the bathrooms and doing the bathrooms? And and this is stuff that we
either start working together or we're going to have other problems. So, right now, my one issue is that the board of finance moved $360,000 into a capital fund and they did it on their vote, which truly does not hold the authority to actually do that correctly. So I say we do it correctly. That's all I'm saying. So you're saying to go to a town meeting to change this for the future. No, to do it correctly, not to change it. To do it correctly and to do it correctly in the future. Correct. But you're not taking away the money that's in the a capital. No, we're voting on it to to to say yes. We all agree that the legislative body of the town, the town meeting votes to sit
there and approp take the $360,000 and put it into the AES capital fund. There there doesn't need to be a vote on this. This doesn't need to be a meeting. The charter says where the money goes. it does need to be a meeting, Scott, because if let's sit there and say, let's sit there and say we want to have a a well, I don't even want to go there. There has to be a meeting because you have to have a town meeting to vote yes on this or in essence, it's been done incorrectly and we're going to have this problem year after year after year and we're gonna Yeah, we can't do it. Would it have to be a referendum too or just a town meeting? By that there's no changing this. The the board of selectman didn't know that there was going to be $360,000 extra. So we to put 100 into their capital fund. They elected not to take it. We we we knew we we did know. I don't I don't the board of education the board listen we knew and I don't even want to go into the whole thing about knowing we knew that there was money left over there's no doubt about it Scott oh we knew there
was money left over never knew how much money left over never knew how much it was knew there was money left and that's why the board of selected did not put the hundred into this year's budget no incorrect board of selectmen recommended to put $100,000 into the board of finance the Board of Finance took it out and replaced it with $360,000. I mean, because the the the board of finance do that education had that money to put into the capital fund. Again, the board of education controls its expenditures. The board of education did not spend that money. The technical way that it should have happened is that money should have come back to the town and been put into the general fund at that point in time. Then the board of selectmen could have sat there and said to the board of finance with, you know, talking to the board of education and talking to the board of finance said, "Hey, let's fund the capital fund with this overpayment." And then what we would have went to the town people with
is, "Hey, listen. We're going to put $360,000 into the AES capital fund. We're not going to tax you on it because we had a we had an underbudget amount from the prior year. There'll be no no impact to the taxpayers in the current tax year. That's what should and you know why they have that money. It's because of the grant that they got. Otherwise, they would not have had that extra money. It was only because of the grant that Valerie was able to pull in. Okay, those are all positive. Change this. She'll probably stop doing grants. What does that mean? Why would she stop doing grants? Tons and tons of grants to be able to get the money to have the extra to do the work on the building because otherwise she doesn't get it. So, you're telling me that the superintendent of our schools is going to stop applying for grants because the money the money that is under spent is not going into her into the AES. If she feels the town votes it down and says, "No, we're not going to do that." If we're sending it to a town meeting, that can happen. And did Valerie tell you that she was going to stop getting grants? Well, she says, you know, what's my incentive to work on getting all these grants if the town isn't going to let me put this extra money into a capital account? We didn't say that. We said all we wanted to do is make sure that everybody's on
the same page. It does h happen again next year, that the money is put in back into the general fund and then back into the Let me ask a general Let me ask a question. Let me ask a question. If AES is is is under budget by 400,000 this year, are are you expecting and is the board of education expecting that that $400,000 be put into the AES capital fund? Do you have that many projects that you're expecting to get accomplished? That's what you were under budget this year. Okay. So listen, I don't even if to me it doesn't even matter like we can go round and round go to a town meeting round and round on this but the issue is that it should go to a town meeting and and Carol and Ann if you need time to to review the documentation I'm okay with that because I understand that the opinion came today. So it should have come to what when our referendum was we should add that information then it should have been voted on then. Yes. Right. If you need time I I'm okay. I just would recommend we schedule a meeting a town meeting for ourselves a board of selection special meeting next week to vote on it.
You're on mute Carol if you're reading something from somebody. No, I'm I'm sorry. I'm I'm good. Okay. So, I would say that the town has done basically the same thing at the end of the year. we certainly publicly funded a vehicle for senior transportation from a completely different line item at the end of the year because we had the surplus to do it. as opposed to rolling it into the general fund. now that might have been under the half% cap which might mean technically the board of finance could approve that. I don't know. It sounds like if we're going to go in this direction, then we really need an ordinance that specifies exactly how this all goes down. Because I mean, I I will admit that over the last six years, I've had a bunch of questions in my mind about exactly what the approval process is for capital expense. Does it go to CIP and then board of finance and board of selectment? Does it just go CIP to board of finance? Does it go CIP board of selectman board of finance? So, I mean, I will admit I don't really
and I should understand that procedure. I did ask years ago the and gave the board of finance a draft policy of how I thought it should work, but there was never any final policy established on that to my knowledge. So, you know, maybe this really does need an ordinance and we need to do something to clean this up because I was certainly not under the impression of what Dennis's legal opinion was. and that's an error on my part. I I agree 100% with you, Eric, in in that I was speaking to Mark Brinker over the weekend and he and I are both honestly are unsure exactly with what the process should be. I mean, I have in I have a very common sense approach in that there's there's there's assets of the town and there's capital funds of the town that are are supposed to be administered by the town administrator and the board of selectmen. and we're supposed to spend accordingly from those funds to upkeep the capital of the the town. and he and Mark and I were having a conversation as to what is truly the role because I think we're getting to the point where we're having we're attempting to have different boards take different roles and it's becoming confusion confused and we need to sit there and outline it and have it in very detailed form and say this is your role, this is our role, this is what a capital project is. Everybody's got to follow the purchasing procedure and we really should go through and do all of that for the benefit of all future board of
selectments, all future board of finances and all future board of educations because it's the only way that we'll really be able to work together effectively. So, but we're here today and and I'm going to go to Carol and Ann. We're here today. We've got to decide if we call a special meeting and you know what we do. If we don't call a special meeting, I'm telling you that I think we're we we will have we could potentially have a problem because to me that would mean a potential audit adjustment and then you have another problem. So I would recommend that we do it. That's my opinion. It may not be everybody else's opinion. and I am telling you, I am not sitting there saying that I the the motion that I would make and the town meeting that I would make is that we come to vote on the movement of those funds to the AES capital fund. That's it. So, and I just asked Joanne Heert raised her hand and sent something on the screen. She's the vice chair of the board of finance. We there's no policies, Carol. There's no policies. The The only policy there is is what the charter has written. No one formally made a policy. Period. Oh, there's a policy that was out there, Carol, if this is there was one out there, but it was I don't know. I'm just asking. I'm just I'm just telling you. I'll tell you. There was a written policy that the board of education and
the board of finance jointly got together and attempted to write so that they could sit there and and have a have what I would call control over the spending of unexpended funds that are in the AAS capital fund. And to be really honest, that's not accept that's not appropriate for me. I'm not I'm not built for that because there's only one group in the town and it's the board of selectmen that sits there and has capital funds under its under its purview. That's it. Nobody else has a capital fund under their purview. Not that not and or last year we tried getting together and discussing it three boards and the board of selectmen dropped the ball I think because they didn't just didn't go through with it. The board of board of selectmen chosen to vote on that policy. We were not going to approve that policy. You would have voted yes an and other people would have voted no. Said we didn't have a policy that evening. I remember him saying that there was no policy. We didn't need a policy was his word because what I didn't need a policy. We have a capital improvement fund that the board of education is a member of. Everybody goes to the capital
improvement fund to evaluate the necessary needs of the community. Balanced approach to who needs it. Is it the library? Is it the fire department? Is it the town? Is it the board of education? And then you choose how to spend the money that you have available. So, okay. So, what I'm going to recommend is that we schedule a special meeting for next week with only one item on the agenda. And is it to schedule a town meeting or not to schedule a town meeting? Yeah, because I'm willing to give you the time because I believe that what
we've discussed and what's been out there is is and Eric said something that he's not wrong. you know, I know that we we sat there on a prior on the prior board of of of selectmen and we had extra money and we chose to sit there and spend money on a vehicle for senior transportation. And what we did was transfer funds to a a line so that we could do senior transportation and we had the board of finance approve it. We didn't do it on our own. We did it with the board of finance and and that is accurate. Eric's saying that and Eric, what we really need to do is outline what is the true policy. But this is not $40,000. This is $360,000. And and to me, it's something that's going to happen next year and it's going to happen in another year and we're going to all be coming back. And as opposed to us fighting, what we should really do is outline what's the proper procedure, put it in an ordinance, and be done with this and have no more
confusion as to whose role is what and what we get done. So, but that's not where I'm here today for. I'm here today for to say we really need the town meeting to approve that transfer so that we don't have someone go back and say really that should be in the general fund. So, I would ask Carol and and Ann specifically if you want time to read those documents and to to form a better opinion and get and an to get with your your your group to sit there and make sure that the board of education and how they perceive what the attempt to get done is. No problem. Let's have a meeting next week. One item on an agenda, nothing else. Either we schedule a town meeting or we don't. that acceptable to everybody? Can we schedule it tonight? Okay. So, what day would you schedule the special meeting? let's look at Oh, no. The special meeting that's a different it can only we'd have to do it two weeks out. I mean, no, no, I mean for the board of selecting for us next week is what you're saying, right? Yeah. I'm just We got to look at our calendar, right? to make sure that we're not on somebody else's schedule. [Music] Well, the 19th, Thursday is Junth, so that's out. if you want me, how about how about we do it? How about we do it? Does anybody have a problem doing it Friday, 7 o'clock, 10-minute meeting? It gives you four days to sit there and go through this. This Friday, Jane 13.
Okay. Does Does Jeff, do you have a problem with that? Yeah, I have a conflict. So there is nothing there. Listen, there's nothing on Thursday the 12th. Anybody conflict? we have two days, three days to sit there and get it done. I don't have a conflict if it's seven or later. Yep. 7 o'clock. We we said we made an an agreement that we wouldn't have any meetings before 7. Every once in a while we break our own bow, but 7 o'clock Thursday the 12th. Well, we have DTC meeting that night, but would this meeting be very short then? Very short. I would hope. And I'm hoping all our meetings are really short. This one is going longer than I would expected. I mean, listen, 7 to 7:15, that would be the hope. Everybody would have their questions. Everybody knows how they're going to vote. You're going to sit there and we're going to do it and move on. I mean, I'd vote tonight, but I understand that everybody wants to read that and and feel feel that they understand what the town attorney wrote and that they get input from all the people that they want to get input from. Well, I'm glad you're having it this week because I'll be away next week and so I'll be there to answer questions. I'm I'm looking forward to it. I always like to get feedback on what I do. All right. So, does anybody So, can we schedule it for the 12th? Is that okay? So, I'll make a motion that we schedule a special meeting for June
12th to discuss the scheduling of a special town meeting for the AES capital fund. Second. Second, Carol Lee. All those in favor? I I I 5 nothing. Okay, let's move on to 9B food truck discussion. We had a resident give us some information related to the food truck. Eric, before we get started, your input on this. so we have a resident that is looking at the possibility of finding some locations in town where they would be allowed to put a food truck. They made the initial suggestion and asked whether they would be allowed to park the food truck down near the recreational fields during games. I said that's a board of selectmen issue, but as long as they're insured, I don't have a problem with that. Personally, I think that's a reasonable request. I also said
that the town has one other property where we've specifically allowed a food truck to be parked before. That is the old small commuter lot next to over and over. and the third location that maybe should be considered is parking it along the rail trail on one of the town properties. If you remember when we purchased the property from the merit family, we did that in such a way that we purchased some of the parcels with open space funds and the rest were donated so that those ones that were donated were available for commercial use. So there is an existing curb cut on Route Six. So, you could potentially allow the use of a food truck near the rail trail right by the the underpass under Route Six. Those were the three I thought off the top of my head. but we didn't really have any sort of food truck form. so I nicked the one from the Endover's farmers market, changed it around a little bit and presented that
to you. Also, it would need to go to legal review if this is something you wanted to consider. But I at least wanted to put enough information before you so that you could have a discussion and the person that was trying to do it was on. I don't see them on listed anymore, unfortunately. That's that's Eric. I I think it's something that I would recommend that we evaluate. I also know that they said that they would potentially be willing to compensate the town. I think you should negotiate all of those factors and everything else and bring it back to the board at a future meeting. I think should charge a fee for that if they're using because when
Linda and Dave were using the commuter lot that overandover uses, there was a rental fee that we charged for that. Okay. Yeah. And I did look for that information, but that's at least from what I can find that that predates our shared server. So, I don't have that information on what fees. I'm happy to entertain whatever fees the board feels are appropriate. Okay. Can we look in Can you look into other towns and what they potentially would do? but yes, it's something we should entertain and we should sit there and see if it's it's viable. I mean, I'd also like to understand that Eastern Health doesn't cause any problems or that it would be appropriate for their their needs. I know she sat there and said she was going to get all the licensing and all the requirements and get all that done, but let's just make sure that it's not something that we become it becomes problematic for us, right? we would require Eastern Highlands Health
District to give a temporary food service permit and that they be insured. But today there's now a a law that says health districts have to offer reciprocity for food trucks. So instead of getting your food truck approved in each individual health district throughout the state, I think you can get it done in one and ask for rep recip reciprocity in the other. but food trucks are not an issue with Eastern Islands Health District. I know that I sit on the board, so I don't see that being an objection. All right. So, let's let's have this on the agenda for next month and sit there and see if we
can get that negotiated and laid out so that the individual can buy their truck. Okay. there was a a significant amount of information on the solid waste discussion, the SF SS SMMR2. Eric, what's the what is the specifics that you want us to address related to that? Is do we transfer station or not. The the real question you have to ask is would you as a board continue consider going to a pay as you throw mechanism for the transfer station with all the complications that entails or keep the basic form that we're running the transportation station at now or transfer station, which is just an annual flat $50 fee to anybody that wants to use it and not limit limit the types of waste, but not the quantities of waste because the state has a series of grant programs and that we could tap into, but they all require as a core of doing it that you adopt the pay as you throw model. I honestly don't think that's really practical for the town. I would like to consider some of the other parts of the grant program, but you can't do one without the other.
So, my question for you is, is that something you would consider and be willing to take the public feedback which will probably not be happy with that? and the logistical issues of figuring out how to adopt a pay as you throw model for the transfer station. I'm just sitting there telling you we we are not in a position to logistically accomplish that. Forget all of the other things that would go on with it. Like I mean we don't even have internet at the transfer station. So, I mean, if you were even thinking about doing it, you'd have to sit there and outline how you would want to execute it, and then we'd have to get public feedback to sit there and say, would you even consider doing it without killing us, right? Right. Okay. So, I don't really feel like getting beat up any more than I need to. I know Carol doesn't. Right, Carol? No. And I just think we would have to res redesign the transfer station because the way the hut is where the guys are, you know, if you look at Colombia, it's right there when you pull in and they look at what you have. So I just think that the sticker fee is enough. If we have to go up a little bit, that's one thing, but I think sticker fee is
enough. So that have to be like bags, certain bags that you use or how would that even be? There are different ways of doing that. The one way is you just say, okay, your annual fee is $50. For that, you get the equivalent of two household garbage bags. so you get 100 special garbage bags every year. and when you've exceeded that limit, then you have to pay. You have to buy the bags from somewhere. Pick a retailer in town. Make them buy it from over and over or be Dollar General or or some other town residence. So, that's one possibility. the second possibility is some sort of scale mechanism, but that's harder to implement in the town of Andover. So, you know, I I'm I like the concept, but I struggle to see how we can practically do that in the town of Andover. The only reason why I even considered and was willing to sit through all the PowerPoint presentations you know and talk to the people that are running this program is I think the food scrap diversion could be viable at some point and might be worthwhile because mostly you know statewide they figure somewhere about 22% of everything that gets thrown out in solid waste. So, not bulky waste, but just regular household garbage is food scraps. And if you can take that out of the waist stream somehow, that means you're taking an awful lot less to the incinerator and you're taking a lot less to the the landfill. So, I can see some value in it. I just in my head I don't understand
how this project could work in handover. But the way this program is if we signed up for it, the first six months is just them figuring out whether this could even be implemented in Andover. But I also don't want to make them do that unless we're serious about thinking about doing it. That's probably a long-winded way to say I'm not really in favor of this. Well, the only way we'd ever I mean the only way I think we would consider it is if it is financially appropriate for the town of Andover and we can execute it logistically. So, you'd have to you'd have to give us those two things like here's what the grant funding would do for us because listen, what does what does the sticker fee pay for our transfer station cost? 30% No, around 20% today. So it's less. So 20%. So the sticker fee is 20% of the total cost of operating the transfer station. Yeah. 20 to 25%. Okay. Yep. So if you came back to the board and sat there and said the grants and how we would run this program would fund 60% of the cost of the transfer station, then we may have an appetite to sit there and pursue it because there's some cost
savings to the town. but well it wouldn't be cost savings to the town. We would just say we are putting on more of the cost of the transfer station on the people who use the transfer station the most. That's what this would end up doing in the long term. Correct. But I'm assuming that some of the grant funding would also supplement the dollars that we currently deal with. So it has to be return on investment. We have to understand it. And it's a little bit more than just reading their document to sit there and see what would be up. Eric, we'd have to come up with a plan to say, okay, the 100 bags cost $50 and then everything above and beyond the 50 bags is X and this is how you fund it. And do we get any grant funding on top of that? And so that there would be savings if the program generated more than 20% of the the over like could could could supplement what we're currently getting from the transfer sticker fees. But honestly for this coming year, it's just the
transfer sticker fee as far as I'm concerned because I think we'd kill ourselves if we tried to implement it. it would be for the following year if we could get it done. So, anybody else have any issues related to that? I think it's a great idea. I just think it'd be really hard to implement and we'd have to get an infrastructure that could handle it. So, anybody else with any other questions for that item? Okay. 9E, Longill bridge update and the Lake Road. we talked about these but yeah I guess that you have everything other than I will send out the 70% design submission meeting there will be at the end of June at some point there or beginning of j July there will be what's called a plans in hand meeting that is they've sent out to all the relevant state agencies as well as the utility companies the draft plans including utility relocation, what the bridge is going to look like. and there will be an on-site meeting that you are all more than welcome to attend to discuss any of the issues that any of the agencies that have regulatory authority over this and there are many have with it prior to getting to the 90% plan stage. But the intention at this point is somewhere about the middle of August to have the final design draft meeting with the Connecticut DOT bid opening or advertising for both the construction inspection and the construction firm to take place somewhere in early September, open bid bid openings in October with a plan of having contract in in place for
both construction inspection as well as the contracting firm by the middle of December scheduled for a April one start date on the bridge. Okay, anybody questions related to the bridges? Okay, we had 9F Trinity Solar permit application. Correct. I know. I'll make a motion that we approve. And what was the individual's name that was on that permit, Eric? I don't know, but I can go look it up. Aiden Ford. Aiden Ford. All right. So, I make a motion that we cancel all Trinity Solar sales permit applications that currently exist and approve the Trinity Solar Sales permit specifically related to Aiden Ford. I'll second. Any discussion on this item?
All those in favor? I I I Okay. we're on to item 10, approval of the meeting minutes from five the regular meeting from 512 2022. I would like to amend the minutes to note that the board of selectmen voted unanimously to have the town clerk on the ballot in November. I'll second that because I know that we did. Thank you. All right. All those in favor of approving the minutes with the above men or the the adjustment to the vote for the town clerk on the ballot. I I I have nothing. Okay. treasures report. It starts on page 67 of our packet. Anybody have any specific questions related to the treasur's report? Eric, the one thing is, and I didn't see it in here, but do you have a town a
road balance update for us? I can provide you one. The one I have is probably a couple months old. Okay. If you can do that because it's it's 11 C. I'd like to know what's left in that account. We used to have an update every month with that. Okay. Anybody have any questions related to the town budget? And and Eric, we may as well talk about it. where do you think we're going to be related to the end of the year? we're going to be under spent to some extent on the town budget and we will be slightly over in total collections. So I know we'll be in the black. I just I don't want to give you an estimate for how far in the black. the one thing I was holding out and worried on was the resident trooper the bill. We did get the bill for that already. it is 6 or 7,000 less than we budgeted. So, we're
in good shape there. so I don't see any major problems in the budget overall. So, the resident state trooper came in at $32,000 for the year. That's good. Around 33,000. Yeah. 33. Okay. And so, if you can keep the residents informed as to where we end up related to our spending in next month, let's have a a better, understanding of where we're going to end up being. But you said our revenue collection is better. Is that from tax collections or is that from state funding? Where where are you at with that one? Just a way. so overall tax collection, we've gotten all the state money we expected. we've done better than we've done in years past with collections from the collection of back taxes owed by Kate. we've done better than we've done in the past. So, we're up a little bit on that overall where we seem to be right where we should be. Okay. anyone else have any other questions related to the treasurer's report? Carol's got her hand up. No. Oh, I accidentally did it. I don't even know why I have that. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Okay. all right. We'll move on to item 12, the tax collector's report. So, she's 99% collected on real estate, 98% on personal property, 95% on motor vehicles, and 91% on the supplemental, I believe. So, there's still a total due of $161,000 for the current year. That not what's not due for the prior years. But, but if you remember the way we budget this, which admittedly is a little screwy, but it works out most years, is that we assume we're going to collect 100% of the taxes across the
board in the correct year, but we don't figure on any you know, motor vehicle supplemental Because usually the amount we collect in the motor vehicle supplemental works out to about the same amount as what we don't collect in taxes. The 2023 uncollected balance is is much higher than this year. So So Kate obviously did a good job collecting this year. So, she's down $70,000 from the prior year, which means she did a poor job in 2023 and a much better job in 2024. She's getting better. Okay. Learning the job. All right. Anybody else have any other questions for the tax collector report? No. Okay. there is a an update on the tax sale and the demands on that. when is that all supposed to be finalized, Eric? And when is there a date set for the potential tax sale? I think it's sometime in July, but I I don't have the the date. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I know the the leans have all been bleached. We've gotten a bunch of them to pay off. my understanding is that the Barnett property has just come off the list. that Adam Cohen had, which is which is I'm assuming means he got paid for that. and we're just because that property did sell. so I'm assuming he's already gotten paid for that and he just hasn't reimbursed the town yet. So we're down to really, you know, like three big properties in the the tax sale. And my understanding also is that the Vitch family farm has sold that property or is it it's at least under contract. So there's an understanding that we should get that one too. So there's only going to be a couple left in the tax sale by the time it gets to that point. Okay.
Good news. All right. Please make sure that at at the next meeting you give us the date of the sale so that we can at least announce it to the residents at least at our meeting. page 76 there's a tax refund for the month of $25549 for Toyota lease trust related to a certificate of correction. So, I'll make a motion that we approve the tax refund in the total in the total of $25549 to the Toyota lease trust. Second. Carol seconded. All those in favor? I I I 5 nothing. Okay. And can I just tell you the tax sale is July 16th at 100 p.m. July 16th, 1 p.m. Thank you. there are various departmental reports that were provided to us. anybody have any questions related to any of them? There was one submitted by Haley Proto from the community center. There was one provided by the assessor's office, state police, building department, public works. So if you have questions for Haley, she is still on this meeting, so I'm sure she would be happy to answer them. Okay. Anybody have any questions? So, let's move on to item 14, a correspondence. The correspondence and the CROG summary. Eric, let me get down to that. So, I put Krog's summary of what House Bill 52 would do. and so you could kind of understand the effects on the town of Andover. As I said before, it does look like the governor is pulling back from signing it in existing form. but I don't know whether they will or they won't. Obviously, it's getting lobbyed pretty hard from both sides. it does make a series of changes that
would be interesting for the town of Andover. The first thing it does is it allows mobile homes in every zone, every residential zone in the town of Andover. so Jeff, if you wanted to tear your home down and put a single wide on the foundation instead, you'd be allowed to do it once this regulation puts in. unlikely anybody would do it given the cost of land but not impossible to think of. The other thing it does is it allows middle housing on anything that is currently zoned commercial or industrial. Middle housing is designed as up to a nine apartment apartment unit on a piece of property. And as you know, since we zone down to a half acre in the commercial and industrial zone, that would be a pretty intense use on a piece of property. it also allows them to build it without any parking at all, which is a little scary. It's not too likely that in Andover somebody would try to build an apartment complex and not have any parking, but legally the zoning commission would not be able to in, you know, do any parking rags. the other thing that's going to happen is the town is going to have to draft a priority affordable housing plan. you know which is going to take some time and may extend the existing planet conservation and development effort out a little bit because it's it's part of it will be part of the POC you know and it's it's it's going to take quite a bit of planning effort to
do this number one and we're also going to have to have some fairly good legal review of our zoning regulations because there are a lot of changes and we need we would then need to make our town zoning rules comply with state law. So something that happens every year just usually not as drastic as this. the second thing is I put in the packet several months ago I asked you for permission to reply to the state that we'd be happy to have them replace all our stop signs with new stop signs. This is the project authorization letter that has to be signed by the first selectman. But since you all as a board are the local traffic authority collectively, I I wanted to put it in the packet so that you knew the board already kind of said go ahead with this, but now Jeff technically needs to sign it to get the
project rolling. So that's the second piece of correspondence that's in there. Yeah. Anybody have any other questions for Eric? Okay, we'll move on to public speak. Diane Grer. Yep, here I am. Thank you. another another good meeting. You have lot lots of information there. So, thank you. my question is, did for the Andover's finest, did somebody, I assume you did, keep the old list from a couple years ago of all the ones that were nominated, or are we going to have to start from scratch and renominate people? Only three people. No, no, no. Those are the three people that we selected. There were other people nominated. We'll make sure that we get that information and we we should post that or I don't want to post it but we'll make sure we have it available. Okay. I I do have that list if you don't have it. Okay. So, just so you know that. and that's it. Again, good meeting guys. Thank you very much for all you do. Right. Tess grass. I'm all set. Thank you, Jeff. Jay Tuttle. thank you. I'm good over here. Thank you. Marcy Miner. Hi. There's there's so many things that I have questions about. one is, that I was nominated for the hiring committee, but no one else was. So, I'm a little confused about that. Maybe if there's somebody from the com selectman's person's group that I could communicate with. I don't know who that would be, but we could probably have a conversation about that later. Sure. You can talk to Carol, but there's five members of four members of the committee right now. Marcy, myself, Carol Lee, Amory Dagel, and yourself. Okay. All right. Awesome. the other thing was the it's really sad
that we have two good people that are leaving just this month and I think that I wonder if we should consider some kind of resource person or something in the town. I know that's a probably a whole subject, but I think it's something we should probably think about. something that I don't think we have in the town and we probably should consider something like that. So anyway, that's it. And thank you so much. You guys really have a lot to work on and have done in this meeting alone. So thank you Valerie Bruno. Hi. Thank you. so first of all, I do want to clear up you know what what Ann Cray had said about the grants. yes, I have publicly said at the board of finance meeting when we were originally speaking about the agreement between the board and finance and the board of ed that that certainly the establishment of that account certainly would allow us to moving forward to see that as an incentive not to buy things at the end of the year that the board of education had done in the past. So, I certainly would still pursue grants. I don't want anyone to think that I wouldn't. with that said, I'm
a little I don't know. I don't know what the right word is here. I guess I feel as though things are, you know, do as we say, not as we do. you know, Eric did mention that we do have past protocol that's been done on the town side where these things have absolutely not been adhered to. So, I understand the idea of maybe moving forward, making sure that things are done a little bit differently. I don't agree they've been done against the charter, but I agree that moving forward per perhaps there needs to be a
conversation. I'm a little suspect about the rushing of this now, wanting a town meeting to take place after the last day of school when perhaps we'd have less people there to appear and and to listen. I also have one more thing and that is that the budget season just ended and we have a 2526 budget established for next year. The information that was given to the town's people was dependent upon and and they were told this is what the school has available to it. This is its 2% non-lapsing account. This is the capital funding and decisions were made and votes were issued at the first referendum and at the second referendum to establish a 2526 budget for the school based on those numbers. And I I do believe that the result of that vote would have been very different if in fact this had been brought up prior to so I do think that there would have to be a legal review about the accuracy of the budget moving forward if this were to change because this is what the people were told. This is what they were presented at referendum as the facts behind what the school has available to it moving forward. And again, the school board does have a different attorney. The school board has Shipment and Goodwin, and I believe that we should be allowed to, have the opinion of the town's attorney, rebutted by the opinion of the board of
education's attorney. prior to any of this, we were not in receipt of any of this information, and I don't believe that the whole board of finance was either. So, you know, I understand moving forward, but I don't understand the sense of urgency in wanting this addressed right now after the audit is officially been filed after the budget for next year has been established. I do believe that there's merit to saying because the town has also done things that you believe were done in the wrong way like the senior center not going to a town vote either that maybe we should say it's June of 2025 right now and moving forward we'd like to talk about the future rather than the past as it pertains solely to the school. Thank you. Kimberly Passan. nothing right now. Thank you. Leanne Hutchinson. Nothing. Thank you. Joanne Heert. Yes. I'd like to just say a couple comments. I guess I'll I'll follow with what happened tonight with you
know, what the superintendent was just talking about because you made a lot of references and a lot was brought up about the board of finance or these things happening or we don't want this to happen again. First of all, we want to make sure or at least I do because I will always publicly speak unlike people that like to run around behind closed doors and maybe give some comments. But when I'm asked, you're going to hear it from me. And and I don't mind commenting public. And I'm always going to be professional. I'm always going to treat people with respect that maybe don't show me the same class and respect. so my comment there was, we want things to go the right way. You didn't acknowledge that there was a whole year of two people from each of the boards trying to come up with a three board agreement, you know, drafting it and having things go back and forth because
as the superintendent had mentioned in the past, it did seem like there is a spending frenzy going on that all schools do. I work in a school. It's what you want to do. The town has allotted you money. you want to spend it in the most correct way. So I think the thought at that time was because there were so many upcoming projects and I wasn't at the genesis of any of this. I just have a really good memory. I go to a lot of meetings. I speak the truth. I speak every version and I'm going to report the facts, not just what I want out there. So there was a committee put together of Shannon Lden and Rob England who had spent a lot of time trying to craft an agreement and when it had gotten some board approval it went to the board of selectmen you know for some thoughts on it and I'm not going to speak for you Mr. Maguire but I'm pretty sure you were the one that didn't want to have any part of it. So again, treating you with respect. You kind of said you didn't, you know, I'd have to look back. I don't want to quote anybody, but there was some kind of agreement trying to be made so that maybe you know, what is a capital expenditure? What is this, what is that? So there was a lot of time and effort put into it. This wasn't just a let's, you know, transfer this over. It was a really concerted effort to get all three boards to work together and then to you know first establish the capital fund for AES and then fund it appropriately. So there were two different things I
think there was money left from one audit or one one year where money was transferred in. I don't I haven't had the time in my personal and professional life to go through this audit but you bet I will before we meet on it. I was on the meeting tonight. I had my hand politely raised multiple times. You clearly weren't going to call on me to get any facts from me because you did not want that to happen. And that's okay. I can accept that. But I was there to just give you a couple things you know, that you were saying to kind of maybe correct the the way it was going. However it goes, we want the town to spend the money they want. I'm the one always making suggestions for budget cuts. I'm the one that will speak up in public and put my face behind it whether I'm agreed with or not. So, there's no problem going to however we want to do this. But we were trying to get all of the three boards together. you know, and that's where this came from. The other thing I do want to address tonight that I get the feeling that when I made my public comment about Jay Tuttle leaving earlier, it was more of a surprise, you know, and I was stating from going to meetings and listening to him that I was just surprised that he resigned because it seemed like he wanted to stay with the town. you know, you right away when I was done and Jay, you went right to Jay right away and then you
said, "Well, good thing you didn't hear that." I think if people listened to my comments, they were respectful. I was surprised that he was leaving. But now that Jay had a moment to speak for himself, I applaud him. No one wants stress. No one when everybody gets towards retirement age, we all want things to calm down for ourselves. we all want to have a simpler life or stressfree or whatever. So, he was able to explain why he's leaving. So, I'm glad I heard that. So, I don't want it said anywhere that I said anything negative about him. Everyone has praised the work he does. We're glad to have had him, but if he needs to leave because this job is too stressful, that's the time to leave. So, I just wanted to say that because I did not appreciate kind of the connotation that I might have said a negative comment. Thank you, Shannon Louden. Good evening. I think there are two major problems with now trying to proceed with a town meeting regarding the board of ed being allowed to transfer money into the AES capital fund. First of all, contrary to a number of statements tonight, there is a joint policy that was enacted by both the board of finance and the board of education earlier this year. The board of selectman chose not to be a part of it and it is in the nature of the board of educations being allowed to transfer
unexpended funds into our non-lapsing account. I haven't seen Dennis's opinion. I'll look forward to seeing that. But if there's a statement that the board of ed is not allowed to transfer money into its own capital fund that was created by the board of selectmen and the board of finance for the purpose of allowing us to save money towards future capital expenditures. I'm incredulous as to what the purpose was. Secondly, as was stated by Valerie very eloquently earlier, I'll just get down to it and say we've just the town has just approved a budget that was based on understandings of funds that would be available to be used by the board of education for capital expenditures. And if the board of ed had known that these funds would not be available, our proposed budget would have been increased by the $400,000. I think you're going to have a legal issue if there is a town meeting that now disapproves of the money on which budgets were now put forward to the town and passed by referendum and I don't think that's something that's in the town's interest. Thanks. Did I miss anyone? I just have a question. I didn't know where to ask this. Sure. Can we please get our agendas and packets a week before rather than on Thursday? a lot of times they're closer to the end of the day.
It's It's not really fair that we don't have time to research things and things get pushed on to another meeting or forgotten about because we have questions. And some of these questions, if we had this ahead of time, probably could have been answered and, you know, things resolved without being pushed on to our next meeting. So, I'm just asking that we get the agendas a week before. I'd be happy to help with the agendas, help with the packets. I just think that it's not fair that we're asked to vote on things when we don't have the information and this happens quite a bit. That's all. Okay. Can I put one thing in there? I mean, we we've this has been debated a bunch of times and I do understand the point. The problem is always if you back the agenda up one full meat week, 25% of the information that comes in that month that you really need to act on, you don't have. So what was happening in the past was we were putting out the the packet earlier and then I was giving core dumps every two days of more stuff and I got kind of reamemed at for the board for doing that for presenting stuff after the packet went out. So, if you want to go to two meetings a month, so you shorten up the
time you would have to wait for everything that missed that one week window, that's okay. But if you're going to hold it a month apart for meetings, you really need that full month of information because if not, then everything that comes in that that right that week before the meeting, you're waiting five weeks for a decision on. And that's the difficult part. And Carol, maybe we do have add and delete agenda items. And as long as it's not something major, we could add that. And you can always change the agenda right up to Thursday at 300 p.m. and add something new. But
some of these things we could have already done the research and you know come to a decision if we can come to some resolution of of working back and forth with the agenda in advance so that the packet can be created. I think that might make more sense. So we email back and forth an agenda item so everybody can see it and if you have questions you can ask the questions for the individuals that want to put that on there. Right. And if we have an item we need to add, we can talk between the five of us back and forth to get these agenda items added. No problem. We can do that. Okay. Thank you. I feel like if there's 75% of the packet is ready a week ahead, send that out and then we can look at all that stuff. And if so if there's another 25% that has to be sent out on the Friday Thursday afternoon before maybe do that but at least we have less at the last minute. It would really be helpful. Okay. Anything else? any did I miss anyone in public speak? Dennis O'Brien, I know you're there. Do you want to say anything? Okay, good. Can I just interject one thing? to Shannon Lden's point, Mark Brinker when he gave the budget meeting and discussed town capital, one of the slides clearly stated that they funded $361,000 into the AES capital from prior budget surplus. So, I think he certainly did announce at the public public meeting that the board of finance had done that. Not saying it was correct or the procedure was correct or anything, but the public was informed that they did that at the budget meeting. Okay. anything else? Can I just ask
and was that dollar amount shown on that budget line, Eric? It wasn't on a budget line. No, no, but was it shown does is the AES Capital fund or what what is it? What is the title of that fund? AES Capital. Eric, why don't you just get us the the the PowerPoint that was presented and send it out to all the members? Sure. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? I Five nothing. All right. Thank you. Good night.