Cloud okay we're going to restart our regularly scheduled Board of Select me meeting at 8:50 we are on item 7B the nomination and election of a board of selectman candidate to replace Paula king do we have any nominations for candidates I'd like to nominate Stephen King second so an Creet seconded okay all those in favor I all those opposed i i 2 two do we have any further nominations I'd like to nominate Joseph Godwin I'll second that all those in favor I I all those opposed okay we've reached an impass on this issue we discussed we wanted to come out in public and and make that vote what we're going to do is in moving forward we're going to have a form member board for this point we're going to convene with the town attorney as to our options as to what we can do we are also requesting the Republican Town committee and look for additional candidates of all possible for our next meeting if we can get to that point and find an acceptable candidate to all the members and we appreciate everything from all the members and all the individuals that did apply for this position and you can still apply again that's not what we're saying we're just saying that the four of us did not come to a resolution between ourselves so sit there and we will continue to move on with our board meeting at this point in time unless any of the other members want to say anything because I think it's pertinent that you state your
peace in public I just want to say that as you informed me today Jeff for another reason totally separate reason that there is a special meeting of the Board of selectman scheduled generally for the 21st of this month which is two weeks from today so the board will be you know meeting again on the 21st and you know there's no agenda been set yet oh yeah there has been there's an agenda I I looked at it today because you you you told me I didn't realize there was a meeting that that that special meeting is not related to it can't be related to I know it's not it's just a it is a Q&A session for the charter so anybody in town that has any issues related what is being voted on at the November election for the charter revision okay probably go over that so so let's actually take them as separate issues if the board of selectman needs to convene and have a special meeting to vote and to have this discussion outside
of a regular meeting we can do that I I have no problem with it okay just wanted to all right okay good enough all right let's move on to item eight town administrators report Eric sure okay can you guys see me and can I share the can you give me authorization to share so I can share my report or do you want me to just tell you orally no where did I have to go to more to get you on as this post tools oh see I share I think I'm sharing my screen not your screen right correct so I think you have to go to you should have as the administrator you should have a a button on the side of the share thing that allows you to designate either you could either designate me as a co-host and then I could share I've already done and okay I'm G to make this bigger so once again I apologize for getting you the my administrator's report Le sorry that's a little too big so I'm just going to go through some of the the key things of it the I got a note from Arts sign a couple hours ago that the welcome sign is to complete so that's been a long time in coming we should hopefully have that installed
kind of in the next month at the location that the board already agreed to the sign below it we'll get to later in the agenda that is the rails a trail sign that the de asked the town to install both on town roads and to get permission from the so so that is something you would have to weigh in on as the local traffic Authority so as of tomorrow we will have wrapped up the HVAC project for the town hall with the the firing up of the gas from furnace and boiler in the town hall I did submit the second dot micro Grant one of the items on there that we requested funding for was to hold an adult bike safety class that will be scheduled for October 26 so if any members of the audience have interest in learning how to be a safer cyclist the announcement will be put out shortly that Joel that Grant also included the ability to purchase safety vests for all the AES students as well as Supply additional safety vs for the adults that will be located in the community center and town clerk's office we also intend to run a Bike Rodeo for the kids at ATS to promote bike safety next spring and we have money in the budget to provide helmets for the participants we're also hoping to find two additional Andover res to send to the League of American bicyclist instructor
training so we did get a little bit of of good news and that is we finally got the arpa grant that's specifically for the senior center approved that came through yesterday so now we're going to look at spending that money on equipment for the kitchen so we'll get the kitchen a good ways towards being a functional Kitchen in that building we also hired Randazzo design Consulting to you know re rockhound and then seed the areas outside the community center and they will finish that up tomorrow also Wednesday we're going to finally get the fiber run into the community center so we should be able to hopefully in Fairly short order get the VoIP phones installed and also the rest of the it working in the building and one of the things that I just received today that I want to talk to the board about is we received a request from the elementary school to provide transport to one student on a daily basis to attend essentially a gifted program at the high school they don't really
have the bus capability to do it the town could potentially do it with our our bus Without Really impacting anything at this point and the school is aware that on those days when we have SK trips scheduled you know we wouldn't do that so we still need to check with the program Administration to make sure that we can do that but I think we can with our existing 2017 bus we would charge them the same mileage reimbursement as currently so I'd just like to ask the board if you have any issues with me pursuing that as a town because it will save the school money and it shouldn't really impact the senior Transportation program I don't know whether the board wants to weigh in on that but if you do should we should we weigh on in these things as they come up Eric well that's not on the agenda because I just got that literally an hour before the meeting so I don't know when when when does it need to start and why do you need to use one of the buses why can't you use the RAV4 or one of the smaller Vehicles well we could but the problem is then we would have to go ahead and we would have to put all the carrying school children logos on a second vehicle so that's the only downside of not using we could use the Rav 4 because that one is definitely we bought that with the town funds but at the same time the rav force is used during that same time frame pretty regularly
doing medical trips so we would just be switching medical trips to one of the Vans instead of using that okay and when does it need to start I don't have a start date for it at this point okay then get us on the phone and and let's sit there and see if you know we'll prove it I mean it would be nice to know on a start date but find out the rest of the information and then let's get it done we should yeah okay we should you know work on this yep okay so we did hold the flu in in covid clinic today we vaccinated 68 people and gave a total of 105 shots so that was pretty good on a another important note we've been trying to fill the Zeo and white enforcement officer position now for about three months because Jim Hy has indicated he has retired we finally after that period ended up with two candidates that applied neither of them have any real zoning experience they were both really good candidates they have a lot of experience just not with zoning so they both have enforcement type experience but not a lot of experience with zoning regs so we have identified a candidate the interview panel was myself Scott Pan and
the chair of the Planning and Zoning commission Jed Larson so what I would like to do is hire and over resident Wayne Kasich but what we're going to need if we hire him is a fairly long overlap between him and Jim because he's going to need to get up to speed on zoning which he definitely is not at this point so basically what I'm proposing to do is we hire him at about $27 an hour 2750 an hour and at the point when he's cap AP of working unassisted he would go to $31 an hour and when Jim retires and then his final salary will be what the current salary is when he receives his queso certification and the zoning commission is happy with I'm coming to you because ultimately as a board you're the one that needs to approve any hiring decisions so do you have any question questions for me regarding that and this has to you know I'm glad that Eric brought this to the board tonight because we have to act on this we have to talk about it and then you know hopefully act on it because we get the time is running out for Jim Hy long as long how he long is he going to stay here so it would be good if we could get Wayne involved you know right away if we could listen Mr Hy didn't have any experience when he first started doing this I thought you know he was trained extensively by attorney O'Brien and you
Eric no Mr Hy was a pretty experienced Zeo when we hired him five years ago he had quite a bit of planning credentials also he was basically just retired from an an equivalent full-time yeah he worked his whole life at it in Manchester from an enforcement perspective though which is what we're focusing on right he had been a Zeo quite a bit before he took the job in and being a Zeo was not a a stretch for I mean look if we can get Mr Kasich up to speed earlier we would certainly do it and I mean Jim doesn't really have any particular desire to work any longer than he has to but the the reality is there's a lot of towns looking for Zeos right now and we don't really have an opportunity to unlike the last time when we hire Jim you know we had multiple people with Zeo experience applying we just weren't willing to pay them what the going rate was in this case we can't even get anybody with Zeo experience to apply and frankly there's a bunch of towns that pay better than us right now that are looking for positions too so I think the likelihood of us having to do something other than on the job training is pretty small so that's what I'm that's what my goal is with this this guy does have a lot of experience in forcing just not zoning he spent his whole life enforcing regulations okay I mean do you need us Eric to approve
his hiring or what do you want from us I mean technically you're the ones that should be approving any permanent hiring so a motion to approve hiring Wayne Kasich would be you know would be appropriate if you want to talk to him he is on this Zoom call so you could certainly talk to him directly if you so chose I mean we don't need to he's your chosen candidate right correct and Scott was on the board or on the hiring committee correct okay Scott do you want to make that motion I make a motion to allow Ando Eric to hire when Wayne Kasich for the zoning enforcement agent I'll second that second that and second did that great and second did that further discussion on
that all those in favor I I I Jeff I 40 okay okay perfect I will make that happen moving on we do have an discuss coming up between J Tuttle myself and eversource regarding tree trimming on burnap Brook Road we're hoping to get them to contribute again to our tree trimming planning Public Works is going to do some shimming on Cone Road and Gilead because both those roads have seen some really bad you know poth holes lately and we want to do essentially a rough shim on those roads and just a couple of the worst sections of Skinner Hill Road prior to Winter so that's just is just as a question isn't con Road about six years old maybe a little yeah six or seven yeah and so why just so we understand and we don't make the same mistakes again what was the problem with that we didn't we didn't do a good enough job on the on the sub substrate on that road exactly that's exactly the case that was a decision by the board based on some public feedback that were very unhappy that it wasn't paved to pave Cone Road and there was never any real subbase on the road so that was a okay that was an issue going back to original conditions on the road and is so so you're just trying to shim or do a pothole filling on that road just to get through the paving season yeah we're we're band dating it at the moment yes very when I lived on that section of Cone Road it was a dir Road correct and when it got paved it got paved it just got paved it got paved
over the real subbase put on it right over the dirt all right go ahead yeah unfortunate so just so everybody knows regarding Bunker Hill Road in the bridge at Bunker Hill Road there is a current RFP for the construction firm has been issued closing date is October 31st with the assumption that we're talking about a February 15th start date for the project and utility relocation the town doesn't need to do a whole lot for this because this is a fully funded project there's a specific plan in place already for the bid review basically CD Maguire the engineering firm is responsible for reviewing all the bids and determining who legally meets as the lowest qualified bid so that will be going on hopefully we should you know a firm should be selected pretty soon after October 31st so we can get that project rolling after a long time so who was
doing the tree cutting down there is that already established so Public Works will do that in November not public works but Public Works will hire either tenant probably tenant to do the tree removal in November so how many trees are there down there that have to be C so there's like six trees that need to come out it's not a ton but that is because there's a new federal species threatened species that have been identified we have to take the trees down now prior to the bridge program starting or else we have to wait until a very short window in April which will delay the initial moving of utilities so the town is going to take that on in November last thing on my report is we reconstituted the town Safety Committee as many of you know as an employer we are required to have a Safety Committee we've been kind of slacking as a town I have specifically so we reconstituted the committee we had a meeting on October 1st of those we came up with a couple action items we did agree to purchase aeds for Public Works given that the majority of the employees there are 55 or older and we've worked out with with the fire department to conduct employee training once we have the new units we're also adding stop the the bleed kits for Community Center town hall and Public Works and as part of the Grant application that we have in we're going to do a little awareness campaign and encourage residents to wear reflective vests when walking near Dusk and Dawn
both for plow season and also because this is pedestrian safety month for the federal do so that's basically everything I have from my report unless you have questions for me on any of the material that I do we have to weigh in on that sign the D is putting up we do have to weigh in on that but that is on the agenda that is item 10 D A through C okay two two things on my end you didn't mention that you had a meeting with representative Courtney at the senior center the other day and were given some contact information to try to improve our performance in Federal grant applications so should have added that one and the other thing is from the senior under the Safety Committee and as you write safety grants there was a recommendation at the senior luncheon about solar lighting Street lighting I thought that was a rather good idea so let's sit there and see if there's any opportunities for different areas within the community where we don't have
to pay eversource for electricity to light the streets we can actually do some solar lighting it might work well so get good idea any grant funding for that that would be great sure and and I have a question about the outfitting of the community center also what what were you planning on buying so without say again the list that you had before a good chunk of the list so we know we can buy anything that's movable and not run a fowl of state rolles so we're going to buy the refrigerator we're going to buy the freezer we're probably going to buy a commercial microwave we'll probably buy some shelving we'll probably buy the coffee maker for making the full air pots full of coffee for senior and community events and we're going to buy a com combo water and ice maker since those are just tabletop devices that have a single water connection so that's what we're envisioning and then depending on how money goes we'll look at other things to flush out the rest of the funds within the brand very
good okay anybody else have any questions for Eric all right let's move on to old number item nine old business discuss an act upon the following 9A Community Center signage discussion do we have anything F further to discuss on that Eric do you have any renderings for it we do not at the last meeting you were going to or the board was going to consider coming up with what you wanted for lettering and an overall design for the sign so that was your an action item from the board's or not mine all right we'll put that off for next meeting send a text to somebody okay 9B discussion of blight and level of involvement I don't have any updates for this meeting okay 9C the tri board policy on AES capital projects okay that that is in the packet is the one that was written and approved by the Board of Ed and reviewed by the board of finance and then Dennis O'Brien the town's attorney also put in what he felt was a more correct version of how that was written so those are both in your packet to review and Dennis can probably give you more input on that than I can yes yes I was asked by I think it was Mark Brinker was the board of Finance or some intermediary that it was going to go to the board of Selectmen and they asked me for a my opinion on it so I spents a goodly amount of time as I often do on
on projects and came up with decided to instead of adopting what they had written which was pretty good I I looked at some some drafts that Eric had written in the past and did a lot of independent research and came up with a u policy that was more to my liking and it was in the form of I put it in the form of an agreement among the three major boards in the town Board of Finance Board of selectman I should say Board of selectman first Board of finance and Board of Education I had some variances from the policy that was recommended adopted by the Board of Education one was that they wanted to set up a a three three board a tri board with six members on it two from each board I recom recommended that there be one from each board and that that member be the first selectman of this board the chairman of the the chairman of the other two boards with the Vice for selectman being an alternate and the other boards having their Vice chairs as alternates and the other thing I put in there that they didn't have in there was that I thought whenever you know it's a
question of if they have excess money at the end of a at the end of fiscal year where does it go I mean they already have the authority to reserve 2% of it into a special Capital fund that is under by Statute this would be a fund that is an addition to that and I made it they didn't say anything at all about you know you know whether whether they could do that on their own or whether somebody else needs to approve that and I I I put in that the board of Finance needs to approve it if they're going to withhold money and put it into a special fund that they're going to they're going to retain for Capital Capital products in in in at at the school I believe that the board of Finance should be you know should say whether they can or not they should you know in advance whether the board can withhold additional funds for that Capital fund I tried to streamline it put it in the form of agree an agreement and what I what I what I did was in your packet it's the second item I believe there's two items both two pages long and the first item is the one that was drafted by I believe it was drafted by Shannon Loden of the Board of Ed and Robert England of the board of finance and I agreed with a lot of it and there were some items that I took from prior drafts that Eric had written one one it can I can I ask I ask a couple just a couple questions yeah don't we already have a process for this by going to CIP and getting funding
for what needs to be done in the community aren't we just adding more layers of bureaucracy onto this that's not I'm asking I'm asking Dennis an I'm asking Dennis and and Eric actually well the CIP is involved in the process anyway because the CIP would make recommendations to the Board of Finance if the board ofi I didn't put them in here the board of education has a member on CIP CIP makes recommendations and those recommendations get funded appropriately based upon the overall needs of the community correct am I missing something in our process you would have to I'm not that familiar with the way CIP works I I I I know what it is I've read about it in the charter I've often wondered why it why it exists but the Eric would know more about how it operates I don't O Okay so the where where it becomes questionable with CIP is see in the charter that the CIP is a committee that's establish lished
by Charter right and in the charter one of the things that's in there is a statement that the school is ineligible or is exempt from CIP in other words does not have to go to CIP but the the flip side of that is because Capital requests and major capital building projects really are the the Bailey Wick of the board of Selectmen I personally think CIP still has a role but that's open to interpretation and and I'm not an attorney so I can't weigh in on that I think it has a role as an advisor not as a not as a decision maker and I and I think it is well the board of Finance is the end decision maker to be hon well you know is the the way I see it the board of Selectmen is the primary board in town the board of s that that is that is not how I see our power our power is to advise and sit there and say these are projects that we should consider it goes to it goes to CIP CIP sits there and and sits there and goes back to the board of
Finance to get any spending approved in this town the board of Selectmen doesn't approve any spending and the board of Finance has a seat on this Tri the board of correct I understand but I'm asking I'm Cent process why why are we trying to put another layer on top of the current process create this no no no I am not asking and and tell you I think I should just get rid of it I I don't I could I'll let you go and you tell me why we should be creating this why okay this is because the school is asking to the board of education is asking to have a new fund or new source new place to put money when it's extra from the year's budget they have the 2% they can already put into the other fund but this is when
they have extra money instead of having to return it to the T school to the town because they this money was designated for the school and they want to keep it for the school so this was designed for that and it was just that the the tri board three boards are all involved in how that money is then spent but it's I have a number of problems with this new agreement that Dennis had put together of can I point those out now yeah I want to hear all about it okay I do one thing is that they wanted the membership to be from two two members from each board and not just three with alternates but they wanted the six people two from each board why is that better why is that better I want to interrupt you but you you raised that that's a that's an issue that I I couldn't agree with disagree with you more involving more and more people does not does not make it better well this is what they the agreement agreement between the board of finance and the Board of Education and is this from you or is this from the people that wrote the document I'm looking at these two I'm asking you are your points are your points that you're bringing up your points or the points of the individuals that wrote the document well it's looking at the
document they wrote okay that's what I'm looking at I did that and I and I decided that go ahead one of the big things is that down in section two it says During the period from July 1st to August 15th the Board of Ed May deposit the previously appropriated money in that's not going to work because they've got to wait till the audit is done to know what money they really have left otherwise they could be wrong and they could put in try to put in more money than they really have left what what what date would you suggest it simply has to say after the audit is completed which because there's not a definite date that the audit will be done by so wait a minute you're talking about the following following calendar year going into going that far it might be to two months it might be three months sometimes audits take a lot longer I just picked that dat out of my out of thin air because I and you know it's got to be done soon soon sooner rather than later well you do want it to be done sooner but putting a deadline like August 15 that will never work because what's you got to have a deadline you can't deine you could say a month within two weeks or within a month after the audit is completed when is the audit normally completed I don't know exactly but think of how long it's taken the town to finish their audit sometimes well that's what I'm concerned about so so that that that gives the Board of Ed months and months and months to sit on this on this money I mean it can't be helped last
year they thought they had 120,000 left I believe and then when they finished the audit they found it was like 104 105 well you're making sense but but I think it's got to be done more more quickly than that I have a question yeah what was the inspiration for this I mean what came up that they someone thought that they needed to have this I believe it was because the school needed to have a cap a fund for Capital items and they didn't have one and this was a way to start developing one that's not true town can also we created that fund we created the fund and we funded select created that fund funded the fund okay so they can have that's true so what what is occurring here in this document which B which just it shows a lack of understanding that this board will do what is right it is an issue that this the the the Board
of Education primarily is not believing that the board of Selectmen will do what is right and appropriate for the entire community and that's what bothers me we're putting in a whole other layer and we're saying hey Board of Education if you are over budget greater than 2% because this is what you're we're saying greater than 2% we're going to take what we over budgeted and we're going to put it in this fund and now we're going to have control of that fund to do capital projects so so that's what this this is saying to me and I'm sorry I I don't I don't we have a process that's why I changed it so that the control I don't believe that most of the time when there's money at the end of the year that's left over it's not due to the budget being too high it's because Valerie and Taylor did a great job of getting in Grants and maybe they had extra that year because of all the grants they brought in and you don't
want to penalize them because of that they should be able to save that and use it towards capital projects someday well my way of looking at it an is that this can happen without that big document that same thing could happen without the document I I would like to understand that an i would I would like to understand that and I don't want to penalize anyone for working hard to get grants for our community that's not what I'm saying but we are putting in an extra layer and what it is saying to me is that I won't as a member My Vault won't be cast to do what's right for the community and right for the school that that's and and and honestly I don't even approve I'm not I'm not on the board of Finance I don't have the ability to say I'll spend it or I won't spend it they decide decide whether they'll spend it or don't spend it we recommend to put money just like we recommended to put $100,000 in the school building fund that we established because we know we have issues we know we've got to get them solved we know we've got to help them but this document to me is another layer of bureaucracy and and this and the Board of Education not the one I wrote you're talking about theirs right no both of them even yours is the same thing mine is better mine is better yours is better I don't care better I'm talking about the the whole process it includes the board of Selectmen which is which was ignored in the other I don't
care if we're I mean we already have a process in place this is putting another level of Jeff and I can see the board of education's point on this too because there's nothing is going on right now we're all just debating you know standing around and debating and we're not really getting any with this Capital fund that we're working in so I can see I can kind of see their side you know to to get something established so that we can you know move this whole thing forward I so I get their side a little bit too think I'm not saying I don't Scott I'm not saying I don't and I'm not saying I don't understand what they're asking for I'm asking for why right right I I you gotta be able to look at both of these sides here and de's point is very valid valid very valid and the board of education is you know trying to figure out a way forward I think well the way forward currently is they get to keep because the state just changed its law and and it statute that that that the board without approval from anyone else gets to keep 2% of their over budget money they keep it in a fund and they use it you know for their purposes yeah right that's for non- Capital stuff and I see what I what I also see is distrust between the Board of Education and the
board of Selectmen and that's because of things that have happened in the past what that have happened with the Board of Education and the the monies I'm still asking what tell me happened yes what happened well like a year ago when they had money left at the end of the year they wanted to put it towards fixing the parking lot the upper level and they kept running into roadblocks and saying that they couldn't do it that's one thing other things is they just feel like they haven't I know one thing that started with this is they wanted to try to find out what a capital project was and they finally just put down there at the bottom that non reoccurring it's the non reoccurring things that are yeah my my copy yeah that's good that's pretty much the same yep the the membership of the board is what's a bit different and how they vote they really wanted to have the vote with all six people for the first two votes and then if they couldn't come up with an agreement they would go back to their boards and each board would decide how they were going to vote and they'd send one person to vote finally and I know it's a little bit more it's way too
complicated well this is what the board of finance and the Board of Education Shannon and Robert worked on for a whole year I know and I feel like we should allow them those two boards they're the ones that are dealing with us more than the board of Selectmen we should approve that for them but the way wrote it the the the whole thing here is that there's a distrust between the Board of Education Board of Selectmen Board of finances always has been because of things that have happened over there that weren't right and like I said Jeff that they're trying
to figure out a way forward and you know the whole driveway thing is just sitting there nobody's working on the driveway now we got a big plumbing issue we got you know four or $500,000 worth of work that needs to be done and they're they're looking for a Way Forward I would say and and we're not and we're not giving them the way forward or we we're not even addressing what it is we got we have to so they established this thing Shannon and Robert robt England to you know to go forward with this now I read through it there there was things in there that I didn't really like either but we need to address the situation some manner so you're telling me Scott that we're not thinking about what capital projects need I absolutely believe we talk about it for five months Every Spring every okay that's why that's why I'm whatever whatever anybody wants to do let's see what you got I've already forward on this I mean we do you wna you wna do you want to work out wording yeah okay and I'm not saying that we need to use their their agenda
we can come up with our own agenda or we or can we can have denn do it I'm just that's what I tried to do I tried to give you something we there is a process in the community that can be followed and will work if everybody just participates come with the programs did the school come to the board of Selectmen prior to the decision to redo the parking lot did the did did the Board of Education go to CIP and tell them that the driveway was in state okay there's a process let's follow the process we can all work together no one on this board is unreasonable but my we cannot follow we cannot not we cannot follow a a process to work together to sit there and get things done and so now what the board of education is doing is saying we're over budget and we're doing a great job and this and this I'm GNA paraphrase we're doing a great job we're getting a lot of Grants so we offset some of our expenditures and we reduced our total costs against our budget because we push those costs to Grants we want to you we want to have control of how we use this money I have no problem working together with somebody to say how we use that money but the process currently is you keep the 2% lapsing fund and the rest of the
money goes back into the the the town general fund and then those funds are then determined how it's best used for capital projects the school is our biggest asset it has to be the biggest taker of all of our spend that was a good paraphrase Jeff very good it's just a reality we put a $400,000 roof on that building six years ago yeah don't tell us that we don't spend money on that school do we communicate as best we can absolutely not I will flat out I stand here and I'll agree with you because I'll tell you why we don't communicate as well anybody on this board included in on the drafting of that
proposal no no no because it was between the board of finance and the Board of Education mostly then what do you want for me ad was I was I communicated to no I wasn't but there is a process we have it in place if you choose the CIP but the town the school doesn't have a capital Improvement fund which it doesn't own the building well systems they have Capital Improvement funds even if you say they don't own the building they have a fund in other towns but we don't that's why they want to get one we just one quick point we do have a fund we do the board of Finance with the approval of the board of Selectmen approved a fund last year right we moved money from the old AES unexpended capital from the the last project mentioned in the agreement I wrote and added 100,000 to it this year and then so the idea is this it's going to be guiding that and it will have the three boards involved one three boards you don't want to involve everybody it's a waste of time make a decision do you want to go back to Dennis O'Brien and you want to try to work out a document yeah you wanna if that's the goal then fine have try to have at it but I believe there's a process in place I just tried to give
you something you could work with Board of Selectmen and work with the other two boards and and everybody would live happily ever after there wouldn't be any kind of of thing you know the kind of situation I want to go back to is the is the community center and what happened with that okay that wasn't that wasn't fun either that was that was we don't need to rehash old stuff I don't go forward so Scott and an since you two are what would you like to do related to this what you said tonight was absolutely factual there's we need as a board to come up with a plan to you know establish like I said A Way Forward we have to if you're just going to say that you know we already have a we already have the charter to tell us how what to do if that's as far as we're going to go
we're still going to be in the same spot I think you're right you're right Scott listen what is the same spot of SEL the board of Selectmen recommending to the board of Finance to spend money to repair items within the school the school and the and the superintendent and the board members can all come to us and tell us what they need to get fixed and then we can figure out if we have the available resources to fix what they're asking us to fix and if they happen to be over budget that money ends up in the general fund and gets used to fix those items I mean it's not that complicated we don't need to complicated anymore as far as I'm concerned if if the this board wants to do that and complicate it and and gets enough votes for it have at it it's what's the rules of the town I'm just telling you it can be done we know we've got to do things we're not unwilling to do things it's not like this board i' I've been on this board 10 years we have we're very willing to do never communicated never said no to the Board of Education as far as I know we have had Community problems within budgeting yes that is true but this board honestly my entire time even the previous group of people that were on this board we never did anything to the the board of Education we don't have any control over the Board of Education all we have to do is work together on the Improvement of the building the upkeep of that building the
upkeep of the parking lots that's our job yeah we we need to talk to them about this whole subject I think in some way I I don't know what way means have no problem I just believe there's a process in place we just all need to work together we need to do a better job I need to do a better job the members of the Board of Education need to do a better job the the members of the board of Finance do a great job I mean and they they sit there and they just approve it it's yes or no will you spend the money or you won't spend the money that's their job well they felt there was a need to have this fund this helps to understand how the money goes into that Capital Improvement fund and how it is spent I think it's I know CIP but I think this would give a better basis than just CIP because CIP is just the spending of it not the putting it in to the fund to into this fund if you put in the general fund that's not helping out the the Capital fund for the school well if I understand it correctly Eric and please tell me if I'm wrong did CIP recommend that we put $100,000 in the building fund absolutely viip did not we did we did the board we and then
the board of Finance agreed to that corre board of Select did it so what the what the board of Finance intended when they created the fund was a capital fund that excess funds could be put into or the town could budget annually for that and add money to the funds and have a Permanent Fund specific like all the other Capital funds that they have but specifically towards Capital maintenance capital projects at AES so that fund is created there's currently a fair amount of money in there because the Board of Ed put I believe $104,000 in it there was already $88,000 in it the town contributed another $100,000 through the budget process so that money is sitting there presumably if the Board of Ed has excess funds they have the ability to request currently that the board of Finance put that money into that fund as opposed to returning it to the general fund so they have the right to do that the Board of Education also has the the right to spend from the
2% [Music] non-linguistic well that's what the statute says okay I have to I am really reluctant to disagree with you Eric but that is on something like that but because you're there every day plugging away but I I really think that that 2% fund is for maintenance and you know not capital projects okay I think clear I'm gonna I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask I'm willing to help with this but I I you guys I mean I just I just spent a lot of time re rewriting that thing I was asked to do it and I don't know CIP is a part of the charter it's it's there of course it's part of it but you're not going to take
everything that's in the damn Charter and put it in a short agreement it's part of it I I would ask other members the other members of of the board so Jeff and Scott and I know where Ann is please communicate with Dennis and tell him directly the meeting what you want him to sit there and address within this document if you want him to address anything within the document or and then let's put this on the agenda for a next cycle and then I will reach out to Celeste and next regular meeting after the election yeah okay anybody have a problem with that okay thank you thanks Dennis 9e a king property agreement so Dennis we're coming back to you where do you stand currently Jeff can I in interrupt one thing we did Skip item 9C and I think we could wrap this up in about five seconds I sent this all my recommendations for how we make the building department the costs for building permit fair you all got a spreadsheet our building officials willing to to fill that out and adjust anybody's fees that are inappropriate based on that calculations if the board is in agreement with that and wishes to to give me that guidance I didn't have any problems with the document that you provided us anybody else I mean because I was trying to do the math I'm assuming that you're going to do first floor square footage second floor square footage overall square footage for the electrical permits overall square footage for the plumbing permits so on and so forth correct right what is the percentage of the
actual costs versus what we get in permit Eric what what should they be and what what are you calculating that they are going to be so generally across the board we estimate it as it works out to 1.5% of the construction cost of the estimated construction cost of the project that's that's what I got 1.7 but what should it be it should be whatever the town chooses it to be I mean the goal was always for the building department to basically pay for itself in permit fees the question then became do you want it to try to cover the fees for the whole land use so including planning and
zoning and wetlands Which is far more problematic to collect enough fees to cover the whole agency cost you look at the what we get for building permits versus the estimated the estimated cost and they're estimated too everybody underestimates every single one of them and and it bothers me that every month this is happening to the town and we're getting burnt every month so approve the spreadsheet it's at least in the is it going in the right direction oh absolutely it's definitely going in the right direction it will go in the right direction Scott well we'll check it next month to see check it we can we can up the rates if we choose to but but at
least the estimate will be based upon the square footage of the project it'll be based upon some some tangible fact not an arbitrary estimate of the overall building costs which we know are totally deflated they are you know they are I know reasonable so use the spreadsheet if the building inspector is willing to implement that spreadsheet I'd say implement it immediately I'll make a motion well two years ago he told us he would do this but that never happened either let's go we're doing it now make ation make a motion that I'll make a motion that we authorize the building
inspector to utilize the spreadsheet that was provided to us to calculate future building permits fees I'll second time further discussion all those in favor I I okay sorry for skipping that Eric yeah no worries thank you thanks for revisiting it yeah ninee King property agreement Dennis where are we where we are is I have been working the last part of last week for quite a while with the attorney for the king family Mr Tom mcdermit from Waterbury and I have gone over the meets and Bounds and all the maps and all the details of the transaction the papers he's he's developed and found some things that had to be changed minor mostly one thing I did do is insist that we get a warranty deed for the property that's going to us and he has graciously agreed to give us a
warrant deed whereas on the other hand we're only giving them a quick claim deed for the what we're quit claiming to U the king family anyway we have decided that we're going to go forward with this real soon subject to your approval and and I prepared a a motion for you to approve today which I sent to Eric and I think I sent Jeff a copy and if you would like I'd read it to you right now if anybody has any questions I'll be glad to try to answer them would say before this this approval is done sorry to interrupt Jeff but that our zoning officer goes out and takes the deed and goes over the property and make sure that where it says there's a pen there's a pen why is that required because because it it's as soon as you signed the deed they'll never put the pin okay very important Jeff okay you talking about all the things that are on the plans Scott yeah make sure that what's on the plan it says a pin make sure the pin's where it's supposed to be okay I'm glad you're asking the zoning officer to do that because that I'm not the right person to ask to do that I think you know that that's fine okay Dennis read your motion that fit that fits in with my my motion okay where it's where okay it's it's a
little bit longer than you might want of course it has been agreed to by the attorney for the Kings whereas the board of Selectmen has been assured by Town attorney Dennis O'Brien that he and attorney Thomas F McDermot representing the Julie King and Lisa marola king the kings are both fully satisfied that all necessary legal requirements pertaining to the two transfers of property expressly contemplated by and encompassed within the town of Andover special town meeting approval on April 23rd 2024 of said transfers of real estate located within the town of Andover to and from the Kings and the town of Andover have been or will be fully accomplished in proper legal order and format soon very soon it is hereby resolved that attorney O'Brien be authorized to do all that is legally necessary to work with attorney McDermot to properly and legally close said transactions forth with so okay authorizing me to finish up the deal do it right legally properly
and that would include what Scott has just suggested okay Scott do you wanna do you want anything added to that I mean am I gonna add anything to it or can I can I let it go understanding that you're requiring that the pins be placed right now it's taped right okay so you have a copy of that Jeff I do you do somebody should write that are to be located okay we'll dop we'll do a separate on there there's a lot of them there are a lot of them yes a lot okay so I am going to sit there and make a motion that I'm gon do I have to read I'm gonna read it again I don't really want to I don't read it again all right does any anybody have an issue with with Dennis's motion as he read it I mean it's fairly simple we're giving him the authority to sit there and finalize the
documents that are required to deal with the lot line so did you just add a motion to that I will I'm gonna sit there and go we're gonna I'm gonna make a motion to approve the resolution as drafted by attorney O'Brien to allow him the authority to finalize the lot line agreement with the King family and with the stipulation that all necessary pins are placed on on the property line the lot line agreement including the the the real estate transactions because it does include the real estate transaction okay is that acceptable I'll second that all right any further discussion on the email to you guys okay no further discussion all those in favor I all those opposed all those abstained okay so three Z1 Eric okay 9f a burnac block discussion I know this is come to us a lot and I was over at the senior the Community Center Senior Center multiple times this last week and I know it's a piece of History it should go in the mum but that's my personal opinion has everybody seen and have you seen where it's supposed to go yes are you comfortable with it being there yes I am I think it's a good spot it's out of the general traffic so that it won't be you know damaged from somebody walking into
it it's protected it's got a security camera right above it it's not going to get affected by the Heat and the air conditioning because that unit is on the other side of the room and I think it's a good spot for it I know you'd say like you say belongs in the museum but our Anover Museum I don't think is heated all the time and it wouldn't be a good place for it it needs to be in a climate controlled area I think he's talking about well in the I got the copy of the information from Jeff Ballard and there are similar clocks in various museums Historic Deerfield winter thir Museum down in Delaware the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Wadsworth and the Connecticut Museum of culture and history that's where there are five other clocks similar to this one so I think get one here I'm glad that we have got the opportunity to have the Andover not many of burnap's clocks were signed as Andover most of them were centry or East Windsor so it's good that we have
an Andover okay [Music] Eric is the was Tess engaged in this placement she was with us so Tess saw the placement Tess had basically asked and you'll see under new business she had just suggested that you know before you start putting stuff in the community center you come up with some kind of a policy on the donations you know and and really decide who has the authority to suggest that and you may wish to retain that Authority as a board of Selectmen that's certainly your choice you know but there's pluses and minuses to everything right now you know that I know of the library is wanting to put a larger bookshelf in that space you know and they've had a some discussions with Tess over that another disabled veteran has requested or has talked about putting a mural on one of the walls in there in that same room but again that hasn't been so somebody dropped off you know a giant Container full of bulbs that they wanted Senior Center to plant today people have
dropped off puzzles you know we need to have some sort of policy on who decides what gets put in the community center and what doesn't and I think Tess is probably the person that should be writing that can you draft that with her and bring it to us at a future meeting and the question still ends up being what do we what this clock has been on our agenda agenda for a long time six months if not so this is pretty listen I I think it's a I mean I looked at it it's a beautiful clock I'm like it's a beautiful clock
and it's going to be you know I know we talked about not putting it in the town hall because of potential damage and we're kind of squirreling it away in the puzzle room at the community center yeah but I would say we're pretty lucky to get that clock I know we're luy to get that let's just vote on it tonight then yes no I think that's a good did you know Daniel burnap where he lived Post Farm yeah does everybody know that realize that so he lived across Route Six right the that's where and he and he built and he built clocks in the upstairs in there yep that was the last place he built them yeah so we're pretty lucky that's a pretty good thing as much as it's a safety concern of mine you know we would
be wouldn't be very good if we didn't take this I think it's a very good piece of History Handover but you know one of and's going to be in charge of the safety of it though that's the whole thing you know one other thing that Jeff mentioned and this Daniel Pino who owns the clock he does want to make sure that it is insured in the building and also that he's retaining ownership he's just loaning it to us and he's putting into his his will and things like that that if anything happened to him it would go back to his family so it's not a donation it's a loan right so storing his expensive clock for him is what we're doing yeah and insuring yeah you can look at it that way oh we have to ensure it also well we need to know if it's insured for being in the building or do we have to have special Rider to cover that we don't know yet we will eventually that was a question I asked kerma long ago if they want to ensure it if it's supposed to be insured for full replacement value then it does need that does need to be listed directly on our insurance policy that is value $30,000 but the last time we had it it got assessed but then in the condition it was before rebuilding it was not worth that so we would have to get the assessor to certify that that's what it's actually worth now and then we could ensure it for that then K will separately ensure that as of September 30th 2023 it says $30,000 Insurance value from the man who does the appraisal have we sat there Eric and ask
kerel what this is going to cost the town I don't think it was going to be much I don't have an exact range no but the building's worth more than a million dollars or a million dollars so adding 30,000 to that is not going to appreciably change the insurance bill for that depends upon if they put it as a writer and they require us to pay separately as a piece of jewelry or piece of art so yeah honestly last time I discussed this was ker was about a year ago so I can't tell you that did they me mention how much of an addition it would be about do you no how about we push it off another month oh what other questions do we have for Eric to answer before the insurance cost so we know what we're dealing with and then if Ann and Tess are an agreement on the spot and we'll come back the next time and at least have an understanding of here's our additional dollars it may not be anything but if there's additional cost to it we've got to know about it because right you know I don't want to I don't want to try to indicate that Tess was on board with putting the clock here you would have to ask her that fine
directly I understand but the issue is probably as close to you stated it as possible is that it is and you know it's a combination of all these things it's very nice clock it's very pertinent to the town of Andover it has a huge historic value we're Mr Pino is re restoring it and this is a great place to put that asset and have it have some give some value to the town I mean it's he is putting it somewhere and getting it insured and you know let's let's sit there and see what we can do see how much it's GNA cost Eric and then we'll come back next meeting and we'll vote on it and get it over with I mean we're not we're not putting it there anytime soon it's not even restored yeah it's it's just about ready to go just about ready to go the the man who has been working on the the clock mechanism is ready to put it back into the case and and deliver it you know the case is at the library right now in the basement the case is at the library okay okay I still I personally still want to know what the insurance company's going to do on that if it's a piece of jewelry or what it's about and the policy owner what do you mean by the policy the the policy for what you know agree is gonna be able to go in the community center no no no this is just on the clock Eric I know but another
another note for Eric I know but the elephant in the room is we need to really start clamping down and because you're going to get all kinds of in kind donations and it's just going to get filled up really quick and I think right now we should just have a policy of not accepting anything unless it comes to us for approval right for now yeah or is where you g to put a shelf in one of those rooms well I have no problem if you want to make that the policy let's make at the policy on the clock get the get the insurance policy and understand the insurance cost so we can understand what the the the keeping that clock in our in our community center is going to cost us right and Jeff if you want to make a motion that there are no donations no no donations are allowed to be accepted by the community center unless approved by the board of Selectmen I have no problem with that does everybody else have no problem with that well why wouldn't the community center or The Advisory Board decide what goes in the community center that's the whole reason you have the advisory
boards yeah that's fine too but I just don't want people just dropping things off here you go here's your puzzles okay so what I suggested to test was that she develop a list of things that they need at the community center to equip it and post that and say people if you want to donate something donate one of these things or they could give a monetary donation but don't just drop off your tag sale stuff to us we we had a list we had a list before working with Kathy pazi we did have a list but I just don't know okay so then we need to resurrect that yeah because you know we we were going to say we I think that was over a year ago and we decided we were going to wait till the community center was built I think that kind of got put on the back burner so probably need to re resurrect that list like you said and I go up to the Ellington Community Center frequently for a support group Parkinson and they have on their wall in the hallway a thing that look like a tree with leaves and
each Leaf has a family or person's name on it because they gave a donation to The Community Center so people give monetary donations that way and then they're recognized by that now that might be an idea to to do I mean this is a fancy metal creation but it could even be on wood or something like that and allow people away to contribute to the community center okay all good ideas so what what do we passing are we passing a motion that all donations are required to go through the advisory committee sounds good to me so I'll make a motion that all donations to the community Senior Center are required to be approved in advance by the center's advisory committee seconded all right further discussion all those in favor I I for nothing okay and we're all good with the burnap
clock discussion being postponed until Eric gets us the insurance issues on that and we then get that approved okay n9g bid result for the roadside mower Eric so there was so when we went o get ready to auction the roadside mower Jay Tuttle and I talked about it a little bit and our concern with sending that to Richie Brothers the auction house was number one their time frame time frames are fairly short during the auction and the second thing was probably the only person that's going to really buy a roadside mower is another town or public or a Parks division so we basically offered it on the state of Connecticut's Public Works kind of like Forum run by the t2 Center and said we would accept sealed bids for that and depending on what those bids came in at we would either
accept the bid or we would send it we would then go out to auction and part of the reason is when you send something to auction you end up chewing quite a bit of fees up with it and this gives you the ability to do it it's basically a a transaction between the two towns so we sent that information to you as a board you know Jay seems to think that's a pretty reasonable fee and that we would get more money doing it this way selling it to the town of Fairfield than we would be if we we put it out to auction so that's his recommendation but ultimately you as a board have to agree with that or not agree with at so his max for this the those two pieces of equipment was 30,600 so yes correct so you're saying you got $26,000 correct we we did only get one bid on it we had bites and we had several towns look at it but Fairfield
was the only town that actually put in a bid on it okay and what are the auction fees if we went to the auction just is a question I think they're around 10% of the total they're more for cheaper things but for when you get up in the $220,000 range I think it's around 10% is what the auction fee is anybody any problem with is okay I don't I just want to make sure where the money goes where the money's going to go after the sale and I know Eric suggested the Public Works fund but I think that limits us to what we can spend the money on I think we should probably put it in fund balance or another account so we could use it for other uses if need be if there's an emergency contingency yeah or contingency you don't put it I mean we don't put it in contingency we don't and I think to be really to be really honest technically I don't think we can put the money in a fund well I think it's got to go back in the town general fund general fund and then we would budget for it the next cycle correct because that's what we did with the newow
I'm just asking Eric that's just a that that's like a charter issue for me I mean I I think actually the board of Finance has the ability to allocate that but I don't know that would be that's either a town Treasurer or an auditor question we've certainly done it in the past okay in the past the board of Finance has generally returned the money to the account you know for which those Capital expenditures when the fire truck was when they just sold the fire truck that money was returned to the fire department's Capital Equipment fund in the past Public Works equipment that got sold the
ex the profits went back into the Public Works equipment fund I would have assumed you would put the one for the vehicle for senior Transportation into the senior Transportation account or or that one could go in the general fund because there isn't a senior vehicle Capital fund but you know okay so so we're here today to approve the sale to Fairfield that's what you would like us to do to start with and then we we can go on to this separate discussion about where we recommend the board of Finance to put the money is a different issue but we don't vote we we we are not setting where that money is going we can recommend where we want the board of Finance to put it but it's the board of finances responsibility correct as far as I understand at least that's how it's been done in the past I mean correct me if I'm wrong the money for the new moow when it came out of the general fund correct no the money for the new mower
came out of the Public Works equipment fund okay well let's be let's be fair on that one we had that money came we had a special time meeting yeah it came from the general fund Public Works fund yeah there was no any fund there was no money in any fund to do that well but what so this is where it gets a little complicated so what we and and this you know we're still working out with the auditor whether we really did take it from the general fund last year or we took it from this year's Public Works equipment fund because what we went to the public with was a plan that we would agree to buy the mower now but they would charge us in the current fiscal year so we made the payment for that in the current fiscal year from the money that was deposited into the Public Works equipment fund correct correct we agreed to buy it which we had to buy it before the end of this fiscal year but we didn't have to pay for it until this fiscal year well isn't that however isn't that on a loan program or a lease program for five years yeah it is a fiveyear lease program however the the further complicating point is that the town Treasurer thinks we can't actually do it because we signed the L loan documents technically before July 1 so that makes it last year's expenditure not this year's expenditure so okay we have a question with the auditor as to exactly how that gets treated financially but you know the the intention was always to spend money that Public Works actually had that was not
meant to be an additional appropriation for that vehicle the reason why it went to a public meeting was because it's a loan or a lease and all loans or leases require public approval and it requires public approval because we had to sign it before we put the new budget in place well so you there was a timing issue related to this whole thing it had to be done in that manner because the rest of the payments are all being budgeted within the town standard budgeting process correct it was just the first goor round correct okay so let's approve I mean if you know I'm going to make a motion that we approve the sale of the John Deere roadside mower with two spare heads and the 20 2001 Alamo rear three-point hitch mower head to the Town of Fairfield or the town of Fairfield parks and recck department for $6,000 I'll Che okay further discussion all those in favor I okay four four to zero Eric now Jeff do you want to make an we have 9h the equipment sale proceeds from the equipment sales do you want to make a a recommendation I talking about all the Sals I'm talking about the the tractor the the plow truck the senior
transportation bus all that equipment where is that money going back to so the answer is I don't know yet it's going to go back to where the bord of Finance decides to allocate it me I'd like to put it back in the general fund and then the board of Finance can allocate it wherever they feel where it's needed in the future and I don't want to just put in one fund and just you know pigeon hole it into one area and one Nest Egg okay sound sound reasonable that's what you want to make as a motion I will recommend to the board of finance that that's where they put all the money
they just return it to the general fund I'll make a motion that the sale of all Surplus equipment from the town of over in the recent sales goes back to the general fund I I'll second for discussion purposes from my end like and so Eric in the past what what has happened is that those funds would go back into so let's sit there and say we bought a new tractor we bought a new roadside Mower and this is just the sale of those assets goes back in has gone back into in the past Department of Public Works fund you know so it offsets the overall cost of that piece of equipment that was purchased and you would do that on all sales if you had a fund available so generally speaking in the past when equipment was sold by public Works Surplus equipment or old equipment that money was returned to the capital fund
for Public Works equipment and the same thing has occurred with the money for the fire department you know when they sold the their truck recently that went back into the fire department Capital fund all right so that's what we've done in the past and right doesn't mean we have to do that motion the motion that Jeff is asking for and that I seconded is that that funds from equipment any equipment sales from any Department go back into the general fund and then the board of Finance or the board of Selectmen can give the board of finance options as to where to spend those dollars okay I I don't have a problem with it I mean basically what happens I mean what would happen Eric right is next year's budget would come up and we would say okay we we had proceeds or or revenue generated from the sale of some type of asset of $50,000 and we can sit there and say at the budget cycle okay we we want to put that money into the AAS Capital fund because they're going to require that money and we still may have to budget for Public Works to get equipment but it's not the budgeted amount plus the sales correct that's what I'm trying to say yeah if that's what you choose to do
that's what you choose to do y all right so so but I mean I mean for instance I this is just a example I've noticed that I me know Eric two years ago wanted to get a a Chevy bolt electric vehicle now they're down to around $122,000 we can get one for 12 $113,000 with 15,000 miles on them so if that opportunity comes up and we need another vehicle for senior transportation that money's available maybe we can allocate it for that I just don't want to pinge it hold in one account or one fund and not another so well the the difference is if it's in an existing fund we' have to have Board of Finance transfer it to another fund yeah you could always transfer it from fund to fund anyway but once it's in the general fund you know then you run into the was it quarter percent
or half percent limit at which you can spend things out of so you know your more likely to require a town meeting but that may be okay that's fine with me that that that no that's that's not the charter revision the charter revision if that passes will do away with that no no it won't it will not do away with Town meetings for those types of options it it's not true because and you wouldn't have to go to a town meeting if it's all in Incorporated within the budget process you'd end up at at a budget meeting they could cut those items that got approved out but it would then go to referendum and get voted on by the public in a budget as a budget line item because yes also also what was put in with the charter revision is and simply because Adrien was not happy about the roadside Mower and how the roadside mower got approved he wanted to put in an adjustment to the Charter that if we were contemplating spending anything over $200,000 that it wouldn't go to town meeting it would go directly to referendum in the situation that we bought this roadside Moore which is fine
he's trying to make it more transparent and give a bigger group of people an opportunity to vote on something rather than the individuals that were at the public meeting so I sit there and look at this and go okay if we don't buy anything if there is an immediate need and we have to sit there and buy something in excess of $200,000 we're going to end up in referendum if we have something like this and there wasn't an immediate need to try to get it before the end of the fiscal year it will just go into the budget process and get approved right I mean we would sit there and say we want to buy we want to buy a piece of equipment it's going to have a 5-year lease on it and this is what we're going to budget for this year and
then the public either approves or [Music] disapproves but I have no problem so we got a motion on the floor that all all proceeds from equipment sales will go into the general fund basics of the motion that Jeff made right off okay any further discussion on the topic all right all those in favor I all those opposed or [Music] nothing okay so that was 9h new business solar at AES did everybody have an opportunity to look at that and what Eric wrote related to the solar program at AES Eric I know I asked the question when we were on with the chairman of the board of education have we gotten any information as to how they plan on installing those and what is the what is what is what is the issue if there's a roof problem so their goal is to use a ballasted system to minimize
penetrations on the roof they're still awaiting the final structural analysis of the roof to see whether they can add the roof floating for a ballasted system as opposed to a direct penetration system the town would be if there's if the town had to repair a roof section under where the panels went we would have to pay them for removal of it so we could fix the roof underneath that would be a town out obligation not an obligation as part of the package so it might be worth an independent evaluation of all the roof conditions Prior to doing it you know their roofing company has evaluated it and said that they think it's fine and it will the roof will be okay for the length of the system but depending on you know whether you want to take their word for it or your own you could hire a roofing contractor Zen Commercial Roofing or an equivalent to give you an evaluation of how much how much of the roof was done on the 400,000 dollar project that we did before and how much of the the panels are sitting on that newer portion I don't know the answer to that okay which sections of the school we're talking about so if you looked through the for can I just share my screen real quick sure go ahead let say share so you can see the the roof layout and where they they're not using the gymnasium but they're using most of the
rest of the flat roofs I mean wasn't the whole new roof that was just done the gymnasium I know the gymnasium was done I don't know if other portions of the roof were done also that was kind of before my time so I just don't really have a feel for it and this has been evaluated anticipating just snow Lo if we had really heavy snow load in one year because I can remember what was it 10 years ago 15 years ago we were out shoveling School roofs because of the snow [Music] well again we don't have their final structural analysis back yet so I can't that's something I can't specifically address the the basically they had to decrease the system size pretty considerably simply because the school is not does not have three-phase power and almost all of the larger solar systems that go in are designed to work with three-phase power and we just don't
have that because we only have a 1200 amp singlephase power availability they changed to a microinverter system and decreased the system size fairly considerably but I went over their numbers using kind of pretty realistic numbers for New England in terms of yearly production so I think what they're claiming is realistic and I think that system would produce about half the total electrical usage for the school and the given the the nres credits I think it's a it's a pretty good deal overall and it would definitely save the you know the town quite a bit of money but it's not as much as they were hoping for because they were hoping for much bigger system size but given the constraints of the current electrical system that's kind of what you're stuck with oh for me it comes down to the roof condition and is there is there a problem that we run into after we install the solar panels
because I am in favor of this but was it ever looked at to do like a mini solar farm out behind the school in that open area I did ask that of the company and their response was you know they generally won't consider Standalone you know ground Mount systems if they have a roof that's capable of taking the system size that they need and because even if they put a a separate you know ground Mount system they still can't increase the size because the size is dictated on their ability to tie into a single P singlephase 12200 amp panel yeah understood I'm just looking at Future maintenance and then you
know if we do get a storm the snow load that's going to be on the roof and along with the panels and not being able to clear the snow off the roof because the panels are there or we're clearing the snow off the panels you can clear the snow off the panels it's just it's more difficult oh much more difficult to shovel when the panel's up there yeah so what's our next step we're waiting for documentation to come back in from the the Solar Company yeah they have a bunch more they have to to get you asked me to kind of vet the process and look at what they're actually putting on and determine whether it's realistic I I don't feel like I'm capable of assessing the roof condition for commercial flat roofs so if you wanted to do that you would have to we would have to hire a you know a company to evaluate the roofs you know if that that's a concern other than that wait wait for their structural design
completion did you get the date that the other I mean because I know when we did the roof I mean Adrien was tremendously involved in that but when we did that we did not do the entire roof understood I don't know the ages of the roofs that are there okay I do not well if you could get that from the AES and find out the the ages of the I mean because if you go back up to your your image of of panels I mean I remember it was the entire we had a problem with the gymnasium we did the entire part that they're not utilizing and maybe a little part that that first U is on I don't think we did anything where the majority of the entire system is on the roof so I would like to know the
ages of those and we probably should just pay to get a roofing contractor out there to evaluate it right that's kind of what I think I would I would hate to put that up there and then have a have a problem with the roof and but I understand where the board of education is going and they want to do this but I would hate to sit there and see there' be a a roof problem and then we got to take the panels down and pay somebody to take the panels down on top of the cost of doing the roof I'd like to know the ages number one that be my biggest issue what would be the cost for that Eric to get that decided how what condition the roof is in think I don't know I mean usually I don't know I don't want to try to give you a number that's not something I could estimate I think we're all in agreement about the condition of the roof I think
we all need to know that now had the Solar Company checked it too or not yeah the solar company said they have no concerns with the roof as it is usually picky so I don't know probably good because I know everybody I've talked to that's gotten solar panels lots of people say Oh I thought the roof was good but I had to get a new roof because the solar company said they wouldn't put it on without a new roof because they seem to really check it at least for houses well let's sit there Eric and try to find out a cost so I'm assuming that the Solar Company is still going to do some work and still has some things to do and we should sit there and find out if the board of education has gotten a a separate analysis of the roof I would love to know the ages that would be number one for me just get me get me the ages for the various spots that they're going to put these panels on because in my head knowing what we did before I got to believe the entire right side of the school up toward the old or up toward the basketball courts that going that way everything is that's all older roof at least in my mind simply by what was done six six eight years ago but you know you think about it how time flies if that new roof is eight
years old then the old roof is old yeah we check it out okay all right I think it's a great idea i' like to see it's a good idea so we talked about 10B Community Center policy on donations we already did that yep all right 10 C authorize authorization to sign Master agreement with do every 10 years yeah so this is at the very back of the packet because it was really long and nobody's going to read through it basically every 10 years Department of Transportation asks towns to authorize a master Municipal agreement with do regarding funding on roads and things of that nature I looked Bob Burbank was the last person to sign it in 2014 it's coming up for Renewal I put it in your packet if you want to renew it it would be something the first Selman would have to sign well I flipped through the 130 pages of it okay so it's something that we need to do to get the dot to do work with us correct Jeff has to sign it yeah that's a Jeff sign not a me sign as far as I can tell my motion to have Jeff sign the authorization to master agreement for the do I'll second that all right further discussion all those in favor I or nothing okay Eric 10d signage hop River Trail Alliance sign signage project on the trail okay so I'll give you the cliff notes for this the I showed you a picture of what the sign looked like the do has produced
these and they have requested that the town s put one of these signs on all the road approaches where roads cross the Hop River Trail so I drove all of the crossings with the public works Foreman his concern which Echoes mine is that we don't want these things between The Pedestrian ahead sign and The Pedestrian crossing sign because you don't want a third sign in between to distract so it's going to have to be a decision you know each intersection is going to have these in a different spot if you Al if you as the local traffic Authority are willing to allow the do to have their signs up it's your you know your responsibility as a local traffic Authority you know it's basically to build additional awareness for the Connecticut state park they're trying to do this across the board for hoop River Airline Lin you know Park trails so that's their request and I said I would bring that to you as a board acting as the local traffic Authority and get your input but what we did is we looked at it and it's kind of a in it's kind of a Crossing by
Crossing on where we can put it without it being visual ually distracting and causing problems so if you're willing to have us put them up I would work with the public works foremen you know all the materials and signs will be supplied by the by the de but Public Works would install them where they're at least invasive in the town I don't have a problem with you put up the what do they look like and you showed me a picture before but what's the dimensions on them they're 24 by 24 for the ones that are going on the town roads and then on the state roads I think it's a 30 by3 triangular sign wow those are huge what Crossings what Crossings do they have that they're going to put that big sign on so the The Crossing will be in one spot and that is at Lake Road
what the the D de wants to do is identify one parking area basically every X number of miles down the trail so it's publicly identified from Route Six so those signs will be on Route Six presuming that the encroachment permit is pulled and they get Authority from do to put them there so they want to put a sign on Lake Road directing people to the parking lot that's attached to the trail yeah there's one going in at Steels Crossing one going in there and one going in on Hop River Road towards that new parking area after the bridge is completed on op River Road okay correct so you're asking the approval of one sign basically no there's we don't that they're making two two basic requests
request number one is signs one sign from each Direction on all the town roads that cross the h River Trail smaller ones right so like Lake Road for instance and then what they've asked for is there they're trying to get permission from or they they've got tentative permission from do to put signs on Route Six directing them to the larger parking areas on the Hop River Trail and what I like about that is the biggest problem we have is people parking on some of the smaller Crossings where there's no parking and we've even specified it as no parking but they park there anyway because they don't know where to park so I look at this as a way to direct where visitors are likely to park so they're kind of out of the way and they're in our biggest parking area and leave the rest of the the official parking areas for Town residents that's how I kind of it you know I just think those big signs at each Crossing area is kind of Overkill I mean I look at the East Coast Greenway signs they're much smaller and it identifies you know the crossing and that there's a Greenway there I mean they're huge it's gonna be overwhelming yep they big signs they're
asking for a sign Bridge Covered Bridge or not no far as I know there's we haven't talked about that one I don't think we have a sign for those for that Crossing okay do we want to request smaller signs I I just think it's overkill for what we're doing on a small Road I think like something maybe a foot 12 by 12 or or you know even 8 by eight or something's more suitable sign are already made I don't think you'd ever see an 8 by8 sign driving that's pretty small I mean can you see the the markers on the rail trail when you're riding by them now no because we made the numbers they made the numbers too small and you know you can't even see it riding by so I don't think in a car you know 25 24x 24 is the standard kind of awareness sign the question is simply whether you want to allow them to be placed on down roads or not that's really that's a that's I mean I'm just sitting there thinking about the one I drive by five times a day that's a sign on each side of the road is what they're asking for that big so one if you're coming down Lake Road you would see one sign that says hop River Trail State Park linear state park and if you were coming the other direction you were coming up Lake Road you would see as sign do that it's like you don't know this go there because there's already a crossing sign in a big right I I don't I don't necessarily have a huge problem with it I think it's a it
is a big sign I mean it's it's kind of I think it's I mean honestly I think it's kind of overkill for the road in the area are the signs already made here yep can you share your screen I thought you had a sample of it right yep I certainly can hang on can we take him down if we make a mistake I just I hate putting more signage up because you know what it does for people crying to cross the path it creates sine problems well and and to be honest that was my biggest concern and the concern of the Public Works Foreman is that we have to put these very carefully so they don't affect site lines which is why we can't say to you we're going to put them X number of feet from the trail because it's going to be a decision on each Road where they don't impact sight lines like Lake Road I think we can put one of these on the backs of The Pedestrian signs right and they don't affect The Pedestrian ahead visibility and they're
the same size as the existing signs but on some roads we can't put them there so I think we really have to tailor the approach to each road so that they're you know they don't impact sight lines and they're not in between the existing stop ahead and pedestrian cross walk side if that makes sense I mean I don't know why you just don't put them at the entrance when you go from the road to the trail why don't you just put them on the trail going both ways you know basically saying you're on the Hop River Trail Co Greenway but you don't need a those signs are on the trail right I mean I don't think most I I don't know I'm more concerned with The Pedestrian crossing signs in the crosswalk than putting these there I think they're just going to be a huge detriment to people trying to see up and down the road to cross that's my opinion well what I would say is we're not going to put them anywhere where it impacts the Cy line of anybody crossing the triail right how do you do that though it's gonna be difficult because You' already got indrian crossing signs well I mean what I'm saying is that a lot of these are going to be quite far away from the trail like shot Mill I think there's an existing sign we can put it on it's at least a quarter mile back from the trail that's probably the most logical point for it okay what I can't give you is the same scheme for every single road because we looked at all the roads and said okay here where could we put the sign where where it doesn't
impact everything I mean stupid question could you just put them underneath the pedestrian signs on the same pole no because underneath All The Pedestrian signs you have the enhanced reflective strip so which is part of what an enhanced crosswalk supposed to have so no I don't think you can put them directly under did you mention that you're putting on the back of some other signs is that what you what I'm saying is I Can't Tell You On Any Given Road where we're going to put these things exactly so that it does not impact sight lines but our goal if we put them if you authorize them is to put these in such a place that you do see them when you're driving but it's it's in a position it's far enough away that does not impact the current pedestrian Crossing signage because that's a really important thing there because that's a safety that's good that's good so Eric if we give you the authority to put them up you're going to put them up in the best possible spot for the town of Andel that is my goal yes and and if you can't find a good spot you're not going to put it up correct that is correct okay I authorize Eric to have Jay put up these signs wherever they find them in a safe spot where they can be put in a safe spot I'll second then okay so you're
making a motion for that yeah motion yep almost it's almost 11 o'clock right I know all right so you're making a motion to install the signs in appropriate places that don't impede safety okay yeah Eric you you have your marching orders right we're gonna vote on this now all those in favor I all those opposed Jeff Murray so 31 I think it's a safety violation yes so so 31 Eric don't put him in if you don't put them up nobody on this board is going to be upset they didn't go up understood you know my my primary goal is the safety of Trail users in the public in general I'm not going to put up any signs which I think are visually distracting I'm not going to put them up where I think it's visually distracting okay do we have to do anything with the Deep Trail sign of on town roads no that was the Deep Trail signage on town roads we have to do anything with the en coach permits for the sign on Route Six so my question for you is are you opposed to the DP signs going up indicating that there is Trail parking on Lake Road I mean I'm not I mean there's already Trail parking on Lake Road so what would we get we would get potentially a passer by that comes and parks and uses the trail correct it's a huge sign I mean that's just a big sign that's that's like a billboard going on Route Six for the trail and it's not this sign is it is it this sign just increased in size yep Z sign six inches bigger and it's going to say Trail parking what's it
going to say yeah I think they're just going to have an arrow underneath it with direction to the parking is their plan and when are they wanting to install these that picture I would think they want them installed sooner rather than later but the bigger signs haven't been created yet well tell tell them to get us the graphics so we sit there and see what they're talking about okay and you want to review that at the next meeting then sure okay okay anybody else have a problem with that no okay item 11 approval of minute meetings from our 9 to9 2024 regular meeting approve make a motion we approve the meetings from the meeting minutes from 9 our meeting at 99 2024 second and seconded it all those in favor I okay the treasurers report was included in our packet any questions for Eric related to that information okay yeah go through the check register was there nothing else and then there was other information provided so Eric do you have anything to add on
any of the other items because I didn't see the town Aid Road I didn't see an appropriation transfer I didn't see an overe expenditure report or summary of audit status were they there they were not there's nothing there for that I can say verbally the Town treasure is getting fairly close to being complete with her portion of the audit and is talking about turning that over to M we just have to go over the capital asset list there's not a lot left to do for that before the town is complete with its portion of the audit all right good news anybody have anything else they want to deal with in that section I was just wondering why why is the Board of Ed
check register and such in here that's something we' never had because nobody ever sent it to me so I could put it sobody send it to you this time no they didn't send it to me so and I I was ignoring that to sit there and move on so we don't have a significant level of discussion related to that item okay okay are we are we good then if the board doesn't want to see that in the future I'm happy to leave it out it's a pain to get it anyway Eric it's great to have more information it is it is it's always good to have information I will never tell you not to provide us information but let's move on Tax Collector's report we got the dashboard for the tax collector it shows our total balance and total due it differs slightly from the treasurer's report up top but it was it's really close [Music] so tax collector also included unpaid taxes on properties bunch of pages too many pages and then there's a section on page 133 of tax
2367 of which my wife is $123.6 so I will not be voting on this okay we're not going to approve those come on let's go I'll move to approve them refunds so all right all those in favor I three opposed alap POS 31 all right departmental reports were all in the package the assessor's office that was there the building department we made 8,975 last month in the building department Department of Public Works and I believe that was it how much do we make in our stiff account well I don't have that number for you this month my apologies No it should be there it would be on the first page of the treasures report page 86 should have been there or it's on the bottom no interest income the month for the 3 months we earned $ 38,866 so approximately $113,000 per month on the stiff account very good anybody have any questions on the the departmental reports you know I'd rather just keep moving this long and get to public speak if anybody has any problems with any of the departmental reports please speak now hold your P okay Eric no correspondence nope okay can you stop sharing your screen oh sure sorry about that didn't realize I was still sharing it okay we're gonna move on to item 16 public speak Bob hamburger you're first if you're awake yes I'm awake thank you so I is yeah I see attorney O'Brien is still on with us I wanted to to just clarify ify something that was said a long time ago by Mr King in his proposal for for selecting him you know in his his stump speech he said very clearly and definitively that it was it it was there
in writing in the law that a republican had to be picked because Paula King was a Republican and you know this kind of stands in Sharp contrast with you know I'm looking at in in the packet for this meeting attorney O'Brien drafted it looked to be a seven or eight page analysis of what the minority representation actually meant complete with citations of of cases you know precedent law as well as citations relevant citations of of state law so I just wanted to to get on the record that it is the town attorney's learned opinion that it a republican was not necessary merely just the absence of a Democrat is that correct Dennis yes that's my opinion all right thank you I just wanted to correct that for the record okay Shannon Lowden jumped up into second place you're up terrific thank you Jeff so I'm G to answer your question about why the tri board policy is necessary and that's because there is no defined process for how the Board of Education funds its capital projects or for how the Board of Education might deposit money into or withdraw money from the newly created as AES Capital fund and there are current projects at AES that require funding and might be considered capital projects and now I'm going to spend two
minutes just because I'm tired of addressing all these issues and answering the same questions the bottom line is the policy was brought about after there was a fundamental disagreement between the town the board of Selectmen and the Board of Education as to the board of EDS statutory authority to pay for capital projects at AES so at the meeting of the three boards one year ago Robert and England and I were tasked to draft a policy between the Board of Ed and the board of Finance not the board of Selectmen to address how capital projects might be considered at AES in the future the board of Finance later suggested that the board of Selectmen also be involved
in the process so we drafted a tri board policy as far as the Board of Ed is concerned it had the statute Authority statutory authority to do exactly what it did in June of 2023 which was to reallocate money that had been budgeted to it to repay the upper parking lot at AES so the Board of Ed believes that there already is a process but the town disagreed so if there is a process a policy wouldn't have been necessary by Charter the Board of Ed is not subject to the CIP process which is in line with State Statute especially because there is no definition in the statutes about what is a capital project and many budgeted Investments at AES exceed the CIP dollar threshold further the CIP consideration and approval doesn't complete the process all the CIP does is approve of capital projects and projects approved by CIP are then considered by the board of Selectmen and board of Finance but not the board of education so the Board of Education agreed that it needed a capital Fund in addition to the 2% non-aps account given that as somebody said there are statutory limitations and I believe this was the disagreement between Dennis and Eric the statute says specifically and if the auditor disagrees we'll see that each expenditure from the 2%
non-aps account quote unquote shall be made only for educational purposes so there currently is no policy to allow the Board of Education to have any say as to how the money in the account that was created by the town for AES capital projects will be spent which is contrary to State Statute which says that the Board of Ed is the one who's responsible for projects in its buildings on its land Etc I disagree with Dennis's proposed agreement and how it changed the policy that I spent a year crafting and I'll leave it at that because you've offered Jeff to have people write to Dennis about how we might do that the only other thing that I'll suggest is if there doesn't want to be a tri board policy maybe what happens is the Board of Ed just asked the board of Finance to put money in the capital account and the board of Finance says okay puts the money in the capital account and then when the Board of Education needs to spend money on capital projects it asked the board of Finance to take the money
out of the account that's what I thought was initially proposed but that didn't fly so I'll leave it at that thanks very much for letting me speak so long thank you Bill Penn I'm good thank you Doris Maldonado nothing to say Thank You Stephen King first and foremost I have to disagree with attorney O'Brien's interpretation of the statute and I was going to plan on sending the information to the Secretary of State for to to find a a little bit more about this I was also curious about the information in the charter regarding Tha votes why wasn't that addressed you're asking for a direct answer it had never become a problem before there's specific language in the charter regarding resolving ties then we're going to have to look at that I think that's in the elections isn't it I I don't have it in front of me Steve but about flipping a coin or something or I don't I don't know I I've seen so many of these things I I I don't I'll take a look at it happy to I just happened to do a quick search and happen to find that so just you might want to take a closer look at I will I'll be glad yes hello it's it's a late one right for us people live insomnia that's no problem getting old has its
advantages I just wanted to go back to the Safety Committee report there was something in there about providing stop the bleed kits for the new community center and for for the I guess Town Hall could you look at the library as well can can they get one over there and the F same thing with the first aid kit I don't know what the libraries first aid kit looks like but if if you're looking at the community center Town Hall the library too could could take could use a look at or something like that so I appreciate you taking a look at that for me all right Jo any
thanks Jeff I just I'll go quick but I just wanted to say that I wanted to commend the four individuals that spoke tonight I always like to listen to people that are interested in community service and I thought they all brought a lot to the table disappointed that there couldn't be a resolution with such good candidates and I I'm going to look on the charter too because I know that we had a lot of our recent Board of Finance we had a lot of you know ties and went back and forth quite a bit so I'd be interested in hearing that because it's kind of disappointing to have to go back out when we had you know several candidates that seem that they could bring something good to the table anyways the and then I'm definitely not in favor of those signs without all of you going out and taking a look at it it just seems like so many signs to bring into the town so big yeah I'm not in favor of that without taking a good look how big of a sign would look out there on all those you know our town so small and it seems like there's going to be so many of them around town I'm just really concerned about that and I truly feel I have to bring this up I feel like trails are
taking over a lot of our meetings and everything's about trails and this and that when we have so many projects in town that are still undone great grant money that we we have been given and we're still waiting for projects to be completed I'm all about walking Health biking trails but I feel like every every meeting there's a huge issue about Trails when we have a lot more things to talk about thank you thank you lean Hutchinson hi nothing thank you okay Rachel Bowman nothing thank you okay did I miss any one okay all right thank you everybody for attending we're going to move on to item 17 adjournment just before we adjourn I just looked at the the charter it says it says Municipal elections I don't know if this replacement is an election that's it says Municipal elections it's just if there's a tie is acquaints so does that does it apply I don't know that's for Dennis to de side all right item 17 adjournment I'll make a motion to adjourn seconded all those in favor I all right thank you
very much for attending everybody we appreciate it