happened to me before thanks Eric appreciate that all right okay yes only on special only on special occasions though special occasions I'm gonna try to work that into tonight's meeting all right so anyway we're gonna get started tonight with the Board of selectman regular meeting for Monday March 11th we're going to start at 7:02 pm. and our first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic one nation under God indivisible thank you very much public speak we're gonna move right on to that we'll start with Diane okay I'm working it you're good all good Diane oh good okay you got me oh goodness okay I I hope you all got the email I sent earlier this this afternoon about the signs about the sign yeah I did thank you very much Paul okay and B basically I know you're gonna be discussing the the welcome to Andover sign I know you've been doing this for a while and it just
I mentioned this a couple months ago about how there seems to be a unofficial color scheme to signs that we have in town and I I sent you a photo of the the school the Veterans Park the library the Monument Park and the church they all have this cranberry color scun which is and the new sign is all green which is not in keeping with who's that the josa trust Kath Kathy and Mike Kathy and Mike you want to go on mute yes we have hello hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on Diane granier hasn't finished yet we you just had your mic on so we could hear you so you're interrupting and I hate to say that to the plaes because you know you're my
favorites but mute yourself they're your favorites oh you know I you know oh God you hurt my feeling okay let's go Dan anyway so I just wanted to bring to your attention that there there does seem to be a color scheme going and before it's finalized the I was wondering if you might want to consider the color change and the other issue was will this be open for comments for the general public other than public speak like I've got right now and before it gets finalized and put up and then people comment about whether they like or don't like or whatever so that was just my comment was there is a color scheme although so unofficial and just want to make sure that you recognize that and that I've done my due diligence and part to your attention all right we appreciate that thank you Mike and Kathy pazi unmute to my dear friend Diane if I dare I was speaking with my husband I apologize dear actually to the committee I
would like you to on your agenda for 7e I would like you to change the word hendy to Hutcheson that the Buddhist place is on Hutcherson Road not Hindi Road thank you no I'm s okay thank you you sure Mike nothing I'm positive I live on Hutchinson I wasn't asking about that I was asking if M no I'm good there okay all right Jeff Balor can you hear me now yes sir all right so I guess this is the third month that we haven't really talked about a budget or you know the fence permission I sent out some emails from Thad king regarding the the fence posts and he said that it had to be 5 feet away from the galley and they would require two of the posts sitting on top of the ground the rest of the posts would be in the ground on the other you know three and three and 3/4 sides and defense on the proposal on that I had written up it's six foot wire only five foot high okay all right I did see the information in our packet so we will sit there and discuss it during the meeting anything else no the fence and you know we're we're applying for for the grant for the Hartford to do a water collection th gallon Reservoir off the garden shed and off the fire department but Adrien had promised us last year ,000 towards replacing the roof and gutters and down spots and stuff and that never
happened all right I also read that and I will make sure that we get that taken care of thank you thank you yeah that's it Bill [Music] pen good evening I'm here part for the Joshua's trust discussions so that's my that's why I'm attending tonight thank you and to learn about other stuff about the town thank you you are a resident correct Bill yes I am you get to participate in public speak so if you'd like to say anything other than the Joshua trust you can feel free always understood thank you very much got it Ebert thanks Jeff I just have one here we go one second I don't know if it's working okay sorry I'm trying to click buttons I just wanted to bring up tonight because I didn't want to wait till all the way to the end if you were possibly all going to talk about having a town meeting maybe in the next month or so I think there's been so many items addressed recently that will be you know expenses to the town or big purchases or things of this nature so I think it would just be so helpful and I know you talk about doing it so that's only my two cents I'd love to see it to meeting because we're bringing a lot of things forward there's going to be a lot of grants that are being requested or asked for in you know the town kind of needs grants are a great thing as we all know we love grants it's free money it's you know money that's coming into
the community but there's sometimes there's a match that goes along with that you know and depending on how big the grant is or how big the project is the town match will be substantial so just love to talk about town meetings and maybe maybe combining them all together with the things that have been talked about thank you that's all I have all right thank you very much yeah okay did I miss anyone Sher I know you je hi attorney O'Brien yeah hello yes sir oh okay I can you can hear me all right I I have never spoken in public speak before and I am not a town resident but I I you know we let Town residents speak in and wind them so I thought you'd let me speak and this is something that is just kind of a notice last meeting I attended one of the things that came up was folks from the Commission on Aging came in and asked for the the upshot was that I I was supposed to look at the the laws regarding the Commission on Aging and to come up with an idea as to how they could have alternat appointed without you go through the board of Selectmen and I've taken the trouble of writing a minor ordinance that you could act on tonight if you'd like I just
wanted you to know it's there I sent it out to to as many of you as I've had email addresses for just in the last half hour or so and you know if you want you can add it to the agenda if not it's okay by me it's not an emergency but it's just there and it's available and the other thing I'd like to say given what Joan Hebert just said said is there's been talk of having a special town meeting for quite a while I just want to make sure if you do schedule one there are a lot of things that need to go on that agenda and one of them is
something that I've sent to you a while ago and that is a proposed ordinance that would allow us to find site and find violators of the zoning regulations so he wouldn't have to file a lawsuit just because somebody has violated the setback could do it through a a fine and and so much easier and I've done it in other towns that it works really well and I just want to make sure that we get all that stuff on the agenda as Joanne has suggested when we do have one because you know they don't happen that often because it is expensive it's cost money and it takes a lot of time so I just wanted to bring that up and I'll try to keep my next U involvement and public speak maybe a few years away okay problem all right and thank you I did read that email on the ordinance Dennis so that will be something that we put on the next town meeting so okay thank you very much Y no problem did I miss anyone else okay let's move on to there's an item missing from our agenda after public speak should be add in the deletes because this is not a
special meeting the agenda was copied from a special meeting which would not have any but there is ADD and deletes does anyone want to add anything to the agenda or delete anything from the agenda nope well I I I have a question first so 3B do we want to have discussion Elaine can't make it to the to the meeting tonight do we want to keep that and have our discussion or do we want to wait until we can ask her further questions about this no let's have the discussion and then we can sit there and incorporate tyan granier's request and we have visuals of the signs with and without the bridge so let's have the discussion amongst the board of Select members and then just U we can push it back to after we have our discussion and if we decide to vote on anything anything else Jeff you're good and you're good okay we'll move on to item three then boards and commission presentations
the Garden Club budget request I know know that we've all we've all seen that that issue before so we had some issues with the fencing so Jeff and his team provided us some pictures of fencing that would go along the area closest to the leechfield and I just want to ask one question Jeff why wouldn't you do that around the whole garden it wouldn't be stable enough and there's no reason why it would have to be on top of the ground for the other three4 of the fencing okay all right and we also want to get the fence on the back and and front and and and other the back and to the right side under the ground a foot so that the vars can't get under it okay and Eric just so we understand related to that was the the current money is a different issue and that's related to the fencing so we have to decide what we're going to do
with that have you gone through that request with you went through it with Eastern Health High District as far as what their request is I mean have you have you gone through it and do you have any details you want to provide to us well I I thought initially like you thought that what Jeff was proposing was to do the entire fence with a movable fence I didn't realize until this evening that that his intention was just to do two little corner sections with a removable fence and permanently Mount the other fence so most of the fence is not in the leech field you know it would obviously it is in the repair area so if we had a problem with our you know septic system the first thing we would do is tear out the entire Community Gardens where it exists now but there's no indication that we're going to need to do that in the short term all right so so my question to you is is the areas where they're going to permanently install that fence impact anything related to the new community center or to any other issue that you have related to this well it's going to be a lot of visual impact I mean it blocks your view of the Woodline and you know nature I guess
it just depends what your priorities are if you want to look at a chicken wire fence out the community center that's what you'll see it's not chicken wire it's a 2x3 square and it's John Bolton's got got the model on on Hein road that you can see okay I I'm asking I understand your your your issue Eric but I'm asking you is if they if they install those in the ground permanently is there any negative impact that you can tell us directly about other than Aesthetics as long as I stay far enough away from the leech field no okay all right so now comes the other part this is do we have the money in any other account at this point in time that you know I'm basically telling you to come back if we chose to do this we as a board need to know it's somewhere available if we chose to to do this and if we chose we choose not to do it then we don't have to worry about it but we need to know if it's available because what they're asking for initially is out of the current Year's budget I mean if you take it out of this year's budget at this point I would say you're taking it out of contingency because with four months of the budget to go I don't know that I'm comfortable with any specific spot saying this budget line item is going to be under I have a couple I think are probably going to be
considerably under but but not that I'm willing to to bank on at this point okay and and Jeff just so I understand you're asking us for $2,400 for fence for the community garden out of this year's budget that is correct okay all right and so Eric you're telling us it would be out of contingency at this point in time that's where I would dig it okay do any other board members have issue related to this or an opinion related to the fencing for the can you hear me at all yes yeah I'm trying to get my other microphone working but I'm really concerned about putting a fence up until that Community Center is completely done and we have everything seated in backfield I would like to see the community center done before we put any fences up okay that's my personal opinion because I just think if we're going to try to grade and this fence is up there it could just it could cause problem with the contractors okay anybody else I have a question for you the you're saying that the fencing is on the leash field that's being in that's in use right now no he said it was in the repair repair area the reserve area the whole garden in the repair area no that that's not totally what I said what Jeff originally proposed was a 10 foot wide away from where the gardens are at 10 feet it overlaps those posts would be sitting right on top of the galys they would be
on the gallies at five feet they're right on the edge of the galys because remember these are concrete gys that are are pretty wide you know so what he's proposing but it only they only overlap on a portion of the leech field so what Jeff is basically proposing is that on that portion they don't don't put any permanent anything in the ground because they can't get a permit from that you know to do it anyway from Eastern Highland South district and then once they get past that area then they put permanent posts in the ground areas that are not that are more than five feet away from the galleys and therefore out of the technical leech field that is what he's proposing and I'd like to say that we're not going to be concreting the posts into the ground we're going to be filling the around the posts with crushed stone okay and so from what I read Eastern Health districts reviewed this and sat there and said that they were not okay with the fences in the ground in the areas that Eric is talking about so what Jeff was telling the fence would be three three quarters permanent and one quarter
not permanent sitting on the ground and Jeff sent us a an image of a of a fence design that they had built right and my question my question Scott was could we use that fence all the way around the garden because then that way what it would do for us on a short-term basis in my head I kind of had the same concerns that Jeff Murray was saying is that when you're in an area like that you never know what's going to happen in a construction site until it's totally finished so if you actually put them above ground or on the ground level then you could move them if you needed to but it's a issue for the rest of the that's front could be made the way that you're suggesting Eric just just to be clear about that whole thing you said that if something happens to a sip septic system the community guard would be torn out that that was a quote from you yes okay it would have to be the community guard just in a second a second to that I I would say that that was put in by the town crew and they wouldn't have put it on the reserve nor our galleys right now as it was they wouldn't know so I I'm just curious of why you said Put it on the reserve that they didn't it's not on the reserve there okay okay listen listen the the issue of Eric saying that it would be
torn out if it is on the if it is on the repair area then the answer would be yes it would probably have to go but we don't have problems with our our septic in totality yes we have some concerns and yes there are some things that are going on that whole Space has to be understood as it's a you know if we needed to do a repair there's going to be issues we would do everything possible not to have it impact the gardens I mean listen let's all be honest we would all do whatever we could not to have it impact Gardens Eric is being extremely linear and blunt in his assessment of he is reading the maps and he is reading the maps correctly I bet Scott but he's he's stating a fact that while it may be true could have been stated ifferently I'm sorry so Jeff the issue is we will do everything we can not to impact the Community Gardens but we as a board do not control the way that the septic system functions between the town and the school and everything else that's fa I understand that the I would say putting putting Back Fence
permanently in and then do the sides in the front as you suggested that probably would straighten this whole messo well it was approved by Eastern Health districts with that caveat it's not it's not in the it's not in the ground so it doesn't matter correct so Eastern health district was acceptable to that as an alternative now the question goes which is which was raised by Jeff is that it is a construction site still you know that you know that better than anybody you know you know the whole area better than anybody what do you think you're you think those three I'm telling you I'm saying that if you permanently put the back in and then do the sides in the front like that thing that Jeff Ballard made up that that would work for me okay then they can be move whenever you wanted to but not the whole unit the three sides are permanently in the ground and if the if there becomes a problem with the community center those three sides become problematic yeah you could move them then we made him portable he's not making him portable the three sides he's burying in the ground a foot down with with I'm sure it's like chicken wire in the ground je have to stop Critters from digging under and he's putting crushed stone on top of that and you know he he's going to sit there and have posts permanently buried in the ground on three sides and then on a quarter of the unit Which is closest to the leechfield he's going to use the movable fences yeah they ride on top of the ground they're built on like a two by that's what I that's what I said and so I'm
asking you again the three sides that he's burying are they problematic if if we have issues with Community Center I I think he can the gr a lot of the grading is going to be done this coming week okay all right Jeff growing season starts when sir we want everything in the ground by Memorial Day Memorial Day at the latest all right so Jeff you know know you know what we have we have one more month to sit there on this fence issue to get you an answer so it's the March it's March 11th we have another meeting in April Scott you're telling us that the grade most of the grading in the community center will be done by then I'm hoping that the back he saids he's going to bring a dozer and a lot of the everything's G to be moved around this coming week okay Eric does that align with your timing I mean my time timing is your timing I mean I think you're right they the excavator is going to be in working pretty hard and and they're going to be raising the grade up and trying to establish final grades get the leach field in get the holding tanks in that kind of stuff certainly within the next month to six weeks okay all right then Jeff what I'm going to recommend is that we push this off till next month and once we get the community because if all of that all of the grading is done by the time of our next meeting we'll have a
much better understanding and I Jeff I will work with you on the roofing issues that you talked about and I will also work with Eric on trying to find a potential area if we can find the funding for it we'll at least have a better understanding at our next meeting where we would take some of that money so unless other members of the board have an issue related to that or they'd like to see something moved forward right now I think waiting we have time okay all right Jeff thank you very much for the information I appreciate it I just have I have a quick question for Jeff actually two two questions for your 2024 2025 budget so you're you're talking about using the roof gutter water collection pipe and then you're ask asking or mentioning install water and electricity so can you explain to me if we if we're having water and electricity put at the Community Center what were you thinking to use that for for the garden a combination of both more U recycling rainwater so we're not depleting the well water for water shortage more sustainability and more environmentally sound and I was I I have serious
doubts you're going to get get me water and power this growing season what how was the conversation left so I I talked to the person that offered the resources for the the roof and he said that he had you were emailing back and forth so what what happened with that conversation where was that left off with because it you're saying that the materials weren't off weren't given to you but he's saying that he offered them and you didn't hear back that's not we'll deal we'll deal with that later like I'd rather not deal with that in the public meeting so Jeff
like I said Paul and I will deal with you on that and we will get that situated that that that's G to happen somehow my question is with Paula D I'm going to go on Paula because I read that but I didn't read item four on the second page install water and electricity what are you requesting you're requesting that that during construction we run water and electricity out to the Community Gardens and you can have your own Supply that's correct it the shed the garden shed is already wired for power and we're proposing to do a water collection of a thousand gallon Reservoir and a shallow well pump to pump into the already installed irrigation system in the front of the beds when we were running a hose from the fire department it was losing pressure we didn't have sufficient pressure to to water the whole bed and it took like a day to to keep moving Sprinklers and okay and so that that we're going to have to address with Eric after because I don't think that was in the plans I mean Scott are you aware that I didn't I I was not aware of any of that there we we put a a faucet in the
back of the community center so that the garden garden people can use the water but I have never heard anything about any power or thousand gallon tank no well the water I mean you're basically he basically looking for water to be run a hose right but if you read the way he he has it written he says via the community center so he's he was thinking it was off of the Community Center not any else extension board and a hose okay all right Le let's not deal with this on this meeting let's we we'll talk with Eric because we got to make sure that we're what we're doing is is accurate and I'm not sure that we as a community we got to work on that one because you're not going to want to run that stuff above ground across you know your patio so let's sit there and U see what we can do really to that all right electrical if we're talking about electrical that shed you're talking about a significant cost we have to trench and Barry conduit and you know separate lighting panel and the whole nine yards so it's a lot of work a lot of money a lot of work and a lot of money electric okay all right let Let's we'll talk about that and just sit there and see if there's any viable alternative to running a a hose and a cord above ground across to the Community Gardens so all right anything else that anybody wants to ask Jeff Ballard or this issue okay Eric make sure this is on old business for next meeting please okay 3B economic development committee and the welcome sign in our packet we got visuals from aane in multiple
formats she it's on page eight she provided us welcome to and Andover The Hop river river Corridor welcome to Andover established 1848 and she gave us one welcome to and over established 1848 with the bridge so and then one with a special welcome text does anybody have any issues with any of these I know we've talked about the bridge before and now Diane has brought into it a color issue anybody have any issues how do do this yeah we talked so last month we we asked Elaine to come back with us with a different font so I think that's that's addressed in this and removing the covered bridge I think option I don't know if somebody can share their screens or if we want to keep going through with what we have in the packet but number two has it's just a clean font it's not oh here we go thank you is that the one you want SC just a little I think that's the one yeah yep that one so that one it's it just it looks clean the it's not hard to read because of the font the script is better or or taken off rather and I was I've been driving around and kind of noticing what other towns have been doing so most areas don't have any any logo or branding on it because they just the purpose of the sign is to welcome the person to the town and and you want to
make sure that that's a clear message so I think this one does that with the font fixed and taking the covered bridge off and my thoughts on what Diane shared AES their brand is is a is red white and black so that's why their sign is you know kind of matches that and I think the thinking with this green goes along with what the website looks like so when we were creating the website with Civic we went with green because it's kind of like a fresh new look to it so I think this would go with I mean I
would love to have millions of dollars to Rebrand the town and make sure that all the signs match and and everything is up to dat but I think this is a process that we will have to think about for future future stuff but I think this is just a a clean design with the green and it goes with our fresh look to our website the red down at the at veterans I'm gonna say it right Diane Veterans Memorial fields that you know that's an older sign and and that was probably what was popular back in the day so maybe in another budget cycle we can update the rest of the signs in town but my my opinion and my thoughts are I like the green it stands out it looks clean and it goes with the website so just just my my thoughts that I'm sharing okay I agree with you on the sign that you chose I do believe that that is the
nicest looking of the sign I like that it's a consistent font with the exception of the established 1848 and then I I too Paula have been looking at other signs and Mansfield actually has their name and a a curly CU kind of design and I think that's something that they use consistently probably through their letterhead and all the rest of their Town documentation but if I was going to vote on one I would vote on that one as well well anyone else the only concern I have around to only concern I have go ahead go ahead an okay I noticed in Colombia in the center of town they have a sign that does not show up well it's large enough but it it was dark colors and the letters didn't show up I think this one will show up pretty well I do like these colors and I like this second sign here this one that's my choice yep it's my choice as well the only concern I do have is it looks like it's wrapped all in composite but then we're doing pressure treated posts cemented in the ground so we need to be aware that the lifetime you I mean those are going to rot eventually and the sign is going to fall over so if we if we're talking a couple hundred dollars more to go with something that's a little bit more has
more longevity to it than pressure treated wood I'd be open to it when we do the installation and that's pretty much my only criticism of the sign okay I Echo what Jeff Marie just said it's gonna R it's gonna rot and it's gonna fall over and probably good sign yep good sign but we should probably do better on the post okay let's you can let's make a recommendation to Elane related to this sign so Eric or follow when Elaine calls please let her know about the sign let her know about the concerns about the posts and what's installed in the ground and then one last thing because of where it's located it might help if the letters are in some type of reflective material because it will not be well we I guess we've talked about potentially having to be some kind of solar lighting to the sign but I don't think that's in the budget here so can I can I ask Eric Eric can you scroll up I think this might help with the so look at this sign what what do you think the material is on the bottom there it it looks like it's just some something on the outside some tuo or P doesn't say huh so would that be helpful with having it not fall over or we're not sure with the material you're gonna in I would just do hollow PVC
squares 4x4 Square posts and just fill them with rebar and cement and then that way you've got a rot proof base so down the road if you ever have to change a sign that that base is going to be there for hundreds of years okay there's another way to do it it's G to add by $100 to the cost okay so we're I'm going to talk to Elaine about reflective letters and then making sure the bottom of the posts are are rot proof okay cement yeah do we need to check with Connecticut DOT if anything reflective on the highway or off the know highway signs are reflective I just don't know what putting a sign up with a reflective material on it would have any ramifications isn't the new sign at the end over Plaza reflective no okay Collective white vinyl sorry okay white plastic does anybody want to further discuss the sign no we're almost there all right right let's go let's move on to item three board and commission presentations we've already done are you making a motion to approve that sure I'll make a motion to approve the the welcome to and over sign with the same font is established in 1848 with improved footings to provide for longer term stability to the sign that will be my motion what about what about addressing the reflective and and the price well she already has that in her budget so she has money in the budget to do this this year whether she chooses to use reflective lettering whether we choose to use reflective lettering or
not will depend upon a couple things so if you want me to put that in so so I make a motion to approve the welcome to Andover sign using the same font with the established in 1848 with improved footings and the possibility of using reflective lettering on the sign if it conforms with do Reg ulations I'll suck in that okay any further discussions oh okay I'm sorry I'm gonna have to make an amendment that it's a green sign with gold lettering okay and Jeff will you still accept that green green sign gold lettering yes I will okay all right further discussion all right all those in favor I hi item four appointments Eric there are no appointments okay item five resignations so there are three resignations that I'm aware of sorry they came too late to make your packet Kathy pazi has resigned from the old over burial ground committee and the EDC and I believe Mike pazi has resigned from the Conservation Commission but he's continuing to run cart in the short term until his replacement is train and that's all the information I have on that okay other than to thank them both for many many many years of service to the town yeah I want to Echo that Mike and Kathy thank you very much for all the time you've put into those three groups we still look forward to seeing you around quite often right right well we're still on some committees we haven't we haven't ended all of our relationship with our wonderful town and anyway I have to see Eric from time to time so he doesn't forget me and thank you for everything you guys have
done thanks thank you oh thank you yeah okay anything else Eric on resignations or just those three just those three that I know of all right let's move on to item six the Town Administrator report okay we got a lot of the agenda so I'm going to keep this kind of short it was a busy month for me the budget is off of your plate and onto the board of Finance the first meeting for Board of Finance starts in two days first budget meeting so I'm looking forward to that so we got the submitted the grant for the lsip application for the route 316 connectivity project that is around $2.9 million Grant if we get it construction is 100% funded through the lsip program which is one of the reasons why I really wanted that grant grant application I also submitted today a Grant application for the EP Rec Trails program for what we talked about which is the second half of that as a loop trail that would go back through town
property I think the chances of getting that is fairly low but we had just simply because you know they tend to get seven to 10 times as many applications as they have funding available so that's a really competitive Grant application so it that's a long shot for us but it's worth pursuing and we're just asking for the design money we have the root estab we know where the route will be but it would take a fair bit of design and Engineering to get up the slope so that's what that is for we do have one RFP that closed a week ago which is for inspection services for the federal local bridge program for Bunker Hill Bridge we got nine applications to that the review pool for this is kind of dictated by do so it's not really necessarily in our hands it looks like the Review Committee will be Mark Burns who's the principal engineer for do for that program Ed czzle representing the town myself representing the town Town engineer Todd Penny he's not the town's not andover's engineer but he's centries and that's it so that will be the the Review Committee for that I had wanted to put our town engineer from Nathan Jacobson on but the dot decided that that was a conflict since they also apply through the federal local bridge program so they didn't want their
engineer reviewing one set of inspections while their company performs inspections for other people so that's where where that went so I talked about this briefly the other day or last month but the we had been working on for quite a while a new arrangement for animal control services for Town going into a three-way partnership between Andover Hein and Colombia that's kind of Fallen apart so we will resign a contract with mid and continue or not mid neok with nikog to provide animal control services for the town so not ideal but it's still a functional relationship so no problems with that the committee and Scott could probably talk to this better that's reviewing the specifications on what they want both
for the playground and the pickle ball courts is still meeting so that's exciting but that will need to go to town meeting again coming up fairly soon we did order the poop dispensers and we have them in for the ball field we're still waiting on the signage the additional signage to commit hopefully we'll have that fairly quickly and then there is a we started to get some significant erosion on one of the smaller streams that runs that Bunker Hill Road is on not the main not the Hop rer one but one of the smaller culs so Public Works is going to have some repair work to do there when the water goes down a little bit it's not we're catching it early enough that there's no real significant damage but we want to be careful with that location because that is a location that is a covert that we know is is you know not in the best shape so that is it I put in the packet a a schematic which shows both the proposed route for the mob theuse Trail down Hein Road and Cider Mill as well as the proposed hop river trail trail head and path through
the woods so you have both of those in your packet to talk about and that's basically I want to say unless you have specific questions for me you you noted one your notes I'm not sure which one it was that the town engineer was speaking to the do to renew access on hutchon road so we are one of the issues you know that you're well aware of is the Culver on Hutchinson Road is that's been in kind of failure mode for a while and that's an expensive CT to to to replace today that's a 1.2 million or so project so what we've been discussing because the town land borders on the other side of the river on Hutchinson Road Hutchinson Road essentially goes all the way up to Route Six the concept of putting back in a another access point on the other side of Hutchinson Road and therefore we could just abandon in the bridge over Hutchinson Road and the only real people that would be affected is there's one house there's the buddist monastery and then there's the farm access to the Post Farm but they would just all enter from the other side as opposed to that side so that's kind of what we're looking at as a cost savings measure you know and trying to keep our you know so we don't use essentially a a state local bridge program dollars and then you know six or 700,000 Town dollars to fix that we think we can do it cheaper by doing that I just I wanted to note that there the farm equipment is very big equipment needs to get onto that farm yep Eric in your report for the community Senior Center you said
talk about this verbally do you have anything any updates or anything I know there was a walkth through but anything that you want to share sure and both Scott and Jeff can can chime in you know there the site contractor is starting major excavation work tomorrow so like in the next couple days we're going to start moving gravel or they're going to start moving gravel from our pit we'll we'll load them and they'll they'll start doing the fill for that location they got to strip the top soil first move the fence line back a little bit but they're getting ready to do the major excavation portion of that so we kind of worked out scheduling we all had a kind of a meeting of the minds of who's doing what and when so I think we're we're in reasonable shape there and then we did a walkth through of the
building you know we still I gave them the punch list that I had of things that still needed to be corrected before insulation the only thing of that that's really of note that we are going to have to figure out how to do is there are bath fans going in in the basement in the two B bathrooms even though we're not finishing off the the basement the ventilation was supposed to go in before the ceilings went on and that's a little problematic based on how that spot is framed so I've gone back to Leading Edge with a proposal about how I think it could be done and we're going to talk to the the HVAC contractor on site tomorrow because they really hadn't kind of they had bought the the fans for it but the fans they bought don't actually fit in the Bays because the buildings frame 12 Ines on Center so we got to rethink that a little bit but that's underway you know they're they're trying to push with the hope of of by the end of this week starting on the insulation work but they have a lot of things they got to get done between now and then before that can happen but you know that's where they're they're shooting for hey Eric you have a picture on a page 17 of a culvert it's at the bottom of your report underneath the what is that so that's the Culvert I just talked about that is on Bunker Hill Road that's a like a double 48 inch Culvert and what you're looking at is the the embankment has eroded away a lot so you're you're into like the old mortared structure and it's starting to undermine the wing wall so Jay is working with
the wetlands Commission on that just to make sure that we have a solution that they're going to be happy with but basically what they're going to do is in right in the water at the base of that they're going to plunk in a couple of really large you know like man-sized ballast rocks and then recreate that bank and reinforce that bank so they don't have further arach that's the plan at this point okay and then do you have an update on the the state work being done on Boston Hill I do the only real update I
have is they asked for you know about a five day extension because there were a couple days where the water levels were too high for them to work in that area so as far as I know that's pushed the completion dates pushed back about five days pushed back till April 10th must be the 27th 27 yeah it's it's I mean they were supposed to be finished by the end of March so I think they're probably looking at you know very first maybe week in April like that I actually have it written down I'm just not I just don't have it in front of me okay the engineer sent me something the other day can we can we get a post out there with an update if that hasn't happened yet please sure thank you anybody else have any other questions of Eric yeah I just have a quick one for you Eric you were talking about these Trail grants and a loop trail the one you're talking about is the one from the rail trail all the way back to the school correct or town hall correct okay I sound like there was two different grants out there I just want to make sure we were just talking about one single Grant and that this was the trail that you had in the packet no we are talking about two different grants okay what's this what's the separate Grant because this is this is the first I've heard about it okay I've mentioned this at at multiple Board of Selectmen meetings that our approach was to because they're they're essentially neither Grant application can fund the other Trail
like for instance if you look at here I'll show my screen so if you look at the Green Path the Green Path is the low low zip application that is a grant that we're we stand a really good chance of getting the fallback position is to run a trail through the woods there is a lot of you know downside to that there's some upside but a lot of downside to doing that so the green trail is a lsip application that's one completely separate entity but do or actually kog said that they were more favorable of Trail connection applications they formed a loop trail so we solved that by applying for both grants simultaneously for different routes but this one the one in red were only applying for design money we're not applying to build it we're just applying to produce a final design so that it could be built at sometime later does that make sense yeah it makes sense no we just I just thought we were talking about separate projects instead of this this one project so no it's makes sense to me now well there are actually two completely separate projects with two completely separate funding sources that it's but it's intended to be one Loop that's the intention if we ever got money for both of them and we could build them it would be a loop but okay that's why I was that's where I was hung up when you were talking about Loop and I didn't know what we were talking about when we said
Loop so right that's what hung me up a little bit so okay I'm good okay should have been more clear on that okay anything else for Eric all right Eric thank you let's move on to item seven old business 7A Joshua's trust discussion okay so I will lead off this one at the last meeting you asked us to go back and get kind of harder numbers you asked as us to come back and do two things one reach out to Mr Fabian and make sure that we had addressed his concerns with the project remember he was the abutter that had some issues or some questions to the board at a previous meeting and the second thing was understand what the cost basis would be to complete a parking area so I asked Jay to put together essentially two proposals the first would be a kaj Mahal approach if we did everything that he would like to do as part of this you know and then the second thing would be a more limited fully functional parking area with a good gravel base but you know disposing of material on site as opposed to chipping it all and trucking it all offsite not taking down as many trees still visible from the road but not to the same level of finish so that is what
was done and both of those were in your packet and so I think that we've satisi and then at the same time Joshua's trust has agreed to help the town with the clearing of all the junk that's on the town's property all the tires you know in the metal and all the the material that was deposited there by the people we got the property from originally and do all the markouts of boundaries of the Town property which is good because we don't really have the capability to do that themselves so that's kind of where we're at I would suggest that probably John henin the president excuse me can I speak about the Joshua Trail my name is Sher shot and the trailer buts me and I have serious concerns with safety and privacy and it's the all the the traffic I saw go through there came in entered on my property line not where you have it ribboned off then when you cross over it it people are up on the back Ridge of my house you bought that corner of the prop the state bought that corner
of the property but people are standing and talking and having conversations and point in my backyard and I live alone I'm a widow and I don't feel safe and and then my neighbor across the street she has to have a light left on at night because her car gets broken into so we're gonna have litter and then and then you only want people who walk what about the people who are mountain bikers or or ride dirt bikes you know who who litters the people who walk but I I want that I am I I am not happy where it's the ribbons are located especially in the back of my property because I don't need people staying in
the top and having conversations and hanging out and looking at in in my backyard okay Sherry thank you very much I know that we have spoken to some of your neighbors who participated in the survey previously and so what we'll end up doing is we'll end up trying to I would ask Joshua trust folks maybe get with Sher after this I know this more work but it would be beneficial to everybody if we understood what is being proposed but it is a and how are you gonna buffer the traffic Sherry that's why I asked you during public speak to speak during meetings you're not it's only supposed to be Board of Selectmen and people Sor that are requested to participate and now we appreciate you
letting us know we do but you should have spoken during public speak just to let you know in the future so what we need to do as a group and with Joshua trust in the people from the town is is is work with Sherry to get her to understand exactly what's being proposed and understand what we're we attempting to do with that property and see if we can satisfy some of her concerns that she's expressed to us today so I would ask John and did did you sit there and speak with Mr Fabian and have discussions with Mr Fabian about yes so I wanted to I wanted to discuss a few things we we met with Mr Fabian twice that's Bill Penn who's on the line who will be the steward for this property and I met with him twice he has he had expressed some of the same kinds of concerns that Sher had and worked with him to pull that trail 30 or 40 feet away from his property line and he's very pleased with the new location he's indicated he's excited about using the trail himself so I think he wrote a letter of something in your packet I would consider him at this point a supporter of what we're doing out there I
wanted to talk very briefly about what Joshua's trust can is offering the town because since I spoke last in January I brought this up with the board of Joshua's trust and Joshua's trust has agreed to pay the first $8,000 of the parking lot which is the amount essentially that Eric described as the as the basic model of the parking lot so of course the town can build whatever kind of parking lot they want but we we are willing to ba to pay that first $8,000 in addition we will provide a steward that's going to be and that's as Bill Penn and over resident bill will be responsible for maintaining the trail he's also going to make periodic visits to the parking lot to make sure there's no litter we don't have big problems with litter on our properties we just don't and when we do we we take care of it even less problem with
litter out out on the property itself Eric mentioned that we're going to be marking the boundaries we've already marked the boundary between the town and the Joshua's trust property we will also be marking the bound of the of the back Lots on wheeling Road so that that will be much more clear than it's been Eric mentioned that we'll provide a volunteer Force to help the town pick up the debris that's on Town property and then all the the final thing that we'll provide you with is and we would work with the town on this on providing signage and a his kiosk at the trail head and one very brief item that I would just mentioned that addressed sher's comments a minute ago the the folks have walked up the property line into the property because currently there's no there's not good access where the trail is going to be it's it's terribly overgrown we have worked to pull the trail away from if if I understand the the and I think I know the property she's talking about we've
worked to pull the trail away so there's not significant sight line into the backyard of that property from the trail itself and we would be willing to look look at that again with her to see if there's any more modifications that could be made good appreciate that if we can can we sit there and maybe recommend that John you and Mr Penn get together with Sherry at the property and discuss it if Sherry that would be acceptable to you because we would like all the stakeholders to to be satisfied with this and you know do the best possible job we can to make this agreeable to everybody that lives in that area so if that's possible for the two of you and then we can sit there and and vote on this next month
as to where we need to go if that's acceptable to everybody all right yeah I'm acceptable to it and after walking it I definitely need have some concerns sure and we just like you to sit there and understand exactly where the Joshua trust group is planning that trail where we've all walked it because you know you've probably seen some of us out there walking the trail just to get an understanding of where it is yeah I've been in my backyard and had someone like you know 50 feet from me looking at me on the edge of my property so not knowing what it is and then having it it's it's disturbing when many times when I heard voices just at top of the ridge of my back property staring and pointing at my at my backyard okay well we and hanging out if it was us Sher we we apologized we didn't mean it that way we were just trying to get a lay of the land and understand what we were doing and what we what could be done with that property because it's a beautiful prop you think it would make sense for you know people's feeling it especially not knowing that you would let people know the
budding property prior to going in and starting walking around and hanging out in my backyard Sherry we we didc I'm just I'm just wondering I'm I'm going to we actually through Josh was trust and I'll sit there and go Eric did we communicate with all the abutters on that property I believe we sent letters to every abutter of that property yeah you sent it to me after I've had traffic in my in my backyard for six months or for months so that's my concern I live alone yeah and Sher Sherry I appreciate your concerns we but we we were respectful of your property and we were sitting there and trying to address this in the best possible way we could as as we were going through and evaluating this so I would I'm just saying if you had strangers coming in near your property and walking around wouldn't you like to know what was going on ahead of time could that be concerning to you as as as as a citizen Jerry absolutely but that's why that's all know but that's why we communicated to you and wanted to get your feedback early on in this process so what I'm gonna request is that we all get together and we we we meet with Sherry individually and sit there and go through where it is where this potential because Sherry there is no Trail currently on that property it's a proposed trail that would I understand that modified to sit there and hopefully make it acceptable to you so what we're going to try to do is get with you to sit there and see where your property
is in relation to the proposed Trail and if we need to make some modifications we will and hopefully we can sit there and make it work for everybody involved but I will tell you Sherry that we did sit there and as a board request that everybody in property owner be communicated with to express their concerns two months ago so and why we appreciate you you coming on to our meeting tonight and and doing it you know I've been feel stigma from this the man the administration in this town so I have not been able to feel safely feel like I can communicate all times so that's part of the reason understood and and what we'll try to do is and and if it's okay with everybody if we can sit there and and Mr Penn especially if you can sit there and being an Andover resident and being the trail administrator if if we can get this moving if you can get with Sherry and U walk the area near her house that
would be appreciated to us and then we'll be able to sit there and address it I understand and I I live right next to the rail trail so I'm used to people going past my property and hearing them and stuff so I understand I can appreciate her concern and John and I will meet with her and look at the trail and hopefully come to come to consensus on the solution all right I appreciate that anybody else on the board have any other issues related to this tonight no well I just think we got to decide if that if the parking lot is going to be feasible for for us to go forward with it well we better understand that we have an area for a trail that is acceptable to everybody and that this board will approve because if I understood it correctly Joshua's trust was willing to front the costs on proposal to which would mean there would be no cost the town potentially on the parking lot correct but there's still a lot of things that missing out of that $88,000 so we have to make sure that's feasible to us that it's acceptable and as the pictures I sent
to you on South River Road of the the lot in centry if we don't do this right we're going to have a mud pit up there I mean especially this time of year there's been cars stuck in that lot down in South River Road because it wasn't done properly and I don't want to have a a muddy mess up there just because we want to save $8,000 okay understood and so Eric just so we understand the parking lot that the town crew built on Lake Road is closer to which proposal that is closer to proposal number two closer to proposal number two okay that was about 10,000 just in materials okay but this is a much smaller parking lot but the construction methods that you would use or the town crew would use to build the parking lot you know I mean listen the lak road parking area is gorgeous I mean honestly drive by it every day it's it's really nice it's well used it's it's seems to be easy to maintain if this parking area that's on this property was similar to that I think we would all probably have to agree that that would be acceptable to us so yeah the only issue there's just a couple issues I have is just like the piling the piling the brush basically we're just gonna have a big brush pile there instead of chipping it there's just some other issue there's some other things
there that we should probably be aware of before we move ahead to see if we want to change that or not do we should we chip it or we just going to have a big pile of brush there and for the neighbors to look at that's another thing so okay we may clean up one mess but then we're going to create another correct and so I don't disagree I don't disagree with that I mean there's some things in the in Jay's proposal that I had questions with outright anyway but I do think those questions can be asked of Eric and of Jay in the interm we need to assuage Sherry's concerns related to the trail
to get back to where we had all said that we're not all of us but we were trying to make sure that all the neighbors and all of the Butters were were comfortable with what we were attempting to do so so are you saying we're [Music] GNA you want to put this off until next month and talk about it again yes I do until we talked to Jerry correct anybody else have a problem with that no I mean I was gonna say for the $8,000 one Jeff you know if they put fabric down the boxed it out and put
fabric down and then put the material on you have a much better base and you wouldn't get mud like Jeff Murray suggesting that one on South River Road is a big mess drain better if you put fabric in then you'd keep it it would it keeps the material that you're putting in away from the material that the base material so you would have you know six inches of good material that would drain okay well we we can get past that if we can all agree upon where the trail would would how the trail would be laid out and then we can get to the parking area because you know I'll speak on behalf of myself in the town we appreciate Cher's trust all the work that you guys have done related to this and we appreciate the the offer of funding the first $8,000 on the parking lot it is appreciated so but let's let's get past the the current issue that we're dealing with and let's make sure that all of the abutters are
as comfortable as they can be possibly made so that we can sit there and all move forward in the initial stages of this hand inand if possible okay all right see you next month all right thank you very much and Sherry we will sit there and be reaching out to you to sit there and walk the property with you and the trail with you so you understand exactly what the thought is related to this all right thank you no problem okay let's move on to item seven staff discussion on affordable housing with Tom Tom planner nothing needed on this so I'm just going to give you a five-second update I pulled the list of all the town properties and I pulled the list of all the properties that abut the route six that are greater than five acres and I gave that to the town planner to review as we already alluded to the only real properties that the town currently owns that would be amendable for housing discussion is the property that the town fall in school this area right here Municipal complex and then the one behind the transfer station so the rest of the the properties are basically unsuitable due to location or size or lack of access but we'll look at other other properties also and get back to you on that all right thank you 7c Community Center construction update I believe we've already gone through that does Scott or Jeff want to add anything at this time oh Eric went through it pretty good all right 7D discussion of blight and level of involvement I know Eric talked about that but go ahead Eric you got anything to add there I don't really
have anything to add at this point okay a dentist did send us an ordinance draft related to fines it's something that we definitely need to consider and get that at the next town meeting and Dennis I would just sit there and ask if there's any other ordinances when we get to the next town meeting let's vote on ordinances that we need to get in place so that U you know whether it's this one related to zoning fines or fining in general but let's sit there and also think of any of the other ordinances that the town should really have in place that we don't very good Jeff I am looking over the ordinances to see ones that I would recommend to add fines and penalties to so so we could use our current Origins that allows us to site site and find people who violate our ordinances there would be fines attached to them and it would make it more meaningful and hopefully more likely that we'll be able to you know keep people away from violating in in the long run and we'll have less to do in that regard all right that would be appreciated thank you s hendy road buddist Road impacts Eric is there
anything to update us on that so we did when I say we I mean Jim hsy sent a letter to them again stating hey you know you're you're basically a religious institution here you need to go through and file the the proper applications they've indicated that they will have an application pending within the next two weeks so as part of that application process we should be able to address any ongoing issues with parking and other things that occur on that location all right that' be appreciated thank you 7f stiff account update I know you provided us some information in the packet related to that is there anything you want to discuss related to that no we're still successfully making a fair bit of Interest off the stiff account so that's going well we're just basically maintaining the minimum balance we have to pay our bills locally and leaving the rest in the stiff account okay all right thank you excellent work 7g Firehouse meeting April 14 1:30 PM date sorry my connection is not great did you ask me something I did I was asking you about the fire department scheduled meeting yep the 14th is confirmed I believe we said yep we said April 14th at 1:30 at the firehouse that's confirmed okay all right any other questions related to that meeting okay all right thank you very much Paul put that on the calendar okay item eight new business by 8A the discussion of the annual audit Eric are you you good with it where you at so we sent I sent a copy
to the board of Selectmen and board of Finance of the draft audit I don't have any real issues with it we're still awaiting a corrective action plan from the School finance office to address the issues that occur between the town and the school other than that I'm ready to file but I you know I think both the board of selectman and board of Finance you know if you have any objections to it I will raise them with the auditor but other than that after the the board of Finance meeting in a couple of days I would like to submit that okay anybody have any other questions related to that okay 8B a discussion on fire department heavy rescue sale so I'll give you this verbally the fire chief and bard of fire Commissioners have both asked me whether the town would allow them to sell the heavy rescue prior to getting the replacement Squad vehicle because he said basically if they wait the company that they're buying the squad vehicle from will give them like $20,000 for both vehicles in trade in and he feels it's a lot smarter to take the time now and try to broker it and try to sell it and they'll be able to cover themselves with the light rescue temporarily long enough to get the squad and since they already have a tanker and one engine they'll just rely on Mutual aid for their second engine in the meantime so but that requires you know you would have to as a board agree to in motion to allow them to to consider offers or to try to sell it ahead of time okay has the Fire Commission approved that yes okay does anyone else on the board
have any issues related to that with their attempt to sell it okay is there anything that you want us to do related to that issue Eric would make sense for you to make a motion to allow the fire department to get offers and to broker the sale of the heavy rescue vehicle okay I'll make a motion that we allow the Fire Commission to seek offers on the Department's heavy rescue vehicle for sale on second all right any further questions on that any issues discussion all those in favor I I I okay 8C update on the Department of Public Works equipment projections yeah so you had asked and Jay sent you all a spreadsheet and the whole spreadsheet I didn't put in there but I a spreadsheet which had the updated information you would asked for a summary of the projections for vehicles going forward and that's been
provided to you and for finance and CIP okay so in just the so on page 25 of our packet there's a a 15-year capital equipment cost and a 16-year Capital Equipment cost can you tell us what the difference is sure so if you look at the first one the first one you're looking at was the plan that we originally produced in 2018 and the lower one is the plan as of today you know updated with six years six years later and how that looks okay and isn't there an issue what what is the issue currently with the Department of Public Works just refresh my memory if we chose to do what Jay was requesting we would give him authorization to buy a current vehicle now is that correct is that required or we done we haven't done that right we haven't that's still that when we hold the public meeting that will be one of the items presuming the board of Finance goes along with it and that's on their agenda for for two days from now that it would because it's something that we would be financing that requires a public meeting approval for the public would have to weigh in and agree to finance the roadside mower okay
so the difference between the prior equipment analysis and the current one is an additional 9,000 or $8,000 of annual expenses so yes in in in layman's terms when we laid it out in 2018 we laid out a 15-year plan to bring all of Public Works up to Modern standards we're really far along in that and we've made major improvements to that the advantage of that is our rate of buying can slow down considerably for what it was because the majority of the really old stuff is off the books and if we get the trailer and we replace the roadside mower you know we're in Fairly good shape and now we're just in the replacing things on their normal life schedule as opposed to trying to bring everything up to the modern era because it's all old if that makes sense it does so you're telling us we've done a good job yeah excellent good job now we just need to get the next thing approved all right is anyone have any questions related to the Department of Public Works equipment [Music] projections okay 8D review the significant taxpayer list I did send you I did not put this in the packet but I sent it to you SE separately because you had asked me to provide that information so as soon as I had that I sent that to the board to review I don't know where you want to go with it or whether you want to share that publicly or what you want to do with that oh I do want to share it publicly absolutely let's put it on our agenda for our next meeting so we
can ask some questions related to that information that you provided us so we can maybe get a little bit more detail as to the exact nature of those properties and especially the commercial property so everybody understands them okay anyone have any issues with that right now we can discuss it Eric toward our next meeting but does any of the other members have any other issues related to the list that we have previously received or anything that they want to look at moving forward related to that okay so do you then want the assessor on or because I I'm not going to be the guy that can answer all the property questions so if you want to ask those types of questions my suggestion would be we ask Mr chaponis to to be on the meeting I don't necessarily know that our questions are going to be why was something assessed at one value versus another and if they are they should be asked separately to the assessor okay I think it would be helpful for us all to understand that there's certain commercial properties in town and this
is how much they pay and so that the residents of our town can understand that commercial development might be beneficial to our community if at all possible because of the taxes it does pay and I think it's also pretty good for us to understand what and how some of the residents in town are taxed that are on the upper end of that list okay okay let's let's move on to 8e a discussion of extensive tree trimming on burnup Brook Road so Jeff or ex sorry jay asked me to start this discussion with you probably the the biggest single issue that we have right now in terms of extensive tree trimming would be burnap Brook Road but the the issue with burnap and there's a lot of stuff we have to take down but there's also an awful lot of stuff that's just closer to the road in the road surface than we would like his concern is that if he takes down everything he thinks he would he would want to take down it will change the character of the road and make it a lot more open it is now so before he starts proposing that and starts working that into the schedule he wanted the board of
Selectmen to take a look at it and see what you all think so that he's not basically he doesn't want to hang himself out to dry if he cuts a whole bunch of stuff on fnap Brook and then the residents are pissed or the board of selectman pisted him so that's that's his concern about okay Scott knowing your expertise in in trees is it possible for you to get with Jay and look at what his thought is on on burnap Brook Road right did does did he come up with a cost number yet no but I mean given the other roads that we've done we certainly could fit it into next year's you know
allotment of Monies right I mean the question is more an aesthetic question than it is a cost qu question correct correct okay a lot of the trees on that road the butts of the trees are growing almost next to the asphalt they're growing you know so close to the road that they they do over Story the whole road yeah okay so again Scott I'll ask you the same question do you think you have time to sit with Jay to look at it from an his St I will I'll meet with him yeah okay does anyone else on the board of Select and I know an you have a question and we'll get to it one second but does anybody have a problem with Scott doing that on our
behalf okay Ann what do you got I'm just curious I drove down that street and I can see how there's a lot of trees close to the road how far in is the town right of way so that they would be trimming or are they going to cut beyond the right of way is it just in the right of way no we're not cutting beyond the right away because we need homeowner position permission to do that anyway and as a general rule we don't cut off the towns right away if can unless there's some you know dire catastrophic reason to do it we're okay all we're talking about is within the RightWay how far in does the RightWay go or how's that measured again so as an approximation from the center line of the road going about 25t in either side is Town's right away the town generally has a 50 foot right away we would have to look at the actual Road itself to figure out exactly what it is because that's not true everywhere but generally speaking we own a 50 foot RightWay in town roads so that normally extends in 10 feet so normally that's at least 10 generally speaking it's about 12 feet in off the edge of pavement is is town
you know is Town property town right there's quite a bit of that road Jeff that has walls on it so those would be noted okay whatever mapping there is all right if we can sit there and Scott if you can sit there and talk to Jay and then come back at the next meeting and let us know that you know if you agree or disagree with what he's looking at doing that would be helpful to us so appreciate that all right let's move on to item nine approval of a minute meetings for February 21st and February 26 somebody want to make a motion I don't have a I don't have a great connection here but I will try I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes of the February 20 1 2024 special meeting and the February 20 actually should we do them separately if anybody has any changes sure go ahead
we'll do them separately all right I'll second it right further discussion all those in favor I I I I make a motion to to approve the meeting minutes of the February 26 2024 special budget meeting second okay Ann seconded that first so we'll give it to an all those in favor I I I okay item 10 the treasurers report and the finance that includes finance department Eric one one quick question before we go back to that if you don't want John chaponis on that conversation do you want me to show the screen showing the properties that you asked for and we could review it now so we don't have to put it off till next meeting no it's not critical that it's done tonight it's something is more in a general sense that we should all be aware of and understanding how you know we generate money especially from commercial properties and how much that is how much that raises for the town and what we potentially can do moving forward so
we're on item 10 the treasurers report Eric the information provided there wasn't anything specific from my end and I'll start but on the revenue side we have not received the second component of the the educational ECS funding yeah I don't we don't get a lot of that until very late in the year so yeah I would assume we have not gotten that yet and I haven't seen it come through on the list of requisitions o okay anyone have any other questions related to the expense section the town budget actual budget through okay so contingency just for one last thing contingency because we've talked about it there's currently $445,000 remaining in contingency Eric correct okay all right any questions on Tech register that was provided to us no I did want to ask about the the interim balances by class so this is basically going by fund so [Music] right so the equipment fund relates to town equipment and that's what's left is $25,000 [Music] well 100 I'm sorry 119 my bad I Wasing yeah okay I was gonna correct and then currently in tree
removal we have $44,000 that's you know anticipated on being spent between now and well we have we have a lot less of that we just haven't got the bills in we've had tenant working a lot the last month or so so so I would say we've spent well more than half of that in the last month it's just not we don't have the bills yet so it's not reflected here but tenant is actively working in the town we are collaborating with ever Sports again working down our our project okay does anyone have any other questions related any of those items okay Eric how many of these funds would you like to get off of our books and move some other place the vast majority of them to be honest we are working on that Cheryl and I are working on that again I mean frankly you know we we've carried the transfer station shed as a liability now for the last three years we need to get just the board of Finance to agree to transfer money from that from either the multi-use building fund or the building maintenance fund that was hearkening back to a project that was done four years ago we just the end of the day we overspent that project total by seven or 8,000 and it's still on books so that one needs to go away you know there there's we've gotten
rid of a lot of the funds but we still have you know some we need to deal with pedestrian bridge fund times Farms Bridge fund yeah so the Times Farm Bridge fund I mean we're going to basically roll that money into to the bridge and covert fund I mean I'm counting on that to get us to the amount of money we actually need to fix the for the the the bridge on lake or the Culver on Lake Street or Lake Road let's let's go through that obviously when you get with Sheryl let's clean up as many of these as we possibly can I mean y some significant dollars and if
we could push them into areas that would be more available and ready to be spent on projects that are important that would be great yep okay let's go on to the tax collector's report any issues related to this report from okay collected $165,000 last month low month not a collection month and Eric did we talk about the uncollected taxes by year and trying to get these balances to sync we have had that discussion and she and I spent a fair bit of time reviewing if you look down in the 2022 column for uncollected taxes by year you'll notice that number has is around 2 million not around 8 million so that should be much closer that should be correct at this point okay it's close six grand I'll take it well but but the problem is is that this report and the the py graph one aren't necessarily made one is made on the first of the month and one is made whenever she happens to print that out so those never match because they're off a few days and when they were created that's part of the issue with that because I I raised that concern myself and got that answer all right any of the other reports in any the assessor's office report anything related to that okay Bill building department 28 total permits issued in the month okay Department of Public Works anybody have any questions related to that documentation information provided okay and so that extends out and the library report that was provided to us the regist voters they Pro processed 65 voters in
town for February okay senior Transportation provided an addition of probably close to 100 trips and they took a ful picture of the senior drivers thank you very much Kathy actually I took that picture but you took that picture y you Prov they all look good in there hand over senior Transportation uniforms I got them all together in one spot so I took a picture all right and how how are the new vehicles going good so we as of today got a bunch of paperwork back from the state which is all the forms we have to fill out when we actually get the vehicle to commission it you know
inspection report exterior inspection interior inspection all that kind of stuff as far as I understand we're looking at the middle of April to actually take delivery of the vehicle per the the coach manufacturer who's building okay and then how about the new the small SUV working well problem that's working great you know going fine everybody seems happy with it nice comfortable vehicle to drive easy access the seniors aren't are satisfied with it no problems yep yep all right correspondence we had some information from the fuels fuel assistance fund donation yeah so I just wanted to publicly thank the the church in Colombia they're one of a couple different Civic organizations that donate money to the Andover fuel bank as you probably may or may not know we don't actually our fuel Reserve our emergency fuel Reserve we don't that's not funded via taxation that's funded through donations so and we had recently pretty well run out the monies that are in the fund so now we're nice and solvent again if we have to provide emergency fuel assistance for a resident and just so that you know the way this program works is for us to give them fuel they have to basically be out of
fuel number one and they have to have already done the paperwork to to get fuel through the access agency and then we just basically Supply we keep them going long enough for them to get through the paperwork and get on the state fuel assistance program it's kind of a bridge to keep people from you know freezing until they can qualify for State assistance and that's a program that Roberta runs okay very nice of St Columba that is greatly appreciated thank you very much yep right anything else related to any of the departmental reports or correspondence by any of the other members okay all right let's move on to public speak we'll start with Diane Grenier hello I just wanted to comment again on the sign you talked about the reflect letters I was single-handedly in charge of getting the big sign for the veterans Monument Park I did a whole lot of research on that and one of the things was the go leafing and it's not a matter of cost it's how reflective it is it's awful take a look in in Hein they've got a lot of gold leaf St Maurice's Church St George's and at night with the headlights on the cars you can't read it is so reflective you can't read the letters on a bright sunshiny day again it's way too reflective so you might want to take a look at that before you decide go go out at night time and take a look at that
all right thank you very much that was it thank you very much it's always very informative okay thank you Joanne Ebert just reiterating my point hoping to see a public meeting in the next few weeks it'll just be so helpful to get community input with you know some of the ideas that are out there and you know the big expensive items that are coming before all the boards that have to make decisions on things you know we love to have the public input and yeah just looking forward to having that soon thank you all right thank you very much am I missing anyone else on at the very end Dennis O'Brien if you'd like like to participate on both sides of public speak you're more than welcome wow silence come on Dennis all right [Music] that would be it for public speak and
now I'm make a motion that we move into executive session to discuss and then how would I how would you want me to phrase it Eric and [Music] I would just say employee matters employee matters I'll make a motion that we move to Executive session to discuss employee matters a second all right all those in favor I I okay and who are you inviting into executive session we're going to invite Eric Anderson and attorney Dennis O'Brien into executive session okay