Give the public Thank you, Eric. Eric, can you change a phone numbers names or put a name on the phone number?
Yeah, I think so. Hang on a sec.
That would be great. 6988. That's you, Carol.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you. Okay. Okay. I am going to call to order the Town of Andover Board of Select Bin Reg for Monday, October 6, 2025 at 6:01 p.m. And our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. the second order of business is public speak and I'll get started with Kathy Plausy.
good evening. I am asking I deferred my public speak to Eric Anderson when he does his presentation.
Okay, he got it. Haley Proto.
Nothing at this time. Thank you.
All right. Louise Goodwin,
I'm all set. Thank you.
Diane Grer,
I am all set also. Thank you very much.
All right. Alicia,
I'm all set. Thank you.
Tess Grass,
I am all set, sir. Thank you.
Marcy,
no, thank you. Kimberly Persant,
Elsa, thank you.
Okay, so did I miss anyone? Okay, since I didn't miss anyone, if everybody that's not a member of the board would mute, that would be great, and we'll get going. item three, additions and changes to the agenda. Does anyone board want to add or delete something that's on the agenda? I know that we need to add an executive session related to item 9C. So, I'd like to make a recommendation that we had an executive session at the end of our meeting to discuss 9C public works supervisor position and contract. Well, that is on there. That's item 14.
Did I miss it?
My bad. I'm
Okay,
Dane.
All right. Then nothing needs to be added. Nothing needs to be deleted. Is that accurate? Go ahead. So I I would like to see one thing added and that is item 9H which is a board of fire commissioners request to trade in the old ambulance when it gets replaced later this month by a new ambulance.
we'll make that nine I if you don't mind because we have an H on the agenda.
Same.
Oops. Okay. Yep. Jeff Murray is having some trouble logging in, so we're going to hold off for a second on on this. so I'm going to call it nine I fire commission fire commission request to trade in ambulance. Is that accurate? that is and I'll give you the meat of it in my administrator's report, but you should keep a separate agenda item because the board would want to vote on that one way or the other.
All right. So, I'm going to make a motion. did we get Jeff back?
okay.
He's still listed, but Jeff, can you hear us? I don't see him on my list. Snider.
No, he just dropped. No, he's on my No, no, I dropped off again. All right. If If no one my Well, we should wait and see if he wants to add something. Okay, Jeff is joining again. Hopefully this time it works.
Okay, Jeff, let us know when you're you can hear us and you can speak. Eric, are you is there any issue of blocking audio from well, if Jeff, if you can hear us, can you come off of mute and speak?
Can you hear me now? Okay.
Yep.
Yeah. It was something about my PC. It said it was it said the audio was shut off by the by the toast. So, it's working.
Okay. So, we we held off. We are on the point of adding one item. Eric requested to that the fire commission added to add an item. So, I'm going to do you have anything, Jeff, that you want to add or delete?
No, I'm all set.
Okay. So, I'm going to make a motion that we add item 9 I request from the fire commission to trade in current ambulance. I got a second on that.
I'll seconded by Carol Lee. And further discussion? No. we're going to sit there and go through roll call. and creme.
Hi
Carol Lee.
Okay.
Yes. I
Jeff Murray.
Hi.
Scott Person.
Jeff Magcguire. I so five nothing to add. Nine I. Okay. let's get started then. So item four, boards and commission presentations. Eric, do we have anything?
No, we do not.
Okay. Item five, any appointments that need to be perform done this meeting?
No.
Okay. Item six, any resignations?
Nope.
Okay. Item seven, town administrator report.
Okay. let me just close that and get to that. So, I'm going to talk through what I asked to add to the agenda. but you'll need to vote on it on the actual action item. and that is the fire department is looking for permission to trade in its current ambulance when the replacement ambulance arrives next month. the company that's building the ambulance will offer them 21,000 in trade for a 2012 ambulance. the replacement cost of the new ambulance is $334, uh483. that will be purchased by the Andover volunteer fire department and then given to the town essentially, which is what they do with all ambulances. It's paid for by the ambulance billing fund. and but the town owns title and retains purchase or retains the ownership of the ambulance. Therefore, the they need your permission if they're going to trade it in. So, that's that. other than that, do you want me to go through my report? there's not a ton in it.
you know, or do you just want to ask particular questions about things that are in the report since there's I haven't added a lot to the report since I wrote it.
why don't you go through it quickly so that if people want to sit there and ask and they hear you say something, it jogs their mind.
Okay. Sure. Bunker Hill Bridge been working to keep the construction on track and stay on top of the pay and reimbursement schedule for the bridge. there is you know at this point we're basically caught up with the original schedule. So the expectation is that this bridge will be finished this construction season and open before winter, hopefully before snowfall. so that's a good result for the town overall given the delays in the project. In terms of field projects, remember there's two things. We have the EasyIQC project for the athletic field improvements and I know you want to talk about that separately so I won't go over that now. the senior transportation garage if you remember the board authorized me to sign a designon contract with the Gordian Group and Millennium Builders to produce a final design you know to push that project
forward. we have hired a new public works employee. That's George Teemos. He will start on October 13th and we're looking forward to getting that department back up closer to full staff. the Longill Bridgement is still on schedule for next August. had a couple meetings this month with VHB and a guy named Tom Weldon in terms of what what the next steps are with that bridge. so that's that is proceeding well. it was delayed because once they the state accepted the fact that they would put up the traffic light at they did that very late in the process. So, it wasn't part of the original bid package. So, they're revising that now with the intent that that bid would go out in November for the actual construction company. On October 28th is going to be the meeting where the companies the RFP went out a while ago. we delayed the reviewing of the RFP for construction administration services. so we should have all the companies in here on October 28th to evaluate the request for quotes from those and go from there. So that is progressing. Town hall building overall is in pretty good shape. in the packet there are some additional proposals to finish some electrical work both in the community center and elsewhere but that's those are separate line items so we'll deal with them separately. everything else is running fairly smoothly as a town. we seem to have had most of the complaints about dirt bikes in town tamped down. So, and unfortunately that I think is in part related to
the death of one of the youths that was involved in that which is unfortunate. So, public works, I know we're going to discuss the potential contract later on, so I will cover that. And that's basically it. I've given the board of selectmen and the board of finance a series of the planning documents. prior to the meeting on October 15th, the tri board meeting. So you have basically a projects document, a grants document, and then the building and grounds update, which I also submitted to CIP for review at their next meeting. so that's basically it unless you have other questions for me.
Anyone have any questions for Eric related to the town administrator's report? The only question I have is you said George was starting on October 13th. Is that a public works holiday?
Oops. He's starting on the 14th. You're right.
Okay. Just just wanted to double check on that, Eric. Thanks.
Yeah, totally forgot that was an actual holiday. I'm just trying to see, Eric, where the documents that you have in the packet fit into what we're talking about. So, on page seven, after your report or after the new business page. we have the Lenco quotes. Where are they going to fit here so I know where to come back to them?
Right. So, give me a couple seconds. I just have too many things open at the moment.
Okay. So, they're not they're new business. Quote for installation of sub panel and the quote for installation of lights in Andover Public Library. Yes, that's correct. Those should be new business items.
All right, so we'll move on to eight which is old business 8A the Bunker Hill Bridge update and Eric, you gave us that. So that's on track to finish as close to the original finish date as we possibly can get it.
Correct. any problems with any of the pylon the testing that was brought up in previous meeting?
No, we're all the testing results subsequent to that have been good
and we accepted their explanation for the testing data that they received.
Okay. 8B Andover's finest update. Carol, I'll ask you where are we at with that? Are we are we satisfied that we're going to start moving forward with that? I sent over the document that you requested to Eric the day after our meeting. So, I'm not sure if that was posted online along with the forms for people to start nominating. I'm sorry I didn't check
the website to see if it out there. Eric, can you verify if if it was posted and let's make sure that we get a spot on one of the front pages so that we can at least have it visible to the residents.
Okay, Carol, you'll probably need to resend it to me because I don't I don't recall having seen it, which is not to say you didn't send it. but send it to me again and
Okay, I'll send it right after the meeting is over.
Okay. Sorry about that.
All right. 8C, the status of the veteran field improvement. so there were a series of questions raised about that. I don't know whether you want to go into that now. We certainly can't. so in the intervening time I did set up a meeting with DEC which is Department of Economic and Community Development and I gave them the revised spending proposal. So what's happening now is the two different grants administrators from DEC, one that covers the steep program and the one that covers legislative funding are talking and I gave them essentially two options. the option because when we did the original steep grant proposal, we said this was phase two of a multi-phase program, which says essentially that we're going to do work outside of this anyway. that either and I gave them what a proposed combined spending plan would be for both grants broken out. U but I also said that if
they don't want to do that, we will happily break this into two, you know, and essentially do the steep grant as phase two and spend the remaining money as phase three. and just you know split the project with Gordon into two separate projects which so they're getting back to me on which is their preferred method for dealing with that. once I know that I will sub submit both to and and they're fine with using EasyIQC. that's a program both or both both grant administrators are comfortable with because a lot of other towns have used that. So my goal is to get this thing to final signature sometime in early November. And the reason is we know if we get to December we're looking at a 6% increase in the cost of the playground. so I'm trying to beat that deadline. I have a contract scheduled with Gordon Gordian and have Gordian have already ordered
the playground prior to that grant going into effect. So the other question was the total budget. the total budget combined between the two grants plus the town match plus the Hartford Foundation for public giving is $910,000 and that includes $500,000 in steep funding, $250,000 in a legislative appropriation, $150,000 town match, and $10,000 for from Hartford Foundation for public giving. and that dollar amount also includes about $15,000 in contingency funding. so we are still under the $150,000 budget that the town meeting originally authorized from the town's perspective. you know, we're still we're obligated to put in that 150,000, but given that a a small portion of that is contingency, we're technically still under the budget that we originally asked for for the public. So, there were some other questions raised. The first was, is public works able to remove the existing well? the answer to that is yes. public works is fully capable of doing it. The only thing public works can't do legally is cap an existing well. That has to be done by a well driller. and we coordinated with Staven's Brothers to do that. So, essentially we paid for the grout. We removed the the well casing. Public works removed the pipe, removed all the wiring and removed all the guts out of the vault. and Staven's brothers witnessed the pouring of the grout in the existing well hole. So that has actually been completed at this point. you know and it was done legally. So the second question was how much will finishing the parking area cost and the answer is not a lot. and the reason is it's already a full gravel base and depending on how public works how cheap we want to go.
The only thing we're actually obligated to pave there are two handicapped parking spots. And we could technically legally even get away without that because the law only says they have to be hard, dustless surface. we would do that as part of our normal paving operations. We had intended to do some shimming on Riverside. So when Abbey Construction is there doing shimming next year in the spring, we would just have the two spots paid as part of that. So our costs are, you know, a portion of a day rental or portion of a day labor for abbey construction and the cost of liquid asphalt. we could potentially do the parking lot. Anything that needs to be done with gravel from the town's pit, I would prefer to use quite to top that material the rest of the gravel lot with some good process. And it looks like there's somewhere around $3,000 to $4,000 in profit or product that would be put down there. and if we get to that part, we would spend that out of contingency at that point. So it wouldn't really affect the budget. next question, what are the hazardous materials and who will handle them? We have no known hazardous materials on site. that is something most contractors build into a contract because it's covered. It's an unknown. So you know normally when you're referring you're removing soil if you're a contractor you remove the soil you have the pile tested and then as long as it's negative you just have a pile of gravel. to deal with. being that it's the town, the town can simply move its gravel from one location to another, which we do regularly when we take gravel out of the pit. So, there shouldn't be any issues with that. As
far as invasive species, that area will be we will chip the material into the back of one of public works trucks. That will probably occur starting this week. and we're just going to deposit it at the Andover Town Pit, which is full of the same invasives anyway, as is most of the town. the only reason the thing on there was about invasives was on there in the beginning is the Inland Wetlands Commission, as part of their approval said, "Hey, while you're at it, why don't you tear out the invasives that are right behind the project area?" And since it was a relatively lowcost thing for us to do, we agreed to do that as part of that. Are there any other costs behind besides public works salary associated with these inind services? Yeah, we we bought about two cubic yards of of grout. So that's probably I think it's it's a little cheaper than concrete mix, but not much. It's basically just Portland cement in sand. so it's equivalent to a couple yards. So I'm guessing that's under $500.
and we may end up bringing in some process from quite to finish off the parking area. We could skip it if we have to. there's none there now, but it would be a better service. So those are all the questions that I have unless you have further questions for me related to that project. The only other question I had, Eric, was it started as three pickle ball courts. I know now that it's up to four pickle ball courts, but was there any consideration at all for putting in maybe a basketball court or a tennis or volleyball court rather than four pickle ball courts? that would be a question for the field committee. you know I don't have any real dog in the hunt. We originally had it proposed as three pickle ball courts and you know then just a paved open area. but the committee I think as a whole felt it would be smarter to enclose the whole thing as opposed to just threearters of it. and so they
proceeded that way. But is that a possibility? Yeah, sure it would be a possibility. I I mean the committee made a recommendation on on what they wanted to see there and that's what ended up in the final quote. So, sorry. So, did the committee put this out to the public or maybe take into consideration that for a basketball court or something, you know, just I mean, pickle ball courts are okay, but I'm just thinking not everybody in town plays pickle ball. We have a lot of people who play basketball, too. just figuring while we're putting it in because there are no outdoor basketball courts. There's one at the school that can't be used when school is in session and it's not really in that great of a condition.
I mean, you would have to ask that question. the board would have that have to ask that question to the committee. I mean this is what what is proposed is obviously way different than what we proposed for the initial steep grant but the board appointed a commission committee and said bring us back proposals and they brought and shared those proposals with the board of selectmen multiple times.
right.
I understand that, Eric. I I know. But I'm I was just wondering if there was any consideration maybe to ask the general public if they would like to see something other than for pickle ball courts because like you say, it's way different than what was originally proposed. So maybe I don't know, Scott, you were on that committee. Could you answer that? committee decided that finishing all four courts to make four pickle ball courts was much smarter than not having the just just having three courts. Four court three courts doesn't do you any you can't have a tournament at with three courts. you have a tournament, you have to have at least four courts and you have to you should finish the all the courts while you're at it. Can you could you play basketball on on that fourth court? Certainly. Yes. But that's that's this is supposed to the enhancements were supposed to be for pickle ball courts, not a basketball court.
There was discussions about the basketball courts to be really honest. The committee brought back to us a basketball court. The committee brought back to us the committee brought back to us having three courts and an open space for recreational purposes whether it be skateboard or basketball. And the thought was they were going to bring in portable basketball hoops so people could play basketball. To be really honest, Carol, I was against that because I don't think that is an appropriate space to have a halfcourt basketball or even a fullcourt basketball down there. I think it would be it would not be in the community's interest. So, I would be against having a basketball court down there. so when the committee sat there and brought back to us the four courts that was fine because they were going and close the whole whole space in a fence but the committee did bring to us multiple options and we had discussed that with them at various times. So even though I understand what you're saying about basketball court, I am not I would not be in favor of a basketball court down there. it it's not
I understand. I'm just saying it's a shame that we didn't put that out to the people in Andover, taxpayers, to see if they would like to see something, you know, a basketball court or something else down there in that area. I hear what you're saying and I understand. I can imagine your reasoning behind it, but again, it would have been nice to let the people of Andover decide that.
Well, the people of Andover, again, you say it like it was done in a vacuum. None of this was done in a vacuum. You have you have multiple people that are on that commission committee. They had public meetings. They had they they were presenting this to the public. So, please don't state it as if it would been great if we got it out to the public. It was. They were all invited to join that committee. Scott joined that committee on behalf of the board of selectmen. And how many members are on that committee, Scott?
10.
And it was over two years, you know, twice a month. So, people had anything to say, I think that we would have heard about it.
So,
I know. But I think a lot of people might not have known about the meetings. I wasn't I didn't see any of
I tried looking it up online to see how many agendas were out there and
that's all.
Okay.
All right.
would it would it be possible in the future to put in a basketball court or two in the Veterans Field area? Is there space down there to someday expand that?
There's space. There's space across the street on the softball field that doesn't get used. There's space.
Okay. So then maybe we can do that in the future.
I know what we'd have to do to get that done, but there's there's space there. There are there it would be difficult, Eric. I do understand what you're saying, but you know, it's a and there's always opportunities if you're creative enough to try to figure it out. So, we could and there are other areas in town if we chose to do something additional to sit there and give an outdoor recreational for basketball. we could find a different location or we could find a location down there. but it's just how creative we are. So at this point in time, we have the recommendation for for pickle ball courts and for the playground for for children. and I believe I read also that there's a gazebo or a pavilion.
Yeah, correct. a big pavilion. Yeah.
So the question ended up being Carol and this came from you was do we go to town meeting on the legislative funding that we received related to this to a recreational funding for that was coming through MD Ramdan and and Representative Weir. So that was a question. Attorney O'Brien sent us some information as an opinion as to what he thought. Let's discuss that. So, we're all out in the open as to what we're doing related to this project.
I did see that attorney opinion this morning. I don't know if Dennis is on with us, but I received five pages. Only three of the pages had information on them. I'm wondering if that if the three pages was the last page or if something happened to page four and five and maybe they were scanned in.
You know how Dennis
you know how Dennis wasn't and I thought he sent us a word document to be really honest. he did this a word
but if you look at it page four and five and usually he closes his opinion with something and then attorney Dennis O'Brien and there's no closing on page three if you see it.
Yeah.
I mean it does sound like it's the ending but
here's no real closing statement from Dennis. And the only other thing I was going to ask too if we could have that opinion maybe just attached to this month's minutes just so that you know we went through the process and got the legal opinion that we don't have to go for another special town meeting even though we're over the 650,000 that we proposed to the people in February of 24.
This this was it appears to be the completed opinion. Dennis just had two additional pages in his
okay
he was clicking through. but I will also verify that with him.
okay
make sure and we can include it in the minute package to to move out. I mean the the question I mean I guess I I I I actually want to go on record as I'm approving.
So I I I honestly have no problem. I mean because to me we had funding, we have funding and we had a steep grant that we did and everybody will sit there and understand you're doing phases but even if you not common sense would tell you if you got additional funding and you could afford to sit there and do some things that you were looking at doing that's just a a common sense approach to financing the project. So
right and I understand that. I'm just thinking like we have a full basement underneath our community and senior center that isn't finished. And if it were going to be finished for recreational purposes, maybe we could have had that building completed had this project stayed in the $650,000 budget that was originally proposed in February of 24. That's all. We just seem to push things down the road. And
you know, we have an unfinished community center with a kitchen that's
emiusable.
Let's let's go through let's go through that even and speak about that and talk about
Eric wants to talk about that.
Sure.
Go ahead. Carol, what I would say is that you're right in in absence of other funding or other funding applications, I would kind of agree with that. However, what we have is two years of funding at that $250,000 level. So that's number one. So, we'll have $250,000 in the next fiscal year to finish the community center. And because it made it through the Senate Appropriations Commission, we have another, you know, federal funding legislative request sitting out there that is about $300,000. which given the state of the federal government, I don't know whether it will be approved but if they do fund congressional appropriations this year, it's logical to assume that will get funded between those two. That gives us around $550,000,
which is plenty of money to finish the generator project, which in my mind is a much bigger priority than finishing the basement and finishing the basement. you know, and probably doing whatever else you have without touching the multi-use building fund. So that's kind of the way I look at structuring those is because I think if we have a little patience, we can finish all those projects without spending town dollars. And to me, that's preferable.
You're right because the one the community rooms part of the town office building is we have no power there if we lose power. So, the generator is I agree with you there, but is the almost $300,000 the $293,000 grant that Senator Murphy resubmitted on our behalf.
Is that what you're talking about? Because in one of your reports, you said
$29,000. Okay.
All right.
Correct.
I may have the exact dollar figures of that. I'm not looking at that GRA grant form right now because I submitted it two separate years with two separate dollar amounts because I changed some of the things between the two years because some of the work we'd already done and also the generator a year later the cost for putting the generator in had increased.
Okay. So I mean in the short term you know what we've done is essentially off authorized Lenco to put a the automatic transfer switch into the community center and because we have the pipe stubbed to the outside. If we had an extended power outage with the automatic transfer switch there and everything set up, we could bring in a generator and power the facility enough to keep it from freezing up, which is my big concern. If we we were out of power for a couple weeks, you know, we have a town building with no source of heat. So, that's my that's my goal in that and why we pushed that project forward earlier.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Yep.
Okay. does anyone else have any questions related to the Veterans Memorial Field Project?
Just one question. Just one question.
Yep.
Just let's say 10 years down the road pickle ball fades as a sport. Can these be converted to a basketball courts or tennis courts pretty much easily or is it the size restrictions not going to make it you know suitable for that type of activity?
I think you can rotate them 90 degrees and get two tennis courts out of it.
Okay. because because my question is I see a lot of tennis courts right now being converted to pickle ball courts and I could see in the future maybe it going back the other way. So I'm just I'm not saying it's going to but you know stranger things have happened and we've had people discover tennis again or something you know and tennis becomes a fat again and we want to convert them back from pickle ball to tennis. So is this something that we can easily convert back size-wise?
Yes. There's no internal fencing, correct, Scott?
Internal though.
Okay, that's my only question. We
just have a big rectangle
because we do we do have fads, so things things do phase out over time. So, just to make sure. All right. anything else? Okay, let's get on to 8D, the Andover Elementary School RFP for bathroom renovations. So, I'm just going to ask Eric, do you have any documentation related to the RFP?
I do not.
Okay. Jeff, you are on the committee. I'm just going to ask, do you know if the RFP has been finalized, contractors chosen? My my involvement with that was basically advisory for the design and I I'd communicated to the board of the Andover BOE chair Kaitlin Greenhouse that I felt that this should have went through the RFP process through the town at least that we got the RFP and we're able to advertise it at least through the town because I don't know who the I don't know who the person was that that Fuss and O'Neal used for the RFP process. I still I kind of I asked Kayn about that and she said they were getting bids and I just want to make sure we have a fair, honest
and open process between the town and the school and and that hings are done in a transparent manner. And that's that's just one concern of mine. I I commun that communicated that to Kayn. I haven't seen any bids. I haven't seen anything related to what was sent out. So I can't really comment to that. U my my pretty much involvement was to design only at this point, but I did I did communicate to the board chair that I felt that this should have at least gone to our website. So it would have been advertised to local contractors if they were invited to bid.
Okay. And Ann, you told us at our last meeting that this RFP was closed. Is there any change to that information?
Not heard anything else.
Okay. Okay. let's move on to AE NIP program request for expenditures. Eric, have we gotten anything from
I I do not have an update from Megan. So that's on hold until we get some, you know, a finalized set of project details back from them.
Okay. All right. nine, new business. 9A quote for the installation of the kitchen sub panel and wiring for the dishwasher for the community center.
Yep. So that is in the packet from Lenco
Yeah, it's on page seven.
Page seven and eight. Correct.
Total for that
is 561807.
Correct.
Okay. And where would you be taking that from? Multi-use business building fund. Where are you what's the plan? Well, presumably since we had back put back into the senior center fund or the the we had switched paying for the previous electrical work that Lenco was doing to the rebate check from Kerma essentially to use that to pay for the cost. That refund check was around $5,000. So, I would just take the the remainder out of the multi-use building fund because that was, you know, at least in large part intended to be for the community center. Okay. So, in a roundabout way, the plan is to take it out of the multi-use building fund.
Correct.
Even though we got money back from Karma, we have we had to identify a fund where to put that. We chose to put that in the multi-use building fund. So there's additional
correct.
Okay. That's that's not how we should all think about it in my mind. It's just like we either have money in a fund and we use it out of that fund or we don't. So
Right.
We just put $5,000 into that fund. We're going to spend $5600 to do this project if we choose to do it.
Okay.
And just just just for questioning, is this was this a single bid or was this was this multi- was this
is only a single bid. So, if you wanted to go out to bid, it can go out to bid.
Well, I think the dollar threshold is low enough that we could probably do a sole source, but it looks it looks it looks fair and and justifiable given the work scope. So,
yeah. And what Rick and I had discussed was one of the problems with that is there's a fair amount of drywall work needed to get it over to where it needs to be. and the goal is only to do the drywall work once. So, what Rick is proposing to do is put a a whole bunch of spare conduits straight from that up through the adjoining wall into the attic. So, the you have the possibility of running something like eight additional circuits in the future. that will be will have EMT down to the the panel. So now you don't have to cut any drywall in there. Just wherever you drop it down in whatever room you're putting the
Yeah. How many How many chases are you talking going up?
I would assume that's going to everything's going to go out of at most two chases.
Yeah. And you know what? I'd almost I'd almost say if we have to spend money for a third chase for voice and data, I'd almost do it if we if we don't have it existing because if we want to put Wi-Fi access or any kind of internet connectivity or camera stuff down there, especially if it becomes a teen center or anything, we want to video monitor it, it's definitely worth it if we're going to cut into the drywall.
Well, there's already three cameras down there in the basement, so the basement's fairly well covered.
Okay. Are they chased? Are they is it is they're chased back to the central switch?
yeah. Well, all the wiring's run in the wall. that was all done.
But that's what I was saying. If we want to add anything additionally like connectivity wise, you know, is it is it worth it putting extra chase just for data in there?
Just something to think about. That's all.
Yeah. The the only and and I'm not opposed to that. What I'm just thinking is that all the data stuff all the fire alarm stuff goes down to the equipment room. So that that's already in and in the wall. All the data stuff already comes the circuits are already run down to there. So I'm not sure would do us. So, so you're So, is is our internet access point in the basement?
Yes, because the fiber comes into the basement.
Okay. So, if we ever want to put a Wi-Fi access point or something on the outside of the building for anything, do we have access to that if you had to go through the attic?
we don't.
So, that's what I'm just saying. for for if it cost us 500 bucks or $700 extra to put extra chase in, it might be worth it. That's all that's all I would that's all I would suggest because, you know, you're going to find things in the future that you're going to want to install and then you're going to be tearing drywall out again to put another chase in.
Yeah. No, I mean that's, you know, we we tried as best we could to future proof, but you know, we knew we didn't put enough electrical panels in right off the bat because we didn't have the funds.
there is an Yeah, there is an existing exterior Wi-Fi. but yeah, I'll I'll have
I mean I mean we could go outside the building and go up the siding or something. It's it's going to be kind of ugly, but it just be nice to go up through the attic and just put something on the outside of the building if you want to put an access point.
Listen, Jeff's Jeff's request.
Yeah, I just let's try to sit there and do it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I have no no issues with that. I was just thinking about where it would have to go. I don't
The funny thing is, you never know. You get stuff in the future that comes up, you know, technology-wise, and you're like, "Oh, man. I need I wish I would have put that chase in at the time,
and if it cost us $500 more, let's just do it and have the extra to have extra path."
Okay.
All right. So, any further discussion on the this project related to the kitchen wiring? No. Okay. I'm going to make a motion that we authorize the town administrator to sign a contract with Lenco Electric Contractors LLC for $5618.7 to complete the installation of the kitchen sub panel and wiring for the dishwasher for the community center.
I'll second.
All right, we'll we'll give that one to Ann Cr. So Anne Creme seconded. further discussion. so we'll vote. and
I
Carol
I
Jeff Murray
I
Scott Person
I Scott said I
Jeff Maguire I so five nothing. Okay, let's go on to 9B. Quote for the installation of lights at the Andover Public Library. That item starts on page nine. So, I've had a request from the library for a while. They've never felt that the stairwell walkway lighting to the outside of the building was adequate. I've walked in it in the dark. Not in the dark, after dark. I don't personally think it's that bad, but I, you know, it just because it's not bad to me doesn't mean it's it's not problematic for some other people. So they have requested you know the ability to run exterior pathway lighting you know so I asked Lenco for a quote for that one also so that's what you have sitting there you know I think that would be if we were going to do that I consider that more of maintenance item. So, I would apply that to the building maintenance fund. you know, and fund that through that if that's something that the commission, the board of selectman's interested in
doing.
So, is this two components 4556 Is this two pieces? There's there's lighting for the walkway that seems to be 4556 and then page 10 is flagpole. that is different and we'll talk about that one too and I'm going to make a suggestion a separate suggestion for that one.
Can I just ask why we wouldn't take the library lighting out of the multi-use building fund? I mean the question is is that really a maintenance operation or is that a multi-use? It I could I could see either way. I'm I'm not opposed to either as the funding mechanism.
Okay.
the the lights for the flags at Veterans Park, are you suggesting that from multi-use buildings fund too? Nope.
I know it's an excellent. You're going to use that from something else. Okay.
I mean, well, well, let's talk about that one separately.
Okay. Separate. I'm sorry. Sorry. I thought I thought this was the library. So, it's it's the flag pole at the field. Okay. All right. My apologies. So, let's talk the first one. The exterior lighting at the library. The total on that project is 4556. All right. I will make a motion that we authorize the town administrator to sign a contract or sign a contract with Lenco electrical contractors not to exceed 4556 for the installation of lights
and over public library to facilitate the illumination of the walking area. Second it, Jeff.
Second, Jeff.
Scott Person seconded this. Is there any other discussion? I do have one question. So, Eric, the library commission is on board with this.
They're the ones who requested it.
Correct.
This satisfies their concerns.
Okay. And it satisfies their concerns, but it's still a priority for them right now. I'm just making sure that the line there for
correct.
And honestly, I've been putting this off for a while. They've been bugging me for, you know, maybe not quite a year, but a while.
anybody have any other questions or any other concerns related to this?
Okay. we're going to move to move the question vote and creme. I you're on mute. You just come. Okay. Say it for me. And
K.
Hi. All right. Carol Lee.
Hi.
Scott Person.
Hi.
Went out of alphabetical order. My apologies. Jeff Murray.
Hi.
Jeff Maguire. I Okay. Five. Nothing. Okay. page 10, Eric, is an estimate for a monument park flag pole lighting. Okay, so this was something that didn't fit into the original work due to cost for the when the field was upgraded. So, I guess this is really a question of aesthetics because I've gone down and looked at it repeatedly and it seems like it's perfectly well illuminated to me. But then again, I've had multiple people complain that the illumination on the flag isn't right and that it's okay if the flag's at half staff. But so basically the lights that are there now illuminate both the flag pole and the the monuments that are in front of the flag poles. And what this quote is to basically separate those two, use the existing lighting to light the monuments itself, and then put in the same flag pole lighting essentially that we've gone back in in the last couple years at Town Hall and done. And also we redid fairly recently, the one at the library. you know so that each of the three flag poles has its own uplight. you know I would agree that would it would probably look better aesthetically I think it would be a good fit but you know it's $3600. Joanne foreign did offer to write a Hartford Foundation for public giving
grant. to try to see whether she could cover the cost of this. And so I guess my question is, is this something you want to see, you know, if you want to consider this, is this something you want to see done now? Because from soil conditions, it wouldn't be a bad time to disturb the soil and then recede you know, for next year. or do you want to try to wait until this gets done and and see whether we can grant fund it? So, that's really my question for the board is a do you want to do this and b if so what how do you want to handle paying for it?
I just got a question. Are they incandescent lights now or the LEDs? there. So the the lights that are there are two different lights. I think at least one's an LED because one got damaged last year and was replaced with an LED. you know, and the other one I don't know. I'm assuming both the lights that are there now are LED. the the basic problem is they're trying to light with two lights essentially three monuments and three flag poles.
Yeah. But I'd have to go look at it because I just don't understand why they just can't screw a tea in there and just do two light heads and just illuminate because I mean an LED light draws you know less than a quarter of an amp 100 watt LED lamp. So, I mean, I don't there's plenty of there's plenty of capacity there,
right? the $3,000 seems awfully high for
it's really the question of where you're going to light it from and do you try to light the location for because if you're going to light the flag poles directly from below then that illumination would actually be installed behind the monuments. So that's kind of what Rick is proposing. the first two LED or the first two lights you've got now just angled a little lower and shine on the monuments themselves and then three more behind the monuments pointing up at the flag poles.
Yeah, I just don't know why we don't just tee off and just do some spots on the flag poles just on the flags themselves. It just it makes more sense to do it that way. I mean if the angle's good, there's there's no reason we can't illuminate those flags from below
ith a directed spot. So, I I I'd have to look at it. I I I'm really not in the loop on where those luminires are right now. So, I'd have to go I have to go out and take a walk and see what see what we're talking about.
I'd like to look at that, too.
And this is not an immediate
Yeah. depending, you know, over the years a number of people have have said they don't like the existing lights, but whether we do this now or we do this in six months, you know, I don't think is is critical to the running of the town. So, if you guys want to take a look at it and make a decision how you want to proceed, that seems perfectly acceptable to me. My suggestion would be to have Joan Foreign apply for the grant. If she doesn't get the grant, when we look at alternate funding and I'd like to look at it myself and see what the, you know, the direction of the lighting is.
Sure.
But yeah, if it's not, if it's not an immediate need, then I would definitely go after funding. We should talk to Joan because we should look for additional funding because that really is a very nice area and we should sit there and try to illuminate the old town hall and all of it as as much as possible, even the bridge if we could because it is a it is a nice visual look for the community. Maybe we need to look into it a little deeper.
Yep, no problem. Anybody else have an issue with looking
I mean that was something I was discussing because I know we had some leftover bridge funds even. I don't even know if those got you know dissipated or not but you know I I think originally we talked about some kind of solar project on the bridge for for the lighting there and or even converting that street light that's close by to the bridge lighting and actually providing some luminires underneath. I think it's just something we should probably create some kind of lighting plan going forward. I have no problem with everyone taking a look at it because it really is a nice and should be lit up as nice as it possibly can be. I mean, we're lighting a tunnel in Bolton. I don't know. I I don't see how we can't find funding to light a bridge in Andover. So, [Music]
all right. let's move on to the next item, which is 9C, the public works supervisor. We're going to sit there and take this up in session.
So, we'll move on from here. 9D trio meeting announcement.
Yep. So, you should have all gotten an announcement by trio about the tri board meeting. I'm just putting it on there to remind you. What's the date for the community's benefit?
It is October 15th at 7 PM in the community center. Correction, the community room. My error.
Okay. And have we reached out to Jed Larson about hosting that?
I did.
I asked him and he said he would. Eric,
good. Thank you.
Does anybody have a problem with Jed hosting it? He did a great job with the last one.
Two.
Good.
Okay. Excellent. let's make sure that if we can, we can all be there, that would be great. We will sit there and put that in the calendar right now. 7 o'clock town hall, right, Eric? That is correct.
And you should have all gotten a direct meeting invite from the board of finance chair.
Yeah. No, I I know I saw it. It's just and I know there was discussion out there. I just wanted to announce it to the community because they didn't get to notice.
And we are posting that as a meeting. presumably yes. I'm pretty sure that's already posted as a meeting.
Let's make sure it's on the calendar. It is 7 to 9. Okay. All right. Let's move on. We're going to move on to item 9E. Nikko animal control cancellation. Eric.
Okay. So, Nikko informed me I don't know, four days ago, five days ago that starting July they will no longer be offering animal control services to the town of Andover. their point is that it's a giant hassle. They're losing a ton of money on it. they're legally obligated to supply it for towns in the NECOG region, but we're not actually in the region and you know, they're not looking for other towns to lose money on. So, I don't have a solution in place for that. we got a while, but we're going to need to figure out what we can do for
that. it's not going to be pretty because frankly given the changes in state law regarding what you have to have for an animal control facility it would be very difficult. We would be looking at building a standalone animal control facility if we wanted to bring that in house. So, I think the only real option we have is find somebody, you know, an existing town or municipality that would would cover Andover also. so that's where we're at.
Can we ask Abram to do that again? we can ask. But since so, you know, obviously we went down the path of trying to combine and have a three town animal control facility between us, Colombia, and and Hebrin. Hebrin kind of blew that up at the last minute the last time when they got their preferred location for public works shot down because that original design incorporated a separate animal control facility. since they're probably a couple of years away from making a decision on what they're going to do now that they can't use their original location. I just don't see them wanting to absorb us in their existing location. So, I will ask, but my suspicion is they're not going to be interested. So, I mean, I think we got to be looking at a Vernon or a Manchester or something like that. possibly Coventry, but that would be, you know, more of a stretch.
Okay. Can you just keep us informed at future meetings as to what
potential options we have on that front?
Yep, I shall do so.
All right. item 9F is sustainable Connecticut certified at bronze level. So, the town of Andover, met and was, certified as a bronze sustainable CT town. so that's a big kudo to the sustainable CT committee and all the work they did led by Kathy Palazi, who's also on this phone. you know it's a process that took a number of people over multiple departments in different areas of town to accomplish. So I think that was a great thing. It's nice that they moved us forward and that we achieved the certification. So I think a lot of credit goes to Kathy and the sustainable CT committee. so that's pretty much what I have to say for that. There is a awards celebration on October 28th at the Goodspeed Opera in East Hatam. it would be nice to have at least one or two representatives from the board of selectmen to attend that on behalf of the town. I know some of the sustainable CT members will be there. but if one or two board members wanted to go to that, that would be great, too. so kudos. It's something that's been a long time in in coming. basically the to get certification you have to show you know progress measurable progress in 12 different areas that impact sustainability of town operations. so you know, basically at this point, the way I look at it is we've got three years that we're certified and the goal over the next three years to be trying to re get the town reertified as
a silver level community, which takes more points and and more effort. So that's basically it. I'm happy to answer any questions. and actually Kathy Palazi who's on the call could certainly answer any of your questions for that.
can we make sure that we get the names of all the committee members at our next meeting so that we can do something at that meeting for them because that's something very positive for the community that they undertook and got accomplished. I I was looking at the information that was provided all of the the audit that they went through. I think it's extremely positive for the community. So, let's make sure we recognize them all at the next meeting.
Perfect. Okay. Anybody have anything else related to that? Okay. Let's move on to 9G capital planning documents.
So, I put these back in the packet. I've sent them to the board. It's basically a summary and a snapshot of where we are today. and the first one is a list of not all but the majority of the grants, large and small. Well, not most of the small ones, but a sampling of the small ones and then the large grants that we've gotten over the last six or so years. and then a list of the two ones that we still have outstanding that we haven't heard back from, which is a transportation grant to replace the handicapped accessible van. And the second is a legislative appropriation through Senator Murphy's office. which, you know, it's anybody's guess on those two. My suspicion is we won't get the 2025
disabled transportation grant. It seems like in the past, you know, we've always gotten it the second or third time we applied. So, my guess is we'll be applying again for that this year in the spring. you know, but maybe we'll get lucky and we'll get that this year. So, that's going on currently. The second item was a list of all the grants that are currently active and includes the funding the funds that we have in the LOIP program. The third document was a project summary like where we are right now on the major projects that we've undertaken both in bridge and road work, what's happening with the athletic fields and building related properties. So that is also in your packet to review. and I think that from from my end of things is the reason I wanted this to go out now was so that when we start talking about funding and spending priorities as a tri board meeting that you have that information in front of you. And then the last document related to that I sent was the report which I provide generally annually to CIP which is an update of the town buildings and properties. basically what are the conditions, condition ranking and then at the end of that document is kind of a priority summary of the pri you know basically a an itemized list across all the buildings of what things need to be done. And then there's a rating code
associated with that. And that rating code is basically what is the goal or what are we attempting to do with this spending? It's either for accessibility. It's to be a better public amenity, energy efficiency, comfort upgrade, longevity, or something that's important for public safety and emergency operations. And then there's a priority level one through five, depending on how important that project is. and I weighted that with a number of different things. you know, part of it is how fast any grant funding that we have needs to get spent. you know, when I weighted things that are public safety, fairly high with that. And then the last thing is appendix two which is recommendations for the next budget year and what we ought to be doing in the next budget year since we're talking about that in the tri board meeting and I've given this to the board of selectmen CIP board of finance and I gave a copy to the chair of the board of ed so they know what what our priorities are also So, that's basically it on on that item. I'm happy to answer any questions you have related to those items and what my suggestions are.
the funding for the design that we need to fulfill the design funding for the Percy Cook Trail, right? We need to fund another 40% or something this next year. I don't think that was in that 26 27. I I I didn't see it. You noted it prior to that that it hadn't been funded, but it I don't think it was in that you need the funding to to be passed the next budget cycle. It may be there, but I I didn't see it.
I'll review and I'll update that if if that's not the case. I'm expecting to get back from Barton and Legudas within the next couple weeks a final proposal for what it would cost to get to the 100% design stage on that project.
A lot of information there, Eric.
one one thing, Eric, I think it would be helpful for the board and for the community is can you get a list of all of the grant funding by year? So, and I would love for you to go back even farther than the last six years if it's at all possible. I know there's not a lot back there, but I think it would be helpful for the community to see the level of grant funding that's been obtained over the last six years. And then if we can go backwards, I I think it's something that we should have readily accessible all of the grant funding that has been received by the town and what it's been spent on. So, okay, I don't know how I would go back and figure out prior to my time what grants were involved, but the first document I gave you listed all the large grants and the year of approval.
So, you should and you said you didn't include the small ones. If you could also get the small ones included so it's a complete listing of all that, that would be helpful. I understand and I'm not asking that it's done, you know, immediately, but I do think it's I think this board and I think the community should understand the total grant funding dollars that are received and how you as the town administrator and the board of selectmen have worked to get things done without using tax dollars.
Okay. I can try to review and increase and give you more information about the other small grants
even if it's in a spreadsheet. It doesn't need to be in this format, but it can be in a spreadsheet. So, the finance department should be able to assist fairly easily. And I I I will go backwards and look at the state I will I will try to go backwards and try to find the other information for you. So okay u it was a lot of information. It was very helpful to see if anybody in the community wants to go through it is very interesting. any other questions related to the documents that Eric has presented here. Okay. All right. And
we'll talk about that another time. Okay. So, this goes from page 10 or whatever down to where is the end of it?
So, you're looking for page 47.
There we go.
Okay. page 47. There is an email. So this relates to item 9H AES transportation. So we have so I I can give you a written explanation of this. for at least the last three years, the town has been allowing AES to use one of the senior transportation vehicles and just charging them a straight mileage reimbursement rate. which is kind of in the middle of of what the cost basis is for a commercial vehicle. so and they've had multiple drivers and one of the drivers has been filling up the vehicle when it needs gas. and now that person is no longer with the town and the remaining driver says it's not her job and that the town should be filling the vehicle up with gas. which I don't think is you know responsible. I mean they are using the town's fuel card which is in the building. We've already always paid for the gas because that's included in the per mileage chart. But what the superintendent seems to think is that
we're going to on a bi-weekly basis or whatever take one of our senior transportation drivers, get in the vehicle that primarily they're the ones that are using and drive it down and fill it up and bring it back so they don't have to put gas in it. And I personally feel that's unacceptable. and that if they're not interested in filling gas, they should find an alternative vehicle or pay that go to to take their kids. you know, that's kind of my take on it.
Let's let's let's just get down to it. So, this is an issue that the individual that the that the school is hiring to drive the van does not want to fill the gas up in the van they're driving.
Correct. And it and the superintendent has decided it's not their problem anyway that the town should be filling the vehicle up and they should not have to fill up their vehicle.
All right. We we
the other driver did.
Yes.
Okay. We'll we'll deal with we will deal with that at the tri board or we will deal with it at Wednesday's meeting with the board of education.
Okay.
All right. I what I didn't want is I didn't want that to cause a confrontation between the community center and the school. And since the agreement is technically between the town and signed by Jeff, you know, after a vote by the board, you know, I think and there's nothing in there that says precisely what that reimbursement rate will cover. you know, so maybe
listen, this is not covering. We're covering the gas. We're paying for the gas.
Yes.
Just filling it up.
Correct.
This can't be any simpler. what we think.
I mean, and my question is, do we know do we do we have an do we have a a an analysis of the total number of miles driven last year?
we do. I don't have that off the tip of my head, but we do have that.
Well, Jeeoff, it says right in the contract it's eight and a half miles each way.
No, I know. But what I'm asking, Jeff, is how many days are they actually using the van and in total?
How many days? Yeah. how many days they have school times whatever we could figure it out
because we could go fill it up twice once every other week. I mean it's not that big a deal. It's just like
Oh, so question is all the other senior transportation drivers and all the AES or all the school bus drivers fill their own buses
of course.
So this we don't have a fuel fairy to go around.
Yeah. I mean I'm just saying if you're a driver for a vehicle is it expected that you fill that vehicle?
as far as I'm concerned it is. And all our No, I'm just saying all our senior transportation drivers fill their own vehicles and all the big yellow I mean I'm talking all the data code drivers fill their own vehicles.
Yes, many.
Yeah, that's all that's all that's the question. That's the only question I had.
Okay. All right. Well, we'll try to get a reasonable result on that. All right. we had a 9 I a fire commission request related to the trade in of the current ambulance. So, Eric, this the information they're going to trade it in with the current company that is that is building the new ambulance that's coming to us.
Correct.
Okay. Even though it is a town asset, it's still part of the fire commission and the fire department's ambulance services and they're going to have a new vehicle to replace that one. So, the question that we're really asking is the $21,000 an appropriate number for I mean, that's the only question I have. Is 21,000 the right number? 2012 vehicle.
Yeah.
Ambulance.
Okay.
Yeah. 13y old ambulance that's been crashed once pretty hard.
I don't think that's a bad number.
Okay. do we have any anybody
in the ambulance sales business either?
No. Does anybody on the board have any issues related to the allowing the fire commission to trade in that ambulance for the new vehicle?
And the other thing I would say is that Wall-E is on the call. If you have direct questions from Wall-E, I'm sure he can answer them for you.
Well, you know, I know that Wall-E drives Jeeps and that Jeeps and Wall-ally drives vehicles like me, tries to drive them till the very end. So, Wall-E, we'll ask you a question. Is that Jeep worth $21,000 or more?
The Jeep that that ambulance. I'm sorry. Wall-Ally might not be able to get off mute.
There it is. There he is. Yes. [Laughter]
I love it. Simplicity. And over simplicity. It's It's the right number. Okay. All right.
there it is.
I'll make a motion that we authorize the Andover Fire Commission to trade in the current ambulance with the company that is selling the fire commission or yeah the fire commission the new ambulance.
Second ch
I'll second.
Okay, we'll give that one a spot person. Further discussion on that.
I would just amend that to say one thing and that you authorize the town to accept the donation of the new ambulance from the Endover volunteer fire department.
How we how about we do it in two motions?
Okay.
All right. So, we have a motion on the table to allow the fire commission to trade in the current ambulance, and the number is going to be in the $21,000 range, but to trade in. So, we're authorizing them to trade in a town vehicle. All right. Any further discussion on that? Okay. Any creme. Yes or no?
Vote. Yes, sir.
I can't hear you. I can't hear.
It happened.
I Okay. Carol Lee.
I
Jeff Murray.
Hi.
Scott Person.
Hi.
Jeff Magcguire. I All right. and then I I'll make another I'll make a motion that we authorize the town of Andover to accept the donation of a new ambulance vehicle from the fire commission when available.
Actually, I don't think it's from the fire commission. I think it's technically from the Andover volunteer Fire Department, Inc.
Okay. And my motion that I authorize the town to accept the donation of a 2025 ambulance from the Andover Fire Department, Inc. or the Andover Fire Department Corporation.
Andover volunteer fire department. Volunteer Volunteer Fire Department Corporation. Carol.
I'll second.
Okay. So, now we got Carol Lee on board, too. So, Carol Lee is seconded. Okay. Further discussion on accepting the donation of the ambulance. anything? Anybody? All right. Anne Cre. Okay. I saw it. Any said I Carol Lee
I
Jeff Murray
I Scott Person.
Jeff Magcguire I.
Okay.
Thank you.
Testing.
Okay. We're going to go on to item 10. approval of the minute meetings from September 15, 2025. the meetings didn't get in the packet, so we got to put that off to the next meeting.
Okay, we'll do that. item 11, treasures reports, the finance department report, the revenue summary, the town budget summary, town a road appropriation transfers, over expenditure report, summary of audit status, and OPM notification. Anybody have any questions related to the treasurer's report?
I do. We were getting an account quick report which showed the checks that were written on a monthly basis. The last one that we received in our was in our April packet and that was for the month of March. Is there a reason why we're not getting these anymore?
Not a good one.
Yeah, I would tell you not.
Okay.
Well, back check registers.
Couple things. Can you can you get that back for us? And then also at the last meeting, I requested that we get the budget versus action for July through June of 2025. So July 2024 through June of 2024. I asked, can you email that out to all the board members so we can see a positional level and it needs to be in the next packet so the town gets it and the town that the the residents see it and have that information available. So I would like that and I also asked last time for balance sheet. I would like that in the packet so that we can sit there
and see even if the fund balances have some adjustments. I can live with adjustments. I just more information the better and it gives myself and it gives other residents an understanding of what is occurring other than us just spending money. It's like what do we have, where are we, how are we find, and so on. So, I'd like that information as well. So, please ask the treasur's office for that. Okay. Does anybody have any questions related to the treasurer's information? Anything else? Okay, we'll move on to the tax collectors report, the dashboard, the intake, the collector's update, the delinquent top delinquents, and the refund requests. So, last month, the tax collector for August collected, we don't have the September information because we're too close to the end of the month.
Correct. Okay. For August, they collected two $268,2268. Okay. And she did give us September information. can you ask her to look at her reports and change the year on that? I'm not sure if it's this year or last year. So on page 61, it said September 2024. It could be that we just don't have a change of the document that we were utilizing. just ask her to look at that.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
Yep.
Would kind of make sense to me. So, we collect in the beginning of the quarter, so July. So, we'll have a big collection month in October. So,
correct. September. Right now, Kate put together 137 98368. And you can also tell, you know, she has the uncollected taxes by year. The majority of those taxes are in 2024, but you can sit there and see how far back they go. and then also on pages 62, you know, through, we'll go through it. This is the delinquent tax report. What is the largest uncollected tax accounts? it goes from 67 and continues down to 80, page 81. So you can sit there and see all the largest uncollected tax accounts. anybody in town that wants to look through there. Very interesting reading. Okay, we have page 82. and it is tax refunds totaling $133.13. I'll make a motion that we authorize the repayment of tax refunds totaling $100. $133.13.
Second, thankf
Scott Persona seconded. Further discussion voting. Ann, how do you vote? Ann raised her hand and said I.
it's okay. Carol Lee,
I
Jeff Murray,
hi.
Scott Person.
Scott, you there?
Jeff Magcguire. I 5 nothing. Okay. we're section 13 departmental reports. we have the community and senior center transportation and and the programs from the senior center. Any questions or remarks related to that? Okay. I thank Haley and and Tess for providing this information and thank you for the hard work. Assessor's office, the building department, Lynn sent us an email. Okay.
So, at the last meeting, you had asked for more information from the assessor's office. So, she attempted to provide you more information, you know, and a breakdown of everything that was issued.
That that was more information. page 101 and 102 and 103 104. Thank you.
All right. And we will look at that. I will look at that after the fact. we also have the blight report. So, while we're talking about that, because it falls under this criteria, we have one builder that's fairly angry, and he said he was going to come to the board of selectman, but I don't know whether he's reached out to you or not. He was unhappy because he pulled and paid for permits for a new building on Shoddy Mill Road. started clearing the land and he pulled both zoning permits and building permits for the town. and then subsequently sold the partial to the Abuer who didn't want a house being built next to him. and then he wanted all his money back for the permits. And I told him basically, we don't refund anybody money for permits. Once you pull the permits, you know, you paid for the permits. So, he's unhappy because he's out of pocket about $4,000.
and I said I would bring that up to the board of selectment. because he felt it was really unfair. as a general policy, we have not returned you know, if you pull a permit and then later decide you don't want to go through with it. you know, we haven't given anybody any money back, but to me, you know, you're the executive board of the town, so I think that's worth consideration by the board as to how you want to proceed in cases like that in the future.
Well, thank you for making us aware of it, and it will be addressed at a future meeting if needed. Okay.
Right.
Fair enough.
Unless anyone else has any issues related to that.
Okay. anybody have any questions related to the VI blight report?
I just have one question. we get the blight report and it has 48 items on there. 23 of them have been resolved and some of them have been resolved for over two years. is there a way to maybe get those off of the list so we can just see those that are current? It just doesn't seem right to keep them on there for two and three years. That's all. Well, I I think the only reason that they've stayed on there is that in an awful lot of cases, blight issues keep reoccurring at the same address. so this allows you to keep a running list of everything that's there. But if your guidance for the zoning agent is that you don't want anything that's been resolved to show up on the blight list, I'm sure he would agree to that.
Dave myself would like to see historically the different blight problems. Yeah, we've had a few that that are on that list that have been marked resolved, but seem to be procuring material in their yards. So, need to keep an eye on some of them.
Yeah,
it's just a list.
I don't understand why it's a problem. Well, the only thing that I would sit there and say is if there there are there are properties that are repeat offenders and they continue, they they will, as it's been stated, they'll pop up. there are some that might be. Carol, what we'll do is we'll sit there and we'll look at that report and we'll sit there and and u get with Eric. Maybe Eric can get with the zoning officer and identify if any of those he feels can come off. I mean, I would sit there and leave it to the zoning agent and far as I'm concerned to sit there and and shrink that report if necessary. If he thinks there's a location that's going to continue to become a problem or is going to stay a problem, then leave it on there. But I would let the zoning enforcement officer do it if it was me. And Scott, I know you're much closer to this. I know you're much closer to this. So, I'm going to defer to you guys to
You think Wayne Wayne could have an idea of what has happened prior to his hire?
Well, you don't need to eliminate the information. You need to hide the rows. But, you know, that's the whole thing. You can keep the whole spreadsheet and it could be 100% there, but as you print it to provide for the meeting, you can minimize the the rows and that would shrink the So,
and if they're repeat offenders, leave them on there. But if they're people who just at one time and they've resolved the issue to keep them on for two or three years, you know, that's all. All right, let's deal with this at our next meeting. And Eric, if you can talk to the zoning enforcement officer, sit there and see what his recommendation is related to it.
Sure.
is there anything else on the departmental reports that anyone wants to speak about? Okay. I'm gonna skip 14 and 15. I'm going to move to item 16, correspondence. Eric, do we have any?
Nope. Other than the verbal notification from NECOG that they're going to drop us come July 1.
Understood. Okay. I'm going to move on to public speak. that is not what I was after. One second. I'm sorry. Public speak. Let's start with Tess Gross.
I have nothing to add. Thank you.
Haley Proto.
Nothing to add. Thank you.
Diane Graner.
Yeah, I have a couple of things I'd like to comment on. on one we'll talk about the blight one that you just discussed. I like seeing the whole thing, the whole list. I think it shows that the the town is doing something to address the the blight issue and I'm always amazed at how many people are on that list. And I think that's important to see that the blight ordinance is being enforced. And I I'd like to see the whole list. Maybe you could just put the ones that are resolved down at the bottom or something and just, you know, put the ones that are acting at the top, something like that. But I think it's important for residents to be able to see that the issue is being addressed. So that's that on that. as always, I'm delighted to see Eric's administrative report. always large and always informative and I was delighted to see all the grants that have been received over the past several years. I think that's really important that residents know that it's not all tax dollars that are being spent. I think we went several years with maybe we were getting grants, we just didn't know about it. But to see all the grants that are coming forward, I think that's important for residents to see. and I'd like to I I see the Palazis are no longer on the meeting, but kudos to them for their sustainable Connecticut bronze certification. I know that Kathy and her team have worked really
hard, really long for a to to make that happen. It was a long haul and I applaud her efforts to doing that and the fact that she's going to continue on and go for the silver is kudos to her. I think that's something that Andover can be proud of.
I don't know that she's actually agreed to that yet, but I'm suggesting that that should be her next step.
I I I've chatted with her and yes, she she's going forward.
All right. Excellent.
Yes. So, it's like good for us. Good for us. You know, Andover would be wonderful if we could get more people like Kathy Palazi involved in things like this. This is a it's a wonderful thing. the other thing is the lighting at the monument park. while you're looking at the lighting, if you could look at the lighting for the big sign that says Andover Veterans Monument Park. that sign and the lighting was put in by donations, volunteers, and we took what we could get at the time, and the lighting isn't exactly right. There's spotlights there which make hot spots on the sign and they really should be a flood lights that more there's no hot spot on it. It just kind of lights the whole thing evenly. and if you're getting grants or whatever, if you're looking at the lighting down there, if you could take a look at at that, the fixtures are fine. Just needs to have a flood light rather than spotlight on both sides of that. and that that's pretty much all I have to say about
what you've done. I I think you guys do a wonderful job and thank you all for all you do for us.
All right. Thank you, Alicia Lee.
No comment. Thank you.
Okay, Marcy Miner.
Hi. just wanted to say thank you. I never ceases to me amaze me how much you guys accomplish every month. So, just wanted to say thank you and I'm impressed. I too was glad to see the report on the grants. I know that a lot has been accomplished in the last few years and it's really nice to see that on paper and you know how just it's just amazing how much you you get done. Thank you.
Right, Kimberly Pursome.
yes. Hi. I wanted to talk a little bit about the bathroom renovation project and the lack of the RFP. It concerns me that for years people sit on these committees and they form these policies and plans that we're all supposed to follow. And it seems that this one hasn't been followed in any way. It also concerns me that the leaders of our children in our community are the group that aren't following the policy. I think that's some food for thought for me. Thank you.
Okay. Joan Heert.
I'm all set. Thank you.
Did I miss anyone?
Okay. everyone, thank you very much. We're going to sit there and put you into a waiting room and go into our executive session right now. I'm going to make a motion that we move to executive session and that we invite town administrator Eric Anderson in for the discussion.
And you want to second?
Carol Lee seconded. Okay. we'll vote on that. Ann Carol.
Jeff Murray. Hi. Scott Person. Scott Person said yes. Jeff Magcguire I
Okay. All right. Eric, if you can community voice, Tess and Joanne Heert, if you could Jeff, can you hear me now? Yes, Ann. Okay,
thank you. Got it working.
Jeff, Scott, Carol, it five. Okay, hang on. Long.
Okay. So, we have just come out of executive session at 11:07 p.m. and we have one item of business or two items of business to conduct. one is I'm going to make a motion to authorize the town administrator to offer a selected candidate the position as town over department of public works supervisor with revised contract to reflect the supervisor position.
I'll second.
Seconded by we're going to further discussion. Okay, we're gonna vote. Ann Ket,
Carol Lee,
I.
Jeff Murray,
hi.
Scott Person,
Jeff Maguire.
All all five of us voted in favor of of that motion. And then I don't believe we have anything remaining. the only thing left on on is a motion of adjournment. So let's see that
motion to adjurnn.
Okay, that was item 18. A motion made by Jeff Murray, seconded by Carol Lee. all those in favor, we're going to do it at one time. I
[Music]
I have nothing. Eric, thank you very much. And you can end the recording. Thank you.
See you guys.
All right. Thanks.