Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen- Regular Meeting
August 10, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Machine-generated transcript — check the video if in doubt.
Okay. Alright.
One second. Okay. We have all the members of the board. We have Matt. We're ready to go. Okay. So I am gonna call to order the town of Andover board of select men regular meeting for Monday, 08/10/2026. We're gonna get started at 07:01PM. And our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. We recording the meeting? Did. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Good job. I pledge allegiance to the flag of United
States Of America. America. The Republic which stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
One second, I have some people to admit. There we go. Okay. And the first item on the agenda is public speak. So I'm going to start with Diane Greiner. That
would be me. Thank you very much. Two things. One, I see that you're on the agenda is the Doris Chamberlain nature pawn sign. I just want you to know that I'm available if you have any questions when you get to that part. And the other thing is on the administrator's report under maintenance agreement. Was that three b or something? You're you're reaching out for cleaning people, quotes for the fire department, for the town hall, and the senior center. I hope you haven't forgotten the library. That's usually I thought under the same contract. So when you're getting quotes, please include our beautiful library so we can keep it that way. Other than that, I'm all done. Thank you very much for all you do. And thank you all the Board of Selectmen members for having your video cameras on. We'd like to see your faces and see your reaction to things. And think it's important for residents to see who you are. So thank you very much. Thank you. Linda Fish.
Hi. I'm just here to listen. Jerry Crumet. I'll circle back to Jerry. Louise Goodwin. I'm good, Jeff. Thank you. All right. Melissa Liteska. All set. Thank you. Grace Kustanian.
Hi. I'm all set. Thank you so much. All right. Marci Minor? No. Thank you. Okay. Valerie Bruno? Not at this time. Thanks.
Owner, is that Dennis O'Brien? Whoever is listed as owner, please let me know who that is. Brianna Linzary.
Yes. I would like to ask the board of selectmen to have in person meetings and Zoom options. I think it's great for transparency and to have a forum where town folks can actually come to the meetings. It seems like a lot of the boards went to a Zoom only approach during COVID and didn't return, and I think that's a disservice to the community. Shannon Louden.
Yes. Good evening. Two things. I hope that you will honor the request of the Board of Education chair and our attorneys and not proceed with item 10 a on this evening's budget. I don't think it's appropriate for you based on all that's transpired to date to consider an AES budget funding procedure. And the second thing is is, especially since I believe he's been here since April, I very much hope that whatever issues are holding up our account administrator's contract have been addressed and that you can give them a contract this evening. Thanks very much.
Lisa. Sorry. I don't know where she went. She might have left. Eric Liteska.
I'm all set right now. Thank you. Alright. Kimberly Persson. I'm all set right now. Thank you. Jerry Kerme.
Can you hear me now? Yes. I just wanna say thank you for this meeting tonight, and I look forward to being a part of it. Thank you.
Okay. Did I miss anyone in public speak? Dennis O'Brien is the owner. So, Dennis, you don't need to sit there and chime in right now, do you? No. You're good. You're on mute. That's even better. Dennis, you're on mute. It's usually button in the bottom corner. Got it. Alright. I'm on now, I think. K.
I had the pleasure of of of talking to governor Lamont today for several minutes, and he reminded me of the visit he made to Andover a few months ago. And he enjoyed it, and he wanted to remind me of it and tell you all that he really enjoyed coming to Andover. So there. Okay. Thank you. Couldn't resist that. All right. Excellent. Megan Lyle.
Hi, Jeff. Can you hear me? Can. I just wanted to make sure that our board of selection was aware that I had submitted an application to be considered for the recreation commission. And then I had also submitted some materials for the board's consideration regarding the Andover Youth Basketball Program, which in summary, basically, I think there is interest in town to keep a program here in town. And there's certainly a number of parents that are prepared to step up and help organize it if the board is supportive of keeping the program here. So happy to answer any questions you guys have about that. Excellent. Thank you. All right.
Did I miss anyone? Okay, we're gonna get started. Our first item of business is number three, additions and changes to the agenda. I do have one thing that I would like to add after item 16. I would like to add 15A, an executive session, a quick executive session to discuss any details necessary regarding the town administrator's contract. Anybody else? Well, let's vote on that one first, and then we'll get to the next one. So does someone want to second that? So and wait a second. I'm sorry. I failed. I failed. I want to welcome Christine Randazzo and Dave Gustanian to the Board of Selectmen. Thank you very much for stepping up, both of you. And hopefully, we'll make it as painless as we possibly can. Thank you very much. Sorry about that. So someone want to second the executive session?
Second it.
Scott Persona seconded. All those in favor, I'm going to go around. I got to figure out Anne Kermeh Aye. Alphabetically. Dave Gustanian Aye. Scott Persona Aye. And Christine Randazzo. So and and Christine, just for your information, you have to speak up because the woman that does the minutes needs to hear the info. So just a little side note. Jeff Maguire, yes. So that's five nothing. Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. Anne, you had something.
Yes. I believe that according to the Charter, we need to select a Vice First Selectman now that we have a full board again. So I'd like to add that to the agenda somewhere.
Very good. I didn't even think about that, Anne. About we Anne, what do you say we do that right now? So after for a board and commission presentations. Okay. One second. Vice versa. Selectman. So
Anne wants to add for a vice versa selectman appointment. I will second that. K.
Any, any further discussion on that one? I'm gonna go around again. Anne Creme? Agree. Dave Gustanian. Aye. Scott Person. Aye. Christine Randazzo. Aye. Jeff Maguire. Aye. Five nothing. Anything else? Anyone else?
It's something that needs to be add to the agenda. But I also want to bring up like Brie had that we should be doing probably meetings in person or, you know, both in person and zoom the way planning and zoning does it now. So while we have the owl, we ought to be able to do that. And I don't know if we have to add that to the agenda or discuss it some other time.
No, let's do it in public. What is that called? A hybrid meeting? Hybrid meeting. Mhmm. Alright. So we, let's put that one at ten e under new business. So ten e discussion and possible action on hybrid meetings. Is that acceptable, Anne? Yes. Alright. So Anne made a motion for for Tenney, discussion of possible action on hybrid meetings. I'll second that as well. Any discussion? No. Okay. Anne Cremay? Aye. Dave Gustanian? Aye. Scott Person. Aye.
Christine Randazzo. Aye. Jeff Maguire. So that's five nothing as well. Okay. Anything else? Okay. We're gonna move on to item four, board and commission presentations. Matt, there are none. Correct? That is correct. Okay. Starting next month, matt, I wanna get with you. I want to have at least three board members sit there and come, and, we're gonna sit there and make sure that they have their budget information. And I want the boards and, the different commissions to come and tell us what the status is with their situation and what they need and what they see themselves doing in those boards, and we'll go from there. Alright? So I'd like to get three every month. And I think next month, it would be great to start with the RAM board of education. It would be great to have them come because it is a huge part of our budget, and I'd like to hear sit there and see and hear how it's going. Okay. Thank you. Alright. We're gonna move on to item four a. So vice for selectman appointment. So I know that this was not on the agenda, and I I apologize. I'll take responsibility for that one. I wasn't even thinking about it. We do need to appoint
a member to be vice for selectman. And what that role would entail is if I'm unable to run a meeting or do something, that person is, the next in line. So for the for the for the meeting, we are all five equals. We all have one vote, and we're a a board of five equal members. And I believe as, attorney O'Brien likes to tell me, I'm, the first electman is first among equals. So then the vice versa, second would be second. I have no more power than anyone else on this board, except I kind of speak for, the town in public facing matters. So the vice electman would end up speaking if I was unavailable. So, is there anyone that would like to be considered as the vice versa electman? I would like to be considered. Okay.
Anyone else think about it? I guess I would be, Jeff. Okay.
Well, listen. I I I I don't either one, Scott. I mean, so from as far as I'm concerned, whether, you or Anne would like to do it, you guys both have more seniority. I'd be open to either one of you. Now I would sit there and say this, which is a different thing. What we did in the past is we did try to appoint a republican so that we had one democrat in a position and one republican in a position. So I would ask Dave and and and Christine if you guys would be interested. The amount of work related to it is no more than you're currently doing other than if I become incapacitated. David, Christine, are you interested?
Okay. So so my Republican friends don't care if a Republican is on the other side. So now we're we're okay. So Feel like I'm a little too new.
Thanks. It's okay. I I get it. I don't know. You wanna flip a coin, you guys? Do you want us to vote on you? Flip a coin, we're all doomed.
And if there's ever one thing, Anne, that you really need to know is I am extremely honest. Well, I'll tell you what. I know that as far as time goes and time commitments go, we all have our own issues. And so from that standpoint, I'm gonna sit there and make a motion that we appoint Scott Person as the vice for selectman. I'll second that.
Dave Gustanian seconded. Alright. Let's we're gonna further discussion. And, Anne, it's not anything to do with you. It has to do with the amount of time that Scott has available to sit there and do everything he always has been doing. Many further The vote should be No, we're going to take a vote. Five people just saying who they want. Okay.
Instead of voting on one person yes or no, and then the other person yes or no. I don't think that's the right way to do it. Alright. I'll I'll I'll accept that. I'll sit there and I'll tell you.
I would sit there and tell tell the board that I would tell the public that based upon the amount of of of bandwidth that I would imagine is available, that I would think Scott would be better for the position. And, Anne, you know, I don't want to talk about it, but that's just what I'm saying to you.
And you just said that there really isn't anything extra to do for the vice versa.
Well, you never know. What if I choose not to be there? Anybody else? I mean and listen. This is a difficult thing. It's not easy. It's not a simple. It's not simple. Usually usually, it's done. You know? The last time we did it, we appointed Jeff Murray there as the individual because we were trying to have a balanced side of this. So we actually had three Republicans, and I was a serving Democrat in the first electoral. That's why we asked one of you, really. I thought it worked pretty well. Well, if no one wants to sit there and add anything else to it because it's a a very difficult topic, and I'm just gonna call a vote on Scott, if you don't mind. Okay. Anne Kerme? No. Okay. Dave Gastani? Scott Person? K. Christine Randazzo. Jeff McGuire. Aye. Okay. So that was four zero four one zero, Ann Creme voted against. Okay. So, Scott, you are now, appointed vice for selectman. Congratulations. Well, thank you very much.
Alright. Okay. Let's move on. We are going to move to the resignations. So at our last, item five resignations, at our last recognition our last the last rec commission meeting, there after that meeting, four members of the rec commission resigned. The resignation letters are in our packet. What we need to do is we need to have Matt put in a, an advertisement into the newspaper, requesting, potential candidates for the open positions, and we will get them appointed at our next meeting. It is great that Megan Lally is going to step up and do it. And as we talk about the rec commission, a lot of the discourse over the rec commission was related to, the basketball program and the basketball program
potentially being basically moved to Hebron and put under the Hebron rec committee or the rec department in Hebron. I am against that if at all possible. I am for it if it's for the benefit of the children, but I'm against it if it's if it's not. And what we need to do with the rec commission is this board needs to sit there and give a little bit more guidance as to what the rec commission does in the future. I believe that all rec sports like basketball or, you know, anything that the town could potentially do. And basketball is the one sport that we really can do. We don't do soccer because it's it's a ram program. We don't do baseball because it is a ram program. We don't do softball because it's ram program, and we don't have enough kids to field teams in those sports. But I would tell you, and I've always believed this, that parents should be running the programs. And you need to get volunteers to sit there and organize it. It should not be run by someone on the rec commissioner or someone in politics. And to be really honest with everybody, and as I told Ann, I'm very honest, I only got involved in town politics because at the time where I ran, the rec commission was being run by one of the selectmen. And I didn't feel as if the kids in town were getting the access to the gymnasium that they should have been getting to sit there and improve themselves. So that was one of the primary reasons why I even got involved in politics in town.
It's no grander than that other than I do believe that the parents who spoke up at our last meeting are 100% right. If they're willing to step up and do the work and they're willing to benefit their kids, they should be running the programs, not someone in town that doesn't have children in the program anymore because you lose touch. So I think we need to get out in the River East. We need to sit there and put a request for letters of intent for people to join the rec commission. And then we as a board need to talk after this meeting and before our next meeting as to what we see for the rec commission doing and what activities that functions can be coordinated with the community center and the community center director. Because they are getting the new software that should allow them to schedule for the gymnasium and schedule for the field and schedule for other activities within town. So I don't think there's anything that we need to do about appointing anybody today because we can't, we have to open it up to the public to get people to become engaged.
Jeff, we have to move this along though quite quickly because the sign up for that is in October. Okay. The end of the sign up.
Okay. And then we need to sit there and assist the parents in getting that done. And that is actually one of the things that I would sit there and say needs to be handled from the community center from a financial perspective. Because in the past, all of the applications would go to, at one point in time, to the town clerk. And then after Carol was no longer the clerk, she was collecting them by hand and then submitting them to the treasurer's office. It's a very disjointed process. And I've always believed that all fees and all applications should be transacted through the community center and then processed in that manner so that we know that we have appropriate sign offs from all the parents and that we have everything lined up in a in a in a as professional fashion as we can. So but, yes, Scott, we will get it done before next meeting. If Megan and Eric and the other parents need any help as far as basketball goes, we will make sure we get them assisted.
Can we set a temporary or interim person that can act in our you know, until it gets official?
We do have one member that's still on the board, Linda Armstrong. But if we needed to appoint Megan Lally, we can give Megan the authority to sit there and do what she needs to related to the basketball program. And Megan, would that be acceptable to you?
Sorry, was staying off camera. But yeah, that would be totally acceptable. I think it would make the parents honestly feel a little bit relieved to kind of just know that it's okay. And like you were saying, honestly, I think a lot of the parents, at least on the third grade and up really are the ones talking and running the program and know who the coaches will be next year and all that stuff. So it's just kind of having permission to kind of organize registration. And I'm in support of using the community center for that purpose. So yeah, I'm here to help however I can. Okay. So
I'll make a motion, Dave, to appoint Megan Lalli as a temporary coordinator for Andover youth basketball. How's that? Second, So Oh, Jeff. Dave. Dave Gustanian. Dave. Alright. Anne Kerme, how do you vote? Aye. Anne voted yes. Dave Gustanian? Aye. Scott Persone? Aye. Christine Randazzo? Aye. Jeff Maguire? Aye. So five nothing. So Megan, let us know what you need as far as youth basketball and what we can do to help. We will sit there and get you set up with Tess and coordinate communication that's necessary with the Board of Education as far as gym times and everything else. I mean, I know it doesn't start until October, but you may as well get prepared as to what you guys are thinking you need.
Yeah. I think the big concern is the five, six boys team were kind of right on the cusp with that survey of whether we'll have enough numbers. So we just wanna make sure that if we do need to refer that age group to Hebron that we're giving them enough time to meet Hebron's registration deadline.
Okay. Alright. It's it's now on the parents. So I think we'd be happy about that. We got it. Thank you all. Let's go. Alright. Okay. Item six, appointments. So we just did what we really needed to do. I don't think there's anything else out there for appointments. Matt, is there anything else that we need to be thinking about?
Not this time. Did did we do we need to take a vote to accept the resignations of the, okay. Just checking.
I mean, we have had we've had discussions about this in the past. I mean, the resignations, what are we gonna do? Are we gonna tell them they can't resign? If you're gonna do that, you better do it before they put the piece of paper out in public. But I guess we did that recently. So I guess anything's possible. But I don't necessarily
know that we need to vote on it. No. If your past practice has been that, then that's
Okay, item seven town administrators report, Matt, you're ready. Yes.
Good evening. So, I know that we have a bunch of, projects that are later on in the agenda. I just wanted to touch base that, as far as the expenditures in the budget, I know that, for at least my office, we did get a new, printer scanner for the town administrator officer office. We still need to purchase a laptop, and there's also some town administrator memberships and conferences that are coming up. There's a crowd one in September, and I believe there's another one for cost, the Council of Small Communities. I know that there wasn't a lot in the budget this year, so I just wanted to put it out there that I know a lot of the especially the contract that's talking about a lot of the expenditures that would be for the town administrator would need to be approved by the select board ahead of time. So I'm just sort of throwing it out there that I'm going to be moving forward at least with the purchase of laptop. I will would like to apply for the September conference to go to. But other than that, I think we'll open to discussions on these, those items. Moving on to staffing,
we got the notification this past week that Dominic is not going to be able to work anymore, it is a reservation effective immediately. Steve, who currently works there, has been agreed to take on the additional times on Wednesday. He's been sort of filling in as it was anyway. We have had a few interested parties interested in the part time position. We did have one person that I had to volunteer this weekend just to give some time, and there's one other person. But I think that moving forward, we may want to, you know, consider both candidates and still have Steve as sort of either the weekend or the backup. I know that one of the individuals already has his DEEP certification as a transfer station attendant or as a certified operator. It's not that challenging requirement. I actually took the certification and I'm now a transfer station operator. And you're supposed to have at least typically one member who's a person that's on staff there that is an operator at all times, but DEEP, DEEP, which is Department of
Energy and Environmental Protection, their understanding that if you're hiring a new person that they give you a grace period. And some of the other things in the past when we've run short is that we've had the DPW cover as well. So I think we're gonna move quickly on this to, you know, hopefully one of the one the two or both people will be able to fill in and we'll put them in, you know, as, I guess, there'll be probationary, so we'd make sure that they're up to speed. But it's a definitely, an area that we wanna you know, we don't want the town to be affected as, you know, any shutdown as far as the transfer station. So, and I'm happy to hear any other options that the select board may wish to discuss. Another position was the town custodian position. We have had a few people that were interested in that as well, and we've also reached out to a cleaning company that services another building here in town. We initially had posted for the the handyman service and the custodian was one one position. I think we're gonna break that off. We're gonna go with the handyman
as a separate and just concentrate on getting the town buildings, at least the town hall and the community center. When discussing what the previous individuals who assisted us, they really didn't do a lot at the library. They did a lot of their handyman stuff at the library. So I don't know if we're really gonna go forward as far as hiring that person to do the library, but it's something we can consider and I'll have to talk to the people at the library how they're making out as they've been for the last couple months without having a custodian there. Town audit, we have this coming week, the next thing on my agenda was that Wednesday, we're originally planning to have the audit begin for the fiscal twenty twenty six. I don't know if we're gonna be moving that off or not because some of the, you know, necessary staff might not be here for that. So we will probably between now and the next select board meeting, we will be beginning that audit process. The new community and senior center van is is almost ready for delivery. I think we're excited about that. Tess has worked hard to get this this this van, and as soon as it comes in, I I will let the selector know. We'll we'll try and put something in the paper to let people know that this is a, you know, a grant funded vehicle. I will be taking a vacation next week, August 16 to the twenty third, but I will be in reach. I do have access if anything needs to be done as far as any of my responsibilities as far as either banking or setting up meetings and those type of things.
I'll be leaning heavily on, Kate as the, you know, as an administrative assistant to assist with anything, and I'm available with the town's, cell phone at all times. Collective bargaining, we had an initial management preparation meeting and I had discussions with the union steward of some matters of concern. So I think as soon as I get back after vacation, we'll hit the ground running. Hopefully, we should schedule another meeting with at least the management side before the end of this month so that in September we can start moving forward with the contract for ASME, which expired June 30. One other thing I had submitted in the, the packet was, the public works has a their fire alarm system. The, control system has a, a short circuit in one of the, I guess you call it a short circuit in a circuit board, a shortened circuit board. So the control panel is probably about less than five years old but just from the conditions that you can know what causes the short out. But,
because the panel to replace the whole thing would be probably the 20 to $25,000 range, it really is, something that is a sole source procurement. Only the people that make, you know, that that, the fire protection team that does the project are the ones that would have the, wherewithal for the type of circuit board that goes into their machine. So, as a matter of course for, you know, protecting the town's assets, town building as well as personnel about letting them know if there's any issues. I'd like to I'd put in a recommendation that, as procurement officer that we go forward with the sole source procurement and go, forward this have the select board forward to the, finance committee to allow the procurement at least to get go forward and get some solid numbers here, and then hopefully, I'd be willing to talk to the, finance committee about which accounts they may wish to take it out of. I would think this is something of a a capital nonrecurring
type of expenditure, but, I leave that up to the discretion of the the board of selectmen and the finance committee.
So Two two things on that one. Sure. If it's only five years old, can we find out what we paid for the system? Yes. We are aware of that. And then before we determine, sole source or not sole source, which I'm assuming we're gonna have to go sole source anyway, why can't we just get the price on the board so we know exactly what we're talking about? Okay.
Alright. Yeah. I've I've been talking to Eric from the DPW about this, and, he's sort of been the point person between FPT, which is a fire protection team. I probably should, get involved and give them a call myself to find out, you know, the exact nature of, whether that's just a component component circuit board that I I have to assume that typically they type don't let people do additional work on their their own equipment for guarantees. But, as far as the warranty, if it's, under five years, I think that, from what, Eric had mentioned that, Zach had thought it was probably in the five year range. I'd have to look back to see if, fire protection team, how old that is and exactly, like you mentioned, Jeff,
that what the cost would be just for the circuit board. Well, ask the fire protection team. I'm assuming if they're working on it, they assisted with the install or they managed the entire install, get the price that the town paid for that unit from them. So we're aware, get the original contract. So we also understand the warranties and everything else related to it, and we'll go from there. Okay. Alright. Sounds good. Does anybody else have any questions? That? Nope. Okay. Does anyone have any other questions for Matt?
Matt, I'm curious about the We were having a problem that the IT people in South Windsor were gonna back out of their work. Where is that now?
Okay. Well, South Windsor is the their end date for us is October 21. We've gotten a few people that have through other people other like I think that Lisa from Salem knows somebody that had does that sort of work, IT, municipal IT. I talked to somebody else that used to be for the town of South Windsor, and I think I probably should just reach directly out to South Windsor if they have any any recommendations. They do have the person that has been servicing the top Yep. Don't of Andover. Don't
say that. We're gonna yeah. We know we're we know what you're talking about. I mean, you're good. You don't have to throw him under the bus.
Oh, another saying that he I was saying that Steven is actually becoming a sort of a free agent that he we can actually go directly with him as well. So there's different options that we're looking at at this point.
Okay. Alright. And if and Dave, I I know I spoke to you about this when this happened. Any assistance that you can give with your background in IT to to Matt and to the team as far as what we need. The the one thing that I would like to do, Matt, are we having an exit meeting with South Windsor?
Oh, I haven't set that up yet. I know it's it'll be here before we know it. But once I get back from vacation, I could touch base. I know they have the people that sort of was the department head for that department has had left and the next person left. So the person that's there now
hasn't been really working with the town of South Windsor that long, but we definitely could either talk to them or the town town manager for the town of South Windsor. No. I get the the I the IT guy that is that did the replacement, he had been at Andover probably about a month ago, a month and a half ago, and he did a complete IT inventory. So, Dave, it would be very helpful to sit there and get his feedback as to what we have, what we need to sit there and consider, and how we move forward on that that project. So if you could be involved in what I'm asking that is is make get them exit meeting so that Dave can make it. Like Okay. Yeah. He's he's the most important one out of us making that meeting so that he can sit there and and give the rest of the board members an understanding of what's going on.
Yeah. I had an initial, conversation with Kate about that. So, but, I wasn't aware of the, the review.
Thank you. We just we just should do an exit interview to understand what you know, we should do it sooner than later. So right when you get back from vacation, if they can get it arranged because we need to build that into our, what we're asking for people to quote us on. And, you know, it would be really important to sit there and get that situated. And, yeah. That that that meeting would be important for us to understand where they think our flaws are and where we're at and what we need to focus on, and then we should be able to find a contract with another IT provider that can sit there and provide maybe a little bit more service and you know? Because South Windsor was very limited in what they're doing. I mean, I continuously see update issues on people's machines because they can't update, and they haven't updated. They're not even updated remotely,
which needs to happen so that their softwares can be run correctly. I have one more just a quick item that didn't make onto the my report. But this past last Tuesday, we had skips come out to do the taking care of the septic systems at the fire department, the town hall, and the community center, the town hall previous week to that and had some issues where the baffles, you know, had to be poked by the DPW because of some issues as far I guess it hadn't been pumped since, 2021, so that's kind of a long time. This obviously, the community center was fairly new. And I guess there are issues with the fire departments, as far as their their pump and that there's a lot of water that goes in there. So I think we're gonna probably be getting a recommendation from, skips at least on, you know, the fire department. From that point, we'll, we'll have to discuss whether we're gonna go forward with skips or get additional some information. But I think that we probably as far as town hall, we probably should be done, you know, if not annually, you know, biannually so that, we don't run into a situation where it's it goes for multiple years. It's a you know, it was about, I think, was $450. It's not a huge expense, but, you know, it is one of those things we probably should as far as keeping the system work up and working. So it's better than having the issues that if you lose lose the interest of
I think one of the issues we had was that it was the elections were going on last week. So, of course, when skips came, there was a little bit of a fragrance, but that all got taken care of.
I'll keep you informed on the fire department. Well, Matt, the one thing the one thing in our town, every one of the residents has septic systems. So we're all aware and, you know, the timing of the pumping definitely varies on residents, but we should get on an appropriate schedule for the size of our building. K. Thank you. I agree. Alright. I
have another question. Who who was that? I I was reading the contract that tests and you wrote up about the van usage. Yes. And in there, there was a I guess we get paid yearly for the usage from the school. For the use of the vehicle?
Per mile cost. Yeah. The payment is due on the end of July apparently. Is that true?
It was in the It's it's based on the fiscal year. So they, of course, would wanna pay it because they're gonna be charging it to the previous fiscal year. Well, I'm just curious if if we ever sent out an invoice for that. Yes. They were sent out. Yes. They paid the bill this past week, I believe.
That bill that bill was worked on and processed by the treasurer's office, and it went to the school. There was some there was an issue with the original bill that was sent that Matt and and the superintendent had to work out. Good. So it's processed. That along with the diesel for the trip for the buses and the gas for the van and for the snow blowers.
I had one other thing to say about the computer to use. The the school had gone through and found a number of different ITs that they could work with, they chose one. Possibly, if you're looking for different names, you could check with Valerie, and she'd be able to give you some of the names they had looked at. Yes. And Val had given me the name of you know, that's one of the names that I had received. So all all things are on the table.
Okay. Anybody else have anything for Matt? Okay. Before I do Matt, so I figured I'd let everybody out as well. As far as grants go, have we sat there? And do you have any grant applications that you're considering putting forth? Where are we as we move forward?
So just the same ones that we've applied for the past. The most recent one was just for the for the registrars for just the the early voting. But, yeah, everything is sort of in the pipeline. I haven't come across any new grants, but I did have a call into the representative Weir's office and I did have a brief conversation with Senator Rahman that I'd like to discuss, you know, what better ways that we can get some grant applications or opportunities for the town. Okay. Good. Thank you, Matt.
Anything else? Alright. We're gonna move on to item eight, the treasurer's report. And just so everybody's aware, Lisa's family owns a blueberry farm in Northern Massachusetts, and she was blueberry picking for a good part of the month of July. And it's a beautiful place.
So anyway. We got up to 12 ton. Went back out and did 12 ton. I didn't go back out, but the rest of them that I left up there went out and got the last ton.
And then one of the things too is there's an email that each one of you received before the meeting. Matt, I want you to make sure that this gets put up into the packet even if it's after the meeting so that the residents can sit there and see it. But you guys at least have some information to ask any questions you want to ask. Lisa, you can go forward. I just wanted to let everybody know that you had blueberry picking to do in July. Yes.
I apologize. My video is not on. I can't get it to work. I was going to go home and do this from home, but I got too busy doing stuff. And I'm on my laptop here, and I can't get the camera to work. As Matt said, we're moving forward to the audit. I'm hoping we can still do it this week to start it. We've already started preparing for it. We're using the ADP payroll. Some people have had a little bit of a hard time, but for the most part, they've said, gee, this is really great because they go in on their phone. We have found some past payroll issues that we're now correcting because we went to ADP. So that's another plus. The new budget is in the system. I'm doing I have most of the year end transfers, set to go, but we're still getting bills for last year. So I can't do that yet. We, I do have, I did send out, I hope you all got it in the packet. There is the register there and the budget to actual if anybody has questions on those. No questions?
I'm looking at my email. Give me one second. Okay. I wanna get to the bottom. Okay. It doesn't go to the bottom. I'm short pages. The register? No. The budget to actual. Okay.
You know, I wanted that because I reprinted my own and I didn't know if I just ran out of paper, but I reprinted my own, but I thought I rescanned it, but I must not have. I must have only scanned the first set that I, so we have two, two There isn't really a lot, yeah, in this year as right now because nobody's really spending as much as, you know, the end of the year.
One thing that we we the board of finance will sit there and get all of this information. All of the fund balances are up to date. July is almost reconciled, so I know that working with the treasurer's office, we've gotten much better at all that. And I know coming next month, will see a different level of information that you've seen in the past. But do any of you guys have questions for the treasurer on the check register?
As I said, the email we're trying we're trying a different format so the rec check register is more informative and we're trying to use that memo line a lot more than in the past. So hopefully, like Jeff said, they'll just improve as we go on. Oh, Lisa. Yeah.
Has there been any any activity, from shipment and good for attorney's fees?
No. What do you what do you mean? You don't mean Hallor and Sage. You mean Shipman Goodman? Shipman. Shipman Goodman. Yeah.
There's a transaction in July 2 that was $4,132.50, Scott. And that was for, legal that was for the contract review for the building the bathroom renovation project. So we spent $4,000 on a contract review. I mean, if you look at this, I mean, basically, the fire commission got their portion of their what they were asking for. You know, a lot of these are also last year's checks being cut on different things for payables, but there's nothing in here that's that's really crazy. Is there anything, Lisa, that you see that's a problem or concerning? No. Lot of the bigger transactions are related to the bridge project or the field or the roadwork that the DPW The roadwork is the large ones. Yeah.
So it's just beginning of the year, first quarter payments, or like you said, fire commission payments. A lot of times the annual insurance workers' comp comes in four payments. So we've done the first payment of liability and workers' comp, items like that that come through the beginning of the year.
Okay, Matt. Make sure that this gets posted so the public can see it. Post the one without the lines. Oh, you want it without the lines? Yeah. It just looks neater.
Okay. I thought everybody wanna win the lines so they all could see them see it better since we're all getting so young. So
You're right. Well, we can look at that. You know, Casella waste for the month was $30,000. 30,000. I mean, just so the and that that's not just for the month. That was multiple months. Months. That was it was more than two months too. I think I think we're normally about I think when we were looking at it this morning or this afternoon, it was about $9,000 or $10,000 a month, I think.
You see it all the time. Yeah, was thinking it's probably more in the 12 to 15 range. I was going to say 15. That's what I was thinking. Okay.
So that's good for the public to know that that's what it costs us to not run the transfer station, but to transfer all of the waste out of the facility. So bulky waste, the recycling materials, and the regular trash waste. Matt and I were having a conversation with Eric about trying to minimize the number of pickups, because each pickup costs $195 and then you pay for the weight on each one of the containers. So we've to find some ways to minimize that cost. But just so everybody does understand, the $50 for the transfer station sticker does not cover all of the costs of the transfer station.
It's cost up at a $195 to move the containers? The hauling fee. Yes.
That was our conversation today, Scott, is to make sure that Public Works attempts to sit there and pack, especially the bulky waste containers, tighter to reduce the number of pickups. So we were trying to figure out if we could save $1,000 a month in some way related to the the hauling fees. Yeah.
Time we buy a new backhoe, we gotta leave that old one up at the transfer station so they can pack their own dumpsters. The transfer station attendants.
Yeah. Well, we're gonna sit there, and Eric is gonna sit there and work with his guys. I guess they go up there on Thursday. If anybody has any free time and wants to see what they're doing, they go up there on Thursdays, Scott, to pack it down. Okay. Anybody on the board have any questions related to any of the transactions? If not, Lisa, I think you're good. All right. Thank you. Yep.
Okay. Let's move on to item nine, old business discussed and act upon the following. And so, Matt, we're going to sit there and give you free rein on these to start with, and then we'll fill in the blanks if we need to. So A, review the senior center senior transportation garage status.
So, as far as the senior center garage, we really haven't, gotten together to with the group to start moving forward on that.
I k. Let's get a meeting scheduled and get that done. Yep. That has to be finished. That is that is the the next item that has to go away. So we have to get that building done. Christine is gonna be involved.
Good. I do know that so we'll sit there, and since you brought up Christine, because it's not on here, the video, for the for the field and the playground, the pickleball courts. Please make sure that that gets up on the town website if it's not already up there. I saw it there.
Okay. Great. That's perfect. Can you guys give me one second? I have a family. Sorry. I have college students leaving me. Alright. Nine b, the status of Long Hill Bridge project.
Oh, on the, Long Hill Bridge project, I. Report that, it is on on schedule. We just had we've been meeting biweekly. Last Thursday, Eric and, Scott were on the, at the meeting as well. They're just getting everything was as far as the utilities have finally been taken care of. They're just waiting on micropiles, to to come in. And at that point, once, things get established, you're going to see things moving pretty quickly along. Is definitely still on prep. There's no real holdups. They're going to be working several Saturdays as well, just not necessarily because they're behind, but just as they want to take advantage of the good weather. That's it on the that project. The next one is any questions on the road? Scott, any any update from your end?
They're waiting for the crew to come and do the micropiles on the east side of the bridge, and they're still pulling out the foundation on the west side of the bridge. They they do have most of it. Probably half of it's gone now. It's very deep. They built a good bridge back in 1934. They poured a lot of concrete. They did.
Okay. Yeah. The machine for the micropiles is there. The crew has to arrive.
Okay. Nine c, the status of the Percy Cook Trail, preliminary plan.
So right now, that's sort of sitting on the back burner as well. I haven't, really been able to move forward with that. But, I have, we have, on d, we have moved forward on the the bathroom renovation. Oh,
Oh, sorry. Go back to c. Go back to c. So on c, we have the town paid for the engineering, and that is supposed to be grant funded. So we need to find who the entity was that was going to grant fund that project, and let's sit there and get an understanding from that. We need to get that quoted out, and we need to get some information back to the board as to what that trail will potentially take to sit there and get accomplished. So let's not just keep kicking that one down the road as well. So we'll move on to nine d, the update on the AES bathroom renovations.
So they've been, we've been having a weekly, Zoom meetings on that. I actually have gone over and inspected the progress. They recently did the, epoxy the floors of the bathrooms for the boys and girls' room. The next step is they're gonna be putting on the tiles on the, the wall tiles. So I think, it's it's on schedule. It's gonna be done on time. They they look good so far. Once they get the, tiles on the walls, then they'll put all the, all the additional, the the doors, the sinks, and, other things that, are needed for bathrooms. So it's definitely gonna be ending this month, and I I don't know if if we have other people from the the board of ed that were here that would wanna add. But I think that that we've had some good luck with that one. I think that even with the they've mis misdirected some tiles at first,
but they've replaced you know, the they sent the wrong tiles, basically. There's also been some case where the the the the color of the doors, the doors for the bathroom, stalls came in, but, they were able to replace them with, something that's of the similar, like, gray. So, everything's sort of knock on wood moving along. So Do we have any other over add on fees?
No. Just the ones that we had earlier that we've talked about in the last couple months as far as the asbestos.
K. Alright. Next month, if you can at least get us what the final total is expected to be on that project. I know that we have some bills in there from May Segundi and let's just get that number for the board so we know what it is. I think that's the name of the company. Give me a second. Pretty sure we paid. Second, do know?
Yeah. It's an Italian name. I shouldn't be able to say it. No one really knows I'm half Italian, but I am. What is the name of the company? Secondino. Secondino. Secondino and Sons. So okay. Let's keep moving on. So anybody else have any questions on the bathroom? Nine E, discussion and possible action on the Hop River Home contract.
So, on the Hop River Home, I think that, there were there's two things we're talking about. The one is the, the abatement, like a 50% abatement, and then there's other other ones whether or not, as far as the field usage. When it comes to the, regarding with the abatement, I know that the, select board, there had been a town meeting that approved the select board to have the authority, and they went, to with a 50% abatement for three years. I don't know whether the select the board of selectmen have the if they would like to continue that or just do on a one year to one year or if it's or even I guess the question for the dentist would be whether we have to go back to town meeting again to get authorization if it was more than three years. My understanding is that the select board was given the authority and that they can continue to move forward. I probably would not be, in favor of going another three year contract without, like, looking at the full details of, the abatement. They are a for profit, group. We're talking the the significant amount of money. I think it's, like, 13,000 that's abated. So, it's something that we probably should have some more discussion on. And, but I have not seen any, updated contract language. I was gonna try and get that from Kate, but she's on vacation. So
Well, there's there's no contract language. We haven't sat there and moved forward with addressing the contract because we had discussions with them. Well, we were supposed to have a meeting, but we didn't have a meeting because there was only two of the members that attended. So we had a we had public discourse with the board members from the Hop River Homes. And the issue is that unless the town town can give town can give an abatement. I I know Scott and I disagree kinda on this one. I'm not in favor of giving the abatement because the abatement is not going to go to the residents. There's very few residents that are not on Section eight in the complex. But they do provide low income housing, not always for Andover residents or prior Andover residents.
There are plenty of residents that are in that facility. And Plenty Yes. Of
I mean, you absolutely know more than I do about that facility, and you have much more communication with residents. I mean, Dave, I'm sure probably does two from the fire department and calls that are required But to come it is $13,000 And to me, and this is just a common sense way I look at it, it's $13,000 that's going toward the management company and increasing the management company's compensation. That's how I look at it. I'm just putting it out there in public, but you know, if we sit there and prove it, that's okay. It's it's not going to kill the town. Can we push this forward, Jeff? No. Absolutely. It doesn't need to be decided today. I mean, we're not using the field. So because we're not using the softball field for any purposes, because we don't have youth sports and we're not we haven't come up with an alternative on the field.
There's We've talked about this at length, though. You know, we talked about an adult league, and I'm sure that the administrators over there would be open to all that. Well
And I know you're if you really wanna play. If you wanna play. Yeah. Wanna play. Yeah. The
issue with that is they didn't want that the last time. They wrote into the contract. They made us put into the contract that it was only for youth sports and a specific age.
They also mentioned in the last meeting that they would be open to
things that we would be interested in also. Alright. Then who wants to spearhead that one, getting that one over? Like, anybody? Getting it through what?
Over the hump? Getting getting with our friends at the Hop River Home Board of Directors and getting it tied up at least with the details so that we can give it to Dennis and get either a contract done on the field and to make a motion and an appropriate motion to get the abatement put in place. Okay.
Matt, why don't you set up another meeting? We'll have another meeting. I mean, you just gotta work it out, the details. I mean, it doesn't have to even be in person. It can be on the phone, Scott. I mean, there there was one of the the the ladies definitely, I you know, she'd come in or she'd she'd be on the phone and she'd get it done. Yeah.
So okay. Nine f, a discussion and possible action on the appointment of a cleaning contract for town office building. So, Matt, we don't have our contracts in place. We're still looking. We need to have this done by next meeting. We've got to have a cleaning group in the town office buildings. I know you guys are doing a good job. The the employees are kicking in and doing work to sit there and make sure that the office doesn't get out of control, but we've got to get that done. Next by next meeting? How about next week?
How about next week? And listen, I don't Matt, I will tell you this. I don't care if you give it to somebody initially. Like like, give them a thirty day contract just to get just to get it started and get, you know, the place swept out and vacuumed out and cleaned up and, the bathrooms cleaned. And, especially, you know, we have the primaries tomorrow. You know? Okay. I cleaned the man's bathroom as best I could, the nonemployee bathroom. And what I would tell you is little, the little toilet wand, you need a new holder. It doesn't snap back the proper way, so you gotta put your hand down there and sit there and get the brush back in. That was not okay.
Just letting everybody know these are the things you deal with. Yeah. Alright.
Jeff, we we heard that you're half Irish and half Italian, and now we heard that you
Like cleaning the toilets. This is remarkable, Jeff. No. It's bad. You work all day in the town office building. No. No. No. No. No. That's not true. That's not true. Signed up to be vice versa. Are you for hire, Jeff? Yeah. I'm for hire. I am for hire. I am for hire. Let's move on to nine g. So nine g discussion of possible action on the town administrator's contract. We are having an executive session to discuss that, and we will move forward with with getting that accomplished. Yeah. We'll we'll leave it for there. Nine h, discussion and possible action regarding the town van School usage contract. So, Matt signed a contract.
Yeah. So, we had met with Valerie and myself and tests to discuss the options that we want to do for the next, The next fiscal year, there was a lot of talk about the, the fact that the town, the. Bus driver, the the van drivers are filling up the gas. The, there was talk about whether the town should be taking care of that, in discussions that I had prior with the the first selectman. And then going into the meeting, we talked that that was about they put about 3,657 miles out last year. And the in good faith negotiations, this talk was that we the school would wanted to drop that $3.50 charge if it were even before to drop 25¢. So so $3.25,
that'd be a difference of about $914. If we were to have the DPW come, it's, you know, they fill them up, say, twice a month for one you know, basically one hour on time and a half, that'd be $90. So we were talking about $900 a year. The discussion was that in the the years moving forward and the current year that we were in as part of a good faith that we would give them a $500 credit on this year as it did go up significantly from $9,000 last year to 12,000 this year, and then $500 rebate in the next, next three years or the next year of the contract. So it's only one year contract. Rebate for what, Matt? What's that? A rebate for what? I read that. Because because their drivers is having to fill up the the fuel, the gas, and the tank. They'd have to drive down when they could just either park it but then it would be a responsibility to the town if we were to have them basically,
you know, because because they Can can I ask a question just just so the public understands? So what you're saying is that the school who's using the town van didn't want to stop at the gas station and pay the hourly rate for the employee
to fill up the gas in the truck in in the Tom van? And Valerie, I'll let you speak in a couple seconds. I think it's that that that they weren't gonna stop there with the student when they were going by. They would come back. I
guess But aren't they driving aren't they driving by without a student? That's a good point. One
way you go, you gotta have not have a student. Yeah, that's is okay. So the town so the town gave a credit of $500 Yes.
Okay. Does the does the school in this contract pay for the gas in the vehicle? It does. $3 no. They don't. They're it's part of the they're paying it through the the rate, $3.50 per per mile. So that's the cost that it would be for the usage fee. And that includes gas. It includes That includes gas. Yes. It does. Okay. Valerie, what do you got? Hi.
So the problem last year, came with the the the filling of the tank being the school pays the driver. We're paying the driver hourly. So if a driver does have to, in addition to dropping off and picking up the student, go on company time to the gas station, we are paying them to do that. We're also taking the vehicle, which is clocking mileage, to go to the gas station and back. So we, in essence, are being charged then for the time for the employee to get gas, as well as the distance to and from the gas station. I do understand, and as Matt said, it can't be done with a student in the vehicle, so it's a special trip. And so I do understand the idea that the vehicle does need to be gassed up. And it if we're the ones using it the majority of the time, it's more convenient to have our employee do it than to have the public works. So I completely understand that. But during the course of a year then, the conversation was, if you add up the $10 here, $15 here in time that we're paying the employee and paying the mileage, we don't shut the mileage off the vehicle when we go to the gas station. So because we incur all of those other expenses, it was $500 that of the 12,900 that was credited. So we paid 12,450.
What would the school have paid if you used Eastcon to do the transportation? It would depend.
No. Just give me a number. I I can't give you a number. It would depend. Okay. So let's say in the past, you said $30,000, I think, was the number. $20,000. So, Matt, do you know what the cost that the town charged the school for the use of this van? $12,500
$12,500 Yes. Okay. And so the the last thing I'd I'd sit there and I think we need to do before we get into the next year's contract, because you already signed this contract, Matt, so it's already done. We need to understand the mileage per gallon on that van because the three fifty to me is is is kind of a problem mentally. And Valerie, I'd sit there and tell you, even if you had, let's say, had 10 miles a gallon, or I'll even give you 12 miles a gallon, and you did 3,500 miles, that's not very many gallons to fill up. So $500 is a lot of hours for sitting there filling up that many gallons. Just telling you. Isn't the diesel right there where you're parking the buses? Different vehicle. It's a gas vehicle. They use a WEX credit card on that vehicle. Gotcha. Okay. So you signed the contract, Matt. Those are the issues that we need to sit there and continue to look at, and we'll go from there. But as far as the total miles, I think I looked at the bill, 3,900 miles,
Something like that? I had written that. Yeah. I had written down an estimate of 3,600.
So Okay. I need to know and, Tess, I know you're on here. I need to know the gas mileage on the vehicle, alright, for next year. Okay. Anybody have any other questions related to that contract, related to the the van? Okay. Discussions and possible actions on the Bozzola Road culvert, including renewal of the contract with Nathan. Now we gotta get rid of the renewal of the contract because we renewed the contract at the last meeting. Matt, on this issue, when you get back from vacation, when you're away, I will sit there and talk to the one resident with the most significant issues related to the easement requirements. I will get an appointment scheduled with that resident. If we can sit there and get that resident situated as far as an easement goes, then the rest of the residents should all be able to fall in line fairly quickly. So I will sit there and reach out to her again, and we'll get that scheduled for when you get back from vacation. And then Dennis will sit there and make sure that we have you coordinated for that meeting. Right? Any of the easements been done? Yeah. None of the easements have been done. We have one primary easement that has to get accomplished, and we will sit there and get that organized. So okay. We're gonna move on to, item 10. So item 10 is new unless anybody has any other questions related to the culvert, which is on the agenda for next next year, which is also another road closure around the lake. So anybody on the board? Okay. Item 10, new business, discuss and act upon the following.
10A, discussion and possible action on the AES. I'll just go, it's not a budget issue, it's a funding issue. So funding procedure to fund the amount of the budget that has been approved by the taxpayers of Andover. So as you know, last meeting, I pulled the item off of meeting. And the reason I pulled that item off of the meeting was not because there was an issue with the, what, what I am proposing. It was because we did not have a five member board, and I wanted to make sure that there were no other issues related to a five member board in this issue. Now, just so everybody understands, the school has received their first round of funding, which I believe is $468,000 the way that it had previously dealt with, $468,000. Last month, they received it in two chunks, 100,000. And the school received what did we receive that's in the register? 383 so $483,939 is what was paid in two pieces, a $100,000 and then 383,000. The month of for the month of July. In the month of August, they received, I believe the treasurer has remitted the $483,000 for the month of August. So what I am proposing is so everybody understands it has nothing to do with how much money the school board has budgeted to spend. It has nothing to do with how the school board spends their money. What I am proposing is because the money that gets pushed into,
the AES account, which also please be aware is town money. It is not AES money. It is town money. All of the money that is spent in the operating budget of the town is reflected in the audit for the town under the general fund. And I'm going to give you some history too. So just so you understand, Five years ago when we moved to the Edmunds software, the town and the school moved to Edmunds software. And the determination was that it was going to be one account so that the town could sit there and see the school account, and the school could reconcile its own money, and it would be one joint software file. That's how it was sold. And then when it came to setting it up, it couldn't happen that way. So it was one file for the town and one file for the school. And Valerie and I and Eric worked together because we were continuously getting audit issues that we could not reconcile our bank accounts. So what we decided to do as a team working together because, and I'll even go a little farther back,
before that, every check went out of the operating account of the town. So the school checks went out of that account and the town checks went out of that account. All the checks. The town never told the school how to spend its money. It just all the checks went out of that account because it's general fund money. So five years ago, we got the new Edmunds software, Valerie, Eric, I and made a decision that it would be better for the school to have its own bank account so that it could reconcile its own transactions. And we did that. It worked. And surprise, surprise, we worked together. We worked really well. It was very quick, very easy. It was the right decision to make. Now I'm sitting there looking at this situation where the town is earning either 2.5% in interest or 3.25% in interest. And what we've done is we've funded the school in advance is basically as best I can explain it to you. So we send $483,000 to the school on the first day of the month. And the school doesn't spend it all at one time. But even if they did, we would fund $483,000 And if the school spent $500,000
on the first day of a given month, and they still had all their money in it, we would fund $500,000 What I'm asking and what I'm trying to do is fund the school's expenses, which are with town money, because those are town expenses, funded as they need it. So if they process 150,000 of accounts payable, the town funds the $150,000 of accounts payable. If they have $200,000 in payroll, we fund $200,000 in payroll as needed, so that the town can maximize the amount of time that the town's money is invested in at a minimum interest bearing account of two and a half percent. So if you looked at, information that I had provided before, because I don't have all of the information, just quite honestly, I don't have all of the information from all of the months. And I'll eventually get it, and I'll put it all together for everybody. There's given months at the in this cycle where the school has had a significant amount of money in the bank account. And it doesn't need to be there. It needs to be earning interest. So that is what I'm attempting to do. I'm not attempting to dictate that the school spend money in a certain way. That has no bearing on this exercise.
It has to do with the school sits there and spends it and gets funded as they need it. And that's all I've ever been after. I know it's twisted around in many different ways that I'm trying to dictate how people spend money. I I don't. You've gotten your budget, $4,800,000. That's what you're doing. But the funding mechanism of it means that in my estimate, I'm sitting there looking at between 30,000 and $50,000 of interest that can be earned by the town, which is a significant amount of reduction in taxes that we can give to taxpayers. And so I know that the school and the Board of Education has spent a significant amount of money having legal opinions drafted related to this issue and sending letters
to the town administrator and to the town attorney that we're in violation of every rule in the book. Listen, it's common sense. And I'm just begging you. Common sense, not asking for anything of any significance. If I'm asking for anything, it's what's the list of checks? How much do those checks total to? And how much do we need to fund the school checking account? So Valerie, I'll get to you in a second. You can keep your hand up. But I'm just sitting there telling you from a common sense accounting perspective, it makes sense. Now, what I did ask the town attorney to do, because I'm not an attorney. I asked the town attorney to sit there and tell me who has the authority to make this decision. And I'll sit there and I'll let the town attorney tell you who has the authority to make the decision. So Dennis, you gotta go off mute, my friend. Lower left.
Okay. Here I am. Yes. Hey. Yeah. I I I wrote a nine page letter for you last week. I think people have seen it. My it it went to the the attorney for the board of ed who I've talked to, Peter, Murphy. And I concluded that, the authority to make this decision is definitely within the realm of the board of selectmen with the chief administrative board of the town. And that's I guess it's been done by the board of finance up to now or at least once. I think in July of July of last year, they decided that, you know, so much should be paid every month. 10 equal payments divide divide the total amount by by by 10, and and you get 480
something dollar thousand a month. Yeah. And it's just one thing. Wasn't just decided by the board of finance. That was a joint decision between Valerie, Eric, and myself at the point in time where this was set up because there was no stiff account for the town. Was no significant interest earnings at that point in time. So Valerie, Eric, and I all decided that we would follow the RAM model, which is very difficult thing to deal with because if you look at RAM and Dave, I know you're on RAM. RAM has a different funding mechanism. It's not equal payments because the towns got mad at RAM multiple years ago as to the amount of money that was being pushed over to RAM at what point in time. So RAM is a stepped program to sit there and and deal with, the flow of funds.
So just to let you know, it wasn't a board of finance decision. Okay. I I I wasn't aware of that. All I all I knew was that the board of finance voted the in July 2025 to, to make 10 equal payments. And I, you know, my and and it was, you know, that was what, Peter Murphy was relying on, attorney Peter Murphy, his letter, initial letter on this issue. And I I addressed it in about five or six pages that the board of finance is a limited agency, and it doesn't have that kind of authority. Has all kinds of authority, but it doesn't have that. And it's not listed anywhere in the statutes and or the or the charter. And, you know, I believe that the the default is that the board the board of selectmen is the, you know, chief administrative body of the town, is in control of a lot of things in the town. And if they're not assigned to somebody else, they go to the board of selectmen. And that's that's a that's a a a, you know, thumbnail sketch of what I what I decided. I also
my view on this is that nothing has happened yet, but, yeah, I mean, you've got the initial payments were made in July and August in accordance with the 10 payment a year equal payment a year plan. The only way to find out whether there's any kind of illegality here is if the if if in the course of doing this, if the Board of Education and the and the school was negatively affected by the implementation of this plan. And as far as I can tell, it won't be, but it might be. And if it was, then we'd have a problem. But, the way it's been, you know, what I've learned about it is it should work. And, it should work, and it would save the, as you said, Jeff, and you know better than I do that it could make the the town of Andover up to $50 a year or 30 or 40 or whatever. And that's can buy more money than I get paid. And so I think that's that to me, that's not chump change. And I think it's worth doing and see what happens. And as long as there's no problem, the important thing is that just as you and Valerie and Eric did
couple of years a few years ago to come up with the original plan, I think the the board of selectmen and the board of education and everybody else in town needs to work together and to try to do the best they can for the taxpayers. I know it's a little bit beyond my province to say that, but I work in a lot of towns, and I always try to influence board members in these difficult situations. Sometimes they come up to work together for the betterment of the people. That's all I have on that for now, unless you have other questions.
Anybody have any questions for Dennis? Okay. As long as none of the other board members have a problem, I'm gonna let Valerie participate in this. All set? All right, Valerie. Go ahead. So
yes, it is true that a number of years ago, the three of us did follow through with that action. It was a directive at the time, but it was a directive that I did agree with. I was told to go to the bank and open an account and that we would get our money ACH transferred. Jeff, you're exactly right that it was the right decision at the time, and it still is the right decision. It is still the right decision because, as Jeff mentioned, he said he wants to give the school what they need when they need it. But the part that's being left out is that, in that proposal, the town would decide what we need when we need it. And so in other words, we would have to give receipts to say, oh, here's our payroll, and this is how much we needed. That's where the legality problem comes in. That's for myself, my business manager, and the board of education. That's what the state law does say. It does need to be there. The money needs to be there every month. We are also when we receive grant funding, it is through reimbursements. So it is the board of education, the business office, and myself that understand how much money we need monthly. And that is why at the time, Jeff is right. It was the right decision. We said one tenth. Didn't say 50% the first month and 50% the second month. We said we could survive off of one tenth. So we do get one tenth for ten months.
That is what we need. That is how it needs to happen continuously. Continuously. And, yes, our attorney did have to send a letter today. I don't know if all of the board of selectmen has received it. Mister McGuire has received it. It is a rebuttal to the nine pages that was sent by attorney O'Brien because there are a few things that are left out. To say it's common sense is not quite accurate. We know how our finances work. We know what we need to survive every month, And we also know that providing receipts on a monthly basis to get more of the money that is ours already, it violates the law, and it violates the role and responsibility of the Board of Education. And lastly, Dennis, I did read your pages. The argument was about referencing the role of the Board of Finance in terms of making a recommendation. And we did have that word pop up in your opinion a couple of months ago when it was whether or not they would recommend cutting the school budget before it went to town vote. And at that time, you had agreed that the word recommendation meant something else. So their ability to act, you said. So now for us to say that recommend means they don't have the ability to act, it kinda contradicts what you said a couple of months ago. So I'll leave that for our attorneys, but we have asked for it to come off the agenda for a reason because our attorneys, to those two members that are new on the board,
and to Anne and to Scott as well, our attorneys say it's a violation of the law and that if it continues to move in this fashion that, yes, we would have to file an injunction of some sort. So, again, we're asking for that not to be considered. The other part too is last year, the town made a $150,000 on the total assets that they have available in interest. So, Dennis, I would disagree with you respectfully that $50,000 in interest is gonna be made off of our money when the town's whole coffers last year in the STIF account. Everybody's combined money in there made the town $150,000 So thank you. I'll stop
Okay. So Valerie is sitting there saying that some way we're demanding receipts. I don't think that a check register or even a payroll register that sits there and says the payroll for this cycle is x or this check register totals to $200,000 is actually asking for any receipts. Well, it is because Excuse
me. I'm sorry. The lack of transparency that my board of education and my superintendent have is is unbelievable to me. So the inability to share even that basic information to sit there and and deal with, you know, how we can sit there and work together is just not it's not we have to work together. And to be really honest, we have not worked together. The last time that we worked together was when we put this program together to sit there and say, hey, this is in the best interest of the town, because the school could reconcile and the town could reconcile. But now it's a situation where, okay, the town can earn additional money. And I know it's a lot, because the balance that I provided to the school and the Board of Finance members and to the Board of Selectmen members showed that the school had $1,000,000
in its account in March. Well, that $1,000,000 is a lot of money sitting in an account. And yes, there is outstanding checks, but I don't know how much those outstanding checks are. And I would sit there and I would normally be able to ask, okay, what's your check balance, check register balance, because that's what's available. And to be really honest, the town gets paid on the balance that's available in its account at the end of the month. That's how the interest gets calculated. So I am sorry. There there will be some some disagreement over what is a receipt. You know? I'm not asking for the bill for the plumber and what they paid. I'm asking for a check register that sits there and says, these are the checks that need to be processed in this accounts payable run. And we and we do take care of that. I know you do. I understand.
I No. No. You can't. No, you can't. Because Valerie, you have never you did.
In your account. Back back back we just acknowledged that we received 10 payments, not 12. So April 1 is the last payment of the year that the school receives. We get no money in May or June. Okay. And if we Yes. And we have the town and if we have the town, if we funded if we funded that longer make sense that if you looked between March and April to those two new board members, before you think we had a million dollars, it would make sense that if you're looking at that snapshot, if those are our final two payments payments for the year, then yes, it would be in there. And please know that my final payment for the payroll of the year teachers receive five checks at one time. So my final payroll is $400,000
for one payroll. And and you would be funded for all of it. That's my point. My my point and and also let's go back three years. There was an an an under budgeted amount at the school of about $400,000 ended up going into their capital fund. You know, the town never got that money back for nine months, you know, so there's always funding there. There's always money there that should be earning interest. There isn't always money there, Valerie. You're miscalculating. Valerie, I'm not miscalculating one thing. I'm looking Valerie, what I'm doing is looking at your pieces of paper when your pieces of paper are available to the town. And and honestly, the prior treasurer never sat there and and could get anything, And the prior treasurer never put it together for the Board of Selectmen to look at it. And I'm sitting there seeing a lot of this for the first time.
And I'm looking at your bank statements. And if you really want, I'm gonna get all of the bank statements from from the operating account. And I'm gonna provide that to the board of selectmen members. But I don't even wanna go down that road. Here's what I'm asking. I want the board of selectmen to approve this so that we can go at it. And I am telling the board of selectmen, nothing has ever happened with the superintendent or the Board of Education in the last four years that's been easy. Nothing. The community center, they had their lawyer contact us for the community center because they believe they own the land. They believe it's their cash. They believe it's their building. That's how the board of education and the superintendent deal with. It's an extremely litigious situation that we have here. And we have to sit there and hold up because the board of finance has not done its job to sit there and ask for this information in an appropriate manner. And I'm not even asking for the information. I'm trying to sit there and get the town to make as much money as it can. And to, I am sorry to say this, but we either have to sit there and say that this is right for the community and right for the town. And we have the authority to do it because the superintendent is going to go back and going to go tell her lawyer that I'm asking for something that I'm not asking for. What I'm asking for is very simple,
basic accounting information. That's it. That's all I'm after. I'm an accountant. It's what I do. I kind of get it. So, Anne, go ahead.
You're looking to benefit the town, the school you say is a part of the town. But I don't agree with that necessarily. But if you want to get the interest, let this have the school open their own STIF account. The interest they earn can go into their capital fund, and then they can use that money towards capital account. And the the town still has to give approval whenever the school needs to take money out of that capital fund. That way, they would you'd still be benefiting the townspeople by getting the interest, and it would solve all these problems about asking about your getting information from the school before you send them money. Other question I have is, you're going to make the school say, we need this much money for the payroll on the next few days and wait to get the money from the town? How are you going to do that?
They can cut their pay. Listen, even in the past, Ann, when the town had one account, the school was required to provide the check registers that they cut the checks every cycle so that the town knew that so much money would come out. So we're just gonna flip the process that happened five years ago, just slightly different. And we're gonna sit there and say, you let us know what your check register, what your check payables are gonna be for this week, and we will fund the money immediately. You sit there and process it on Wednesday. You would get that money by Friday. You could let those checks go out the door as soon as possible. And to be really honest, Anne, and what I had said, and what I was trying to do was I was trying to get a base of $100,000 in that account so that we would never run across the issue of they didn't have any money in that account. Now I realize their payroll is $200,000 but they know how much money their payroll is in advance. They do know how much their payroll is in advance. And you can't tell me that it cannot happen in a technical way. Right? It just it can happen and it can be done correctly. We need to work together. And I am just telling you, that is the key of this entire thing is working together. Because the school is it is the town, the district. Actually, Dennis, how do you say it? I'm a little confused. The town is the school district. The town is the district. No. They don't understand it. Valerie said the major difference. Doesn't understand it. Listen. Board of Education is
No. The representative
the school district. Of the town that oversees the school district. I know why that's in there. That's in state law. The
statute says that the town is the school district. School district lines are the same as the town lines in Connecticut. Other states do it differently. I know people in New York, school district does not follow the town lines. It could be have parts of two towns or one town might have multiple school districts. Same thing down in Texas. My brother-in-law. He lives in McKinney, but the kids go to the school district of the next town. That's just the way it's lined up. Connecticut says the town is the school district because that's how the districts are set up. It doesn't mean it's the town. It means it's that the outline that they use for each school district. And the school districts do their own finances, and they should be able to their own money. Once the money has been designated by the budget and approved by the referendum, that money is for the school.
100% agree with you. $4,800,000 that should be made available to the school for the benefit of the education of the children in the town of Andover. I am 100% agreement with that. That's what the voters decided. That's what we got that's to what we're living with. But that doesn't mean, Ann, that the issue that I'm addressing as to funding that $4,800,000 isn't valid and doesn't mean something to the residents of the town of Andover. And Ann, just like you said it, you said, oh, let's put that in a stiff account for the school. First of all, I've asked that question. Can't find that it can be done. The second thing is, then I'm gonna put it into the school's account and it's gonna be for the benefit of the school. No. It should be for the benefit of the residents and the taxpayers to reduce our overall taxes in the next cycle. It will benefit the people of this Oh, it it will be. The residents it will be under the control of the school in the capital fund of the school because that's how you said you wanted it to go. No. I disagree. I I believe it should go into the the the the town's resources to reduce taxes for the residents of Andorra. It's still gonna be reducing the taxes. It's just No, it's not. You've already dictated where it's going. You've already said it's gonna go into the capital fund for the school. Well, maybe that's not where we need our money to go.
Eventually they do need it. No, eventually we do. We need to make those decisions as a group, as a combined entity. What's the most important decision for the town? Is it something that needs to be done on the library? Is it something that needs to be done for the fire department? Or is it something that needs to be done for the school? And so that's the board of selectmen. That's what I've been trying to say to you, Anne, all along, is we have to take into account all of the groups of this community, and we have to benefit. We have to value all of them in a manner that works for the benefit of everybody involved, including the kids,
right? But I I'm just sorry. I I I I don't wanna take up any more time. Legally,
the the school has what you what Valerie is saying is that's the way it's legally.
So the school is going to sue the town because we can't come to a resolution as to funding for their budget. Not telling them how That's to sue the not fair, Jeff. No. That's exactly Valerie. That's Valerie. Valerie. Valerie, I don't need to let you speak. And I'm kind of trying to be kind, but that is exactly how I see it. And as a member of the Board of Selectmen, that's what people need to hear. I'm not telling you how to spend any of your money.
No. No. What they need to hear is the money that is allocated to the school through the vote of the taxpayer, the board of education, and the school community are the ones that dictate how that's spent.
100% agree. I'm trying That that's that's absolutely true. Absolutely true. We're not we're not arguing with that. Not at all. But mister Maguire is saying
that we get our allowance given to us when he says so.
That's not what I said either. I said It is. Valerie Valerie, what I said is as you spend it, as you dictate how it's spent, you tell us and you give us you give us the support, Valerie. I don't think a check register That's that's where you're violating So so you're so I'm violating I'm violating your rights by asking for a check register. No.
Jeff, we have Let me read a quote from attorney Mooney. We have the same auditor.
The auditor has He's not a lawyer. He's not a lawyer? The auditor doesn't know what doing. He's an auditor. I'm an auditor too. I had to ask Dennis I had to ask Dennis who had the right to do this. I think that this is why our attorneys have spoken with the town attorney and said, you are wrong, mister O'Brien. I I I just agree. Mister O'Brien has spoken with Shipman and Goodwin and said, you are wrong. So at this given point You him you have given him a certain view of what you think is is an appropriate, request as you sat there and said, I'm I'm requesting receipts.
I'm not requesting one bill. Not Okay. So our request is one tenth every month. That is what we need. So I will leave it at that That's request. That's your request, and that that's fine. That's your request. Dave, are you are you Yeah. Yeah.
Dave. I was just wondering if we can First thing, you can speak anytime. Okay. I was just wondering if we could try the process the new process and see if it works. I mean, we're already predicting that it's not gonna work, and people aren't gonna get paid. Why not give it a shot?
Dave, we actually already had, four occasions where checks were stopped as far as payment went, and we didn't get it when we should have, and you do have a treasurer that is one day a week. And that's just part of it. In addition to the fact that, as I said, Dave, we already have dictated what our expenses are on a monthly basis, which is why when Jeff said he and Eric and I agreed that it was the right decision five years ago, it's not broken. It's worked. We have required, because as I said, we also have other grants that are reimbursed on a monthly basis, where we have to lay out the money and get it back. We are not attached to the town's account. Our account is only funded by that oneten every month. So Five years ago,
interest rates were one half of 1%. Now they're five they're 5%. That's a big difference.
Dave, five years ago, we were attached to the town account five years ago. So if one month, you know, there was a $100,000 in there and we had $300,000 in immediate expenses, that check wouldn't bounce. It was attached to the Towns account. Now we are an independent separate account, and therefore, we rely solely on having available to us what we need monthly. Monthly. So, So again, we've been beating a dead horse here. We will continue to let our What attorney what did attorney discuss it. Okay. What did you spend in the month of July? What did the school spend in the month of July?
What was what was your expenditure? Like, I because I I don't I you know?
Not looking at our expenditures right now, Jeff. Yeah. What do you have at the bottom of not Joel? Looking at our expenditures, but we do have expenditures. Expenditures. No, I know. I'm asking you, did you spend $483,000
by the end of July? Probably not. Probably not. That's my point right there. Done. How wait, wait. That's
one month, Jeff. I can tell you in the month of June, we spent about $600,000.
Yeah. And you just got another $4.83 in August, Valerie.
Yes. And, again, we will have to have the lawyers at this point discuss this because you are not
following the law. I would have not You're you're Dennis Dennis,
am not following the law according to what you're perceiving it to be. And I don't believe that that that is the case. And to be really honest, Valerie, everything that we have done at the town, you have reached out to your attorney to sit there and get a different opinion because it hasn't, you haven't been able to work with us. You reached out to your attorney, Valerie, related to the community center. You had an opinion raised about the community center because the town was taking a piece of land from the school for the turnaround. Now work together with us, now work with us for the benefit of the community. So we had to override that because the town owns the language. And so I'm just sorry.
So let's be fair, Jeff. Has been litigious only with time that we are reaching out to our attorneys is when we first, in this case Yeah. Mister O'Brien, you wrote a nine page letter at the request of mister McGuire.
And that is why we then had to, and you called Wait a minute, Valerie. No, Valerie. That's incorrect, Valerie. Responding to to his he wrote the first letter. He wrote the first letter, Valerie. Wait a minute. You reached out to him you reached out to him after I put it on the agenda and sent information to them. I was communicating to Valerie. Valerie, Valerie, gonna have to let you. Just stop. I don't have to let you talk, Valerie. I'm being nice about it, but let me talk to you. Is why we had to go listen to me. To me. Listen. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just telling you that is that is exactly what I I've been dealing with for the last three years. And I will tell you that that it is it is a situation where I made a recommendation to the town and to the community that this would be in the best interest of the town and the community.
And the board of education directed by the superintendent had their attorney write a letter based upon my email. It's unacceptable. No, the withholding of the money. No, you just said you were done. Wait, wait, Then be honest. Said you were done. Put
your camera on. Put your camera on and let's all talk. Jeff, I am. There we go. So you just said you're honest. So let's be honest here. I am. I called the attorney because you sent an email that said, you're not getting your money. And tomorrow is July 2. No, I sent you $100,000 With the town the town authorized a $100,000.
Yep. You withheld it. You called it a proposal. Yeah. But you withheld it without speaking to your board, without speaking to the attorneys, without speaking to our board, without speaking to the board of finance. You just said I am withholding
No. I said this is the new this is the new this is the new procedure that we were going to put in place. And then you know what I did, Valerie? I sat there and said, I'm one of a board. And before the meeting, I made sure that you had the other $383,000 you spend After? After your attorney. Attorney. After your After After I got call from Scott Poisson saying, you should probably pay that money until we get it voted on. Because you already had gotten contacted by the attorney. Well, yeah. So I guess Dennis didn't write the first letter, did he, Valerie? I did not. You did not. So did not write the first letter. But listen, it is it is, I'm sorry. It is common sense that we should be making an adjustment. And Dave Gustanian is a 100% right that we should sit there and make this change. Now the school has been paid for the month of
August. So this has, thirty to twenty days to sit there and deal with before we get to our next round. I had put this in front of the Board of Finance before the July 1 turnaround, and I wanted it all discussed, and it never got discussed. So everybody was well aware of this. So she's sitting there saying, did it on the last day. I didn't do it on the last day. I did it in advance of that. And I sat there and did put it in place on the July 1 to sit there and move forward. And Anne, if you're talking to somebody there, you know, I, you know, put them on camera, please. I'm not talking to anybody but you. Okay. All right. I agree. Let's go. So if you're sitting there and and I put the, request in, and I did put it in front of the board of finance, and I did put it in front of the board of education, and I gave them the details related to the entire thing. And I shared it with the new members of the board of Selectmen because I didn't want you guys to be blindsided on your first meeting, and and I do apologize for this delay in this meeting. But it is the right thing to do for the town, and and I stand by that because the town will be able to make additional funds,
just like it's going to make additional funds from the $795,000 that we moved in to the the stiff account into the other investment account at M and T to make additional money. So we are making progress, and this is just another step in the way to make progress. Can we move forward with this tonight?
Can we just make a motion? Sure, we can make a motion. I motion to move forward with the new AES budget funding procedure. I'll second. Dave Gustanian seconded. Okay. Further discussion.
We should get a stiff account for this the school.
Okay. Any other discussion? Alright. I'll go around. Anne Creme, how do you vote? No. Anne Creme votes no. Dave Gustanian? Yes. Scott Persung? Yes. Christine Randazzo? Yes.
Jeff Maguire? Yes. So 410. Okay. Let's move on and see if we can wrap this meeting up any faster. Item 10 b, discussion and possible action on the Doris e Chamberlain pawn signage. I know we have that information in our packet.
Matt, what I would recommend is we have multiples multiple sign requests and dollars. Three different signs. Can can Matt just put the three signs up, Cher? And then we can pick the one that we want that we want.
One second. Oh, I can't do it. Matt, are you in the office? Do you have that on your computer or your laptop?
I'm in the office, but I have it on the other computer. So let me I'd have to, pull it up to this one.
I know that Diane Greiner has been sitting there pushing this forward. Is there something that and and I don't even know where these funds are coming from. So is there a place where the funds are coming from? My assumption was there was a beautification committee.
Not sure that the committee has that much money. So Scott, I think it's something that we might have to sit there and figure out where it's coming from and then make a decision as to what we're going to do with it. It's not going to hurt that the Chamberlain Pond doesn't have the sign up this month. So is it something that anyone has a problem? We can move this to our next meeting and understand where the funding is coming from and then which sign we wanna get.
Scott, you're the more I'm I'm good with it. I'm good. Okay.
Alright. Then, Matt, let's let's roll this over. It's up there for the public to see the potential signs. I would like to understand where the money is gonna come from and then sit there and try to get this done because I I believe that Doris was a school teacher at the school. Diane Greiner, you can speak. So
I started this over a year ago, and it started with a conversation with Eric Anderson and John Tuttle. So both of them have gone now, but the implication was that they thought that the money would be available through the public works department. Definitely not the beautification committee. Are they are not on this at all in any way. But Eric told me to move forward with it and that the they thought they'd be able to find the funds in the public works budget.
Okay. So let we'll find the funds, Diane. You keep spearheading what you want. I mean, Which sign are you leaning to? What was that again? Which sign are you leaning toward?
Definitely not number one. That was way out of proportion. That is seven feet tall. I didn't like that one either. It's way out of proportion.
Can share the document if you want. Do you have the ability to do it, Dave? Go ahead. Sure. If I send you a request, if you let me share.
Done. The design people for number two and number three were both on board. Either sign I thought was appropriate. The number two sign, a little bit more expensive. I talked to them. They're the ones that did the original sign for the Veterans Monument Park. The the one the sign number three, they're the people that did the signs for the trailhead up by, Center Street. Both very easy to work with. They understood, my vision. Number two, they have this material. They're very understanding about vandalism and made sure that this sign would be easy to clean. It wouldn't take take vandals, you know, as as they could. The other one, I looked at there, and they're talking aluminum something or other. I assume that that's probably vandal vandal proof as far as you can talk vandal proof, you know.
I liked the second sign actually would be my choice if I had to pick one. Okay.
You got my vote also with that one, Diane. I like that one. I like the second one.
I can't enlarge it enough to see what's written in the small print underneath the line. It says nature pond, and there's something underneath there. It
it says everything's blurry. It picks up. So you can't see it. Your and I'm trying to That tells you about Doris Chamberlain and her So so, Diane, take the take that one, send it to the other members of the board of selectmen, and then Matt, let's figure out how we're pay how we pay for this. Alright? What was that again? Did you say I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. The the sign that you're the number two sign Yes. Just take that as one PDF. Send it to the members of the board of selectmen so we can read what's under it. Right? Okay. It's not with Anne. I need to sit there and see what we're saying. And then I will work with Matt when he gets back from vacation to find out how we can pay for that. This when missus Chamberlain was the teacher at AES.
K. You give me a half a second here. I'm gonna be able to read to you exactly what that says. Wasn't she principal also? Okay.
It it says, it's Doris Dorsey Chamberlain, Nature Pond, Andover Elementary School Principal, 1946 to 1971, known for her many kindness and her strong sense of discipline and fairness, original pawn dedicated in 2002. Okay. So I'll send you that PDF.
Send us the PDF. Let's sit there, and you have you have the quote for that one. Let's just figure out how we get it paid for, and let's put it up. Are we doing it in Matt, I don't know if you know their sort of Eric's center. Are we doing anything with that, the driveway or the parking area in the pond?
This point, I know that the DPW had gone to the inland in the wetlands to talk about it, and they were objecting to the use of, any millings in there. I think that it probably would need to be leveled out. And since we use it for, a dry hydrant there for the fire department, we wanna make sure that, you know, it's it's able to be driven on. I don't know if we would need to have a handicap accessibility. If we do, that would require some sort of paving. And, that would have to go to the inland wetlands what how we can do that. So They're not they weren't against the millings. They're they're against
how close it was to the pond and Eric said, because I've been involved with this for a long time now. Okay. Eric said that he was going to put rocks around the border of the pond so that cars would not go close to the pond so we could keep the millings away from it and to put something in there for handicapped parking and and the pond drains off of that. The pond doesn't, parking lot drains off of the parking lot into the road. So, none of the drainage goes into the pond. It comes off that parking lot and right into the road. And I have pictures of that also. So, you know, we're still going through wetlands and Eric is making up a diagram for it and we'll be going to wetlands so they can talk about what they want. But I'm pretty sure that's all they're interested in, to have a buffer between the pond and the millings.
All right. So we'll work on that as a separate thing. But Diane, please just send the drawing to the members, and we'll sit there and get this done for the next meeting. We'll find a funding solution for you by then. Okay, fine. Thank you very much. Yeah.
10 C discussion and possible action on town attorney contract. Matt, I know that there's a draft of a contract. Was that in, I don't necessarily know that that was in the packet, was it? It was not, when we talked
about it. I had one, but, we said we're gonna
I know we didn't have a drafted contract with the attorney last year. I'd like to get that in place. I know there's additional funding that we put forth through our budget process for the attorney. Just so everybody knows, attorney O'Brien, who does this workforce, gets $12,500, Dennis? Right now, I think it's 10,750. Right now. We increased that. Well,
I I the last time I had a contract, it was $101,075.00. It's what I was paid last fiscal year. So we gave you a whopping 2,000 raise? Close to it. Yeah. If it it might have been $10.05 before. I don't know. Okay.
Dennis, let's get the contract in the hands of all the members so we can get that done. Yeah.
So the public knows that Dennis coming to all the meetings at $500 an hour, that $10,000 would not cut it. And he is on call most every day answering the phone for Mr. McGuire. Dennis is very underpaid.
Dennis is the best value at this time. He is very underpaid.
Thank you, Dennis. Now you can go on mute though. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Alright. 10 D, discussion and post election. Excuse
me. I was wondering, I see times when we need to go out and get information from other types of attorneys like the labor attorney. Mhmm. And we do land use work with planning and zoning. And I wonder if we shouldn't get a firm to work with instead of one person.
That's really good thought from a standpoint of where we're going to end up in the future, but until Dennis decides to retire, he is a really good resource for what we have to do at the town level. There are certain things that Dennis might not want to sit there and deal with. And there are certain things that our previous board wanted us to do, which is go to the labor attorney for certain contracts, which we did, and we've done in the past, and that's acceptable. But for what we do as a small town, and for what experience that Dennis has, he is incredibly good value for what is necessary to have happen. When we are going to find the pain is when Dennis no longer wants to do this for us. And he has been doing this over multiple administrations. Dennis was here before I got arrive before I arrived. He was working with Bob Burbank in that group back then. And twenty four years. You're you're you're going to find that in the next five years when Dennis decides to retire, that that budget line item is woefully underfunded. So we can go to any firm right now. We could go to Shipman and Goodman and spend an ungodly fortune with them. But, for the value that we get, it's definitely not worth it.
So What's what's it gonna cost us when have to you're gonna have to get a contract evaluated and we send it to them. It's gonna cost us $4,000. How many times is that gonna
take you work? Problem is none of these guys, none of these firms do it on per diem basis. They do it on an hourly basis. And you're gonna have to sit there and get somebody who's charging you $405,100 dollars an hour, and then you're going to have to watch how you use them. The value of Dennis is, and I try not to take advantage of Dennis. And and and the other board members know that that Dennis will pick up the phone and talk to them. So board of finance members will call him, and I haven't really I allowed Dennis to decide when he doesn't want to if he can't deal with something. But, you're not gonna get a contract like Dennis has for a town ever again, ever. So Anne is 100% right. We're going to have to go out and get a shipment in Goodman or a local guy that wants to do it or Halloran and Sage where our The town
already uses him for planning and zoning. They use that firm already. Correct. It would make sense to go with them for all everything. You just paid $25 for an animal case.
Yeah, I mean I don't know what you're thinking Ann. Like honestly, I understand might not appreciate every one of Dennis's opinions, but when you sit there and you look at what we paid to Halloran and Sage, I'll get you the details, so you can sit there and see it. You can get the treasurer to give you the details. We did. We paid like $25,000 for an animal abuse case where our contractor, Nikod, took a dog and two toads. Yeah, I know. I heard that. Right? $25. And Matt and I had this conversation today because we were in there talking about the last bills coming through from Halloran Sage on this case. And I'm like, CAHG cog cannot take any pets in our town, unless they communicate with Matt first, because, you know, as I told Matt, Matt, Matt has a very nice way about him. He can communicate with people and they appreciate talking to him. Eric Anderson was slightly different. He was ornery and prickly. And so when the case with that dog happened, Eric was like, take the dog because you know, know, there was no gray area, there was no, it was black and white. And that dog case cost us $25. And we don't have that in the budget. It's a really hard situation. So you're saying you want someone like Halloran and Sage. Halloran and Sage will chew up our budget and our dollars. And what will have to happen is, and really, we won't use them. You know, you can't use them. You can't get advice. You can't get even, a discussion because that discussion costs you $500. So I'm just telling you, you, the town will see it when when
attorney O'Brien decides his time with Andover is done. But your line item be a $100,000.
No. It can't be a $100,000. I'm just saying it will. It will. But, you know, what I'm saying is it it it will be $2,530,000 dollars, but what what will happen is you won't get anything for it. You won't be able to use them. You won't won't be able to call them. It's and this is that's just down the road. Dennis' contract just needs to get approved. The pittance of a raise was approved at the budget process, and we'll go from there. Discussion and possible action on regarding the rec commission. We had that discussion already. Anybody else want to discuss any further that? No? Okay. The 10 E, discussion and possible action on hybrid meetings. So I understand that there's other boards that hold hybrid meetings, and I don't have a problem with hybrid meetings. The positive thing about Zoom for me is that if I'm traveling or I'm somewhere I can attend the meeting, and I could attend the hybrid meeting, I would have no problem going into the town hall, but if I'm not in town, I don't want that to be a negative. I mean,
you can still run it by Zoom.
I would ask that, Ann, that you communicate with everybody else, with Christine and with Dave and with Scott, and we all talk. We should all talk about this one and come to our next meeting and decide if a hybrid meeting strategy is in the interest of our board. Because, I can tell you back when we had before COVID, when we were all doing in person meetings, there'd be times when Diane Greiner was one of two people at our meeting. And that's not how this is today. We actually have, even though it might not be the level of participation we would want, we still have people who attend because they can do it from the convenience of their house or wherever they're at. They'll do that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Okay. Well, let's all talk about and decide what's best. Kathy and Mike
Yeah. Who didn't show up tonight because, you know, they're having problems with Mike, but they always show up on the Zoom meetings. A lot of people that have kids, for instance,
get to come to a They still come to hybrids. And they still they still would come because going to you know, I don't go to your planning and zoning meetings on a regular basis, but going to the Board of Education meetings and seeing the hybrid. When I would attend, I would go and be in person for the most part. I think I attended one by Zoom or by, I don't know if they're using Google Meet or what they're using, but it's nothing bad. What it's doing is putting the five of us face to face, which is never a bad thing. I don't really think, but we have to decide if it's right for us because
it's a lot easier being at home or being where you're at and being on your laptop and communicating to everybody this way. I just feel it's easier. But let's put it back on the agenda for next month under old business, and let's sit there and see what we can do if we want to sit there and change this.
Jeff, one one thing I will note is I'm I'm on a couple other boards and commissions, and the hybrid meetings are very difficult if you don't have good audio for the people that are, you know, in the board on on-site. The people on Zoom can't hear them very well. You almost need a microphone for every person that's in the room there. So it's a it's a serious challenge.
I'd have to say the board of education actually does it pretty well with the. Yeah. They actually do do a good job. I I didn't I I mean, I was my seat that I was given was closest to the screen. And so, but I would tell you, Dave, maybe listen to one of the board of education meetings and sit there and see what they're doing or planning and zoning what they're doing. But that all was good. Now, you have to have the right internet, you have to have a lot of things situated, and you have to have the right acoustics in the building. So in the library, the acoustics are pretty good. And that's another thing. And if we were going to do it, our space to do it is the community room. And that's a terribly bad acoustic space. So that's something else we have to take into account. So I also do have a question about that.
Would we need an additional person to run the OWL? I'm just wondering what happens if there were a meeting where none of the board were in attendance and there were members. Who is going there to set up the OWL and set up the meeting there if everybody on board was online?
What would that look like? Let's work that one out. I mean, if you ask me, Christine, I would say Matt, but that's basically a Matt. Matt's in the office right now. Matt would be the one running it. I will tell you that when I was attending the Board of Education meetings, I went and sat in the room, because I do understand what everyone is saying. It's not a bad thing. It's just this is much more flexible and creates more opportunities for, especially the board members, and for, in my mind, for residents to participate. But it's worth having the discussion because it's, there is something to be said for not being able to turn your camera off when you have a stressful situation. It's just reality of the world. If you have to look someone in the face and have a conversation, and some of these conversations are not easy, they're just not. And a lot of it is easier to do over the computer. And a lot of it is easier to do when you're just typing in the background and sending editorials to the River East or making comments on Facebook. It's just a lot simpler to do. So I have no problem. Really, I have no problem either way. I know I would
probably lean toward this and, you know, but I do understand it, and I do think it does have value. We just have to decide what we want to do. I mean, I don't think, and Dennis, I would ask you, I don't think we're dictated in any rule to have in person meetings.
Right. Is there any state rule that I'm missing? Or Not that I know of. Last, you know, last I heard, you could do do do both. A lot of towns do both. Do hybrid in person. I saw very few towns, I think and I don't know, you know, about all one sixty nine, but very few towns are doing strictly in person and and not and not any hybrid.
Eastford does that. Eastford's a very small town. I also represent them. Diane Greiner, would you come in person to our meetings held at the Town Hall?
I've been going to, I love this, Board of Selectmen meetings for forty years. They were held at 03:30 in the basement of the Town Hall, and six people would come. And I was one. And reporters from Current were there, the River East, and the Chronicle, and the JI, and maybe one or two other residents, unless there was a problem, an issue, and then the place was packed. Other than that, there was like six of us. People complained that, it was in the middle of the day. It's 03:30. People were working, blah blah blah. So they moved it to 07:00 at night. Okay? And who showed up? Six people. Me, Simone, the resident, the reporters, unless it was an issue. They tried Saturday morning because people were working, blah, blah, That didn't work. So they've tried a variety of things. And
unless there's a big issue,
a handful of people show up. But I'm asking you, would you come?
I like this. I have been zooming into the board of ed meetings, and I find it very difficult to hear the audio. And it's hard to always tell who's speaking, you know, because of the way it's set up. And I I know that I I miss a lot of who's saying what. Would I come to the meeting? I probably would because I'm that kind of person. But even look look tonight who's there. It's only people that have an issue. There's, you know, very few people that are just on tonight because they're nosy or concerned like I am. But most of them are here because probably the PTA funding elementary school thing is why they're on here. But yeah, I don't think that having it in person is going to have more people in attendance. Okay.
All right. Thank you. Let's just move that over to our next month, and we'll sit there and keep it as part of our old business until we can make a decision as to what we wanna do. So let's move on to item 11, approval of the minute meetings for 07/13/2026. And where do they start? Are they in our packet? They're in They start at page 25, and they go to page 30. There's only three of us that can vote on this one just to let you know, because I don't think you, Dave, and Christine, were sworn in yet. Does anybody, Anne or Scott, you have any changes to the minutes?
No. Okay. We were actually sworn in at the beginning of the meeting. Weren't we?
I don't think so. I think we asked, I think you were participating, but I think you had to go into the town. Oh, that's actually a question. Did you both go in and get scorn in? Yes. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't ask that. It's like the vice versa elected appointment. I didn't ask that of me either. My bad. So I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes for 07/13/2026, the regular meeting minutes. Someone second this so we can go. Seconded. And seconded it. All those in favor, Anne Creme. I'm right. Scott Persson. Jeff McGuire. Yes. And I'm going to ask you, Dave. Dave, do you abstain? Yes. Dave abstains. Christine, do you abstain? Yes. Okay, perfect. All right.
Let's move on to item 12, tax collector. The tax collector is on vacation, so she sent a little bit of incomplete information, but you can sit there and see that July is the heaviest tax month, collection month in the town. We are a four cycle taxpayer, system in Andover. In July, you get a personal you get the house taxes, you get the personal property taxes, and you get the car taxes. So $3,400,000 were collected in the month of July. She also gave us an email talking to us about the tax cases. There are four of them. There are three that are still open. Page 35, there are one, two, three, four, five, six tax rebates or refunds totaling $3,759.31. Those items are there. I'll make a motion that we approve tax
refunds in the total of $3,759.31. Someone wanna second that? Second that.
Anne Kerme seconded that. It's on page 35 if anyone wants to look at it. I'm gonna go around I'm gonna go around the group. Anne Kermeh, any vote? Aye. Dave Gustanian? Aye. Scott Persona? Aye. Christine Randazzo? Aye.
Jeff Maguire? Aye. So five nothing on their tax refunds for $3,759. Okay. There are tax there are departmental reports starting with the assessor's office. And moving on through the building department. The information on the building department is interesting. The total fees for the month are not as much as I would expect them to be. It is something that we probably need to put a little bit of time into understanding the totals for the year, for the cycle, because July should be our biggest month.
The last month, Jeff, we had I had that question about there was a $315,000 estimated fix on this house, and it was a a foundation thing. And the it only costs the taxpayer $15 so I was questioning why that is. And there was a law, I guess, the foundations were bad that they can't charge them any more than $15 for the permit.
Okay. So if it's if it's one of the the problem concrete foundation buildings, that's the total. Okay. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, it just strikes me as there's only $314,000 worth of work being done in the month of July and Andover, the estimated cost. Just doesn't seem
seems low. Could it be that they applied earlier in the year that the or it's just those were things that are new?
That's what she's doing. She's just doing these are the payments. So she basically got 20 transactions in the building department. 13 of them were building permits. Three were electrical permits. One was a gas permit, mechanical permit, and a plumbing permit. It just seems like either we're not getting all the permits processed or they're way undershooting the estimated cost. So somehow we've got to think about what can be done related to that because it just seems like a small amount of money for our building department and the costs we have associated with the building inspector and the wetlands agent and everything else. It says it's $4,099 for fees. Page Page 50.
Yeah. But page page 51, it says $7,000, and you can sit there and go through. And then it includes the zoning permits, and it includes the wetland permits. And so that's what the building department is generating. But that's more than yeah. But that's the total that they're generating. And then if you slide down, you can talk about the estimated costs and what they're showing on the different properties. So I I'm not saying, Anne, it's wrong. I'm just saying it seems low. So, anyway, let's move on to the next one. So that is on page oh, there's a building department refund policy. Matt, that needs to be we need to get the policies that the board that the building department wants us to pass. We need to get them organized. We need to get them to Dennis. We need to make sure that we're doing it legally because there is one thing that's going on, and Matt and I were talking about it today, is there's some potential. And Anne and Scott, you should know about this. You should have some of the projects that are being worked on, the housing projects.
What we have to do is we have to get the engineer, they're trying to change it so the applicant is responsible for any additional engineering fees, and the town is not gonna be responsible for them. And, you know, we need to pass that soon before the applicant puts in an application for that big housing project.
So we We got to work on need to have a special meeting on that because that's got to get done because Matt and I were dealing with signing checks today and there was a legal bill in related to one of the projects. And I really don't think the town should be picking up any of the costs. Forget engineering costs. We should not be picking up legal costs. Everything should be put forth and put on the applicant to sit there and reimburse. Right, right. That's why we have to pass that resolution quickly. What, who was this for, Jeff? Legal costs.
Matt, did you, well, Scott, we'll tell you tomorrow. There was a check that we signed today. Matt and I signed a check and it was related to a planning and zoning issue. And it was one of the entities. It was a business that was doing something. So I am just, just considered, and I talked to Matt about this, that these fees need to be, these expenses need to be passed on to applicants. I'm not sure that it's one of the housing applicants, I'm assuming it's one of the housing applicants. I forgot the name of the company, but we'll get it for you tomorrow. No way you should be paying legal fees for anybody. Well, I don't necessarily know that we're paying legal fees for them. We're paying legal fees to sit there and have something they're submitting looked at.
Okay. By our zoning attorney. Yeah. Halloran and Sage. I see. I see. Okay. But
my whole point is why, and listen, I'm not engaged in planning and zoning. Don't understand details of what that commission has to deal with, that board has to deal with, but I would go in my mind, if you're a business applicant and you're putting something up that, you know, it's different from a homeowner doing something that has to be evaluated. But I would sit there and say those costs should be passed back onto the applicant in some way, and we just have to do it correctly.
Depends on what it is, what it entails. I mean, if it was something that require an opinion on whether the zoning commission had the authority to do something, that might be payable to the to your zoning attorney, but not not if it's something that was necessary in order for the applicant to move the application forward.
Okay. And so when Matt and I were were dealing with that this afternoon, that was one of the things that I sat there and said we need to look at. So Yeah. Scott, let's get that in place. Let's get it voted on and make sure that we recover as much of our costs as possible from the applicant. Yeah, it was the, Rosewood Acres one. The big one.
It wasn't that much money. It was, it was only a, I didn't think it was that much money. Matt, what was it a couple $100?
I'd have to look back. Didn't, we were dealing with so many checks that were higher value.
Okay. So in looking through that, that's what we're dealing with. So we gotta do that. We gotta do this refund policy. And then starting on page, sixty two is the Department of Public Works. Eric was in the office today. They're doing they've done some trimming on Schottie Mill Road, some tree trimming on Schottie Mill Road. They're going to be they did a rubber chip seal on which road, Matt? Do you remember?
I know they were working on Ridge Road. I don't know if that's what the one they were doing next.
So basically, there's two different chip seal processes being attempted. There was a rubber one done, and they're starting some of the other streets that they have for okay. So it says here, so rubber chip sealed Oak Farms Road, Townsend Road, and Wales Road. And then they're going to be doing the other roads, I believe Ridge and some of the others. They're also chip sealing after they get some of the drainage installed.
But They're they're prepping Ridge Road for drainage. They're putting all the catch basins in so they can let the road rebuilders loose. K.
So on page 63, it talks about what they're doing. So standard chip seal on Aspinall, Bailey Road, East Street, Hickory Hill, Shawty Mill, Wales to the town line, and Webster Lane as well. Okay. Alright. Anybody have any questions for Matt or for the public works?
Rubber that rubber chip seal is is really a superior product compared to the other chip seal. It's very it's very good, and it lasts, you know, 10 times as long. Well worth the money. It's all about money.
Yeah. It's all about maintaining what we have and what we should probably ask Scott is that they sit there and he gives us a summary of how the distance that we can get out of the rubber chip ceiling and and what we can do. So it's all about the money. Alright. The library starts on page 65. Someone, Mr. Halidis, is complaining about mowing. We have been working on some of the issues on our mowing. Hopefully next year that we can have a different policy in place and get do a little bit better with that.
Additionally, in the was that that was the. We did have, well, I know we're going to get to some of the other issues that people have raised concerns with. I did get a call that was left that there was concern about the speeding on Lake Road and Lakeside Road. And they mentioned the thought of possibly having some sort of traffic calming measures. I don't know what they mean by those, but I you know, I tend to, when I go around there, twenty, twenty five miles per hour, I I don't see people that are really driving fast, but there are pedestrians on the road, people walking, people going to the beach. So I would leave it to the people that, you know, live here in town and say that travel that road. If they think that that's a major concern, then we should probably talk to Eric about if we wanna do traffic calming measures or of some sort. But I think really just probably making sure that our state trooper maybe sort of patrols a little bit to, you know, keep the keep the speeds down.
I don't know what other people think about that if people tend to drive fast on Lake Road. And next year, it's gonna be it's gonna be detoured, it's probably gonna be either people are gonna slow or they're gonna be driving fast to try to make up for the time. The other one that we one of the other ones we got here is this person that had complained about smoke from her next door neighbor. There's a long chain of emails that goes back to, maybe it goes back to when Jim was here. Maybe goes back to as far as Eric. But I know that the, the fire department and the fire marshal looked into this and, they they have not found that there's anything, untoward here. Just the that the, the resident is, still complaining and, I just wanted to get back to, you probably get back to her, but, I'll have to look a little further into it. I know that the if the person's got a legal wood stove and they're doing their, you know, doing their thing, if it's blowing into the neighbor's yard from time to time, I don't know if we really can control that.
Is there is there is it a permitted
stove? From from what I understand is that this the wood stove is permit.
And does it does it have a stack pipe that's up high? Because I know it's know, the stack pipes need to be a certain elevation up
to not interfere with the surrounding area. I mean, I've seen some of the pictures of, you know, the stack is, you know, up on the roof of the, the garage area of the Yeah. Abode.
Well, I'm assuming that the the chief and the building official have been engaged in this. And if there's any issues, they can come back to us and report as to what they believe we should be doing. I'll
circle back with them because I know I probably you know, it just came over, so I want to owe her a response. In the the last communication I had gotten this weekend that the Doris Maldonado Mendez is being recognized by the Latin de Oro Inc. There's gonna be a event in September 17 in West Hartford. It's a a formal event, and I'm gonna share this with the select board. I'll send send copies out. There's a but it it's a sort of a black, I won't say black tie. It's a formal attire affair, but it is a five one c three recognizing, you know, somebody that has strength, cultural ply pride, and community leadership. So working in Connecticut. So
I will forward this information out to you, and, those are the main communications that I received.
Okay. Alright. Any, any other information? That's the end of the the packet. So there was I didn't sit there and see any other reports that I missed. We had the library, and then we had some correspondence. K. Anybody have any other questions that you wanna direct at Matt before we get moving? Well, we were in fourteen, so that was correspondence.
So now And anybody can contact me at at the regular office hours or, you know, send me an email or phone call anytime.
Alright. We're gonna move on then to item 15, which is public speak, and I'll sit there and get started with Diane Grineard.
Here I am. Yeah, I just wanted to inform everybody in case they didn't know, we have a new bright spot in Andover next to the community and senior center. We have created a milk weed garden. It's small. It's like eight feet by 20. Thanks to, NatureScape, Marcy and Jeff Miner. They have, prepared the soil, put some compost, donated 10 milkweed plants, and mulched it. And it's been there just less than two weeks, and we have monarch butterfly caterpillars. We have two of them there yesterday, and we have another little patch behind it that's going we have some residents who are going to donate a couple of milkweed plants, so we're going to extend the garden a little bit farther. And We're going to have the test from the director of the senior center is going to be holding a program over at the community center on butterflies,
monarch butterflies, and hopefully they'll have, you know, some caterpillars and raise them and make make a little program there. And we'll have our own nursery of milkweed. And it's just a nice little bright spot. It was just a a bare patch there that is now a thing of beauty for all residents to be proud of. So we're very excited about the new garden plan. And if you haven't been down to the community garden, you must go down and look at the Black Eyed Susan nursery there. It is spectacular. It is a a thing of pride. It is just gorgeous. It is a big ribbon of gold that goes down the whole side of the community garden. It it looks great. And, again, another something that Andover residents could be proud of. And the whole community garden looks great, but especially the Black Eyed Susans. So thank you all, and, congratulations to, Scott for being our new mister, vice versa electman.
Alright. Thank you. We got Scott back, so he's back. Valerie Bruno.
Hi. Megan, I think it's great that, the parents had stepped up to really work hard to try to make sure that there is basketball that continues for the students in the community. I think that's wonderful. I do hope that the costs stay the way the costs were before. I do know that when I had spoken with rec commission people in the past, they made sure that they just covered the cost of like referees and things like that. So if it's going through the community center, I do hope that the costs for parents remain minimal. I know that if there is any money in the end, that is collected that is a surplus, hopefully at that time we can have a conversation about the use of the gym, and any surplus being put toward the use of the gym. Thank you. Melissa Liteska. I'm all set. Thank you. Grace Kustanian.
Thank you very much, and have a nice evening, everybody. Marci Miner.
Hi, it always takes me a while to get the buttons down there. Yeah, I just wanted to represent the economic development committee. I don't know if Elaine had mentioned it at the last meeting, but we have a new campaign that we are working on, and we've been busy taking pictures of people with sunglasses on to illustrate that our new logo is Andover's future so bright that we need to wear shades. So we are happily finding people and getting smiles and pictures and, the the next, we I wanna get, you know, each one of you guys and and, we put out a an advertisement to if anybody wants to get be included that we've missed, to contact us through our email address.
The next challenge will be publicizing it and getting it to businesses and people that are interested in coming into town. I came up with this idea because you know, after our your last meeting, was really enthused with how well the meeting went and how professional you guys have been able to get things done And so anyway, this is a new campaign that we're working on and we're trying to get the word out so that we can get some more people interested in joining our account. Thanks. Thank you.
Diane Granier sat there and sent those to me, the Facebook thing, since I'm not on a tremendous social media presence. And I think it's really great. Good job on that. Thanks. Brianna Lanzeri. I don't have anything anything. Thank Shannon Loudoun.
I just wanna say a couple things about what happened with ten a this evening in which I'm very disappointed. First of all, the funding process to AES wasn't broken, and it became policy appropriately through the board of finance, which policy hasn't been changed. You talk about tens of thousands of dollars being made by keeping the money in the town's accounts, and I just wanna note that the money is kept in the town's accounts until it is distributed to AES on a monthly basis, which is what you, Jeff, proposed the Board of Finance approved of and Valerie and the Board of Education approved of. So the money for the the stiff account stays in there until it's actually allocated on a monthly basis to AES. Unlike the town, which has at least $1,000,000 sitting in a variety of bank accounts from which overages can be drawn. I remember a lot of money being withdrawn from the multiuse building fund in the last couple years. AES only has the budgeted amount to spend, and that was agreed upon to be one tenth for ten months. So the funding process to AES wasn't broken.
It became policy through the board of finance, but you, Jeff, decided that you wanted to change process. You reached out to the board of education chair with your new idea, and she told you that she didn't agree with you. She didn't agree with proposal, and she wanted the whole board of education to consider it at its next meeting. But you couldn't wait for that meeting. Even with the negative response, you took a unilateral action without the approval from any board, not the board of selectmen, not the board of finance, not the board of education, or the town administrator, which caused the board of education to need to involve its attorneys. And the double standard here is just ridiculous. You took a unilateral action, Jeff, that caused the board of education to need to involve its attorneys because the board of education and its attorneys believe that the process that you unilaterally put into place was number one, illegal, and number two, contrary to the charter. So now we've had our attorneys involved costing the town money. Dennis O'Brien has now written a nine page opinion, further costing the town money. And you got another letter today that simply reiterates what the school and the board of education might have to do to respond to a change in a process that was working just fine and was approved by all three boards. So to say that the school is costing legal fees is absolutely disingenuous. The change in processes that have been working well for years is what's calling the taxpayer dollars for spending money on legal fees, which are exorbitant and should not be being spent. And if we just continue to go along the way that's been working very well for years,
they wouldn't have had to be spent. Thank you. Kimberly Prasan. I'm all set right now. Thank you. And Tessie Tu.
I'm all set, Jeff. Thank you. Okay. Did I miss anyone?
Okay, everyone. Thank you very much. I'm going to make a motion that we, move to executive session for the purpose of of discussion, the town administrator's contract. I would like to invite in the town administrator and the town attorney. I need a second. Okay. I'll second that. Dave Gastanian is seconded. All those in favor. Anne Creme? Anne Creme said yes. Dave Gastanian? Aye. Yes. Scott Persson? Aye. Aye. Andazo? Yeah. Aye.
Okay. And then Jeff McGuire. Yes. So, everyone else, thank you very much. I'll I'll sit there and remove you from the meeting, and, we will be back on as soon as we're done. There we go. Okay. I am going to stop the recording. Pause it. Resume. We're admitting all. Okay. So the Board of Selectmen has sat there and come out of executive session. We're coming out at 10:04PM. And the last item on our agenda is item 16, adjournment. So I'll make a motion that we adjourn. Christine, do you want to second that? Get started. Christine is seconding our our motion to adjourn. So, we're just all gonna vote because I know we all wanna go. So all five of us are good? Five? Five. Five zero. Alright. Thank you, guys. Have a nice night. Yep. Bye. Good night.
This transcript was generated by Deepgram from the meeting recording. Names, numbers, and other details may be inaccurate; the video is authoritative.