Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen Regular Meeting
April 10, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Recording in progress. I'll try not to make too many mistakes. There we go. Okay, so we're going to start. Actually have Adrian Scott Jeff Murray. Right, all good. Let me turn my camera on because you guys should see at least one of us. There we go. Okay, we're going to start our Board of Selectmen a regular meeting for Monday, April 10. Starting a little late because me 07/2004. First thing we're going to do is pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to item two public speak. Kathy and Mike Blasi. Hi, Jeff. Hi, Kathy.
I hope that all the board members received their invitations to the May 18 dedication for the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary celebration that will be held on from 6PM to 07:30PM, perhaps a little bit shorter than 07:30, because we understand you all have to go to work the next day. And I want, I personally want to thank you Jeff McGuire, our first selectman for speaking at the dedication greatly appreciated. I also would like to say that on Saturday May 20 from eleven to four. It's the hundred and seventy fifth anniversary festival. It will be held in back of the AES we have all sorts of fun things, food, everything you can imagine. It's for the family. So we hope you will come and have a wonderful time. It's all free there's no charge. So please come and enjoy yourselves. Thank you.
All right. Thank you, Kathy. Mike, you got anything? No, I'm good. Good. I want to give you the opportunity. All right? Okay. No problem. Sorry, my mouse is giving me problems. Linda Fish. Just here to listen.
Okay. Joanne Ebert. All set, thank you. All right. And is 2,345 attorney O'Brien. Yes.
All right. Glad you could join us. All right. You're the best ones. All right. So let's move on to item three, additions and deletions to the agenda. Did any of the other board members have anything to add to the agenda?
Jeff I would like to add nine F purchase a vehicle for senior transportation under old business. Okay. Okay, anybody else Adrian? No, I'm good. Scott? I'm good.
Okay. Jay? Did we no, we got to add that. Is somebody going to add that? Scott, why don't you add that? Does anybody else have well, we're going go through that one. So let's see. That would be new business. Yeah.
And we'll do it at the beginning of the meeting. We'll do one second. Oh my gosh. Is that something I you want me to ask or do you guys No. No. No. No. You're good, Jay. Just hold on for one second. It's computer problems. So we're going to do 10E public works. What's that called gravel pit? Or how do you how did you phrase it there? Jay? Just give me the term. Timber harvest at the gravel pit on Park Ridge Road.
Yep, gravel pit, timber harvest. So I'm gonna I'm gonna request 10E public works, gravel pit, timber harvest, and we're gonna actually move that to the beginning of the meeting so that we can sit there and move Jay off if that's if everybody approves. So does anybody else have anything else they'd like to add. No okay so we have two items that are out there nine F senior vehicle purchase and 10 E public works gravel pit timber harvest. Somebody wants to second that. I'll second it. All right. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye.
For nothing. Okay. So let's let's move right into 10 e and the public works, a gravel pit timber harvest. So, Jay, if you could, could you please just sit there and give a brief explanation of what you're attempting to do and then we can have some discussion on it and sit there and see if we can vote on it. Okay, well thanks for letting me add. To the list of your busy schedule. Work to
make some more air, have the ability to get rid of our spoils, little bit more room. So in doing so, we took down a few trees, opened things up. As we're looking at what we're doing, a nice bit of gravel, something that we can need for various projects, our drainage projects, so whatever the whatever we may need gravel for. And then looking at the area, that specific area up on top on in the back, a little further in the back, was some big timber in there. So it was suggested that by the guys in the crew that we look in to see if we can harvest some of that timber rather than losing it Because you know once we get into that embankment that timber is there rather than just cutting it and letting it lie. And also if possible depending on how much was there,
if we'd be able to use the monies for some equipment that we're looking for. So that's kind of the spiel I had. We had it looked over and there's some good wood in there and also there's some wood that's you know it's it's died off already. Unfortunately it's you know two three years that some a lot of some of this wood's dead. So it may not be suitable other than firewood, but there's still some good timber in there and it's worth something. We're hoping we get for, you know, somewhere, I don't know $1,015,000 dollars if if we're lucky 10 ish we'll say you know it's a 50% split so the contractor that would come in that would harvest they would get their portion we would get ours or the town will get ours get theirs. So that's really what we're asking if if it's something
that we could pursue, and whether you guys agree or both on it. What piece of equipment what piece of equipment Jay?
Well, specifically we're, we've got a nineteen seventy nine tag along trailer, 20 ton trailer. You know, that's what we're using to pull the excavator around and and you know any of the bigger pieces of equipment. We got to put some money into it. We got to at some point we got to pull the rims and everything off and check all the brakes and go through that. It's working trailer. The tires on the trailer are dry rotted. We're going to have to replace the tires. It's old. It's been repaired a couple times over the years. We do. We have found a used trailer. It's a twenty year old trailer. That's had the sunroof on it. It's just a little bit heavier trailer, a little wider, which would better suit our needs. And that's what we were looking for. And then depending on what other, if there's anything left over, we could maybe just keep it aside and look towards maybe some attachments for the excavator. We're talking about maybe a clam. For the end of the boom, something that we can, know, when we interchange buckets, we're doing when we're doing our tree work. Have a fork. Okay.
Well, I'm sorry. That was on. That was on. So, Jay, the last thing is, Eric, have you gone down and looked at this? I have not.
So Jay, could you oh, Jay, could you I have a quick question for you. I know we had a little discussion and email back and forth, but could you elaborate a little bit on what's going to happen with the tops and the remaining lumber that's going to be left?
Well, it's a lot depends on the contractor. So, most contractors, if they're just going for the big timber, you know, they may or may not take all of the tops or most of the top. You know, it just depends on how much is there and whether it's worth their while to go after. Some of them will also use the tops for the firewood, which the firewood would be a separate amount. You know, they'd have to put it together and figure out what the they charge that out by cordwood. So, there's a percentage of that that is in addition to just the timber itself. You know, the good logs, you know, there's a the better logs bring a higher percentage and obviously the firewood is a lot less. Sometimes they just leave the tops in the woods, you know, to just stay there and decay into the
Yeah. Well, we can't do that in this case, right, because we're clearing the property.
Well, we're clear. We're clearing where the gravel is. So the the trees on the backside of this hill, that that area would be cleared off, yes. So we would be pulling that wood off, but there's other areas of the property where we're just going to look in to grab the the the big timber. Where the forestation of the property would still stay there. We're not looking to clear cut those areas, only the area where the where this gravel, this hill that we have.
So just so the other board, yeah, just so the other board, the rest of the boards in the loop, I discussed with Jay about the possibility of making these tops and these trees available for any resident that wanted to go and harvest them for firewood themselves because we do have some residents that are struggling financially and the heating oil is expensive and they heat by winter long. So I asked about the I just asked about a suggestion to use some of these, you know, allow residents to harvest some of these tops. And Jay had some concerns, so I don't know, Jay, concerns? Could you Yeah, I guess
I guess my cons- my biggest concern is, because I've been this through this with my previous employers, you know, where we've dedicated an area to bring wood for the residents to partake in taking the wood. They come in with their own vehicles and equipment chainsaws, know, and they buck up the wood for their purposes. The problem with that is number one, is a liability factor. What exactly that is? I don't know. When you formalize an area for people to come onto your property, now you have to manage that area. We are constantly moving wood to, you know, you come in with a dump truck full of wood, you dump it on the ground and it just falls on the ground. People come and they start picking away through it and then they can't get to the stuff that's on the bottom, So then you got to go and move it, then it's all over the place and you got to move it again. And then when they're done with the stuff that they don't want, now you got to pick that up and get that out of the way. Logistically, it gets to be a real, gets to be problematic. Can it be done? Sure, it can be done. If you're inviting people on to your property to go out into the woods and cut tops, know, they got a four wheel drive or tractor or something they're gonna you're gonna allow them to go out there and, you know, take care of the stuff that's been left there after the fact, I don't know what the liability factor of that would be. Jeff, I I love the concept.
I do think the liability issue would be too great. I mean Well, we can have Dennis chime in on this because there is a there is a liability there is a statute in Connecticut, The general statutes that says that any municipality or landowner is exempt from liability if they allow somebody to come in and harvest firewood. And you know, currently on my street on Shadwell, the town did come through and harvest a bunch of wood and we have a bunch of logs sitting there. So in my opinion, it's really no different. The logs that has Blunduff leaves or the town leaves.
There's there's really no difference between those situations in this situation. So going forward, would just like to clarify this with the town attorney just to make sure that you know in the future we we come to these crossroads with a big logging operation and people want to come on that we have some. We have some sort of answer for it.
Yeah, the the only comment I'd make add to that Jeff is those logs that we leave on the sides of the road. It you know it's it's sporadic. It's open. It's you know there. There's a place for people to, you know, although they're in traffic and you know on the side of the road, but there's a place for him to escape, you know, and it and it's. You know, you show up for. Six or eight logs and you move up the road to the next one. You're not. You're not working off a big pile of wood that potentially could roll down onto your foot, your leg, whatever that that that's the kind of stuff that when you start. Piling wood in a location, you have to separate it. You can't just leave it there for people, you know. Those are the things that I experienced.
Okay. I just I just want to have the discussion. Dennis.
Dennis. Dennis. Yeah. Could I talk? Yeah. Well, Dennis, what's Dennis think about this? Well, Dennis, I don't know today. We don't need it right now. But Dennis, just put that on a list of potential things to just put it on the list. Do you hear Yeah, Dennis. Absolutely. I was thinking you the time. I
was thinking in terms of a waiver. Can save If you the there's a statute, I'll
look at it. Adrian wants to save us time. Adrian, save us time.
Kanaka General Statute 50 two-five 57 ks produced in 2019 or 2018, sorry. However, it only applies to entering or harvesting forest harvesting firewood with or without charge. And basically, you go to Section B, it's going to it basically talks over what the what your when and how you can do it. But whether you charge or not doesn't matter, but it has to be the harvesting has to be for nonprofit organizations, nonprofit corporations, or for distribution to other nonprofit organizations or nonprofit corporations. It does not apply to individuals themselves. I'll take a look at it during the meeting. Scott, go ahead, please. Thanks, Dennis. Yeah.
So Jay Tuttle? Yes, sir. If we could get a what if we could talk to the actual harvester and ask him if he could pull the top up the hill, take the log off it, and leave the top in one spot there. And then, Get the land. And you can do
Get the taxpayers up there if they wanted wood. See how that would work. All those to the top of the hill, lock off the sections that we're not going to use a smaller like three inch diameter wood and leave that on the side of the hill, pull the firewood up to the top of the hill and. Lop the log off and.
I mean, listen, I'm going tell you, Scott, you've been to my house. I have property here. I have offered firewood. You know, I mean, I've been here, you know, I've owned the property since 'five. So And it always is a problem. People, you know, even when they're getting something free, they leave a mess. You know, they leave a mess. I've got tops all over the place that people, you know, pick through, and they take what they want. They leave the other crap. And just like Jay said, I've unfortunately have had people get hurt trying to roll a tree and it catches them because they wanted to cut one piece and didn't want to cut another. Or, you know, they didn't bring something to prop up the wood, so they didn't want to cut in the dirt. So they're trying to roll it to get a secondary cut. It's just a bad idea. I would not vote in favor of it. I've been through it on my own personal property, and it's just not worth the aggravation. And they have enough stuff to do. I'm real I'm trying to,
speak to, what mister Murray brought up that con you know, condition. Me? I'm I'm I'm with you. I believe that it's just gonna cause more trouble than it's worth.
Yeah, not that I don't like the idea. I think it's a great idea. I love the idea. That's why I tried doing it on my own property and I finally got to the point where unless I really know the people and we have an agreement ahead of time, I don't let people come and cut wood anymore. Yeah, but that brings back my point about leaving, you know, when the town is cutting wood, I'm on and leaves it on the side of the property. Should we be taking it away and putting it somewhere? Because it's the same situation. It's the same situation.
So that's why those are are things that, you know, we speak to this in our in our public listserv all the time, hear it all the time from all different towns. In every town, just about every town just leaves it on the side of the road. What gets taken in those individual spots gets taken because people have the ability to pick through it because they're smaller piles and and it's in kind of an open spot, mostly controlled because you're just there. Then you move on to the next part. If you're going to put it in an area, you better have a lot of room and up there on top of the pit, we're trying to use that as a work area right now to reclaim some of the different kinds of materials that we're trying to use to save, you know, taxpayer dollars. If
we're going to put wood in there, that's going to be a problem. I'm going to try to get you either way. I just wanted to have the discussion, that's all. Yeah, believe that's a very valid discussion, but maybe we can do it at our next meeting and talk about how we actually deal with the types of materials that are left on the side of the road. Because I do agree with you, Jeff. So let's sit there and I mean, the side of road, I mean, to be candid, we don't encourage and we don't discourage
people from taking wood from the side of the road. You know? We we neither encourage nor discourage whatever happens happens. And so, and then if it's, you also get into a situation where it may be within the town boundary line, but homeowners take possession of, of of that parcel and say, well, it's my 20 feet or whatever. You know, I know the town has a right away, but it's my property. I want that wood. And so that's the other situation you run into is if you decide, well, I'm going to start pulling it or you better make sure that it's on a town abided parcel because if it's in the right away, the homeowners will come after you. They're going to want their their, you know, I've got a hot 200 feet of frontage and you cut two trees down. Where's my two trees? And you'll see people putting signs out saying don't remove firewood or don't touch wood or whatever, whatever. So
I think we just kind of leave it the status quo. Don't encourage it, don't discourage it. People take it, they take it good for them. But you know, we're not going to I don't want to get into managing this. I think we have enough stuff to deal with. Okay. So
it is still maybe it's more of a discussion for Jeff Murray and me about how to clean up those areas and do a better job. And do we put resources back to it? So let's but let's talk about that at another meeting. So let's deal with the issue that Jay raised. Does anyone is
it I don't have a problem with harvesting, but I do have a question because I have not seen that trailer the discussion on a trailer come over to CIP.
It hasn't. What Jay and and this is a technical thing that Adrian, you're probably best positioned to answer. If we harvest the timbers, you know, is it against our charter to sit there and use those dollars to fund a piece of equipment? And anyway, who has to approve it? I mean, I don't think anyone would have a major problem with approving something like that, but what is technically? What do we need to do to get that done?
Well, I mean, because of price, are you talking a $10,000 trailer? Jay, the tray the trailer new was $40,000
No. The the replacement that you're looking to purchase 10,000. So it's gotta go to CIP. It's gotta go to Board of Finance.
Correct. Correct. I mean, we're kind of putting the cart before the horse because, you know, we didn't know that all this was going to happen. You know, we're, we're, we're cutting trees to make the property accessible and we found some real good gravel and then we started looking at it further beyond if we keep using this embankment, you know, to dig because basically we're digging on the opposite side of this area that we're that we've been using, which is running out of good gravel. So we opened up the other side and now we find good material and on on that same side there's some big timber there. So we're just we're thinking ahead a little bit.
And Eric would be able, I don't remember. What's our number for town meeting?
At which point it has to go to town meeting? Yeah. In terms of a span? Yep.
I think the Board of Finance can approve up to point 5% of the budget, not including the RAM budget. So ballpark about $40,000
Okay. So you're safe there. The board of finance could approve it. And, you know, if the funds are incoming, they could certainly allot them. They just have to, you know, as part of their motion, they just have to say where they want the funds taken from. So there's no nothing in the charter against doing it. I don't believe it's directly addressed. So then you fall on state statutes as to how to address spending.
All right. So do we want to sit there and does someone want to make a motion to sit there and move this forward?
I make a motion that we move forward the that we approve the timber harvest in either without restriction and ask the board of the CIP and Board of Finance to consider using those funds for a capital equipment purchase for public works. I'll second that.
All right. Any further discussion on this topic? Eric, just have one thing. You know, a lot of this is fairly close to the river. I don't know what of this is in the 200 foot upland review area. So, I mean, I think this is gonna have to get reviewed prior to being, I feel like you're gonna have to deal with the wetlands commission in some form or another, regarding this. But I honestly don't know the rules regarding timber harvest. Maybe Scott can weigh in on that. Yeah. It it will have to go to wetlands.
Yeah. Have to I have to file a permit, but I wanted to get see if I could, you know, if you guys
I have to do this first, then that Yeah. Will be second.
If you live if you limit the harvesting to the bigger timber and the that that'll certainly help. Right? So
Yeah. I would just like to add something too. If if the board's comfortable with it and if Scott's comfortable with it to have Scott Bersom be our liaison for this effort since he's the most experienced. 100%.
Got you. Okay. K. Yeah. I motion to amend. Adding Scott Persona as liaison. Okay. Somebody gonna second that? I'll second that. Alright. Any further discussion? All All those in favor?
Aye. For both the motion and the amended, right? Aye. Further, the final amended motion?
Okay. All in favor? Yep. Aye. Aye. All right. Before nothing, Eric? Okay. Jay, thank you. I don't know if there's anything else that you need to stay for, Jay. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.
Alright. See you then. We're gonna move on to item four, the treasurer's report. Eric, is there anything in our package related to this? There is not. The treasurer basically said
she's eight days away from, you know, the end of tax season, and she'll get back to us as soon as tax season is over. So her apologies for not having it for the packet.
That's fine. I mean, I I was in the town office and spoke to the treasurer. The treasurer had meeting with the auditor, I believe, Tuesday, Eric? Tuesday? Correct. Tuesday. And she has a nice binder that is probably the best package this town's ever put forth to an auditor. So, hopefully, we you know, there's some holes in it that we have to deal with, but I don't have a problem waiting to talk to her for next for next month.
Alright? How is how is the new employee working out? Pretty good overall, I think.
Is she doing payroll yet? Yes. She picked that up okay? Yep.
K. And how is do we have is her training schedule done now, or is she still training with Cheryl or have set time with Cheryl now, or how are we addressing?
Right now, most of the conversation, they're talking and emailing back and forth. They've had a few in person sessions, and, we've also done some in person sessions transferring information between her and Marina. Marina. So that's been going pretty well overall. So at this point, you know, for the normal day to day operations, she's basically fully assumed that control of that office. So are we still having Marina come in?
I think from time to time, we're gonna end up having Marina come in because there's always little things that she's not gonna know. It's easier to cut down on her training cycle by using Marina for that. Okay. All right. Thank you.
Okay. Item five boards and commissions presentations are there any Eric.
I do not have any presentations by boards or commissions. Alright. Any item six, any appointments? Appointments? No.
Okay. And then now item seven resignations. I know we have something there.
So Karam Clean, who's the land use board clerk, sent me a letter of resignation today. Oh, I I'm sorry. Go back one. The, building official, as most of you know, Jim Rupert, who was officially our building official, even though Randy Heckman was our day to day building official, Jim has taken the job as the town administrator for Bolton. They have, replaced Jim with, Mr. McKinnon. He's formerly the building official for Avon. So he's been a building, principal building official now for five or six years. Seems to be very competent. He and Jim and Randy did a drive through the town today
and sat down with myself and Lynn and Jim just to do introductions and kind of hammer things out. So as of today, he is officially the town of Andover's building official. And Randy and Jim are technically assistant building officials for the town.
We also have in here a letter from the tax collector. Do you want to do it under this section or you want do it under your report? Where do you want to do that? So
we should have a discussion about that somewhere. I was assuming we do it as part of my report and talk about how we want to address that.
All right, then let's do it under that. Okay. Item eight and town administrators report. So let's talk about it. No. Kidding.
Okay. So I'm gonna first, you've you've probably read through my report. So I'm gonna talk about the late additions to the report, which are things that I got after I published the report. Obviously, we've already talked about the tree harvest with public works. There was a request we received today from Rimacon to do the relay race through the town of Andover again. So we'll send that around to cert and all the authorized. But I'm assuming the board of selectmen would be, once the final application comes back to you, you as a board don't have any major issues with us having Rimacon go through town again. Is that correct?
Yeah, Eric, I actually reached out to Matt. I think it was Matt. Yeah. And I I I alerted him to the fact that we have. We have built a parking area along Lake Rd now. And that there should be plenty of room to stage vehicles for that for that relay. So he was happy with that. And, I think it'll I think it'll go well. So we haven't had a problem with him in the past, so I don't see an issue.
No. Overall, I think it's a very well run, organization. We talked about the appointment of Mr. McKinnon. I'm gonna make a suggestion that this year, we put out a trans transfer station permit mailer, and to try to streamline the process. Because that, that every year that chews up a lot of hours of labor dealing with permits. And I think we can send out a mailer and get the majority of renewals done through a mailer and then just mail them out the sticker. Now, anytime you do that and you're not physically putting the sticker on the car, you increase the possibility of there being, you know, people playing games and putting stickers on vehicles that don't, you know, don't, shouldn't have stickers. And I know some people have resisted that in the past, but I think given the amount of manpower it takes us to do this, it's worthwhile trying to streamline the process. Right. I'd there Are
you trying to head off a logjam for some reason? Are you worried that we're not we're going to have a problem? We've done it for, what, three years now? Yep. Yep. That's what I'm trying to do.
K. So what's wrong with the serstim that we're currently using?
That's an executive session discussion. That's not an open forum discussion. If you wanna have that, I'd be happy to have that discussion with you offline.
So Eric, just from my standpoint, you're trying to make this more efficient.
Yep. That's what you're trying to do. But when I do it, we have to accept the fact that it's going to be in some ways slightly less secure.
There's more chances for people to cheat if we do that. Well and you're but you're also suggesting that we spend what? 5 or $6 on mailing this stuff? I don't think it's gonna be 5 or $6.
Yeah. But what Adrian is saying, and he's not wrong, is how many stickers do you give out? Around 1,300.
Okay. So that's $700, and then you're gonna mail to the entire town to get it done. That's probably $3,000. So why don't, when does this need to be decided? It does not. No. No. No. No. You didn't answer the question. What's your timeline if you wanna go to a mailing? What's the timeline?
Well, I mean, we typically start issuing these around May 1, but it doesn't mean that you have to do it, right on May 1. You can wait
and send the mailer out mid May, early June. I mean, they're effective July 1. You're gonna I think you're gonna end up I think I I'm I'm gonna go with Adrian. Sorry, Adrian. I'm gonna go with Adrian. I I think this has to be planned out a little bit more in advance. Because if you do it now and you do a mailer and you're you're not issuing permits, you're going to end up with a backlog of everybody running up at the very end. So if you came up with a plan and presented us a plan to do it, I think it would be easier for us to review and accept. You know, because I agree with you, Eric, to be more efficient, I get it. You wanna be more efficient. But
come to us with a plan so we know what that means. Financially, Adrian's correct. What is it?
Is there a is there a I mean, is this something you wanna talk about tonight? Do you wanna add an executive session for five, ten minutes, whatever it is that you need to explain to us?
No. I think if you read the emails I sent you earlier today, you'll understand what I'm going with.
Oh, okay. But I'm calling you anticipate. I haven't checked my email since I got home. So K. My bad.
I'm with Adrian, so my bad as well. Alright. Eric, you're gonna continue? You're still on your report.
Sure. So those were the two big things. Many of you know, we're still kind of getting stonewalled by AES and the treasurer's been having some significant issues getting financial data from We'll deal with that at another time.
Yep. Understood. William Bell painted the front of the town hall. It's looking spectacular now. The building's been in fantastic shape and I really appreciate his efforts.
Can we give him an can we give him, an award? That town hall looks better than I've ever seen it. And I'll second that.
The best I've ever seen Best I've ever seen. That that gentleman that gentleman deserves a medal.
All right, keep going. Pass that on to Mr. Bell. Your appreciation for doing a spectacular job. All right.
So right now the budget is in the hands of the Board of Finance. Yeah.
But it's your responsibility as a board to set the date for the annual budget meeting. My suggestion is to set it for May 2 or May 3. That would be my suggestion. That is on the agenda as item 10C. But But I'm just giving you a heads up that I think that's appropriate. The other thing I want to bring to your attention, the appeals for the Board of Assessment appeals are finished for the spring. There were nine applications. The Board of Assessment Appeals reduced every single one of them. In total, they decreased the grand list about $361,000 represents $11,000 in decreased tax revenue for this year, just so that you're aware. You know, we're still dealing with the situation on Route 6. That's going to be an ongoing issue for a while. We are making headway on it, but we are going to have to use our hearing officer
kind of for the first time. So the next thing is the finance office. There is one thing we're going to have to deal with in some form or another. There were some overages noted by the auditor this time around that we're still reviewing on the town side. The town side of the budget overall is under budget. So, we just have to officially move the money from department to department. However, there is an issue on the AES side that the auditors saying the AES is about $30,000 over budget for that fiscal year. And the reason is they front loaded the expense for MERS and some other benefits stuff that the auditor said could not be put in that in the year before. So, it was not applicable to the
2020 audit year. And when it got moved into the last year, the school didn't pick up on that. And because of that, they are going to be over budget in that audit cycle.
I'm not sure how we're gonna deal with that at this point. So basically, instead of giving money back to the town or asking to have money put away, they spent money and now they're over budget because they did that.
Yes. You do this for us so we understand? The audit that was passed to the auditor was for the cycle that ended in 2022? Correct. And which year are you talking about? The one that ended in 2021?
The the year that ended in 2022, the previous year, so which would have been 2021. Essentially July 2021, there should have been some expenses booked in July that the school booked to the previous June, that the auditor made them move to July, which puts them over the limit for that fiscal year.
So they had extra money and decided to spend it by pre pre purchasing their pre spending into the next year.
I I understand that, but I'm trying to get the logic of the years Yes. I understand it. They put it in '20. They put it in '21. It should have been a '22. Okay, so the audit that was already the the this is the auditor telling us on the audit that he's completed already.
Yes. And the auditor pointed it out in that audit. Yeah.
But the school never read that and actually accounted for that in their budget for last year. They never made up, they never moved the expense into the correct year. So they so they had to move, they had to move it and the year that ends in 2021.
Correct. They had to move expenses that they were putting in the year that ended in 2022 they had to move it back $30,000 so now they have additional expenses in the year ended 06/30/2021 right
Okay, they have additional expenses in the year that ended in June 2022. Because they paid for twenty twenty years before.
And now they would have extra money laying around from '21. Right? '21. Yeah. Probably.
And that's one of my questions is that can we go back in and transfer money from 2021 since that should put them essentially more under budget in the 2021 year, can we put that in their 2% non lapsing account, and then use that money to cover the overages in the 2022. That's Yeah. Yes. But they gotta go to board of finance. Well, that was my question for the treasurer.
And she basically said, yes. Maybe I'll get back to you. Yes. They can. They gotta go they have to go to the board of finance. But they have to ask for 2% add, and then they then they have to go back. Then they, at the same time, have to ask the board of finance if they can now withdraw to apply to the expenses.
Oh, okay. But we haven't even completed the audit for 2022. Doesn't matter. It's a 2021 problem.
Fix the 2021 problem. Got you fix the 2021 problem, then you got to deal with Okay. 2022 having additional Yep. All right, then go through the proper procedures. Get the treasurer to be on board with what Adrian is saying and.
It's not up to us. It's up to the school. That's the problem.
Okay. Well, we have to have them communicate, and we're going to work on that. So Good luck with that. What else do we have? Okay.
So we do have an application that we're about to submit for the state local bridge program. We're going to submit two applications, one for the culvert on Hutchinson Road, and a second one for the culvert replacement on Lake Road at Pasolo. I think we'll have good applications to submit. The problem is the, state local bridge program is way underfunded. So last time around, they funded, you know, less than half of the total requests they got for the state local bridge program. So, I'm not saying we're going to get it, but, I'm saying we'll have an application
in for it, and hopefully we'll get one or the other. So we can proceed and deal with one of the two. We got the notice that the state has finally assigned the Bunker Hill Bridge design to the designer of record. You know, I think given how long it took them to do it, that we're going to be, there's been some crazy delays in that at the state end, which is very frustrating. So, I am not sure that they're going to be ready for next spring's construction season. You know, I have reached out to the contractor and asked them to expedite it, but given our dealings with the state so far, I think it's unlikely. So I want you to be aware that that is pushed back a little bit. The test warnings are complete for the Long Hill Road bridge design. And the survey has been conducted for that. So that has been given over to Close Jensen and Miller for the 30% design of the Long Hill Bridge project. So that is ongoing. That one's going a lot faster than the other one, fortunately or unfortunately. So the other thing is that I've reached back out to the state DOT and tried to get more information on the last two requests we made for the DOT. The first being installation
of a traffic light at the intersection of Hendi and Route 6. They have not gotten back to me on that. And the second was the speed reduction along Route 6. The engineer in charge of that did get back to me. He said that was still in the works and that we should have a decision in the next two weeks, because they've completed the traffic study in that area. Wow, that's good news. I'll know one way or the other. I did speak to, Senator MD Raman, about that, and I'm going to be sending the information to both those projects so he can follow-up with the DOT commissioner, and see whether they can apply a little political pressure to that process. So, those are ongoing. We did meet with SonaXO to look over and get at least one cost estimate for work at the Andover Museum to satisfy the requirements for SHPO. We have not gotten a response back from yet. We just, at this point, wanted to get a budgetary quote to make sure we're still in
the right ballpark. Now that we have a contract in place for Veterans Memorial Field, we are still planning as soon as we get into paving season this year to use some of the final monies from the connectivity grant, putting in a handicapped access to the walking track at Veterans Memorial Field, as well as a van accessible parking spot, for that. I've also reached out to, Christine Randazzo, and we're going to be using Randazzo to do some landscaping along that connectivity project to use up some of the last money in that project. The trip grant is off to DOT. You know, don't know what the status of that is yet. But it was, it did rank very competitively against the other grants submitted by CROG. So I was pretty happy with that. We have not heard anything back about the rec trails grant, other than they have $9,000,000 of money, and they got $35,000,000 worth of applications. Applications. So, that one's going to be a long shot in some form or another. We did get a neglected cemeteries grant. We got a $5,000 grant from the state to continue working on our cemetery at Cider Mill Road. The plan with that is to build a new gate, as well as to continue to clean up and repair the gravestones in that site. As most of you know, that was the very first, you know, kind of official cemetery
in the town of Andover. So, that is everything in my report other than we looked at the state bid contract for brush grinding, as well as the contract through Midneroch. And then we also got a bid from Distinctive Tree Care to use their grinder to grind up the brush pile and get rid of it. And Distinctive Tree Care was definitely cheaper. We're just gonna hire them on their day rate for that big, you know, that big chipper. What was the number, Eric?
I think it's like $4,000 a day. But Jason seemed to think that was less than that was basically one day of work. And, you know, we'll pay to haul the chips away. The last time we did it there, I think we ended up paying around $14,000 So I think we're going to be less than half the cost we did it for the last time. So that seemed like a pretty good deal. And who's who's getting the chips? Whoever wants them. You know, I offered it to the, president of the Andover Sportsman's Club because I know in the past they've taken chips. He said he would get back to me, but they also have quite a bit of chips stockpiled on-site. If you know anybody else looking for chips that can take a, you know, a 100 cubic yards or so, we'd be happy to, to, uh- Who's gonna truck them? Distinctive is trucking them also.
What, what were their plans for the disbursement of them?
Where they truck them to, I have no idea. Same way when when they truck chips out, you know, they go to wherever they go to. I honestly don't know the answer to that question. I can find out though.
Well, you have $4,000 for the grinding and then the trucking price is gonna be, you know, probably a lot more than that.
Well, the the truck runs us, like, I think it's, like, $1,250 a day for that the big tractor trailer truck.
Right. Those are 100 yards. 100 yards. Right. How many loads are there? Did he say? You know, they they in the past, they've done four or five in a day,
and I don't think we have five truckloads of brush there. So I think we can get away with one day from that thing. Yeah. You know, it's just a question of how far, what the turnaround time is. Right. Yeah.
So we just gotta find a home for five loads of it.
Yeah, but unlike the normal roadside stuff, this is, you know, tend to be much more gnarly chips. I'm not sure people are gonna want them, you know, the same way they want our regular chips. Right.
Gnarly as in what? Because it's full of, it's full of, Bigger. Bigger material?
I don't think it's that so much. It's just that people tend to throw crap in there. And remember, we're only doing it every other year now. So some of that stuff's been sitting there and decaying for almost twenty four months by the time we get to it. Right. So some of it's already partially, you know, mulched. K. 500 yards.
Something like that. That's my off the top of the head calculation, by the way. Don't quote me on that one. Yeah. And then the last thing which we're gonna deal with later that I put in my report was the info about the boundary line adjustment details. And you should have seen the mapping for that also. That's gonna be on 10, right? Correct.
So that's all I have unless you all have questions for me. I have I have a question about that $300,000,
state of Connecticut bridge letter. What would that was referencing both Bunker Hill? What's $300,000?
I don't know. There there was a there was a a letter and there was $300,000
there. We're an engineering. It's the engineering on that project.
Oh, yeah. But we don't have to pay any of Nothing to us. Right. Yeah. We're not paying that. That's just what the cost is.
That's part of the program on the bridge, Scott. The state is paying. State is paying for the engineering?
Correct. Good. And Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, you got into a program where the bridge, Bunker Hill and Long Hill Bridge are 100% being paid for by the state and federal government. They are. The difference
is that we don't have to prepay any of the design costs. When it comes to construction, it looks like we're going to have to rebate the contractors and then get repaid back by the state and federal government. But for the engineering part, they do that 100% in house.
So we never, you know, we don't have to outlay a dime of money for that. So it's so it's kind of like when we do a when we've done the federal program in the past and it's a partial pay, even we still had to out. We still had to outlay our money upfront and then wait to get paid back. Right, which is why sit around forever,
Right. Which is why we're keeping that money, that stash of money that we put away for the Bunker Hill Bridge replacement. So we can pay that difference. The reason I'm concerned that that one is behind schedule is the goal was to do that one, two years before we did, because we started it two years before the Long Hill one. So the goal was to have that fully paid for and got our money back before we have to start laying out money for the Long Hill Bridge. So my concern is if Long Hill goes well and Bunker Hill goes badly, and we're doing them both at the same time, potentially we're outlaying, we have to outlay money for both bridges and wait to But get
we had talked about this before with Mike, the auditor, sorry. And what we can do in that case is we can ask the Board of Finance to approve spending money out of the general fund, giving ourself a loan, paying for it, and then when it is received back, put it back into general funds. Right. Yep.
So there's a way around it. We don't have to go to taxpayers and ask for money and then tax them for something that would then be laid back later. Right. And Eric, nothing is ever a stash. You're right. Okay, that's a poor.
Are allocating funds to the appropriate use for the benefit of the taxpayer. Correct. Right, so any other questions for Eric? Okay, If not, let's move on to old business. We'll go on to 9a, the status of the community center RFP contract.
So they got a contract back to us middle of the day on Thursday. I started taking a look at it over the weekend. I am in general okay with the contract that they're offering. What we're looking for permission, what we would want for permission from the, we'll a copy of what they sent us around everybody else. I'll send it over to Dennis as well. Eric and I had a copy of it, I think, right now is where it stood. Basically, what we're looking for is we need permission for Eric to be able to sign the general contract, which would be for the original bid amount. And then we will go out to bid on the ads to see if we can get We're really close on the number to be able to do the things we we believe are necessary upgrades to the building.
It's really close and we we believe if we go to we go to actual RFP, then the estimates will come down. And I think at this point, we're within like $30,000 to be under Davis Bacon as well as have our cushion. So we think we can get that $30,000 back in actual bid. So that would be our ask is to I'd like to make a motion that we can have Eric once myself and Dennis sign off on the contract, you know, agreed to the contract, that we would then allow Eric to sign a contract to put us into, you know, contract to build. I'll second that, Adrian. You made a motion. I did. Yep.
Alright. So you will sit there and get Dennis the contract and the other members of the board the contract so we can at least do I a will. I wanted to read it to make sure there were no major issues before I sent it around. Okay. Any further questions? Jeff, you have anything?
I just wanna make sure that should we send that to the building committee as well, Adrian? Like Ed Sarisli and company?
Don't know Ed Sarisley. I mean, the only person I think that could really add some some value on this would probably be, Rick. Okay. From Winco? Okay.
Or possibly possibly possibly mister Hamburger. I mean, it's really you know, Ed didn't really have any contract experience. I have some, you know, and I had to actually look up a couple things on this. So you know? But I I think Dennis, maybe Rick. I mean, if you wanna take a look at it, I mean, I'll send it to everybody on the board, obviously, but we have an input for you. Please feel free. The other thing we're gonna have to do is one of the things they are asking for in the contract is they're they're asking for they are asking for someone to be appointed as a basically our representative the actual project that can approve change orders, you know, so that they're not getting held up, basically. There's something that comes down the pike. They don't want to get into a situation where they have to stop work for a couple of weeks while we get our ducks in a row. You recommend anyone, Adrian? I mean, honestly, I think it needs to be probably myself. I mean, Eric could probably do it if necessary. It's got to be somebody that can be in town on a regular basis
and can, you know, has a pretty good understanding of construction. I don't know of anyone else in the community that would that's offered to volunteer for this type of stuff. Are you offering?
So, Adrian, are you just talking like, subs are you talking like change orders, like, for substitutions, that type of thing, or are you talking costs?
I mean, obviously, if it's a bigger issue, I I think, you know, we would we would wanna come back to the I mean, you know, if it's a bigger issue and it's something that's gonna, that's a budgetary issue, I think that we have to come back. You know, I even if it's me, I'd wanna be able to come back to, you know, come back to the to the board. But, you know, I I'm I can reach out to all you guys pretty quickly, I think, if we need to and and just get you guys to email me an okay or something if it's something major.
Right. Right. Yeah. If it's like a substitution, like there's
a shortage, like a supply chain shortage on material if we want to sell it. Yeah. Mean, I think those are easy decisions. I think it gets a little, you know, you know, if they need to make a jog or there's a foundation issue or something and it's just structural and and it's not gonna affect the whole project. Price. Yeah. No. Or or pricing. Yeah. But, other than that, you know, so basically it just says, you know, owner shall provide full information regarding requirements for the owner of the project. Owner shall designate a representative who shall be fully acquainted with the project and who will have the authority to approve changes in scope of work for the project, render decisions properly, furnish information regarding owner's requirements expeditiously in a timely manner to enable the contractor to maintain this construction schedule. So basically, if they run into something and the print doesn't match what they think they're doing, they may say, hey. You need to come down here and approve what you what did you mean by this, or what did the designer really mean by this? So those types of things as well. You know?
Alright. Adrian, you're appointed. You're appointed. Alrighty.
Do we need to make a motion about that, Jeff? Well, we haven't voted on we haven't voted on the first. Well, yeah, think if we make the motion, we we probably make that as part of the motion. Yep. Okay. Like just like we do with Scott.
All right, so the amended motion would be that we would authorize Eric Anderson upon approval of myself and Dennis to be able to sign the contract, and that I would be the appointed owner's responsibilities designee. Second that.
Further discussion. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Right. For nothing. Okay. Let's move on to nine b, Hop River Homes update. Anything, Eric?
No. Just that we have a agreement in place with Hop River Homes that enables us to use it for softball going forward and gives us the right to put a water line and an electrical line under the road to feed that property. The only thing they were adamant about is that if the town even considers putting the lights up for it, that they wanna be part of that discussion very early. And I assured them that at this point, we're, we have no real intention of, of providing that with any sort of lighting.
Okay. Excellent. 9C recognizing Andover residents. I say we move this one to next week because Paul was not able to attend tonight. Anybody have a problem with that? No. Okay 9D a cool program contract any update on that or should we move that to next?
So I think Dennis wanted to talk to you about that a little bit. I mean, I've reached out to Kerma multiple times by that and I finally, you know, gave up with the contract people and went directly to our Kerma rep and had a little bit of a come to, to see the light, meeting with him on Friday. But they still have not gotten us a review of the contract, which since it's been more than a month is a little bit annoying to me. But I think Dennis had some things he was concerned with in the contract. So, maybe, it would be wise to have him speak. I do not have a revised version or comments back from Kermit.
Dennis, you got anything for us on cool or should we just move on? Okay, let's push that one to next month. 9E, Andover Personnel Policy Discussion.
Hey, I don't want to do this. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I thought I was gonna sneak by you, Dennis, honestly. Try to sneak it by me. Yeah. I didn't realize I was muted. I I know what happened. My other phone rang, and it was loud. Okay. Yeah. I I've written about five or six drafts of this thing. I just did another one today. Tonight, finished it up during the early part of the meeting while you were talking about the Adrian brought up fifty two dash five fifty seven k, which I will look at, Adrian. I'm intrigued. Anyway, yeah, a lot the last I recall was Paula King came back with a a draft that was submitted by maybe by an attorney for cool. I don't know. I don't know. It wasn't very well written in my view, but, you know hey. Anyway, I I we had gotten feedback before from Kerma, and I know they didn't want us to provide secondary coverage for cool. I know that. And and they also probably wanted more extensive coverage from COOL, and I think now they're providing it. And 2,000,000 general liability, 1,000,000 per incident. And so what I did tonight was I I did I I had I had one big problem with what they in addition to that, with what they submitted, and that was they had taken out completely a section that I put in there allowing us to terminate
the contract if they don't follow it substantially in a material way. And I I I have never I've never seen a contract like that where you couldn't get out of it because the other side messes up. So I put something back in there, which I thought might be acceptable to them where where the board of selectmen could vote to terminate the contract on the basis of a finding by the board that the material violation has been committed by pool, but I gave them the opportunity to ask for a special meeting with the board before the termination became effective. And, you know, just to give them an opportunity, I think, just to give you guys some more work, you don't you don't have enough work to do. Not that that's gonna happen, but I I just don't like the idea of not being able to get out of a three year contract if if if the other side doesn't follow it. So I draft put it together, drafted it, and I and I've sent I just emailed it to Eric a few minutes ago.
So Paula is not here. The one thing I'm concerned about, Jeff, is that it is April. A school ends, I guess, around what? Around June 10 or so, fifteenth. I don't know. And, you know, the the summer program is gonna be they're gonna be wanting to recruit people for the summer program. So I think this is something that we ought to get done. I I that's, you know, it's not my call, but that's my suggestion. And, anyway, I'm gonna I'm gonna send copies of the draft I wrote today to all of you right now by email, if you don't mind. And maybe maybe you could, you know, we could address it finally at our at your next meeting. I think we probably should. And whether we hear back from Kermit or not, hopefully hopefully, we will. But I think what I've done is I've tried to meet cool halfway. They're not getting everything they wanted, and I think they believe that they are you know, they're they're they're the partner in this of the board of ed, and we all know what that, you know, what that could entail. They are not. We the the the building is owned by the town. The the property is owned by the town. The bus they wanna use is owned by the town. So, anyway, I wanna send that along to you unless you object. That's where I wanna leave it right now, but the rest is up to Go ahead. Go ahead and send it to us, Dennis. And we need to get this decided by next month so we can allow that. I think so. I mean, I I know you all support the program,
and and I and and but, you know, we we we don't wanna hand them a blank check. I mean, that's my view. Alright. I'm gonna send it over, and I thank you I thank you so much for your time, mister chairman.
Alright. Should we even wait till the next meeting? I mean, if the verbiage is okay with Dennis, should we just send it over to Cool? I mean, I trust I I trust our attorneys. Opinion, I mean, I'm not going to add any value to it by looking at it. I I'm Okay with it, Jeff, going to cool because cool is the answer. We need to expedite this because I mean summer camps going to be like the like you said, like Dennis said, they're going to be hiring people and they're going to want to get ramped up for the summer season. I think we need to kind of expedite this a little bit and make sure that they get it in a timely manner. Okay, so Dennis also send it to cool
or Eric send it to cool. I I think Eric can do that. I'm I'm gonna send you copies of it anyway. Yeah. I don't forget. I drafted this in haste today. I started working on it about 06/06/2020, and I finished it about when, just as as as Adrian was citing that statute regarding trees. And, so, you know, if there's if there's anything wrong with it, let me know. But I I mean, I I you know, or cool can let us know. But I agree, Jeff Burns, that it is something that we should expedite. I mean, we know that we're going to do this. This is something that's important. We just want to do it on our own terms and not on somebody else's.
Okay. Alright. Thank you. Nine E and over personnel policy discussion.
So I would like to punt that till next month. It's fine.
Okay. 10 new business. Ten a. No. We forgot the vehicle, Jeff. Oh, I am so sorry. You're right, Jeff. Senior vehicle f. Nine f, senior vehicle purchase.
Okay. And why I've added this tonight is I I attended or actually watched one of the board of finance meetings, and I'm a little confused. And I think the board, we kinda need to revisit this. It appears that the vehicles in next year's budget, is this a different vehicle or the same vehicle? Because I thought we voted two months ago that we were going to purchase this vehicle with unexpended funds from this year. So has that changed? Or
So I I can shed some light on that. Okay. So what I asked the board of selectmen, which ultimately you agreed to, is to put it into the budget for next year. Because when you're sitting this far out of the end of the year, being able to predict where you're going to be in the budget is very difficult. You know, there's just too many unknowns. We've already tapped quite a bit of the contingency for other things. So, I didn't want to say definitively one way or the other, we would have room in the budget to be able to do it this year. I did have that discussion with the board of finance at their last meeting last Wednesday. And the, we discussed a number of things. One of them is the fact that the line item for the resident state trooper will looks like it will come in considerably under what we budgeted for this current fiscal year. And that difference is probably going to be about what that vehicle costs or maybe a little bit more. And we have a little bit better feel for what our revenues coming in are. So, given that, I think I'm fairly confident we can purchase that vehicle in this fiscal year. I can't guarantee it, but I'm pretty sure we can without going over on the town's budget.
And the board asked, board of finance asked me that, that's what I told them. And they made a decision to remove the purchase of the vehicle from next year's budget, because they they're apparently confident enough that there's room in this year's budget to be able to support the vehicle purchase.
Okay. I just wanna I just wanna get an update on that because I was a little confused. And I just don't wanna make sure we're we're double booking a vehicle. That's all. Right.
And and it's clearly written in the last months, minutes that we wanted it for this year.
Okay. So we should be able to purchase this at the end of this fiscal budget season, which would be July 1 if we have, unexpended funds. Correct?
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna have to make that decision earlier than that. I mean, we're gonna have to make that decision
closer to the end of May. So we do it in this fiscal year, but Yeah, because, yeah, and we have to give the dealer a heads up because they will have to locate the vehicle for us. Correct. The sooner the sooner the better that we can get the ball rolling on that. I know it's I I know it's a it's it's something that's really needed for senior transportation right now. Would it be nice to get a fuel efficient vehicle to haul them around? So, okay. I just I just want a clarification on that. I'm good. Jeff, you're muted.
10, new business, 10A, selectman resolution in support of the 2022 Steep grant.
Okay, so because the Steep grant project got assigned to DECD, they require a written resolution by the Board of Selectmen. And I explained to the guy that we didn't need to do that because in fact, it was approved at a town meeting, which supersedes the Board of Selectmen. And I sent him that and he said, yeah, we still require a resolution. So all you're signing is the fact that we've already gotten, you know, they've given us the grant and you're authorizing that we accept the grant. Okay. Make a motion that we sit there and sign a resolution to support of the 2022 steep grant. I'll second that, Jeff.
All right. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Before nothing. Okay.
Now can you guys all go in and sign the originals in the town clerk's office, or do you want her to, magically make your signatures here? I would do that Monday. Okay.
I'll text Carol. Let her know my my she can put my signature on. Yep. I'll text Carol also. Okay. Thank you. Okay. The 10 b, budget message recommendations.
So, the reason why I'm kind of asking you this is, I mean, the budget message is primarily the Board of Finance's affair. But if there are specific things you as a Board of Selectmen want to include in the budget message, like I know Adrian has asked the Board of Selectmen to include a note in there stating that we are going to spend, you know, up to $125,000 of money from the multi use business building fund, excuse me, to fit out the senior center after it's built. If there are other things you want to include in the budget message, let me know so that I can relay that to the Board of Finance. Anybody else have any other issues?
I mean, do we wanna make a statement about, you know, how we feel like we've, you know, we've been successful in the last couple years of, we feel like we've, you know, gotten the town to a place where it can fund its needed functions finally. And, you know, we feel like, you know, maybe this is, you know, this is, you know, at with between the reevaluation and the and the, you know, the adjustments that have come down the pike that we're in a good place. You know? And and we, you know, have tried to put forward a budget that was respectful of the current economy. And with the, you know, with the the board of finance have tried to craft what we feel is a a a good and reasonable budget that's not gonna take away from the town, but is not adding extensively. You know? When's it gotta be, sent out, Eric?
Well, I would assume that would come out after the, workshop, but before the town budget meeting. Presuming that you pick a date for the town meeting and you select May second or third, I assume you'd want to, that would want to go out prior to that. So, I'm gonna be on vacation from the nineteenth to the twenty fifth. I'm assuming as soon as I come back from that, we'll have basically a final budget from the board of finance, and I will be working very hard to craft that and get it through the board of finance prior to the meeting.
I mean, what you guys thought? I mean, we've we've put a lot of effort into budgets and in the last couple of years. Eric has done a ton of work to try to figure out where we need money and and how much we need. And I just feel like we've put a lot of effort into this, and I think the the Board of Finance has been good about backing us and reviewing it and sort of finding the middle ground, I feel like townspeople kind of need to know that and that we are being, you know, that this is not a, it's not an over the top budget. It's a respectful budget,
you know? Adrian, I have no problem with how you stated it before, if that's how the board wants, I mean, I have no problem with what you said, because you're 100 right. I think the members of this board have done a very good job. I think Eric has done a very good job. The town looks much better. We're trying to use money appropriately. I mean, look at all the grants that Eric has gotten. I have no problem with what you said, how you said it, you just want to write it up. I have no problem including it.
I don't mind writing it up and getting over to Eric and maybe Mark Berkner as well and make sure he's okay with what we're asking and,
you know, can can add his 2¢ as well from the world of finance. Yeah. Wouldn't even hurt to put the dollar values in there just to take for the bridges and the grants and all the things that we've gotten just to say, hey. This is what we've gotten that you're not getting tax for.
Yeah. You know, I think it's important. Think, you know, especially this year, we are gonna be asking them to fund a fire truck. But it's something that the the fire department has worked very hard on, you know, and has, you know, they're trying to replace two pieces of apparatus with one. That's a huge deal, you know. Okay.
All right, so why don't we sit there and work to get that that notice, the
budget message crafted and and Yeah. So, Eric, I'll I'll coordinate with you. When as soon as you're back, just hit me up, and we'll we'll put something together.
Okay. Right. So 10 I mean, I wanna remind you that's mostly a board of finance responsibility, but if there the specific things that you wanna highlight up, I'd be happy to to put in there. I
100% agree with you, but in it could just be that we've had contenders budgets the last couple of years, but I haven't really seen much come out of the Board of Finance on this. And I I think, you know, they've just had a lot to deal with. I think if we can help them a little bit, if, you know, we're not trying to offend them, you know, we're trying to support them, you know, and support the town too. Sure. Understood.
Okay. So 10C set a date for the town budget meeting. May 2 would be the best date for me. That's Tuesday. So out of the days that Eric's identified, per And second, with
I'm trying to do this, you know, not that I necessarily think this is gonna be a contentious budget season that goes really long, but this gives us the maximum chance of having a budget complete prior to when we need to send out the mill rate, regardless of whether it's complete or not. Okay.
Anybody have a problem with that date? Oh, good. Adrian? No, I'm good.
Alright, so I make a motion that we set the town the budget meeting via for May 2, 07:00. Second. All right, all those in favor? Aye. For nothing? Okay. 10D boundary line agreement.
So, I'm going to give you a little background on this. So, there is information about two surveys that we have to deal with. The first is a property that borders the town property that the transfer station is on. And it borders Burnout Brook Road. One of the town residents recently bought that property. We've known for a long time that the boundary line for that was screwed up. And it's, you know, been in contention for a long, it hasn't been well established, but let's put it that way. So, the owner hired a surveyor. They hired, Rob Hellstrom Land Surveying to go out and spend an ordinary amount of time trying to piece this together. The majority of the survey, they have reasonable data to support what the boundary is, but there's a long boundary line between the town's property and the applicant's property that is fairly indistinct. There's just not an agreement the various sets of mapping and deed descriptions. Now, I don't want to take the surveyor's word for it. My intention is to send this all off to the town's zoning attorney, Mark Brantz, to review and just make sure he agrees with that surveyor's take on this. But if that is the case, the only way we're really going to resolve it is for both property owners representing the town and the owner to come up with a boundary line agreement and just say, okay, from this point forward, this is what we're going to establish as the line. The second thing about it is one of the pieces that I have been trying to get for years is the part of Burnap Brook, where Burnap Brook and the rail trail intersect. And we tried to negotiate with the previous owner to purchase this or purchase an easement on it through open space. We were not successful with the previous owner.
This owner is more agreeable to it. As part of the boundary line agreement, the town would also take possession of the property that borders the rail trail. It's not a huge portion. It's only about point seven acres. But in a sense, it's the most scenic spot on Burnett Brook. It's really the, and it also gives us, you know, right now the parking area there is partially on DEP property and partially on the, the residents property. And even though they've allowed cars to park there, it's very definitely on private property. So it would give us ownership of that. So my suggestion based on discussing this with the town's attorney with Dennis is that he feels that this will require an 08/24 referral to Planning and Zoning Commission for a municipal improvement because we're getting that little parcel of land that will have to go to town meeting anyway.
So, what I would like is if you guys are generally okay with this plan, then I would like to just to save a little time, I would like to do the 08/24 referral now to Planning and Zoning Commission with your blessing and have them review this and then have Mark Brantz review this and then bring it back to the Board of Selectmen once those things are done to set a town meeting to approve this, if you're in agreement with it. I have discussed this with Joe Wagner, our wetlands agent. I've also discussed this with Hank Bruner from the conservation commission to get the conservation commission's take on,
you know, any environmental issues with that. And they both are in agreement with the basic plan. So, that's where I'm at on this. Do you have any questions for me regarding this portion?
I I do. I do. The the line southerly line, it used to intersect with the The lots that are next to the dump there it used to go through that split rail rail fence there so that line was. Well, off of minute that it came into the back of there is that what it used to do there.
So the, the answer is that the surveyor when we first talked about it. They hadn't found that additional iron pin along the Kudo property. So, given the pins that they had and the data they had, he basically said, look, there's a lot of ambiguity in this. We don't know where this line should really be. The last hard point that we know is the corner boundary of the Cudo property. And we think that we know which stone wall they're referencing, where it intersects the rail trail. We're not positive, but we think we know. And based on that, we know up to the stone wall and then we know on the other end, but there's no definitive, there's too much disagreement between those two to say, you know, where, you know, so that line could be different by a couple acres in either direction. In fact, one of the boundary surveys, you know, has that property like on the wrong side of Burnett Brook Road. So at this point, I don't think there's enough information to say where it is. I'm willing to say, if we do this, we're not giving up anywhere near as much as we're getting by getting the really cool frontage
on Burnett Brook. So I look at this and say the town is ultimately getting what it really wants out of it, which is the rest of the parking lot and the most beautiful picturesque section of the river under town control. And so therefore, you know, whether we're losing an acre or we're gaining an acre, it's a reasonable compromise for the town. That's my take on it, but your opinion may vary.
So are we gaining or what's the gain and what's the loss?
I don't think anybody knows, Scott. That's the point. I mean, you know, the surveyor wasn't in the next one, we're gonna talk about the difference is only five or seven feet. In this one, the surveyor is not willing to say within hundreds of feet where the actual boundary is. So,
you know, I don't know. That's why I want to spend Is any used used land? Are we talking about any used land along this boundary lines?
We're not talking about land we use, And we're not giving everything we're giving up is in the 200 foot upland review area anyway. So it's not like it's something we're going to build on or do anything. You know, it's not like we're going to construct anything on that land.
Okay. Then My only question is, are, are we, do we think that we're getting enough?
Do I think so? Yes. But that doesn't mean you think so. And I mean, my problem is that's why I want to send it to Mark and get his best take on, you know, what he thinks the boundary lines are and should be. Because, you know, it's one of these cases where, you know, you've got a bunch of different mapping and you've got a bunch of different deed descriptions and nothing matches. So, where you put that, you know, is very hard to, to determine.
Right. The, the original line you're saying used to go through that, that stockade fence, that, that's the line that you're talking about?
There was no original line. What the surveyor said originally when we talked to him is that in his mind, the the two points, the eastern part of the survey, they know up until the, the boundary, but actually it wouldn't be the eastern, more like the northern part of the survey, correction, the western part, they know to where the Kudo property boundary is. And then on the other side, they know to roughly the stain, the stone wall. Those are the two things where they think they know where, where known points are, but they don't know how the line is supposed to be drawn between the two of them. So, one option is to draw it straight. But then the surveyor came back to us later and said, you know, we also realized there's another iron pin along the property boundary of the Cudo property, and it's in a straight line. So, there's no reason for there to be a pin there
if it wasn't a boundary line for something, which is why they gave us the alternative that they give here.
I mean, does anybody have a problem to allowing Eric to work this out? I mean, Scott, do you have a problem with them allowing to work it out and figure out what the best? No. I'm my my only question is, Jeff, if where
was the line first? Where did we establish it? Like, with the towns that nobody knew, but all I'm saying, are we losing three or four acres to gain a half an acre or a week? How far off is it? The, you know, the gain and loss. That's all I'm asking.
Right. And and to be honest, that's one I want the attorney to weigh in on because I don't know.
Well, has Because Eric. Eric, hasn't hasn't somebody else? Eric,
how long is the how how long of a span is the property line we're talking about that's in dispute? Eight hundred feet. 800 or more.
Okay. So it's 800 feet long. And how far do they think it's off? A couple 100 feet?
It could be up to a cup couple 100 feet depending on where they draw it from and to.
All I'm saying, maybe we could get more more land along the brook up there, Eric. That's all I'm saying. That thing could be from a a survey or a a parcel that was done in the, you know, whatever, the eighteen hundreds and was lots were changed. To to Scott's point, if it's off by 200 feet and it's 800 feet long, that's four acres almost exactly. Can lose a lot of land and we we could plan to gain a lot of more that of that that land that you want over there by doing exactly what you're saying. But I'm I'm just wondering if if we're
pushing it just a little further. But the surveyor also said on the other end, could just as easily justify that initial point in it being the next stone wall over and draw the line from the next stonewall over on the eastern side, you know, which would give them two plus more acres. So,
you know, I Well, the way the way I look at it, you could you could even move our line over to intersect the bottom of the southerly point of that that one wall and, and swing it over, it'll still hit that. It'll still hit that line. And then we get more river frontage on that end. I, I, I, I just don't know enough to say good or if it's good or bad.
Well, mean, that's why I'm proposing to send it to Mark Brandt and get his review of this because I don't feel like I'm qualified, but short of us hiring a surveyor to go out and survey our parcel, and then try to, you know, meet in the middle, you know, which, you know, I know they spent somewhere around $10 on the survey. And I know if we're going to survey an 80 acre parcel to prove them wrong, or to give it our best guess, you know, we're going to be out $15,000 or more. Or more. Yeah. Yeah. Or more. Probably or more.
Well, why don't you send it to I mean, you know, we could beat this all night. Why don't you send it to the attorney? See what the attorney thinks, you know, and and whatever you know, see if you can get a two to one rate exchange on the on the parcels. You know. They get double because it's still on a wetlands upper end's review and go from there.
It's even longer of a, it's, I see $2,600 and a three forty. That's 1,200, 1,500 feet. We could be losing a bundle of land there.
Okay. So what do you want me to do then? What's what's your goal? To attorney Brandt's. Yeah. Let him let him look at it. Okay. So no eight twenty four attorney Brandt's review. I'll bring it back to you at the next meeting or whenever he's I mean, let no. Can we back up? Why are we straining?
Even if even if we lose if if we lose if it's six acres going to them and we can get whatever, two acres down below, isn't that still a benefit? To Eric's point, it's two acres that we want and that improve our situation. It's give or take six acres that is restricted access and use anyways because it's in an upland review.
Right. But, Adrian, they're they're only he's we're getting a it looks like a half an acre.
But And we're getting the piece we want. Yeah. Right. It's a bird in the hand versus nothing.
Yeah. Wow. Versus I'm I'm all for, you know, getting that piece of land, Eric. I know it well, and it's it's beautiful, but if I could get double, I'd like to get double.
Well, we all wanna get more all the time, but, you know, again, it's it's in an upland review area, so it's not great property he's getting. It's not like we're giving a mountaintop and a nice view. Well, he's getting waterfront. He's got waterfront. Yeah. Well, he's getting now he's yeah.
And it's waterfront, as you know know know very well, is very restricted. So Scott, if you, if you would like to,
well, first of all, send it to Attorney Brands because we should get a legal opinion and, and, and Scott, if you'd like to work with Eric on, on that, the potential breakdown of what's going on, please do.
Okay. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. Can we move forward on the review, though? Sorry, Scott. We move forward with the review?
Yeah. Look. I would say let him look at it. The $8.24. It's 08:24. Right, Eric?
Yeah. But you're doing 824 on a specific line. Yeah. You you can't really do it until we know what's what's gonna happen.
No problem. We'll wait. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, this is not something we have to accomplish in the next six months. Just hanging out there as as something to be done. So So boundary line agreement b, Paul Svan. So this came up as a question that occurred with the survey that we've recently constructed or conducted of the two properties. Basically, BSC has said they're not willing to sign off on this as an E2 survey because they think the original survey on a portion of that land done by Anchor Engineering is wrong. But there's enough difference between that survey and the two boundary descriptions that there's a section in there that is not well defined. And so, their suggestion is that we pursue a lot line agreement between the town of Andover and the property owner to, to sort that out. We're not talking about a big area. He thinks there's only somewhere between a five and ten foot discrepancy between where the two lines are. So, you know, we're talking about something in the neighborhood of 1,000 square feet of property. So, is that something that you're willing to consider pursuing a lot line agreement with? Well,
just tell tell me where what line in the overview with the school in it, just tell me which line this is north and south. Right? Look at that. What point are we talking about in in ambiguity?
So as far as I understand it, it is the line for the if you look at the survey in the anchor engineering Yep. The snippet of that, it's the area shaded in red was his concern. Mhmm. Roughly that area was the issue. What what line
which line exact you don't know which line it was? As far as I understand, as you're viewing it, it's the vertical line there, which would be the east West line where it jogs. It goes under that little jog.
Yep. So one end of it is in the wrong place or something?
He thinks the whole thing knee is moved over. Like, he thinks that where the anchor engineering actually pinned it doesn't correlate to where the actual boundary is. No.
Is the adjacent landowner okay with just changing it to what the new surveyor
wants? Well, once I get the final mapping from BSC, I've talked to Landover briefly. We will sit down with them. If you as a board are willing to even agree to consider a boundary line adjustment. If you're not, then it doesn't matter. We just file it with an ambiguous
line. No. On this one, I would be in favor of just getting a boundary line agreement. I'm just one, though. Boundary line agreement. That's two. Adrian, Jeff?
I don't have I don't really have a take either way. I'm fine with it. If you get the agreement, are they gonna a two it at that point or no?
Then they can. I mean, they'll they'll produce the final a two. Basically, what he said was Rob said or sorry, Mike Healy said they could produce an a two survey, but they would have to indicate on the survey that that particular boundary is not established as part of the survey. Whereas once there's a boundary aligned agreement, they could say it's established as part of the boundary agreement done.
And and the landowner is open to the boundary line agreement? Yes. So let's get done. It's a win. Okay. So is that it for for those issues, Eric? That's all I need. Okay.
Item 11, approval of minute meetings for the 03/06/2023, Budget Workshop and the 03/13/2023, Regular Meeting and Budget Workshop. Somebody want to make a motion? I make a motion that we approve the two minutes for the two dates identified. So I got a All All those in favor. Aye. Aye.
Eric, item 12, budget. Are there any appropriation transfers or over expenditure requests? None at this time. Okay. Item 13, tax collectors report.
The only thing I want to say on that is you did get the letter of resignation for the tax collector. And sometimes sooner rather than later, need to have a discussion, whether we do it that in the open or an executive session about what the approach should be towards replacing the tax collector, because we need to come up with an approach fairly quickly. When is the resignation effective? August. Basically beginning of August.
Is it the beginning of August or the end of August?
Might have been the end of August. August. Anyway, I mean, she's agreed to stay on and, you know, I mean, it's not like a hard, fast date. Like, if we told her she had asked her to put it off for one month, that wouldn't be an issue. Do you have a plan or an idea? I have some possibilities.
Okay. And you, appear that you wanna talk about those at executive session in a future meeting. I think that might be a good idea.
Okay, next meeting. Let's have it. Okay. Well, the tax collector's report, we collected $136,000 in the prior month, we'll move on. Department reports, does anybody have any issues on any of the department reports that were presented?
There is one refund request under the tax collector's report for a $141.97 to Brian Linzair.
Okay. Does somebody wanna make a motion for that one? Where is it? Oh, there it is. It's on page 34. I'm sorry. Can you repeat? I I
my connection is not working great here. So I'll make a motion that we approve the tax refund for $141.97 to Brian Lindsay Ari. It's a refund of an excess payment. Second. All those in favor. Aye. Aye.
All right, that's for nothing. Any questions or any other issues on any other the departmental reports that were provided? Nope.
Eric, just as a secondary request, I asked this last time, did you do any reviewing on the permit receipts for the building department? You know, that I did not do.
Alright, can you do that just to check out the totals because I know, I know there's some new, there's new building, new homes under construction on Lake Road. I just, you know, that's always been a mental thing for me is how those building permits are calculated out and how much money the town is getting for those property constructions. So if you can look at that, that would be great, finally get to that. Anybody else? Okay. Then let's move on. So item 15, correspondence. Was there any correspondence, Eric? None that's significant. Okay item 16 public speak Linda fish. Alright,
we'll move on. Joanne Ebert. She just unmuted, Jeff. Oh, no. I just to say no. I couldn't find the button. That's alright. I was helping you out there. Joanne Ebert. Thank you, Leanne Hutchinson.
Okay. And I believe Leanne is this she she does the zoom and the phone I believe phone yeah. So I believe we're done anybody else that I haven't given appropriate time to for the public to say what they'd like to say to us. As long as it's all positive there's nothing negative. No, okay. Item 17. It's got motion to adjourn.
All right. Jeff Murray, are you second in that. All right, all those in favor. Aye. Aye. All right, thank you very much. Good night.