Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen Regular Meeting
July 10, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay.
I'm gonna welcome everybody to the Town of Andover Board of Selectmen regular meeting for Monday, July 10. We're getting started at 07:02. And we're going to get started with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.
Yeah. I can't when you run it through, I can't do that.
Okay. So we're gonna get started with public speaking. Let's start with applause. How are you, Kathy and Mike? Hi. We're good. Good. We're We're good.
Alright, nothing nothing for you guys to make us aware of.
No, I think that eric's gonna do all the talking for me tonight. Aren't you Eric? I guess what are we talking about?
Well, I sent you a text, so I think you got that. And what we talked about our bus. I think we're good. We're good.
Okay. Alright. Linda Fish. All set. All set. And I'm assuming our cell phone caller is the Honorable Dennis O'Brien, correct? Correct. All right. Always good to have you here, Dennis. Okay, additions and deletions to the agenda item three. Anybody?
Walla, go ahead. I want to add. Oh, I'm sorry. Don't have it in front of me. Wherever you see necessary or appropriate, we talked about this last month and I think we called it signs down at Long Hill Field. Yeah. One second. Mhmm.
We'll put it at 9 G. Veteran Memorial Field. Anybody else? I'll second that. Is there anything else Scott you gotta bring?
We gotta talk No, but I'm all set. Thank you. Okay, Jeff Murray, anything? No, Jeff, I'm all set thanks.
Alright, so let's vote on adding 9 Gs Veterans Memorial Longhill Field signage to the agenda all in favor. Aye. Aye.
Okay. We're going to move on to the Treasurer's Report Item four. Eric, if you'd like to.
Okay, so the Treasurer's Report is included in the packet. It is basically for the bills we got through the end of July. It closes just before July, but we didn't actually do any more checks in the month of June. Sorry, I meant to say June, not July. So what are your questions related to that or the transfers required to make up the overages?
Well, is there any information as to our let's stick with our income for one second. So let's talk about our taxes collected. So we had budgeted for 9,900,000 in total current year taxes and only collected 9.4. Is there any information?
We ended up collecting more than that. If you look down, there were two things that, if you look down in the tax collectors report, which is later in the packet, it has the final numbers for the tax collector, which did not make it into this budget to actual, because I just copied what was given to the Board of Finance the last time, and that wasn't ready then. So it's not that bad, but it's still, know, we never collect 100%. What we've been doing the last bunch of years, and I've had a conversation with the Sherwin Board of Finance about fixing it going forward, is we've kind of made two assumptions. We made the assumption that we're going to collect 100% of the taxes in the current year, but that we're going to ignore the supplemental appropriation because in most years, those two things balance each other out. I've never really been happy with that. So going forward, we are going to split that. So make more realistic assumption about what taxes are collected, but then also include a value for the supplemental appropriation and not just kind of use one to offset the other, if that makes sense.
So there's allocation issues from my end. We obviously collected more in prior year taxes if this is all accounted for correctly. And the supplemental is a total addition to the numbers, but the top line, the current year taxes, we were short by 500,000 And you're telling me, I'm just looking at page four. Right. Correct. Right. And so you're telling us, just so I understand, you're telling us that the tax collectors report is different from this information and it paints a better picture.
It does paint a better picture, yes, and it is different from this information. And that 500,000 doesn't account for the supplemental appropriation, brings in somewhere around $150,000
Yeah, it was 138 that it shows up on here as there's no budgeted item so that that's fine it's just the total the total offset, you know, like if I'm just looking at revenues I'm going okay the inner revenues are pretty good. Total tax collection is off a couple $100,000, because the supplemental added to what we were doing Correct. And then our fee revenue. So revenues charged by the building department by the town clerk were light by 30 or $40,000 $40, 50,000.
Right, the building and land use fees in the end will actually be over because the last numbers for June were about $10,000 So in the transfer station, remember we, this was before we cleared the month of June, which is our biggest single month for transfer station. So I suspect that will be pretty close to 100% of collections, the clerk fees will definitely be down. We knew the rentals were down because half of the money for the rentals was what should have been from, you know, we were assuming we were going to rent the field both the spring and fall, and that did not happen last year. So that was part of it. And the other part of it was we realized that we had been booking on the town side, the fee that Cool had been paying to use the school building. And I think the Board of Finance decided that was more appropriately booked on the school side so that accounts for part of that. For those fees, so you know mixed we're definitely down The clerk fees were down. A lot of the clerk fees relate to how many land and building transactions there are. And this year, because the interest rates have shot up, that has been a lot lower than than we forecast.
Anybody else have any other questions related to anything on the treasurer's report? Okay, we should talk about the transfers. So, and just one last thing for me, Eric. So if I'm looking at this, just so that town understands it, where are we when I'm looking at this report? Am I looking at the bottom and going? We are in a better position, or you know from our budget or are we in a worse position from our budget? We've underspent on the expense side for the year.
Is it the $135,000 that's on page 11? Or is it a greater amount?
It's a different amount. And this is a question that Cheryl is trying to resolve right now, because part of what's happening is the transfers are getting booked twice. If you look in the 9,900 category, those all keep getting booked twice and that screws up all the numbers that are there. So I can't tell you what the exact number is. I know Cheryl's working on that. She was having a difficulty time figuring that out. Okay.
All right, anybody else? All right, the treasurer has provided the check registers for really the quarter, April, May, June, July, or May, June, for the last quarter of the year. Any questions on that? Okay, page 20. There is a request for an over expenditure of budget appropriation.
Correct. That's for the current year budget, not last year's budget. So, NECOG, who's the organization that provides the animal control services, when we were doing budgeting originally, they sent me an estimated guideline for what they thought they were going to charge municipalities. And the number they actually ended up agreeing in deciding charge was higher than that. But that's not anything I can control. That is, you know, NECOG, the Northeast COG as an organization made that decision. So that is results in an increase of it's around $1,200 which is under the threshold that I can approve myself, but I do have to report it to you and the Board of Finance. So I am doing that to say that that budget will be over for the year.
Okay. Anybody have any questions related to that? So that's a 12% increase for NECOG and for animal services. Correct, Eric? That is correct.
Alright. Page 21, we have treasurer has presented us a list of transfers between line items within departments. Anybody have any questions related to any of these? So this goes from page 21, 22, 23, 24, total of $96,000 that is being moved between line items. The only one, well, Kathy sat there and said that you have information, we'll go one of the larger ones is senior transportation. Let's just get an understanding of that so we can all be aware of what is going on and what we need to see happen moving forward. Sure.
So, basically, the major issue with senior transportation is that we way overexpensed or way over expended on vehicle maintenance. You know, we had when we did this budget anticipated we would have had the new bus in place for this year, and we really were not budgeting for keeping that existing clunker that we have on the road. Know, that is the major difference. We have had some other repairs on other vehicles. We've had some issues with the ramps on, you know, I think all three of our vehicles at this point that have had that have had to be repaired. Those are the major contributors to that. Right.
And then, Eric, just on 4125, the auditor and the actuary? 04/2025? The annual audit, 17,250.
Yeah, you, last year, the Board of Selectmen approved a supplemental payment to Mike, the auditor, not for this year's audit, but for the audit for the year before. That's what that $17,000 overage basically represents. That
was the additional cost of us not being ready for last year's audit. Okay. Understood.
Anybody else? Those are the main largest transactional items. So I'm assuming Eric, we need to approve this?
No, don't. This is actually the Board of Finance to approve and they approved it at the meeting so it was done by July 1. I'm giving this to you basically for informational purposes and in case you had questions.
Okay. All right, page 25, the AES levy, just so we can go through it.
So I just provided this again at the last Board of Finance meeting. As many of you know, we get a levy schedule from RAM that basically says when their expenses, when they anticipate expenses and how much they need, so that every month we give them a different amount, but it totals up to our total levy. Elementary school has not really been able to provide something that level of detail. So I asked at the last board of finance meeting how they would like to handle it. And the decision they made was to allocate the money in 10 monthly installments starting in July, you know, and just do it that way. So this represents the levy schedule that the Board of Finance agreed to.
Okay. Now this impacts, have we gotten our state account set up?
We have not. We've at this point submitted the paperwork five times. They seem to reject it each time for something different. I haven't heard about the latest submission, but Cheryl and I are hopeful that this one will actually be accepted. Cheryl and I also had a conversation with our commercial or governmental banking VP at M and T Bank, which was very unsatisfying. But just because he was not at all, even though it was a scheduled meeting, he was just not prepared at all. So it was very frustrating in that sense. But the bottom line is we asked that they come up with essentially a higher percentage offset for the money that we keep in their account, because our goal is to keep basically around $600,000
in that account and put everything else in the STIF account. So that's what we're leaning to. The bank says they would also offer us potentially a money market account if we wanted to keep the money in the bank as opposed to the STIF account. But at this point, I'm not sure I see the advantage of that. But I'm waiting for them to come back and tell us what the actual rate would be on the money market account so we can compare. Okay.
All right, anybody have any other questions related to the treasurer's information? All right, if not, we're going to move on to Item five, Board and Commission presentations. Eric, do we have any? Doesn't appear to be.
We don't have any presentations. As far as the boards go, we just have a series of appointments that you as a board can consider. Okay. So is that item six? That is correct.
Okay. So we have how many of these do we have? Okay. Well, we'll go through each one of them so and I'll just read them and if anybody has any questions we'll sit there and you know we can talk about it. Norton's Children's Fund Commission members, all members wish to continue their service. Charlotte Nelson, Bill Penn, Heidi Zenafontas, Louise Goodwin, and Linda Armstrong. Next one is the Memorial Day Committee. Five member committee with the option for two alternates. Current members that are seeking reappointment are Kim Hawes, Carol Lee, John McCall, Robert Post, and there are two additional potential appointees, Louise Goodwin and Wayne Thorpe. Recreation Committee, five member committee with the option for two alternates, current members seeking reappointment, Brian Briggs, Ann Marie Daigle, Kim Hawes, Carol Lee, and Cindy Murray. Inland Wetlands, it's a five member committee, option for three alternates. Current members that are seeking reappointment or Jed Larson, William Monroe, Duncan Fife alternates Janet Massey and Edmund Smith. New member to be appointed is Brad Kiel. Conservation Commission five Member committee with option for two alternates current members seeking reappointment Evan. I'm sorry. Wow, I should know that. Edwin, I want to say it's like Maguire, so Aguirre, Evan Aguirre, Mary Anne Guile, Hank Gruner, Mike Plazi, Kathy Shea, Carrie Compton, and Gary Guile. Last but not least, the Library Board of Directors, five member committee with the option of two alternates. Current members that are seeking reappointment are Sharon So, I'm assuming the library board is only adding Sharon to their current roster and the rest of the members are staying on board? That is my guess.
I know they had wanted to appoint Sharon Shevchenko. I think she's an alternate now, and they were wanting to appoint her as a regular member. But to be honest, I didn't go through this list ahead of time, so I can't tell you for sure. I mean, knew from talking to
the library board that they were looking for a new an additional regular member, so I'm assuming Sharon is filling that spot. Paula, any news on that one or anything you can share on that? No, no, I don't have any. Okay, does anybody have any issues with any of the committee requests? No.
All right, so I'll make a motion that we appoint or reappoint all of the requested members to the various boards just reviewed. I'll second that.
All right. Further discussion on any of the appointees? All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Alright, new business. Well, we're not new business resignations item seven. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. Eric, the town administrators report, it's not included in the package, but I know that you have some things that you wanna discuss.
Yeah, so I sent this separately and this time, of sending what is more like my traditional administrator's report. What I sent the board was a project summary of everything we had going on and what the status was in terms of construction projects. So, I'll go through it very quickly. If you have any questions, just stop me. First is talking about bridges and culverts. Bunker Hill Bridge is at the 70% design stage. If anybody wants the preliminary drawings for it, I'm happy to send them to you. I don't think I've done that already. Long Hill Bridge is working towards the 30% design stage. I know that DOT has sent out the notifications, at least some of the notifications for the towns that were awarded the state fiftyfifty grant for culvert replacement. I haven't gotten anything. I don't know whether it would come to me or you, Jeff, but
if you haven't seen anything and I haven't seen anything, we probably did not get that grant. I was going to wait a few more days and then reach out to the DOT and ask them directly. Usually in a couple of weeks, the governor will take credit for it by putting out a list in his blurb and we'll know for sure. But I'm guessing at this point, we probably did not get it. Next up for roadwork or for building projects, as probably all of you know, this point, the community slash senior center, the zoning special permit was accepted. I got a copy of a revised set of drawings today from PSC engineering. Were a couple things on there that were still wrong, so I had a conversation with the chief engineer there and I'm hoping tomorrow I will get a final set of prints. That point, I will, you know, make a set, review them with the zoning agent and the chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission. And if he's okay with signing off on them, will have mylars created. I don't want to make the mylars until I know it's acceptable to them because mylars are expensive.
After that, we will need to go back to the health department and the wetlands department for their final approval since we've changed some things related to both those agencies. But that's going on fairly well. Town Hall HVAC project, I frankly just have not gotten back to that. I will get the information to Jeff Murray. He was the other person on the committee. I already gave it to Adrian. So it's my fault for not getting it to Jeff. We did get approval by SHPO. The State Historic Preservation Office has decided that the town hall is indeed not historic, and therefore we can take out our wall mounted ACs. And they're old, but not actually historic and replace them with ductless splits.
Thing with the fire department, HVAC, the Fire Board of Commissioners is meeting tonight. They will appoint their member for the review panel. I'll give them the information too. And then the goal is to bring back in the contractor to talk about both projects before we actually award the bids. The museum renovations, nothing's been started with that because of the dollar threshold that will need to go to RFP. There is $30,000 budgeted for this year, and we do have to go to SHPO first and make sure that what we're proposing is enough to satisfy them, so we can get the other project, the senior transportation hub project going. The teardown of the old firehouse honestly, I really have not made any progress on that lately. My goal was to try to reach out to SHPO in the next couple of weeks and get authorization for the teardown so we can proceed with that. As far as roadway projects, at this point, all the shimming is complete. We're waiting on our schedule for crack seal and then chip seal again from Foreman. I think all this rain has delayed a bunch of projects, we're looking at sometime around the end of July for both of those. And again, most of that will be on the North side of town. The Department of Transportation has still not issued any notification on the trip grant program, so we're still really hoping that that's funded, but we don't know at this point. As far as the study grant for the Route 316 connection, we did not get the DEP rec trails grant. However, our legislative team, specifically MD Raman, although I suspect Steve helped out with it also, get us a $100,000 bond award for the study and the design phase for a multi use connection
between where we are here in the municipal campus and the rail trail. So I'm hoping to engage our, the new town planner as soon as he's on board. And my goal is to get that, you know, I don't know whether I can push it fast enough to be ready for a LOTSIC grant application because those are going to be due, as far as I know, somewhere around January or February. I suspect that's too tight a timetable, but if I can, my goal would be to get to the get through the design phase. You know, in time for a lots of application. Pickleball, I know you guys have already probably realized that we're the pickleball enthusiasts are looking for additional ports townwide. You know, we've taken a look at a couple locations. There's really two possible locations. One is behind the community center and the second is down by the existing athletic fields off of Riverside Drive. I think based on the pluses and minuses of both of those, Riverside Drive is probably a better location. We have had preliminary conversations with the Conservation Commission and the wetlands agent and the Chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission about what would have to happen to do that. But I think that that really has to be you know, the Board of Selectmen has to be on board if we're going to keep pursuing that, because at some point we would have to start spending money on any kind of design or figuring out what we're doing down there. And then that's the major, you know, my only concern with the location down by the ball field is just we have to accept the fact that
certain times of the year and in certain years that will flood and we have to make sure that whatever sub base is put in there under the courts can handle that and be saturated without, you know, causing problems. Think we're going to need some engineering support with that. It's not just as simple as, you know, paving a square and putting up a net fence around it. It would have to be done thoughtfully, but I think it could be done at that location. That's pretty much all I wanted to cover, unless you guys have questions for me regarding any of that.
Anybody? Well, as far as pickleball not being an enthusiast, I think it's a great idea. I would want to make sure that the Recreation Commission is at least informed and on board with it. But I think it's a great idea. Anybody else? Anything? Okay. All right, Eric, we'll move on from item eight, and we'll go into old business. 9A, the status of the community center RFP contract.
So, was kind of hoping Adrian would be here to discuss that, but
we do have a contract with the general contractor, as I think we should be, they should be able to submit for a building permit within the next, you know, couple weeks. We do have a couple, you know, minor hurdles we've got to crawl over until we get to that point. But at that point, it's primarily in Adrian and Scott's hands, because they were the people that you elected to be the essentially the owners representation during the bill.
Okay. I know I've spoken to Adrian about that. I know he's he's confident in his time in the timeline that he's basically established so hopefully we can sit there and get that moving, I would like to. Schedule some type of groundbreaking ceremony, spoke with Mark Brinker from the Board of Finance and Jerry Creme from the Board of Education, who would both be willing to attend with the rest of the Board of Selectmen and, of course, the senior coordinator and all of her friends. So if we can get that on the schedule and Jeff Murray had a very good idea previously coordinated with the senior luncheon, that would be great. I think that would be positive for the community. So. Eric, if you can work at scheduling that out. That would be great. Okay, pretty sure Fridays are good days for everybody. All right. Okay, 9B Andover personnel policy discussion.
So this has been on there for a while. What I would like is I was hoping we would be far enough along in the conversation regarding the union contracts, because those two kind of have to be thought of together in some ways. I would like to put this off one more month, but I really don't want to put it off any more, any longer than that. You know, and have a significant discussion about, you know, where we are with the personnel policy and what changes need to be implemented. So if I could have the liberty of having one more month to address that, I think that would be helpful for me.
I have no problem with it. Any other Member? Nope. Okay. Let's move on then. 9C discussion of light level of involvement.
Okay, so at the last meeting. I had initiated a conversation about kind of understanding where we are and what, you know, where we should be in terms of enforcing white actions. So the first thing I would do is if I can have your indulgence, I'd like to share my screen and show you what we have, you know, kind of what things are on. Okay, so you should see my screen. This is a list basically going back about a year of all the complaints and what has been done or addressed. So, you can kind of see what,
you know what we've been going after. So, of these obviously are repeated and keep popping back up. You know, and some of them were resolved fairly easily. Some are going to be really ongoing. And I guess my real question for the Board is how many do you want to kind of deal with it, what types of things do you really want to go after? Because, you know, I still contend that there's an awful lot of properties in town that meet the technical definition of our blight regulation, I really don't want to go after most of them. I really want to save it to go after a few of the worst, essentially what I would call, you know, egregious cases. Like 664, you know. Route 6 and not necessarily go after. A lot of other houses. But that's this just gives you a list of the things that we've gone after in the last year, and kind of what the status of it is.
Okay. Does anyone have any issues with Eric's theory and philosophy about going after the blighted properties? Scott and Jeff, I'll specifically get to you two.
Well, this looks good. I just I'd like to see. Can we keep revisiting this over the next few months and just can we get updates on it, like how we're progressing on some of the properties? Okay.
You know, like, where your box is current status, you could say current status seven ten. And then eight ten, we could see where we are at with some of the open items, like, you know, progressively look to make sure that we are actively dealing with it. And if something needs to be, like, 243 Long Hill. It says notice to be sent. I'd like to see next month that there was a notice sent, and that we're actually dealing with some of these on a case by case basis. Is that agreeable to everybody?
Yeah. Sure. Eric, could you move that to the other page, please? Sure. That one? Yeah. So, Eric, if you can
If these other ones are resolved, then you know, maybe we could put them on a separate page and then just deal with the ones that aren't resolved. I guess at this point.
Well, my my recommendation would be take them off Jeff if they're and then Eric you I'm a. I don't know what you built this in, but you should. Well, whatever you built it in, if you built it in word, you built an Excel. You should keep those. So if you have to add them back on, let us know that there are repeat offender. You know? Okay, I shouldn't sit there and say offender. Should say they're they're continuation of a of a previous problem out of compliance. Yeah, out of compliance and we could sit there and address it. But yeah, this is this is pretty good. Mean. I think this is, I mean, I look at this and and going we should identify. The biggest problems and use our limited resources to attack the the the limited problems, but I do like the list. At least gives an understanding of what to look at.
Yeah, I like this list. It's the first time I've seen it and I like it. It's it looks like we really have six six or seven properties to really worry about at this point.
The the house on 157 Wales, Eric, has been sold. Has it? Pretty I'm pretty sure it went to an auction.
Because her car because part of our so I've you know what? That's sensitive enough. Maybe that's something we should talk about in executive session. If you want to talk about that property specifically.
Well, I would ask and then this goes into Attorney O'Brien. I would ask. If there are issues on any of these properties, what does the town? What is the recourse for the town? So if Scott is saying that that property was sold, what is the recourse you know related to work and time spent previously trying to rectify that situation? Is there a lean opportunity? Is there other things that that we need to be doing as part of a normal course of business to protect the town and the town's interest. And it doesn't need to be addressed right now. It's just things to think about.
We can do that in executive session. But Eric, so if we want to add to these this list, we just let you know.
I would send it to so this isn't my list, I'm not keeping the list. This is the zoning agent's list. Part of that is because technically the zoning agent is the blight enforcement officer. So, I mean, to some extent, you know, you're always relying on his judgment about how to proceed in these situations, although he and I do talk about a lot of them and he also talks them through with the town attorney also. So Dennis is familiar with a lot of these, certainly the worst of the cases. Okay.
Alright, anybody have any other questions related to this topic? Eric, I like the list. Thank you very much. So do I thank you very No worries.
9D disposition of $2,002.20. Full bus bus 20 passenger passenger bus two S's 20 passenger bus Okay.
Are you doing with it, Eric? So. We're junking them in some form or another. We either have to spend quite a bit of money on them or we got to take them out of service because at the end of August, they're not reregisterable without us fixing them because they pass a current inspection. So my suggestion is that we simply auction them off and use one of the government auction sites or use, I don't know whether we can use the state of Connecticut's auction site, but that's what I wanted to look into also. Do GovDeals or something like that? Yeah. Yep. And how much value was there in 2002?
I really don't know. I'll be honest, I don't, to me, I look at it and say it's worth its scrap value and there's not a whole lot, you know, like there's nothing you're going to take off that vehicle and salvage that I know of. And I can't see it being in anybody's interest to buy it and fix it up just because it's it's got a fair bit wrong with it. And it's got some pretty significant rust, so you know the likelihood of somebody willing to buy it and do the mechanical work on it and then fix it up unless they're a home mechanic and doing it themselves. So I don't think it's got a lot of residual value.
Let's find out and do what we need to do. Is the reduction of this bus from the fleet going to impact any transportation issues?
Yep, it will reduce us from three vehicles capable of transporting disabled people to two, number one. And secondly, it takes the bus with the biggest capacity we have out of service. So that's, it won't have, it will definitely have some impact. You know, it's not ideal, but we did sign the contract for whatever that's worth for the new contract for the replacement bus, which the state is again saying we'll have within the next three sixty five days. I do plan on reaching out to the chassis manufacturer, the coach manufacturer again, and seeing whether they think that's a realistic timeframe, because the states told us we were getting the vehicle twice before and not delivered. So, you know, we have one on order. I do have a call in to DMV because the state is getting rid of a couple of, it looks like 12 passenger handicap accessible vans or buses. I don't know what age they are. I don't know what condition they are. If we could get one really cheap as a stop gap, I might consider it. But I would bring that info back to you before I even contemplated something like that.
Definitely go down that road just to sit there and see if there's something available that you know could assist because you're probably right. Not going to get the the new bus timely.
So we did have we did have some good news today. The RAV four is is on its way. It will be here either tomorrow or Wednesday at the dealer. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you.
Yep. So, Erica, that was we're kinda while we're on the transportation discussion, is there anything we need to do to get municipal plates for this vehicle or insure proof of insurance or anything from the dealer? Because we can't drive it off the lot with without plates.
So first of all, I have the Kerma insurance card sitting on my desk that goes in the vehicle. It's a very simple process. We have municipal plates for it sitting at public works. Okay. As soon as we know the VIN number, we call the DMV or we email the DMV and we give them the VIN number information for the vehicle. They assign that plate to that vehicle. We put the plates on. We put the insurance card in it, and off we go. Okay. I just wanted to double check to make sure we're not missing anything. Yep. Nope. That I've thought through that one, so I think we're pretty well set with that. That should not be an issue. So if it comes in tomorrow, and we can get a check cut and get somebody other than me to sign it or in addition to me to sign it, I think, there's no reason we couldn't pick it up at the end of this week or Monday latest.
I just have to make sure what payment is acceptable if they want a bank check or if a town check is going to be significant or sufficient for that purchase. That's one thing I need to check. So if we have to draw a bank check, that may take a little bit extra time. True, true.
Okay. All right. Excellent work. Good job, Jeff. Ladies lined up. Okay. 9E the AES contract renewal for transportation vehicle.
That's so I had sent that to you, Jeff, and I just had. Have you signed that
contract? I have. Okay, Let's get on that tomorrow. So it's on me to sign that?
Yeah, it is on you and we are already taking kid for summer classes. So we're already doing it. But as far as I know, we don't have a contract in place for that, and we should. We should. Okay, I'll have that done tomorrow. Okay. Do you have it in the office?
I probably have a hard copy here. I think I emailed you a copy to try to speed it up a little bit. I can certainly email you another copy.
It'll be easier for me to stop in the morning. Okay. Let's do it that way. Alright. Nine F, Bonjour Line Agreement. Steven King. So I did have a conversation
with our town engineer. It has been partially reviewed by the Nathan Jacobson's chief of survey, And the chief of survey basically said it's really a cluster that there's basically what the original guy had said, the original surveyor had said, was that there's just not a lot of consistency between all the surveys and all the boundary surveys. He said he was not prepared to render a judgment on it yet, but he said it's clearly a mess. You know, and that there may not be a real definitive. You know, a lot of real definitive guidance on where the boundary actually is or should be.
But Okay, so did he give you We don't have to do anything right away.
You know, I'm waiting on a written opinion from him before bringing it back to you before bringing it back to the board.
Okay. Scott, do you have anything on this that you want to talk about or?
No, I'd like to, I'll get with Eric about this.
Okay. All right. The boundary line agreement with the Hawes family?
I think, as far as I understand, the Hawes family is okay with that. You know, but the problem is, is that the Dennis not problem but Dennis O'Brien feels that that should require an 08/24 statutory approval, as well as the town meeting. So, from my perspective, I think we probably ought to do both of them. So, that's why I haven't really been pushing that one, because I think we should do it at the same time as we do the Stephen King or the King property, because there's no real reason to have to, you know, town meetings for two separate boundary line agreements. Right.
Is there any need to even have the town meeting or wait till next, the next time we actually have a budget issue or something else come up that we need a town meeting?
I don't, don't think you can do it with a budget meeting because those by charter are supposed to be separate, but you could wait till the next time something came up that required a town meeting if that's what you wanted to do. I don't think there'd be any real negative implications for doing that.
Okay. All right, we'll move on to nine gs, Veterans Memorial Long Hill Field signage. Paula?
Yep. So we started talking about this last month, and we decided to wait until Scott was here to talk about this. So this was a question that came up in a meeting with this the soccer league that uses Long Hill. Were asking about putting up some signage on the fence and down at the field and we started having the conversation. Just wanted to continue the conversation tonight so we can get back to them on answering that question. So I think at some point it came up along conversation. Maybe we wanted to make sure that everybody that was using the field had a sign up there. And I think that the organization that asked us said that they were gonna make sure that Ram Youth Soccer had a sign down there as well. So just wanted to open up for discussion and talk about it again tonight with Scott here.
Well, mean, Paul, the one thing that I would sit there and say about science on the field, I have no problem looking at that as a way to generate revenue for a recreation, recreation committee and to do other things like pickleball or anything else that the town could sit there and want to do. So I think we need to look at it as more of a global thing. We willing to sit there and put signs on the fence like a little league field would and Vail could sit there and utilize some space and but we could sit there and you you know we could advertise for the local plumbing company or the you know we could use it as a way to generate money. Mean that's what I look at that for. Don't I don't really believe that you allow them to put up just their solo signs.
You know, on the fence. Look at it as a rental, kind of like a rental space for the sign. Look at that as like advertising,
and we as a community have to be willing to understand that there'll be signs up on the fence, but I think we try to do it on a larger scale that you know you sat there and looked at a six foot sign like a four by six foot let's say, or the the width of the, the fence posts, which I don't know, Scott, six feet, eight feet, something like that. I mean, Like
could the farmer's market used to do that. They used to do banners.
Yeah. You could put a lot of signs up there. Be right. People used to
give the, farmer's market money. They made a banner and put that up for the year. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm with you with that that, Jeff. I
mean, part of what we need to do in everything related to assets that we have is to sit there and find a way to monetize them in some aspect. So whether it's a field and we, you know, are sitting there trying to have some rental income that comes from it, I mean, we should use that money to support recreation within the community or the new community center. I mean, are the things that we need to do and we can't put that on Eric so I'm not sitting there saying it's got to be on Eric but I mean if I had my way I would sit there and and try to generate enough revenue to sit there and have a person be in the recreation committee and the senior center to manage all the activities and collect all the fees for, you know, youth basketball. And, you know, if we're having a cycling event, collect the fees on that kind of stuff and use it. Signage is just another way to generate some money to offset that cost. Mean, that's that's me
and how I like it. Just so Jeff, are we all in agreement that if you're just renting the field that doesn't entitle you to put a sign up? Right? I would sit there and say that's correct. Correct.
And I would agree. And I would also agree with that. You would sit there and say there's an
additional cost. If you wanna use the field and advertise your soccer program, there would be an additional cost to put a we probably have to run it by planning and zoning to make sure there's not any size restrictions on what we could put up there. Right. Eric should know. There are. Yep. So what are they?
Depends a lot on the exact classification of the sign right.
Now I so so Eric let's get that straightened out after and then Paul, I have no problem with those guys if they want to put something up that's portable and movable. You know, I would sit there and tell you I would have no problem with that.
Well, the events are going on that's okay. Yeah, why they have to come down after the events. While the events going on,
and and if these new people show us that they wanna be partners, like we all went want them to be, and I and we would have less of a problem, I would say. Okay. So so this so I'm looking at During this the
a daily sign is I I don't see any problem with that either. But So if you have a week long camp,
you could let they could put the signs up every day, but they'd have to take them down whenever kids aren't actually playing there is what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah,
because that would classify a temporary sign versus a permanent.
What about the year they have practices and they have games down there? So you you're saying after the last practice, take the sign down and then they can put it up for a game and take it down?
Yeah, I would tell them not to attach it to anything like even the fence, but you know they could sit there and have a fence or assignments. You know they put them around town or they used to put them around town. Mean, Kyle used to have those like campaign signs around town, advertising signups and everything else. But if they wanted to put something up. You know why the kids are practicing. Don't really have a problem to advertise to the to the parents or to the passersby that there's a soccer program going on. I wouldn't have a problem with that, but I wouldn't want it to be attached and to be left up overnight. That would become problematic.
I just wanna that make I'm I'm getting this up. I'm taking notes so that when I write back
I have to have overnight. Okay. Yeah. It's easy to get those plastic white step in stakes and you could just attach it and then you just roll it out and you step it in and you're done for I mean, you can put it up in less than a minute. Take it down. Right.
And then I guess in the future, when we're looking into sign, if we wanna, if we're talking about going down the road with permanent stuff on the fence. So at some point we'll probably have to talk about size. I know Eric was looking into that and then price, what we're gonna, you know, we're not gonna decide that tonight, but that's probably something we'll have to talk about because that's gonna be the question that's gonna come up next is what size sign can I put on the fence and how much, you know,
how much is it gonna be? Should we make that a recognition decision? I think we can make a recommendation to the Make a recommendation to see if they adopt the recommendation.
I do think that it's something that we should sit there and evaluate like what is the right is the right size? How many could actually get there? What would the total income that could potentially be generated? Would it be if we actually worked at it and tried to do this? But yeah, I think we we can't leave it to the Rec Commission, Jeff. We can ask them to approve it and tell them what we're trying to do, and
we can have their input, but I don't think we leave it to them. Okay, but eventually it's going be their responsibility to collect the fees and do. So they should get some input.
Absolutely, no doubt. And hopefully the money would go back to them. Correct. I mean, that's what it should go to. It should go to supporting activities like pickleball.
So, we did get a check from Ken, the guy who does the running races on the rail trail. Ken Platt did send us a check for a little over $1,000. Barring any other questions or concerns from the Board of Selectmen, I was planning on using that money to purchase a picnic table because we, there's kind of two locations right now that we need picnic tables. I think I can probably slide and justify buying one of them off the connectivity grant, but the other one would be kind of a stretch. And I thought that would be an appropriate use of the money if you all agree to that. Location. Location error.
So, one of them will be off of Lake Road on the property that the town acquired a few years ago, the intention of putting in parking and then also a small picnic table like lunch spot near the near the brook in the Stone Bridge. Public works has cleared that and put down the surface for it, but we didn't have the money to buy the the tape. So, now I would like to buy the picnic table for there. And then I would like to also replace that really dilapidated one that is at the athletic fields currently.
So Eric, have a If we donate, if we do this and those funds are used for the picnic table, can we put a plaque on the table that said, you know, this was donated by Ken Platt in the race series, something along that lines with the funds? He So actually gets he gets credit for you know, it's so, you know, there is actually a record that, you know, this was done you know, this money was donated. This picnic table was made available by Ken Platt and Platt Racing Services. Would everybody else be agreeable to that? Yeah. That sounds good. Yeah. Nice. If somebody's gonna donate something, they should they should get something with recognition on it for their donation. Yeah. That's a question.
Just, just so I'm clear. I'm clear. I mean, he held a race on the trail. Yeah. Generated money and then donated some of the profits back to the town.
Correct. And he really didn't use town property, basically used, he used a parking area, I think at the, on Lake Road, but a lot of it was Ben Franklin and it was all state property. But he did use the local roads, park and travel too. So I think it's a pretty generous donation for the amount of effort He's to his a good partner.
Yeah, he's a good guy to have. Even a thank you letter. I I you know what? I could probably type something up if we wanna even do a thank you letter to him because we we probably should. Yeah. Think that would be appropriate. Okay.
I think we should tell them right up front that we're using the money to, you know, pay for a picnic table. Yeah, correct. How much are picnic tables, Eric?
So, based on the recommendation from the public works foreman, what I'm going to do is get one of the metal powder coated metal ones, because basically when you spill food at it, you really need some way to clean them. And the wood ones, you can't clean them very easily. And the metal ones, can just hose them off. So, since we have the ability, a water tank and a pump now, so we can actually do these things if we have to, that's what I want to get. They're about a thousand bucks a pop from Uline. And I would get a green and black one so it matches kind of the other trail amenities that we put out,
if that's acceptable. Yeah, that's a good option because people can't carve in it, spray paint it, write on it, it stays a lot cleaner. Right. So, Eric, did he send you an email with the check, or did he send you just a No. He pretty much just sent the check. Okay.
Okay, I think that's great. And Jeff, we should probably send him a little thank you note, and I have no problem putting some kind of plaque or notice on
the table. Okay. Do we need a motion to do that or we're good with that? So I can type something up. I can send it to Carol Lee and just put our electronic signatures on it, if that's okay with everybody. I have the electronic
letterhead. I can forward it to you. It's got everybody's stuff already in there. Okay. That'd be great. I'm sure Adrian's on board with it too, but I'll check with him before we send it out. Okay. All right. Anything else on this topic?
Do we need to make a motion on that? And also, Scott, do you wanna be in conversation when I start talking about Eric about
science sizes and going down there to see how many fit on the fence? Do you wanna be part of that since you're the I don't know what you know, it it depends on how many people we're gonna have involved with this and where we're gonna put them. We have to put a piece of framework or something on that fence.
Wouldn't it make sense for us to measure the fence, decide the size of the sign, and then we decide how many spots are available? Right. Thought I've gotten that view. Getting
I'm assuming you're talking about on that rear chain link fence is the location. Yeah. So, I mean, the first thing I would say is that we want to make sure every fence is a minimum of two feet above ground level, because the last thing we want to do is expose it to floodwaters, because that will cause additional damage. So, you could put a pretty big sign on there. And then the question really is who do you want to open it up to? I mean, the soccer organizations, do you want Andover businesses? Yeah, but I think that's
something later to talk about who, who and price. Think right now, Eric, you and I should talk about what's allowed down there. You were looking, you do doing some research and then we measure the fence to decide how many we can fit there and what sizes. Right. Doesn't that make more sense? Let let let's do it like step by step because we'll have to talk about in another meeting who we're gonna, you know, open this up to and pricing. So, but Scott, do you wanna be down there in that conversation with Eric and I when we're talking about that? Oh, definitely. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll set up a time and figure that out. Okay.
Now I have not really gotten back to them yet. Has anybody replied to Vail East regarding what option we wanted to take and what hours?
Jeff McGuire did. I had reached out to Zach and I was just looking to see if he responded to me, but I'll sit there and reach out again to him because what I wanted to do is I went through his his numbers and, you know, I know what I would take if I just was worried about making money for the town, but I'm not sure that that's in his best interest. So I just wanted to talk to him about his total hours that he's anticipating using for the, for any program. Mean sure and Scott is right in that we just you know we want we just want a good partner if he's if it's a good partner and it works for the town and the community then fine. Right. So anyway, I I did and I'll I I was looking for my email on the town email, and I have to make sure that I sent it correctly. So I will definitely get to him tomorrow. But I thought I'd done it later last week, so he he's doing it the twenty fifth. Then out of his three options, I know which one I'd take, but I just want to make sure that it works for him. So alright. What else do we got on that? Anything else?
Nope. Okay. 10 new business Andover's Finest.
Okay, I'm suggesting so in our packet, we have all the electronic nominations. We don't have, there was some paper nominations that were available. So my suggestion is we close anything coming in after today's date, we look at the next quarter, right? We were talking about voting on this quarterly. I don't think we can talk about all the nominations tonight because we don't have the paper ones. So I'm suggesting next month we vote on what we have up until today and we'll tell the public that after today's date we'll vote on it the next quarter. So I don't know if anybody has any thoughts or comments on that. I just want to make sure when we're talking about this, we have all the nominations in that we're gonna talk about and have time to look over everything.
Those are thoughts on that.
And you have the one I sent you, right? Yes.
But didn't see the paper ones that might have come in into the packet. So I I wanted to go down the town hall and just make sure that there's no other ones that got turned in that we might have missed. I don't wanna talk about it tonight and then we missed people. Right. Yeah.
So is everybody okay with talking about this next month about the nominations and then at anything that comes in after this date, we'll talk about the next quarter. So it's not like we're closing anything. There's still nominations can come in, but we're just not gonna talk about any nominations after today until the following quarter. Okay, sounds good. Okay. Okay, 10B, the local traffic authority.
Okay, first of all, sorry, I meant for that to be at the very end of the packet, so it wasn't in the way, because the amendment is really stupidly long to read. So, I'll tell you where it's of interest to the commission, and that is simply that that requires all local traffic authorities to go through training some point in the next year. So, had a discussion with the T2 Center about what that training would imply. And they first said they were thinking about a one day, eight hour training session. And then they subsequently said, well, maybe it would take more than that. So,
there's really two options here. You collectively, as a board, by charter, are the local traffic authority. So, either you have two options, either you all commit to take the training, you know, or you designate somebody as your designee, and then that person has to take the training. I'm going to suggest you're probably not going to all want to go through the local traffic authority training classes. If you think about who you could designate, you could, for instance, designate one Board of Select member if you so chose, and they were willing to take the training. So that's one possibility. You could do myself and or you could do Jay Tuttle. My personal suggestion would be to do me, to designate me. Not that I really have any burning desire to go through the training,
but a lot of what the local traffic authority is and does is negotiate with and deal with the state traffic authority. And that's kind of more my realm than Jay's realm. So, I think it would probably be smarter to do me than Jay, but either of those are possibilities. So, I'm just bringing that up to let you know, you wouldn't necessarily have to make a decision tonight, because even though the law is in effect now, the training requirement doesn't kick in till sometime in 2024. But that would be my suggestion would be just to designate that, make me your designee. You would still be the local traffic authority, but you would have a designee that has satisfied the state's training requirement.
Sounds good to me, Eric. How many hours are we talking about? A
minimum of eight. They haven't really, they originally said they thought it would be a one day training session, but now they're talking about maybe more than that. So I don't know. Would we all get badges? If you go to the training, Jeff, I will make you a badge. I have a Harley. That's interesting. So do I.
I don't, I'm sorry. I have no problem having Eric do the training.
I don't either. He needs a motion now. If he's comfortable with doing it, then I'm fine fine with it. Right.
I mean, I would definitely consider it if it was guaranteed badge and I could flash it as I walk my dog down the road at the people I'm getting over.
But you need a motorcycle to do that, Jeff. You need more Jeff, you are the chief of police. I do know that.
I do not let anyone know that, by the way. You could probably have them. I don't recommend that, but get them. No, we're good. Who's making a motion?
I'll motion to appoint Eric Anderson as our local traffic authority designee.
Alright, I'll second that. Any further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Item
11, approval of the meeting minutes for 06/12/2023, special and regular meeting.
I make a motion to approve the 06/12/2023, special and regular meeting minutes. Seconded. All All those in favor, aye. I'm saying it because I wasn't there.
Yeah, no problem. Tax collectors report refund requests. Were there any Eric? I didn't see any in the package.
Yes, there are. There are three. It is page 112. Landry Donald J for $378 VCFS Auto Leasing Company for $2,766.16 and USB leasing for $899.15 for a total of 4,000.43 and 31¢. Okay.
So, ahead, Paul. I'd rather you do it. I hate doing this one. I know you don't like it. I make a motion to send out the refund requests. A total of $4,043.31 I second.
All right, further discussion. All those in favor, aye. Okay. Departmental reports. Eric, anything specific that we should review or go over?
No, you have reports in there from a bunch of different offices. If you look at the totals from the building department, 9,000, that should put us at or just a little above our estimate for the year. Collected basically what we expected because, you know, so that was good. That's the only thing I really wanted to say, And the library gave out a lot of books. Okay.
Speaking of the library, I would like to remind people that if the library does not have a book that you're looking for, you can do an interlibrary loan. So just a word to the wise support our library. Thank you, Paul.
Yeah, relative to the library. The other thing I wanted to say is the library well pump is failing. We've gone back and forth a couple times assigning blame various different people between the sprinkler installer and, you know, we've had it looked at by a bunch of people, but homestead has confirmed that the well pump is failing and it's basically not pumping anywhere near its rated capacity And it's not a head issue, the water levels where it is, it's just the pump itself has failed. So I think sometime in the next month or so, we're going to have to replace the well pump for that. And since that's probably well over what they have available in the library's budget I'm assuming we're going to do that from the building maintenance fund so I'm just giving you a heads up. The only quote I have is homestead it's about $3,500 You know, which is probably not unreasonable in today's market. That's total done. Correct. Very Jet pump. No. It's a submersible. Right? It's a submersible. Ammersible?
Yep. That's the variable speed one. Right? That we would did we buy the variable speed one for there, I believe? Well, we got the variable speed controller set up for it. Yep. Why? It's gone previously?
Yeah. We replaced it, what, six years ago? Five, six years ago it was replaced?
No. I don't think we didn't replace the pump. Replaced the part in the tank. Got rid of the tank, you know, when we went to a variable speed system. That's a nice bump. Thousand 500 sounds very reasonable. It is reasonable. Yeah, was not.
I was expecting it to be higher than that, so I'm not unhappy with that. I mean, if it's failing, should we just we have Fix it. Do we have money in contingency right now? Just make a motion and just get it done?
Well, I mean, we would, I wouldn't take it out of contingency, I would take it out of the building maintenance fund. Okay. Because that's exactly what that fund is for is to deal with larger things that come up in buildings that don't have a big enough, enough, you know, you can't have a big enough maintenance budget for each building to account for something catastrophic.
I'm just doing before it fails completely. Yeah, I'm of the thought now if it fails next week, then we have the motion in place and we can replace it.
Right. Yep. If you wanna make a motion, that's fine. What do think, Jeff? Absolutely.
Let's go. Why wait why wait now? Yeah. Get done. Okay. So who's making the motion?
I'll make the motion to allocate $3,500 from the building maintenance fund for the replacement of the well pump at the Andover library. I'll second.
All right. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. As a one other thing, Erica, the building department monthly numbers were at the back. Is have we done anything related to the permit costs.
We have not, but it's still on my list don't worry.
Okay. All right. Correspondence? Nothing. Let's move public speak above the executive session so that we can all sit there and communicate. So, Mike, Kathy Palazzi, do you have anything to leave us with?
The only thing I'd like to say is thank you very much to the Board of Selectmen for all the help they've been, especially Jeff Murray and Scott Persson. And, also, I wanna thank Paula for all the help she did with the one seventy fifth. It means a lot to people like me, that really doesn't have any input with the board of selectmen or with with anybody else in town. But I wanna thank you very much. Means a lot to me means a lot that we're gonna get a new car. You can't believe how happy I am, and I want to thank Eric because if it wasn't for Eric back at me and telling me what we can and cannot do.
I don't know what I don't know what I would do. So thank you very, very much for everything. Okay. Linda Fish.
Very welcome, Kathy. Thank you for all you do. Thank you, Kathy. Hi, Linda. You're up. I was just listening. Okay, Joanne Ebert. Thank you. Sorry. You're all good.
Trying, I'm all set. I'm hoping I'm going be invited to join your executive session since I'm part of the negotiations committee, but I don't know if that's forthcoming, so I'll wait and see. Thank you. Leigh Ann Hutchinson.
Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Yes, thanks. About roughly fifteen to twenty years ago, there were four portraits in the lobby of the town office building. My grandfather, John Yeomans, Percy Cook, Jean Gasper, and Elsworth Kobel. And they were taken down at some point quite a while ago. I don't know if it was for cleaning or painting, and they were never put back up. These were to honor people who had put in decades upon decades of service to the town of Andover. I have checked with some of my relatives. I've checked with several former First Selectmen, board of selectmen members, the town clerk, a couple of other people who were frequently in the building, and nobody has any idea where these portraits are. And I don't know why they weren't put up promptly after whatever activity they were taken down for in the first place. Does this sound familiar to any of you? Yes. Is there anything you've ever come across?
I I know the portraits that you're talking about. I was curious about where they were where they went also, Leanne?
Yeah. Like I said, it's been quite a while since they've been taken down, and I've spoken to everybody I can think of who may have come across them, and so far, nobody has. The only other person that I have the contact information for that I haven't reached out to yet is Ed Turn, who I believe is now in Florida. But other than that, does anybody have any knowledge of this?
Don't have any specific knowledge, Leanne, but I will tell you we will sit there and see if they're in the town hall and if we can find them. And we'll get back to you. We'll have Scott report back to you on this.
Okay. Anything you could do would be helpful. Thank you. Yep.
I just can't imagine they would be in the town hall or they wouldn't have seen them at some
Could they be at the museum? Could they be down at the museum or in the garage? Taken.
Scott Yeoman doesn't know where they are either. Okay. I just I just got the I was wondering if he talked to him yet.
Yeah. They no. He's a that's a very good suggestion, but he has he doesn't know. He doesn't have any information about what happened to them either. Do do does any of us know when they were taken down?
I don't know exactly. I would say roughly it's been at least fifteen years. Maybe not quite that long, but it it's been quite some time. Yeah. And as I said, I can't imagine why they weren't stored in a you know, somewhere obvious or somewhere safe, etcetera, and and put back promptly, but they weren't. And it's, you know, it's just it's it's a waste. I mean, these were people who were you know, a great deal of thought was put into honoring them for the just the sheer longevity that they had in town. And and, like I said, I'll I will contact Ed Turn, but if it anything anybody comes up with anything, that would be very helpful.
Okay. Thank you.
All right, thank you very much. So I believe I've I've asked everyone. So we have executive session related to the union negotiations. Does any Jeff,
before you stop for Leanne, you may wanna put a post up on, there's a Facebook page of people who grew up in Andover, Connecticut, and post it there and see if anybody has any idea.
Yeah, that certainly wouldn't hurt. Thank you. I'll do that I'm I'm on that page. Okay,
okay. So did I miss anyone for public speak? Okay. So we have item 15 on our agenda executive session related to union negotiations. Does anyone have a problem with us sitting there inviting Joanne Ebert to that executive session? Okay. So I would suggest you invite me also.
Yeah, I was getting around to that. And Dennis, would you like to be invited to that? Of course. Okay. Alright, so we're going to sit there and end our current regularly scheduled meeting. I'll make a motion to move to executive session regarding union negotiations and invite Eric Anderson, Dennis O'Brien, and Joanne Ebert. Everyone else, you very much for joining us and Eric if you could stop the recording that would be great. Yep.