Meeting transcript
Andover Board of Selectman Regular Meeting
September 12, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Sorry. All right. We're going to call to order the Board of Selection regular meeting for Monday, September 12 at 07:02. And our first item is the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America. One nation under God. And justice for all.
K. We're gonna move on to item two, public schools.
Kathy Clauzy, if you'd like to lead us off. Mike and I have nothing at the moment. Thank you. Okay.
We'll go through Mike S. I'm all set too. Thank you. Catherine, would you like to wait until the two hundred and seventieth anniversary? Okay. Yes, please. From Diane Choquette. I'm all set. Thanks.
I'm assuming, Dennis, that's your phone number 2345? Yes, sir. Okay. Excellent. I'm all set. Thank you for joining. And Joanne Ebert. All set. Alright. Thank you very much, everybody. All right. Item three, additions and deletions to the agenda.
I would like to add to new business. I'm not sure where because I can't find the agenda right now, so help me out. I'd like to add a discussion about recognizing outstanding citizens in Andover. Let's do it as 10 J. Okay.
Jeff, if I could, I would like somebody to motion to add item 10 I, draft a contract between the town of Andover and Nathan L. Jacobson and Associates. You have 10 I as the town treasurer. Oops, then make it 10 ks. And
can you repeat what you want us to make the motion on there?
Draft of contract between town of Andover and Nathan L. Jacobson.
Paula, can you give me the wording of what you said recognition of? I think I said outstanding Andover residents. Said recognizing outstanding citizens in Andover. Thank you.
I did, yep, I did. I'm gonna, we can say Andover residents. So I think we say residents more than citizens. I'm getting a little over.
Are you suggesting we have an influx of non citizens?
Have residents. Just clarifying. And we're all good with both of them. If we have losses coming, we should know. Anything else? Jeff Murray, do you have anything else you want to add? No. All good. Scott? No. Adrian.
Yep so first of all, we got any employees on I see we have the public works supervisor like to move him to the front of the meeting after public speak here or after deletions and agendas, so that he's not stuck working link.
He is already and we moved him up in the agenda item.
It looks like you got him behind a presentation so. Okay.
I'd like to move them like right after this. Also I'd like to add to the agenda, wherever we want to put it discussion on going to discussion on going to quickbooks. We also need to have a discussion on transfer requests to the Board of Finance. For audit and. Auditing services. Unless I missed it, I don't see an update for the community center, which I'd like to go over. It is there. Did I miss it? I saw I it.
9B? The center is 9B. Yeah. And what I would suggest is that Adrian, what you want should be under item 10 a I I.
You want to do it there. Okay triple I quarter blah. We also need an executive session to discuss union contracts and is it the admins contract. Okay. It's all gone. So
that's great. So Paula had a motion for 10 J recognition of outstanding Andover residents. Eric requested 10 ks contract, town of Andover and Nathan Jacobson. Adrian, a 10 l, QuickBooks discussion, a 10 I a I I I, transfer request related to audit fees, we'll just call that transfer request, and 17A, executive session regarding contracts. And we'll put that one at 17A. I'll second all of them. Any further discussion on the additions? All those in favor? Aye. Okay, all of us in favor? Okay, let's get started. So there was a request of the one hundred and seventy fifth Anniversary Committee, if you would allow us to move up our Public Works Supervisor Report, Item seven. So Jay, you are free to address us related to those items.
Okay, thank you. Good evening, everybody. So just like to give you a few updates regarding number one tree work in the town that we recently just had in your packet. You should have, I put a basically rundown of what we did for tree work. We again partnered with Eversource collaboration on Gilead, Jiravati, Townsend, Ryan, and Cone. So again, it was basically I went out marked all the trees, permissioned where I needed to, thought I needed to. We notified the public hopefully earlier than later. We try to, you know, get them notified as best. We had a few concerns that were addressed. I don't know if more came into to you guys at all. I haven't heard anything, but we kept the road closed during operations, which worked out really well. Residents were pretty receptive to it all and we got a lot of work done. As I said, 500, go ahead. Somebody have a question? Okay, so we had five zero six trees. We put in approximately 57,000
and Eversource 70,000. I'm sorry. Yeah so about $101,132,000 dollars and that's all I got about that if anybody has any questions.
Are you planning on doing it again next year because it seems to be an incredibly well run operation and getting that resource to assist us?
Yeah, so Eric and I've gone over this quite a bit. We've reviewed the work and how we get it done. What my suggestion is, is that we try to, because of the type of equipment that it is, it's big, it's heavy, We're trying to get our major tree work done ahead of road work so we don't have to have equipment on a newer road, we'll say, or a newer, improved, preserved, paved, whatever. And just it's the flow of the work. So the answer short answer to that is yes, we're looking at see what's going to be done next year, see what we have for tree work. The one thing that I would like to say to you guys for the future is we really need to be proactive with our tree work, not just these removals and whatnot. I fear that there's going to be more coming down the pike, but just the trimming of our trees and whatnot. So there's some more evasives out there. The state of Connecticut is finally starting to put some information out there a little bit more publicly than just you know a pamphlet here and there. It's been on TV. I don't know if you've heard about the spotted lanternfly
and there's some other creatures out there. So that's the next one that's going to be a real problem for everybody. So how they're going to deal with it, whether they're going to come up with some spray or we just got to be proactive and kill them as we see them. But I just don't know how, you know what's going to happen there. So I just want to just make sure you have some funding you know you got to think about the I'm not sure that I guess we'll have to see how it goes as we go along. You know historically have been putting in 50 here, know a little bit more here and there depending on the budgets and stuff, but just just think about it.
In what regard are you saying? Think about it? Mean it's it's easy to say to think about it, but are you saying we should be putting in 100,000 are you saying you know.
It's pen. I don't think it's I don't necessarily think it's 100,000 I think you're more apt to be somewhere in the $70.75 area. And it really has to go back to what we have to take care of now. And then what's going to what's going to come down the pike. Just got to keep an eye on it. So we got to keep it in your heads a little bit as far as what's what's coming around the corner. The more do, more we do, the less we have to take out. But, know, we're trying to leave trees behind and the healthiest trees were there, You know, as if we get outside our right away as well, you know, it's not up to us too much anymore.
But we still have to maintain public safety too. Well, can you go through and before we get into budget season next year, do a tree count. If we took down five zero six trees on the areas that you're talking about, if you can give us a tree count, I mean, I'm sure Scott and you could give us thousands of trees that. Well, don't I don't know that we need. Don't know that we need to treat count, but I think what we could do
mean what it would it be more advantageous to approach this the way the State does, where we we budget. A road a road every year or a couple of roads every year and we go to distinctive or somebody and get this bit out by multiple contractors and just do it that way.
Yeah you can do it that way what's going to end up you know, right now being having the ability to work with Eversource? That's that's huge. I mean, right now I think after the bills are paid, probably got about 20,000 left in the tree budget for the rest of the year. So
so do we go to Eversource and say we'd like to approach it this way? Or do we? Or do we? What is what's the what's the mechanism to put that together?
Steady as she goes. It's kind of a you know I call it right now it's it's an in it's an informal process. They like it because they're starting to see and recognize the town has the response has responsibilities to the trees as well as they do. So if we can work hand in hand, if I can if they can support us and we support them by, know, traffic control, I mark the trees permissions, you know, that that's that's a lot of value to them. And it's a lot of value to us that they just, you know, they pitch in and
they've been pitching in more. What I did this time is I not an exact figure but pretty close what our man hour our cost to man hours and and so that was a value. So that was a number that I applied. Know, that's where I came up with the $57,000 because we only put in where we put in $40,000 You know of actual budget money. But our manpower to close the road and you know and whatnot and which worked out, know, we handled that so that wasn't a cost to them.
Well, guess I would say it sounds like there's a lot of moving parts here so maybe just you know I'm sure at some somewhere in your computer you've got to started a budgeting line for next year. Yeah Just put it in there and get back to us. Yep. Okay.
Anything else on that? No, you can move on. So
the next is just a review of our road work that we basically the road work for the preservation, the chip seal, is complete. We just got to finish sweeping the roads, which we started Friday and did some more today. So we'll continue to sweep roads. That's going to take us a few more days. I'm sure in the next few weeks beyond that, we'll probably have to do a cleanup pass before winter. Secondly, on the road work, the asphalt reclamation of Long Hill Section Route 6 to Bear Swamp is complete and Chadi to Wales or just beyond Wales. Curbons all in. The only thing we have left to do now is we have to go back and backfill along the curve dress up the edges. That's our our part. Everything went pretty well. We haven't gotten any final waiting if there's a possibility we might have a cup two or three truckloads of material over the the what the figures were. So I'm still working on that. As far as the asphalt.
Well, did they give us? Are you saying by tonnage or by trucks?
It was by tonnage, you know, it was a lump sum, but it was based on, you know, the measurements and whatnot. So there's a, know, we added, you know, I had them push out a little bit more to the edge of the banks, which really wasn't technically included going up long hill. So I made the road a little bit wider. A couple of few aprons were a little more extensive than if they. This this just a couple a little bit extra here there that that they went beyond as as we're going along, I had them do a little bit more.
Is there a reason that we were putting in deeper aprons? Deeper aprons?
What you said their aprons were more. So, why why would that be? No, I just had, I just had a couple aprons stretched out a little bit like our apron that had a little we put a little bit more to it. It wasn't like it was a big deal, but overall that you know we used up a little bit more asphalt. So it seems I have to figure that all out. Okay. Questions? Those look great, Jay.
They're getting there. We're getting there. I know we get dealing with a little bit of dust out there and on the chip seal roads and it's part of the course.
Know, I It's just asked for new to the residents. They'll get used to it. Yeah.
Well, I just when I talk to people I give I explain it to them and I just I just asked them to be patient and we'll get through it. Well, I mean the
positive is even on like some of our like our support network. You know, and you know there was a post, you know complaining about it and literally before Eric was even able to chime in another resident. Chimed up and said oh well you got to do this, you know we've already asked you to go slow and blah blah blah, so I think residents are starting to clue in as we're doing this work. Just like closing the road, you know it's a big deal, but as we do this more and more and we we close more roads to get work done more efficiently and safely residents will get used to it and they'll appreciate the fact that we're doing it so yeah.
All right, third one. Our spare plow truck the nineteen ninety seven louisville. So, that truck right now cosmetically is in really good shape. In order to keep that truck on board, we're looking between 12, probably 12 to $15,000 to put that truck in shape. So it needs a new it needs a new injection pump. Now whether and I haven't been able to figure out whether I can actually get a new one or it have to be sent out but I'm The thing. It's it's inherent to that. Apparently anyway, because it took me a long time to find somebody that knew what they were talking about. That truck, that motor with that pump has an issue that with the governor, the way the plates work in into the pump, and I can't really explain it to you. Don't know enough about it. Anyway, there's internal parts to that machine in order to rebuild just the pump alone. It's between 8 and $10,000. Is it gas or diesel? Diesel.
So it's that smaller Cummins, a two fifty horse Cummins motor.
Who are we generally using for repair work? What's that? Who are we generally using for this repair work?
This year it's, jeez, I forget the name. On Route 207 in Lebanon. It's that shop right on 207. It's Dickie Strenkowski.
My suggestion would be at least just to get an idea reach out to Jim's equipment out in Canterbury.
Yeah and I think that's who and I think that's who we called because Jim's an old Cummins guy.
Yeah he only does diesel his brother is. Yeah brother it's their last name is Raymond so Raymond auto the big truck. Yeah. Towing place down in Franklin is his brother, but he does diesel and a lot of municipals use him for this type of work yeah diesel related he'll talk to you work on it so, but you said you already reached out to him. Well it's. Through through my contact
we we reached out. I would reach out to him directly and see if he'll something he could take a look at or something that you know, I mean this is kind of that's he's very he's very reasonable so. Yeah that's why a lot of the municipals bring stuff to him. Yeah. Hey, what's the balance, Jay?
So, balance on what? The front end or something to add? Oh yeah, yeah. So the front end needs brakes and kingpins. How much is that? Well, we figure it'd probably be about $2,500
for that. And that's addition to the to the eight to eight to ten to rebuild.
Yeah, and it could be a little bit more that that would that we would do in shop. It just depends on parts availability. I had Zach just do some rough figures so I didn't get too fancy on getting an exact cost for brakes because it's you know you got to do the drums and shoes and
so to put this in perspective though is this the backup truck right now or is this yes
it's the backup truck right now and here's the dilemma So in my guesstimate, I figured that truck as it is, it's probably if we could get it sold out the door, go to auction or put it on marketplace or whatever, I could probably get $10,000 for it, you know, maybe a little bit more. If you put money into it, and we keep it for a year, are we going to get that money back out of it? Truck seven is going to become the backup when the new truck comes in and that gets to the other side of this is the new you know purchasing a new plow truck. So if we put let's just for number's sake we put 15 into the truck so now you got a $25,000
truck can we get $25,000 back you know, on the used market. If it were in good shape, soup to nuts, I mean it runs okay, it just it just it's unsafe. You can't it won't move until you know five minutes later and then it decides to go. We used it for a crash truck this summer on Route 6 but it just it's just getting worse and worse. It has no power and it has to do with that pump. So the body's in good shape. It's an all season body. Would someone pick it up and do their own rebuild take care of it? Know, it would be a good truck to somebody. But for us to keep it, if we're going to get another truck next year potentially, if that's the course of that the town chooses, we're
then that truck is going to be disposed and truck seven and which isn't on this report, but Truck 7 needs some repairs. It needs air tanks and we got to put an exhaust system on it. So, and the exhaust system just the just the replacement muffler on that's like $6 and we're trying to see if there's something else that we can do with that because it has no emissions. So do we have to put the particular particulate OEM exhaust on it or can we do something else? So we're looking into that. In the air tanks, it's know, it's time they're rusting out. It's not leaking yet, but it's pretty close. So
If you get rid of that truck and you don't have a backup, what's that going to do to you?
Well, if we have a truck goes down, then we're left with two trucks to plow the town in our little trucks, you know, supplement. So it's that's what that's what we we'd be dealing with. It'll take more time. Yeah.
Because the big trucks will just have to cover, you know, they'll just divvy up the roots into two big roots and the little trucks will support by doing intersect sections in all the cul de sacs and the big trucks will be doing the salt thing of the roads because the little trucks don't salt. The truck that was originally an order possibility, what's the status on that?
It's being presented to the town of Pomfret. So, they're in a, they're supposedly in negotiations or whether they're gonna, you know, the town has to see whether they have the money or not. So, is it sold yet? No. And then I did find out that there are some new build slots open for next year. So they have slots available right now for new truck chassis to put in the lineup for next winter's build.
And what's the what's the what's the lease lease purchase
number? Do you get any did you get anything at all on that? It's pretty much the same as what it was before. It's a little bit more because it they don't have the final numbers yet. Ballpark, what was it? It was 55 and change. Let's see what I got here. For 4 years or five?
Five, I believe. Yeah, we had five years advanced payments of 55 call it $56,000 it was 55 and change and that that was at the the $245,000 purchase price of if it were this year and that's
body and everything right? Yep, that's the complete package. And the quotation that he gave me rough figures a month ago prior to any numbers that they knowing if there was any build slots price went up from $2.45 to $2.66. And he's telling me now that the prices have come down some and it's not it won't be quite at $266 but he can't tell doesn't have those exact numbers yet. Oh you're talking about the next winter's build slot? Correct.
Seems like we should just fix this truck and make sure we have a backup.
I don't have time putting 15 or $18,000 into a vehicle that's already basically twenty five years old and is well past its life expectancy.
But but then it's going to be a good truck, Eric.
Yep, but it's going to be a good truck for only for us intents and purposes only for a short period of time if you're going to dispose of it next How long is it a build process?
So, what you're saying is right now, if we agree to it, we can get a truck for next winter, which puts us on the normal every five year buying one plow truck every five years, we're trying to get on that essentially plan. So that best case scenario, we have a plow truck that's zero, five, and 10 years old with a backup that's 15. And worst case scenario is five years after that, we have a plow truck that's five, ten, 15 years old with an emergency backup that's 20 years old. Which is, this one's past 20 though.
Right. And we're already looking at a 25 year old vehicle. So putting additional money into it, I realize nobody likes to roll the dice and not have a backup plow truck. I'm just saying that putting $20,000 or $15,000 into a vehicle when we know that number seven needs work too, And remember, number seven's only a 2,004. So that one's already a fairly old plow truck itself. I just don't think makes sense personally. So what's your suggestion, Eric? My suggestion is we fix seven. We get rid of our oldest cloud truck, which is the '19 97. And we hope like hell we make it through the winter without a breakdown. But we accept the fact that if we do have a breakdown,
you know, we're gonna have a delayed response to the town, and we're gonna deal with it as best we can. What what about Why why do you have to sell it now? Well, if we
what what purpose would be to keep the truck? The truck is Yeah. You had a problematic truck. You could try to get it fixed and Well, I think that's Jason. The question we either fix it or we sell it. The question is, do we fix it and try to get 25 out or do we not fix it and try to get 10 now? Well, you're probably not going get 25 out, so I understand the issue of not wanting to put money into it, but I also sit there and I'm kind of mentally with Scott, if you don't have a backup you're going to cause yourself other problems.
So that's that's true with you know it could you know. I struggle. I'll be honest. I struggle not having a backup truck, but that being said. Putting in money into this truck for the short term. I'm not sure we could take what we could take what money we get from that truck and put it all use use it to get seven into really tip top shape.
And I think you should fix seven right now. Didn't sit there and say We have to we're gonna fix seven. Can I make this can I make a suggestion? Sure. Can we fix seven?
Can we call Jim's equipment and see if we take the pump out and bring it to him, then what the cost would be to repair instead of him having to take it out put it back in right. Could look into that. Zach could Zach I think is extremely capable, he might be able to pull it out it'll also get it fixed a lot quicker, because then they don't have to worry about base based pulling it in pulling it back out, they may be able to just you know bench work it on a day that they have something else going on and they're waiting for parts. Know. That's
something good to research my my question, and the reason why I was asking it Jay was I was just thinking of leaving that truck there in case you have a catastrophic issue with one of the other vehicles. But his point is that no one is going drive it because it's not safe. I'm not sitting there saying that. I'm just sitting there saying it's there, then we could fix it if we had a catastrophic issue. If not, we would say.
Unfortunately, repairing a truck like that, really right now getting into any diesel place and getting something repaired in a reasonable amount of time is tough. So if we're in the middle of winter and we're asking them to fix something we may be sitting for forty five days waiting for something to go in and back out so it's not at that point we don't need it anymore right, so we either I think we either make a decision to fix it, I mean. I would say Jay if you if you can get the cost down to $10 between the pump repair, you know, and the pins and brakes, you know if you can if you can take that $8.08 to $12,000 repair and get him if he can come down to he comes down to 7,000 or 6,000. Know, then I think we're in a at that point we're basically spending $10 to fix the whole thing and have a viable truck
instead of 15 I could live with that if it gets us another two years, you know. Yeah personally.
Alright, just yeah. Alright, I'll look into it again. And Jim's equipments out of Canterbury said. Yep. Westminster Road Canterbury.
What happens if one of the other trucks, the good truck something, what if you run one off the road you bust a frame math? Well right and that's the point. You're in you're in then
you got I think we need to fix both trucks but let's see if we can do it a little less expensively. Utilize the staff we have in house, if he could take if they want to work on the pump if we bring it to them, let's let's go that route.
Yeah, Mike. Well, my understanding about this pump is it has to be sent away somewhere it does. It's not just something you put on a bench and take it apart and you find parts for it and you put it back together again. The reason that is $10,000
to rebuild it period. I understand that and but that's kind of what Jim specializes in. I yeah I can tell you that I was you know I went to T and M hydraulics on a number and got a number and I went to Jim and it was half. He does, mean this is his, this is his bread and butter so. All right, pretty good chance he will he'll be telling you he could do it there. But even if he doesn't he seems to have connections, I mean everybody seems to know him so you know. Try. You know, kingpins and brakes is nothing.
Right. No. But we but we gotta we gotta figure out the pump. So, can you get back to the money into the front end until we can figure out the till we can figure out the pump.
I think I'm figure out the pump my other suggestion would be going to the Board of Finance proactively and see if you know if they'll if they'll be willing, you know if there's a way that we can address the fixing that and whether it's contingency or whatever they think is appropriate. So that at least you know you have the money if they say yes, you can get it over to him quickly, so you have it for the winner.
Okay. All right. I'll look into it. All right. Item four. Discussion about Mr. Williams.
I I'm confused. I thought we hired him already. No? Why why did we not hire him? We sent around an email. Right.
What was the whole Yeah. One response from the email. One I I responded and so did Adrian. Yeah.
K. Maybe we got two responses. I actually thought to be really honest, we talked about this at some meeting. Right. We talked about it previously, and it was basically, if you've got a problem with it, respond now.
Okay, so so I make a motion that we hire Mark Williams. Yeah. Second. All right, all those in favor. Aye.
Aye. Let's not hold these up in the future. So, I have to be problem and they don't respond. That's their problem. To
be clear, to use Adrian's phrases, he, you know, we all responded. We all wanted him to be hired a month ago.
We talked about that. So we did. What are next thing?
Okay, we'll get that done. Thank you very much. Did you guys take a look or have any time to just take a gander at the debris management packet?
I was gonna I was wondering if we're gonna have to hire someone to take care of this. Well that's what
I'm asking you guys because I took that class it was a two hour two three hour whatever it was webinar and these disaster debris management storm related disasters, if we're to claim any kind of try to recover monies, if you know in the event that something happens, it's not like it used to be. We can't just jot it down on a piece of paper, make some notes, and then make some more formal notes with some numbers and give it to a FEMA person and then expect to get paid. It doesn't happen that way anymore, and it was made pretty clear in the class or in the webinar that we have to have monitors, we have to some have somebody managing it, and that's all they do. And you cannot do anything, you can't even pick a stick up off the ground until it's been documented. It kind of sounds crazy, but that's the way it is. So there has to be GPS coordinates to all these things, and you know, God forbid you lose a road, you know, because of a washed out culvert or a bridge or whatever. But if we don't have things in place, you're not going to be able to do anything after the fact. All this stuff has to be in place prior to an event happening. The state does have a couple companies that are contracted through the state. We can use them. If we hire our own, you got to go through the bidding process, obviously. But
yeah, there's just there's so much that needs to be done in order to do it. And we have been picking away at down at the transfer station down there by the brush pile on the other side trying to clean things up to make an area. So I kind of started a little bit of something that I could get a at least a designated spot and get that approved by DEET, but there has to be some management that goes along with it in case of an emergency.
Is there like a list of consultants or something Jay that you can call if there's a disaster and you they this is that's what they specialize in? Well that's where you know these couple these companies they're already under state contract
because they got the you know they got the state bid we can use them. Is there other companies? To be honest with you Scott, I don't know. I'm sure I know there's got to be other companies that do it, but who they are, I don't know. You'd have to go up with a formal bid process for that.
The debris management request from the state or from FEMA, just has some deep it's detailed and it has a checklist of things you have to do before you have to go out. So it would really appropriate to kind of map the town before an event so that you could sit there and drop in information,
Isn't that kind of what they're after? Yeah, well as far as the debris management site, gotta have, that's an easy thing to put together. But a disaster can happen anywhere. You know in town, so I don't know how you go and map all that those things out. It's just.
No, you mean in the event of an emergency mapping it out? Well, I'm thinking about it in advance and I'm thinking about the road survey work that we did and Eric, doesn't that have basically as much information as to, I mean, is it G- Yeah, but that
tell you where the tree falls on the road. That doesn't tell you where the culvert on the specific road washes out. Doesn't give you those locations
prior to a storm. But yeah, I mean, yeah, we have a But I know all I'm after, Jay, is in my mind, is there's GPS coordinates for the community. This is the road, this is the area, this is the GPS coordinates you use for them. It's already pre there. It's just a thought. I'm not sitting there saying, I'm just wondering if there's alternatives to it. I was wondering if the road survey that we paid for did any of that mapping from that perspective, and if it's available, I mean. If you're looking for coordinates and you can sit there and have the town was mapped all the roads were mapped. Okay, you know, can I ask a question
do? When we go out we rp this are we paying money to have somebody on standby or are we simply pre bidding for disaster storm at a certain rate our whatever whatever because I mean in reading the packet I didn't get that information.
I have not I have not gotten that information myself.
I mean like if we're gonna have to pay somebody $40,000 to be on standby the town will never approve it right, but if we have to pre bid this whole thing and then it's just sort of a push a button when the time comes, you know. Then that's different right, I think the town goes behind that because, obviously, then we're talking about trying to build FEMA whatever whatever right. Yeah So
would it would the board of selectmen entertain calling upon these people to give a little presentation have a special or what what would you like to do. Can we do it? So you have a better understanding of what needs to be done? Let's do it at our October meeting. October meeting? Let's do it. All right.
If they want to. You know, get information to us beforehand, certainly, that would be great. Yeah and let's just kind of I think it's hard for us to sit here and say we want this, we don't want this if we don't know what we're expecting. Because there are although there's a lot of information in scope of impact grouping of projects and all that other stuff as Jeff said, what exactly are we paying for you know, and what is that what's the impact to us as a town, I certainly don't want to pay somebody on be on standby. But.
You know. Well, the problem with Jay said that just it doesn't make sense to me, if you can't pick up a stick until you have everything mapped, you have to pre map it. No, If you read the.
It's not. If you read the documents what it's saying is when I go out and pick up. It's cradle to grave right, so when I go out and pick up the stick that's in front of your driveway. I have to GPS locate I've got debris from this place to this place. Is how many pieces of material I removed, and this is where I place them for long term disposal. And I verify there's no endangered species in there and I verify that haven't been affected. I've verified there's no invasive species in the debris, beetles, lanterns, whatever.
Okay, so they make it difficult so you don't get funding, so we won't get funding eventually.
Well, let's just not have the disaster in the first place. How about that? Yeah, that's a good idea. To be perfectly honest, the last couple of times there's been a disaster
declaration where we could have declared to FEMA. I did not bother because we did not have the time or the manpower to document what we needed to document to get the money back. So, in some senses, are leaving money on the table for relatively minor disasters like the last, you know, where we have 30 or 50 trees down in town, you know, with lots of power outages, but nothing really structural, we can get away with that. If we ever have something really bad, you know, a direct hit from a CAT III where 70% of the canopy in town is down, we're gonna need federal disaster relief aid. So in some ways we have to be able to do this and we can't do it right now. So the real question is what do we have to do to get to the point where in a real bad disaster, you know, we can get federal aid. And that's really what we're trying to figure out here. And I don't have the answer. Every time I looked at the paperwork involved, say, you know, this is nuts and kind of walk away from it. But I mean, that's not a good long term strategy.
Okay, so if you can present to us next meeting Jay that would be great. Okay. I have a presenter.
Ask them to present to us. Yep, I'll give them a call. All right, does anybody have any more questions for Jay? Nope. Thank you, Jay. All right. Thank you. Have a good evening. All right. We're going to move back to item four, boards and commission presentations for A is the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary committee. Sorry, I couldn't unmute myself. Okay.
The one hundred and seventy five has been working now for about a year, year and a half, and very diligently trying the best we can to get everything done. Sorry that my for some reason my my picture won't go on either. But anyway, so there's been a lot we have accomplished. I have a project management list going so that I know who's in charge of what what we're doing, what the items are, how long they're supposed to take, how much they cost, etc. I gave you Jeff just one piece of that project management plan. But we're basically trying to do this without funding. We were lucky enough to get a thousand dollars from the hot fit foundation, and then we got money five both 5 hundreds from the plumbing Benjamin Franklin and any environmental in our environmental. So that's excellent. It was a we were then at least able to get the calendars ordered and the the ornaments ordered that somebody's also donating those by the way. So the bottom line is, though, we still have outstanding things like the t shirts and the cookbooks, and those are gonna and the actual inflatables for the event. So those are going to come to hopefully 5,000 or less. But right now, I put up some of the money for, like, the plaque and something else. And the way we had to leave it with the cookbook because I hated telling Shirley this because she's been working on it for so long. But I said if we can't if we if we don't really get anybody else to donate,
we can't do it because those cookbooks are gonna probably be about $1,000. So Shirley was good enough to say she honestly believes that they will sell and that people that people will buy them. She offered to put the money up front herself, and then we would pay her whatever money comes in that she's put up, she would get in return as soon as soon as those are sold, which is fine. It's one way to do it, but I I hate the thought of somebody putting up that kind of money of their own when we really should have some funding for a hundred and seventy five, hundred and seventy fifth anniversary of the town.
So Catherine can you just can you just back up a second? Can you explain for maybe the people that are listening? Can you explain the event and what you're planning on doing that day?
Sure there's a couple of events the first one on May 18 which is the actual day of incorporation will be at the gazebo and that's where we will have a celebration we will have representatives coming in to speak We'll have people, a small band come in. We're going to have some students from AES that will be presenting. We have dear Becca King that's going to recite her poem and we will put a plaque up next to the tree and there'll just be some refreshments. So that'll be just a small one, I think from five to seven. And then the major attraction, excuse me, is the following set for that's a Thursday. Then Friday will be a free day, and then Saturday will be the festival at the school where we have will be selling the ornaments and the calendars and the cookbooks and t shirts. And we will also have inflatable items for the kids. We will have them inflatable obstacle course and an inflatable board and t ball and slide and whatever. What we also got very lucky with was that the rec commission said that they would do a lot of smaller items for us because we have those giant items that we can only get from company but there are also things like bowling and bucket ball and bean bags and so I just I went to the rec commission and said, you know, you might be better off buying those and so you have them for the future for all of your your events that they do all the time and they were good enough to say, yeah, I think that's a good idea.
So, with that, we'll have those extra items to for the kids to play. We'll have food trucks, ice cream truck. The only thing left to us, we'd like to get some portable toilets in there. A Merilou, which was fascinating to me that he's from Andover, but wouldn't donate them. So I think I'll ask somebody in Manchester. So that's basically where we stand right now. Okay. And then so you're you're selling Yes.
There's something in June. There is one more event. And in between that, we are also working with other committees because in between events, we will be doing historical tours of historical buildings and homes. And we will be doing cemetery tours like of the old all the cemeteries, the old cemetery, the fountain. So that and we're doing a garden tour. So there's three individual tours that are going on as well throughout. And the on the final day which is June 24 was which is actually the January day of the year that will be our final festival at the beach at the Andover Lake.
And that's with the recognition and and with Alcoa, Mike Burke's involved. We understand that they will be kind of taking over that so I've kind of put that off to the side for me for a bit I can concentrate on all the rest of things that we're going to need come May.
Okay. So you're you're selling the the cookbooks, the calendars, and when the t shirts are ready. These are going to be at the farmers market. What's going to be? Right
now the only thing that was ready were the calendars. So they're at the farmers market and I left some at town hall and the ornaments should be coming in within a few days and it'll be the same thing. We can put some at town hall. We'll sell them to the farmers market. And whatever and like I said the recognition has other things going during these during the months. And they will take and sell those t shirts and ornaments and calendars or whatever as well. If anybody can think of any place else that we should put them that we haven't thought of, then please let me We've got that over what we can do,
all of us on the board, is help her raise some money.
Yeah, we try, I mean we put, Paula's been so helpful, she even had Beck do a thermometer that shows, okay, this is where we need to be to pull this off, that this is where we are right now. And the without without funding, we're not gonna be able to pull this off unless we get more people. I've gone door to door to to these companies in town and they asked them I gave them the so actually the same list that I gave you, Jeff, so at least they could see what we were doing and what the cost was. And so far, just two major companies, two companies have come back big with us for $500 each.
Okay. So other members of the board of selectmen, if if you can, if you, I will send out that list that Catherine had provided me tomorrow. But if you have anybody that you know that you can sit there and go for donations, that would be greatly appreciated so we can help out the committee.
I just want to clarify something, a couple of things. The purchasing of the T shirts and all, these are all fundraising items, So the goal is to sell as many of them as possible before The events right.
Yeah. Except that we have to pay for them up front. No, I understand that
Okay. The only other thing I would say is, I can tell you that I at the request of you know someone on your committee did call around as far as the the. Porta potties and stuff and the number that you were given by the local the local contractor, you know maritalu was ridiculously cheap I couldn't get anywhere near it, so I think we should be appreciative of that number and not disparaging of it just point of reference,
you know. Okay, so if we can sit there and raise money that would be great. I will do my best to help Katherine and the committee get the funding they need. If anybody else can assist, that would be one. I'm assuming there's no money that we can take out of the budget because it's not there.
I mean, thing is this is this is for the town. This is the town's hundred and seventy fifth celebration. It's not ours. So I think it's I think that everybody who can should be giving. I'm surprised some more people haven't, but I mean, like I said, this is a a town wide celebration. It's not something in my backyard.
Catherine, are are those items gonna be at over and over
to buy too? Oh, there's another one. Yes. Wendy said that she could sell the ornaments as well. I don't remember about the t shirts, but the ornaments would would absolutely be be something that she could sell there and which I would think would work well there.
Okay and did anybody contact AES to put like a flyer in their Friday folders or anything like that?
Yes. Supposedly, that was already done by I'd have to look at my list, my checklist, and see who was the lead on that. It could have been Tina. I'm trying to remember. So But I will reach out to her again if that wasn't done.
Okay. Well, we'll we will keep posting on social media and get the word out as much as we can.
We appreciate it a lot. Right. And, Catherine, thank you and your committee chair. What We
about the porta potty? What was the cost of the porta potty?
He well, he gave two different ones. He gave one person a $140, and then he gave a different person a $133 each, so I don't I don't know which one is accurate.
Well, and and the minimum the minimum price from United services was a thousand dollars so put that in perspective. They wouldn't touch for less than a grand.
Who I don't know who you're talking about and I don't know how many.
So I will sponsor the Eric Anderson, you know commemorative porta potty. As long as you can display my name probably on. I think we should put your picture on it. We can do that too.
Perfect. Done Eric, done. Alright, thank you very much Eric. You will go on the list now. You're good. Yep, you're on my list.
Have to be there now, you have to do it. You have to do One
more thing, Ryan Fitch with Fitch Family Farms is donating the tree, So thank you to them. I just talked to Ryan today. Scott actually talked to Ryan as well to make sure that all his questions were answered. Thank you. We are
doing t shirts. Do we have samples of them anywhere and pictures that we can put out there to get people interested? Yeah we do.
We just got them. We just got them in. You know what Katherine can
you send me you send me photos or I can even stop at town hall once you have the ornaments send me a picture the ornament looks like so we can put that on Facebook
gotcha yeah same same with the t shirts we can start putting this stuff out there and get people more interested think it's easier when it's not hypothetical.
Come to the market in October because we're there selling. Yeah, Kathy, that's right, Kathy. You've already sold. Kathy already sold a lot of calendars. Yeah. All right. Thank you.
Oh, want that's right. After you mentioned Ryan, I apologize. I want to mention one thing. We're also going to work on a sponsor board so that we can thank these people that were good enough to give us a lot of money so that we could hold this function.
So Catherine, if you can get me logos on the webpage the January, we can put their logos up on the website. The logos for whom? For the organizations that donated. Oh, okay. Or had some sort of, you know,
stake in the game. Yep, I did already write them thank you letters and I have I've got so many forms to account for absolutely every penny that's going everywhere. So I gave them also a form donation form in case they needed it for tax purposes.
Yep, okay. Yeah, if you have that just send me their names and I'll look up the logos. Okay. All right, thank you. You.
Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. All right. So we'll move on to item five. Eric, any appointments?
So Catherine Morrissey has unofficially agreed to take the position of my administrative assistant. She's been interviewed a couple times, hoping to finalize that the next couple of days. Barring any objection from the Board of Select. No objection. Is there any objection anybody? No. Objections. Excellent. Good job. All right. Resignations item six. Nope, not this week. Okay. Item eight, town administrators report.
Okay, so you've all seen my report. I'm just going to go over a few things on that. The first thing I wanted to say is I just wanted to once again congratulate Marci McDonald. Marci McDonald is the first person to ever successfully swim from England to Japan in Belgium. So that's a pretty impressive feat for one of our most distinguished swimming seniors. So that was a thirty eight hour long swim. So my hats off to her. That was a hell of an accomplishment. So,
talked about the pre management, we talked about not really any progress on either of the bridges. The state, you know, suffered an enormous number of layoffs because they changed their benefits package for employees and an awful lot of people took early outs rather than falling under the new, you know, criteria. So, we're awaiting them to hire the person that needs to do the final argument between our existing contractor and the contractor that's doing the 90% stage of the bridge design. Hopefully that gets ironed out in the next couple of months. As far as Andover Veterans Monument, you probably noticed there's some super brown grass areas along Route 316 and also Route 6. Were areas that had really heavy crabgrass that was sprayed. They should be overseeded in about a week. So, we should be well on the way to getting that looking, you know, in kind of perfect shape. Overall, I think it's pretty good, but we can make it better. So, that's on the way. We also sprayed the area along the walking path along Route 6 to try to eradicate the bamboo and the poison ivy that's along there, because that's been pretty problematic. We're gonna keep an eye on that and see how well that's doing. You know, hopefully, you know, it looks like the leaves are already starting to curl. So, it looks like there's some die off of that. So in about another week, we'll be able to go in with public works and, you know, and mow it down. So it looks good again. It does kind of look like crap
right now. The connectivity grant, the contractor's supposed to be back in on the fifteenth doing most of the final work that's going in there. So, it shouldn't take long. It shouldn't take more than a couple of days to do final paving and then all the touch up. And after that, Jay and I are working on contracts for the parking lot, striping, sharrows, and a few of the other final items on there. We've also hired Christine Randazzo. Randazzo designed to do a kind of landscape plan for that area and the area in front of public works because we can pay for that connectivity grant also with the intent of installing that next spring to kind of maximize the chance of it living because they're not in areas that are easy to water. So, the landscaping portion of that property for that project probably will be finished off till next spring, just because that's going be the timing when we put the plants in safely. You know, we obviously have done a lot of roadwork Right now we're just finishing up the touches on that. I had asked Jay to set aside a couple days for public works in a little over a week from now because we have a whole series of small projects we wanna get done.
And so just should have all the roads swept up by then, but we're gonna take a couple of days out to plant the tree for the seventy fifth, move the shed for the garden committee, put in the little kiosk for the mental health library for and just knock off a bunch of the little tasks before we start in on, you know, on maintenance again. So that's it for my report, unless you have specific things for me. Anyone else questions for Eric?
Did you send out your letter of intent to hire? Or yeah. To that person okay. Yes, I did. Right so so you'll have a new admin hopefully soon. Hopefully sure. Alright, so she hasn't accepted.
She hasn't accepted officially. I don't have a signed acceptance letter, but in talking to her, I have the expectation that she will accept. Okay.
Okay, so we're going to move on to item nine, old business, 9A, finance department employment.
Okay, so we don't really have any updates on that. We certainly haven't been successful in finding somebody that would take over as the finance or the treasurer for the town. So that's still going be an ongoing issue.
Alright, we'll talk about that a little bit in our QuickBooks discussion. Nine, community center RFP for design build.
So Eric and I went over that for about three hours today we had a we redlined a document I'll make the changes and I'm going to put it out, so this board, as well as a couple of people on the. Community Center committee. To get some feedback that'll be out for about a week and. We Eric and I will get together give an exact date here Eric and I are going to get together on the twenty sixth and just finalize, include any changes that we need to that people really wanted, and it will go out at that point for RFP. So. You guys have a week to get back to us and then after that it's launching so I'm on that same token. As I mentioned the other day, and I talked to Scott about this a little bit. Given the scope of the project, we are really going to need somebody to.
Manage this, I would put forward myself and Scott person. To do it we're going to need somebody on-site pretty much every day. To go down there and take pictures verify what's happening. And just kind of be on top of it so they'll save us hiring a clerk of the works which we've done on other projects, but we're definitely going to have to do something, given the scope so. Okay, that sounds awesome. So the
RFP is planning on going out within the next couple of weeks and it's basically Yeah, so we just want to give people a week to get back to us for their own input because that hasn't been out there. I've done a lot of consulting with outside vendors and people to make sure it's up to par, I think you know Eric really kind of polished it up a little bit with me today, so I think we're ready at that point so. You guys will you guys will have the documents tomorrow, I just have to make the corrections from today. Okay, and when it gets approved the timing of how the length of the duration of the rfp. We're thinking thirty days with a walk meeting basically site meeting at fifteen and fifteen days midway.
Okay. So, then we can make a motion in our next meeting to point you and Scott.
Probably would be appropriate now because we're going to have to put that rfp out and then we're going to start getting inquiries, right after that so.
Okay. Someone want to make that motion to I mean and what would your titles be I'll make the motion. What do you want me to call you? I don't know. Frickin' frack. I have no idea.
Committee, management team. I make a motion to appoint Adrian Mandeville and Scott Person as the community center building management team. I'll second. Alright. Anybody have a problem with that? Scott, you're good with your title?
Scott doesn't care about its title. Scott's not a title guy. He doesn't worry about it. He just does the job. There you go.
He was shaking his head when you said it, so I wanted to make sure he wasn't, you know, muffling under his breath. Yeah. What should I call you? I'll change my motion. Oh, it's perfect, Jeff. Perfect. I would've I
would've said the same thing you did. Oh my god, yeah. All right, so all those in favor, aye. Aye. Excellent.
Let's move on. So now we are on item 10, new business. Discussing next upon the following: A, audit status. Corrective action plan was in our package. Capital asset tracking has been provided to us. There is a fund list, and there is also Adrian's AII, a transfer request for audit services and related audit services, we'll call it. Eric, do you want to go over that?
So let's start with the first thing, the audit finding corrective action plan. Just before this meeting, I was reading through Diane replied to me. I think she's probably on this fall. Had so I had written a couple of the statements and Diane has filled in the majority of the rest. That version is not in your packet because I think she just sent that to me today. I think that is really the Board of Finance's purview, what would probably be appropriate is just the Board of Selectmen authorizing the Board of Finance to, submit an audit finding corrective action plan.
Yeah, actually it is a Board of Finance issue. It's not a Board of Selectmen, so we don't have to authorize anything. Should come from the Board of Finance. No motion required. Okay, capital asset tracking.
Okay, so I also put in the packet a suggestion for two things. The first is a memorandum of understanding with the volunteer fire department, which just lays out respectively what the responsibility is for the fire department to supply to the down documentation of capital assets. If any of you have any issue with this memorandum of understanding, please let me know. This was reviewed and endorsed by the town's attorney who's also on the call. It would be signed by myself, the first selectman, and the chair of the end of the fire commission who's falling apart. Does anybody have any feedback on that?
I'd like to say something, if I may. This is Dennis O'Brien. Sure. Go ahead, Dennis.
Yeah. I Eric wrote this, and I, I worked it over. And, I just saw something and looking over again, I saw a couple of things that I would slightly modify. I just wanna make sure I I tell you. In the second paragraph, starting with the town of Andover, second line, after all assets, I would insert in the possession of the Andover Volunteer Fire Department, not assets of the Volunteer Fire Department. Because the assets their assets, as far as I know legally, based on what I know about the fire department and it's being an agency of the town is not does not own those assets. Those assets are belong to the town of Andover. So I would I would insert after all assets, simply insert in the possession of the Andover Volunteer Fire Department, which is already in there. Okay. That's acceptable to me.
I don't think that terminology. So let's there's a Next. Yeah.
There's a a typographical error. I do my own. I don't know if it's Eric's or mine. It's probably mine, but it's in the last paragraph before the so agreed part where where the principles would sign, including the first selectman and the town administrator. It's in the second line of the last paragraph, which last paragraph begins up by our commission. The second line should read that has been damaged or is no longer usable or functional, not of functional. So the of should be an or. See that? Yep. Yep. Okay. That's that's the typographical error by by the by the town attorney. I messed up again.
But other than that, I It's called spell check, Dennis, and it decides which word it wants to do. So Well, yeah. But Okay. So we're gonna get that changed. Anybody have a problem with that? No? Great. Nope. Okay. So Sounds good. Let's move that forward. Okay. I've made those changes.
Alright. And then you submitted the asset tracking policy to us. We've had So
and those are the comments from Diane Trocat was kind enough to look at it a lot, and and I made most of the edited edits that she has recommended. So, I'm giving you a commented kind of red line form of that document. If there are other changes that you want to put in. And then the question is who's responsible for actually signing off on this policy. My own personal feeling is it's really the Board of Finance, but certainly the Board of Selection has a role also. So that's where I'm at on this.
I would assume it's going to end up with the Board of Finance. So Diane, once it's done, you can submit this with the other portion that needs to go, the corrective action plan.
So is the Board of Select then Okay with the board of finance? It looks great. Without further review if when the board of finance is ready to approve.
Anything will be an improvement to what we're currently doing.
Okay. Does anybody have any issues with what we've outlined for the thresholds for capitalization?
And it say somewhere that there's $4,000 an acre for the land?
Yeah, I think that's what I, put in. That was just a guess on my part. Think the state uses four?
No. I mean, raw land is give or take 2,000 an acre and developed land is somewhere around 3. So.
Did you say developed land is, is $3,000 per acre on a valuation side?
Give or take. Yeah. Something like in which case it's, you know. But it's 400,000 an acre? At least. Oh, wow.
Okay. I didn't, I didn't realize we, we were, we were doing, we don't really own anything around the lake as a town, so I didn't think that applied.
It's gonna be less, it's gonna be less if we talk swampland, so. That's the value that's put on it, but that's just okay. So no, I don't have a problem with evaluations, Eric. Anybody else have a problem with evaluations? No.
Okay, let's move on to the next issue, fund list.
Okay, so, so I had looked through basically all of the funds that we have in town, you know, and this is in in my head, these are the funds and their categories that we should have. We have an awful lot more. We have an awful lot of liability accounts that don't really necessarily go to anything. But these are the town funds and you know what category they're in. As far as I can see that we should have. So, I think as we strive to change our, whatever changes we make to the finance department, I want to keep this in mind that we have a general fund, what we have in capital reserve funds, capital project funds, and then special revenue funds. And I believe this pretty much corresponds to what the state's designation for, you know, what funds we should be having are.
Well, at our next meeting, can you tell us which ones you want to get rid of? You don't really look like you're getting rid of many of the things that are currently out there, but we'll look at the funds and take it into account. Hopefully, if we can do some cleaning up of our records, can get this taken into consideration with everything that gets moved forward. Anybody have any questions about these funds or want to talk about the funds? No? Okay. So let's go on to item 10 AIII, and it's a transfer request related to audit services.
We had the bill for the trooper came in much less than expected. And we also have some money I believe leftover and contingency. I'd like to see I'm
sorry? For last year's period, just to be clear for everybody. Yes. So,
as we haven't closed out the year, it would be prudent to transfer those into the audit line so that we can then use them for the additional audit services that were required to get the year closed out. And also The audit services that we're looking at hiring to get the books squared away. With our. Incoming consultant, so I would like to the board selectman to ask the board of finance to make those transfers.
Okay. You make a motion or are we just going to ask the Board of Finance to make those transfers.
I will make a motion that we ask the Board of Finance that's fine. So the board is I would motion that the Board of Selectman asked the Board of Finance to transfer any excess funds From the trooper line item and from the. Contingency fund into the audit line item to be used for very specifically. The audit services that were required, in addition to the contract and for the. Consulting services that we're going to be using to clear out the books and get us reoriented. I second that.
Okay. Further discussion, anybody have any questions related to this? No? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Let's move on. 10B, the twenty twenty one-twenty twenty two purchasing policy.
Wait, wait, wait. Do we miss, are we going to QuickBooks? Were you going to do that in executive No,
we are, but that was, that's down on 10 L. Eric wanted to put the transfer under the audit status, which was accurate, it was appropriate. So we put that under 10 A LII. So now we're going to continue to move through 10 and then we're going get down to the items that were added. 2021, 2022 purchasing policy, Eric.
Okay, so I think we should probably let Diane Chokkat, the chair of the board of finance speak to this, because I know she has been undertaking a revamp of the town's purchasing policy. Okay. Okay.
I have completed a first draft for discussion purposes of the new purchasing policy. So I will after tomorrow get it out to the Board of Selectmen and CIP to solicit comments and any changes that you guys want to this. And then once I get your feedback, then we'll bring it to the board of finance and I'd like to bring it to the meeting at the end of this month. So it gives you about a week to get a look at it. Diane, could you also send that to me?
Yep. Would be great. I want to publicly thank Diane Shakope for all the work she's been doing. It is greatly appreciated. You very much, Diane. Absolutely.
So it's the first pass just to raise some discussion because we've got a lot to talk about, but what limits we want to put on things. It's just, you know, get solicit feedback so. No problem. All right. Okay.
All right. 10 see a cool program contract with town.
Okay, so I had put in your packet a revised version after the last meeting. You came back to me and you asked me to write a more inclusive policy that covered both the calendar year and the way the cool program operates during the calendar year, as well as what a summer program was, and also ensure that the liability state program not the town. So I took those suggestions and gave them to Dennis. And this is the contract that Dennis came back with that should be titled town of Andover Agreement with Community Organized and Operated Lad Key Inc. So, does this represent what you had asked me to do? And before you ask, yes, I have sent this to Kerma. I have asked Jake Duckworth for commentary on it to ensure that this satisfies what they would like to see in the contract. I have not gotten a response back from PIP yet. So
we obviously need that to make sure that we're good, I'm assuming somewhere in here we're asking them to provide a certificate of insurance to the town?
We're asking them to have a certificate of insurance with the town and with you know in the state and we state specifically what liability coverage we expect them to have.
So once we get the karma comments, everybody please read this and make sure that it meets their needs, your needs related to this program. And we should put this into effect as soon as we possibly can. Have you gone back to school and verified that that insurance coverage is appropriate for them, that they have that coverage? No, I mean, I would submit this to once,
you know, I mean Submit it to COOL tomorrow and get them I mean, it's a draft. They have to read it and approve it and understand that what we're asking them for is even
We could be spending a lot of time if they don't have it and don't want to choose to get it. Yeah. Yeah. We need to loop them in at some point here. Like now? Yeah. Well, no, I mean, I've already had conversations
with them. They know it's coming. They've seen the previous drafts. But what I've tried to do is I've tried to give it to the Board of Selectmen and make sure this actually represents what you want before I give it to COOL. It doesn't make sense for me to keep going back and forth to COOL unless I know what you as a Board want me to be giving them. Think this is what you asked me to give them, but I'm not positive. Only you can tell me if this is what you want. Did you ask them what their liability coverages were?
I have not specifically asked them what their liability coverages are. Okay, but they're already
functioning and already operating. This is something that needs to be put in place as soon as possible, so they need to see it regardless of if we want to make changes or not, it has to go through that process. So let's sit there and get it to them. Everybody read it and we have to get this in place as soon as possible. Maybe they don't need $2,000,000 worth of coverage.
Well, no, that is a legitimate number. They may come back and tell us that that number is unattainable for their insurance that they have. That's possible, but then you rewrite it, but that's why you go to Kurma and say, What should they have? And what fits within our KIRMA policy for the town. Please get that to them tomorrow and that would be great. We can at least get some feedback. Okay.
All right, Town assistance or attendee, town assistance in remedial hoarding situation.
There's no real update. There's been no change since the last meeting.
Okay. 10 e, Hop River Homes letter to the board of selectmen.
So that's in your packet. You had asked them at the last meeting whether they would meet with you at this meeting. They politely declined and pointed out that in their original letter, they said that was not a possibility. And they once again asked you whether you would set a meeting to discuss with the full board of the Hop River Homes. And whether you choose to do that or not, that's up to you as well.
Well, if I remember correctly, you were supposed to ask them if they could sit there and make it, so they politely declined because we didn't want to continue to have additional meetings. Right. Was outside of their dates that they provided, so we're going to have to sit there and do this. I guess from everybody else, we're going to have to sit there and probably have a special meeting related to this to sit there and get them. So Eric, organize dates and opportunities for a meeting. Let's put it out in front of everybody.
Okay. So the dates they proposed were anywhere between the thirteenth and the September 28 and anywhere between October 24 and November 4. So what date would you like to suggest?
Say it again. What are the dates for September? The between the thirteenth and? The thirteenth and the twenty eighth. Okay. At what time of the day and
did not state, but I I think we're all assuming these were eat would be evening meetings. Yeah. Yeah. Just most people were. So.
It I mean, my schedule is is crazy, so a good day. I don't care. And then I'll tell you if I can make it till the nineteenth or twentieth, probably more the twentieth and twenty first, something like that. Probably have a board with finance meeting. Adrian probably has, five other meetings. Yeah. So perfect. What's the twentieth?
Yeah. I I can't do the twenty first. I can do the twentieth. I have something on the twenty first also.
That means three of us could potentially make it and we can find out if we're talking the twenty first of what? Twentieth. September. Twentieth.
Yeah, I can't do anything until after the twenty third. Okay, the twenty seventh. I can do that.
Yep. Okay, Eric, try and schedule it for the twenty seventh.
So the twenty seventh and in person or virtual, what is it that you want? They
said they wanted it in person. I remember they were pretty, they were clear they wanted it in person, I thought. Very clear. Yeah. 27th Community Room.
So 27th. Let's see. Conservation Commission also meets the worst case scenario. We put them in my office, so we could do it on the twenty seventh. 7PM. See if that works for them. Yes. Okay. We'll move to Soccer Field usage ten f. Okay.
Sure. As most of you know, FC North is no longer utilizing the field. We got the adult soccer league to agree to align the field with us. So, least we get that done so the playing field is outlined. We need to start getting with the RAM programs and figuring out next year for next spring, how we can get, you know, good field utilization and offset some of the costs of the field, which we will not be getting from FCB.
Well, it's not like you're not going to maintain it. You have to sit there and maintain that field, but you can reduce the level of maintenance that is currently required to upkeep it into a playing field to a recreational field. So you should sit there and go to Hebron to sit there and see what can be done to potentially reduce the level of fertilization, and we should try to find ways to reduce the cost. Just so everybody understands related to FCS North and Kyle, who is a resident of the community, FCS North was paying $7,500 to utilize that field, and the issue with that was, it was costing us an extra $20,000 to upkeep that field in a playable manner, so the request to FC North was to pick up some additional costs, and their choice is to sit there and go get it less expensive. They are a not profit, for profit entity. Just so everybody understands, using a community asset to further their program. So I I don't you know, we need to sit there and make decisions for us to sit there and look at the cost of maintaining that field, and we should sit sit there and look at reducing it now, Eric, that we're not trying to maintain it to such a level. So if you can go do it, we'll reduce our costs and try to sit there and make that appropriate.
And I'm assuming RAM is RAM soccer is using this field at some level, Paul?
They still are. Yeah. Okay. And I've been reaching out to different places to see what kind of usage we can get down there. K.
Alright. I I think we what we really need to do is we need to have a a conversation between the town of Andover, the town of Hebron, and the town of Malport. And we need to figure out an equitable distribution of the fields, you know, on a cost basis to recoup some of the money from all the various different groups that use all the fields. And then start looking at Andover's fields and say, what are the best uses of our fields? Can we keep it soccer only? Do we do what we need to do so that lacrosse can play out in the field? Know, what do we have to do to strike for various different events? Do we allow PV's PV football to play in the field? Because I know that PV football,
they were, they didn't have a home for some of their stuff. And they were having problems with that. We just need to now that FC North is not going to use it. We need to figure out how to utilize the field so that, you know, if we're paying for it, it actually gets used by the community.
Who's going to coordinate that meeting? You or do you need one of us to do that? I'd be happy to let you.
Well, when you're saying the town of Andover, Hebron, and Marlborough, are you talking about Ram Sports or are you talking about contacting the towns?
So, I mean, I've had a bunch of discussions or some discussions with Craig of this, you know, and, you know, because they have a very haphazard way of charging teams. They basically have only charged teams that use their field for supplies money. So like if they're lining the field for a team they'll charge them for the paint but not for labor. You know, things like that. And I think whenever we, the three towns agree to we should just all, you know, do that. And then all the Ram youth sports and all the youths, folks that use it, you know, should just get distributed because frankly, Hebron, you know, has a problem. They can't fit everybody in on their fields that need to use it. It doesn't make sense for our fields to go underutilized when there's teams that can't schedule what they need to do there.
I Yeah, think I think it's just getting the word out to the coaches to let them know that the field is now available. And for many, many years, people have been used to driving to Marlborough to have a soccer game or Burnt Hill. So it's just a matter of letting them know. And I've talked to a couple of people to let them know the field's available, but they've already started scheduling things for this season. Right, no, I
would agree that it's too late to change most things for this season. But what we need to do is we need to do it systematically so next spring we're in the mix and, you know, we're part of the scheduling process, you know, and we do a good job of attracting games. We get the field utilized.
Yeah. And I don't know enough about it. I'm I'm kind of I'm I'm a coach in a couple of years but I thought coaches were going through Hebron Parks and Rec but I could be wrong. They are. Well, kind of are. They are.
All right. Well, you and I can talk about this maybe another time and figure out how we can start that conversation with them. I can see who we talk to and who you can talk to on the town side and who I know from the sports side. Because Ram Youth Baseball would love to come and play in Andover, but we don't have a field. We don't have a baseball field. Well, I think the ship sailed on that one.
Yeah, I was just I was just having a conversation with that president last night, so. Is that what we're trying to talk to Hop River Homes about? But that's that's a softball field, isn't that? Play on the youth baseball. Can play on that. You can bring them around if you want, like just important if We you needed
will have our meeting on the '20 when are we meeting? The twenty seventh and we'll see maybe that'll open up the door for Ram Youth Baseball or Hammer Softball. Hammer Softball. Already All right. Bam.
Okay. TEN and G, unless anybody has anything related to TENF. Anybody additional? Wanna talk about it? No? Excellent.
So I I I sent you a bunch of information regarding what the licensing is. We still have the ongoing question about, can we accommodate the AES student? I think the answer right now is no. You know the other thing to be aware of is that it doesn't appear that we're getting our new senior transportation vehicle until sometime next year in '23. Basically, there are no more build slots from the manufacturer this year. We're just flat out not getting it. We will get it eventually and we won't have to pay for it, but we don't have it now. So, know several members of the board wanted to discuss some of the senior transportation. If that's still the case, I'm certainly prepared to discuss it. And Kathy is on this call also, if you wanna do so.
So before we get on to other issues, is the TOM, is the TOM UZ the vehicle for picking up the student that requires transportation services? Not at this time. No. Okay.
Does anyone have any other issues related to the senior transportation program? Jeff Murray? Have any questions?
I I'd wanna see the the trip logs before we have any discussion about that.
Okay. We'll put it on. Have we asked for trip logs? Sure. Is that something we can get readily?
Well, I mean, you're saying you want to see them before you bring up anything. Guess I'm trying to understand are we? Yeah,
if we were going to do anything with the transportation, just want to see what trips we're making to where and when and how many times a week.
Okay, so Eric, can you make that available to us? Or, Kathy, can you work with Eric to make the trip logs available to us for, like, a a week let's say two weeks? And then that way we can see what's going on. Yes. I can. Perfect. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Alright, so let's move on to 10H, the status of open board positions, the town no, open board positions. Eric, what do you have?
So we did re advertise for the town treasurer. We got about 10 or so applicants, but none of them were even remotely qualified for the position of being the town treasurer. So we're kind of a little bit stalled out there at the moment.
Okay. All right, so I thought that was 10i, the town treasurer, was a separate line item because it came under h. So I'm move on to 10j because we skipped I. 10j, a recognition of outstanding Andover residents.
Okay, so Eric talked about, it was Marcy MacDonald, is that who you talked about earlier? Yes. Yep. So we have Marcy and I'm sure there's people in the past that have done extraordinary things. And we have authors in town and we have other people that, you know, do some pretty cool things. So I was thinking we can have a discussion about maybe quarterly, we can recognize people either at a meeting or somehow and get some good press for Andover and congratulate these people. So discussion, what do you all think?
It sounds like an excellent idea and I think the community room has a tremendous number of walls that we can put up people's pictures as a wall of fame to give them recognition for the good work and the good deeds and things that they've So done out there that have been I think it's a great idea, Paula.
Yeah, I'd like to put something on the website and maybe, I know Eric put a social media post up recently. So we'll just have to ask the community to let us know when somebody's writing a book or swimming the English Channel or we just, got to get the word out that if we don't know, then we can't recognize them. That's something we should get out there and start talking about.
I think it's a good thing for the town of Andover to give recognition for positive things. I'm all for it. All right. We'll
sit there and, Paul, you and I can work together on that one. I know Adrian wants to participate in this one and recognize good people, so we'll make sure it happens. Okay, so we're going to move on to now we're on to item 10 ks, contract between the town of Andover and Nathan Jacobson. Ralph Jacobson. Jacobson. Did I say that all?
I could have written it wrong. So I sent to the Board of Selectmen a draft contract. The town's attorney has made a few changes to it. I just wanted to make sure that that dovetailed with what you as a board were thinking in terms of what the limits are. And then we're going to need to make sure that that corresponds to what the Board of Finance, because ultimately they set the purchasing policy, you know, and those limits have to line up with the purchasing policy. So, I would like to see whether the Board of Selectmen is okay with it first before I present it to the Board of Finance, you know, and then hopefully put it in place.
Basically, you're just the contract is a fee schedule. There's nothing set other than things that if if you identify a project that we need to use him on, it's an hourly rate based upon who's doing what.
Well, it is up until a certain cost threshold. You know, anything that's over $15,000 you know, I'm saying has to have an actual contract attached to it. You know, and anything over $75,000 has to go back out to RFP, which is what the Board of Selectmen had suggested at the last meeting.
Does anybody have a a problem with the draft of this contract for town engineers? No?
No. I I think I'd already given Eric my adjustments. So. Yeah. And yours are yours are incorporated. Yep. Okay. And is, is mister Jacobson seeing this?
He has not, but if you are in principle okay with it, he'll see a copy of this tomorrow.
Let's see what he thinks because he's gonna have comments, and you're gonna have to send it back to us. Yep. K. So item 10 l, a QuickBooks discussion. So
we're back around to QuickBooks discussion right now. Adrian, do you want to bring anything up? You just want me to talk talk about it? Listen, you're you're the expert here. I'm I'm just a student on this one. I'm just a student on this one. Oh, that is funny. That is awesome. Okay. I may
have heard today from Eric that when disc when discussing Edmunds with a possible consultant, he was told that they did, they'd have to check and see if they had anyone in house that was familiar with it, because they didn't think Oh, perfect.
They Okay. So listen, this is something that I've been proposing for eight years, and I personally think the town the town side of this, we should move to QuickBooks. It's so much easier to manage and operate, it'll be better for us to hire people into that department in the future. We have a software that we're currently sharing with the Board of Education. I'm assuming the Board of Education is going to keep Edmunds because of grant management parts of the software. They're not going to be using the software the way that admins the way that it should be. I'm just going make a motion that we and actually, I don't even think we can make the motion. It's probably a Board of Finance issue. Is it a Board of Selectment issue?
I I think that we make a motion to ask the board of finance to strongly consider going over to QuickBooks, given our recent conversations with consultants. And I and I will say, I know I was the deciding vote to go to Edmonds. And if I had known what I know now, I would have voted differently, especially the fact that I think it
was about knowing what you know now. It's about listening.
No, but listen, if I, if I had heard that, that from our, the QuickBooks person that we ended up talking to previously, and then again,
that she was Eric heard from her and Eric voted for Edmunds.
No, if I had heard that that she was in you know knew our auditor well and the information she gave us this time, I would have voted differently so.
Little more info would have made is that. Is that an apology.
It is an apology to you Jeff for your leadership being ignored. Wow, on this day, Adrian
might make the wall of fame that outstanding person right there. I am impressed. Wow. I'm not. Listen, all kidding aside, this is just an easy, easy move for the community and for the town and for that department. We do not need Edmunds in a $2,500,000 entity like we're running. I will second the motion.
Before you make a final decision, Jeff, can you because you're by far the best QuickBooks person we have here. I mean, the the one concern that has been raised about QuickBooks is the security issues with it and the ability to retroactively change information. Now, I'm not saying that's going to be an issue, but can you just at least talk us through what that means? Well, you just have to put passwords in and lock people out. There's all kinds of security functionality that can be put in place. There's a hierarchy system, correct?
Sure, yeah. You can give people only access to payables. You can give people access. Mean, listen, all we're going operate are accounts payable and that's it.
Look, Eric, didn't you say to me this afternoon when we discussed this briefly that the auditor had said there's just procedures that you have to put in place that make it work,
Correct. Mean, I think it's just something that you need to keep in the back of your mind that the one downside to QuickBooks, and I am not objecting to us going to QuickBooks. And I'll say the same thing I said last time, if it was the town alone, wouldn't have had a problem with us going to QuickBooks originally. It's just the town combined with the school. There were no examples of, you know that combination out there to look at and I didn't want to be the only one out there, you know doing that.
And look, mean hopefully this consultant comes back with a number that we can live with but. I walked out of that meeting feeling like a weight had been lifted off of our shoulders a little bit. So maybe that's me feeling optimistic, but I definitely felt that way. Was a good call by Eric to reach out and and recruit her into the process so.
You know, are things Eric that. You just need to put security controls on and and it's not really a big deal and, be to really honest part of the beauty of QuickBooks is to sit there and you know in our town situation you know you think you have Edmonds lockdown that's not accurate because you're still open and still running things for, you know, an old fiscal year. So anyway, it can all be locked down. You can do it as detailed and as as close to where you want it. All I care about is you reconcile your cash, reconcile cash. That's all I care about.
Yeah, so I am really hoping that this works well with Cheryl Miller and she steps in and gives us assistance getting us on track financially making commercial QuickBooks. I have been having a conversation with one of the principals at Clifton Larson, just because I thought we needed a backup if this doesn't work. So, that is ongoing. He kind of was channeling you this morning when he was talking to me because the very first thing he said was cash is king and he said if we can get your reconciliations done right everything else will work out and you won't have to worry and I'm like I know somebody would be very happy to hear you say that. So, but I'm not suggesting we go that route. I'm just pursuing that in case, you know, contracting with Cheryl Miller does not work. I'm just letting you know that I am having those conversations.
No problem. Once we make the decision and we get it approved by the Board of Finance, should it's just a much it'll be much smoother to get things organized in an appropriate manner, to make the auditor happy and to make us happy and to make the Board of Finance happy. Everyone should be happier. Anyway, I know
Adrian, did you make that motion? Did someone second it, Scott? I seconded it. We are waiting for a vote. But you made the motion and you've seconded it. Now I thought Jeff said he was going to make a motion. I declare I just clarified. Fine, I will make a motion someone else can say I make a motion that we asked the Board of Finance to strongly consider going to quickbooks. That's it. I'll second that. Paul I can check-in. Okay,
Paula seconded. All right, further discussion Jeff, anybody? No? All right, all those in favor, aye. Yay. Excellent. So
let's move on to oops, I'm sorry. No, that was it. So we're gonna move on to approval of minute meetings for Monday, July 11. I guess, is that July 11 and July 18 or is that July 18? One second, let me look at the minutes. July 11 and July twenty July, okay, so 07/11/2022, Monday, 07/25/2022, and Monday, 08/08/2022. So By May. Dennis, go.
Want me to wait? No. You go. Okay. I I was looking at the minutes of your last meeting, which I missed because I was up to dinner with my wife for our anniversary. I I did not make the August 8 meeting. That's the first one I've missed in a long time, but I noticed that you had not yet approved the draft minutes for July 11 and July 25. The twenty fifth, of course, being a special meeting. And I was involved very much in the July 11 meeting because that is the meeting at which the approvals for the charter revision was was done for the most part. And I looked at the minutes of the July 11 meeting and noticed there were some omissions that really ought to be there really ought to be additions to the to to to the description of the what was done with charter revision because it's very important for us to to have a a a paper records of it all that's very accurate and and detailed to some extent. So what I did was I took the July 11 a minute, and I made some additions under item four, which was, I believe, deferred. My recollection was it was deferred until later in the meeting, and it's out of order. It's on page two of the minutes for board and commission presentations. And on that under that item, I have made some
proposed additions, no deletions, just proposed additions, which I believe give a full and sufficient account of what actually occurred at that meeting with regards to the first meeting between the Charter Revision Commission and the Board of Selectmen and then secondly, regarding actions taken by the Board of Selectmen to approve of the final draft report, the final report of the commission and also the the items for the ballot, the ballot questions and I think that the the other thing I I pointed out in these these minutes was that the a reference to the of the two documents I just referred to the final report and also the ballot questions which are II also recommend be attached to the minutes of that meeting just to just to make a more perfect record of what was done regarding the charter revision that's going to be voted on
during a state election on November 8. So I'd ask that you approve the minutes with the additions that I have suggested, including the attachment of the two documents I referred to. And I I thank you much for your attention. Okay.
And if you wanted a motion to that effect, I sent you that motion prior to the meeting. I could read it out if it made more sense. Could Dennis repeat what he just said?
He can't make the motion. I'll sit there and make the motions. I have it in front of me. Going to make a motion to approve the 07/11/2022 regular minutes as amended by Attorney Dennis O'Brien with additions to the Charter Revision final report as well as the proposed ballot questions. Second.
Alright. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. I'm gonna make the next motion. Motion to approve the 07/25/2022 special minute meetings as amended by attorney Dennis O'Brien. I second that. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Motion to approve the August 8 regular meeting minutes. Second.
All those in favor, aye. Okay. Voted five nothing on all of those to get moving. The finance department reports, the only thing that I saw was a budget summary, Eric? That accurate? Yeah, that's Revenue summary, I'm sorry. Revenue Revenue summary. That's the end of that. There was nothing on the budget summary, there was no Town Aid Road update, there was no Town and Cash report. Actually, shouldn't say that. There was a Town tax collector. Well, that's part of the tax collector, I guess. I don't know why that's the truth. Like why isn't that under the tax collector's reports? All those deposits are the tax collector's deposits. That's her report. Anyway, anybody have any questions on those they want to ask Eric for anything? No? Okay. Budget transfers, Eric, I don't believe I saw any. Nope. Okay, so we asked for one before. Adrian requested that the Board of Finance vote on it. No over expenditure report of substance. Okay.
Can we just Eric, can you make sure the Board of Finance just has it in their packet or kick them over something that has the numbers for what our estimated budgeting was for end of last year, so they know how much room they have. Yes, Thank you.
As best we actually know it. As best we know it.
And then Eric, know, there is one report that I would like to talk about. It's a tax collector's report where she shows, the uncollected taxes by tax year, and, you know, are are we putting I know when somebody sells a house, they're sitting there subjected to whatever taxes are outstanding on that, but are there liens or are there are we I mean, are we looking at these reports, Eric, so that we can clean them up and clean the receivables up? Guess I would ask you to go to the tax collector and ask that. Are these truly accurate receivables for the tax years going back to 2007?
You know, can they go away because I'm assuming those cars aren't there anymore? Can you send the residents to collection? Like what is the resolution to this so that report can become, you know, shorter? Okay. Look at that. Okay. So the tax collector has a report for refund requests. I didn't really see any of the forms related to that. Is there any?
I did not see any, so I don't think so.
Okay, so we're not going to vote on those? Okay. The department reports were put in here. I I see the assessor's report, and I and I know we got a letter from a resident, and I know there's a lot of confusion there, a lot of issues related to that letter. Has that been given to the assessor? What letter are you talking about?
Oh, was Eric on that chain? I don't know if he was. Emily Timrick. Timrick. Okay. So I'll I'll get you
I'll get you chain for I understand that, but that letter should be given to you and it should be given to the assessor and the assessor should respond to that letter, you know, in a minimal manner if whatever he deems necessary.
I don't think it was addressed to him. Think it was addressed to I think it's unfair for us to ask him to reply, but I also think at the same time You should see it. What's that? He should see it. I think it's fine to show it to him, but I don't think it's I think it's unfair to ask him to reply it, to be honest, I if I was the you know, given the history between the two of them, think that's only being antagonistic if he does reply, so I don't think it's appropriate she's she's told us where she feels and. We have to make a decision whether we feel that any of those suggestions are appropriate, but I don't think dragging john into this any further is going to help anybody. He should see it is rarely where. Yep but let's not ask him to reply.
Well, if you send it to me, I will send it to John. Sure. I have not seen what you're discussing. And I did put in the packet. You all saw the letter from Paul Klein, who was unhappy that public works blew some debris on the vehicles in his driveway while they were cleaning the roads in preparation for gypsy. I did not see that in the package, but
It was not in the package. Carol, he asked Carol to send it directly to the Board of Selectmen, and so she did. You should have gotten it from Carol about two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago. Right. Okay.
So does anybody have any of the other questions related to any other reports that were presented to us? Okay, Eric, any correspondence? Nothing, nothing that I know of.
All right, public speak. My guess? I'm all set, thanks. Thank
you. Catherine Regaldi Lewis. Hi, thanks. Just to be make sure that Eric knows what he's getting into, I just wanted to be fair to Eric because the only cost that was thrown out there was $133 or $140 But Eric, you should know that we were going to get four of them. So we're talking about over $500 and I just thought it only fair to make sure that you know what Eric? I'll I'll take this one. There will only be one Eric Anderson Memorial. I will sponsor one as well, Eric. So you got two now. Unless I get them for free. Okay. I just wanted to make sure.
While we're on that subject is is I put them up there before for my five mile road race around the lake, and they were never used. People just used the town hall. Or if the school's available, could use the school bathrooms. I'm just saying it might be an opportunity for you save yourself $500 if you're going to have these activities at the school.
We talked about that. I will get back to you. I think we wanted to discuss that a little bit further if we wanted to open the school or not. Yeah, because, well, we had the
town hall open for the road race and everybody waited in line to use the bathrooms at the town hall. Those were We got two of them and they were unused. Nobody used them. Just throwing it out there just from experience having the events at the town hall.
No, actually, that's a good point. If it's something we don't need, why spend the money? Exactly,
exactly. Then you could take that $500 and use it for other parts of Absolutely. The
I personally like the idea of having an Eric Anderson mandible. Me too. I
do. Well, you. That's all. And Jeff, Murray, I will look into that. So you might be absolutely right on that. It might not be necessary at all. Okay, thank you. And then Catherine, what are you getting for the T shirts?
Well, that's another discussion because Mariela had gotten she ordered us, which we have yet to receive. We're just gonna I think they're in. We just haven't gotten them to us. Nice t shirts, but they were about $18 apiece. And I said, no. That's not gonna work because we can't sell them for that. So I found another website and gave it to her so that maybe we could sell them for like $6 or $7 a piece. So I asked her to please look into that because it was we weren't gonna be able to afford that kind of money towards the t shirts because no one's gonna wanna pay that much money.
Yeah, that seems excessively expensive. I mean, I buy the logo shirts for myself. They're about $20 a pop for a bolo, you know, with an embroidered logo. So you should be a lot cheaper than that screen printing. And
I said to her that it doesn't have to be the best of the T shirts. It's really a just a a token for that day, that big day. So I think we should be able to get small a less money for those those.
Can you can you when you get something sorted out with that can you reach out to me Catherine. When I sort out with what The T shirt and what your price point is going to be and.
I have some ideas I just want to talk to you when you get there. And sure I'm actually I'm already know I'll get back to you because I, we have the original that Mary Nella went and I have the one that I found online and gave to her. Before I have her do anything,
I'll I'll send it to you. Yeah. Because we I also we do a lot of T shirt work through, for my for my club. So we sell quite a bit through there. If you can't find a vendor that you get a sample and you're not happy with it and you're still looking, we have a couple of vendors I can point you to check so. Okay, appreciate it. Yeah,
I would also consider using budget printing and embroidery. It's called budget printing and embroidery. They do screen printing work, embroidery, you know, you name it. Their prices have always been reasonable in the past. I've used them multiple times for screen printing jobs. Yeah.
Alright, well so you know what I'll send the ones that I have to you both. The last one I found I think the least amount we could get them for was maybe 7 or 800. That was that was for a 100 T shirts. So
Okay. Okay. And then the last individual is a CD listed as CD on our screen. Kirk Donald? Kirk
Donald. It's it's Kirk Jeff and I'm all set. Thanks. Alright, Kirk. Thanks for showing up.
Alright, so that's it with public speak. So if someone would like to make a motion to go into executive session, you can go into executive session to discuss contracts. Invite Motion to go into executive session at 09:20. Invite Eric and Attorney O'Brien. Yes. Okay.
Somebody going to second that? Second it, I guess. All All those in favor? Aye. Everybody, thank you very much for Good your morning, everyone. I don't know who's in control of the meeting.