Meeting transcript
Public Hearing & Special Town Meeting
September 28, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
I'll take it from you. Good evening, everybody. We're gonna get started. It's 07:00, and it appears that we have the minimum of 25 residents that would be able to both be in this town meeting. So I'll tell you we're here for two purposes. One is to vote on the Ram member from the town of Andover to fill the vacated position, and the other one is to vote on a series of ordinances that we have in front of us. I hope everyone had the opportunity to read those ordinances, and we'll get started. So we're gonna go through to to hold the public hearing led by the board of selectmen,
pursuing by the town charter section four zero four regarding the proposed ordinances, proposed amendment to the town ordinances, the pro proposed repeal ordinances to be considered by the town meeting. And to vote to replace and and or a member of the RAM Board of Education. Okay. It's actually so we're gonna get started. The first section is to choose a moderator for the special town meeting. Any nominations? I'll nominate
Julia nominates Wally Wally Barton and it has been seconded. Elo. Elo. Elo. Just so our secretary has that information. Are there any further nominations? Okay. Wally is the moderator for our Tom meeting. Wally? We have to do a vote. There's no one coming. Okay. Can look for Wally Martin Okay. Here we go. I'm sorry. We have a little bit of confusion as to what we were trying to accomplish. First is a town meeting. We're gonna talk about the ordinances We're to
Here's what we're gonna do. We're going gonna do that. These one at a time and we're gonna allow people to speak about these ordinances.
The first one that we're gonna talk about is ballot one. Shall the town adopt the proposed ethics ordinance and repeal the current town ordinance number five zero one. Would anyone like to speak regarding the ethics ordinance as a majority? Can can someone? Sure. Jeffrey Ballard, 174 Lake Road. Can someone educate me as as being an informed voter as to what we're you know, a summation as to what we're voting like? Sure. The ethics ordinance was proposed, sat there and broke down various issues that an elected official or town employee would be in in an ethical behavior such as taking a bribe or something along that line. So they'd outline various ways to sit there as a performing committee, an ethics committee, and if if someone was identified as having had an ethics violation, you can bring it up to the ethics commission. The ethics commission would do an investigation
and would come back with a determination whether that individual had violated the ethics standards. So it outlines ethics standards for elected officials trying to be more appropriate within government and do a better job. Thank you. That's my understanding also. Okay. Yes, The proposed ordinance was to establish an ethics commission, which we don't have right now. So we don't have any viable organization to sit there and look at any anyone who sits there and comes out and says that, you know, you're in violation of an ethics standard. Okay. Thanks. We're gonna go through each one of these at this point so everybody can answer the question. Thank you. Okay. Ballot number two, shall the town adopt the proposed hearing procedure for citations ordinance? This is a policy and a procedure to allow us to issue citations within the town that we don't currently have the authority to do. So this is establishing a hearing procedure for those citations. Any questions related to this? What are the citations? You can have any type of citation, a blight citation, a driveway violation, various. Well, so for instance,
there was a lot of scuffle about whether or not the state troopers should be issuing town tickets on town roads. Right? Yeah. Because right now if he issues a ticket, the money goes to the state. We can't issue any town tickets unless we have an ord unless we have a citation ordinance in place that allows them to go before committing to so.
Okay. I'm gonna go between my glasses and no glasses because I can't read with my glasses, but I can see all of you with my glasses. I'm officially me by now. So do we have any questions related to this citation issue? Responsible for that. So what was the one that is that we had? Wetlands. Wetlands could issue a fine. And you could sit there and basically, what this commission does is it allows you as a resident that if you are issued a fine, that you can go to this citation board and and and appeal it. So it gives you ability to it gives the town the ability and the legal right to issue a fine, and it gives you as a resident the ability to go to the citation board to appeal that.
So if, like, if it was a true and they issued a parking ticket along the lake, you could go to the board and appeal it. Without the ordinance for the board, you can't issue it. So
Okay. So I I read these on the computer, but I'll give you a very brief on these. This is to appoint appointment of a hearing officer, how the violations are presented and given notice, admission of liability, a hearing procedure for the town and the resident. And it goes into how you can appeal that and any other remedies related to any citations that could potentially be issued by the town. This is a this is something that we needed to do because there is no ability for the town to provide appropriately for any fines and giving you as a resident an appropriate ability to appeal. That's what we're trying to get accomplished here. Julia?
Have the ability to go forward. And and just so we're clear, like the hear the hearing officer once this is goes if this goes through, we have to then have a hearing officer. The hearing officer cannot be an elected official. It cannot be on any other town board at all. They have to be completely neutral. Okay? Yes, sir.
The board of selectmen this board of selectmen had discussions related to that issue about trying to do a local traffic authority because of the speeds that were going around. And we were trying to determine whether if we were going to if 90% of the people who speed in town are residents of town, what we were trying to do is if you're gonna speed, you may as well pay a smaller fine for the town and hope that you improve your behavior. But the town attorney told us we didn't have any
So, I mean, to be honest with you, this is sort of baby steps. Right? So the first step is to try to get this ordinance in place, and then at that point, you can try to find a hearing officer. Because believe it or not, not a lot of people are dying to be in that job. And then once we get someone in there, and they're comfortable, and it's working for other things, then we will look at doing something on a local basis. At which point the trooper, yes, would have a different violation book and could do that, but we'd still have to pass all of that. If it's on a town If it's on a town town If it's on a town road at that point, then it continues. Sure. But in general, the first step is to see if this whole thing works. Don't, even if this passes, we don't have traffic ordinances on the books. That would be a second stage.
Right now we just wanna see if this is gonna work because it has to be a volunteer, it can't be a paid physician, and they, again, they can't be attached to anything else. So this is just baby steps. So
please don't take this as work issued in traffic by. This has nothing to do with traffic violations or anything else. This is this has to do with P and C, wetlands, if we can sit there and do the blight ordinance, those types of functions that we already have ordinances in place. This has nothing to do with you driving too fast on the road. If you get stopped going too fast on the road or going through a stop sign, it will be a state traffic issue.
Robert. Robert Hamburger. Bob Hamburger, Shoddy Mill Road. So up until now, as I understand it, any commission or similar body within the town that had regulatory authority is able to issue a citation if specific regulations are violated, like you said, like like p and c, etcetera. No? That's
why we need this. That's why we need this? Okay. This is this is town attorney, doctor Brown. Yeah. Thank
you very much. That's a great question. Okay. The the the general statutes have three different statutes that cover citations. Citations being ordinances for the most part that that call for a fine if you disobey them. Okay. This particular one that we're putting forward tonight covers just about everything except zoning matters, land use matters, and traffic. It just about everything else. You can have an ordinance. Oh, neighborhood we have I was town attorney in Mansko for many years, and we have neighborhood nuisance ordinance. We're calling for fine. Under state statute, you can fine people up to $250 for a violation of the town ordinance. But it doesn't include zoning. It doesn't include traffic. If this works, we'll probably be coming back to you or the board will be coming back to you. It's not my call, but they could be coming back to you with another couple of ordinances. One for zoning planning and zoning, including wetlands, and one for traffic. This this is this catches just about every every possible violation you could have. If you wanna put an ordinance in place that calls for a fine, you're gonna you you you have to use this and give somebody an opportunity to have a hearing to testify. But if they don't pay the fine and they don't win the hearing, then the town has the ability to lean their property or and and and and to collect on it. It's like a court judgment. You go to you have to go to court, pay $8, and you get a judgment against the person if they don't pay a fine. It's a way for the town to enforce ordinances for public safety for all kinds of reasons, but but it doesn't include someone planning and zoning or
traffic violations. But that could be done would have would have to be done by a subsequent proposal that would have to come before the town meeting first.
Well, your your question your answer is a good one, but it actually raises another question. We've had an existing play with the bench, which is on the agenda. I know because I helped draft and pass it from planning and zoning. So you're saying that we really had no enforcement mechanism prior to something like this being put in place? Yes. You did because that's a special law.
The Blake statute provides for its enforcement. You have to have a hearing known. And up to now, you have no hearing officer. You could appoint a hearing officer under that particular ordinance by itself, but it's a lot easier to do it with a general because you're not gonna be able to find hearing officers all over the place. It's hard to find somebody to do it because it's it's difficult. But in Mansfield, there were plenty of people volunteering to do it, but your question is a good one. The blight ordinance can be enforced anyway. There's also a statute that allows for blight ordinances to be enforced through liens on the property that has been blighted. K? It's a little bit complicated, and I came here to try to clarify along with the rest of the people up here. Thank you.
Okay. Are there any other questions related to that specific issue, which is really just the establishment of the procedures for citation ordinances, for citations to be issued within our town. Any other questions related to that? Okay. We're gonna move on to ballot number three. Shall the town adopt the proposed blight ordinance and repeal town ordinance number two dash 17? So this relates to the old blight ordinance and a establishment of a new blight ordinance with some modifications. So within this new blight ordinance, there is various issues for what classifies as blight or blighted.
Actually, our current town administrator was involved in along with you in developing this. I believe he was chairman of planning and zoning at the time, Eric Anderson. The original boy orders was limited to abandoned properties. What this does is it it just includes other properties, properties that are not necessarily abandoned in an effort to control blight in the town. So it adds on that that item, and there's a few more definitions in there regarding blight and what amounts to blight. Hopefully, if if the situation arises where a property is blighted and the person living in in the prop living on the land, hopefully, all it all it takes is a, you know, a call a phone call or a notice from the town authorities, and the person will comply. The blight ordinance only comes into play in the in the situation in the breakdown situations where compliance cannot be had. Of course, you know, the way the ordinance was first drafted, it it applied to abandoned properties, so people that were not here in town. But this expands into other properties.
And this was recommended, I believe, by board of. Thank you.
Okay. So I'm trying to make this so that you can understand a little bit. So where Dennis sat there and said there are there are definition changes. It does move from an abandoned property to all properties, and then it lists out additional blight or blighted issues related to debris and some other items that could have a resident run afoul to this ordinance. And therefore, the this ordinance could be applied to that particular resident in that particular resident's property. So any other questions related to this? Sure. Yes, sir. That's We're back. Five. On page three Yeah.
Well, if I remember correctly, the the enforcement officer is the planning and zoning Zoning enforcement officer. Zoning enforcement officer. So to be really honest, I believe that that person is an employee of the town and doing their job going around the town really is the eyes for everyone that's up here on this board. So if they sat there and determined that there was an issue, I way it is to stretch and enforce. So Yeah.
So just just to be clear though, you know, the person that would be coming out to your property and saying, hey, there's a problem here. You still have a mechanism because they're a town employee to come back to the town and say, hey. I'm not I don't feel this is appropriate. This person is picking on me. And the town is is gonna have to look at that for you. You know? They're not they're not the last stop. You know?
Well, I mean, let's be honest. I'm not even issuing any kind of citation. Well George, if you look at b under that section, it lays out exactly what he has to do. He has to first give you a written notice. It has to tell you what you violated and specify what the time interval you have to correct that violation. And it gives a time range. It's gotta be a minimum of fifteen days, and he can give you a maximum of ninety days initially. And he's gotta send it to you, essentially, certified mail, return receipt requested. Once you That's fine. That's the way it should be. Right. That's what he's required to do. Write that
We we understand your concern, but then there's also the issue of what we just discussed that you can have the right to appeal any of this. So, you know, this is this is not a we are not in a situation where that zoning enforcement officer is gonna come and say, you absolutely have to he's going to tell you this is the rules. This is what we would like to see happen.
If you choose not to do it, you have the appeal process that's available to you. But but again, even if even if he writes you a if he writes you a citation, he has to give you a minimum of fifteen days according to section b and a maximum of 90 intent. The intent is good. But no. That's not the intent. That's the wording. Sentence that sentence could be removed. No. Because enforcement brings you to section b, which then explains what enforcement enforcement looks looks like. Like. It It says, says, such such notice notice shall. Shall Enforcement simply says, he can then to enforce it, he has to give you a citation with a time frame and a remedy request. Question.
That's enforcement. That's all that means. You may not like the sentence. I gotta make the forward word. You may not like the sentence, but that that's the legalese of the whole thing. But it is true that you have an ability to go through and you have next steps. So any other is to go to a barn and complain that you have an opening that's not closed all the time. And we would hope that if you went and you if a citation officer or a zoning enforcement officer chose to do that, you would come to this board or you would come to a future board and they would sit there and and discuss it and sit there and and say that's not appropriate. There are a lot of three sided outbuildings in town whether it's for hay or wood or I have tractors in in some. So
we're not talking about that. This is about residential property where somebody has the windows all knocked out or doors off the bed, whatever. And believe it or not, we do have. Alright. Number six, it's not included.
Listen. We're not going around looking for this stuff. We're only trying to address we have had some issues here in town that we were unable to clear up because people were trying to skirt skirt the, you know, skirt skirt the the specific zone. Now listen. I live a half a mile off the road, and sure as heck, nobody's driving up my driveway, but but if I'm doing something that, you know, I'm I'm I'm I start a a salvage yard in my backyard, that's not appropriate either. You know what I mean? So there's a happy medium here. We're just trying to find the middle of the road. We all moved out to this town because it's world, and I don't wanna be left alone. We We wanna wanna enjoy our property and put in our gardens and stuff. That that's true. But some of us can't be. We we live in more residential areas,
and there are tremendous examples of what we're trying to do. Center Street is a perfect example of what we're trying to accomplish here. We're trying to put in something with teeth so we can sit there and make something better about this time. This has nothing to do with a few all of the residents who have large pieces of robbery are in the corners and and have farms. We're not they're not we're not gonna look. I mean, who's gonna come to your farm and go back 50 acres and find something? So we can't. This is this
There was a recent supreme state supreme court decision where the state supreme court decided that a zoning enforcement officer or any other enforcement officer cannot go on a person's property unless they're invited there by the owner. Okay? So that makes it very unlikely that that the town is going to be able to enforce something when it's way off far away from the road and can't be seen. It's because it's very, very difficult for the enforcement officers to gain access to the property. They have to have permission. That is something that came down about eight years ago. It's very new.
I assumed a problem, but it's not there. I apologize. Alright.
Yes, sir. On the very first page of your ordinance under a,
the last one down, one, two, three, four, five. Number six, public health hazard. Who makes the decision if something's a public health hazard specifically? And how can articulate how you do that for me?
The zoning enforcement officer will determine if it's public health hazard and if they need to, they would bring into play the Eastern Health High High Eastern Health Highlands. Highlands. Highlands. Health District
officer determines any additional Do you have any of that in print so the residents here in Andover know what you're looking for?
Well, the zoning enforcement officer would sit there and do that. And then if you had if you had an issue and you wanted to appeal, you would appeal that issue and it would be determined. No. That wasn't the answer to the question. Do you have in print for all the residents of Andover
what a public health hazard is so the residents of this town know what a hazard is prior to the occurrence? So the the the town
in and of itself does not decide that. It's not decided by us in Andover. We're part of a re we're part of a regional we're part of a regional district. Okay. Okay? And that regional district works with the state, and the state says, this is a public health hazard. This is this is what we're concerned with. And the reason it's not print and available everywhere, although you could reach out to Eastern Highlands and ask them something specific, it think is because those things change.
You know? Only to enforce something that you don't know what it is, sir.
I don't. And that's that's where a professional comes in, and that's why we're part of a regional district so that that person who's educated and continuing to go to education through the state and staying up on this stuff, they make the determination. It's not willy nilly us because we don't know. Tell that individual that you guys at this board decide what the problem is long before somebody comes and issues a citation, that you would decide whether it's No. We don't. An issue with that. No. We don't. The Eastern Eastern Highland Health District would have the final settlement stuff. Oh.
So this is still a gray area of what you consider health hazard?
I I don't consider it a gray area because the town pays someone to make that determination. Our tax dollars go to pay Eastern Health District to sit there and make a determination.
And I can give you an example, actually. Do you remember in the state of Connecticut, we used to put MTB in our gasoline before we went to ethanol? Do you remember that? Yes. Just a couple years ago, when you went to the gas station and said MTB, we never had ethanol, was not considered a public health hazard, was perfectly acceptable, everybody in the state of Connecticut used it. They then realized that MTB was leaking out of the tanks and poisoning the water supply. Yes. That became a public health hazard. The state determined that gasoline supplies could no longer have it, and the state switched to ethanol. A perfect example of how things can change. You know, something that was state policy for years,
then flipped and all of a sudden became a no no. So this is a blight ordinance for residential homes. Now all I asked you is on a residential home, how would one know what is considered a
And again, that's that's for a professional at the at the high level to determine. It's not something that we have a say in this. So
no one here on the board would be able to issue a citation for an outcome? No. Can't remember that's written into the light ordinance, so we can't Your
issue is really it's a judgment call. It's a judgment call made by a professional,
not a member of street. I I just I'll put another example. Let's just say you have a neighbor that has a failed septic tank in a leaching field and you can smell it from your house. It's leaching odor into your property. Yep. That's what Eastern Highlands Health District deals with. They deal with septic tanks and septic systems and they would take enforcement. That would be a public health That would be something that they would deal with. Primarily that's what this refers to? Correct. Thank you, chief.
Very good, sir. Alright. Any other questions? Yes, I see some in the back. Yes. They have to be in the public view.
Structure built in so that the enforcement officer has more of an enforcement tool rather than make this a blanket ordinance affecting everyone because that is a fairly extensive list that was just read under the definition of debris, for example. So I don't think that this is particularly appropriate if it's one thing if something is posing a hazard or safety or a sight line issue. But other than that, I think, again, this is somewhat intrusive. Thank you. Thank you.
B, on the second page, top of the page, I object to the word jump comprised of equipment, automobile, boats, and recreational vehicles. You know, we have young people with no machines. They switch parts. They have one for parts. They all share the parts. We have some people with three valuable antique trucks. Another person, they just have three not valuable trucks in their yard. I have 50 acres, so I'm not so worried about myself. But a lot of people are doing their best. They're not really breaking the law. Somebody may have a rusty unregistered truck, but they need it for plowing. And they may have a rusty plow that sits there nine months in the area. And, you know, we're losing control if somebody out of out of town is deciding whose scrap metal is should be removed and another person's can stay there because nobody mentions it.
You have to address, and I'm I'm gonna go back to your question for one second. There is a a blight ordinance in effect right now. This is just making certain changes to it to improve it as far as the the definitions of certain items. So it's really more from the standpoint of it's not just abandoned properties, it's all properties. So if you have a property and you have debris that's that's visible from a public private from the street, the zoning enforcement official can ask you to clean it up. I mean, this is not where we're gonna go in and do anything crazy. And if I was a zoning enforcement officer, I would go up to you. I would ask you, can you sit there and and and move this back to an area where it's not visible? That's what they're gonna ask you to do. So all we're asking for is is the community is to suggest have that ability to be able to do that. That's it.
Yes, sir. On the debris, the first line is so open ended. Anybody in charge of that sentence has the ability to adjust that any way they personally want. Material which is incapable of immediately performing the function. Who makes that decision if a material on somebody's property in Andover is incapable of performing the function that they saved it for? You or the zoning officer? Can you I asked you, can you size a car? I'm not talking about car. It doesn't say car. It doesn't say car. It you see how open ended this is? Material, which is incapable. So if somebody has some blue stone that they stacked up to save, if it has a crack in it, are you gonna say they can't save their blue stone? If they have some sand they're putting on there for their driveway,
are you gonna say You can see it. This is so open open and all of the details. No. Absolutely. This is a very broad situation. No. It's not. You do not like the word even. You do not have to vote for this. That's what this is. No. But everybody in the Andover is not here. No. We have this group. This is what happens in the town of Andover. Right. This is what happens. People don't know what you're doing in the dark when they're late at work. That is absolutely not true. This is still for There's a lot of people that work nights. Have done an incredible job of getting all the information out to every resident. If you choose not to go online and look at it, that is that is your issue. I don't know if it was also available. This is too open ended, guys. Okay.
Hey, look. And keep in mind, know listen,
I Who am I who am I listening to? My name's Adrian Mandeville. Thank you. And We're all board of selecting you. Would you like to see No. No. I
got my mask. You know, it's look. I I own 56 acres. I don't want someone coming to my house and looking at my plow that I use I have a plow that goes behind my tractor that I use to clean up. Right? I use it a couple times a year. If somebody comes out and says, hey. That's junk. And I think they give me a thing for it. Right? Let's say I park it down front. Because right now my driveway's by the way, it's back. But let's say I park it down front and someone gets me grief about it, I have the right, just as you were, to appeal that decision and ask my peers to take a look at it. Right? And say, hey, this isn't this isn't fair. You the peers, just the people here on the board? No. No. So
you you can go to planning zoning. You can go and and argue this stuff. You you have a chance to to have this conversation. I am at least talking about my property. I'm talking about the town of Handover because I came from a much different issue to learn about trees. Sure. You're dead trees, and I haven't heard a word about it. That's why I came. I haven't heard a word about life for dead trees.
We're trying to take care of as many trees as we can right now. Are you talking about on private property?
I'm talking about dead trees that could cause what you deemed as a hang on. You're just don't get help out. Yes. A public if you treat them, kill someone. Especially when you walk around the lake.
When you're trying to enjoy the afternoon on Sunday, the tree crushes him. I I have to tell you, I was I I totally get it. I was actually at a friend's house, and, you know, I was at a friend's house on Sunday, and we were just having barbecue, and literally a tree dropped in their back yard. Good. Good. It's one of those asks. Somebody doesn't matter what land it was on? Well,
we are trying to Eric, how much we spent on trees this year? A lot.
What means nothing? And did I ask a question? If your ordinance for blight doesn't outline what a health hazard is, that means you can make it up as you go?
No. So regarding, sir, regarding trees, if you look on page one a five, that deals specifically with trees, and that was included because the town recognizes that we do have an enormous problem with dying trees
that are potential hazards. Yeah. The death's not under safety hazard. That's on its own separate line.
Right? But that falls under the blight ordinance and is something the town can potentially enforce. Okay. So does that address your question? Part of it. Okay. Okay. Alright. Any further questions on this?
It would be a we would have to pass another ordinance to address noise. And and I'm gonna be honest with you. I wouldn't be in favor of that because noise is noise ordinances are notoriously hard to enforce. You have to have somebody running around with a decibel meter and have to be a certain distance from it, and then the person can argue that it wasn't calibrated soon enough. I mean, it's a nightmare. So and again, we're a rural community. So we're we're trying to address these things as gently as possible, but as needed. So Okay.
Robert, one last one. One last thing. Bob Hamburger, Jottie Mill Road. So just for a point of clarification, we've discussed at fair length that the blighted materials, the piles of shrubbery and junk cars and things like that have to be visible from a public right of way. So if, for example, my neighbor was sloping property and his backyard can't be seen from the road, if he decides to pile it up with differentials and old transmissions, and it can't be seen from the road, but I can see it from my property, and it reduces my property value if I try to sell it, that's not covered by this ordinance. Is that correct?
Sorry, ask that question again. So that's not quite correct because the definition for debris says which are in public view. So an adjoining property property could could technically technically be be public public view. View.
Good. But you would have to make a complaint and then ask the zoning enforcement officer to come on your property. So it's not strictly then from public right away. It would require a complaint. For you.
If your neighbor wanted to sit there and make a complaint, they would have to make that complaint to the zoning enforcement officer. That doesn't mean the zoning enforcement officer has to has to deal with it. It's a zoning enforcement officer. He has he has the ability to to decide what he deals with and what he doesn't.
If I might add, ever since that decision I talked about from the Supreme Court, state Supreme Court on not allowing zoning officials to go on property when they're not invited to go on, a lot of times, the zoning agents and zoning actions when they're trying to clean up a property, junkyard, and stuff like that. A lot of that is complaint oriented because a lot of those things are driven by complaints. And the complaining party is often the neighbor. So if if the if the the if if the blight can be seen from a neighboring property, then, yeah, it is actionable under this ordinance. That's correct, doctor. One last stop. Okay? Alright. If
you wanna call it that, do you have anything on record where a property reduced its value, where you lowered the tax that you charged the resident because you determined there was blight on the property so its value went down and the neighbor's value went down you actually had to lower what we charge those people for property tax. We had to reduce the property tax on those homes because someone in the midst of it was deemed blight. Do we have that on record anywhere, sir? I do not believe we have any of that on record. So where Listen. If it was on record, it would be in the assentance. Where do we come off saying that Blythe will devalue the property and the neighbor's property if we do not have on record a property and the neighboring property literally dropped in value and the taxes went down? Where does this come up? I understand It's my speculation. No. I understand. That's that's not their language. That's mine. Right. No. I understand that. But I'm getting to the bottom of this. If the property values are decreased because somebody has a pile of brush that you're unhappy with, so does that mean all the properties around there that were worth 300,000 are only worth 250 and the town was forced to drop the tax bill and charge those clients less money for their property because a particular neighbor had a blight issue. Is that what we're here to believe?
Is that what you're here to believe? Yeah. That's what I'm reading.
The blight will cause a drop property value. Isn't that why we're all The
appeal would be the board that would decide if an assessment goes up or down, not this board. What is the whole reason the blight ordinance is being brought forward? Because we would like to put some teeth into the fact that we have properties within this town that are not well maintained. And what is the what is the problem with that, nuts and bolts, sir? Nuts and bolts of it? Yes. Have you looked at Center Street? Have you looked at 12 Center Street? Did you ban the
the homes on Center Street are no longer saleable for what they should be? I would I would almost guarantee they are not getting what they could. Okay. So those people that are stuck with this problem of of being given a tax reduction, reduction in their taxes because this occurred?
Argumentatively, they could file How much is the The problem is we can't
if if if we start going on that path saying, We're gonna lower the properties. It's if the town, us as a town, we should protect other residents in their properties. If we had this person at 12 Center Street that, I mean, that place was left with wide open. It was, it wasn't boarded up, wide open doors. We had kids in there, messing around. We had a fire in there one night and we, the town had no teeth to approve that and all these neighbors have to live there and go to bed at night wondering if they're gonna, the house is gonna burn out. If I can ask, who owns 12 Center Street? That's not a public. It's not a public issue. It's not a public issue but what the problem is, there was a trench in the back where the previous homeowner excavated for the well that was wide open. It was wide open. So that is the type of stuff that we're do. My listen. For all of you on the for all of you on the street I just read this paragraph
just something that and it just seems so to pass. You don't have to vote for it. Vote no. Don't argue with us over it. If you don't wanna vote for it, please vote no. I'm okay with it. Well, listen. But I was on Center Street, I would wanna enjoy my property and not have to Those are all the things that go on. So we've
currently had a blight ordinance in place since 2017. And to my knowledge, the Planning and Zoning Commission and the CEO actually enforced something against the total of four properties within the town. The only one, to my knowledge, that was remotely controversial is we did have a problem with a farm that had two barns that were really badly decayed and that were leaning, and that we had repeated complaints from the resident state troopers that kids were partying in there. Between the time we issued the citation for the blight and the time they were able to address it, one of those structures, which the kids were partying in, fell down on its own, which is a pretty good indication that we probably waited too long to enforce something with that. We've gone after several other abandoned buildings that we were having problems with squatters. We all live here. None of us wanna come down like a hammer on our neighbors. These are things that get used selectively, but it is a tool in the arsenal, and and that's all it is. It may not be something you agree with. We as a town have failed pretty much identical ordinance to this twice in the past, and then we passed a much watered down version about five years ago. Now, when I was on the zoning commission, we looked at that and said, okay, there were a few things that were clear that we could enforce with it that we thought it was in the public good to enforce, and they did so. You know, I mean, you are putting a certain amount of faith in public officials and public employees
that they'll act responsibly in the town's best interest. That's correct. I mean, there's always some judgment. There's judgment in many things that we do as town officials. You know, again, you may be for this, you may be opposed to this, that's certainly your choice.
Thing. Thank you. Alright. Well, we're gonna we're gonna end discussion on this item. We're gonna move down to ballot number four. Shall the town adopt the proposed event and use of town property ordinance? I'm gonna let Jeff Murray speak to this issue.
So we've had a couple issues, especially this year. Most recently, about a month ago, we had an individual well, actually, just take a step back. We have a we have an event permit form that we have to fill out. If somebody wants to come and have a race in town or a special event using the rail trail or or town property, they have to fill out a form. It has to be approved by the rec commission. It has to be approved by state trooper, the fire department, and and the board of select. Recently, we had an individual come in the town hall. He had an event on Saturday. He came in on Thursday, fill out the application when he knew that he had ninety days to do it. And he ran the event.
And it was not signed off. The fire department did not know about it. The police, the trooper did not know about it. We did not know about it, and the rec commission did not know about it. This ordinance put some teeth that we can keep, good watch on what's going on and coming through town. Number one, traffic. Recently, two weeks ago, we had the Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut relay that went on the rail trail all the way to Rhode Island. We had the the Hartford Marathon Foundation came to us. It was all discussed, approved. We had cert at all the crossings because we can't have events in town and have people coming across the roads on a busy Saturday and and having accidents with people hitting pedestrians and stuff. We need to know what events are going through town. We don't we don't have two events going at the same time and we just wanna keep a better handle on what's going on with that and there's been a couple issues where we had a couple of promoters promised they were gonna give some money to some organizations in town and they didn't follow through with that promise. This put some teeth into that. If they do not follow through and said they use the trails in the back of the school and they don't clean them up afterwards or if there's any damage back there, just put some teeth in for for the board of selectmen in the town to actually
impose a fine and and get some money back for some damages if they're resigned in the property.
Any questions related to this item? Okay. We're gonna move on to ballot number five. Shall the town adopt with the proposed resignation and replacement of any town official ordinance or appeal town ordinance number zero one dash two three. So this this ordinance is already in place as a minor ordinance. We're just making it a major ordinance for this one. Any questions? So this deals with the resignation and replacement of television. So how it has to go? I mean, basically, in the past, we've had some issues with resignation letters not going through the appropriate channels. The goal of this ordinance board of selectmen and so we can make decisions as to how to replace
that elected official. So that's all this ordinance is really trying to do. It's trying to codify exactly how we expect resignations to go through the channels. So we put this in the ordinance to go to the tongue of heart. Any questions?
Okay. Let's move on to ballot number six. Shall the town shall the town amend town ordinance number zero six dash zero one, regional council of elected officials. This ordinance is to sit there and change the wording so that in the past, you know, this was voted on in 1966. It said the ordinance requiring a representative of the regional council meeting first selectman is repealed and deleted and replaced with exception two of the representatives who said regional council shall be designated by the board of selectmen. So this is an opportunity for the board of selectmen to determine whether the town administrator or some other member of the board of selectmen should be on that regional council.
Any questions related to that item? Okay. Number seven, shall the town amend town ordinance number seven four dash zero two prohibiting excavation of town roads or right of ways. So this item, I'm gonna actually let Gerard speak to this one. Sure.
So there was originally in 1974 an ordinance put in place that said anytime you excavate in the town's right of way, in other words, on the town's property, you have to have permission from the town in writing, you have to post a bond, and you have to pay a fee. Well, the old fee used to be $5, and if we're sending a professional out issuing a permit and going through the process, it costs the town a lot more than $5 to process that. So what this does is it sets in place what the bond requirement is for that, and then secondarily, it sets the fee to be $100 for that action. And the third thing it does is it puts in place a fine if you don't do that. Because one of the problems we have is that when you do something in the town right away and you screw up a town road, it tends to cost you as the taxpayers a lot of money because we're the ones that go out, public works has to go out and fix it. So this does basically
three things. It ups the fine for doing something in the town right away without permission. It sets an initial fee of a $100 for a permit to do something in the town right away, and it puts a bond requirement in place for digging in the right of way of up to $5,000. Anybody have any questions about that? Okay. So, again, we're just simply increasing the fee for a violation of we had a previous fine of a $100 for anybody that caught got caught basically doing a driveway apron without first pulling a a permit. Permit. The reason this is critical is because probably our leading complaint or one of our leading complaints for residents is drainage and water flowing down their driveway or conversely the town having to deal with water flowing down your driveway into the town right of way. And that's usually alleviated by pulling a permit and then the public works supervisor goes out and inspects it prior to paving, you know, and explains to the paver what the town standards are and how it should be done. So this basically just ups the fine to the max we're allowed to to find people, which is $250, which is still a lot less than our cost to correct something if it causes a problem with the town real quick. Questions?
Okay. Ballot number nine, shall the town appeal town ordinance number 56 dash o two change? Of the fee for an appeal to the zoning board of appeals. Eric.
I don't have that one in front of me, but I think the old fee on the books was either $2 or $5 for a ZBA appeal, which, you know, might have been appropriate in 1956, but certainly isn't appropriate in 2022. So that changes that fee amount.
Anyone have any questions related to that? What's the bill? Okay. So let me sit there and and read this. So change of the fee for an appeal to the zoning board of appeals voted by the town meeting, 04/05/1956. And we're changing it to ordinance fixing terms and methods. No. That's not it. So is there any details of it? So
currently so this is one of those things where in 1956, the town put an ordinance in place with a fee And at some point later, they added another ordinance which enabled the board of selectmen and the board of finance to set fees for zoning issues, ZBA issues, and weapons issues. But they never took this off the books. So this one basically just changes that so it works back to the language that exists in later ordinance. Does that make sense?
Okay. So now that the time of attorney explained it to me, this is just a repeal of this section of our ordinances, number fifty six zero two. So it's been replaced. We're just repealing language. It should have been repealed when it got replaced previously. Okay. Valid item number 10. Shall a town appeal town ordinance number six zero two sixty dash o two fixing terms and method choosing representatives on the Capital Region Planning Agency?
So again, historically, the Planning and Zoning Commission of each town in the Capital Region selected one of its members that then sat on the Regional Capital Planning or Zoning Commission, essentially. But that hasn't been in place since, like, the eighties, so this should have been been repealed about forty years ago. There just frankly isn't that agency, so there's no reason to have that ordinance on the books anymore. Is there an ordinance ordinance that does governors?
Not within an ordinance, but there is a Capital Regional Council of Governments that has a board of directors, and that board of directors there's also a there's a planning agency within that, but they're basically all professional staff at this point that reports back to the overall board of governors of the Capital Regional Council of Governments, of which each town has a representative. In Andover's case, technically, I am, but one of the things we did looking through these ordinances is realized technically, per our ordinances, it had to be the first do to We're We're So Right.
We're trying to repeal that one. All we're doing is repealing the old language pointing to an organization that no longer exists.
So we have to match the old language to repeal the language better.
That in both cases, they be nominated from the floor. And they are Brian Clayton and Eric Chachenko are the two that have said that they are interested in this position. After that, Does anyone want to nominate Martin Clayton? No worries. Nominate Martin Clayton. Is there a second? And first and seconding, your name, please? Thank you. Are there any other nominations for this position? Are there any other nominations for this position? Third and final time, are there any further nominations for this position? Hearing none, we will now move on to vote. When you came in Excuse me?
I have been in the past on the Board of Finance, where I was on for four budget cycles. At that time, I was liaison to the Rank Board of Education for a portion at that time. So I feel that I know the ropes a little bit about how that works. I sat in on the teachers RAN Teachers Union contract negotiation at that time. I was also on the Capital Improvement Plan Committee for three years. I also volunteered at have question.
Excuse me. What are you what are you what how do you stand on the the recent proposal to re turf the athletic fields of RAM?
There are a number of considerations there. It's a long standing problem. Even when I was the liaison with the Board of Editor at RAM, it was an issue. Long The standing problems with drainage, which I'm sure you heard about, and damage to the field. The I had a long conversation with Laurie Blake, who was our other representative here from town, about it. She's been up on it for a number of years or as long as she's been on board. She's an advocate of this. I'm small factions going against each other, a very small number of votes deciding whether it goes one way or another. And with a sizable $3,500,000 price tag for this particular item, I think it would be a shame if we didn't have a consensus of voters. So the first thing is that rather than having 20% of our voters come out and vote on this, we'd like to have a true consensus, which means people talk to their friends and their neighbors so that we get an accurate opinion on whether we should go forward with this. Then there's two other areas. One would be the financing of it, and the other would be the possibility of what I'm gonna call unintended consequences. As far as the unintended consequences, you may have heard that there are some concerns out there about
increased leg injuries due to the switch to turf. There are some questions about whether the drainage issue will rise again in spite of what's going on here. There are some environmental concerns. I'm not up on this item to know whether these concerns are enough to tip one way or the other. I will point out that there are surrounding towns that have switched to turf. And if it were completely crazy, I don't think they would have done that. So places like Tomlin, who replaced Tomlin from time to time South Winter, Wethersfield, those folks have gone to church. And so I think it's up to the individual perspective as to whether you vote yes or no.
Pretty annoyed that they could graduate knowing considerably less than I knew when I graduated. Children today are not smarter than I was back then. They can learn a lot more than they do. By the time I got through ninth grade, I had had three full years of Latin, two full years of French, a full year of Balfour, and a full year of Lake Geometry. I don't see that happening at all here. Now I hated Latin, but I today, I find it very useful. Do you have a question for Eric? Yeah. Academic rigor.
At age 17 when I was a senior in high school, and I look at what she knows as a senior in high school, she's way ahead of me. So
Hello. Hi. My name is Brian Clay, and I'm gonna try to be quick because I know this meeting is is running long. I've been in handover for ten years with my family. I have three kids. One just graduated from RAM last year. One's in RAM, and one's in handover elementary. The main reason I put my name up to come and be a member of this board was that there are a number of things that I'm concerned about and I wanna maintain. There was a question around academic curriculum. For those of you who don't know, Ram last year was ranked number 22 out of all high schools in the state of Connecticut. Part of why I wanna be on the board is to either make sure it maintains or goes up. Because that has a huge impact on what happens for our kids after high school. The second thing was, as was asked, there are a number of initiatives going on throughout the country and in this state that I feel strongly about. Some of them are the CRT, some of them are common court. And I'll just stand up here and say, I'm against As it stands and as it's being put up.
I'm used to be against the core curriculum. I've seen it now, through my daughter, through my sons, and I'm not against it anymore. Am I a supporter? No. But I'm not against it. Why is that important? Because that means, number one, I hope the children are able to change my mind, and that I'm flexible, and that I'm thinking independent. My background is that in pipe industry. I've been an executive at multiple large insurance companies, Travelers, and CNA. My experience is running $25.30, $4,550,000,000 dollar projects in departments. So I'm used to seeing big numbers and understanding how to interrogate a budget to get the maximum value out of your dollar. And that's what I'd doing if I was elected to the board. I believe there was a question around the field. I can't dispute any of the information that was presented previously. Those are the basic facts. But what I'll answer the question as is, from my perspective. Number one, I'm a supporter of athletics in high school. And so if you're gonna support athletics in high school, the kids need a safe place to play.
I'm also not an expert in how to fix the current issue. It has been there for a significant period of time, and it continues. If you go there today, guess what? The JV games today for soccer had to be moved because the area was unplayable. So I am a proponent of fixing this issue. As it relates to what's the best way to fix it, the current board voted to to go with the field. It is big. But it's not a lot of money over time if you spread it out. If I was on the board, and the information was presented as it was to the board, I would have likely raised my hand and said yes as well.
Not because I'm interested in them having this brand new field, but when you look at safety, when you look at overall cost, and you look at having and continuing to be able to continue to provide these types of things to our kids, to the kids of Andover, it made the most sense. I'm hoping I kept it in time. I think I answered the questions. Any additional questions?
There are no property owners here tonight. They're all voters. So, in all of you Anybody need a pen?
36 yes, seven no, two blank. Number three, proposed blind ordinance, 30 yes, 15 no, one blank. Number four, Eric Schifenkel, 25, four blank. A motion to adjourn this meeting is now quarried. So moved. Second. Motion to be made, second to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Please, the advice adjourned. Thank you for attending.