Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting
March 14, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Thank you.
Okay, I'm going to call to order the Board of Selectmen regular meeting for Monday, 03/14/2022. And we're going to get started with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. We're gonna move on to public speak. We're gonna get started with Kathy Palazzi she's up first.
I'm actually okay. Mike has nothing to say. We're gonna listen tonight. Thank you for everything you do. Oh, thanks. Joanne Ebert. All set, thank you.
All right. There's a phone number and I'm assuming Dennis, is that you 2345? That's me. Thank you. Amanda? All set, thank you. Linda Fish? All set. All right. Diane Choquette. I'm all set thanks. And Eric are you with us? Yes, I'm here.
Excellent. Let's get started. Additions and deletions to the agenda. Anybody? I have one.
Would like add something, yes. The Longlow Road turf contract with LNC consultants.
Okay, I'll second that. And then I'll also put on the agenda, I'm going to move that we move to 9F, or actually, I'll put yours in 9F, Scott, if that's okay. Scott's will go in 9F. Mine will go in nine gs executive session to discuss but not act upon a claim filed by an employee against the town. Anybody want to second that one? I'll second that. Okay. All right. Is there anything else that anyone wants to add?
I would like to add 9H. I'm trying to think. Sorry, my brain is still catching up to this. Nine each administrative assistant to the town administrator letter?
That's what we're discussing in executive session. That's the claim. Okay. Does anybody want to second that? You want to have a public discussion on that? Don't we want to hear from this individual? It's not a personnel issue. Isn't
about This is not an issue about the individual's performance. We won't be discussing performance. We're going to be discussing the claim that was filed against the town, which was cc'd to an attorney.
Okay. If nobody wants to second it, then we'll move on. Does anybody want a second.
I'll second it for discussion, what is there. A second for discussion Paula I just at this point. We're still trying to collect all the information this isn't again like Jeff said this isn't about. A performance issue or anything that this actually has to simply do with back office stuff and how it was submitted and whether or not it applies. So. Okay.
Do we want to vote on them individually? We'll vote on them individually.
Can I ask for a couple other things too? You had. So Jeff Murray had asked that you add or wanted a discussion for rescheduling the skip level employee meeting. So I'd like to add that to the agenda under new business. Okay.
And the second thing I would like to put on there is town wide and rail trail cleanup for Earth Day. I will second both of those.
Give me one second because I've got to get those. Skip level employee need.
And I sent to the board a list of meeting motions. Did you all get that? I sent them to you around noon. Yeah. I have those. Okay. Yeah. I I haven't looked at my email today. So Okay. Okay.
We'll actually move the executive session to item one second, trying to get my agenda to item 16A. So we're going to vote on these all individually so we understand what's up. So E and then nine gs. Right. So we're going to vote on F. These are going go under new business. Nine F, adding the field contract to the agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. That's good. Nine gs was Paula's motion related to, or Paula, did you rescind the motion? I mean, was seconded. Did you want to vote on it?
No, I don't think we need to vote on it. Think we understand now. We need to gather our thoughts. Oh, we're still gathering information, so Yep.
Nine gs is going to be the skip level employee meeting discussion. All those in favor, aye. Aye. 9H is the town wide rail trail cleanup for Earth Day discussion. All those in favor, Aye. Aye. Item
16A will be an executive session to discuss a claim filed by employee against the top. All those in favor?
Propose who proposed the motion who seconded the motion when we do them and then at least call if you know of call the no votes, just in case.
Sure, I will sit there and go field contract well isn't the individual who's going to do that going to listen to this?
Yes, but it doesn't mean they're going to know everybody's voice. Okay.
All right. All of the votes were five in favor and zero against. No abstentions for the motions that passed. 9F field contract was a motion by Scott Person, seconded by Jeff McGuire. The skip level employee meeting was the motion was made motion was made by Adrian Mandeville. I think he and Eric can't make a motion. Was made by I'll make it. That's fine. And we can sit there and say that Jeff McGuire seconded nine gs and 9H. So that was for the town wide cleanup on the rail trail and the employee meeting, the skip level employee meeting. And then 16A, the Executive Session, the motion was made by Jeff Maguire and I believe it was seconded by Adrian Manopp. Yes, correct. All right, so now that we got that business out of the way and everybody's happy, let's move on to the rest of our meeting. So item four is a board and commission presentations. I don't believe we have any, Eric. Not that I know of. And Eric, I have to compliment you. You look like you're sitting up. Excellent. Excellent. I'm excited. Five, appointments. I don't believe we have any. Not at this time. Okay. Item six, resignations. I don't believe we have any. Nope. Okay. Item seven, town administrators report. Eric, I will turn it over to you.
Okay. So again, you all got my report. I'm just going to talk about the things that have happened outside of that and just make hit some highlights. We did have a problem in the town hall with both the furnace and boiler essentially at the same time both burned out controllers. So I'm assuming we had a power surge in the building. Can't tell you exactly what there didn't appear to be any computer or any other damage, but that's the only thing I could think of that would make it likely that those two would both go at the same time. Did we check the ACP power supplies and stuff?
Nope.
Okay. We should probably check those. I know when my lightning strike came, ate it. The ACPs worked for the duration and then died after.
Yeah. I doubt it could be too big a jolt because we didn't, you know, none of the breakers tripped. We didn't lose anything else, but, you know, but you're right. That's a good point. So Bunker Hill Bridge design. So as you know, the next item up is they have to do a public hearing. So they are scheduled to do a public hearing on April 12 at 7PM. This will be published in the River East. We're going to put it on, you know, all through all our media channels. Basically what they do is they do a live stream presentation via Microsoft Teams so it will not be it will be a virtual meeting and then afterward there's a question and answer session. This is for the general public who asks questions about the project and this is one of the steps the DOT requires a contractor to take prior to moving on to the next stage of design. Questions about that? Okay, so as far as small bridges and culverts go, again, you know, we're trying to get two things into the kind of design phase so that we're able to submit a grant presuming the federal government is going to push more money down into bridges and culverts as part of the infrastructure package. There was just a note the other day from the state saying they they're accepting applications for the state local bridge program.
We will try to get in on that, you know, under this year's cycle.
The town hall projects. Just one thing too, Eric, just you had surveying work done on the Culverts the Willow Road project so just let everybody know that. Correct yeah that survey
the field work is completed so we should have the results back fairly soon from the survey of Lake Road episode the Culvert Episola. The other one is already surveyed. So we'll have survey data for both. Then the next step is to find a contractor to help us, you know, execute the design phase of that project.
Was the wetlands done on Bozola with the survey work?
That's a good question. I'm not sure they've wetlands flagged it yet, but that was part of the part of what they were doing. I would have to check and see whether, I mean, know the surveyor was out there. I haven't gotten any results back from them yet or seen anything from them at this point. But I'll check on them. As far as town hall projects go, at the last meeting we had discussed changing the scope of replacing the oil furnace in the basement and what it would cost to do a conversion of propane. Jay Tuttle met with the rep from Uncas Gas to see what it would cost to have Uncas install either one or two one thousand gallon tanks, in ground tanks on-site. We do not have the numbers back from that yet. We do have a preliminary quote back from DNS heating about what it would cost to do a full conversion to gas because that would require both replacing the AC unit in the community room as well as the furnace and then you know on the boiler we would just replace the combustion unit change it from gas to oil and we also I also put put costs in there for what it would cost if we went the other way and we just changed oil tanks. So, we don't have enough information to make a decision, but I'm just showing you that we're actively working towards that.
Do we get a do we get are we thinking Public Works is gonna dig holes for underground, or are you doing aboveground tanks?
I would definitely put it in ground and assuming that Public Works would
take for the tank. Okay, perfect. Because I know on this stage, don't a question.
Aren't all the tanks come from one supplier in Connecticut? No.
I I would assume we're buying our tanks. We're not. Right. Right. But. Yeah. We're definitely not going to be leasing tanks. No. So,
individual gas companies depending upon who you contract with. I've done I've done undergrounds with Uncas several times. I've done it with
So apply, but what I'm getting at Adrian is I think the tanks all come from one supplier I bought three different tanks myself
and I think that they all come from the same place. No, you have to buy them through the company and they are very different depending upon who you buy them through. They may have different risers, they may have different Different anode setups like whether they're direct or not, some of them have the whole story in them some don't so yeah.
Yeah I mean I think you know we're going to end up. You know probably it's gonna be expensive enough we're gonna have to bid that out you know all I want to do is I want to get one solid estimate for each so we have ballpark costs and we know what it's not going to exceed and then you make a decision whether you want to go with it or not you know and then we go through a bidding process to do it. Yeah the tanks are the tanks are going to come back at 5,500 or so give or take per tank.
Yeah, that's roughly what I was estimating. And then you got to make a decision whether you want a single tank or you want, you know, twin 1,000 gallon tanks. Personally, I would put in twin 1,000 gallon tanks now. So, when you do the community senior center, you already have the in ground tankage to handle both facilities, but that's just me. We'd have to find a place for those also.
Yeah, I mean the logical place to put them is kind of like directly behind the town hall between where the existing septic tank is and the parking area that's behind the town hall and in front of the fire station. They will fit there there's enough clearance to where the the buildings are going to go. You know, so we already had the rep out with Jay,
you know, in in kind of the three of us agreed on on where it was possible to locate them. Did you guys did you guys have the print from the Community Center building committee in your hand at that point.
We had the version which showed roughly where it's going. Yes. Okay. Because there's they
want to put a retaining wall at this point between the two. So between the two what?
Between the building, between the two buildings so that they can create a space like a level space there. Amp of space. Yeah, like an amphitheater type space. Yeah I saw that on the plan.
Okay just want to make sure that was taken into account.
Yeah no that should be okay. So again you know we would need drawing. We're still going in that direction. We still got to bid it out. Right. But I'm just saying we're moving in that direction. And then the, the real question is going to be that, you know, if we look to actually doing it, the total conversion costs not including the tanks are going to be somewhere around $20,000 Now I think that's a fair bit of money, but at the same time we've had a ton of problems with the AC unit in there in the last couple years and we've had an enormous number of problems with the furnace. We're having reliability issues with both of them on a pretty regular basis. So, even though they're only about 18 years old or so at this point or will be, I think that it probably makes sense to go down that road. But what I'll do is I'll give you essentially the cost basis of what it is to just convert to oil tanks and not do it versus the cost of converting everything to propane. So, you can kind of make an apples to apples comparison. We're just not there yet because I don't have the tank information. Okay.
All right. And in terms of other projects, we're obviously moving ahead with IPG. We have another meeting with them. M. Tomorrow, Adam to finalize some stuff the library and and fire department will be there, and I think they want to look on-site at both those locations, but that's moving ahead. The other question I want to pose to the board is are we back to you know given that we're looking at probably you know 5,500 for tanks so potentially 11,000 if you went with two tanks plus the 19,000 for conversion. That's going to make a really big hole in the building maintenance fund. Would we consider going back to using low SIP funds for the upgrades? I know you had talked about that originally as a board and I kind of talked you out of it, But now since we're considering this approach and probably spending more money, does it make sense to,
to use LOCIP funds for paying for that?
I would think, I personally would say yes, given the nature of the costs, you know.
Anybody else? Which way can we get it done, Eric?
I mean Yeah, Doug, you can get it done both ways, but you're going to kill your maintenance fund Yeah. If you do Then use those. And it's a big enough project. Okay.
Did you check and see with them if they know if there's any or check and see with CCM and see if there's any rebates for municipalities upgrading to propane?
No, I haven't looked at it, but I haven't heard anything through the pipeline either. Okay. Why would there be?
There there had been in the past for for going to both natural gas and propane. I I not for I know for no for municipalities but for homeowners who want so.
Take a look at it. That's the only other questions I had is you would want me to get back to you once we got solid quotes for replacing the drinking fountain slash bottle filler and then the installation of the electric hand dryer. So, those two items were kind of floating out there. As far as the electric hand dryer is that's roughly a $2,000 option to do. The only thing is that what I would like to do is when we do that, we're going to run a couple other circuits because it's a pain enough getting electricity over there that when we run the conduit over there we're going to make sure we have a couple other things available to kind of future proof it. So that is roughly a $2,000 project. The second one was installing the new drinking fountainbottle filler. The best quote I had was from my tech which was about $2,800 know and part of the issue with that is all of the units that we looked at, know the fill, in a sense the mechanical portion that's in the wall is not in the same spot as the existing units which means they got to bust out a bunch of the masonry block and do a bunch of repairs. And you know, we looked at it, you know, there the cost that was quoted for the materials is basically what we expected but the cost for labor is higher. So the total cost for that is about $2,800
The other quote I had was about $3,200 So those were the two quotes for that one. So you would ask me to bring those back to you. I have, if those are projects you wanna go with, just tell me and I'll get them in mode.
Eric, regarding the hand dryers, I think if we can move that other towel dispenser like we did in the other bathroom and we just do a wait and see approach on that and see what happens. And if we have any more issues with the paper towels, that might be a good way to go at this point.
I will say one of the things that all the town employees though have mentioned is that they would really like this bottle filler thing and upgrading of the water fountain. I would put a motion in that we move forward at least with the bottle filler water fountain. I'll second. Jeff, you're muted.
Further discussion on that issue, anybody have any thoughts on the water filler? I mean, guess I would just ask is, do we have the cost on just the water fountain? Eric?
Well what would be the point of replacing the existing water fountain if you weren't adding the bottle filler? I mean the whole reason you're doing it is today the majority of people you know basically nobody's going down there and drinking out of the fountain what they're using is they're using it to fill up other things you know either because we don't have another source of potable water you know there is no other faucet in the town other than getting it out of the sink in the bathrooms. So that's the rationale for it, you know.
And the new one from Mitek, it's gonna have a filter on it, right? So it's gonna it's going be to be better water than pulling it from a bathroom sink.
The problem is the bathroom sink, you can't get a bottle underneath to fill. The
bottle filler makes sense. It's what everybody's going to now.
And given that we're still doing cool program back and forth and outside, it's perfect for the kids to be able to fill and stuff too.
They put all these in the school, I think last year. So they're all upgraded up there too.
Okay. Then let's vote on all in favor. Aye. Aye. So that vote was five nothing, no abstentions. Thank you, Jeff. All right.
Motion was made by Paula King and seconded. No, made by Adrian Mandeville and seconded by Okay. There you go. Eric, what else do you have?
That's it for my report, unless you have questions for me.
Eric, are we going to have a finance board member on or a member of our finance department on tonight?
Well, I thought Sherry was gonna be on, and I just texted her, and I have not gotten a reply. Okay. Okay. So Can okay.
Oh, so Sherry said she's on the way to the emergency room. Her husband slipped and fell on his back. Alright.
Yeah. So she may try to log on. Let's see if we can get that taken care of before the end of the Hopefully he is okay.
Okay. We're going to move on to old business. 8A is a discussion related to pedestrian safety initiative. Eric, do we have any updates on that?
I do not. That was one Jeff Murray was spearheading, so I don't personally have any updates on that.
May talk to Carol Lee about that and it's just there's just an issue of getting that there was an issue of the money transfer that she's trying to get ironed out. And what we're gonna do is we're just gonna add that money as a line item in next year's budget. The money that's owed to the rec committee is gonna be for $1,200. They're gonna have a line item next year in in the budget. How has that been going? Have people been coming and picking them up? No, we haven't done them yet because we haven't transferred the money. Oh. So, at this point, we're going to wait until the budget passes and we'll do it then Once the budget passes, we have the money in the account.
Okay. Once we get the money in the account, we should run something so people know they're there. Yep, we'll do it.
8B, the renewal of a tax abatement for the Hop River Homes and the softball field renewal. This is going to wait. I mean, I know that the town attorney sent a letter to Hop River Homes. We need to get some other things in line before we approve this tax payment. So the attorney requested Hop River Homes to get their request in and their information in before next meeting. Eric, I would ask you to reach out to Maria Tolman. I've already reached out to her. There's a list of things that they need to do to be able to substantiate us providing the abatement. They need to get their lease signed before the meeting by the USDA so that we can sit there and know that we're all set. Because last year we approved it and they never signed their lease on the ball field.
The only thing I would like to caution you is, again, these are technically two separate items. Know I you want to make them understood, but I'm putting
one in front of the other. So the lease either gets done or I am going to hold up on the tax pay. And I understand the issue, but they could have done it last year. They could have been reasonable and got it accomplished. And I'm not going to allow this year for it to sit there and drag. So they've had it in their hands. They've got it, get it done, and we can all be happy moving forward. Jeff, did you read the changes that were made? I did. I'm okay with them, Scott. If if I may. Yeah.
Okay. I, I did make some changes to the lease agreement, and Scott know I guess Scott picked up on it and so did Jeff. Both of you wanted a long term lease. So I made it twenty years. I I don't know that. I think that might be a problem. It should be. At least I Well and the other item that was changed was well, Scott suggested that, I think it was limited to boys and girls. Young boys and girls. It was limited to girls.
Okay. One draft, I think you're right, was limited to girls. This this this item I sent you today is something that, Jeff and I put together last time and that they never signed off on it. Yeah. And and it did did include boys, but I I also I also, Scott, added because you said you thought other people should be able to use it. Right. Nice. I noticed that you put that in there, Dennis. Yeah. Right. I did. And I I you know, as long as it's just some kind of control on that by town administration, so I I put it in the recreation commission.
And so why are we just limiting it to softball players?
Well, we're not. We're trying to expand it to everybody. So baseball youth baseball could use it. You know?
I mean No. We're not limiting it. I know. I I particularly have a a bias in favor of girls softball, but because I coach it and I like to play a game there because I played in that same league. You played in the women's league? He coaches.
Oh, I thought he said he played in that same league. I'm like, yeah. I play around with it. Yeah. I I I I play around with trying to get these girls to hit the ball and field it, and they do pretty good. And in fact, Jeff McGuire showed up for one of my games once and watched a couple of events found in Hebron. But, anyway, I'd love to play there, and I think I think Scott is right. I think it should be available to anybody who has a connection to Andover. And that would be that that would include the softball league. That that would be as called HAMR, h a m r. Yep. Like, sort of RAM only gets reversed or or best or it's it's changed. And I I went over there with Eric and took a look at the field. I I think it's very nice. I think if you use some work because it's been neglected for a while, but I think it's a great place. And Eric assured I was concerned about parking, but I talked to Eric today, and Eric assured me that there was a parking lot close by that I didn't notice before that that that belonged to the town.
So, so Dennis, if we can get that to hop over homes and sit there and get this. Yeah. Yeah. Just wanted to try to buy you all as a group.
And I, I believe, and, and I, I'm, I've been talking to Maria right along. I have developed a relationship with her and I want to, I'll I'll be glad to take some lead on that and try to get this done. That would be appreciated. Thank you. Yeah. I I I, you know, again, as Eric pointed out, it's a little awkward doing these one after the other, but, you know, I think I think it's okay. She's she's got she's gonna have to come up or they're gonna have to come up with some, you know, some sort of claim that that the that the tax benefit they're getting is going to the benefit of the
of the tenants. And that's in the statute and that's the call that we did change it so that the board of selectmen could make this decision. We don't have to go to town meeting on this anymore. Town meeting authorized us to have you guys do it. And I think that's a lot better.
Okay. All right. So we're gonna move that to our next meeting and hopefully get This it
is a high priority for me now. I want to get this done.
Okay. Nine, we're gonna move it on to nine, new business, 9a and Memorial Day Parade update. Anybody? No? Okay. Know So
I heard from Carol today, we are marching this year. That's all I know. Unless Eric has any updates that he knows of. Eric, no. Eric will not be marching.
Yeah. I I will not be marching. Low crawling maybe, but not marching. Carry the marching. I'm on getting a list from the fire department of what their flag and flagpole needs are. We end up replacing a series of those out of that budget every year. I asked Ron Mike to give me a list of what he needs. And then we need to figure out what date they're gonna put up the big flag on the bridge. That's I don't have a lot of other input into the Memorial Day parade at this point.
I know that Carol Lee is starting to to get organized to it. So Right. I know I have to respond to Carol, regarding the parade. So and I'll do that tomorrow.
Right. If any board members want to ride in the car that day, please let Carol know. Are you riding, Paula?
I don't want to sway your opinion because I know you want to sit next to me, but I will not say yes or no at this point. So. I will volunteer to drive you like Ms. Daisy.
As long as you have a nice enough car. What are you gonna do? Break one of the, the, the, the.
I was gonna use the work van. The work van. It has no windows in the back. It'd be perfect for me. How interesting is my hearing?
They're all terrain vehicles that are open air. That's what you should drive around. There
you go. There you go. Alright. Well, you got town hall upgrades. Already did, right? Yes. We made the motion ahead of time. So, you know, we don't need to discuss that unless you have anything further you want to discuss there. 9C Charter Revision Committee.
Okay. Scott asked that this be put on the agenda. So it is. Scott, you're up.
I just like to, you know, restart the charter revision committee so that we can follow through with what the voters voted for. You know, last June, overwhelming majority said that they wanted to have, you know, the question that was on there. You guys don't know what it was. I want that to be worked on and a couple other.
We have a bunch of things that have to get changed. Our charter has to reflect the fact that the state no longer allows May voting. We have to look at taking out some of the positions that are into the charter. Right. There's a bunch of things on that list. The question is, can a Charter Committee be advertised now, formed, and have everything done by September, I think, what, seventh, eighth, something like that? I think it's August, Adrian.
Not a chance. I Just so I understand because Adrian and I were having this conversation before, are we pushing our elections back to November? No, forward. I thought it's forward to November. Back to November.
That's not what I was told. I was told we had to we were our things got like, our terms were gonna get added, four or five months or whatever to get us to November. Right. They were going forward.
That's only if the people in the town vote for that. No, it's already been the state decided we don't have a choice. Yeah, but if if we vote not to do it, that can also be the case, Adrian. No, it's not. Yes, it is. The state is not allowing that.
No, the the town has the option to keep it May. Right. But it would take a vote of the entire town. It would take a a meeting, a town meeting, and it would take a three quarters majority to approve to keep it in Mac. I had not heard that at all.
So so just because this is this is an issue.
Don't we have our register of voters or one of our Is Kathy Palazzi on this? I just wanna hear from her. She's Kathy, not a registered
do chiming you in on this? Is that correct, what they're saying?
We the state just tells us what we're going to do. Right. What are they telling us to happen? And I did go to you guys maybe a couple of years ago to tell you, or maybe three years ago to tell you that we are only one of four towns that have been saying we want to stay with May vote right instead instead static. We're one of two now right right we have to do it so we're we're gonna go with our May vote. But my understanding was it was November. I don't think it's 2022. I thought it was November 2023. So that's what I thought is where I was confused with what you were talking about. Yeah. So it's November 2023?
That's what I was under. Yes. I think the the proper thing is that we should check-in with with Wally I'm going to call Wally while you're talking.
You can chime in later and let us know. Thank you. Thank you Kathy. I just want to get clarification Eric because I had heard it was there were adding a certain number of months onto our thing, would be pushed us into '23.
Yes. And that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you. But you said back, which would mean Sure. You're saying the same thing. Right. We're saying the same thing. What I'm saying back, I'm saying we're pushing elections back from May to November. That's all I'm trying to say.
So even though even though we're saying forward, you know, he's
yeah. Mister Barton is calling. Hang on a second. Hey, Mr. Barton. So
we need to get that resolved because that will impact when the Charter is. We
don't you we could if you do a Charter now you could you would have to have it done and on the ballot for November. It doesn't happen for them you'd have to wait because you cannot complete you can't complete a Commission and go into a vote, has it to be within fifteen months and you don't want to do it in an off election year. So it needs to be their governor's election year or presidential election year. Otherwise, you won't get enough people.
Or we can just have a few different things so we make sure that we get through this quickly.
Well, issue is when's the vote? So if the vote is November 2022, do we have time to do it then? The answer is probably no. If the vote is November 2023, we have time. But there's really it's an off election, so there's nothing going on.
Right. And we have to have a certain percentage of voters coming out to have it There's a governor's election this cycle, right? This cycle. This is the midterms.
You would have to do it. You'd have to be you know, have your last thing by August to get it off to the Attorney to get it off to the state by September 8 or whatever so. Scott have you worked out a schedule to see how your schedule like what a schedule would look like for what you're proposing.
Not yet, Adrian. No. I just know that we have to decide on a couple of questions and to get it in the paper.
Yes, so you need to run-in the paper for a certain length of time and then you've got to add people and then you've got to give them time to you know to go through the whole process so. And that's one of the reasons why it hadn't been being pushed forward is because we had budget stuff we're dealing with and you know you've got to you've got to kind of plan ahead for it.
So, mean this. I've done many of the many towns, including my own. And you could do it this year, but you really have to everything would have to go smoothly. You couldn't have too many issues, but it could be done. If you do it without putting it on a November election, you're guaranteed to to to to fail. Right. Because you have to get a as as Paul pointed out, you have to get a minimum number of votes to vote yes. And it's and and it's it's just pretty pretty nigh impossible. I've never seen anybody pass one of these things unless it was in a gubernatorial along with a gubernatorial or a presidential election. Right. That's what I said. That's
So you that's right. So you'd have to you'd have to either do it this year or two years from now when there's a next presidential. And you have you you that would be the time to do a comprehensive review. If you did it this year, you wouldn't be able to do a comprehensive review. But once you appoint a charter commission, you can't control them. They can they can they can you can give them issues to to address, but they can they can, you know, they can be a rogue commission this year was the try to do more issues and not make it in time. So it's it's something that if you if you want to consider doing it this year, you would have to act very fast. I can give you some paperwork on that to show you this, you know, the time frames and everything. I have that. I I prepared it for the last Charter Revision Commission
there was, I think put in place the, town administrator. Yeah. If you want us to can you send us that? And Yeah. I can I can probably do that right now if I Yeah? It'll take me a little while to find it, but I can find it. It's on my computer. Okay. So I can send you that. And and you you have on your agenda, it says charter committee. I think at one time you did have a charter committee when I first became town attorney that just kinda like was a discussion group. But a charter revision commission is what you're looking for. Would have to be done on the state statute and, you know, strict compliance.
We have this, we have the statute that we have a statute status, because Carol pulled them all up for us but if you have a, if you have a breakdown timeframe that would be in frame. Haven't I haven't yet, I definitely have it I've used it. You dig for that and
I will. I'll I'll I'll I'll send it to all the selectmen plus Eric. Okay. Alright, I'll I'll work on that while you're talking about other issues. Okay. So
Scott will. I mean, do you want to do anything related to this or you just want to wait for Dennis's information so we know where we're going?
I don't know. Let's wait for Dennis, Scott. Yeah. If we don't have if we don't have the time, then Let's wait for Dennis. It
it all depends on how ambitious you are, Scott. Understood. You could do it. I I I could go back to when we did the town administrator. Think probably
Yeah. That was that was that was pretty rushed, though. I mean, I'll be honest. I'd charred that. That was Yeah. Yeah. Was. That was tight. Alright. So
So if time is of the essence, do we want to start it would it make sense to start getting the committee together.
Not if you don't want to form it. If don't if you're not going to run it don't bother bugging people because you have to advertise in the paper you can't just go out and pick people you've got to.
We have to wait until next month to talk about this to get it going.
Well, me. Me find that, let me find the timetable.
We can talk about it, if we agree to do it, we can simply ask Carol if we if we agree to do it, we could ask Carol to run it. To run the thing and then, when we go to format, we can do the formal because you gotta add you gotta put people on it right so. We could do an advertisement if we decide, and then make the motion to form it and list all the people that we're going put on at that point. Theoretically, we could put something together next month.
Okay. I just didn't want us to lose another month if something can happen. You're
going have to advertise it for at least twenty one days. Yeah. Okay. We got a lot on the schedule. Jeff, what do you think? Are we moving on to Dee?
I would, but if we want to sit there and vote to move this forward, we can. He doesn't have a second yet, so we're moving on. Okay.
We have 9B fiscal year twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three proposed town budget. I don't have anything to discuss unless you do.
In the hands of the Board of Finance at the moment, all they've done is submitted information.
I would like to with permission of the other board selectman the one thing I we missed a couple of like random things. Talk about a couple things we didn't look at was we had talked about but hadn't acted upon eric suggestion to. Increase the transportation fee right now it's currently at $40 for two vehicles, even if we went up incrementally to you know the $50 for two vehicles, I think we probably need to go in that direction sooner rather than later.
I don't want to make it too high because. With
the cost of living and the way gas is going these days I agree. I agree. But we're going to get hit really hard with dumping fees when that contract expires. In the meantime, we have spent a lot of money upgrading the transfer station from the paving to the retaining wall blocks to new. New converters for the for the compactors to the new building to the garage doors on the outbuilding to you know, like it's just never ending I think we need to recoup some of that, even if it's a monochrome of $10.
I think that's reasonable but I would not support it if it was more just because just the way cost of living is going right now you know I don't want to burden people.
Right. Eric, did you hear that the tipping fees are going to be?
They are, but we have a contract so they can increase ours right now. Could, if we negotiate now, we may be able to hold them down a little bit. But right now ours are pretty cheap Eric had pointed out at our last meeting talked about it, or maybe the meeting for that. We could renegotiate but right now we're locked in I think for what another is it two years Eric?
Yeah we're we're two to July 2024 you know we have a fixed contract but the fixed contract that we have is way below current market rates Right. So, you know, we're looking at a 25 to 30% jump, you know, when we get to that new contract.
You know, and there's. Amy, we don't need to go up off $10 next. We could go up five this year and five next year.
No. When that when that hits, we're going to have to go up like $20 but that's a different conversation. Right now, just I'd like to recoup some of the costs that we spent upgrading, you know?
You can also have make it easy. It's $50 not 45.
If you're going to go up, make a motion. Let's go. I'd make a motion that we increase the transfer station fee by $10 from 40 to 50 for two cars. I'll second that. Further discussion?
Anybody? I mean, nobody likes to raise anything, but- I don't either. I'm just- just think this is a sore subject with a lot of people in town. If we raise this up with the budget vote coming, we're looking at a significant increase right now with public works. And this might be the thing that puts us over the edge as far as rejecting the budget. That's my concern. Okay. You're gonna love my next conversation then. It's okay. Here's my next question. Can we
push this off? Do we have to raise it right now? Can we wait? If we raise it now, it gets included in the budget document that we've pushed over. Right? If we don't do it now, it won't affect the budget. And Carol is also, Paula, ordering the stickers.
Oh, I can listen, you I'm I'm open that if you guys really feel that this is that pushing issue I will I will rescind my motion. I mean, but we've got to start recouping. We spend a lot, we're trying to spend money on roads, trying to spend money on fixing the town hall, we're trying to spend money on. So when we have a service that's used by town residents, we should be trying to have that service recoup the amount of money that it costs to present that service, right? So if we have. X number of people using it, whether it's for bulky waste only or regular regular trash. Is still dramatically cheaper than paying for garbage pickup You know, and garbage pickup does not allow you bulky waste. So even people that have trash pickup are still bringing bulky waste down and bulky waste is where we're going to get hit.
You know, so I mean it's tough. I, you know, those We did a lot better. Our guys are really good on top of it. The question is, would you rather milk this along for another two years and then go up double the price? Because that's what it's going to take to cover that. To be where we're at now when that contract expires we're nearly going to have to double the cost. So I think that's a more bitter pill that.
Right, so we need to go up $10 this year and maybe we look at $10 next year and then maybe we're only $10 the following year or we go up 30 or $40 and double the cost in three years.
Eric what are you, what are you anticipating for prices for tipping. It's double what we're at now.
So, well, pretty close. It's not double what we're at. So, let's back up and say right now the $40 transfer station fee nets the town somewhere around $35,000 and our cost to operate the transfer station is about a $150,000 a year so that's the percentage we're recouping now. Right. Now in terms of what is our cost you know right now the market rate for tipping fees is about 25% higher than what we're paying, know and as they finally shut down the trashed energy plant in Hartford, which we do not use, we use a separate trashed energy plant in like Lisbon or somewhere there. Our stuff goes east, not west. But you know as the resources get tighter it's going to be more of a problem and we know looking at the contracts that are in place now for other municipalities If we were negotiating now today, I would expect we're going to pay about 25% more for tipping fees.
Well, keep in mind too, an out of state company bought Willamantic waste and they've already said flat out, at least I know as a contractor, they've told us our rates are, you know, we should be pricing in our dumpsters to be, you know, 150% of what we're charging right now. They're telling us our tip rates are going to be a buck 20 a ton. And right now we're somewhere between 75 and 80, depending upon the type of material. You know. Well, listen, I I I have no problem.
You know, trying to raise revenue, trying to do everything that you're talking about.
Just make a decision. Are we going vote on it or not? I would say it's definitely better to start with the $10 now and raise it every year. Right.
Okay. All right. Let's vote. All those in favor of raising the transfer sticker fee from $40 to $50 say
Do we also want to look at the building department, which currently is only pulling in about 80% of what their cost is? We did a lateral increase a while back here. But again, looking at surrounding towns, we certainly can go up more to bring that in line with other towns. We're still under in most of those. Do we want to look at that? I haven't done it. I didn't want to spend time on something that was not in the that the committee did not group didn't want to look at. If you want me to look at doing it, I will do it, but we should come up with an idea of how much we want to go up if that's the case.
Well, to me, I personally look at those fees and just from my standpoint, I know Scott and Adrian, you're and Jeff, you're all much more involved in that, we're collecting what we should be collecting. I think we're okay. It's when we don't do the calculations correctly that causes us the problems. We're worried about 80%, give or take.
Okay. And I have no problem being where the other towns are on that issue. Anyone
else? We don't even make a motion tonight, but before I spend time on it.
I would be comfortable with that. I'm just not comfortable with the transfer station fee.
Okay. I'll spend some time on it. I'll bring it back to you guys for our next meeting then. Scott, unless you have an objection? No, I think it's fine. Okay. Paula? Okay.
Okay. So we are moving on to I do have one question.
Several members of the board asked me to pull the budget book. Jeff, I did send that back to you, a revised version. Are you okay with that? Do you want me to send it out to the whole board? What do you want to send it out the whole board? You want to send it out to the whole board? And then how is the board going to what do you want? The whole board to approve it? How do you want to do it before we put it back on the website? If any members of the board have issues with how their
wording, make the adjustments to sit there and accommodate them. Because to be really honest, Eric, some of that is not okay. Send it out to everybody and evaluate Okay. It All right. Right. We have moved on to a 9E event permit forms. There is a Rhode Island, Mass, Connecticut application and an Expo Wheelman application for mountain bike races. The Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut race has been run, I believe, Jeff, for the last two years? Correct.
This is its third year. I'm assuming they're going to do the same thing. And maybe they won't be doing it this year and use Benjamin Franklin's area. That is correct.
If that's the case, we just need Benjamin Franklin to approve that because that's the space for the potential development. We should really look at that, but I have no problem approving that. Someone wants to make a motion to move that forward. Because Eric, are all of the documentation signed correctly, everything that you need in town hall correct?
As far as I know, we got all the paperwork we needed. The only thing they requested is support by the Andover CERT team. I did talk to the emergency management coordinator who was also on the CERT team. She assured me that she didn't have any issues with it. She was not able to be on this call, but they're aware of it. They've reached out to them so that that won't be a problem. So from the town's perspective, I don't think we have any issues with it.
There more than one mountain bike races or is it one race? Those two are two separate things. Okay. The says Rim Econ relay is one thing that's totally separate. Okay. Because there's something in the packet that says dates of event and says June to September. So there's not specific dates. That's the mountain bike. Yep. We could talk about that. The night a week. Okay.
So the Rhode Island Mass Con, that is a nonprofit, right? Hartford Marathon Foundation is a nonprofit, correct? Correct.
I'm fine with them. So, we want to do both of these or one at a time? Do both, it's fine. Alright, so what's the next one? And do you want to enlighten us on the?
It's just utilizing the trails in the back of the school. This has been run two years before COVID. Yeah, remember we had something on it. Yeah, with, it's mostly geared towards younger riders, juniors. Okay. And the parents actually come on race and we do it during the week. The dates haven't really been determined yet because we were going to work with a couple other clubs to put it on. They just kind of left it open and it will probably be on Thursday nights during the summer. Okay. That's what they're looking at. And all the funds as in past years are going to be donated to the rec commission. Awesome. And we're going to use, we'll use Kerma as we have in the past to ensure insurance since they're going to just be going on. It's going be permitted by the Rec Committee Recommission. Okay.
Alright. Any other questions related to the races? Alright. All those in favor of approving the the vet permit forms oh, somebody's gotta make a motion. I'll I'll make a motion that we
approve the Hartford Marathon Foundation to conduct the mascon relay running race on Saturday, 08/27/2022, with no standing conditions. I'll second.
All right, further discussion. All those in favor? Aye. All five members voted affirmatively.
I would make a motion that we approve the application of the Expo Wheelman to conduct mountain bike racing series starting in June, ending in September, one night per week between 05:30 and 8PM with following conditions. Any conditions from anyone? Jeff?
No, not that I know of. I mean, they're pretty good about cleaning up and With no standing conditions. Further discussion? No, so who's seconding that? I'll second that.
Adrian made the motion, Scott Persone seconded. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye.
I'm going to abstain just because I'm a member of Exponent Weilman.
So it was a four- Thank you for being an
abstaining member of the committee. Just not going vote. I'll just abstain from the vote.
Okay, so the vote was four-zero with Jeff Murray abstaining. Okay, so now we're going to move on to the additions to the agenda nine F was discussion related to the field contract. Scott?
Yeah, I'm just curious if the contract got signed for LNC consultants to do the turf management.
It did not get signed. I mean, last discussion, which was quite a while ago, you had asked me to go back and find out whether there were any cost implications to do it. I reached out and spoke to Andy Tierney and he basically said, you know, we can do it any way we want. Either we can have LMC manage it or we could have Hebron Parks and Recs manage it. It just depends what we want to do. You know he has not provided me a contract for the upcoming year yet. We've discussed it, but I don't have anything in hand. He did. He did provide you with that. A contract?
That's what I was told. Not that I know of. We we we've already had this discussion. We had had no problem with hiring Rich for another year. You already had to talk with No. Call attorney. Mister Clarko provided us
a contract. I'm saying is we don't have a contract. We don't have a contract from from Parks and Recs.
So do we have any contract in place for this upcoming season? We do not. Mean,
we said they will give us a contract, but we don't have it yet.
The Parks and Rec contract is different than just so everyone knows, it's different from the turf management with LMC. We've already approved, it went through the town of Board of Selectmen's meeting, we all said that it was fine to keep stay with Rich. The contract with Hebron Parks to maintain the grass is completely different. So that contract that's going to Rich, you need to sign it and get it to him.
Alright. So listen, listen, if I understand this correctly, there's one contract for fertilization and one contract for for for maintenance. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So the town of Hebron is contracting with Rich Clarko do the the turf management on their fields? Yes or no?
No. No. Okay. They no longer have a relationship with mister Clarko.
Okay. So we would be having them do what then? Hebron is only going to be mowing.
Okay. Taking care of the turf and whatever. And then Clark will be taking care of what exactly? The consulting and he advises Hebron on
whatever he deems. Oh, he used to. He doesn't anymore. Doesn't have a relationship. So what's he doing with us?
No, does. He is the consultant to take care of the turf. And Hebron is the one that actually dispenses all the fertilizers and all the compost or anything that gets done on it. Hebron takes care of it. But he's
a consultant. Is that correct Eric? Because I thought you just said Hebron doesn't.
No. You asked me what Hebron is doing, and I told you that Hebron is no longer for Hebron's town properties, Hebron is no longer using mister Garco to do the turf management. Okay. The two options we have is to turn everything, keep everything with Hebron, who is no longer subcontracting out the management of the turf to Mr. Clarko or sign a contract with Mr. Clarko for the management of the turf field with the assumption that Hebron will still do all the physical labor to Mr. Clarko specs.
Okay. So, does mister Clarko still have room in his schedule for the coming year given the fact that we're this close to the. Well, that's what that's what happened, Adrian. The other day, I talked to mister Clarko when he said that nobody had signed his
contract, so he's run out of scheduled time. And right now I'm trying to get Eric to send it to him and then I'll call Rich up and ask him if he could keep time in his schedule for our field.
Oh, boy. So so now that's my that's my point. So, Eric, if we're that late with Hebron, will Hebron, does Hebron have time to do this?
I mean, the last conversation I had with Andy, you know, they Hebron Parks and Rec still intends to maintain our fields. They just haven't given us contract and pricing information on what it's going to cost us yet. Oh, I thought we had it in the budget.
Yes, we have a line item in the budget. I have an exact value for him? No. There's a lot of things in that budget where I don't have exact pricing on yet.
Well, this just seems like one where we could have, so that's my question. That's what I thought was in that line item, this is the cost of what it's going to be to do that field. I don't want to sit there and see the field line item blow up and spend all kinds of money you know, to maintain that field.
Jeff, it's not like gas went up $7 a gallon, oh wait, it might have.
And if we had our contract signed, that would have been the number, right?
All right, well, so Eric, where did you get, did put a percentage on from last year? Did you use last year's number? Where did we get the number from?
I think I increased last year's number, but I'll be honest, I would have to review to figure out exactly what I did for that. Okay.
Well, it's too late now. Hopefully Eric can get a number and get it over to the Board of Finance for correction, if need be.
Well, we need to find out. Honestly, we need to do what Scott's saying. We need to find out whether we're going to go with Hebron or whether we're going with Rich Clark. If we're all deciding we're going with Rich Clark, then we got to sign the contract. That seems
Jeff, that was decided at a previous meeting. No, I understand. We're arguing, it's not getting us anywhere.
Scott's going to sign it. Eric's going to sign it. Scott can send it over. And then in the meantime, Eric will try to get a number from so we can shore up to make sure the budget line is correct for Board of Finance. Okay. All right.
Jeff, I also want to talk about the the usage contract.
We do have to sit there and get that done because I believe the current existing contract runs through June. Yeah. Right? That
is something that we should work on to sit there and get that contract and payments. If Sherri was on, we could ask her to find out if all payments have been made from that contract.
Eric, are you aware of the payments? Are they up to date?
As far as I know, they're up to date at this point, yes. Did he ever sign a contract for last year?
I don't know, actually. Okay. I would have to review. I know we got paid. I don't remember whether we actually got a contract from him. Well,
mean, we're supposed to be getting 1099s for all these people that we're paying, so I hope we got a contract. This individual is paying us.
This business is paying us for usage in the field. Oh, okay. Sorry, thought we were still talking about
missed that part. Went up somewhere else, which wasn't on the agenda. So that's something, Scott, that should get worked on and should be finalized before the start of the fiscal year. Another thing, yep. Okay, let's move on to nine gs. No, 9E. I'm sorry. No, nine gs. Skip level of employee meeting. Jeff Murray, you wanted that, right? Yeah, we
had it scheduled before, then we had the elevated COVID risk, so we postponed it. And I'd like to try to set a date that everybody could attend if they would, if they so choose. Eric proposed a date and a time, and I just want to make sure it was okay with everybody who wanted to attend. So Eric, don't know if you can give us the date and the time that you had proposed.
So I didn't propose a specific date. I proposed a day of the week, which was Tuesday around 10AM which seems to work relatively well for employee meetings. That's the majority of employees there. The other question is are you planning on doing it in person or are you planning on doing it via Zoom? Because there's a couple of employees that could make it if it's via Zoom, but not if it's in person. Which employees can't make it if it's in person? The assessor is the only one I know definitely.
Okay. So would it be, I remember before we made it a little later so we could, thought we were going to provide lunch to the employees.
Well, I I mean, you certainly can. I'm not trying to tell you when when to do it. I mean, you know, so if you wanted to make it later during lunch, that's that's fine too. I should do it Tuesday a Tuesday at eleven. Okay. And And do lunch.
How about, April 12? That's two months that's a month from now. Why does that sound bad to me?
Or would you wait until after the fifteenth, Jeff? No, you can do it whenever. Okay. I know because of tax time, you make it easy.
Busy all the time, Jeff. So Tuesday, April 12 is fine with me. Anybody else have a problem? That looks okay right now.
Okay, I'll make a motion to reschedule the employee skip level meeting for April 12 at 11AM at the community room, and pizza will be served.
Second. All right. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
I was going to ask on further discussion if we can pick what kind of pizza, but that's fine. It's okay. We'll
keep moving on. We can slice. 9H, this is our discussion related to town wide and rail trail cleaning up for Earth Day.
Okay. So there's two things, both the Conservation Commission and a group that's forming are trying to do a cleanup on Earth Day, actually the day after Earth Day on the twenty third. So the group is the Hop River Trail Alliance, which is a group that's been formed to kind of try to spearhead and help lobby for and maintain the rail trail. So, what I'm suggesting is, you know, we have some of the supplies leftover from the last time we did this. The Conservation Commission wants to do it and this other group wants to do it. What I would like to do is just basically what we're talking about doing is doing it from like 09:30 in the morning to 11:30. So, two hour cleanup period and then followed by a cookout at the Andover Museum. In the Andover, Scott would have the museum open at the same time. So, do kind of a twofer. We get people to do some work and then we reward them a little bit afterward. So basically Go ahead. So, we're not I'm not really asking for money from the town. The only thing we would really use that's a town asset at this point would be the town's grill to cook.
Do we have to get clearance from Eastern Highlands for that? No. To serve food in a public setting? To cook out. Yep. And I think the Andover food pantry had issue with that a couple of years ago. So Bureaucracy,
Adrian, you're killing me. I'm just saying rather find out now than later. Yeah. Okay. What the guidelines are.
Well, let's get past that issue and say, are we willing to allow this to happen? I make a motion that we let's see, where are you? You don't even have this on this, so we should make a motion to support the town wide and rail trail cleanup for Earth Day on April 23. I'll second that. Okay. Further discussion. We should find out if we need permits to serve food, Eric. Yeah, I'll look into that. Alright. And for further discussion purposes, the day of clogging for March went well. I have to tell you that my neighbors got a head start on me and did a pretty good job cleaning up. I will still tell you that pink lemonade is still the nip of choice for the people who drive around our lake area and throw out their nips out the car window. It seems to be awful fruity for me that it appears that that's the nip of choice. Pink lemonade schmearnoff, just to let you Vodka? It's a vodka, yes. Must be inexpensive. So perfect for our time.
But yes, so the day of plugging went well. I got some exercise in, I got a bag of garbage, as the snow melts, more becomes visible and we'll do better next time. But I'm totally in supportive of the Earth Day Clean. And you didn't spread any COVID that day, right? I may have, but I was outside and I was keeping a six foot distance from everyone, including my wife. She was very, very responsible.
Will be honest, I did not have a mask on. I apologize. Well, I'm glad you were breathing
fresh air and I'm glad that you did that. Good job. Yes. Through all my COVID experience,
did continue to walk. I did continue to bounce outside. Do you have a tally? I did take a picture, I think.
Yes, like how many bags or how much weight was collected or, right? Hey, can we get
a picture of that and can we post that for next time? Let's do the competition. Who can beat Mr. Maguire? Everybody
can beat that. No doubt about that. Mean, picking up, you know, picking up trash and who can collect more trash bags than No, I think it should be who can collect more nips.
That was his point. Yeah. That is my point. It is unbelievable to me the nips and the beer cans that are disposed of up car windows Seems it's not it's not it's not good. So anyway, let's, get to voting on, the Earth Day program. Anybody have any issues? Anybody wanna discuss it any further? No. All those in favor, aye. Aye. All in favor, five nothing, right, Paul? I didn't see your hand go up, but you're Okay. That is that. Now we're moving on to approval of minutes for Tuesday, February 15, our regular meeting, then all our budget workshops that haven't been approved yet in our Friday, May, 03/04/2022 special meeting.
Somebody want to make a motion related to that? Trying to find Eric had a motion in the sheet, but I got to go back and open that. I have too many things open. Eric, do you have it in front of you? Have. Sure.
Oh, no, I got it. Got it. I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for Tuesday, 02/15/2022, regular meeting, board select them. A second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
I motion to approve the minutes for Tuesday no, did that one. I motion to approve the special meeting minutes for the budget workshops on Tuesday, January 25, Monday, January 31, Monday, February 7, Wednesday, February 16, Tuesday, February 22, Monday, 02/28/2022. That's the Board of Selectmen. Scott seconded. Scott seconded. Those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Aye. A motion to approve the special meeting is for Friday, 03/04/2022, Board of Selectmen.
I'll second. Paula King seconded. Adrian Mandeville made the motion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Jeff Murray said aye. We're all good.
All right, so we're moving on to, item 11, the finance department report.
I realize our finance department is here, but maybe you can answer a couple of questions, Eric. Maybe. Did our finance person consult with you on placement of the connectivity grant in the public works line item?
Connectivity grant's not in the public works line item. Where did It is now.
Might wanna read the meeting packet on the financials. It's the bottom line now. The keys open. The keys?
200 and something thousand dollars. What are you talking about?
Hang on. Let me go pull it up for you. Yep. Hang on.
Also, we're doing the same thing with the library. We're using a grant to offset numbers, we cannot do. That grant needs to be listed separately. Hang on, I'll give you the page.
So is this something Adrian that's being brought over from the school? No, this is on our thing. I don't
know why she's doing it that way. I thought maybe Eric told her to put it there. What I'm asking is, is this a technique that's used at the board of education and they're carrying it over? That's what I'm asking. We've
been fighting as well. I've been fighting this on the board of ed. It's definitely a concern, but you should not be netting out items that way. Hang on, I gotta get through the packet here. I'm waiting for my thing to load as I go.
Yeah, don't know what, I mean, the Connectivity Grant is a standalone fund.
Right, but it's it's not not public works. It got dumped into the public works line.
We cut 60 It looks at the public works line. I don't see it. Hang on.
So why Adrian's looking? We cut 68 checks in the month of February. That's the total number, just so everybody's aware. That's 2 a day. 2.2. That seems awful low, Eric. 62,000 total dollars. Seems awful, though.
Adrian. Maybe what can do major expenses or major payroll. Yeah. Payroll and ACH payments to the school which don't go up as jacks. So if you look at.
Why shouldn't we? If you look at Department of Public Works, right? And it says contractual services connect services connectivity grant $297,620.45, 0 spent, $2.51, $9.59 left over. It is 10030302330. No Okay. You know. No
Hey, hey, hey, hey. Oh, sorry. No kidding. Shannon, come on. No kidding. So it's there. And then also, you look at the it's doing the same thing in the library one, she's offsetting library pay with a grant or something because it's a negative number. Same exact issue, we cannot that is, and the problem is you can't put it there because that wasn't part of the budget. This is supposed to be balanced against the budget, you know. So right, I mean, obviously that's. Way wrong. Yeah. Yeah
I was going through, you know, in this, so if you look under library payrolls and dues. Same things. The adopted budget was 20 expended year to date is 30,197, and it's showing a balance somehow of 11,548.
Well, the issue, Adrian, on what you just brought up there is, isn't that the whole grant amount, Eric? Yeah. That's it as a budgeted live item. That's not in there. Didn't post the grant money there.
But she did but she did that in the library one, and that is the whole grant amount that's posted there in the in the public works one. Right. Yeah. That doesn't make sense.
Yeah. I don't know In either case, neither of those should be that. That was a stand alone fund. Has to be right. Because it has to be tracked as a standalone fund and the library has to be separated from the adopted budget. That grant has to be separated and spent in in spent separately. We can't, they can, if they so choose, they can use it to offset if that's their purview, but it be, it can't be added to the adopted budget line for expenses.
It definitely needs to go on our revenues if we're getting a grant because we have to see how well we're doing. Right.
It's, you know, don't know why it's being done that way. Yep. Okay. Doesn't seem correct.
Eric, if you could take care of that and get us an answer on that, that would help us. Are there any budget appropriation transfers or over expenditure requests at this time, Eric? Not at this time.
Eric, do you also know if they've sorted out the $6,000 or so that was double paid to the the bill, the processor for the tax collector?
I talked to Marina about that the other day. The vendor said they are returning the funds. I don't know that we've seen an actual check or an ACH payment yet. This has been since October, you know? It's kind of crazy. Tax collectors report. They collected $241,875 in February.
Can I ask one other question? Sure. We have a $300 check going out to the Andover Food Pantry. Yeah? Yes.
From the town? Or is it a transfer of funds that was donated for them and something?
Well, that probably would have been their payment from cart.
So, we're getting the cart. One of the vendors from cart. That just wanted to clarify what where it was coming from. Yep.
Okay. Thank you. Yep. So anybody have any questions on the tax collectors report? We still have 218200225.52 left to collect, appears for this fiscal year. Plus, we have an additional 200 and some odd thousand of back taxes dating back all the way to 2006. We should really look at doing a tax sale or finding a way to collect those dollars. There are two refunds of excess payments totaling $1,187.40 or $0.50 basically. Anybody want to make a motion to approve those?
I motion to approve the tax refunds for Jeffrey Miner for $20.74 and Nicholas Powacki for $1,166.76 for a total of $1,187.50 Seconded.
All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Five, zero. Okay. So we'll move on to the assessor's report. There was nothing on file. We'll move on to departmental reports. Anybody have any questions on any of the individual department reports?
No, I don't know where you want to put it, but we on old business, didn't see it for sorry, I missed it at beginning. The Community Center Building Committee John voted to move forward with the architect. John And they are going to do a public presentation on April 9 I believe is the day. John Hang on a little check it here April 9, which is a Saturday at 10AM. And so they will have the prints, they will have renderings, they're proposing to do a walk with the public to show them where it's going to go outside and try to answer any questions. We will be running that in the paper as well.
Okay. So what would you like to do with that other than get that information out to the public? I just wanted to let the board know. Right. Okay.
And who's noticing it? Carol's gonna, Adrian? Yeah, I gotta reach out to Carol. Should have done that today. Unfortunately, I got tied up, so.
Any questions on the department reports? I'd like to thank Kathy Plazi for the Andover Senior Transportation Report.
I just want to point out that our library has an e reader system that nobody is taking advantage of. What's an e reader system?
You can download books onto your tablet rather than buying them. So come on people start downloading these books. So do we have to go to the library to do that? No. What? That is awesome.
So come on folks I keep seeing zero zero zero every month come on come on I know you all want to go in and see their smiling faces.
One thing I'd like to bring up as for the senior transportation report because I know Kathy's been putting in their report pretty much every single month is that you know given the cost of gas you know and the fact that we're still regularly doing medical transports for people who are not disabled but can't necessarily drive in a larger vehicle we still ought to really consider spending some of the ARD money to purchase an electric vehicle for senior transportation. Okay. So elaborate. What what are we talking about?
If it were me, I would probably look at a Chevy Bolt, you know, and purchasing it out of ARD funds for transportation. Now what's ARD? The American Relief Act money. Well,
Eric, if you can get us the cost of the bowl, bring it back to the board so we can all look at it and see how it impacts the other areas where we're air marking that money, that would be great. He did give us that information I think. I think he gave us information on four vehicles at one point.
Yeah I was gonna say we got that a while back right
and how much does it cost to make the charging station?
It depends whether we want to do it as part of a charging a public charging station or whether we just want to do just one vehicle charging station just for our own internal use there.
Okay so why don't we talk about it next month bring the info and show us what the price difference is and we'll take a look at it.
And see if there's any grants for public charging station. Right. I don't think it is a good idea.
Do we have our total amount of relief funds yet? Yes.
I mean, do we physically have it or do we know what? No, no, I know it's going to come in two tranches, but do we have a total as to what we think we're going to get? It's 9 something, right? Yeah. Yes, we do. Do we have a ballpark? $9.50 ish? Yeah, it's like $9.80. It's just under 1,000,000.
Yeah. So we're probably talking 24 or something for the bolt, something like that. About 30 for the bolt. Okay.
So I mean, that should be fine. I mean, I know we talked about using the money for the community center, but that should be okay. We have a little buffer on the community center.
So if we can get that, we could potentially vote on that next month. Yep. All right. Is there anything else on any of the departmental reports that anyone wants to discuss?
Not to interrupt you, Jeff, but is there room for another vehicle at the whole firehouse?
No, we'd probably leave that one at the town hall. Would think. You're not gonna, we're not gonna put a charting station in at the firehouse, that's for sure. The old one. We need to put, shouldn't it be kept under cover?
That's probably not possible given that we were not gonna put a a charging station down there.
So if we were gonna put a charging station in, we'd wanna sit there and do it at the town hall or in the town hall area. So
Well, that may be the bigger issue is do we put one in? It would make more sense to do it when you build the community center. Otherwise, you're, you know, so how do you charge it in the meantime?
Well, let's see. It would be great if there's a grant for that and we could sit there and build the charging station under some grant program. Right. Great.
I would think that that would be something that there is a grant for.
Problem is we're going to be too far away from the primary areas, yeah, let's see what happens with that and follow through with it.
If no one has anything else, there is correspondence, Then we'll go to public speak before we move to executive session. I'd rather do it now than later. Does anybody have any other issues that we haven't addressed? Let's move to public speak. Linda Fish. No? Okay. Amanda? Okay. Joanne Ebert.
I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Diane Choquette. I'm all set, thanks. Jessica Courier. Phone number 500475 ends in? This is Leanne Hutchinson. No thanks.
Okay. All right. So then Leanne Hutchinson's twice. All right. That would be it. One second. I'm going make a motion that we go into executive session to discuss, but no action on a claim by an employee against the town. Does someone want to second that? Second. Second that. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Can you say who so Jeff made the motion, Adrian seconded?
Yeah. Jeff McGuire made a motion, Adrian Mandeville seconded, and all five members voted affirmative. Thank you. All right. We might have to do this. I want to invite in or before we will, let's go backwards. Apologize. I don't want to adjust my motion. Are we going to invite in Eric and the town attorney? Anybody? Still seconded. Okay.
All right. So then we'll invite in Eric and the town attorney. Everyone else, thank you very much. Paul, if you can remove everybody and