Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Special Meeting
February 10, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Rather not be like, yes, let's go. We are recording. All right. So we all recording? Correct. Right. We're going to move forward. We're going to open back up our meeting. We finished our executive session. We're going move right now to public speak, Item four, and we're going to go through the individuals that are on and allow them to speak. The first one would be Brian Briggs. Would you like to say anything in public speak? Oh, yes. How's it going, Jeff? Good. How are you? Pretty good.
I was going to ask on behalf of myself and the Andover Democratic Town Committee that we put up a non binding petition on the ballot asking if we can change the elections to November due to low turnout. Like the numbers here are really low. And this year we've had a big turnout. Some of the members here in town, some of the voters aren't voting. So we would like to, you know, put that on the ballot and see if people are interested in it. And then if that's the only way, otherwise, I don't know if you guys can just change it. It wouldn't save us money and it would have more people turn out. Okay. All right. Thank you. Wait. Also, I have another thing if that's okay. Yeah, go ahead. So, I was reading the town ordinances and I'm not sure if this is right, but it looks like we're supposed to have an ethics commission that was way back in, I don't know, says 2006, 2005 that Andover supposed to have an ethics commission. And I think that's really important because of, you know, the things that's happened in the past and like some of the stuff that you were talking about earlier, probably in the exec in the executive meeting could have been maybe handled a little bit differently
and a lot faster with less cost to the town. And also it would make sure like people aren't, you know, unethical and all that. So I think that would be a good idea to enforce that. Okay.
All right. Kathy and Mike Pelosi, you guys have anything you want to add? You're good? Okay. You're still on mute, so give me a thumbs up. Good. Diane, you're good? Nothing to us? I'm good. Nothing. Anne Kerme, you're good? All right. I don't know who Jay is. Does anyone know who Jay is? Public Works Director.
All right, Public Works Director. Jay, would you like to bring anything to public speak?
He's still connecting. I don't think he can hear you. Elaine, Buchhart and Don Keener. Nope, we're all set. All right. Joanne Ebert. Thanks. Okay. Diane Choquette. I'm all set. Okay. Amanda, have I missed anyone? I think you got everyone covered. Okay.
All right. So let's go on to item five, additions and deletions to the agenda. Do any of the other members of the Board of Selectmen have any items they want to add or delete?
Jeff, I would make a suggestion that you move item 11A to 11H and do budget discussion at the very last because that's not really the priority of this meeting.
Okay. Mean, we can leave it with A because don't Do any of the other members of the Board of Selectmen really want to get into any specifics on the budget in tonight's meeting? I mean, we have another scheduled meeting. Right. And we'll probably need to reschedule another meeting because of the issues that occurred on Monday. So let's leave it at A because we're gonna move right through it. Understood. All right. Is there anything else? No? Okay.
We have boards and commission presentation. The Board of Selectmen, Board of Education, Combined Finance Department Committee, Finance Director interviews. Eric?
Hey, guys. Real quick. Real quick, Eric. That was not Jake from Public Works, just so we're clear. Oops. Okay. His says his says d p d DPW when it's connected. I just checked with him, that's not him.
Can you kick that individual out? I mean, they even connected to the audio? Do we have any understanding of what they're?
It looks like they're trying to connect, but they may not have audio on their device. Okay. So we can always leave them We for can let them sit there. Okay. So Eric, the finance
department committee. Okay, so again, we interviewed another three candidates. We had a total of like six more, seven more inquiries, but most of them weren't willing to actually put in an application. We did get four applications or five applications, of which three people were even remotely qualified. We did interview three individuals. Of the group, we were all pretty unanimous that the only person we would consider was a woman named Sherry Holmes. She's a resident of Portland. We have started the conversation with her about the job position. There's no final agreement. Val is going to get back to the combined commission that was interviewing on what we think the final conditions are. I suspect we're going to end up higher on salary than we want.
The good news with her is she is actively looking to taper back. She is probably three years away from retirement. And we talked a bit about, because I mean, one of the concerns by the board and myself was the fact that in a couple of years or in a year and a half when we are through with the software transition, there's a strong potential that this job does not need to stay at anywhere close to full time. So this employee would very definitely consider going down to a part time position within the next couple of years. So that's basically where we're at with that. There's no final agreement that I know of at this point. We were going to put together a contract and then discuss it with everybody that's on the combined commission. So that's kind of where we're at. 6B Economic Development Commission. Lane, I believe. Yep.
Yep. Hi. The Welcome to Andover signs that we would like funding for, I had put in for last year and didn't get anything. I mean, basically, I went through CIP and Board of Selectmen and CIP put it through, but then I believe it was the Selectmen that said, No, not this year. We can't do it. The Hartford Foundation for Public Gimming went ahead and gave the community funds out to all the towns that they serve. And I know Diane is part of that trying to And they're going to be soon asking for people for projects for the Community Fund to fund and. And I was going to go through that, But I mean, the reality is I should ask the town again. If we can get some kind of support, maybe go halves. Maybe 5,000 for one sign from the town, 5,000 for the other sign with the community fund. But so that's why I'm going ahead and presenting it one more time. We would like these nice Welcome to Andover signs or any Welcome to Andover signs.
And so we're looking for funding.
Elaine quick question does this include I don't remember I apologize from last year we get so much stuff that comes across. Does this include the installation of the sign or any of the expected costs to try to light them or place them or anything, or is this just the sign and the
cover? I think there was a covering over it, right, or something? Like a little roof or something? There's a Yeah, there's a little roof. You've got the pictures there. They've got I mean the person who designed that sign basically came out looked at our covered bridge and replicated it in a Welcome to Andover sign with the roof and the metal greens roof and then the metal nailed placarding on the bottom and then the wood. He was basically replicating it so that it really fit in with the, covered bridge. But, it it, should include installation, but the reality is I didn't go any further to get all of the final details because I haven't been able to secure any kind of funding
to do it. So so okay, but so this $10,000 number. I don't know. I'll ask him. Yeah, I'll call Art and find out.
I'm just guessing though that I'm guessing that it doesn't even if it includes that it might not include the lighting that you may need or. Know it doesn't include lighting. It didn't. Yeah.
Okay. Just as a just as a other side of this, have we dealt with Eric as to where we would put them?
No. Once again, no funding, you know, nothing has been it's going to be on Route 6. It's gonna be on either side of the town on Route 6, but specifically where has not been picked out or determined.
Well, given that Route 6 is a state road, we should probably find out what the limitations are on that.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, a lot of towns have their signs out there and stuff. And so I would call around and talk to the different towns about what kind of permissions, right of ways
that have to be Well, I think we'd probably reach out to our district rep for the state that controls Route 6. That's probably the appropriate place. Sure. Might
Elaine, you might be right. You might ask Bolton because I know put up signs recently. They're not huge, but they are. I don't think Coventry has anything on Route 6. I think Coventry focuses on 32 or whatever. Yeah, 44 and 32. But it would be interesting to sit there and see, you would want to put them somewhere closer to the town line and be interesting to sit there and Yeah, see would even
it wouldn't be right at the town line. That doesn't make any sense. It would be kind of closer to the center.
We'll find out that. But we will consider it. I can't sit there and say with what's coming down the road this year that we'll actually do it. But we should figure out a way to get this done somehow. Right. Or something similar to it done somehow. Think the rest of the board will also be in agreement that it would be Eric
positive. Should we be looking for isn't there a flat rate for electrical service on certain things for towns? Like so if we just want to we want to light that sign, we have to pay for a meter or is it flat rate for lighting or what is it?
Depending on what kind of lighting it is. I mean, for regular street lighting, it's just a per fixture price. In terms of decorative lighting, I don't know.
And I know I would consider solar lighting so that there's no need for any kind of electrical Solar
lighting generally without a battery setup won't last the night, but it is I've an tried a bunch of different things on my own driveway just experimenting and it's more complicated than it seems to be honest with you. I'm just and also I'm just trying to think about as a town everything that we talk about things like that when we start about solar or batteries and all it's just one more thing to maintain. As a town, we try to make things as easy as possible sometimes and there is a cost to that I realized but having somebody go who's gonna go check on that, who's gonna check the batteries, who's gonna you know, so you know. Yeah. Because So Eric is another thing. Yeah.
I don't think that the other towns are lit, Adrian.
I know. So why shouldn't we stand out? Spending money on a sign. Let's stand out a little. All
of this is great. We should actually do the research to sit there and determine what it is because Adrian is not wrong on that one because it is difficult to change batteries and to deal with all that. It is. Listen. I I will make a statement right now.
I have already volunteered to to help with the gazebo refurbishment this year and to organize that. If the money does not end up in this year, I will put the signs on my next year's project list. Gazebo is on the 2122. I'll put the sign on 2223 and I'll take care of that. Okay. Please put that in the minutes.
Sure thing. You absolutely can. I have no problem being held accountable to that. So Adrian's gonna build the signs? Not this year. I've got to do the gazebo this year. But if you don't get the money this year and Hartford won't kick in, I will definitely take care of the signs. You got town has to pay for the materials and I will probably have public works put in the concrete and I will take care of the building. Oh, thank you very much for that. Thanks.
That was well you're helping to Scott you just don't know it yet.
Yeah. And I'm sure he's rocking and roll me in too, so.
I'm sure there'll be some fundraising I'll be required to deal with. Let's see. Now we're moving on to item seven,
appointments. Eric, no appointments, right? None that I know of. Number eight.
So just for the record, at some point, the beautification commission will give me a roster and will appoint a new beautification commission. I asked for that, I did not get it yet. Hopefully at the next meeting we'll appoint a beautification commission if We these so have seen the roster though.
Wanted to finalize it. Kathy wanted to finalize it, which is fine. They're not going to do anything in the middle of February with all the snow we have on the ground. We're not worried about beautification at this point. Snow looks nice. Yes, snow looks beautiful. Right, resignations 8A, Cynthia Murray has resigned from the Andover Board of Education. I think that's all that needs to be said there. Item nine, unless someone would like to speak to that directly. Anyone? No? Okay. Item nine, the town administrator's report. Okay. So once again,
I'm going to share my screen and then only go over the things that have changed since the last time. Tell me if that works and you can see it. I'll make it bigger in just a second. Okay, so at this point, we're up to one hundred and forty positive cases of COVID in town. However, the big spikes that we experienced in the past, we're definitely on the downswing and the average case infection is down to about thirty five. It got as high as seventy eight at one point. So we're definitely doing better. And we're mirroring the state
and the nation as a whole, which is good. So I also wanted to say that as of February 3, the last time I had solid data on it, forty six percent of Andover seniors had had at least their first vaccine shot. I think those numbers are better now. It's not as good as a lot of the other communities. And I've asked Roberta to reach back out in addition to Kathy Palazzi and start talking to people and play that up as much as possible. We had a narrow window where town employees were able to have me put them on VAMs if they were 65. And those that took advantage of it were able to get
shots scheduled before, as of tomorrow, everybody 65 is eligible, so you can sign yourself up on VAMs. Now, before you move on there,
being one hundred and fourth out of 169 towns is not good enough. So, you know, all of this, I'm assuming, is done by internet, correct? Correct.
Can really make an outreach to all these seniors and get them signed up somehow and get them on buses or whatever we need to get them
vaccinated if they agree I mean, the problem is not transportation. We've said flat out, we will provide senior transportation to anybody that needs a vaccine shot wherever they get scheduled within the state. It's really getting people, but what we can't do is we cannot physically sign people up. Like we cannot go into VAMs and put individuals in VAMs. Other than town employees, I can do that. But I can't do it for everybody. So the state has recently added a ton more time and people on their help lines because before it was just ridiculous. You'd call, you'd spend 45 minutes on hold and then they'd tell you to call back later. And And then you'd get a prerecorded message saying call back the next time they're open. So they've more than quadrupled the number of people on the lines, but it's difficult. And a lot of the people that are 75 and older are not that tech savvy. And it is a problem. Well, how we help
this along then? If they're not tech savvy, what can we do to the technology to them or help them
navigate it? I mean, the reality is they've got to sit on the phone and they've got to call in
and schedule the appointment that way. You cannot do it on the internet? What? You cannot do it on the internet? I thought people were doing these appointments. You can very, they can very definitely do it on the internet.
But if people don't have an internet connection and they don't have an email address, there's no other way to do it other than, in other words, we're not gonna go in and create an email address for every single person over 65, sign them up and then schedule their appointment and then somehow get their information to them. It just I don't really see that as being practical we just don't have the resources to do that. All right we got to think about that.
I have had a couple of conversations with both Andy Tierney and Greg Lowry. They both have some suggestions regarding the RAM budget. My suggestion is I pawn that conversation off on Mr. Maguire, since that's not really necessarily appropriate for me as the administrator. I'll tell you what Greg is proposing is that we all request that RAM reduces their capital expenses by half 1,000,000 this year because next year when the bond gets the payment on the bond goes down by about 1,000,000 and a half, then there'll be more capable of funding capital requests. So if you all collectively have a message for them, I'd be happy to pass it on. Or if you want to deal with them directly, Jeff, that's certainly up to you.
Far as I'm concerned, need to deal with the superintendent directly. I have planned on doing that because, as I told the members of this board and I'll tell anybody, we have to focus on per student spending rather than a total number. But if this board wants to sit there and make a global statement to the RAM board, we have no problem supporting that. So we can talk about that later. You continue on your. Yeah, the other thing I would say is that Scott Leslie,
superintendent or the acting superintendent has offered to attend whatever the budget meeting, either the Board of Selectmen or the Board of Ed or a combined or not Board of Ed, Board of Finance or a combined meeting to discuss the budget. So what I was going to suggest is that we invite him to the next budget meeting, if you would like that. And then I would also invite the board of finance, or if you have another time or plan, I would relay that to him.
Mean, I know Jeff said to table it till later, but given that they're in budget workshops now and stuff, would it make sense that we pass a motion in support of that statement and ask a letter to be drafted for us to we can do our electronic signature or get together and sign if we need to, you know?
That's fine. What did you want it to say, Adrian?
I wanna basically support that statement that the, you know, that the RAM Board of Ed consider reducing their capital expenses by, you know, a half $1,000,000 and defer those expenses or the request for those expenses until next year when the bond has been reduced. I would support that.
Do we want to make any additional global statement to sit there and tell the board? I mean, based upon the numbers that I have seen and I've been given their per student spending is going through the roof.
Yeah, I mean, kind of looked at that too and I'm trying to pin down if it's a special ed issue because there seems to be a little more special ed in that budget than there has been in the past. I shouldn't say a lot. I
know there's been some discussion as to a special meeting with the Board of Finance. I think maybe what we do is we request Scott to come to that meeting. Unless we want to ask him to come to two meetings because I wouldn't mind having him participate like Valerie did in a budget workshop to get some better understanding of where his numbers are.
I could probably ask him to be at the next budget workshop if that's what you want.
That would be fantastic. Then can we send out something to the Board of Finance members that if they would like to join that for that portion of the meeting? Absolutely.
Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that. Is that okay with everybody else? Yes please.
I will make that happen. I'll let them know. Thank you. Okay the second thing related to budget that I just threw in my report because there was no other clean way to do it is the governor Lamont released his two year proposed state budget. His budget level funds ECS level funds all town funding sources that we get. I looked at it line by line and it's basically his proposal is paying the same as last year. The only difference he's proposing the of that next federal coronavirus relief money that the state got the federal government, the town of Andover share would be somewhere around $29,000 in the next budget. But there's no details about what that is or how it's spent or how it's allotted or anything else. So that's all I know at this point from his budget. Most of you know by now that Daryl, the resident state trooper has been reassigned to Hebron. His replacement
for at least temporarily is named Chris Ferrara. I met him a couple times he's a nice guy. I sent him out today to do a wellness check on a elderly resident. So Darryl had been showing him around you know, like going over what all the issues were in the town of Andover. So if anybody wants his email, I'd be willing to pass that along. You know, you want be helpful.
Yeah, can you send it to all of us please? Yep.
Okay, Scott Yeoman's completed the course for the burning official And one of the things that I would question for the board is in the past we have not charged individuals for burning permits. But that was because we made it an additional responsibility for the public works director, which is kind of dumb because he's got too many other things on his plate. So we found one, potentially two guys in the fire department willing to do it, but it's a time suck because they got to go out and, you know, weighed in on all these things. So what I would suggest is that he'd be compensated and we just put in a permit fee for anybody applying for a burn permit. And that So that would be taken like $25,
something like that? I would say somewhere between thirty and fifty because we're certainly not trying to encourage people to burn. How many burning requests do you have annually?
Yearly. Six to eight, not a lot. Eight, let's I
think if you go too high, you're gonna, people are just gonna do it without a permit and try to sneak through. Think I'd rather see it at a lower number that encourages them to make the call so that we know what they're doing and they don't get into trouble.
Yeah. Yep. As long as you don't make it too low that it's not worth the guy's while to drive out to do all the paperwork. $25 would cover it. No.
It's not gonna take more than an hour, right? Yeah. Well, it's 20 it's $25 an hour, right? Keep going.
Alright. What do we need to do to pass that permit fee? I would I would make a I would make a motion that we institute a burning permit fee of $25 to be paid to the town and then we will re compensate the burning official accordingly.
Wouldn't the burning official have to go a couple times, one to see the pile or whatever they're burning and then one other one see
it at the end of its burn? No, generally they're gonna go inspect the area, make sure it meets and unless there's a problem they most likely will not be back.
Eric, your what's the burn what do you know anything about this burning stuff? So I did talk to Eddie.
Eddie usually went out and looked at the pile before it was burnt unless it was one of his regulars and he knew exactly where it was going. And he usually went out on the day they were actually doing the burn which means they got to call him he's got to drive back out and look at it. I would say I
don't mean to contradict Eddie given he can't defend himself at this point, but I didn't find that to be the case. Okay.
Most people will don't necessarily burn during the week either. Well, there's
a course, I would think that you would be able to find out exactly how long how much time it's going to be scheduled for each burn. And then you could base that more clearly on what really is needed.
Yeah, don't think it's gonna be more than it's not gonna be more than $25, you know, if it's and I would say if it's a large pot, you know, if it's a large pile and there's an additional visit required for whatever reason that they would be charged again for another visit.
Okay. That's fine. Okay. Is somebody seconding that motion? Because I know we got into the questions right away. I'll just bring it back a draft for the next meeting.
Yeah. Just re and just maybe reach out to those two guys and see how they feel about that number. Yeah. Fine. Find out about it. Eric. Is that okay, Eric? Yeah. Scott said between thirty and fifty, he thought was appropriate. I don't I'd be okay with thirty. If you go higher than that, you're gonna have an issue. Personally, probably will. Okay.
What's so if maybe run 30 by them then come back with a draft we'll vote on it. Okay, fair enough.
So the other thing that we talked about or I put briefly in the original administrators report is we did blow up our fifth F-five 50 Mason dump truck, which is a 2008 truck. That was slated on our CIP request to be replaced next year when it would be basically 14 years old. What happened is we scored or we Things kind of melted one of the pistons, which is apparently an issue with that diesel if it's idled too long. Apparently they're recommending that public works departments actually go to gas vehicles from diesel give up the extra torque because they're having problems with the diesel engines in that environment.
Is it not standard issue or is it not standard policy to put auto time down on these things so they don't idle more than a certain number of minutes before shutting themselves down?
I don't know. That's not a question I can answer.
Okay. Yeah, I thought there was a state law saying they couldn't idle more than five minutes. Well, it's not a state law. Different towns have ordinances about it. There's no state law on it, but it's just good practice to put an auto shut off. Basically, if it idles more than a minutes, I mean, some some companies will dial it down so it's ten minutes. It just automatically shuts off.
Can I ask, Eric, that truck who which route was it on? Which who was driving it? It doesn't matter, does it? It does for me because I want to know. I actually don't know.
I don't think it was during a snowstorm. Don't think it was actively being used. If
procedures call for those vehicles to only idle at a certain time, we should figure out a way so as to not make that happen. My request was if it was a newer person, it could have happened because they were unaware of that. Not that you can blame them, but policy we should put. Jeff, isn't
a one time thing. This is probably something that happened over years of it sitting idling. And I remember there was an issue with this. Our guys went to Hebron to get breakfast one day and we actually got an email about it saying, you know, why are these trucks idling over at Hebron while they're in eating? They just left them out in the parking lot idling. So remember that? I do. Okay.
So Eric, if we order the truck, see if we can get a just a a shutdown. You know? I know in some of them, can actually program it into the logic. You know?
So what are you what are you guys suggesting here? We're gonna buy another So
here's what I'm saying, you know, we looked at it and said what is the cost of re engineering that stupid thing? And the reality is it's somewhere around $18,000 to put a new motor in it. That's if nothing goes wrong with the swap. And putting that much money in a thirteen year old vehicle that was kind of slated to be replaced in about a year doesn't make sense to me. We're still going to look at what the possibility of buying a used diesel motor is before we commit to buying a new one. And we've got a bunch more homework to do. We've only known about it for three days at this point. I'm not recommending any course of action at this point. I'm just letting you know kind of what we're looking at and what we're thinking. We found the local Ford dealer has one that basically that's on the lot now.
It's white, not green, so not ideal, but nothing not a deal breaker. That would be with a V plow would be about 57,000. We also looked at Sourcewell, which is the government contracting site. We can buy it from Sourcewell and it would be just a little bit more than that. But that would be for a 2022 model year. But at this point uncertain when we would actually be able to get it. We would order it now, but how long it takes them to deliver it is problematic and we don't have a firm estimate for that. How much do you need this vehicle? Mean, without that, we only have one small vehicle for a crew of four. So that's not a doable, we really need three small trucks, not two, but we can live with two. I don't think we can live with one. And I don't wanna put wear and tear on the big trucks just to try to get away with one vehicle. So the question becomes, how do we actually fund this thing? We do have some pools of money. I was starting to look at it today as to where we could potentially take money. We do have some money remaining in the capital equipment fund. We have about $23,000 on that right now.
We can potentially repurpose some of the second allotment of COVID relief money that we've gotten. Theoretically, could take about $20,000 out of that. We can spend money from Town Aid Road and we could potentially spend it from contingency. And I'm not saying I'm not making any recommendations at this point. I'm just saying that it is possible to fund it at this point, but we still got a bunch of homework to do. We need to explore whether we can get a lower cost repower situation first with the used engine and then look at other potential sources, see who else has them on the lots and what they would go for. Because if we send out to get one of these built, we're gonna be waiting a long time. So that's that. The second thing is we got a bunch of old equipment that we're just flat out not gonna use. And most of it's been sitting around a long time. The first is the old sweeper. Since we replaced the sweeper, there's absolutely no reason to maintain the old one because we'd have to spend a fair bit of time fixing it back up to put it back on the road this year. So my suggestion is that we auction off the sweeper. We also have a really old rear sander unit that was purchased for a previous version of the Mason dump truck that's a little bigger than the one we have now. It's actually really too heavy to go on the back of our little Mason dump and it doesn't really work on the big units. So we have no use for that. It could be auctioned. We also have a tilting mixer. We have another mixer.
It's a really old one. There's no reason to hold on to that. And if we do end up buying another vehicle, we ought to pursue auctioning off the existing F550. Because the frame itself is in pretty good shape and the dump body is Okay and it does have a V plow. So we'll get some money for it. So we ought to consider that. And there's also somewhere along the line, we got a free old single axle military trailer that's been sitting in the back of the facility collecting dust that hasn't been out of there in at least ten years. So we ought to get rid of that also. And the last thing is Jay has been making them religiously go through their parts bin and understand what they have. We have a ton of old spare parts for equipment that we haven't owned in a while. Some of it's for our old seven ten backhoe and some's for one of our old dozers and we don't have either of those pieces of equipment. We're going to trade all that, give all that stuff back to the dealer. They will pay us for it. They will give us a credit minus a restocking fee.
So that I wanted to be aware. And I did make a motion if you wanted to it's probably cleanest that the Board of Selectmen agree to send the stuff to surplus if that's what you want to do. Did anybody have any questions on that? No.
I know we talked about it in the past. Are we looking at finally getting a parts wall, like a bolt wall down there and stuff?
Jay is looking into that. That's one of the tasks I assigned him.
As long as he makes a decision if you were gonna do it, we probably wanna make a decision just before summer because that's when most places do the the restock orders. You know? Yep.
And, you know, the one the one person I know that we had talked to and gotten, you know, service from had offered to, you know, basically buy us in it at their rate to for the initial purchase of the wall. Wasn't that supposed to be done last year? Yeah. I thought we were working on it last year. It doesn't seem like What happened to last year? Why did it get done? It's paid for and everything. It's
in this year's budget. We have it budgeted for this year. So we can do it. What?
So it can be done. It can be done in this budget year. Okay.
And has anyone checked about a used motor for the $5.50?
He's checking on it. Not yet, but that's clearly something we're gonna do prior to.
We gave them some information this afternoon about maybe reaching out to Kutuz and Kutuz should also be able to give us a price as to what we may be able to fetch for the other one if we do just need to sell it.
I mean, all I'm telling you at this point is that it's a problem. We're working on it. I can't tell you what the final solution is. But we got a lot more data we got to figure out before we're ready to make it any kind of decision.
And what is the issue with all the idling? Why is it idling all the time?
That's just a habit a lot of guys do with diesels because they don't pursue, they don't consume a lot of
water. I know all that, Eric, Adrian, but why would someone go have a breakfast and keep their motor running? Well that's
a different conversation. Why would they sit around, why don't they just shut the thing off? What's going on here that this is happening? I mean I have diesels myself but I don't let them run, I shut them off. So,
I'm just curious about that. I mean, I'm not sitting in the vehicle. I mean, I can't tell you the history of the vehicle. And
if they're saying that that's the problem and now it's blown up. So, you know,
I would gather that our guys did not know as a problem. I don't think it's something they did. You know, in general, it's not an issue for diesels. It happens a lot because diesels take forever to warm back up. Know, and it's, you know, they whether they're running the air conditioning in the summer or the heat in the winter, know, there's a lot of reasons why guys do it, whether it's a good, bad or other.
I think that that was the case, Adrian in the, you know, 60s or 70s or something, but we're talking about new vehicles that, you know, can start and run and idle, you know, for period of time and you shut them off.
We're not talking about the 50s here. I don't disagree with you but having being around these trucks all day and owning one myself, I can tell you that it's still a problem with people, old habits die hard. That simple. And that's why you can put a programmer in that automatically shuts down the vehicle. That's why these things exist. Mhmm. So it bypasses that. So if they wanna keep it running, they gotta go back out every ten minutes and hit the button. You know? So.
Let's go back to these parts, the surplus materials. Has Jay reviewed all these or is Jay going to be the one that evaluates all this and tells us what we're going to do and what we're going to be able to get for these parts that we've paid for with tax dollars previously?
So Jay gave me a list of everything which you're looking at right there that he felt was appropriate to go to surplus because it didn't have any value to them as a public works. And they were more valuable than what you would just get for scrap metal. So his suggestion would be to approach Ritchie Brothers through their government auction, online auction service, or govdeals, know, and start putting these things out to auction and see what you get. Let me know when that single axle trailer comes up, I want in.
All right. Adrian, you got enough room on your property for another piece of equipment? I know it is getting a little ugly. Eric, do you have anything else? No. That's it for me for my report.
Do any of the members want to ask Eric any additional questions related to what he brought to us. I'll ask one. Is Trooper Ferrera local? Think he lives in Colchester, So not super local. Okay. Is that tilting mixer gas or electric? I don't know.
Might be interested in that too. Look it up. Muller 6s tilting mixer. Let's get the ethics commission in right now. Eric, just as a side note, we do need as a community to try to figure out a better way to assist our senior community on getting vaccinated. I
don't care if I need to volunteer to try to sit there and bring an iPad to their door to try and then we've got to figure out a way. If you find out that there's a way and you need volunteers, they need to get vaccinated.
Do we know, Erik, what population of our seniors are signed up for like that emergency system that we send out or our alerts? Is there can we put together like a message when we do figure out how we're going to help them? To ask them if they need help in some way? Yeah just a message you know a phone message. I don't know how many of them are signed up but maybe they should should all be signed up.
I'm talking about that blast you know that blast that we use Scott right yeah yeah the the blast that we got today
maybe all the seniors should be signed up for that right but how do We we let can't make somebody sign up for something they don't want to sign up for. Why not?
Stop. Well, do we do? Once we once we figure out how we can help them, do we send them a mailing? Can we how do we let them know that we're
we wanna help them? I I think we in general, don't we have a list? I mean, Roberta has a list of everybody that's interacting on a regular basis. We call people on a regular basis. You know?
So we went through the voter rolls, not we. I'm using the royal we as in Mrs. Palazzi and Roberta, and got a list of all the seniors and called every senior that's over the age of 75 and inquired and gave them personally the information on how to sign up. So the problem is not getting them the information the problem is actually getting them to do it. And the fact that let's be honest a significant fraction of them don't want to do it because you know the virus is a hoax and you know.
Well instead of telling them how to sign up, can we help them sign up? Can we have somebody with a laptop that signs them up and then forwards them the information so they know where and when they have to go and offers them a ride if we need to?
Listen, Eric, let's not even do that if that's the case. Adrian's not wrong, but what I would ask is let's make a phone call to all of we can't I mean, how many people are we talking about? What is the number? Seven fifty, 500? No. No, it's 50. 130, something like that. That's over 65, right? That's over 75. Oh my Lord. Yeah. Okay.
We just did like 20 miles. Let's get a list and check them off. If they say they're not going to get vaccinated, fine. They're going to get vaccinated
and they want to get vaccinated, they need assistance to get vaccinated, let's help them. I mean, and I'm not saying you, Eric, I will volunteer my time to help them do that. Joanne Hebert just hopped in the chat. She's willing to offer. I mean, we can get people to help with this. My neighbor across the streets in her 70s. She'll volunteer to help the other seniors II guarantee we can get people for this. If there's something you'll have to tell us what we need to do to help you Eric and we'll make it happen. Yeah.
We'll get you That's all a very good idea, get a list and check them off, go down the list and check them off.
You get a list, pick a day, we'll get people in there to help get hop on the phones, whatever you want to do.
Okay, all right. Well, if we can do that and Eric, if you can let us understand who you need assistance with and what we can do, think we'll have enough people that will try to help this through because It looks like Kathy and Mike have been calling those people a lot.
Yes. Eric. I Okay, mean, we're not ignoring it. It's just a question of what the resources are and can you really go through and create an email for every single senior that you wanna get vaccinated and then enter them into the VAM, get their personal information, enter them into the VAM system, wait for VAMs to respond, call the individual, figure out what appointment they can make. I mean, it's not, you know, Sounds like you've worked it all out. That's awesome. Looks like we looked at the logistics of doing that and just concluded that, you know, we don't have the resources to do that. Okay, well, about the phone option? You have to call a number and and you wait
on the phone. That's the phone option?
Don't worry much. I'll go to someone's house with my mask on and I'll sit there with my cell phone ringing
and we'll figure it out. Give me one person I need to do. Let me figure out the first person. Can we unmute Mike and Kathy? They're chiming in. Can we unmute them and get them part in this conversation please? Yes, I agree. It's time we get them in on the conversation. Is that okay? Yeah, it's fine by me. Amanda can you make that happen? I think I'm up. Are you here? Hey
help us out tell us what's going on. Do you need? What's
going on? Listen Roberta and I are taking care of it please relax and stop talking about the same thing we have 105 who have already been vaccinated we have in fact we had two of them went today we have people that are going we had a case today of a lady who has won't do anything that's reasonable so we are helping her I'm going on the van system I had another lady today her daughter called her daughter-in-law called me and I said to her can you do this can you organize this for her and I said Kathy are trying to tell us you have it covered you got it covered Kathy? Do got it covered Kathy. I think so. All right we'll stop worrying about it. Thank you.
Thank you Kathy for helping. I just don't want to be one hundred and fourth out of a right I don't either that
looks really bad I think 105 out of 171 is a pretty good shot I know it's not perfect and you're not going to get it perfect because there's people out there that said no we don't want it. Kathy,
Kathy if you have a need that comes up you contact us and let us know. Okay we'll do that. The reality is everyone if not everyone's going to want it so we can't make people do something they don't want but I'm confident that Kathy and or Roberta will let us know what we can do.
We can just sneak up on people and give it to them. Get some camo gear, let's go. Thank you. We're gonna get to 170. Let's go. Eric, thank you very much.
Kathy, thank you. And just again, Paul said, if you need something, let us know. One last question, the sweeper that we purchased.
How many hours is on it? Say that again? How many hours are on the new sweeper we got? Around 5,000 something like that. Does it have a good stereo? I
don't know. I can't tell you what what the status of the stereo is. Just from the size of this, how much material does it hold compared to the old sweeper?
It holds basically the same amount of material. The really nice thing about this is it puts the material in front of the sweeper and then you can lift it up and drop it directly into a truck. The thing that sucked about the old one is you would drive up with the sweeper and then the stuff would dump out the bottom in a pile and then you would have to come out with the loader or the backhoe and pick it up and put it in. So it was really, it took one extra body. With this thing, you can go out and just park a truck and then Jay can just go back and forth or whoever's driving it dump it in the truck. And then when the truck is filled,
go take it down to the pit and dump it. And the best part is we're using more salt now than us treated salt than sand, it'll last a lot longer. Okay.
Let's see. Now we're done with our town administrator's report. Old business discussed and act upon the following, the alarm monitoring for town buildings. Okay. So at this point, I've got one full blown solid quote and proposal for
fixing up the alarm systems and what the monitoring costs are. I have calls into two others. One guy is supposed to be out next week to measure and look at everything. So we're going to try to get at least three local dealers to give us the evaluations. And then once we know what the costs are gonna be, we'll go Where did that first one come in at out of curiosity? So depending on what options we choose, somewhere around 10,000 to make the public works facility pretty much code compliant. And then it's what they're proposing is using basically instead of a landline for the notification system using a cell phone based, a cell carrier based unit, which is about $45 a month, as opposed to like 27 a month to monitor the landlines. But we're paying $37 a month for the phone lines. And most of these systems take two. So the monitoring costs should pretty much be a wash. If we go to the cellular activated ones, there's gonna be some one time programming fees. The other big building that we got to deal with if we so choose is the museum at one time had an actual fire alarm system but the Burbank administration removed it because he didn't want to pay for the phone lines and they put a little home baked home monitoring system on but it's really only got like one detector. So that has to be addressed. That's a 3 to $4,000 option if we choose to monitor that building.
So that's pretty much where we're at. Did you get a hold of Bob Downer?
I left Bob a message. Have not He has not returned my call.
Okay. New business. New business. Yes, I was sitting there thinking of something else, but we'll get to that later. Budget discussion. I know that we were scheduled to have a budget meeting tonight and our regular meeting on Monday. Do we want to schedule an additional budget meeting between now and the end of this month?
Certainly. I personally don't think so. I think we need to do our broad strokes on the budget at our next budget meeting and kind of tidy it up and move it on to board of finance and let them, we've already done all the outliers. I think our biggest things right now are funds, Is that correct, Eric?
We still have some salary issues to deal with. Yeah, but they're minor. The major stuff is basically the funds. Yeah. Okay. The other issue is we do need to schedule a joint meeting with the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen to present our budget to them. At some point in time, we'll want to do that maybe Tuesday the second or if we have to do one after Tuesday the second, we'll do it. Do
we need to do a joint? Isn't that really kind of in the past? Isn't that really kind of Eric or the town admin that presented? I think with this budget, I think we should get in front of them and
sit there because this is one of those budgets that we're trying to lay out some issues and some direction for the community. I think we should invite our friends at the Board of Finance in and talk to them about what we're trying to do and then hear them so that we can all be on the same page. Exactly. Yeah. I second Jeff's comments. I think that's a great I
think it's an excellent idea. I just want to hear someone else say it. Excellent idea.
I love your ideas. As usual, I will not take credit for it. All right. So that was a great idea. Oh, Jeff. You take credit for it, Jeff. So what date are you proposing for that?
We'll sit there and determine it in our next budget meeting.
Okay. And at the next budget meeting right now we're going to schedule RAM, the superintendent and the chair of the Ram Board of Ed and invite the Board of Finance. Is there anybody else you wanna speak to directly at the next meeting? Do you want me to line anybody else up? That'll be fine. Okay.
To be clear, we're inviting the Board of Finance so that they can be part of the RAM conversation. Correct. Okay. That budget meeting is the sixteenth. Eric?
Yeah, our next budget meeting is 7PM on the sixteenth. Oh no wait, Christ, I can't see that far. Yeah, on the sixteenth.
I'll take the words in vain there, Eric. Did you say, Adrian? He took the words name in vain. He shouldn't be saying it like that. Okay.
All right. So we're moving on to 11B, Donna Deuter settlement. The town's insurance company, Kerma, has reached a settlement with the previous tax collector in regards to the Jay Linde sexual harassment lawsuit. We need to make a motion to accept that agreement. The agreement is in the amount of $200,000 That will be covered by KIRMA, the insurance company. It will have an impact on Andover eventually in our premiums, but we're hoping that it's minimal, but it will come down the road. So, there is a motion that I'll actually make. I move to accept the proposed settlement between the town of Andover and Donna Doyker as presented by Attorney O'Learnio Vos. Got you. Got you. Do
we need to use terminology authorize or consent to the I think that was the word she used. Say that one again. She said we need to consent specifically.
Okay. I move to consent to the proposed settlement between the town of Andover and Donald Doyker as presented by the attorney Vacasio on behalf of Kerma. Thank you. Attorney O'Brien, before I move forward with that, is that acceptable? Yes, it is, sir. Okay.
Adrian, you seconded that? I did. Okay. Discussion? For the record and it's an absorbent amount. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. All
right. We move on. 11C, Library of Murrow Vandalism Request for the Court Statement. The Library Board presented the Eric and myself a statement that they would like to submit to the court. I had told the Library Board representative that I will also send a cover letter related to that. When does that need to be submitted by?
Pretty much right away at this point. Yeah, it's coming up next week, Dan. Next week? Okay, so
has everybody read that letter? Yes. Anybody have a problem with the letter?
I it was I wouldn't let them get accelerated rehabilitation personally.
The library board wants to sit there and be generous to the individual that actually stepped up and took some responsibility for the vandalism, so I don't have a problem with it. No. They don't want to ruin the kid's life. Yeah. They're not giving the other two any breaks, so that's fine. I think as a board or as a representative into town, have no problem submitting a short cover letter supporting their request. Anybody on this board have a problem with that? No. No, it seems reasonable.
Okay. No. 11d is disposition of old equipment. Eric's already talked about that. Does anyone have a problem with the list or how we're going about it or they think it should be done in a different way? Scott, Adrian, do you have any requests in how they do it? Get rid of it.
Adrian, besides wanting to buy half of it, do you have any other problems with it?
No. Think Ritchie Brothers is kind of really the only game in town for those bigger things. And, yeah, I, I I think we also, for the sake of expediency, it might be I and I already told Eric to maybe get a number from Kutuz. We also maybe ask Jay to just take a quick look and see if it's worth parting out the $5.50 instead of selling it whole with the plow installed. We may make more money by pulling the plow off, selling the body or selling selling the body, plow, and and truck separately.
K. They're not gonna give you anything for it. Who to?
I would disagree with that statement. I've sold a couple things to them and felt like the number was pretty fair. But the truck itself is in very good condition. Yes. It is. Yeah, and I don't think the plow is in bad shape either. Right, so be sensible to keep the plow.
I did talk to Eric about that about whether it would be worth it to transfer the body and stuff to a new piece of equipment. It just depends what the numbers are. He's gonna look into that. Eric's trying to cover all the bases. I gave him a couple of places to look into so we can get a little better pricing number too maybe.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying we're not, I don't wanna make any decision on this until we you know, have a much better idea of what all our options are. Right now, all we know is all the options are kind of bad.
Okay. 11E is the agreement between the town of Heber and the town of Andover for turf management or management of the facility at Long Hill, the ball field at Long Hill, Veterans Memorial Field. Has everyone had a chance to look at that agreement? Eric, I would just ask you, what's the increase in costs on that from year to year?
So, the increase in costs this year is as far as I could tell isn't really any, but there is, but they do open it up so that in subsequent years, basically it's a two year contract, but with the understanding that they will come back with a budget number for next year at some point that we will have to re agree to. Okay. That's fine.
Scott, since you are the most involved in that, do you have any problem with the service they've been providing? No, I think it's very good. Very happy with them. And Dennis Professional.
Yes, I reviewed the agreement. It's almost exactly the same except for cost to the same agreement I reviewed and approved in 2018. So, I just wanted to let you know that I approve of it as your attorney.
All right. Thank you very much. I know that last year, actually over the last few years, Scott has worked incredibly hard to sit there and work with Rich Clark over at Hebron to make that irrigation system work properly. I believe, I think the last thing that Scott told me is that he finally got it working correctly and no one had to sit there and babysit the system. If that is accurate, Scott, give me a yes.
Yes, yes, yes. Okay. No more marriage to the interrogation.
To the public. What are gonna do with all your free time, Scott? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going across the street. Going across the street, that's right. Scott's gonna make a dent on a ball field for Turney O'Brien's girls softball. Exactly. Want to say I'm
excited to support that field as a girls softball field. Me too. Me too. All right. There anything else? Do we need to approve that agreement? I'm going read the motion, Eric.
I don't know if there was a motion, is there? There was. Yeah.
I motioned to authorize the town administrator to sign the turf management agreement between the town of Hebron Parks and Recreation and the town of Andover. On?
Just, you repeat that motion? That's it, yeah. Paul, you're to I'll second it. Paul is on mute. I'll second that. All right. Further discussion? Yeah. Further discussion? Anybody? No? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Jeff, are you opposed? I was late to the game. Late to the game. It's the Florida connection.
It's delayed. The hearing aid's not kicking in. It's delayed. Yes. New business 11 F, the Chamberlain Pond Cleanup. Eric.
So Mr. Murray asked me to put this on. There was some residents that indicated that they want us to create them a skating pond. Know, various and sundry proposals were floated on how to do that. What does the sundry mean?
It's all right, it's a good word. Let's keep going. What are we gonna do?
So I know the conservation commission submitted a letter to the board today, but frankly, haven't even read it. So I don't know what the contents of the letter are. I suspect the Wetlands Commission would have a cow if you tried to clear the brush around the pond, but I don't know for sure. It would certainly take a wetlands application because it's absolutely in the Upland review area. Can we connect with the burning official maybe we could just burn it.
Yeah. Let's get curious for a minute. I just I talked to the conservation commission I had Mike Palazzi and Carrie Crompton there, and they had no issue with and they stated that in the letter with with clearing. There's a bunch of deadfall that's into the pond and a bunch of overhang brush they don't mind if we trim. They also did a similar project with some clearing with approval of inland wetlands, but we haven't had approval yet. The reason I put this on the agenda was to make sure the selectman a know about it and be that we don't if we trim any brush, it would be approval to have public if we pilot that public works come at some point and collect it and take it to the brush pile. Where's the pond that we're talking about The one on 316 the Fire Pond.
Okay, fire pond. So people
have skated out in the past. It's just become overgrown. And instead of instead of bringing in a temporary pond or putting in dikes and flooding an area down at the ball field giving the pond already exists if it freezes. It's good we can skate on it. If not, I mean if you get the dice is bad or if it's got snow on it we can even contact the fire department see if they can suck put a suction line on the fire the pipe there and re flood the pond basically draw from the bottom and put new layer ice on the top. So it just seems like it's just using existing resources without having to spend a lot of money. So who wants to do this. There was just a lot of conversation about having a skating area in town and everybody pond is state owned. The lake fall pretty much falls under Alpoha and there's really no other really option in that pond is town owned.
Might be someone who would take this and run with it. Scott Warren Okay.
I know him and his friends used to skate over there. Used to skate there when I was a kid. No, I'm serious. Why are you laughing Scott?
Because do you not We will have the resident state trooper help him out. How about that, Yeah. I
think it would be an ironic twist that he got his wish. Don't you think?
I don't think we need to even talk about it. Yeah. Idea. Let's move forward with it. There's a group of residents and Scott is willing to sit there and participate, that's great. If Scott's not willing to participate, let's sit there and move forward with it. The only thing I would sit there and say is this is the first year in a long time that we've had consistent cold weather to free any body of water in this town.
That's one of the keys here though Jeff if you're going to cut the brush you got to use the ice but you got to get on it right now. Mean it's yeah it's advantageous to get on the ice right now to get to the to get to the brush to get it off of there. Okay so I would say I've skated Jirpah Body Pond at least one day the last four years. There's ice here.
You can't get your boat out there. So what are you even
talking about? The issue is doing maintenance. Would be reflooding it and clearing snow like if we had people go on and clear snow it's easier that's a town owned parcel than a state owned parcel. Sure. Let's do it. So do we have the support of the selectmen if if it lands Okay. That's our that's our last hurdle. Yes.
Okay. Honestly, I'm not particularly in favor of it. I don't see why the town gets involved with something on a small pond when you already have the lake and you already have your body pond that are good And bodies of water to skate
thank God you don't have a vote. Bah humbug, know, It's a potential public resource and if you could sit there and make that skatable and make it acceptable for residents to come down there, I think it'd be a wonderful thing.
It's got good parking. It's just, you know, if people want to bring their kids down into skate, it's just a resource we can leverage. That's all.
If a resident wants to come down there and play a little hockey and sit in the parking lot after the hockey game, good for them as well. They're on their own with the trooper. That's right.
Does any of the other members of the Board of Selectmen have a problem with us? I mean, the only thing we were really asking for the town to do in Eric's purview is potentially pick up brush. Correct.
Yeah, we can. Mean, the hard part is just getting Wetlands approval. Yeah, I mean, we're in a process. I don't know if we can unmute Mike and Kathy, but I don't know what Mike is. Mike? Yes,
can. Yeah, I'm just waiting for Megan Lowry to get back to me. I've contacted her and we'll see what happens because we're not going to cut anything, no roots near it. We're just going to trim the trees down that are bent over and dipping into it. Right. And the stuff that's on there, we went over that with Jeff. We can probably cut some of the stuff off all those ice and get the roots that are sticking up there from a dead tree or something. We can cut that off so it was flush with the ice at least and maybe a little bit below, you know.
That's all work party stuff. Mike
you've done similar cleanups in the past right with Inland Islands approval. Yes, we did the other side of that where the stream goes in to feed it and on the very edge of it. And is similar work. Yeah. Okay. Okay
and then Jeff, I'm assuming that you'll sit there and coordinate with the fire department if you need anything.
Yeah. We just have to get it clear to make it scalable and then we'll address that when we get Jeff, I
talked to Scott real quick. He said if you call him, he will help out and he may be able to get you some bodies too. Warren.
Okay. I just think it's a win win for the town. It's just another thing we can have for it is Utilize our resources.
It's the same reason why we could, lake, Andover Lake is a resource. I know it's not a town resource, but it is a resource. People are out there hiking and doing everything. We should support that any way we possibly can. What Jeff is doing is a town piece of property and I think it's a great thing. Maybe even in the future we should sit there and think about doing a fire pit and letting people have parties there. Right, Eric? Not going there right now. All right. Okay. Wow. So let's move on to our next thing. We have on our agenda 11 gs, May elections.
So as most of you have gotten from the Andover Democratic Town Committee, they would like consideration for changing elections from May until November, which obviously requires a change to the charter. So it's neither a simple nor a short thing to do. What I had suggested is the fastest thing they could do or we could do is put a non binding question on when we go to the next vote for May elections that would say, are you in favor of a change to fall elections? And at least understand whether people wanna do it before we go down the process of putting together a commission to review the charter. And Dennis can give you chapter and verse about exactly what has to happen to do that. Are we gonna do that for all of the things we're gonna put on the charter No,
Adrian, let's just have Attorney O'Brien verify in a not chapter and verse, Attorney O'Brien, in reasonable short synopsis, is what Eric said accurate? They haven't used up all my time yet. Right. Anyway,
yeah, Eric, what Eric said is absolutely accurate. It's a charter matter. You have a charter section two zero three that requires elections to be held in May. In order to change that, you would need a charter revision. You could, I just wanna give you a little ancient history, but this was on the ballot for a change about ten years ago. And it failed along with the rest of the charter. It was proposed that time. I wrote the section and it's all ready. I could just put it out right now. What you could do is change the charter to make it a November election. You could do it in the gubernatorial election of twenty
twenty two. And then it would become effective the following year. The good news for all of you on the Board of Selectmen is that your terms would be slightly extended, because you wouldn't be running for reelection if you run. Say that's good news. And of course, we all hope you do. We all hope you do. And I hope I'm around to see it. And if you do run, your terms would have to be extended until 01/01/2024. Otherwise they
would terminate sooner because you'd be I'm sure that would be no problem for Paula or Scott or Jeff. Adrian and I definitely will not get support on the extension of our terms.
In any event, you have the option of putting in a charter change next year. You have plenty of time. You could have panel a charter commission after the well, anytime you want because you have, once the Charter Commission comes up with its final report, and it's approved by the Board of Selectmen, you have fifteen months in which to put it on the ballot. So you could very easily do it relatively soon, get it on the ballot for the twenty twenty gubernatorial election. If you try to do a charter revision at any time other than a state election or your May election. In order to pass it, you have to have 15% vote in favor of it. If you do it at a basic referendum, it's I've never heard of anybody passing it that way. So the only way to do it would be in November 2022 when the next gubernatorial election is scheduled, and I would be very happy to help you in that regard because I've worked on many of those things.
Can I ask a structural question about this? Sure. So as you know, we had a charter revision that passed and a charter revision that didn't and one a charter commission that didn't get very far. That's right. If this were to be put on, are we allowed when a charter change, when charter changes are put out to have certain things pulled aside? So like could we have a charter change that encompass say everything except for this or everything except for this one other thing and have those questions voted on separately for charter changes? Yeah, the questions are normally broken down into separate questions.
We had a charter revision on our ballot here in Wyndham this past fall and we had eight questions, seven passed. I'm proud to say I was chairman of that commission. And, but any event, yes. But once you impanel a charter commission, you can give them a charge, say, we want you to put on there something about changing the election cycle from May to November. Yeah. They still can do whatever they want. They can add all the issues they want to. Of course, you can give them a month to finish. You can give them ten months to finish. So, you have some control over them and then it comes back to you and you have to approve what they do,
okay? I hope that we can do better than seven out of eight. But my bigger that thing I know there has been lots of discussion about this in the past. And unfortunately there is also an undercurrent of folks that disagree with it because they feel like they're gonna lose their space in the paper because we're a small town. Right now with May elections, you know, we're the only people talking about elections. So we get a little bit of play in the letters to the editor and what have you. Their concern was if we switch to November, oh my god, know, we're gonna get swapped by these bigger towns.
Well, I'm in favor of that. I personally, it's not my call. But I'm the one who convinced the Charter Commission ten months ten years ago to put that in the in the package.
I noticed, you know, as the plazi has pointed out in the chat that the Secretary of State really wants this to happen because we're one of only four towns that still have this. So I get it. I just wanna make sure that we don't risk charter issues, other issues that need to happen
with this kind of wrapped up in it. So you can separate them all out and they're voted on individually.
Seems pretty simple, Adrian. Dennis has got it all written out already. I have that
all written out already, that item, and a number of others. You know, just ask me and I'm available and I'd love to So,
our issue as a board, really not at this meeting is to determine when and if we want to do a charter revision and the issues that we want to sit there and see addressed. Somewhere down the road, I think it's a good idea. I'm glad it came up.
I don't know putting it on the agenda, putting it on the ballot for May as an advisory referendum. I mean, you could do that. There's probably enough time you'd have to check with the Secretary of State. Well, where would that get you? I don't know. Yeah, don't low turnout, you're not gonna learn much anyway. And you will get a low turnout this year because you don't have much on the ballot, right? You the board of selectmen's not on the ballot this You're being presumptive. No. I'm being I'm you I'm giving you the benefit of my forty years of experience. We have three positions for the Board of Education, Jerome. You do? That'll bring out some people, but Seven out of eight. Seven out of eight. That's all I'm saying. As your Democratic Party Chairman pointed out in that memo that I saw that's on the I think you have it.
Your turnouts in May are pretty, pretty poor.
Did you advise her on that? Is this is that conflict, Ari? No.
Okay. I'm not. No, I didn't. I mean if we're going to do it we should just do it. I don't think we should make it a good question because every time you put a question on people think it's actually they're voting on the charter. So I think we just put the question up and let people vote yes or no.
No because it's going to I think it confuses people because they're going to think that it means it's gonna make the change. Okay. So so let's let's okay.
We're not gonna I I I don't recommend putting it up simply because we normally have low turnout at that point in time anyway. It's the same people that would not want to vote on it. It was the reason why the only time the charter, since I've been involved, a charter proposal has passed, it was because we were at the November election with a lot of turnout, and we had a lot of people coming in, and we had a lot of different views and opinions, it was more representative of the total community rather than a small selection of the community. Exactly.
I agree with you, Jeff. I agree with that statement. Very
well said, Jeff. Personally, I sit there and think, know, out of a lot of things that have been going around like now, may not agree with a lot of them, but that's one of them that I agree with, is a November election would be better for our community and it would cut down on our expenses and it would make things a little bit simpler for It
makes so many other things because the deadlines to pick candidates at this point are so early in the process, it's just a mess. So I mean, I agree with it as well. I don't think we need a referendum, even a non binding one to answer it. I think we just need to get through this budget cycle and then put a charter commission together and start
trucking through some of these issues. I think that would be very wise,
if that's okay. And I think that is something that we as a board should look to do. And I agree with that. So
Well, I think it's I thought that it was already on our radar. It has been, but since
it is not a priority as right now, we haven't announced to anyone when or if we're going to do it. But has there been discussion among members of this board whether we need to do that? Answer is yes. Should we be doing a charter revision? Yes. I mean, we're required to do a charter revision how often, Dennis?
I don't Do know a committee, how often? You're not required to do it. Some charters, I don't know if yours does, requires you to just look at it every five years. Every
five years you have to look at it. You don't actually have to do anything. That's the same. Yeah, that's pretty standard in charters and I wasn't aware that it was Well,
board has not sat there and done a charter revision or authorized a charter revision or authorized a committee to look at the charter revision. Before we're done with our four years, we will absolutely do that and hopefully that will be one of the issues that's on a revised charter that the community could vote on. Adrian is actually right. We can't put it up all or nothing. We have to put it up piecemeal and say, These are the things we'd like to do. Do you agree with this? Do you agree this? With Do you agree with this?
I mean, I don't know the answer to this. Can someone enlighten me as to what happened with the last Charter Commission? I know there was one in Pan, you know, in paneled, remember going to a couple of meetings to They get my own
had a couple of people leave town and they didn't make their deadline. Then on my recommendation, Disbanded them. Disbanded.
That's right. Was, I couldn't find the right word. The previous board of selectmen empowered it and this board of selectmen ended it. That's right. You did it.
Just like most things, this board of selectmen tries to do things. No, I just wasn't sure what why it had got bogged down. That's all. Two
key members left town. Couldn't raise a quorum for some of the meetings, some were It less active than just died for lack of participation. Okay.
So we're going move forward with that. We will do it after probably after the cycle, probably really after this election, to be really honest, if you'd like to know my opinion and my timing. We should start thinking about it. If any of the members have anything they'd like to see changed, we should start thinking about it. We're going to move on to Item 12, is approval of minute meetings. We have approval of the meetings for the Monday, January 11 regular meeting. We have approval for the Tuesday, 01/19/2021 special meeting budget workshop. The Tuesday, January 26 was it a Tuesday or a Wednesday? Okay. We'll these go dates. Tuesday, 01/26/2020 special budget workshop minutes. Did we actually meet on the second? I'm asking the board here. I don't remember that. What day? The second.
Yes, we did, I believe. Was when we had isn't that when we had the Andover? Was that when we had Valerie? Yeah. Valerie
was on the second, not the twenty sixth? Okay. Yeah. Tuesday, February second, twenty twenty special meeting. I mean, Okay. So this is the eighth. That's why I'm having a confusion. I'm having a senior moment. Dennis, forgive me on that one. My hair is gray. My hair is gray. I tried to fake it anyway. This last week has been a little bit confusing for the days. Tuesday, February 2. We have four meeting minutes that we have to approve. Does anyone want to make a motion to approve all those minutes? I would motion to approve all those minutes.
Someone want to second that. Wait, are you saying that Valerie was on the second?
I thought she was on the twenty sixth. Yeah, she wasn't on the second.
Sure. The second was the one we She wasn't on the second because I met with her on at the end of that week on the twenty ninth. You're correct, you're correct. You're correct. Sorry, just wanted to clarify.
Okay. Who's seconding Scott's motion? I'm seconding Scott's motion to approve the minutes. Further discussion on the minutes, anybody want to have any corrections, any changes, anything, nothing? All those in favor, aye. -Aye.
-Aye. Thank you. The finance department report is in our package. Does anyone have any specific questions they'd like to ask Eric about or talk to Eric about? Eric, are there any specific areas that you want us to focus on or things that you find as a problem on any of those reports? Not at this meeting, no. Okay.
All right. Item 14 is the budget and appropriation transfers and over expenditure requests. Eric, do we have any for this meeting? Nothing for this meeting. Okay. Tax collector report and refund requests. Do we have anything for this meeting?
We have two. They're in your motions. One is $412.19 to Lisa Stratton and one is 6 and $51.49 to the Porsche leasing. Those are both vehicle related.
Okay. Refunds. They're both excess payment requests refunds. So would someone like to make a motion to accept those? Paula? Ahead. I'll read those motions.
That's one pulling it up right now. Where are they? Number 15 on the motion sheet. Thank you. I'm scrolling down here. I motion to approve the refund of excess payment in the amount of $412.19 to Lisa Stratton. I motion to approve the refund of excess payment in the amount of $659.51 dollars 49¢ to Porsche leasing because the vehicle was sold. I second. Okay.
Further discussion? No discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. It pains me to vote yes on those, by the way. The assessor's report. Eric, where are we on the revaluation services?
According to John, as of this week, we are 100% through with the walk through, the initial walk through of the properties. You said a 100%?
That's what he told me. Told me they had done the first evaluation of all the properties. Okay. Any other questions related to the assessor's department?
No. I mean, obviously, it's still ongoing. It's not you know. So it's not 100%. Well, the initial update of the assessor's cards is 100%. Now it goes off to their central location, all the data entry gets done, they all get put into the system. So that's kind of the next step. John said that usually takes him at least a month to get them all actually physically updated. Okay.
All right. Departmental reports, Item 17. Eric, are there any specific reports you want to call out to the board? No, not really. They're all there.
Does anyone have any questions related to any of the departmental reports?
All the filing cabinets up at the dump transfer station. What about them? Yeah, where'd they come from?
They've been in the Public Works cold storage facility for the last fifteen years.
So you saw a nice piece of nice clean piece of cement up there and you wanted to cover it with old filing cabinet?
No, I mean, know, deal is we offered it to the public for a short period of time and then whatever people don't want is going straight to John's scrap yard. But since a good filing cabinet is worth a lot more money than its weight in scrap, if the residents want it, I'd rather give it to them than get a couple dollars apiece or a buck apiece for it and scrap. Did you put a sign out there or anything?
We've put it on the community alerts and on the town's Facebook page. Can I can I can I know
it's out there? And I will say the one frustration I have is that I did hear a couple complaints already about people saying that they were going to take a cabinet and they were told certain ones were reserved. We should not be reserving. It's first come first serve. Either grab them or they don't. Right because they'll be sitting there. And so we need to stop the we're gonna hold things for people. Either grab them or they're gone. We can't be holding that stuff. The only time I saw
something up there with a hold tag was somebody who had tagged it on a Saturday and put very specifically I will pick this up next Wednesday when the transfer station is open and he had his name on it. So that I wasn't too concerned about. Okay. I haven't gone in and looked at there in the last week and seen what people put on the cabinets. Wednesday,
I know it was there on Saturday. Did you put a sign on it, Eric, that say that they're free? I didn't put a sign on there personally. No.
Okay. So first come first serve, get them the heck out of there. Yep. Are you going to get me on the ethics commission if I go down and grab them? You go take them. You have the equipment, you go put them on your property, no one will ever see them. Probably not even in the assessor's office. They're personal use anyway, so. Absolutely, yeah. I think we're to see Adrian Hoarder soon.
We're done with 17. I was gonna invite you over. They make good target practice.
Okay. 18 correspondence. Adrian, is there any correspondence? Eric, any correspondence that we need to know? Nope.
All right. We're at the time in our meeting for public speak. Let's go through who oh, before we get to public speak, I apologize. I'd be remiss if we didn't thank Cindy Murray for her service to the Board of Education. Jeff, we're hoping that you can sit there and relay the Board of Selectmen's thankfulness for her service as a volunteer to the community and serving on that board.
We do understand it's been difficult and a trying time, and we appreciate all of her hard work. Yeah. We hope everything's okay with her. Everything is fine. I will relay the message. All right. And we have an opening on the ethics commission. Thank you.
We are a funny board. I'll tell you a funny, funny, funny board. The only way I'm getting through this. Yes. I agree with you. Okay. So we're going to open this up to, public speak and we're going to start with Anne no, Diane Greiner. You are first on my board. It almost feels like Hollywood Squares, to be right honest. I'm going go with a circle.
Greiner. The Brady Bunch. Yes. Okay. Yes, thank you. As you probably know, I've been in severe lockdown with this COVID thing. Worried, worried. I'm such an old lady. But I'm not 75, so I have not been able to register to get my shot until this week. They have opened it up. But I have been watching it carefully. A lot of my friends have signed up. And as Eric said, it has been a nightmare trying to do it by telephone. It's even worse trying to do it on the computer. I'm somewhat computer savvy and I was having a hard time with it. So I did hear that the governor has ordered more phone phone. Yeah, that was supposed that should be in effect already. Yes. I called in this week because they've opened it up for people over 65. And it was easy peasy. I called and they I got the the recording that says, you know, because of big volume, you know, blah blah blah, leave a message, and they'll call back within twenty four hours. Yeah. Right. I knew that was, you know but they did call back within twenty four hours. I had some special request kind of things that they were able to do for me that I I couldn't manage on the website things. And like I say, it went very easy. And I recommend that the seniors make the call. Do you guys want the telephone number? The plaziers aren't still on there.
Diane, are you gonna get your shot while wearing the costume?
Mrs. Claus didn't need to get the shot. COVID did not go up to the North Pole. Doesn't survive in the cold. Good to know. Between that and it's a pretty close community. And Santa has been locked down as well. Here in Andover, like I say, I still have Peapod delivering my food. My big trip every week is to the dump, and we go the long way. But now that I'm they've opened it October '5, like I say, I did find the telephone call was very easy, very polite, and it was not a problem at all. Right.
And Kramay is making JJ, me thank you very much for that information, Diane. We greatly appreciate it. Anything else that you need to
say to us, Diane? No, that would probably be it. All right. You're good. Thank you. Well, I guess I will thank you for taking care of the hooligans from the library mural and sending off something for that. We appreciate that. Thank you. All right. No problem. Anne Kerme?
You're good? Okay. Joanne Eber? Before walking around, Anne. No, she said she shook her head. I got that message. It was a no. No, it's the walking around. I'm getting dizzy. Well, the phone, you know, she's got two phones going. She's got one in her hand here and the other in her ear. I mean, still has a wall phone besides my 89 year old mother? Hey, hey, hey. Apparently, cremace have one. All right. We'll go on. Joanne Ebert, let's go. Hello. Thank you.
You're good? All right. Excellent. Amanda, would you like to participate?
I'm all set, but thank you for including me. All right.
Dennis, since you're not a member, do you have anything you want to say? Well, I just want to say that I did get my first vaccine
shot a few weeks ago, but I had a hell of a time scheduling it. And I can relate to all the people who had difficulty. It was very difficult, but my next shot is scheduled for next Friday. Well,
plan on laying low on Saturday. Sometimes the second shot's a little rough. You've
already warned me about Late arrival. Adrian's already warned. I have one more thing. The ethics the ethics ordinance that
Alright. I'm done, I guess. No. You weren't done. No. The ethics ordinance that was mentioned by this gentleman from the Democratic Town Committee was it was done before my time in Andover, I think, or it was done without my knowledge is terrible. It's it's very poor, very poorly done. And I submitted to this, board or a previous one, a another version of that and it was never acted on. I just wanted to bring that out because it is I have I have it. It's available. It's excellent. If you really want to have an ethics commission. It's based on what I wrote in Mansfield. Took,
went through about 20 drafts. All right, Dennis, if you could forward that to us, that would be great. I will be happy to do that. You know that. Thank you. And last but not least, Shannon Loudoun has joined us at the end of our meeting for public speak. Shannon, would you like to say anything?
No. I'll have to review this. Hopefully, you re it looks like you're recording it, so I'll review what happened tonight. I just wanted to publicly acknowledge Cindy's resignation because I saw it on your agenda and also to say on your agenda that I'd seen May elections. So I'll see what you all said about it And hope that you don't schedule another meeting on the same night as my Board of Education meeting in the future. Thank you. Shannon, we're gonna move elections to June. I think that's much better. Sounds great. Thank you for letting me know that. Yeah. Okay.
And by the way, we did record the meeting. Thank you. I see that. Thank you. Any board of selecting members want to say anything in the end? Nope. No? Okay. Then I'll make a motion that we adjourn this meeting. Seconded. All All those in favor? Aye. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Adrian's birthday was February No, no. Thank you though. Are you one? Are you two?
Thank you for recording that Eric. Have a nice night.