Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting Part 1
June 14, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Everybody here.
We're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance and call to order on our regular scheduled meeting for Monday, 06/14/2021, 07:00. Ready? Pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag The United and States of the republic for stands, which
one nation under God, the individual, indivisible liberty justice. All. Thank you. First, we're going to move our executive sessions to the end of this meeting. We're going to go to add and delete. We'll go to public speak right now. We'll start moving it through. Jerry Wright, you're first up. You're on mute. Thank you. There we go. What would you like to know?
Well, even before we get started, on behalf of the Board of Select and Jerry, I wanna thank you for all your hard work. The Monument Park looks great. Your event, went off without a hitch. Well, not without a hitch, but it went off incredibly well and you made Andover proud. Thank you very much. You're more than welcome. We'll all clap. That's right. It
was a team effort from everybody including Carol Lee Mike Chief Mike from the fire department from from Paula from the slack from Amanda. That's helped me with the website to everybody, the whole town, Jay Tuttle, it came together, it moved everything. It was amazing to see the town come together in such a short order and everything happened wonderfully. Thank you. So I have to clap for the town of Andover. There's one thing that I'd like to bring up real quickly is that we need to get Rob Pesot paid. He has been waiting a week now and that is not Tom money, that's donation money that's in that line item. And he needs a check like this afternoon and he's been waiting a week for it and he's been getting the runaround and I got not so nasty a call from him today that this may be the last that he'll do for helping the town. All his work was done pro bono and I think that we need to pay him for the materials. It was $19,006 The money is in the account and it's just a matter of cutting the check and that's all I'm going to say about that. I'll be picking the check up tomorrow morning. Is that right Jeff Maguire?
We're going to check on it Jerry. I appreciate it very much. No problem. The flagpoles
of the two new flagpoles that Joan Foreman has been working on It has been submitted to the town and we're ready for the grant money on that and when that comes in I'll notify you that the grant money has been approved to do flagpoles. So but right now I'm still going to meet with the aid from well I got a senior moment too Jeff. But yeah, we're still working on the grant money for our town and hopefully about $7,500 We're still selling bricks. Order of $7,000 was put in last week. They'll be here July 9. So they'll be still coming in and that money will go to revitalization
of our park. Okay. You had also said at a previous meeting just so we can be clear and get the right information out there that you had some type of fundraising plan where donations would be matched. Is that coming?
Yes, I'm meeting with them Substantia Connecticut around July 1. Okay. All right. Thank you.
Who's next? Diane Grender, you're next on my list. Have to shut my door, so excuse me. Go ahead, Diane.
You're muted too, no? There we go. I thought Amanda was in control of that. I'm sorry.
I'm all set. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Jed, would you like to speak during public speak? Are you good? I'm all set, thanks. All right. We'll go to Kathy and Mike Plazzi. We're good. Thank you, Jeff. All right. Joanne Ebert. Thanks. Okay. Shannon Loudoun.
Good evening. The only thing I wanted to note or question is I noted on the revised agenda or packet for this evening that the vote on the twenty second may be occurring in the Andover elementary school gym, and that might be a conflict with our cool summer program. So I just wanted to note that to have the town determine whether or not that's actually feasible before the vote is announced to occur there. Thanks. Okay. Valerie Bruno. I'm all set, Jeff. Thanks. Okay.
I think we do have one other phone number. I don't know who that is, (860) 208-2345. Okay. That's Dennis O'Brien from That's me. Oh, Dennis.
Thank you very much for I joining miss your picture. I do. Yeah. Well, just got finished with a workout.
I'm all set. All right. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We're Okay.
Going to go on to five additions and deletions to the agenda. I make a motion or I'm going to request that we delete item two, executive session for Todd Administrator's review. I would like to postpone that and put that back to a special meeting sometime next week, and we'll get together with the other members of the Board of Select when I discuss that. And I would also make a motion that we move item three, executive session for union contract negotiations to the end of the meeting. Does anyone have any other additions or deletions? Yep.
Okay, Paula. I'd like to add to new business the labyrinth that Carrie Crompton was talking about last month. Have a quick update and want to talk about that quickly tonight so eleven J
eleven j labyrinth. All right. Okay. Scott, do you have anything?
I guess it can be in the executive session this coming week.
Okay. All right. Jeff Murray, do you have anything you want to add or delete? No, I'm all set. Thank you.
Adrian Mandeville, I did see you here before, but did you drop off? No, he's tall there. There you go. Anything for additions or deletions, Adrian? You're muted, Adrian. We
have the executive session on for Carol Lee, I'm told.
Is that correct? It's not for Carol Lee, it's for union negotiations. We need another one for Carol. Is Carol on? Why am I Okay.
So how about not? How about now what? She's not on. Why are we doing a executive session? And what are you calling it for?
She had some concerns about some staffing. She said she was gonna be on the call tonight and asked if we would do put one on. Okay.
She not on the she not on Yeah. I'm not sure if she's not on. There's not not much I can do. It was up to her. So Okay.
So let's move on. Do we're going have to vote on that. Does anybody have a problem with adding 11J as a labyrinth and moving the executive sessions to the end of the meeting? All right. I make a motion that we do that. Anybody want to second that? I'll second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. All those opposed? All those that abstain? All right. Board and commission presentations. Do we have any on the agenda? It doesn't look like anybody's listed, Eric. We got nothing? Eric, you're muted. Not for presentations, we do have some appointments.
Okay, so appointments. So item seven appointments, we have a recreation commission, conservation commission appointments, Norton Children Fund commission appointments, Economic Development Commission appointments, the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. I'm assuming all these appointments are just for one year or are they for two years?
So if you look at your motions, their motions are all ready, they're all for two years. Two year terms. Let me get to my motions.
You want me to read it, Jeff? You go ahead. Yeah. Okay. I motion to appoint the following members to the Recreation Commission for a two year term beginning on 07/01/2021. Carol Lee, regular member, Anne Marie Daigle, regular member. Brian Briggs, regular member. Kim Hawes, Cindy Murray, regular member. And then I motion to appoint the following members to the Conservation Committee Commission for the for a two year term beginning on 07/01/2021. Mike Palazzi, Mary Anne Geil, Hank Gruner, Gary Geil and Carrie Crompton as an alternate number. I motion to appoint the following members to the Norton Children's Fund Commission for a two year term beginning on 07/01/2021. Diane Greiner, Jan Neumith, Heidi Zeno Fontes, I'm so sorry I butchered your name, Bill Penn, Charlotte Nelson. I motion to appoint the following members to the Economic Development Commission for a two year term beginning on 07/01/2021, Elaine Bukhart, Catherine Magaldi Lewis, Kathy Palazzi, Patrick Dougherty. I motion to appoint the following members to the Economic Development Commission for an eighteen month term beginning on Yes.
That one's my screw up. Yeah, I was gonna add a different motion, but I never got the members. So just eliminate E, sorry. Okay, nothing for EDC?
EDC you covered in D. Okay, all right. So that's all I have for that particular motion.
Right. Does somebody want to second those appointments? Seconded. Right. Further discussion on any of the appointments? All All those in favor, aye. Opposed? All those that abstain? Good to go. Alright.
Caroli just texted me and would like to be added at the end as well.
We've already gone by additions deletions. Does anyone want to sit there and support Adrian's motion to put Kara Lee on? Adrian, I need the motion to understand what it's for, and then I need my attorney, our town's attorney to approve that language.
He has some personnel issues that she would like to address.
Attorney O'Brien, is that appropriate for a motion and to be able to go into executive session four?
Sounds appropriate to me. Okay. That's all there is. If it's personnel, anytime you're discussing the performance of any town employee that
that is a That's why she's requesting it be executive. Yep.
The only problem is is the person you're discussing, has a right to, to have the the session in open session if they wish. They're supposed to be notified.
Yep. It's it's actually it's her personal issue. Oh, it's about her? Yep. And she's driving home right now from the town hall because she was there late. So hence why she wasn't on.
Oh, I have no problem with that. Yeah, I guess that's okay. She wants to have an executive session and it's a discussion about her performance. That sounds that's unusual, but it sounds like it is subject to executive session.
Okay. Who wants to second that? I'll second it. All right. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? I am opposing. Let's move on. So we did that. We have no resignations. Eric, town administrator report. Okay. Can I share my screen? Absolutely.
Amanda? Okay, I'm gonna pass the host to you and then you just pass it back to me. Sound good? Okay.
However I just made him a co host, so he should be all set. Thank you. Okay, can you all see my screen? Yeah.
Okay, so again, I'm just gonna hit the highlights and the things that have changed since this was sent out. First, we are still at zero for a fourteen day average of COVID infections. It's the first meeting I've been able to say that and it's kind of a nice thing. So that's all I wanna say as far as the COVID update, it's been a long road. I'd like to thank the following individuals. The first is Ron Bisson for his help with the Veterans Monument Park. I think the work he did was fantastic. And Jerry Wright for organizing the whole thing. I think that was pretty awesome. I'd also like to do a shout out to DATCO because we broke again our senior transportation bus, right when we were trying to bus everybody back up to the town hall. And DATCO generously loaned us a bus and a driver to make a bunch of runs so we could transport the people back. So that was a big shout out to them for doing that without charging us. They kind of donated that to the town hall. So on Wednesday will be Trooper Ferrara's last day serving as the temporary resident state trooper for the town. We have a new resident state trooper. His name is Sebastian Neshi, and he'll be starting on June 18. So if you get a chance, say goodbye to Chris and thank him for working for the town for the last
several months and come meet Sebastian when you get a chance. Jay's report will cover what's going on in terms of roadwork. We did a lot of tree work in the lake area. We removed about 300 trees. There were a couple significant complaints, but overall, not too many considering how much work we did. I think we can potentially serve as the model for Eversource and how Eversource collaborates with towns. So if we manage to accomplish that out of it, that would be a great thing. So right now, currently we've completed crack sealing for the year, or at least for this section, we may free up some more money in the next fiscal year. And a company called Construction is in doing road shimming in the Lake District. We did have some serious problems last week with overflowing
catch basins after the rain, which resulted in a call out from Public Works. Public Works also assisted in the setup and take down for the Agent Orange unveiling. Bunker Hill Bridge design, they've punched three of the four test core samples for the bridge. The last one is delayed until tomorrow. They had another commitment on June that they couldn't break. So they'll be back tomorrow to do the last one. We managed to work it out with them to only do one lane closure at a time, which was good because that reduced inconvenience to the public. We got a little progress towards the final closeout for Times Farm Bridge, which has been taking forever, but we finally got everything at DOT for final review. So as soon as they sign off on it, we can pay the retainage to the contractor, request 80% of that retainage back from the federal government and close out that project completely. So I'm hoping within a few months that will take place. We received the paperwork back on the Steep grant, so we have a signed approval from DOT. So the next step up is I
talk to the town engineer and we're working on the RFP for that project. The connectivity grant, we submitted all the final, what we thought was the final paperwork to DOT. They had a couple minor things that they wanted correct. In the last six months, they updated the number of one of their forms. So our plan set had to show that. And that's basically about all. I put the details in there for the EZIQC bid. The bid from last year when you approved it to this year only increased about $1,000 Basically because the contract details for that were settled before the big price increases in materials. So we're getting pretty lucky The on other big thing that has come down is two things. One, on the last day of the budget session, the state restored the $76,000 cut in ECS funding. So our revenue will be $67,000 greater than we were anticipating for ECS. And the American Recovery Act funding, we got a thing on the ninth stating that the paperwork, final paperwork was due on the ninth. So they sent it out the same day they expected it back. And oh, by the way, they notified us that the funding we're getting is three times what they told us they were getting initially. So that's a good surprise. Where it looks like we're now gonna get two allotments, each allotment is gonna be $478,000 So that's gonna be a big bonus for the town. There's still a lot of uncertainty with the spending of that money. All the administrators are unhappy with the information we've gotten so far and what has to happen to actually spend that money.
Later on, I put in some ideas on appropriate uses I thought for spending that money. Because ultimately, it's the Board of Selectmen's going to have to decide what their priorities are in spending. So that's a picture of them drilling on Bunker Hill Road. This is what you get in the end. This is a rock core sample. This was the first rock core sample. Modern bridges don't sit on a regular abutment. They actually sit on pilings that are pushed down into bedrock. So in this case, these pilings look like they're all gonna be in the 45 to 60 foot deep range for the new bridge. These are the core samples that determine what the load bearing of the bedrock is.
And so it's basically part of the design phase for that. And this is Matheson Road. If any of you have driven up that lately, you knew one whole shoulder of that road had collapsed completely. So as part of the shimming process, we fixed up that corner and that sharp turn on Matheson so it's drivable again. So that's all I have for my report, unless you have questions for me.
I have I just won the the steep grant that was approved is the roadwork that you're doing on Shawnee Mill and Correct. That is for that.
Yes. Just letting everybody know so they understand what it's for. Yep. Okay. Good point. Okay.
I have a quick question. Sorry, was letting you go. We have a methodology in place to deal with following up with residents that have issues with complaints regarding the tree work specifically? And I know I was kind of tried to cover one of those phone calls. I got one and what was the resolution of that particular call? Do we know?
So that resident asked that there be an agenda item put on the board of selectmen's meeting so that they could discuss their displeasure. I basically, Jay is the tree warden. I had an initial conversation with that resident and the second time I basically just asked Jay to address it because
it was gonna chew up too much of my time he's the tree warden. That's really his bailiwick. I totally understand because you know, was tied up on the phone with the individual for, you know, two hours over the course of two days, unfortunately. And. Yep. Well, I get it but but what was the resolution of it? Do we know?
I don't know. I left that in Jay's hands. Honestly, I haven't followed up with that. Okay, can we follow-up with that?
Sure. And do we have a methodology for following up with other issue with other people as well? Like, I mean, if somebody reaches out to the town, whether it's yourself, my job, Jeff, whoever, and we push them off to the appropriate person, in this case, Jay, I'm just concerned that we don't seem to have a methodology for following up with some of these people or some of these issues and they come back around like a boomerang, so.
Okay, so do you want me to bring Jay on the next meeting to discuss what is Is he following up?
Probably we wanna come up with something, whatever Jay feels might be appropriate or, you know, whether it's a, you know, I know you guys are meeting weekly, correct? Yes. So I mean, is that something that you guys discuss in your weekly meeting that you can then update us with? You know, just give us a little running hit list of, you know, so and so went in a pothole, so and so had a tree issue, whatever, whatever, you know, we've got a problem with this cohort on this road. This is what we're doing. You guys are taking notes for yourself. Is there a reason you couldn't forward those to us or something, I would assume?
If you would like, I'll just have Jay include that with his, his town report, since he gives that to you every month. If there's specific things on there that you want him to include,
that's fine. That's not I think anytime we have Okay,
Eric, just so we all understand, on this tree trimming, what was the main crux of a complaint that there were trees dropped in a person's yard and they were unhappy with it? Yes.
And that was their trees, not our there were we dropped their trees. We were over the boundary line.
So the resident believe we went further than 10 feet? Yes. Okay. All right. So Eric, at the next meeting or at certain time, can Jay just give us a resolution as to what was done? I mean, because I'm assuming Eric that the measurement was pretty close to 10 feet.
Yeah, I mean, real problem, Jeff, is that we don't take the time ahead of time to figure out what the roadway right away is for every single road in town when we do these things. We probably should, but they're not all the same. And honestly, without using a surveyor, I'm not sure whether anybody can really determine whether there were her trees or our trees.
Understood. And I'm assuming that the public works and when these trees were laid out to take, we weren't very far off the 10 foot line. Yeah, that's a good-
To be clear, there's a lot of assuming going on here. I to don't get into the nuances of this particular thing. That's not really my issue. My issue is that, as a whole, I feel like we don't have a methodology in place for following up with residents issues. That's all I'm asking for. I'm not asking for this individual
particular Understood, understood, but you're asking about a specific issue. So Eric, at the next meeting, if we can sit there and have some type of understanding as to a resident complaint, how we're going to handle them, it doesn't need to be excessive.
Let's just have a basic standard operating procedure and we'll follow it as we move forward. Just a list of complaints that we're getting, what they're related to, whether it's trees, roadwork, whatever. So we can start tracking that. And that will also give us a way to be able to, you know, see what residents are calling in and having issues with. So we know where to spend, whether it's these COVID dollars or whatever, you know, So we're putting them in the right place if we need to. That's all.
Eric, do you routinely get calls, complaint calls during these tree cutting sessions?
A few. So I think total on this, wanna say we got three complaints. Four, if you include one resident that was annoyed that he didn't know there was gonna be a detour.
Okay, so let's do that. And then Eric, maybe one of the things on tree cutting, and I know it's really difficult. I mean, cut 300 trees or whatever you cut in the Lake District, I know you cut a lot. I'm assuming it's got to be incredibly hard to mark those in advance. No, it's not Jeff. That's
what we should be doing. If it's not hard to cut and mark those The boundary line issues can be addressed also
in different ways. Maybe not in every property, but when it's in their yard, that's one thing. When it's in a, you go along Lake Road and you look at a lot of what was cut, there was a lot cut in vacant sections that no one's gonna be upset.
Well, just because it's vacant doesn't mean it's not on somebody's property. Think and to Scott's point, we should have maps somewhere. Yeah. You know, like for instance, Boston Hill Road is consistent on the whole road. The boundary line is the town hall is the stone wall. Is the wall there. Right. So though the stone wall moves in and out and the reference is different, it's always center of the roadway to the wall. That's it period on Boston Hill. Okay. And most other town roads will probably have something similar. So if we get a you don't need to reference the whole road, you need to find a point of reference and verify it and then you should be good. Okay,
I don't wanna take up a lot of meaning. I wanna say one other thing. Eric, did you ever write up that article I told you for the residents, let them know what we were doing with the trees and the problems that we're having with the trees, and let the residents know that this, it's a huge problem that we're, this is how we're addressing it?
I haven't written any kind of long article on tree work lately. I mean, did last year, I did not this year. I
asked you to do that, I don't know, six months ago, so that a lot of the complaints probably could be resolved even before they started cutting.
Well, I agree with you, Scott, there. I think what could happen is though, if we mark trees in advance, we're going to do a lot. Let's sit there and say you marked a tree two weeks in advance of cutting, a resident is going to have time to be able to go to Eric and consider the fact that maybe they don't want that tree cut down and maybe it's in there right away and we can discuss it and sit there and see what a resolution is. I think a little bit of prior planning you know, would help us make Well, here's a question. I mean, we know that residents don't always read the River East. We know that residents don't always look at Facebook. We sort of have this conglomerate of people going on.
There a, what does it cost us to send out a postcard, you know, to say, hey, we're doing tree cutting in this, you know, whether even if it's a town wide thing that we send out to say, listen, we're gonna be doing tree cutting over the next, you know, couple of months, you know, if you have a tree, let us know. But also, you know, if you if you have any concerns, please, you know, have a contact number or something. I'm just, you know, I'm trying to think of ways to manage this, because we have had a lot of complaints
that I'm hearing so. Right. This should be addressed the whole complaint thing. Right. The big problem every time you go out, it's cutting trees people get, you know, very emotional about cutting their trees. Whether You know where their boundary lines are and if you don't, you shouldn't cut the tree. Yeah.
Right? So you're saying if it's on our property, if it's on our right away and somebody doesn't wanna cut it,
you don't want it cut. Is that what you're saying? There's there's rules and regulations about cutting trees, you know, whether you know Scott or you don't know about it. Let Scott finish.
Scott is trying to say that we should know where the right of way is. That's what he's I think so. Is that what you're trying to say, Scott? You know, if you cut a tree
negligently on someone else's property, there's a fine for that. So If you if you do it unintentionally, or intentionally, there's a fine for the value of the tree, that's, you you gotta be really careful about boundary lines.
Okay, so again, prior planning and making this in advance would be beneficial to everybody. So getting best you
can. I mean, you came to my property and spray painted something on the tree and said, This is a tree you're looking to cut because it's in the town right away and I don't want you to cut it, I'm going to communicate to somebody. If you don't communicate to somebody, that's fine. Now, Eric has, I understand where Eric's coming from. I'm going to go. There's a lot of trees that in a SWAT, that's a lot of trees.
You're absolutely right. But I got to tell you, in the past, when Eversource has done this, they mark the tree, they tag the door.
Okay. That's a great Can chime in on this? By
the way, I just lost electricity here in Willamantic, but I do have a phone that's charged. There is a the tree warden, there's a responsibility to tag a tree if you're going to cut it. Because the person who lives in the property that, you know, is actually owns the, actually owns the fee simple right to that that that area that is actually the the town right of way. The town right of way is only an easement. But but but if they if you wanna cut any tree in the easement area, you're supposed to tag it with a notice that they have a right to object and a right to a hearing. If you ask the tree warden, the tree wardens are trained, and they they know better than I do on that, but I have dealt with this before. But I've never I've never dealt with a situation where anybody cut 300 trees.
Yeah. And and the the that's the problem is the scale up because of this ash issue and I get that. But that doesn't mean we should be ignoring this completely. So
No. I won't. I I mean, it would like requires
if the law requires a tree that your butt that you intend to cut to be posted with a certain type notice, and I believe it does. Now I'll I'll get that information for you for your next meeting or actually long before that. Because, like I said, I've dealt with this before. I've dealt with this in other towns. I've attended three warden hearings on these things, But I've never yeah. This this didn't involve 300 trees. But I would assume the law still covers it even if it's, you know, a thousand trees as well. If you're if you're gonna cut trees in the right of way, they're supposed to be posted by the tree warden. I don't know who the tree warden is, but it probably is the Department of Public Works director,
right? It is. Correct. So I guess we're all in agreement that we have to do something a little bit differently. And by the next time we cut trees, and Eric, when is your anticipated next tree cutting session? I don't have one at this point. Okay. By the time we do it the next time, we will have a better standard operating procedure related to this and do it correctly. I would like Eric to do what I asked him to do and
write up that thing for the taxpayers and let him know what's going on. All right, so I'm gonna make a motion that we
request a tree cutting proposal or management proposal from Jay to be submitted for the next meeting so that we know what the procedure is gonna be.
Okay, do you have a second? I don't know. Second then. Further discussion? Anybody want to make any comments related to it? No. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye.
Those opposed, all those that abstain, we're good to go. Five, nothing. We're going to move on from the town admit. Well, does anybody have anything left on the town administrator's report? Any other members? No? Okay. We're going go to Item 10, old business. The alarm monitoring for the town buildings. Eric, is there any update on that?
Yes, I sent you. You had asked me at the last meeting to go back and see whether they would adjust or give us different options for quotes for the Andover Museum. I provided those and those are in the packet.
Yeah, there's also, I think there's a motion point on it as well.
Okay. All right. COVID funding, Eric, you did provide us information that there's going to be additional money spent related to that. Can you provide to us all the most updated requirements related to this? Because I think I'd like I I think we need to look at some creative ways to utilize that money for the benefit of that the town. So if you can sit there and send the most updated requirements or how they're looking for the use of the funds to occur on a municipal level, that would be great.
Eric, is there something other than that 130 something page document?
I mean, so the federal government and state government both have documents, but they don't agree with each other. Exactly. Personally, I would go with the federal government since they're the ones coughing up the funds. Has CCM or Croghan done any breakdown related to this? So CCM held a public meeting, which I attended to discuss this, but they just basically went over the federal program document without really answering any questions. So Sherry and I both attended that, and neither of us came out with more information than we went into it with. So CCM is trying to come up with more documentation on what the actual requirements are to spend that. Myself and the other town administrators are struggling with that because we don't, in fact, I was talking with that with Mark Walter of Columbia today. He's like, I have no idea what I can spend this money
I know I got a lot of it, but I don't know what good it's gonna do. So we're all in the same boat right now. They will have guidance that comes out. We've got years and years to spend this money. It's not like we got to spend it right away. We've got like till 2025 to even designate how we're gonna spend this. We're gonna spend it a lot faster than that, Eric. Well, I mean, that's fine. And I listed you some things which look like we probably based on the federal guidance, that we could spend that money on. That's in Okay.
We're going to sit there and as a board, we're going to review options and be as creative as we possibly can be for the long term interest of the town. And we will sit there and get to that. Anybody else have any other questions or concerns related to this item? Okay. We're going to move on to 10C, the Community Center Building Committee Update Report.
Okay. So I'm assuming that at this point, we're not going forward with the fire or burglar alarm for the buildings as proposed. Does anyone want to make a motion to that? Yeah, I would make them. Sorry, hang on. Sorry.
I had to turn the camera off before because my dog was chewing stuff on the floor behind me. So I apologize. Okay.
I'd make a motion that we move forward on the fire alarm protection system. We need to update it.
All right. I'll read the motion. I motion to accept the revised proposal from FPT fire protection team for the Andover Museum fire alarm and burglar alarm combined fire and burglar alarm panel except fire and or burglar and or both. So there's a couple of things in here. What do you want to say, Adrian?
So there's basically three options here. Option number one, well four, depending on how you think about it. Option number one is a combined panel. I think it was a Honeywell combined panel. That's a fire and burglar alarm panel. And the other option would be either just a fire alarm, just a burglar alarm or two separate systems or the combined system. So those are really your options. You had asked me to readdress prices because you thought they were initially too high. So I sent you kind of revised pricing for that.
Eric, was that in the what packet was that in? I've got like four emails for this meeting.
I don't know. I downloaded it off the town's website The other day. I didn't realize they put out multiple versions of this packet.
Well I've got I've got literally four emails all with different things for this meeting I'm just trying to figure out which one is the packet.
You have a $10,434 price for fire protection objection. So that looks like fire burglar alarm. Then you have another one that's $5,965 which is just fire. Correct. Then you have another one that's $6,345 Correct. So Eric, which one are you recommending?
If it were me, I would probably just do the fire protection for the building. However, if you ask Scott Yeomans, he said he would be, he would rather have the burglar alarm because he thinks it's more likely that they would get robbed than that the place would burn down.
Yeah, except the insurance won't cover if we have a fire if we don't have it, right?
I don't know. That's not a question I can answer, at least not right now. Generally, is the case.
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but $10,000 for a system to protect a building that doesn't have plumbing is exorbitant.
So, I get it and look, it's your decision to make. You asked me to ask the contractor to look at revised pricing. That's what they got back to me with for what they would be willing to do. I'm not telling you you should accept it. I'm just telling you those are the prices that they quoted. So, what the contractor did was take $500 off of each original quotation.
Correct. And then give a second quote for, I asked them whether they could provide a system that would do both so we didn't have to buy two separate systems. So they provided that quote also.
And how long has this facility been without the alarm?
So, I think about five years ago, the previous First Selectmen got rid of the existing alarm system that was in there and bought this little homeowner special that sits in the middle of the room, you know, because he didn't wanna pay for the phone lines, basically, and the monitoring for it, and it was cheaper. So what does it do? The existing
know, that something's happened there. The dispatch never calls the actual dispatch center. They always call either Scott or myself. But, you know, it's literally one single detector in the building. So it's not really, you know, the reality is the building would be well and truly burned up by the time anybody responded to something there. Eric, can I step in for a second? You go, There
are two separate smoke detectors I'm sorry, heat detectors in there. One in the furnace room, one in the main room. And there are two motion detectors in there. It is a cell based system. They are supposed to first contact Eric or I to try to see if we can go down, in the burglar fire, they should call directly to 911. We never got a fire, so I don't know if that is their procedure or not. But when the burglar portion goes off, they're supposed to notify us first to check it. Secondly, they're supposed to call the state police. It is not a quote monitored system. Again, it is a cell based system. When the alarm trips, a cell phone call is initiated. The original system that Bob Burbank caused to go out of service because he didn't wanna pay for the phone system is still down there. It still is active if you pull one of the poll stations. It just does not have a phone line active to call out of the building. It's entirely possible that that could be resurrected.
And so then we would just need to find a monitoring service that would monitor that alarm system?
I would have to see how the dialer works, but I believe it just dialed 911 and gave up like a recording location or something. Again, it's been far longer I think than the five years that Eric said. I would be surprised it wasn't ten years ago we replaced that. Okay, so can we find out if that's an option?
Because that would be a heck of a lot less expensive than $6,345 or $10,000
What's the mod is the monitoring though of the of both a singular number?
As far as I know, yes. But it depends on what you mean by singular, I guess. Again, the original one I believe called into TN, which is the fire department dispatch service. And the one now goes to whoever the cell service that sells the units, it goes to their center. Again, they're not actively monitored. These both dialed out.
Okay, so we actually have to get a little bit more information on this. Let's put this back on the agenda for next month and get this done with. I mean, obviously, I'm not going to want to sit there and have us spend $10,000 for a combined system if we can do it a different way.
Well, let's ask another question. Are we gonna do the fireside?
Why would we do the fireside if we can read all we gotta do, if the reality of this conversation is we have to put a phone line into that building and reactivate the old system, then let's put a phone line in and reactivate the old system. We're talking $40 a month. That's $500 Right.
We've already moved forward on the public works at this point though, right, Eric?
We have scheduled the changeover to the auto dialers, the cell based dialers, that's the first thing. And we've asked them to come in and do a full evaluation of what's in Public Works to see whether we can reuse as much of what's there as possible instead of ripping out the whole system and start over. Okay. All right.
It. I just want to make sure we're not slowing that down as while we're doing this. That's all. You
can give us an update on that as well as this at the next meeting. Sure. I'm fine with that. All right. It's like a better alternative.
So in other words, you want them to come in and do reevaluate the museum to see whether parts of the old system can be salvaged is what you're saying, whether we can connect to that system. And Scott, do you know what the age of that system is?
It's old. The original system is ancient, probably not as old as the building, but darn near. Okay. The cell system is probably ten years.
I mean, listen, you know, I sort of take the attitude on this that, you know, we're spending, we're spending a lot of time and energy resources, kind of kicking this around. I think this is the best price we're gonna get to do it. I kind of just want to do it personally, you know. I mean, we don't have a lot of town buildings, we don't have a lot of things that we're trying to maintain, but the ones that we have, we kind of need to keep up on at this point. I mean, if the issue is that we don't have extra funds,
we should have lots of funds available for something like this, right, Eric?
Actually have lots of funds that would be available for this, but the issue is $10,000 a good investment for what we're trying to do.
Well, don't think it's not really just the building, it's all the memorabilia that's in there, right? Right.
No, I don't disagree. I'm just asking if the amount of money that's required for it can be
minimized. I get it, but we're trying to minimize this to the umpteenth degree. As everyone just said, this thing is old as heck. You know, at this point, I just make a motion that we move forward. I really don't want to spend more time, more of Eric's time on this or Scott's time or anybody else's at this point because next month, we're going to come back and find out it's 40 years old and it's garbage. So let's just do the darn thing.
Well, let's go back this way. The system that there's, I would assume if we put in a telephone into that building, we'd have to be able to find a system that's less expensive. I mean, I put a fire and safety system within my office and it wasn't that much money. I just had to re update it and it cannot be $10,000 But if you want to go ahead and spend the $10,000 let's vote on it.
I didn't get a second, so I don't know. Maybe dead in the water.
Anybody? Then let's evaluate it at the next meeting. I mean, it's gone so long without having anything done. We got to figure out if there's a less expensive way to do that building. Agree with I agree for Scott's benefit. There's a lot of memorabilia in that building. It's something that we don't want to sit there and see anything happen to. But that just doesn't seem like it.
Well, commercial panel they're looking at is to be able to locate where the fire is and all that fun stuff. It's definitely overkill for
the location, but I mean, that building just in and of itself, if that building goes up, if that building has a fire start in it, I think Scott would tell you there's not going to be a stopping of that fire. I'll ask Scott. Scott, the structure of that building, if a fire starts in that building, what are we looking at? How much time do you think you got?
Not much. I would agree with you. If it gets into the walls, it's probably gone.
Okay. Now, we're not asking for that ever happen, but let's sit there and look at it. Eric, I would just ask if there's step down version of a system that would work for what we're trying to accomplish rather than a high end commercial system for that building.
If there's not, then okay, next meeting we do what Adrian says and we spend the money to protect the building. Well, I would leave it up to Scott. Scott has been the caretaker down there. I think we should sort of go in whatever direction Scott would like. You know, if Scott feels that we need both, then we do both. If he feels like, you know, we need one or the other, then let's do that. But don't know the building.
I've stated several times that I certainly would like to see strongly encouraged that we have both, whether you need a system that can identify where the fire is. There's only really two rooms in that entire building. There's the furnace room and there's everything else. Right. That I agree seems like overkill. If we had something that tied into the existing heat sensors, which one of the, at least one of the guys, maybe two of them said that everything there looked usable except the panel. I agree with you, 10,000 seems like a lot of money. My position though is I'd really like to see both burglar and fire at that building. Dollars 10,000
worth, I can't really say whether that's reasonable or not. I'm not in the business. The amount of people that are down there now has really increased also.
Sorry. I think I think Scott is Find out find out next month then. That's fine. Thank you, Scott, for your input.
Can you so what am I doing? What is it that you want for the next meeting?
Ask them if they have a simpler system that's not that you know, that's not a $5,000 panel. Alternatives.
Right. And if we can use the existing sensors that are great.
I mean, honestly, if that's if that's where the direction we're going is we want to simplify the whole thing. For crying out loud, we could do something like simple safe that uses a cellular dial up. I mean, you know, we have, you know, we have a system at our house that does, I don't have a landline, it's southern with a cellular backup and, you know, it's, you know, $30 a month for monitoring does both. Adrian, that's what's down there today.
Right, if you want that, just keep what you got and don't spend anything. But what
I'm hearing is it's not set up correctly because you two gentlemen are the only two receiving the phone calls. So we got to find something that is set up. We can't do it right. So let's ask FPT if they can sit there and recommend something and if not, then we probably should look back at something like Adrian just suggested. Okay. I thought we went past COVID funding. Didn't we talk about COVID funding? Yes. We have not talked about 10C, the community. I thought we talked about that. No? No. Okay. Let's talk about that. Where is the committee currently on where they're at with the new building? That we are going to build, let everybody be aware that building is getting built. All right?
I second that. Adrian and Scott, where are you at it with it? Adrian, what happened at your last meeting down there?
I was not at the last meeting because I am not on a meeting
in the field. Tell everybody about what happened in the field. The field meeting Scott or
Brandon, town engineer pretty much confirmed everything that we thought as far as distances and measure outs. The committee agreed, I believe, to put Brandon's plan on the website. I don't know if that's happened or not yet. Amanda, did that get relayed to you yet?
I believe Diane Chiquette just sent it to me this evening, so I can get it up there tomorrow.
Okay, great. So they'll have the site plans on the website And we're putting together, hopefully be out this week or next week at the latest, the initial RFPs. So we've sat down with Brandon and agreed to what to do for the RFPs, what we're looking for specifically, We're gonna separate site work and development work and hopefully have some numbers back. The plan was to put it out for something between three and four weeks for RFPs, so.
And you decided on the grades also when you were down there? Grades
work just to do a full walkout basement. You know, at least we believe at this point they do. That's good. I can't speak to what the committee spoke over, but as far as the site plan, we're on track.
Very good. All right. Any questions to the committee members? Okay. We're going to go to 10D, the Veterans Monument Park update on park updates, the BRIC fundraising program, the June 5 Agent Orange. I know Jerry reviewed a lot of this when he was in public speak. The BRIC fundraising program is going to be extended and is still moving forward. So, let's sit there and see if we can drum up some more items related to this. And then, Eric, I know that we had some communication about the irrigation system down there. So Public Works is going to sit there and assist. Is that accurate?
That is accurate. We still got some work to go to figure it out, but we're working on it.
Okay. And have we put the irrigation of this out to bid or are we getting this contributed from somewhere else? What is the plan related to the irrigation supplier? Matt, Matt Cordner sent me a
text message and he said that he has a friend in Coventry that's going to be doing it. He sent me a text message. I've been trying to get ahold of Matt. He's very busy and I haven't gotten back to him. Stopped down there three or four times. He must be very busy so I'm gonna probably call that guy directly and see what his plans are. He's saying in the fall. But I wanna find out what his charges are gonna be, if they're gonna be any and something like that.
And Scott, what I would like to do is get him together with Lenco and us walk it on the ground and figure out where we're putting everything first, because we still need to do the trenching down to it and get the electrical and we need to understand his low voltage needs and where everything's going. So if that's, as soon as you know who that is, let me know and we'll try to set up a preliminary meeting.
Okay, we should put this up all of maybe a chronology of this whole thing so we can keep everybody to the going on this. You were in charge of that, right Paula?
Yep, I was. So I can revise that, but I I just have to talk to everybody and get updates.
So I'm gonna try to call that guy here. I think it's irrigation wizards or something in Aventry.
Okay. And I want everybody to know that Scott Persona has been putting a lot of time in to get down there and water that grass. I know Jerry Wright also does a lot of it. But Scott, thank you very much for all you do related to that stuff. Oh, It is appreciated. It's nothing. Thank you, Scott. Also,
John Hanfield has also gone down there and done his Andover Heart flower bed. Again, I saw him down there this week. I know he's not on this call, but the next time you see him, you should thank him for that
effort. Beautiful. He does that every year and it comes out really nice. Yeah.
Okay, 10E open burning permits. Anybody got anything related to this? I know that
I know another big landowner came in right up to my house and dragged me out of the house and talked to me about it again. He's not too happy.
I can tell you I talked to our burning official about this and after talking to him, and I thought I had relayed that in the email, but I believe he's willing to he was very clear that he's willing to work with the owners, you know, any and he's, he's not had any, you know, any issues at all. It's that, the one the things that he's running into is that when people want to do multiple burns, they don't want to have the piles ready to be looked at. They don't, know, so that he can clear the locations and make sure they're done correctly. So, I mean, I'm a big landowner too. And after talking to him, he seemed extremely reasonable about, you know, these issues. So I don't think there's an issue with the building permit now after talking or burning permit after talking to him. I really don't. I, I was generally concerned. I did have a, you know, an extended conversation with him. I'm okay with it. If somebody's saying they're having a problem with it, then they obviously haven't taken the time to talk to him. Well, they're having a problem with it because they don't want to open up their wallets. Well, that's their problem. I mean, he's doing his job and as a town, we're doing our job and following statute.
So what it is. Is this more like another standard operating procedure related to burning permits and how they function?
I mean, he's following procedure, he's doing it correctly, and he's actually trying to be pretty flexible. It's just people from what I'm gathering and what's even what Scott is saying now that it's just they don't wanna pay. They don't want to pay to do the, you know, they don't want to pay to do what they need to do. And they don't want to be prepared when he comes out to do the look. So, you know, it's not his fault. And it's certainly not the town's fault if people don't want to follow procedure.
Things have changed. You know, it was going the same way for thirty years now it's all changed.
Well, but you know, things change. That's how it works. People Look, the town wants it to be free
No. It can just reimburse Mr. Yeomans for doing the inspections. No one has suggested that Eric. Right, so what I'm saying is the only thing that's actually gonna satisfy the landowner in question, because he's chewed my ear off about this multiple times is making it free, because he didn't pay for it in the past and now he has to pay for it and that makes him angry. So, the decision is basically do you charge or do you not charge? We charge.
We charge. Honestly, I personally am done with this, you know, with this whole thing. I, I was definitely on, you know, on the side of looking into it more. I feel like we've done our due diligence as a town. We've got a very reasonable person doing the job. I don't think this should be an issue personally, but. Change
in the town, it's changed and some people don't like that. That's fine. Change is terrible for some people and it's the only way you move forward. I'm okay with eliminating that 10E from future discussions until we get public speaking, we hear from our friends, they sit there and they get mad at us for not doing it correctly, and that's okay. I've made mistakes before, I will make mistakes again. We're gonna move on from this one.
10 F, blighted properties. Eric, what do you have on this one? I don't have any updates. That was put on there originally at Jeff Murray's request.
I don't have any updates on that. Jeff, is there anything you wanna discuss related to this item?
No, I think we just rounded up all the properties and we were talking about the one on the top of Long Hill that's bank owned. And the Okay. Options were.
Are we planning and zoning planning on putting something in that we can enforce as far as a fine?
Planning and zoning commission is looking into some of the blighted prop.
Are we looking into was a fine situation, though, so we can, you know, push these people along? I mean, we should be looking at a townwide ordinance, I think.
So Dennis O'Brien has suggested that multiple times and has given the board a proposal for that in the past. It just never really got acted on. So how do we move that forward, Eric?
Let's review the ordinance and sit there and put it on next month meeting and get it. If we all can review it before the meeting and try to get it passed. Believe we probably need to take that ordinance to Tom Meede.
You do? Yes, absolutely. We have an ordinance. I worked on it with John Valenti. So it was a while ago. Okay.
That was a while ago, and, it was difficult to pass it. There was a lot of opposition, so it was somewhat watered down. But we could I could take a look at it and, see what can be done to improve it. And I'd like to, know the fact situations we're dealing with in order to improve it
Let's have in way that's gonna more teeth in it so that we can do the things we wanna do because I, for one, love town meetings. I'm ready to go back again and do it again. And I think we should sit there and have this ordinance be as aggressive as we possibly can make it. There's
already some ordinances written for blighted properties. There's ordinances for collecting for further sale, there's ordinances about securing homes, there's ordinances for holes in the roof of homes. There really is some ordinances already.
Yes, there is, we have an existing white ordinance. We do not have an existing fine ordinance. And if you want to start putting in fines, then one of the things you need to do as town is also adopt a fine ordinance. And I believe Dennis gave you, at least I've seen a copy of a proposed fine ordinance, as well as a hearing officer and a hearing officer procedure. So you would need to basically go to town meeting and adopt all three of those things if you wanted to add teeth to that. Am I correct, Dennis?
Well, there is a there is a way to adapt an ordinance that allows you to, you know, create other ordinances where you can you can find folks. And if the if you get, you have to have a hearing officer in case they object. The hearing officer gets a you know, people get a chance to have their case heard before a hearing officer. And if the hearing officer rules against them, then they can appeal to Superior Court. Rarely happens, we had a fine ordinance that I put in place in Mansfield, and we used it very effectively, to do all kinds of things to stop student parties and it was very effective. The police were able to implement it without using the criminal law and I know we have a blight ordinance here because I worked on it but it's not Scott. It's not it's not as comprehensive as it could be. Although I do think it I do think it calls for fine that can be enforced in court. I'll take another look at it because I think it was implemented by John once or twice fairly successfully in the sense that he got the blighted properties blighted property somewhat cleaned up. But I don't I don't recall ever being asked by him to that's you know to go to impose
a lien because you know it does allow you to lean property there which is very
there there is a lien on one property in the town because John sent them bills for over that blight ordinance
I believe too No, maybe not. I was going to say it like a tax lien that you know it was no, it's not like a tax lien I don't think where the where there's interest on it a very high rate like tax liens. I'll have to take a look at it, Scott. I haven't looked at it in several years. But I remember when we had the hearing on it. Eric, I think you were there. You were chairman of the zoning commission. I remember you speaking at hearing. Well,
Dennis, you just take a look at those and get back to us next month and tell us what
we're missing I'll give you TMI, too much information like I usually do. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
You. You. Ken G, the Memorial Day Car Parade Recap. Paula, leader of the parade, please give us your recap.
Yep. I wanted to say thank you to the committee again this year. Thank you and goodbye for now to Dottie and Skip Scagliola. They have done a great job many, many years with the committee and they are moving on to, the next season in their life. So I just want to say thank you to them. It was a great day, even though it was cold and rainy. We had people come out to, to watch the parade go by. And we had fire trucks and residents in line and, it was it was overall great, great experience. And I even sang to the public on Facebook live. If you did not watch on Facebook live, you missed me singing. Well, thank you very much. Was great Thank you, Paula.
Thank you, Paula. We're going to go on to new business. 11A, reopening of town hall. Eric, your requirements or what you're thinking about doing. What would you like to do? What would you like us to do? Sure. I
included the same options I gave you at the last meeting. I would say at this point, the liability concern still remains, but I would suggest at this point, we would be better off opening the town hall and just with the requirement that anybody that is unvaccinated has to wear a mask and that be for both employees and visitors and just keep it simple.
Okay, any further discussion on this issue? Does anybody have any feedback on this? That's the only restriction you're going to have?
I mean, I'm open to other suggestions. I don't have any, you know, No, that's fine. One's fine. Just asking if there's any additional.
Sure, I mean, there's a whole range of options we can consider. We could keep it the same way it is. You know, we have the right to ask employees for proof of vaccination status if we so desire. We can relax the mandate indoors for employees who are fully vaccinated, which I recommend. We can require visitors to wear masks in the building, we can not require them to wear masks in the building. I mean, all those are optional now that the only restriction that remains in place from the state level is that unvaccinated individuals are supposed to be wearing a mask indoors. That is the only state mandate. So anything else beyond that is just simply us imposing a higher standard if we feel it's appropriate. All right, so you need a motion, Eric? Yes.
Correct. I would make a motion that we reopen town hall with the following caveats that we require anyone coming to town hall that is not vaccinated to wear a mask, that we ask employees to verify if they are vaccinated or not, and any employees that are not be required to wear a mask while in the building. I'll second that.
Further discussion. I I just have a question to the town attorney. What if an employee is not vaccinated and refuses to wear the mask? I didn't get the end of that. What if you have an employee that is not vaccinated and refuses to wear a mask?
I'm not sure how that dovetails with you know, the union contracts or personnel policies. Alright. I I have to admit you stumped me. That that is impossible, attorney O'Brien. Well, it's
be temporary. If you can take a look at that, that would be helpful.
Will make that the highest priority that I have tomorrow morning.
I think it'd be positive to pass this. I do think we're going to have problems because we're going to put Eric in a really bad situation. We better have an understanding of what's required. You're talking about employees, right? Yeah.
Yeah. I think probably it's okay to say that, people who, are not vaccinated who come to visit the town hall for business should wear masks if they're not vaccinated.
That's easy and then and they'll all choose to do what they want anyway because we're not going to be checking the vaccination card at the door. The question ends up being for employees in my mind
that I got it. Yeah. You're right. That one was easy.
I just wanted to give you something. People will love tennis. I will tell you that. So but I think it's a lot more difficult on the opposite side and it's putting Eric in a situation. And if we don't have the right procedure That's right. Right way to deal with this, we're really putting Eric in a I will have an answer for him tomorrow morning.
So last month we talked about maybe having them sign a waiver. So can we think and look into based on what Dennis comes back with?
I mean, I've discussed this fairly extensively with the town's labor attorney. Yeah. I'm not sure a waiver The does us any real bottom line is the town is still liable for an employee that gets COVID on the job. That is just a straight workers' comp claim at this point. It was something else under different rules before, but right now it's just simply a question of workers' comp and we do have an obligation to protect the safety of our employees, whether they're vaccinated or not.
If Have you seen Eric, have you seen the, they come out with a new statute this session on that workers comp not that I know of the no it was discussed I heard some discussion
So I can ask my wife if she would know. There was a proposal that made it through the house, but as far as I know has not made it into law that would have put the onus on employers would have made it. Yeah.
It would have made the implication that any employee that got COVID was likely work related unless the town could prove it wasn't or any employer. I think you're right. But that did not make it all the major decisions that would have radically increased our liabilities. So now we still have some, but not as much as if that had passed.
Right. I'll check on that to make sure, but I think you're right.
Okay. Well, this is a tricky issue. I think it definitely has worker comp implications. I don't sit there and totally see it Eric's way, but the law is never exactly how I see it because if they choose not to get vaccinated, they should be assuming the risk, but that's not how all the workers' comp laws are written. Especially if they choose not to be vaccinated and then choose not to wear a mask, and then what do we do?
Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. Are we not going to vote on this or are we going to vote on it? We're going to vote on it and if we have a problem, then we'll deal with it. Okay.
So we're going to deal with it after the fact. Well, we don't know if we have a problem.
You have a problem. I'll guarantee you, you have a problem. So anyway, let's go. We can vote on it. Any further discussion? Anybody else want to talk about this? No? Those in favor the motion as open town hall with restrictions on non vaccinated residents coming to visit and non vaccinated employees required to wear masks.
Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to be more restrictive, you could simply open the town hall but require all visitors to wear masks.
That would be one option if you wanted to be more stringent. We're at zero. I don't have a problem with being at zero. But what I have a problem with is people who are choosing not to get vaccinated are going to put themselves at risk, and then they're going to have worker comp implications that we can't control.
That is very true. My issue. So, what do you want to do to change it, Jeff?
You want to require everyone to wear a mask going to town hall? No, I would personally ask,
and Eric has basically sat there and said that I would ask all the employees that don't want to sit there and get vaccinated to sign a waiver. Responsibility and that it was their issue to not get vaccinated and if they catch COVID, don't sue the town. All I can And what's the waiver gonna say, Jeff?
Don't sue me? If you choose not to get vaccinated, you can't sue the town.
Well, problem is that you can't sue, you can't waiver away the town's obligation. That would be the same thing if I had a waiver that said you can use a chainsaw, start naked, right? And got all the public employees I to
get it, Eric. It's not like that and it's okay. I mean, I'm just telling you what I would want done. I would want the town to be protected because we have choices. We could sit there and tell every employee they have to get vaccinated. And is that right?
That's not right. We could. We could. We have that right as an employer. We would have to negotiate with the union over the impact of that decision. Correct. But we can make that decision if We we so could
and I would sit there and tell you that I wouldn't go that far. But I would recommend that they all get vaccinated and I would recommend that if they choose not to get vaccinated. Dennis, what could a waiver say?
I doubt that you can waive your right to That's what, yeah. The state mandated benefit. Workers' comp is, you know it's a state program paid for by employers of course but but you know that but generally speaking there are lots of rights that you can't waive eviction rights stuff like that let me find out I I don't like to speculate on something I don't know the answer to these are really good questions and I'm I'm my interest is piqued I'm very interested in finding out the answer not not just for you guys but intellectually
very interesting questions so so so we're still at the position where we need to vote hey Jeff can I speak in here for a minute I
actually work at a large company We just went through this with mask versus non mask? The company still has a mask mandate. And if you come forward with your vaccination certificate and you sign it, you then can go unmasked in the company. So the company itself still has a mask mandate. But if you come forward and you say, I've been vaccinated, here's my certificate, then you're allowed to not wear the mask as an employee. So that may be an option. I like that option.
I think that's an option that makes a lot of sense. All right. Amend the motion accordingly.
Okay. So the motion is that we sit there and open the town hall as of July 1. We open it with the restrictions that everyone is required to wear a mask unless they approve vaccination. Are we going to do that for residents as well?
No, just for employees because they're employees of the town. I think, I mean, every other business and restaurant you go into, it's kind of on your honor whether you're gonna do it or not. But as far as protecting our employees, I think if they come forward and say I'm vaccinated, then they're not mandated to wear a mask.
Okay. So it's just for employees. Understood. I'm with you. I agree with that. The residents are going to be on an honor system and the employees, because we have a certain level of control are required to show us that they're vaccinated and they can then go without a mask.
Okay. Somebody Well, I suppose you could always ask the visitors if they would show it and if they refuse. We're not gonna make people Go big. Card around.
I hope we're not There's nobody there that can really screen them. Yeah. Right? Because as soon as you open the door, people are gonna come in and go wherever they're gonna go. So Adrian, since you made this motion, will you just sit there and craft it appropriately for the revision? Jeff, I would add Jeff's
I would add with Jeff Marisa. Just write that into the motion. Please. Yes. Amanda, do you have a reasonable draft of a motion there? Not quite yet.
Okay. So we'll revise Adrian's motion if you will allow me to. We'll make a motion that we open the town hall effective July 1. Residents are requested to wear a mask if they are unvaccinated.
Why are we waiting till July 1? It's June 14.
When do you want to do it? June 15. Tomorrow. Effective tomorrow.
Effective June 15, we'll open the town hall back up. Make it the sixteenth. Give me one day to notify employees. Can we make it yesterday?
Okay. We're going to make a motion effective June 16 that we open up the town hall, request that employees to wear masks unless they show verification of vaccination, and then they will no longer be required to wear the masks. The residents are requested if they're unvaccinated to wear masks into the town hall when they come to visit. Is that acceptable, Adrian? Yes, please. Okay. Somebody second that. I'll second that. All right. Scott second that. No further discussion. Let's vote on that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. All opposes? There's no abstentions. Jeff Murray, thank you for that information. Jeff, thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Let's go. So, we're now on 11D
senior center activities, senior activities, not senior center, but senior activities. What do we got?
So at this point, we're basically back to pretty close to normal status for all senior activities based on the governor's guidance. So the young at heart is in the community room once a week or once every every other week for meetings. We're doing trips, we're doing the Friday luncheon program. We're looking at other programming possibilities for the future and try to provide them as much activity as we can because everybody's coming out of a period of really limited opportunities.
Okay, that's great. All right, thank you. 11C, road notes from the Connecticut circuit rider.
Yep, I included those in your packet. The Traffic Safety Committee met a month and a half ago. One of the things the committee asked me to do was set up a meeting with the state circuit rider. I did that, I invited you, Jeff, and I invited the members of the committee. Nobody took me up on that, unfortunately. So it was myself and the circuit rider. Basically, looked at a range of roads throughout town and she made a series of road specific suggestions, both for intersection safety, as well as striping and appropriate speed limits on various different roads. I laid it out in one document for you to read. If you have any comments, feel free. I don't think we need to discuss it further unless you're ready to take action on any of that.
Okay. I will look at this at our next meeting because I did read it, but we should hold off. We're going to move on to 11 d, letter to the auditor regarding final fraud payment.
Right. So as most of you know, at this point, we've recovered the majority of the money that was lost due to the fraudulent ACH payment. The difference that's remaining is 5,000. I would like to propose to Mahoney Sable, and I know they would accept that we split that remaining 5,000. So basically the town takes a $2,500 hit and Mahoney Sable takes a $2,500 hit. But it's not really my call to make that decision. So the question is, where do you stand on that? And the Board of Finance is okay with that, but ultimately it's a contract. So I believe the Board of Selectmen should weigh in on that.
How much money I'm assuming, did we put this through to our insurance company and Mahoney Sable put it through to their insurance company?
So, it has not gone through their insurance company. At this point, we have recovered some money from our insurance company and the bank was able to recover some money from the account because apparently the person or the entity dumped some more money into that account from somewhere else. And our bank grabbed that money as soon as it went in there and transferred that back to us. So,
that's it. That's where we're at. How much was the insurance settlement? I think it was around 12, around $16,000
something like that. So, our insurance company gave us $16,000 related to this? Correct.
And how much has Mahoney Samo ponied up at this point?
They haven't paid anything at this point. If you agree to this and they agree to that, they'll pay 2,500 out of pocket and so will we. But Mahoney Sable has also agreed to work on this year's audit, even though it's kind of questionable, technically they're required to be paid in full for last year's audit before they begin work on this year's audit. And they agreed to waive that for this.
So just because I'm We went to our insurance company and recovered $16,000 and Mahoney and Sable did not submit this to their insurance company. That's what you're telling me. Correct. All right.
Yeah, I'm a little confused as to why it was our insurance company and it doesn't seem like Why didn't they take any hit on this? Yeah, it seems like we got the short end of it.
I have a major problem with it just being our insurance side. Right. If our insurance goes up because of this, listen, there is a lot of blame to go around related to this issue, but if Mahoney and Sable did not submit it to their insurance company, then we're the ones taking the entire potential increase on the town side. Regardless if it was insurance money or not, I'm not worried about just the insurance settlement.
I'm worried about the insurance premium and what we end up having to pay next year and the year after. Is Kerma going after their insurance? Do we know?
I don't know. Kerma has their insurance number. But I mean, remember, Karma has given up this whole cyber liability completely. So we're absolutely uncovered July 1 anyway. So our rates aren't gonna go up because this policy isn't going to be in effect. We're not gonna have this coverage in another two weeks.
Correct. But that's just a rider to the policy. We've That's not how had a claim, so. Yeah. That's not how they're looking at calculating our cost to them. They're looking at the $16,000 as that's part of our cost. Anyway, I mean, it's $2,500 I just don't think, I think Mahoney and Sabril for the hacking of their email system should have sat there submitted it to their insurance company. Paid half. Yeah, exactly.
So, you want me to send them an auditor a letter and just basically say, We're not going No. Pay you anything to deal
want to get this over with because this is how you settled it. What I am saying to you is that it should never have just resided on the town side because while the mistake was made at the town side, the information requesting all of that came directly through their email server. Correct.
Right? Yes. Okay. And I hope that we have standard operating procedures in it that no ACH changes are made unless calls are made directly to the receiving party to verify changes to any accounts. That is the procedure in place now. Okay.
Is there any, is it possible to find out if our insurance is going after the Mahoney Sable side?
I suppose I could talk to the Hanover rep and find that out.
Directly Is through Hanover or is it Kerma administering this for Hanover?
No, I mean, we've only dealt with Hanover on this. Once it was initially assigned to Hanover, we've only dealt with their claims rep. All right. Any further discussion on this issue?
But even if they go at Yeah. I mean, even if they go after Mahoney Sables insurance, that still doesn't cover the $5,000 because that's our deductible.
I don't have any problem with the 2,500. I have a problem with our insurance taking a hit for that whole 16,000.
Well, I personally think that Mahoney Sable should be paying the deductible.
I have a problem with not only the insurance going out, but we're just incurring an extra $2,500 of expenses. The money has already left our account On. For the entire audit. So,
we are So, look, I mean, that's why I gave this to you. If your instructions are to me are to tell Mahoney Sable to pound sand and that we expect them to eat the whole 5,000 because that's your decision, that's what I will bring back to them, you know? And I don't know what happens if they tell us to pound sand. I mean, we still technically owe them an extra $5,000 that they've never received.
And they sat there and I mean, listen, this is not an easy situation, Eric, but if you get your e mail server hacked like that, it's on you. It is. So now what we're after is you went through the insurance policy, they're made whole now for something less than $5,000 We've lost we've sent all of our money out to pay for that audit. So Mahoney Tsaibel is going to be short $2,500 and we're going to be over $2,500
Correct. If we do this as it's written. As it's written. Well,
I have already I mean, I'm not a big fan of this one, but I understand that they are our auditor and that we need to keep reasonably good relationships with them. What do the other members want to do? Anybody want to make a motion to move this forward?
We were not the only ones that had negligence in this. No. Are we taking all the hit for it?
Well it doesn't appear that Mahoney and Sable turned it into their insurance company to try to recover anything.
I guess I'm a little confused as to why we didn't get their insurance information and reach out to them.
We gave their information to Hanover. You know, it's not my responsibility to go after their insurance company. It's our responsibility to interact with Hanover and give Hanover the packet of information. What they do with that is on them, not on us. I'm not an insurance adjuster.
Do we have, did we get a settlement letter as to how they laid blame on this?
We got a settlement letter. I don't know whether, I don't think the settlement letter apportioned blame in any way, shape or form. There was no apportionment of liability.
No, they just said what they were covering and what was remains was our deductible. Deductible.
So, this insurance company covered everything but our deductible $5,000
Correct. Everything other than the money were covered from Regions Bank by People's Bank.
All right, well, let's just move it. Let's just accept it and move on. If there was no apportionment of liability, then then you really can't fight who was at fault. You know? Okay, make a motion.
I'll make a motion that we accept the settlement agreement that's been by the insurance company, where we pay 2,500 and Mahoney stable pays 2,500 regarding the fraud settlement settlement.
Somebody want a second, Matt? I'll second it. All right. Further discussion. All those in favor of the settlement. Aye. Aye. Okay. All right.
The 11E complaint from resident on Matheson Drive about tree cutting. Do we have anything additional we want to add to this?
I do not. The resident had said they wanted to speak to the Board of Selectmen. They were aware when the meeting was. Are they on the call? I do not believe so.
Okay. Let's go. So, 11 F, Manchester to Village Hill upgrade project?
Correct. This is just for your notification. We got something from Eversource stating that they're potentially upgrading the overhead transmission line in the power line corridor that runs through Andover. Good. Alrighty. 11 gs affordable housing plan grant.
Yes. So, I believe Jed Larson is on the call, I think. Where is Jed? Yep, I'm here. I think Jed would be the best guy to speak to that. He is the chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Jed, the floor is yours. You're on mute. Yeah, okay.
So by state law, we're required to have an affordable housing plan by July 2022. And we currently don't have one. We've done a lot of background work that would help in developing that. And we've actually, through Eric's help when he was on the planning and zoning chairman, put a lot of things into our regulations that would support more affordable housing, but we don't have a plan. And the state just recently issued a document saying that they're going out for round two Cities and towns can apply for a grant to develop an affordable housing plan and they're giving out up to $15,000 per town to do that. Eric and I got together. We have had a bit of an outline of what the plan would look like if it was developed by Bill Warner who worked on the underlying information that would go into it as well as our last plan of conservation and development. And so it's consistent with what he thinks we should be doing to do this. The grant we would be asking for came in at, I think, $9,600 So that's well short of the $15,000 maximum that we could ask for. And I'd have to go to the Board of Finance to see if we would have to do a request for proposal or just go right to Bill. But with Bill doing all the previous work, I'd like to have him take this and wrap up all the information he's got to validate it with the current residents of the town. Doing some surveys and get our plan so that we can submit that to the state next year and have that
not impact getting any of the funding that we might need to get from the state. Okay. So
the grant proposal requests that we submit a certified resolution adopted in the last sixty days by the town's legislative body, that's the Board of Selectmen, authorizing submission of the application and identifying the individual who can sign the grant application and administer the grant, and that would be Eric. And so that's what I am asking the Board of Selectmen to do tonight, and that would get us started on working on our plan. Okay,
all right. So does someone wanna make the motion regarding the resolution?
I will. I motion to adopt the resolution allowing the town administrator to apply for and accept the grant from the state of Connecticut for affordable housing plan and in grant.
Do we have a second? I'll second. All right, further discussion. Eric, just please make sure the grant application is for the full $15,000 If you want us to run the fees up, we can No, I want you to sit there and utilize it in a manner that isn't in compliance with what you're doing, but it will benefit the town. That's what I'm asking for.
Eric, why are you saying run the fees up? I'm trying to understand his side of it real quick.
I'm not asking him to run the fees up. I'm sitting there saying, if you have an opportunity to utilize those funds that can be beneficial for the community, I think you should. Okay. Is that what your question was, Adrian? Trying to understand
why Eric was saying that. Because they have a quote at $9,600
So let's be honest, Bill wanted about $6,000 to do this. So, I bumped it up 50% to give us a little more wiggle room. But I mean, I don't know whether you could really bring in a consultant and realistically expend $15,000 on an affordable housing plan for the town of Andover. Okay. I mean, I'm sure we could find somebody willing to take that money. Understood,
Eric, understood. The issue is more not running up the fees, but being creative in how we utilize what we have an opportunity for. We cannot be creative in how we use what we're looking at, then ask for the $9,000 and let's move on. Any further discussion?
No. Are we going to use Bill Warner again, hopefully?
Board of Finance will have to make that decision. Ultimately, that's a Board of Finance call because it would require a modification of their existing policy, which requires going to RFP on all contracts, which we don't do regularly anyway.
Any further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. All those opposed? All those abstain. Okay. 11H, town budget discussion. What are we discussing other than there is a vote next Tuesday? And are we going to discuss if it fails what we're doing? Is that what you're after, Eric? Yes, that's exactly what I'm after.
My suggestion is that I put in your packet a resolution that was written by the town's attorney to set a provisional mill rate in case the budget doesn't pass. Do we have a financial statement? No.
I thought Sherri said she just got one the other day at the town meeting.
Yeah, and she was supposed to be on this conference call to discuss that. She is unfortunately dealing with her father who's been hospitalized.
Fine, do you have a copy of the financial statement? I don't have a copy of the financial statement. Why not? Because I was anticipating Sherri dealing with that item.
No, but what I'm asking is, is it an issue because of Mahoney Sable? Is it an issue because of our numbers? What is the issue? In terms of Don't
you get when she gets a financial statement on whether it's monthly, whatever, doesn't she give you a copy of that? I don't always get the financial statement. No. Okay.
Okay. So are again, are we waiting on Mahoney and Sabre to do something? Is it something that we haven't done? What is the issue? No. She got it. She's just not here to discuss it. And Eric didn't get a copy. Okay.
Just a reckoning on the bank accounts. Wanna know how much we have sitting there total. Because I believe we have enough money that we don't have to do this and that we could just hold out another month if we have to.
I mean, all I can say is the finance director recommends against that approach. I know you've said that before, Adrian.
Well, and when I asked her, and you know, I don't want to get into what I asked and didn't ask because she's not here to discuss and say her side of it. But my my, that is my opinion that based on our total account funding and how we're structured, there's enough cash that we will not go through the burn rate that we can we can survive certainly thirty days, maybe even sixty days, you know. Okay.
So, but Adrian, let's sit there and just evaluate what's the downside. If we do this, Eric, what's the cost if we actually set the mill rate in case the budget fails? What's our downside?
The downside would be that we end up with a final budget that's higher than the mill rate we set, and we would end up doing a supplemental appropriation, which would cost us money to do a second round of mailings. If we set the mill rate and the budget goes down, then the town essentially legally has the option of just refunding people in the following year or sending out a correction and reducing their follow on quarterly payments to match if you choose to do that.
So in reality, if this budget fails, we're going to have to sit there and do something either way. I mean, because you're never going to hit this dead nuts, you're never going to get exactly the number and you're going have to refund people money or you're going to have to sit there and ask for a supplemental tax bill.
Correct. Correct. How much does it cost to send out another round of mailings?
I don't know that number. 800. No, that's a different, that's
right. Can we get from QDS the number that they would sit there and charge us? Mean, know that supplemental number anyway. Does anybody on the board really mind that if this budget fails, that we have a meeting on the twenty third, one of the days of the following week to say yes or no to this? That's a good idea. Mean, we already
have to have a meeting anyway because we're talking about Eric on another day. Does anyone have a problem with that? No. All right. Then let's do that and let's move on from this and not sit there and subject ourselves to a rate that may or may not come into being. Right. So the 11i is the public library chimney repointing quotes. So, 6,200 Eric. What are we requesting? What is the library requesting related to this? We just do this to CIP.
So, first of, yeah, I would say just simply send it to CIP, make CIP evaluate it.
I've talked to one the vendors and we need to get a little more information so that it's ready to go to CIP, but let's just move it to CIP. Do we need to make a motion to do that or?
No, we can, but I don't necessarily Is it necessary? We're gonna send it to CIP. Adrian, you're gonna walk it to CIP?
I'll be at CIP when it comes up. I've already talked to one of the Masons. I'm going try to reach out to the other one shortly. All right, excellent.
All right. We had 11J of a labyrinth discussion. Paula, how are our circles?
Okay. So I don't want to have a long conversation, but we talked about this last month real quick. Carrie Crompton was suggesting over by the ball field between the soccer field and the Hop River would be a great spot for a labyrinth. She is willing to, you know, come up with the design and work with us on this. You mentioned that it would be a couple of $100 and the maintenance would be very low. You just mow right over the stones. I reached out to Bill Penn who is, working with the boy scouts and he said this would be a great Eagle Scout project. So, Carrie was, you know, I I asked her, I said, well, that's great, but who's gonna help you with it? And she's, you know, she's willing to come up with the idea and kind of direct people, but she just needs help with the physical, part of it. So
I like I said, I reached out to Bill Penn. He's gonna be talking to the scouts the next couple of weeks and letting me know if there's interest. Carrie said that between three to five people the project could probably get done within you know ten hours depending on how fast they're working. So I told her I would would help recruit people and I'm putting it out there to see if this is something we wanna move forward with. You know, we'll have to buy the the stones and and I'm I can continue to talk to Bill about having the scouts help If the scouts are not willing to help, then we can maybe look to another avenue.
I mean, Scott, I'm going to ask you because you're down there. That parking lot, utilization of that parking lot for something like that, something you would like to see down there?
It doesn't get used. I don't see any reason why, no, I don't see any reason why she can't use it.
Okay and then Paula, do we know the amount of money?
She was saying roughly a couple $100. Alright. Well, you know, she was saying there's people that use the Hop River Trails there, you know, people in the soccer fields would be would be able to use it. I would love to see a sign there too. I don't know how much a sign would be, just kind of explaining what it is. So I don't know how much a sign is or maybe Adrian can help build a sign of some sorts. Okay, well let's
It just has to be kept away from the trail that goes into the river there. That's all, so people can walk you know past it I guess.
Yeah, she laid down some flour. Eric did you I saw that. Okay. So wherever she put the flour, I didn't see the flour, but that was where she was thinking
she was going to put that. Did I send you a picture of it? Yeah, if you would, please.
Is there anything other than a motion required for us to allow that location to be used for the Lambert? Eric, do you have any problem with it? Nope. Is there anything other than a motion? Because as far as I'm concerned, the rocks can be donated. We can donate those dollars to make it happen.
What fund do you want that money to come out of? Jeff.
The bricks. Do you want to give 100 and I'll give 100? Sure. Actually,
Jeff, don't you, didn't you have a wall just built? You got some spare rocks? Yeah, I got nothing. I got nothing.
We could jar some loose. Yes, I'm sure we could. But, I think we could raise the money for that. Here's
my next question. Do we want to put in our motion? I'm, my only concern is if we approve the money and the Eagle Scouts don't want to do this and there's no help, I just, I don't want to.
Alright. How about we table this then until we find out if A, there's an Eagle Scout that wants it and enough people come forward to volunteer to help with it? Yeah, I don't think we need to decide tonight. I just wanted to kind of throw it out there because I'd hate for us to approve it and then nobody's coming forward to help do the project. Yeah, and I think in general, we run into this a lot where a lot of we get an idea that somebody comes forward and says, it's a great thing we need to do this, but then there's not enough support to really make that work.
All right, hopefully next month I'll come back and I'll have an answer from Bill Penn and or who, you know, Bill saying that Eagle Scouts don't want to do it, then I have some sort of idea if we have to move forward with getting a different group of people.
Okay. All right. Thank you, Paula. Let's move on to twelve, approval of meeting minutes, Monday, May 10, Tuesday, June 1. Are there any issues with that? Somebody want to make a motion? I make a motion that we approve the meeting minutes of Monday, May 10 and June 1. Now you're talking, I will second that. All right. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Okay, good. We received a finance department report. There's a budget summary. Is there anything else that needs to be addressed? Anybody have any questions related to any of the items? Okay. Eric, are there any budget appropriation transfers that we need to deal with?
No. The last thing that's going to happen is Board of Finance has to do, we got to give them the cleanup stuff on the twenty third to move all the money around by the end of the fiscal year. Sherri and I are supposed to be getting together in a couple of days to work on that. Okay.
Tax collectors report. Collections for the month of May were $236,000 We still have remaining $474,000 of uncollected taxes going back to 2006. 259,000 are for the current tax year. Anything else related to the tax collector's report? No.
Was there a percentage? I didn't see it. Is there a percentage listed on that? I'm actually looking for it right now in the packet. Of what? Yeah, the next page shows the dashboard,
which shows real estate personal property and motor vehicle collected versus uncollected fractions. So basically 97.5% of real estate has been collected, 95% of personal property and 97% of the motor vehicle taxes have been collected for the current year.
It's basically the biggest number is still left in real estate taxes. There's $198,000
of uncollected real estate taxes for the current year. Can you tell me what page that's on? Because my PDF keeps kicking me out at 50. Page 85. 72. 72. That's the problem.
Yeah. So there's $259,000 remaining for this year. Okay. Any other questions related to tax collectors information? No. Assessor's report revaluation services are on there. There's nothing in the assessor section. Is that accurate, Eric?
That is the assessor and the I forget what the company's name is. They were running around on Vision? Vision Wednesday and Thursday, looking at all the recent sales. John is out for about four weeks because he just had shoulder replacement surgery today, So we'll see him in about a month. Okay, and when is the revaluation information required?
Not for a while. Not for till sometime in end August, September, something like that. Okay.
Anybody have any other questions? No. Okay. We had other departmental reports, fire department report, burning official. I don't necessarily know we got all of that. Do we have anything from a tax collector report? Any refund requests? There are no refund requests.
I don't see anything. Okay. All right. Any questions on the other departmental reports? Okay. So we're going to move on from there. Eric, I'm assuming there's no correspondence? Correct. Okay. We're going to move to nineteen to public speak now so that we can allow people to speak before we go into the session. So Diane Greiner, you're first on the list. I'm for my buttons here. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. Valerie Bruno, you're number two on the list.
Jeff, I just want to reiterate what Shannon had said earlier. Can we just have a conversation about election day? Because I don't see that that was put down for AES for the gym and there is a camp that's there that day. That was an error, it's going to be in the community room.
Somebody transcribed it wrong on the agenda. The official notice has listed the community room. Great, thanks Eric. Yep, no problem. All right, Kathy and Mike Pelosi.
Get on mute. No, thank you. We're fine. Thanks for the entertainment.
You're welcome. Sloane, I'm assuming that's you. Do you? You don't have anything. We're not going to even bother you. You'll give us enough. Nick, we don't need to bother you. Shannon Lawton.
I'll be very quick. I just wanna note that at a CIP meeting and maybe at a Board of Selectmen meeting, I'm not recalling, while I do not wanna run afoul of Carrie Crompton's plans, that's an awesome possibility. I had mentioned and started discussing the use of that parking lot area for a town basketball court and lining it also for a pickleball court to occur across from the senior housing facility. So before any action might be taken on that, maybe it should be discussed as anybody else having a plan for that area. It floods regularly, as we all know who worked on the soccer field. And I was advised that I also needed to be in touch with our local herpetologist, turtle specialist, Henry Gruner, before anything could be done in that area. Because I recall when we were working on the soccer field, that he was very concerned about the turtle population in that specific area. So just wanted to circle back and provide that information. Thanks. Thank you. Joanne Eber. Go ahead, Joanne. I gotta say something about that. Okay, we'll come back to you, Scott.
Quickly, I hope in the future that when you guys are looking for financial information that could help you make decisions, then it's there for you. We are in June. That balances that you can looking for would just be readily available. So, yeah. Thank you. Alright. Scott, go ahead. New finance director. So, you know, I I understand she's got some kind of thing going on. Sure well, but you know, the information could be passed along to someone present at the meeting. Okay, thank you very much, Joanne. Scott.
Down in that area, it's in the floodplain, so you can't add or remove any material. Okay. So, mean the labyrinth I would say it's not a big deal but if they're going to put a pickleball court or something else in that lower area then you would have to raise it up to get it out of the wet and you can't. Am I correct on that, right Eric? Is definitely in the floodplain.
Recreational uses are allowed in a floodplain. I'm not sure a pickleball court is something that can't flood. I don't see why it couldn't flood because it's not exposed to running water. It would just be exposed to being submerged. And pavement handles that just fine. So in the future, it wouldn't be possible to build a more permanent structure there without decreasing the flood capacity. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Lisa Kurtz. All set. Thank you. Okay. Carol Lee. You're good. All set. Thanks.
All right. What we're going to do now is we have two executive sessions to talk about. The first one we're going to go into is, we're going go into the one that was related to Kara Lee and the town clerk's office. So Paula, I'm assuming you're taking control of this? Yes. Yep. Okay.
Then, so we need to make a motion to go into executive session. Yes. Then we're going to be asking everyone to leave with the exception of Carol to begin with, and then we're going to move into the other set of executive session and it will just be the selectman. We'll be going from there. AJ, why don't you make your motion to go into executive session for this? Make a motion that we go into executive session. Okay. Second.
So I assume you don't want me in on this one. Am I correct? That's correct. Thank you. Okay. Yeah.
Are you gonna want me back in later or am I done?
I think you can be done. Think we're going to move into the next section. So Eric, I don't think there's any reason for you to stick around. Is there any reason for the other members of the Board of Selectmen to have Eric or Amanda stick around? Are we going to have questions for Eric? We might actually.
How about we text him when we're ready to get when we're ready to move on to that part?
Then he can can come back in. Eric, and we'll try to do it as quickly as we can.
Okay. So you want me back in for the second one where we're discussing the union contract negotiations.
Am I correct? Correct. Yep. Okay. All right. Peace out. All right. Thank you. I'm going to stop the recording. One second. Yeah, go ahead. No. No, you're going stop the recording.