Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting
May 10, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Through this. I am going to call to order the Board of Select Committee for Monday, 05/10/2021 at 07:02. We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to flag of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice frown.
Okay. All right. So Amanda will go through all of the residents who are on the call for public speak. Okay, Mike Polazi and Kathy Polazi.
Good evening, Amanda. Hello. I have just a question. Under the summary of fire alarm systems for the Andover buildings and properties under seven it says the old senior center system taken offline recently will not be repaired and I have a question because of three vehicles senior transportation vehicles out there, if there should be a fire or some type of damage, would the vehicles be covered that they could be replaced at cost value? I was just wondering about that. That's something we'll look at Diane. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me Kathy.
Okay, next up, Carrie Crompton, know you're presenting, so would you like to participate in public speak? Sure.
Presenting beginning, the first thing I want to say is on behalf of the Conservation Commission, we are making progress with the Monarch Waystation that I proposed last that we proposed last fall. And I can show you what's going on here. Here's the way station, you can see the church in the background, you can see the steeple. So this is that broad apron of land where opposite where the old train station used to be and where we're going to do the Monarch Way Station. This little black spot back here is the beginnings of the station. It looks like a lawn, but it isn't grass. Most of what's there is not grass. It's broadleaf plants that will have flowers if they are allowed to get to flowering stage, but they were mowed a couple of days ago. I went down there to work on the waste station station and discovered that all of these plants, which will bloom and attract pollinators if they're allowed to, have been cut down. These are the very smallest, and so they're still there. But you can see all the leaves have been chopped, and I'm really pleading with the powers that be about mowing in town to not chop these guys down. This is the way station. These are the general plants. These are goldenrods and asters that are the general nectar plants for pollinators, bees and butterflies and wasps and so on, that we need. So here's the beginning of the waste station. It's a bunch of holes in the ground that I have dug, and you can see there's the pot is full of rocks because this used to be a parking lot, and I'm taking out the rocks.
There's the holes. Tomorrow we're going to put the plants in. I got a volunteer to help me today put in six plants, and the rest will happen tomorrow around 12:30. None of it will make any sense if the whole area is mowed. We must desist from mowing this section, and that's all I have to say about that. I know that I'm on for talking about a labyrinth, I don't want to spend too much of your time, but I have many times wondered what was the point of all this land behind the soccer fields. You know, this is the little hut and this is the parking area, And there's this all this big stretch of land, and one day I just, I just got to be in my bonnet that maybe we'd like to have a labyrinth there. Now, a labyrinth is a walking course that goes into a center by a single path, which is rather mysterious. It is not logical. It's not a spiral, but it is a prescribed path. And it takes you eventually, winds you around. I'm not going spend all your time to do that, but it gets you to the center, and then you wind back out the same way. So, I have been interested in labyrinths for years. They're all over the place. There are some 4,000 in The United States at this point, and many in Connecticut. This one's out in Santa Fe, and this one's in Ohio. Here's one in Albuquerque. They can be made of all sorts of things. And this is the one in my yard that I made back in 2014,
and we use it every day. It's just a pleasure to walk in all seasons, and children love it. Whenever children come, they want to walk it. Grown ups like it. Nice in the fall, it's nice in the winter, even at night. George and I have been to lots of labyrinths. This one is in Massachusetts, it's near Plymouth. It's absolutely beautiful. And there's a whole book called chasing labyrinths a field guide to labyrinths of Connecticut and Rhode island, meaning, this is a thing. One here that they show on the cover is in West Hartford And I go there to visit a friend often. It's very beautiful. Just a nice walk around. You can get 500 steps walking a 50 foot wide labyrinth. So I think one day I just got the inspiration because I saw it being vacant, and I thought, what if we drew a labyrinth there? So I drew it in flower, and the next day a person showed up and walked it with her dog. And I thought, if the town would like an amenity on that particular piece of land that is not there now, it might be a nice one and it could be done in chipped marble. So, if it were dug into a width, to a depth of two inches and a width of four inches, it could be quite a beautiful thing for an amenity for the recreational area of the town. And that's all. I know that there's community funding money coming up. There's a grant proposal stuff going on before June 1. If the town thinks that might be a nice thing to do, we could put in an application and see if we could get.
Know funding to make such a thing I am not personally offering to make one I have one in my yard, and I know it's a lot of labor to dig and place stone, but I think that I'd be happy to be involved in as a consultant and help people design it and so on. That's all. Think about it thank you very much thank you carrie very cool okay
carrie the best one we got I know it says on your agenda that the labyrinth idea is is from the conservation commission but it truly is not. That's just a carry idea.
It's just an idea for Carrie have you have you gotten any feedback talking to others about this?
Well I haven't been down there every day. I just, the day after I drew it in flower, it's very temporary of course, there was this one person walking her dog there, she loved it, but I haven't been, no, haven't seen any other people who've responded to it yet. It's kind of a drive to go down there every time. No, but have you mentioned it to your friends or to people you're- Oh, says they think it's a cool idea. Yeah. Okay. Any idea what it would cost?
Well, if you did it in chipped marble, I did pace it. I know how many feet are involved. It would take between one and two yards of chipped marble, and that sells for $62 a yard. So we're talking about $120 to $150 tops in terms of materials. The rest is all labor.
And then wouldn't there be if you did it and shipped, wouldn't that be a certain amount of work to keep it from the grass and things from growing into it? You could always mow right across it.
If it were in fact two inches deep and four inches wide, it would be there forever stone is heavy. Doesn't move around when it's at ground level. You just mow over it and it takes care of itself, no maintenance. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? No thank you for entertaining mine though.
Glad to. Gary thank you for doing that. I think that's a wonderful idea both of them the Butterfly Garden and not garden but Monarch Waystation. Yes. So there'll be a presentation tomorrow with the library. It's a show and tell at 12:30 down at the end of Center Street where I will be putting plants in the ground and taking questions and talking about the mission, which is to let the whole area become part of a migration route for monarchs butterflies and bees, etcetera. That's wonderful. Do you want flags or something to put around it so they don't get mowed? I would like, yes, if you got flags, flags, I'll take them. I want the whole area, you see, it's not just the area. I don't want to create an oasis in a desert. I want that whole apron of land to remain unmowed except for the perimeter, A one mower width around the whole front edge and the sides in the back, but nothing in the middle because we need all of those wildflowers that are already in the soil. They're there. They just are never allowed to blossom because they get mold.
Well, I'll give you what I have, see what we can do. Mary, you really need to lay that out for us so that we understand the extent of what you're talking about, because I'm assuming you're not talking about the whole strip that runs along Route 6 all the way down past the post office. Just the area.
Just this area. What happens is you go over the bridge over Route 316, and then you go through the woods and it drops off sharply on both sides, right? It's the old railroad. And then suddenly you come out into a sunny area that's this long. It's just this. And I don't know, maybe 500 feet by 40 feet, something like that in-depth. What I imagine the mower doing is doing right along the trail, one mower width, and then at the back where the poison ivy and the other really bad invasives want to come in from behind here, there's lots of Japanese knotweed and other ugly things. You mow that to keep them in check. But all of this is going to be purple and white and pink and yellow with wildflowers that are already in the soil. They're there. Understood.
But are you talking to the walkway that goes down to Route 6?
Where are you talking No, I'm just talking no, could stop all of this non MOE stuff could stop right at the end of the way station, which is right there. The walkway down to the church in the library is over there near the cedar posts. So this all could stop right about here, the non moe. Gotcha. Right where your finger is. Right, right where my finger is. And so we mow along here, and then back to here, and along the back,
and then forward. I will get with you at some point in time and advise the people that there is two young gentlemen that have been trying to maintain the top of that hill because the town doesn't do it and the state doesn't do it. So I am sure that that mowing was a public service and I would have to sit there and say, we apologize for that. So I need to know where you want it stopped.
Yeah, I'd be happy to talk with them and you. I'll pop down there anytime and advise. Yeah, we'll get that done. If
it's not a successful experiment, if people are not happy with the results, it can always be mode again. I'm sure it will be a successful experiment, and if you bring any color to that hill, I will be happy. If you can do anything that makes
Eric not have to worry about the maintenance of that hill, he'd be happy as well. Well, I'm not talking about the hill yet. Not talking about the embankment. This is up the apron. The whole area, I got Yep, the whole area, I know, is challenging. But this is right in the old days, railroad depot was right here. Yeah. Right here. So this is just, it's sort of a special area, waste station depot for butterflies now, converting it. I
think that's a great idea. So Amanda, if we could sit there and we're going to also have this on the agenda a little bit, so we'll talk about it later, we can move on. Very good. Thank you for your time.
I love it. Thank you, Carrie. That was great. Okay. Next up for public speak, Diane Grineer. I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Marcy Miner.
I don't have anything to say. I'm just here to support you guys and let you know if I fall asleep, don't take it personally. It's hard for me to stay up Thank this you for being here. Kurt Dowling. All set for now. Thanks. Thank you. Diane Chiquette. I'm all set. Thank you. Thanks. Joanne Hubbard. Thank you.
Thank you. And we have Sloan from the River East and then Abby Winter, but she is presenting. So I assume, would you like to wait until then? Yep, I'll wait till then. All right. Is that it? Did we get everyone? Jerry, would you like to participate? I see you behind Eric.
That's because I got a fire commissioner meeting ten minutes ago. Okay.
Did everybody get a copy of the third update as far as the June 5 unveiling? I did. Did did do we have any questions?
Nothing specifically. It looked like you had it pretty much laid out. Is Eric in agreement with everything? Sure, why not? I
talked to the pilot today and they are going to land the hearing behind the school and the town hall. He said that's perfect.
Okay. Backfield That's all for me, I'm heading down to the firehouse. On that issue, have you talked to the superintendent?
No, because it's a Saturday. Do I need to Oh, you need to talk to the superintendent. All right. I'll give John a call. Okay. That would be good. Yeah. Right.
Jerry, did you include in that update how many bricks you sold? I didn't see it unless I missed it. Yeah. As of tonight, about two seventy one. That's great. And they're still coming in. So Great. Great. Great. Thank you, Jerry. That sounds I'm
all done. I'm out of here. Thank Jerry. Thanks. Thank you. Thank Yep, no worries.
Okay, so we've gone through everyone. All right. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? I have none, Adrian. Are we going to add 5D?
No. We're not going to do that. I've already called him because I didn't get him on the agenda. When I saw it over the weekend, I told him I'd set it up for June. We'll do that in June. What's this?
It was on his list of motions and items to add to the agenda. Okay. So you're not giving a report for him?
For who? For Steve? Yeah. He's going to come out of our June meeting, and it will be on the agenda for the next meeting. Okay. What about the Zach thing?
Eric, do we need to add the hiring for the individual for the public works part?
I mean, technically, you're supposed to be the one doing that, so it wouldn't be a bad idea. Okay, so add that to, we'll add nine. What
do you want to add it to, Scott? 5D? Sure. 5D. All of the motions are all part of other items. Is that it? Anybody else have anything they want to add? Jeff, are you good?
I am good. Thank you. Adrian, are you good? Yep.
All right. Paula, are you good? All set. All right. Scott, you're done? Yes, sir. So all those in favor of adding, as five d, the appointment of Zach Zach Zito to public works. All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. All right. So let's get started. We have item number four, Board and Commission presentations, Conservation Commission related to the labyrinth proposal, but that was obviously Carrie's own issue, and I believe we've all understood that. That's something we have to decide if we'd like to do it or not do it. She was talking about the parking lot across the street from the little ball field. Right. I don't know where to put that. I think maybe what we have to do is find maybe Carrie can go out and find a group of people to be willing to do it. I have no problem with using that parking lot for that. Are the blocks still there? I haven't looked at that, Scott. Are the blocks still Yeah, they are. That no one can park in it? Nobody can go in there anyways, no. The only thing we ever talked about doing for that parking lot was making an ice rink there.
Correct.
A labyrinth might be nice, and I know Paul is very interested in a labyrinth and she might sit there and work with Carrie to sit there and see what we can do. Is that true, Paula, or is Jeff volunteering you for something that you have no interest in?
He's volunteering me, but I would be happy to look into it. I don't I don't feel appropriate about this. I think that Paula should volunteer herself.
Otherwise I feel like we're manipulating her. Well thank you very much for standing up for me Mr. Mandeville but I am a grown woman And if I don't feel that I want to do it, will speak up. But I'm happy that you're concerned about that. I am Jeff's a bully. He volunteers me for stuff all the time.
Well, you're also a grown man and you No, didn't say
I need you to protect me, but on this one, I'll relent.
Well, thank you. We all should sit there and decide at our next meeting if it's something that we truly want to sit there and get done. Mean, she's not talking about a lot of money. I think my I
will gladly help Paula and dig. I will go down there and
lay some rocks. Do you even own a shovel, Jeff?
I have bought one in the past, yes. I'll show you how to use it. Yeah, Paula can. I just tried Adrian not to dig my own hole. Okay, moving along friends.
Oh, we're gonna go on a sustainable CT, Kathy Palazzi.
So just stop one sec. Do you want that on the agenda at the next meeting then? No, we want it on the agenda the next time Paula says it's on the agenda because she's in charge of it. I would love it on the agenda for next time. Sustainable Connecticut, Kathy Plaza. The board of Did law we lose him? No, he's there.
No, I am here. Thank you very much. Okay. He is trying to stay out of
the fray. Kathy, please, can everybody else let Kathy go? She's going to talk to us. Thank you, Jeff. How's your name, Ms. Paul? Hey, Adrian,
let her go. Come on. Asking how her knee is.
Okay, come on guys. To the board of selectmen and our town administrator, I want to thank you the board of selectmen for signing a resolution 09/16/2020 so that So that Andover could become both registered and recognized as part of Sustainable Connecticut. We are pleased to let you know currently our committee is working to become bronze certified August 2021. Our members consist of many different active committees in our town. Currently these are Alcoa, Andover Farmers Market, Andover Library, Andover Monument Park, Conservation Commission, Economic Development Commission, and the one hundred and seventy fifth Anniversary Committee. We're always looking for more commission and committees and the 100, excuse me, committees to join us. Our first function has been to list all our past projects from each group to maintain qualification status towards a certification. This has moved along nicely and at this time we are working on current projects and future projects, all of which we believe will qualify towards our needed points which is 200 points. Are fortunate to have two dedicated individuals from Sustainable Connecticut, one to advise us on our action items to receive points and want to direct us on the completion of an equity toolkit. You will be hearing more about this in the coming weeks prior to our August deadline. Equity in this case meaning a to have ownership, caring and love for our town. Because equity is a huge part of our certification points, our committee has decided to work for a better understanding of the environment beautification with our town with such magnificent areas such as the Monument Park, our unique bridge that covers land rather than water, our beautiful buildings including our church, our town hall, our fire department, our library, including the hand painted mural,
our elementary school, our historical museum, our lovely lake, and our old Andover barium grounds that we feel will become more of an attraction to travelers passing through. Perhaps one day we can offer tourism within our small town by having travelers stop by hire a tour guide to show them the beauty of Andover and talk about what our town has to offer. All things are possible. Next you will hear from Abby Winter, liaison from the Andover Farmers Market, who will be explaining a new project of starting a community garden for residents. This will bring our residents together with others who care for our land. Lastly, you will hear from Jerry Wright, Director of our Andover Monument Park, who will be explaining what his project is to help qualify for our certification. Our committee will be planning a meeting to invite residents either by Zoom or at the community room
whereby we will be explaining our projects as well as Abby will be explaining the community garden and how residents can become involved. Our main object will be informing the public on the benefits in becoming a certified sustainable town. We hope to be able to have this meeting in July. We further hope our board of select men will continue to support our work and take part in this meeting. I want to thank you very much and Abby Winter is up and she's going to do a spectacular job. No pressure, no pressure.
All right, can I transition or does anybody have anything to say to Kathy before I go on? No, you're all set.
All right, great. I actually have a little PowerPoint if I It looks like I have the ability to Amanda, is it possible for me to screen share? Okay, thank you. Yes, go right ahead and you can do it now. Okay. Bear with me for just a second. Thanks, Abby.
All right, how does that look for you all? Looks great. Right, let me put it in presentation mode. Okay. So this is on behalf of, as Kathy said so nicely, the Sustainable Connecticut Committee as well as the Farmers' Equity Committee. So the goal for this community garden is to provide a growing space for those community members that either can't grow gardens their own property for whatever reason, or they're looking to grow in a more social and community based environment, which would be really exciting, especially if we're all so isolated in our houses these days. And it can also double as an educational space too. So you can see to the right, I have an example of the Maryland Master Gardener Education Garden. So, just taking inspiration from this, they have a bunch of different beds. You can see on this side slide,
all the different beds are a different type of bed and it shows the community, the different materials used for it, how much it costs, how you build it. So it can also be an education tool for the community if they prefer to grow at home instead. So this is almost a twofold project of education and a growing space. So where is it going to go is the next question. So far we've identified a spot right behind where the potential senior community center would go. You can see on this little map I sketched up that it is just beyond the community center. This is if you don't recognize it, backyard of basically the backyard of the elementary school just before this purple square is the town hall. So this green rectangle represents a garden that will be 56 feet by 10 feet. That's what Ed Suresli was able to kindly stake out for me and for the committees as a potential spot. So again this is 56 by 10 feet and this 10 feet can grow to be 30 feet if there's a lot of community demand for this garden which is really exciting. And also further just some considerations we want to take into account. You can see edit pointing here to where that rectangle would be. There's the elementary school in the far background where you can see. So some considerations is just how close this is going to be to that potential site, the community senior center site,
just because we don't want to have heavy equipment rolling over this garden. It's far enough away where we don't really have to worry about that. However, we are thinking that the first year of the garden, it will be more temporary beds instead of more foundation based heavy beds that will then allow us to be flexible if we have to move anything should some kind of unforeseen situation arise. And then also you can see from the earlier slide, there is that drain field. So we had the former sanitarian come out with Ed when he was staking just to make sure that there's no issue of having it be too close to the drain field and he just assured as long as it's a minimum of 12 feet away from the drain field, it's totally fine. So we can be confident in that. And then this is just an example of the temporary bed that I kind of brought up before. So this is obviously a very low budget project. We've got plenty of logs laying around town we can pull from. And again, if this were to be an issue with the community center, the senior community center building, these beds can be moved pretty easily and without problem. So funding, what's the funding for this project? Like I said, hopefully it's gonna be very low budget. If we do try to get fancy with it, like I said before, have it be an education space, we are gonna need a bit of a budget. So I did apply to one grant already, the EPOC grant in March. They're hoping to get back to me in about a month or so about the status of that. And you can see to the right, there's a table of the proposed budget that I asked for, and that's really basing it on the education based garden that I showed earlier. So it's showing the different kinds of beds that we would have.
And then granted the BOS approval that I hope we get, those projects will also be applying to the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. So that's due in June. So that will be focusing mostly on just getting cover crops, seeds, soil, topsoil, fencing, and then you know if we're not successful with the EPOP grant, maybe we can talk about getting some of those beds as well.
Now, can you go back to that slide real quick? Go ahead, yep. Now, this is your individual. This is like your cost for individual beds. Is that correct?
Yeah. Yeah. So, most of them, you know, these top ones, these are tangible beds you can just buy at Home Depot or buy, where else did I source these from? I'd have to click on the link to see where I source these from. The ones down below that are more metal and pressure treated wood, that was just a rough estimate of the price of the wood and the metal. This was just kind of a quick grant applied to. That was kind of just a rough estimate of the price of those materials.
Just looking at the way your sheet is structured, looks like you added up all of those costs. Yeah. Yep.
But they're for individual beds. So you're saying you would have a variety of different styles of beds in the same space? Yep.
Okay. And that's for your first. Is that 10 beds, correct or something?
Yeah, have to count them up on the side, but it looks like roughly that a little bit more than 10. Okay.
Thank you. I was just trying to understand the spreadsheet a little bit. That's Yeah, absolutely. I can come back to this later if you want more time. Nope, I'm good. And then, okay. And then just to summarize it all up into a timeline. So right now in spring twenty twenty one, we just wanted to get kind of a baseline of where this garden is going to be what it could look like. And then also obtain BLS approval. In summer twenty one, we want to get kind of, you know, pending BLS approval. We want to get those rudimentary beds in place, get that top soil, get those cover crops planted to make sure that the soil stays infertile for when the growing season is going to start later on. In the fall, we really want to bolster kind of the social community base of this garden. So, hosting educational events, social events to build this community. And then in the winter, hopefully by then we've really gained a lot of traction in community
outreach, so we can start to identify people that would be interested in renting these plots. And then in spring twenty twenty two, we'll break ground and get people boots on the ground in their garden plots. So that's everything I have. And I'm happy to take any questions folks may have.
What is your proposed? So you're talking about renting these?
Is that what you said? Yeah, so that's, that's something we definitely have to have a larger conversation about just to see if we want to have a longer term budget. If this is something that we really want to have a budget every year, or if it's just is going to be a very, very low cost, zero cost thing. So, we could either go a small, small fee of 20 or 10 to $20 per plot a year. We could figure out there's a way to have it be free.
That's something I still have to noodle around with both committees. Have other communities in the general area? Do we know of any that are doing this?
Yeah, there's a handful Vernon has a good one. Know of and then Kathy, if you know of any examples, please feel free to chime in. I touched base with a few people that I still haven't heard back from just to get more local knowledge on the best practices for that. So that's a good question.
I think it's a great idea. Eric, were you involved in the layout and where this would go?
Directly involved with the layout, but just looking at where they're putting it, no, that looks like that's all gonna be on town property, not school property. But I would think if the board of selectmen is okay with it, we would also go out there and walk it and talk it with the superintendent and principal and make sure they're on board with it also. That would be a great idea.
Hey, Jeff, I just have a question. Is that anywhere near the soccer field that they have back there? That's a good question. It
is forward of the soccer field based on what I'm seeing on here. It is, that's correct. It's not near the soccer field, quite a few feet away.
I'm just saying I noticed a lot of kids use that to school Yeah use
but they use that soccer field at recess so I don't know if there's gonna be a fence around this so there might be some stray balls you know going into the area. Is that what you're
thinking Jeff Murray? Is that where you're Yeah you know I just had a thought and this is something we could probably address with Eric is that you know the town has I'm just curious why this site was chosen. We do have, the town was actually deeded a ton of property that was part of the old Route 6 corridor that would be perfect for this if we wanted to make a committed space somewhere. I just don't know like how are we going to deal with like the watering of the plants and everything? Are we going be using the school water or the town water? No,
Jeff, can I chime in for a second? Sure. Can I just say that no, these questions have been missed? They're very good questions by the way. No, but on the back of the proposed community senior center, there will be a spigot provided that we will have the water come through there so we won't have any problem with water from the school or interfering with anyone or anyone bringing water because these are future plans as you understand and there's the proposal is to put some type of a maybe a wire fence something very that looks attractive but not too expensive around because we we understand the problem with the children that there might be a question. However, I have talked with Valerie Bruno about this already and have not gone further, have not had a chance to speak with Eric at all,
but I have spoken with her and she and I are very much on the same page regarding intergenerational events. And one of the things that we were talking about is the possibility that perhaps when the parents came to pick up the children after school and the garden has been started that they may want to go right over and work on their little plot or it may be that at some point they may have the children have a plot that they will work on and that will be part of their project. So these are all very beginning stages and so that's why I asked Abby if she could come and present it today or tonight so that you could see what one of the ideas we've had for the Sustainable Connecticut. And we're hoping that you will think about this and let her work out these little kinks. And I know that Abby would be there to answer any of your questions and be very happy to meet with any of you to go over any particular things. And I'm hoping that Eric would be involved in this very big and that he would allow this to happen and that he would go and perhaps check off the site because Ed Cerisley is the one that originally sectioned it off for me And he has met with Abby as well. So I'm hoping that you will all think about this carefully.
Yeah, I think it's a great idea. Would just, my concern is it's right in the middle of a, it's gonna be eventually when you get the community center built, going to be in the right in the middle of a, what I would call a mixed use area, which could be used for concerts and movies and all kinds of things. And I would like to actually see this be a bigger scope project and possibly put aside a piece of town property to do this and have it be larger in scope. I would just like to talk and just see if we have any other options for townhome property for another site just to eliminate any options.
I tend to agree with you Jeff I think the probably the point of discussion, though, for the. Know where they're probably coming from is that this is the most trafficked area in town. So not only does it become not only does it become, it becomes more community based, right? So because you have the interaction with the school, and the interaction with seniors, if we put this out somewhere else, it doesn't become as visible, right? So it would make more sense to start it here. See what it turns into get people asking, hey, what's that? What's that? What's that thing out in the field? What's going on back there? Parents start asking kids, kids can get involved. I mean, heck, I'll even pay for the two plots for the school so they can do it in science class, right? But, the point is you get community buy in, grow it, and if you turn it into something, then you can move it to another area when you need more room. But you start here to get community buy in. It's about a visibility at this point, I think. Yeah, get that, but I just,
don't know, I just We really need that community buy in.
Yeah, think we really need to look at the site because I know there's some overgrown areas that we could actually clear and actually make, I know from putting on their bike races that there's an area of trail that goes around the backside of the school where it's all overgrown that we could actually clear out and it would be part of still part of the community but it would be out of the way if I mean, I'm just concerned that that's right in the middle of a multi use area that it could be impacted. That's all. Jeff,
as long as the school has had visibility to this and they're buying it, I think for a first go round in movable beds, I think it's a good idea. Eric does need to sit there and look at to where this is laid out and make sure that he agrees with it as far as if I remember correctly, Ed and John steak to this, didn't they? Yeah, they did already.
I mean, Jeff, maybe it would be appropriate to, you know, to allay your concerns that you go down and take a look at it. And, know, I mean, if we need to, I'll go down there with you. I'll kick a soccer ball, you know, from one end to the other. I
mean, Adrian, I'm not opposed to it. I'm not opposed to it at all. I just wanna make sure because it's like we're talking that if it grows and if it grows, it's Yeah, gonna get your concern is the location. Yeah, we just need to think about it. That's all. I totally agree. And listen, if it grows,
if we start to get to the point where we're growing 30 feet wide, then it needs to be relocated. But at that point, we have what Scott and Kathy and everyone has said, then we'll have community buy in and it won't be a big deal. I just know that there's a spot. If you go
past the drain field there's property over there that would Right. Wouldn't impact There's an area in your area. It would be perfect.
We would just have to clear the brush out. If we get through this first year and into 2022 and it works and the senior center gets built, and we have the 67 acres behind that whole area, we could sit there and make the community garden program a bigger piece of this by, as Jeff was saying, build it into the woods in the back there. Clear out some space. People could walk to it. We'd have to figure out water, but let's just get started. It's a good idea. There's people committed to doing this, and give them all the support we can.
So Abby, I would be happy to bring my tractor down and help move all the dirt around for you.
All right. Thank you Scott. That sounds great. Thank you. Do you compost
and manure and stuff or what do you need Abby?
That'd be great. I'm actually in a master composter program right now and I have to do a volunteer based project. So this works well for me. I'm happy to dedicate my time to setting that up. So anything, any supplies you have to help me get started with that in terms of organic matter. Yeah.
Well, ironically enough, I just ran into a pile of horse manure that it's massive and I'm glad to share some of it with you if it helps you. Oh, I'm a lucky lady. Thank you. You guys are laughing, but she'll tell you this stuff is not easy to find out. I'm told, I'm a very lucky lady. That's great. I appreciate Adrian.
All right. Do we need to take a vote on this so she can move forward? Or does Jeff feel like he needs to take a look at it before we do that?
I'm gonna abstain anyway because I don't have enough information to vote either way.
It is away from the soccer field area that you're talking about Jeff though.
Listen, if Jeff's abstains, want it as part of the motion that he cannot have a plot. All right, are you gonna make a motion? I will make a motion that we allow Abby and Sustainable the Connecticut.
Yep, Sustainable Connecticut to move forward. Obviously, we'd like you to check back in with us, whether it's via an email or a report on a monthly basis, but to move forward with the Sustainable Canada program with monthly updates to the Board of Select, please. I'll second that.
Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Paula, you are not on my screen. I'm assuming you said yes. I did. Okay. Opposed? Abstentions? Aye. Okay. 401. All right. The next four d is Jeff, excuse me. Thank you, Abby.
Jeff, could I just say Fabulous job. Go ahead. Can I just say thank you very much for listening? And you're going to hear a lot more about not just the garden, but a lot of things that are coming on. Actually, purpose of this whole thing is to bring the community together and work together as a whole for betterment of our country, our town.
Okay. Well, I'm very happy that you guys are doing that and taking the lead on that. That'd be great. Four d was the grant for Monument Park. Jerry Wright, he has moved over to his fire commission meeting, so unless Eric is going to give that.
I can just give you real quick. So Jerry, and I met with a representative from Sustainable CT. Sustainable CT has like this matching grant program that depending on what the ultimate you know sales of bricks going we were thinking of launching sometime around August to help fund some of the additional renovations at the Monument Park and basically what would happen is Jerry would fundraise through a specific platform and then they would match them dollar for dollar for whatever Jerry raised so that would need to be approved by you but it's nothing that has to be that needs to go on right now I'm just giving you a heads up that you will get that from Jerry at some point.
Okay, that sounds great. Item five is appointments. 5A is the NMWatercourse Commission. Do we want to do these all together or do we want to do these separately? I'd rather do them all together. Yeah, altogether would be appropriate and efficient. Okay. So appointments, Inland Wetlands and Watercourse Commission is George Elliott, Jed Larson, William Monroe as regular members, and Ed Smith as an alternate member. The Commission on Aging, Judy Knox, Kathy Palazzi, Elaine Bucart, Georgia O'Brien, and Ellie Scoog, all regular members, and the old Andover Burying Committee Old Andover Burying Ground Committee, Michael Kurzow, Kathy Palazzi, Maria Tillman, Steve Fish, Robert Post, all regular members, and Jeff Ballard, an alternate member. Someone want to make a motion to appoint those individuals to those committees?
Before you do, can I inject one thing? Sure. The inland wetlands, that is a two year appointment. The Commission on Aging by statute, that is a four year appointment because we don't have that in our own ordinance or our own regulations. And the old Andover Burying Ground Committee, that is a subcommittee of the Board of Selectmen, and you never specified how long the terms are. So you may appoint them for any term from one hour to life at your leisure. That's it.
I thought according to the charter, those committees were only eighteen months back. Eighteen months.
The first two are defined. The last one. The last one is no, because it's a subcommittee of you, you as a board get to decide how long that committee is.
Well, let's make that one year. So whoever makes that motion, make it one year. We'll reappoint it again and it won't run over.
Well, wouldn't it be more appropriate to have it run-in conjunction with the board of selectments terms so each parties, Otherwise, going through this list of appointments every year. It's ridiculous, you know? Sure. In two years, that's all we have left. Perfect.
Okay. So who's making the motion? So Eric, the old Andover burying ground committee is a two year appointment to end 06/30/2023.
All right, go with the rest of the motion and I'll second it, Jeff.
I'll make a motion to appoint the Inland Wetlands and Watercourse Commission for a term of Eric. Term ending 06/30/2023,
two year term. Two year term. Appoint the Commission on Aging for a term That is a four year term ending 06/30/2025.
Okay. And the Old Andover Burying Ground for a term ending 06/30/2023. Correct. So I'll second that. Seconded.
All right. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Those that abstain? Okay. Five, nothing. Resignations,
Eric, I didn't see any this time. There are none that I know of anyway. Well, that's a nice change. Are we going to do a The month is early, yeah.
Oh, I am sorry. Scott is correct. Not a 5D. Eric, the public works position, please explain to where you're at.
Sure. So we initially had about 40 applications for the job, but most did not meet the job qualifications. We ended up interviewing four candidates. The initial panel was myself, Jay Tuttle, the public works crew foreman from Mansfield, and the Coventry Public Works lead mechanic. Of those four, we identified two to go on and do practical exams. We gave practical exams, not we, as in Jay and Tom gave two candidates practical exams that included pre trip inspection, practical test with the backhoe, road test with the truck with the plow on it, and a mechanical test diagnosing an electro hydraulic fault in the roadside mower. The good part about it is both candidates had pluses and minuses and either one of them would have made a good addition to the team. But I think everybody that interviewed them both
felt that Zach Zito was the stronger candidate of the two. I would like permission to hire him pending a pre work physical and a drug test. Okay. Any questions?
The other applicant, well I'm asking because I did ask to be a part of the practicals I never heard back from you. So I'm a little concerned that I would have liked to at least seen the backhoe and that kind of stuff and maybe the fault. And to be a part of that conversation but So we had two strong candidates, what was the differences between the two, why are we looking at Zach versus the other person so that we can understand what this was strong versus weak.
So the other candidate has had more practical experience in the day to day task work of public works because he's currently a public works maintainer too, just in a different town, but not necessarily as good a set of mechanical abilities and certainly would struggle with some of the more modern diagnostic stuff that we deal with some of our vehicles. And that's definitely Zach's strength given his resume.
Right and Zach was definitely more qualified in terms of mechanical abilities and abilities to repair and deal with equipment. Was, Jay said he was also a very skilled operator so we had no issues with him working the equipment. I asked both him and Tommy, Tommy, you know, Tom Pearl and he both said that, you know, they would not have any hesitation turning over any piece of equipment they have to Zach. So hang on, I gotta turn my light back on. Efficiency timers.
Look at that, we're saving money even on a meeting.
I don't know why I turned it back on. You can leave it off. It's like a party. Eric,
I just have to ask this because a couple of residents brought it up to me. Is there any concern about the fact that Zach has a construction business?
So, we've had that conversation with Zach and made it perfectly clear that if he's doing this, he is not running the business while he is working. If he wants to work on the weekends on his own time, that's fine. But his responsibility for plowing is the town and not anything related to his own business. And he's aware of that and I don't think he's going to be running plowing operations in addition to him being a public works employee. Okay. And he's fine with that. He was actually looking forward to not running his own plowing business. Well, has some he does some renovating or some
type of groundwork as well. And I gathered he's getting out early enough in the summer. They get out early enough, he could go do other work. But I think the only concern is that he's not doing, not trying to run a business during town time. So do we have some type of policy in place regarding cell phones at work and that type of thing for public works employees or how would this be addressed?
I have not thought through that. I mean, I think pretty much all of our public works employees have other jobs and work second jobs.
We haven't Jay, I think does not. What? So we haven't run into this in the past and so we're not foreseeing this to be an issue here.
I don't think so. I mean, I've made it pretty clear to him that when he's at work, he's at work.
No, that's fine. I just, if people ask, I think it's important that we have a public conversation about if someone is hired or not hired, that we understand why and that we you know this is done out in the open so. If everyone's okay with it, then we move forward, but at least we've had the conversation and people know that we thought of these things that's all. Good idea.
Does someone want to make a motion to accept or to approve the employment of Zachary Zito? I'll make it. My motion to appoint Zach Zito to public works one second. I know I saw it here. Maintainer two. Actually, there it is. I motion to offer administrator to hire Zachary Zito as a maintainer too in the Public Works Department to fill the vacancy. I'll second that.
Okay. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? All those abstaining? Okay. Five, nothing. So now we move to resignations. There were none. So Eric, we're going move to Item seven, the town administrator report. Sure. Can I share my screen, Amanda? All set. Okay.
All right, so I'm going to focus a little bit on COVID just because that's going to be a discussion point later on when we start talking about potentially reopening the town hall. We're currently at a case rate of around eleven for a fourteen day moving average. And it's been hanging in the six to twenty range for the last month or so. Currently, don't have any employees that are COVID positive, which is good. So we're in decent shape right there. The building department, we have signed the permit or the contract with PermitLink. We're hoping to be up and running somewhere after June 1 with the online permitting software for the building department, the zoning department, and the wetlands department. So hopefully that will be on and smooth and get rid of some of our backlog. So other than that, we're chunking away at it. As far as the resident state troopers, I said to many of you, there was an incident last week where a single bullet struck a house on Route 316. The state police are investigating, but they don't have a real lot to go on. There were a bunch of shell casings recovered from the scene. Sounds like from the audio from one of the cameras in the neighborhood, there were around either 12 or 13 shots fired. Now whether they were fired randomly into the, as the guy was driving down the road and one randomly hit a house or they were shooting at the house and were just really bad shots
is a little unclear. Were the shell casings all in the same spot?
There were five or six shell casings found that were fairly close in front of the house indicating that they were all in the shots. There was one shot fired then a delay. Then there were either 11 or 12 shots fired in the span of a couple of seconds.
So yeah, I mean, I actually saw the video and yeah, it's kind of like Eric was saying, it looks like the car was driving down the road, fired a shot, an oncoming car was what, you know, came at them. So, as they were going by the other car, they stopped shooting And then once the other car was gone, they started shooting again. So it doesn't seem that it was at least based on the video and the audio that it was related specifically to that house. It was probably somebody kind of more playing with a gun they found or, you know, wanting to just blow off. So.
Yeah, I mean, the unfortunate thing is that without some actual video, that's discernible of the vehicle, they don't have a whole lot to go on. Yeah, they're gonna work
on trying to identify the vehicle and type by the taillight pattern. They had a reflective angle they thought may work. There's hope, not a lot, but some. Some.
So Eric when you get more information from the state police please present it to us.
I shall I will keep you in the loop as soon as I know anything different. We talked about public works. You'll notice at the back of the packet there was a pretty extensive report from public works, so I'm not going to cover most of that other than to say we did have one OSHA reportable accident this month with one lost day of work in public works. We did a bunch of tree work. We got some of it for free because Distinctive Tree Care wanted to do a demonstration project with Eversource that occurred on Wales Road. We got about twenty, twenty five trees in the town's right of way side taken care of as part of the process. So from my perspective, that was just a freebie for the town. And then we hired Distinctive Tree Care to get some of the really massive
trees on Juravadi Lane. So they were able to address much of Juravadi Lane and road over a couple of days, well, three days. The third day they brought in a second of the big grapple saws. So we basically had four days of grapple saw coverage. It was definitely a lot slower, but that was because they were taking down some of the really massive trees, much bigger scale than they were able to do before. And that's partly because they bought essentially a bigger machine. So we are talking about having them do some work in the lake zone fairly quickly so it predates any roadwork. Because we did notice on whales that doing it after we chip sealed did mess up the chip seal a little bit. Not bad, but a little bit. So if we can get that area done first, and then that leaves all of next year's budget, We would like to address Gilead, and then Wheeling and Bear Swamp are three. And there's other stuff we need to address too. But start with those three as soon as July rolls around and we have more budget to work with. Salt budget and snow plowing. This is one of the things I would like to talk to you all about a little bit. So we topped off and put away as much salt as we had in the budget. So we spent the whole $60,000 this year on salt. And we salted away good fun, About 400 tons of salt. Salt is a real problem because one of the major depots that salt has been brought in on barges, which is New London, is no longer available. And it's looking like the salt prices next year are going to be quite a bit higher.
We were paying around $68 a ton this year. By the end of last year, those companies that got displaced from the New London Pier, those towns that couldn't get salt, were paying as much as $105 a ton and having to truck it in themselves from Rhode Island. I would like to consider signing a contract with Champion Salt and do it now. That would be for $78 a ton, but they've agreed that if their Crog bid is lower than what they're giving us individually, once they actually put the bid in for Crog, that they'll honor that. And the reason why I want to do it is because right now there doesn't seem to be enough companies left and enough supply. And I would like to guarantee us to have salt available for next year. But we would be locking it in at $78 a ton, but that would go down if the crog bid ends up lower.
What was the old rate again? Old rate was about $68 a ton. How many tons we can use a year?
Worst case scenario, well, not worst case scenario, but figure we're gonna use somewhere around 800 tonnes a year, something like that. So we have half a year stockpiled now.
Yep. Because this was a mild year. So we banged away as much as we could knowing that we were going to get a better deal in it this year than we got next year. Okay. How much were you thinking about buying? I would probably commit to
Are you just committing to the rate or are you committing to a total purchase? Well,
so we're probably going to have to commit to both, but we can commit to, I mean, we don't buy,
we always have to, like for instance, if we commit to the CROG bid, we have to guarantee them we'll buy half. We tell them what the maximum amount we're gonna buy, and we have to guarantee we're gonna buy half. So and this bid works basically the same thing.
So you would sit there and potentially buy 400 ton, and that is
where you estimate You tell them he's going to buy 800 and then we're on the hook for four, which would be our layout for the year, right?
Yeah, I probably wouldn't do that much. Would probably say 600, figuring worst case scenario, we use a thousand tons in the year. And that puts us on the hook to buy 300. Yeah. I have no problem with it.
Yeah, but if you're 300, then you're already at four, then you're a 100 over what you project your yearly need to be, right? A 100 under. A 100 over. But
that also implies we leave a little in the salt shed for next year, you know. Okay. So I mean, what's the worst case scenario, even if we had to buy 400 next year, you know, and we only use 400 this year, let's say that, you know, we still have 400 to start the following year off. So it's not like it's going to go bad. It does get a little clumpy. It's not wonderful, but I mean, they stockpile it too. How much? What?
How much room do you have? How many tons do you have room for?
Oh, I bet we can take 600 ton in there. So it's like that.
Didn't we have didn't we have some? I thought Jay at some point had mentioned that we were going to have to do something with the salt shed is any of this going to impede that?
We're not budgeting for any repair of the salt shed anyway, so it doesn't really matter. It's not like we got the budget to do it. So the answer is no. What's your budget for salt? About $60,000 So the 400 is gonna be 27.
Yeah. I would, I would make a motion that we authorize Eric to sign the contract contingent upon the crog a match of the crog bid
with champion. I mean, you only have a budget for a total of seven seventy tons. Right. That's your max you're ever going to do. If you said 600, I'm assuming they're going to let you go over your number even if you had to. But if you say 600, you only buy 300,
that's fine. It's a good deal. I think you'd be better off telling them 8, which is what we'd normally would buy in a season. And then it gives you, if the price goes up, it gives you half of the next year protected, you know, and it gives you all of what you need in a given year at the same time. If you do eight your max bias 400 so right. Your minimum bias 400 minuteimum bias 400 so I think you'd be better off doing eight and being on the hook for four
Personally, then make a motion so that we can move that forward for her. I make a motion that we authorize
Eric Anderson to sign a contract to champion for salt purchases of up to 800 tons with no more a minimum of no more than 400 tons contingent upon a Croc bid match. I'll second. I'll second that. Further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye.
All right. Ongoing projects, Bunker Hill Road, we're still working on closeout, but it is getting, I mean not closeout, Bunker Hill Road, they have gone to bid on the coring. Finally, the state held the contractor up for a while. We're still in the design phase for that. I did run into and speak to the state bridge inspection team. They reinspected Bunker Hill Bridge and then they also inspected Long Hill Bridge. I don't have any formal evaluation, but I did talk to the engineer on-site. He said the town's patch job on the asphalt seems to be holding. They couldn't find any more voids under the roadway. So he didn't think they were going to do any structural load ratings this year on Bunker Hill. So that's good. So we don't have to worry about between now and when we start the actual construction having to have a weight limit on that road. So that's good. They also inspected the Long Hill Bridge. I talked to the inspector about that. He said it hasn't gotten a whole lot worse and they don't think they're going to drop the rating on that one. But there's no guarantee until they get the final, they actually put out a final inspection. He did say
it was scour critical enough. In other words, there's enough essentially erosion potential for the footings that he said he would have inspected after any really significant like tropical storm or really heavy rain, which that didn't make me too happy. And he said the bridge deck is getting really bad. He said you probably ought to take all the asphalt out, jackheimer out all the bad pavement, fill it, and put a membrane down, which it's not like we didn't know. We just didn't really want to spend the money for a bridge we're probably going to replace you know five or eight years out.
So are you gonna are you planning on doing next cleaning that back up and then recovering it?
We will probably simply pave over it. We will peel the existing asphalt off and then pave over it when we do reconstruction of that section of Long Hill. I'm not anticipating doing a whole bridge deck repair because I suspect the bridge deck will last long enough the world won't get closed between now and when we replace it. That's my take on it. So we talked a little bit about the community center. I've got an RFP ready to go for the engineering services. My apologies, had it was my fault. I thought I had Amanda put that in your packet, but she did not. I will try to send that to the board after that. I gave it to the town engineer to review and asked him what he could do to make sure A, it was more complete and B, it was geared towards getting us the lowest cost for the site work, you know for that, not site work, but for the site work design for that project. And again, I'll share that with you right through tomorrow sometime. We did have the well at the Andover Veterans Monument inspected, and then we ended up pulling the well pump and replacing the well pump. When he got there, he first turned it on, the well pump worked and it died shortly thereafter.
Now, it was because it was struck by lightning or there was some other cause, it's a little unclear what the death of that pump was. We made a decision to replace it with a bigger pump with a much higher flow rate, knowing that we were planning on using this for a irrigation system. We pumped the hell out of it. Basically it pumps down, if you don't draw anything, the water level is at about 30 feet. If you pump it really hard, the water level drops down to about 70 feet. But then at that point, you can pump a minimum of 12 gallons per minute pretty much forever. There was some very significant muck that came out of it, but when you run it long enough it runs clear and the well driller seemed to feel that that was going to be a fine well for irrigation
and wouldn't need any extensive work. It may require a sediment filter of some sort.
Who came out and did that? Who did that? Chewanac. Okay.
We still need to do a water quality test. We did shock it and now we need to pump the hell out of it and then submit it for a water quality test if we potentially for public water because I know you expressed an interest. We wouldn't need to do that if we're using it for irrigation because it's an existing well. But if you want a true public water source there, then that would need to get tested. So the good news is we have a pit. So now public works will just be able to dig for a well connection down to the monument. And what we got to do is figure out whether we need another little pit down there for all the control stuff for the sprinkler systems or not. So So that's
you don't need an electrical or anything down there then?
We probably should run electrical down for the building, but we don't need to at this point. We would, I would think we would run electrical from the museum down to wherever the sprinkler control system is.
At least some piping, Eric, we need at least piping.
Well, you're gonna need 100 for the controls and the valve units, right? And then they're gonna run, you know, like an 18 gauge or something or 22, I'm not sure what he's running for controls, but he'll run those out in a 10 pack or something or out to the individual controllers. Jeff Murray. Jeff Murray, what? Where is he? Yep, I'm here. I'm here.
What are we gonna need for power down there? I don't know, it depends on our load.
Now you need you just need one. All you need is one circuit, Scott. If it's for if it's just for sprinklers, need one circuit for that and you're gonna need one circuit for the lighting. So two, but you could do that with a you could do that with a you know, you could you can run like a you can run like a twelve three wire down there and run one one wire feed circuit or you can run two separate lines, whatever you want to do. The my the reason I'm asking is you could if you're doing it all now and we've already got this put aside then just run the pipe and put in the second pit and be done with it.
I mean, we're going to, we're back to doing. So the good news is that because we don't, we're not no longer supplying a well pump down there, obviously our electrical needs down below get a lot easier. The new pump is also one 110? No, the new pump is 220. Okay. The old one was 110, right?
No, the old one was 220. It was. Well, so remember there's two wells we're talking about the upper well that one was two twenty. Okay. I don't know what the lower well was. Don't know. It was 110. The one we worked on was 110. Right, Scott? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So we're not gonna be using that well at all. This is all upper then. Right, so we're gonna be using just the upper well. So I think we should be in reasonably good shape. We will need to run electrical and we're going to need to have the conversation whether we still keep the feed from the existing feed from the pole, you know, or we just convert strictly to electrical running from the museum down to the monument area. And that's going to depend on how much load we put on that. But either way, we're just talking about lighting loads. So we're talking and control loads for the sprinkler system. So we don't have a lot of demand there.
Okay, so we'll know about that when? Next meeting? Yeah, we need to kind of decide on that.
Yeah, presuming you guys are all okay with reusing the existing well, which certainly seems like our lowest cost solution. Now all we're doing is figuring out how to trench, and that's totally doable with public works. What I need to know, and I need to know from, Adrian, I don't know you had talked about getting another contractor for the sprinkler systems down there. I know sometimes they put them in buildings, above ground and sometimes they put them in pits. Are we better off putting a little above ground building in there? Because certainly you don't need to be below ground for electrical or are we better off putting that stuff in the ground?
You could even do it. I mean, you can even do it with a doghouse box that you flip up, you know, all it needs is some type of water protection other than that, you know, know, excessive, you know, people from impacting it or messing with it directly. I'm pretty simple.
Yeah, there's definitely site boxes for that type of stuff.
So if the power is gonna come off the highway, all the water is gonna come from the well, power will come off the pole. They'll meet there and then the irrigation will start from there.
Yeah, me, have, you're right, I have not heard back from the sprinkler guy and to be honest with you, I got sidetracked with my own stuff. So let me try to call him tomorrow and try to find out what's going on with that. I may have to ask you to be the person that meets up with him simply because, I have other commitments, at the end of the week. Sure, understood. So I may give him your number and then randomly bother him to make sure he touches base with you. Okay.
We are finally making progress again on the connectivity grant. We resubmitted to the DOT and the DOT has said that they have mailed us an acceptance letter stating that they will at some point in the future issue us an encroachment permit. We have a meeting coming up with the Gordian Group on May 18. As soon as we get final numbers back from them again, it's our intention to submit directly to the connectivity program, get our funding, and as soon as we do that, we can hire the contractors and get rolling. I have asked Gordian Group to give me a cost estimate for acting as Clerk of the Works for the project because it looked like last year at least we had enough money left over in the project we can do it and that gets us from hiring a separate clerk of the works.
Are we gonna get a price for that before we jump into it? I mean, we'll get a cost for it, sure. Okay, because we had hired a clerk of the works for the school. So we have somebody we can reference cost off of if we need to. He's an independent guy. He's out of Hebron. Okay. Just if you know, I may, I may still have his number too, or if not, I'm sure the school has it as part of their group project. Okay.
It was pretty I took pictures every day at the whole nine yards, so. Yep. Okay. And the town wide alarm stuff that's on the agenda, so I'm not going to go over that. So the last thing I would say is you guys should probably schedule my review for the next budget or the next board of selectmen meeting. That's it unless you have other questions
for me. Is the labyrinth on your list? Do we need to discuss that again? Or is that done?
It's not on my list. Okay. That's either your approval or not approval. I
wasn't sure I thought Jeff wanted to talk about it again. Jeff Murray,
no, you. Are you going to be going over? Eric, are you going to go over the over expenditures and at all? That's later when we get to over expenditures.
So you're doing it, you're not doing it as part of this? You know, not not doing it as part of my report. Okay. And the labyrinth isn't on this, I guess, so I'm good. Okay. Separate.
All right. So are we done with your report, Eric? I'm done unless you have questions for me. I did, but I lost that question.
Do you want us to wait for it? We can wait for the question to come to you, Jeff. Absolutely not. I am stuck in my own personal labyrinth.
So, let's move on to a little business. The alarm monitoring, Eric, it was in your report. Do you want to talk about it here or when are you going to make a decision as to what you're doing with the alarms?
So at the last meeting, you, the board had asked me to have CIP rank the top three candidates in order. So CIP has did that but recommended fire protection team as the vendor, as did the Board of Finance. So it's back to you for a final approval. And they both kind of motioned it different ways. So there's no one set way, or I guess you could make a completely different choice if you so chose.
What do you mean by both did it different ways? Can you elaborate please? Yeah, one of
on one, I think the board of finance just did it with a monetary cap. And the CIP motion was a little more elaborate.
I'm not looking at both motions at the moment. Did you have a preference at the time for one or the other?
No, I mean, I do this with the understanding that those two approved the monitoring for all town buildings at this point except the museum and the replacing or rebuilding the system at public works, but not the museum unless they come back with a significantly lower cost structure.
And did that, was the Board of Finance in agreement with that? Because I know that was a thing on, okay. Yeah, the Board of Finance was basically they took CIP's recommendation on that. All right, so what do you need from us though, Eric? Because you've got approval for funding and we kind of had already told you it need to be done. CIP has told you how they want to be and one you need from us. A motion. Well, last time
I asked you whether I was okay with proceeding with just CIP and Board of Finance. And you told me no, you wanted it brought back to the Board of Selectmen. So now it's brought back to the board of selectmen. We'll get you You may decide that the board of finances decision was fine and let me roll with it or you can
do what you so desire. I would make a motion then that we allow Eric or encourage Eric to move forward with the recommendations from the Board of Finance regarding the town building alarm system contracts. Anyone second.
Thank you. Okay, further discussions. Eric, in your report, you sit there and say the lowest bid so far for the garage is approximately $11,000
So that was the lowest. So the one thing, so there's kind of three parts to this. Part number one is monitoring. Part number two is annual testing and service. Part number three is what to do about the garage itself. So I got multiple bids for all of that. What we're going with is not the lowest bid for the public works garage, but FPT has basically said the cost will not exceed the number they gave me. And the reason why they did it that way is he said he feels a lot of our existing system can be reused, but without coming in and testing everything, they can't tell us exactly what parts are gonna be reused and what parts are not. So I had him estimate what the cost of tearing every last little bit out and redoing the entire building, which is more than what we need, if that makes sense.
All right, I'm back in the meeting. Okay, so I'm assuming it's gonna be less than what we're approved. For that piece, yes.
And what is the total dollar we're going to approve and the Board of Finance is approved?
I think they approved up to $25,000 total for all aspects it. And then what's the annual monitoring after that?
That included the first year's monitoring that was I don't have that off the top of my head but I can tell you that in terms of annual costs FPT was the lowest of the annual costs. I think it's somewhere around $2,500 for all the monitoring and then the annual maintenance or the annual system testing. I don't remember what that was off the top of my head. I can certainly look it up real quick and get back to you if you'd like. 2,500 for all of it? Yeah I think so. Monitoring inspection right?
Well, he said it was 2,500 for the monitoring and the inspection was another cost.
Well, no, I mean, we when we ranked them on CIP, we tried to take everything into account as well as making sure that we had a system that if we wanted to change companies, the the the means of monitoring were universal enough that we could switch companies and not have to buy all new stuff. Any other questions.
Do you want me to bring the summary up for that report if you want to review it further. Yeah, go ahead and do it quickly.
Yeah, no offense, but this has been beat around the bush by me. CIP has looked at this three times. I don't think we're going to find anything new. Okay, did you find the cost for the testing?
It's in the summary that he sent us for CIP last time.
So monitoring service annual fee, I said 2,500, it's 2,430. The initial inspection and programming is 4,900, but that included the museum. So it would be a little less if we didn't do the museum. And annual inspection was $1,600 for everything except AES, because they currently have existing contract that has a few more years to run. When that is up, we will try for a combined contract with the school. Okay. So we have about $4,000
in annual costs and the costs set up. All right, that But answers my the one thing I will say is that the annual fee is not all additional cost to the town. And the reason is that by going to the cellular, there's like in the town hall, for instance, we will get rid of the two dedicated phone lines that cost us $37 per month each and pay $148 a month cellular monitoring fee. So depending on the building, some of our costs will actually go down in terms of annual monitoring, but some will go up. Like for instance, the library has a single phone line split between their alarm system and the rest of the library. So we can't get rid of their phone system. So their costs will go up, if that makes sense. Yes. Okay, so any other questions?
No, I would just ask Eric as part of the motion, contract should run so that it expires at the same time as the school so that we can negotiate as one entity. If that can be done.
I'm sure it can be. Okay. Anything's possible, Scott, this is America. We know that.
If we can build a labyrinth, we can do anything.
I'll let you Hi, Jeff. You have to remember this is Andor. So let's vote on this. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Paula? Yes, aye. All those opposed? Caller? Five, five, nothing. Okay. Eric, is that it for your well, now we're into COVID funding, whole business, total funding B.
Okay. So short, the complete recommendations for how we can spend that money was put out today. I got it about 4PM. I haven't really fully been able to go through it. It seems like they're fairly constricted in the water infrastructure category to public water supply. So we're probably not going to be able to spend any of that money for culverts. Beyond that, I haven't really been able to it's going to take me and Cherry going over that, trying to figure out what we can actually spend that money on. Don't have that answer for you yet. Can we consider
whether or not we can use it to fix the plumbing situation at the town hall?
We can. What's wrong with the plumbing situation at the town hall? Apparently you missed the part where it backed up and Carol Lee was downstairs, you know, cleaning up poop. Well, so there were two problems. Let's
not get into why. I'm always saying maybe we can use it to fix. Getting into why is not necessary.
All right. So again, it's America and this is Andover. Yes.
The fix is up occupant behavior and I don't think you can fund, you know, people not doing dumb things. We're not discussing that. This
is a family meeting. Exactly. And we're gonna be good Andoverians,
or Andos, as my friend Art Devlin likes to say, Andos. Listen, this conversation is becoming a labyrinth I do not want to be in. So can we please move forward? Eric,
we will sit there and go through the COVID funding and find a creative way to sit there and get the most value for those dollars as opposed to wasting them.
And we talked, so since we're talking COVID funding, we should have got, I mean, got disbursements, what, last May, June ish, we should have gotten a fall one and a March one. Where have we spent any of those?
What disbursements are you talking about? Well, I mean you had ESSER I and ESSER II, right? So those are school related. That's got nothing to do with the town directly. There wasn't anything on the town side at all? So the town did get two allotments of COVID funding. As a board have already dedicated most of that money to pay for the veterans monument upgrades. Okay. So
those were the two those are the two disbursements is the only thing?
We got two disbursements. We've got one, we got one roughly $7,000 and the other one roughly 24,000. We've spent some of that money, but not a lot. Most of it's sitting there to be used for the monument. Okay. So far.
Alright, did we get payroll relief too? No. Because we probably should have gotten payroll relief as well. I know. I know the schools got it and I know business bill private businesses got it for payroll deductions. Would not understand why the school would get it private businesses would get it in the town wouldn't and given how much money we pay into murph and social security and all that stuff, no. I mean, I'll ask, I don't know that. Could you get an answer on that?
So you want to know whether we have payroll relief? Did we get payroll deduction relief?
I can tell you we didn't, but all right. Why didn't we if we didn't? That's the question. The issue being
that if someone had to quarantine for the fourteen days, there was, but you have to submit it when they were out for the fourteen days. If it wasn't done through payroll at that point in time, you're not going to maybe you could amend your returns, but Eric, the question ends up being COVID relief. How many people took to the fourteen day quarantine?
I think completely throughout the town six but yes but some of them took it some of them did not get paid for it not all of them got paid for
Okay. So that's what Adrian is asking you to look at. So those situations where people were taking time off either because they were in close contact or if they actually had COVID and they took off fourteen days and we paid them, there was and is still a relief opportunity.
We should take Well, we also, I mean, we talked about when we were in COVID last year, one of the things we talked about very specifically is that any employees that were working more than they should have, they would have otherwise, that we were tracking that to put in, you know, for our COVID expenses. So did we, did we ever We did
get some of that money back. What we didn't get back originally is when we were having employees work from home and we weren't necessarily fully utilizing employees. The state originally said to track that and they would reimburse, but there was no reimbursement for that because federal guidelines came out differently than what the state thought they were coming.
All right. And I know what the problem is we're I know we're jumping on another topic here but that's why I had asked if we were going to go over the, the overages, you know, so
Yeah, we'll get to that. Do you have anything else related to COVID funding, Eric? I do not. All right. The Library and Mural Vandalism Restitution update?
I have no update for that. Community Senior Center Building Committee update? Anybody? Scott, Jeff?
That the committee right now, as far as I know from Sarisley and I spoke last week is just at this point waiting for, you know, I'm waiting for some feedback from the engineering so that that has that gone out to bid? Where is that at? They're kind of asking questions because that's not in their purview to do. I think that's that's on Eric's test right now. Right? Right. Yep. Right now it's on the town engineer's desk, frankly.
So is he putting together an RFP so we can go out with it or is he working on it himself? No, I already put the RFP
together actually with some help from Amanda. I gave it to the engineer. He just wanted to include a sketch and get some more, you know, get some of the previous
information wrapped into the RFP. So it was a little cheaper and we narrowed the scope of it a little bit. No, that's perfect. But I don't think that Ed was aware of that. And so he was trying to get, he actually reached out to me to get feedback as to where it was at with the BOS. And I said, I didn't know, but I'd bring it up tonight.
Yep. And Ed's reached out to me about it also. Have you given him a heads up? Yeah, I talked to him. Okay, thank you. The
updates to Veterans Monument Park. I know that we've all received emails from Jerry. Eric, do you want anything add anything to this? So no, I just it's we're going to be able to reuse the existing well, so that's an
advantage because that puts more of the work on public works, and, we're not stuck with a well driller. So we obviously aren't going to do anything prior to the ceremony in June. I think we should be in fairly good shape there.
Okay. Open burning permits 8F. We all got our information from Mr. Hansen. You would like larger property owners to have unlimited burning permits? I don't think we have anything else to talk about right now, do we? Does anybody want to sit there and make that motion? No? We pushed it forward.
Was some concern about whether the building official would be on board with a number and whether we could, we could, you know, have him do an inspection or, pay for more than one inspection upfront so that it was kind of covered.
So can I just say that Elo is not gonna be happy if you charge him for any burn permit ever because he's always gotten them for free and he doesn't feel like he should have to pay for anything?
Listen, this isn't about, I don't think we're talking about passing a motion or some type of agreement for one taxpayer. Mean, right, this is about taxpayers as a whole, myself included, Elo, any other property owner that has to do multiple burns over the course of a year. Right? So I still think this, this is something we need to address. If I'm wrong on this, then please, you know, everyone else can tell me I'm wrong and I'll go away. But, you know, myself and I side with you on this because I'm a property owner with a bit of land that, you know, it's an issue.
Then make a motion that benefits the large property owners.
I'd like to I don't have a problem making a motion, but I'd like to all right. I would make it. All right, we'll start with a motion that we can have discussion, but I'll make a motion then that property owners with more than 10 acres be allowed to apply for a building permit. They'll be required to phone in prior to doing any any burning as they currently would now. And they will be required to have an inspection and be open to any further inspections by the burn official as needed, given complaint level or whatever is appropriate. And you're talking about what
fee structure Adrian? One year permit, what's the current rate for a burn permit, Eric? $30 per inspection.
Okay. So for for if they are going to do multiple burns, then for $100 they can have a one year permit. Elo's not gonna like that. Doesn't mean this isn't about Elo, right? I have to do five burns a year, then, you know, that saves me money. If I'm only doing one, then I'm gonna buy them one at a time. And then this isn't an issue, right? Nick, you're probably gonna need to find a new burn official. We charge a $100, I don't understand why this would be an issue.
Well, you know, you just said the guy's got to now go out five times to inspect your piles and you think he's still going to do that for a $100.
Why does he he doesn't have to inspect every pile. He's going to have to come out and inspect Of course he has to inspect every pile. That's not, I'm, if you're doing multiple burns, are you telling me that a farmer has to call in every single time he does a burn and have a building for us to come out and do an inspection? The way it works
is the way it works currently here. That's not this. I mean, if we're a rural farm community, and let's be one if we're not, then let's give up. Okay, because we do have a lot of large property owners in town that I'm sure have to deal with this. I can't imagine we're the only one. Isn't this this is the board that put this rule into place? No, didn't come from us. It didn't? Not originally, no. No.
Really? I mean, you know, you can try for it, but I suspect Scott's just gonna quit and then you're not gonna have a burn official. And we're gonna go through this again And you're gonna try to find somebody that's gonna We're work this through till next meeting because it's really not that important that we get this solved type of No, I got a better idea. Why don't we ask Scott? Because I thought that was the conversation is that we're gonna have Scott come to this meeting to talk about this. No, at the last meeting, you said you were going to reach out to Scott and come to some resolution. Really,
I'm an individual on this board. I can come to resolution with Scott, but Scott should have been able to have input from the whole board. Okay,
listen to me please for one second before I get stuck in this labyrinth again, this new labyrinth that I'm into. Fair enough. I'm listening. Eric, please find out when this $30 per burn permit was passed. I would like to know that for the next meeting, We should come to the next meeting with an actual resolution that can be moved forward. Eric, I really don't have a problem if we sat there with specific residents, I would imagine, and we said they're going to burn their farmers or they have large properties. Mean, these guys have to know what they're doing.
Scott has said every single burn permit he's gone to so far, he has had to instruct people on what is and is not burnable because everybody's burning stuff that they're not allowed to burn by law. He is not comfortable with allowing any burn for anything that's a pile he has not inspected. He said if you have 15 piles ready to go, he's happy to inspect all 15 at one time for your $30, but he's not going to sign off on something he hasn't seen. Okay. So that's your expectation? I don't think anything
said there is unreasonable. So I think Scott and Adrian need to come with some type of resolution or motion for the next meeting that we all can look at beforehand and potentially pass. Well,
that's probably what we should be doing right now is talking about the different landowners and how much burning is going be done and what the fee structure is going to be.
Well can you get together with Adrian on the side, Scott? Can you guys talk about that conversation on the side and then bring it to us next month and then we'll have a discussion from there?
That's fine because we'll get stuck in this one for a while. Adrian was gonna supposed to talk to Scott Yeomans
about this whole thing. Yeah, I was and but then I mean, if I'm to be candid about this, I was accused of doing things as an individual rather than as a group. So I removed myself from these individual discussions and tried to make them group discussions so that it wasn't me running around making town policy without the input of the board or being viewed as that. So, that's where we're kind of at.
All right. So, for the next this next meeting, Adrian, you're given permission by this board to go talk to Scott.
Why don't you make a motion to that effect then please? And I think
it's a good idea that you're a large landowner, that you have a different perspective on it Adrian, you're probably the guy to do it. Because
us postage stamp landowners by the lake who get charged exorbitant, which is another good word Paula. I'm telling you that's another good word. Labyrinth and there's exorbitant. Hey kids, this is SAT words for the night.
I'll give you another one. I don't mean to be pernickety. I'm just tired.
Okay so this will be dealt with at the next next little slam.
Hey, Joe, can I just interrupt for a second? I just wanna ask Amanda to amend my vote on 4C to yes. 4C, you're gonna make me go back it.
Yes, from abstention to yes because I actually looked at the plot of land and I looked at the overhead view and I'm okay with it now. Tell us the truth, you want a plot don't you? No, I do not. I just wanted to look at it first before I voted and I looked at it and I agree it's out of the way the soccer field and we're okay. Awesome, thank you for taking the time to do that, Jeff.
All right. So do we want Scott Yeomans to come to our meeting next month? I will gladly reach out to Scott. Actually
attempted to reach him while I was off camera here and did not. Okay.
All right, so let's keep moving through this. We are now what on nine, right? Yes, nine, new business. Discuss and act upon the following the reopening of town hall. Eric, what is your plan and what would you like us to consider? So I sent you all a document which basically laid out a series of options. Can you share that with us, Eric?
Hang on. I got too many flipping documents open at once I gotta find the thing.
Scott, on your you might not have multiple screens. Forget it.
I read it. I just want everybody to read it together.
You're serious? Yeah. Like like we're gonna sing it or something or? We are in Paula. Ari has
memorized the whole thing. Yes, it's on the screen, Adrian. We're all privy to the same information at the same time.
And we won't get stuck in a problem. Did you do that just so you could use the word privy?
Thought we weren't going to talk about the problem at the town hall again. Oh god that was pretty
Scott that's the best one. I'm done this is Hang on two seconds. Okay. Is that the one everybody looking at one that says options from least to most restrictive? Yeah.
Yes. So my basic premise is that, what we're trying to do is we're trying to balance the liability with individual freedoms. And that's not easy. There are definitely still town employees that are going to refuse to get vaccinated and we have to deal with that. What concerns me is that the legislature has passed out of both subcommittees and it's in the general legislature right now, a proposal which would essentially shift to employers the presumption of infection. That sounds kind of weird, but by that I mean is if somebody gets COVID-nineteen and gets sick, there is a presumption that they got that in the workplace. That has the chance to potentially cost us a lot of money. It kind of alters my thinking a little bit on whether we should be lenient or strict with employees.
Since we're probably, Eric, not going to get everybody to get vaccinated and I understand that. Why can't we have our town attorney draft some kind of waiver that they sign? Because what's your vaccination rate currently? What do you think? Seventy five percent of the people in town hall have been vaccinated or ninety percent? Not ninety, somewhere between those two numbers.
So we're gonna have two or three people that don't get vaccinated. Correct. Ever? They're never gonna get vaccinated?
Well, never say never. I mean, we could hold them down and jab them, I guess, but that's probably got
some legal problems if we do that. That would open up a labyrinth of liberal problems for sure. It would.
I'm certainly not recommending that. I suspect we're gonna have a couple of diehards that aren't gonna get vaccinated period.
Do you think that would make a good movie? That's a question.
What happens, I'm just thinking here based on what you just said, Eric. So what happens if somebody who got the shot gets COVID? We're still responsible.
Okay. But at least the likelihood of that is a lot lower.
We can't prevent everything. The difference, I mean, we're talking about this honestly, the numbers are out there, give or take two forty people who have been vaccinated, completely vaccinated in Connecticut have actually gotten COVID after being vaccinated. It's not preventing them from getting COVID. It's not preventing you or I if we've been vaccinated from getting COVID. What it's doing is preventing us from having a situation where we may expire or otherwise be hospitalized because of COVID. That's really what the shot is for. I
think we all understand that. I'm just saying that we're talking about these two people who haven't gotten it but we might have a situation where somebody got the shot and they might get it too. Yeah,
but the likelihood of them getting a serious illness is pretty close to zero. Whereas for an unvaccinated position, it's definitely higher. It's not infinity, but it's definitely higher. Let's this.
Let's ask Kerma for some guidance as to relief because this is what Eric is referencing is this is a workers' comp issue. I think the workers' comp issue drives more from the fire department and the EMTs than it does to people at the town hall. But let's get some information from Kerma, and let's sit there and see if there is a way that
we don't want to require that everyone get vaccinated, but for the people that choose not to get vaccinated. Mean, is it too much just to ask if there's any is it too much to ask employees if they are or not going to get vaccinated before we waste everybody's time? I mean, if we have a single or two employees that say absolutely not getting vaccinated, then we have to have this conversation. We already What's that? I already know that.
So there's two library employees, two town hall employees that I know of that have no intention of getting vaccinated at this point. Are they employees or elected?
Some of each. Because if it's elected, you don't have a choice. You can't do anything and, you know, and if it's an employee, then we have to talk to the union, right? So But if a
personal choice not to get vaccinated, I gotta believe that I could get them to sign a waiver.
Can you ask a public works employee to sign a waiver to not use safety equipment to use a chainsaw? No, you can't waiver away your liability for an employee's health. That's a basic ocean.
Ask Kermit because this is not the same thing. If Kermit sits there and comes back to us and says, We should recommend that everyone get vaccinated, then that's the next question, next conversation.
Here's another question. What's the state guidance on this? What's the state doing with its employees? Do we have an NDA? The state is not requiring vaccination,
but remember, the majority of the state employees are still working from home. At least a very significant fraction of them are. And then again, you'd have
go through what the legal issues are. Can you sue the state? Can you not sue the state? What does it end up under? There's lots of different things. I mean, we're The United States Of America, but we are Andover. We'll get potentially sued.
I think the other, I mean, no matter what though, if we're opening, it simply means we have proceed like those, as though those employees are not vaccinated and they have to, you know, do social distancing, etcetera, etcetera, whatever the guidelines
are. I will tell you, one of the things for my business, one of the things we investigated was, and this will not go over well at the end of our tunnel wall, but we did investigate telling people they could eliminate the PPE if they were vaccinated, and they could not eliminate the PPE if they were unvaccinated.
So the governor in one of his addresses hinted that the state was potentially going that way. And that would be one obvious thing that everybody unvaccinated has to wear a mask.
So My recommendation again is go to KIRMA, get some information from KIRMA. Adrian recommended getting information from the state to determine what the state is doing. Let's pull together the best we can do and figure it out. I would love to sit there and see a waiver be signed by the people that are choosing not to get vaccinated.
The waiver would protect who, Jeff? The town, of course. Of what? What would the employee be waving? The
issue ends up being, what has come out there is if someone got COVID, early on in this, there was a whole workers' comp issue. We had one at the town, the potential that we could have had a workers' comp issue. It was concerning because if someone goes out and contracts COVID, then the town could have been considered liable for workers' comp payments. It's an issue. It's a huge issue. If we sit there and open up town hall and we go totally back to normal and we have people that are unvaccinated and they're in work and they somehow contract COVID, they could sit there and say they contract COVID on the work and it becomes a workers' comp claim. So we just need to make sure they don't contract COVID, right? Yeah, how are we going do that, right? I got an idea.
Bubbles. Remember the kid in the bubble in the '90s, rolled around like a hamster bubble? Yeah, it was like a little labyrinth. Right. Let's do that. It's got to be on sale somewhere. Anyway,
let's find out what people who are really getting paid big money to decide those things are going to do and let's try to put in place something that works for us. All right. I would
I don't we need to make a decision before the next meeting because we're talking like June 1 open, right, Samad?
I mean, you could keep the town hall closed forever if you wanted. I would suggest you reopen at June 1, but you're free to do whatever you so choose. You're the board. Look, Eric, get the information. If we have to have a special meeting to decide what we're going do. I don't think we need a special meeting. I think we can just agree via email
that, yeah, okay we're good with it go forward I mean, do we need a motion to reopen town hall. Realistically, we made a motion to close town hall.
Yeah, but that was in the height of a pandemic. We're still in a pandemic. But we're not at the height of it.
I guess if you want it to be technical, we are still operating under a public health emergency. Mr. Maguire could make that decision on his own if he so choose. I make a motion to allow What? What? Maguire
to make the decision Or even make opening or closing the town hall. Seconded.
Open town hall June 1 after you get me the information. No, no, no. We need to call the motion so that we can vote on it, please. We'll call the motion.
All those in favor? Further discussion. I want discussion. We're going to make the opening of the town hall totally my decision. I'm willing to take it. It.
Do we believe this is too much power to require? That's the only question I have. Is he gonna go Trump here? Let's go. No, call the vote. All right, call the vote. All those in favor? Aye.
All those opposed? Aye. All those Scott said you're opposed? I'm opposed to it. Okay. I'll oppose also, Scott. So it's the Republicans versus the Democrats. I love this. Is the way Three two. Work. Three two, the world is asking Not enough information.
Not enough information. Motion passed. Nothing was clarified. You're not
opening up with any regulations. You guys didn't talk about anything. We don't know what he's gonna do. It's unilateral. He can decide whatever he wants. Scott,
you know what, Scott, I will make sure I call you and you can be involved in it. One
One thing I don't understand Jeff, it's a waiver is not gonna help anyone. Who's it gonna waiver. Waiving what? What are you waving? Somebody gets COVID from an employee?
We could also debate that if this isn't helping anyone either, but it is public policy. So let's moving on.
Eric and I will discuss this later. So that's fine. Senior center activities, Eric.
We're up and running with senior center activities at this point. Can we get a waiver? If you want a waiver for the seniors,
you can request a waiver for the seniors. Now, so what are we are we full agenda for them? Is there anything that they can't do at this point?
We're still not right now doing indoor dining events. We're only doing outdoor dining events. But I would assume as of June 1, we'll have them back in the community room for the young at hearts.
Aren't we open or close to open for the state anyways here shortly?
Yes. So as far as I understand, what is going to happen is as of May 19, everything will be lifted other than the indoor mask mandate, which will remain in place. Although there has been some talk from the governor that they will lift that mandate for vaccinated employees or vaccinated people only. But I think they've given up on that because how do you tell? You see people walking around, some are wearing masks, some aren't. How do you prove they've been vaccinated? You can't.
We can carry a card. I can wear magic courage kind of thing vaccinated big V. Could have two on your forehead.
Could implant chips like I've got that thing for my dog tells me all the vaccinations she's had. Yeah, that's good. Scanner. You can scan me, yes.
All right, so are we gonna pretty much follow the state as far as senior activities, we're gonna follow the state, right? So the state opens up, we're 100%
dining too. Yeah, right now we are following the state guidelines. We basically gone maximally permissible as long as we follow state guidelines. And we, you know with the understanding that the people going to these events are vaccinated. All right.
Go ahead Scott. You had a question for Kathy Palazzi.
Kathy what was the first senior event that you had planned? I read it but I can't recall every single thing that I read. We're
going to we went to lunch outside lunch last Friday. It worked fantastic. We had two buses and they were spaced accordingly to the guidelines. Everyone wore masks outside when they sat they still had masks on up till they ate. There were people together who knew each other and had been with each other and everyone there, I assure you, had their two shots. And it was fun. What are your plans and what are your next plans then? The next plan is for the fourteenth, we're taking him to the Buckland Mall. We've rented a room and we will be social distancing and they will watch a comedy movie to get them in a good mood for the following Friday when we take them to outside lunch again. So basically between now and the end of June our plan is we're going to reopen the lunches at the gazebo area and thank you Eric for that and we're going to have one time out at the outside of Andover Pizza when they have tables and umbrellas outside. So when are you starting the Friday thing again? This Friday we'll start again, this Friday fourteenth.
Have you considered lunch at the labyrinth yet? That's the question. What was that? Lunch at the labyrinth for the seniors.
We're gonna have lunch on June 4 and you're all invited as I told you before, it's going to be outside at the gazebo area at town Hall. Kathy Ann, what is the movie selection? This Friday the movie selection is War with Grandpa.
What's the rating on Is that PG? Is that G? What's the It's actually PG.
Paula, you can't go. What year was that made? It's gonna be quite comical.
And I think that we're gonna have an excellent time. We're gonna actually open June 2. I know that some senior centers are beginning June 1, we are beginning June 2 for bingo. And everyone is required by the way to wear a mask and I am going to tell you that every senior coming in that room will be having a temperature check, they will be signing in and they will be wearing a mask. The only time they would take a mask off if we decide, if Eric decides, that we can have coffee and perhaps a cupcake. If not, we won't have that either. We don't care. We just want to be together, visit. And I personally, if anyone is in that room and they do not adhere by the rules, I feel great that we're going to say please put your mask on or please leave. If anyone comes with a temperature, we're going to ask them to leave and not come in. And I think we have the right to do that. I think that we need to think about the safety of everyone, not just one individual.
Thank you. Thank you. The lunch at the gazebo this June 4. On the fourth, is it going be at 11:30? June 4, it'll be at noon.
Noontime? Yep. Yep. You have four weeks to three weeks to put that one on your calendars, Kat. Just let me know if you're coming guys because I would love to have all of you come. I'll tell you the war with grandpa looks Yeah, we can all,
go. Yeah, you can come. We've got some openings. Check your calendars. I can have up to 20 people and I still have Check calendars. Or more, five more.
Kathy, that movie looks great. The cast, Deller, Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Chris Paul, and my favorite, Jane Seymour.
I'm excited. I'm Jeff, you're old enough to go if you want to.
Hey, I'm a senior. That's right. I've crossed double nickel.
I'm ready. What about the Lenny and Joe's thing? Aren't you having something there?
We are, but that's booked already. I'm sorry. I can't take any more but you're free to drive.
Oh, Kathy. Do you need any more chaperones? Could we go with chaperones? Right, right.
That's what we should do. Okay, thank you very much. So the senior activities are well on their way.
Thank you very much everyone. No, not for nothing, Kathy, but we appreciate your patience on all of this.
I think you've done a great job trying to keep us safe and that's what we're looking for to continue. And in my opinion, and I do believe that Eric agrees that if anyone comes down with COVID, we're closing. We're not staying in business if one of them come down with it. And they've all been vaccinated, but like you said, who knows?
Okay. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed. 9C, town budget discussion.
I don't have anything further to say unless you all want a recap of the meeting. No. I don't want to give it. We can vote on tomorrow, right? We're all gone. Okay, the Memorial Day car parade.
So once again, we're opting to do a car parade as opposed to the more traditional parade in part because there aren't enough groups that have been meeting and practicing and marching and all that. So we put the route in the parade stuff out on the town's website. Feel free to peruse it and feel free to participate. I saw Paula in the parade last year, I think with your kids, right? You're doing it again this year, Paula?
I'm planning on it. You to lead the charge with me and do some Facebook Live commentary? I don't believe that I will be in town.
Okay, well we will miss you. What about Mr. Murray? He was in the parade last year. I'm in. You bringing the car Jeff?
Maybe the truck with the sound system again that worked pretty good. Hang along John. I'm excited.
Mr. Santa Claus outfit still? Yeah put him in the bed of the truck. I got it. And
the resident state triple will work the event and he's pretty sure he's recruited one other trooper to help us out. So we'll have one follow car and one initial car leading the parade.
Are we worried about drive by shootings during this given our recent thing? Yeah. Well, I tell you, I talk to my kids all the time about appropriate times to say stuff. Come on, man. Get stuck in the labyrinth again with that. That's like short and sweet. It happened, we move on, right?
You're right. I thought you were about to say, would talk to my kids about not doing drive by shootings. I'm like, where is I it
thought he was going there with gun safety too and he just, you know, he totally missed it. No,
wasn't going there. I was just thinking Andover has, you try to put the best image forth and on these meetings, think we do a pretty good job. Sometimes I just concern myself. Maybe those things just need to go on set.
That is a valid point. I think the fact that we were pretty certain it's probably not gonna end up being somebody from town or any of that though. We know it's not anybody from town, but it happened in Andorra.
It's enough of a problem. So, building and land use department, Eric, administrative assistant, online permitting system, the driveway bonds. What would you like to bring up there? Yeah, so online permitting system we've signed the contract for. We're hoping to go live in
four to six weeks with that. Driveway bonds, the town's attorney is in the midst of oh, Dennis is on, so you can ask him directly, but he was planning on giving you a revised driveway bond ordinance.
Is Dennis on? Because he had another meeting, he said. Is. I had had a ball game. Oh, okay. I'm
on. I just got back from the wiles of Preston.
Okay. So the driveway bond Dennis, we can sit there and see for the next meeting?
Ordinance? Oh, yeah. I've done a lot of research and I've read the zoning regulations on driveways and I've read the ordinance that we already have on driveways and bonds and I think the ordinance needs to be updated and improved. So I'm planning on drafting a substitute ordinance. I don't think I'll modify the one we have now. I think I'll just repeal it and do a new one. That's what I usually do instead of making wholesale changes and gets kind of confusing. All right. That would be excellent. And your team won? My team did not win. They lost by one run-in the last inning. Walks over My granddaughter made the last out. Girl made a wonderful play on her. She smashed the ball. Oh, between short and third and the girl threw her out. I've never seen my granddaughter thrown out before first base. She's so fast. But we're playing at a higher level now and I'm looking forward to playing in Andover. Well, Scott We were scheduled to play in Andover this Friday. Right. And I was told Who grabbed the ball? It available?
Dennis, who grabbed the ball? The shortstop or the third baseman? The third baseman.
Wow, that's a good That's a good grab. My granddaughter could not believe she was thrown out at first base. She's lightning Quick
release there at third base. Good job. Quick release, yeah. We're good. So let's go to Blighted Properties, new business. Anything?
So Jeff Murray asked that this be placed on the agenda because he had some questions about that.
Yes, I know we have at least one property on the top of Long Hill that is bank owned.
And So, I did find some details of that today. Okay.
That is, we did establish who the owner was, not somebody I know. And I don't know exactly where they live. We just looked to see whether we had in fact put a lien on the property in the past. And there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the town did lien the property in the past. So I would have to go through the zoning agency old notes to see whether
where the details are for the blight enforcement for that. We told John Valenti, I remember the wetlands meeting to or the planning and zoning meeting to, that's a house with no roof, no, it's got a hole in the roof? Yep. And we asked him to start charging them, I think.
I remember doing that I remember he did, what I'm saying is I don't see anything on the land records. There should have been an indication in the land records that we were enforcing a blight penalty against them. And I don't see that, which means I got to go do some more work on it. Is the bank paying the taxes?
Yeah, well, Mrs. Ouellette, who's the owner is paying the taxes and has been paying the taxes all along.
Okay. And that's the story I received, but the question is what is our policy and enforcement going forward against these properties?
Jeff that roof, the hole in the roof and any out, you can't have any ingress or egress and you can't have holes in the roof and you're absolutely right about that.
All right. And what does this board feel about pursuing policies against blight up to and including
taking properties. It's up to the planning and zoning commission. Bring it up to them. Eric can bring it up to the planning and zoning commission and the properties that you deem that you like to see changed and the planning and zoning. Brought it up with them.
They're looking into it. Yeah, think that's the only one we have right now that we have any focus on. The rest of them seem to be in compliance. Am I correct, Eric?
Yes. I mean, I will tell you, I don't wanna rock the boat on anybody that's banged us $4,000 in taxes and hasn't lived there in twenty years. To me, that's the goose that laid the golden egg. I wouldn't rock that ever.
But unfortunately we need to look out for other residents that have to look at that every day. That's my contention.
Can I say something about that? I worked on that that ordinance with John Valenti. And it is complicated. And I think that Eric and I probably need to get together with the zoning agent because the process is not simple. And it's got to be done just by the book in order to ultimately possibly foreclose on property like that. So I mean, I looked at it today and you have to give somebody an opportunity for a hearing. That is something that I don't think is well known by whoever is managing this. And it's not Eric. It would be the zoning agent. It's very, very it's very complicated. The statute is not
repeated in the ordinance it's referred to. You gotta you have to be familiar with the statute. So, and I've worked on a lot of cases under that particular statute and I know the statute pretty well. So if you want me to, I will be glad to work with the zoning agent on bringing him or her or whoever, I don't know who the person is now up to speed on how to implement enforcement under that ordinance. It's not simple.
Yeah. Given that it's not simple, Dennis, would it be appropriate for you to put down on paper kind of a step by step? I mean, I would, I would go so far as can do that. I can give you an SOP. That would be phenomenal. There's, I can do that.
There's also a regulation we have, I think it's a planning and zoning regulation, Eric, me if I'm wrong, but it says that if you're accumulating, I'm not sure the word that they, I'll just use a nice word, things for future sale or use. Isn't that some regulation? I don't know. I don't know.
Would it be hoarding? Oh, so zoning ordinance? It is, yeah. So this, this,
So that- there's two properties that would fall under that regulation also.
Okay. So at our next meeting, we should take a little longer and have a better understanding of this ordinance that is out there and what our standard operating procedures are so that we can move forward. But in a very simple standpoint, this person with a house with a hole in his roof is paying the taxes. 4,000 a year, yes.
All right. Okay. But that point, Jeff, that hole in the roof has been there for eight years plus.
$32,000 hole. I mean, no, Jeff, I'm laughing at it, but I do understand exactly what you're saying. We cannot allow that. We got to try to work a deal.
Well, if anybody else in town is going say, well, what are you guys doing about that house up the street? You guys haven't done anything with that in eight years. It creates a precedent and I don't want to see that happen anymore. Understood.
Next meeting, we'll come back and we'll have more information and we'll try to understand what the board needs to do from a standard operating procedure standpoint to move forward on any of the blight ordinances.
I'll be glad to make a presentation on the issue and I will take a look at the zoning ordinances on that as well. Because there's a lot of ways to address this kind of a problem. The blight ordinances is usually, it's a pretty effective way to do it if you do it right. Okay. Dennis,
Jed Larson, Jed Larson, I've been speaking with him and he knows the regulation that I'm talking about. Yeah, I think I can. I remember having this conversation with John Valentis regarding blight
with a particular, we had a problem with someone in town, right? Remember with, that had quite a collection of items that was actually leaking into the watershed and they were trying to address and it was a nightmare, you know, so. Okay. All right, let's sit there and
get a better understanding and in our next meeting we'll decide if we can, what the appropriate next steps are related to that specific property and potentially the other properties with all of the clutter that is collected in their labyrinths. So now we have, we're going to move on to the Recreation Commission, Recreation Funds in the Veteran Memorial Field Usage. Eric?
The recreation funds, again, Jeff Murray asked to put that on the agenda. Jeff Murray? Yes, I did because That's on fire tonight. Yep.
We had an issue. I put on numerous events over the years and so has Platt Systems has put on a lot of running events and we've written checks to the town that were designated for recreational purposes. Now, since there was not a dedicated fund or account dedicated for use of these funds, these checks had just been deposited into the general fund. Now we've come up to a situation this year where we have the veterans, I mean, the Monument Park celebration that's going to cost quite a bit of money. And we also want to have a concert series. Well, the recreation commission doesn't have the funds, but in reality, those funds are there but they're sitting in the general fund. Now, what I'd like to see created is either a dedicated fund or created an account where all this money can go and be used by the recreation commission for concerts and community events. Because right now we don't have that. How much money was it Jeff? I mean, right now we got about at least $2,000
So it would be on the board of finance to create a fund for that. So that would be, you would have to make the recommendation to the board of finance to create a permanent fund
for that. Yep, and that's why our treasurer has all that information of all those checks that were deposited and all the amounts. So we could get all those amounts and just create that fund in that amount that was deposited and I've never used. But that money was destined for concerts and community events. And I'd like to see it used for that instead of just being put in the general fund and not being able to use it especially this year because we'd like to add a few more concerts and there's no money in the budget to really do that.
You have all the records of that. That's good. I talked to Carol and I guess our
treasurer does, past treasurer. She has all the information. So I'd like to make a motion that we recommend that the board of finance create an account dedicated for deposited funds to be used for recreational purposes.
I would modify that motion that we asked them to transfer previously deposited monies into that fund to start it. That's good. I agree with that. I'll second it. Jeff agrees, I'll second.
All right. Further discussion. To go on top of this, there has to be money left from the basketball program that got lumped into that as well. So all of that money should be moved aside and pushed into that fund as well and identified appropriately.
I agree. I just don't want to see it get lost over the years. A 100% All
those in favor? Aye. Okay. All those opposed? All then abstain? No. Okay. Let's move on to cameras covered under the AES grant.
We got any discussion on this? Yep. I asked to put this on. Valerie Bruno, the superintendent contacted us and said she's getting a grant that's going to cover the three cameras that she's looking into, And she's offering that they're going be put on the school building but aimed towards the town hall and where the community center will be. And she's also saying that the resident state trooper can have access if needed. And the grant is also covering the monitoring of the cameras as well. So I think Adrian, did you answer all her questions? She wanted to get all I did, I actually specked two cameras instead of three with the appropriate view of field.
Adrian, would that include the garden area that we're proposing?
Yep, it would. Basically, I was trying to pick up close to the 180 degree field of view that should be possible given where they're mounted. So I basically ended up I specked, you know, cameras that would pick up everything but about eight degrees there.
So what's going to happen with that third camera she was talking about?
Well, she was saying, thought maybe three cameras. I mean, in initial discussion, that's an idea, but you end up, you really don't need three, you know, you really can do it with two effectively. So if you do two, you can do them on a singular amount. If you do three, you need separate mounts because you can't can't get them all in one space effectively. Sure. So what was her question? Just on the monitoring?
No. She wanted to know specifications for cameras. I can tell you, hang on, let me pull up the email, my reply.
My question is, is this our purview since they're attached to the school? Do we really have She's any offering it given
that we are going to be putting some stuff up there, you know, that there seems to be more activities happening now, whether it's a community garden, the community center. So, And it was covered by the grant. So she was trying to offer that as a goodwill gesture to the town, but also it allows the school to feel comfortable with anything we've got going on down there.
Okay, so you specked out the appropriate cameras, gave them to her. She's writing a grant. Hopefully, that will cover the areas that are town related. I mean, it's all town. Right.
Yeah. So I recommended a two cameras with a with a millimeter focal length lens between twelve and twenty four. Ideally, cameras covering 84 degrees would give a 168 degree field of view out of a possible one eighty. So.
Okay. Do we need to make a motion to make this official or
do we have Yeah. Do we have any authority to say anything like to vote on this? It's not really attached to any town property, right? It's the school.
She was being nice enough to say she'd like the cameras pointed at town buildings.
Yeah, I think we just need to give a thumbs up to say that And with it pointing to town then if the trooper
wants access to it, she just The trooper has access to every camera in that building all the time. I actually think it was Derrick who has it on his cell phone.
Yeah, I mean, I think they were just trying to be helpful.
Think they were looking to make a motion and you feel that that that's appropriate that we give her the authority to point those cameras at us. That's fine. Yeah, I think I think make a motion, Paula. All right, I make a motion that, accept the gift.
Yeah, to accept the gift from Andover Elementary School under, the grant that Valerie Bruno was requesting for these two cameras and we're giving the okay to have the cameras pointing to the town hall and other areas that the town is responsible for. I second the motion.
I just wanna make a point, there gonna be, doing this motion, is there any acceptance of fees or anything in the future that we may incur for monitoring? Was built into the grant.
The grant will run out and so eventually will there be fees that they're looking for us to pay since they're aimed at the town hall. They're paying for a camera system. I mean, have a camera system for every room and every hallway.
I got to believe, Jeff, that these cameras are just underneath that umbrella. Monitoring. Just making sure. The
newly elected members of the Board of Education will also keep us informed as to that those information. I
will. You got to be a separate line item, Jeff Murray, somewhere there, right? To do all the monitoring on Let's the not go there, please. All those in favor. Aye. Aye.
All those opposed, all those abstain. Okay. Approval of meeting minutes for Monday, 04/12/2021. Someone make a motion? I'll make the motion. I motion to approve the following minutes, Monday, 04/12/2021, Board of Selectmen regular meeting minutes.
I second. Second. All All those in favor? Aye. I got to go check on the dog, excuse me. All
right. The finance department report. Eric, do you have anything that you want to add to this report or talk about? Not to the report.
Okay. I have one on the revenue summary. Can you please ask Sherry to check the status of our educational cost sharing dollars? It's May 10, and we're still owed $1,503,586 on that. It would be nice if we could get that.
Yeah, she told me the other day they'd received at least two of these, the payments. And they've been misapplied?
No, they just haven't been done the journal entries to move them over. There's a lot of journal entries they still need to do to move the money into the correct spots to where it's going. All right.
Okay. Budget summary. Anybody have any questions on the budget summary?
Budget summary or the overages? No, we haven't gotten to the overages, the budget summary.
If we go down to the bottom of the budget summary, we have a $12,535,287 budget. Of that, we spent $9,399,776 We have $3,135,510.79 remaining or 25% of the total budget. I'm sure a lot of this is in educational line items. The trooper, the RAM payment, 800,000. Board of Ed is 1,543,000, so $2,350,000 of that is educational spending. Let's go down next slide, the general ledger. I don't know why that's there. The budget appropriation transfers and the overexpenditure report requests. Where are they, Eric?
Okay. So I had Sherry go through and go through everything that we're projecting over expenditure, the final dollar amount and everything of significance where we are likely to be under. And then the difference of those two is about 18,000 or $19,000 right now. So we're still in the black that's using contingency, but we're not a lot in the black. But barring any unforeseen circumstances, we should get a final budget that's in the black for the year, but not by much.
So this is all the overage, do we have an under?
Yeah, the under is the next column over where it starts with assistant salary town clerk.
Can you increase the spreadsheet to the total top, the full screen? It is full screen on my screen. So
you're projecting you're going to have give or take $18 extra?
Yes, if nothing goes wrong between now and the end of the year. Yes.
And Eric, can you slide down the projected over yeah, thank you. Slow down for a second. Brush pile removal? Yep. Dollars over?
Yep. That was approved by Board of Finance. The problem we have with that is we budget for it every year. But last year we hadn't grounded up in about three years. So it's actually more cost effective to essentially only do it every second or third year. But if we do, that's like a $14,000 hit instead of what we budget for.
So you're telling me last year we had it in there and it was $6,500 unexpended?
Correct. And I believe the year before it was unexpended also. So you have $122,749 of accounts that are going to be overexpended.
Yeah, based on where we are today, that's what we're projecting, yes.
Now go to the top of your spreadsheet. Can you slide that a little bit? Actually forget that. Let me see if I can move something. I was going say, didn't he send this to you in an email, Jeff, that you could pull up on your screen and look No, no, no, I got it. I just had to move your faces. I get to see your faces and it was in the wrong spot. Sorry, I'm used to seeing this two screens.
He doesn't want to have to look through the labyrinth of our lives to see the screen. That's it. We got 140,000 of underexpanded accounts. Correct. Including the $50,000 of contingency.
All right. Can I ask, how are we overspent on public work salary?
We hired a public works employee that makes an awful lot more than his predecessor. And remember a lot of his predecessor's salary came out of the overtime snow removal category.
Yeah, but if I remember correctly in that budget, we had budgeted for a fourth person for the whole Yes, we did. Correct. We probably budgeted for a maintainer too.
Yeah, but again, so we had we went how many months, you know, we
we're good we have no Tim for a month, right? Okay, so, so Adrian, there were two things that were accounted for. First is we wiped out the we completely wiped out the account for paying severances. So we paid That's not public work salary though.
Well, but where else are you gonna take it out of? Mean, could have, you're right. I could have run that permanent fund negative and then accounted for later. But at the time I took it from public work salary. Okay, so
this is where we're running into problem is. So this doesn't tell me that you did a transfer. This is telling me that we're over on salary and I'm going there's no way we're over on salary because we should have had enough people enough there with the fourth person. So you're saying you'd used money from the salary line item to cover the other item and now with this year low? Yeah, pretty much. That's the explanation I needed, Eric. I just, this doesn't tell me that I'm going there's no way those numbers match up. You know what I mean? Right.
But also remember too, Jay is, you know, roughly $25,000
more. I'm not questioning that. But when we did the budget, the explanation that we discussed with the board of finances, you probably weren't gonna hire this person right away. But the difference would be made up in the fact that the new person replacing Ed was probably gonna cost us more. So that actually worked out correctly. Unfortunately, paying out Ed did it. Right? Right. And
Eric, that's a we didn't maybe I'm off, but did we budget anything to put into the severance account? We put $25,000 this year into the severance account.
But at the time we also didn't know we're gonna have to pay a larger amount for Ed to retire.
Well, remember that's not just Ed. That's not just Ed, yeah. Because Mr. Hibley retired also. No, also had a snot load of sick days. But we also have his vacation also. We also had the sweetener in there for Ed so that we could transition to
a salaried employee. Right? So, yeah, that didn't help. We didn't know Tim was going to retire.
So Eric, as you write these up, please write that one up so that the Board of Finance understands that. Yeah. And
I'm not trying to be picky. I just, if someone over there remembers it the same way I did, they're gonna, they're gonna question you as well. Sure. And it's not fair to you, you did it correctly. The spreadsheet just doesn't reflect that. Okay, I can certainly make that explanation. Thank you.
Actually, be really honest, Eric, you probably didn't do it correctly. You probably should have left it in the severance fund negative and forced the Board of Finance. To make the transfer. Didn't they approve the transfer anyways?
Yeah. I think they did. I mean, they knew that we were doing the sweetener, they knew that we were going to hit that account. I'm just sitting there in my head thinking that what is the balance in that? It's going to be well, it's going to be right back to where it was anyway. Just write it up so everybody understands it because your severance fund is going have $25,000
Well, No, here's what I'm saying. Apologize because I haven't done every Board of Finance meeting, so you can do a transfer within a department. But if it's not within the same department, you had to have gone to the Board of Finance for it. Right.
So did you fill out a slip for the transfer with the Board of Finance?
No, because I paid it out of the public works line item for a public works employee. Doesn't work like that.
It's a severance issue. It has to become paid out of the severance line item. So you needed a transfer approval. Sorry. Well, it was a very nice thought up until there. Vicki Tech, but
you're getting into a labyrinth and you're drowning us. Eric, get with Sherry and just figure out the best way to do that. Because honestly, if you sat there you're and going to end up in the same place, your severance is going end up Right, but it's about following procedure for the That's fine. We're good. Eric, take care of that one. Let's write that up so we understand it and let's make sure these numbers stay positive to the tune of the $20,000 because you are including the $50,000 of contingency there.
I know, but what you've asked me to do is get the budget down to the point where there's zero slack. So if you have a zero slack budget, that means half the years you're gonna be over and half the years you're gonna be under. I'm pretty sure this one will still end up under.
Okay, but but to be clear, Eric's doing exactly what we've asked him to do. And he's also honestly, I mean, to Eric's credit, which I don't give you enough of Eric, this is exactly what we've been looking for from a from an administrator, the whole time I was on the Board of Finance. And and, you know, so I'm super happy to see this. I'm happy to see it done late in the year, especially given that we just got the treasurer on board. So, I mean, I'm super happy about this. And the fact that the budget is close, given everything that's come up and all these random things, I think it's phenomenal. We're doing it means we're doing a good job. Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Okay, any more you want to see on this? No.
No. And if you could pass along to a treasurer, thank you for compiling this with you. Okay. Looks great. Tax collectors report.
Actually, hey, Eric, one thing. Can you just before you send it to Board of Finance so they don't get confused, you have over expenditures on the left, can you just add under expenditures to that column heading on the right hand side under H? Sure.
That way I can do that. That would explain it a little bit because that's what confused me is I got a continuation to be less confusing. Yep. No Valid point. Thank you.
Okay. The tax collector's report. It appears to March we collected $216,000 We still have remaining to collect. That makes sense. Yes, it does. Dollars 3 and 23,610 from this last tax year. I paid mine. Eric, this does not show. Maybe this report will.
Here's the good part is that the tax, they work on the assumption that they're gonna have about 5% uncollected. So they're already under the limit pretty much across the board where they thought they were going to be in terms of uncollected. So, we've actually probably already taken in more revenue than we had budgeted for.
The only problem I have Eric is when I look at the report that's created out of the system and it's as of May 3.
Eric, do we have any idea what the overage is in collections versus expected?
No, other than the tax collector said we're doing better than we were at this time last year, which was better than we did at that time the year before.
But are we expecting to collect more at the end of the year? Good question.
I think we're assuming we're still gonna be collecting more taxes, yes. More stuff will keep trickling in, maybe not at the same Adrian's
asking if we're gonna collect more than was in our budget.
So the answer is probably yes, but I don't feel that's one of the things I've asked Sheri to do. We've looked at it on the expense side to look at the same thing because honestly, the revenue side, I don't want to say it's a mystery to me but I don't look at that as carefully. That's you know, I figure that's the realm of finance.
Maybe you can ask Sherry this question for me or the tax collector. We have a report from the dashboard, which is from the collection software system. It says we only have $323,000 due, and I'm assuming that's for just this last tax year. But on the next report, which is accumulation of information, it tells us that we still need to collect $2,231,000 at the end April or end of March. So, I'm just a little confused as to what we're owed. Are we owed 2,231,000 or 323,000, which I'm hoping it's the 2,000,000. Well, I'm assuming the 2,000,000 would be ECS.
No. If it's revenue, we haven't gotten in. No, no, no. Just look at the reports that you provided in the No, I think Eric's correct.
No, it's not. You sure? Yeah. Look at the report. It's uncollected taxes by tax year. I wanna know why the numbers aren't closer. I mean, listen, there's always back taxes owed. I mean, we still owe someone, people in town still haven't paid their 2018 tax bill to the tune of all. Yeah, but it's not 2,000,000 left.
I wouldn't think so. That's my question. It's gotta be ECS. It's probably a revenue crossover.
No, this report should have nothing to do with that. Well, should and do are two different things. I mean, when do I No. No. No, no, no. The next big tax collection period is April. Numbers We are currently in May. And look at your reports that you received. The tax collector report that you gave us this March. Why is it March? Because they don't get all the information together and they don't have it ready for us. So, they don't have April ready for our May meeting. It's thirty days. How long does really? It's ten days. But I'm saying it's thirty, it's more than thirty days old at that point. Sure. And it's the first time you and every other member of this board are seeing that information.
You haven't realized that in your two years on the board? I thought we had addressed that and it was supposed to be coming up. And given the multitude of information in our packets, I do apologize
for not perusing all of it. We're not getting through the labyrinth of information.
I was gonna make a labyrinth reference, but really, I have to admit, I think that word has been overused and I object to it at this point. Okay, that's fine. It's exorbitantly used, I apologize.
So anyway, that number is right. It's at the bottom of the March report. Maybe this report is for April. Two different dates, Eric. It gets a little bit confusing. Two different dates. The report off the system is April. Jeff, could you just tell Eric what you want? We're going to be at like 10:30 by the time you get done with this report. This is true and I have said this all along. I wonder who's causing this delay. It's not Mr. O'Brien. You at this point. So, if you would tell Eric what you need, that would be really helpful. Just make sure the number is what if it's $300,000 I'm good with it I just want to know what's collectible. Okay.
And you can send that to me via email does somebody want to make a motion, maybe Mr Murray can make a motion on tax refunds.
I don't think it would be appropriate for Mr. Murray to make an emotion on tax refunds given he's a benefiter of said motion. That makes No, abstain.
You. I think he's abstaining from the vote, correct? No, tax refunds.
Have a motion to authorize the refunding of excess payments to Cynthia Murray of $70.99 Dennis Forn of 227 point Kenneth Sledusky of $134.43 for a total of $432.51 in refunds.
I feel I'll second it so we can get to discussion. I seconded. I kind of want to understand what the Murray's are getting back this seems rather absorbent $70.99. And we understand what this is why why why didn't I get a refund why did they get refund? Why don't you look at look in your packet? There's a copy. Isn't I there didn't see that in my packet. Is there an explanation as to why? We paid our taxes too early. Thank you. You paid them too early. So you get like interest back. What's the
The tax collector gave us an amount. We paid it and apparently it was too much. So we are getting a refund. Thank you very much. Isn't it developed by the computer?
Oh my gosh. Now you're dragging this out. You're being I'm just saying it's exorbitant. I have an issue with it.
Paid too much and we were issued a refund. That's all I can say.
So you don't feel exorbitant. Amen. So let's go. Mr. Murray gets $70.99 back. He can
use it any way he sees fit. Not me, Cynthia Murray, thank you. Can we do these individually so that we can vote for against individuals?
So no, we can't. I've always voted against these things for the entire four year, first four years I voted against because I didn't believe in the way it was done. All in favor? What are you calling it for? Wow. All
in favor, aye. All those opposed? All those abstaining? Mr. Murray is abstaining, thank you. By the way, the tax bill does read Murray, Jeffrey A, and Cynthia L.
No, I bet you Jeff had to promise it to her for something already, so it's already probably. All right, so let's move on.
We're now on to the assessor's report. Eric, do we have anything from the assessor's office? The only thing I put in the assessor's office, just so that you should be aware of, is that we do have a series of quote unquote crumbling foundations and those do affect individual assessments.
So I gave you the list relative to Andover of what it was. Well, let's back up a second before we put somebody on the crumbling foundation list. Did we get verification? Do we have an engineer's report? So
I don't deal with that if the state, because these are all people that are applying to state for funding. So, if it comes back from that, if you'll notice, there's only a few of them that actually the state comes back and says, yes, it's got moderate damage, severe damage whatsoever. Is the town independently hiring an engineer to evaluate No, the all I'm asking is that we're getting some verification from somebody
besides the homeowner that they didn't need to be on the list.
No, it's this come this list is generated by the state and given That's to what I'm asking. Thank you. Yeah. So is it this report that says '27? Yes, correct. But
only the ones where there's comments, is there anything significant that gets dealt with? Okay.
And is there anything we need to do to help these homeowners or? Nope.
Okay. I mean, if we were being generous, maybe, but we're not. No, just know I don't know if there's something the town can do as far as applying for grants or whatever whatever to help these people out.
No, I mean there's a state program to help them out that's totally outside of the realm of the town. That's not something we have to be involved in. Okay. The assessor does adjust the property values for houses which meet a certain threshold for crumbling foundations. But it's like for instance, we had one where the guy wanted his whole assessment reduced and it was only one little addition on that that had a crumbling foundation that was addressed. And those cases they're partial. So it's, there's a little bit of judgment on the part of the assessor, but they are reviewed.
So I still haven't seen it. And I know we talked extensively in the past. Is there a reason that within the assessors report, we're still not, I would like to see some sort of follow-up from building permits show up in the assessors report. So we know that they're being followed up on. Do you know what I mean? Because we've said repeatedly, we have a system in place where the building department sends the information to the assessor, and and that these things are followed up on, but I've never seen it. So I really would like to see that. Maybe they didn't start repairing it. Any of them? Yeah. No, no, this isn't about this. This is about so whenever a building permit is issued, right? Yeah. If it's a change in the valuation of the home, they're supposed to be an inspection and reevaluation. Right. So if you if you put a pool in, that changes your valuation, if you put a garage in, it changes your valuation. Right. So throughout the year, we should have some sort of adjustment to assess value notation somewhere, but we don't see it.
So that is on the assessors monthly activity report, which is farther down in your packet. But there is on this month, there was no,
there's nothing there indicating that this month, they did any real property inspections. So are they listing them as a total adjustment or are they listing them individually? Do you remember how they're doing it? I
don't know how they're doing it. I mean, he usually inspects the work that is done. No, how is it showing up in this report? Because we don't have it this month to look at, right? It's not Adrian, it's never been shown to us.
The assessor's report says, or process five building permits, it doesn't say anything about inspections for certificates of occupancy or the ending of the permits. You would assume if you went to page 78 of our documents, we would get some type of report off of this that would sit there and say, did a permanent inspection
and this is the increase to the property. Right. That's what I'm looking for is a total valuation increase.
Eric, can you please go to the assessor and ask him for some type of report off the system that says what his additions
the Assessed value. I mean, you can make a guess for the yearly because the grand list went
up. This isn't about that, Eric. This is about making sure that building permits are followed up and
inspections are done and we see that, that's all. But what I'm, I mean, I get what you're saying, but what I'm saying is that you know it's getting done because there's a significant increase in the grand list, and how is that possible without I
could tell you how $60,000 of it was possible. We taxed Ashblunt for their trucks.
So there's a lot of things that have happened that we don't have. Well, it could be new houses coming online, right? Because those are pretty much automatic. Those aren't follow ups. There are for CEOs, but they're not necessarily straight permit based. And then also automatically for cars. I tell right now mine went up dramatically for a couple vehicles that we bought two new vehicles this year. So, you know, So, yeah. Okay. It's follow through
and making sure It's just about process because, look, I mean, the reality is we're not here forever. So the best thing as a board we do on a day to day basis in our jobs is to put processes in place so that as this, the next board comes in and replaces us, they're getting something that functionally works and they can look at and understand.
Okay. Is there any other questions related to the assessor's report? Okay. Department reports, the fire department report was in there. I did not see the burning official. I did not see anything related to the state trooper, did I? I don't think I did. No. No.
I didn't see anything from the town clerk, the building department. I see new applications. Eric, are you going to want to talk to us about this or New applications for what?
There's a building department application that's in our package. I'm assuming it's new.
Oh, yeah, the forms. The forms. We did revise That's the program. Yeah. Did revise some of the forms to make them clearer. And also we were finding, we were consistently getting the wrong information and we wanted to make sure we had the forms redone before we go to the online because these trends, these forms will transfer to the online. Where are we at
with the employee situation and training and such? I know you told us that we're signed a contract now for permitting, right? Where are we at for a couple things? I guess three questions. Where are we at with the employee situation? Where are we at with training for that, for that job? And then lastly, I think you and I talked about whether or not we could get some sort of semblance of putting together a list of all the fees and structures. So that it's we kind of know where it is, it's a central location, and God forbid somebody's out or not in we know what to charge someone, know, so. You know, we're still working on the fees. So
that is definitely ongoing. But that should be built into the online application.
Okay, is the online application gonna cover things like the sign that someone's required to buy or post or whatever when they are making a modification or change that they get from wetlands?
I mean, that is the goal. Yes, to have that in core compass, all the fees for the individual for zoning, for wetlands, for the building. Perfect. So where are we at with employee and training?
So the employee is doing the job at the moment. We still do not have an agreement in place with the union. The last contact I had with the union, she said basically, Yeah, I got to get back to that. I've been on vacation. It's kind of maddening for me. What we have done is we have because as of essentially April She was maybe even before April 1 whenever we signed I whenever I assigned her the extra duties officially As of that point, she was a full time employee with full time benefits. The thing I cannot do is I cannot increase her pay because that is a directly negotiated thing. I made a suggestion as to what I think is appropriate, but that's going to have to be bargained with the union. And we've told the union, yep, yep, it's time to bargain, get off your fourth points of contact and let's But do to be fair to the employee I would hope that there's some sort of mechanism in place to pay them back pay for the appropriate hours. Yeah we're keeping we're logging the hours and we will back pay her for the hours that she worked. Okay. But you know, and if it was up to me, I would have already been paying her, but No, understand.
Training. She has gotten some training. We've all helped her out a little bit and she did have the previous, Kathy came back and spent some time with her going through stuff. As soon as as part of the permit link, Randy's offered to basically hook her up with Ashford's equivalent to her going through the to helping out with the permit link thing because they have a user that's very familiar with it and Randy's offered to help that transition also. Got it.
You know, it is still rocky right now. We are definitely behind on issuing permits. And now is a bad time because that same position, you know, we're in the middle of elections. That's a lot of work in the town clerk's office and you know, we're starting, we're already cranking away issuing dump stickers. So, you know, this is the crunch time, unfortunately, kind of for both those positions. So until such time as we get an online permitting system, they're quite behind right now. And that's unfortunate because there's certainly a lot of pissed off people right now, but that's life.
And I don't know if this is feasible or not. Is it possible for us to set up something on the website or through the permitting system to have people submit the information that's required for the dump sticker so that we could pre approve people they could just come in and then they could come in and get the sticker put on their vehicle?
Not at this point. I mean once we have permit link up and running, I've asked them whether that would be something we could do, we could transition to doing transfer station stickers to them, because that, there would be some additional fee for that, but it wouldn't be really great. But I think we got to get it up and working for the land use office first and then consider
what else we cover online permitting. I mean, I still don't want to be mailing out stickers, but if we could pre, if we could pre process, so people could just come in, give their name and yep, you're approved, you're all set, here's your sticker, you know.
Well, I mean, we basically do that for anybody that is putting it back on the same vehicle. Okay. I mean, all we do is we collect the $40, we write down their sticker number, we peel off the old sticker, put on a new sticker and off they go. It's only new registrations
that we really have any level of real scrutiny for. Yeah, I've changed vehicles all three years, so I wasn't aware, so.
Okay, so Adrian is sucking time for the town employees. Is a library report in our package. Anybody have any comments on the library report? Public works has a any comments on public works report? We got a lot of work done to the public works public building, it appears like. Yep, over the winter. It
looks a heck of a lot better inside, can tell you that.
Okay. Yep. All right. There was a library transportation report. Kathy Palazzi, thank you very much. And we had a registrar of order report. Actually, we need to give them some credit in this meeting. They did an exceptional job at the last election with the recount and everything else.
I'd like to give you Do we have a running list of things we need to address in this charter change?
Do we have a running list? No, but we have a very good baseline of what we need to work on. Mean,
this week was a perfect example, the voting week of some of the things we need to change. Having voting on two days in a town meeting on a third, that's just overwhelming for town residents.
Agreed. So you would think that you'd be able to do it simpler. Yes. We do have to work on that because we have to get that done. Mr.
McGuire, can you please finish your sentence about saying thank you?
I'd like to say thank you to Linda and Wally and all of the people that worked during the election. They did a great job. I concur.
They really did, actually. They did an excellent job. It was very easy. It was organized.
There were no hanging Jads or anything. Oh, yeah. I
went to the recount. They were very, very organized. And listen, kudos to the count clerk for people that needed to do absentee ballots
and stuff. She handled that very well as well. Well, the best part about it was they were exact on election night and they were exact in the recount. Everything matched. Look at that, no fraud. Can you believe it?
Unlike when you won and beat me, I have no idea how you went from I went from winning to losing overnight, but we'll talk about that later. You should have won, Adrian.
Okay. So you should plan on scheduling an executive session at the next meeting to do my annual review.
Are you ready for that? I don't know if you're ready for that. Maybe I'm not.
Please just put it on the agenda and we will get that done.
Okay. The second thing is Pause Eric, you brought something up. Are we doing the same thing where you did last year? Are we gonna send around so we can have some discussion prior to that.
Sure, we should do that, we should grade him in advance, and we should look at the same criteria that while we can't do the same. We had a criteria list but so I'll pull up that and I will
send that out prior to the next meeting so we can do that discussion. Paula, no yawning. Eric, please do it at the beginning of the meeting,
the executive session. I'd like to do the executive session at the beginning of the meeting because I'd like to come out of executive session and tell the public what your review, the basics of your review was. Right? Yep. Understood. Okay.
The second thing is we really need to get cracking
negotiations with the other union. That was actually my next We have a contract up in, you know, like six or seven weeks. Well, did you didn't you did you notify them that we wanted to start negotiations?
Yes, and I notified you that I notified them. And they said sure. Okay. And then they're kind of waiting for us. You had said you were gonna get back with a set, come back to the board with a set of initial conditions
that you were looking for in the next union contract. Well, that's I think that's you and you and myself sitting down and discussing that. Okay, I do apologize, you know, between the last meeting here, lost a, you know, a couple of weeks, but certainly can make time to discuss that with you.
Okay. And I would say it would probably be you myself and Sherry, unless other Board of Selectmen members want in on that meeting. She is you mean, Sherry, the treasurer? Yep. Okay.
Yeah. These things all have financial implications and that's what you want. Want her there for. Okay.
I so I'll get it. I'll send out an email for everyone to address. I'm going to send out an email tomorrow. If anybody has any input on that things that they would like addressed in that contract. Eric, do we have a copy of the old contract? Can you? Sure.
Want me to follow-up with the old contract, please? Sure.
Do I have to read it again if it's really No. You just have to if there's anything specific
you want addressed or brought up, if you could please highlight it, it might be helpful if you had a copy in front of you to do that. I I am I am totally with you, Mr. Mandeville. Thank you, sir. Absolutely.
I just remember, I don't think that you or I were really involved in the final crafting of that document. Can guarantee you I voted against it. Hence why you might want some input on the next one. Okay. I think that is it. Eric, is there any correspondence? Say no. Thank you. Public Speak seventeen. There is only Diane Greiner, Joanne Ebert, and Dennis O'Brien from the public, but Dennis is really part of the group and Amanda. So Diane Greiner. But Diane, before you get started with public speaking, I haven't gone into public speaking. Diane, have the suckers run the stream?
Yes, the suckers run generally, they start April 1 through April 8, that time frame, and they run for about two weeks. I'm dying for this explanation, please. Did you see them? Because I did not see them this year. Yes, I did. Oh. I did good. I'm so sad. I'm sad. And actually, I I think they started a couple days early this year. Are are we are are we what's a sucker exactly? Are you still running? A white sucker,
Adrian. Everybody knows what a white sucker is. We're talking. Oh god, that's racist. Oh my god, Diane, please. Not when it comes to fish.
I'm formally objecting to this whole conversation. I'm talking to my children about the map. Come on. The white sucker is a fish
in Andover Lake, and many many ponds freshman ponds in early April, they spawn they go up the little tributaries. The one particularly by Scoop Brook, and the other one Chinny Brook, and they go by the thousands. And we've had the DEP out here electrofishing two or three times now, and they have determined that Andover Lake has more white suckers than probably any other lake in the state. You don't catch them when they're angling. The only time you really see them is when they're spawning. And when they are spawning, they're anywhere from 17 to 21 inches long. Mean, it's a significant sized fish. Holy kamal. And as you know, those streams are very shallow. So it's, they're very narrow, very shallow. It's a, it's a fun thing to see. And did they did they feel like they made a dent in our overpopulation? No, they're no problem to the, to the link part of the ecosystem is they're fine. It's very
indicative of a clean environment. And when they electro fish, all they're doing is shocking them so they can count them. It doesn't actually kill Yes. The
I've been on their boat with them twice because I was working for the DEEP. So I get invited to come out when they do Andover Lake. And it's like fishing with hand grenades, you know. They electrofishing, electrically charged the water, they come bubbling up, they end up scooping them. They have biologists that record
I'm going to make very clear that that statement is incorrect, because obviously you have never fished with hand grenades. It is way more fun than you realize.
M80s, M100s, all that sort of thing. But anyways, they do scientific research to figure out what the population of fish are in the lake and how healthy they are and all that. So they do it. They, like I think we've done it three times now. And
the reason I apologize to all the other members, the reason why I asked this is because I walked by those Brooks, primarily the one Missoula Road that I know I've seen them there before. And I have not seen them this year. I was hoping to take my one year old dog down there and let him play in the brook because we, you know, he was in a koi pond last week at one of the residents around the lake and I didn't mean for him to be there.
They come up by the thousands, and then you'll often see in early April the bald eagle at the end of that stream because they're all just swarming around, waiting to come up the stream to spawn and it's like fishing in a barrel, you know, and that's why I've I've brought up a couple of times now the bridge on Brook at the end of Verdoni when they replaced that back in the early 80s or something, they just put a pipe through straight, right? And now it's got a big a drop. So now the the suckers can't get up upstream any farther than that. So, when they redid the bridge at Scoop Brook, they reconfigured it so it didn't touch the the bottom of the the riverbed. So it's a U shaped. So when you're doing the other one, if you have to dig it up, you should do the same sort of thing to allow the suckers to do their thing. Do their thing. We'll do that.
We're going to be required to by the DEP and Corps of Engineers. But that's the difference between a $40,000 pipe and a $600,000
bottomless culvert. Well, I mean, still in meeting. I would make a motion that we nominate Diane Greiner as the official sucker representative for all Bridges going forward. Oh, goodness. Thank you.
I say the white sucker, the biggest thing is they are the janitorial staff of the lake. So, very informative. I did learn something today. Thank you. But that's not why I'm here.
Is that a public comment? Yeah. You got to save it for public comment. Public speak, we're in. I'm in. This is my time now.
I just wanted to make sure that I understood the monument park, the well. From what I understand, you've fixed the well at the behind the museum, going to dig a trench down to the monument park for the irrigation system. Yeah, abandon the well that's down there. Yep. Okay. I just want to make sure that somewhere down along here, you've got a spigot down there for watering the the Nope.
Nope. You must carry the water individually in one gallon buckets from the town hall from now on. Oh, cool is that? Yeah, and get some old people to do it.
But yeah, a spigot or two down there would be really good for doing the pots and things like that. I don't think you're counting on the irrigation system to do. You want a pipe for the sucker fish too? Yep, the well There's down too many suckers down there. It's still working.
Yeah, I mean, when a sprinkler system is done, actually, if we're if we're being, correct about this, what we will do is try to plan out. You can put more than one spigot location and it's fairly simple. You can put them in multiple locations for reuse.
Okay, and the well that you're abandoning, you're not going to do anything like fill it in with concrete or you're just going to leave it as is. Is that what would you like us to do? We spend a lot of time and effort finding that freaking well. It still works.
I know it. It works there. It was terrible. Family meeting. Family meeting. I didn't say that. I didn't. But
it was buried seven feet down. We we had to to locate it so we could get water down there. So we hate to see it.
We're not bearing it. We're just not using it at this point. Okay.
Just as long as it's in the future, in case.
But yes, when the we're going to put an irrigation system in Diane to answer your question and we will try to make appropriate locations for spigots as well. Absolutely. It's fairly easy. You just put it but they won't be standing spigots that are up. There'll be ground boxes that can just they can so when they're mowing, they can go right over them. It'll be a ground box you pull up and there'll be a spigot sitting there basically. Will they be able to get a bucket in there? Not a bucket, but you'll be able to get a hose. Will there be a hose there?
No, but I'm sure given the fact that we're going to have a pit, we could probably put a hose in the pit for you. Yes, someplace so that they can water those big pots. Yes.
Okay. Anything else? That was my big concern. All right, Joanne Ebert.
I just wanted to throw out a compliment to Adrian because I feel like he really has a good understanding of employee and HR members. He always brings up really good points. And lastly, I'm surprised at the big conversation and I don't have an opinion either way about opening town hall, but you have a school right next door that's full of town employees that I would think, you know, they're I'm I'm just getting the real worry about liability and everything. A lot of schools are open. I'm TAP employee. I've been I am shocked that I had to do last year. But again, I think the work's getting done. I don't have an opinion. This is just based on the conversation about liability and opening up. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. And Adrian appreciates all those compliments. Keep them coming. Anybody else that needs to speak? No? No? Good. Adjournment. Anybody want to make a motion? Make a motion to adjourn. I second. All right. All those in favor. Aye. Thank you very much. Aye. Hey, Eric. Thank you very much for joining us.
Eric, Wednesday the nineteenth, Can we do that for getting together for the negotiations? Hang on. In the morning preferably, like