Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting Part 1
April 12, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
The Board of Selection meeting for Monday, 04/12/2021 to order at 07:00. The first thing we're going to do is pledge allegiance. I pledge allegiance
the flag of The United States Of America and to republics for which it stands,
nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
Okay, we're going to move on to, public speak. First to speak is Shannon Lautumn. Shannon?
Thank you for allowing me to speak first. First. I would like to publicly apologize for my inappropriate and disrespectful words that were unintentionally captured while Mr. Murray was speaking at last Wednesday's Board of Finance budget workshop. I never would have said those words publicly. And in case it wasn't obvious, I had no way of knowing that I was not muted when I said them because I was on my phone in a car and not able to know that I was not muted. I have apologized to Chairman Brinker and now am apologizing to Selectman Murray. I have heard that there is a misunderstanding about my efforts to try to get the board clerk, Amanda Gibson, to delete my comment. That is not true. Knowing that the meeting was probably being recorded
and might be publicly posted, I asked that Ms. Gibson look into bleeping my swears because I was concerned that publicly broadcasting a video with obscenities might be an FCC violation and subject the town to fines. I took responsibility to Chairman Brinker and Ms. Gibson for my words, which if we were not in the time of Zoom, would not have been reflected in the meeting minutes. I have reflected quite a lot on what occurred and want everyone to know the following. I should have contacted Selectman Murray privately to express my upset about how he has publicly denigrated the Board of Education, and by extension me as its chairwoman for what he believes is how the Board of Ed has not done its job properly for six years, which is the time during which I have been the board chair. I have no issue with Selectman Murray's disagreeing with the Board of Education budget. My issue was with his consistent public attacks on our process and job performance, and including attacks on the superintendent, who has only been at her job for nine months. I have only one time in almost six years as an elected official ever publicly commented about any other Andover board or board member, and that was because I believed that selectmen were disrespectful to Superintendent Bruno. During at least three recent Board of Education public meetings, I have called for the public disrespect among Andover's three primary co equal boards, the boards of Selectmen, Finance, and Education, to stop the disrespectful public attacks, and it is not. And I certainly didn't aid in that endeavor last Wednesday, for which I am now apologizing.
Finally, First Electman Maguire informed me at about 05:30 this evening that he intends to entertain an agenda item to discuss me. So I am formally noting my objection to such on two grounds. Number one, one point five hours of notice is insufficient in case I wanted to have legal counsel attend the meeting, whether or not it was to occur publicly or in executive session. One point five hours does not meet the legal criteria to discuss an individual and add an agenda item about that individual. Number two, the Board of Selectmen has absolutely no legal authority over me, and therefore has no jurisdiction whatsoever to discuss me. I clearly have no control over what is said in public comment, and I will listen respectfully to all that is said. But I respectfully suggest that specifically adding an agenda item to discuss another elected official over whom the Board of Selectmen has no legal authority is improper. I also finally want to note that I was solely speaking as a private citizen in my unintended utterance that occurred in public comment last Wednesday, and I clearly was not speaking in my capacity as Board of Ed Chair. I therefore have no reason to be discussed in that I was not acting in my legal or public elected official capacity. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I apologize to Selectman Murray for my words, and I look forward to hearing your comments during public comment only. Thank you.
Thank you, Shannon. Okay. Next up we have Euler No,
no. Excuse me. Anson, you're Can you unmute yourself, Anson or Amanda, do you need to unmute him? Just unmute yourself, Floor. Elo. He's getting it.
You're almost there. It should be on the bottom left of your screen. Still can't hear you.
Antson, Everybody bottom was supposed to have three minutes. We're losing time. No, I'm teasing you. Come on. No. Anson, I will sit there and come back to you. When you figure it out, you let me know.
Would like I'll come back to him. Okay, let's go, Amanda. All right. Kathy Palazzi and Mike Palazzi. We're good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Diane Grenier? Nothing from my corner of the world, thank you.
Thank you. Oh, there's, Elore. I apologize, I did not know how to say your first name.
Can you hear me now? There you are. Okay. Sound is okay? Yes sir. Yes. Okay. Mr. Chairman, just two issues I'd like to bring to the attention of Board of Selectmen. The number one issue is the open burning and in a budget process by imposing charges and penalizing the large landowners that is somewhat a difficult situation and if the local ordinance is so enacted there should be a limit of some kind for large landowners say thirty, forty, 50 acres or so. Otherwise it's sort of a burden and creates further controversy. Second issue I have is the resident trooper if it comes up in a discussion that resident trooper need in handover I mentioned that a few years ago, it's quite essential is the troopers visibility in town. People driving by, they see Trooper now and then, they know what the state police is patrolling in town. It's very essential, and don't eliminate this in a budget. That's all I have to say, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Anson. We appreciate your comments. Yeah. Thank you, Anson. Okay. Jerry Wright. Just unmute yourself, Jerry.
How's that? That's good. There you are. I know how to do it. Just got a mouthful of chicken. I really want to thank Scott Passat for helping out with the Monmouth Park. He was kind enough to go down and out of his own pocket, lined it last week and fertilized it on Saturday and of course we had that heavy rain on Sunday so I went down and watered the park but I just wanted to share something with you. Scott I told you I was running a one inch hose it was three quarter and the half inch hose on a sprinkler I ran for five hours and I ran the three quarter inch hose for four and a half hours. Never ran out of water. So just want to let you know lost a little pressure but wanted the whole park and it steady with no problem. We're on the move with the brick sale. I think we I'll check with Carol tomorrow but probably picked at least 10 checks that came in today and at least that many have have gone online and and have donated a brick. So that's moving right along pretty good. I did go to the transfer station on Saturday and passed out 94 brochures and six more to Legion in the afternoon. And I'm going back to the transfer station again on Wednesday and Saturday. And then I'll be getting permission from Columbia to work theirs the following week. So we're right on board with it and
looking forward to Rob Bisson getting started hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jerry.
Thanks, Jerry. Very exciting. Okay, next up we have Jeff Murray. No. Oh, Jeff, you're speaking publicly. Yes, to
honor Shannon's wishes, I'm going to do this during public speaking. I'd like to issue a statement to everybody. Can everybody hear me? Everybody can hear me? Yes. I just want everybody to know regarding everything going on that I put a lot of thought in what I was going to say and how I was gonna respond to what happened Wednesday night. I appreciate everyone's thoughts and support for what happened. I truly do. First off, I don't want this innocent. I do not want this incident to become political. Many times when they do, it reflects poorly on our town and it undermines everything positive we are trying to accomplish. Like the work at the Veterans Monument Park and the plans for the community center. The bickering editorials
and articles in the River East against one another really needs to stop. And people really need to consider the damage done to the town when they get engaged in such behavior. It accomplishes nothing but to foster hate and division between all of us. In regard to what was said Wednesday night, I was probably just as shocked and stunned as everyone else who heard it. It was derogatory, inflammatory, and it was completely out of line. Unfortunately, things said in a public forum are captured in recordings and they are not easily retracted. Without exception, we must all take personal responsibility for our actions and what we say. I think everyone would agree the proper thing that should have been done after this incident was for Shannon to immediately reach out to me with an apology for what was said. But unfortunately, that didn't occur. Instead, she decided to call the town hall attempting to conceal or erase what she had said of issuing instead of issuing a personal apology to me. Even though what she said on Wednesday night really bothered me, the attempt to censor or cover up what she said to me was even more insulting. That action set a clear message to me that she was not remorseful for her remarks and had no respect for me whatsoever. It made a bad situation much worse. As members of the town who hold elective office, we must all be careful to hold ourselves to a higher standard and respect each other and the public at large. However, the comments made Wednesday were vile and disgusting. It was very troubling that the chair of the Andover Board of Education could not control herself and let her emotions run, which resulted in those hurtful words directed at me.
Because of her comments and subsequent actions to conceal what she said, Shannon Loudon has lost my respect and the respect of many parents, board members and residents of Andover. I feel you cannot be a respected leader anymore after the words and subsequent actions to censor what you said following this incident. What you did was inexcusable. You should have known better. I feel it would be in the best interest of the town if you voluntarily stepped down and resigned from your leadership position as the chair from the Andover Board of Education. I'm asking you to please stop for a moment and consider putting both the Andover Elementary Schools and town's reputation before yours and spare the townspeople any more subsequent negative press and embarrassment as a result of your recent actions. Thank you.
Thank you, Jeff. Next up we have Jerry Cremay and Anne Cremay. I think we're all set. Thank you. Thank you. Lucy Wilson. I'm all set. Thank you. Thanks, Lucy. Catherine Magaldi Lewis. I have nothing to add. Thank you.
Thank you. Melissa Liteska. All set. Thank you. Thanks. Next we have phone number (860) 798-3815. If you would like to speak press 6. Oh there you are.
Hi this is Leanne Hutchinson. I guess no comment at this time. I guess I'll just make a really quick comment having just said that I think, this feature of having public speak at all even though it didn't go well, to say the least last week, at least gives people a chance to address each other and be heard by others. Thank you. Thanks Leanne. Georgette Conrad? You're muted.
Okay. I guess I was very shocked to hear a professional person use that kind of language. I just think it's inexcusable. But if you think that way and that's what you normally do, it's going to come out in the wrong place. So I hope this doesn't happen again. Thanks, Georgette. Linda? What is she at? All set.
Linda Fish, is that you? Yep. I'm all set. Okay. Thank you. Yep. And then we have Nick Levine. He's from CBC. He's broadcasting for us, so we'll pass over him. Next is Kurt Dowling.
Thank you, Amanda. I just wanted to reiterate my email to first selectman Jeff Maguire copying the entire board of selectman in regards to Chief Ron Mike's abatement. That's it. Thank you. Diane Shakat. I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Dan Foran. I'm all set. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan. Okay, we have Boris iPad. All set, thank you. Thank you. Joanne Hubbard. Can you hear me on this one today?
Yes, for now we can. Go ahead. I'm going to be brief.
I also would like to take time to reflect on what was. Of course I was shocked. Comment publicly. I mean, that both parties they needed to say tonight. I do want to comment on one thing that Ms. Loudon said, and that was how people might be attacking the process that the Board of Ed has undertaken. I mean, I'm present at all these meetings and as you know, speaking up for what I believe in.
Joanne, we are having a hard time hearing you. I'm sorry. I will, I'll call in later. To
wait. Okay. And please, this goes to everyone. I just wanted to restate that if you'd like any of your comments included in public speak in the minutes just email them over to me. I'm going to leave my email in the chat. Thanks Joanne. Let me just make sure we didn't miss anyone. Dennis O'Brien, would you like to participate? Not at this time.
Thank you. Thanks for being here. Okay. I believe that's it. Okay. Thank you very much everyone for participating. Adrian would like to speak. Yeah. Public speak. Go ahead, Mr. Mandeville.
Yeah. You know, I have no problem honoring Shannon's wishes that we have comments outside the meeting. It is not the board of selectman's purview to address this directly. It's by charter and by statute, this actually falls on the board of education. And I think my issue with this as a citizen, but also someone who's on a board speaking for myself is that, I was called out in the paper, you know, for just talking, you know, talking to someone, certainly not swearing at them. And I just find it ironic that then that person, you know, is is, seeking forgiveness for something that was so egregious, I can't even describe it. And I think that is the problem. Like there's the hypocrisy
of this is just deafening. But I have faith in the board of education as a whole. And hopefully they can address it as they're the only ones that can. So I don't believe this is the first time that this has happened with Ms. Loudon. You know, she's had an issue in the past with speaking, know, even at her own board at residence and saying things that were inappropriate. So hopefully this will get fixed. That's it. Thanks, Adrian.
Okay. I'd like to say something too, please. I I hope that whatever happens from here, I'm tired of the going back and forth in the newspaper so I hope that this will stop and just like Adrianne I'm I'm confident that you know the board it's in the board of Ed's hands and leaving it up to them to decide what they need to do but I hope that from now on we can be positive in the newspaper because we don't need any more of this back and forth stuff. So that's all I wanna say.
Jerry, you can speak. Let's go. We'll we'll keep going.
There we go. On a good note, I spoke to Abstaining Connecticut today and they told me that it looks like depending on what the town does with the well and the power that we're going to be a recipient for $7,500 grant. So towards the Monument Park and that's the long irrigation whatever it is it all hinges on the meeting tonight so please let me know if that's something that the town's going to fund. If not I'll lose the grant or I'll get a reduction in the grant. Okay but it's there and the talent to move forward with it and I'm good to go. Thank you.
Is there anyone else who'd like to speak? Scott, let's ask you, do you want to say something? Enough said.
I agree with Scott. Well, no, I won't. I'll sit there and go. Shannon did call me out for reaching out to her late in the day. I did try to call Shannon to sit there and talk to her, and I told her specifically the Board of Selectmen has no jurisdiction over the Board of Education and that this was not a board of selectmen issue with the Board of Education or attempting to influence the Board of Education related to their membership. My issue is very simply the public discourse that is taken at meetings and how members of various boards deal with each other. And it's extremely important to me that we at least have a
certain level of decorum that is kept at all meetings. I hope as we move forward, we can all sit there and rise to a higher standard, let's say. That is really what needs to occur. So since this will not be on the agenda and all of the members of the Board of Selectmen have spoken during public speak, I would like to move on with our meeting and do things that need to get done for the town. Are we all ready? Everybody? We good? All right. Additions and deletions to the agenda. Members of the Board of Selection, what would you like to add to our agenda that is not here?
I would like to add, I'm not sure where it would be appropriate, but I'd like to discuss the reopening of the town hall. Okay. Who wants to second that? Seconded. Okay.
All those in favor? All those opposed? All those abstaining members?
Okay. I'm having a hard time opening the board agenda. Do we have an executive session for any negotiations on there? No, we do not. I'd like to add that, please.
Anyone want to second that? I'll second. Those in favor, let's talk about this one. We really need to do this today, Adrian?
Yeah, I mean, Eric Eric's looking to move forward with his discussions. So I do believe he calls for that on Friday. I'm not sure if he did or not, but that was that was what he had relayed to me that he was gonna do. Okay.
All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? All those that abstain? Anything else that we need to add to the agenda? Yeah, I'd like to add 9F, Andover Riltshire Bridge.
The other item that we added, Paula's, let's add that one as 9F, and Jeff will add yours as nine gs. That is Dennis has his hand up. Jeff?
Sir. I just wanted to suggest if it's not on the agenda and I didn't see it there that we had an item to finally approve the notice and the date for the annual town budget meeting. Dennis, that should be item 9A town budget discussion. Oh, you're right. I stand corrected.
All right. Paula, can I ask you that your nine F is related to just so I can type it in here? Oh,
reopening of the town hall. Reopening town hall. I thought Jeff had nine F.
No, it's not G. So Jeff has Bridge Bridge discussion or bridge rail bridge over the rail trail or rail trail bridge. The Andover Bridge. Let's just go Andover Bridge discussion. Okay anything else
I have a question so Kurt brought up the abatement I don't know what the timing of that is if we can put that tonight or next month is it? It's not that's not on there, is it? It is not on here as an agenda item.
Eric is is that a timing issue or can we talk about that next month?
I don't know if there's any specific timing issue. The question is simply whether the Board of Selectmen wants to pursue that.
Paula, there is no timing issue with that. It's just something that needs to get into the works to to happen.
Okay. Reason why I'm asking is it looks like we've got a lot to talk about tonight. So if we pushed off to next month, I didn't want to hold anything up. So That that'll be fine. Okay. Thanks, Kurt.
The the burning that while I was was asking about, is that a ordinance that's passing through a board now or is it something other?
Adrian, the board of selectmen at a meeting two meetings ago approved a fee for the boarding official to issue permits.
Yep. Oh, he's talking about the fee. Yeah. The fee is the I thought he was talking about it because he said it as though it was a penalty
for open doors. He feels it's a penalty because we didn't charge before and now we're charging. So that's unfair. Ah, Okay. Thank you for clarification.
Okay. Are there any other items that need to be placed on the agenda? So we have three items, reopening town hall, Andover Bridge discussion, and an executive session to discuss union negotiations. I know the first one got approved. Did the second one get voted on, Amanda? I'm having trouble recalling a vote on that one. Yes? I think we voted on the The third one did not. Did not. So the Andover Bridge discussion. So does someone want to second that? I'll second.
Okay. So I'll second that. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? All those who abstain? Adrian, are you going to vote anyway? Yeah I will vote in favor sorry.
That's okay I had to run through all the options just to make sure. I'm still trying to read the
board agenda. I'm sorry it's not opening correctly. Was trying it on my cell phone. So. No,
Mr. Anson addressed everyone because you know, he has a 100 acres and he burns a lot. So, you know, it's not the same as a homeowner who has one acre burns once a year. He has a 100 and he might burn a dozen times a year.
Maybe we Scott, should think before we move on, do you want to add it to the agenda? I guess we could because I think that there is an issue with it, kind of. Okay, then let's go. Nine gs, nine h. Burning permits. Does someone want to second that? I'll second it. All
All those in favor of adding it to the agenda? Aye. All those opposed? No. All those abstaining? No. Okay. So, that would be 9H. Okay. Anything else, anyone? Okay. Board and commission presentations. Eric, I did not see anything in our packet that accurate? There are none. Okay. So, let's move on. We're going to move on to Item five, appointments. I did not see anything there in our packet. There are none. Okay. Item six, resignations. 6A, Tim Higley has resigned from public works. Correct. So, Tim is taking retirement. We need to publicly thank Tim for his long service to the town. I appreciate all his hard work. I know Eric was down there last Friday, his last day. He was representing the town on our behalf, making sure that Tim enjoys his retirement, which he may not be retiring, but that's okay. You. Item seven, the town administrator's report. Eric.
Okay, first I'm gonna go through this very briefly. Are, because you've all had this in your packet, we are spiking again a little bit in terms of total COVID cases within the town. As of today, we're running about an infection rate of about twenty five per one hundred thousand per day. So we're certainly down from our peak, but we're definitely not down to zero. The change to the finance office, in my report, I said that the software is being installed this month. Software is now scheduled for install tomorrow. So we'll have admins on the server and starting the transition tomorrow with the intention of going live with it as our primary server when we go to the new fiscal year in July. The other thing I wanted to say in the resident state trooper line, there was a bit of a social media uproar in the Lake Region about a stalker or somebody abducting a child or something like that. You know, I discussed that today with the resident state trooper, you know, there was apparently a guy driving around the lake that did hit on several women in the lake. The troopers talked to him, but nothing really came out of that.
So far, we're hoping to do interviews for the replacement for Tim Higley sometime next week. Right now we've had 15 or 16 applicants, but we don't really have very many qualified applicants. So we haven't certainly closed that yet, but the interviewing hopefully we'll get to interviewing next week and find a reasonable candidate. Did we reach out to previous candidates or did they reapply? Yes, we did reach out to previous candidates and some did reapply. Okay, great.
So we have done a bunch of pothole filling in the last week. That seems to be a very frequent complaint the last month or so. And we are doing a lot of equipment maintenance. Many of you have seen we're going around cleaning basins and waterways right now with the vacuum truck. I did get one complaint that they started too early in the morning and disturbed somebody, but you know, that's life, I guess. And then the last thing that we as a board, or you all as a board need to discuss at some point, I will be presenting. We've started looking at inspection services for a bridge on Merritt Valley and another small bridge on Lake Road. And we're looking at various different alternatives. And the question really is how much We know we need to get them evaluated. And the question is how much to spend now, whether we spend the money for an evaluation and then essentially both an evaluation
and a recommended repair? Or do we just try to just do a straight state bridge inspection on those two? I hope to have more details for you next month. I'm still waiting on one of the three proposals to come back apples to apples with the others. Since the last meeting, we had our septic system inspected at the town hall and the fire station and everything staked. So when we pick a surveyor for that, we'll be able to do as builts you know, for the community center, if that location ultimately is chosen. The other thing, when we left at the last meeting, we had decided we were going to definitively do a new well at the Veterans Monument. We've looked at that now with multiple well drillers, and both of them have indicated we can't drill where we wanted to drill because of the overhead power
situation. And basically we would have to disconnect the power to Scott Yeoman's house for four or five days while we did this. And he's indicated that he's none too excited about the prospect of us cutting this power to drill a new well. So if we end up drilling a new well, we'll end up having to drill it up on top above the plateau, not below where it drops off. We probably are going to want to drill it, do a couple of test pits there before we do it, because we know there's a lot of ledge there. And what we don't know is whether we can fit a vault in. As an intermediate, we're going to take the existing well that's there, which we know has had sediment problems, but we don't really know how bad that is. I found the old well report from the mid 80s when that was drilled.
So we're going to do basically a yield test on that well, and then submit it for water quality data. One of the things that has come back, because I know the board had indicated that they would be interested in a water fountain there. Apparently the regulatory hurdles for outdoor water fountains are pretty significant. So if we're gonna pursue that, we're gonna have to be prepared to spend some fairly significant money to make that happen if that's really a board priority. So that's essentially what we're gonna do. We're pursuing two things. One, we're still getting quotes for what and where the well would be if we drilled the new one. And second, we're looking at the existing well and just making sure we rule that out before we go ahead and drill a third well since that seems to be our other option. We're actually finally close to the final close out of Times Farm Bridge. I know you've all heard that from me for two years and you heard it from Joe before me, but this time I think it's actually close. So sorry that's taken forever, but it looks like we've got the contractor on board, DOT on board, and our engineering rep all kind of agreeing on what the final closeout will be. So that's good. We've resubmitted two drawings to the state DOT. They had finally issued us a letter back saying all the things we needed to resubmit before they would actually give us a letter saying that later they would maybe grant us an encroachment permit. So we're in the process of redoing that. And the last thing is I've spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what we're going to do regarding
town wide alarm and monitoring. Some of that information is in your packet. And what I really wanted to question from the board on that is how do you wanna proceed? Because it's a little clear, unclear. My suggestion is I give everything to CAP along with a recommendation and you let CAP make the decision, and then it goes to Board of Finance to approve the funds. But if you wanted to do those two and then come back to the Board of Selecting for final approval, I'm happy to do that. So I just need to know what you guys, where you guys are going with in terms of that. And that's basically it. I threw some pictures in there at the end of the report. You'll notice one was the picture from the early 60s installing the culvert by or on Lake Road by Basola. And one of the guys standing in the culvert doing the work is the first selectman, interestingly enough. So not this first selectman, but the first selectman of the time. So I thought that was an interesting historical look. And the other thing I think we probably ought to do is in one of the windstorms, the shed roof over the recycling area at the transfer station got torn off. It was a Boy Scout project, fifteen years ago that wasn't done particularly well. So I'm trying to get a couple estimates on what it will cost to repair that.
And that's everything I have unless you have questions for me. Eric, do we currently
have I know we talked about a while back, I don't remember seeing who we had picked, but do we have somebody for carpentry for small repairs that we could just kick that over to? Because it didn't seem like that would be a very expensive fix.
No, I don't think it's gonna be a very expensive fix. I am using one of the local Andover residents that's a town carpenter
to take a look at that. Can we also while we're at it since we're going into the rainy season can we realign the gutters at the town hall? They just need the brackets need to be adjusted so that they can That
was supposed to have been done already. That is in the works. Okay, same same contractor? Same contractor.
Okay, all right. Eric, the roof over the recycling area, is that something that the town crew can do?
Theoretically sure. They're more than capable to do it. But right now we have more work than they can practically do. That's not in their kind of sweet spot.
Yeah, they're gonna have the correct tools either. I mean, it's a great idea, but it'll go much quicker if somebody has the correct tools and could just bang it out. I mean, that's a really quick fix. Eric, the truck has arrived.
The truck has arrived. It's been in service for a while. I put a picture in there too. We put the logos on the truck, so it looks pretty good. We've been out using that truck doing patching.
Okay. I will speak for Ms. Grigner. The repair or the installation of that bridge will not fly now since they dammed up all the water and stopped everything. I blew that up because I was extremely interested to see what they were doing. It was a very interesting install picture. Is that in the museum or is that in the tunnel? That is in the Andover Museum. There you go. Okay. Then
About the bridge inspections, doesn't the state do that? Eric, why are we reaching out to private companies to inspect our
The last time the bridge, the small bridge, so there's two categories of bridges, 20 feet and over, 20 feet and under. The last time our bridges that are 20 feet and under were inspected by the state was 1991. So, they get around to it every forty years or so. And we know those both have some fairly significant issues. And basically what's happened is our town engineer has said he doesn't have enough insurance coverage to be willing to give us a PE opinion on both of those bridges. So we're kind of stuck with using a company that does, that's insured for and does bridge inspections on a regular basis. So we've actually talked to and walked it with three companies and got a couple of different, all three actually gave us reasonable proposals. The problem is they're not really apples to apples comparisons. And so what I did is I reached out to one of the contractors and asked them, well, I reached out to two contractors and both tried to get more information from both of them. So I had more even comparisons between three. And I sat down with Brandon Hanfield acting as our town engineer and reviewed all of the data with him.
So he's kind of his, He would feel most comfortable based on talking to all of them going with Cardinal Engineering. But I feel like I wanna get a full picture before I recommend any decision to the board. I mean, the other real problem is I don't necessarily want to spend a ton of money on inspection if we can't afford to fix it. Before
you do that, can you explain to the board what the value of this is? Is this inspection going to assist us to get state funding? Is this inspection going to do something other than tell us we have a problem bridge? What's it going to do? Yeah.
So Cardinal is proposing two things, two bridges, two different approaches. The first bridge is the one on Merritt Valley Road. And there's two questions. It's an old stone, a 100 plus year old stone bridge. And the two end walls, the parapets are both suspect. So the first for that bridge, what would probably end up happening is they would do a certified bridge inspection on that bridge and then get you up through the design phase so that you could apply to the state for matching funds to do that bridge. The problem is that the state still only gives you 50% and that could be a fairly expensive fix. A lot cheaper than replacing the bridge completely, but probably not inexpensive. And it's hard to know exactly how much that would be until we got through an actual inspection and got a set of But in other words, that would give us enough data to go to apply to the state for funding. The other bridge, you really didn't feel like the damage to the bridge warranted either A, a full blown inspection or B, going to the state for funding because there's a lot of things attached to and a lot more difficulty added when you apply to the state for funding. He thinks that one he can give you, give us basically
detailed inspection and then basically a repair methodology that we can either do ourselves or farm out. So two different bridges, two different approaches based on the severity of the bridges right now. The concern with Merit is the parapet walls aren't really structurally attached. I mean, if you look at them, some lean in and some lean out, and you can see fairly extensive cracks. And the issue is if somebody hits them, they'll probably go through the parapet wall and end up in the river below, which it would be an issue. So that's really what their recommendation is, which I think is probably
lines up with what we need the best. Where's the location of the other bridge?
The other one is right up the street. If you take a left onto Lake Road from Merritt, and you go straight up about a quarter of a mile, a third of a mile, that bridge right there.
And do you have state ratings on these bridges from previous inspections? From forty years ago.
So, that's the last time the states looked at those bridges. Well, not forty years ago,
So, nineteen ninety thirty years ago. Yeah, that's the last time any of these have been inspected. Yep.
Do they have a intention of doing it again soon? Have you inquired?
No, they typically do not inspect anything under 20 feet, although apparently randomly they do it in some cases. Why in 1991 they decided to inspect all the small bridges in the state, I don't know, but they did at that point, and they haven't since.
They were probably having problems with the railroad bridges, they just got on with it. All right. Anything else for Eric? Anybody? Okay. Let's go into item eight, old business. First item on this agenda line is alarm monitoring for town buildings. Do you wanna talk about it, Eric? I mean, many more than you talked about it.
So the only real question I have is where do you want the Board of Selectmen to be in the decision making process? Do you want the CIP to make the recommendation and the Board of Finance to approve the funding? Where do you want to fit in the puzzle?
Be really honest, your quotes were all over the board. Even if you went with the low bidder, it looked like the low bidder didn't even say anything about equipment installation, it just talked about monitoring service.
Right. So first of all, you have incomplete information. It was actually my intention to only give you the summary and to give it to you after I'd given it to CIP and use CIP to look at it. I didn't realize Amanda had put all of that in the packet. So I can either give you a lot more information and you can wait a month or you can get to it after CIP.
Your call. Well, make us the final stop for this. Put it on next month's agenda if you need to. Okay. Anybody else have any questions related to the alarm monitoring?
I would just suggest that maybe CIP rank them in the order of preference. Okay. Okay. 8B Chamberlain Pond Cleanup. Eric?
I wasn't the one who wanted that. Jeff, can you address that? Yeah, that's getting discussed tomorrow night at the wetlands meeting, so.
Okay. There's no ice now, we can't clean it up anyway. We'll have to wait till next year.
Right. 8c, library mural vandalism restitution update. I see there's dates for all of the three participants, and this will be on our agenda next month, I assume. Okay. 8D Community Senior Center Building Committee update.
I don't have anything other than what I relayed in my report.
Jeff or Scott or Adrian, do any of you have anything you want to talk about related to it? Okay. No. All right. Nine, new business. 9A, a town budget discussion. Okay,
so I sent to you late a revised resolution that the town's attorney had asked me to pass off to you to, because although you've motioned that there be a budget meeting on May 6, you haven't actually made a resolution. And given the changes in the governor's executive orders, this should comply with the rules that are in place as of today for holding a budget meeting.
Does someone wanna make that motion? Okay, let's find the motion.
Would you like me to read it? Or I can share my screen. Hold on. That was your late email, Eric? Yep. Correct.
I'll make the motion then. Hang on. I don't see it in there, Adrian. That's why I was hesitating. Eric, I would recommend you read it.
Okay, annual town budget meeting resolution resolved, comma, that the annual town budget meeting for the town of Andover be held at the Andover Elementary School in the gymnasium, 35 School Road on Thursday, 05/06/2021 at 7PM. Said meeting to be held in person with face masks required for all attendees. In addition to six feet of social distancing per person, except for those living together in a residential unit as more fully set forth in the proposed town of Andover notice of twenty twenty one-twenty twenty two annual budget meeting prepared and submitted by the town clerk of the town of Andover and approved by the town's attorney. So moved by Selectman Blank dated Andover, Connecticut this blank day of blank 2021.
Okay, I will make a motion to put forth what Eric has just read to us. So Amanda, my motion will be that the text of that reading. Anyone want to second that? I'll second that. Any discussion on that meeting motion? All those in favor? Aye.
Opposed? No. We're going to move on to the next item.
Eric, does the Board of Selectmen have to sign that resolution? Yes. I don't think you
as written, you don't all have to sign it. Dennis, do you have a? Well, Carol would like you to come in and sign it. I mean, I, it may not be necessary. It's got to be published. It's got to be sent out to, you know, under the Charter's got to be sent out to everybody. And I think she'd like to have your all of your signatures on it. And I think it's a good practice and whether or not it's legally necessary, I'm not sure. But one signature would probably do it that of at least that of the first selectman. But I think I would recommend that you all sign it if you can. I think she'd like you to come into the office and do it when you can sometime this week.
Hopefully we'll all get in there. Will make sure that I get in there and sign that once Carol has it ready. 9B, COVID funding update. Eric, you provided the state numbers to us.
I provided the numbers we got from the state. I got an update from Martin Haft, who's one of the undersecretaries of the state, but it really didn't have any additional details that we didn't already know. So there still has not been any real guidance on what their actual expectations are. It's kind of up It's very ambiguous what they're asking for. I know both CCM and Cost Council of Small Towns have formally requested from the state and federal government that they provide more details about what that money can actually be spent on. As soon as I have more details, I'll give them to you. I'd hope to have more by today than I do, but I don't.
All right, 9c, updates to Veterans Monument Park. So we had talked about this with Jerry's public speak. Scott, thank you very much for contributing and doing all that work for Monument Park. It's appreciated.
You're welcome. About the other well, Eric, the one that you and I tested? Is there anything that anybody can do with that well? I thought that you and I checked it and it was a good well.
I mean, the water quality seemed okay, but I mean, it's a shallow well and we ran it dry easily. It's in the groundwater, is it gonna be sufficient? I don't know. I'm not a well guy. I can't evaluate the quality of that That
well was running dry was the issue exactly. So it couldn't sustain draw.
I don't think that that was the issue ever other than when me and Eric were down there, Adrian. I think that the pressure switch went bad on a number of occasions because of its location underground.
But it was literally running dry was my understanding from previous grounds committee. That was doing a lot of the work. They had issues with it, with it running out.
I mean, when we measured the flow rate of that, we got somewhere around, last fall, got somewhere around two or two and a half gallons per minute, what the draw rate on that was. So if you're planning on putting sprinklers in, that equates to one to two heads. I don't think that's really sufficient to be running that if you really think you need 30 to 60 heads in there, that means you're gonna have to have 20 zones or 25 zones. And to me that just doesn't seem practical.
I thought we checked it Eric, it was five or 10 gallons a minute.
I mean, flow five gallons a minute from the pump, but then what does it run? It runs six minutes and then it runs dry and you wait fifteen minutes and then when you measure what the rate is at which you can, not what the pump is capable of, but what you can get every minute without running the water table down, we ended up with around two and a half gallons a minute. Now that's seasonal because it's a shallow groundwater well. So I'm sure at some times of the year, the performance is much better. But you know, when do you need to water? You need to water when it's not raining very much. Yeah. Well,
Eric, I hadn't seen it yet. Can you still get me a copy of the plans for the sprinklers. We an estimate from Ron, didn't we, on that?
Yeah. I I know I've seen a hand drawn sketch of what he was planning on doing. I'm not absolutely sure I have a copy, but I'll see. Well, what exactly did you need Adrian?
Well, I mean, we should have had, we got three bids on that, didn't we? Because that, I mean, that's one of the things we're paying for. I I know on items that Ron was donating, we were not doing that. But if we're paying for items, we still have a town policy to follow that we getting three bids. Let's see what's on that bid. And I thought we had also gotten one from our current person that was currently servicing our current stuff. That we need to get three bids total.
Are we providing sprinklers? Because we weren't talking about providing sprinklers. We're talking about providing a well, we're talking about providing all electrical work.
Well, then we need some clarification because my understanding was, if that's coming out of the funds that are being donated to the town, it's still the town writing the check out of that account. Still have to follow the same policy.
No, no. Ron and Jerry are taking care of that part of it. We're responsible for the well.
Okay. Just to be clear, my understanding is that the town the town is cashing checks, reporting them in an account because that that's town property down there. I know this is Jerry's baby, but it's still town property, right? It's state property that the town is managing, right? Correct? It's town property now. Okay, town property now. So we're still writing checks from the town to this stuff because the money is coming to the town in the name of the monument under this fund. So we still have to follow the same procedures. We can't just I know Ron was donating some things and that's fine.
But beyond that, we still have to cover our butt. Paula. Is exactly what we talked about. I'm pulling up the notes. Wasn't
Ron and Jerry responsible responsible for for the the irrigation?
Yeah, but I understand what Adrian's saying. He's saying he still wants to go through the same process because no matter who's giving the money, if we're writing it out of the town account, he's he just wants to cover our basis and go through the same process. So he's just Adrian, are you saying you just want two more bids just to cover it? But we're still Absolutely. I mean, listen.
Again Fine. We'll sit there and get the bids. I Eric, let's sit there and get the bids. This is done.
Anything that the town is going to end up writing the check for out of that account, if it's money that Jerry has raised separately or money that has come into Jerry directly, then it doesn't matter. I think it was separate money that he said that he had before the brick thing came up. Okay. But if it's coming out of the brick thing, then we've gotta we have to have the bids. Isn't that the way you understood it, Paula? Yes.
Well, let's just cover our parts just in case. And if it comes out of the if it if it not coming out of the brick money, then it doesn't matter. And Jerry can choose whatever contractor he so chooses. But if it's coming out of the brick money, then we have to at least have bids. I'm I'm 99
sure it's coming out of the brick money. Okay. Well Okay.
Jerry still on the call? Can we ask He is not, but we will sit there and get that done. It's not going to impact us other than some more work for Eric. Sorry, Eric. But I'll blame that on Adrian.
You can blame it on me, but I I did ask for this. I asked for this proposal twice now at a pre our previous meeting and then also at the walk through. So this is another What looking are for? Because I'll I'll find out. You want We had one's proposal on the table. I thought we had a previous one as well. But if we don't, then we still need two more.
So you want a drawing of how what what the spring Oh, Ron had a proposal on the table
for I I think he said 60 heads or whatever. Let's we still need to see what that number is and what the proposal is. If there's a drawing included, great. If there's not, that's fine too. Whatever. And then in addition, you're asking for two more two more companies. Correct. If we're gonna write a a check from the town to anyone, then our policy has always been from board of finance, board of selectmen, everybody, we get three bids. We're doing it for the for the alarm system. We're doing it for the well. We're doing it for electrical.
But once again, we're starting with not really even knowing, we're starting with a generic concept, sprinklers in an area, and we're expected to get bids. Have we defined what full area we're sprinkler in? Have we defined what flow rate Ron was down there, Ron
said that it went from the bottom of the stairs all the way down to where the electrical box was.
But my point is that if you're going to go out and solicit proposals, the very first thing we should do is we decide on what criteria we want. And unfortunately, I know nothing about sprinkler systems other than water comes out of them and you waste a lot of water and the grass gets greener.
That's why, do you remember how we had the same issue with the alarm system, right? Right.
So Now we have a total mess where we have completely different quotes. And I've spent weeks trying to get the contractors to give me somewhat similar quotes. Right. And I still can't evaluate them. And none of us even know whether these systems are gonna pass inspection with the fire marshal until they submit actual designs,
which they won't do unless they have the contract. Well, part of the contract, I mean, that's pretty simple that you put it in the contract that it has to pass the fire marshal approval. I mean, that's, you know, and that's standard procedure. I don't pay for a bathroom unless the plumber passes inspection, you know, it is what it is. So I guess my point is that I understand it's a pain, but that's part of contracting sometimes is that, you know, you have to, because there's different technologies out there, and there's different methodologies for doing things, you have to weigh one against the other. Welcome to my day every day. Eric,
you made it clear you don't wanna use design professionals to do the design. You want each contractor to give you an independent proposal.
So gotta live with what you get. Because the design professional that you were picking Eric if we're gonna pick an argument about this was no longer in the industry on a day to day basis and was only looking at one methodology for doing it. And now you have figured out that there was absolutely more than one methodology isn't there?
I don't want to pick a fight on that. This
is an item that we're going to move on from because we're going to try to get this done. Paula, we'll get with Jerry, we'll figure out Jerry's situation. Scott, let's sit there and get with Ron Bissam, trying to figure out what we can do for a sprinkler system and let's bring in some sprinkler manufacturers
or some- Ron said he already put something out there. I am here to make sure Ron
has a design, a layout, we'll sit there and get it from Ron and then we'll try to sit there and take that to some other installers and see what the pricing would be. Is anybody objectionable to getting three different quotes?
No, someone's going to have to initially lay the whole thing out and come up with a map and design. Ron did it twice already. I doubt that you're going to convince him to do it again or something that he's going to give to the jury. If the wrong authority does it, where's the drawing? Yeah, that's all I think Adrian is asking for. Where is the drawing? I will call
Jerry tomorrow. I will have a conversation with him. I will ask him and make sure we understand whether the money is coming from the bricks or what and I will ask him if Ron provided these drawings or a proposal and I will ask him to send it to us again so I will take will take note. I think he he he probably gave us a proposal, but no drawing.
Well, a proposal was fine. I don't know that we need a drawing because it may get laid out differently on the day they go out there and do it. It depends on are there any other obstacles? Where do we ended up laying out our stuff? I mean, those things play into it.
Okay. Eric, Eric, can I ask you a question? When left that meeting, was the town responsible for when we left that meeting? The well, the electrical,
the vault. That's it. Yes. But the problem is, Scott, is that when Jerry says responsible for, he's in my understanding is those checks from the brick pavers are being sent to the town to deposit into an account that is then spent on this. So those checks are being written from that account, right? But it's a town account. All right, let's get past this. I
will have a conversation with Jerry and I will ask him the money that he raised. What is that covering for the project? Right. I'll take notes and I will share it with everyone and I'll ask him also about Ron's proposal and I will get that to everyone. Okay. And then from there we can look into two other companies. Okay. Paula, thank you very much. You're very welcome. Thanks, Paula. Day Parade Plans. Eric, hi there. Hello. As
far as I know, so I talked to Amy Knox today, who was on the committee, and I reached out to John McCall, who I haven't gotten back. My understanding is they're planning on doing a car parade similar to last year, because we're probably not likely to be able to get any bands or any of the things to do a traditional parade. So that is the basic plan that they're going for. I need to get to John McCall because I need to figure out what I need to get in terms of whether we need more flags or what we need for the event. Okay.
Yeah, the last I heard I was on an email about a month ago and John emailed the committee and included me and I told him I would help out as best as I can and you know have him talk to Eric about what we need to do for flags but he was planning on doing the car parade so.
Okay All right. And 9E, Building and Land Use Department.
Okay. Administrative assistant, I assume we'll deal with that in executive session as you've asked. I put information in your packet about the online permitting system. It is not the final contract. Dennis O'Brien has reviewed it. He's given me a number of suggestions and I've gone back to the contractor and asked them to incorporate those suggestions. It's not a very lucrative contract on their part, so I'm not sure how much they're gonna be willing to go back to their town's attorney or their attorney and actually modify it, but we'll see. And we'll go from there. It's been, it's gone through both CIP and Board of Finance at this point.
Just so everybody understands the charge for the online permitting system is $10 per permit?
Basically, yes. Okay. There are a couple of different possibilities, ways we can collect. I suggested that since the town wouldn't want to pay for it, the way we would actually do it was just simply charge every applicant and pass the cost straight on through to the people applying for the permits.
And then I suggested that we put it out there in a Facebook post. We're not going to reach everyone, but to put it out there somehow so people are updated and they know that they can go to the website to do that.
But it's we're still a few months away from implementing that but still they've got to create all the pages and there's a lot of background stuff and we don't even have a contract with them yet. So it'll be a while before, but you know, we will notify the public that that's in place and we'll change our website to accommodate that. Eric,
do we have an older computer that can just do basic web access for this so that we could always set something up for us. If a resident comes in then finds out that they're supposed to do this online, Is there something we can set up so we have a station downstairs for them to be able to do this right there in the town hall if they needed to? I think we will probably end up having to put one in.
Okay. Because you're right, there's a certain fraction of the population doesn't own a computer or a phone and will not have the ability to do that.
Yeah, just it would make sense to have a station and town hall they can use. Yep, Concur. Okay. Driveway bombs?
So you have some information in your packet from a company called the Driveway Guys who have asked that we consider allowing them to put in a permanent performance bond instead of paying individual $500 bonds for the driveway convenience to them? My personal opinion would be no, simply because they're a pretty horrendous contractor to deal with in general. And half the time they don't pull permits anyway for the driveways they work until we catch them. So I don't necessarily feel like doing anything to make their lives easier. But maybe that's not an appropriate attitude either.
The state requires a $10,000 bond for ingress and egress onto their roadways.
It does, yep. A $10,000 bond only costs, I think in general, the last time I did, the last one I did was 150. Yeah, somewhere less than $200 Yeah, it's like 150 a year.
So is there something we need to do to increase the driveway bonds or to make it?
So right now what we require is we require every single time you do a driveway apron onto the town road, you pay a $500 cash bond to us. We take your money and we keep it. And when we're satisfied that it's done correctly, we release the bond and give you your money back. That's what we do now. There's two problems with that. What if they really screw something up $500 isn't really enough. Nothing. Correct a major damage. On the other hand, so requiring companies to post a much larger bond is advantageous. On the other hand, then if they screw something up and you gotta go through the bond company, my guess is it would take you quite a while to actually get money out of them. Whereas if you've got a cash bond, you just don't give them their bond back. So there's advantages and disadvantages both ways.
Yeah, the other issue is if they didn't pull a permit, then you have to prove that they did the work. Adrian, in a bond situation, what's the difficulty?
Three to six months and the bond company has the option of picking their own contractor to do the repairs. So, you know, it's not, the biggest thing is, you know, proving that the work was done incorrectly, and, you know, proving, you know, it wasn't their guy was the work done incorrectly. And then after that, it's not too bad. It's just you know, they drag it out a little bit. But three to six months, I think is on average. So and then I don't have a problem with a bond with them only in the sense that at this point, at this point, we don't have any if they're only coming in and pulling permits,
when we catch them, we would be better off having the performance bond. That's right, exactly. Right, have a $10,000 performance bond, which is what the state requires, and what we should require for commercial applications,
for commercial companies. They wanna make it available to you, Eric, then you should take it from them. Yeah. You have a problem with them. Right, then
Whether they pull the permit or not, if a resident, if we go buy a driveway that's freshly done, we have a problem with it. The resident says driveway guys did it. Then we go to them and say, hey, now we've got it, the bond's already on file, you know? Right. It may be a better option for us to give it because one of the ways they do their work is they go to a town, let's say they come and they do my driveway. They send their guys around to all the driveway say Boston Hole Road and go, hey, you want your driveway done? We're already here. You want your driveway done? We're already here. Because the biggest expense in paving is moving the equipment from A to B every time you got to do the work, right? After that, it's payroll. So if they're already in the area to be able to bang out a bunch of driveways, it's a great working model. It's hard for a town though, because they're not gonna wait two or three days. They're already there. They're doing the driveway the next day. They don't care. That's the issue, you know.
So. Okay, so Eric, can you sit there and come back the next meeting and tell us exactly what you want to do with the driveway guys? Make them post a $10,000
cash bond and every time they do something without a permit, charge them $500. That's my approach.
Well, can't do the second part, but you can do the first part. The second part, you'd actually have to have an ordinance on file or something that applies to them. What would their permit be for the driveway? 500.
No, I know that's a Is that the permit fee?
No. Permit fee? So the only thing we permit is the apron. Apron. Mean, as far as the Board of Selectmen's concerned, the only issue is where your driveway meets a town road, does your driveway drain onto the town road and cause a problem? Or do you do a really bad apron, it ends up screwing up our road? Those are the only two things we so I think it's a $60 we charge a $60 fee, but we hold the $500 cash bond for each one. But the bond is
for performance and if they don't do it correctly, we're supposed to use that to fix it. Okay. That's the $10,000 bond. What I'm sitting there saying, if they move from driveway to driveway and are just doing other driveways because of what Adrian said, it's more advantageous to do multiple drivers, which makes common sense, They're not pulling a permit out to do that driveway, they're just doing it. Correct. That's their normal modus operandi nor the town. Nor the town. Every
once in a while they'll pull a permit ahead of time, but mostly they just do it and if they get caught, they deal with it and pay their fee and the bond.
Okay. That's what I would sit there and recommend to you, Erica. Yes, have a bond for them. If we find that they don't sit there and pull the appropriate permit, we should pass an ordinance, get the attorney O'Brien to work with us to put an ordinance in place to collect more money than the permit that they failed to pull. Hopefully they just pull the permits correctly. Four times the permit amount. How about five? Five times the permit amount. Let's
see what attorney Brian finds is reasonable and legal. Okay.
Right. So the next meeting we'll sit there and address this and we'll put that on our old business list. Okay. And I ask So
you don't want me to do anything at this point.
You want attorney O'Brien to come back to you with the proposed ordinance? Is that what you're asking? No, I would tell you, and if you need us to make a motion, I would tell you to get the bond from them. Yeah,
I'll make a motion that we take a $10,000 performance bond from Driveway guys per the recommendation and refer an ordinance to attorney Brian to craft to address driveway bonds in general and this. Driveway permits. Yeah, driveway permits. Permits and bonds, right. I second that Adrian.
All right. Further discussion on that issue? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Jeff Murray, are you good? Aye.
Okay. Five, no. Let's move on to a 9F, reopening town hall. Paula?
I just wanted to start the conversation about maybe getting a proposed date and get some thoughts from everybody and Eric about when we think we're going to reopen the town hall. I just wanted to start the conversation tonight.
Eric, how is Are we going to reopen the town hall? Yes.
Eric, how is vaccination proceeding within the town hall employees? Mixed.
Mixed? You know, yeah, town hall employees are like everybody else. Some people are willing to get vaccinated. Some people aren't. So we're going to have a mix.
So was, In your information, you informed us that one employee has COVID and one employee is out on leave from a close contact? Correct. At the moment. At the moment.
Paula, I would guess, and from my end, I would sit there and say we probably need to put it on next month's agenda and hope that we get more vaccinations issues. I agree with you. We probably need to set a date for opening the town hall.
Yeah, I'd just be curious to see I'd be curious to see if Eric can find out from you know, I'm hearing that other towns are open and I just wanted to see if he had discussions with other town managers about why they felt they open and and what their plan was and I'm and also maybe get some info from Highland Health's district so just wanted to get the conversation started and I know, we wanna do this safely. I understand that, but I think it's time to start having the conversation and see what we can do. Oh, and it's something we don't.
Say again? You know something we don't? Is there something big coming down the pike?
No, I I don't have a crystal ball, my friend. Alright. Erica, is Bolton up open?
I don't know. I don't think they were like never open from the public. Paul do you know who's open? I'm
hearing so I have not personally looked into it but I'm hearing from people in town that I keep getting questions like when are we going to open when are we open and contractors are saying that Coventry is open so I have not looked into that and I believe Hebron is open. Lebanon is open also.
Is there anyone that you're getting complaints that they're not receiving the services that they require?
I don't think that they're not receiving the services they're just you know curious and say why do I you know why are we doing this differently or I and you know I talked to Eric about this and you brought up a good point if we open up it that doesn't mean that when they come in somebody isn't going to be in that department to help them you know so we just conversations to start having about this so
Eric you're raising your hand. Yeah so there's a couple things and I do topic of discussion. This will be one of the major discussion topics for Thursday at the Eastern Highlands Health District Board of Directors meeting. All the administrators wanna talk through what our plans are for reopening. We haven't really had that group conversation in a while. We're hoping to at this meeting and I'd like to get some more feedback from Rob Miller in the health department because I don't know I don't want to be the lone wolf doing something different than what everybody else doing. The other thing I think, and this is really kind of a board decision. Well, ultimately if we're being honest, it's Jeff's decision because we're still operating under a public health emergency therefore technically it's his decision. But I presume he as well as I would take all of your opinions and honor them. But the first big question is how concerned are we about liability? And the reason I ask that is we technically are liable for employees that get sick at work like any other OSHA complaint. And I know several people have mentioned to me, can't we just make them sign a waiver? And the answer is no. I mean, you can't have a public works employee sign a waiver saying they can use a chainsaw with flip flops either. You can't waiver away your health. So the question is just how much risk tolerance
do we as a town want to take? And the question is what do we do about employees that have no intention of getting vaccinated? And then do we differentiate between employees that don't want to get vaccinated because they have a medical exemption versus a religious exemption or they just don't want to or where are we going with that? I mean, as I put out originally, what I would think is the appropriate and let me be very clear, if you chose, we could require employees to get vaccinated. We are unlikely to make that choice but we legally can do that. And I'm not saying I recommend that. I'm just saying that that's a legal option for you if you so choose.
So Eric, can you give us an update after Thursday's meeting? Sure. To what the information is coming back from the health department so that we can make an informed decision? Because I would tell you, Paula, it's probably between this meeting and next meeting that we really might have an opportunity to sit there and open back up as they open up the vaccination age groups. Let's sit there and get some information because right now, being in the office with Eric this morning, I'm looking at it going, if we're missing services, that's one thing. If we're missing something, Paula, I would say, absolutely, let's open it up because something is not getting accomplished. But if we're not getting complaints and if Erica is not getting complaints that something
is not getting done, then let's be safe and get Here's
my final question. So right now people can come to the door, they ring the bell and they come in. Is that how that's working?
Correct. Meets If them at the it's something they need to come into the building to get, they sign in so we can do contact tracing and then, you know, they go to whatever department they need to go. If it's something like a dump sticker where they can be dealt with strictly outside, whoever's dealing with them just goes outside and transacts it that way. So I guess what's the difference between them ringing the doorbell now and going in
then us saying okay now the town hall is open is it just a matter of right now you know who's coming to the door before they come in? I'm just trying to understand what the difference is. Well because you know who's in the building at any one time,
you know and ideally you know six people all want the town clerk at one time you're not going to put six people in the town clerk's office because you can't make the minimum six foot separation distance. So by doing that, you can regulate traffic flow.
Gotcha. Okay. Well, I mean, you know, for clarity, it looks like Hebron opened up on fifth, but they're still requiring sign in. They're requiring a temperature check and they're actually still pushing people to do electronic or Dropbox servicing versus coming in.
Right, I mean, the one thing I would say is we need to readjust our signage because our signage is a lot more prohibitively than we actually are. I mean, we're not turning away people that walk up to the front door. If you hit the doorbell, you're getting in the building and you're doing what you need to do. It's just all we're doing is we're keeping it down to one access point. We're not opening, we're not letting people in the back door.
It's basically gonna probably be the same amount of traffic, but
you're spacing people out more now. Is that accurate? But inherently, we're also gonna have a problem because how are we gonna make sure that people have signed in so we have contract tracing? Cause that hallway is down below. You're still gonna have to have people ring the bell to come in. So whether we say the town hall is open or not, we don't have staff and we don't have, you know, I mean, do we tell them to go to a specific office to sign in before they go anywhere else? And how do we make sure that happens? Right? So we have other logistical issues, because we have such a small staff there and a building that is not conducive. It's so broken up, you know, so. All right, well, something
to talk about next month. And I know you have that meeting coming up.
Sure. To me the bigger question is what senior services do we provide? And when do we start letting groups in during the day to meet? And my personal feeling is that town when hall staff has had the opportunity to get vaccinated, they may choose to get vaccinated, they may not, but when they've all had the ability to get vaccinated if they want, then we have no problem. I have no problem opening the community room back up to senior services and start providing, going back to the young at heart program and things like that. And then the other valid question we need to consider
is what do we do about seniors that are not vaccinated? Do we let them in? Do we exclude them? What, again, it comes down to what your risk tolerance is and what your, how much liability you're willing to take on as a town.
I mean, think the reality is this. Even someone who is vaccinated can still spread the virus. The person who is not vaccinated can't catch the virus at that point. A vaccinated person could also catch it, but their likelihood of having a severe reaction is obviously much lower.
Right, so I think somebody who's well you would hope that somebody who's has not gotten the shot understands that they're taking a risk. But good you know good things to think about and talk about. I think Dennis did you have your hand up? Did you want to? I just wanted to say that not
much to say but Wyndham is not open yet nor has Chaplin. Wyndham's, we're getting a lot of a lot of flack about Wyndham not opening. But I think the same we have the same concerns that Eric has about, you know, people going throughout the building without being.
The state's not even at 50% vaccination yet, are they? No. No. I think we're with 30 something last I looked. It's not. Yeah, it's in the thirties.
So Eric when you have your meeting on Thursday if you could please give us an email to sit there and update us as to what the health district is thinking and what the other communities are thinking it would help us make a decision at next meeting
And ask them about, you should do it with the seniors also.
Jeff, I just have one question. I had to go to the motor vehicles for registration a few weeks ago and I made an appointment and it actually went really well. I just don't know if we should maybe consider looking at an appointment scenario where people can actually make appointments to come in. And that way we keep the population in the town hall at a reasonable level.
Well, Jeff, basically that's what we've asked people to do. Okay. And we put that out there all along. But the problem is that everybody just shows up anyway.
I know, but if you go to the DMV- still want to get served. If you want to go to DMV and register your car, you don't have an appointment, you don't get it registered. Right, I know. Point
to Jeff Murray's issue and this is just more town info. Make your appointment and show up fifteen minutes late and you move to the front of the line. Do not show up early for a DMV appointment. You will continue to get pushed back as I was
dealt with. Yeah, mean, I was in and out of there in ten minutes to register a boat. It was really simple. It's
just something to think about. So if your appointment is at ten show up at 10:15 and you will go right to the front of the line.
And you are correct in that what we found in a lot of the offices is that people call in and they ask the tax collector or they ask the assistant assessor and say, tell them what I need usually they have that sitting there ready to go by the time the person's in. So it's beneficial to people to actually tell us they're going to come in it's just people don't want to do that people want to be able to walk into the town hall do what they gotta do.
And so it's just a question of level of service you wanna provide more than anything. Yeah, understand. Well, most of the municipal entities right now are doing that. They're doing an appointment setup. It just might be something we wanna consider.
Okay. So we will address this again at our next meeting. Nine gs is the Andover covered bridge discussion. I know there's some questions about transference of that bridge to the state. Eric, do we have any details as to whether that bridge is state property, town property, held by the town, not held by the town? Know. It is on the town's bridge list. It is on the town's bridge list. Right. Yep. And who were the entities that were at the bridge last Wednesday?
That was the state DOT, approved bridge inspectors. That bridge is on a two year bridge inspection cycle, and it's still in good shape according to them.
Okay. So maintenance of that bridge, are you trying to tell us that the town is responsible for maintenance on that bridge? That's what the state thinks. Okay. Can we get the DOT area supervisor to come out and talk about that bridge? What do you wanna know? Why DOT?
Well, DOT or DEP, don't care who it is. I mean Both of them. Adrian, that bridge should not be our responsibility as a town. It's on the state rail trail. Right.
Any maintenance costs incurred on that would be incurred by the town because if I remember the way that that bridge deal worked, is the town got the grant and had to fund it, and then it was supposed to be turned over to the state for maintenance. That's what I recall also. If it hasn't been done all these years later,
then let's try to get that done. Wait, you're surprised that Connecticut didn't do something that they said they were going to do? Really?
Well, I'm not surprised that Andor didn't do something that it should have done. Now I'm saying, let's get it done. Mean, honestly tired of Diane Grender bringing this up every six months and us failing to do something. Can we transfer it to Diane Grender?
Diane has done enough for this community. She just wants to see things get done, correct? We'll name it after her. I think that's the fair option.
No, we're good. Why don't we just put a toll up? Charge everybody a buck to cross it and put the money in the piggy bank for when it needs to get fixed? What's going on? Now you're talking. See? Pay for play. All right, so. We had one more concern about the gutters. It has gutters? Yes,
it has gutters. Apparently they haven't been cleaned in ten years. So we wanna take on that responsibility of getting those gutters cleaned. Do they need to be cleaned? Is there an issue with them? Have they been inspected? Are they clogged? Are they not clogged?
Did you get any feedback from that Eric when they were up there looking at the bridge?
I did not get any specific feedback. I did not ask them what the status of the gutters are. I just anecdotally, the chief engineer or chief inspector there said, it still looks like it's in pretty good shape. They didn't find anything that was a real material deficiency.
Is there any way we could get a drone inspection or somebody with a drone in town that could fly over and We don't have to work that hard. All you guys do is wait until Thursday midday when it's raining and go see if they're draining or not. I was just gonna ask you that. Did anybody ever see it draining? Yeah, just check it on Thursday. We got an inch of rain coming. Okay. Who's in charge of that, Eric?
I was gonna after it's gonna I'll tell you what, on Thursday I will drive under the bridge and I will see what's up. Peak rainfall is supposed to be around 7PM. Okay.
We now have 9H burning permits. We did pass a burning permit fee of $10 I believe it was $10 Eric? $30 $30
$30 a whopping $30 for a burning permit so that we could fund the new burning official in town.
That was a desire. My take on this is that, what if Adrian wanted to burn every weekend and he has 50 some odd acres and he wanted to burn every weekend and how many how many dollars is that going to be?
It should be an awful lot considering how much negative health consequences that has on the rest of the universe. He should be paying an awful lot of money. Given the acreage that I have, I don't think it's affecting anyone directly. Think it's Scott's point.
Is it? Now, I had two acres and I burnt once a year, I was $30 and Adrian burnt 30 times, it's gonna cost him $900
Does that, to me it just doesn't seem fair. Is that permit for one burn on one pile? Yeah. It should be. So it's one time. What happens if my pile is too big to burn in one shot? Then you pay again. Yeah, we need to change that.
Well, so are you saying you don't want the guy to inspect every time there's a burn? Are you saying you wanna have him come to your property once a year and give you Adrian a global burning permit? Is that what you're advocating Woah,
woah, woah, down here a little bit. We didn't, we're talking about this right now. I
think it is fair for larger landowners. And unfortunately, I wasn't even thinking of this, but Scott's right. Technically I fall into that category. Because my neighbor across the street happens to be the gentleman that brought it up. And they have over a 100 acres. And the problem you run into is you do run into, I mean, currently, I have a chipper that I have access to so I chip a lot of stuff, but that may not always be the case. And so working through a pile, like when we first got here, we did a lot more burning. That's not always practical. I mean, and obviously it's not practical for my neighbor across the way. So if you're someone that's burning regularly and you have that much property, obviously the official needs to come up and verify where your perspective piles are or going to be. You've got a designated burn area, you have to check with and we just had this conversation with the burning official of the other day down at the park, the three of us were there, you know, we were working on the pump. And,
as he said, they have to call into Tallinn and tell them when they're gonna start burning, right? To notify Tallinn dispatch, hey, we're gonna start burning. So that Tallinn knows if there's a fire get called in or someone calls in that they know what's going on. But if someone is burning that often, obviously they know what they're doing. But it would also be up to the burning official to be able to, if he so chose stop in and check on that person, at least when they first get their permits and make sure they're doing as they're supposed to be doing. So I think you could do that charge more for the initial permit, even if you say, charge them three times that or charge them $100 for a one year permit, And then they have to renew the following year, you know? So it's more manageable for them. I mean, we're a rural community, you know, that's
Right, so why should anybody be doing any burning? Right? Don't wanna listen. I hate my neighbor burning.
Let's go through this aspect. If there is a change that someone would like to recommend for our next meeting, let's put the change out there so we all have a chance to review it and try to figure out if it can be a workable solution for Eric and the limited staff that he has at the town hall and the new burning official who has passed his course, if I remember correctly. That accurate? Okay. Yes. So Scott and Adrian, if Jeff, you guys have
I'm just asking what everyone else thinks about this. Obviously the landowner who has a valid problem.
Well, Scott, I'm not sitting there saying that his request is not valid. I'm just saying come up with a reasonable solution. And that's what I'm
requesting of the board right now as we're talking about this. Does anybody have any other better ideas? Maybe some, you know, I always thought that every, I listened to everybody at the end of the conversation, you're probably going to get a better idea. So if everyone has their opinion, there's a better solution will come out of it.
Scott, in the past the town solved it because we didn't collect any fee. So for somebody that burned a lot, Eddie would just go out there a lot, but that chews up a lot of time. And so either you take a professional salaried staff, and you make them go out there a lot, or you pay somebody to do it. I'm not sure an appropriate solution is really telling a burning official that they can go out to a property and collect a fee one time. To me that, and I'm not gonna tell you I understand the legality, I'm gonna tell you from my perspective, I would rather do everything we possibly could to discourage burning rather than encourage it. So from my personal perspective, I see no reason to minimize the fee or minimize the hassle because the last thing we really want is people burning stuff because it irritates an awful lot of other people. And yes, there are some large landowners that can burn and maybe not smoke out their neighbors, maybe, But it is a hassle to a lot of people.
We gotta come up with a solution that's gonna be the middle of the road for all these situations. I don't know that we'll come up with it tonight.
Sorry, what did I miss? My connection reset for some reason. We,
We're trying to determine what a workable solution is for the permit that we passed two meetings ago of $30 a burn. So, Scott, really what I'm after is I don't think we're going to resolve it at 09:00 at night tonight. And while I agree with you that, you know, it might be beneficial for larger landowners, I don't think it's really workable with the deal that we struck with Scott Yeoman. No, no, it doesn't sound like it. No. So so we need to come up with something and let's put it on What what what in his deal prevents
a larger fee? And then we just ask him to inspect say three times a year or four times a year?
Inspect the same person three Yeah, times a so I pay $120 and he comes out quarterly and inspects. That leaves things open for I mean. For what? For him to come out and inspect?
He's gonna walk your 50 acres and determine where you put your fire pits?
No, it's my job to put them in safe locations and bring them to him. And say, okay, this is where we've got this pile. This is where we've got this pile. And most landowners are gonna plan that stuff out ahead of time. Don't just randomly go out there and start piling stuff. We're gonna know when we start doing it. I'm gonna stick it here. I'm gonna stick it there. Know? Okay. So where I don't have a problem with that, what I would ask you to do and I would ask Scott to do is get with Scott Yeoman and find something that's workable because we did sit there and tell
the burning official to get his course and then we would pay him based upon the permitted fees. So I have no problem if you come up with something that's workable that doesn't
burden the town staff or burden, you know, if Scott agrees to it, then I can I'll agree to it. And what do you think as far as a minimum acreage, Scott? We should have a minimum acreage on that though. 500. How much? 500. 500, yeah. Eric is good. Eric, we know how you feel. Well,
Paula, Paula, you have 25, right ish? Somewhere in there? More or less. Do you guys do much burning? No. No. No.
Paula cares about the environment and her neighbors. I do and we take
care of our, no, I'm just kidding. I would say a minimum of 25 would be appropriate.
Can I just ask, what are you really, I mean, like between myself and my father, there's 35 acres there? What are you burning? What are you, I mean, are you really, I don't manicuring the woods? I've never burned anything in my backyard. I have no need for it. I don't
Personally Eric, I don't it's necessary for me to explain what I'm doing to maintain or anyone else really for that matter. I mean, built a different house than I did, right? It's not up to me to say, well, why did you build that house or why do you maintain it a certain way? For myself, the state of Connecticut no longer does prescribe burns like they used to. And so there is a lot of underbrush issues that if you don't address, we used to cut them down and leave them in place. When we had our forestry inspection, we were advised that that wasn't a great idea that we should remove some of that underbrush, that it would help our trees be healthier so that I can keep my trees that are in forestry doing well. And so we pull those out and pile them. Again, I currently am not doing a lot of burning because I don't need to. I have access to other methods to do it. But like for me to bring down the transfer station, first of all, bury you guys. And second of all, it would take so much amount of time and labor. It's not even funny. So we try to handle them on-site, but, when we first got to the property, we were doing burning. We're currently not, you know, but again, I may need to go back to that or someone else may need to, obviously, that's what Yola Anson's doing now. So, I'm sure he's not the only one.
So again, Scott and Adrian and Paula, since you are the three members of this board that actually have acreage that might come over the threshold, come up with a program and let's sit there and get the burning official on board and then we can all vote at it at the next meeting. Yeah, I think we need to talk to Scott to see what he thinks would be appropriate, really. Absolutely. All right.
Is all right? Is that all Mr. Persson? You good with that?
Yeah, we had a lively discussion here. That's just what I wanted. But it
was a good discussion. Scott, I like that. And I would have felt negligent if I didn't do that for Mr. Anson.
So we'll get a group text together, figure out a time that we could talk to Scott Yeoman and go from there. Okay.
So we're moving on to item 10, approval of minute meetings. Approval of Monday, March 8, 2021 regular minute meetings and approval of the Tuesday, 03/16/2021 special meeting minutes. Someone want to make a motion to approve those?
I motion to approve both of those meetings that Jeff just described. I'll second.
All right. Further discussion? Anybody need to make any changes? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. All right.
Eleven, the finance department report, the revenue summary that was included, the town budget summary, the town aid road update and town cash report and over expenditure report. Anybody want to discuss any of those individual items?
I mean, Eric as a whole, the one thing I heard, we were at the transfer station over the weekend doing some stuff for the upcoming elections. And the one question I got repeatedly from town residents over and over and over again is, what are we doing with the trees? So I know there was some discussion last week of the board of finance about trees, but how much do we have that we can pull from every nook and cranny of this year's budget and throw towards trees? Because I will also add that I know I just did some work with distinctive this week. And he was saying that once July 1 hits, the state is gonna bury him once their new budget cycle runs. We need to get as much done as we can before July 1 or, you know.
That's why we had the last budget meeting, at the last finance meeting, asked for another, I think I asked for $50,000 more in the tree budget. So what the board of finance approved was
just to reinstate a $25,000 that we took out of it. Right, so I wanted more because after we had those meetings here I figured that $25,000 was going to go fast on 200 yards of road.
So what the Board of Finance agreed to was to budget in next year's budget $50,000 for tree work and that we transfer $25,000 this year from the money that was planned to be spent on the software that the school ended up paying for, and put that money immediately as soon as we could get a motion together so we could start doing tree work. We have lined up distinctive and we have started seriously talking about doing the Juravadi Road, Juravadi Lane Triangle, because we know we've had some significant problems there. And we have some just huge trees that need to be dealt with. Those trees have been identified, those trees have had the official notices put on them. So residents are aware. And we got an initial bid from distinctive but board of finance hasn't transferred the money yet. So we're gonna try to do as much as we can right now with what we have in that budget. If we can transfer the other 25,000, we'll continue to do work this spring prior to the new budget year.
So we have 25 ks that you've identified from where?
So it was money that in the last year's budget we allocated, we budgeted for the software transition. We also have what 50 in contingency? Theoretically, yeah.
I mean, can we talk about taking another take 25 out of that as the board of finance to consider another 25 out of contingency right now?
I mean, honestly, don't have enough faith that we're gonna have, we've cut the budget enough that I do not have the confidence that we are going to have excess in this year's budget. It is possible we can take money from contingency, but I can't tell you that for a fact. Last year at this point, I would be happy to tell you we had $150,000 we could reallocate. And I was convinced of that, and we did. This year, I'm not convinced of that. I would not be personally, I would not be because the board of selectmen has already asked me to move up to $20,000 from the one little pot of money I knew I could spend, which was the COVID relief money. And then the board of finances indicated that they're gonna take up the slack in the money for the software. So I don't have any other real pools of money I can pull from Adrian.
Well, except that you've got at least 15 or $16,000 in payroll that you haven't been spending, whether it's building department or Tim's replacement by the time you get somebody online.
Well, first of all, we don't have any because we have completely spent out the budget we had for paying off employees for their accumulated sick time. And we're going to have a fairly good payout in the next day for Tim Higley. So that's gonna chew up any difference in Tim's position. And we're already well over on overtime overall for public works. And we ended up hiring a supervisor that makes an awful lot more money per year than Eddie. So there isn't that slack. We don't have, that's what I'm saying. We're not sitting on a big access pool, at least as far as I can tell.
Well, I guess my point is that from the payroll side, you've got enough sitting there because you've also have the building department. That person has been out for how many weeks now, gone? Three weeks. Right,
so by the time you hire somebody or get somebody in there for full coverage, we'll have, you know, that if it's 1,000 a week, that's, you know, expense wise, that's $4.
Okay, I mean, you seem to be convinced we have a lot more money than I'm willing to say we have. You decide, if you as a board Why do you decide feel want comfortable being able to tell us how much money you have excess to start spending? Mid June? That's too late. You know that. Eric, I thought
the new treasurer or the new finance department lead, I thought you were going to get together with her and review the current status of all the accounts. I know the information we're sitting and looking here has an April 7 printing date. Can you get to looking at that and determine what you think might be available?
I am trying to program time with her to sit down and start figuring that out because I wanna start making transfers and spending the excess money. But what I'm saying, I'm not confident that I know what we have at this point. And you're asking me for a date. No, listen,
Understood. But what I think is being asked by the other board members is that we prioritize the trees and utilizing money in that segment. If you can, it would be greatly appreciated if you could sit there and do that for our benefit because as Scott has said, and as Adrian is saying, I think Scott's number was he could use probably $50,000 on 200 yards of road in Jervont. So
And and listen, not to drive this point home any further, but I will tell you that one of my neighbors unfortunately was injured trying to take down a tree on their property, one of these ash trees, and severely injured, six broken ribs, three broken vertebrae. These things are dangerous. They're unwieldy. They snap in storms constantly. We know this, you know this, Eric. I know you gotta deal with it. I'm not telling you something you don't. I'm simply saying that we always say, what's the thing we hear the most from residents, right? Well, as of right now, I'm hearing trees, trees, trees, trees, trees. So I'm pushing you because they're pushing us. And I know we have a very competent assistant in that finance office.
And I haven't met the new person yet, but I'm hearing she's amazing as well. So let's put them on this and figure out what we've got by say, May 15. If four weeks from now, we can come up with a number to say, hey, we think you could safely pull this. And then we tie that up in contracts so we can get those guys working.
Adrian, just so I don't think anyone needs to tell you how close that you've gotten to our talent budget and to where we're at. Right. Let's
get our numbers in line, Eric, and sit there and see if there's any available money because this town, as I was talking to Eric this morning, the town side of this budget is not exactly inflated. No. Let's see what we can do, Erik. That is a priority. It would be beneficial if we could sit there and get additional treaties down as quickly as possible. Eric, I do have one question for you on the revenue side. Sure.
The ECS money, the educational cost sharing money, the status of that, and have we got any information from the state?
In terms of this year's budget or in terms of next year's budget? No, this year's collection, the receipt of those funds.
I think there's still one payment remaining if I remember right. I think we've collected about 1,500,000 and we got somewhere around 500,000 to go. Am I not?
That doesn't appear to be how I'm reading it, but maybe I'm reading it incorrectly. I will ask that. If I'm reading
this report correctly, we've only received 25% of that money. Oh, you're right. Actually, I had it in my notes that we'd received 75%, not 25%. I'll reach out.
Because that concerns me. It concerns me for multiple reasons. One, did the state not send us our allotment? Or two, did we misapply our allotment and we need to sit there and get that money applied correctly?
Yeah, my suspicion is we probably haven't done the journal entries because I know we're quite a bit behind in that. Okay. All right. I will ask that question and get Any back to
other questions on the financial department reports, finance department reports? 12, the budget appropriation transfers over expenditure requests. Do you have any? None at this time. No.
Tax collectors report. There was $300,000 collected, I believe, in the last cycle. The total was $310,319 in February deposits. We still have remaining to collect from this last tax year a total of $2,198,744.44 with about $300,000 of receivables from other tax years. Anybody have any other questions or issues on the tax collector reports? The assessor's report, item 14, and revaluation services. Eric, any updates that you need to give us?
No, the memo has gone around to most residents asking them to call in and schedule their interior inspection or call them and tell them they're unwilling to do it. There's no penalty for not allowing internal inspections, but we are kind of required by law to ask, but we know a significant fraction, probably the majority of residents will refuse us interior inspections.
Okay. And then for our next meeting, can you sit there and provide us with a report related to the Board of Assessment Appeals and the reductions in taxes that they've provided? Put that in a form, pull it off the website or do whatever you need to do and put it into our meeting package so that we can sit there and see what reductions have been made. I can do that.
Fire department report. I did not. I might have seen something but
It did not make the packet. Ron handed in late. I got it on Saturday so it's not in the packet. Nothing really unusual in the fire department report.
Okay. Burning official, was there anything related to that? I didn't think I saw anything there.
Yeah, there's in your packet, there's a just a list of what burning permits that he has issued so far. He's issued three to three town residents.
Okay. Are there any of the other departmental reports that anyone wants to address? Will tell you Jay Tuttle gave us a detailed information related to what was going on at public works. It was interesting reading. Anybody else have any other issues related to any of the other departments? No? Okay. Eric, any correspondence that we need to be aware of? No, none that I'm aware of.
Okay. I'm going to allow public speak before we move into executive session. Amanda, if you wouldn't mind, let's go through item 17. Here we go. First up, Diane Granier. I'm all set. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Georgette Conran.
I want to thank the Board of Selectmen for all the work they do. I know it's not an easy thing to do. I wanted to say that during this last year, I've had to go into the town office building a number of times. I've called and made an appointment, and it has worked out beautifully. I do want to speak out to say that we need to get the seniors to allow them to get together again because it's very lonely. I'm not lonely because I have a spouse, but some of them don't. And they need to connect with each other. So whatever can be done to get them together again in the community room for movies or the bingo would be really appreciated because a lot of them need to make that connection. And last but not least, I think Shannon Louden ought to wash her mouth out with soap.
Thank you. Okay. Next we have Kathy Palazzi and Mike Palazzi. I'm good, thank you. Me too, I'm good.
All right, thank you. Dennis O'Brien, would you like to participate?
Well, I'm very pleased to be having an opportunity to write up a driveway permit ordinance, I guess. You also may, I don't know if you need a burning ordinance. I don't know if you have one or not. I couldn't access the ordinances on my phone, but you may need an ordinance for that as well and a number of other things depending on whether you have one now. If you're going to be charging fees, like you really kind of need to have an ordinance. So I'll look at that. That's all I have. I'm just pleased that the the board of selectmen approved the notice of the annual town meeting. It's very important. Thank you. Thank you, Dennis. Thanks, Dennis. Shannon Loudon.
The only thing that I want to say is that I did not ask that my words from last Wednesday be bleeped out of the meeting out of any ill intent whatsoever towards Selectman Murray. The sole intent was for the legal integrity of the town, and that's all I need to say. Thank you. Thanks, Shannon. Linda Fish. All set.
Alright. Thank you. Kurt Dowling. Kurt Dowling, would you like to participate in public speak? Maybe we'll come back to him, go on to Diane Chiquette. I am good, nothing here. Thank you. Lucy Wilson? All set. Thank you. Thanks, Lucy. Dan Foran? I'm all set. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Boris? Okay, next up we have Catherine Magaldi Lewis.
Hello? Hi, can you hear me, Amanda? Yes, go ahead. Hi. First, I'd like to say I really actually thought about doing this and then wasn't going to do it at all, quite honestly. But then after listening to the public speak at the beginning of the meeting, I ended up actually typing something up. And I would like to have this statement added to public record. Please, Amanda, I will send you a copy. And what I wanted to say is this, that I understand the feelings created by Shannon's outburst, and I do believe that those feelings are justified. However, I want to go on record as saying that what Shannon did was a mistake. Just that a mistake. She did what many people do every day, get angry and swear. The only difference was that she didn't realize she had an open mic, and unfortunately she was hurt. But it was very difficult for me to listen to some of the members of the Board of Selectmen instruct us on proper behavior and speak of hypocrisy. Last summer, I received a phone call from Adrian Mandeville screaming at me, swearing at me, and ending up telling me that I would never get another effing thing from the Board of Selectmen. I alerted the first electman and another BOS member of this event. Absolutely nothing was done. I was told not to take it personally. That's just Adrian. This incident to me is far worse than being caught swearing when you think no one is listening. This was not a mistake. This was a conscious,
deliberate phone call. This was an elected official of the town, an elected member of the board of selectmen charged with leaving our town, calling a resident, screaming so loud I had to lower my volume, swearing saying f this, f that, and as I said, ending up threatening that I will never receive another effing thing from the board of of selectmen. The big difference is that this was a private phone call. So fortunately for Adrian, the only people who heard them was me and my dog. But no member of the board of selectmen should ever be allowed to conduct themselves so unprofessional. No board member should feel that they have the right to call a resident and treat them in a hostile, intimidating manner. This board is actually in need of some introspection. And I think that management skills training would be a very good idea. Thank you.
Well, I wasn't gonna say anything in public speak, but since you've called my name now, I will reply, I swore at you after you swore at me. And it was a personal That is a lie, Adrian. It was not a public one because it had nothing to do with this board or any other board. That's a lie, Adrian. I appreciate the,
I don't appreciate any of this. Yeah, can we just have a point of order? Let's move on.
Mean, it's public speak. Catherine, thank you very much for your information and your public outreach. I appreciate it. Adrian, not now.
Let's go. Hey, if someone calls me out at a meeting Adrian,
I understand the issue. I do. No, you don't. I'm asking you to refrain at this point in time. Okay. Next up, we have Joanne Hebert.
I'll try again. I was just going to make a blanket statement that anyone holding a public office should hold themselves to a in a respectable and respectful manner at all times. I do think it's not good to dredge up the past, though, when we're talking about a specific incident because I'm sure many people and this just happened. I think many people have stories that they could dredge up. I think it's important to just stick to the issues at hand. And then just one more thing, I also hope that having an opinion different than a board member is not received as an attack. I often state opinions that are different than what people think and it's just my opinion, just trying to help.
It's not for to attack anybody. Anybody. Thank you. Thank you. Leigh Ann Hutchinson: Hi. No, thank you.
Thank you. Melissa Liteska? All set. Thank you. Thanks. Carol Lee? All set, Amanda. Thank you. Thanks, Carol. Next up, Kelly Hagerty. We're all set. Thank you.
Thanks, Kelly. Alright, did we miss anyone? Would anyone else like to participate from the board?
Amanda, could I just say something real quick? Oh, go ahead, Dan. I just want to end this on a positive note. Jeff, Jeff, Adrian, we've all had our differences and I look forward to working with you guys in the future and working together. So thank you.
Thanks, Dan. Yeah, I just want to comment. Thank you, Dan, for reaching out. I think we're going to have a positive relationship working forward.
Okay. Is there anybody else? Okay. We need to make a motion to go into executive session. Everybody for the community, we appreciate your attendance and thank you for your input. We take everybody seriously and look forward to keeping working with you. Okay. So are we inviting anyone into our executive session? I would assume we invite our attorney and our town administrator. Anything else we need to do? Okay. So I make a motion that we move into executive session at 09:24PM, 04:12, to go into executive session to discuss upcoming union negotiations. I'll second that.
Okay. With inviting the town attorney and the town administrator in. Amanda, if you could remove all of the remaining participants and then stop the recording once you're ready, we'd appreciate it. All right. Thank you. You can hand me