Meeting transcript
Board of Selectman Part 1
November 14, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Oh, sorry about that. My bad. I just realized we were not recording. That one hurt. Okay.
I would like to add under new business, probably nine e, a quick discussion about and, Eric, I'm just not sure if you have an administrator's report, the movement of the A2 survey for the town property on School Road, and just a quick discussion about the property for the community center. Is it in your report? It is not. Okay. Then I would like to add that as a quick discussion point. Under nine e. So
those are the three things that we would like to add. Would someone like to make a motion or or and we all made individual motions. Someone like to second those. Scott, you didn't make anything. Second all those. I second. Alright. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. So we are gonna move on to, item five because a four, four b, has been deleted. So five appointments to appoint Janice Machia to the IWWC. Eric, is there anything that we need to do related to that?
No, you just have to do the appointment. The Inland Wetlands Commission has asked to add her to their board. Their board is well short of a full board. So the assumption is she's going to be added this month, and we will probably add another Member named Brad Kelly at the next meeting, but their board hasn't officially met and recommended that yet.
Okay. So I make a motion that we appoint Janice Machia. I'm gonna how do I say it? Machia? Machia? Machia, maybe? Machia? I and Janice, I greatly apologize since now I'll second that, Jeff. Now this is recording. I feel bad about that. All right, so it's seconded. All those in favor, aye. Aye.
Four nothing. Okay, this next one, resignation of Diane Choquette from the Board of Finance. I recommend that we don't take it. I'll second that.
Not an option. No, we can't do it. I'm only kidding. I mean, Diane listen. I'm just flat out Diane is is one of the the best people I've met working on the town in a while in a volunteer position. So this that saddened me to see that on the agenda. Did she send a resignation letter? Yes. To Carol. Is it in our packet? I didn't see that. I don't think so.
Did not put it in the packet. We got cc'd by Carol, though. Came from Carol. It was in our email, Jeff. Okay. All right. Somebody make a motion.
You don't actually have to make a motion for that. That's automatic. This is just advisory in this case. I mean, you can accept a resignation if you want, but technically, you don't have to. Okay.
Alright. Well, then we don't have to do anything, and and that's this is a that's a really sad that's sad. Okay. Well, we'll keep moving on because Adrian did it an hour and a half. I'm going try to do Wow! Are you hung up on that tonight?
I was impressed when I got to it. Was, wow! I learned from you, Jeff.
That is absolutely not true. Well, maybe it was you didn't have to wrangle me in from talking, right, until it went a lot faster. Eric, we're gonna move on to, the seven town administrators report.
Okay. I put my report in your packet, so I'm just gonna cover a
few things. Can you share it? Can you share it, Eric, please?
You want me to share? Please. Yep. Okay. I can do that. I have some questions. Alrighty. Nope. Nope. That's the one. Share. Okay. Can you see it? Yeah. Alright.
So what do you have questions on? And then I'll go into my spiel. Well, go ahead, spiel. Okay. Bunker Hill Bridge Design. So You're not doing it in order?
Well, I wasn't going to cover everything. I mean, do you want me to read the whole thing out loud or you want me to just hit the highlights, which is what I usually I would think highlights would start with finance office. That's probably pretty important.
Can you kind of do it in order so at least we could follow?
Okay. Thank you. So, we, I met with Cheryl Miller, last Monday. She and I sat down here for about two hours going over stuff. Sure, the goal is still a complete transition to QuickBooks as of December 1. You know, she's working on the audit stuff. I need to get her some, you know, we've gotten her all the information she's at this point. And she's got most of the information she needs from the school, at least up to this point. And that's pretty much it, unless you have other questions for that.
What's going on with hiring? Are we still on hold with that or are we going to putting something out there?
So I actually revised the job description today because of one of the comments Cheryl made that she does not feel the position itself. It should be only the treasurer should be doing the reconciliation. So I took the mention of that out of the job description. It's ready to go. I was actually questioning whether we should post that tomorrow. The only question I have is whether we can do it in time and interview before I'm out for a couple of weeks. If that's not a concern for you, we can publish that tomorrow.
So my question is, we looking for full time at this point? Are we looking for a clerk or are we looking for a treasurer?
We're not looking for a treasurer at this point. I think we need to get our act together before we hire the treasurer position. Looking for the finance officer position.
Is that how we're labeling it? So because we've we've if nothing else we've learned from our interview process, that labels matter.
Okay. So Who applies? We officially entitled the position accounting associate job description. If you want, I can share the job description and you can look at that. I have that up on my computer right now anyway.
Why don't you shoot an email and I'll look at it in the background while we're doing this? Okay, thank you. That is fine.
Eric, go down to the DPW highlights. K. Where where was that anyways? Keep going.
I didn't have a whole lot on there for DPW because Jay submitted his own report. I have not been was about the trucks that he's working on?
I think I did put some information about the trucks. So as a basically, we have gotten five and seven both back. If you remember, five is the old, old, the ninety seven one and '7 is the 2004 international, which we've had problems with all along. So, both of those are back. We do and then then seven is going out to Hartford Spring fairly shortly for some front end work also.
I just noticed that the price was a lot less than you guys said initially.
Yeah. So Jay has shopped it around a couple more times, you know, and we initially tried as a a lower cost because frankly, the amount of time it takes to tear that engine apart to get to the injectors was really high. Jay found another contractor that seemed to think that he could, instead of just changing out the injectors, he could basically clean them and fix all the other peripheral stuff that was also wrong with that. And that would be enough to get by and it would run pretty well. And that's what happened and that has now started. It's in fairly good running working order. It still needs the front end work, but the engine seems to be fixed at this point. That's really good. Yeah.
Good. No, that's a good result. It's a lot less costly and a lot less time intensive than we had anticipated.
What is. I noticed your thing on bridges, what is, how is the Times Farm Bridge not closed out yet. Well. How many years now. I think the bridge was completed in 2017. What's the holdup? What are we waiting on?
Oh, the state to finally close it out. As far as I know, they've gotten their final payment. You know, they finally made a request for payment for their last iteration about two months ago. We paid them and now we're waiting for them to actually sign off on it. Okay.
But the DOT is having the same problem all of the state departments have had is that their turnover level has been, you know, somewhere between 3050% this year, depending on what state agency they're talking about, because they changed the retirement benefits and the cost of living increase for retirees. So that basically it worked out to anybody that was even possibly eligible for retirement took it. So there's been a giant drain of personnel from the state overall and all their all their departments are struggling to fill. You know, DOT certainly none. That leads into the other thing is that, you know, we've been at the 30% design stage now for like four to five months. And they've been waiting for the DOT to review the proposed fee schedule from the bridge designers. They have finally reviewed it and decided it's actually close enough to what Close Jensen and Miller proposed that they're going to allow it without quote unquote going to extensive review
if the contractor will accept an intermediate value, which sounds kind of stupid, but that's going to save us an additional couple months of them, you know, Waiting. Right. Going back and forth. Okay. But that's typical of what's happening with the state right now is that there's pretty enormous delays getting anything through. On the Long Hill Bridge design, we did get the design managed by state final acceptance letter. Jeff McGuire signed that on behalf of the town. As of Friday, I think, or Thursday, we got it back signed from the state and close Jensen and Miller has scheduled the survey for that bridge. So requested the state come out and survey. So we're making progress. Things are going pretty slow with the state across the board right now. That'll be good that they survey down there.
Well, so they have to do a river survey and they have to survey all the contours, you know, near the bridge, because they have to know where the new bridge design is gonna fit relative to the floodway and the FEMA flood elevations.
Right. But there's no surveys for down there, so it would be good if they finally know where everything is down there. As far as property lines and know they surveyed the river about two years ago, the whole river, the blood plain and the
Right. But they weren't In the banks. Yeah. That was not an eight two for property lines or locations. That was just a river contour, an elevation contour for the new FEMA flood maps. Okay. So,
that's moving along. It's going slow, but it is moving. As most of you know, the RFP is currently out for the proposed community slash senior center. RFP should be back in two days from now. So, certainly by the next meeting, there'll be stuff to look at. So, the Board of Selectmen per the purchasing policy should designate a specific group to evaluate the RFPs. You know, it would probably be good for you to do that at this meeting since we're going to have them in a couple of days. As far as the STEEP grants, as you know, there's two active STEEP grants right now. The 2020 STEEP grant, we've requested the refund from the Department of Transportation. I got an email saying that there shouldn't be any problem with it, but I don't know when they're gonna actually cut us a check. That refund check should be for $128,002.00 5 for the paving work that was done on Long Hill Road and Shawnee Mill. So, on the 2022 STEEP grant, I did find out just recently that the DECD, Department of Economic and Community Development, will be the project manager or project holder for the steep grant for the new senior transportation building. I did meet with SHPO, the State Historical Preservation Office, and then subsequently I met at the museum with Paula King, Kathy Deroziers, and Scott Yeomans to discuss what were the most pressing projects there, since we are going to have to do to mitigate quote unquote the effects of us removing a historic property that we have to do a significant upgrade to an existing historical property. And since the only one we own is the Andover Museum, the intention is to do the work there. So the priorities that kind of came out of that meeting were one,
doing the ceiling in the addition, because it's really badly peeling and probably lead paint. Number two, replace all the exterior doors because a lot of the cells are rotted really badly. And a couple of them are very hard to even open, which makes that a bit of a safety hazard. And then the third priority would be repoint slash repaint the exterior windows. Still need to get some quotes from historical renovation businesses or businesses capable of doing the work. So, we have a basic understanding of what those costs would be before we go back to SHPO with the proposal.
So Do you have a do you have a dollar amount that you're trying to hit? No. I don't, And who's and where's that money coming from?
It is gonna have to come from taxation in some form or another. Either the building maintenance fund or we're going to have to put aside money for that. The good news is SHPO will give us at least two years to do the work. So if we can agree on it, we could budget it for next year. But we have to understand what it's gonna cost first. And I don't wanna tell SHPO what we're actually gonna consider doing until we know what our costs are and bring that back to you.
There's a guy in town that will do some of that work. You got contact information, let me know. I I will get get it to you.
Okay. Just as just as a question, Eric, on SHPO. So Shippo is evaluating the old firehouse as a historic property. Right.
So here's the basic problem. About twenty something years ago, the border selectman of the town of Andover requested that that area. Get designated as a historical district And they listed all the historical properties and went through everything on it. You know why they did that I don't know, but they chose to do that. And the result of that is a historical district was freed. And that building that's the end over firehouse because it was originally built in the 1800s. And it was historically a storefront is on the it is a name building. In fact, there's a picture of it in the end of the museum circa around 1900 before the fire department acquired it. And because of that, the fact that we're tearing it down, you know, we're required to do something to mitigate us tearing it down.
And they're not looking at it as to its current state and the requirements to spend money? I mean, I listen. I'm okay spending money on that museum, but I I don't like being dictated to have to spend the money for something that we're we're doing the public a service.
Right. And and so the good news is having looked at that building, there's no question that SHPO will go along with us demolishing the building, which isn't isn't a given. You know, SHPO could also say, nope, that is a historically significant structure. It needs to be restored. We're not going to allow you to tear it down. And then we would really be screwed. We're not in that position. They have agreed that it's not got a lot of historical value at this point, but the state law regarding historical structures in historical districts says that if you tear one down, you have to mitigate. And so it's up to SHPO to determine what that mitigation means. Did walk SHPO through a bunch of the other things we've done, both the historical signage and leaving the old John Concrete sidewalk paths for the old train station and clearing that area by the depot and say look, these are all the things we've done to preserve the history of town that should count for our significant upgrade. And they basically said, yeah, no. And so, after that, that leaves us with going through the museum. So, what I'm proposing is to do a series of projects that we really should be doing anyway.
And it may be a combination of one and two of those priority items, and then going after SHPO funding to do some of the other things, because that's the other thing they said is that whatever we do for mitigating the effect of damaging or removing a historic property, the town has to pay for themselves. However, they're willing to, know, if we want to do additional stuff, we can apply for SHPO funding for that and they'll try to expedite it. So it's both good and bad, I would say. I'm I'm all for
they've done a great job down there at that old town hall, and if we can put some money into that old town hall and make it look even better, that'd be great. I would ask one other question. Is 12 Center Street an historic district?
It's in the historic district, but it was not I do not believe it was identified as a historic property, but it's also not a municipality tearing it down. If a private entity chose to try to tear down 15 Center Street, SHPO would not be involved. Okay. All right, anything else on your report?
I do have another little bit of good news. One, we had talked before a few times about the trip program, which is a program for doing pavement. And basically, it's a rural improvement program. They originally published a set of guidelines stating that they had to be minor collectors and above. And as most of you know, Andover does not have any town roads with that designation, where we could have gotten. Anything I did lobby pretty hard, both with a Council small towns and Prague initially to get them to put out a set of project guidelines that allow local roads. Did not, and after they published the initial official guidelines, I went back and spoke to the program manager of the program lobbied them directly and showed them evidence for how many small towns were not eligible for their rural improvement program that the program was designed for. And based on the data I supplied, they reversed their decision. So we are now eligible to submit a local roof for that. So between now and February 10, it's due, I'm gonna have quite a bit of work to do to put together a grant application for this preliminarily I think we're looking at. A grant application for reclaim and repave of handy probably Hendi running straight into Skinner and try to do that whole segment in one shot. So, that's what I'm kind of leaning towards Right now, I'll try to have better data for you at the December meeting and we can discuss. I only found out today that the program decision had been reversed because I'd kind of tabled any work on that since we weren't going to be eligible, but now we are.
So I was quite happy about that. Secondly, I'm planning on providing testimony to Council of Small Towns for the upcoming legislative agenda, as well as CCM. The things I've been thinking about asking, which in my mind would put the most benefit to small rural towns, is basically see whether the state could reverse its decision to make the towns pay for 100% of the cost of a resident state trooper. I think going back to the old formula of the state being willing to fund 50% of the cost of resident state trooper is probably a lot more, you know logical. And then, then the second thing is, I really want them to look at the formula for town aid road. Because that really kind of screws municipal or rural areas And then I'd also like to lobby to revise the funding requirements for the LOTS IT program, because that's based the LOTS IT program is based on a federal block grant program and the federal block grant program allows spending on rural roads and rural parts of states. But the state program does not. The legislature could reverse that possible. And I think that would be a big advantage to us and the other more rural communities. So that's one of the things that's been kind of on my plate lately is looking at how we get, know, those two agency and maybe also engage our newly elected representatives in that fight. So that's pretty much what I have for my report, unless you have other questions for me. That's excellent news on the trip program.
Now we got to actually apply for it. So, but at least we got it, at least we can apply, you know, and that's huge.
Okay. Any questions from any other members of the board? No.
I did find the two contractors that were window specialists for when we were looking at doing the library project. So I will hook you up with those two to at least try to reach out. Perfect. And you may want to look at most of the people that bid on that. It was a small project, so that, you know, I think most of the people would probably look at what asking. But two of them were painting companies that specifically dealt with restoration work in the state of Connecticut.
Go on with Eric's report, Eric, you asked for us to appoint a group for the opening of the RFP on the senior center or the community centersenior center?
No, it's not a group for the opening. It's a group for the review so that we can pick three or four contractors out of our bids to come back and give us a breakdown. Yeah. So why do we appoint the committee?
And Eric, when is that going to be here? What date? We open
them this Wednesday at 03:00. But I've talked to Eric about this. We talked to the town attorney. We're not going to make the bids themselves publicly available. We're going to make companies that bid and their bottom line number available, which meets our requirements for disclosure, because we're going to have companies come back in and break down their bids. Don't want to give anyone an undue advantage in that process. So we're simply going to give the bottom line number and the company at that, when we open on Wednesday. And then we'll bring guys back in to kind of give us a breakdown as to how they got to their numbers. I have no problem with that. Can we sit there and
appoint the committee to do the walkthrough and the review process? Process? Is that already?
We have a couple names. Eric, did you get a chance to talk to anybody? I did not.
Okay. It's been on my list, but I did not get to that today. Okay. So, do we need to do that? You had asked that we do it. Do we need to appoint anyone for that?
We, we have the authority to do that. Yes. And so we probably should do that. I had briefly talked to the person I suggested. I don't know, Eric, if he had a didn't get a chance to talk to this person. I did talk to Jeff Murray to see if he'd be a part of it because he's dealt with contractors through work a lot. I talked to. Mr hamburger to see if he would be interested because he's he's good with technical things and breaking down things a lot of this release, this is more of a. Being able to evaluate the contractor. And in what they're putting on the table.
You on the committee. Yep so. Yep Jeff Murray is on the committee. Who else? Jeff is not. Okay.
So let's say the committee, Jeff Murray and Robert Hamburger.
Yeah, we don't want the whole committee though. We need technical people. This isn't about picking drapes. This is about picking a contractor. We really need technical people. That's some. Eric has suggested Lenco might be willing to do it for us, Lenco Electric.
So Paul, Adrian just in a backhanded way said, I'm not good for this.
How dare he? I know. No, you would not be a good choice. Sorry. Drapes thing. Are Yeah.
Me get the drapes though. You're the guy we're calling. But given the fact that you don't have them in your office. I get it. I get it. I'm looking behind you thinking maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not anyway.
So if you have a list of people, put them out there. Let's go. Make the motion. Let's get this passed.
Well, pending their acceptance, Eric suggested lanco electric. Are he's the owner, what is his last name I'm sorry Eric I don't. Rick Langley. Langley okay so so Rick Langley I had briefly spoken to Robert Hamburger who tentatively said yes, depending upon schedule. Myself Eric Jeff Murray and Scott person if he's if he's available It's going to be a more than likely it's going be a weekday thing, a weekday afternoon for the presentation.
Okay, so Rick Langley, Robert Hamburger, Eric Anderson, Scott Persilm, Jeff Murray, and Adrian Mandel.
Scott, are you freer now? I last time I talked to you, I had to schedule.
The the this it's gonna be when this Wednesday. This Wednesday, I definitely cannot do it. So it's not going to be this Wednesday we're opening bids this Wednesday.
Well they're gonna we're gonna need to you know get an initial list together which Eric and myself can do. And then the four or three that we bring back in we would like a small committee to review, but they'll need to be available for the presentations. Which will more than likely happen during the day in the afternoon, but it's not going to be on Wednesday. It'll be a week from Wednesday,
right? Alright, so that that following week, yes, I'm available that Wednesday.
I'm I'm not sure that's going be. I guess I'm I'm my point is. You don't know Listen, you don't know You don't know the day it's going to happen. You know it's going be in an afternoon. Right? These That's what I'm people, we'd like to participate. If they participate, they participate.
If they don't want, they can come and hang drinks with me.
Fine. Right. Perfect. Yeah. I'd to, I'd like to, as long as we have four or five people there, I'd be pretty Sure. So I'm
going to make a motion that we appoint to the community centersenior center
RF Contractor review Selection Committee for the Community Center. Contractor Selection Committee.
I would like to potentially appoint Rick Langley, Robert Hamburger, Eric Anderson, Scott Brisson, Jeff Murray, and Adrian Mandeville. Yep. Who wants to second it? I'll second.
Okay. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay. Let's move on. So Eric, was there anything else that we needed to do related to your report? Not related to that, no. Okay.
Okay. So we are going to move on to, I'm going to download that. Let's see here.
Okay. We are going to move on to old business, discuss and act upon the following. There's nothing there. B, the finance department employment status of the financial official. Eric?
So I'm suggesting that we formally put the job application out for the assistant position tomorrow, but we have to decide whether what you want in terms of hours. Right now, what Diane Choket had suggested was a full time position. But, you know, that's up to the board. I know you're still discussing it. What did Cheryl say? Cheryl didn't really I mean, I think she was clear it didn't need to be forty hours, but she it's she didn't give me a target number of hours she thought the position would take.
Can we just I kind of want to shelve this because I think I'm worried about we're going into Christmas and Thanksgiving. You're going to be gone. You're going be out for a little bit, you know? And then the holidays. I think it's going to be really hard to get people excited and in for interviews. And I really want an answer from Cheryl as to what this looks like. I know Diane had an idea, but I really would like Cheryl's input on this.
I have no problem with that because I do not believe it's a full time position.
So I hope we'll be shelving it. Are you I guess the question is right now, Eric, are we treading water a little bit now? I mean, are you you okay with bills getting paid and whatnot right as we stand?
I mean, we're okay. I mean, the thing we're not posting right now is we're not posting revenue, but part of the reason we haven't been posting revenue is because we know we're switching QuickBooks, so it doesn't necessarily make sense to put everything in Edmonds if we're about to discontinue use of Edmonds. So, yeah, if you want to hold off till after Christmas, we can.
Well, I'd to hold off until, I'd like to hold off until at least our December meeting and then make a decision as to what that Why don't we request that Cheryl give us her opinion before the next meeting if we decide what Yeah. To Exactly.
Okay. Do you want to just have Cheryl on the next Board of Selectmen meeting? I mean, she'd be more than happy to do it. I love that
you're volunteering her, but let's leave that to her. If she feels like she can surmise it in an email to all of us, that'd be fine as well.
Okay. Eight C is the status of the community center RFP. We've already talked about that. Eight D, the Hop River Homes update, Eric?
I don't have an update on that because frankly, we got a lot of contracts to go over and that was the least time sensitive contract that we had to deal with.
Okay. Got to get that email before July January 1. Just telling you, you got to get it done before the spring starts. So January 1. Okay. Alright. Eight e, recognizing Andover residents. Marcy's letter?
Yep. We sent so I sent out Marcy's letter. She sent back a nice thank you card. I think Eric sent it to everybody I scanned. Eric did. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Very nice. So last month I know, Jeff, you weren't you weren't here. We and I filled you in. We talked about, the brick walkway. So when we what we left off last month was just to kinda think about what the criteria will be when, people are nominating these individuals and then how often we want to do it. I don't know if anybody's given any more thought to that or if we want to push this off to next month, but that's where we left off last month.
Well, let's actually push it off to next month, Paul. But what I think we should do, and Diane Grineer is on the phone, is we should get a list of potential residents that could be honored. And it can be a running list. I don't think it's necessary that we do it every month or every other month or every quarter. I think we should have a list of exceptional people in Andover. It shouldn't be hard to get them. We can put Adrian Mandeville on that list. You can start with that list, though. Wow. You're on fire tonight. Let's Well,
yeah. So our probably our homework for next month is think about how often we're going to acquire this list and then how we are deciding or who's deciding on who's going to get the recognition. That's how we left it. Well,
obviously it's the board's vote, and I would assume that we would have a list and that, Paul, you would be responsible for sitting there, sending out, this is the most valuable or most important nomination we've had recently, and we don't want to do this in public is the biggest issue. We want to award them in public. We don't want to do the discussing. Because then somebody like me that hangs trades would sit there and be all embarrassed, and I wouldn't get approved to be on the walk. Let's bring this up at the next meeting and we'll go from there. The COOL program on 8F, excuse me. I saw the contracts in here, Eric. I know Dennis has been working on this. Do you have a contract? I know we had option one and option two. Do you know the option you want to get to, or does Dennis know?
The Okay. Option is Go ahead. No. You go, Dennis. You can do a better job. Well, I mean, option one is I I I had heard that, somehow on the street or whatever that the board was, concerned about the, summer program because of the added expense of providing insurance and other items. And option one is simply a an agreement. And, you know, there have been several iterations of this agreement. But option one would be an agreement to simply provide the, before and after school program to agree with, with cool for the before and after school program. And I've added in there the suggest some of the pertinent suggestions that were made by the representative from Kerma so that it's been altered to that extent. And so if you're if you're feeling is that you would like to just limit the sounds of financial support involvement, whatever to the before and after school program as you certainly have many, many times in the past. This would be the what I would recommend as the agreement for that particular, program. The second option is simply the includes both programs and, with lots and lots of input from the KIRMA representative, which incorporated into the draft.
I mean, I think, does anyone else have any district, you know, any opinion on this? I personally would like to have the cool program included. I think it's important to our residents. Know, and the summer program has been growing every year. So, you know.
I mean, the real question is just, the town willing to help support it? This contract is written assuming that the town is not going to support it other than to allow the usage of town buildings. And possibly depending on what your decisions are, the continued use of a talent vehicle to transport kids. I thought option two allowed that though. Correct, it does.
So if we go to option two, then we can we have more leeway.
But it but it doesn't provide for insurance paid for by, the town. They would have to provide their own insurance.
So why can't that be included, Dennis? Yeah. Mean, given that the rec That's totally up to you. Well, the rec commission generally works in tandem with them. So,
I mean, the summer program is really about, both of those entities working together. Yeah, think the only issue is current.
Are they not covered under the, because the rec commission is running it? Aren't they covered under that?
So if the town decides to keep them on as an additional insured, they can run under the town's insurance. But two meetings ago, board of select, you as a board of selectmen had kind of said you were uncomfortable with that and had wanted them to provide, be self sufficient and provide their own liability. And based on that, we changed the contracts from what we had originally to that. And Kerma wants to take it a step forward and require them to have another series of of sets of coverage, some of which are included in this agreement. Having been Kermit's version is probably the most,
you know, the safest Most protective for the town. Have we asked Kermit what it would cost for that coverage? Like, if if we assisted to get them covered, would Kerma cover that? Because what Kool was saying is it's $3,500 extra. Right.
But see, it's not, we're already providing that for them, so it is not an extra cost for the town because the town's costs through Kerma are dependent on its risk and its number of claims. So our existing money that we're paying Kerma already covered that with us providing them as an additional insurer. Question is just, you willing to take the risk of a potential claim based for that or not? And I thought the answer was you weren't, therefore we were requiring them to be fully insured.
Okay, so let's I just don't remember that conversation, to be honest. Does anyone else?
I mean, I mentally have a problem, Adrian, when cool is its own entity. Entity, exactly. It's
doing everything on its own and it's now, from what I read, they're having to take eight additional weeks of insurance potentially costing Cool, the entity, dollars 3,500, which means to me they haven't been insured in the past for the summer program. Problematic to me.
Well, no, they were insured. Under the town. They were insured because the town made a decision to be essentially a co sponsor, and to provide, to allow them McEntyre: to sit under the town's
you know umbrella policy, because it was in the best interest of the
You know, that was a decision made by the board of selectmen either two or three years ago, with the blessing of the rent commission to get the program going. Right. My understanding was that the board had wanted to no longer offer that and wanted them to be self sufficient this year and was uncomfortable with that. Therefore, this contract. Okay.
I'm not trying to influence you either way. Mean, I think it's beneficial to the town to have a cool summer program.
Can I just address? Can I just address one thing here though? When we talk about having them have additional insurance on their own. It doesn't eliminate the liability for the town because the reality is if there's an accident. If there's an accident or problem on town property, they're not they're just gonna all they're gonna do is add the town to the lawsuit. They're gonna want to sue us because it's on our property and them because they ran it. So we're going to get sued either way. But you're mitigating your risk. No, you're not because you're actually increasing your likelihood to be sued because you're allowing Look, the reality is 99% of these types of claims get solved before they get to a courtroom. Nobody wants to go to court. So, the more money you have available, so if you have a $2,000,000 policy, they're going for $2,000,000 right? So, if you have $2.2000000 policies, they're more likely to hit you because they think they're they're jackpotting 4,000,000. So if they think they can sue cool and sue the town your likelihood of a of a of a suit goes up, but if you have one entity. Ensuring both in this case the town your likelihood of that type of suit goes down and your exposure goes down because you're only getting hit on one side. But if I remember my KIRMA policy, we could be
if I remember the KIRMA policy and Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, KIRMA sits there and has the ability to sit there and go after whatever our lawsuit claims are.
They do. Do. But you're still going to get, you're still going to get on that, you're going end up on that lawsuit one way or the other.
Know? Okay. So if I, so just, just hear me out. We asked them to spend the $3,500 to get insured. And we they now have a policy and the town is an additional insured on their policy.
They're still going to sue you as a separate entity. You know that's gonna happen. Isn't
that what I have an attorney for to make sure that my I'm I'm I'm limiting my exposure?
I can just tell you from a commercial business point of view that you're gonna get hit on both. I've been down this road with
the general the general rule with plaintiffs' attorneys in cases like this is tackle everybody until you find the football. There you go. After everybody. That's that's the old saying. That's how it works. True. But we do have in here a a whole harmless agreement with them that we've that we've, we, you know, we've put into this agreement on on Kermer's recommendation. And whether or not it holds up is another matter as far as being sued.
But they're a nonprofit. So all they're going to do is go bankrupt and then the town will still get stuck with the balance of the liability on a hold harmless. It doesn't protect us. If anything, it gives us more exposure. Well, it could, but it might. You're right. Dennis, what are you recommending?
Well, it depends on what you wanna do. I mean, if you wanna have the summer for if you're you know, if you really wanna continue the summer program and then, you know, I think everybody likes it. We do. Yeah. I'd like it if I were if I were a resident, but, at the time, you know, I we're, you know, we're we're getting recommendation from our insurer, which is what we wanted to do, that we don't do that. That we not do that. I mean, I don't I don't I'm not an expert on insurance. It's beyond my expertise, but but I I it it it makes sense. We could go back to the original agreement. We originally had a drafted an agreement covering both programs in one agreement, and we were providing secondary insurance on our policy for both programs. So we could go back you know, that would be easy. Of course, the program has also
go ahead. I am perfectly I think that is the solution under the caveat that the rec commission stays a part of it. As long as the rec commission stays involved, I think that's the way to go.
What is their involvement? I mean, what level of involvement do they have?
I mean, they help with organizing. They help making sure they have staff. There's a little, you know, there's a little bit of back and forth, you know, they help coordinate some of the town side stuff. I'm good. The guys are direct commission, Dennis.
Yeah. It's run under their, the whole summer thing is run under their program.
Right. The summer The rec I didn't I didn't realize the recommend that activist activist.
For the summer part, yes. For the for the regular school part, no.
Oh, yeah. Not for the regular school part, of course. Do they have they have they have manpower that they provide?
No. They no. But they get volunteers to come in.
Okay. That's what well, that's manpower. So we provide them we provide them transportation. We give them vehicles. That's,
that's what we do. I know that. Yep. And we give them kiddie pools and we give them, and we help with other supplies.
Right. Okay. Well, if you really want to have a summer program.
And presumably, we are also covering them. Remember, when we do this, we are also covering them when they're using because it was quote unquote a rec commission program as originally designed that was just essentially subcontracted to cool, we also covered them at Alpoa when they're on the lake. Right. And there's definitely quite a bit of liability to that too, I mean. Right, sure.
And I believe So we provide them access to the gymnasium. I mean, didn't use the gym in the summer, did they?
Yeah, when hot and they, or if the weather's poor, yes. Okay. So they use the gym,
they use the area outside the community center or community room. Correct. And they used our vehicles. Correct. And we bought them some supplies, kiddie pools, whatever.
Right. Yeah. And they use some equipment of the rec commission, like the bounce house, they operate under the umbrella of the town's insurance,
both on town property while they're driving and at the lake. Where are going with this, Jeff? Trying to see where you're going. I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. Me too. I'm trying to lay it out so everybody gets it. Yeah. So everybody sees the same thing. Okay.
So so if we go back to the original agreement, the rec commission is a co sponsor of the summer program or the rec commission is a sponsor of the summer program and COOL is managing it. Yep. Okay. Just as a side, who collects the money? The COOL program. COOL program. Right. Okay.
Can you give it where I like like Scott said, where are you going with this? I'm just trying to lay it all out, even in my head. I just wanna know. We know that we have a project,
Adrian. That's what's going on here. Alright. So Yeah. What? I'm sorry. Go back to the original
agreement. Go back to the I original didn't understand what Scott what it's got to say. I'm sorry. Didn't get all that. It's another project, Adrian.
Okay. There's an issue here that has to be addressed.
So to sit there and for the benefit of the community, back to the original contract then? If that's all laid out and we're providing insurance for the summer program, then we're providing insurance for the summer program. I would recommend that they get their CDL and get somebody to drive the bus. That would be a good idea. I'm taking notes here.
Okay. So your your goal is to then go back to unwind two months and go to the original contract that Dennis proposed to you. Maybe
with some some additions in terms of explanatory wording anyway. Okay. Because I I didn't realize the rec commission was so active in this.
And for the record, I think the rec commission had some concerns about the liability on the town's perspective too. So they were not unhappy when the board originally had wanted to start requiring COOL to maintain their own insurance.
Well, all right. So if that's the case, why are they, why do we not have one of those people here? Recommission or cool, like, we're trying to make a decision on a on a project in a in a town usage, and we don't have either of those people here to to kind of give us their take. I would like them before we make any decision on this, I would like to hear from both of them.
Okay. So you want at the next meeting or you want a separate meeting with the COOL program board of directors
and with I just need a representative from COOL and a representative from the rec commission. I don't need the whole board of directors. I just need one person that can speak for them. Okay. One person for the Rec Commission.
Alright then, Dennis, we're gonna put you on hold for a second until we get that.
Well, I'm I'm, you know, I'm used to that. That's good. Gotta get it right. Alright.
Alright. And then, you know, we're talking about next we're talking about next summer.
So Right. It's a lot. It's all these contracts. We can get if we can get those people at our next meeting, we'll make a decision so it's done. I just Alright.
Alright. I don't wanna make a decision that the rec commission, if they're actually wanting something and they're concerned, let's hear from them, you know? Okay. What would be the best direction?
To get information from the appropriate parties. Right. Exactly. Like a whole. Yeah. You're okay with that, Scott. Right? Yeah. Perfectly well.
Cool. Sounds good to me. I was gonna move on to eight g, the AES usage agreement with senior transportation. Eric?
So this was discussed again a while back by the Board of Selectmen. This would be a contract between the Board of Selectmen, you know, the use of a senior transportation vehicle to transport one student to and from the school in the mornings and in the evenings, assuming that they have a qualified licensed driver capable of doing that.
And then it's just a straight reimbursement to the town for the use of the vehicle. Doing that now? What? Are they using the van for the child?
No. We're not, I'm not allowing them to use it until there's a contract in place and they don't, there's no driver right now capable of doing it. Okay,
that means, the wait, that means they contracted with an outside service.
They are currently contracted with DATCO in the afternoon. DATCO can't provide the services in the morning. So they're paying, as far as I understand, they're paying the parent of the person to basically go into work late and drive the child into school in the morning. Okay. The school ish. School is.
Yes. And where is this where is this contract stand?
It stands before you. I mean, you've got to decide whether it's what you wanna do or not. 28¢ a mile? No. It's not $3.50 a mile. Yep. $3.50 a mile? Yes.
Yes. Apparently, you haven't done taxes in a while. Even even IRS pays more than 28¢ a mile. It's not $3.50. No, but somewhere in the middle. I remember a 28. I thought.
Yeah. No. It's much higher than that. That was That
was about ten years ago. The $2.80 then? Yeah. $2 28¢ a mile was, like, ten years ago. Yeah. At at least ten years ago. Yeah.
I was trying to be nice. I don't know how old Scott is, so I don't wanna age him. Hey. Thanks, Adrian. I
have no problem with the contract. It it looked good to me. Jeff McGuire already ages me all the time. I would motion to accept the contract as submitted by Eric.
So the so the school is going to pay us. What was the number, Eric? $350 $3.50 a mile.
Comes out to $40 a day, give or take. To use our vehicle. Correct. Okay.
But that also implies that we have to deal with any maintenance and any issues with the vehicle. It's just a straight mileage fee for so, you know, given, you know, the wear and tear and the usage of the vehicle, you know It comes out to $29.75
a day. Is that what it is? I thought it was more mileage than that route, Trevor. 8.5 according to the agreement.
But it will be twice a day. So you're off by a factor of two. K. So I'm I'm under and you're way under.
So, it's $300 a week times thirty weeks, maybe a little more, about $9,000. Yeah. Okay.
Do we have a second on the floor? What was that? I motion to accept it. Paula's still trying to log in, by the way. Her Internet's glitching.
I'll, I'll second that. Further discussion? Anybody I mean, I don't, I don't have any problems with it if it benefits the child and benefits school. Right. And we never get paid, which is different.
I just question it. You know, Eric, is it going to cost you well, do we have a backup vehicle if we have a problem?
We have a total of three vehicles. You know, we should be okay. But I can't guarantee, you know, that every instant, you know, we're going to be able to provide, you know, every bit of senior transportation that we want. But in general, we should be okay. Because we, right now, you know, we still only have two drivers. So, we're running on two vehicles at the max right now anyway. So, this is basically utilization of our third vehicle.
Okay. So, Dennis, the agreement holds us harmless. What happens if the our town vehicle is involved in an accident? Just question. Then our insurance has to phone me up.
So our insurance, our current insurance is the same insurance that the Board of Education is piggybacking
on. Right. Right. So hold hold harmless doesn't provide us a whole lot since we're paying the whole cost of the insurance at the town level.
And who's just and who they're they're verifying for the qualifications of the driver. We're not. Right. Yes.
It's not my obligation to ensure that their drivers are licensed. Is their liability, not ours. Okay. And whoever the drivers are, when they're driving for the school, they will be school employees, not town employees.
All right. If it benefits the child and the school, I'm all for it. Right. It's a lot different from the original number that they were talking about outsourcing this, though. I will let everyone know that.
I mean, it is crazy expensive. You know, for instance, I think they were looking at a $1,600 expense to transport one child to a field trip. Okay.
All right. All those in favor or further discussion? Are we all done? All those in favor, aye. Adrian? Aye. All right. Three, nothing. All right. So I'm sorry that Paula is not here, but we're going to keep moving. So the contract with Nathan Jacobson. Nathan was town engineer?
Yep. So the goal is to hire Nathan Jacobson to be the town engineer. You know, the town's attorney reviewed this. You've seen previous versions of this. The only real sticking point between the town and the engineering firm. Has been just how do we deal with. Know, since it's a longer term contract, how do we deal with cost escalation year to year? So is under the section entitled fee schedule. And just saying from now on the fee schedules have to be agreed to by both the town and the company. And that any, if it, if they ever exceed a 3% increase per annum, there has to be a written agreement to that before that can go into effect. And Eric, get comfortable with the contract? Yep.
Okay. It should be. I wrote it. That's fine. I'll make a motion to approve the contract with Nathan L. Jacobson, LLC for engineering services. I'll second that.
K. Further discussion, Adrian, you got any problems with their contract? I do not. Paul, how are you? Good to see you back. Do you have any problems with that contract with Nathan Jacobson? Okay. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Eric,
how how much would you estimate the engineering is gonna cost on the Hudson Road? Do you have an idea?
I don't. I think we're looking at a total project cost in the $250,000 range. You know, I think by the time we're all done, I could see the engineering portion of that being 50 ks, including the application for the state local, you know state local bridge program application because that's a pretty involved. Thing. You know I'm not saying that the towns so which would imply that the town's actual cost for the engineering would be 25,000. But because we'll get, you know, we should get half of that back from the state, but it will be fairly considerable. Wow.
Well, that goes into, Eric, what I asked you is to provide a complete estimate of all costs related to culverts moving forward and what we're going to have to do over the next ten to fifteen years.
Yeah. I mean, the problem with asking Eric to do that though is A) it takes a ridiculous amount of time, But B, the costs changed and as both state reimbursement is either there or not there and materials go up and down. I mean, we know we've got a
big number, You know? And just go up with a number. That's what I was asking for. I wasn't asking for details that you're gonna come down to a finite number and do each individual one, but you gotta know that if the Missoula Road unit is going to cost or culvert is going to cost a million dollars to do, and then you got another 8 to do, you can sit there and identify, okay, that one should cost 8. But are you I guess, you asking him to identify the top,
you know, the 10 most expensive or because otherwise we have a we have quite a few. In
terms of the big culverts that we're going to need engineering engineer work and that are in the category that are either fail, you know, or poor, and are likely to fail in the future, you know, in the time span that we're thinking of. We're looking at least 3,000,000 all up for the culverts that we're looking at. In the next ten years.
Yeah. Yeah. And so because because Eric has done an extremely good job applying for the state and federal funding on the bridges, we are going to save 1,200,000 or thereabouts in total cost for the town, all of those dollars really need to be poured into the culverts. Because it's going be the biggest problem the town has over the next fifteen years are all those culverts. I'm not just talking about what you just referenced, Eric, are the ones that are going to be outsourced. Well, what about the ones that you're going to ask Public Works to do work on?
I mean, those basically just get funded out of the regular public work budget.
And what size are we talking about that our DBW can handle?
My take on it is about 30 inches and below. There's no question that we're going to have public works do it. But part of the deciding factor is not necessarily the size of the culvert, but where it is going to fall in terms of the permitting process. You know, culverts can either be permitted locally, or they can be permitted at the DEP level, or they can be permitted at the Army Corps of Engineer level. Depends on the watershed.
It depends on the area of watershed. So like, I'll give you an example. We replaced a 24 inches culvert. Actually, you know what? Let me not talk about that in public. I already
know. I saw that. All right. So where what's where I guess where are we going with this, Jeff? We're not this isn't budget season. So why are we discussing this? No. Well, we were discussing it because Eric and I were having a conversation
about the bridges and about the trip program and the LOTSIP program. And the issue to me is the community needs to be made aware of the potential ramifications of all these failing culverts and what's going to come down the road. We need to put out a number and say, It's going to be this, and so next budget season we're going to sit there and put $300,000 into a culvert fund. But we need to know the number, and at least I do. Mean, I guess
for reference, we did do that last budget season already. And we did talk about those big numbers and it wasn't Eric's report. But we were going to ignore it because we had bridges to do. Now we don't have bridges to do. So now that comes to the forefront. Don't think anybody ever said ignore it. I think, you know, we, we did some shifting around given the state of the economy last year, but I think we've always said, we know we need to fund between $203,100,000 dollars a year into the corporate fund. Good. I'm
all for it. I just think that everybody needs to be made aware of it and there's a list of all those.
John, I mean, brings up the conversation that we need to have anyways, is Eric's going into budgeting,
Yeah. So what I would, what I was hoping to do is sit down with the December meeting and carve out a bunch of time to start talking about what I consider the bigger priorities and what are the biggest things that are going to be driving the changes in the budget. Obviously, first and one of the biggest changes we're going to have coming down the pike is our fuel costs are going to be probably dramatically higher next year than this year. Remember, we as a town are locked in at, you know, $2.25 a gallon for diesel and for home heating oil, which is great. But if I were to lock in now, I'd be locking in at $5.50 or $6 a gallon. So we're looking at more than doubling our overall energy costs next year, is gonna you know, difficult to absorb.
Well, how much was it? What's our what's our budget right now for diesel?
Collectively, between the town and the school, we run around, I think around 14,000 gallons a year total, something like that. So, you're gonna go from 35,000 to 95,000 potentially? Yep.
Or 75. We got that done quick, Jeff. Right. And the school is gonna be the biggest because the schools remember the school's heating oil budget, you know, is last year they used roughly 40,000 gallons of heating oil. So, the difference between home heating oil at 02/20/5550, you know, that's again a 40 to $50,000
increase. Yeah. So But that's not our purview. Let's talk to our purview. Right.
But, so what I would like to do is have a discussion at the next meeting about what I think the big factors are that are going to influence the budget and where we need to go with that.
So, back to our culverts and our large infrastructure projects. I thought we just agreed we're talking at the next meeting. Eric's gonna present that. I know. And I'm just asking, Eric, you know, more information you provide, the better off we'll all be. Alright. The memorandum of understanding with the Andover Fire Commission.
Okay. I'm gonna share my screen again here for a second. Mhmm. Let me get the right one. Okay.
So you should hopefully see a document in front of you now. Myself and the town's attorney sat down today with three members of the Fire Commission, the Fire Chief, and the President of the Andover Volunteer Fire Department Inc. And so what we have is two things. The first is a simple memorandum of understanding between the town and the fire commission that just revolves around the capital assets and how they are dealt with. So, that's this version has been verbally agreed to by all parties other than the Board of Selectmen. But it's gotta be re reviewed by the Board of Fire Commissioners now that it's actually down fully on paper. So this is the copy at this point. And then the second thing is we are going to need to work out some method, either a contract or a town ordinance that accurately lays out the responsibilities of the three entities,
which is the town, the fire commission, and the Andover Volunteer Fire Department Inc. So that it's clear, because our documentation is very unclear. The original agreement was signed eighty five years ago. There is nothing in the charter that even mentions the Andover Volunteer Fire Department. So, there are a couple areas in the ordinance book where it talks about the organization, but not as it's actually, not as it officially is. So we got a bit of cleanup that we have to do, but we're not going to get that in time for this season and to get the capital, you know, assets in the capital asset list back to the treasurer. So what I want to do is sign a simple memorandum of understanding
between us and the fire commission saying, hey, you got to provide us the capital assets. And I already sent to the board many months ago, like June ish, a copy of a capital asset policy that I sent to you when I sent it to the board of finance. And so, we need to put this MOU into effect and we need to put the policy into effect. And then we need to get the information. And then in the background, we need to work on the actual document, the governing document in relationship between those three entities, because it's very unclear now. And, you know, to me, that's something that's problematic. And Dennis can if you've got questions for Dennis, he can probably answer them for you.
Yeah. I'm I'm favorably disposed towards an ordinance because the the charter does mention the fire commission, but only the to the extent that, you know, how they're how they're chosen and also that one of their members serves on the CIP. And the the as as Eric pointed out, the background information that and we've I've read through a lot of stuff. We've all read through a lot of stuff, and we all being just me and Eric. And and and, course, the members the the other people that were there at the meeting today is very the information is very sketchy. There's not much, legal basis for any of this, and we need we really need to firm this up. I think this agreement is a big step in the in the right direction, especially in terms of satisfying the the auditors who put it out that we needed to, you know, account for our our our our town property that is being used to fight fires here in town. So I think the next step is to do what Eric suggested either through an ordinance or an agreement. I would prefer an ordinance. I think it I think it's, would be a good idea to flush out what's in the charter and what's in the the historical documents.
But for the ordinance, is that gonna address is that going to address contracting the the the Andover Fire Department entity who's actually doing the work versus the fire commission who's admin who's overseeing the work? Yes. That's my, that's my, that's my, Adrian, were you a part of this meeting?
I was not. I was, Discussion of it, you know, part of this was part of the discussion the other day with Wallace. Right, I remember the question we had,
is this was brought on by the auditor, wasn't it correctly?
Yes. It was an audit finding that we did not have any kind of documentation or memorandum of understanding between the Going town and the fire
forward, is the auditor gonna be alright with the Andover fire department not having to, disclose any of their financials? Well, they That's a different conversation, I think.
So, this memorandum of understanding, which is an adjustment from what was in our package, was what was agreed to today. Yeah. But this is about the equipment specifically. This has nothing to do with financials. I understand I'm just Yep. There's this is a different memorandum of understanding of what I read earlier. So Correct. Yes. Mean, I read it on the screen. I don't really have a problem with it. Eric, what you're saying is this is going to satisfy the auditor's initial issues. Correct. It should.
Alright. And Dennis, you have no problems with this document? Know you're involved
in its preparation and its revision and the meeting today. No, I like it a lot. I think it's a big step in the right direction, but we do need to firm up our relationship with the fire commission and the fire department. You know, perhaps an ordinance will do it. Perhaps we need a contract as well. Okay.
Anybody have any With the fire department. Anybody have any problems with this memorandum of understanding?
No. I think this one's great. I I do we wanna have Dennis start working on an ordinance? Yeah. Let's get this passed though. So, Scott, you have any problems with it? Well, I just had that one question.
Yeah. It's not addressed by this at all, unfortunately. Not addressed. So that's that's step two or step three or step four where we'll get to. That's that's in the future? Yeah. We have to get there. So but which what financials It's not worth discussing right now. I mean, basically basically what Eric what Scott is saying is that right now the town I mean, I'll be really honest. The town puts money into the fire department, which is we need to. They do a great job. The fire department and one of the entities collects fees for ambulance services, and there's no transparency in that back to the town. That's right. It's something that has to be addressed. It's not. The chief knows about it. The commission knows about it. The town, the board of selectmen knows about it. No one's wanted to address it in the past because there's always been fear of an adversarial relationship. There shouldn't be, but if we're gonna ask everybody to be transparent, we gotta ask the fire department to be transparent as well. So I
think I think, Jeff, that everybody around the table today seemed to agree that that was a good next step. Yeah. So And if we keep keep on mind. Yeah. Let's get this signed and we'll move to the next step and hopefully Yeah. I I I plan on moving to that next step, you know, working with Eric again, of course, very soon. I think that should be done soon. Right. Alright.
Alright. So somebody wanna make a motion to get this passed? I make a motion that we accept the Memorandum of Understanding as presented by Eric this evening. Second night.
All right. Further discussion? Paul, I can't see you. You all good with this, Paul? You know what? I apologize. Can I just amend that?
Sure. That we accept the memorandum of understanding between the fire commission and the town. I apologize. I didn't mention what we're accepting. So Eric's gonna yell at us for an improper motion otherwise.
Okay. All right. Paula is still having problems. So it's just three of us. Yep.
Dialed in. Oh, you're dialed You can't see me, but I'm listening through the phone. It's like a ghost of the Board of Selectmen.
All right. That means Paula hasn't been able to see the new one. So, we're going to vote on this. So it is the town attorney is in favor, the town administrator in favor, and it appears to be a reasonable MOU. So all those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Right. Let's move on to new business.
Excuse me, Jeff. Yeah? At one point, did did I miss something, or did you guys actually vote on the Jacobson contract? I wasn't sure that you did. Aaron? I don't I don't believe we did.
Okay. That's I didn't think so. I thought I might have missed it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't hear a vote. I thought you did, but I could be wrong. Well, let's vote again. I could be wrong, too.
Well, listen. I can't tell you. AJ, can you tell me? Paul is probably on and off, Scott. I mean, thought we did, but let's vote again. We've been beating too many horses tonight, so I don't remember. Yes, so let's Yeah. So I make a motion, and I know we did because I know Paula, I think I made Paula second, Paula seconded it because I remember saying Nathan L. Jacobson. But
what was what was the mocal, Eric? Were you keeping track? No. That was the
Miss Flour? That was the AES, the Andover Elementary School contract with the for the kid that needs a ride. No. I may be I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Let's just I'm not even I'm I'm going to
make a motion that we I know it was done, but we're going to do it again because we're all off and we can't rewind the tape. I'll throw a flag and you know? So I'm going to make a motion that we accept the Nathan L. Jacobson contract for engineering services. I second that.
Scott seconds that. All those in favor, aye. Aye. We voted again four-zero. I know when Eric rewants a tape, he'll sit there and get that. Dennis, thank you. I know we didn't have any dissenting votes on it, so we're good. So so there was That's in nine. You put something in nine. Yeah. New business. Yeah.
Yep. Alright. So I can I can help with this? Contract with Dennis O'Brien to reappoint as town attorney before he changes his mind or increases his fees. I would motion that we accept that agreement. K.
I'll second. There there's a problem with the contract, though. There is?
The the number what was the number, Eric? 9750 or something? I'm not sure what you're talking about. The 9500?
Right. And it where it's written, Jeff, it's it doesn't it doesn't say the same thing as it's written. I think it says 93 and it's written as $97.50 or something. Yeah. It says a retainer of 9,000. Oh yeah. You're right. Woah. Go Scott. Bad town administrator and, town attorney.
Dennis don't sign that thing until they fix it. Good. So as amended by Scott Person. Yeah. So Good judge. So $9,500 for the town attorney. Alright. Who seconded that? I did.
Paula did. All right. We had further discussion. Scott, thank you for that catch. Any other discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye.
So four, nothing on that. Dennis, thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Meredith. 9C, the town administrator's contract, we'll move that to executive session. 9D, Region VIII, Health and Medical Insurance. Eric?
Okay, so the Region VIII Medical Insurance Consortium Agreement and ballot laws were last updated in 2017. So that group has been working diligently to update it. You have the update here. I believe you are the last entity between the towns and boards of education that has to ratify this. So, you have the language in a red line form to read and agree to. Dennis has reviewed it and agreed that it's okay by form, but he denies any and all knowledge of the particulars of the contract, just says that it's well written. And to be perfectly honest, I have not been going to the RAM districate consortium meetings. You know, the finance office when we had full time employees there, one of them was going to it, but I have not been going to it, but I do know we have to pass this thing.
And here is the verbiage for it.
I I should say that I did have a lots of input in the first cons the last version of this contract. I'm not sure if it was the first. When Bob Burbank was first selectman, I went over it really carefully and knew a heck of a lot more about it then than I do now because the there's quite a few changes in it. The the the the thing is in in most situations when thirty's review contracts, they just okay them as the form because it's not it's not my role to, you know, decide whether, you know, the the amounts stated in there are correct. That's up to you or or anything else like that. But this is a fairly complex agreement,
but it seems to all add up in terms of, dotting all the i's, crossing all the t's, and, you know, it makes sense, and it seems rational. But as far as the figures go, I can't vouch for those. So I wrote, Eric an email saying that I could only approve it as the form, And that's often what the state attorney general will do with state contracts. You see, they come back approved only as the form.
So that's that's my that's my 2¢. And and, Eric, do you know at all if they've talked about any reimbursement to us based upon claim history?
You mean reimbursement to either the town or the school? Don't we get something back every year?
No, we don't, but they did based on the amount of money last year's claim history and the amount they had set aside in the self insurance pool. Right. They decreased
our costs this year. If you notice our health care costs went down around 8% this year compared to the year before. Yeah. That's their version. That's their version of a giveback is they give you a credit towards the next year to credit for everybody towards the next year.
Okay. Does anyone else have any questions related to the program, to the contract?
And if any Board of Selective Member wants to be the town's representative on the RAM Consortium Board, I would be more than happy to have you all appoint that person.
It would be great if we could find somebody that's insurance has insurance background. So if anybody finds anybody like that, we should ask them to be on that board. Okay. Are we going to approve the contract? Does somebody make a motion for it? All right. I will make a motion then make a motion as soon as I can get to the title of the article seven. That's a long contract. Oops, that went too far. I make a motion that we accept the Regional School District eight Health and Medical Insurance Consortium Agreement and Bylaws. Second. All right. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Jeff, what
was that commission again? Was the commission Do you want sign this, or do you want are you considering me the duly authorized person to sign this?
Dennis, who has the authority? I'll sign it, Eric. I'll be in to sign. When do you need it, bye. I'll be in tomorrow. I'll be in Thursday. Okay,
perfect. All right. 9E is a discussion related to zoning changes related to the town property on School Road. Eric has put forth a request to the planning and zoning committee related to the property on School Road. So Eric, if you can inform all the members of the board what's going on and then we can go on.
Sure. So in terms of building that community center, one of the things I did, because I knew we were going to submit to the Planning and Zoning Commission, and by the way, we have two submissions, now three we have to do to the Planning and Zoning Commission. I realized that municipal buildings aren't actually permitted use in the Andover Rural Design District, which is what the this property that we're at now is in, even though you know we built plenty of municipal buildings in the district it's not actually. A permitted use, so I sat down with the Chair of the the zoning Commission, I referred it to the town's zoning attorney, Mark Brantz. I gave him a preliminary, very simple zone change to accommodate that. And Mark came back to me with another series of changes that really, in definitions that really needed to be put in place to make that happen. So it is before, it will be before the zoning commission at their next meeting. The chairman and I have worked out the language for it. So, you know, it is going to be about a two month process because we have to provide notice to Croghan the adjacent communities anytime we do a zoning
change. So, will do that process as soon as we have approval at the next meeting to proceed. So that's one item. The second thing in discussions with it, we've had some questions about where the actual property boundaries are and what is considered town property and what is considered school property and some jurisdictional issues. So one of the things we're planning on doing is to produce an A2 boundary survey for the properties involved. So we can accurately locate within the properties any potential building site, and hopefully satisfy some concerns. My initial approach with the zoning commission had been to just say to the zoning commission, we're going to do a, we're basically going to combine the three properties or four properties that abut each other, you know, and get away from any issues with being within cider or front yard setback. Because, because one of them is potentially under the school, the school's authority, the planning and zoning chair did not feel that was appropriate to just go after and probably not legal to just go combine the properties. So we're going to be stuck surveying that. We're working to expedite that and get that done as soon as possible so it doesn't really impinge on the timeline of the project. When I have more on that, I'll let you know.
And probably next month, I will file with the Planning and Zoning Commission a eight twenty four statutory referral on behalf of the Board of Selectmen, presuming that you agree for building a community center at that location. And there's no question that our, there's plenty of documents in our current plan of conservation and development to support that eight twenty four. As many of you know, an eight twenty four statutory approval is a state requirement that anytime you do a significant municipal improvement, you have to ask the plan of the planning and zoning commission whether it's consistent with the plan of conservation and development. When we denied Millie Barnes, we wanted to make it two. So unless you guys have any objection, it's my intention to request that next month, which would mean probably January or so they would move on that also. Again, because that's going to take less time than the rezoning. The rezoning was the priority thing that I filed with them as soon as I could.
Are you going to use the same survey people that did the twelve center?
Yeah, presumably. They? Yeah. And because they've already done most of the topography and they've surveyed a lot of that property anyway, it should be faster and cheaper to use BSC than any other the switch surveyors now.
BCS take on it was that we would do a 200 level survey and a 40 level survey to basically we'll get the details where we need them in the center areas and the outside stuff just kind of fill in where the major markers are. I think the biggest problem with all of this is that everyone kind of thought there was a survey there, unfortunately there wasn't. What we had on, what we had in house came from the commission back in the 90s. And although it was signed and stamped by everybody, none of them were engineers. So, you know.
Yeah, it was, that was a compilation survey. It was not an AQ survey. I spent a bunch of time today with Carol researching, because I was trying to figure out why the property that the school parcel was on. The survey map for that was filed like three years after the school was already in business. And apparently what happened is Percy Cook donated the land to the school, and then they built the school. And then for some reason, either he or the town wanted to reconfigure the property. So they basically un donated it to the town. They reversed the original donation of the town and refiled a new map and a new donation for a bigger piece of land to the school. And then later than that, in 1965, he donated the land to the Andover town hall that the town hall is the extra piece behind the town hall.
So those were all donations from Percy Cook. All right. So do you need us to do anything from an approval standpoint to move this along?
I don't think so at this point. I mean, it's my intention to use, you know, BSC because they had the, they were originally given the contract for the site work and civil engineering. It would just be an addendum on the previous contract with them. Okay. Is how I would, you know, would consider it at this point.
For clarification, though, we wanted to, for the funding for this, we didn't want to take all of it out of the community center, because honestly, the town should have already had surveys on all of this and never did. So
Are you going to delineate, the town hall to the school at some point?
Yeah. We're gonna add So it's not just town hall to school. It's also it's also fire department as well. Like, none of that was delineated correctly. So, and by state statute, we should have had, and we don't, and this is the other issue. The fire department should have a right of way across the property to get to their use of the septic and so should the school. And none of that's in place on any of the, because it's shared usage, there should have been right away or easements on each of the land parcel deeds, and there are not. So that also has to be addressed. And that was again something that was missed when all of this still was done. Back when the community center was built, back when the fire department was built. Know, so definitely we're some some
we're cleaning up a lot of old stuff. So just like everything else, this board is gonna attempt to sit there and clean up old mess. So let's let's get to it. Eric, do you need us to do anything else to get this moving?
I don't think so. I still don't have a firm contract from BSC or BCS, sorry. When I do, my intention is to sign it and get it approved. Okay. And the dog agrees.
Sorry. Okay. All right, thank you very much for that information. We'll move on now to 10A and its approval of the Tuesday, 10/11/2022 regular minute meetings. Somebody make a motion to approve those? I'll second. I didn't make a motion. I wasn't done. I
make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for Tuesday, 10/11/2022, regular meeting minutes. Now, Scott. We'll see.
Adrian is off Chase the Dog. All those in favor? Aye. So Scott and Paula are in favor, aye. I will abstain since I wasn't at that meeting. Adrian, do you want to approve the minutes? Three, three, three zero one. Okay. Item 11, the finance report, revenue summary, town budget summary, the Town Aid Road update, the Town Cash report, and over expenditure report.
Okay. So what you have in your packet is you have first the expenditure report. If you have questions on that, I'm happy to answer that. And then for the revenue report, because we don't actually have an Edmunds, I gave you two bits of information. The first bit of information was every bit of income we've gotten from the state of Connecticut, including payment in lieu of taxes, municipal stabilization ECS. And the next two down were the payments for the incentive or not the incentive, the housing study grant that we got for the town. And then municipal revenue sharing account, the money in from the trench and the money in from Town Aid Road. So at least you can see what income is flowing into the town from the state. And then the second part of that is in sorry, it's a little out of order is the report from the tax collector. And between those two, that represents like 99%
of the income the town gets. There is a little bit more that flows in from the town clerk's office, you know, through transfer station permits and other, but that's the vast majority of it. At least I gave you most of the information, if not in a beautifully collated form. And then we also listed the check register for the last four months, which was October, so that is listed there for you to review. Questions on that?
So, basically, I don't think we're we have the tax collector's information, at least in the package that I'm looking at,
but it does matter. Wait. Wait. Wait. It should be page 80 of the report. Okay. There's the October 22, deposits.
Okay. So if I'm looking at check register, there were 71 checks cut in October, plus a potential for two payroll cycles to have been transacted during that same period of time. Yep, sounds about right.
Okay. All right. Any other questions related to that information? Let's move down to the budget item 12. I don't believe there's anything in there. Any appropriation transfers or over expenditure requests? Nothing? No. There's nothing at this point. Okay. The tax collector's report was collected 1.798413 total dollars, so $1,798,413.13 in October.
Yep. And if you look at the next sheet that shows you for real estate, personal property, and motor vehicles, the fraction that's been collected and the fraction that's uncollected for all three.
So in essence, we have about 400 and well, dollars 360,000 of uncollected taxes going back pre-twenty 20. Are we planning on doing any collections on those? Are we doing any tax sales, anything?
So what we've done is the motor vehicles usually kind of takes care of itself because the majority of those we get in within a couple years because everybody needs to renew their license and everybody needs to renew their registration. So the only ones we miss out on are the ones we move out of state that we can't track down. The really old ones of those we had sent to our collection agency who's gotten some of them. The rest at this point are ones they probably can't track down. We also sent basically all the personal property declarations that haven't been paid to the collection agency. So we've gotten a bunch of them back recently, made a few people unhappy, but that's okay. Those are ones where there's no effective process to lean to get the money back. And because people can, once they, you know, if they own a corporation or an LLC or have been doing business as and they get rid of it, it's almost impossible to get your money back later. So we're always going to have problems collecting
those. And as far as the houses, there's, you know, tax liens on all of them that are unpaid. Don't Are we going have any tax sales, Eric?
I am not anticipating any. If you want, we certainly could.
Well, there's a $158,000 of old real estate taxes pre 2020 or 2020 and back, so we should find out about that. You wanna send everything pre 2020?
No. No. No. I'm just telling you. Just let us know what the tax collector tells us about that $158,000, you know, to sit there and see what the best way is to collect it as opposed to waiting for them to sell their property and collect it because we have a lien on it. Well,
let me put one thing in your ear, though. For all that back money that we eventually get when the property is sold, we're getting 18%
per year interest on. Yeah, so why would why would you send them to a tax sale?
Well, that's been that's the reason why we haven't done it in a while because when we do it, eventually get that money, a lot of times we get a snot load of money and fees. Yep. So it's actually not a bad thing to have some of that on the books. And it's not when you want your money.
So we used to The have tax only is there's a statute of limitations on the, but it's, I think it's fifteen years. So you have to collect within fifteen years. Do you have a contract with Adam Cohen?
No. The the attorney? That's who did the last one, Jeff.
No, I don't. We don't have a contract with him to keep doing it and doing it. But you, but you, as a matter, of course, you use him. Yes.
Right. Yeah. He's, he's great. He, he does a great job. I, I've worked with him a lot and, tax sales are definitely the way to go.
Okay. So just, Eric, I mean, just sit there and keep us updated on the next go round and sit there and see what the tax collector would like to do to you know, it's better to have the money than not.
Right. But but Dennis, you talk about fifteen years. Like if you look at 2013 you know and back you know it's basically wiped out at this point, so you know most of the stuff that's in that's going back only really goes back to 2014 which is well under the fifteen year limit.
Oh yeah I mean you're probably all set with regard to that and I agree with you the interest rate is high, very high, and it's, you know, it's it's an incentive for people to pay, actually, if they can. Okay. So let's
let's Prior to COVID, we used to do those once a year, though. Right?
Yeah. But I think Eric's point is it's not it's not cost effective for the town to do it. You know, in a and and in some cases, there are extenuating circumstances. So running them every year is, you know
I don't think the town ever paid money for those. Just letting you know. I mean, those are those those were you sell a tax lien. If they don't take the tax lien, you got the property.
Right. But I guess my point is that, you know, say you go back and look at 2016, I mean, we still owe $3,600 out of roughly, what 12,000,000, you know, year before we own $1,200 out of, know, the same thing $1,112,000,000. So our collection rate overall is still pretty good.
At least from my perspective. I just want it to be a 100%, Eric.
Yeah, but Eric's point is letting it not be a 100% gets nets us more money, so let it be. We're making you more money, Jeff. Maybe the town will donate some curtains to you when you, you know, retire. Could be.
So alright. So so you're gonna just keep getting this information on that, Eric, from the tax collector. Yep. So There are department reports, base state collections, assessors reports, fire department.
Hold on. Before we move on, there are three refunds of excess tax payments this month, the $49.47 one Melinda Armstrong, Patricia Bimaldi for $26.96 and to Enterprise for $176.72
Somebody want to make a motion to accept to pay those back? Okay. I'll make a motion to refund the excess tax payments to the listed residents Seconded. Listed taxpayers. Seconded by Adrian. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Department reports. Anybody have any questions on the department reports? Okay. All right. Eric, any correspondence?
No, nothing major. Okay. The only other thing I was going to say is we probably will do a an RFP in the next month or so for the Planning Zoning Commission. Because as you recall, the next plan of conservation and development is due in about two years. And so, given that the normal cycle for doing that is at least twelve to fifteen months, We want to get that RFP out there now. Will be expending money that the town has been banking every year for the last eight years, specifically for the plan of conservation development. So, that'll be neutral on the budget because we've been putting money in that permanent fund every year.
Okay. Okay. I don't have any questions on those reports right now. Let's move on to our public speak. So the only one left is Mark Brinker.
Nothing for me to meet, Jeff. I'm good. Thanks. Joe, I'm sure you're glad to hear.
Well, thank you, Mark, for staying all the way. So now we're gonna, somebody wanna make a motion to move to executive session and and speak about Eric's contract, and let's include Dennis in this just because he's gonna write the contract out of some
I make a motion to enter executive session and invite the town attorney and Eric Anderson.
Okay. Who wants to second that? I'll second it. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Eric, if you can stop the recording right now, that would be great. Mark, thank you for joining us. Our CVC friends, thank you for joining us. Okay.