Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen- Regular Meeting
October 11, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Thanks, Jeff. Pledge allegiance to the flag, tonight, safe America, to the public, which stands, one nation under god, liberty, justice for all. When they call you. Alright. Public speak. How do I raise my hand? No, he's finished. Mike. Yeah,
I just have a question. I sent something in about a week ago to Eric about a new member that's interested in coming on to the conservation commission. And I'd like to move forward and not leave him hanging here and bring him in, you know, but you guys have to approve it from what I understand. Yep,
we do. And we did get the letter. Eric forwarded it over to us.
So why don't we just add it to the agenda right now? I appreciate it. So
it's Conservation Commission. So I don't have to pull up to the screen, Mikey. Tell me who the person is.
Yeah, just a minute. I got a memory like a steel trap. It's Evan. Evan acquire. The last name is AGUIRE. There's two R's I think, right? Two R's. No, no, one. One, okay. So he's got two, two. Yeah, he's got two R's, yep. Okay, and you vetted this person, you're good?
Oh yeah we interviewed him last time right after our meeting. Okay.
And he was on that meeting with us and they wanted to see how we acted and that kind of stuff and he sent me a note that he he'd love to join. Is 5B okay for that Scott for you? Yeah yeah it should be. Usually we have it right before that don't we?
Well, we got appointments under five, so I was gonna do five b. Okay. Alright. Alright. So I will second your five b. Anyone else want to add anything while we're at that?
Yes, I I want to Adrian. Go ahead. Go ahead, Kathy. Yeah, thank you. I would just like public speak to say remind everyone that Thursday, October 13 at the Aes Gym from two to five. We're hosting a flu clinic, and this is for the town it's for anyone. It doesn't have to be just seniors. We have about 72 people coming, and, I just wanted to let everyone know it's very important, to get the flu shot if you're able to. Thank you. Say that again, Kathy. When? October 13 at what time? October 13, that's Thursday at between two and five. Right now, I have enough a lot of people coming between two and 03:30. The best time really is to come is four, 04:30. Kathy, do you know if they're gonna
Kathy, are they gonna do COVID boosters at the same time available?
No. They're just gonna do either a senior flu shot or a a young person flu shot. That would be you, Adrian, a young person.
Thanks. I'll take what I can get. All right. Any other public speak? Diane Greiner? Joanne Hebert? Sorry, I couldn't find my button here. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay, thanks Diane. Joanne Hebert. All set. Thanks. Jed Larson. I'm all set too. Thanks Adrian. Okay, great. CBC, I think is our recording, right? Yeah. All
right. So anyone else need anything to add to the agenda?
I would like to add something to the agenda under boards and commissions after Jed, the one hundred and seventy fifth wanted to give an update on their meeting tonight and some information. Do we have someone on the meeting for that?
Catherine Lewis was gonna do it, but I can either give an update or Kathy Palazzi, but I'm gonna text Catherine to see if she's jumping on. Okay, so where do you wanna put that?
Let's put it after okay. Let's do four b under boards and commissions.
K. I'll second that as well. Alright. Anyone else? Jeffrey? Scott? Good. Good. Good. I'm good. K. Alright. So we should be good. Any objections to those? We got five b, Conservation Commission and four B, one hundred seventy fifth. All in favor? Aye. Okay.
We're good. Five, four nothing. All right. So let's move on. Jed, you are up.
Okay. Eric, can you allow me to share my screen?
Working on it. Okay, you should be able to share now.
Okay, can everybody see the letter we sent to the Board of Selectmen about lowering the speed limit in the vicinity of Route 6 and Lake Road intersection? Yes. Okay, so I'm not going to read through that. That was in the data package that you all had, but essentially, we're the Planning and Zoning Commission is recommending that we lower the speed limit in the vicinity of the new Dollar General store. So, here's Lake Road, here's where the Dollar General is. Right now the speed limit is lowered to 40 miles an hour right here about at the end of the Christmas tree farm before you get to Bunker Hill Road and it remains 40 miles an hour until you get over to about Shawty Mill Road. When we held the public hearing on the Dollar General this spring, you know, were essentially two kinds of comments. There were a lot of people there that weren't particularly pleased that Dollar General was coming to town. And there were a lot of people that expressed a concern about traffic conditions
in the vicinity of the Dollar General. And that could have been because you know last December just past Lake Road between Lake Road and Route 87 we had a traffic fatality take place. But anyhow, that was on a lot of people's minds that the traffic wasn't going to be good. On the Planning and Zoning Commission, you know, we saw the traffic study that was presented to the Department of Transportation. And I thought that you know the Department of Transportation would look at that. I was hoping that they might make the exit onto Route 6 a right turn only and look at you know slowing the speed limit down. They took neither of those actions and. And so we on the planning and zoning Commission thought that we should recommend to the board of selectmen to recommend to the Department of Transportation that the speed limit be reduced? Is the go ahead.
I we got you know we got the information from you previously. Okay. I think as a whole, unless I hear any objection from the board, I think as a whole, we're in favor of this. I would hope, you know, I personally am. Is there anything that you want us to send with the letter or that we need to send with the letter that will help this case if we decide to go this route?
The, well, so I looked at, you know, if we reduce, the benefit would be reducing the speed limit by 10 miles an hour to increase safety. And most people go a little faster than the speed limit, but the average speed is still about 10 miles lower, although over, when you reduce the speed limit down. Yeah. The distance we're looking at is about an extra half a mile at the slower speed. Sure.
And so that's not very far. When you figure out how long does it take, how much longer your commute is by lowering the speed there for half a mile, it comes out to nine seconds. And the only thing that's required in the Department of Transportation is to move a couple of signs to make that happen. So, you know, I was surprised that didn't happen on its own. But I think based on the concerns in just last July, right in front of the gas station out there, we had, you know, another serious accident, six casualties, one serious life start. Does
your benefits and costs come from DOT data or where was this compiled from? The
speeds in the 50 and the 40 zones I got from Eric. The distance of one half mile at the lower speed zone is, you know, what I clocked down the odometer of my car. Sure. And I did the math to calculate the nine second difference. Eric, where did you get the data from?
I sent you the links when I sent you the data.
Okay. Earlier. So that those links are DOT stuff is that a compiling that they do or.
There's a couple things there's a bunch of crash data that the state maintains in a repository with the with the University of Connecticut and then, there's also some other data that's held by the DOT. It's basically their their the speed data is that that's basically DOT data, but it's publicly available.
So we can refer them back to their own data if we decide to go this route and just kind of, you know, when we're asking for this? Eric, is that correct?
Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah, if you're asking me. Yeah, I mean, basically, what you're going to ask is you're going to ask the office of the state traffic authority to do a traffic study on Route 6 in that area and with the goal of reducing the speed limit there from 50 to 40. So we have to ask them to do a traffic study even though we already have this data available? Yes. Yes. Okay.
I mean, look, it's a state road. They've already set the speed limit at what they they think that's appropriate. Sure. You're telling them you want a different speed. So, now, they're going to have to come out and say, should it really be dropped or not? Okay.
Alright. I would make a motion in favor of support of this, you know, reduction of speed limit by 10 miles an hour in the recommended zone. Second that. Okay. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye.
Okay, four zero. Chad, I think we're all set with the screen share. Anything else that you want to add with this?
Not on this particular topic. I was going to continue on and walk through the opting out of the public act 2,129
requirement for accessory dwelling units that I spoke to you about last June. Okay. Oh, yep. Okay. See it now on the bottom of your share screen. Sorry about that. I didn't see that before. All right, do want to walk us through that real quick?
Yes, thank you. So this is a request for ratification of the unanimous planning and zoning commission vote by the Board of Selectmen. So at the June meeting, we talked about why the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended opting out of the accessory dwelling unit portion of the regulation stipulated in Public Act 21 dash 29. And essentially that act would give any homeowner the right to build an accessory dwelling unit on each building line. With the lots on the lake, some of them very small, in the fact that we already have effective accessory dwelling unit regulations in our regulations, and that it was recommended that we opt out by our land use attorney and in our affordable housing plan, we took, we began the process to opt out of the regulations. The requirements were planning and zoning Commission had to vote by a twothree vote to initiate the opt out process that passed unanimously on June 20.
We held a public hearing on July 18 with no public comments on that at all. The Commission decided to opt out within the ordinary statutory deadlines, which we did sixty five days. We voted to opt out on August 15. We published in the River East on Friday, August 19. And I'm coming to the Board of Selectmen to ratify that decision tonight.
Eric, did we get any public feedback on this after it was published? Nope, none that I'm aware of. Okay.
I would make a motion that we opt out of PA 21 dash 29 accessory dwelling unit requirements per the recommendation of the planning zoning Commission. Seconded. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Four zero. Anything else, Jed? No, that does it for me and thank you very much. Can I ask you a question before you run off then? Yes. We did get a comment about trucks backing in from Route 6 into Dollar General. Was there an accommodation on the site for some other access besides backing in off of Route 6 with trucks?
The way it's supposed to happen is the entrance was designed so that a truck could pull in and turn to the right in front of the Dollar General and then back around the corner to the loading dock. Okay. That's how they're supposed to come in. Maybe they're doing something different to facilitate some of the construction. Okay.
That is not the way that they should be doing it
when the store is open. That's not how it was portrayed to the Planning and Zoning Commission either.
Is there is there anything we can do about that, Eric, that you know of? No. Okay. I didn't know if we could have zoning, send them a letter or to maybe sign it for their trucks or something.
I'm not sure what you're what are you trying to accomplish
so that they're not backing off a Route 6 if we ask them to sign the entrance accordingly.
Oh, put a sign. Okay. I mean, again, we would you would ask if you want to do that as the local traffic authority, you could ask me to ask the state traffic authority to do that.
Okay. So we can't do it as a town, have to have to get the state to do it, is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's a state road. We have no jurisdiction. Jed, you got a thought?
Well, I would think that maybe the first step would be to have Jim Hallisey contact the developer and just ask them why they're doing that when we were briefed the other way and
to stop is not safe. Yeah, mean, I've driven trucks in the past and it's not uncommon to go into a site and have them sign it as to where they want you to go.
You know. Yeah, it was very specific. We addressed during the application process that they would not be backing in. Now I haven't seen anybody back in from Route 6. I have seen them back in from Lake Road. Okay.
But they shouldn't be doing that. And my recommendation would be to just have Jim Hallisey contact the developer and tell them to stop it. All right. If that doesn't work, then we could do something a little more formal. Can you facilitate that, Eric?
Sure. Thank you. Does anybody on the board has objection? No? Okay. All right, moving on. We're gonna do one hundred seventy fifth. It looks like Catherine's on. Catherine Kuneers?
Oh yeah, hi. Hi, you can't see me. I don't know why. That's okay. You're up, Catherine. You're lucky. First of all I wanted to let you know that we don't need the porta potty things anymore so you guys rock the hook for that but we'd like to put you on the hook for something else because we don't don't need to be using the school and the town hall which is good. That's that's money off the table, but we need we still need donations. We still don't have donations from the Board of Selectmen and we really need it and I'm kind of hoping that maybe you can since you don't we don't need the porta potties and maybe you can pitch in for the cookbook. We have a thousand dollars for the cookbook that we need and we need about 1,500 for t shirts and we're going to close to about 1,900 or so for all of the games so we still very much need donations. Mean this is a big anniversary we're trying to put on and we've got a lot of things in the fire and. We need help with it.
So you're looking for 1,500 for t shirts 1,900 for games and what was the other thing a cookbook? Cookbook is yeah with thinking right now it's about a thousand
but that's for about 300 cookbooks that hopefully we'll be able to sell for around $10
Are all these break even propositions for you at this point or are you trying to
Yeah, mean we're trying to hopefully right now it's well we haven't made anything but for the most part yes they are break even. If we can get something for the t shirts, the t shirts are around $15 we ordered them but we're gonna sell them for 20 and we're hoping anything we have we can go towards refreshments and because for the dedication alone we haven't got anything that we need yet for our dedication which is on the eighteenth and we'd like to be able to offer you know a cake and a big big cake and coffee and soda or whatever for the dedication but there'll be a food truck for the other event for the festival so we don't there's two of them actually so we don't need it for that But we're hoping other things, if we do have any money, it'll be going towards the other things that we have. We're going to do historical tours of old homes and buildings that are around Andover and also the cemeteries
old Andover Burying Ground and Townsend. Let's see a magician we're gonna have a magician that's there So we still have quite a few things that we're working on.
Okay. You're not gonna need pork bodies, but you so you're gonna use the school and the town hall at this point? Yeah. Okay.
Alright. And have you guys put together a plan, a layout as to where you're gonna try to put things at this point? Have you thought about your layout?
Oh, you mean for, the schools, the festival? Yeah. No. I yes. I've thought about it, and I've got a, printout from Valerie. I've got a printout of the, what the side of the building is and how much acreage there is and whatever. And then I've got a list of the games that we have and how much space they take up. So now it's just a matter of going out there and walking around and saying, okay. What's the best way to set this up? Okay. Alright.
When you get a little closer to doing that, maybe just touch base with, Eric and myself, and Scott, because we also wanna take into account there's gonna be some construction going on at that time. So we could kinda work around that. Okay. Community center.
Yeah. And are we hoping we're far enough away from that so that won't be a a problem. Yeah. I wasn't sure where your layout was, I don't know. But I just wanna But it's on the other side. It's on the other side of where the big sign is for indoor elementary kids. Oh, okay. Okay. So it's on the upper one, the upper level. Okay. I wasn't aware.
Okay. Anything else that you want to I guess bring us up to date on?
No, want to thank Scott very much for the tree that's there Scott. We very, very much appreciate it. It'll be nice to have that there at the in the wintertime and to have it lit up. But no, I'm just hoping hoping that we could count on some donations from the Board of Selectmen so that people don't have to put anything else out of pocket.
Okay. How much how much money do you really need?
Probably around right now 3,000. It might be a little less depending on how many but right now the with what we have for donations, and I'm looking at my totals here. The totals came to about 4,000 and we had about 2,000 or so in donations. And right now the total is 3,130 that we have left.
Okay yeah because you had based on what you've given us before you wouldn't needed 4,400. Yeah that's good that's good. For the cookbook 1,500 for t shirts and 19 for games. And you've got 2,000 in donations so far? Over 2,000, like 2,300 donations so far, yeah. Okay. Plus a cake, you need a cake. Oh yeah, yeah, that's I'm so sorry.
There was bit If you need a minute, take a minute and grab a cup of coffee. Goddamn, I'm sorry.
The festival will have the food truck so we don't we're all set there. It's just yeah. We do need I haven't looked into it yet because it's kind of far away, but I was gonna look at either Highland Delmaters or something for for getting a large cake or two or whatever for the dedication. Okay.
So right now we we just Shirley just ordered the cookbooks and so our estimate is around thousand dollars. She will have to put about 30% down I think in a few days in a few weeks couple of weeks and I think Marianella put money down offer on her own credit card so far for the t shirts. Okay anyone have any questions Scott, Jeff, Paula?
My question is so Katherine what's the timeline that you would like to hear back from us to help out as far as if if we're gonna give donations and stuff like that? Because Marinella said she already ordered the shirts, right? Right, yes. The cookbooks ordered.
Yep. So they're gonna be coming in in a few weeks, so we're gonna need the money. Okay. By 08:00 tonight, we'll be fine. Okay, 08:30. I don't think we'll be done by then. Okay. Scott, any questions? I'm just good. Jeff Murray? I'm good.
All right. Thank you, Katherine, for the update. Thanks. We'll try to get back to you here. Thank you.
Thanks. Do we have are we, like, still have no time late, time frame for the getting back to us? Right? Is it, like, within a few weeks or Just throwing it out there.
I I think I think individually people have to make a decision as to what they're, you know, I don't, unless somebody has an idea right now or we looked at the budget at all?
Okay. Mean, I know Yeah, be more than happy to give you an update of the project list too, you wanna look at it and what's being spent and where that's just let me know and I'll send it along. Okay. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind doing that, Catherine, and
breaking out what you've got now and what you need. Oh, it's all in the yeah. It's all in the project list. So I'll send it out. It's all it's all the the item cost and the amount due and donations
and all that. So I think sometimes people feel more comfortable donating, you know, behind the scenes. So Okay. That's fine. I'm Thank just Let's get out of here.
Oh, I think we lost Adrian. Catherine, you're still on.
Okay. I tried you know what? I'm just gonna come off because I'm gonna stop coughing. Alright. I didn't get rid of Adrian. I promise. I don't know what happened. Yeah. He's gone. Alright. Thank you, Katherine. Thanks for letting me talk. Yep. No problem.
Alright. Let's keep going here. Appointments? Yep. So I don't I don't have Okay, good. Mike Plazi is still on. So anybody else jump in if I'm not doing this right, but we're talking about appointing Cheryl Miller as the town treasurer. Can somebody make a motion, please?
Hang on. I just admitted Adrian. He'll be on All the back in two right. We'll let him
jump on here. Catherine, if you can mute. Okay, thank you. Adrian. You guys hear me? Yep. We can hear you. No camera, but we can hear you. Yeah. Sorry. I lost power for some reason.
I'm on generator, but just takes a minute for the generator cycle up. Alright. So, okay, I think, are we done with Catherine? Did you guys let her go? Catherine's all set. We're on to appointments.
Okay, great. Cheryl Miller as town treasurer. As you all are aware, we've hired Cheryl Miller to work, in the finance office and get us squared away. She she has offered to be our talent treasurer as part of that process until we get, the office cleaned up. Do does anyone, have any questions surrounding that or want to have a discussion regarding that? We had a long one last meeting, right?
Yep, I just want to give everybody a chance just in case. Jeff Murray, you good? Any questions around that? Good. Okay, I would make a motion then that we appoint Cheryl Miller as the town treasurer. I'll second. Further discussion? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.
Okay. When did she start? When did she start? I think she's already started if I'm correct. Is that correct, Derek?
Yes, she's already started working for the town, but she'll be the town treasurer effective today.
Okay. Does that answer your question, Scott? Yep. Okay. Resignations, I don't see anything on the sheet.
Eric, we good there? No, no, we got it. We got it to the Conservation Commission.
Oh, I totally apologize, Scott. Thank you for catching that.
Mike. Mike, what was his name anyways? Evan Aguirre? Does juice was that how you pronounced it? Aguirre. Yep.
With two r's. Yep. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And work he's he's not an alternate. He's gonna be an active member. Mike, is that correct? Yes. He is. He's gonna fill in the last
school member we needed. Yep. We've been missing that member a long time. All right. Scott, do you wanna make that motion?
No motion to step Evan McGuire into the Conservation Commission as a full member. I'll second.
Second by Paula. Alright. Further discussion? None? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay.
So he's, can you hear me? Yeah. He just has to go to the Carol's office to be sworn in, right? Correct. Okay. Yep. Right. Well, thank you guys.
Yep. Okay. Eric, you said no resignations. Correct. So we are rolling into your town administrator's report.
Catch us up. Okay. I don't have a lot to add that's not actually in the report. Do any of you have any specific questions for me?
Yeah. I wanna know what's going on with the truck rehab. Yeah. That's a great question, Scott. As
far as I know, they haven't torn it down yet to get out to remove what they need to remove.
He was supposed to get a quote on on rebuilding. So,
the rebuilding was always the cheap part. That's only about $2,500 The expensive thing is Zach says he thinks it's somewhere between eight and sixteen mandates to disassemble the vehicle to get the fuel pump out and put it back in. It's really, I mean, you've already told them to do it. So, they're scheduling it. Okay. It's just the reason why that was so expensive is it's an enormous amount of labor to make that happen. So, it will happen.
But there was just there was he was supposed to shop around to have He was saying they didn't even know if they could get it done or they could get parts he was going to look at a couple different vendors.
Well, they know they can get it rebuilt. You can't, it's not something you can buy anymore. It's long out of production. Yeah. But they can get it rebuilt. The person you suggested they go to would have sent it out to the same spot that Jay got the quote to get it done originally. Said they were not capable of rebuilding them. Okay. So, it's it's really just a question of labor and spending the hours to tear it apart. Okay. Six six to eighteen hours? No, I think he said days. Days? Yeah. Yes. Where is this injection pump located? It's in another realm apparently. Not even in the state or is it in
I mean, there's just a lot of things that have to be disassembled. I mean, essentially, the, you know, much of the engine has to come apart to get to that. And is that comfortable doing it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said it's not a problem. It's just time.
Okay. Alright. So, they have, they have not really gotten dug into that yet.
No, I don't think so. I mean, they, right now, they gotta get the sweeper fixed and they gotta get seven fixed and get those two running and then, they'll work on the old one. We're waiting on parts for the sweeper too. Right? I have not talked to Jay in a day or two. As of Friday,
they did not have the parts. And what's going on with seven?
I don't remember exactly. It had some issues. They had to bring it in and get it diagnosed because they don't have their own scanner. Okay.
I noticed we've got a lot of the backfilling done on Shadi finally, but it still looks like we still got the lower half to do. I'm hoping that we can do that pretty soon. Yep. It's gonna be a little late in the year to be throwing grass out, but Does anyone have any other questions? Yeah. Yeah. Eric, what is eviction debris? Eviction debris?
Mhmm. I don't know. That was in Jay's Jay's report. Was was there an an eviction?
Yeah. So, okay. Now, I know what you're talking about. Yes. So, there was roughly six weeks ago now, there was an eviction in town and the town was legally obligated to store the stuff for the fire marshal. And the applicant has, I forget some either fifteen or twenty days to pick it up. If they don't, then the town disposes of it. So that's what the town did.
Okay. Now I I thought that the town can also build a property order for that. No? No. No. That's a town obligation. Okay. Alright. And no further activity on Wales, Eric? No.
K. So is that just stagnant at this point, or we just have don't have an agreement in place?
Well, I mean, it seemed to me based on the discussion the last time, the town wasn't interested in taking on any liability with that, so I dropped it completely. I have not pursued it at all with the homeowner. Okay. Is that everyone's recollection?
Yeah. And as long as she doesn't live there, I I guess there's nothing that we have to do. K. Jeff, you okay with that? Yep.
K. Alright. Any other questions for Eric regarding his report?
I didn't see it on the report. I just have a random question. I was looking through Jay's info about the sweeper. Is the sweeper still
down? Or Yeah. They're waiting on waiting on parts. Okay.
One one more thing. Eric didn't really get to go through his report here, but Eric, do you wanna just kinda talk about the ribbon cutting on Saturday Saturday? So that
That sounds like under new business. I could talk about it now or I could talk about it then. No. Whatever. Talking about talking about later. I I forgot it was on later on. Okay.
K. Jeff, do you have anything? No. Thanks. I'm all set. Okay. Paul, you're good now? Yep.
And Scott was good. I'm good. We will move on. Old business. Act upon the following. So we've already we've already, done eight a finance department employment status of open board positions in town treasurer. At this point, I don't believe we have that position advertised, and I think this point we kind of my own personal take on it is that we need to let Cheryl get through a little bit further into dig into this before we put it out there, you know, kind of see where we're at.
So does the board have any objection to me posting for the accounting associate job description?
I don't. Think, know, are we still working off the one that Diane Shawkat had put together?
I put a revised one that came from her in your packet.
Okay. Can we just as a matter of of of making sure we're all on the same page? Can we have Cheryl take a look at that and make sure she's on board with that description? Sure. Like I think there was some discussion that Cheryl had had, just so everyone's on the same page. I know all of you weren't there, but Cheryl had had some thoughts about we might be better off actually looking for a town treasurer if it was a full time position that might have been a better way to go for us. Know, hiring a town treasurer and not having a secondary position. You know, that a high level person could do both and sort of eliminate. The downside of that is there is no checks and balances as far as someone checking somebody else's work. I don't know if any of you have thoughts on that or. Alright. Then does anyone have any objection to having Cheryl take a look at it before we move forward?
Oh, but Cheryl's good with it, we should have Eric move forward with it, right? I'm fine with that, Scott. Yeah.
Yeah. So we don't have to wait another month? Nope. I'm I'm fine with that. As long as Cheryl's good with it and feels that it's it's gonna fit our needs. Yep. Alright. So, that's kinda where you're at, Eric. Okay. Alright. Anything else to do with finance at this point? No. Okay.
Community center RFP. Eric, I know we didn't get together today, unfortunately. We have everything done. We just have to get things posted to the correct websites. We got all the finally got all the data back from engineering group and the architect group with corrections that we asked for. We're gonna do it as a ZIP file. Paula was busy today, unfortunately. I reached out to Roberta. I did not hear back about trying to get some of that stuff uploaded. So hopefully that gets, we can work on that tomorrow.
Yeah, I mean, will technically be back in the office as of Thursday. That's my five days from diagnosis. Okay.
Are you are you working from home at this point or what are you what are you doing? I mean, I know I was pretty wiped. I had COVID last week so I was I was super wiped so I I wasn't working on much.
Where are you at? Did a little work for the town, but I just took them all the sick days.
Okay. All right. So what do want to do, Eric? Do you want to do you want to try to get together on Thursday? Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Thursday would be, I think, be smarter. Okay. Alright, so Thursday it is. Just reach out to me in the morning I have I have people here all day, so I won't be able to leave, but I can coordinate with you. Okay. Okay.
Any other questions on that? No. Alright, moving on. Hop River Homes. Do we get that over to the attorney and is that kind of ironed out now?
I got some correspondence from them last week, but I'm not sure I even read it, to be perfectly honest with you.
Okay. So maybe that's on your list for Thursday, Friday when you get back? Yep. And just if we need to refer that to the attorney to, you know, tighten that up. Okay, moving on to D, recognizing Andover residents.
Okay, so this was something I added and I was hoping Jeff McGuire was on too. We had a conversation last week. We started a conversation last month during the meeting, and then Jeff and I kinda had another conversation last week. So we're looking to talk to the rest of the board about your thoughts and suggestions. Jeff had mentioned either in the community room or when the new community center gets built. We'd like to put something on the wall to recognize outstanding residents. So, example, Marcy McDonnell did something that's been broadcasted nationwide. We're looking for some input and we can continue the conversation. We're not going to decide tonight, obviously, but how often do we want to do this? How do we recognize people? Jeff and I talked about maybe plaques on the wall. And then during a meeting or some sort of event, we recognize the residents. So what are your thoughts? Do you have any input? What are you thinking? Okay.
Scott. I had T shirts. It was shot down, I'm done now. That was my bump shot.
Scott, what do you think? Do you like the idea? Do you think once a quarter? I don't mean, think it's gonna be a lot during the year. People have to do really outstanding things, right? So thinking four times a year, have a congratulations and give them something or recognize them. And then when people come through one of the buildings, they can read a plaque that maybe has a brief description on what they did and the date. And, you know, I think it's a nice idea to do for residents.
It is, it's a good idea. Okay. So do we post the plaque for like a month or something, and then when the new person comes in and we send them the other person the plaque so they can have it as a commemorative item? I
think we were thinking keep it up because, you know, it's nice to have, maybe keep it up for a year or two so when people are walking through, then they can read these things. But I know you're thinking for space
issues, but Well, and it also gives that resident something To take We put it up for if we did it monthly or whatever, we do it for a month. We put it up for a month when the next one goes up then. Because otherwise if you've got a wall full of them, you know, it sort of becomes part of the woodwork, so to speak. But if you have, you're centering it a little more, you know, and focusing a little more, I think you get more recognition. Right, right. I don't know.
An I got an idea I'll throw out there. Okay, please do. Take T shirts. Going down. No, what are we doing between that? What are we doing between the existing town hall and the new community center as far as we're going to cement that? What are we going to do?
The thought right now actually is to try to we're going to roll now a little bit better when we actually get in there and start digging and figure out you know where our where our waterline is and some other things. But sorry, when I say waterline, I mean actual water issues. Water table? Yeah, water table. There is some concern that we're gonna have an issue with the spring situation, but if that goes well and we can get the correct height, the thought actually is to try to make that a pavilion area and maybe long term actually. Do you remember, have you ever been down to the main moose, they have that nice big pavilion outside the covered area? If we could put something like that up, you know, and and have that face that open flat area between the two buildings
or backstop that area, you could have a nice big space there to have events to just sit outside and you know, no matter the weather to take some of the heat off. So instead of having that big tent up that we're temporarily using, you have a more permanent space to get out of the heat and have events and you know, whatnot, so.
So what I'm getting at is if we did a section of pavers in there, we just did a town volunteer, we just do the bricks and put the bricks in the walk as far as volunteers. So if you were exceptionally recognized, we do a brick with our name on it and we put it on the walk. That's kind of nice. I like that. And then it stays forever. It's not like something somebody brings home. It's always going to be there. Well, if we do a brick and a
plaque or some sort of glass award that they can bring home?
I will just say one of the things we thought about, though, is from a fundraising point of view, depending upon how much money we have left over and and where we're at, we thought about maybe doing that to fund that pavilion area.
It's gonna be a lot of bricks. Mean, you could just do a circular pattern and just put the bricks around the circle, you know, with the names, you know. I've just seen that done a couple places, and I think it's pretty tasteful. Yeah. It is nice.
Yeah. We do have a cost. We do have a cost for it. K. Just an idea. Let's just throw it out there. Paula, when do you wanna try to kick this off?
Well, you know, Mar Marcy, I don't wanna I don't wanna have too much time go between Marcy's, accomplishment and we recognize her, but I understand we have to, you know, figure out what we wanna do. And I'm sorry. I'm I'm living in a bubble. What did Marcy do? She swam a lot.
Eric, your spiel because you did a really good job explaining it on Facebook. So please explain.
Yeah, so Marcy's a fairly famous long distance swimmer that lives in town and she just did the first crossing of the English Channel but not from England to France but from England to whatever the hell the country is North Of France to Belgium.
I thought that was a recycle of a previous because didn't she do this once before or something similar?
She swam the English Channel multiple times before. She's even swimming over and back. But she is actually now the first person to ever swim from England to Belgium. Okay. Okay.
And she is so Diane Greanyard gave me gave me a good, inside info because Diane is friends with this woman and actually went and helped her with some of, her training and things. So, yeah, I mean, I would like to do something sooner than later. I don't want to wait a year, but I know we're still trying to figure out ideas. So if we did think about doing the BRIC, what do you need? I mean, do we have to put that into a plan or how would that work? What would be the next step to get that kind of in the process?
I mean, I think the problem is that we're, you know, we haven't even broken ground yet. I'm understanding that, but We may need to do
something different now and then switch to that when the building's off the ground. We just keep a running list and those names are already there. Once it's done, you just put them in. We can't- Paula wants something tangible now.
The thing about awards and stuff, how many awards have we gotten? You get it home, you put it on your table for a while and it's gone. At least the bricks forever.
Right, but at least we give her something now in the short term, shakes at home. It's something
nice to have on hand. Give her a brick now and then ask her to bring it in later and we'll put it. We could have like a ceremony where we put it in. Okay.
Then the next question is, have you identified a budget line to take this stuff from?
Well, that's another that's another question. I need your I need your suggestion.
Diane Grenny are saying, how about a letter of recognition now and then a brick later, which is sounds like a good idea. Mhmm. Okay.
I'm just saying I'm gonna have to do a walk there. So, like, why don't we just plan that into part of the the walk? Yep. Okay.
Okay. How does everybody feel about a letter? Can I can draft up a letter and get something out? And then I kind of like the idea of giving her the brick. That's like symbolic, right? But I know.
Okay. We may have to draft you, Jeff, for the for the walkway to organize that. You have time.
Yeah, you haven't seen the list of things. Okay. All right. All right. So Paula, so do you want to put together a letter of recognition?
Yeah, I will get the letter out. Is everybody okay with, well, I'll email you separately and ask that question separately
about Yeah, and then I think what we can do is maybe as we go forward, how often do we want to do this?
Do want to do it quarterly or? I think twice a year or quarterly is plenty. I mean, just depends on how many people are doing outstanding things. And we should probably think about the criteria.
Okay. I would say at this point, so let's try to quarterly, quarterly at least look at this so that we make sure it doesn't get missed. And then as a board, we can look at nominations from the public, but also put our own in. And then we'll, maybe we can vote we can vote on these, you know, behind the scenes to try to that way, it's maybe a surprise for people instead of, you know, something that's so public. Right. Right. And then at
some point, think, you know, again, think about the criteria. If it's an author who's won numerous, you know, awards, I, I think someone like a Jerry Wright, you know, he's, he's spoken at many events and been recognized for many things. You know, someone that's It
what, you know, you've got Mr. Hanfield who's rebuilt how many stone walls in town. I mean, we could probably do it once a month just to catch up if we wanted to.
We haven't been doing a lot of this, obviously, so. Well, let's think about it from now until the next meeting about, you know, what the criteria is and how we can get it out to the public so that people can
So what about this? Would anyone have any objection to us starting to build a list for people that have done, you know, these types of exceptional things as an Andover citizen. And maybe as part of the community project, community center project, we initially do a section of, you know, we initially do a section of that walkway and then keep adding to it, right? Yep.
Okay, so we have homework for next month. Everybody start thinking of a list of people.
Well, mean, I think we need to finalize that list, probably something closer to spring, but yeah. Jeff, does that, will that still stay in the spirit of what you were thinking?
Yes, I'm just trying to think of something that's, you know, I really like what Jerry did down at the Memorial Park. Okay. And I think, I think we can build off of that and just kind of do the same thing here. But recognize citizens in town as part of the new, with the new building, you know, it's just kind of. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. That's a great idea. You're good with all the discussion here? Yep. Are you good, Paula?
Yep. In the meantime, I will put together a letter to that we can use as a template.
Okay. All right. And then we'll go from there. Let's try to put together start putting together criteria list. Maybe we can just start batting things around between us so that by next month we have something some sort of something tangible. Yeah okay thank you. Moving
on to nine new business twenty one-twenty two purchasing policy.
That's on hold Diane has decided to rewrite the policy completely apparently So the version you've seen so far is not going to look like the version we will see. Okay, I haven't seen what it looked like either.
I have no further guidance on hold be cool program contract with town.
So I did reach back out to two things to karma. I had an initial discussion regarding that with Jake Duckworth who was our karma guy. And sometime between this meeting and the last meeting, he either left or was fired from Kerma. At the end of last week, I restarted the discussion with Kerma, resent them the information, and asked them to expedite their review of the agreement. I had also reached out on Thursday, I think, to Jess courier and asked for pools comments on it prior to bringing it back to the board. I have not heard from back from her, but then again I haven't been in my office either since then. She may have applied to me. So we'll circle back to this next month then. Yep. Soccer field you should see.
I don't have a lot of updates on that all.
Did that yeah any any more moving forward with that meeting with
Fsc or no? No, not that I know of. Okay. I I gotta make the contract up with Kyle.
Okay. Okay. Scott, do you do you think you'll have that for the next meeting? Or Probably not because
it's kinda difficult to get Kyle pinned down to anything. Okay.
You want us to keep it on the agenda though, right? But I'm working on it. So I
don't know that we need to do that because, know, the field usage is shutting that irrigation off or or I think it's off now and the usage is going to go to nothing. So, no, you we're just going to be working on, I'll be working on that with Kyle.
Do you want us to keep it on the agenda, Scott? I don't really see a need myself.
Well, I think I think we're I'm just waiting. Eric and I are just waiting on our we we wanted to have a conversation and update Ram Youth, soccer and and other places. So right.
Oh yeah, we can we can do it for that. Is that alright, Scott? Alright, so we'll keep it on the agenda for that. Let's just change that next month then to soccer field usage. You know, Ram and and youth.
Right. So we can't talk to them until that other meeting happens. So if Scott's thinking that other meeting is not going to happen within. Oh, you can't talk to them until that. Yeah. We're kind of we're in this, like, leeway, you know, in between stage. So Yeah. The the the way
the they're not gonna be using whoever you're talking about, Paula, is not gonna be using it for a lot of Right, until March, but No
more usage than they're using it already. Right. So, it wasn't interfering before, so it's not going to if Kyle comes back.
Does that clear you up to have your meeting, Paula?
Yeah, so no need to put it on the agenda next month unless Scott has an update that he wants to add. He can always add it next month if he needs to. Okay, alright. The vendor permit.
Alright. So, technically, anything, any vendor that wants to go door to door selling in town needs approval from the board of selectmen. There is a note in your packet from Trinity Solar asking that one of their employees be allowed to solicit Nandover.
Is there any bad? Did you you read the rest of it? You sent it to us. So have you checked into them at all.
I mean Trinity solar is probably the third largest solar installer in in the state, I mean, they're a decent company.
They're actually one of the largest solar installers in the state now. Yeah, they moved up a couple tiers.
Yeah, I mean, they're definitely one of the bigger ones. Yeah. And
they have a Seaward Electric, Chris Ward, one their biggest installers. He's right out of Coventry. So they actually did my install on my roof. Good group to work with personally. That's my personal take on them. I had no issues.
I'd be So in other words, I have not found their moral character to be substandard or unsatisfactory.
K. So we need to approve a permit by Trinity Solar to go door to door. I would I'd be okay with that. Any second? I'll second that. K. Is that a motion?
Further dis it is a motion. Further discussion? All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Ribbon cutting. Eric, that's you. That's what, this Saturday, right? Yep, that's this Saturday, 09:30AM
at Center Street. And I think we've got both the DOT representative from the community connectivity end of things, as well as the DEP reps. The bicycle pedestrian and trails coordinators going to be there. The reason why I want a good showing is simply because we're about to get the next grant round for DEP rec trails funding. I want to demonstrate to the person who authorizes that that we have the support of the town. Please come out support it won't be that long, maybe half an hour. We're just going to have a quick ribbon cutting, you know, for for what we got done there.
Okay, alright so nine 09:30 and it's going to be at the on the Center Street side right correct. Alright anything else on any questions from anyone. Alright, moving on approval of meeting minutes. Anyone have any corrections or to any of those minutes? Scott, looks like you're looking. Jeff Murray, you okay? Yeah, I'm fine.
Scott, are you good? I'm good. Paula? Yep. All set. Okay. I would motion that we approve the meeting minutes for Thursday, 09/18/2022 special meeting, Monday, 09/12/2022 regular meeting, and Tuesday, 09/27/2022 special meeting minutes. All set. Paula seconds, further discussion? All in favor. Aye. Aye. Alright, finance department report. Eleven. That was in your packet, I believe.
So the normal finance report is not in there. Diane did not want that in the packet just because she felt the numbers were still not correct enough for her to be happy. Okay. What I did put in there, because it encompasses the largest overall budget was where we are with public works because Jay maintains a separate spreadsheet of his expenditures. Okay.
So, as most of you know, you know, we did a fair bit of road work this year. We have expended pretty much everything we have in the town aid road fund, as well as the road. In fact, we've overdrawn it, but we've overdrawn it because we haven't gotten the grant money back from the seat grant which is paid for part of it. So overall we're still we're in the black with that budget once we get the money back from the steep grant, but we're not really doing anything else until that is returned. It is you know it is going to put a little bit of a dent. We're not going to have as much money next spring to do work through July 1 that we've that we've had the last couple of years. But you know, the cost of of road work right now, that's just where we're at.
Well, we still have another tarp payment that should be coming in. Correct? Correct.
We will have another 93,000 in from tar. And when's that? Well, theoretically, we should get that in January. But, you know. Are we looking to
From July last week. So And when are we gonna get the reimbursement for the 128?
I don't know. Honestly, I have not even submitted. I mean, we've just the check to pay for that work is still sitting on my desk. So, I've gotta send out the check and then we can submit for the reimbursement. Can't submit the reimbursement until we pay it. Much did we overdraw? The total budget, I think we're somewhere around $80,000 something like that.
Alright, so you have $48 give or take coming back plus the $93 so you're starting with probably somewhere around $1.30.
Yeah, probably a little less than that. You know, and there's definitely some things we're going to have to do. We're still going to have to do some striping whether we do it now or whether we wait till spring. You know, and there's, I mean, we can't dedicate all of that money to road work because we're going to end up spending some of it you know, potholes and things like that too. Potholes and drain and drain cleaning and all that. I'm sure. Yeah,
overall for public works. Do have some funding there. Yep. And then, you know, I mean, we can talk to finance about it. But if we need to, we can always draw against the budget. You know, we that's that's the whole point of having a reserve fund is that you can draw against it if we need to to get the get contracts started, you know, against next year. So we don't have to wait till July 1 to start rolling, you know. That's sort of the whole point of it. We can discuss that as we get closer to spring and see what we have on the agenda, I think. Are we looking at doing anything with regards to, are there any other steep grants or opportunities for us to look at paving, paving opportunities in town?
Steve grants, no, you know, we're still waiting one grant program called the trip grant. But that has not been formally announced yet as as the draft version of it would have been pretty useless to the town. We in Crogg and the other cogs have asked them to modify the program to allow it to be used on town roads that are not major collectors or minor collectors, because we just don't have any in town. If we. Okay.
So if what I'm sorry, didn't mean to cut you off.
So presuming that everybody seems to be in agreement that the the criteria should be lowered for that. If they are, then we'll put in a trip grant to do some, you know, pavement reconstruction. Okay.
On the same, maybe in the same vein, we should probably start talking about looking. We probably need to start looking through the bill that just passed Through Congress with regards to solar and energy. There are some specifically some targeted funds for communities under 10,000. That we probably. We have a really good shot, I think, of of being being open for us. So we probably need to start kind of perusing that and and looking for that that information. So.
That at the state or at the federal level? Federal.
And I do not have the details on how it's gonna be handed down. Okay. But I can I can try to get you some links? Sure. Okay. It may be good for us for solar. It may even be something we can incorporate into the community project. It's not our project. Okay. Anything else on any of those topics? Tony Road budget. Okay. Moving on to actual budget, appropriation transfers. Anything, Eric? There are none. I was gonna say I didn't see anything, in case I missed it. Overexpenditure requests? None. Okay. Tax collectors report, requests?
Yeah, I did not write out the motions, but if you went to page 48 or 49, I believe it's 48 in your packet, You can see the the refund requests and polls. Anyone have that up? Because I'm dragging here.
I could go through them all if you wanted me to. Long list. K. Do we wanna do a summary motion? Is it all on one page? It is all on one page. What page? It should be on page 48 of the packet.
You want to do a summary motion to accept the motion to accept the refund request as printed in the board of selectman packet, page 48. Second that.
Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Moving on. Okay. Any other further department reports that anyone wishes to discuss? Assessor, fire, burning official? K. Correspondence done?
I don't have any correspondence. Only thing I wanted to say is I have started telling people I'm only accepting reports that are emailed to us. Yeah. Because we keep getting them handed in and then we've got to make PDFs of them and you get lousy resolution. So, some people are refusing to do that. So, you're not going to see their reports until such time as they decide to end them in electronically.
Who is, who, what, what departments are having an issue with that?
Oh, the fire department refuses to do it and registrar refuses to do it.
Okay, can we maybe point them in the direction of a scanning app or something like that? I know I use something super simple on my phone. Works great. Takes two seconds.
Well, I mean, they're all they're all writing a document in word or a word processor. They all have email. They can email us the board instead of giving us a hard copy and making us scan it. I'm not asking them for anything. No, I I what you're asking seems perfectly reasonable.
And if we're really getting that much, maybe we can talk to the individuals that are handing these in and just ask nicely. You never know. Maybe they're just having a bad day, Eric. Let's try that again. If we still don't have a thing, then we'll ask, as a board of select them, we'll ask them to. Actually, why don't we just do that? Would say, Eric, that maybe you can put something together as the board select them, we can ask them to submit the reports electronically in a PDF format going forward. So, and I'm sure that the board who we want to sign it, Jeff, myself, you know, Scott Paula, I don't think anyone's gonna have an objection here to that. Does anyone have an objection to that, asking them to do it electronically? No. Jeff Murray, you good with that? Yes.
Scott, I think you said no. Good with it. Yeah. So if you can do that, Eric, let's put it in writing. Okay. Okay. We're up to public speak. 16. Diane, I think you're the only one still here maybe. My view is all screwed up. So
Yes, I'm still here. Good show. Liked it. Thank you very much. I have nothing to comment on.
Thank you for your input, Diane, as always. Anyone else? I don't see anybody else on my side. Let me see something. Nope. Okay. Adjournment at 08:25. I make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you, everyone. I apologize for losing your meeting there.