Meeting transcript
Special Town Meeting
January 9, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
I need to read a notice related to what the meeting is related to. The electors and citizens qualified to vote in town meetings in the town of Andover are hereby notified that a special town meeting for the town of Andover will be held via Zoom application on Saturday, 01/21/2021 at 10AM for the following purpose. To determine whether to accept the proposed gifts of two parcels of land consisting of 5.3 acres and 1.6 acres respectively owned by the Northern Connecticut Land Trust, and one parcel of 7.84 acres of land from Thomas D. Talbot, and approve acquisition of the parcels by the town. The first order of business is to choose a moderator. Do we have any nominations? I nominate Wally Barton. Barton.
We have a second. I'll second it. Okay, we have to pick one person. Somebody raise their hands. Have a second. Okay, Scott Person first. Well, Scott Person seconded that. Any other nominations? Okay, so all those in favor of Wally Barton as our moderator, raise your hand. Aye. Wally Barton, you are now the moderator of this special time meeting.
Thank you, Jeff. Before we get into the meat of the of the meeting itself, I just want to remind everybody how we're going to vote. This is very different. You'll proceed to the upper driveway to the elementary school, pull in there, and come around to the town office building. There will be checkers to look at your ID and check you off the voters list. The next station, you will receive a paper ballot. The next station, you'll turn in that paper ballot. We ask that you either bring a pen or pencil yourself so we don't have to deal with exchanging pens with all the COVID restrictions that are out there. It should be very simple and we anticipate approximately one hour time frame after this meeting goes to recess to handle the voting. I hope that's clear with everyone. All right, we'll move on item To discuss or for discussion to determine whether to accept gifts to the town of Andover of two vacant parcels of land consisting of five. Three acres more or less on or near Shawty Mill Road and one. Six acres more or less on or near Oak Farms Road both recorded on Andover Land Records volume 75 page six one one. From the Northern Connecticut Land Trust and one vacant parcel of 7.84 to 8.2 acres of land more or less on or near Boston Post Road recorded in the Andover Land Records volume 25 page two sixty one from Thomas D Talbot and approve acquisition of these parcels by the town. For informational purposes, two of the parcels come from land trusts so there will be no loss of any tax
revenue at all to the town. The third piece I believe is $284 a year that would be lost in tax revenue. This land is right now to be designated as open space and not designated for any other purpose. I will open the floor for questions. Anybody has a question raise your hand so Amanda can call on you please. You sure? Louise, go ahead.
Oh, hi. Just curious if the land's been clear of all environmental type of issues. Any hazardous issues at all? Or has that been reviewed?
Wetlands, I believe, walked all of the properties. I have no indication whether it has been checked for that. These have all been basically vacant pieces of property. They're all landlocked. So no. Okay. So,
I mean So at this point in time, two pieces of property have been wilderness. There's been no commercial activity on them. The worst thing that could have happened on those pieces of property is farming. So the expectation is there is no contamination on those two lots. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else?
Bill Penn? Yep. Are these properties contiguous to other open space in the town.
Texas: Someone from conservation would like to answer that specific question, it would be appropriate.
This is how greener I'd be happy to answer that question. There from the Conservation Commission. There is a town parcel that this is contiguous with and Paul Farmer: From that's in the immediate site, but from a larger perspective. It also is within one of the designated open space corridors and our plan of in the town's plan of conservation development. So it's a it serves to connect open space parcels such as the Bishop Swamp area and other areas throughout that open space court or Thank you.
Anyone else. Third and final time, does anyone else have a question? If not, the meeting will go into recess.
I believe Sue and Roger Bristol had a question. Okay. I feel like we should give a few minutes just in case any stragglers are having trouble with unmuting. There you are. So, is Bristol, can you hear me? No. So, you're a little choppy. Yeah. Can I type in the
Yeah, if you are able to type that would be great and I can read your question aloud? Maybe just remind anyone that star six to unmute.
Thank you, Adrian. If you're calling from the phone, you can unmute yourself with star six.
Hi, Amanda. It's Elaine Bookart. Don and I are working on CART right now. I just wanted to make sure we were on the list and you did answer that question through chat. Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks, Elaine. Okay. So Sue and Roger Bristol, their question is, what will be any cost for maintenance and taxes?
Two of the properties are already land trust, which are five zero one c three non taxable. A loss of tax from Mr. Talbot's property is approximately $284 And as far as I know, there's going to be no maintenance done by the town. Can you go over the procedure when we get there again? Okay. The procedure, when you drive to the town office building, come in the upper driveway to the elementary school. Travel through the parking lot. You'll come near the town office building. There will be someone there to check your ID and have you checked in. The next station, you will receive a blank ballot. Mark the ballot. The next station, excuse me, will be the ballot box. Deposit your ballot in the box. After everyone has had a chance to vote approximately one hour, we will count the ballots, call the meeting back to order and read the results.
Wally, related to that last issue, as everyone that is on this meeting does not need to be in attendance when the meeting called back to order and you will announce the results on the town website, Amanda, is that appropriate? Does anyone have a problem with that? Because I don't necessarily want to have to have Amanda go through the waiting room again to bring everyone from this meeting back into session just to announce results.
I think all we needed, Jeff, was to make sure we had 25 in attendance to have the meeting. Yep, understood. And the number of voting doesn't have to equal the number that we're here. It can be greater or less.
Just like at a regular meeting, everyone doesn't have to vote. Understood. And so then can we, by a show of hands, all understand that when this meeting goes into recess, we will vote as long as we have 25 registered voters from the town of Andover on this meeting vote, the results will be posted and the meeting will be adjourned at that point in time. Does anyone else have a problem with that? Everybody raise your hand if you're good with that. We're all good with that. That means we go vote, we post the results and the meeting was called, it was an adjournment as soon as we tallied the votes.
Technically, we have to call it back to order and then adjourn.
Okay. So then I'll get on with you, Wally and Linda and Eric and Amanda, and we'll call the meeting back to order results and we'll call the meeting to adjourn.
Is that And a Amanda, at that point, can you disable the waiting room so people could just come in if they wanted to and we didn't have to deal with letting people in?
I could or I could just automatically let everyone in from the waiting room.
Either or. But you don't have to ask permission, just join. Okay, I could change that, I believe.
All right, so Wally, you're good to go. Let's finish this meeting so we can all go vote.
Okay. I will call a recess in this meeting. You have approximately one hour of what we anticipated for people to show up here at the town office building and vote. Thank you. We'll see you in an hour if you wanna hang around. Alright. Thank you very much. Okay. Within an hour. Right? Yes.
So you you you could do it right now if you wanted to.
Well, give us give us five minutes to get up there.
Okay. Now is it when you say the upper upper entrance,
do you mean the upper level of the school? Yeah. The upper level of the lower parking lot. Where the sign says vote today. There'll be a Saturday. John, drive by the gym. Okay. Okay. Alright, everybody. Thank you.
I'll give you the results. 64 people turned out to vote. 62, yes. Two, no. So the purchase has been approved. Or excuse me, the transfer of the land to the town has been approved. I need a motion to adjourn.
Will someone please make the motion? Georgette is making the motion without her microphone.
I'll second Georgette's motion. All in favor of adjournment? Aye. Aye. Right. Meeting is adjourned. I thank you all. All right. Thank you.