Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting
January 10, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Start the recording. All right. I'm going to call to order the Town of Andover Board of Selectmen regular meeting for 01/10/2022, our first meeting in the new year. This meeting is being held by Zoom. I'm going call the meeting in order and we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now we're going to move on to public speak. We'll start with Elaine Bucardt, if you'd like to say something.
Hi. Yeah, Jed Larson and I are going to be doing a presentation tonight. I think that'll be enough time. Thanks.
Jed, I'll move to you if you'd like to say anything before your presentation. Jed's good. Right, Diane Greiner.
Well, I'm all set. Just happy New Year to everybody. I'm 2022 is better than the last two. So, Diane Chokett. I'm good, thanks.
All right. Thanks for joining us. I'm Leanne Hutchinson. Okay. Mike and Kathy Palasi. I'm fine. Mike? I'm fine for now. I might have something come up later on. All right. I think I went through everybody there, so we'll move on to the next part. Item three, additions and deletions to the agenda. Anyone have anything to add to the agenda? Who wants to see go away?
Yeah, I want to add an executive session for employee discipline policy. Yes. Anyone want to second that? Second. Yeah, you're still on mute.
Okay, so we got Eric on mute now. Good. Okay. Well, before we vote on that one, I'd like to add one thing to it. It's a very simple thing. I would like to talk about establishing a plodging day in Andover. A what?
I had asked Eric to put plodging day in Andover on the agenda, and he failed to do it. So would like to add it to the agenda. Garbage pickup.
Can I add one thing? Can we move discussion of items eleven, twelve, and 9B to after four? While Sherry Holmes is here, can we, do all that stuff early? Sure. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. And then,
Did you get a second on your plausing day? No, no one seconded it. I can't believe it. Could you spell it please? I'll second it, Jeff. I'll second it for you. I'll second it if you can spell it. P L O G G I N G.
It's a Scandinavian activity regarding athletic exercise related to garbage and pickup, garbage maintenance, I believe related to. Oh, God. Okay. So would we like to vote on adding those two items to our agenda? Let's go. For the discussion, all those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay. Aye.
Right. I object that you lumped mine in with yours, so yours would pass though. I'm just gonna say that right now.
Well, mine is a lot easier than yours. Mine will take five minutes. All right. So we're going to move on to item four, board and commissions presentations. We have Elaine Bucart and Jed Larson here to represent planning and zoning and the economic development committee, recommendation for a town planner, and an economic development coordinator. So one quick thing, if everyone could please mute themselves when they're not speaking, it helps our meeting go quickly and doesn't leave us any interference. All right, Elaine and Jed, who would like to go first? Jed, do you can't have hear Jed. Yeah, we have to get you to unmute yourself. There's three little buttons. There you go. At the top of your screen, your little window. Then it says next to it, Jed, it says mute and unmute. The
problem is Jed is unmuted. We're just not getting any sound through. Jed,
can you restart and come back into the meeting? Elaine, you get to start off. Let's go. Sure.
All right. In your presentation package, I believe we have a PowerPoint that was sent to you. And basically it starts off, and, and there was a it was updated today you got like a newer one today, and basically it should start off the Andover's twenty fifteen p o CD chapter one statement of issues and opportunities. And it talks about Andover has tremendous potential to define itself as a unique place in the region. Andover is an affordable attractive and almost crime free location for those working in the Hartford region and looking for more rural setting. The town is interested in promoting a type of development which is sustainable environmentally friendly and preserves the town's rural landscape. And so the first paragraph from the twenty fifteen p o CD once you get past the legal basis introduction, and he goes I'm not going to read the slide to you but I just did.
That's what kids when I do it. But Andover's it's a great place to live, we have tremendous potential.
Excuse me, Elaine, can you hear me now? Or am I still Yes, can.
That's good. So with that, and Amanda, can you allow me to share my screen? Go ahead, Jen.
Okay, so hopefully you can see the presentation and you can hear me. And with that, I don't know how far Elaine got, but we all know this year's budget will be difficult and adding new items to the budget will be a tough sell. Our thinking is that these are not new ideas but are rather old actions that we've yet to complete. In fact, Andover had a down planter in the past and I'm not sure why we did away with the position. But I imagine that in an effort to keep taxes from rising, that probably had something to do with that. At a town budget meeting two years ago, somebody asked the question, what is the town doing to increase revenue such that we can maintain quality town services and our school while keeping the mill rate at a reasonable level? Elaine and I think that hiring a town planner and economic development coordinator is a big part of the answer to that particular question. This is the first paragraph from Andover's last plan of conservation and development done in 2015. I read that one,
Jed. Okay, yeah. And once you get past the legal stuff, first paragraph in that big document talks about the tremendous potential that Andover has. Andover is a great place to live, but there's an awful lot of potential that can make it even better. Hopefully, Elaine, you didn't get on to this one yet. This was the very last paragraph from the plan of conservation and development. It starts off by saying the plan identifies a number of recommendations will be very difficult for a volunteer commission like planning and zoning to implement. After the plan is formally adopted, the commission should seek funding to retain professional planning assistance and there's a couple of things there. While while the plan you specifically mentioned planning and zoning Commission, Elaine feels the same thing is true for for economic development and she needs a little assistance there too. Most towns have. You know, a staff member that's a planning officer and the economic development coordinator. So, without getting into the plan of conservation development is probably 100 pages long, what were we specifically looking to do?
And we recognize that while the town population is not growing and the population is getting older, we'd like to do some things that could attract younger families to move into and live in Andover. And that's what a town planner does. We'd also like, we know from surveys what the people in town are looking for for businesses in our area. And so if we had an economic development coordinator working with that town planning official, we'd be able to develop and implement the marketing strategies designed to attract the commercial businesses to town. The plan of conservation recommends development of our town center. As I drive through Hebron on Route 66, I see the the development there starting to spread back away from Route 66. So they've got a lot of the busy road open so that you can see what's there. And that gets into our people in Andover. We want to protect our rural character, and we want to prevent the development of this strip mall kind of development along Route 6 and protect the farm views that are so great for what we in Andover have. So that was what are the big takeaways for us in the planning, conservation development. In 2019, the town formed a long term planning committee. And the purpose is listed here, but it was trying to shift the focus of what we were looking at from a short term mindset to establishing long term goals to guide the growth of Andover. And several people that are here tonight were on that commission
when we put that into effect a couple years ago. Here are two of the recommendations for the long term plan. There's a lot of the recommendations we've already put into effect. But we said these weren't new ideas, these were just old ideas we hadn't got around to implementing yet. And the first one is Andover should fund an economic development coordinator. And it's got some rationale for why that's so. Then the other recommendation was to hire a part time individual that says for sixteen hours a month as the town planner with the potential job sharing as the economic development coordinator. As I was reviewing the material and trying to get ready for tonight, I saw that it said sixteen hours per month, and I said, oh my, I put a typo in there. That's got to be sixteen hours per week. And I called Elaine up and I went back to the original document and sure enough, it said sixteen hours per month, which was lower than I was thinking. You don't get much for four hours a week. But if that were to be combined with the economic development coordinator, you know, another sixteen hours a month, Elaine and I were looking at would be optimum would be to have forty hours a month or ten hours a week dedicated to planning and economic development, we could really do the town a lot of good. So anyhow, this slide, I apologize, it was not in the original package that I sent out. I think it did get added
today. But as I was thinking through this, I said, we haven't come up with any punch line, you know, to what is it that we're really looking to do? So, added this slide. You know, we're now starting to work on our state required affordable housing plan. The state has set a requirement that all towns have 10% of their housing be affordable as defined by the state. And while I consider Andover to be an affordable town to live in, in most of our houses that have sold over the last several years are within the price guidelines of what the state considers affordable, the state also requires that any affordable housing have a forty year deed restriction on that property so they will never get due to inflation or whatever to be unaffordable. We were talking about attracting the commercial businesses to Andover for services most desired by the residents. Again, that's what the economic development coordinator would do hand in hand with the town planner. And we realize Andover's tremendous potential to find itself as a unique place in the region. Already a great place to live, but the other towns that have full time planners, economic development coordinators are going to be finding themselves more attractive than we are, there are things that we should do to make Andover better and provide an increased tax base to keep the mill rate under control. And so, I think it's a smart, cost effective solution. So, with that, thank you for listening and Elaine and I are here to answer any questions you might have. Jed, thank you very much.
If you guys I actually had a few other points to make just to bring up because, you know, history wise, I've done a lot of work with planning and economic development for years. And I just, I did want to mention, years back, we had the LADA company work with the regional route six EDC to come up with an economic development plan for Route 6 coordinated with Bolton, Coventry and Columbia. And we have a good comprehensive plan that came out of that. There was a zillion hours of work that got put into it. And we need someone whose job is to pick up those plans and take a good look at them and try to figure out how we can move forward on some of the very good ideas that had come out of it. Crogg went ahead and worked with the Department of Transportation, and they used those LAD plans as their core. And then they went ahead and refined it to come up with plans to create some traffic calming along Route 6. And once again, this DOT plan action needs to be picked up by a town planner to go ahead and work on. And, and I'm as EDC chair on the town county chamber of commerce EDC. And I sit at a table with full time talent county town employees who are planners and economic development personnel, as well as business leaders in the county. And that's where I heard about and was able to bring in sustainable Connecticut to our EDC group. And then Kathy Palazzi now runs the sustainable Connecticut Committee trying to report on coordinate the efforts of different town groups and communicating to us what Sustainable Connecticut says that we should be working on.
And there should be a town employee that is working with the group to make sure our projects are working toward the town's long and short term goals. Finally, Cath, Catherine McGoldy Lewis has reached out to Yukon, and we are now being linked up with the planning and development class this fall twenty twenty two to assist with the planning projects for our town. And if we had a planner, then we would have this, the students working directly with that person. We're linking Eric Anderson up with a professor and students to see what can be done. And these students are potential future planners when they graduate. And Patrick and I Patrick Dory and I are working on the welcome to Andover signs which we keep trying to get funded so that we can have some kind of gateway marketing for the town of Andover, And it would be great if the town had an employee, an economic development coordinator that we could bounce ideas off of and work with for these kinds of projects. So basically creating a part time position for town planner and economic development coordinator. It's a necessity. It's not just a want if we're ever going to move forward on any initiatives that have shown up in our plans for years. That's it. That's in my piece.
All right. Thank you very much. Do any of the members have any questions for either Jed or Elaine?
Yep, I've got a couple of questions. Thank you to both of you for bringing this forward tonight and presenting. We're getting into our budget season and it's going to be tight. My question, and Elaine, you might have already answered it, but I just wanted to understand. So you said the UConn students would possibly work with this person. Now I haven't come to any of the meetings, but I thought that the UConn students were the committee was looking into them to actually come up with some ideas. Am I misunderstanding that in conversations with other committee members or?
It's a double edged sword. We would, because Eric has come up with a list of things that you know some initiatives and stuff that really, you know, would be nice to look into. We would present that to the students and go ahead and explain whatever questions have, you know, go over the town, whatever questions they have about things that have you know how things work in town. And then they would go ahead and run with those ideas and see what they can come up with as projects. But honestly, none of this has been defined for us Paula so we don't know 100 of exactly how this process is going to work. And that's where, you know, if like I said, if we had a town planner that would be great because they would certainly be the people that will be working with these kids. But we have Eric, we have a town administrator who wears all the hats at this point in time. So he's going to be the one that's going to be working with them.
And we'll, you know, we'll get more definition as time goes on of exactly what their perspective is, know what it is they they're looking into, you know, we're flexible we're just thrilled that someone wants to come in and put in some energy into our town for planning. It's So like okay, but we did present to them that we didn't have a planner, we did present to them that we were, you know, we need help. So
the student, the students wouldn't be doing the research, they would, and I know you said this is.
Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what kind of research that they're capable of doing they, you know, they probably have more resources, being a state, you know, university, then we have to go ahead and look into things. They might even be able to come up with some great ideas of funding, things like that. Because it's something they're learning how to do.
I mean, I think the fundamental problem is that we're not really, we're not really set up to grow as a town. We don't have, we do not have the infrastructure. I mean we're having a hard enough time keeping up with the infrastructure, we have nevermind the idea of adding infrastructure. Right, I mean that the one good thing that we have is we do have, we do have high voltage power, so we can access that we have three phase power in certain areas, mostly in Route 6. But beyond that we don't have gas we don't have water and we don't have sewer. And that's really I mean those three things are what makes or breaks town development, you know I mean if you look at our surrounding towns Hebron, for instance, you know. You they put in a well system to have some water they got gas because they had the school and those things allowed them to do the development that they're doing that's that's how they got what they have, even though it was on '66 if they didn't have those things in place, they wouldn't have it. You know, Columbia
has been fortunate and that they were close enough to be able to tie into a romantic sewer you know. Bolton went ahead and put gas in, whereas we in Andover rejected that as a town. So we, we, as a town our town has never voted for the things that it needs to be a growth town. You know, I mean we rejected gas and I'm not picking side on gas one way or other I'm simply saying that it's it's one of those things that that helps growth right water sewer power so. I the idea of having a town planner who's then going to tell us what we need all these things we already know we need them. But the town doesn't want to spend the money to put them in, I mean we're having a hard time maintaining our roads, with the budget that we have and that's what small rural communities deal with you know.
You know. Well you're talking at 25,000 to $50,000 investment to get the number of hours that you're talking about you know and. I don't know that we're ever going to see that back on, we would have to start as a town making completely different decisions that we're making now, you know.
Jed, I have a question for you has the planning and zoning ever sat there and identified town properties that you think would be beneficial for development.
There have been several pieces of property in the 2015 plan of conservation and development. Planning and zoning commission has not done anything since that document came out. One of those pieces of property is, and I forget the name of the subdivision, it's at the corner of Route 87 and Route 6. The Hilton's block corners.
Yeah, where you know a guy came to our last planning zoning meeting and talked about his desire to buy that property to put a winery in there and hold events. So that would take one of, I think, the four places that are in the plan of conservation and development out of the running. But I do think that with those parcels that are still in there, in the town center concept, are places that we could look at to develop and hopefully have a mixed use development that would bring in some more affordable housing with some development and help out the town there. I think the town is looking to have some sort of growth. I guess the other thing that people are probably aware of is that we just subdivided the piece of property over where Franklin Plumbing is in that that parcel close to close to Route 6 that's been subdivided off is going to be developed for something and not exactly sure what, but that's you know a piece that's coming further down the road. As it's graveled across the street next to the gas station there. Yeah, and the LADA plan that came out years ago,
there are quite a, there's a whole village node that they talk about that involves the, you've got the public works department the library the church and that area and potential for development there. They talk about according to, you know Adrian was talking about sort they talked about the possibility of having packed package septic systems for a small area of development you can have your own little septic system, as opposed to individual septics for every single building. But that exists out there too, as a possibility, because yeah we are never going to have source and we know that, but that's no reason why not to go ahead and still go ahead and approach development that can be done on a much smaller scale of course, but you know we we all have our houses with our septic and our well, you know it exists you can get that.
So the package think that's something to look into. I think Elaine, that Route 6 program, if I remember correctly, back when it was completed, it had approximately a 12 or $13,000,000 funding requirement, which I'm assuming right now is probably doubled. We definitely have to think bigger and better, but there are certain things that we're going to have to take into account as to how we do
I can tell you that we explored with developers when I was on the board of finance. We actually started going out and talking to developers and I had some friends being in the construction industry that they are in development that we're willing to come and take a look at. Some of the bigger parcels that were had in town, some that weren't even on the market and. We looked at them and talk to the sanitarium at the time, the biggest issue is. A lot of the things that you would want to do something with fall within the floodplain. So you can't really if it's on the riverside if it's, on the other side there just wasn't enough to work with there, You know, we were looking at a mixed use development, where you do something you know, to try to this was actually before the state, because this was I was on board of finance you're talking. Four years ago, the state had some really amazing money out there to be able to do mixed use development, where we could if we were willing to build you know. Mixed use low income homes, you could have you know some high end some middle some low income and then do. Retail attached with it, but there just wasn't enough room to do a septic package for that type of development that there just isn't enough space you end up burning up more space than you have available. You know, so I mean it look at the end of our Plaza that's the whole reason that Plaza has struggled is that they don't have room to expand the septic system. Know, so they can only have a part time restaurant in the opening that they have you know the Chinese place has to be takeout because the currently setup you know is is for Andover you know Andover you know pizza
right, so if they had more septic they could actually have a full time restaurant there besides it over pizza but because of that they're limited.
You know. This is something that we as a board should try to assist in ways that are possible and try to find something that may work. I'm not sure, I'm not sold that spending the money on a planner is going to solve our problems, but it's definitely something that we should evaluate. So if any other members of the board have other questions, feel free. Scott? All set, thank you.
Jeff Murray, I'm not sure if he's on film still right now, but he's coming back. I'm all set, Jeff. Thanks. All right, thank you. Aaron, can I ask a question?
Just one comment before we leave this topic, and that would be, you know, I've been chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission for a couple of years now, and certainly I thought that I would be able to devote some time to working on these planning kind of things in that job. And it's become clear to me over the last couple of years with the regulatory changes coming from the state and in the activity that we do have going on and the changes that need to be made to the regulations and that, that I will certainly, I don't expect to ever be able to devote the time that would be necessary to make any of those projects a success.
And so that's what led me to
you. Elaine or Eric, do you know you're saying you've done some things with Crog? Do you know if there's any, you know, option to to get services through Crog or shared services through Crog for this types of thing?
So some of the other cogs have, like staff municipal planners that they farm out. Crogg really does not not available for the towns. Okay. You would have to go out and find a surrounding town that had a planner that had excess time. That's your only real, you know, and that's common. Like a lot of planners are not a lot of smaller towns don't have the resources to hire a full time planner because the reality is a good planning professional makes more than a $100,000 a year. So, we're certainly not going to hire a full time person. So, it would have to be somebody like, I don't know that John Ferdini is still working, but he would have been a perfect one, you know, or Bill Warner or something of that nature. You know, somebody that's got a, you know, a most time gig in a different town, but is willing to devote one day a week to to Andover. That would be your only real approach that would work.
Thank you. Well, I thank you both for your time and for your, you commitment to the town and all the hard work you do. So Elaine and Jed, thank you very much. We do at this board understand it's thankless at some point in time, but we do appreciate all your efforts. Let's move on. We said we would move Eric to eleven and twelve. What was the other section you The wanted to
other would be 9B budget, if there's anything there that you want to review tonight. I know this isn't budget isn't a primary focus of this meeting, but we sent you some documentation. If there's anything you want to discuss regarding 9B while you have myself and Sherry here, now would be a perfect time.
Okay. All right. So, Boyd, we're going to move to 9B and talk about the budget first, the format and overview, the workshop schedule, the budget preliminary data, the permanent funds discussion. We were provided a certain amount of information. I believe it stretches pretty far. Where does that start, Erica? I was trying to find the starting point for all of that information. It starts around page 24. 24, 25.
So 24 is the very preliminary text for a budget book. I don't really want to go through that whole thing tonight. If there anything there that the Board of Selectmen wants changed or modified, let me know. You know, or if you have suggestions on format for the budget book, and what else you wanna see displayed, you know, for that. My intention was this year to put out both the budget book, as well as the standard Excel worksheet that we always put out for the budget.
We're not using the software for the budget this year, we're going to use Excel again? Correct. Okay. All right, so that goes from page 25 to page 63, I think. Maybe even further, goes further.
If you don't have specific comments on that, we can move past that. I also put in there a set of, after talking to various people, set of what I would say kind of big picture, you know, for personnel changes for the 2022 budget. That's on starts on page 66 of the packet. You know, and what I wanted to do is I don't want to build something into the budget if you guys are just going to shoot it down anyway. So, what I wanted to do is have that discussion early. So, when we present a budget to you on the seventeenth or send a budget to you actually on the eighteenth,
because as Sherry reminds me, the seventeenth is MLK Day, we get a budget that's close to what you'll accept or want to start with.
Well, something that I would like to do is at the beginning of this whole presentation, let's go over the calendar for everybody's purposes. Oh, when I went through that, let's find that.
Can we not jump around to four things here? You guys are going in one direction, then another. No, he's just, he went through the budget book, Adrian. I know and now you're jumping to I just want to go through the schedule.
How's that? Are you okay with that? I'm just frustrated because you're jumping around.
Oh, okay. All right, so the schedule says, that week of December 6, budget worksheets distributed to department heads and chairs, I'm assuming that happened, and did you get all of your budgets back to the finance office on the January 3 deadline?
We did not, but at this point we have most of them back.
You're going to distribute to us on the January 18 a budget workbook. Correct.
All right. And we had, I believe at the last meeting scheduled all of our budget workshop meetings. Is that accurate, the board members?
No, you made a decision that you were going to schedule them at this meeting because you didn't want to do it at the last meeting.
Let's look at our calendars. Does anybody have any problems? Adrian, since you are board of finance or liaison, when do you want to do this because you have the fullest schedule?
What page are your suggested days on? I was on '67 looking at your personal changes. There's no selected days. I thought there was a list somewhere in there.
No. I mean, I mean, the only goal was to have the budget through the board of selectmen and ready for the board of finance on February 28 or thereabouts.
How many days are we spending on this? I guess that's question number one. And when do you want to start?
We can start as soon as everybody here agrees to the first day. We can't really start until we get our budget workbook on the eighteenth. When would you like to start?
So we'll have a budget workbook next week, Eric. Yep. So why don't we start on the twenty fourth? Do Mondays. We can do them Zoom.
Okay. For the record, fourth the first Monday, the twenty fourth, I will be on vacation. Do they have Internet service where you go?
I have no. I don't have no idea what state or country I'm gonna be in. Can we do can is the
I'm in Philadelphia. Let's do the first one without Eric, and we'll No. Why not?
Me? I said, no. Why not? That sounds like a great idea. I'm agreeing. Oh,
I was confused. So the twenty fourth, let's do that. Cherry, can you attend the twenty fourth? Yes. Great. Then Eric, will you be back on the thirty first or no? I hope so.
What? The twenty fourth, the thirty first, the seventh, and the fourteenth, and then we're at Eric's deadline. Twenty fourth is planning and zoning. We'll do them Zoom.
Scott, do you want to go to planning and zoning? Is that what you're saying?
I would say I should attend planning and zoning also. I mean, we
can hold any motions from that night to the next meeting if there's something for you so you can be part of the discussion. Would that work?
Can the first meeting be on the twenty fifth then if he has that? Does it really impact anybody that badly Tuesday? No, I can make that work. Murray? Jay? King? Jeff? Murray? I can do the twenty fifth. Yeah, whatever. Whatever you have. So we'll see. We're talking twenty fifth, thirty first. 07:00.
Anybody need more time we can do 07:30 if they want to start later whenever earlier. Now let's do seven things. Okay. So twenty fifth, thirty first.
Okay, the fourteenth, gentlemen, is Valentine's Day, so you should be Working hard for our town?
Well, Adrian, you were the one that had a problem with it when we talked about it on the schedule for a board of select meeting. So you should be backing me up on this.
Actually, don't we have a board of select meeting that day? No. We moved it, I thought.
Does anyone have that calendar in front of them? Yeah. In a second. Hang on.
Well It's on the fifteenth. She's right. It is a national holiday.
So let's do that one on the sixteenth. Then Eric, you said that you wanted it, that you were looking for the budget to be back to you by what date?
Not to me, to the Board of Finance by around the twenty eighth, February 28.
So do we need a meeting on the sixteenth? We could have one on the twenty first instead.
Well, why we finish it up by that date? So We have one meeting scheduled for the twenty fourth. Twenty fifth. Twenty fifth. I'm sorry. Twenty fifth. Thirty first. Thirty first. Seventh.
The seventh. And then the sixteenth. How's that one? So back to back meetings.
Yeah, that's why I'm wondering if we should do the twenty first. Do we need more than four days? There's the question.
Well, we're going to find out pretty quickly on the meeting after the twenty fourth. The first one that Eric is back for, it's going to determine whether we're going need more.
Why don't we just hold those dates? Then as we move along, we can say maybe we'll take the sixteenth away. It's easier to kind of get it in everybody's mind and then take them away rather than adding. Okay.
So the four days you've selected so far are the January 25, the January 31, the seventh and sixteenth of February. Am I correct? Yep. Correct.
Okay. We talked about the twenty first because if we wanted to take the sixteenth away, then the twenty first might be a better idea so we're not back to back that week.
Yeah, let's put a two hour cap on them too. Absolutely.
So everything you said, Eric, and then add in February 21 too.
All right. Amanda, you got that? Can you schedule those? Yes. All set.
Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. Anyone else have a problem with the two hour cap? No, I think it's a good idea. Jeff Murray, Scott. Sounds good. I'm good. Okay.
Give me one second. Gonna get kicked off of the computer.
Are you going to go over the budget book stuff that you've put out right now? Are we going over that at all tonight?
I was gonna suggest individually or collectively, if you have comments or things you wanna add to it, you send them. Because that thing's, that's 60 something pages long. So I don't think we can practically discuss it at a meeting. I would prefer you just send me individual edits if you so choose or areas you want me to concentrate on.
I'm just looking at the bond adjustment for RAM. We've got listed as a million dollar adjustment. It's actually 1,400,000 I think. Because the the town effect shouldn't be $2.50. It should be like $3.17, something like that. Okay. You want me to review the bond?
Yeah. For for Ram, I'm pretty sure it's like 1,370,000 because I I'm pretty sure Andover share of it was like 3 and change $3.17, $3.20.
I put the bond schedule, the actual bond schedule on there, right from the ram site. So the bond is. Yeah, it reduces payment reduces from 2,500,000 to 1,000,000 and change net savings of 1,481,000. Yeah.
Which nets in over 252,000 at today's percentage, roughly. I mean, our percentage next year will be a little different anyway, so that's not an exact number. Okay.
Okay. So Eric, I'm assuming that this budget book was prepared by you, and next week we're going to get the Excel spreadsheet? Correct. Okay.
What do other members want to go over related to this
No. We are we gonna have anything from John so we can update our numbers?
John who? Japonis. John Japonis. We normally will have a grand list right around February 1. So the long and the short answer is no. When you first get the budget, you are not going to have an accurate grand list to work on.
Okay. But we will have one before we roll this over to BLF.
Yeah. By somewhere around February 1, you'll have an accurate grand list to work with.
Okay. I'd like to kind of shy away from making major decisions until after we see that grant list and just sort of scope out what we're looking at for adjustments personally.
That really, you know, we're not gonna be able to get anywhere if we're doing that. We we have to decide what we're thinking of. Like, you know, I'll use Paul's analogy. It's it's easy to take things away, but you better have your ideas laid out as to what we would like to fund and not fund.
I think we can have a scope of what we feel like we can address.
No problem. I mean, listen, we have to sit there and even if we decide not to, we should sit there and take into account the planner. And then if we have to put the planner out there and decide that the planner is not, you know, worth the money that we would spend on it, we don't do it. But, you know, it also goes into the whole issue of the senior center and putting in someone Community center. The community center, putting in a community center director related to recreation. So there's lots of things that we should talk about, things that we would all potentially, or some of us would like to see put in place and pull them apart. They don't get in, they don't get in. Can't stop talking about it. Yeah. We can't sit there and wait on the grand list. Even the grand list, it matters and it doesn't matter. Only, you know, if we decide we're gonna spend an extra million dollars, well, then that million dollars gets spread around the entire grand list. It's just a question of what we're willing to put out there to the community. I think the grant list matters a lot, personally.
It does, Adrian, but it's not going to stop us from making any decisions. What's going to stop you from making a decision whether you fund something or not because the residents are taxed too much on it?
I think you put forward a budget that you know you need and you reasonably believe you can pass. I think those are two important
attributes of a budget. Okay. I have no problem with it. So we start with the basics and then we sit there and say, okay, here are our add ons and then the add ons can't make it because we can't fund it. That's what's happened every year we've ever done a budget. All right, we'll figure it out. We'll just run with it. Okay.
Alright. Does anyone have any questions related to this to Sherry? Okay. So I have a question. So Sherry, admins is not going to be used as driver related to the budget?
Not the primary one because I was told that you wanted it just the same as last year and that's what I'm trying to do is keep it just the same. Who said Well, the Board of Finance is the first question. Finance
wants the spreadsheet. So that's what I'm trying to produce. The the spreadsheet that they had last year exactly the same way. They're asking for a document they can manipulate,
Jeff. Okay. So for their purposes, that's Excel at this point, because I don't think we have a budget planning document within Edmonds that they can access at this point so. Well, it looks different than what you have currently.
Well, and then we'd also have to get them access to it right we'd have to get server access. Right. So. Okay. So, by the eighteenth, we'll have that document?
Correct. Yes. Correct. Alright. This is my first go around, so I want to make it a little bit smoother on me and then get right down. You know, if there's things that you want to revise, I can certainly make note of that as I move forward. I feel like the next year would be a time to make any changes that you wish to have done differently.
Well, from my perspective, Sherry, the one thing is I don't mind Excel. I always thought we would utilize some version of it, but if if we're not maximizing the use of Edmunds, then our return on our investment is poor. That's all I'm after. We'll go through that. So, okay. So let's get through the budget and deal Can with
I ask a structural question I never really paid attention to, and this is sort of sad. Our bond payment for the school is actually on the town budget, right? Correct.
The bond payment for the AES. Right. Is on the town's budget. Is on the town's budget. Correct. Okay.
That's because the town physically owns the property. So that's all, it's almost always bonded at the town level, not at the school level, not always, but general.
No, that's fine. I was just thinking in terms of the school benefiting from the fact that it's been paid off in terms of their budget. That's all.
Yeah, it doesn't directly really doesn't directly get their budget because it's not in the AES budget.
Okay. Alright. So we understand our go ahead, Sherry. I do have one question.
I am likely to get more requests as we go along. Hopefully not, but I need to know how you wanna address like letters that come from the Interval House, for instance. It's an organization that deals with domestic violence, and they're looking for a little bit of money from the town of Andover, whatever we can contribute to them for twenty two-twenty three. This is my like I said, I don't know what you want to do about that. Simply say no or does somebody discuss it or I just don't know what the protocols are
on this. Well, personally, we're to have meetings. So I would sit there and create a folder of items that you want us to discuss at various meetings. Then we can sit there and identify if it's something that needs to be funded out of baton or it needs to be funded out of personal charitable contributions.
Okay. All right. I would certainly encourage you to prioritize anything that's Andover based. You know? Yes.
Okay. I mean, you you can show them to us, and and I think the five of us can have a rational discussion on whether we want to include something like that in the budget or not. Sure. That's great. Thank you. Does
anybody else have anything related to the budget for sharing before we move on to the item 11? So basically, did 9B and 12.
Are we, are we. At some point, maybe can we get a projection maybe beginning of February as to where we think we sit as far as budget where we're over under I know I think we were tracking slightly over budget. With no surplus so if that's still the case. Can we kind of know that as we're going along.
Well, can I, I mean, let's just, we'll move to item 11?
I don't want it now. I'd like to get this when we get closer to No, I would like to just ask a basic question. Where are the reports? Am I missing them?
I know the check register and stuff is down on like the 163 area somewhere.
So even if the reports are changing, the reports start on page 125. Correct. Right. Sheri, what are the problems that you see that the Board of Selectmen should be looking at and considering are problematic? Are problematic?
Is there any accounts that we know are running low or you think are gonna run low before the end of the year? Well,
you do have an overexpenditure report in that packet. Is that correct?
Believe. Let me can I share my screen? I'll show you the actual Excel spreadsheet with that, and that'll make more sense to you. Go ahead. Amanda, can I share?
Yep, go ahead. What page is it on there? I don't know. Oh, I see. Hang on. Found it. 151 for anyone that's following along.
Okay, so these are the current over expenditures at this point. That's not necessarily everything that's likely to be overexpended by the end of the year, which is I think what what Jeff asked for. I don't have that at that point. We can certainly put that together. Those are the major carry everything in yellow are things that need board of select men action. There are things that either by over expenditures that either you approve directly as or that you approve and then go on to board of finance. The ones that I think we should consider that are large dollar items are we're going to be well over in vehicle maintenance on public works. And the reason that is we initially intended to fix the 2,005 international cloud truck as a capital expense. But because of the way we did it, we did a bunch of the labor ourselves and then we sent it out for welding and then we painted it. So, the cost was considerably lower. We did that repair for about 10,000, whereas we were initially estimating a lot more than that. But the problem is the only place we had to take it out of was vehicle maintenance
and that killed the vehicle maintenance line item. Why wasn't faking out of the capital expense if it was budgeted that way? Because it's not a capital expense.
It's technically under 10,000 and that's not a capital expense. And the board of board of finance has made several decisions to not take things out that are less than 10,000 out of capital expense items that were budgeted.
Yeah. Budget, this is a budgeted capital line item that's my question. I would understand if it's non budgeted, but if it's budgeted and you ended up spending less than planned, why would you dump it into the budget, you know doesn't make any sense. Well, I mean.
Do we have a total number that we think we're off by? Are we still within contingency?
Yeah. At this point, we're still well within contingency because there's people that look like they're going to come in under a reasonable amount.
But it means you've left money on the, in the capital budget on our rolling cap on our rolling capital for public works. Is that what you're saying?
Yes. Yes. But we're either gonna have to agree to an over expenditure, probably about 10,000 in vehicle maintenance, or because we were not anticipating taking that out of vehicle maintenance. And hey, maybe it's my fault for charging it to vehicle maintenance, and I should have gone after, you know, the finance department to approve it as a capital expense. Frankly, I did not, you know, based on some recent, you know, trends and what they were approving. Or so you either have to accept it as a overage, or we have to agree to recommend to the Board of Finance that that money gets transferred in from capital, which would be my suggestion.
So you have six months left and you're overexpanded by $1,300 Correct.
I would would make the suggestion that we not make any transfers out of the capital until we see how close we're running for contingency. If we can override, if we can lap all this up in contingency and leave more money in capital, given what we've been spending at public works lately, let's leave it there. That would be my suggestion if anybody has any comment.
I have no problem with that. So I have no problem with that. Okay. I don't either.
I mean, so let's, let's ride it out. If we, everything falls under contingency, then we don't have a rollover. Great. And, you know, leave the money in the capital.
Okay. Then at the end of this discussion, I'll need a motion to forward to the buyer Board of Finance a recommendation to approve an overage of around 10,000 in vehicle maintenance line item.
You just make the motion now if you want. Or you can do that. I'll make a motion that we allow an overage or ask the board finance for an overage of approximately $10,000 to the vehicle maintenance line item. Second that.
K. Further discussion? No further discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Paul, I believe that was all in favor. Yes. I agree.
All right. Is there anything else, Eric, that you want to send to the Board of Finance related to this?
Not related to that, but everything in yellow are things that need to get either approved by you or approved by you and passed on to board of finance. So, the first is, you know, we did go over on OT and public works. We're basically at our limit right now, or even slightly over. Presuming we don't get any real storm related damage, I think we can live with an additional request of a couple thousand dollars, which puts it right at the limit where Board of Selectmen should be approving it. So I left that for you if you guys want to do that.
Let's go through all of them so then we can circle back on them. So the auditor
that has been pretty much solved. Basically, booked in this year's budget because we ended up getting billed so late for last year's, we actually paid it after the close of the budget this year, as did we pay some other previous, also the payout for the ACH fraud, the final payment frosted them. So, we ran over quite a bit on that budget. Sherri and the auditor have worked it out so that would be booked correctly to the appropriate year. So, are not actually in that change has been, I think, already made to the financials that you have. So, that has gone away, that has been taken care of by booking it in the correct year. So, we can ignore that. We have an issue with the equipment maintenance line item and the tax collector. We're still trying to figure out exactly why. The bills look correct, but it looks like we have to do a little forensic research on this. The bills look correct. I think we've paid them correctly for what they're owed this year, but we either under budget it dramatically. Number one, or in previous years, it looks like we may have been booking the postage elsewhere that was applied that was used to pay parts of the tax collectors' mailings. And that looks like that's what the issue is, but I'm not absolutely sure.
Frankly, I'd like to look at that a little bit more before you guys make any motions. The only reason why I want it on there now is because I want to remind myself of that as we're budgeting that we have to get that right prior to the budget.
Can I just say one thing before you go on there? I did talk to a tax collector today and she's still waiting from quality to hear back as to what her amount is going to be moving forward into budget twenty two-twenty three. So I have a feeling there's a bit of a problem because they have not got back to her yet, and they're taking a long time. And the reason why I say this is because the assessor already has her amount, but the tax collector does not. So I asked her to email them again and email me back an explanation as to what why it's taking so long and what is our amount for the tax collector. We need to know. We need to resolve this. Sorry. I'm hoping to resolve it. Do we have a contract, Sherry, with QDS?
I we have invoices. I am not seeing an actual contract. This is how we get the quotes every year from so much for assessor and so much for tax collector. But I have not seen an honest to God contract. Jeff,
I don't think there's ever been a, there hasn't been a contract in there that I can remember going back seven years. I think Sherry's correct on this.
Yeah. So we don't even get a quote. We just get invoices. They'll
give us an estimate for They'll the outcome us of an estimate the front. Right. That's what we're waiting for right now. But it's not fixed. But it's not a fixed, amount. And then the invoice start coming in.
Jeff, I think part of the reason it's not a fixed is a large fraction of the cost for that are mailing costs. And I'm not sure you really know that a year out, because you don't know what the post office is gonna charge from year to year. Yeah. But I'm I'm just driving at Eric. There's got to be,
The quote has to have or the contract would have There is no contract. I understand.
But the quote would have how much per tax bill submitted?
No. I don't think it does. I think it breaks it down. I think it just gives us a top number. So they just You
got to look at that. Yeah, talk got to somebody right now. You got to remember too, we're only one of two towns in the state of Connecticut that still does quarterly billing.
Yes, and I would assume, Adrian, that doubles our mail and So that doubles our bill if they're charging us tax per bill, there's a certain rate per bill and then obviously you have your mailing costs. You're paying first class mailing from them. There's got to be a way for you to go back and calculate it is really what I'm driving at. I'm just sitting there thinking it's got come from someplace. Whether it's a quote or a contract, you got to be able to calculate it backwards. And this is for last year anyway, it's not even for this year. You're looking for the quote to go next year, this overcharges for the current year we're in. Yeah. Okay.
And the last one that right now I want to make you aware of, and we've already discussed it, is the change to NECOG Animal Control Services. If you take that line item as a whole, the 151 category for the dog fund, we're going to be over by somewhere around $3,000 by the end of the year. We're not over now, but we will be.
So we ended up doing the Veterans Park stuff. Was that on overtime?
Some of it. I mean, we ended up running a little overtime at the end of the day to get it all in. Sure. Okay. So it was one day, basically.
No, it tended to be working a little over on multiple days. I mean, remember part of our issue was we were trying to get that done in as fast as we could so the seed would establish. And we had to work around the electrician. And since the electricians don't necessarily just work eight hour days, you know, there were times where we worked worked a bunch of days where they worked an hour or two overtime, you know, as a crew to get everybody did.
And so if we get stuck with some bad storms, Eric, you're to go over that number more or are we taking it out of the plowing budget?
Well, I mean, the problem with the plowing budget is the Board of Finance decreased the overtime allotment for winter storm removal from 25 down to 50. Now in truth, the last two years that has been enough, but if we have a bad winter, no, that's going to be problematic. You know, as it is, We don't know that yet though. So. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's, you know, the likelihood of us going over is more than it has been in years past, but I mean, maybe it will be under in snow plow Possible. Okay.
So of these items, which other items do we need to send to the Barn to Finance site?
So as of tonight, the one you probably ought to do would be, I would do OT for public works. The rest of it, and if you wanted to do the dog fund, you could do the dog fund just to get it out of the way. You don't actually have to send that to Board of Finance because that's in the range where just you guys can approve. Well, according to the sheet you just gave us
for this approval, you can approve the 2,000, the overage, so
you don't even I could I mean I figured that was right at so I would give put it in your bailiwick. Nope it's in yours 2,000 we're good moving on. Okay.
Okay. I like Are there any other issues from the reports that we should look at, Sherry? Town Aid Road?
No, I think Town Aid Road is good. I did give you an update on that with a balance that we have in there. It's 92,818. Page one thirty eight. Yeah. And you have 92,000 remain. Yep.
We still have a payment coming in though, right? In spring?
Yes. One more payment, I believe it's around 90 Yeah. 3 or
We should have a payment at some time in January that that was part of the governor's last bond approval package. So, at least the January, the normal January payment is, funded. The next one would come in July. Okay. Yeah. Or August.
Eric, we received the steep grant for the work to be done on Shawnee Mill and
Long Hill. We don't have the physical funding, but we have the approval for it. Won't actually get the money until we've actually picked a contractor and gone through all the paperwork for that. And the timing on that required to be done by? Well, I mean, it really comes down to one of the things I'm working with Jay right now is can they realistically do the drainage or do we have to sub out the drainage to get that done and paved this year? We're still working on that, frankly. When will you know that answer? Hopefully he and I can have a more complete plan of what we're doing in the next month, month, month to six weeks.
But I think we as a board have to be more aware of side projects, you know, so we don't drag them off of that stuff.
Yeah. And I will send to all the board members what Jay sent to me today. I forwarded it out. What? Jay asked it to be forwarded, so I did.
Okay. I mean, I wasn't gonna force forward that to the board until tomorrow because you had a policy of not wanting to get info at the last minute.
I just it said forward, so I did. Okay. My mistake. No, that's okay.
Can can they work on the drainage this winter? If it's not mean, not as cold as it's gonna be tomorrow, but No. Not when the ground is actually frozen.
Jay thinks. I understand that. I I start up in. I do understand that if it's frozen, you can't work in it but you know, it hasn't been frozen in a long time in Connecticut. Last year, we think we had a, you know, a week of frozen conditions which were really early in the season. And I'm I'm just asking if it's not frozen, can they work on the drainage?
Well, how bad do want them to work on? They can work on if it's frozen if you want to buy them a space heater. No, no, no. I don't, I don't, I don't want to work. I I'm asking a question, Eric.
That's all. Jay told me he thought they could begin working on it. You know, if they pushed it, they could start working on it somewhere mid to third week in March.
Is it mostly side work or is it cross drainage? A lot of it's cross drainage.
So I was gonna say the sidewalk drainage you could do with a heater, you know, throw a tarp there, heater, you know, you run it for an eight hour shift. It's thawed, you're good to go, you know? And what's the reason that they can't work until mid March?
Because it's frozen? If it's not frozen, if it's not frozen. Oh. Well,
part of the problem with working in the spring when it's really muddy is it just doesn't compact really well when it's really wet. That's part of the issue for working early.
Well, your patches, you're gonna, you won't, you'll have to do soft patches too. You'll cold patches. You won't be able to do any regular patching. Correct. And some of the places that have limited hours as well. You know, it's harder to get material. Can tell you that target does not stock half the things you're going to want.
To Adrian's point, Eric, side projects need to be minimized next year to get as much of this done as possible. So I think the entire board would like to see as much of that work done as they possibly can get out and not have them get dragged off. And I'll say candidly now before we get into that discussion,
I've encouraged Jay to put another person in his budget, contrary to his, he sends out an email and I forwarded it to you guys. I called him to talk to him about it. Know, he wasn't asking for it because he doesn't, he didn't think it would get funded, but I told him if you need it, you put it in there, you know. I mean we're putting a lot of work on his plate and he's running around trying to keep tabs on that stuff and be on top of you know the crew. It's hard to do that if you're working as part of the crew, you know and if we're going to have five to ten years worth of drainage work ahead of us. That's that's a smart decision to do now, you know because eventually tomy's going to retire and we would be able to have somebody in there now that's trained up, and then you know, maybe you reduce the crew through attrition as you catch up on some of the drainage, you know?
Well, let's discuss that. That's one of the items that we will need to discuss as far as additional funding requirements. So we'll bring that up in our budget workshops. Okay. Is there anything else in item 11 that we want to discuss?
I would just like to point out one thing. If you had a chance to look at the 2022 detailed custom expenditure report from admins, I did change it slightly in the hopes that the columns would be to your liking. What page are we on now? I don't know the page, but Any 67 through 137.
Oh, see it. It's that big. I'm sorry. Page 127. 127, yep, found it. Okay.
So I eliminated the expenditure current and just putting the expenditure year to date with the adopted budget, the balance, and then they do have a percentage used now, which is another column that we can put in there to rely upon. I didn't know if that was something that you wanted me to work towards, you know, putting it that way or you have any other suggestions that would make it better. We now can put it into Excel, the actual report, and I can share it with, you know, boards in Excel fashion. So we have the Excel export working now? Yes.
Yes. I got on the phone the other day with help desk and they made sure that I was able to do it and I am. Outstanding. So we have that feature now and we can, I can actually send it to a board in Excel after I produce it in this format here so that I I know you indicate well, some board members, board of finance indicated they wanted it in Excel spreadsheet fashion so they could make notes on the side and keep track of things as they went along?
Our assistant treasurer line is for a salary is at 63%. Is that because of OT or? Or just the way the weeks fall. It just seems like a bunch of the other ones are at fifties, and then all of a sudden we're at hers is at 63%.
There might be some overtime in there. I'd have to take a look at it and see what is driving that. Thank you.
I just wanted to point that out that we're making progress in that area of reporting. Okay. Thank you.
Sherri, thank you. Any other questions for Sherri before she leaves us, I'm sure? Okay.
Item 12 on the budget, the appropriation transfers and over expenditures. I believe that was what Adrian pointed out previously. 150 something. 151. So those are everything we talked about already, so we don't have to waste any more time on that. Okay. All right. Right. Sherry, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Good night, everybody.
Okay. We're gonna move back up to item five appointments. Are there any appointments for Memorial Day committee, Eric? Not that I know of.
The citation hearing officer, did we have anyone step forward?
We did. I'm going to suggest you appoint Mark Wisely as the citation hearing officer.
Do we have anything? How long has he been in town? What's his background? I saw the letter didn't say much.
Yeah, I had a conversation with him. He's only been in town a couple of years, but he's at the, he was specifically looking for something that he could contribute to the town. You know, you know, we had a long discussion about, you know, what constitutes fairness and, you know, how you judge and weigh in on a situation. I thought he would be a good applicant for that position.
Just as a side question, you sent us an email on that. It's not in the packages letter? No. It's separate. Separate.
Okay. Does anyone wanna make the motion to appoint him right now or would you guys like to hold off and have this for next month? No, let's make a motion right now to appoint him.
You're gonna make that motion? Yeah, was looking for his correct spelling of his name in that. I was going to my inbox, sorry. I just got a quick question before we do that.
I don't know when this, we got another word document saying there was somebody else that had interest. Did they not send a letter in?
So they, you know, there were a total of three or four people that expressed interest in either doing that or the citation hearing officer. So, between those and the ones I talked to, I kind of thought as a fit for the citation hearing officer, Mark was probably the best fit and that the remaining ones, you know, would work reasonably well for the Andover Ethics Committee.
So you had Amy March, Janice Machete, and then Tammy Harrington with the other people that want to do it. But you think Mark's the best fit.
Yes, that's kind of the feeling I got from discussing with them. So I will make a motion that we
appoint Mark Risely to the citation hearing officer and appoint Jay Camins, Amy March, Janice Marci, if I'm saying it correctly, I hope, and Tammy Harrington to the Ethics Commission and Amber Armitraj to the Emergency Management Coordinator. I'll second. Okay.
I think, yeah, that works. The only thing I would say is that one of the four for the ethics committee has to be an alternate because a commission is three regular members and one alternate. So who's your alternate? I just kinda picked it out of a hat and said Amy Marsh would be the alternate.
So I would modify my motion that Amy Marsh will be appointed as an alternate. Still seconded Paula? Yep.
Okay. Further discussion on any of these appointments? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. So that appears to take forth all of the appointments. Amber, thank you very much for the emergency management coordinator. I appreciate it. Resignations, item six. Anything, Eric? No. Okay.
Let's go to item seven. The town administrator's report starts on page 18.
Okay, I assume I can share my screen again. Yes. All right, I'm only going to go over the stuff that's changed since I put out this report. Originally, You guys all know the COVID cases are continuing to climb. Since the beginning of December, we've gone from about four twenty people hospitalized to just about nineteen hundred today. I think you guys have probably all seen the governor's executive orders, really liberalizing the state of medicine today to try to deal with it because they're so short staffed. The good news is every place that we've seen a spike worldwide due to the Omicron virus, it appears to be fairly short lived. So you can expect that to tail off pretty fast starting sometime this month or certainly by next month. That's that. We are having problems with the furnace in the community room. Bringing the guy back in tomorrow to service worked great for a couple weeks. Again, it clicked off the last time they refilled the tank. So I think we've either got something wrong with the filter or the pump going up to the furnace that keeps causing a problem. So we're gonna try to get to the bottom of that. It just stops working.
Okay. And we had our service done. The filter was changed. We're still having a problem. Yes. Yes. Something in the tank?
I don't know. I mean, it's possible we're stirring up junk in the tank when they fill it. You know, it's possible the pump that pumps it up, you know, from the basement to the 2nd Story is not working correctly. I don't know what the solution is, but we got to get to Are we shutting that? Are we shutting the furnace off when they're loading? No.
You might want to consider that. Only because we're running it so low. Do you know what I mean? We're running it so low that when they're filling you're going to have you're going to stir stuff up. Can't help it.
Yeah, but Eric, how often is it filled? Once a week, right? It's every seven days. So, you would think that Adrian, you would think that there wouldn't be anything that at all would be in the filters scheduled But up
it's not, I mean, it can't be just that because it's happening too often, you know, unless the filter's actually just clogged again and that's part of the problem. I wouldn't
bet against it. Yeah. I mean, it's possible that's the case. I'm not betting against it either. I'm just saying the guys should be here tomorrow to, work on it again. Great.
Okay. Transfer station. We one of the switches to the compactor that the town owns, the switch burned out or had some sort of issue. So Lenco came out and diagnosed it and fixed that last week, you know, just as an emergency service. Yep. So you had asked me for what the cost of replacing or putting in a electric thing for the overhead door. So, the total would be about $830 broken down into five forty five parts and $2.86 in labor. But they also said we would need the electrician to put an outlet in for it. That's for advanced overhead door. So if you want to, if that's something you want to go ahead with, I'll be happy to
send that through. And that's for the side building, right? Yeah. That's for the blue building. Blue building.
I think that's a bargain. Yeah. Doesn't seem out of line. That's for sure. No. I think that's a bargain and that gives us covered space. Let's do it. I'd make a motion for that. What's your total? $8.30.
There's no electricians cost in that yet, though. No. Correct.
Correct. One outlet and we got power in that building anyways, right? Right. Not the power. I would make a motion that we accept the proposal from advanced overhead door and install the garage door accordingly. I'll second.
Further discussion. Anybody? Scott? You approve? All set. Okay. All those in favor?
Hang on. Do we want to amend that motion a little bit for a vote for the electrician or no?
If you want, do you want to amend it so that you want to it? We're
doing a fixed amount. We're not doing anything for the outlet.
Right, I mean. Presumably we're going to use Lenco and just whatever it's going to cost. It's going to cost.
I would, if you want to amend the motion, Jeff, make make it how you want to amend it and I'll second it. No, as long as we have funding for the electrical work, I'm fine with it. I just want to make sure we have that part covered.
This is going to be where are you going to get the money from, Eric? Well, general building maintenance fun.
To include costs, I'll amend the motion to include costs for installation of one outlet.
I'll second that, Adrian. You you you don't wanna sit there and have two outlets, Adrian? No. All right. Scott seconded it. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. All
right. Oh, okay. Next up. I want to have a quick discussion with you. I'm not expecting anything tonight. You got plenty of time to think about it. I'm just putting the seed in your mind. Say it already. Is that we have, we're part of Midnirack. Midnirack is, basically a recycling consortium that the town of Andover is part of. They handle our hazardous waste removal, and then they renegotiate contracts for a whole bunch of recycled materials that we get rid of through our transfer station. There's a couple things we don't recycle now that we could if we chose to that could potentially be cost neutral, but the problem is that we need a reasonable place to store a quantity of them. The first is propane tanks. We can get paid for used propane tanks as long as the majority of them are the standard barbecue 20 pound sized tanks. Do the valves have to be removed? The valves do not have to be removed. Okay. So the problem with that is that really needs because of the nature of propane that needs outdoor storage. So we would need a caged area of some sort, but the propane tanks if we were to choose to do that. The second thing would be to accept automotive batteries. I'm not sure there's really a huge need for it. It's not something I've got questions on. I've gotten plenty of questions on propane tanks,
but nobody's asked me about batteries yet. But if we did take batteries, we would end up getting paid about $5 a battery, but we need a spot big enough to store at least 50.
Yeah, I don't know that we need batteries because not only do they charge you way more than that for your deposit, your core deposit, but John Scrap will pay you more than that if you bring them down to him.
But John's is out of business now, Adrian. Is he since when?
He's done. When did it go? I was just there like five months ago.
Yep. So were we. John's scrapyard is no longer in business. Wow. That sucks.
Yep. It probably won't be a lot of batteries because Adrian's right. They usually have to pay a deposit, a core charge. Yeah. People just send it back. I agree,
you know, it's not necessarily something, you know, maybe we decide we don't want to do. I mean, we've never done it in the past. I was just looking at recycling things we actually could potentially make a little bit of money on if we offered that. So propane
tanks, you want an outside cage for that? Yeah, it really should be outside. Can it be a basket rather than a cage? Or do you want to lock them up?
I don't necessarily think we need to lock them up. They're not so valuable that I'm worried about people stealing them. But I do think we don't want to store, we want to store them in some kind of, you know, enclosure that's lockable at the end of the night. And it's not an enclosed building. So there's no chance of, of, you know, a propane explosion.
Why are we worried about locking them up? I mean, they're going have to cut a lock to get in there to start with. If they cut one, they're going to cut two. Let's
sit there and say we don't lock them up. And my question to you, Eric, is how many requests are we truly having for this type of service at the transfer station?
Over the years, I've had a bunch of people call and ask me what they have to do to get rid of their propane tanks. So I would bet we get 20 a year,
it's not going to be. You bring them to scrap yard, you got to take the valve. They won't take them without the valve out. Right. And the average homeowner doesn't wanna do that. How many do we need though for them to take them?
I think to get paid for it, we need at least eighteen, twenty pound tanks for them to haul it away. So you might only have one run a year.
Yeah, it's not gonna be big. That's why we need a bunch, you know, a bunch to store. I mean, we can get it, how they will take it away for lesser amounts, but then we have to pay.
Well, let's see if we can find a like a material basket or something like, you know, those metal cages that have A skid on the bottom built in. Is that going to hold 18 though. Heck yeah yep.
You get at least eight per layer should be able to get three layers it's 24. Be close. Mean, guess an eight, but it should be close.
So I take it that's something that you would consider if we could find a low cost storage mechanism.
Yeah, because if John's scrap is closed, I mean, I think a lot of people utilize some of those facilities and stuff like that. Is there anything else on your list?
Not for that. I just wanted to say we up to this point, we've been running plain salt on the road, but as it gets colder, we're about to switch back to treated salt. We did end up finding signing a contract with Cargill because Cargill eventually came down to a reasonable cost per ton for salt. So, we're able to buy treated salt again reasonably. So, that's good. And the last thing I wanted to say, you know, for this section is that there will be a meeting next weekend or next week, January 19 at 10AM, a design meeting with Close Jensen and Miller. They're going to give us the initial, design presentation. And then there'll be a second one on February 9, which is the full blown design review with the Department of Transportation. So Board of Select members are encouraged to attend the first meeting, but you're more than welcome to attend the second one also.
So, can send us out some emails so that we remember Eric?
I can. I was planning on sending you the link to anybody who said they wanted to actually likely wanted to go. So that's a zoom meeting. Correct. At 10AM the nineteenth.
Correct. So Scott, if he sends you the link, can put a notice on your thing to remind you on that day. Yeah, yeah, can. I will On your town email. Mhmm. So do all of you want the link? Sure. Yeah. Sure. Okay.
And I already sent you, the proposal. I sent that to you or not the proposal, the kind of their report roughly two weeks ago or three weeks ago. Do you all still have that? Yep. Yep. Okay. Cost went up. We saw that. Yep.
And then that's it. Unless, I have some more stuff about the VoIP, but we'll get to that when we get to that in the meeting, unless you have questions for me on my report.
I see that Lynn I see Lynn's getting some more trending with PermitLink. Are we still talking about sending her out to another town as well?
No, neither she nor Kathy felt that they really needed to go there for that. They are, you know, obviously in regular contact with both Randy and they have
relationship with the woman in Ashford. Okay. As it is. So what's the status on the on the two properties that didn't have dumpsters? Have we heard back from our building official yet?
I have not nor have I really reached out and asked immediately.
Can we follow-up on that because it's starting to annoy me it's been like a while. The one on 66 has been quite a while and then Long Hill obviously is definitely an issue for residents.
We're hearing a lot of complaints. Where are those two Adrian?
One is on Route 6 and the other one is on Long Hill. And the building building department has been given both of those I think Kathy had talked about reaching out to call them herself Eric. So he she could kind of get Lynn and practice for doing that. To remind them that they as part of their building permit they are required to have a dumpster as a first step. Yeah but obviously we'd like to have them doing it and then also having the building official follow-up. Well, I think that's actually more zoning violations.
Well, maybe it's both. It's the well there. They were issued a building permit. It's on the building permit, so it's required. It's under It's only on the building permit now. It wasn't on the building permit
when we issued it. We were just able to get permit link to update our building permits to show that on there. Supposedly they were stamping them before
when they mailed them out. Okay, maybe. That Kathy had a stamp. I said to do both because now if you look at the one on permit link, it's written so small, it's too easy to miss. I asked her to stamp them anyways, unless anyone has objection.
But they're not mailing them. They're getting to them electronic.
I don't know. They mail, they mail them once they're approved and they've gone through the whole process. That's what I was told. If it's something different, let's find out.
I mean, they shouldn't be mailing them to them. They should come up automatically. That's the whole reason we're going to an electronic permitting system. So you're not mailing stuff. You know, it gets to you electronically.
Okay. Well, let's find out because she said they were stamping them so.
If the case, Eric, if you're going to send them out electronically, you need to figure out a way to make it bigger so they understand. Well, or change the coloring on it because it's very
small, it's a black type. Change it to red, something. Okay. Any other questions for Eric? Okay.
So let's move on to item eight, old business. Discuss and act upon the following. Is there anything related to the Veterans Monument Park upgrades?
I have one thing. Go ahead. Jerry was worried about getting those trees cut down and nobody would cut them down for him. So I went down and marked them, all the trees that he wanted to cut down and then I got Jason from Distinctive to do it for free for the veterans and then I went and got Dave Buckley down there and he okayed it, he's from the DEP, so that's all set and all paid for. Wow, thank you, Scott. That's awesome. We
should, have we talked about doing anything to have a list of people that donated?
Yeah, we're gonna put it on the sign. Eric's gonna be making the sign up.
I mean, that's the case, let's make sure Distinctive gets on there too. And
Jerry's gonna buy Jason a brick also. Okay. So that's, you know, no money out of the town's pocket. Great job, Scott. Thank you, Adrian. It's nice. It's nice for people to say thank you. It really is.
So are we still planning on making public works, clean that whole area up and flatten it off and change the manhole cover?
We'll we'll we'll we'll we're gonna cross that bridge when we come to it.
And they have time as long as they're not in overtime. It's frozen. Yeah. Frozen, Jeff.
Okay. So we're going to move on to item B, 8B, connectivity grant construction progress. Eric?
No construction now until spring, so we can drop that for now.
All right. 8C, the electrical and HVAC upgrades at the town hall. Are these in addition to what you discussed?
There is, but I don't want to discuss them now because none of the contractors have actually gotten me hard numbers. Well, I don't have anything to present.
Okay. Are we talking about doing that for budget or?
No, we're talking about doing that right out of the building maintenance fund.
Okay. All right. So we talked about the 8D, the transfer station. Do you have anything else you want to add? No, those were my two items for the transfer station. 8E, the formation of the museum Andover history committee. We did that last meeting, correct?
Yep. And we are starting to put that out there to the public for people that want to be a part of it. They can send in a letter and let us know. Okay. 8F, pedestrian safety initiative. That's Mr. Murray.
I am still waiting to hear about our transfer of funds. Apparently, those funds were never transferred that we spoke about over six months ago. Okay. Do they know where the funds are, Jeff?
So, we had those, we had the running events and we had the bike events and there was no, like I said, there was no dedicated account for the Rec Commission. I've asked the Board of Finance, actually sent Diane and I sent Diane and a few others an email asking them to look into it at their next meeting.
Diane, so Kat, could you tell us, is there any update on that?
I have no idea because sure he wasn't at our last meeting. We could about at this meeting, find out where everything went. Because I do remember that we said we're going to transfer the money in.
Yeah, was supposed to happen a while back. The money was just written to the town of Andover and put into our general account. It was never assigned to any specific Line item? Yeah, line item. So we wanna make sure that that money eventually gets there so we can use it for these vests and other initiatives. You know how much do have the
amount? Did Jeff give you that? Yeah. It was right around $1,200 Wow.
Mean, that money would have gone rolled into the unexpended fund balance probably two years ago. So, I mean, the only thing you can practically do at this point is just decide to spend, you know, dollars 1,200 on X Practically.
Just put it on line item for next year's budget.
Well, we should. We have it in the next, that we have it that account created and funded.
Yeah. And that makes more sense. It shouldn't be funded from, it should be funded as a transfer, not not from taxpayer line item. Right, right. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, and from a practical point of view, can we just get the board of finance to transfer $1,200 and do it wherever you guys want to stick it, Jeff?
Yeah, we will need to create a rec commission events account or rec commission account.
I mean, you're talking about doing is creating essentially a permanent fund and then transferring in a small amount of money to that permanent fund, and leave that as a spot where future donations can be assigned to. Right.
Yeah, I have a solution. Mr. Murray. Yes. I haven't spent my pay this year, so let's have that transferred to the recognition. Diane Choquette, can you transfer my selectman pay to the right Commission so they can have the money for Jeff to get the best? So
let me ask you a question. I recall correctly, and I haven't. I thought that the first selectman salary item on the current budget sheet there has been expended. It shows on reports, So I don't know where that money went. So the first selectman, let me look back at. Go look at the expenditure report. Yeah, you're right.
So it's the first page of the Edmunds report. I don't know how that got expended, but mine got expended because I didn't do anything with it yet.
So I was, that was like one of my questions like that has never shown that big of a number going out. So I don't know what happened.
Got me. Unless they booked last year I gave them on for last year I gave it to the commission for their tenth.
Unless they. Right, but it wouldn't have been that dollar amount, because it didn't it just isn't it almost all the selectman salary out of that account now. Yeah, it shouldn't be. Shouldn't Doesn't look right.
Which is Eric, the same issue that you really should address for the tax collector's fees. It almost looks like a duplicate invoice. Diane, that's a good question. First of all, why would it be $4,300 Yeah.
90% expended when we're on a quarterly. Yeah. Well, haven't taken it. Like Scott or Jeff or Paula, have you guys gotten your checks? Yep. But you still have you got half the year or? Did you get 1,200? No. We processed it twice. Yeah, so something's wrong there.
Well, that's even a bigger problem Diane because it went through payroll. What that means to me is that they duplicated the journal entry. Which if you want to keep going and we want to keep talking about that, which means that the reconciliation is off.
That expenditure report should be looked at before it even comes to any of these meetings, that every variant should be explained.
Yeah, so you keep asking the same, I mean, yeah.
Eric, if you need me to sign off on that, let me know. I originally signed off on the year before, but I didn't get a sheet for last year. But I think Carol Lee took care of it. Eric, your list is getting I bigger and
can only tell you from the past history of our town. We should set up a permanent fund for donations, even if it's a separate checking account. I know nobody wants to hear that, but
there has Then been you're going to have somebody saying, well, we donated, it's in the account, we want that money, and then somebody else saying, no, no, it's our money. We donated it.
I understand. And I do agree that there's the rec commission because I just know it's not done correctly. You have the rec commission getting funds from basketball
or any I mean, the rec commission should have a money raised line and donated line in the Yeah, fund. Right. Yeah.
I can tell you in understanding from what I've seen is that a lot of donations have come into the town and been pushed into the general fund and not used for the appropriate reason.
Circling back to my original discussion, I want to make sure that that's rated for the future because we've had promoters like Ken Platt come in here and have that summer series. He wrote us a nice So track let's
correct it on the budget, Jeff. What's that? We'll correct it on the rec budget. We'll get both of those things added in. Okay.
And what about transferring existing funds? Is that just kind of gone or are we going to address that? Well,
salary is 1,200, so that'll be the same amount. So that way don't to worry about where it comes All right. But we're, but we're glossing over a problem that should be able to be solved by the treasurer's department, which is is the listing of all deposits that have been made into our bank. That's a, that's a whole, yeah. That way And Speaker listen, it should never be that hard. It should never be that hard. I mean, the checks we're talking about. The checks we're talking about are checks that are actually physical checks that come into the possession of the treasurer's office. If there can't be a You know what the problem is, unless we have a solution, let's move on. It's almost nine.
Okay. Wow. Let him finish his thought. Yeah. No. Adrian is a 100. Right, Paula. It's 09:00.
Let's go. He's gonna fall asleep soon, Paula. Sure. Amber woke up. She's alive now. I thought she was out for a bit. We're moving on to new business, Adrian,
if you would stop talking. We did 9A, we already talked about the COVID status. We did 9B, we're done with that. 9C, Eric has some issues he wants to discuss related to the VoIP system.
So I sent you again the copy of all three proposals. Let me just share my screen here real quick again. Where is it? Too many things open. Hang on. Well, hurry up. It's 09:00.
Alright. If you want the long and the short of it is Yes. One do you wanna go with? If the next, over the next five years, the smartest plan to do is to go with IP genie. It's the same solution Hebron's using it's the same solution Ram is using. It is there. It's about $7 for all the initial setup. And then our costs go down to roughly $410 a month from present, which is we're running rest roughly $1,000 a month now.
So you're gonna go from how much to how much? Say it again. So
that's why I'm trying to bring up my spreadsheet. So, so I'll do the math. So he's gonna save $600 a month, which is $7,200 and he's gonna spend $7,200 to buy a loan. You're gonna get it back to us in a year. Yes. And the next year, you're gonna be able to reduce your line expenditure to $4,800 versus $12,000 So do it.
So you want to make a motion to use Spikey Genie as a VoIP I
will make a motion to sign a service contract with Genie Innovations for $7,100 in non recurring fees and $4.00 $9 in a total in a recurring monthly fee to update our voips go to a VoIP system. I'll second.
Okay. Further discussion. Anybody have any questions to to Eric related to that? Move. No. Okay. Those You want me a Coke, Eric?
Aye. Fair enough. Aye. Okay. Diet. Aye. Aye. Aye. Five of us. Okay. Nine D, resolution for Connecticut Department of Energy Services.
Okay, so real quick. We should have done this multiple months ago, we kind of screwed up. I don't know where we dropped the ball. Anyway, we didn't do it. Basically, what it is, is annually or every two years, we signed a agreement which allows our regional department of emergency management to get the federal funds that would be allocated for the town for emergency management. And in exchange, they provide a series of services. That's basically what it is. I can't technically sign it without the board signing a resolution authorizing me to sign it because technically that is giving away in some senses town funds, even though it's not actual town money. But per what the board of selectman has signed already authorizing me to accept and distribute grants that doesn't really count. So I would like you to verbally agree to sign the authorization, and then I'll come in and sign the authorization so I can sign the document. That's it. Questions?
No. Let's go make a motion to authorize Eric to sign the resolution for the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services. Seconded. Let's go. Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Alright. Nine e, grant of covenant and easements at the Leteska Acres.
Okay. So as you know, a few years ago, we, the Planning and Zoning Commission adopted a, what's called ARD or Andover Rural Design. And one of the things that allowed is it allowed in some cases, more flexibility for the developer in exchange for leaving more open space on the property. So the problem is these developers have to put a covenant on the property so it is clear in the land records that is to remain open space. It's something that has to be signed by Jeff McGuire. It's a little unclear under our regulations, but the whole board should be approving that or Jeff McGuire signing that because we don't physically own the property. It doesn't have to go to a town meeting. I had that discussion a while back with the town's attorney. So I don't know whether the board wants to just authorize Mr. McGuire to sign that and sign them all in the future or whether the board wants to see those things. It's in I'm your
going to tell you the board needs to see these things. Eric,
I read that document this afternoon. And there's a part in there that says that before any work is begun on that site that the pins and the all the easements have to be noted in the field with oak stakes and it explains the whole thing and all the pins have to be on this, on the parcels everywhere before any work can start. So I talked to Jed about that this afternoon and he doesn't know whether or not any of that has been done. So I would advise Jeff not to sign anything until we're aware of everything on there is accurate. Is it accurate or not? As
far as we know right now, I talked to Jed and he said it's not. He know he doesn't have an answer. That's something I have to talk about
a little later in our meeting. Okay. So if that's something that we can Eric, does it need to be signed today?
It's a zoning matter. I the answer is I have no idea. Okay. So why don't we get the answer on that and then
well, heck, they're probably not gonna do anything to it, let's bring this back up in all business next month. 9F, renewal of tax abatement for Hop River Homes and the softball field renewal. Are we at five years already? There's no way. We went out further on that. That was like a ten year.
It was ten, and then it turned to five for some reason. Why is it five?
I don't know. And the last one wasn't signed, was it Eric?
Well, I don't I don't think I don't think we we ever got there the lease back from the ladies.
But there's two interrelated questions here. Yeah. Three questions. The first is, do you want to even bother using that field? That's number one. Number two, are you willing to give the housing complex an abatement? And if so, what method for determining compliance with our regulations? How do you want to go about doing that? And then C, if the answer is yes to both of those, then how do you want to go about renegotiating a new contract for the field?
We have to get the listen, there requests for use of that field from HAMR softball for girls and for also the baseball program in Hebron that Andover children participate in. So we need to do that. I'm going to tell you, Eric, that you need to go back and evaluate what was passed at the town meeting because I thought it was ten years. We had a town meeting on this one.
I have from the town meeting is there is an ordinance that's in place that takes it out of being a town meeting and leaves it a board of select men decision to, abate certain tax, based on a set of criteria. And I believe Bob Burbank signed the last one of those in 2017.
I can't tell you when that was up, but let's
stop discussing it. Let's ask Carol Lee, our resident, find everything you want to know about town meetings person to go digging for it. Oh,
Eric Eric just said that he already did that. He said it was when Eric said he had some Eric said what he had in front of him. He didn't say whether he's added research. He said that it was done back to the selectman and not a town manager. So
the town's attorney would like to weigh in on this, I'm sure.
Dennis, your way. Yeah. I can you hear me? Yeah. I'm in this. Oh, absolutely.
Oh, yeah. I'm here. Yeah. What's past his bedtime? Yeah. This was this was, this is something that I'm talking about the tax abatement. This has been going on for more than twenty years. And we I took a close look at it in 2017 and discovered that it wasn't being done the right way. So we we had a town meeting. It was well attended. Same town meeting at which you passed the blight ordinance or the town meeting did. And, yeah, it was in 09/19/2017. We've talked to Carol about this. He pulled out a copy of the, ordinance, and, it gives it gives you the ordinance gives you the standards that you have to follow if you wanna give tax abatement to a particular type of housing project that provides nonprofit entity used solely for lower moderate income housing.
Is it seven or ten years, Dennis? Is it seven year or ten I
believe that I'm looking at the ordinance now and I don't think the ordinance starts in terms of how many years, but the question is answered by the resolute what it does is it as as Eric said, it delegates to the to the board of selectmen the authority to give the abatement. And what happened next was in on 03/14/2018, another document I have in front of me courtesy of Carol Lee and Eric. There was a resolution passed giving an abatement of $12,000 a year beginning retroactively on June 2017 and extending until 06/30/2022. So the abatement extends through the end of this fiscal year. So it's time, I believe, to consider whether or not you're going to do this again and use the board of selectmen under the ordinance has the authority to do this. I would suggest that I work with Eric to come up with a plan as to how we're going to do this because in the past, it hasn't really been the the I don't wanna call it an investigation, but the inquiry into whether or not
a, an abatement should be provided. And this is under a state statute, general statutes eight dash two fifteen. The inquiry has been, I I don't think it's been extensive enough. Alright. Well, why don't you two work it out and get back to us then? Yeah. Work it out, get back to you, and then you you have until, you know, the end of the fiscal year to make a decision. Hopefully the decision will be made, you know, well in advance of the end of the fiscal year, but that's that's pretty much the way that that the tax abatement goes. There's a word does yep.
And if there's wording in there that restricts the usage to young women, the wording needs to be changed to anyone or something close to that.
The usage You're talking now you're talking Usage the usage on the field. Scott, you're talk now you're okay. Now you're talking about the field. The usage on on the field. Okay. Now I I talked to Jeff about this today, Jeff McGuire, because, I believe the, the the agreement may that was going to be made between the town and the, ECHO, the the same organization we were talking about for the tax abatement, and and it's not related. That that was that was something that a a contract was drafted. I believe the draft, Jeff, came from Echo. We made a suggestion for a change in in in paragraph 12, and I don't think it was ever signed. Is that right, Jeff?
They were going back to the USDA, the last communication I have, and I don't I don't see anything happening. So that board, Scott, never they said they had to have it approved by USDA, which is a bunch of
Well, was I found that to be know, at the same time, we look into the tax abatement, I don't want to relate them as a quid pro quo because it shouldn't be. But at the same time, we could Eric and I and whoever could find out if that's really a requirement, because that if that's required, would probably have to be in some sort of a regulation or some sort of a policy statement from the USDA because obviously that probably the farmer's home problem program had something to do with the construction of that housing project. I would suspect.
No. It was same landowner. Pardon? It was all the same landowner.
Oh, yeah. For the for the field and for the Yeah. Right. Right. Right. I get that. I I in fact, I was in Scott, I was in town hall a week and a half ago or so with with or maybe just a week ago with Eric, and I I asked Eric to, take me on a site visit. So we went up and took a look at it because I'm very much interested in, playing softball on that field if we could because I do coach the Wyndham the Willamantic team in that same league that Hammer plays, and we played them many times. But but most of the time we play them in Hebron and a couple of times in Marlboro, I'm, you know, as as town attorney here, I'd love to play on the Andover Field. I didn't take a good enough look at the field, Scott, to see if it was a softball field. You're talking about young women. A softball field or a baseball field. It's a softball field. Yeah. As you know, I'm sure softball fields have a a dirt or let's say clay infield. Right. They this one does.
Okay. That that's what it looked like to me. In fact, I'm I'm familiar with softball fields all over eastern part of the state.
And to me, it looked like a pretty darn good field. It it it is. Well It is. It's got all new play in it. What we have to do is what we have to do is we have to, Eric, find out. I mean, my recollection was it was a ten year thing.
Originally, it was, Jeff, but when it was redone, it turned into five years at the meeting. It was a five year document. I read it this afternoon. Okay.
And when that's redone Dennis, I wanna make sure that everyone can use that field, not just young women. How about young men and how about adults? Jeff and me wanna play some some game down there before we die. Wanna see if you guys can hit the ball over the fence. Yeah, I can hit the ball. It would have to be a big Into the woods.
Into the woods. Okay. Big floppy. I don't, I'm a little older. I don't know. I'm a little older and I, I think if I got the right pitch and the wind was blowing the right way, I could probably hit it over the fence. Yeah. Maybe we'll have a Republican versus Democrat. So so We we or we could have a we could have a homeowner. There you go, Jeff. There you go. We could have a home We could raise money. We could raise money for the Right. Okay. Dennis, thank you very much. Well, I I
I'll tell you what I'll take this on and I'm going to consult with, Jeff McGuire and with Scott and, Eric and, we'll get this done. Okay. Very good. So very
much in this. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Nice to be here. Thank you. We have nine gs, which is the item that I added to the agenda, which was a The item is related to Andover monthly day of plodging. I don't remember if you guys remember Eric's email that we received back about a month ago when Eric was telling us that our revenues in town was increasing by about $3,500 because the Andover package store has sold upwards 10,000,000. No, well that was for the whole state. But the town of Andover gets a number based upon the number of NIPS sold in the town of Andover and there was about 170 NIPS sold in the town of Andover last year, Eric, about 70,000 of them. Correct. Many? Thousand. That translates to about 175 nips are sold in the town of Andover per day. That's a lot.
I think Adrian, personally, Adrian- That's probably like 20 drunk drivers though. Yeah, but Adrian must be spending a lot of money down there to buy his nip thing. But Eric sent something that interested me and that I had no idea about, so I researched the term plogging, P L O G G I N G, and it is a Swedish exercise ritual that incorporates picking up trash. So what I am asking is that I'd like to make a motion that the Board of Selectmen dedicate the first Sunday in each month as the Andover monthly day of plodging to try to clean up our community and dispose of the trash that is around the town. How about you, Jeremy? That's all I'd like to do, because Adrian is telling me now it's 09:20 and we have to move on, but that is what I would like to offer up as an opportunity for the town to get out there and to commit to picking up our town and making it look better. How about quarterly, Jeff?
We can do quarterly. We can do monthly. It's not like if we have the end of our monthly day of plodging and I take pictures of the garbage bags that I pick up from around the lake, that it's going to impact somebody doing it the following month on the first Sunday. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I'm sure Paula would get around her neighborhood a little bit. I mean, it doesn't even need to be a big bag of garbage. Anything that somebody picks up is beneficial. It is.
Would anyone like to second that? You'd to make a quarterly day of plodging, I'm more than happy with a quarter. Anybody would like that amended to quarterly, monthly, whatever? I'll second it, Jeff. No, is it quarterly or monthly? Paula, what would you rather it be?
Let's be ambitious and say monthly. What does everybody think? Yearly. Did Adrian say yearly? Yeah. Oh
my God, no, Adrian. Yearly. What's Jeff Murray think? Paula and I have church to go to. We can't be out cleaning up the town every Sunday. It's not nice to lie on call,
my No, it's okay. Adrian, knowing that you don't need to go out and pick up the neighborhood
is okay. You can do your monthly rent. I have enough property to pick up. I don't need to go pick up somebody else's. That's good. So you don't, that's fine. There seems to be a plethora of nips on my two forty feet of frontage.
The plugging police is not going to come find you, Adrian, if you don't do it. It's okay. It's
community service and it's a cool term. I'm going to tell you monthly. Let's just do it. Okay, monthly. Okay, monthly. So Scott seconded that. All those in favor of establishing the Andover monthly day of plodging, say aye. Hi. Adrian, are you abstaining or are you I am abstaining. It's an exercise. I don't exercise. So you don't have to tell us. We know. Paula reminds me every chance I she do not. Really?
I remember putting on my shoes the other day where you commented on, Oh, wait. You forgot about Oh, goodness gracious.
We're going to move on right now. We're moving to approval of meeting. I'm still in therapy.
For Monday, 12/13/2021, regular minute meetings. Somebody like to make a motion to approve those? A motion to approve those meetings. Seconded.
All All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. We're moving on to reports, the tax collectors report. Eric, that starts on what page? I didn't see it. It starts on page 155. In the month of December, we collected $489,831.63 still have to collect $4,289,983 That is related to what month? There is no month on that report. It's December. Let's say it's the second page for December. There is one total refund due of $14.98 refund for an excess payment. Would someone like to make a motion to approve that? Eric, is that even in here? Yes. Other than that little number?
That I motion to approve the following minutes, Monday, December 13. It should be in the packet.
We already approved those, Eric. I'm talking about the tax No.
Yeah. One below it, number 13. I motion to refund the excess tax payment for Jane Sylvester of $14.98 Okay.
All right. I'll make a motion that we authorize the tax refund of $14.98 to Jane Sylvester related to a refund of excess payment. I'll second. All All those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay. Aye.
And then Jeff, if you could come in and sign that one and the one from the month before, which are still sitting in your inbox.
Sure. I would love to do that. Excellent. You know how excited I am about authorizing
tax refunds for people. I was going say that is the first time I've heard you ever make a motion to authorize tax refund for the rest. That's
because it is 09/25 and we need to move on. So there was no assessor's report in this package. There are other reports. Does anyone want to discuss any of the other reports that were submitted? All right. The fire department and the police report. There are obviously some fatalities on Route 6 over the last month. Very sad about that. And we would like our road to be as safe as possible. But we do appreciate all the hard work the fire department does to keep us safe and do the best job they can. They do a great job.
Okay. I don't have any specific questions on any of the other reports. Correspondence, no correspondence. We're going to do public speak before we move into executive session. Public speak, let's go through who we have left on our list. We don't have very many people left on our list. We have Diane Chokett. You're it. Are the best member of the public. I'm all set. Thanks. Diane, thank you for everything you do on the Board of Finance. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you, Diane.
Amanda, you're also available. Would you like to add anything to our meeting? No, thank you. But thank you. Thank you, Amanda.
All right. So Adrian, if you would make a motion to move us to executive session and invite in Eric, that would be great.
Motion to move into executive session and invite Eric Anderson.
Okay. Amanda, if you could hand the controls to Paula. That way we can sit there and move forward. And Paula, once we get that done, you can stop recording and then go from there. Amanda, thank you very much for everything. If we can kick Nick off, or do we have to kick Nick off? We have to kick Nick off. Speaker Yep. Speaker Kick Nick. Speaker Yeah. And I don't think that we need attorney O'Brien for this so we can wish him good night.
Good night. Bye bye. Thank you, Dennis. Thanks, Dennis. Thank you. Thank you all.
All right. So the Board of Selectmen is coming out of executive session at 10:09 on Monday, January 10, back into our regularly scheduled meeting. And the last item on the agenda is adjournment. Would someone like to make a motion? Motion to adjourn. Second Scott seconded that. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Eric, thank you very much for everything. You are. Thank you, Eric. You are great. Eric,
I'm going to ask the Board of Finance to ask Diane to just instead of trying to do a balance transfer as we go, let's just run that line item to wherever it ends up and then do it at the end,
You know? Okay. Alright. Thank you very much, everybody. You guys all have a nice night. Thanks. Bye. Okay. Bye bye. Bye.