Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Special Meeting
August 31, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
I am sorry, Amanda. I keep doing that to you. So I'm going call to order the town of Vander over Board of Selectment meeting, a special meeting for Tuesday, 08/31/2021. And we're gonna 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 under God indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all. Okay. We're gonna go on to public speak. We'll start with Lynn and Doug Wolf.
Hi, we're just residents 291 Lake Road interested in listening to what's going on about the traffic pattern changes. Thank you. Kathy Palazzi. No, thank you. I'm all set. Kimberly Persaud. Nothing at this time. Thank you. Louise Goodwin. Just listening. Thank you.
Bill and Lorraine Lisswell. Well, we're listening, but we really appreciate you having the meeting. You very much. Yes, thank you. Mary Holer.
Oh, no comment. Just wanted to hear about the traffic changes. Thanks. Sure. And then somebody
dropped off. And then we have a phone number, (860) 208-2345. Alright. No comment from that resident? That's me. That's me, the town attorney.
Oh, Dennis. Dennis, it's good to have you here. You can just mute him now. No. I know. I was muted. That's why I didn't respond immediately. Okay, so I think we're gonna back to Thank you, Dennis. Greatly appreciate it. Sure.
Jay, I know you're on the call. I'm sure you wanna talk about the traffic patterns. Do you wanna participate in public speak? No, I'm all set. You got it. Wait till the subject comes up. All right, so we're going to go on to item three, and the first item is 3A, the creamery sign at the Veterans Monument Park. Jeff, if you'd like to sit there and review the information you provided us, that'd be great.
Do you want me to share my screen and bring it up? You can Bring bring it it up, Eric. Do I have the power Amanda?
There we go. Okay. The new traffic was going to be so exciting. Everyone's on the call. Okay. There we go. That should be it.
So what had happened is once we had really started to look at the sign and we've gotten the original estimate, we got the original approval, Bonnie, who was a Andover resident, went down and took some pictures for the design team. And then the design team came back to me and said, you know, that is actually in perfect line with the axis of the sun's ellipse, you know, the orbit during the summer, And it's subject to very significant amount of UV rays. And it's probably the reason why this sign has gone, has decayed a lot faster than the one at Endy. So what they suggested and they actually looked around and they actually, what the quote they gave us is what the Arizona Parks Department uses for their signs. It's a UV resistant application that they put on, it's UV resistant base and procedure that they use to create the sign and has a ten year guarantee versus if we go with pretty much what we had before,
they're saying we're gonna see significant fading within a couple of years. So I've received the initial design from them. I've sent it to Scott Yeomans and the rest of the selectmen for review. My thought is that the money we put into this park and how it's the centerpiece pretty much of Andover on Route 6, that we spend the extra $600 and get a sign that's going to last a while, it's going to stay for a few decades versus something that's going to deteriorate and we're going to have to go through this situation, this scenario all over again.
It's a $100 a year. I make a motion that we accept the change to proposal and move forward with the sign. I'll second that.
Okay. Further discussion? We're good to go. Right, Eric, you can take that down.
Okay. Do you want me to take it down or go on to the next item? Go to the next.
Can you possibly just make your screen a little bigger? It's just a little. It's a little what? It's a little hard to read.
That's why they have make glasses Paula. Well, I'm not ripe old aged like you yet. I'm starting to question that if you can't read that screen.
Okay. Can you read can everybody see that? Paula? Yes. Can you see that? Yes. Very simple. This is just a request from the board to resolve once again to authorize me to sign for grants that we've already got. You will have noticed you signed the identical thing two months ago, but they have since decided in their wisdom that we have to sign one when we're applying for the grant and when we agree to receive the grant. So you guys need to sign this, we get $9,500 for planning and zoning to do their affordable housing. That's it. All right. As long as you all agree with this resolution.
I think when we all sign it, we'll all agree to it. So is it gonna be the town halls?
We can have a copy in the town hall for you to sign if you're all make a motion be in agreement with it. I make a motion that we are in agreement with it, as is, and we should all sign it by the end of the week. Second.
Okay, Paula seconded that. Further discussion, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Okay, keep going, Eric. We got the road signs resolution for town of Bolton. Okay, yep, here's the second one Bolton.
Has decided now that towns have more autonomy over their own traffic control via more recent state legislation, they intend to install some additional stop signs on Hebron Road. Hebron Road, as you know, is the Bolton portion that what we call East Street turns into Hebron Road. There's only one that affects us. There will be they intend to put a stop sign, a three way stop at the intersection of Webster Lane, and they have requested permission to install a stop ahead sign on East Street in Andover before that sign.
Wouldn't it be more fun if it was a surprise? No? Someone wanna make a motion to pass that. I make a motion that we pass the resolution.
All right, that's funny in itself right there. Second it. Anybody? Anybody? I'll second. Excellent. Let's go. All those in favor. Aye. Jeff, it's like Ferris Bueller's Anyone?
Anyone? I got it. Okay, so review and act upon recommendation from capital improvement planning committee on hiring site engineering firm and architect for proposed community senior center.
Okay, that was a slight typo. It shouldn't have been CIP. It should have been the building community center building committee. So I just have a quick update at their last meeting, they motion to go with design professionals, which was one of the bids, and they unanimously approved 500 to go with design professionals and recommend that to the board of selectmen. But at the same time, they asked me to reach out to BSC, which was one of the other firms that they liked also, and asked them if they had an architect they were tied in with. And if so, whether we could get a quote for that. So I did, they do have an architecture firm they dealt with, I did go out and get a bid from the architecture firm. So we do have the cost basis and actually BSC plus that architect is a lower total cost than design professionals. One of them is 29,600. One of them is $34,005.00. So I guess the question is in your court, how the board wants to proceed. I can send you all the information on all the quotes if you'd like to review them prior to your next meeting.
Or do you want to just go with the building committee's recommendation? Or what would you like to do? How would you like to proceed? Before
we start, can I ask a question? Who's on the building committee? Because I think it's Scott. Scott.
And I'm on that as well. Jeff Murray. And Jeff Murray. All right.
So, so Eric, just go over those numbers again and and can you do you have the estimates?
Yes. So, do you want to see what is it that you want to see? Just the bottom line numbers or you What want
was the number that we ok'd at the meeting? You ok'd at the meeting using design professionals,
which was $34,000.05 0. So the new quote is 15% less going with the other firm.
Correct. Yeah. Correct. So it saved us about 15%. The other advantage is because that I think if we look at this objectively, because the architect is an outside firm. We go forward at that point, we may be done with regular engineering services, but could still retain the architect for further phases.
You know, in either case, of them, the design professionals brought their own architect in right from the beginning. Yeah. Well, it's not their architect. It's a firm they partnered with. Oh, it is. Okay. I thought it was in house. Yeah, no, it's definitely not in house. So we would end up in what Ed Srisley's intention was to get through the point where we had reasonable cost estimates, and we could go to the public and establish funding. And at that point go for, know, do an RFP for an architect. If in fact we decided to change from the one who got us to that point. I think that what Ed Sarisley and the rest of the
board wanted to do is keep the engineer and design person together. These two are together. The other firm has one that doesn't work with them. And I think the one that we originally picked, they have the design firm is works with that company on a regular basis. The other one does not.
And is, is that is that correct? Because I thought, yeah, I thought Eric just said it's a company they work with. Well, I so
I reached out to the project lead for BSC. And I asked them and said, you know, what engineering firm are you most comfortable with? And he gave me the engineering firm and the partner he would most prefer to deal with. And that is who I got the information from. So it's already, it's certainly a firm that they've worked with, know, because that is their, you know, that's what BSC
would prefer for an architect if they had the choice. Tell me the name of the new architect boat with us. It's Mosier Pylon Nelson.
Do we know the name of the firm that BSC is going to be using? BSC was the Mosier Pylon Nelson.
And then what about the other one? The other one was. And
when we say the other one, we're talking about the first company that that the board approves. Correct?
Correct. The original bid. Yeah, the other one was Capital Studio Architects, which was the company that design professionals, you know, was aligned with.
So, my question is, why is this being brought back to the Board of Selection?
Well, Scott, here's what I would say. Right now, our purchasing procedures are not really all that clear. And I really don't know whether I have the authority to sign a contract with either one of these firms. And if so, whom? Or whether that should spring from the Board of Selectmen or Board of Finance or both? No, it always has to come back through the channel. So once it's approved by
whatever committee it is, whether it's building committee or what, pick a committee, road committee, it always has to come back through. It's no different than purchasing a loader or anything else. We're assigning services, we're asking for services because the committee may not know if there's a conflict or another issue. It should always come back through here. And then the Board of Finance ultimately has to say, yeah, we actually do have the money and here's where it's coming from. And so there's more than one person that has to say yes. So that's why it's coming back through. Money was already approved Adrian. Yep, so that means the but the board of finance still has to say yeah, go ahead now.
Mean, still has to go back to board of finance. If that is what the procedure is, the problem is it really just isn't a written definition of what that procedure is as far as I understand.
Yeah, committee can't approve spending unless it's budgeted. Like if we have a boy, we give a budget to that committee and say, all right, you got $500,000 go build a community center. That's one thing. If it's a rec commission, we give you 500,000 and say, do some wreck stuff. But the capital improvement committee doesn't have a budget.
So it still has to come back through channels. Excuse me, Adrian, what was that thing you just said the capital improvement committee does not have a budget. Listen, listen to me. I'm
just gonna I'm gonna ask a question. Did we approve? Did we as a board at one of our last meetings approved the use
of a firm for the engineering services? Now we have we approved going out for an RFP.
And to not exceed a certain amount is if I know. Dollars 50,000,
exactly. Yep, exactly. Right. Okay, so so now we're, we've done the RFP, Eric, and you have quotes or you have proposals from two engineering firms.
Well, we have proposals for four, of which the committee was interested in information on two. The two lower cost proposals.
So Scott and Jeff, did you did you you picked one and then committee picked one.
But you but you picked one without information from the competing firm. To go apples to apples. Correct? Right.
You picked one, but then as a committee, you also asked me as the administrator to go back to the first firm and pursue that with their architect to get an apples to apples comparison, which is all I did. And I make no, the choice is not mine. You can do with it as you wish.
Just correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Brandon say either we're completely qualified? Either or, right. Either or.
So if they're both qualified I would I personally would go for the less expensive one, it is a 15% difference. If you're if you if you both are saying that you aren't comfortable with that you'd like to go with the first choice, then I would like you to go back to the committee. So they can you know, have a meeting have a quick meeting immersive meeting whatever you need to do and and have all the information in front of you, you know. I don't want to contradict the committee. But I also I also want you guys to have all that. What meeting was
this oversight from the Board of Selectmen specified because I can't recall anything like that. I can't recall oversight from the board of selectmen in any meeting, Adrian. I'd like you just to tell me where where you heard that from.
Well, Scott, when did you when would you ever give me no I don't wanna make an argument with you. I'm saying if you don't want to go with the less expensive one, then then I would say that we as a board could send it back to that committee so you guys can have an apples to apples comparison.
That's all. All I'm saying is now it's going to be another month. And what's going to happen next month is the board of selectman.
Now we go back over it again. I have no problem making a motion to go with the less expensive proposal that covers both. I don't have a problem with that. If you want to go with the more expensive one, then I would personally think that it would be best off, given that it's a 15 difference to go back to the committee so that now the committee has all the information I had actually had. A talk with and certainly about this before you guys had your meeting and unfortunately you guys just didn't get the information back in time. You know,
I just speak because I'm on a committee and tell you how we came up with that money, please. Come up with what money.
I just explain to you how we arrived at selecting the first, the design professionals. We selected them because they came in at $29.06. And what hap what happened was they said they have the architect on board, and and Ed Surisley said, okay, for 5,000 more, we're intact. We've got everything we need. However, whatever, however, what what we did ask Eric to do, and he did has done yet. Now we found out because thank you, Eric for that. And we found out now tonight that it is 34,050. I mean, excuse me. It's $29.06 for the other company. We did not have a figure on that because Sure. It was our understanding that that company came in at 34. So now I'm a little bit baffled about the price. I don't know about you, Scott. But I'm a little bit I'm really baffled. Yeah. Yeah.
Do you want us to send it back to your committee to make a decision now that you have apples to apples or not? I think we should, don't you, Scott? I really do think we need to discuss both options and the The other reason we chose
firm was thirty fourth without the engineer and now it's come in $1,500 cheaper?
Yeah. I was The other firm wasn't 34. BSC was the lowest cost for just the site work. However, the other firm was it but it only they only provided site work in their original proposal. Right, right. Even though design professionals was a little more expensive at the site work, their site work proposal was $29,000.05 0, whereas BSC group, their site work proposal was $23,000 even for roughly equivalent bids. Design professionals also added an alternative option to include the preliminary architectural drawings. And then you asked me to go back and get BSC right to come up with an architect that would do the same thing. Their architect was $5,000 here.
Their architect was just over $6,000 So which netted a total cost of around 29,000 for BSC, and around 34,000 for design professionals. Let me see if Scott,
can I ask that you do take this back to your board and that we put this on the next meeting and move this along at the next meeting?
You think it's possible Scott that you guys could have a emergency meeting so we can? My only question is Jeff, I still
don't understand why it needs to come back to the Board of Selectmen. Because you already gave them that the, meeting a $50,000
No, you were requested to get an RFP for no more than $50,000 not to sign an RFP, to be clear.
We'd have to sign the contract anyway. We'd have to approve the contract with this company. Right. We'll just get the contract in place so we can prove it and get this moving along. I mean, I don't know what the issue is with this. Do you not want to go back to the board, Scott? I I I it's just seems like it's languishing.
That's all. I don't want it to languish at all. I I personally I'm perfectly happy saying we take the low bidder that has both their apples to apples and we move forward. But if you don't if you'd rather the board have Take a look at the apples to apples and just in case there's some other reason. Let's
do it. Let's do it, Scott. Let's have a special meeting. All right. Let's do it. Tonight,
can we just approve it for the higher amount and whatever the board goes with that we just move forward with that?
How are you doing that? Going to give us the listen, you just need a contract. You're going to sign a contract with such and such. We knew to approve that that contract signed. We need to give Eric authorization to sign that contract.
I mean, we basically approve of both vendors, correct? So why don't we just have a special meeting of the building committee? We'll review the additional information that Eric provided, and then we can make the decision. We'll just move forward. If we approve it,
bids don't exceed that amount. That's fine. I think you're right. It's middle ground. So I would make a motion that we authorize Eric after a meeting of in a special meeting of the building committee that we authorize Eric to approve from one of these two vendors
signing a contract. That way it doesn't come back to us so we can That's my motion. Okay. I second All
right. Further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Is that okay, Scott? Thank you, Adrian, for finding some middle ground before it languishes further.
No, listen, I'm totally on board with moving it forward, Scott. 3E, a town road review recommendations from circuit rider prior to striping this fall.
Okay, I gave you a big list of recommendations from the circuit rider. The only one I had anticipated talking to you in revisiting again with the road crew supervisor here was the line striping. And the reason why we'd like to do this now is because we need to get striping and we have a blank slate on a lot of our roads in the Lake District because they've been re chip sealed or they've been chip sealed. And so the question becomes, would the board consider the circuit riders recommendations? Or do you want to keep with what you agreed on originally, which was just centerline striping in the Lake District? And if so, do you wanna go with single or double stripes? And what is their recommendations at this point? Just give us the highlights so that people can understand what we're talking about. So their recommendation on Lake Road would be to skip the centerline striping and just edge line stripe with basically either nine or nine and a half foot travel lanes.
But no center lining. No center line. At all. Correct. Well, don't know if I like that. Jeff, you live over there. You drive it every day. What's your take on this?
Well, what you're doing is you're putting a line off the edge of the road so that you don't go off the side of the road. You know, I've been living with no line in the center of the road for two years now, I think. It hasn't affected me. I know that there's some residents that are concerned that the center line on a foggy night gives them something to shoot for as they're driving down the road. I can understand that. I also can tell you I walk the lake every day and my biggest problem when I walk is that people don't sit there and move all the way over to the other side of the road. I don't know why. That and speed. I wouldn't have a problem with striping the edge. But I also could understand striping down the center and if I read the information correctly, we'd have to double stripe the line. We can't do a single line anymore.
That correct, Eric? We're not supposed to do single lines because the manual on uniform traffic control does not really recognize single yellow lines. So enforcing somebody passing another vehicle, for instance, in the Lake District, is problematic with just single lines. And it has some implications if there's actually accidents and somebody's
over a center. What's the downside of doing double lines in the center? Twice as much money.
How much more? How much money are we talking about total? Twice. No, but it's how much the amount of money?
So I I think last year thousand, 15,000. What's the Last year, we spent around 9,000, but you as a board had already decided to go with the more expensive epoxy coating because it lasts longer. And that generally at least doubles the cost of it. So figure, you know, roads, if you did all roads, you know, you could be more than 20,000, 25,000, something like that. That's just a rough guess. We'd have to get actual numbers. I mean, I'm I'm what's Correct me if I'm wrong. We
we we already made a motion we agreed to strike the Lake District. That was a motion a couple months ago that we already did that.
Yeah, we talked about this because not so much for the people that know the Lake Area. We were thinking for a safety issue if somebody's driving the Lake Area and they don't know the roads very well and it's foggy, we felt that we needed those lines there.
I also feel like I also feel like people tend to ride the middle more when there's no line and it makes them go a little faster, you know? Yeah. Think the, the, the double slice of mine might be a little bit, it might be a little bit intimidating. It might slow some people down actually. Yeah. The the science doesn't bear you out.
The science says a road with no strike has the lowest overall speed. The next fastest is edge striping only, and the fastest is centerline striping, you know, with no edge lots. That's the data?
That's the data as far as flat out speed control. Now there's a lot of other things that go into it. I mean, the point the circuit writer made was if the concern is visibility in the fog, it doesn't matter whether you can see a center line or an edge line. As long as you can see a line, you can maintain your lane. Excuse me.
Hold on for one second. When we're done at public speak, we'll allow you to talk. Sorry about that. But listen, the question ends up being white lines or yellow lines for this board. Eric is bringing back the Connecticut State Circuit rider information. If we want to strike with yellow down the center, let's just vote on it. If we're going to do sidelines,
let's do that as well. Eric, you're throwing your finger up. What do you want to Before we do, just one thing
is that what had happened is you had made a decision to go with yellow lines. And at the next traffic safety committee meeting, they were not particularly happy with that. And they asked me to revisit that with the Connecticut state circuit rider, which is why I invited them to review that road and all the roads in town, hence the recommendations you've got. So that's the reason why it came back to you. In a very
in a very short answer, why were they not happy with it? They don't want them.
Right. Because they don't want them. They so that's universal, but yeah. Sure. I mean, the the walkers and dog walkers would be happier with edge lines and no center lines. And the people who just drive presumably would be happiest with center lines because that's what they're most used to.
So we have a Lincoln dilemma. Some of the people, some of the time, all the people all the time.
Where is the correspondence with the dissatisfaction with the lines? I mean, this is the discussion we're having is pretty much a verbal dissatisfaction. Was there any verbal correspondence sent to you, Eric?
No. It was just the last the last time they had a meeting that they're Do minutes? You Disbanded. I don't have the minutes.
Okay, unfortunately, think we're dealing with hearsay at this point. I mean, I would like to see something in writing saying that they're dissatisfied.
When is your plan to do this? When do you have when Jay, when are you planning on striping the roads? What's your timeline? It would be probably the by mid October.
Alright, so Eric, can you have members of the road committee for our next meeting? And we can get this done? Is that acceptable to the rest of the board? I have a crazy idea. What's that?
A survey up on the town website. What do people want?
All right, let's have the, listen, the people that were on that committee actually care about the Lake Area and care. I think I are you implying that people that don't live in the Lake District don't care? I think everybody cares. No, I think everybody cares, but I think putting up a survey doesn't sit there and give you enough.
I mean, you want to mail something out to everybody? No, I want to put it up on Facebook. Let's start up on Facebook. We've got at least 900 people that float through there on any given day. Let's at least get some sort of I don't want to rule by fiat. I want to get feedback from people. All right. Do you want to hear from just the lake,
you know, people that live in the lake I think everybody in town uses those roads. I use it all the time to cut across too. Mean, not certainly not as much as someone that lives on the road, but you know. Go ahead and put it up, get as much information as you can. But Erica, the people from that committee, please attend the next meeting. So there's no hearsay. And those people probably will have some good information.
Yeah, let's do that. And let's have on that line, let's have a public comment for that line during the meeting. Not at the beginning of the end during the meeting so those people can talk. Right. Okay. Here's
my question. Who's creating the survey and what's going to be the questions on the survey?
I will get together with Amanda DeMar to put something together and we'll put it on the town Facebook page.
I'm gonna actually and I would put it out on Facebook. There is a data analysis person that came up to the board of selectmen at one of the budget meetings. Yep. And she was critical of our development of our questions for the ballot. She would be a great person to sit there and get to help us write questions for things like that.
Do you have her contact information? I was there when
she said that, Jeff. I forgot her name. I have her number. I'll send it to do you want that? Paul or or Adrian.
No. I'll do it. Paula Paula's got stuff going on. Don't don't drop it on Paula. I'm I'm the one that stuck this out there. I'll take it. Yeah. He stuck his neck out. Let him do it. I'll take it. Go ahead. Alright. Thanks for the info, Scott, and I'll get it taken care of. I'll So while we're discussing
striping, the person also suggested that on both Gilead and Long Hill, we do double center line striping and edge striping on those roads, as more appropriate. Is that something the board wants to continue? That's something Wait, that
before you even go, like you gave a laundry list of items that were on this on all of the areas within town. You got to tell us the numbers, the financial numbers. And then we only have so much of a budget, you're not going get all that striping done within the budget we currently have. I mean, simply put, we could go over every item that you have in here. And unless they're free, there's nothing, you know, if they're over the budget we have, we have a problem. While he's digging it up, can you multitask
Eric? Why is it they want edge and double there, but not on the lake?
Because one those are roads that tend to remember they put that in conjunction with raising the speed limits on those roads. And anything you do to make a road have an illusion of being a narrower road decreases overall speed. So but because they're going to train, they're going to send it up to a 35 mile an hour road, it's appropriate to centerline stripe and edge stripe. That's that was something.
Here's my question. Do they realize that the data that we got off of lake, but we had people rolling through there like averaging like 50 miles an hour? Yeah, you think that's right. Sure. But we didn't narrow
the road. No, you know, I mean everybody speeds on all of our roads.
No, but I mean you just said that that anything we can do to make it seem narrower. It seems to me that if we did edge striping but nothing in the middle that makes them feel like they got one big lane to just run down. Do you know what I mean? And that's why I just, when you said the data leans, it lends itself towards, you know, like nothing, you know, versus a double, I I it doesn't make sense to me. But right.
I'm not saying I disagree with you, but data is what data is. If you want, I'm more than happy to forward a study to you that talks about that. If you want to read it. I mean, look, I don't have a dog in the hunt, you know, honestly, I don't want to strike anything in the Lake District. I would much rather it's much safer as a pedestrian or cyclist to not have any striping in the Lake District, as far as I'm concerned, because it all striping, right? So if you wanna save money, as far as I'm concerned, don't strike it at all. That's what I do. Kev, what's your opinion of that?
We'd already decided as a board to strike the lake. I mean, it's a question to me, okay, if the road committee wants to disagree with us and we want to listen to an alternate opinion, fine, I can understand that. I told you the last time we voted on it, I don't need the stripe down the middle as a resident. I don't need it as a lake, but I'm only one of hundreds of people that live on that lake. There's a lot of other people that would like the centerline because they use it as a guide during a foggy night. Okay, I get it. Yeah, but your name does have first in front of it. Well, you know what? I didn't get every vote, Adrian. So it's the reality of the situation. I'm just telling you, if you put a stripe down Lake Road, is it going to impact me? Yeah, I'll probably get mad every once in a while in the morning when somebody decides they don't want to cross the yellow line and get out of my way. That will be the most infuriating thing for me. As far as driving down the road with a yellow line, I get it. It's not gonna know? So all I'm saying, we we just agreed to hear from the traffic committee. We did. Okay. And bring it up at our next regular meeting. We'll put it on the agenda. We'll put it up first. We'll let everybody talk during that section and go from there. There are a lot of items on this document that Eric provided
you know, from Right. Is there cost? We want to talk about these?
You have a total estimate if we followed all their recommendations?
No. I mean, I, I mean, we're, you know, following all the recommendations would be years down the road. Okay. I mean, I wasn't not, I'm not presenting everything. I'm saying these are all the recommendations for the circuit rider. If we're going to pick off anything, it would be the simplest thing, which is period.
Alright. Okay. Scott, just make sure you text me that info for that person so I can try to reach out to them ASAP.
No problem and Eric does CircuitRider provide you any documentation or is this just your your notes from the meeting with CircuitRider?
Mostly my notes I mean we did go back and forth with a couple emails she sent me mostly for the realignment of intersections because that's harder to understand pictures of specific areas and methodologies for doing it on a temporary basis is what she said. Okay,
so let's move on. But if you would like, you could probably, I could probably arrange to have the circuit rider at the next Board of Selecting meeting and you could ask her questions yourself if you so desire. That would be fabulous personally.
Is that what you want to support? Any objection? I mean, I'll try. I can't guarantee, but I'll try to get her. That's fine. We'll put her at the front of the meeting. Thank you.
And then unlike our last regular scheduled meeting, so we're dealing with this, there will not be any secondary large
other items other than normal business. We're we're picking them off right now, Jeff. That's why they're having this meeting. Let's go. Moving on.
Three f American Red Cross Blood Drive. When is it scheduled, Eric?
You got me. I think they wanted to I do think it said October 28.
Or November 12, one or the other. What do you need from us, Eric? Rule. Do you wanna do it?
Sure. Why wouldn't we? I don't know. I don't have any feeling for for work on. Anybody on the board have a problem with using the community room for a blood drive? Nope. Everybody's got to wear masks, right? We're moving.
Good to go. Okay. Do you need approval from us? Do you want a motion? Sure, make a motion for it. Gosh, all right. So I motion that we allow the American Red Cross to use the community room on either October 28 or November 12 to carry out a blood drive. Schedule permitting. Seconded.
Okay. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Paula? In? Okay. All right. So let's move on to three gs mask mandate.
I don't have anything new other than what I've sent the board, so, unless there's something specific you want to do or motions you want to make, ignore that. Anybody?
Nope. I feel like if it needs to be done, the state should be doing it. It shouldn't be left to the towns
personally. Well, the only part of this mandate that we place to us for the town hall and then the library wanna follow suit. Yep, yeah but I don't think we should be putting it out there for everybody else. No we're not. That's not the plan. Okay. Right. Ordinance review. We have an ethics ordinance that was put in our package. Anybody have any questions related to the ethics ordinance? No. You wanna hear from me on that? Not really.
Who said that? Sure. Sure, Dennis. You got five minutes on it. No. You got three. Oh, I you
know, we I threw this in because it's been sitting around for four or five years now, and I don't think anybody asked for it except a member of the public did.
No. It's come it's it's come up a couple of times. It's it's we it just we need a bunch It's kind of on the list.
I have no problem Dennis with what was your. Yeah, did a good job. It makes sense. The only the only issue I ever have with anything like this is is the members there were five members that were talked about this. So we have to five have we have to find five members that are not elected officials to serve on this board. Will be- I think they can be on any board. They can't be on any board. Any board. Nope. So I have no problem putting this in front of the town and having them approve this ordinance.
Do we need to do do we need to review these ordinances individually? Does anybody have any issues with any of them? Thanks, Eric.
My concern with it is on page four under who the board is. I don't like the fact that the alternates only serve terms of two years and the regular serve terms of three years total. And I, I don't like the way I think you should just elect them for four years, you know, every four years, you should elect all the board members and all the alternate personally just to make it easier. That's my own take on it.
I mean, if I was gonna tell you, Eric, I would sit there and rather every board go alternate. You have two members go two years and
three members go another two years and you Yeah, I would go back to two and then all, you know, for your first board, you go three and two. And then after that, it's every so you're always changing somebody out. Yeah. You're always changing a portion of board. You're not changing the whole thing. No. And you do two and you do two year cycles because I think four years for a lot of people is a long is that's a long commitment. You know, I think it's it's a long time personally. Well, you can always, you can always resign. It is. You can't afford it. You
know, I don't remember why we did it this way. This was a this was a Mansfield ordinance that I have adjusted to fit, Andover. It's it's simpler. I made it a little simpler, a little more, appropriate for a smaller town. I don't remember why we, we had, two, alternate serving for two years. I didn't know that anybody would ask that question, but you know what? I just wanna go back to what Jeff said about the difficulty of finding people to serve. And in a in a town the size of Andover, that is a legitimate concern. So I would suggest maybe that we just reduce the the size of the board of ethics to three members with no alternates. Because that gives you enough members to do the business of the of the board.
And you know what? You're not gonna have a lot of cases. No. Nobody does. The only time you had we had a problem up in Mansfield fifteen years ago, maybe maybe twenty, was when, the board of ethics was taken over by a group of people who just didn't like the town government. And they were, using it to, you know, against the town government to act as sort of a shadow government. And that doesn't happen everywhere. And I doubt it'll happen in Andover. So one of the reasons why this ordinance is so good is because we worked on it for over a year, went through about twenty drafts. And it is let me just give you the features of it. The most important things
is unlike a lot of a lot of ethics ordinances, it does not address personal conflicts. So if you are if you give an opinion about something and then you turn around and vote on it three months later, it is not a conflict of interest. It's just your personal opinion. The ethics ordinance only addresses problems when you're going to gain financially from your actions on the board or on some kind of agency. And it's limited to that so you don't get a lot of cases. And the other thing it does which So
Dennis, we're not going to have any cases moving forward, you know, And what I would recommend is make it three members and one alternate. So in case one of the members can't make it the alternate considering a vote, you can actually get something done if it ever comes up. Mean, because I'm assuming this does not have to be a regular meeting board. It's only on a case by case basis. So let's sit there and say Adrian, he would be the person that I would be most concerned about this ordinance. So he does something. I think he should be on the board. Careful,
Dennis. I know where you live. All right. So just, that, that was the, that was really the only thing in the whole ordinance when I went over it was the number of people and just getting them to serve. So I would say three people and an alternate. Anybody else have a problem with that?
No, I agree with that, but I would also cut the serving time down to two year cycles.
That's fine. Adrian, I think what you're going to find is you're going to find you're going to have people that want to serve on this because it's important to them, ethics is important to them, and they're going to be repeat servers. They're going to serve again and again and again and again, and we're not going to get those people off this board, which is fine, Because I don't expect to be in front of the board just like I know the other four members on this board don't expect to ever be in front of it either. So let's go. I I I have no problem with it.
So you wanna change it to three members and one alternate? And if you authorize me to write that, then you can approve it tonight.
So we'll make a motion to authorize you to do that and reduce the terms to two years because Adrian's not wrong with that. Yep. I would second that motion.
So Dennis, I'll make a motion that we authorize you to make adjustments to section five on the Board of Ethics, three members and an alternate serving two year terms? Will do.
Okay. Seconded by Adrian. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. So on the other ordinances, I mean, I read them. I didn't have any problems with them specifically. So the citation ordinance, the Blight ordinance, the Fine ordinance, or the Minor ordinance, did anyone have any problems with any of those? I mean the ethics one was definitely the longest. Right. Did the building official have any concerns with blight?
One thing we're going to need is two people for the blight ordinance though. You're going to need a citation officer. They need a citation officer and a blight officer.
So the blight officer is always the zoning enforcement officer by default, not generally the building official. Okay. That's right in there.
Right? Correct. Did they take a look at these to see if there's any issue?
Are they comfortable with them? And then we're gonna need an ordinance officer.
The, the CEO, I don't think has reviewed this version of it. But there's not a lot of difference between this version and the last version. The only thing this really does is it takes out the before the provisions only got triggered for an abandoned building or an abandoned structure. And now it can be triggered even for an occupied structure.
Okay. So all right. And they and they looked at the previous one and we're okay with that view if you want to see is I just wanna know that it's been looked at by the person that's gonna have to deal with it the most. We can we can leave the blight ordinance to our next meeting and have the the CEO
look at it so that they're comfortable with it before we move it to They've the
got to deal with it the most, that's all. No problem.
Does anyone else have a problem with that? No. No? Okay, so we're good there. So can we move the ethics, the citation, the fine and the minor ordinances ordinance to the town meeting on the twentieth? Anybody have a problem with that? Okay, then I'll make a motion that we move the ethics ordinance with adjustments, the citation ordinance, the fine ordinance, and the minor ordinance to the town meeting scheduled for September 28. Seconded. Right.
Further discussion on any of that? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Alright. Is there any correspondence, Eric, that we need to know about for this meeting?
Nope. Right. So just, just so I can recap and make sure I've got it. At this point, you want me to refer the blight ordinance to the zoning enforcement officer, and probably the chair of planning and zoning commission for review. You would ask that the circuit rider, Melissa, be available at the next board of selecting meeting if possible. And we want as many residents or members of the traffic safety committee at the next meeting. Is that correct?
Correct. I'd also like it noted on the agenda for that meeting that we will take public comment during that on specifically and only on that during that section.
So what he's saying is we'll take public comment on every other issue except the traffic issues, and we will allow people to speak during that section. Yes, please. Sure. All right. So we're gonna move on to public speak and we're gonna go through this. Jay, you're the first one in the block in my upper right corner. So Jay, you have anything to say related to any of the other issues? No, I'm all set. Alright. Jay, thank you for all the work you do. Kathy Pelosi? No, thank you. I'm all set. Alright.
Jeff Murray, no. So Dennis O'Brien is there. Kimberly Persong?
Nothing at this time. Thank you. All right. Louise Goodwin? All set. Thank you. Eric Barry?
Sorry, I was muted. Nothing for me. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Diane Greiner.
Diane has walked away from the computer and Sloane you're there but you don't really want to say anything. Okay I think that's it. Diane Greiner I'm going give you one more shot. I'm here. Diane is good. Counted her out. She tapped out. All right. Anybody wanna make a motion to adjourn? I motion to adjourn.
Oh, Diane Greener made interference. You lose Diane. Sorry, we're all saying goodbye. All those in favor of adjournment, bye. Do me a favor. Amanda,
Amanda, before you hop off, can you just text me what a good time would be to get a hold of you tomorrow? I don't want to impose that if have a meeting or something going on. No
worries. Tomorrow, anytime between nine and two works. All right. Oh, all right. Great. Thank you very much for attending. Thank you. Bye. Bye everyone.