Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen
January 9, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Oh was that you Paula or you Eric? That was me.
Thank God I forgot again. Alright I am gonna call to order the Monday January 9 Board of Selectmen regular meeting at 07:00 on January 9. We're going to start the meeting 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. Thank you. Now we're going move on to public speak. Mike and Kathy Palazzi or Kathy Palazzi and I am here. I'm here too. So are you are you gonna speak individually as a as a group?
I'm speaking. Let me ask the boss. Are you speaking? No. Just I'm speaking.
Alright. Let's let's go then. You're up, Kat. Well, happy New Year to you,
all the board of selectmen, and, of course, our town administrator, Eric. I would like to invite the board of selectmen to have a table at our annual senior fundraiser on Sunday, February 5. It's held from ten to two at the AES Gym, and this would offer an opportunity for residents to meet you if they haven't and to ask questions they may have and for all the board of select members to share any information to the public that they have. So thank you for considering.
Is that it? That's it. Okay. February 5. Paula, can you remind me February 5 that I have to go to that? Is that a Saturday, Kathy? It's a Sunday. It's a Sunday. Okay. I will remind you. I was gonna sneak over there after basketball and get there, but it's Sunday. Alright, we will sit over and go to Elaine.
Hi everyone, happy new year. I'm definitely going to be here to support Jed and his request for some employee support for a part time employee who can go ahead and do planning and economic development for the town. We'd like to see someone that we can work with so that we have someone to talk to and work on all the wonderful plans that the UConn students sent to us, which hopefully people have had a chance to look at. It's up on YouTube under CDC, under UConn presentations, so anybody can look at it. It's about two and a half hours worth of presentations. I think there were 14 planning things that the kids did. And a lot of good ideas were in there that involved the affordable housing, conservation, good use of it was all town owned land that they looked at that they worked with. So hopefully we can get something going from those ideas that they presented to us. That's it.
You very much. Is that up on our website, by the way?
I'm not sure. We could see if we could go ahead and get the link to it on the website so people can go ahead and take a look at it.
Eric, maybe we can try to get that linked up. Anne Kerme.
Hi. I'm here to support Jed with the idea of hiring a town planner and also just listening to everything else. Thanks. Okay.
We have a phone number. That's Dennis. Sorry, Dennis. You don't have to tell me. I got it this time. Valerie Bruno, would you like to participate in public speak?
No. I'm all set, Jeff. Thank you. Alright. You got it.
Okay. So we're going to move on to item three, additions and deletions to the agenda. Does anyone have any items that they'd like to remove or add to our agenda?
Dennis is going to have a longer list, but I would like to add one thing which is under item 5A. I would like to add item I, select review panel for planet conservation and development RFP.
So land conservation development, POCD, RFP. Okay? I am going to I sent you guys all a proposed change to item nine. But before I do this, well, I will sit there and I will make a motion and I would like to discuss this. So the issue that is out there is the proposed amendments that I forward over to you early this afternoon relating to move to amend Item nine by deleting any Tyler and replacing it as follows with the following Item nine subsections: Freightliner in Hartford B, New Community Senior Center resolution C, Resolution to Confirm Prior Vote on the ARPA Spending, Resolution to Accept a Steep Grant for the Vehicle Building on Center Street, the resolution to authorize town administrator to submit the DEEP recreation trails grant, F, resolution to authorize the town administrator to submit a trip grant, G, finance department employment, H, status of finance official I, Hopperware Homes update J, recognizing Andover students K, cool program contract update L, zoning change to town property on School Road update.
And M, the eight twenty four referral to PNZ for proposed new community center building.
Okay. Recognizing Andover residents, not students. Just wanted to correct that.
Oh, thank you, Paul. My bad. I can't read. It's okay. I must be tired. And, Jeff, can we get a clarification on
item d? Because it really doesn't say garage. I was I was trying to wonder what that was for. No, that's what I added into, so I added in the garage, Jeff, because it was unclear to me as well. Okay. I'm with you on that one. So, another question? That is what that steep cramp is for, right Eric? I wasn't incorrect? Yes, okay. Does somebody want to sit there and second that just for discussion purposes so we can sit there and look at the individual items because I know there's a little bit of issue related to some of them? I'll second.
Okay. I know there's the new community center resolution and the ARPA funds that that we as a board definitely have sat there and moved to utilize for the community center. I totally am in agreement with that and there's been some discussions today between town administrator, town attorney, and members of the board of selectmen as to what is the appropriate path forward as far as, do we need to go to a town meeting for this or don't we? And so I'd like to have this conversation now to sit there and before we put this on the agenda just get an understanding of necessity to do it or not. So, Eric or Dennis, and Dennis, I am going to sit there and say briefly, but without going crazy, is it necessary for us to have a meeting related to this item?
Well, yeah, I think it's necessary for you all to amend the agenda to add some of these items. I was as you mentioned that the last I saw the the video of the last meeting you had, which only lasted an hour or so. But you did mention that I was in Hawaii. It's true. I was. I was Shanghai there by my wife, but I'm back now. And when I got back, one of the things I was asked to do by town administrator, Eric, was to look at the a couple of issues. One was the issue regarding the purchase and over time, the purchase through financing for five years or so, four or five years of a a a plow truck. The other item was the community center the community center issue, the community center, you know, that's being gonna be constructed near near the town hall and and whether or not anything needed to be done on that pursuant to the chart. I was asked to review the charter sections on financing and offer some sort of an opinion. And I did. In fact, I spent an awful lot of time on it because, frankly, the charter sections pertaining to that kind of thing are like a Rubik's cube. They're very complicated, and they they really need to be revised. We've done some charter revisions since I've been town attorney, and I think it's turned out really well in the sense that we ended up with a town administrator
and a board of selectmen that, was doing a great job here for the town. I know you don't want me to go on too long, but I really had to say that. But but the sections pertaining to, town finances are written as if they were written by somebody who didn't want the town to spend any money. And that that that precedes me as town attorney. I've been there for twenty years. And I I I don't even understand. I I don't have a working knowledge of them without looking at them carefully. And so I did. I spent a good part of the weekend looking at them, and I I I I talked to Eric at some great great extent, and Eric noticed something that I didn't notice. But for for one thing, I did put some items on here that I thought should be considered by the board of selectmen tonight because there's it's it's timely for them to be considered regarding the purchase of the proposed purchase of the plow truck and also the community center issue because senior community center community senior center matter
And and, Dennis, Dennis, before you before you continue to go on, I would think the one that we're most concerned about is the community center. I think the one related to the plow truck makes sense, and not that I want to go to a town meeting related to the purchase of of a plow truck that is necessary for the community, but we have to bring it in front of everyone. That's fine. But the community center Okay. We have discussed the community center before. Have put this in front of the Board of Finance before. The board of finance has put it into one of their their minutes or, you know, the information related to one of their meetings. So everybody was aware of this.
It was in the budget summary, actually, Jeff. Yeah. Okay. So so my question is
the this this entire discussion about the community center has been in front of our board for, you know, two years almost, and it I would believe that it has overwhelming support within the community. The plazis would know better than I would, but do we have to absolutely go in front of a town meeting to do this? Well Yes. Yes. No.
That that's a that's a gray area. That's a tough issue given your your charter and especially certain items in the charter. I had I've had some discussions this afternoon, some very good discussions with selectman Adrian Mandeville. And I I am I am and I and he also mentioned to me just recently, maybe twenty minutes ago, what Jeff Murray just said about the about the that topic of of applying the ARPA money to this project, which, you know, believe me, I think it's a great idea, you know, outside of the fact that I'm town attorney, but that's not my role here. I'm I'm an attorney. I'm not I'm not a member of the community or a certainly not a selectman. And Adrian basically made it clear to me that the town the town budget process that this was revealed at the town meeting, Eric and I couldn't find anything over the weekend that indicated that that it had been, but, apparently, there is evidence that Jeff Murray has,
Fleckman Murray, and also Adrian. And I would have to say that based on that, it seems that this would not be a a supplementary appropriation and probably not have to go to town meeting or referendum as it states in this item I prepared. But on the other hand, it is a gray area for sure. And I I'm I'm not I'm I'm not I'm not here to tell you what you wanna hear. I'm here to tell you what I think. I now think that given the fact that there is evidence in the record, on record that there was a consideration at the town budget meeting, back way back when that, the ARPA money would be used for this project, which I think is a wonderful idea outside of my role as town attorney. And and I think that makes a difference. So that's my answer at this point. But I can tell you that I studied this very carefully. I I I And this is not something that go ahead. No. Was just gonna
say thank you for all your work. I'm going to amend my motion to strip item C from the proposed changes to the agenda. I'll second that, Jeff. Okay.
So we're gonna go with a, b, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l, and m under old business. K? And we have Eric's item, is five a I, which is POC, d I p. And, Eric, do I need to add any additional information related to that? It's
it's to select the review panel for the POCD RFP. Review panel.
Okay. I I will also make a motion to add item, five AI, POCD RFP review panel selection. Actually, do we have any candidates before I put selection? Jed will discuss that as part of his presentation.
We will put it in there. Does somebody want to second that one too? I will second it. All
those in favor of adding those items to the agenda? Aye. Okay. Aye. Alright. Okay. So that was four oh, because mister Mandeville is not here. I know he he's he's not feeling well, but it's fine. Right? We're all good? Okay. We're gonna move on now to item four, the treasurer's report, finance department report, revenue, town budget summary, town aid road, town cash report, appropriations, transfer, and over expenditure report. Eric, are you going to provide this?
I am. I just got notified a few minutes ago that Cheryl was not going to be able to attend. So, put in the packet the, hopefully the last expenditure report from Edmonds. And I also put in the check register for the month of November and December. So those are both in the packet. If you have questions about either of the two of those, I'd be happy to answer that. And then after that, I put a list of all the things. So now we're getting to the point of the budget where we're actually seeing overages in the count. So on page 30 of the packet
is the first six months of overages in the budget. And you'll see that everything there other than diesel is under the threshold at which I, as the town administrator for the Board of Finance policy, So those have been approved by both the department heads in question and myself as the town administrator. So this is for your information. Now, the one for public works diesel is not actually over. It is just the way we do it is that when we fill up the diesel tank, gets taken against the public works diesel line item. And then when we build the school, we build RAM, we build senior transportation, we build the fire department, and when they pay us, we refund it back into the diesel line for public works. So at the moment, it looks like they're overspent, but they're actually not, we just haven't gotten refunded. We may be overspent by the end of the year though, because we started the year off with essentially completely dry tank because we used a fair amount of diesel last year. If it stays warm and we don't do a lot of snow plowing this winter, we might be okay. Still too early to know. The only other thing that's not listed on this form is that we have to internally move some money around, and that's going to be a discussion with Board of Finance. When we did roadwork this year, we did roadwork knowing that we were going to get $128,000 back from the STEEP grant to account for part of that. And that we were going to spend out of the road improvement fund and the town aid road. So what had happened initially is all the money came out of the road improvement fund, which overexpended
that considerably, but the money is actually there. It just has to be credited back from the steep grant. It has to be credited back from the road improvement fund. So we're not actually over there. Although if you looked at the individual special funds, you would see that that one is overexpended. So that's my initial report on this, unless you all have specific questions for me.
I do. One of the one of the issues you you addressed, this will be our last report from this from the software. I hope so. Alright. And how is the transition going?
So we were originally gonna try to do the transition at QuickBooks tonight because Marina is here. That got pushed off because Farrell has another conflict. The goal is to do that them to do that transition tomorrow evening, hopefully.
Alright. And, thank you. And then, thank you for the the check register. That really is, helpful to understand things. I'd just like to ask a couple questions. C. N. Wood of Connecticut?
Sure. That's those are repair items. I think CN Wood is mostly where we get parts for the sweeper. $6,600 cards for the sweeper?
Yeah, we spent a lot of money on the sweeper this year. We actually had budgeted, if you remember back to the last year's budget, had, so we had the Public Works Equipment Fund, but then we also budgeted an extra $30,000 to accomplish two things. One were major repairs on the sweeper, which we knew about when we bought the sweeper, but we were hoping to put it off for a couple of years, which we did. And so that was total, I guess, 15,000 or $16,000 Jay could probably, Jay's on, he could probably get a better description from him from that. Okay.
Hi Jay. How you doing? Good evening. Yeah, Eric's correct on that. So we spent, it was close to right around $15,000 on that. Okay, and how much time did you put on the sweeper this year? How much time did we put on it? How many hours? Well, we did some early sweeping early on and then we did all the chip seal and that's when the thing broke down so we didn't get to finish sweeping until we made repairs to finalize the chip seal.
Okay, so use of it is usually in spring, but you used it a lot during your chip sealing time to suck up the dust. Yep. Alright. Yep. Okay. That that's something that honestly, Jay, should be watched, and it probably should we should probably utilize some kind of account for it to sit there and track the extra cost on the sweeper because it would be good for the board to understand the total cost to maybe determine whether a new unit is better than a used unit eventually. And I understand what Eric is saying. I do remember that there was gonna be repairs to the unit when we bought it used, but it's something that we should look into as to how we track those expenses so we can make a better determination in the future of new versus used or, you know, how much is really going into
the piece of equipment specifically.
So that machine new was about $260,000 give or take. And we currently have about 85 into it. Okay.
That and then Eric, just as a general, I looked in the month of November, it looks like we spent about $20,000 with Willamette Wastepaper for tipping fees and various services. Is that accurate?
Yeah, think we were just behind on our billing was part of it. That's why that month was so normally it's around 8 to 9,000. So that represents us being, you know, just where we fit in the billing cycle. Okay,
so maybe it's not thirty days, but it all captured in one month. Alright, the question there is, so you're saying it should be 8 let's say it's $10,000 a month for Willamantic Waste, that's $120,000 annually on tipping fees and various costs related to the transfer station?
I don't think it's that much, but it's not far off of that between tipping fees, bulky waste, garbage. Because I believe our total expenditures for that, not including recycling, tend to run about $160,000 And the only other major expense we have really is salary, you know, the personnel salary. So yeah, I would guess off the top of my head, 120,000 total for refuse, probably about right.
All right. And then the offset from related sticker sales is?
I would have to look up that. I mean Around 40, isn't it? Yeah. It was gonna be around with with what we increased the fee to, it was gonna be over 40, Something like that. Okay.
Just good information to have and to have out there so people understand. Anybody else have any other questions related to the finance department information provided? Okay. Alright. Let's move on to, item five, board and commission presentations. Here we have, the P and Z chairman, Jed Larson. As we discussed the last time when Jed was on our program, he was a Navy vet, retired military, greatly appreciated dog lover and walks the lake. So Jed, all yours for planning and zoning. Thank you, Eric. If I can share my screen. You may.
Okay, well, thanks for listening once again. And it was a year ago that Elaine and I came before the Board of Selectmen to make a pitch for a part time town planner and economic development coordinator. And at that point, I pretty much stuck with what was written in the plan of conservation and development in the town's long range plan. And I thought we made a pretty compelling case to go put this individual on the staff. And the following week in the River East was the headline no town planner for Antoge. And so I said, well, I guess that didn't go as well as I thought it did. So this year, we get to talk about some of the same information, but I'll try to add my own personal take on some of those things. So the plan talked about it, you know, being very difficult for a volunteer commission like the planning and zoning to implement. And I certainly, you know, don't like coming to the Board of Selectmen and, you know, talking about what a poor job I've been able to do in trying to do all the things that need to be done here. But the list that we looked at from the POCD
talked about repair recommended zoning text amendments. And in 2021, you know, the Public Act 21 dash 29, where where we talk to you about opting out of the accessory dwelling unit regulations was part of that. But there's, you know, as many text changes that came out of that public act that we've seen for many years. In addition to that, our land use attorney Mark Branch has had the opportunity to go through our regulations to do a review of them on those things that we hadn't recently updated. So I've got a list of literally hundreds of comments and required changes as a result of his review there as well. And so, and I know I haven't been able to push through very many changes to the regulations because they do take a lot of time to figure out what they ought to be saying and hard work there. So that's something that we have not done as well as we should have. Working with developers proposing projects in town in compliance with the plan, Elaine talked about all the great ideas we got from the Yukon students. And we do have a couple of pieces of property,
you know, right now that will be going on the market up for development very soon. You know, the one is Lindholm's Corner over there, Route 87 and Route 6. That property was subdivided. The property owner requested and planning and zoning agreed that we would put it back in the one big parcel because it wasn't very well subdivided to make it useful for much. The other piece of property that's going to be on the market soon is, you know, the gravel pit restoration is wrapping up and the owner of that property wants to develop that soon too. You know, we were kind of fortunate that, you know, Dollar General came to down to give us a little bit of economic development. That was not what, you know, a lot of the people in town would have preferred to come here. It would be nice to have somebody, you know, working to get what it is the town does want there. Third items to apply for the many grants currently available, you know, and that will tie into a little bit further down. But you know, it seems like the the way of the future for the federal government, state government to give money to towns is through the grant program. So that's how they're helping the towns comply with their desires is by giving grants to do those things.
Same thing with the request for proposals, RFPs, I'm not going to talk about that. But the last one, know, perhaps most importantly, to promote the goals and policies of the planning zoning to elected officials, town staff, other boards and commissions. And here, you know, I thought we put out a pretty decent affordable housing plan last June that was required by the Connecticut law. And I've not done a very good job of bringing that to the attention of the different people in the town so that, you know, there's an understanding of the importance of that, especially with regards to, you know, affordable senior housing for both the new workers starting out and seniors who are living on a fixed income.
So that's where I stand with, you know, not doing as well as I should have on the Planet Conservation and Development Goals. You know, we also talked about the recommendations from long term plan and that got into the economic development. And that you know talked about hiring a part time individual for sixteen hours a month as a town planner with potential jobs sharing as an economic development coordinator. I don't know if it was sixteen hours per month as a town planner or in another sixteen for economic development. But I can tell you that sixteen hours a month isn't very much to get much done. And I do spend a considerable, you know, greater number of hours per month than that in in not getting where we need to go. And so, you know, I think sixteen hours a month probably
wouldn't fit the bill there. I'm looking, my recommendation would be for sharing those two functions maybe ten hours per week. What would it cost us? The, you know, Capital Region Council of Government recently completed a salary survey at town planners. I was thinking that we might get a mid grade planner who is a supervisor at full time that ranged anywhere from 75,000 to about 114,000 a year based on experience. So if we were looking at ten hours a week, that would be in a range of 20 to $30,000 per year. So anyhow, town planning is a marathon, not a sprint. I know, know, over in Middletown, they had a town planner that was working on improving things over there. And twenty five years later, it's actually starting to pay off. I know Eric working on the Complete Streets plan. He's had, you know, getting the crosswalk in by the library there and those improvements made since I first came to the Commission a couple of years ago. In Andover, while we are a very small town, we have the same regulatory overhead as any other town. You know, when the state says change your regulations to do this, it doesn't matter whether we're a small town or not. It's still a significant overhead burden to update the regulations to comply with the new laws. So my conclusion is the town planner economic development coordinator should be hired on a part time basis
to prepare the numerous regulatory changes required. Execute the affordable housing plan. I think there's some good things in there. There's some good properties that the town has that we could put affordable senior housing in. We could attract the commercial businesses to Andover that are most desired by the residents and realize Andover's tremendous potential to define itself as a unique place in the region. So that is my pitch and I don't know if Elaine, you had anything that you wanted to add on that, but I do think it could, you know, significantly benefit the town.
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you Jed on that. I am on the board of the Town and County Chamber of Commerce, of which the town of Andover is a member of, which allows me to be part of it. I'm also on their Economic Development Commission committee, where I sit down, get to sit down once a month with other town planners and economic development commission people in the area. Coventry, Mansfield, Tolland. It's great to be able to sit there and just have a conversation of what's going on in the towns and what they're doing. Like the Sustainable Connecticut came out of being able to listen to them and what they're doing, Because those people come and advanced Connecticut comes and talks to us over there at the town county chamber. And and it's just frustrating that there's no one to turn to, you know, it's like there we get all these ideas.
We've got UConn students now working with us and giving us plans, and we can't go anywhere with it. An employee who's got some time and a listening ear to go ahead and try to do anything. But yeah, it's eye opening to see what they're all able to accomplish, but unfortunately realize what we cannot.
I read a lot of stories in the newspaper about the surrounding towns building senior housing, affordable housing, that kind of thing. There's a ton of grant money going out to support those developments. And I just hate to see handover not being able to take advantage of more of that money that's out there that I think we could put to good use.
Jed, thank you very much. One thing, Jed, I think we all feel your pain, Jed, I would never sit there and say you don't get much accomplished. I mean, I know you have large shoes to fill in planning and zoning, but I think you've done an exceptional job, honestly. Thank you very much Any for everything that you
of the other members have any questions for Jed or Elaine? It's definitely something that we'll take under consideration and we need to sit there and do something, Jed, because one of the things in my mind is that we need to provide resources for people that are willing to volunteer and willing to put in the time to sit there and do things within the community. It is something that we should consider, you know, to try to sit there and move forward.
Yeah, and certainly I am not unique in the number of hours that I volunteer through the Commission. I know that everybody that's sitting on the Board of Selectmen, you know, they've got their fingers in other pies and putting in the same kind of hours. So I don't I like working, like doing what I'm doing. I just would like it to like us to be able to take advantage of some of those other things.
All right. Well, thank you very much for the presentation, Elaine. Thank you very much as well for everything that you do. The
other thing that Eric added to the agenda here is, you know, I'm requesting the Board of Selectmen make and approve the following motion, and it's that the Planning and Zoning Commission is designated as a group to select the company to assist Andover in development of the next Planet Conservation and Development from the proposals received on January 18. So the new purchasing agreement that recently went into effect requires the Board of Selectment to designate who it is that's going to select the candidate from the applicants. And so I'm requesting the board of selectman allow the planning and zoning Commission to do that, as we did with the affordable housing plan.
Does anyone on the board of selectman have problem with allowing PNC to be the reviewer of the RFP and the panel to review the POC Doctor piece.
So I would echo Jen's comments that I do believe that the Planning and Zoning Commission is probably the best entity to review the proposals and select the proposed contractor. Obviously, it would be, it would fall on me and the town's attorney when it comes to drafting the actual agreement, and that would come back to the Board of Selectmen for approval. But I would note also that this does put one Board of Selectmen member, Scott Versant, who's also on the Planning and Zoning Commission on that. So that review panel.
Alright. So I'll make a motion that we make the Planning and Zoning Committee the review panel for the POC POCD RFP. I'll second.
Alright. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. That
was also four nothing. So, Jed, can I ask you that or Eric remove Jed from the control of the screen? Thank you. All right, back to seeing everybody's lovely face. Mike Palossi, you're right there. I like it. All right, so we're going to move on to a 5B. It's a Hop River Park signage and a wayfinding from Eric Anderson.
Okay, so I'm going to back up and just talk about one other thing really briefly. So an organization has been formed called the Hop River Trail Alliance. So the way this organization is structured is that the directors of the organization are individuals within the town governments of the seven towns that are on the Hop River Trail. There are two town managers slash town administrators. There's a public works director, a director of planning and development, actually two directors of planning and development, the parks and recs director, and one town engineer that sit on the panel. And then there's a series of officers that do the actual work. So, board of directors is, has the authority in the power to authorize things. They essentially have another group of people that do the actual labor. So, it's a structure that's modeled after a bunch of the other trail associations, because it keeps the deciding power within the towns themselves to look at what direction the Trail Association is going to do.
Kind of the first thing the Trail Association has looked at doing, which is in your packet, is to apply for grant funding to do a universal signage update on the rail trail and work directly with DEP to make that happen. It looks like the town of Manchester has agreed to be the grant administrator for that. So I guess what I'm looking at and saying this is something that will benefit the town of Andover and it's had the input of our fire chief in terms of location of signage and how the signage is developed. So the fire department can more easily respond to emergencies on the trail, and it'll be good for trail users. The bottom line is it doesn't cost the town anything, and it will benefit the town. So I signed off on that. That's all I wanted to say about that, unless you have other questions. I did ask a week or two ago whether you had any problems with me appointing myself to be Andover's representative for that. I'm looking at it as something that's a relatively minor time commitment on my part, the people doing the actual work, you know, so for me, it's every couple months going to one meeting and voicing my opinion. So that's where I'm at on that, unless you all have any questions or concerns for me on that.
Eric, I just have one question. It seemed like so is this gonna start mile zero down at the Manchester
Trailhead, the start of the trail? No, it's actually gonna start it at the opposite. It's gonna start it at the intersection of the airline trail will be mile zero.
Okay. And then it's going to go backwards towards Manchester? Correct. That would probably make sense because of the trail expansion that's probably anticipated on the Manchester side.
That that's why that was done with the with the concurrence of DEEP.
Okay. And thank you for doing that because, you know, the the mileage is pretty spotty at best, and I know it would benefit a lot of users to know where they are exactly on the trail and how far they traveled.
Yeah, I think all in all, this is a good program that won't cost us anything. The only even potential downside I could see to the down is the more markers you put on the side of the trail, you know, the more things you have to mow around. But worst case scenario, we're going to be looking at a marker every quarter mile. So it's not going to be a huge burden on the mower.
Yep. And and Vernon's done that and it's it's it's very well marked, I, you know, I'd be in support of this 100%.
Okay. Eric, are you gonna move on to five b or that was it? That was it for me. K. Alright.
Item six appointments. Do we have any appointments to make? None.
Bill well, we have well, Jeff, we do, though. We Bill Derocher. Right?
Is that? I mean, he was he was appointed by the board of finance, correct?
Right. Yeah. It's it's not something that requires action on the board of selectmen, but you're right. The board of finance did appoint a replacement for Diane Choket, and there were two nominees. They were both really good candidates, the Board of Finance chose Bill DeRoziers as the new Board of Finance member.
He will be a great member of the Board of Finance. Okay. Item seven resignations. Anything? Anybody resigning on us this month? Not that I know of.
All right, item eight the town administrators report. Okay, the report the.
My report is in the packet So, I'm not going to go over everything. I'm just going to hit some of the highlights. I have been working with the Newtown engineer, Joe Dillon, from Nathan L. Jacobson. He and myself and Jay Puddle spent quite a bit of time looking at the town roads. So we've done a couple of things. One, we have started preparation for the state local bridge program applications for, and we're planning on submitting for the culverts on both Hutchinson Road and Lake Road as soon as that becomes available. So, the second thing is that I've talked before about the trip grant application, which is the Transportation Rural Improvement Program grant application. That is due to CRUD in mid February. And what CRUD has said is they want to use roughly the same procedure for the LOTSIP grant program, which means we need to justify that the methodology we plan on using the roads, which is basically grinding them up and reclaiming them, will net a road that's gonna last a minimum of twenty years. So, to do that, we're talking about potentially hiring VHB, which is among many things, they've got a pavement management division to come in and do selective
coring of the roads in question, which would be Hendy Road, a little bit of Long Hill, and Skinner Road to just make sure that all of those sections can be done with reclamation alone, or whether there are areas that we may actually have to add additional material to because of the soils. So, I still don't have a number back from them. If it's reasonable, my intention is to, and they are the approved, they have a contract through Prague to do that to assist the towns. So, should satisfy our purchasing policy. So, we may end up having to hire them to do some local digging and patching in the roads to give us kind of a road soil profile. You know, so we're hard at work trying to get that application in and out the door. So those are the major things right now we're discussing with the town engineer. As far as public works goes, I notified you that Rich was out for surgery. You know, don't want to go into details on that. He is had the surgery and recovering. I also understand that another town public works employee injured his shoulder today. If you wanna talk about that more, we should probably do that in executive session since we're talking about a public employee. And I'd be happy to do that. And Jay is there. As far as the Bunker Hill Bridge, we've received the forms from the state for the right of way acquisition negotiation. The way it works is that the state does the any negotiation and pays for any right away if they need more air aid to work or to extend the bridge at Bunker Hill. So, that doesn't cost the town anything, and we don't have to do the negotiation.
We will apparently have to sign off on whatever agreement is reached with whatever the landowners are. As far as Long Hill Bridge design, as far as I know, the engineer Chris Vidio is trying to get the survey scheduled over the winter while the water levels are relatively low. But I don't know how backed up DOT is. On the Times Farm Bridge, I finally got the new engineer assigned to the final closeout from DOT. I have had a bunch of conversations with him and his first comment to me was, you got to redo all these forms because they're out of date more than a year has gone by since you originally filed. And I said, a year has gone by because DOT has sat on their took us and not done anything about it. And he said, yeah, well, you still have to fill out the forms. So I filled out several forms and resubmitted them to the DOT this week. The good news is they are actually working on it and they do actually have somebody assigned for final closeout. So that's the first good news I've heard about that in quite a while. I talked about the small bridges and culverts. So the review committee, and we're gonna deal with this again a little later, selected the combination of leading edge and peg arch as the lowest cost bidder with a proposal that the committee preferred. So, the committee has recommended that we sign an interim contract for the design and also to flush out the full project specification with alternates to make sure, you know, we're agreed on exactly what we're getting. And frankly, the companies
are not gonna put, you know, there's a limit to how much they're gonna put into it before they have a contract with the town with some skin in the game. So our recommendation is to sign an initial design contract that will be credited to the final cost of the program and hold them to their original program cost, which they've agreed to do. So that's a little bit later in the packet. As far as the 2022 grant, the only thing that's really new is we do know that it got assigned to the Economic and Community Development branch. So that will be who's the grant administrator. You know, frankly have not done anything to further that project since the last meeting. Writing new grants and budgets are kind of taking precedent right now. As far as the trip grant, I already talked about that, but basically that the goal of that grant is to reclaim and repave Hendy from roughly Pine Ridge up to Long Hill Road, and then Long Hill Road into Skinner to Wheeling Road. And get that long stretch all taken care of prior to when we tear out the Long Hill Bridge. So we kind of get that done ahead. So when it gets the excess traffic,
it's in better condition to do that. Wreck trails grant. So that's another one that's in the packet that you'll see later. But it's my intention to submit another recreation trails grant, very similar to what we submitted last year. And that will be for the multi use pathway that connects the town hall school community center down to the rail trail, ideally running along Route 316. But what this is, is a planning grant whose goal is to examine that old route and figure out what the best way to do that is. That will require a 20% match on the town, but the town can credit a lot of the planning and development work that goes into it, developing an RFP, meeting ahead of time. So, it's not going to be all out of pocket, but the town is probably going to end up spending somewhere around 8,000 out of pocket on that grant to get that done. So, that's another one of those ones that will have to go to town meeting. And so legislative updates. I provided written testimony to both COST and capital regional council governments
on a number of issues that I think are worthy of them considering. Least on cost is council of small towns. So they are kind of the lobbying arm for small towns in Connecticut. This woman, Betsy Guerra runs that and is very effective. So at the same time, I also met with our new legislative representatives. I met with Steven Weir, who's replacing Robin Green in the 55th District. We had a great talk. And then I met separately with MD Raman and his legislative aide. Actually both Val Bruno and I met with, So we both got to give our input and have a good discussion about like what kind of legislative priorities and things would be beneficial to small towns. And the last thing on my list is I thought it was important. This something that I developed through a conversation with Matt Hart, because we had talked about what are the kind of shared services that smaller towns use. As the smallest town in the Capital Regional Council of Governments, I said I would put together a list of all the things that we as a town kind of share with other towns, just so he could get a feel for, know, how much stuff is really out there. That's really one of the things that the cogs are pushing
is the ability for towns to combine resources. The list in your packet is what I supplied him. That is basically all I have right now for the for, you know, my presentation, unless you all have questions for me. You, how was the survey coming along?
The survey is coming along pretty good. I was supposed to have by the end of today or tomorrow, final boundary, not final, but pretty close to final boundary survey with the overlay of where the community center will fit on the properties. So I don't have it, but I'm anticipating having that tomorrow.
Is is the engineering done for the Hutchinson Road culvert? All of it's done yet?
No. No. It's definitely not done. A new engineering firm is gonna be working on that? Yes. What they're going to do is they're going to do everything they have to do to get a full blown application before the state for the state local bridge program. And the reason we're getting both culverts to that point is because there's still a reasonable chance that they're going to add additional funding to that program. And if they sweeten the deal and increase the state's share of funding for that, which there's some talk of right now, I want both of those ready to go. So we submit them both, you know, pretty much as soon as that becomes available. Right. So that's kind of why I'm taking the approach I'm taking on that.
Is is the at the old firehouse, is that survey all completed also?
Yes. Yes. We did finally get the foundation design from BSC Consulting or BSC Engineering. And they found that last corner wherever it was?
Yeah. As far as I know, their, their boundary survey for that is complete. They have no issues with it.
So did I understand you to say, Eric, that you're going to have the survey for the, the School Road property tomorrow? Would that be anticipated? The
surveyor, Mike Kealy, said he was hoping to have me a copy. It won't be a finalized copy. What they were waiting on is they were waiting on one of the final pieces they had to do was the Algonquin gas company had to come in and they have to flag their right away, which they did about a week ago. And then the surveyor had to come in and identify the legal limits of the Algonquin gas right away. So, I think Mike said he had, they got the majority of it, the one quarter, the farthest by the school. You know, think still needs a little bit of work. So it sounded to me like he still had a couple of couple of hours, like one or two to fully complete the field work.
So, is the Algonquin gas line, is there a description of that somewhere, like a deed description of where their easement is?
I imagine there is. But I'm I don't know off the top of my head, but I would assume they would have had to file a description for that when they got it.
Okay. Anyone else have any more questions for Eric? Okay. Eric, thank you very much. And Eric, one thing that I think is great is there's probably five or six grants that you have pending and moving forward. I think that's great that your office and you are completing all of those grants because they're really a good way for us to attempt to fund things within the community. Thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you, Eric. You do a great job with that. All right.
Just understand when I'm in grant writing mode, unfortunately, I'm neglecting other things. So it's a trade off, but it's something we need.
Okay. Alright. We're gonna move on to item nine, old business. Those are the replacement items that I had sent you with exception c. So we're gonna go to 9 A and discuss the freightliner of Hartford. So I will make a resolution to finance the purchase of a plow truck expected to be received in late twenty twenty three for a period of five years as presented by public works director Jay Tuttle at the 12/12/2022 meeting of the board of selectmen. Refer the matter for board of finance approval, hopefully, at a special board of finance meeting on 01/18/2023, and if so, approved to a special town meeting hopefully on 02/07/2023 or soon thereafter as possible. So wanna second that? I'll second it.
Alright. Further discussion. We've discussed this issue at our last meeting. We all know that Jay had presented this to us. I believe, Eric, that the capital improvement committee has approved this. Is that accurate? Yes, that is accurate. Okay. All right. Anybody else have any other questions related to this item? All All those in favor? Oh, I had I had a question. Sorry. You were on mute. We'll we'll rescind I'll rescind my vote. Apologies. Sorry.
Just for a recap, because I know we talked we talked about it a little bit last month, but Jeff Murray wasn't on the call. So as a recap, this is not this is gonna go on next year's budget or just remind me again where the money is coming from for this?
Well, if I remember correctly, Eric, this is next year's budget.
It is and it's not. So here's here's the dilemma. In order for us we can't buy this thing outright. There are around $260,000 to buy. We don't have this year, and we're certainly not going to have next year when we add money to it, enough money for an outright purchase. So, we're going to have to lease to purchase. And the best way to do it is probably to select either a four year or five year, and I would select a five year actually, you know, lease option on that. The problem is that for the bank to guarantee financing, we have to escrow and to get a build slot for this thing, we have to escrow essentially one year's worth of payments. So, have to escrow currently about $60,000 to get our build slot and to guarantee this, you know, right now. So, the problem is we don't have that in the works fund. So, leaves us two options to get the rest of the money. Reasonable options that I know of anyway.
The first is to take the money from Town Aid Road, which we can legally do because you're allowed to buy equipment used by public works from the town aid road fund. We don't have a lot of money left in that fund, but we have enough to cover. The second thing would be to take it out of contingency. And then later in the meeting, we also need to talk about the third kind of monkey wrench, and that is the purchase of a trailer for the new piece of equipment that we've gotten, which is the Bob, you know, the Bobcat we just got. So, because that adds somewhere around $11,000 we could still take it from Town Aid Road, but we're definitely cutting into our abilities to do roadwork in the spring if we do that. So let's address
Paula's very pertinent question. The first payment on the Freightliner of Hartford is out of which budget cycle? This current budget cycle Current budget cycle. The first payment, the first $60,000 on a potential five year amortization. That's true. So we and what I understood from the last meeting is we need to do it now to get the build slot, which was the most important thing that everybody wanted. It was a timing issue, Correct. If we want to get it and we want to get it timely for next snow season, we've got to be in line right now. Correct. Okay. So we can figure out a way and when you say escrow, Eric, we just have to prove that we have the funds, or we have to prove that we've we've committed the funds for availability? It
would go into escrow with the finance company through, Dollar.
So you're telling me the finance company is gonna hold our 60,000 as a down payment? That's my understanding. Yep. Okay. So check wouldn't be cashed.
Yeah. I would ask you to work on that one to sit there and see what they're really doing. But, yes, I under I would understand it. So okay. So, Paul, it's gonna come out of this year's budget. So we have to find it, whether it's through contingency or it's through Aid Road, which I would go through Town Aid Road. Okay. That answers the questions.
How is that going to impact our roadwork budget come spring? It's
definitely going to impact it. Right now, today, between all our roadwork funds, have roughly $40,000 remaining. So, on whether we buy the tilt trailer this year also or not, we're going to spend a significant fraction of that. We should, if the bond commission proves it when they should, at some point in the next couple of months, we should get another $93,000 allotment, which is our second allotment for the year for Towneigh Road. But I asked, and at this point, there's no schedule for the bond commission meet. So, I don't know when we're getting that. So, as most of you know, usually what we try to do is we try to do the initial stemming prior to July 1. And by having money available early which a lot of towns does it allows us to get quite a bit done before the July 1 budget appropriation.
So we're going to be a lot more limited this year than we were in the past. Because last year, honestly, we just spent a ton of money on roadwork, which is good. We got a lot done, but it's going to be more problematic this year. Jay can probably give you a better feel for what impact that will actually have. Well, and so the hope is the hope is this budget cycle, we're gonna put that line item in the public works
for this truck, and then that money with the the Town A Road money would get freed up in the summer. Is that the hope?
Yes. That's the hope. It, depending on how everything all plays out, Either we get a late start or it's going to be a year of a lot of preparation maintenance work into, you know, work at another time. Well, let let let's No. It's just gonna we're gonna have to scale back on some of our work. That's what that's what the bottom line will be. Let's not scale. Let's not think that way. Let's think a little bit differently about this escrow payment.
The escrow payment, in essence, is really a down payment. It's a deposit. It's not an expenditure of money. We are just doing the approval. We have plenty of of of resources available at the town to make a deposit and an and as a deposit on on a vehicle that would not impact Town Aid Road, really. So I rethought my my original answer.
Yeah, Jeff, can we use contingency just as a placeholder?
Well, why can't we just use our money? That's what I'm saying. Why don't we borrow against It's the not even contingency. Why take it out of contingency? Why not take it out of our cash resources,
our the money that balance or a fund balance even just because
we're not spending that money. We're just using it as a whole. We're using it as a whole. So we're going to a town meeting to get the town to commit to allow us to do this for the next fiscal year, which we will then put it in the the budget for the the next year's next year's budget, the $60,000 that would be required to pay. So all we have to do is figure out the technical side of using the non fund balance as a a down payment and as an escrow, and I do think we should be able to do that. I think we should get it approved by the board of finance, but
I agree too. Think it and I think this should be we should we should turn this over to the Board of Finance and let them, look into this situation.
I mean, it's a down payment. It's not it's not the the expenditure is not gonna be required until the vehicle becomes ours.
And we've been doing so we've been doing such a good job with with the roadwork lately. I don't wanna impact that by by taking from that fund. That that concerns me a little bit.
So, Eric, when we do approve this motion, can you put it into the Board of Finance's hands that what we'd like to do is use fund balance as a down payment to manage the escrow requirement so that it has no impact on the current fiscal year budget. Okay. We wanna vote on this all in we'll take a vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
So are we voting are we voting with the explicit Mhmm. Condition that it's going to be taken from fund balance?
Correct. We're asking well, what we'll do, Jeff, is the the explicit request is to ask the board of finance to find a way to do it without impacting this fiscal year's budget. They may come back to us. And when's the deadline on this, Jay or Eric?
Well, the deadline was January 5. For this current proposal as far as the rates and what, so basically they'll just have to readjust whatever the interest rate interest rates would be so it could be a little more could be a little less but it's still right around the $60,000
mark Right, but we want to get in line so the issue would be we want to use fund balance for the escorting. That's what we'd like to do. And I will support that. I will not support using Town Aid Road though, however. That's fine. So that's the review that's the request off to the Board of Finance, and let's sit there and see if we can get it done appropriately because we definitely have the fund balance to get this done. Okay. So move on to item 9b, New Community Senior Center Resolution. The resolution to approve the offer of the proposed $10,000 interim contract for various design items with leading edge construction is recommended by the town administrator and set forth on pages forty six and forty seven of the packet for the 01/09/2023 meeting.
You want me to share my screen, bring that up? Sure. Go ahead. Yeah. Yep. Hopefully I got the right one. Okay, so this is what we had just discussed, which is a contract whose goal is to cover the contractor's cost to do, because this is going to take a few more joint scoping meetings between the town and the contractor to fully flesh out both material specifications, the final layout and design for the building, because we still have some options we've got to work through for the flooring structure of the 1st Floor. And then final HVAC building envelope and finish specifications. So that's kind of where we're going with that. The goal is to reimburse them for their town time because,
you know, they've already put a lot of money into this project, you know, to get to this point. So they're not going to continue providing us with more information until we start paying. So, this will be We clearly stated that this is a preliminary design contract only, and that it's prior to negotiating the final design build master contract. And it's designed to be a fairly short duration three month contract that will be applied to the original design base bid of 783,997.
I thought we were gonna make this a sixty day contract.
Oops. You're right. We did discuss that. Although I'm not sure if sixty days is all that realistic. Three months is probably more likely, but we can change that to a sixty day contract if you prefer.
Well, my issue is can they get the work done in sixty days or will it take them ninety days? I mean, I'm always, let's go faster and try to figure this out. At least it puts in a better position to move forward with the building when we're ready. If they can't get it done in sixty days, make it ninety, but if they can get it done in sixty days and it's just giving them an extra thirty days, make it sixty. They can ask for an extension. I like how you're thinking, Scott. Okay.
Anybody have any questions related to this resolution or this contract? Alright. So resolution to approve the offer of the proposed 10,000 interim contract for various design items with leading edge construction as recommended by the town administrator and set forth on the contract in front of us. I second that. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.
Nine d. A resolution to accept a a steep grant for $275,000 with a $75,000 town match for the construction of a multi use for the construction of a building on the Center Street property for the storage of town vehicles.
Okay, so I'll give you the background. We already have the Steep brand, so that's the good news. The bad news is when we were reviewing the charter specifically for the purchase of the plow truck, one of the things I realized in the Charter is that. Under section 3.04 special town meetings, One of the things that is required to go to special town meeting, which is nuts, but it's what's in the charter, application for participation in any federal, state, or private grant in excess of $2,500 excluding the Board of Education, which participation shall require the town to contribute any cash or in kind participation to enter into the grant program. What that means, frankly, is that almost any grant I apply for has to go to special town meeting. Which is nuts. But it's also what our governing documents require. And since we're going to town meeting for the plow truck, we might as well do all three of the ones that we have before us. Which would be the acceptance of the Steep grant, and then the application to the trip grant for roadwork third one, which is the recreation trails brand. So that will get us basically everything that we're applying for right now would be legal if we go to town meeting, because we're going to town meeting anyway.
So that's the stingy clause in the charter, and we're gonna just sit there and get through it. So alright? So anybody have any other questions related to 9D?
Yep. Am I following this? So anytime you have to we have to go to town meeting every time for a grant? Is that what you said?
No. That's not what you said. It's grant that the town has to spend its own money on. So you get the grant so in this case this is a grant with a match from the town. If you have outgoing money for the town you have to spend it. Eric is not wrong, that it's basically every grant. But Eric, you probably applied for grants in the last year that the town hasn't had to put up any money for. So that type of grant would not be required to go to town meetings. A grant But that spends more than $2,500 of the town's money has to go to town meeting. Understood. Okay. I missed that part. And in this case, you're asking us you're asking the town to contribute $75,000 of a $350,000 facility to store properly the town vans for the seniors. Correct.
Okay. And also mitigate the existing disaster that's there by tearing That's it
right. And we're trying to do something positive. So Paul, you and I will sit there at the town meeting and we'll identify the real stingy people who wrote that part of the chart, right, and we'll identify them all and we'll just check them off and we'll sit there and know that they voted no. I
don't know if I want to take part in that. I'm sorry. Paul I know you will take part I do know that so alright so if somebody Scott did you second that no I didn't really read that I just read so let let me go back through and make the resolution actually We're gonna do a resolution to accept a steep grant for $275,000 with a $75,000 town match for the purposes of building a building to house the town vehicles. We're going to refer this to the Board of Finance and town meeting in accordance with the foregoing schedules set forth in Item 9A above. Dennis, I don't like that. So for referral to the Board of Finance and town meeting.
I didn't know the dates at the time I wrote this. Okay. Okay. I I accept your apology. Sorry. Sorry. That's okay. I I couldn't resist. Alright.
Who's seconding this? Let's go. My You're on the roll. I'm gonna mess you up. I'm on I'm on an we're on an hour and a half. Who's seconding this? I'll second it. Alright. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Aye. Board for nothing again, Eric. We're we're doing pretty good. A resolution to authorize the town administrator to submit a DEEP Recreations Trail Grant proposal for $52,000 with the town spending approximately $10,500 from tax dollars, possibly open space or contingent fee funds. We're gonna refer this to the Board of Finance and town meeting in accordance with the town charter. Who's seconding this one? I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Four nothing again. Resolution to authorize the town administrator to submit a trip grant, the Transportation Rural Improvement Program, for up to $800,000 by which the town will be required to pay for survey and engineering costs outside of the grant estimated to be $30,000. This is to be paid from Town Aid Road or a road improvement fund. We're going to refer this to the Board of Finance and the town meeting in accordance with the town charter. I'll second. All
those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay.
Now we're down to our regular old items, nine gs, the finance department employment situation status. Eric?
So at the last meeting, you asked me to hold off until the January meeting to post for the finance position. Do you have any objection to me submitting that now and getting that going?
No. Because it's probably gonna take you three to four weeks to get this done, and by that time, QuickBooks will be up and running. Right? That would be the goal, sir. K.
Does anybody have a problem with Eric moving forward with that position? Nope.
The only change I would like to implement in that is, as Diane Trocette wrote that originally, it was identified as a forty hour a week position. I would like to take that down to a thirty four hour a week position. I don't think it needs to be a five day position. I think four should be plenty for that.
34 is where you want to be with that position?
I don't think it needs to be more than 34.
It doesn't need to be more than 34. Do we wanna start at thirty four, or do we wanna start lower and build them up? You think it should be, Jeff?
I always believed that once you got the right software in place, the amount of time that that department will have to spend on the functional operations of the town will be greatly reduced. I would tell you, Scott, I would expect it to be now listen, I'm okay with thirty four hours if the person is willing to move from department to department to sit there and assist. If the person is only going to sit in the finance department, thirty four hours is overkill for that job. That's just my opinion. I'm only one person, but I understand technically what that person is going to end up doing operationally. Now, that's me. Would tell you that that's a 20 and I'm assuming that this is the bookkeeper, Eric. Correct. So this is the person who is running the accounts payable and this is the person that is managing the town payroll every other week and posting the journal entries into QuickBooks related to them. Correct. Alright.
Twenty hours. So how many hours do you think you can beat Donut, Jeff? Depends upon who you let have the job. Jeff could do it in twenty hours.
Oh, no. It would take a lot less than that.
Five hours? So did Diane put it at forty because she was thinking
No, Diane, listen, the person that gets that job, I mean, Diane was doing a great job. I mean, she was trying to organize the department and to put forth appropriate procedures to allow that person to be more efficient. But it's a question of efficiency, it's just a question of what's there. I would not expect someone to do it in ten hours because they make themselves obsolete and that's just not how people work. It's going to be a twenty to thirty four hour job per week, I personally would start it lower and then build it up, but I know what Eric is thinking, and I'm okay with thirty four hours, but
Why don't we start it at thirty? I'm fine with that.
Well, the issue the issue on time is what and and let's ask that is that is that position part of the union? It is.
Okay. What are we what are we under the union contract related to that?
Under the original union contract, it was a thirty hour position. However, we have a memorandum of understanding to employ Marina back when she was, which was the last thing on the books at forty hours a week. So I think we can legitimately argue with the union that we take it back to a thirty hour position if that's what you want. I don't see any reason why that couldn't happen. Lower than that, I'm not saying we couldn't do it, it would be a fight and it might be harder to find an employee, but maybe not. Maybe we find somebody that's retired and only looking for twenty hours a week.
Well, if it's under that position, then it should be thirty hours because the reason why Marina and and the reason why that position was, you know, expanded at that point in time was because the software that we were we were operating with and the amount of time to try to to get things organized within that department. I I'm just telling everybody that the software is gonna make everybody's life easier in that department. It'll make Eric's life easier. It will you know, there'll be some you know, I I would always the concept, you know, related to the software discussions was workarounds. Well, I don't care what software you have. You always have a work I mean, you have software workarounds in Edmunds. You're gonna have software workarounds in QuickBooks, but it's just a lot easier to to figure out a workaround in QuickBooks than it is in one of the other types of software. So thirty hours is my recommendation.
Okay. Anybody else have any issues related to that? No. Okay. Good. Nine h, the status of the finance official.
I think I've already said all I want about that. We have had a long discussion, you know, with Mike, the auditor, just before the holidays, and kind of worked out, you know, kind of where we are and what we needed for the audit. So, I think we're tracking reasonably well by then. You know, Mike's not ready to start it yet anyway, and we're not ready for him to start it. But, you know, we will get it done more timely this year than we did last year. And at that point, that's all I can really tell you at this point.
Okay. 9I, Hop River Homes, do we have an update on that? I did not see a contract in here.
I believe there was one in the packet. It's in the packet.
It was? I missed that. Yes. It's in the packet, Jeff. I couldn't get the oh, there it is. My bad. Yeah. Well I couldn't get past Jay's I couldn't get past Jay's Freightliner quote. It was about forty days. It was about forty days long.
I couldn't resist trying once again to, this final in accordance with the, discussions that you all have had with the the people from Eastern Connecticut Housing Organization. And the only thing that is noteworthy really no. It's a three year contract as you proposed, but they added something to second page regarding improvements. Progress seven. After speaking with Eric about it and reading some notes, I added language saying that in order to provide sources of water and electricity to the ball field, HRH River Homes will permit the town with due care and workmanship trench across Riverside Drive and HRH property to install a water spigot and electrical outlet there to be supplied from town owned locations South Of Riverside Drive. And, you know, if they don't like that, we can always take it out, and we can go to them every you know, we can go to them with a pro a more specific proposal, but I thought we should try to just put it in this contract.
Okay. So Eric can I mean, I I I don't have a problem with the contract as written? I mean, does anyone else here have a problem with this contract as written? You you couldn't get them to change, or was it you, Dennis, that won't change on the usage and who who can use it?
That that came from discussions that you all had with them. I wasn't part of that meeting.
That's the same language the same language as the last one. We were trying to change that.
No. This one allows the girls softball UA team there. Right. Great. What Scott
what Scott is asking is Scott Scott was asking for all age groups to be able to use that field. The Hop River Homes group would like it to be just youths because and and and children because they don't want balls hit over the fence at Right. Which is understandable. They don't want you guys going there and knocking the ball, you know, 500 feet. Don't worry. I that ain't happening. It didn't happen when I was 18. It's not happening when I'm 18. So
I mean, you know, we we could try to change it. I read
pretty insistent on it. That's fine. Scott, I think we should allow this this first one to go and then make changes as as we
I think that that's in there that they're open to suggestions at the end of the contract that said something about that. Yeah.
So, can you get this in front of Hop River Homes and sit there and see and quickly see if they have comments and if we can get this signed, because it's going to take them ages to get it through USDA, and we need to get that in place before March, because the baseball season will start the fifteenth. Yep. Okay, alright, I'm sorry, the softball season, my bad, the fifteenth.
No. Don't get them all freaked out. Drop there with a baseball.
I'm really on the ropes. Yeah, I know, I don't. That's alright. No one can hit it over the fence anyway. Field Of Dreams.
Yes. Okay. So we're now on to 9J, recognizing Andover residents. Paul, do you have an update on that, or do you want to put that off? Okay. Yeah,
let's put that off. We need another month, I think.
Nine ks cool program contract update. Eric, anything on that?
Okay, so I cc'd you. What I did was after the last meeting, went back to Jess career and Dennis and I discussed it a little bit. And you know, they were, I would say argumentative that's not the word I want to use but I'll go with argumentative. So what I said to Jess was that they needed to provide us with a series of things, one of them being a copy of their actual insurance policy, not just the you know the front page which doesn't have any details. And it needed to include coverage for them, while they're driving the bus. If we're going to loan them a bus and that. You know they needed to develop the next draft, because I think you know we've put enough drafts out there, and they basically flatly rejected all. So I put the ball in their court and said, if that's something they want to pursue, they can come back to us with a draft and we'll review it. Okay. That's where I left it with that.
Alright. I I don't have any problem with that. The biggest issue that that I have is making sure that we incorporate KIRMA into the review of the insurances and all of the other issues.
So Yeah. We've done that. That. I incorporated what Kermit suggested in the latest draft. I think the issue is, and I I did watch the video of of your meeting on the I was away in Honolulu. What I what I saw was they don't seem to understand. They're dealing with the board event, and they they don't seem to they don't seem to understand that the the the the the property is owned. Cool property is owned actually owned by the town. We're responsible for it, and we're insuring it. The town is paying for the insurance for the property. So we have we have more of a stake in this than they seem to understand. But I I know, you know, I understand where they're coming from. They're doing a great job for kids, and they think that we're giving them a hard time. And I I think we just need to, you know, make them comfortable with some of the things that you've said that we really appreciate what they're doing, but we really need to protect, you know, the town and the taxpayers for covering the insurance. So, you know, I think we should be able to come to some kind of an agreement fairly soon. I think we'll be I think the biggest issue, Dennis, is just insurance. Mean, they're going to be using a town vehicle,
they're using town assets and it's fine. Just get the insurance set and I'll be okay, I personally would be okay. Get the insurance organized correctly. A lot of misunderstanding from my standpoint. There is. I and I will say this again on record, my issue is that the after school program is a vehicle for the community and the town to run a better recreation department. That's just as simple as I can make it. It has nothing to do with who is involved in COOL and not in COOL. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that if the town looked at it as an opportunity to expand its service offering, that is a way to do it, because currently right now they're doing a great job and that program is, to say it nicely from my accounting standpoint, it's a for profit, not for profit. I mean, and that's how all not for profits are and anyone who sits there and wants to have the argument with me can have the arguments with me that every not for profit is for profit for somebody, and that's just my opinion as an accountant going through it. And it's not to sit there and say they don't do great work,
but somebody's making I have to speak with you, Jeff. I worked for a nonprofit for twenty three years. I understand what you're saying, but I that they are you know, they're doing a great job for our kids. And so we wanna be supportive, but we're not going to, allow them to do whatever they want. I
just don't want them to, God forbid, have an accident, and then it all comes back upon us that we didn't do our jobs correctly and that there's now a parent who's going to sit there and want to sue the town because of our negligence. That doesn't work for me. So that's all we're after right now. My idea of a program is a secondary issue. The issue right now in front of us is they're doing a good job, we're not going to impact parents, we're not going to impact kids, we're going to sit there and do what's right, but get the insurance organized and then we'll be all good. Yeah. Eric and I can work together on that.
My only request is, and I think they understand now, and my only request is if there's emails going back and forth and we're not getting this resolved or whatever, can you call a meeting with them just so that you're not going back and forth with 50 emails and things are getting dragged out. So they're you know they're great people they're doing a great job. I just want to make sure we're doing the best thing we can do for the town and where they understand where we're coming from because sometimes when you go back and forth in the email maybe things get missed or misunderstood. So that's my only request.
Eric, make sure you do what Paul is asking you. She's very important. Alright. Sounds good to me too.
Alright. Excuse me. So, nine l, zoning changes to the town property on the School Road update.
Okay. So real quick. On January 23 at 7PM, the Planning and Zoning Commission will be considering the zone change to the Andover Rural Design District that would enable the town hall to build without seeking a variance for the building. That's it. Okay.
Just as a question, the Rural Design, what was that called? Andover Rural Design District. Wow that's a really catchy title who came up with that one Eric? Me! Good job I'm impressed. Rural Design District I like that very positive very positive. So it's a fancy way of saying that it's zoned for housing and we built all these municipal buildings.
It became that name because the town originally had an R40, basically a one acre zoning district and a two acre zoning district for residential construction. And what the Planning and Zoning Commission did was they changed both of those zones into the ARD, the single ARD zone, and then they allowed the flexibility to build cluster housing or do a cluster development within that zone with some additional open space if you went that up. Right. So that's been on the books for about three years, something like that.
Okay. Alright. We have so are we done with 9 L, Eric? Just so I don't miss anything. Okay. All right. So we'll go to 9 Ms. The 08/24 referral to planning and zoning for proposed new community center building.
So that was the Planning and Zoning Commission at their last meeting received an 08/24 referral on behalf of the board of selectmen from myself. To answer the question, does the plan of conservation and development agree with locating a community center on that parcel directly behind the town hall? The Planning and Zoning Commission voted that it did and referred that via letter from Jed back to the Board of Selectmen. And the advantage of that is that means when we go to, Well, actually, I will say that the advantage of it is that any decision that the board of selectman makes regarding the community center can be approved by a simple majority, not a two thirds majority, because the zoning commission concurs with that.
Okay. Alright. Thank you. We'll move on to item 10, new business to discuss and act upon following 10 A Constantine Paving Appeal.
I am gonna turn this one over to Jed or sorry, to Jay, because this is his area of expertise. Okay. Can't wait. What do got, Jay? All right.
First of all, I'd like to ask is anybody here from Constantine? Or did they just ask for this to be on the agenda?
Well, let's just review it quickly so we know what we're doing. Okay,
so this is in regards to 13 Dogwood Drive. Constantine was a contractor for this resident, and the driveway if you look at Can you share that Eric diagram? Yeah, I will share it. It's page 80 in your packet.
74, 76, 77, 78. Okay. Got it. This is the one you wanna see?
Yeah. Well, just looking at the original plan's design of the driveway. So, if you're familiar with the development, it uses an off road swale. There's also sidewalks in that neighborhood. So the water course is a swale that travels each side of the roadway and each driveway actually has a swale built into it. It's about, you know, between fifteen and twenty feet off the from the road edge. The basins that follow the roadway along the roadway are actually off road basins or CG top style, which is a double curb I call them. They're in the middle of the soil?
Yes. So, and they're off road. So, when they did this driveway, I initially went out to to view it and I drew on the existing driveway at the time, know, put down in paint swale with some arrows and you know and I left it at that, signed the permit, let them go to town. So when they called and asked if to go review the job, the swale was not put back into the driveway. The water cannot leave the driveway into the roadway and water from the roadway will not enter the driveway. That being said, the swale not being there basically doesn't allow the watershed continuous flow, as water would, you know,
to continue down the other side. The kicker to this and their argument, and it's valid to some degree, the driveway is actually a high point. The basin that you see, if you're looking on the page 80, all right, the basin lower towards the bottom of the page, that little square, yeah, that basin is a little bit lower than the driveway. So, any water that would be captured at the driveway flows back to the basin. The opposite side of the driveway actually goes the other way.
Did you go up there and look at that though? Yes, I did. And there's water, did you see water doing what you're talking about?
Yeah, water, water's not going to accumulate and puddle in that area. It's either going to go one way or the other. So, but the the original design of the community is that these driveways have swales in them, so I didn't sign off on it right away. I'm referring it back to the selectman. If you drive around the neighborhood, you'll see or find other driveways that have been done in the past. Then redone that the swales were not put back in. Why I don't know wasn't I wasn't there. So, kind of leaving it up to you to decide whether we sign off on it, give them their $500 back. I don't see any detriment to the function of the swales because it is a high point. But you know if you read if you read the permit and the instructions it's it tells you right there at number one you know the driveway branch shall be constructed in such a manner that does not interfere with the existing drainage, the movement of traffic, or removal of snow from public highway, and there's some other things defining things in there either, I mean as well. So, it's not really interfering with anything, but it wasn't put back to original design either. So, that's my take on it. I wasn't sure how, you know, how you guys would stand on that, being that it's not part of the original design.
And you've been up there lately and it is draining on both ways?
Yeah, the drug, like I said, the driveway is a little bit higher. I mean, it's ever so slightly water will go one way and water will go the other way, and it won't. So, on the lower side where the sea, where the basin actually is, you know, comes from the neighbors and comes down and goes into that basin. If the basin were, let's say the basin got plugged up, leaves or whatever, suppose water would accumulate there and eventually it would force itself and go over the driveway and keep going. But right now it's fine. And the basins and the basins are generally open. It's not like there's a ton of leaves or anything people mow around them. How much pond money did you get from them? $500
Jay, what's the possibility that water can run off the driveway into the street?
It actually either stays in the swale or tips back towards the property a little bit.
I mean, I'm right up the street, so I'm familiar with this issue. Yeah. My neighbor, you know, with the mailbox that we removed this year, that was a problem with water coming out into the roadway because it was blocking the swale. I haven't really seen this. I unaware of this issue, but there is a lot of houses in that neighborhood that do have this problem with water running out into the roadway because of these swales issues that have been modified. So I hear your point, but it's difficult to kind of let this go, on the other hand. Jay, what would you vote?
To be honest with you, I'm on the fence about it because in one sense it works. You know, they did they did do a good job. I, you know, I'm not going to deny that they did an okay job, but it's not put back to design. And that's, you know, you can argue both ways. You know, right now what's going to end up happening. If you know they're going to have to go back to the customer and say well we're going to have to cut the driveway and and now we're going to have a patch in the middle of your driveway just so we can get our $500 back.
To put the swale back.
You were very clear with them how they had to do it, right? Well,
yeah. I didn't take pictures of it, Scott. I didn't communicate with them other than I put the drawing, I painted on the ground where the swale was when I initially went out and did the driveway. I marked it, I wrote swale, I put arrows to the, you know, each way, you know, whether the crew showed up and and I discussed that with the guy too, and you know, fault me for not taking pictures and making notes, but I, you know, I did, I did sign the permit for them to do the work and I conveyed to Lynn, you know, that call them up and let them know that it's ready to go. So
One issue we do have is when we get a lot of snowfall and the snow piles do come up, it does impact the drainage when we have issues like this with the swale being impeded. I've seen it quite a few times on that street when we have a lot of snowbanks.
How other driveways down there, Jeff, have this same issue?
None that I'm aware of because the swale usually is on that upper side of the road. And then every driveway does not have a, some of the ones on Woodford on the other side of me do not have swales. Just my side does with the culverts. So some do, some don't.
Yeah, if you're downhill from the road, you wouldn't necessarily have a swale.
But this is a main drain to that Settling pond that's down the street on Dogwood. All that water runs to that Settling pond. On the way the road tips, there's a potential that we could get some freezing and some water on that roadway if we have a heavy snow event with a lot of snow banks. I mean, I've seen it in the past happen.
So and then and that's going to happen anywhere. With the with the snow melt and some of the driveways. Yeah, there's. You know where the grass has grown over the years and you know just has the swale hasn't been maintained on people's driveways.
I mean we had we had the issue with my neighbor when the large stone mailbox that they put in they basically blocked the swale and we had water running out into the road and and it was a severe ice problem with that neighbor's driveway. And since that's been removed, it's been rectified to some point, but we still have some more grading that we need to do. But I mean, the swales do do their job when they're installed correctly. I mean, I know I do have a swale in my driveway and it does come down my driveway, and it does channel to the culverts and to the swale downward, not into the road. What's your take on this, Jeff Murray?
My point is those swales are pretty I mean, since there is no culverts or drainage basins in the roadway, this is drainage for the roadway, basically. So and it keeps a lot of the water in the winter from running across the road from those houses that are above. So that swale catches a lot of the groundwater that runs off of those properties on the top of Dogwood And Woodford Way. I I have a ton of water on my property.
So the question is, we giving them back their deposit, or are we penalizing them for not following the rules?
Or are we requiring them to fix the job that they were supposed to do correctly? And then give them back their $500 I
don't think they're coming back out to fix it. It would cost them a lot more than $500 to mobilize for And they're going to have an unhappy resident if they come out and cut it open. So, but I also don't think like, if Jay told them what he wanted and they put in something different, they don't get their deposit back. That's my take on it. But ultimately that authority resides with the Board of Selectmen because this is a CURT cut. And that is your, you have the authority to, to make those determinations. I'm all for keeping money.
It just I'm just afraid it's gonna happen again since this resident did it. Is the neighbor going say, well, I want to do this too? Exactly. That's what I'm afraid of too. It creates
a Everybody's going to do it. Because a lot of people don't like the swales. I mean, if I could get rid of my swale, I would. Mean, it's not the best thing when you pull into your driveway. But I mean, they're there and they're needed, and it's
a necessary You see the elevations on this lot, and it's almost flat. So it seemed like they would eat that swale if it's in there. You know you it's being used.
There's only a foot difference between where the house is and you know, the location of that swale. I mean, I mean, in the springs and when we get a heavy rain, those swales are full of water. Yep. Absolutely full of water. Well, that's why the builders called that development swampy acres.
Yeah. So I'm, I'm kind of leaving it up to you guys. I, I, I'm on the fence, and I also tend to, the swell was there, why didn't you put it back? Or at least call me up and find it and ask me the question.
Right. So Why don't we, why don't we table this until like April, and you can get through your winter season and to determine how much of a problem it can be or will be, and if it's not a problem in April, then we can sit there and say, Okay. But in the future, my recommendation is that everybody follows the rules. Right, again, it
leads into, well, you let that guy slide, why won't you let me slide? Yeah, and $500 is cheap. Dollars 500 to me is cheap to get rid of a swale. Yeah. I'd put up the $500 I'm serious. I'd put up the $500 to get rid of it. Because just give up the $500 you lose it. Who cares? That's what everybody else is gonna do.
Jay, how do you determine the amount of the bond? That's what the town has in place. Is that in the ordinance?
Probably. Yeah, driveways are $500 bonds. Probably in our well written charter. No, it's not in the charter.
Don't know. I I don't know why we're we're waiting until April to for this, Jeff McGuire. I mean, I think the contractor should fix it. Or they forfeit their $500 Right.
But the town puts a couple big, you know, cement barriers at the end of the driveway and say you can't use the driveway until you fix it. You probably only have to do that once before everybody'd tell the line.
Derek, you're so willing to offer up the use of cement barriers. I think we need to have a conversation.
I do. I think the homeowner it's not the homeowner's fault. I mean, they had to come and tear up the driveway again and repave it, it's it's on the contractor. The contractor made an error.
Alright. Then go back to the Great. But the contractor's probably been paid. So short of swinging the contractor, what recourse do you have? Your only real recourse is not giving them their deposit back. That's the unfortunate reality of it.
Alright. Tell them to fix it. My vote is to tell them to fix it. I'd second that. And if they okay. Anybody else? They don't do business in Andover again.
Why? It's not that you don't do business in Andover again. You just do it right. I mean, it's not like we're
Yeah. But if we have a contract that doesn't make good on their bond and doesn't make good on their work and forfeits their bond, it's an issue.
Okay. That's a that is a good decision, Jeff, I think. Yeah.
Does anybody else Paula, do you have a problem with that?
No. I think you ask for listen, you always ask for more. Come on, Jeff, didn't you say that early? And then you lead up to then you fix it afterwards. You ask for more and see what they say.
Well, you ask for forgiveness, so what this person is doing is asking for forgiveness and they want their $500 back. Yeah.
Well, I mean, one of the other things you could do is the board could decide that in the case like this, where you have somebody that doesn't do what they said, the next time the cost of the bond increases. So charge them $1,500 for the bond the next time, or 3,000. That'll get their attention.
Yeah. They gotta they gotta make it right. I believe that we should uphold our regulations. I we we don't too many times. Okay.
Ask him to fix it, Jay. Okay. I will ask him to fix it. Thank you. 10 b, the, Department of Public Works Tilt Trailer. Yes. I'm giving this one to Jay too.
It's the So tilt trailer page 81 starting 81 to 87 in your packet, is that correct? Yep. Yep, about right. Okay,
so this goes back to our skid steer trailer purchase up to $90,000 was approved. The skid steer is we've received it with the exception of the auger and all that should be by PO is $75,000 and change. So the trailer, as you see page 81, is available, seven ton, 12,399.46. So, I added in a spare tire because I didn't have a spare tire for it. So, and then the other trailers that are available from the other companies are around between 14 and $15,000 One of them I can't even get for a year and a half, maybe. So that's
that's what I have proposed on this, the tilt trail. That the one that you picked, picked the one with the deck in the front stays?
Yeah, the split deck tilt. Yeah, you like that kind, Jay? Yes. Yep, yeah, because if you put in a separate implement, it stays on the deck while you pull the machine off, you know, it won't tilt with the which gives an off balance of the machine. So, you, you know, you're going out with a couple different implements, you can carry them both easily.
All right, yeah. Those kinds slam a lot worse than the other kind though,
when you're coming off of them. Well, you just got to go slow. It's a teeter totter. Yep. Plus we can use it for other pieces of equipment. Is this to replace
something or this is in order to use the equipment you have already?
Yes. So currently we don't have a trailer to to move the skid steer around other than the our big tag along. We do currently have a landscape trailer which is old and still usable and we haven't really decided whether we would dismiss that or not because that's a little bit smaller and if we're just carrying around the Our Steiner or some small mower will probably just hang on to that, but but it's catch so it's an add on. How many pounds is that trailer?
The landscape trailer? Yeah. I think that's a, want to say a 6,000 pound trailer, three ton, three, four ton trailer.
Jay, just so I understand this, authorized $90,000 for the purchase of the skid steer, correct? Correct. And? And trailer.
And trailer. Is that Yeah. Is this above and beyond our $90,000 that we authorized? No. No. It's staying under the $90,000 And get it done.
Yeah. If we've already given the thumbs up. Right? Yep, there's no action on our part.
Okay. Is there anything required related to this, Eric, that we need to do other than sit there and say?
The reason why I thought that was valid for discussion was I was assuming you were going to have to, if you take this, you just reduced by $12,500 how much is in the Public Works Equipment Fund? And that means that that's that much more Town Aid Road money that you would have had to utilize. You were planning on taking this from unexpended fund balance and the Board of Finance agrees with you, then it doesn't have that impact.
But in a in a broader in a in a different way, we spent $78,000 for a piece of equipment that is not as usable because we don't have a trailer.
Right? It's got wheels. You can drive it. Just get the trailer,
and let's go. All right. Anything else? All right. So let's move on to 10. C, additional sick leave ask me employee, I would sit there and say that this is in our files. We should review this, and each one of us should contact Eric because we should discuss this in executive session. And I don't particularly want to go to executive session tonight. I assume that this this potential time off has sixty days, ninety days potential related so we have a little bit of time on this so everybody please speak with Eric about this and then we'll do something in executive session if necessary. Okay And the discussion of senior transportation and the electric vehicle for senior transportation and to the disposition of the two thousand and two twenty passenger van. So, Eric, are you up or is this Kathy Palazzi?
I think this is kind of both of us. Let's go. So, if you look further on in your packet, Kathy gave again a monthly disposition of how many trips are being done for medicals. Often have both vehicles are our small van minivan, as well as one of the 12 passenger vans out at the same time or 15 passenger vans out at the same time doing the medicals. It's really inefficient to be doing a medical, you know, with one person on dragging them around in a 15 passenger van. It's a lot smarter because most of the people that are going don't require, You know, a handicapped accessible vehicle and all three of the vehicles, we have now are handicapped accessible if we got a small electric vehicle. Or theoretically gas one if you're really opposed to electric vehicle, you could relieve some of the burden of that. And, you know, you would make the bigger vehicles last longer and you would go through less fuel. So that's my argument for doing that, which was the same as I made last year.
I I I would ask you, we had installed electric charging station in town hall. Correct? Correct. How often of a percentage do you see that being used?
Depends if we have an electric car or not. Have not seen a heavy usage of it at this point. Okay.
And then a question related to that charging station. Who's paying for the electricity?
At this very second we are, but we have the ability, but the only reason we're still doing that is I've been curious to see how many people would actually use it if it was a free charger and the answer is almost nobody at this point. No one no one in Andover. I've seen a car there.
Eric, one. Yeah, Robert Hamburger, whenever he comes to the town hall, he plugs in, but more because he can than than actually needing it. He's the only person so far I've seen charged there at any time.
I I think that that that Chevy Bolt SUV or whatever it is, small SUV, would be perfect car. We could plug it in we could plug it in when people are at the town hall in the community center and charge it, and those are the vehicle types of vehicles we should be using as much as possible for Exactly. Would buy I would buy a fleet of those if we had a grant that would allow us to buy them for free. Yep.
My only question got I've got a question about the car and the packet. If we're gonna use this for people that are not handicapped, but we're using it for seniors. How is it easy to get in and out of the car? Has somebody thought about that, or does Kathy have anything to weigh in? Just wanna make sure that it's comfortable for a senior to get in and out of the back seat because I'm not familiar with this car, but just wanna make sure that if we're talking about it, that they can get into it without having trouble.
Paula, I also wanted to point out that it's not just seniors who we are transporting. When people are disabled, we are transporting them. That would be any age group. If it if they're under the age of 18, they have a caregiver with them or a parent. I just wanted to point out that we're also taking veterans to the VA, and they are not always seniors. They they're elderly, but they're not always seniors. The other thing is the people that we're taking that we would be taking in the car. At most, they possibly would have either a cane or they might have a walker, which would be easily folded up and put into the trunk or in the back seat, whatever. But I don't think that you would have a a problem with most people. Most people would be able to walk themselves, get in and out of the car. I just wanted to point out our transportation says senior transportation. But if you read our re my monthly reports, you'll see that we always take all disabled, and it happens that right now we have six people we're taking that are not definitely not seniors. Good.
Eric, I just have one question now. Since we're gonna be taking seniors, I know we're gonna wanna keep this vehicle at a temperature level that's very comfortable. And a lot of the electric car drivers that we know of, they try to get enough range out of them as possible, sacrifice a little bit with the heat. Now, what kind of range are we looking at if we're going to utilize the heat on this vehicle, you know, to the extent that we'd want to keep it in a seventy, seventy five degree range for passengers?
So the first thing is that when we look at the and Kathy can probably tell them, what is the average length of a trip that this vehicle goes out of?
Normally, the most the the highest level of mileage is 35 miles. That's one way. But the normal average is just about 15 to 20 miles one way.
Right. So even if we're running three three trips a day, you know, we're under what? You know? And if we're running three trips a day, there's no reason we can't charge it a little in between. So I don't think, I think this represents about as close to a perfect fit for an electric vehicle, you know, as there is, other than you deciding to buy one for the town administrator,
which would be fine too, but I don't see that happening. Well, that's just another question I have. Is this something that we can utilize, the town employees can utilize too, for, you know, if you need to go, you know, to, you know, out through town and then look at something, is this something you can utilize as well?
I think that in my opinion, that that would be a yes. Is that correct, Eric? I would say yes if we weren't using it for medical, but I have to tell you most of the time we would be using it for medical. I have three vehicles now, and they're out every day. Understood.
I mean, I I think what it really speaks to is that, you know, what we're trying to do is reconfigure our fleet to meet our actual demand. And one of the areas of demand we have is medical transport, where we're taking a single person that's not handicapped to the point where they can't ride in a normal vehicle in a much bigger vehicle that needs to go. No question, if there's somebody that's in a wheelchair, we're obviously not taking them in the boat or taking them in one of our other three vehicles that's designed for us. If we're going to taking people to a good speed opera, we're not taking them in this. We're taking them into a large, in our large van so we can do it more, or our bus so we can do it economically and move a whole bunch of people. You know, and for shopping trips where we've got four or five seniors, we're probably not taking this one. We're taking one of the bigger vehicles.
But for the day to day medical, which is the bulk of the trips we make for senior transportation, this seems like pretty close to a perfect vehicle. And it's the lowest cost of the electric vehicles we could really consider. I mean, I think there are better vehicles than this, but in terms of the cost basis for owning the vehicle, this is probably the lowest cost vehicle we can get and meet that need. That's my take on it.
Okay, because I've been looking at them myself, and I've just been especially the Bolt itself, if you get into a 20 to 30 degree day, I mean, range is going be 50%, 60% of what the EPA rated range is going to be. So you just got to have the understanding that on a cold winter day, you're probably going to be getting half to 60% of what the EPA ranges on this vehicle. I just want Where at? Make What? Where at? Yep.
It's So just a concern. If we start running this vehicle a lot, we may have some range anxiety on a cold day.
Eric, it would be great if you could sit there and see if there's grants for electric vehicles for community, that would be great. Then you compare with the grants you got for the electric charging station, and it's free.
So I did look, there is a possibility that the next round of funding that we got the other vans and the handicapped accessible buses will allow us to purchase this, but I haven't seen anything definite one way or the other. Even if we did, you know, we're looking at more than a year before we have one. If we want to get one this year, we're going to end up buying it. Unfortunately, the town can't take advantage of the two things that would lower the cost of this vehicle. Are locked out of the state rebate because we're, as a municipality, we're not eligible. And we're locked out of the, you know, we're a town, we don't pay taxes, so we can't get our money back from the federal government because that would reduce the cost of this vehicle another $10, which would make it like a $19,000 vehicle out the door, which would be kind of crazy in and of itself.
So, there is a possibility, but if we got it, got one under that grant, we're at least a year out and there's no guarantee because I think more years we don't get the grant than we do. That's for sure.
Eric, can I just say too that if we do not purchase the vehicle this year, we're kind of defeating the purpose if we we'll still have to use the the bus, the two buses for medicals? So we're kind of defeating the purpose if it's not purchased this year. We can try for a grant next year. But, again, who's to say that it's gonna come in in 2023? It won't come until 2024. The one that we ordered and and and we were able to get free from the state Hasn't even they're just in the bill stage now, as I told all the board of selectmen. And Right. It will not be ready until, hopefully, this spring. But what is the guarantee? They still have no answer.
So we have funding available for the purchase of this vehicle?
So we have options that could be used if you chose to do that. The first thing would be to budget it for next year and buy the thing in July. Because the reality is even if we want to buy it right now, if we're buying it under the source wall of the state contract, we're probably not getting it till then anyway. Yeah. You know, or the second option would be potentially because you have money. As we sign a contract for the community center that's under a million dollars, you now have a multi use building fund, which was originally
had money set aside for a community center with excess funds. So you could theoretically redirect some of the money from that to purchase a fleet vehicle if you so chose. Those are your options as I know it.
So the issue the issue is to sit there and I I I have to do a little research on my end. I wanna understand the tax credit, and and, you know, I realize the town has no taxes, but a resident could have a use for the tax credit and therefore save the town $10,000 There's just the question of transference. We can put it forward and say, you know? Sorry. That's how my brain thinks. I apologize.
If you can figure out how to do it, I'd be happy to, to reduce the cost a further $10,000.
Our our Kathy Kathy, when does this decision need to be made on this vehicle? Is there a timeline?
When? I I don't think there's any I I don't know. I just feel like if we can do it, we should do it. If we can't do it, then we don't need to talk about it any further. But, this is something I've asked the board of selectmen every month on my monthly report and, at least for the last seven or eight months, and I have had no rebuttal from the Board of Selectmen. I'm not criticizing because I know how guys you guys are really, really busy, but I am saying it's time that we deal with the situation,
and we get a yay or nay, and please don't keep tabling it.
Yep. Yeah. Don't you realize, though, Kathy, that you put a pretty picture of a car on a beach in our back end? Now we understand what you're asking for. Right. You know, before it's just words, blah blah blah blah blah blah, words and Okay. Blah blah. Thought Now it's a picture. And now I I feel feel like, wow. That would look good next to our brand new charger is what I'm doing.
So would the Board of Selectmen be in favor of buying the Chevy Bolt?
I would I would definitely consider if we if we find I mean, we budget for it, yes. For the following year and we found a way to reduce the cost by $10,000 I think that would be great. If
we can't find a way to reduce the cost, are you still thinking yes or you're thinking that's an added bonus?
Well, I would love to do it. I think it's an added bonus. I think it's a way to reduce the cost for the community, but like all of these programs, you know, I would like to sit there and see if it could be grant funded. And if it can't be grant funded, is it $28,000 a good use of our money? And Kathy seems to think yes, and she's sitting there saying she can get a bus off the road that costs us money for maintenance and gas and everything else, so I think it's positive. I I Yep. I would do it. I mean, you gotta remember, like, we gotta put it into the budget. So, you know, again, it's not gonna be another good season for for budgets.
Or or we can use the funds that Eric was talking about.
Well, I mean, my hope, Scott, is on all that is that we do it correctly and then some of those funds are used to put to utilize, to to build out the community center, the inside of the community center, all of the the pieces of equipment that that we're gonna need in there from, you know, a television to the workout room that Kathy wants to a lot of the other things that should be going into that building. You know, my hope is that we have available resources to do those types of of buildings. So
Just so this doesn't stagnate, can we then agree that we'll put it in the budget for the new year?
I have no problem saying that yet. Will it stay in the budget? Okay. Yeah. I'll put it in the budget. I'll put anything in the budget. It won't get there. Mike Pelosi's in the back laughing. Yeah.
So we can we'll agree that we're we're at least gonna put it in the budget for this coming year. Think it
would be great. You wanna vote on it? Go ahead. Yeah. Let's vote on it. Somebody else make this motion. Scott, go for it.
I I motion to oh, how much was the price? 20 So ballpark around 29,000.
Alright, well, I vote to add $30,000 to the budget, this upcoming budget for the purchase of an electric volt. I'll second. K. Any any
May I suggest that you specify a bolt EUV? Because there's a bolt in a bolt EUV. The UV is slightly larger.
Alright. Yeah. Okay. So an EUV? Bolt EUV. Yes. So I make a motion to add to the budget, this upcoming budget, $30,000 for a Chevy Bolt EUV. I'll second. Alright. Further discussion on this?
Yeah. I'm just gonna let you guys know I'm gonna abstain from this because I want some more information. And if we can talk to another town that's using an electric vehicle and get some information on real world range and what we're doing with it, I would vote yes, but I wanna get some more information first. Yeah. Makes sense. Alright. Do we want to go Can can we can
we say we're gonna put it in the budget, and then if we get more information, we can always take it out. Right? If we Like, my concern is if we have a driver waiting on a medical and somebody's, you know, in a parking lot somewhere where it's cold, how much are we going to be draining the battery with heating the vehicle waiting for them to get out? That's just the questions that I have. And just think we should probably talk to another town that's using one and see what the pluses and the minuses are before we commit. I mean, we have another month before we could add this into the budget, we're going to talk about budget season. So I just think a little bit more information wouldn't hurt at this point so we can make an educated decision. Okay, Scott, could you amend your decision to consider?
Or is that not enough for you? Let's just get rid of the motion now. We'll do it we'll do it next month. So who's gonna do okay. But let's in order to talk about it
next month, who's gonna do the research and talk to the other town? I mean, it should be a call to the dealer. Right, Eric? Should You probably call and see if you had any municipal purchases and see if anybody's using one.
So I have some contacts for Eric, and I'd be glad to pass those right along to him tomorrow. Yeah. Perfect.
We're Yeah. And I just I just wanna make sure we're making a good decision on for the town that's all and I just want to make sure that we're making the best decision. As an engineer.
Yeah I know and I will tell you that one of my interests in getting an electric vehicle now is, I think we as a town, as we go forward, are going to be stuck with the electrification of the town fleet. I think that's coming whether we want it or not. And so the sooner we start understanding the advantages and disadvantages, you know, because we should do that now before we start buying J electric cloud trucks, then he wants to run me over with one. You know, that's my take on it.
That's fine, but I like Jeff Murray's concept of reviewing and evaluating and getting other information from people who are using it. I mean, it is a potential $30,000 use of taxpayer money. Absolutely. You go look at it. I hope that doesn't put you off too far, Kathy, but I like the picture. I really do.
I I like the I like the idea that at least you you listened. So I appreciate the fact you listened. Thank you.
You're welcome. 10 d b, it looks like. The disposition of the '20 02/2020 passenger bus.
Okay. So we are, with a little luck this spring in the next three or four months, going to have a second 15 passenger handicapped accessible bus, which will leave us at this point if we don't get the Bolt with two fifteen passenger handicapped accessible buses and the handicapped accessible Dodge Caravan that's a twenty fourteen. I would like to get rid of the 20 passenger bus. The reason is it's old. It broke down a bunch of times last year. One of the times I had to go out and, you know, try to figure out how to help rescue it, as did I think Jay came out too, but we ended up having to transfer people to another van, smaller van, and leave some of the people that were supposed to be going behind because we no longer had the passenger capacity to do that. That happened at least a couple times. The reality is it's just at this point not a super reliable vehicle. So, I would like to get it off our rolls just because I don't want to have to maintain it anymore.
A couple options. One is just to auction it. The second one is to just give it to ADS and let them use it for transporting their student, you know, and that would be what I would see as viable options. Val is on this call. I did ask her to ask the Board of Finance whether they would prefer going forward, keeping the same contract that we have now, which basically allows them to use a senior transportation vehicle, but to pay for it and to pay into it enough that it covers the cost of the maintenance, or whether they would prefer to have just the 20 passenger one transferred to them, and they can drive it with whoever they're driving it and be responsible for that. But that ultimately you as a board or the owner of that vehicle. That's ultimately a decision by the board of selectmen what you would consider. I think if we had a Bolt plus three vehicles, there's no doubt that we could loan them a 15 passenger handicapped accessible van, know, daily to transport their student. If we don't have the Bolt, we just have the three vehicles, you know, we're doing enough medicals that occasionally it will be a conflict, but not very often.
That would be my take on it. Kathy, you can kinda expound on that a bit.
I actually agree with you, Eric, and I like your reasoning. The only question I have, and I've discussed this with Valerie as well, is that, we take the seniors twice or twice or three three times, maybe a year, maybe four times now because we have we're so restricted with COVID that we couldn't travel. We still have money in our our budget for the trips this year, and we actually need that big bus besides the smaller bus. If our new bus arrives before March, which I don't think, but, hey, it could happen, we are planning a trip on March 13. So if we were to give AES, which I think is a great idea, the bus, I think that we wanna go ahead and and hopefully that Valerie's still in peace that we could use that bus to take our seniors. Because our senior trips are around 10:00, and we would be able still to take the young person to school, and we would still be able to bring the young person home in the afternoon.
K.
So prior to the Board of Ed weighing in on it, the first because the first decision is yours as a board, which of those approaches you want to pursue.
Well, I thought we already said we were going to try to pursue the electric vehicle if possible. The question on the disposition is you don't really need to make that decision today. You just want to let us know that this is your plan, if you get another vehicle, we are going to dispose of this 20 person vehicle. So disposing
could be an offer to the Board of Education to keep and use it and maintain it, or it could be to auction it off.
And I just saw Valerie's note, do we have any kind of data that would tell us what the annual upkeep or maintenance cost on this bus would be? Just a general rule because it would probably help her to come to the board with a budget of what the upkeep on this bus is at its age.
I can give her the cost that we spent last year, the last few years, if that helps.
Yeah, that would probably help her greatly because that would probably help them let them decide whether they can afford to budget for it or not.
Well, mean, the other thing is that it's really a I guess the first thing I would say is that if we are going with just Let me back up and say, if we don't get the Chevy Bolt, I think our best option is to give the school the 20 passenger van, and that gives us the three vehicles we do have to deal with senior transportation. That gives us the most flexibility for senior transportation and makes the most sense. If we get the Chevy Bolt and we then have four reliable vehicles in the fleet, then I have no problem with continuing ad infinitum to support the elementary schools need to borrow one of those vehicles
for student transportation. Does that make it clear where I'm at with this?
Yes. It does. It it does. But I would tell you, Eric, if you were trying to give a vehicle to the board of education, even if it's free, you have to do a better job selling it. And telling us that it's broken down multiple times does not make Valerie comfortable that she's making a a good deal to accept Can just excuse me. Excuse me, Jeff. Can I just weigh in on that comment, please? Help me, Jim. The fact is the fact is it's late.
The second fact is the bus is in perfect condition right now because we have spent a great deal of money, which I will show Valerie. I'm glad to show anyone. And we have spent so much on the upkeep of it, and it'll be going in next week for the yearly check of the ramp. This is required by the state of Connecticut for all our our ramp vehicles that once a year they have to be examined. And once that comes back clear, which I know it will, there's there's nothing wrong with with that bus right now. It's old. That's what's wrong with it. It's old. Okay. It's just a lot. Think that's Nothing wrong with being old. Right, Kathy?
Wrong old. Alright. That that's good. Let's, let's get that information to Valerie, Kathy, if you can, and we'll sit there and and hopefully the data will come in on the bolt and we can get some things done. Alright. Let's move on to 10/2023 holidays. So I I saw the holiday schedule, Eric. What what what do we have from a union perspective? What holidays are required?
Okay. So the answer is it depends on the union. Our unions are split because when the two contracts were written, one of the contracts, and I sent this to all of you in a separate email so you had it ahead of time, basically the
AFSCME employees, which include public works, specify the days by the name of the holiday. Therefore, they would not be eligible for Juneteenth as it's written. The personnel policy, they would be as it's written. So, we're basically split fiftyfifty in the town. Half the people would have it off, half the people would not have it off depending on what you choose to do and pending the new unique contract. So, I gave you a series of approaches. One, you can do nothing and just let it stand the way it is. Two, you can rewrite the personnel policy to either explicitly give or not give Junghein or take back a different day in exchange for Junghein if you think that is more appropriate. I don't have any dog in the hunt. I'm just telling you that right now that's the position we're in. As most of you know, the state has made it a state holiday.
So so are are you telling me that if I look at the twenty twenty three holidays observed, I have in February, I have Lincoln's birthday on one Monday and Washington's birthday on on the next Monday, and those are two off days for town employees. Yep you got it. So
the employees already get, and this includes me, not that I take them all, but currently fourteen days because both the contracts and the personnel policy also give the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas off. Okay.
So the other thing I would tell you is that I also gave you guys a summary of what other towns are doing. And the bottom line is the towns are basically equally split between the ones that are not giving Juneteenth off and the ones that have given Juneteenth off to their employees. There's no real consensus, you know, within towns as to what the options are. If you would like me to bring up that document I sent you, certainly can.
Could we give Juneteenth off and take one of the Lincoln or Washington days away and call it President's Day?
You could certainly do that to all non union employees easily by simply changing the personnel policy and then giving Juneteenth off. You could use that as a bargaining position with AFSCME for the upcoming contract talks. You would have to go back with MEIU and ask them for a concession if that's the approach you wanted to take.
I mean, that would be my approach because it would split off days off and be cognizant of recognizing various holidays. I mean I mean, Lincoln and Washington, they're basically presidents, so one President's Day would be good. George won't mind either. He doesn't care. Abe is a little bit more upset about it. But that's what I would do. I would sit there and consolidate one of the days in February and give the town employees a day off in June.
I think they'd they'd like that. Having a day off in June would be nice, nicer weather. I would appreciate that. I think it makes sense.
I'm fine with it. So So why don't you go back and see if our unions would, agree to that and see if we can maybe get that passed, and then we can make everybody happy. Anybody else have a problem with that?
My only concern would be anybody that had kids in school. They usually get those days off from the school. So if you gave them the June holiday off, I don't know if that falls in the school in the school calendar. I believe school is already out. Yeah. So that may be that may be an issue if somebody had kids in the school system that they get that day off if their kids are off. Yeah. It's true. We have one employee.
Wait, wouldn't that be better for them? To get to June, oh, you mean because they get Washington and Lincoln's birthday off. No, they have to play, yeah, they have to pay for daycare, but let's
ask the superintendent, do do you give both those days off? I don't believe they do. I think so. I don't yeah. Nope. There's one day,
and, a lot of times people will use the next one for PD, Jeff, because they got rid of the February vacation. So they usually just use that for the those two days. But, no, they don't get one week and then the next week. And Eric is right. Juneteenth, we're already out of school. K. So if we were gonna match the school calendar in February, what day do you give off? For this next year or, exist February coming up next month? Let's just talk about the February coming up. Yeah. So February coming up, the twentieth is President's Day. They do not have they don't have the thirteenth or the seventeenth. They have just the twentieth.
Okay. So what I would recommend is that we match the Andover school calendar and offer a trade for the day in February for the day in June?
So not to throw a monkey wrench, but you're not gonna get the agree the union to agree to that because you're trading them a Friday when they don't work for a Monday when they do work. So nobody's gonna take that.
Why are you saying that? The thirteenth is a Monday and the nineteenth is a Monday right now. You sent us the calendar.
Oops, alright I'm looking at the wrong month, sorry. I
mean I'm only looking Eric at the red blocks, know, I'm looking at the big red blocks, so I mean, next year that won't be the case, in 2024 that won't be the case, but because the nineteenth will move, I'm assuming the nineteenth will move and it'll be the middle of the week, but, I mean, I think that's reasonable I I think that's reasonable in the future to get February. Let's even forget June Juneteenth or whatever, how how how we say it. How do we say Juneteenth. Juneteenth. I I kept wanting to put the nineteenth in there, but Juneteenth. Alright? So I think it's still reasonable in the future to consolidate the day in February in all union negotiations in the future to match the school calendar. So not to give two straight Mondays off, just one Monday in February, and then deal with Juneteenth separate separately. But that would be me, and that's how I would do it. But I definitely would try to consolidate days off in February because that is the one day that our town hall is supposed to work the longest day of the week, and all of those red dots are all on Monday except one, two. And actually, let's say July 4. No one's coming in July 3 anyway, so you may as well put another red dot on July 3.
July third's a workday. Third. Plus you're taking the office vacation. Well, that's what he's implying.
That's what I'm implying. Eight eight hours for for twelve, but that's fine. Yep. That that's a good point. Okay. So do you need anything else related to that, Eric?
No, I know where you're wanting to go with it. You're wanting to broach with both unions switching to President's Day from Washington and Lincoln's birthdays separately in exchange for getting Juneteenth off. Okay?
Unless anybody else from the Board of Selectmen has a problem with that. Okay. All right. Let's move on to item 11, approval of the minute meetings for Monday, 12/12/2022.
Make a motion to approve the meeting minutes of Monday, 12/12/2022.
I think Scott said he'd second. He's unmute though, and we'll take it though. I saw his mouth move. So Scott seconded it. And all those in favor?
Aye. And I'll abstain because I was not there at that meeting.
All right. Item 12, the budget appropriation transfers over expenditure requests and capital funds allocations for the twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four budget season.
So the only thing I really want to talk about there is 12C, which is capital fund allocation, which I put in your packet, which was 98, page 98, along with a discussion about where we were and my initial thoughts with how much we budget for capital. And if you'd like, can share my screen and you can look at that or you can read it yourself. Which would you prefer?
No, you can put it up so everybody can see it.
Okay, so that is going back to the 2020 year, what was proposed and what was actually funded for twenty twenty-twenty one, twenty twenty one-twenty twenty two, 2023, and then what I'm proposing for this year, and what we have in the actual accounts for balances. And so, as to a couple things on here that are important, The first is because we now have a federal local bridge program that funds 100% of the cost of bill, the bridges, eventually the town will be able to reutilize the $438,000 that is in the Bunker Hill Bridge Replacement Fund. But we're not going to be able to do that until they either change policy or we have completed Bunker Hill and Lawn Hill Bridges because that's the amount of money we need to be able to pay the contractors before we get our refunds back from the state and federal government.
There is some chatter at DOT that they're going to the state will assume the responsibility for paying the contractors directly. The way it's worded right now, in the way the contracts are set up right now, that's not the case and it's still the town's responsibility. Though we will get 100% of that money back, we still have to maintain enough to be able to pay, you know, a significant fraction of the total construction costs.
You want to keep it all down or is that all you want to discuss with us?
That's, is there anything do you have any questions about that portion of it? No. The only thing I will tell you is that the fire department is still contemplating going to CIP in the town with a request for a new what they call squad vehicle. And what a squad vehicle is, is something that has the capability of both an engine, which they have now, as well as the heavy rescue. So, it would be getting rid of their oldest heavy rescue vehicle or their only heavy rescue vehicle and their oldest engine and combining it into one vehicle. Get rid of two to combine to one. I don't have prices on it, but I think that's going to be, you know, 800,000 to a million dollar request. Okay.
That's pretty much what I have at this point, unless you have other questions for me on this.
No. Were there anybody else on the capital funds allocation? Okay. Were there any appropriation transfers or overexpenditure requests?
No. The only ones I gave you at the beginning of the meeting, and they're all in the $2,000 or under category, so they're my responsibility. I gave them to you for visibility. Nothing needs to happen for the last three months of the budget year on those.
Okay. So we'll move on to item 13, the tax collector's report and refund request. The tax collector for the month of November collected a $141,865.72. Okay. Department reports. No. Were there any refund requests? I didn't see anything in the budget in the package. I did not. No. Okay. Alright. Department reports, the assessor's report. The building department report is in here. I saw Jay's report for Jay, how much time do you spend on that report? You're on mute. You're on mute, Jay. You're on mute, Joe. Still on mute. Can
you hear me now? Yes. Doesn't, it doesn't take me long to do that report. Just, I make my notes during the day and every few days I, if I don't finish it each day, I finish it a couple times a week. Okay. It's good. I mean, it's, it's, it's informal, but it's basically that's what we're doing. Gotcha.
Because I could spend a lot of time on an Excel spreadsheet trying to make something fancy because I make notes anyway.
No, I have no problem how you're doing, and I was just interested in understanding.
What would you like to know about it? It's kind of it is big. Yeah. I actually like it. I I mean
no. I like it. That wasn't really what I was after. Was Okay. No. I thought there was something administrative time was it taking you to complete this report was really what I was after. Like, you know, and and not that I want less information, but I was just wondering if it might be better use of your time not to have to do it all. That's all I was after. If it doesn't take you any time and it's just a normal course of your average day, you take notes, then you're just transposing the notes into a form like this.
Yeah. It takes me to put this together at the end of the month for you guys, it takes me maybe an hour, hour and a half. It that's because I I do those, you know, pretty much daily anyway.
Anybody have any questions on any of the departmental reports?
The only other thing I wanted to say relative to public works is I think they did a good job of clearing this last time. You know, think our storm response overall as a town was very good in both the Fire Department and Public Works and the CERT team and myself worked well to serve the needs of the public. Are we perfect? No, but I think this was a pretty good response overall.
Yeah, and I think the more trees we get down, the smaller they become when they're problematic. All their problems.
Yeah, there was power outage and things, but it wasn't as bad as some other towns.
Okay. Alright. And Kathy Palazzi, thank you very much for your report. It's greatly appreciated. And she left. Now we have Bob Hamburger on. He's probably wanting to talk about his electrical usage. Alright. I think we're good there for departmental reports. Correspondence, I didn't see any, so let's go to public speak. So we're gonna start with Bob Hamburger because he's up there. I think he might be the only person from the public available. Bob, would you like to join us? Okay, he's there for show. Valerie, would you like to contribute at the end of our No, I'm all set. Thank you. Okay.
Jay, I don't think you need anything. Dennis, thank you very much for attending our meeting. We're done with public speak. So Oh, hang on. Bob says he wants to be here.
No. Bob, turn on your Can you hear me? Yes, now we can.
We're on. Got to press the right buttons here. Jeff, you're absolutely right that I just wanted to chime in on the electric vehicle subject as somebody who's had a plug in hybrid for the last year and a half. First of all, if your intent with getting an electric vehicle is to supplement transportation for medical visits and things like that, I would seriously consider a much larger vehicle than the one that we're talking about a Bolt, Volt, whatever it's called. Because people with limited mobility, people with equipment apparatus things, wheelchair that has to be folded up, you're very quickly going to fill up any available space in a small car like that. So I think if you're going to seriously consider the topic for medical transportation, you're going to have to look at something that's like SUV or bigger. So that's that's point number one, I wanted to contribute. Second is if I'm hearing it right, the 20 passenger bus sounds like it's needed three or four times a year, And if that's the case, we shouldn't own any asset that's only used three or four times a year. We should be renting it or leasing it or hiring it. And lastly, to respond to Kathy's contribution about how much we've spent on repairs. This is a thing called the sunken cost fallacy. Just because we've spent a lot of money on it doesn't mean that it's not going to continue to be expensive to operate. In simple language, is called throwing good money after bad.
So, I was watching this on my TV. I started shouting at the TV and I realized, well, I need to join the meeting and speak my piece. That's what I have to say.
So what's the efficiency of your EV during the winter, Bob?
So I have a Honda Clarity, which is a model that's not made anymore. It's a little bit bigger than a Civic, a little smaller than an Accord, which means it carries four people relatively comfortably. The battery in it right now has a straight battery range of 37 or 38 miles. This is a hybrid though it has a four cylinder engine and a three fifty mile range with a full gas tank. So when we use it just around town, you know Michael uses it to get to school every day. And for that it's straight electric, you know it's five miles from our house to Ram and back again. And when we're running errands say going to Manchester Vernon or to Willamantic, know going shopping on the weekends, we're running pure electric because we're going to be running less than 30 miles round trip in a given day. So, you know, range isn't an issue.
A pure electric vehicle is going to have a bigger battery than a plug in hybrid and you know you're going to want to look at electric vehicles with hundreds of miles of range on the battery, not tens of miles like a hybrid. The point of a hybrid is that if I remember the statistics, something like 85% of car use in this country is less than 50 miles a day. So you can do the vast majority statistically, you know, if you are an average person on just battery. Now a municipal application is going to be something different. You're going to have to look at the specifics vehicle to vehicle and I think a reasoned approach to getting an electric vehicle or a hybrid would take a look at how we've been using this over the past several years, what the average trips are, how many trips per day, the distances and things like that. Question, Ken. Any other questions for Bob? Can I rebut that one?
No. Before before it's public speak. We'll we'll let it go. But, Bob, I I really do wanna tell you, there has to be a lot better programming on your television than, the CBC broadcast of the Board of Selecting Means from Andover, but thank you for watching. You're boosting our ratings. We appreciate it. Well, you know, I am a concerned citizen, so there we go. Thank you, Bob.
Alright. So I think we're good. We're at item 17, adjournment. Motion to adjourn.
Second. Jeff Murray got in on that one. Good job, Jeff. Alright. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Good night, all. Good night. Good night.