Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen
December 11, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Start the recording. I am gonna call to order the Board of Selectmen regular meeting for Monday, December 11. We're gonna start today at 07:01. Our first item on the agenda is 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. Okay. We're going to move on to item two, public speak. We're going to start with Kathy and Mike Palazzi.
Good evening, everyone. What do you want to say? No. I'm all set. Well, he does want to say something, but I have to say it for him. We wanna thank we wanna thank Eric very much, for the town message that he sent out. The seniors called me about that, and, you know, everyone appreciates hearing firsthand what what, is expected or what they might be happening in town. So, is greatly appreciated, I wanted to thank Eric for taking that extra special time to do that. Also, the second thing is, I want to say that it's just great to see the community building going up. It makes us, it makes the seniors, it makes me very happy. It's looking better every time I go by. So, you for all that. And I think that well, I do wanna tell you one thing, if I may, about the building. I would just wanna tell you that I'm I I don't know what the layout is when we walk in the building, but I hope that there's some type of a a lobby even if it's two feet. I just hope it's big enough that I have I purchased that for the library auction. I purchased a a table, and I came to find out that my new driver, Roland, he actually made the table, and I didn't even know we made it when I bought it. I knew that there was a signature on it, Pepe,
and I assumed that was someone in our town or someone in one of the towns. Well, I found out that it's actually my driver that did it. He came to the house, and he saw it, and he, I have it stored here in the house. And he said, oh, Kathy, I made that table. And I said, well, you know, I have plans for that table. That table is going to go to our new building, the community building, and it's gonna be in the lobby. It's a beautiful it's not too big. It's just a beautiful table. So in saying that, I was talking with, I think you all know the Ensigns, they've been here forever. I was speaking with Teo and she does beautiful needlepoint. And I said to her, you know, it would really be nice if we had a small, square, something, on top of the table. And she said, oh, I'd be very happy to do that for you. So she told me what she's making, gonna put it on the table. I said, my one thing is every time we put something nice out, somebody steals it. So I I was a little worried. What can we do?
So, she's she's always got great ideas. And she said, Kathy, you just put buy a piece of glass you put on top of the table. Nobody's gonna pick up the glass to take anything under it, so you you'll be safe. Well, then I was talking with a lady who lives next door to us, actually. She's called Tucson's Farm. I think you all know about her. And, she has beautiful flowers. Not right now, but during the spring and the summer and the fall. And she said to me, Kathy, when you do get all this building going and everybody gets on board, she's going to be bringing fresh flowers to put on top of this table to be on the center of this needlepoint every two weeks for us. So we're gonna have fresh flowers. I wanted to share it with you because, of course, I'm excited about it. It's it's wonderful. We have wonderful talented people in our town. There you go. Kathy, thank you. And
and Mike, thank you for your input. It's appreciated. Not a problem. Yeah. You're welcome. Alright. We'll move over. Daryl Stein. You're on mute. You're on mute. Darrell, you're on mute.
Mute. Sorry about that. Good evening, everyone. Okay, so this is the third meeting we're going to be discussing an unsafe drainage structure on town property. In the packet, there's a letter from the building official ordering the town to prepare the structure. State law prohibits unsafe structures and this is the reason for the order. Now I appreciate you, all you Board of Selectmen, you know, for your efforts as volunteers, but it's embarrassing the town ignored more than 10 complaints from me that led up to the order. Unfortunately, I think you all got bad advice. You asked your lawyer, he should have advised you to fix it in accordance with state law. Maybe the wrong question was asked, I'm not sure. But anyway, the reason why I'm here is the unsafe structure is adjacent to my driveway. It's a shared driveway and if it collapses, two houses will not be able to access the public roads. We'll lose access to our houses. It'll be an emergency situation. We need to address this repair before it gets to the point where it collapses, and hopefully this order from the building official will help address this. What concerns me is I got an email from the town administrator last week suggesting he cannot fix it. He says that there's a six or ten year backlog of drainage improvements that may take priority. This structure I'm an engineer, I'm a licensed engineer, this catch basin will not last five years, it may fail this spring, and to make things worse, I'm in the unfortunate situation where I have that crumbling concrete. On June 3, I'm going to have cement mixers, earthmoving trucks moving up this driveway very close to this catch basin. I mean, have a mission to get this fixed so no one gets hurt and so that the people,
the homes in this subdivision have access to the public road. So what Eric is suggesting is a traffic cone or some type of barricade instead of fixing it. That is not going to work. The catch basin is adjacent to the driveway if it collapses it's the catch basin, the barricade will not prevent it from collapsing. When it collapses, it's going to affect the driveway and I can't let that happen. The collapse zone is probably about six feet, the depth of the catch basin is four feet deep, the collapse zone is usually about 1.5 times it, so it may be as far away as six feet, so you'd have to put a barricade right in the middle of the driveway and you can't do that.
So that's what I said. Basically I'm fighting to assure that my house and the other house has access to the roads. You know we can't let this collapse and you know if you don't fix it in accordance with the order I will have to keep fighting this so thank you. Okay thank you. Let's move on Linda Fish. Nothing to say, just here to observe. Okay. Bill Penn.
Good evening. I'm here just to support the ongoing discussions and for the Joshua's Trust property on Skinner Hill Road, the Skinner Hill Preserve, and hope that work for establishing a trail there will continue, and to just attend the rest of the meeting. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. Hank?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'm here on behalf of the Conservation Commission to provide some advisory recommendations regarding the Joshua's Trust proposed trails under old business 9E. Don't know if you want me to talk about that now or save that for the discussion.
Why don't you save that for the discussion, and we'll get it. Alright. And John Hankins?
Yes. I'm the president of Joshua's Trust. I presented to this group last month and I'm here simply to answer questions that you might have when the Skinner Hill Preserve issue comes up. Okay.
Alright, thank you very much. I think I'm done. Is there anyone that I missed on public speak? I don't believe so. All right. We're gonna move on to item three, additions and deletions. Does anyone other than me have anything? I've got an addition. Sure. What do you got?
I'd like to add under new business, veils use of the Long Hill Memorial Field for the summer.
So field usage, this summer field usage, Vale soccer. Okay. I would actually like to add as short a potential executive session as we can make it. And I would like to move on item nine d, the Stein drainage issue into that executive session. And I would like to move 10 e, the discussion of lot line agreement with the King property into executive session. I'll second that.
Okay. So, I'm assuming you're also seconding the Yep. 10 h Right. For field. Exactly. All three.
No. That's not going into executive session. Only those two. So executive session. So we're gonna call that 01:15 a fifteen a executive session. And that is gonna be nine d and ten e.
Jeff, if I can make a suggestion, if you're gonna do that, put in a 15 b and just use a generic motion on action items. So if any decisions or discussions are made during executive session, you can make motions following that if you so choose.
K. So you're recommending that we make it 15 b.
And what do you want me to do? I would just call it motion on act motions on action items. Okay. So any so you can make a motion regarding something that you've discussed in executive session if you so choose.
Motion on action items. Okay. So 15C, motion on action items. Scott, will you also second that? Yes, I second that. Okay. So we have a motion on the floor to add 10 H, Summerfield usage Vale soccer, 15 B, an executive session, which will include items nine D on the current agenda, the Stein drainage issues, and a 10 E discussion of lot line agreement with the King property. And we're in additional to that. We're adding 15 C motion on action items. Any discussion?
I just want to add one item too as well. Sure. Go ahead. What do got? I just I didn't see I know we had a letter of interest for CIP, but I didn't see it in the packet under number nine for appointments.
Did we have that, Eric? Because I didn't see it in the package the packet either.
I'm not sure what you're talking about, to be honest with you. Sent out an email for appointment to CIP.
Okay. So Do you wanna discuss it now since we don't even have it, Jeff, or do you wanna wait till next month?
Doesn't matter. I just I just wanna bring it to your attention that that didn't make the packet today, tonight. Okay.
Well, since it didn't make the packet, let's move it to next month. And, Eric, if you can arrange to sit there and have that those letters if we've received any additional ones, that would be great. All those those in favor of the items to be added to the agenda and moved? All in favor? Aye. Okay. Five nothing, Eric. So let's get started. The treasurer's report. Finance department report, the revenue summary, and all the related items that were in our packet. Eric, I very good information. I appreciate this from my end. I do especially like the check register so we see what's up.
Understood.
Okay. In addition, I also like the revenue information that's fairly easy to read so we can actually see where we're at related to monies coming in, where we're at with ECS funding and the various grants. So I appreciate that as well. And, I'd like to call to everybody's attention the information the treasurer provided us as to the STIF account. The current balance in the STIF account is $3,200,000 or as of November 30, and we've already earned $33,000 off of the money that has been sitting around for years. And that's extremely positive. Help Yay. Pay for stuff. Exactly. Okay. Eric, any issues you wanna address with that report since you're instead for the treasurer? Anything any issues?
No. I mean, financially, we're doing pretty well as far as this year goes over. There's a few things that are over, but they're not material in the grand scoop of the budget.
Okay. Alright. Does anyone, any of the other members have any questions for Eric or anything they want to address with the treasurer's report? Nope. Alright. Thank you very much, Erica. It's greatly appreciated. Much better information Yeah. Moving forward. Okay. Board and commission presentations. We have we have to recognize Kathy Plazi and Paula. I don't know if you were or Eric were the ones that instituted this, but this is great. I'm assuming Eric.
Well, I would say I'm actually not the person that physically put Kathy in for this award, although I was very much in agreement with it. A number of us from town went to the CCM Awards Banquet and were there when Kathy was prevented or presented in front of all her peers from many towns throughout Connecticut. The Richard C. Lee Innovators Award, you know, for her many, many years of work in the town of Andover on senior issues. So it was, you know, it was well received. And, you know, as a town, we're proud that that Kathy received that award.
Okay. Kathy, on behalf of the board of Selectman, it is also well deserved. I mean, we do recognize all of the work that you do and and you and Mike both. And I know Mike's the silent partner, but I know that he he does help. And we greatly appreciate it. And you deserve that award, and the town is extremely lucky to have you. So thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Alright. K. Item six, appointments. I did not see any in the packet. None that I know of.
Okay. And I didn't see item seven, I didn't see any resignations?
Correct. Again, as far as I know, there have not been any.
Okay. We're doing good. Two for two. And now item eight, the town administrator's report.
Okay. I'm going to share my screen here in just a second, I think. Okay. Hopefully, you all are seeing that. I'm just gonna give you a quick one. I apologize for this not making it into the packet. The roof leak at the fire department has been addressed. We have replaced the flat roof at the fire department, and that work appears to be done satisfactorily. As far as the active request for proposals that are open, we have been making progress on the RFPs for the fire department and the down HVAC system. The committee met with the contractor we've mostly decided to hire. We did a walkthrough of both buildings, and everybody was in favor of proceeding. We did ask for some follow on information.
The contractor then subsequently brought the manufacturer's rep to the job site too, and we had a three way conversation with the manufacturer's rep about specific details of the contract. We have the proposal back, but what we don't have is we don't have the design sketch back. The contractor has said he will provide that within the next four or five days. So hopefully, we'll have a decision to make by the next board of selection meeting. At the same time, I have submitted the application to Planning and Zoning and Inland Wetlands for installation of the propane tanks. Those are going behind the fire department where the existing two tanks are. I did get approval from the Inland Wetlands Commission last at their last meeting. I expect to get approval, site plan approval, from the Zoning Commission at their next
meeting of the Zoning Commission, which should be on the nineteenth. So, with that, the public works will do the actual, you know, construction for the pad, and they will do the trenching up to the fence line where the contractor is working on the new community center, and the contractor for that will do the fence fencing or the the trenching for that the portion going to the the town hall since he has to trench for the waterline anyway. So to kind of save a little bit of money there. I still have two more. I have a couple proposals for the tank installation. I'm still awaiting two more. So hopefully, I'll have that relatively quickly. As soon as I have a full blown project instead of costs, I will send them to you because ultimately, I think you're gonna all wanna bless it before we go ahead with that. Those of you know, remember last month, you gave me permission to hire Barton Lejudas, is an engineering firm, to help develop the town center multiuse path. Subsequent to that, we've walked it with the contractor several times and had a number of meetings with other interested parties. And what we've decided is to pursue both
potential pathways, the pathway along Route 316, as well as the pathway through the woods using the existing town properties. And we chose to do that because they have different funding mechanisms anyway, and both grants are due roughly the same time, and they require a lot of the same information. So, there was no downside to us applying for both. There still will be a public information section about that project, probably in early to mid January to go over that. And the engineering firm is also reaching out to all the landowners that would be affected along Route 316 and potentially Cider Mill Road to start that discussion with them. Because what we don't want to do is get all the way to the end and then have a bunch of landowners really unhappy with us. So, we're starting the reach out to the, you know, anybody that might be affected by this now. Again, our goal is a LOTSIP submission, which is due February 21. So, which is a pretty tight deadline, but it looks like we'll probably make it. Secondarily, it looks like there'll be another round of rec trails grant funding from DEEP that will be some due sometime in March. So, the timing works out well with this firm to submit both grants.
And we have started to have preliminary conversations with DEEP and the committee that examines those, you know, as to what that grant would entail. The rec trails grant, what we would probably ask them for is trail design money, because they've lately what they've been doing is they haven't been willing to fund, you know, design builds. They've been willing to find fund in an initial grant round, a design process, and then when you come back to them with a fully fledged plan to fund construction. So that's what we're looking at for that part. I've not made any progress on the state local bridge application. I know I need to get back to that, but I'm a bit buried at the moment. Community center update. You've all seen there's been a reasonable amount of progress on the community center.
At the end of this, I'll give you quick synopsis of some of the decisions that have been made, that things weren't really fleshed out in the original architectural plans. We have not had a lot of response back for the assistant town clerk position that's open. We did get another applicant today, so I think we have a total of two people that have expressed interest in that job, which is kind of typical today. It's a tough market to hire employees. As we talk about the finance office, you know, it's pretty stark that with, you know, dollars 3,200,000 in the stiff account, we get $14,000 interest. And with $2,000,000 in M and T, you know, we get, like, $58 in interest. So the plan remains sustained to keep as much of our money in the STIF account as possible. We're currently getting between 56% interest. It does vary with time. We have had preliminary discussions with George City Savings Bank about moving potentially moving accounts to JCSB. There's some advantages and disadvantages to that. The major disadvantage being there's no close branch, but the advantage is a much more responsive bank than what we have now. We're also trying to set up a meeting with Key Bank, because that's another bank that has some local offices
that also has a fairly good municipal finance division. So, those are ongoing. When I have something back, I will let you know. We did get word that the new plow truck that we ordered last year is at the dealer, so we're still looking at two to three months full install time. So we probably are not going to have it for most of the plow season. But, you know, at least we'll have it for next. No real updates on either Bunker Hill or the Long Hill Road bridges. Fortunately, the flooding today did not overtop Bunker Hill Road. It was pretty close within six inches or so, but it didn't actually go over the road. You know, so that's that. The library wall, the damage has been fixed. We have submitted a preliminary claim to Kerma. Ron's Landscaping did repair that, and they were able to get the same stone or not stone, but the same paver units to replace the ones that were broken in the collision. So we have to pay that bill, and we're still looking to Kerma to recoup the, you know, the costs from car owner. But it looks like we should be able to fully return that. I did speak to the company that is building our senior transportation vehicle. They did finally get a chassis. So they will begin assembling it. They do have quite a bit of backlog, but they're still, they think they're still on track to deliver it in the first quarter of twenty twenty four,
which is really good news. Not a lot of progress on the 2022 STEEP grant. We're still waiting. I've poked SHPO a couple of times about responding. We gave them the preliminary documentation on the history of that the building, and they still haven't given us an actual review. And I'm waiting to make the the archival copies until such time as they've actually approved it, because I don't want to make it then have them make changes. Later in the meeting, you as a board should select the volunteers for the committee to oversee the phase two work at the Andover recreation facility on Long Hill Road. We do currently have an application before planning and zoning to do two things. One is a change in the right lighting regulations, which would allow a field location, both for a pickleball and a soccer, you know, for the soccer court. There was an initial public hearing on November 21 that was not very well attended. The public hearing has been held open until December 19. So, this is if we're going to like either the pickleball court or the soccer field, there will need to be some changes to our regulations. So, we still do not have a definitive answer from the trip grant, which is nuts, because the state, we had to submit the thing nine months ago,
but they just, for whatever reason, DOT has not made any decisions about which grants they're funding and which one they're owed. To remind you, that would be to reclaim and repave Hendy Road from Prime Ridge to Long Hill, and then Long Hill Road to Skinner, and then Skinner to Wheeling, and at the same time address a lot of, you know, really major drainage problems in that drainage basin. Still working at getting the rats out of the transfer station. That's coming along slowly. And I want to talk a little bit about the decisions for the community center, just to kind of let you all know. So one thing we had to do is we had to switch to an interior attic access. We had originally proposed to the contractor accessing through gable end vents. And so the contractor asked me to talk to the building official prior to them putting that in, because the contractor was pretty convinced under the current zoning regs that was not code compliant. So I checked with the building official. It did in fact turn out not to be code compliant in the latest code cycle. You're no longer allowed to have gable and vents in addition to and bridge venting. So we took that out and switched to interior access to the attic. We had the contractor build a walkway that's about 20 inches off the, what will be the ceiling of the 1st Floor. So when it's fully insulated, there will still be a pathway that you can walk essentially from one end of the building to the other without disturbing the insulation. And that ties into the interior attic access location. There will not be storage in the attic,
but there will be access for future maintenance. As far as exterior lighting, what we did was we asked that the electrician put in a central timer that runs essentially off an atomic clock so we can have the exterior lighting only run when you know, during evening hours. So they have they're going to do a central one as opposed to individual ones for each of the lights, which makes a lot of sense. We didn't want just a light sensor because given some of the other lighting that's out there and the floodlights, I didn't want it to stay tripped off. So we did we reworked a little bit what we're doing for the bathrooms. There will be a common switched fan light combination in the bathroom, but the bathroom with the shower will also have an additional humidistat. So it runs long enough to remove the humidity, is pretty important when you're using ductless splits as your heating and cooling source. We also switch most of the lighting in the building
just from standalone pucks to conventional can lights with essentially an LED, you know, LED light source that goes in it. Those will be variable Kelvin, so you can change the light temperature of the room. And we'll have to, once we start picking colors, wall covers, colors, we'll have to start figuring about what, you know, how blue or how red we want the lights in each of the rooms. We also worked hard to make sure that the lights in that main large room are, you know, fully dimmable and they're in multiple banks. So in other words, if you're using a television or a projector, you can shut off the central lights, keep just the wing lights on, and then dim them down so that it's fairly dark in the room. So we're trying to do it to give as much flexibility to the lighting scheme as possible. We all are also wiring that main room for a ceiling fan to be installed later. We did agree on a series of exterior electrical outlets. So we'll have power for the community gardens, power on patio area, and then a front electrical exterior electrical outlet just for convenience. Plumbing, there was something a little odd about the initial plans from the architect. He had specified a floor drain sink, which seems completely inappropriate in this building. There's no code reason it has to be specified. So we changed that to a conventional sink drain from a floor drain, just because I think that's a lot safer in wood frame construction. I also asked the plumber to do a rough in in the basement for future water cooler. The board really hasn't discussed what potential uses are for the basement,
but if we're ever going to do either some sort of physical therapy space or gym space, then I think having a water cooler in the basement would be important. So we pre plumbed for it. We're also going to put the gas line in and test that before we put the drywall in. That way, you know, when we install the kitchen range, the gas line is already run, and we don't have to disturb the drywall later. We're doing the same for the addition of a conduit that will go from where where the future generator location will be to where an automatic transfer switch will go in the basement. We don't have the funds to install the ATS right now, but we're putting the conduit in so we can just pull the wires through and connect it when we have the money in the future. So that's kind of it for what we've the choices we've made. Both Scott and myself have been, you know, meeting with the contractors and walking the building basically on a daily basis. And overall, I think construction is coming along reasonably well. You know, there have been a few things along the way, but as far as I know, we've caught all the important ones,
and it seems to be proceeding fairly well.
And that's basically it, unless you have questions about my Did we decide on where we're gonna put the water cooler upstairs?
Yeah. I don't know of any place we can put a water cooler upstairs.
Not a lot not along that wall in the hallway?
I don't think so. I don't there's not a clean way to install that. Yeah. And we have fairly tight clearances in the walkways. So, I mean, I don't think that's really doable at this point. I think we would have had to build it right into the structure, into the original design if we were gonna put it in there. The basement's a lot more open, so, you know, it's it's relatively easy to flush one into the basement, but it's pretty hard to flush one into the upstairs, I think, at this point. It is. Yeah.
It's like the corner of one of them rooms or in the hallway there. I don't know either, Eric. Anybody else have any questions for
I think I I have a quest where where is the chassis for, Kathy's new bus being built?
I can't tell you off the top of my head. I'll I'll dig out the the
email and get you the Like, in Detroit, or is it Connecticut? Or
It's something Collins Bus is the chassis manufacturer, but where they're located, I don't know. Probably Indiana or something like that. Not local. Yeah. When is the DEEP grant deadline?
Unclear yet because the DEEP grant, we know they're funded and DEEP rec trails has said they're going to put the grant out. They were actually originally going to put it out, you know, as of yesterday, but it didn't go out. So now they're talking about potentially pushing it back to January, and they usually have roughly sixty day turnarounds on those grants. So I'm assuming that one's going be due sometime in March, but I don't have a definitive on that. Any other questions? It is, we'll be ready to apply.
K. I like the concept of going after both types of trails. I thought that was a good Good idea. That you can. Yeah. Yep. Anybody else have any questions for Eric? No? Okay. We're gonna move on to, nine old business. Nine a, we've just discussed the community center. Does anyone have any issues they wanna raise about the potential uses of the basement level right now?
What what what are the potential uses? I think Eric came up with some good ideas, you know, therapy or, you know, gym. I mean, those are things that we're gonna have to come up with. We're gonna have to come up with uses for that building period. Some point, we're gonna have to add them to our, agenda, you know, as soon as possible, I would say, start talking about that.
Well, reason why I would like to have a quick discussion on that is that changes we make now are relatively painless. Once it's drywalled, the changes get a lot harder. And I'm just trying to think through what we're likely to do with that. So as much as possible, you know, we can make sure the infrastructure is in place to do it going forward. So that, you know, if anybody has specific things that they think is likely to be used for that space, let's talk about it if we can.
Well, Eric, I know I was down there on Saturday with you. Is it possible to get into the basement and see it? Sure. Would you like to see it?
Maybe the individual selectman can set set something up with you and get down there and look at it like the trails. I mean, it it's probably helpful for us to see what it what is down there and what it could be. Sure. You know, I like the idea of I I mean, I don't know if it's big enough to have a studio for, a yoga studio or or or those types of activities, but that's why I need to get down there and see it. Sure. Okay.
I I know that there's yoga on our calendar for the town all the time, and I know it's it's something positive, for the senior community. So that would be something that would be of interest for me, at least. Sure.
Yep. Yeah. Both that space and the space, the main assembly room, you know, would be quite amenable to yoga. You know, just it's just a question of flooring types. It's not carpeted, but other than that.
Well, I will decisions on that your timeline so we know as soon as possible.
Monday? No. I mean, you know, it's probably realistically, you know, we're probably three to four weeks out for to drywall max, and anything we're gonna do has to be done and in place by then, certainly. So, those decisions would certainly need to be made within about a week's time if there are changes you're envisioning. And some may not fit in the budget anyway, if there are things that are easy to accommodate, I'd rather get them in and done down. Well,
I mean, I don't know how everyone else looks at this, but I I look at it differently. I look at it as if you're going to sit there and say this could have this space could have this issue, we're not gonna build it today. We don't have the money in the budget to sit there and do it. It's going to have to be something that is planned for, has the right plumbing and electricity or any of the other mechanical issues in in set. And then we fundraise or take out of our budget for certain issues, to make other rooms in that building perform our functions. So I look at it, just get it set mechanically for it, then we move on. Right. Yeah. But I'll I'll try to be down there on Thursday. Okay. Friday, to meet with you.
Okay. Do you have a time in mind? What time?
Later in the afternoon. K. So let's say around 03:00.
So, Jeff, you could just say, excuse me, but I just wanna say that I'm having a Christmas lunch on Friday, and you are most welcome to come. Sure. Steak or shrimp?
Oh. I I don't know if you wanna spend that much money on me, Kathy. I I have a dime. I can afford it. It's going overboard.
Okay. So if the rest of the members want to take a look at it, please just get in touch with Eric and we could sit there and have an email conversation or talk on the phone as to what thoughts we have after we see it. Okay.
On nine b, discussion of blight and level of involvement. Eric, any updates? I don't really have any updates. Dennis O'Brien, has written the hearing officer's manual for the town. I just got that, I don't know, a day or two ago from Dennis, so I thank him for that. We will need to hold, use the citation, the hearing officer, for the issues at the Barnett property, because he did appeal the ruling against him. So that would be our test case for how we do that. That's really all I have on that at this point, unless you have other specific questions.
Anybody have any issues? Scott, Jeff? No? K. Nine c, the stiff account update. I think we went over that already. We talked about the amount of money that is in that account currently and the interest that the town is now earning from from that account, which is extremely positive. So that's good. Nine d has been moved to executive session. 9 e, the Joshua Trust sidewalk discussion. Jeff, I know you led you led the Saturday tour. So
Yeah. We met with, John and Hank, and, it was Paula and Cremay and myself. We just did a general walk of the area on the trails. I don't know what the other members' thoughts are. Maybe they could chime in first. Let me know what their, how they felt about the trail and the walk.
I guess I'll chime in first. It was it was good to get out there and have a visual because I know Jeff's been out there a couple times, so it was good to see where the the concerns were with with water levels. So that was, I know that was a topic that we kind of talked about. And I know that it was, I think they did a good job of kind of moving the lines also to make sure that everything was in a path that was accessible. So that was just my thoughts. I'm, it was good to get out there and just kind of have some, some ideas. My thoughts were, and we, we might talk about this later. Getting the dumpster in there is gonna be a challenge. Jeff had a suggestion about, maybe not getting it into the trail, but getting a vehicle up and down. He could probably explain that a little better because I, I couldn't really visualize how we would get the dumpster in there if we go that route and we move forward with this because it's, it's kind of tight in there and it's steep. Just my thoughts.
I thought the trail looks like a great idea And the way he's arranged the the trail into the shape now, it I think it's very doable. It would be an interesting trail for people to take. And it sounds like he's got the help to clean up a lot of the stuff down near the bottom of the hill there. Overall, think it would be, it's a great idea.
I'll sit there and Scott and I walked it on Scott was the tour guide on Sunday. So Scott and I walked it in the rain. My first impression of it was that it would be an extremely nice trail to go out there and walk. It would be a nice trail to tell our community to take their dogs for walks there as opposed to the field because of all the leaves there. So I thought it was very nice for that. But the only issue that was addressed was there's two stream crossings, and there was the second stream crossing where the flags were Scott outlined an upper space on the small stream that would be a better crossing area than the one that was a little lower because there was a little bit wider area and more expansive. And that was it. From my standpoint, it was a it was it was not pouring rain, but it was a nice walk and it wasn't too wet, to be really honest. They're just the two stream crossings that were problematic. Right.
I think he told us on Saturday that they may have changed the idea a little bit since the original plan, and they're gonna have one crossing and have both directions cross at the same point. It was in like the better point to cross. And I was talking to him about how they're going to prepare the trail, and it sounded like it would be really good. I mean, they're not going to come in with bulldozers and clear things out. They're just going to clear the logs, clear the branches, come through and blow leaves off so that you can see where the trail is supposed to be and then have it all blazed on the trees. So I thought it was a really good plan. Sounds like I'll make a nice trail.
And this is John Hankins, if I could chime in. Just to confirm what Anne just said, we've changed the design to be just a single trail crossing and you use the same crossing crossing in either direction. And that was to address the concern Scott raised, which is that lower crossing was problematic. So you're gonna have one crossing on two streams?
Yeah. The stream where we cross it has two channels. So a single trail will go across both channels on the way out and on the way back.
I'm confused because I thought that trail, the way that we walked it, was a looped trail, and it only went over the streams. You can go one direction or the other direction. I don't care, but you're going over two streams. So how are you doing it?
Yeah. The trail as we've laid it out is actually is actually two loops. It's tough to explain it without a diagram, but there is one loop that's south of the stream and one loop that's north of the stream, and there is a common trail that connects both loops that goes across the stream once.
Okay. But you are still you're picking one designated area to cross both of those streams? Correct. Okay. So what you're saying is it's not gonna go into a zigzag pattern. You're just gonna pick a pick an area and you're gonna cross both the streams. Okay. I'll share a picture. Well,
when The same thing is if you're gonna be cross you know, it doesn't matter. You're gonna you're gonna pick a spot and cross both streams. But once the stream that you had marked in one spot, you're gonna have to remark that and show everybody what you're talking about, because you can't, place that you picked, you picked, you picked that was to the, I would say it was to the north. I I moved it upstream a little bit, the better grade on both sides, was much rockier, a much more stable area to cross, you know, repeatedly. You're gonna have to So, show show me where that is. I'll go up there and look at it with you. And the confusion may be
that there's two types of tape out there. The trail is pink tape, but our survey boundary crew has also marked the boundaries in orange. So it wouldn't be hard if you didn't have a tour guide, it would not be hard to get off to to get confused by that.
I had I had my hunter, my woodsman as the guide. We didn't really get lost, but we do I do understand your streams, and I would tell you that now there's some orange tape around four trees right near the stream that Scott was was referring to that you should look at. So, from a from a all of these are just issues to be addressed and to be revised. If we approve it, mean, and I think the first step is to the letter that was in our packet that Joshua's trust, I believe, has put together to sit there and send to the the abutting property owners. Eric, have you reviewed that and approved that? Because that should go out as soon as possible if we want to talk about this and get this approved moving into the spring.
So I concur, and I'm okay with the letter as drafted. Several members of the board asked us not to put that out until after you had a chance to discuss that at this board meeting. So, that's what we did. Then the question becomes, who all do you want to send it to? I put out a list of basically all the abutters on all the Joshua's Trust property, as well as all of the town property. A lot of them are not that close to the trail. But if you want to get the widest amount of feedback possible, that would be the list. If you want a more truncated, just the ones that would physically be affected by the trail, we can put that out too.
My opinion is send it to everybody. It's not gonna impact us negatively. I mean, and and to be really honest, there's not from where we walked it, the closest resident is on the beginning of the trail coming off of Skinner, the house to the left. That at least was my my take. There's some other houses that were were further away. There there so there's one, and and listen, I I the one thing I would probably stress in the letter is how many cars are going to be available to be parked in this parking space, the parking spaces that are gonna get built? A max of four, three, two, what is, what is the, the take?
And we we've not we've not really worked that out with the town yet, but a typical Joshua's Trust parking lot is four to six cars.
Okay. So four to six cars gives you maybe, let's say four cars gives you eight people out in the trail, maximum four to eight. Okay. I think the letter is probably the first first thing. We get our feedback from the residents, communicate with the residents that, have issues with it and decide what we wanna do after that.
So so you wanna do the letter before the financials? Just go over the financials first? How much it's gonna cost the town?
I mean, how much physical I mean, what we're being asked for, if I understood this correctly, is assistance with removal, a dumpster, and then some public works assistance on the parking lot. Is that accurate? Yep.
Correct. Eric had a couple of options that we were reviewing just to see if we wanted to use the public works labor and just build Joshua's Trust directly for our labor to to construct the parking lot. And then also to help with the removal of some of the materials. K. I think I sent a couple I sent a couple questions to to Eric to ask Dennis. I don't know when we can address those, but we should probably get an answer on those. And I had asked Eric to to ask John if there was a a light property that they had that and to to anticipate what the predicted use would probably be, like, you know, users per day. Because I think a lot of the abutting landowners are gonna wanna know how many people are gonna be out there in a particular week, so to speak. Right. We should expect.
Yeah. So in answer to that question, obviously, it's hard to know how the town of Andover will, you know, embrace this, but we usually see there's usually, we try to make a little bit of a splash when we open a place so that the residents know that it's there. But once this is up and running, depending on the season, typically see maybe between four and ten people a day, maybe, that would be on the high side. Many of our preserves see five to 10 people a week. So it's not heavy use as a rule.
Yeah, and I just had a couple of questions about how we do an agreement if we had to do a memorandum of understanding and then how we would handle the liability of the two properties and the cleanup and and just to make sure that the town is properly covered. If we have volunteers working in there, removing sheet metal and other, you know, potentially sharp objects from the area?
Sure. I don't have that answer for you at this point. I mean, I think that will take a conversation with Karma, because we haven't really contemplated something like that, exactly like that. But I mean, Kerma covers existing town, you know, volunteers clearing things. So, I don't think it's going to be a problem, but I will get you a definitive answer for Kerma. It just they're not fast. So, I could probably have that to you by the next meeting, maybe. But we'll certainly ask.
And Jeff, the maintenance and the pickup of trash and whatnot, we don't have a big problem on our properties, but every Joshua's Trust property where there's a trail has a steward. And in the case of this property, that steward has already been identified as Bill Penn. He's on the phone, he's on this call and he is a Andover resident and a member of Joshua's Trust. So he will be the steward and he'll be out there, You know, most weeks, he'll he'll be out on the trail.
I just have one final question is, you know, the town itself, we you know, the school property in the back, we allow bicycles, equestrians, hikers, runners. This is a little bit more restrictive use where it's walking only. Since most of this trail is on town property, we may have to do something with our regulations to restrict the use, to footpath only, or talk to Joshua's Trust and maybe see if they can we can reach a compromise on that and see if we can open it up to maybe some more users. That's that's one potential conflict I see down the road. So
And what users would you envision being appropriate on that area?
I mean, there may be somebody with a horse or an equestrian nearby that may wanna go and take their horse out on the trail. I mean, typically, they're not allowed on Joshua's Trust property, but if they can maybe possibly look at an exception to that rule for this property, since it is combined on town and Joshua's Trust property. I'd just like to examine that avenue if we can.
We would have to think carefully about the soil conditions on that site. Because I think others have mentioned that this is a, the soils in this area, we didn't get our feet wet certainly when we walked, but it's not gravel soil. So lot of horse traffic would definitely churn it up. Understood.
If I could this is Hank from the Conservation Commission. We would also want to weigh in on other proposed uses because of similar concerns to what John just mentioned, especially as the trail is in the proximity to the wetlands there, where the stream crossings are, but also where it is in the upland, but in close proximity to that main wetland system that you might have seen if you went in on off of Skinner Long Hill Road going that that direction toward Wheeling, that that large wetland complex that was on the right.
Yeah. But the trail the trail you designed is pretty much on dry land, and, you know, we we do we have we had we do have some wet areas behind the school, and we do have mountain bikes, and and we do I've seen a horse down there once on the trail, so there is multi users on those trails, the town property behind the school. So I'm just throwing it out there so everybody's aware that that could become a Let's,
Dennis, if you can sit there and and look at what it would be required to make it pedestrian only, at least that would be helpful to come back to us so we know we have an option if we choose to. And then I would ask the Joshua Trust folks, on Jeff's point before about a memorandum of understanding or liability waiver for volunteers, do you have anything else in place with other communities where you have properties?
We have not so we do have trails that go between town land and Joshua's Trust land. This one goes back and forth so much, would be hard to you know, a user's not even gonna know. It goes back and forth and back and forth between the two. We don't have a situation quite like this out there where it's so integrated like this. So we'd have to think about that.
Well, probably more oriented, at least from my standpoint, more oriented toward, have you done cleanups like this before? Oh, certainly, yes.
And at those cleanups, did you have anything in place with the town related to the cleanup specifically?
The one example I can think of was we did one with the town of Coventry and it was very much like this. It was a bunch of auto debris and the town supplied the dumpster. We got a bunch of college students as part of their community service program, and they hauled all this car junk and threw it in the dumpster, and then the town took it away. The dumpster and the disposal of the material was paid for by the town, and we provide the volunteer labor.
Okay, and what do you put in place for all the volunteers?
As far as liability protection and so on? Don't know, Joshua's Trust has certainly insurance policies that relate to volunteers, but I would have to check on that for you. Okay.
And then Dennis, if you could also think about that from our perspective as to make sure that the town if we move forward, the town is covered related to, you know, volunteers and and just, you know, we don't wanna see anyone get injured, but if they get injured, we wanna know what our exposure is related to that. So. Yes. Yes.
I can do that. Thank you. Does anyone else have any other questions related to the trail or concerns that we need to address in open session?
Just a quick comment that a big section of that, once you go down that cliff, that nice looking cliff goes down to that wetlands complex at the bottom of the hill that Frank was mentioning. Soon you got to the bottom of the hill, it's all wetland soils right there. Horses would not be able to use, you know, two or 300 yards of that area. Goes down right into wetland soils at the bottom of the hill. And then the crossings, the horses wouldn't be able to cross anywhere near there, because there's at least a 100 yards of wetlands right there too.
And I wanna ensure as a board that we have the authority to restrict the access. You know, that we don't have somebody just deciding they wanna go on there and we have no legal recourse to stop them. Right. That's all I wanted to kinda make clear. Okay.
Alright. That's that's good. We'll sit there and get that addressed. Anybody have any other issues, or can we move on? Alright. That was a nice trail, though.
Very nice. Even in the you moved everything away from the top where it was wet by the development. It was a it was a good that was a good idea to do that and shorten the trail a little bit.
Even in the rain, it was nice. I mean, the only thing the only thing that I would do is I would, there were some, rock outcrops at the top on the the left side up on the hill that, I think the trail was supposed to go around that. I thought it should. But Eric and, Scott and I were just eyeing the pink ribbons, trying to make sure that we got where we were supposed to. Yeah. I think the spot you're talking about, I also wanted to include, but it got
a little close to a house. So if on Skinner Hill Road. So if those if the folks there were amenable to that, we would be open to it.
Mhmm. They're looking right down in their backyard if we go up over that rock. So it's kind of a it's not, it's pretty close to the neighbors. Okay.
So I would, I'd like to thank everybody for your consideration of the project and I will send out with Eric's okay and signature, I will send that letter out tomorrow to the abutters. And those responses will come back through your administrative assistant, I think, Eric. Right? Correct.
And also, John, I would like to see where you are crossing those two streams.
Happy happy to if you reach out to Eric, he can put you in touch with me, and I can take you out there.
K. Thank you. One question. Is there gonna be a point of contact on this letter? If anybody has any questions, can they reach out to John or somebody about the trail or the proposal?
What's your pleasure? Mean, I could have people reach out to me if you like the letter to do that. I'd be happy to field questions, but I don't know how you want to handle it.
They're going to, Jeff. The email is going to the administrative assistant.
Right. So my assumption was that we would collate any questions and present them to John and Joshua's trust prior to the next meeting so that he has a chance to address those comments directly. And if anybody wants to get in touch with him directly, I would certainly put him in touch with Joshua's trust. Okay. It's more just a question of what's your comfort zone. Do you want Joshua's trust handling that discussion or do you want that that discussion funneled through myself and the board? I I would think through you and your assistant. It has to be funneled through the town. Yeah. And if
there are issues that a resident has that John and Joshua's trust group can assist in answering, we'll have them answer it. If there's things that we need to answer, we'll answer. I mean, I guess the biggest issue is if you have a resident who wants to sit there and go and walk the property, we should probably figure out the responses and then determine if we go out and do another walk with the residents.
Well, in January, I don't wanna have it. So, you know, we have a resident came and comes to the meeting and says, you know, how close does this come to my property? If that abutter that's close to the downhill section comes in with a question and says, you know, how close is this trail to my house? You know, so we could go out and say, hey, this trail is going to go down through here. This is how far we're going to be away from your residents. So we get those questions kind of out of the way before the next meeting. Sure.
So if you have any of those type of questions, I'd like to try to address those before the next meeting.
Okay. From for all the the Joshua folks, trust folks, thank you very much for your time. And, you know, hopefully, can we can bring this to fruition if everything goes well. So thank you, though. Right. Thanks, everybody. Yep. Thank you, John. Thank you, Bill. So we're going to move on to item nine F, budget for fuel and heating oil, and item two priorities.
So, Eric, go ahead. Okay. So on fuel and heating oil, at the last meeting, I had asked that if we could secure diesel, because from the town's perspective, diesel is our our big fuel usage, not heating oil. If we could get it at $2.90 a gallon or lower and get a, you know, a full lock in for next year, then I would execute the contract. We did get that last week. It finally dropped enough, so we were able to get it right at $2.90 a gallon. It's been a little weird year because the futures market is actually more expensive than essentially the current cost wholesale market. So the conditions are a little inverted, which is unusual. But anyway, we did get it at $2.90. And to put it in historic perspective, that's less than we paid in 2011. So there's definitely been years we paid less than that, but there's been quite a few years where we paid more than that. So I think we have that assurance. I did lock in for 16,500 gallons of diesel total. Our usage in the last year was about 15,500, but the last two cycles, we've been ending the year with essentially
bone dry tanks, in some years having to put in 300 or 400 gallons just to get us to the end of the year. So what I'm trying to do is rebuild our allotment in the tanks so we finish the fiscal year off with about a half a tank of diesel, just so that we're not struggling in case there is a big spike in costs at the end of the year, which has happened to us a couple of times. So, that's basically all I wanted to say on fuel and heating oil. Fortunately, that is, we got that locked in as, you know, a reasonable price. So that's all I wanted to say about that portion.
Any priorities that you want to discuss with us at this meeting? So,
you know, obviously with the advent of the community center, we're going to need a staff person for that building. And we're also going to need to build in all the soft costs, which are basically annual maintenance, the cleaning of the building, and then all the utility costs. So I guess my question for you is that, is the board because because I'd like to get the feedback from the board as soon as possible in the budget cycle. Are there major things you as a board want to take on in terms of initiatives that we need to be baking into the budget early on? Are there priorities or things that you want to do as a board that we're not doing now and not currently budgeting for? That's my question, you know, kinda globally at the board. So if there are, we can start researching and and putting numbers together for that.
Well I think you're right that we do need some sort of a person to oversee that building now. Somebody in there, some staff.
Yeah. This is what we tried doing last year by putting that $10,000 in there for a coordinator. That would have been a good start. Yeah. I was hoping that we would got that seed money last year to get, you know, somebody on onboarded and, you know, bring them up to speed when the community center's done, but looks like we're behind by a year. So you may wanna baby step this a little bit and start out with a a step in type arrangement and move from there instead of a full time person.
That's why I think we go full time, Jeff. Come on. We we get we get a person that's in in charge of all of the recreation and the senior activity
and assist in that whole function, and and we we do it right. Yeah. I just disagree. I think it's a part time job at this point. If we can make it a justification for full time, then we can do that. But I think right now we could probably do that with twenty hours a week, to be honest.
Well, I I think, Eric, I think that your ideas you should put on paper, all, all the ideas you have, and then, come back and tell us what you think could be done and what you think should be done with that space now. I think that the ideas that we've talked about are really good.
I don't think it's just that space though. I think that space is a vehicle for us to sit there and add a staff person that can assist in all of the activities on all fields and all of the trails for the town. And incorporate what you wanted last year, Jeff, into it.
Yeah. I agree. But last year that got shot down, so I think if we go with a full time person this year, I think it's gonna be a stretch.
Well, it it has to be now. We have a we have a building we have to maintain and
Ma, let's stretch a little bit. But If it I mean, if it's one of person,
how you can have the building open. You can't have it open with nobody to watch over it. Right? I think we're all in agreement that we want to have somebody in there.
But I'm kind of siding with Jeff Maguire. It's kind of like when you're buying a house, go big and then see where it goes from there.
Right? Well, we can also have, I mean, we can also have that position attempt to pay for itself by running programs that we can, we can charge for. I mean, I don't know if you know this, but Scott Person would pay for people to play pickleball against and be in a pickleball league. So I'm just telling you that if we can do that, maybe with Cornhole, or we can do that with, you know, other programs and pay, make money off of some of the resources that we have or establish leagues that people would participate in, because I think those would all be great community building activities. So that that's just my mind. I mean Right. If we do this, we should engage the recreation commission because they're handling a lot of those duties now. 100%.
100%, Jeff. That's that's what we're talking about. Yeah. Then we're gonna have to have that discussion if somebody wants to have a birthday party or, you know, anniversary party or something at the community Exactly. Are gonna for that use? You know, require deposit?
We have to we have to make a decision. We're we're gonna we're going to charge for that use. Yep. Right? We have to figure out all those fees and We're gonna have get just just the right forward thinking person that's thinking along the same lines as us.
Yeah. I mean, we have to. I mean, that's why, you know, we talked about other things, you know, at the building and if we have if it, know, the kitchen can be finalized and become a commercial kitchen, there's opportunities there for funding sources, and there's just things that we have to think about. I mean, and it won't be easy and it'll be, you know, be smooth right off the bat, but the town has been in need of a person to run the activities because Carol Lee does a great job of assisting from the rec commission standpoint, but it would be extremely beneficial if we had someone that was focused on youth activities and senior activities and and middle aged activities. I mean, because it would be great if we, you know, especially if we build the pickleball courts and, you know, you have an offshoot of a cornhole area right near where the lights are for the pickleball court, it would be great to sit there and have a, you know, a cornhole league or a cornhole tournament. Something that just brings us more together because Mhmm. You know, I know when my kids were growing up, it was you know, he he met most of the people through athletics. So he'd go to school activities, and then you go to sports, and that's where he met people. You know, Scott would like to play softball,
so. Exactly. Hebron has a half 1,000,000, more than a half $1,000,000 record budget. They have a guy that takes care of all these things, all the different sports ish, you know, issues and all kinds In of
their defense, Hebron's a much bigger town. I think we, I, you know, I would say we do baby steps at this point and try to start with a part time. And then if there's justification, we move it to full time. Just my suggestion.
Maybe what I will do is I'll come back with a list of the tasks. I think it's reasonable to assign somebody to be the, like a community programming director in the types of, you know, a list of the programming and the job responsibilities. And then we can, then you can make a decision as to, you know, how much you want to staff it and what you think is appropriate for that. I can certainly bring that back to you at the next meeting as one of the early, you know, discussion topics.
Just from the board perspective, are we all in alignment that the priorities need to be centered around the the community center and how we we we make the most use of that facility and and the best use of that facility? Like, that's our priority for the next budget cycle. Mhmm. Yes. Definitely. Yep. There you go, Eric. So Yeah. You're
good. Yeah. We should probably make sure we engage Carol on that that list as well. Kitchen, The whole thing. K. K.
The one other thing that I've been rolling around in my head for a while is, and I have had conversations with my old admin assistant, who's now the tax collector, about potentially keeping her on in a combined role that incorporates both the tax collector responsibilities and the what she's been doing so far in terms of website communications and a little bit as my admin assistant. When I really look at it, what I need most is help at project management. And I say that because we have an enormous amount of grant money that we've already, you know, been promised grants we've already got, you know, and we're really struggling to execute the projects,
because a lot of that comes down to me managing them directly. So, I think instead of wanting, you know, a traditional replacement for an admin assistant, what I would really want is somebody part time, you know, to be able to hand off some of the projects to, you know, as a project manager. So, that's been the only thing that's been kind of in terms of personnel changes that I've been contemplating, and that I would like to bring back to the board would be a proposal to do just that, come up with an arrangement that works for Kate so she can do both jobs. Because I think with some limitations, obviously, you know, in July would be a tough month for her to do a lot as my admin assistant, because that's the worst tax collection month. But in a lot of months, she's got the time to do it. So that's what I would like to bring back to the board, but I would just like to get a little initial feedback from you on whether that's something you'll even consider before I come back to you with a kind of like a proposal for that.
Well, to me, to come back come back with a proposal, but I would ask you if Ed Serrisli is available. Just asking.
This would just be an overhead based in the budget? Do we don't have any project manager budget built into any of these projects?
We generally don't. No. Because in the past, I've essentially been doing that as part of the budget. But the problem is, is that that just takes too much time away. And it's not that I can't do it. It's the rate at which we execute these grants slows way down when I do that plus, all the being the town administrator tasks
in addition to that. Let's ask the question a little differently. Can we fund that position out of the grant money?
So it depends. Some grants you can write in for administration or part of the cost of administration can be the town's match. A lot of the grants you can't. So, that answer really depends totally on, it's different between DEEP and DOT. It's very different from grant to grant. So, on some, we can start building in project administration and others, not so much.
Well, bring us your proposal and tell us which grants we can utilize some funding for that position.
I mean There's no grant that I have right now that I know that we can shift administrative costs and pay for that position out. So what I would pay for that position out of is just simply not rehire an admin assistant, and essentially hire somebody for less total hours, but to be the project manager. So I'm essentially shifting, you know, the focus of my assistant essentially going for a different skill set.
Which I'm personally okay with. But I do think it's a good opportunity for you to find out if we apply for all of these grants and there's an opportunity to sit there and take some administrative funding out of those grants, you can put a person in a position to sit there and execute, and you can go out and get more grants and more grants and more grants and execute as much as possible. So, I'd like to know that as an alternative funding source, if I'm gonna say that to you. But I have no problem with you shifting some of the administrative functions to the tax collector and then having a project manager to assist you with the projects. Right. You'd be valued. Sounds like a good idea.
Yeah. Is this somebody we'd contract with and just pay with a $10.99, or is it just somebody we could benefits to, or it'd be a town employee?
Presumably, this would be a ten ninety nine. Okay. You know, operation. And in truth, it's not going to be an easy position to find, to fill somebody that's competent as being a project manager that's willing to do it. I mean, I have some ideas, but, you know, I don't know whether it's something that's possible at this point.
Yeah. Alright. Well, let's look at that. Any other questions related to nine f, the budget issues?
Not unless there are any priorities that I'm not thinking about that you guys are that you want me to address.
No. I think we addressed it. Okay. Let's move on to 10, new business and discuss and act upon the following. Item a, the appointment of the town administrator for additional roles and responsibilities. In our packet, there is a memo to appoint Eric to Capital Region Council of Governments Policy Board, Capital Region Council of Government Transportation Committee, Capital Region Council of Government Bike Pedestrian Committee, the Eastern Highlands Health District Policy Board, the Hop River Trail Alliance Board of Directors, and the Mid Northeast Recycling Operating Committee Board of Directors. Additionally, the town of administrator serves in the following roles, the Andover Emergency Management Director, the Andover Local Traffic Authority designee. So moved. What else do you do, Eric? Yeah. Well,
I guess I'm on the No. No. No. No. We're not gonna we're not gonna do it. We're not gonna do Those are the big ones. That's okay. Does
anybody have a problem with appointing Eric to any of those positions as a representative and designee of the town of Andover? Anybody? No? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Alright. We'll get those we'll get that signed, Eric. Okay.
So, and for the record, as far as the local traffic authority designee, I have taken my initial sixteen hours of training to qualify myself under state law as the local traffic authority. So by you making me the designee, that means you, who are technically by charter, the local traffic authority acting as a board, by having a designee, you satisfy that state requirement, and therefore, you can make traffic decisions, you know, as long as I don't have to you. But I just have to be present for the discussion.
So And then So we personally don't need to take the test on the local traffic authority? Correct.
You have no you're not required to take it. By having a designee, you get yourself out of annual training as the local traffic authority. There you go. Okay. That's a positive.
Now I will ask you one thing on the information in the packet. The Windsor info was included in there for?
I said that because you've asked a bunch of questions in the past about ways to solve traffic issues, and that was one of the best town level guides that I saw from another town about how they dealt with those issues. So, it was just FYI information for you, if this comes up again, to think about some of the different ways, you know, and what a town's formal strategy for traffic mitigation and traffic calming could be if we chose something like that. And I'm not advocating that because I would have to write it, and I don't have the time to write it anyway, if I I'm being
thought it was interesting to sit there and see solutions that they're using. Now they they have a much greater commercial district and and the rest of the stuff. But, you know, walking in the lake area, I was thinking about this, know, because I'm I'm getting older. And as I get older when I walk, I get more crotchety because people don't like to go across the yellow line in a car. And, you know, I know the bikers on this call understand what I'm talking about. And I get rather angry now at the people that decide that they have to go 40 or 50 miles an hour and they have to stay on their side of the yellow line while I'm walking my dog. It doesn't make me really happy. So the traffic mitigation strategies,
I think, would be great. Some of them. But I think what we should do, I should wear my GoPro, and I should just put up on every meeting the person who got it the closest to me without audio, and, we'd be good. So but I thought that was interesting, Eric. So I just wanna let you know that I looked at it. This is a question, Jeff. Are you wearing your yellow safety vest, your high school vest? Jeff, you know, I'll have to take a picture of my doggy and his his glow in the the the night, at 04:00 in the afternoon collar.
So yes. Just checking. Just checking. Yes. Good. And you got a flashing blinker. Right? You got a blinker light? So Yeah. Are you are you suggesting some roundabouts over the lake?
Oh, I I I would tell you, I would I would think not only for, traffic purposes, but aesthetics, I would think the
Lakeside And Lake Road Intersection where you have those two stop signs that everybody runs. I mean, they run them. I would put a roundabout there. You know? It would slow people down a little bit, but it's not really you know, it's something I would like to see. I think aesthetically, I think it would look great there, but, no one stops. Well, I shouldn't say that. There's people that stop at that stop sign, but there are a lot of people that don't.
It's the same thing that it's the same thing with Endy and Longhill. Trust me. Just The 54. It's 5050. 5050.
So And and I do believe those are both appropriate for a roundabout. And if you as a board wanted to consider it, we certainly could work out with public works a demonstration project, you know, and do one with temporary materials and just try it out and see how it works for everybody and get feedback for a couple months before we consider a permanent change. But yeah, I think those are all things that are worth considering. I would like You know, I think the other one is the intersection of where Cone and Juravadi, you know, intersect. That's the same one. We consistently have people blowing that stop sign and stealing the stop sign. So if we put a roundabout in, you won't have any more stop signs for them to steal. So if nothing else, it'd be a little cheaper for the town
than to keep replacing the sign all the time. Well, if we pay if we pay him Hindi, it might be a good opportunity. Correct? So I think that might be the first one we hit because there's I mean, half the people don't even stop for that sign. They just go right through it.
I I would have to tell you, the, you know, since I just drove it yesterday, the road, the Long Hill Road, you did a nice job on that road, Eric. You really did. That road is much better than it was in the past. So but, yes, we should think about those things, and especially if we can get grants for it, Eric, it would be phenomenal to to put those those three roundabouts, you know, would be positive in those three locations. I think they would be they would be aesthetically you know, they're blowing the the the signs anyway, and it would be positive to have a barrier and make it aesthetically pleasing as well. So Sure. I don't know if you guys did you see the, the traffic light sign up, in the Brown property? Yes.
I was if I had Jeff, I'm sitting there when Scott pointed it out, I was like, they stole the one traffic light sign that the town of Andover had and brought it up there. Come on. Did we even have a traffic light fifteen years ago, twenty years ago?
I don't even know where that came from. I think they stole it from another town and drug it up there to probably shoot into. Who knows?
Okay. Yeah. No. I'm not actually sure what you're talking about.
On the town property, the Skinner Hill, for the the the trails we walked the other day, there was a sign rogue traffic sign in the woods propped up for signal ahead. Yeah. We have no idea where it came from, but it's just right on the middle of the woods. So figure that one out. Well, I will tell you in full disclosure,
several years ago, I went and visited my Canadian relatives, only to find in my uncle's garage a Skinner Hill Road sign that he must have pilfered from Andover many years ago. I'm like, come on. Really? He's like, yeah. We've had it a long time. I'm like, a likely story. But there's no extradition treaty with Hamilton, Ontario, so we're out of luck. At least I can, I can live with it? It wasn't your doing.
You didn't just, like, confess to a crime, you know. I did not. No. I appreciate that. Okay. Let's, move on to 10b, the tree removal at the Andover Volunteer Fire Department. That was in our package with a picture. Eric, why does the fire department want it gone? So
the fire department wants it gone because that tree is an oak tree that holds its leaves very late. And they constantly every time they open the front door of the fire department, they get leaves blowing in the building, and they get very ornery about it. You know, plus there, we've been yelling at them because their contractor keeps blowing all the leaves in the ditch behind the fire department that the town took great effort to clean out the drainage structures and they seemed to fill it back up with leaves. And so the fire commission said, well, you know, if you take care of the tree, that will solve the problem. So they've requested that that tree be removed. The tree warden basically said, look, this is a perfectly live trees and it's on town property. So he doesn't feel like he has the authority to just remove it. So he recommended that I bring it to the board of selectmen to make a decision as to whether the tree should be removed or not. Is it an oak tree? It is an oak tree. That's that explains it.
Does anyone have a problem with the fire the the fire department's request?
Can we replace it with another tree? Something that the leaves fall off earlier, like a maple or something? You know? Just I mean, it's I think the tree kinda adds a little bit of character to the area. It's just I mean, it's gonna be pretty barren with that tree gone.
Perfectly healthy tree too. Wouldn't have looked at it. Nice I
I will say on the record that I'm not particularly in favor of removing this tree, but the fire commission is, so therefore it's brought to your attention. You know, I get it. It does make a mess of the bays. There's no question about that. But
And we're probably getting leaves from across the street still blowing across getting in the bays too just as well. I mean, I get them in my garage all the time. It's just the way the wind blows. So it might not even be from that tree, so we may be cutting down a tree that's getting blamed for dropping leaves for no reason. That was just minding its own business. Yeah. It was just minding its own business just sitting there growing in the grass, you know, and just, you know, playing for no no reason.
Anybody wanna make that motion to cut down the tree? Because I don't. Scott, what are your thoughts? You think it should stay?
I told you what my thoughts were. Okay. But I also feel that the vo our fire department does a lot for us if they want us to cut the tree down. I, you know, who might it say? It's a beautiful tree. Peace. Thanks. I get leaves in my garage every,
you know, the fall. No. It's just it's just New England. You're gonna have to I mean, it's just the way it is. Don't they have garage doors on both sides? Let them blow out the other side. I mean, what are we talking, a couple months that they're having this problem? It's not like it's a year round problem, it's a disease tree.
Like I said, I promised them I would bring it to your attention, and I have. Paula, what's your decision?
I don't like to impact the environment if we don't have to. I'm one of those people. But I do feel, I understand what you're saying, Scott, with, I love our fire department and I love our people that help us out in town. So can we, can we think about this for next month? Do we have to decide right now?
Yeah. The leads are gone anyway. You are the board. You can make a decision and remember indecision is still a decision.
I'm, I'm inclined to say, let's like, let's let this marinate, please. I don't think we need to decide tonight.
Yeah. Because it's, it's not gonna impact them again for another year.
Okay. Well, even if we don't cut it, we say they don't they can't cut it down this month. They can still cut it down when there's not leaves on the tree if we make decision by February. So it's either cut the tree down or buy them some leaf blowers. So
figure it out. Right. And and the other thing is that even if you make a decision, because it's a live tree on town property, it still has to be posted and go through a ten day appeals process anyway. So K.
You know? Alright. So so you wanna table this to next month? Yeah.
Okay. Certainly. 10c, selection of the long well, it's not long. The selection of the Veterans Memorial Field Improvement Committee. So it looks like we got 11 applications, and let's do the first thing. I motion that we nominate us the motion that we put Scott Persona in as the selectman liaison to the committee or the member from the select board. Anybody wanna second that? Second. Alright. I I would vote for Well, first first We gotta talk about you first.
Anybody got a problem with Scott being our our liaison?
So he's not gonna be a member? He's gonna be a liaison? Or
I don't I I don't know. I mean, we we still have to vote on everything. And Scott It's l I, Eric.
Yeah. You know how well good a speller I am. Yeah.
Eric, can you can you bring your cursor? Well, wait a second. I wanna go back to Jeff Murray's point. Should we just put Scott on the committee and not have a liaison? We probably should so he can vote.
Yeah. Do we want to make him a member or do we want to make him just a liaison? Okay. Then I'll rescind my motion. Yes. We should make him a member and let him vote.
And so were there 11 people? There were 11. Correct. Well, actually, 12, I guess, if you count Dave and Grace as two separate people.
And what's the magic number are we shooting for? Are we shooting for seven? Yeah. That's what I had in my head. Okay.
Eric, can you can you put your cursor over the little bar on the bottom and just make this a little bigger? I don't know if it's just me, or it's just hard to read what you're sharing on your screen there. Yes. Thank you. I got your field names there. Okay.
Okay. And so, this is obviously very crude. I just took everybody's letter, and I tried to take two statements out of the letter and say how it related to so you could pick a group that fairly represented everybody from people with little kids to people in the soccer program to pickleball aficionados to so we had a wide range.
Okay. I my first thoughts are that Dave and Grace are you know, aside from me, you know, the they know pickleball, they know the people in pickleball, they know everything about pickleball and, you know, nice, very educated people. And one of them I would say would be good for a, chairman. Right. And Christine Lanza was a civil engineer, and she came to me talking to me about it, and I asked her if she would be involved with that. So those were some of the great additions to that group.
Yeah. I put a list together, but I looked at it for who's a new member, who's interested as a new face for a board because we have a lot of repeat people in here that are on other boards and commissions. So I would actually like to give some of these new names a chance on the board. So that would be my recommendation. I went through all the list and I kind of put together a list of myself who I would feel would be a good people to serve on the committee.
Okay. Well, let's kind of do it. Let's start with Christine Randazzo because she's a she's a land she's landscape architect. Are we all in agreement that we would consider her as, like, the number one? So we got her and Scott. So put check marks, Eric, next to Scott and Christine. Okay. The two names at the top, if I remember their their letters, they're both they both have young children, and I think Julie nooned as young children. I have no idea. Never met any of them. Anybody?
I know Viotta. Yeah. Think she'd be very good. She you know, she when I've called her, she's gotten right back to me with the with things that I've had questions for her. She's very involved and everything. Yep. And I've Yep.
I've worked with Beata on a couple of things in town. I, she's a very strong candidate.
Yep. And she was on my list as a candidate as well. Put an X near her. How do you say her name? Yada. Yada. That might be misspelled there.
Yeah. I think there's an extra t there. But There it is. It's
Beatta. Yeah. B e a t a. B e a t a? Yeah. Take out the t.
And Mike Mike Russo at the bottom has two s's, Eric. I did not see Mike's letter in our package.
Yeah. He he had one in it. So Carol just didn't send it to us.
Mike was involved with me and Jeff in, first when we created the soccer field.
Yeah. I I know Mike. He And don't forget Shannon. She was involved in it. She was in she was involved also. Yeah. Yeah. I I put Mike on my list because Mike's Mike used to serve on the board of Ed, but Mike is not serving on any board of commission at the at the moment, and he is involved in pickleball. So he was one of my recommendations.
Okay. You can check him off. I have no problem with that. Eric, gotta add two s's to Mike's name. Two s's? So there's three s's
or just one s? Like that. Right? There's two s's, but you have to hit enter. There you go. Thank you. Kim has older older children, so so we we have two pickleball people selected already. And so now you gotta pick another playground advocate. So
I think Who are the who are the two pickleball people? I see Scott's. Right?
Russo and Scott. Okay. Oh. Mike. Yeah. I think we should actually pick three people for the playground because it's gonna be a new, construction, and I think that's gonna be the one that needs the most input. And because football courts are pretty standard, but the playground's gonna be pretty much up in the air, like, what we want. You gotta pick one one of the two Gustanians.
One of the two has gotta pick one of the two. Okay. I would say.
I think you should sit there, and I don't know Julie Noons, but I would select her because she has very young children and moved to town. Then there was somebody that moved from Boston. Yeah. Julie was on my list as well.
I think Sarah Becker was the one that moved in recently to She was also on my list.
So who was the one that said that they had didn't they do research on playgrounds? I thought I read that somewhere. Yeah. It was the
it was Sarah Becker who explores playgrounds with their kids. So, Scott, if you wanted to be just a liaison and not a member, that way you could have three people pretty much on the committee if you wanted to put Dave or Grace on. Would that be acceptable to you?
Let them know. Why don't we just to sit in the meetings? Because if we have a board of seven, I would like to put three playground people, then at least two soccer people and two. Okay. So put Sarah in and put Julie in. And what are we at? Six? Yeah. There's Julie underneath Dave and Grace. Okay. And then put in put in, one of one or the other. Dave or Grace Gustinian.
I had one for, I had somebody named Brandy that put a letter in too. Yes. She's a daycare owner, lives on Long Hill. She lives on Long Hill. I didn't know if she was, somebody we should look into too as well.
Well, I think the other Beta, Julie, and Sarah all have younger children, I think. So trying to get people that are going I know Brandi, her youngest is probably a sophomore in college right now, which is not a negative, and she has a daycare, I believe. And I'm sure she would be a valuable asset to it. But in my head, it's like, let's get younger people that might participate not only in this project, but in other boards and committees down the road. Okay.
And these are public meetings, so these people can still go and offer their input. I think we encourage that too. They can still go to the meetings and offer their comments even if they're not appointed to the committee.
Okay. So then Okay. So we got Dave, is it Dave? Is it Dave or Grace?
Well, we give them the option to put whoever they wanted. Think Grace should probably do it because we have a female pickleball player.
Right. And isn't Dave, is he just a member of the fire department or isn't he on a committee already?
I don't think he's in anything right now. He's an officer in the fire department. He's an Okay. The fire
So, yeah, pick I would pick Grayson. She's very involved with pickleball everywhere.
And she's not currently serving on any committee or commission. Correct? Just a community garden. K.
We we have a comment in the chat that I think would be helpful to read. What do we think about picking alternates? Sure. Somebody can't make a meeting. You know?
But I would probably nominate Brandy and Kim. Brandy knows what kids play with and how kids play, so I think she would be a good alternate.
That's fine. Eric, put A next to those two. Actually, Jeff, just as a side thing, why don't we make all of them alternates? They all asked. That's a good idea.
There we go, but we're just gonna have four people showing up to a meeting. I I mean, I don't think there's gonna be four people missing a meeting. That's half the group.
It doesn't matter. They can you you are making them alternates and they can feel empowered to go and contribute. Right. Fine. You don't make them all this is
Okay. So is that that's what you wanna put forward?
Yep. We didn't turn one person down. Look at us. Right.
Well, how do we see alternates, though? If somebody shows up at a meeting and there's two people missing, how do they get seated in order?
Yeah. You just you would have to just rotate through them. Okay.
Right. Can we go to the town attorney and ask him if we can flip a coin? You know? So,
anyway, I mean You have to use Knowing knowing from the previous the previous field thing, decisions weren't necessarily made like that. They were they were all discussed, and the the vote was kind of a foregone conclusion. There wasn't big fights over anything. It was just, okay. Let's try to do this and do this. I
am a little concerned that that's an awful lot of opinions to be heard and to go through. You know? Because if you're asking them to be an alternate, you're basically asking them to show up to the meetings. And if you really get 11 people there, that's problematic, I think. But I may be wrong.
I look at it like you're you're talking about the development of you're gonna be looking at playground layouts and different opportunities, and you're gonna look at that space and go, what can we fit? You're not you know, I don't think opinions are bad in that situation. Now if you wanna make it just two alternates, I I won't have a problem with it either. I mean, so if you wanted to go back and remove Brian and Shannon, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I don't necessarily know that it will negatively impact the board if there are alternates on there.
Yeah. But to Eric's point, if you have alternates, they're basically required to show up. Because if there's nobody there's not a full number quorum seated, then, you know, they would have to participate. Well, what's a quorum of of seven?
I'm just saying if we get less than seven. You know? K. Quorum is four of seven. Four of seven.
Are Under Robert's rule. You can set your own rules, but four of Dennis, seven for
our Under Robert. Are alternates seated if one member is missing? Or if you're under the court? Yeah.
If you don't have a full group, you seat the alternate. You seat an alternate. As many alternates as you need to fill up the panel.
It's totally, my opinion on this is not, you can have two alternates, you could have one alternate, you could have four alternates. It's not gonna not going to negatively impact me. I don't think it's an issue of, opinions. Would would we like to reduce it to two, and then we'll pick out of the alternates, or we'd like to keep it at four, or what's the choice?
Whoever the chair is, they're gonna have to they're just gonna have to track all four alternates because if they get seated, they can't be seated for the next meeting. They have to give the chance to the next person.
Let's just sit there and see it all for and let the chairperson deal with it. Which way we were we were inclusive. So
So I think you should probably make that motion officially, and that's it, and then let's move on.
Okay. I'll make a motion to seat the following members for the Veterans Memorial Field Improvement Committee. We are looking to see Beta Gardanski, Grace Gestanian, Julie Noones, Christine Randazzo, Scott Person, Sarah Becker, and Mike Russo as as members and alternates Kim Lahut. I know I'm saying that wrong. She she told me before how to say her last name, and I apologize. Brian Briggs, Brandy Skidlowski, and Shannon Loudon as alternates.
I'll second that. And before you vote, just one thing. Remember we did and I probably should have just renumbered this. Dave Gustanian did ask.
Yeah. Dave we took Dave off the list. We took Dave off the list, and we so he's the he's the odd person out because he he and Grace will they'll vote together. Right.
Fair enough. Just bringing your to your attention so I don't get accused of sliding.
Yes. So we were we were not totally inclusive. Alright. Does Scott second to that? Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Alright. Five to nothing. Okay. Let's move on. So 10 d, LTA discussion. Eric?
So I don't think I wanna do much more discussion. I have satisfied all the training requirements to be the LTA designee per the new state law. I will have to take annual refresher training every year to continue to be your designee. The only thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that you as a board asked me to ask the state to decrease the speed limit on Route 6. I don't know how many of you have noticed, but for about the last month, the speed limit has been reduced from 50 to 45. From the beginning of the end of the 40 mile an hour speed zone to a little past Route 87. So that has been done per your recommendation, which was passed on to the state traffic authority. K.
Very good. No problem. Thank you. 10 e, a discussion of lot line agreement with King Properties member of executive session. 10 f, appoint a vice chair for the Board of Selectmen. Who is interested in that position? Are we making nominations or? Sure, let's make nominations. I mean, I know who I nominate. Mean. I would like to nominate Jeff Murray.
Okay. I'll second that. Anybody else want to make a nomination? Much vote.
Okay. All those in favor, Murray being Vice First Selectman. All in favor? Aye. Okay. All those opposed? Jeff? Abstained. I thought you should have opposed. All right. I have 10 gs, appointment of the town attorney, contract in motion. I only have one recommendation to the document that was presented in our packet section three. The dates need to be changed before we sign it. So if we can get that done, that would be great. Anybody have a problem with appointing attorney O'Brien to another year? He does a phenomenal job for us. What date needs to change, Jeff? Under the retainer section. Its disagreement ends 06/30/2021. Section three, first line. Got it. Okay. All right. So if we can do that, I have no problem with it. Anybody else have any issues related to the contract draft? Okay. All those in favor of appointing Attorney O'Brien? Aye. Five nothing. Dennis, thank you very much for everything you do for us, which greatly appreciated. Okay.
So I will sign that one, but because that he is your appointee, there is also in the packet a official appointment, which you guys probably should do. So we'll leave that one in the town clerk's office, and you guys should probably all come in and sign that one also.
Absolutely. No problem. Okay. Item 11, approval of minute meetings meeting minutes for 11/13/2023 and 11/16/2023. I make a motion that we approve the minutes for both those meetings. I'll second. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Five, nothing. Item 12, tax collectors report, refund requests. I believe there's only one. Correct. So this is a light month. We only collected $140,000 And then Eric, just as a side thing and just something we can collect, are all of the uncollected taxes that are showing here as receivables showing in these balances on the financial statements. It's just something to check. It's not something I'm asking you for a definitive answer. It's just something we should look at because they are reported here, and I'm pretty sure we have a number on the balance sheet that we should look at. So there was a one refund, $8.41 for ACAR Leasing Limited, 841.11.
I make a motion to refund $841.11 to ACAR Leasing.
I'll second that. Alright. All those in favor? Aye. Okay.
And just so you know, because I I mean, I think most of the board's gone through this a lot, but in a case where, for instance, there's a lease on an automobile, and that lease gets turned in partway through the fiscal year, they've already prepaid the motor vehicle tax for that entire year. So if they request it, they're entitled to a prorated amount back. So those come before the board on a monthly basis.
Under item 13, department reports, does anyone have any questions on the reports that were submitted? There's one from the assessor's office. Derek, what under the assessor's office is the BAA, so that's a Board of Assessment Appeals? Correct. Those are Okay. The first one on that list was a car leasing. Are we 32,000 car. That's interesting. Why would ACAR leasing be on that summary and then get an $841 refund? I think it's because it happened
How did ACAR leasing get to the Board of Assessment Appeals? Got me.
Well, that doesn't make me happy. How do they get to the Board of Assessment Appeals?
They file the form for an appeal. I mean, my suspicion is they were too late to get it in the last year, so they filed the appeal. But again, I don't know. I'm not gonna tell you I know the answer to that because I don't.
Okay. So if, you know, if you can, can you find out who do, who approves those? Is it the Board of Assessment Appeals or is it just the assessor? On that report, page two of his report.
I gotta believe that is all just the actually, that's usually the assistant assessor. I mean, John countersigns, but Roberta deals with those. Those I don't believe go to the board of assessment appeals. They're just, you know, anytime you come in and show proof of vehicle sales or proof that the vehicle is totaled, you're eligible for, if you request it, that prorated portion back.
So I need to be on this list next year next month so that I can sit there and vote against my own refund?
If you would like to vote against your own refund, you certainly can.
Okay. I would like to know how that report is generated. That would if you can for the next period, just to approve.
Think I think Eric is right, Jeff. I think it I doubt that those go to the BAA. That's fine. They could, but the I don't first month we've
seen the report like that. They changed the formatting of the report. Was, was more of a kind of a DOS oriented look. This is newer, and they call out the BAA, right, and the the title. So it's just interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I I know they're allowed to go back and make adjustments for up to three years if something was incorrect. They're not legally allowed to go back farther than three years on either a property or a motor vehicle. One, so if you come in and you haven't paid your taxes on your car for three years because you wrecked it three years ago and you've been paying for four years, they can technically go back for three years, but they can't go back any farther than that. But that's pretty close to the sum knowledge, sum total of my knowledge about that. Okay.
Do you know how many new homes were on the the building, the town of Vanderver permit receipts report? New homes? Any any new homes, or at least just upgrades?
I don't know of any. I mean, the newest home that I know of is the one on Lake Road that still can't get the CO because he built the garage illegally. That's the newest home I know of. Okay. All right.
Not saying there aren't others, there may be. You want to know how many new homes were built?
No, I just want to know if any of the permit requests, because I look at the total dollars and the rest of the stuff, and I just want to know if there's any new, what, you know, it'd be helpful for us to understand these are home renovations, home upgrades, or they're new construction, especially new construction, because then we look at it and we go, we're getting paid on the total building costs, and, you know, that goes into the fee structure that we've had discussions about in the past. Okay. We have the librarians report, Andover Senior Transportation report. Thank you, Kathy. And there were 32 new voters
signed up. And then Eric gives us our his calming traffic program, the toolbox. I liked. Okay. Any questions related to the other departmental reports? No? Okay. We're gonna move on to 14. I did not see any correspondence in the in the package. No. We're going move on to item 15, public speak. And I see that the only one left because we just lost our other Board of Finance member, is Diane Greiner. Diane Greiner, how are you? I'm sure you're busy during this holiday season. And we can't hear you. There we go. We can see you. Part of you. Yeah. From your middle of your your shoulders down to your Or so only, Diane. There you go. Your camera is at a poor angle.
So we can't hear you, but you could mime what you want with, like, animal gestures. There you go, Diane. Maybe straighten out the camera a little bit more. No. You kinda sound like an elf. You do. Yeah.
You're definitely having a microphone issue. I would like to say that Diane Greiner and the Beautification Committee applied for a grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, which I suspect is what she wants to inform you, and she very much wants the town to agree to be the fiduciary for that account. Even
though it's a very small grant. Now you're working. Any hour. It is working? Yeah. Now it's working. There you go, Diane. I got the right button. I gotta remember which one that is. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Eric. Let me fix this. It's a busy time of year for me. Yes, I was delighted to hear from the advisory committee that they have approved the $5,000 for the stump removal at the Townsend Cemetery. And they just need to send it over to the Harvard Foundation to get their final blessing on it, but there shouldn't be any problem. So we're ready to move forward on it. Eric, I had sent you an email, two little things that we needed. One was for the EIN number from the town for tax purposes, tax free. And the other is that the town would be the financial sponsor for the money to make sure that the money does go to the beautification committee and they spend it appropriately for the project.
So, you just need to please, Eric, that rather quickly to me. I would appreciate it so that we can send that off. They can't go forward until I get that email. So, I appreciate that.
So on that vein, I assume nobody on the board has an issue with me doing that because it does chew up a fair bit of time, and it will have to be accounted for separately on our financial statements. So it's not a I mean, we get money, but we also spend a bunch of time accounting for these small grants.
Good grief. I know you did this for the economic development for, you know, for their sign and things like that. Because the board made me. Okay.
Well, I'm asking the board to make him do it. Yes. We we're we're in favor of it, Diane. Thank you for doing it. Okay. Will you will you please instruct Eric to, send me that email that, everybody agrees and so we can move it move it forward? Jeff? Yes. Start your instructions.
Please do that, Eric, so that Diane can get the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to help with the stump removal at Townsend Cemetery. Yeah. Because the town wouldn't do it. Yeah.
Because we were too cheap to do it. Right? Town was too cheap to do it. So
Diane and Scott and Kathy had to get together and
Okay. Make it happen. Make it happen. I think I think it's all good. Eric, if you would, it would be appreciated. Thank you. Diane, anything else?
I don't think I'll poke your hiney. I've done it enough about, Jeff. I'm still waiting for a note from you about, the scholarship that I'm trying to set up.
Yes. I will I have I have a a call with attorney O'Brien tomorrow,
to discuss it to him. Okay. Dennis, if you're still on, please hold him to it. I appreciate it. Sure. I sure will, Diane. I sure will. Okay. I'll put you on the good boy list. That's a first for me. Alright. Diane, thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you all and Merry Christmas. And I'm sorry that the Festival of Trees got rained out yesterday, and it's being rescheduled for Saturday next week, and I will not be able to attend that. So, we're working on a different Mrs. Claus to accompany a Santa Claus for that event. That's a tough one.
I will say I took a picture this morning of the tree farm with a significant fraction of it underwater. I thought we could have the first annual Andover kayaking for your Christmas tree event. Thought that would be, you know, pretty interesting.
I'd be in for that. I'd be up for that. I could do that.
Okay. Thank you all. We have thank you, Diane. Eric, I'm gonna make a motion that we go into executive session to discuss nine d, the Stein drainage issue, and 10 e, the King property line adjustment. So if anybody has any problems, somebody wanna second that so we can go in? I'll second it. Alright. All those in favor? Before
you vote, can you just ask other than the board members who you want in that executive, sir?
Eric and Dennis O'Brien. Okay. So, Diane, thank you very much. We appreciate everything you do for the community. And, Eric, if you can stop the recording and we can get CVC off. Okay. The Andover Board of Selectmen is coming out of executive session at 10:21, and we're moving on to item 15C, a motion on action items.
I'd like to motion that we repair and shore up the existing structure on the Stein property with riprap and grading to to repair it temporarily. I'll second that, Jeff.
K. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Now we're moving on to item 16, adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Second.
All All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it. We'll see you guys later.