Meeting transcript
Board of Selectman Regular meeting Part 1
August 8, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
08/08/2022 meeting at 07:00 and we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag, 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 move on to item two of public speak. Michael Cincovitz. I don't have anything to add. All right. We'll move on to Susan Kamarota. Hello, I'm just here to listen if that's okay.
Susan, anything you would like to add to public speak? No, not at this time. Thank you very much. Okay. Anne Creme and Jerry hopefully. Nothing right now. Thank you. Wow. This is a good group. Valerie Bruno. I am all set, mister McGuire. Thank you.
Okay. I am officially over four. Alright. Good start. Let's see. My background is a little poor. It will get darker as we move on. Do we have any additions or deletions, Paul?
I have a deletion. Please take off the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary presentation. Are you on mute? Nope. So Can't hear me?
One second. Was anyone talking? Did I did I have anyone talking while I was there?
Let me log back in. Can I do that? Yeah. I think it's it's you. We'll wait because I was able to hear everyone else. Eric, were you able to are you able to hear me? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So let's wait for Jeff to come back in. Eric, can you delete not delete. Sorry. New CBC CBC? Certainly. Thank you. That work? No. It doesn't look very good. And
are you logged in twice? Because you've got an echo that I hear. I am not logged in twice. Okay. Now it went away. Can you hear me? K. Is that better? We could hear talk? Yep. We could hear you. Can you hear me?
General, can you hear us? Can you believe that? It's as simple as turning up the volume. I am so sorry, and anyone in public speak who spoke, I didn't hear you. I apologize.
No. Everybody said they were all set. Oh, so hey.
I I thought everyone was just ignoring me. Nope. Alright. Let's get on. Additions and deletions. Paula, I'm sorry. So
I have a deletion. Please delete the January. They would like to give us an update next month.
Okay. Jeff Murray, anything you would like to delete or add?
No, Jeff. I'm all set. Thank you. All right, Adrian. Can you guys hear me? I can.
Just making sure sorry my other laptop's not working. No, I'm good. Okay, so. Before
you go on, can you add agenda item eight CIAI aes steep grant.
One second. What item did you add that under Eric. Eight C I I.
And you wanted that to be board of education steep grim correct. Okay. All right. So that's one item to delete, 4A, the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary presentation, and one item to add, CII, Board of Education's Steep Grant. I'll make a motion that we delete the first one and add the second one. I'll second. And all those in favor, aye. Aye.
So four-zero. And just so everybody's aware, Scott had a meeting today. He's hoping to join us as soon as it's over. So we'll move on. So we're going to We've deleted item four. We're going to move to Item five, appointments. I didn't see any in the packet, Eric. Is that accurate? Correct. All right. We're going to move on to Item six, resignations. I did see that under the one hundred and seventy fifth. Do we want to hold that off until next month? Let's hold that off until next month. We'll let the board tell us that one. No resignations. Eric, we'll move on to item seven, the town administrator's report.
Okay. So you all got my written report. I'm just gonna touch on a couple of the highlights. We did have a little bit of a leak today in the town hall. Somebody had thrown something in the furnace room and they threw it on top of one of the valves for the heating system, which opened up and flooded out part of Wally's, the space Wally Barton used for electric. So we got everything dried out, turned the valve off, and we're running a dehumidifier there. I don't think there's going to be any long term repercussions from it, but we'll keep an eye on that. Everything else is going relatively well in the town hall. William Bell is working on going around painting the exteriors. He's painted, you know, most of the soffits at this point and cleaned all the gutters. And then they're going to be going around. So that's pretty much it for town halls operations. You know, we have a lot of projects going on right now and various different things. You know, bunch of grants that are being worked on, they're back working on the connectivity grant. The timber rail is going in in the parking area
today, and hopefully tomorrow they're going to be putting up the kiosk and mounting the poles for the signage. So, we're making progress on that, and hopefully in the next week, a lot of that will be finished. So, the finance office, you guys all know, we've had the draft audit from Mahoney Sable, and the auditor gave us a series of journal entries to make to correct the issues that arose. Obviously, we still have some work to do regarding that. You all know also at this point that Marina Pandolfi has resigned as a full time employee. She has agreed to stay on, you know, and work part time for the town until her replacement is on board in one fashion or another. Building department is running pretty well. No real issues with that or with the land use agencies.
Everything seems to be going fairly smoothly. We have kind of picked the firm we want to represent the town as the town engineer. And, you know, we've kind of selected Nathan Jacobson to be the town's engineer moving forward. So the next discussion which needs to occur with the Board of Finance is what the terms of that are because it's pretty unclear from our current purchasing policy, you know, where the cutoff is for work that can be just assigned to the town's engineer or where the threshold is where it automatically goes out to RFP. So that's going to have to be hashed out before we sign any kind of actual contract.
As far as public works going, we're back doing roadside bowing again. We had stopped doing it for a while just because we needed all the crew working on Shoddy. Next thing up is Gorman. We'll be doing chip sealing in the north end of town, some along Hill Road, Bear Swamp Road, Hendy, and a couple of the smaller roads off of that. Hopefully that will be done in the next month. You know, so that's that. And as far as pre work, Distinctive Tree Care is working on Gilead Road. We again got Eversource to agree to partner with us. So, they've contributed, you know, in the end, they'll contribute a little bit more than half the total cost of the tree work we're doing, which is kind of nice that they've agreed to play ball. Nothing new really to report from either the Bunker Hill bridge design or the Long Hill Road bridge design, those are still, you know, in the works. As far as the small culverts, we're still waiting on nailing down a contract with the engineer,
but I think we're going to want to turn that over to them as soon as we can after that. As far as the STEEP grant goes, we're getting pretty close. We got a grant submission due in about seven days. We're still, the last thing I'm working on is a final quote from millennial builders. We have all the information on everything other than that. You know, so that project is going. You saw at least the basic structure outlined in your packet. Any questions about that or where we're going with that? Okay, we talked about the connectivity grant a little bit. They are doing the timber rail fence now. We put in the bike racks, bike repair station, one picnic table, there's two more benches going in, and then the informational kiosk in signage. And hopefully most of that will be in at the end of this week. And then they start with bringing in topsoil to kind of blend where the parking lot ends and the trail begins. Else? We still have not gotten the actual money in from the second second half of the American Recovery Act funding.
Although we know we should be getting our second allotment soon. I don't know whether the federal government has actually released it to the state yet, but the state, the last time around gave it to the towns pretty quickly after it got released to the state. What else? We did have some issues with AC unit again. It was in part operator error because we had a meeting or a gathering on Friday and somebody left the thermostat set at 70 or at 60 the whole weekend, which froze up the coils and then leaked on the bathroom again. So we've come up with kind of a more comprehensive fix to address that. And I think that problem should be solved going forward. But it was kind of annoying because Willie had already repaired the ceiling in the bathroom and
we just basically screwed it up again. Hopefully. So,
are we doing? A pan and then a a a thermostat limiter?
Yeah. So, we did three things. We did a thermostat limiter, so you can't set it below, I think 70 or 71 degrees. We did a sensor, you know, on the interior coil, so it can't go it automatically shuts off when it never goes below 34 degrees and we put in a secondary drain pan that drains to the plumbing vent or the plumbing drain that's up there. Perfect. As long as one of those three things work, it should prevent future problems. So I kind of went with the belt and suspenders approach on that one. The other thing I put in the packet, as you can see, the garden shed is basically finished.
There is an agenda item to discuss that. I did have some interest from a couple of Board of Selectmen members, one wanting us to move it with public works, one done. So I don't want to touch it. That's as far as I'm concerned, that's a Board of Selectmen decision. We'll talk about that a little bit later. That's it for me, unless you have questions for me specifically about specific items. Eric, you had put into your presentation debris management.
Yeah, so I got all the data from Jay, like too late to put in the packet. I can send that to you whenever you want. I was going to wait until we got closer to the next meeting, but I can send that to you sooner if you want it. Jay just sent me pretty much all the background information, you know, we have to go through to apply if you because you asked me at the last meeting for that information. And I apologize, I didn't get it from Jay early enough to include it in the packet.
So that's on me. So just so I understand it, was there a storm that we missed?
No. Future storms. So it's it's a it's basically FEMA makes it very hard to get a dime from them, you know, without an excessive amount of pre work and then paperwork to get rebated, which is why we actually haven't really applied for to FEMA for any of the last storms, just because it's too bureaucratic. Problem is, is that, you know, for a normal storm like we've had in the last three or four years, which does some damage, but it's manageable. It hasn't really been worth it to even try to claim. But if we ever had a really catastrophic storm, you know, we're going to be in a bind if we haven't done. So we're going to have to do something, and it's going to take some thought as to how we actually do this. But I have not had any time to really focus on that. Okay. Then
just the the other side, the the RFP for the community center. Yeah. Timeline on that? Adrian, maybe you can address that.
Yeah, so that's really on me. I got a little behind. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with some personal issues, so I think we're pretty close to just handing it over. I'm hope I was actually hoping to get it done today, but I just didn't have enough time. So, I've taken all the feedback from, outside folks and incorporated it, and, I think I'm good now. I, Eric got me all the stuff I needed to actually right after last meeting. Again, I just have time to finish it, but I will have it to you guys in the next couple of days.
Alright. We won't we don't really hold it against you that much. Thank you for everything you do related to that, Adrian. The individual I don't want to say William, but please make sure the gentleman who is taking care of our town, the handyman, please someone give me his name. Okay, his name is William Bell. William Bell. I wanted to call him William. Thought I was going to give him his last name. Bell, I just want to put it out that Mr. Bell is doing a phenomenal job. And I personally would like to thank him because for the effort that he puts in to make our buildings look better is greatly appreciated. Mr. Bell deserves a round of applause, and I'm giving it to him personally. I concur. All right. I will pass that along.
Okay, just tell him I remembered his name. And Eric, all the pictures that you put in your report, the area outside the library, rail that's going up off of Center Street, all looks phenomenal. And the painting on the old concession building looks great. So I'm assuming that that is someplace else within our meeting agenda about moving that, or do we want to discuss that now? I put that on as nine ks.
We'll deal with it there. Any questions for Eric? Let's move on to item eight, old business. We're going to discuss and act upon the following. 8A is the finance department employment.
So I would say two things. We did sign a temporary contract with Marina to help out until we've hired her full time placement and interviews for the finance director are on Wednesday.
In relation to the finance department, do want, I know Diane Choquette is on, I would like to thank her for all her work in trying to assist to make that department more efficient and to try to stop any future transitions from impacting the town the way that the transitions have been impacting the town in the past. So Diane, thank you very much for the time and energy you're putting in. Obviously Marina's part time work is going to be confined to accounts payable and payroll until we understand what we can and can't do. It's obviously not going to impact our budget related to that department because we're going to lose your salary and we don't have treasurer in place as of yet. Correct. How many do we have now scheduled for Wednesday?
We have four scheduled. Unfortunately, the only one we were not able to schedule was James Dettig. I've called him probably four times and emailed him multiple times, and I haven't gotten any response. If he wanted to respond, he certainly would have responded
and yeah. Okay. Any other items on 8B or 8A? Excuse me. Okay. We'll move on to 8B, the Community Center RFP for design and build. I believe Adrian gave us information related to that during the administrator's report. Adrian, anything you need to add? Are we all set there? Nope, nothing to add. Okay, 8C 15 Center Street, Steep Grant, I, Resolution of Support and Application. Eric had given us some information related to the presentation, and In our packet, you have the four bay garage. Eric, the Steep grant is currently drafted. Well, explain to everybody what it'll cover so then we can sit there and go on and then.
Okay. So basically the ask from the state is that the panel will cover 20% of the total cost of whatever the grant is. So we're looking at a total grant cost of around 3 and $50,000 So we will ask for a $275,000 grant from the steep program and the town will contribute 75. What I put down for the grant schedule is that we pay for the things we've already paid for. Plus, we pay the cost of asbestos abatement and the cost of demolition. And part of the reason why I'm doing it that way is because I think I think but I'm not sure yet that it gets us around the state agency known as SHPO because
the building that we're tearing down is in the historic district, and it is actually identified in the historic registry. Now there is almost nothing left of the original building. You know, so I think, even if the state does claim authority over it, the state will allow us to tear it down, but by us doing the abatement in the DEMO ourselves. Know, in stating that right up front, we may not even have to ask them, which is what I'm hoping. So, and then after that, it's the cost of construction and, you know, materials cost at this point. I thought in general,
that would really only apply if we had taken some type of restoration money or grant recognition money based on the, the registration of the building? No,
no, it actually anything that's paid for by a state or federal grant.
Oh, it's on the grant. So it's on the grant side. Okay. Yeah, correct. Thanks.
That's why I'm trying to say we're not actually applying for grant money for that. That's just part of our contribution. We're going to pay for that ourselves. Therefore, we're not obligated to to abide by that. Okay. But I am talking with the office tomorrow to make absolutely sure that my, you know, assumptions are correct.
So the 20%, and you said 20%, right? Correct. The 20% of the 350,000 is $70,000 The anticipation is the $70,000 would be used primarily for demolition and removal of the current. Correct.
Plus the fees we've already incurred for engineering and survey and the air sampling stuff we were required to do before we could get an accurate estimate on the asbestos abatement.
All right. The item that is on the agenda is a resolution of support and application, which is in our packet. It's a municipal certification. A resolution for a steep grant 2022. I'll make a motion that we authorize the town clerk to submit that resolution. Anyone want to second that? Seconded.
All right. Any further discussion related to the resolution? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. Before nothing, it is passed. Now we have 8CII, the Board of Education Steep Grant application. Correct.
So this was the application that was that the school superintendent wanted to put in for the handicapped accessible lower playground at Andover Elementary School. And there are a couple of options there, depending on who you want to have final, you know, authorityresponsibility for the grant. You know, the question becomes since this has to be applied for from the town. Do you want the ultimate authority resting in me as the town administrator or or do you want it resting in Val as superintendent or Val with the direction of the Board of Education?
Well, it is a municipal grant. I know there were requests from the meeting that I was not able to attend related to this. I have no problem applying for it. I realize that there's some need from this board that the entire playground is handicap accessible. I'm assuming that that is going to get accomplished.
Yeah, was just that it would be accessible without going through the school, so that in off hours, it could be used by residents.
Okay. I personally have no problem applying for addition grant money. Anybody else?
No, it looks like Val included, the estimate for the accessibility that we asked for, so as long as, as long as that's included, I'm fine.
Okay. Anyone else? Okay. So there's a resolution that's on page 25 related to another resolution.
Are there two different resolutions, Eric, on this or is there just one resolution? There's actually four potential options. It really comes down to who you want to authorize to sign the bloody thing and who you want to maintain overall control. Val gave all four options because she didn't know what you were going to want. What is a board? How is a board you would want to address it?
Well, in my mind, whichever one is related to the Board of Education and Valerie controlling the playground rebuild. Which one's that?
In that case, you could do either two or three. I mean, yeah, actually two or four. Actually two, three, or four all accomplish that in various different ways.
Unless other members of the board have a preference. The fourth one, Eric, is all you.
Well, the first one is all me, all me. The fourth one just indicates that I signed for it, but with the understanding that the superintendent is the one that, you know, has to actually execute everything.
Well, what is the what is the wish of the board?
So that so the so the fourth one is you signing for it, but they they they are doing the execution?
Yeah, so basically the fourth one from my perspective just gives me an oversight role as opposed to the person who has to actually execute all the agreements. That's because
it's still being done on behalf of the town. Yeah, and that's, I guess that's sort of my point. So I would like to go with option four then that'd be the motion. Okay, then make the motion.
Are you gonna make me read this thing? Hang on. No, you don't have to read all the pages. Just excuse me. Option four, page 27.
Make the motion that we accept option four, page 27 as presented. Okay. So I want to second that. I'll second. All right. Further discussion related to that item?
Okay. So just to just so I understand, this one is Explain to me again, this is Eric is involved how?
Yeah. So Eric, Eric will be just oversight because ultimately the money comes through the town. So the town is ultimately responsible to make sure that everything in the grant is met. So Correct. The superintendent would be Yep. Leading the
She still has, that leads the project, you know, she still can do all her own contracting, all that. It's just that he'll make sure that, you know, basically we have all the documents we need to make sure the town does not get dinged on this later.
And give me so I'm just trying to understand what the downfall would be. So if it, if the grant has not met, then we lose our money on our side?
No, they could, they could decide that they're clawing the money back if we didn't, let's say we didn't meet a particular requirement, you know, pick a requirement, whether it's, so for instance, on the STEEP grant, Eric, that we did for connectivity, sorry, for the connectivity grant, we had to certain, we had to have a minority percentage participation, right? So Eric had to make sure that that was done, and that's something we kind of figured out, not initially, but as we were going along, right? So it's things like that. Okay.
And so all these options, the superintendent looked at and offered all these options.
I mean, that was on the call, you might ask her what her preference is. You know, I look at this and say, ultimately, the steep grant is the responsibility of the town. And we're the ones that's going to get audited as a town expense, not a school expense, even though the tricky part is these are reimbursement grants. So the Board of Ed is going to have to front the money probably to get this built and then get reimbursed. But That's
not how this is going to happen. This is going to be funded out of the general fund and then reimbursed accordingly.
Yeah, because it's a town grant, it can't come out of the first of all, can't come out of AES because it was never budgeted. Then second of all, it is a town grant, so we're going to have to front the money and then get paid back, which is again why I think the town needs to have some and I appreciate that she put this forward, so. Yeah, know, I was just trying to understand
pros and cons of this. So Eric, you answered my question. Thank you. Okay.
Yeah, so I mean, basically ultimately for payment, before we would sign off a final check to somebody, if they hadn't given us the documentation, we would kind of hold it until we're waiting for documentation or whatever, so those I sorts of mean, the logistics of it, Valerie's going to create
contracts related to this and prepare everything, and then it's going to be, when it's approved for payment, it's not going to be submitted to the Board of Education. It's going be submitted to the town. The town is then going to have to pay it and make sure that the appropriate reimbursement request is submitted to the state so that we get funded for it. Right.
And Eric will have to sign off on those payments before they go out, so Right. I was going to ask whose responsibility is that, so
Well, it's Vow's responsibility with Eric approving. But in reality, for the most part, they both have you have to have two signers, Val and Eric, will both sign on a check caught for something. It'd just be Val giving us the approval on a bill from a given contractor who is approved for the program.
Yeah, I didn't see in the packet a full budget for this yet as to how that works out. Do we have that broken down anywhere, Eric? I do not. Okay. Valerie, do you have that?
That will be part of the grant application that goes in for the fifteenth. Yes. And Eric already has part of it. Those additions of the ADA quotes, but yep, everything will be broken down. It has to be to be submitted with the grant.
Well, we're we're stating that this is for $225,000 instead in the ballpark? 220, actually. Yep. Yep. 220,000.
Okay. And then, Eric, your request was for $2.75? Correct. Okay. Valerie, just to protect ourselves, do we wanna make this for $2.25? Or are you comfortable with the $2.20?
Well, we can make it for $2.25. I thought that he was at two eighty because at the last meeting, he said he thought going to it be two eighty. So that's why I went with the $2.20. Correct.
Okay. It's only $5,000 It doesn't really matter unless you want it. And if you want it, that resignation will be changed. $5,000 is new grass. Take what you can get.
Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Once you guys decide which of the four, absolutely before it's signed, I absolutely will change that for you.
Okay. So you have to agree to that motion. So if you're going to agree to that resolution, you'll have to agree tonight that the language get changed to two twenty five. Right. Yeah. So I I so amended. Paul, you want a second? Yep, I'll second.
Okay, we had further discussion. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. All right, that's all four of us again. All right, let's move on to 8D, car charging station at the town hall. Me. The I is appeal for installation.
Yeah, so we got that. The Board of Finance agreed with my rationale for not sending that out to RFP. We have given a PO to Lenco Electric to do the work, and we've submitted a PO to the company we're buying the chargers from. We just have to get them some information from our IT guys because these things will be on our wireless network. And our IT guys had some security questions about that. So, they're interfacing directly with the company to answer that. Hopefully, we'll have the stuff ordered within, you know, it's already preliminarily on the order. They just want to pre program it before they ship it to us, and they don't want to ship it to us until such time as they get the information from IT. So, that's in the works. Hopefully by the end of the month, you know, we'll have chargers installed at Downhole. Okay. 8E, employee educational funding for job skills.
I I want to keep this on the agenda because I think it's important that we keep this on the back burner, but that's going to have to wait because I think that's going to end up being a, I know that was one of the requests from the employees to the union for inclusion within the union contract. So, I think we just simply wait and see what the union comes back to us with their proposals are, which they have not done yet. Okay. 8F, the purchase of a portable PA system.
Yeah, so Jeff had sent to myself and all of you specs on what he thought was appropriate for a PA system. The only question I had, Jeff, is do you have a Costco membership? Because the town doesn't.
I'm not sure we have any easy way to purchase it. Yes, I will. And if the town is willing to reimburse me, I will purchase it and give you a receipt.
He needs the tax ID. He needs a tax ID number when he goes up there.
That's easy, Eric. Just give him a tax certificate, sales certificate, may not Exactly.
Yeah, I can certainly give you that. I'm just, I don't know whether they'll allow you to buy that if it's, but we can certainly try.
I am sure Jeff Murray will talk his way around that.
Worst case scenario, worst case scenario, I'll eat the tax and I'll just, you know, I'll just build the town whatever the actual price is. Jeff will his
way around that. I don't think it's a problem. This would go to Staples. I've done this for PTA and other places.
Yeah, did it once before with DJs for the food pantry a while ago.
And Costco is very accommodating. Mean, I've talked to Paula about this unit and it's very high rated. It's got one hundred hours of playtime on a charge, so it should be more than adequate for what we need for our events. Great. The price is right, so.
Okay, thank you for doing that work. Eight gs, Emergency Department,
Panic Buttons in Town Hall. Hang on, Jeff. Do we have to make a motion to make that approval? No, I don't know why we need a motion.
We already approved it. Okay. Right? I mean, we already approved it to buy, so just buy it. Let's get it done. Let's get it done. What are they gee, emergency department panic button's downhill.
So I have not made any progress on that. What I have asked is the resident state trooper to schedule a meeting with the Andover town hall employees as well as their state police like security person. Because I think that may be enough to allay some of the concerns, you know, and talking about what people can do to protect themselves before we go and buy a bunch of hardware. So, I'm hoping we get that scheduled in the next month, six weeks, and do that as essentially an employee meeting, you know, and get that feedback. And then depending on what that happens, maybe it's appropriate to continue on with other measures.
Yeah.
Eric, I just to make sure that the employees feel secure because that was one concern with our skip level meeting that we had with the employees directly. So if they're comfortable with the with the outline that the state police would do, then that would be fine with that.
Yeah, mean, and there are other things we can do as far as door stoppers and things like that, you know, that they can, you know, secure in place if we need to. Yeah, we put a player. We put a plan together at the town hall for an event. So. Well, and and that's exactly what I think we have before we start talking about technology.
You know, we should just have a plan in place for what happens if there is an incident in the town hall.
Yeah, if there's an evacuate or a shelter in place, just versus, know, evacuation versus shelter in place.
Right, yep. Concur. We'll move on to nine, new business, nine a of the Long Hill Bridge replacement.
Not a lot of update. We did have a, you know, an initial meeting with DEP and not DEP, DOT and close Jensen Miller. And then afterward we had an on-site meeting about three weeks ago at the at the bridge. Because that was the first time the the DOT guys had actually put eyes on the bridge. And, you know, again, I reiterated my concerns about making sure that this went in, looked reasonably good aesthetically, had a sidewalk that connects our existing sidewalk and continues on the Riverside Drive, and that they push very hard for traffic light at Hendi as part of this. So, and they're pretty receptive to that. So, that's pretty much all I have on that one.
Any questions on the bridge replacement? Okay we'll move on to 9B audit status.
I don't really have anything else to cover other than what I said in my administrator's report unless either you or Diane, want to to speak to that matter here.
Well, The issue with the audit that is being finalized is that the auditor had to do a significant amount of additional work that he'd like to be compensated for or his firm would like to be compensated for. Some of that work is going to have to be compensated for to make sure that we can continue to move forward. Hopefully, the work that Diane and myself get done will sit there and potentially minimize impacts moving forward. There are some problems that we're all aware of with the finance department. We
have to resolve those moving forward. Those are things that we're going to have to address at the next couple of meetings as to what is the easiest way to address them. Obviously hiring is imperative, but we have to have the right processes in place to make them efficient and to actually get them to do the work that needs to get done. Hopefully reconciliations that have not been completed because, know, being in the field, I will tell you it's imperative that the cash is reconciled. I told Diane the Board of Finance has to require that reconciliations from all accounts are prepared and on the Board of Finance's agenda and meeting every month. Cannot be pushed off. They cannot wait. If we identify that our staff is not capable of preparing those reconciliations, we need to get new staff. And it's gonna be as simple as that.
I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding, you know, on that because we got a finance report that it's an updated finance report. You know, I think there's a, there's, there was a bit of a misunderstanding that those numbers coming in were something other than what they were. So I think that needs to be, I think there needs to be some board education as well.
Well, I think all of the accounts need to be reconciled. So not just town accounts, but board of education accounts, library accounts, fire department accounts. Right.
Any entity that is under the umbrella of the town needs to provide the Board of Finance reconciliations within fifteen days of the end of the month. And if they can't do it, then we've a problem. Eric, is there anything through CCM or
you know, Crog or something that, from a finance point of view for board members to be able to maybe get some education, to be able to look at a report and dig through it a little more easily? I mean, it's probably easier for myself and, you know, Jeff and Diane and, you know, Paula, who's worked in a business to, to, that's looked at those reports than it is for maybe some other folks. So can we look into see if there's anything out there? Yeah, I don't know anything off the top of my head, but I can certainly raise that
with both CCM and Prague and see what training opportunities are out there. Yeah, the next time you're on that and talking to somebody up there.
Okay. I would also like to make a suggestion. My concern is if we, you know, we're, we're talking a substantial amount of funding that he's looking for to make up for the lack of preparation on a, on, on our side. I don't have a problem paying him, but I'd like that to be, I'd like full payment to be contingent on a contract moving forward because I really don't wanna try to bring another company into what our situation. At least they know what it is. You know what I mean? So I would I would wanna make full payment contingent on a renewed contract, personally.
I agree with that, and I know Eric has spoken to him about that. I don't have a problem with that, but it's not full payment. Eric will sit there and go through the details, but Eric, that is one of the things that you will ask and request Mahoney Sabol that we have a contract in place for next year's audit.
They're looking to be paid for the extra hours. I get that.
No, no, no. They're looking to be paid for extra hours at a certain percentage. We'll sit there and meet that percentage. But Adrian, you're correct in that we need to sit there and have a contract or lock in a contract to move forward next year. We have to provide them better information.
No, understood all that. I'm not debating any of that. I just want to make sure one goes with the other. That's all. No problem. I agree.
9C is the twenty twenty one-twenty twenty two financial status?
Nothing significant to report other than we did finally get the bill for the resident state trooper and it was significantly less than we budgeted for which that's always a good thing. It's annoying that the state can't do a better job of estimating the cost of their services, but it came in at $121,000 and we had estimated around 175. So that part was good. That's pretty much all I have with that. We're definitely in the black, which is, you know, nice, that's for sure. Okay. All right. Yeah.
Is there a way, because we haven't closed out that year yet, although we are over the thirty day number for us to ask some Mahoney Sabre to submit and transfer money out of the resident account to cover those costs? Can the Board of Finance transfer funds from that previous? Do you know what I mean?
Well, yes. Should okay. Well, let's transfer it. Let's One talk about second. The year that's being audited is not twenty
twenty one-twenty twenty two. No, but it's financial services provided in this current year. Certainly. Long as that's
acceptable, I'm good with that. I just think it may be a solution to address that. That's all.
Okay. We need to talk to the Board of Finance to get that done. Yeah. Make that presentation proposal. Once you have the numbers finalized and you have Mahoning Sebel signed up for next year, we need to make that to the Board of Finance.
The other thing that Diane Troquette had mentioned to me, I agree with, and I proposed to the Board of Finance a while back and they didn't accept it. But now maybe they think it's a good idea is making contingency essentially a permanent fund. Because if you have a year like this year when you're not actually given how much you're getting back from the resident state trooper, you could essentially not have to tap contingency. Year over year. Anything.
And you put that money and you may put that money in the permanent fund. That means the next year you don't have to budget for contingency because you already have contingency in your permanent fund.
Okay, I'd be okay with that as long as we put a cap on it.
Okay. Anything else related to the twenty twenty one-twenty twenty two financial situation status? Okay, let's move on to 9D, cool program contract with the town.
Okay. Put in your packet a draft from the town's attorney of what a contract with the COOL program would look like for the summer program. Because they're using the town's insurance, which they have been since they started the summer program, for practical purposes, what COOL is doing is subcontracting from the town to run a summer camp on behalf of the town. But we don't really have any documentation in place. So I asked the town's attorney to draft a document that would do just that, clarify that relationship. And that way, if something does happen, like a child breaks their arm or something, then, you know, and it does go to the insurance company, at least there's, you know, it's obvious that what's happening is the town is running a program, is subcontracted
to pool, if that makes sense.
Can you run this contract by Kerma? You can run it by Kerma? Sure. Get Kerma's feedback on it, make sure that it's covering everything that they would need. We should all read it and sit there and see if there's any additional items that we want to put in place. I guess the question is also, what does Kool do during the school year? Whose insurance are they using at that point in time? I have no idea, not ours.
There are certain things that we need to do related to COOL that I think would be beneficial because COOL also uses during the school year time resources. We probably need to look at this a little bit deeper, but KIRMA needs to be brought in and they need to review the contract and make sure that they feel it's good enough for the insurance issue that you bring, you're bringing up Eric, because it's true. We're
to have a start, a start date and an end date on each contract and then sign it yearly, basically. We should. That was my intention that at the beginning of the summer before
cool starts, you know, we just basically have a blanket document where we fill in the dates and we say go. Yeah,
because according to the state, to be a binding contract, you need a start date and end date, so.
We should probably look at it and understand what happens with COOL during the regular year too. We might have to have two contracts. We might have to have one, and we probably need to get with the Board of Education is who's the responsible entity for the school year. Obviously, the town is the responsible entity for the summer, but we should get an understanding of what happens during the school year and are we properly covered during the school year for the program, the after school care program that's run by GOL.
Does that intersect with town resources though during the year? They're using the
gymnasium, which is a town building. They're using the school building, is, you know, even though it's controlled by the Board of Education. And listen, if the Board of Education should have the contract, then the Board of Education should have the contract. I don't know. And Valerie can tell us, Valerie, does the Board of Education currently have a contract with COOL for the after school program?
The only contract is that they provide 150 a month for resources. Other than that, they have always fallen under the purview of the town and the rec department's insurance. They have no insurance through the school. It's always been through you guys.
Okay. So that's problematic. So we better figure this out.
Okay. So Doesn't shouldn't COOL as a nonprofit have their own insurance anyways?
Oh, we should, but we don't sit there and review anything related to COOL, which is one of the issues that I would have is we need to put into a contract that we need to see all of the financial records and we need to have appropriate
Well, don't need to audit their financial records, but I do want a I certificate of mean We should get a certificate of insurance, you're 100% correct. Because without, without that, I'm not sure that KIRMA will actually cover us even if we have a contract.
That's probably true. So now we know that no one has
a contract with GOL. So Alright. So we need to figure that out.
Yeah. Okay. So, Eric, that is something else that we have to sit there and get taken care of. 9e, a discussion regarding the River East, a coup attempt. The only thing that I would like to bring up about the coup attempt, because I was not here, is that The what? The coup attempt. I didn't know if you read that. I actually read that when I got back. A coup attempt occurred. We need to do a better job understanding definitions of what a coup truly is, And you know, the thing that I would like to bring up is more of a general sense of the town. And Andover is actually a pretty good town and Andover has a
the school does a tremendous job putting kids up to the school like RAM and doing extremely well. And if you look at the kids that graduated this past year, Ram did kids from Andover did a very good job. We had, I believe, the we should have had the valedictorian, but I believe we ended up with a solatorian this year, which is kind of phenomenal. Next year, we'll probably either have a Val Victorian or the Silatorian next year. So a little town like Andover, who has this bad reputation as being the stepchild of all the three towns, and part of that problem is the River East and all of the information that continues to get written in the River East as back and forth fighting over everything, and Andover always put in there. I would ask the people such as Mr. Denley, maybe they can stop using Andover as their home address and maybe put Manchester where they were born and raised and everything that they learned from their time growing up in Manchester. Maybe they use Manchester as their time, and stop putting Ando as their term of endearment because I mean,
point of order, think you're just, if you have a motion or a suggestion, can we No, no, no motion, Adrianne. I just feel like,
listening to my wife because she is always correct. Anyway, that's it. I'll move on. So nine F, town assistance in remedying a hoarding situation. Eric?
Okay, so the town was notified of a situation after a complaint was lodged with our animal control, which is NECOG. And it's taken a bunch of time on the town's perspective. We ended up having multiple meetings and sending out the building official and the resident state trooper and the fire marshal and the senior sanitarian from Eastern Highlands Health District. So we have a situation that needs to be reconciled before somebody can occupy their house. The person doesn't necessarily have the financial wherewithal to do it. What I am proposing is that if the homeowner is willing and I've had the initial conversation with the homeowner that we signed a contract where they voluntarily allow the town to lean the property to pay some of the bills associated with. Alan Cleaning up the property and getting it so it's legally habitable. We could do this without signing anything with the homeowner. We legally have the authority to just lean them and go. But I really don't want to do that because I don't want to be putting in putting myself position of, you know, forcing this on the homeowner.
If the homeowner's willing to agree to it, we'll help them out. If they're not willing to agree to them, we won't, and they just can't live in their house until such time as it's correct.
This is state, I thought as a town were responsible though to address this.
So yes and no. We would, if the person didn't have alternative living arrangements, we would have been stuck providing them safe and legal accommodation somewhere until for either a certain period of time or until the complaints were resolved and they once again had a CEO for the house. But since the the person has voluntarily vacated the premises and as a separate place to stay, we're not obligated to do that.
Have we have we issued a condemn condemnation on the property.
We haven't issued a condemnation. But we've issued a order from the health department and from the fire department and from the building department, stating that it's not a habitable dwelling and it can't be occupied until such time as those things are correct. Okay.
So what are you going to do? You're going to subcontract the work done? Yes. Yes. Okay, to who?
So, I'm working on that. We have a couple options. I think we probably need to do some cleanup outside as well as inside. I have a couple contractors that have quoted that. So, can get some of it done fairly quickly. The inside stuff is definitely harder. But we have, you know, I'm not willing to pursue it unless I know that's what the board is willing to go along with and that we have an agreement in place. The town ultimately is, you know, is not going to be holding the bag for the boss of this. Don't It's a town to be holding the bag for a long time. We could be holding the bag for a long time, and that's why I want to discuss this with you and not act unilaterally.
What I mean, I have no problem with you potentially doing it, but what budget line item are you going to pull it up?
That's a good question. I haven't got that far yet. Okay. To be perfectly honest.
So what are we talking like SERPRO or somebody to do the interior?
So we're looking at a couple quotes from a couple vendors very similar to that. Not SERPRO, but yeah, along that vein. There's turns out there's a number of companies that deal specifically in warning situations.
Yeah. That that's their business. Any idea what we're talking money wise here?
I don't know because until I get an agreement in place, I'm not going after any contractors.
I don't know that I want to agree to you doing this because looking at the house and property, if you're talking $50,000 plus the mortgage, the house, the property is not worth it, you know? So the town's not gonna get its money back. Because do we, do we, do we, do we replace mortgage as first lien if this happens?
I don't know that we replace as the first lien. I don't know that answer.
I'm just saying because if we would need to know what the mortgage, how much mortgage is left on the property. If there's 100 ks left on the property, you put 50 on top of it. It may not be worth that at this point.
I don't think there's much left on the mortgage. There's only about five years left to pay off the mortgage completely.
Should find that out, but we should also find out what it potentially would cost.
And I think actually check with, I'm not sure if Carol would know the answer, but certainly our town attorney should, what the order of liens are, we may be able to go in as a mechanic's lien.
Can I jump in? You've got to do a title search. Anything that's on there already. The only thing that's going to come before a mortgage is our real estate taxes. So anything that's already leaned, we're behind that. For all you know, we could be in fifth position. Yeah, so here's a on the property
at this point. Well, there's a mortgage, so there is a lien. There's a more well, right. That's our point. So, Diane, question. If we have a let's say they have a mortgage and we put in a we put a lien in place, if they go for another mortgage, do we still get bumped in position?
No. It will go in the priority of your recording, so. There Our is our lien has to be filed before the next lien as long as we're Right. Filed and secured, do you know what I mean? Right.
Yeah, so the, the, the agreement with the homeowner is going have to say that they can't, they can't have applied for mortgage and they can't file for mortgage before we're finished with this.
I mean most most mortgages on a property will have a covenant already in there with the existing lender to maintain the collateral. Yep. So it's the homeowner's responsibility.
Listen, we better get all the details related to what it's going Yeah. Yeah. So I mean So because in my mind, it's where are you getting it? And are we setting a horrible precedent? So let's get all the details together. I mean,
we don't have to do this. This is not an obligation thing on the Downs Park. We can tell the homeowner to stick it and then just keep them out of their house until they fix it, if that's the way you want to go.
But also keep in mind, that is a corner parcel on 6 and a primarily traveled road that does not look good to have that deteriorating. I yeah, I agree. It's it's definitely problematic.
I think as long as we can get in the right position on the lien order and we're fine there, then we do it because it's what's best for the town on the long term. Know?
Let's get all the details before we sign up for anything. Yeah.
We should have legal counsel on this. We should not be doing this without legal advice.
No. We're we're going to. First of all, it's it's the town's attorney that drafted the documents that are in front of you for this very reason. I don't claim to know, you know, how we how we do this. This was this was Dennis's.
Did Dennis have a, do we have a percentage interest on that lien listed? I didn't, I didn't get all the way through that. No.
You know, what, what Dennis had suggested is that we do an initial document, which basically gets the homeowner free to the concept
of a lien. Okay, and then we'll do it. And
then, you know, because the reality is we could go out and do the work tomorrow and just lean the house and if not anything, we can legally do that without the homeowner's permission. Just don't really want to go. It's a lot more difficult, you know, without the homeowner agree. And since the homeowner realizes they probably can't do this successfully without the town, you know, I think they'll agree to it and we can make do this in such a way that it doesn't screw the town and you know the homeowner eventually ends up back in the house. Okay, that's fine.
Well, there was a clause written into what Dennis wrote that says we won't foreclose. So how do we ever get our money back?
If you can't foreclose, you're waiting for a sale. They can't transfer without covering the lien so.
Right. Because you're never going to get a homeowner to agree to a voluntary lien. If you have the ability to turn right around and foreclose to get your money back.
Right? Well, mean. Put a note in place and you have some modest repayment terms. And if they don't meet the modest repayment terms, then we, you know, take action, just like real estate taxes.
I think the question in this case is that I don't know that they have the financial means to do that, Diane.
Then how many people are you going to set the precedence for? Anybody in town who's poor, who can't pay their bills, we can't be bailing them out.
There's only five years left on a mortgage, so there's other alternatives anyway, so let's find Let's find out what the total numbers are, and then we can come to a financial decision that makes sense, and if it doesn't make sense, we don't do
Did you get a copy yet of the mortgage deed, Eric?
Yeah, I have a copy of it somewhere, yes. Not a balloon or anything, is it?
Not that I know of. Because there could be five years left, but it's a balloon payment. So that would be bad. Let's sit there and take a look at it.
Once all the details are in place, then we can discuss that. Eric, if you need some hand looking at this stuff, let me know.
I mean, it sounds like I'm gonna have to hire a title searcher, because you want the title
done. No, you need to ask Carol to dig through the documents in town hall. I mean, we've already done that.
So if you have all of those and there's no lien listed with the town hall or about You gotta search tax liens. Aren't we the taxing authority? We are. IRS. That's true.
So we're going to need to get a title search.
Wouldn't the IRS have to be filed already though, Diane? I don't think they have to anymore. So
I think they have the power just to slap it whenever they want. I don't think so. Let's find out.
Tax records are usually, well, maybe not in Connecticut, are separate from the real estate records.
Let's get as much of the information as we want to make a decision because to be really honest, if the cost of cleaning up is $50,000 we're not getting that money anywhere. So I don't care what you say. Where are going to come up with that money? Let's figure it out and see if there's a way we can help the resident. If there is, we'll do it. If there's not, we're going to have to try to find a way to maybe get some volunteer organizations or some not for profits to assist.
Understand that might be laughable there, but that's what we're going to have to try to do. If you look inside that house, you would realize the town wants no part of the liability of having volunteers in that property cleaning plan.
You're not, yeah, you're not gonna get anybody in there. What were you saying, Diane? Mortgage lenders
in order to preserve them paying will make arrangements to advance funds to a homeowner to get them out of situations. Because they already have a vested interest in that property. Okay. So,
you know. Yeah, but, but the other thing is if you do that and they don't want to, you also could trigger a foreclosure based on the homeowner not keeping up the property, couldn't you? No.
Not in Connecticut. It takes three years to foreclose on a house in Connecticut for a lender. Takes forever.
Okay. All right. Eric, if the next meeting we can come and deal with this, that would be great. Nine gs, set a date for town meeting to elect Iran representative. I did not see that in the package. Do you have dates?
I talked to the town clerk. Said She any date starting the week of August 29 on would be fine from her perspective. So it's whenever you as the board want to schedule it. That gives her time to do the official notices.
Why don't we do it in September so that school's in session and we can send information home to the parents through the schools. Okay. Do you have any ideas? Calendar wise?
Don't we have, two or three applicants already that are interested?
We have two that have submitted written applications. I have heard verbally from a third that they intend to.
Alright, first day of school is the thirty first. So Do we wanna do it After the holiday?
I would I would suggest after the holiday. The following week is our meeting Monday the twelfth is our meeting.
Anytime the seventh, eighth, thirteenth, fourteenth, we could do it in the twelfth. Can we do it at our meeting?
Yeah. Can we do it at 06:00 just before ours? Possible. Do we have to do it in person?
I would think you're gonna have to do that in person because you're gonna be voting. Yeah. We're not set up to vote via Zoom.
Yeah, we did. We did a vote via Zoom for Lori Blake, and I think we should. I think it's better to do it in person.
Okay, so why don't we do it the twelfth? We know we have to be there. Are you saying that you're saying Lori Lori stole it? I mean, I thought she was by herself, so. No, we had, we had a lot of, we had a lot of complaints related that to that vote, Adrian. We had suggestions, yes. And other, yes. So you're September 12 at 6PM? Well,
we can't do it at 6PM. Made this board has made, we said we wouldn't do any meetings before seven. Okay. So maybe the twelfth won't work, even though I would do it the twelfth, then we could all circle back and start our meeting later.
That well, I think that time is gonna be a challenge for me, but don't base it off of just me. So
Paul, do you wanna push our you wanna push our meeting to 07:30, 07:45,
something like that? I don't think that that'll end that quickly, do you?
Three people voting for one for one position. How long is it going to take?
You're to let them talk? I'm just asking. Mean, that's what we've done in the past if we allowed the candidates to talk for five minutes. Yep. How about we give them two?
Yeah. It's not that important of a position. It's not what you're trying to No, it's not that. If you can't say in two minutes it's not worth saying.
Listen talking from somebody that talks a lot that's funny anyway. I know and I know you talk a lot. I just tried to
talk a little bit and I got cut off. I know you talk a lot Paula but we tolerate it so. Wow point my
point is being made. Okay I'm gonna suggest I'm gonna suggest Thursday September 8 at 07:00. 07:00.
It's a town community room. That's fine. Okay, so you make a motion for that Paula. I'll second it because I don't want anybody who talks a lot today. I have to go very long. He's gotten very quiet. No. Any further discussion on the date? Jeff Murray, do you have any input?
No, I'm good. I'm good. Whatever you guys decide, I'm good. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. I'm abstaining.
All right. So 301, and the abstention was Mr. Mandeville. All right, let's move on. So we are now on nine H, the status of the RFQ for Town Consulting Engineer.
Okay, so I just wanted to bring you up to speed. I did two things relative to this since the last meeting. The first was we had kind of narrowed it down to two potential companies. One was Post Jensen and Miller. The second was Nathan Jacobson. So, at the original meeting we had the person that was going to be our actual rep at Nathan Jacobson was on vacation. So, it was basically his boss and the guy that covered one of the neighborhood towns. So, I went down to Chester and I met with the guy will be the town's, you know, technically designated town engineer. That meeting went really well. I was impressed with them as a firm. It was, you know, nice to deal with them. And what really sealed it for me is because he knew we were interested in culvert work and he basically brought out a whole bunch of plans and said, in the last three years, you know, here's the five culvert projects I've done for different towns that I've managed. You know and walked me through what the very large expensive culvert was and what a much simpler smaller culvert was and walked through
when he would do one and. You potentially do it on an emergency basis and how you do it on a regular basis. So, I think in terms of our primary objective of getting the culverts done, the smaller stuff that's too small for the federal local bridge program, that seems to be our best option. I also went back and solicited a bunch of other, you know, information from Close Jensen and Miller and went through all their referrals that they listed. And the one thing I found that was really interesting is that every person I talked to that had hired close Jensen Miller had great things to say about them, but they all had the only real business they'd done with them was the management for the federal local bridge program. And I couldn't really find anybody that had done some of the other things that we wanted from the engineering.
So there's no question for dealing with the federal local bridge program. Do a fantastic job and they do a fantastic job for us. But I just felt that for the mix of stuff we're trying to do, Nathan Jacobson, you know, was probably the best fit for us. So that's what I'm going to suggest. And what I need to do with the Board of Finance is I need to get an understanding of, and also the Board of Selectmen is what we are looking for in terms of a contract from the town and what projects can I just assign to that engineering firm and what projects and where is the threshold before it's got to go back out to RFP? And so that's really the discussion I would like to have with it, because I mean personally from an ease of use perspective. The easiest thing to do would be to just you know start them with the first cut culvert on Hutchinson
and say okay we got it surveyed come back to us with the design, you know, in a proposal for how to get this bill. But is that how you want to go or. Or you know what you guys think the policy should be and what kind of contract, we should be signing with them.
The previous engineer, what type of contract did you have with the previous engineer? Not much of one.
Okay, then come back to us with the type of contract that you want to put in place and let's hold on. I mean, I have no problem. No, they gave us a contract offer yet?
He gave me a couple possibilities, basically a short form and a very long form document. But the real questions that need to be answered is, is that what the contract looks like, but what are the terms? Yeah, no, it's it's a terms of you're looking for terms of engagement, right? So, I mean, my suggestion is that we sign essentially a three year contract that, you know, we can extend easily for another couple years, because I mean, these projects all take a while. So a three to five year time horizon is a good time horizon that with some kind of built in escalator. So we know what our costs per hour are today and how that's going to change over the life of the contract. And then we need a dollar threshold at which, or project type threshold at which we know, you know, that if it's going to be something that's going to cost us 100,000 in engineering, we're automatically going to send that out to RFP. Whereas if it's something that's going to cost us 5,000 in engineering, we're probably just going to do it with them as the in house entity. And really what that threshold is going to be, and, you know and how you want that relationship to work.
How many contracts that we have that have been for engineering services in excess of $20,000
At this point, haven't had the only thing the last time we would have had one for that would have been Times Barre Bridge.
And that was under the federal reimbursement program. We're talking about a town engineer to handle all of our clover, that's outside of federal bridge program. Correct, correct. I mean, it's kind of like an auditing contract. You want to find an engineer that you can work with and get this done and get it done as quickly, get this stuff done as quickly as possible. And I guess the point is the whole point of doing this process is that we've already done
the vetting. So why are we going back out to RFP for engineering services? Unless it's a state federal program, I think, you know, or we're talking about something that is expected to exceed, you know, dollars 50,000 in engineering, it should all be in house through this program.
Do you know what I mean? I mean, I think by the time you got all the way through the regulatory hurdles, depending on what you're doing, you know, you could be over 50,000 potentially for Lake Road at the Sola.
You know, I don't know that for a fact, but that's But you, but that's total services. That's not, that's not just engineering, that's survey engineering and design work. Correct. Right. So again, I think that, you know, I mean, I have no problem even honestly, personally going to a 100,000, but, you know, anything else, you know, when we start in bigger, we're probably under a federal contract anyways, or federal funding anyways, so it's a different deal, you know, but the whole point of doing this in house is that we don't have to keep doing this, so, you know. I disagree
a little bit, Adrian, that's a lot of money, we're talking a lot, I agree that I want to sit there and utilize the town engineer for any of the local programs. But I do think that there's going to be a threshold that you have to set it or you're just going to run a fall, you're going to have some other issue.
All right. So what number do you want? Pick a number. You just said 50, 50 might be too low. Think No, anything think over a I said, I said 20. I mean, that's Eric said, Eric said even at fifty, we may hit it on like say, Basola.
Yeah, but that's one, that's one of the cohorts. Mean, Eric can do a list of all the cohorts that we could use this guy for without
No, we're not gonna, again, whether it's Basola or somewhere else, I, unless it's gonna qualify for federal dollars, we shouldn't be, we're wasting Eric's time and we're not respecting the process that we all just went through interviewing all these people if we say we're gonna go out all the time. Okay,
so what I'm driving at with you is we have one potential culvert that could exceed a significant threshold. I mean, am I wrong, Eric, in that the only culvert that's problematic, potentially problematic for the town is the Bisola Road culvert on Lake. That could be expensive.
Yeah. I mean, that is my guess, but you know, I'm just basing this off of, you know, looking at, you know, other similar projects that have been done in other areas.
And Adrian, I don't have a major problem if we utilize them on all of the projects that are not federally or state funded projects because there are different requirements for those. Just sit there and I go, I think you should set a number that if engineering services are going to be in excess of some number that you go out to bid. Because if you don't, you're just going to cause problems and Diane shall get the Board of Finance might sit there and say you have to go out to bid. So pick a number. So, so 75,000. So you're going to sit there and say that Eric can do a no bid program or contract with the engineer for anything under $75,000
Yes. If we've approved the project, or we say the project needs to go forward, yes.
Okay. Make a motion if you want, and we can discuss that.
Fine. I make a motion that Eric be allowed to engage Town Engineering Services up to $75,000 on all non federally funded projects once the project is approved, once the initial approval is given by Select to move forward on something. Somebody wanna second that? I'll second.
Okay. Paul seconded further discussion. I I just think you're you're running a fault of your own bidding project, bidding process. We just but we just did this. That's the whole just saying. I'm just saying. This is my Eric, many how many people bid?
How many people We have 14 companies bid on this. 14 companies.
And we interviewed seven? Four. What's that? We interviewed four. We interviewed four. After looking at the numbers and talking to, you know, and talking to local towns and who they're using. That's the whole point of doing this is so that we're not going back out for everything. Because you also wear out the system. If we keep going out and then we end up using our in house guys anyways, people are just gonna stop bidding.
Eric, did you talk to Brandon about if he got some sort of cost estimate for engineering? Just an idea on your basic, you know, eight or 10 foot culvert. The one like on Hutchinson Road.
So Brandon originally told me he thought that one would if we did it, on the cheap and we didn't apply for the state local bridge program, we'd spend about a quarter million on that one. And and for for the total package or engineering?
No. Not for engineering for to do it. Yeah. But just for engineering. Just for engineering. He never gave Never split it out. A bid. I mean, basically, what Brandon told me was halfway through, we said, you know, I'm so busy. I can't do the design work. I'll work with you to develop an RFP so we can send it out to get bid on.
Right. Look, I mean, the reality of life is Eric is buried with the amount of stuff we're already throwing at him and to ask him to then do an RFP for these things, when that's the whole point of doing the in house engineer, that we've just done the RFP and we're in the process right now of picking someone, it's disingenuous to all the work that Eric's already put in to get to this point here. Right. But
my problem is the first one that at Hutchinson Road could be 35,000 then the one at Bozzola could be a 125,000. Right. And so
You mean the engineering itself? Yeah, just the engineering. Yeah, so what I'm saying is if a typical project is between 1520%.
So yeah, so I understand what Jeff is saying. Jeff is saying that you spend know, $125,000
with not getting another estimate. No, and that's why I'm suggesting we cap it at 75. Well, it's still 75 or 125,
it's you know, that's still a lot of money, 75,000 a lot of money. Right. Somebody
could come in at 65,000. But, yeah. And so right off the bat, right off We the bat, you're looked those
proposals from different, I mean, their pricing was very fair because we also took into account drive time, whether or not they had somebody in the area. I mean, we eliminated people just based on the fact that they didn't have someone local, were gonna be hitting us for, you know, for driving forty five minutes to an hour. Cause we're gonna have to pay that time. So we took all that stuff into account, you know, when we went through this whole process. Mazola is gonna be the biggest, Hutchinson's kind of a big one. The rest of them are not that big.
I mean, look, if you say it's 20% of a project, you would have to have a project over 300 thou $300,000 is gonna be $60.60 grand if you're 20%.
So It's fine. Listen, AJ, if everybody wants to sit there and use $75,000 as threshold, I'm okay. I re I understand what you're saying that, you know, you're, you're hiring the, the, the My
point is Eric would literally need to hire someone to do the RFP with him, to then put it out to RFP. So not only do you drag out the process, but you're also still gonna still pay, you're still gonna pay our local company to help with the RFP to then bid it out for someone else to possibly get, you're still gonna end up paying them.
Okay, let's I'm vote on okay. I just hope the Board of Finance doesn't
not agree with us. I will gladly present to the Board of Finance if that's an issue.
Okay. We have to rewrite our purchasing policy in order to accomplish this. Right.
Yes we do. And that in my mind's eye is a three part agreement, Board of Selectment, CIP, Board of Finance. Everybody's gotta come together and have your input.
Okay, so let's get the first step of it done with.
So I have committed to taking our existing policy and trying to make the first red line pass on it and get it out to everybody. This would give you one number to start with for your red line pass, so. You know, so, but that isn't gonna happen in a week, it's gonna take me a little bit longer to do, get that So you need two weeks? I may need three weeks, I don't know. I haven't even started to look at it yet.
Because I've got other things on my plate. Yeah, so no, no, I think if we get this done by the end of September, you know, that would be a stat, that would be great, so, Yeah, you
and at least it gives me a starting point for when a contract, you know, would look like with them. And obviously I'm not signing any contract until it comes back to the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance. Let's call the motion, if you don't mind, Jeff. Sure. Somebody kept talking. All those in favor? Aye.
Aye. Five nothing, so now we'll pass it on to the Board of Finance and to CIP, and we'll sit there and see if we can get to an agreement on this. Okay, nine. Surge suppressors for the irrigation system at the Veterans Memorial Field.
Honestly, have done nothing on this since the last meeting. I know I need to. It's just not something I've gotten to at this point. I just wanted to leave it on the agenda so y'all remind me that I need to do this. Okay.
Scott, are we okay? Scott, are we okay? Is everything still running good? Yeah. At the one of Breakers was tripped the other day. Okay. So the suppressors so are doing that's good. Yeah.
We did not name the consulting engineer. Do you want to wait till you have the contract and then we'll give you that motion?
Yeah, I think that's fine because we're not ready to sign it yet anyway. Yeah. Okay.
Sorry. Just wanted to circle back. I realized that. Okay. Nine J moving the shed for the community garden.
All right. So the shed surprising everyone including myself actually got repaired and looked pretty good and seems to be fixed up pretty well. Personally, I thought it was totaled. I would have just crushed it and taken it to the dump, but reuse and recycle, they did a good job of fixing it up and painting it. So now we got to get it from there to the school. I know at least one board of selectmen has asked the public works foreman to move it, and at least one Board of Selectmen member has been adamantly saying they don't want public works getting stuck doing that. So at that point, I bring it back to you as a board and say, collectively, what do you want to do? Okay.
So the last time that you and I and Jay were down at the field, Jay offer? Or did he not offer to move that? He offered without being asked. Hang on.
My point is it's not up to Jay. Adrian, hang on. Let him talk. You talk so much. Come on, buddy.
Yeah, Jay Berry definitely said he could move that. It was going to be a little sketchy but they would move it with the what do you call it, the wheel loader
and just basically strap the thing down, get the resin trooper to block traffic for him and do it right at 06:00 in the morning. And he said he could move it. So he had previously said that he could not move it, he was down there with us, said that he could move it. So I called him up and asked him if he would move it and he balked and said that you know we would rather have the other guy move it with his moving trailer. That's the only reason I asked him Eric.
Right, yeah and look I'm not I just don't want to get in the middle of the board when I've gotten things from both sides so I'm not trying to pick fights with anybody over anything here. You just tell me how you want me to proceed. All right, Adrian, you're up. You're up, Adrian.
My point has been repeatedly that public works should not be getting roped into this stuff when they are busy doing roadwork and mowing and everything else. It's that simple. Not, it's, although it would be great if we had a huge group of guys down there, but we don't. So pulling them off of other work to do this, I think is inappropriate personally. Adrian,
these kind of things are, this is a town of moving town, constantly things change Adrian, daily. Sure. Okay.
Not always going to be some regimented thing that he goes out and crushes the transfer station on Monday morning at 08:15, doesn't happen I with
don't disagree with you at all, my point is though that several people, I believe, and myself included, have offered to help out with moving this thing. So why tie up Public Works for that?
Because they offered, that's the only reason I asked them again.
Okay, so do we have volunteer to move that other than public works?
There's some, Abby told me that she had a person that would move the trailer but you know, now he's in a very busy part of the season and that he doesn't know when he's gonna be able to do it.
So do we have a, do you know what the dimensions are on that thing?
Do you only know what they are? I know you're working with them. 10 by 14, I guess, right around That's 10, that's 10 feet wide. It could be, yeah. It's 14 feet wide, I think. It's long. 14 feet long. Yeah. Well, long wide.
It's probably, you know, three or four, you know, 4,000 pounds, it's pretty heavy.
Okay. So let's do this. If we can ask Abby and the garden group to to try to find an alternative to move it, that would be great. If we have to circle back and ask Public Works to help us to get this done for the town, we will.
Does this have to be moved right now? We move in the fall when they're done growing and then they want put all their stuff away? Because once our road work's done, maybe they can fit in their schedule in the fall. And why don't we just let it sit there? Me, that'd be a good compromise.
Yeah, I mean, if you can get somebody to volunteer to move it, they can move it now, and if they can't, we can hold off until public works has a little bit more time.
I will gladly volunteer to help move it. I don't think that will fit on the trailer that I currently have, but if somebody has a deck over trailer in town that we can borrow. I
think that will go with Selectman Murray's option sounded very well thought out.
K. Scott? Do they need it right now? Because, I mean, the No. No. No. They they don't, Jeff. You're you're you're right. They haven't had one, so so if they yeah. They schedule it on a day when the road when we get all our roadwork done and they're kind of prepping for the, for the winter season, the plows and everything like that, they get a half year so they can move it.
But they, again, I, if they want to put it out there for volunteers, I'm glad they will help. I've got straps, I've got a truck to move it. I just don't have the correct trailer at this time. Okay.
All right, nine ks, the Hop River Homes letter to the board selectment page, Page 23. Basically they're asking for a meeting with us, and they're providing dates from the thirteenth to the September 28, and from the twenty fourth to the November 4, which are extremely odd. Why don't we ask them for a meeting? Why don't they come to our meeting on the twelfth? Eric, reach out to them and ask them if they'll come to our next meeting. On September 12? Yeah, see if that can fit in. Did you read the letter, Jeff? Yeah. They're they're trying to Yeah.
I mean limit the limit the people that can use the field.
It's We need to discuss with them what their concerns are, and then we need to look back at thirty years of usage of the field and were there any balls hit onto the property that caused damage. I mean, there's lots of things that we can talk about, and there's definitely things that we can do to modify and make it work. I mean, Eric did the research, and we should be prepared to discuss that at the meeting, Eric, the research regarding the ball field being the Hop River Homes Leach Field. The field I mean, there's limited opportunity for usage of that parcel. The field is a tremendous opportunity, gives something for the community to sit there and put out there, but we're not going to invest the town is probably not going to invest any money, so it's going to be volunteer organizations or individuals putting up their money and their time to fix that field. So we need a contract. So it should be that simple. I mean, it's in their interests and the town's interests that sit there and get this done. So Whether the group believes that the abatement shouldn't be tied to the use of the ball field, that's a personal issue. From my standpoint, it's always been tied to it. As long as I've been involved in the community, I have been there is an abatement for the use of that tax that field, and that's how I've worked. So we got to make a decision whether we want to sit there and do it that way, and how long we want the lease to be written for and how long we want to provide an abatement for. Mhmm.
And if we don't want to provide an abatement for it, you know, I bet you they won't sit there and provide a lease for us. So I guess it is time, but that's just my personal take on it. But yes, ask them if they can come to the next meeting so we can have an open discussion related to it. 9L, the status of open board positions.
So you guys both all know about the town treasurer. Amy Knox has agreed to take on the board clerk position for the land use agencies. You know, still Marina and all fee at this point will cover Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance, at least for a while. But still looking for a permanent replacement for that for board clerk for those two boards. If anybody has any suggestions, Let me know.
All right, so let's move on to item 10, approval of the meeting minutes. A10A, Monday, 07/11/2022, the regular minute meetings, and ten B, the Monday, July July twenty fifth, twenty twenty two special meeting minutes.
So first of all, I screwed up and did not put them in the packet. So for that, my apologies. Yeah.
So then I guess we can't really They are online, just not in the pack. Does anyone want to make a motion to approve the minutes? Given that we haven't seen them?
No, I think we get I think we push it next month so that everybody has an opportunity to read them. No problem, I have no problem with that. Item 11, finance department report.
I didn't really see anything in our packet. Eric? So
there is not, Diane Choquette did not want a packet put in there because she was still concerned that it wasn't completely correct and we shouldn't be showing a report that's not fully correct. Okay. So we should not put that in the packet. All right, so that goes through all
11A, B, C, D, and E. We'll move on to item 12, the budget appropriation transfers.
There are none at this point. Okay. Overexpenditure requests? There is not one prepared. There will be one from public works, but it'll be interdepartment bill. Okay.
And that'll be presented to us at our next meeting? Presumably. Presumably. Okay. A tax collector's report, I did not see that in our package. Are there any refund requests? She did not submit. Apparently there are no refund requests but she did not submit in her report. Okay. Department reports, I mean let's I'm going to skip around on this just so I understand the logic. Was information provided by public works. I'm assuming this was requested at the last meeting. Has everyone had a chance to look at it? Yep. Yep. Okay. Is everybody who requested this happy with the information provided?
Yep. How long are we going to have Jay do that?
Jay was doing it anyways. It's just it was just format issue.
So you're telling me that Jay has been doing this handwritten on a piece of paper like this? Yes, he's got a notebook. Okay.
It's pretty standard form actually. So, I mean, this is not unusual for a public works director, So I just wanted it formatted differently so we could understand it. And the reasoning for some of this is that if you do get into a situation where you're trying to apply for FEMA or whatever, this is gonna help you. Okay. There's more than this required, but this is a good starting point. Okay.
And then there's the fire department has presented a report, and then we got a report from the building department, which, Eric, I'm assuming this is a new report off of the new system. It's the first time I've seen this. I like this report. Yeah, this is what gets printed out from
permit link. You know, this is just the standard monthly form coming out of permit.
Good. All right, and that was it. There were no other reports. There was the fire department, public works, and the town building department.
Did get the report from Connecticut State Police for the police activity. You know, it seems like every time they have a change of command there, they stop sending me the report until I ask again. So, Jeff, I hate to say it, but they keep sending it to your Andover CT address because you are technically the chief of police. So I have to remind them like every month or two that they need to send me a copy of that also. I did have a long conversation today with the resident state trooper. And we addressed some of the concerns from the board about work schedules. Apparently, what has happened is the Connecticut state police or the barracks had gotten unhappy with some of the resident state troopers who were choosing to work all second or third shifts because then that allowed them pick up extra daytime shifts and traffic guarding duty. And so the barracks had essentially reassigned everybody to day ship that were resident state troopers. So, I did discuss that with our resident state trooper and brought it back to his the sergeant in charge of resident state troop basically saying that we, you know, we expect our trooper to be working some, you know, at least one shift a week and in some weeks to, you know, not day shift. So the way it works is it's a rotating schedule. He works four days on, three days off and each week it moves back essentially one day or five days on, three days off, and then it moves back one day. So he works
a mix of, you know, weekdays and weekends, and it's a rotating schedule. So his sergeant agreed he will go back to working, at least one or two off shifts a week. Basically what we agreed to do is keep an eye on the actual arrest and crime data. And if we get to the point where we are starting to see a consistent spike in one of the evening shifts, you know, our residents group would actually happily work all evenings if I would let him, you know, that's kind of like his preferred shift anyway. So, but we're not going to do that unless we start seeing a spike in crime in a specific time. And then we'll start shifting more shifts so we have more coverage during that time. So that's kind of what we've
he's not on it, I'll have to look and see, but we probably want to get him on crime and safety Facebook page because there's been a lot of people posting on their, you know, people in their backyards, you know, people kind of, you know, walking up driveways and casing houses. So although there may not be a report to the state, you know, the barracks, there's definitely some movement out there and some concerns from residents, so, you know.
Right, but lots of people post lots of things on lots of social media, you know, and if they want it addressed, they should email the resident state trooper or call the barracks.
Again, communication is always an issue in any town. So, we take whatever we can get.
Sure. The other thing I did ask for is I asked for a detailed update on the pedestrian fatality that occurred. You know, was that three months ago, four months ago now on Route 6 because it's probably long enough that the full accident report is available, so I think we should we should have that. So, we kind of understand and see whether there's anything we can do differently in terms of presenting preventing pedestrian fatalities. Basically, from what I know, probably not because it was an intoxicated individual, you know, walking on the state road in the fog late at night. So, that's never gonna be a situation that's gonna be, that the town's gonna be able to make any positive safety improvements. The only other thing I wanted to say is we talked through, there have been three separate incidences, at least that the resident trooper is avail knows of, of catalytic converter thefts in town. One in Benjamin Franklin, one at Andover Auto Parts, and one at M and T. So, you know, it's not anything like a trend, but there have been three in in basically a two month period. So, and unfortunately, none of those cases do they have good enough camera footage to really make positive identifications. So, they have vehicle descriptions, you know, and they've shared that with all the surrounding towns and with the barracks, but they don't have, you know, they don't have a clear enough shot of the license plate to give an ID or a clear enough shot at the individuals be able to pick them out of the lineup.
So that's where we are on that. There other than speeding, know, haven't been any other, as far as I know, you know, arrests or, you know, criminal activity within town. So that's all I have for that, unless you have questions for me to relay to him.
Anybody else? Okay. Item 15, Correspondence. Any correspondence, Eric, that we need to be made aware of? Nope. We'll move to public speak. Item 16, Michael Cincovitz. I don't have anything else to add. Thanks. Valerie Bruno. Okay. Susan Camarota?
Nothing to add. Thank you very much. Very interesting meeting, as always. Okay.
Thank you. Anne Creme? Jerry Creme? Nothing right now. Thank you. All right. Thank you for attending. Diane Choquette. Nothing. I'm all set. Thanks. All right.
Nope. Valerie Bruno. She decided to hear us in the background.
Sorry, I was not I was on mute. I was telling you I was okay. All right. Thank you for attending.
Okay. That's about it. We have item 17. Do we have an executive session that we're going move to? Somebody can make a motion for that? Do we need to go to there?
I think we probably should have a quick discussion with executive session. It doesn't have to be very long. Okay.
Somebody make a motion to go to executive session and everyone else, thank you very much. We appreciate your, attendance.
Motion to move to executive session. I'll second. At nine All
those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, thank you very much for attending the meeting everyone. We're gonna kick you off.