Orono council keeps Forest Ave speed tables, sends traffic study to committee

[2:39] Council Chair: Good afternoon and welcome to the Monday, September 28th meeting of the Orono Town Council. Roll call shows we have Councilor Larraway, Councilor Hardison, Councilor DeMeritt, Councilor Powers, Councilor Baker, Councilor Quinn, Councilor Marks who's not going to be able to join us this evening. First, well that's the first item on our agenda. The second item is agenda review where we list all the different items that have been referred to committee and see if there are any questions about the agenda that require review clarification or additions. Did want to share when we get to the tabled items from last week's meeting likely going to ask the council to just vote down both those items and we have a fresh resolution action item for us to consider based on the fact that we have one letter not two different letters. Okay approval of minutes for September 14th 2026. Could I have a motion? Okay moved and seconded. Any discussion improvements suggestions? Okay all those in favor that's unanimous six to zero. Next up on our agenda is public comment. Public comments an opportunity for folks to come in and speak with us about an item that's not on our agenda. We welcome we welcome input in all of our discussion items on the agenda further in the meeting and there's a in case you we missed something and you didn't get your chance there's a public comment at the end of the meeting as well. So would anyone like to join us to speak about something that we're not going to take up in this evening's meeting per the agenda? Anyone online? Do not we don't have Cody here tonight right? So we've got Mitch. Okay seeing none we'll move on to presentations and discussion items. Item 5a is forced ab overlay [4:17] Town Manager DeShan: and traffic calming measures. Town Manager DeShan. Yeah so I put together a memo it was an interesting project I appreciate it I mean it was to kind of refresh with the council you were in these conversations this was implemented by the time I started in July of 24. So I was aware I've probably had very few if no more than a couple phone calls or questions regarding this since I've been here. So when it kind of came up it was a chance to go back through some of the information some of what's going on. So I kind of took more of a high level you know there seems to be two and I to summarize rather than rereading it there seems to be two things coming out one there's a concern about emergency vehicle response and two you were addressing a speeding issue at the Time, they're not competing issues, they're just different issues. They can be brought together, they can be left, one could be not dealt with and the other one could be. It's your choice, but they are policy decisions that depending on what your directives are, what your goals are. I don't think that anyone's suggesting that we're okay with speeding on Forest Ave. Nor do we want to see a significantly big detriment to emergency response vehicles going out there. So, like I said, on a quick look, I think there's a few different ways you could go. I just don't know what the community input is or what the objective. I don't have that lens yet, I guess, from you on what we're trying to accomplish. Accomplish if it is a blending of the two and getting to come together. I think there's probably like easy, medium, and hard for how you could approach this. We could go at it and say let's keep it simple and work it internally and do a few things based upon just general information that we can put together. There's a little bit harder that we would put some more research, get a little bit more data together, and then there's the full-on. And I, you know, and I'm not opposed to it, but again, you might want to consider bringing in a consultant there are. If you're really going to get into the very detailed traffic engineering side of those traffic calming measures, what they do to speeding, what is the actual demographics that road, what is its purpose in the greater network, what should we or shouldn't we be doing as a community, what's the best practices. I think that's where maybe a consultant's the better fit for us if we were to go into the very deep, but that's gonna, you know, those are also short, medium, and long for the amount of time they would take. So that's kind of where I'll stop and I think it's more about what you may want to ask staff and I about this. Okay, and just to set the table for the discussion we had [6:45] Council Chair: last, well, one, could you tell us the status of the speed? I mean, I was, I just drove it half an hour ago, so I could tell it, but let's make it official, have it come from you. Yeah, so there was some [6:55] Town Manager DeShan: Conversation at the last meeting, there's an update in the manager's report, and I did share out some information as well. It's an MDOT project to do the overlay. So when we reached out to them, they have a contractor. If we were going to tell the contractor to wait, it would be a situation where they would have not completed putting them back. So based upon what I'd shared that night with the council meeting was is that the policy decision had been made prior to me being here to have those there. So I'm, and we went from that perspective. As of last night, they were not back, but I have not driven it today, but I drove through last night and they were not back. They had done prep work the week before, but with them going back in, the only one shared information I gave with you is I'm curious what they're going to reinstall, because I would say my observation has been since the beginning, my observation, no complaints, no comments from any residents, is that our speed bumps were inconsistent along Forest Ave, but no one had ever commented to me that they were different. That was one of the things I'm curious what now that they will be putting them back, what they reinstall as a federal MDOT spec for a speed table or speedboat, that's what [8:00] Council Chair: they're striving for, right, in terms of what they shared with you, they will put back what's [8:03] Town Manager DeShan: Yes, they will put back something that I, and I'm trying to find out what that is. I'm wondering if they have a specification on what that is that they're installing, okay, but I haven't got that yet. [8:13] Council Chair: And the fact that they were down, two of them were down right there, two out there, the it's the raised crosswalks that are down, correct, and that led to a conversation about folks came into our last meeting to talk about concerns about response times to, you know, out Forest Avenue out by the lake and things like that. So now we're back again, did share the information with folks that per the, per the what we learned from DLT, that they were going to go back in, and this wasn't a chance for Orono to, if we delayed it, would come at a cost to the town and likely wouldn't be something we could have back in before the end of the current construction season. So the understanding is, just to be clear, absent action from this group tonight, I suppose, it would be those speed tables, all those elements, all four elements will be back in place by the time this current paving project is done. And that's this fall. That's our expectation. [9:14] Town Manager DeShan: Right when they originally communicated, I thought they'd be back by tonight. Yeah, I did. It looks like [9:19] Council Chair: things have slowed. I did too. So all right, any clarifying questions for Clint before we ask anyone who wants to kind of join us, then we can have a discussion? [9:30] Councilor: One of the things that I had asked, and this may have been captured in one of your options, but was just that, like, not creating our own new data and certainly not a consultant level of collecting data, but is there existing material that just kind of says, you know, that DOT has done or fire departments have done, public safety has done, that says this is an impact on response times? Nothing I would imagine we're [9:57] Town Manager DeShan: not the first ones that have had. There's data available, but I had no data on what the response time impact is on four staff. I can tell you what response time impacts in general across what are typical for other ones across the state, you know, we're across different areas, or what the federal DOT puts out, some suggestions on what the typical impact is, but again, I can't tell you specific to Forest at what it did to response times. Okay, Council Artisan, I disagree [10:28] Councilor: with that, and I think we need to call up the fire department heads to answer that questions. They're the ones that have that information, and I would love to have them [10:37] Town Manager DeShan: do it, because in our conversations none's been shared with me. Okay. [10:42] Councilor: Let's disagree with that as [10:45] Town Manager DeShan: well. Yeah, and I've never been given any data on response times. I know it's slowing it, but how much I have no idea. Never been given a time it [10:54] Councilor: was given last week that the response times have increased from anywhere from nine minutes to 16 minutes depending on the location of the [11:00] Town Manager DeShan: emergency, and that's one that I asked, that reached out, and that's anecdotal. Never had that come to me, but if the chief has a different comment, I'd love to bring him up and have him share that. [11:16] Tom Higgins, Fire Chief: Tom Higgins, Fire Chief. There's no doubt anytime you have to slow a large emergency vehicle down, it's going to slow things down, but I don't have any data. There may be data available, but I didn't study this before tonight or have anything on it. I mean, certainly again, I'll say that it's going to slow things down, because if you have an 80,000 pound truck like a ladder truck is, and you have to come to a near stop, and that's with these tables, you have to come to pretty near a complete stop, so at the Longest distance, it's certainly going to be take a longer time to get there, but I just, I don't have any exact data on it, so you know, how would you acquire some? Pardon me, how [11:57] Council Chair: would you test it? Could you go out and test it? Like in Durham, the city of Durham has hundreds of speed tables, and their fire department went out and tested a mile long run where they had like four speed, you know, several different runs where they had speed tables, and then under the same conditions where they did not, and they compared the data, and when it was a 10 or 12 second impact per speed table on the run, so could or no, do the same, say you go down Bennick at, okay, turn the red lights on and go from the post office a mile down Bennick, see how long it takes you. Yeah, the same thing up, hold on a second, do the same thing up Forest Avenue and let us know at the same time, you know, the same, you know, to the end of that last speed bump, you'd be able to tell, right? I mean, that would be a way to do it if we wanted to have [12:44] Tom Higgins, Fire Chief: an apples to apples comparison, you know. Yeah, the only way would be to compare because I, there's no [12:50] Council Chair: way, but I can't imagine it takes an extra 16 minutes to go up Forest Avenue just because there are four speed tables there. If someone's giving you that information is becoming part of the public conversation, I think they're being irresponsible, and I think we need to, you know, maybe it's if that's the, if that's the suggestion, it seems outlandish, and it seems like it's a pretty easy way to get around it. I don't want to call anybody out for where they're getting their data or where it's coming from but you can't have the town manager being told in a public meeting that his department's giving him information that he doesn't have, that seems beyond [13:21] Tom Higgins, Fire Chief: the scope of what's reasonable. Yeah, I mean, we'll, whatever we do, we'll, we'll, but we'll talk [13:28] Council Chair: about it. 's not my, you know, we got to talk about it together, but we got to get to, we got to get to the same page on this thing because we can't make good decisions if we're coming at it from with different information. Yeah, thanks Tom, I apologize for cutting you off. No, I'm sorry. [13:41] Councilor: Thank you. No problem. Okay, any other questions or comments? I would just say regardless of methodology, that's one way we could find that data, but as of now, you know, I am interested to know it, what we can find for data given existing information that department already has and how we might, I'm also, I would also be interested in testing if, that is the will the council, that this is something we want to really understand. I guess other comments that I have or questions, I don't have any questions so maybe I'll wait until we hear from [14:17] Council Chair: the public. Okay, anybody have any other? Then we're going to ask people to join us in the conversation too. Matt [14:27] Councilor: yeah, I think like you can talk about it. Yeah, all right, everyone would like to [14:34] Council Chair: join us based on, so the new information from when we had the meeting last time was that as part of DOT project that what was taken out is going back in as part of the completion of the repaving, but there does seem to be an interest or some disagreement in the community or even among the council about what the, you know, what the impacts are on response time. Can we do better? I do think those, I do think those speed tables were put in, it was hard, it was a lot of work to get us over the hump, sorry it was a lot of work to get us over the hump and get those installed last time, and could we have done, could the design have been better, is there a conversation to be had about, I don't think it makes a lot of difference to me about the outbound lane where the 35 mile hours speed table is, speed bump, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me if our concern is kind of inbound traffic where the sidewalks are, but at the same time then my wife, I showed my wife a picture of, you know, hey look what they do here, they put two kind of tables in the middle and then there's a space where the truck can go, but then she's like yeah, you're gonna invite people to, you know, zigzag across them, you know, people are driving recklessly will take advantage of that, and so I don't want to invite that kind of behavior either, so I'm happy to hear from people. I think we can do better and it sounds like I suspect we'll have some asks of the department both Public Works and the fire department coming out of this discussion, but if people want to join us and be a part of the conversation, we'd love to hear from you now and we'll invite you back when we talk about this again. Anyone? Yeah, come on up though, Doug [16:22] Doug Johnson, Public Commenter: Johnson, while I'm talking. Got it, thank you. Thank you all for your service, just to start with that. Doug Johnson, I live at 109 Forest Avenue, and Sean Smith, I don't see him in the crowd. Oh, you are here, Sean, great. He's a research statistician on this project. And just a few things, I took the liberty yesterday to go and talk with some of my neighbors. I talked with 13 different households about the current situation, and to a person, everyone has said that since those two speed bumps have been removed. Their perception is the traffic speed has increased across the board. That's my perception also. Other comments that I heard is, and I live, 109 is like halfway between the Noyes, it's in the old Hartken house, if those of you have been around for a while, and the one at Shadbush. And I consider that the acceleration zone. people really speed up after going past noise and speed up after going past shad bush i'd like one in front of my house because i have a garden that i work in and i weed out front and it's scary as hell sometimes and not everybody some people will slow down but not everybody does some people will move to it's a double yellow line there will move over a bit but I've had cars speeding by very fast while I'm out there working. One neighbor has removed their garden that's by the world because they felt it was so dangerous. So some of my neighbors who I got to talk to again are here also, Forest Avenue. Could you raise your hand if you're on Forest Avenue? So it's still a major concern, even with the two replaced, and I'm very glad they were replaced. I do find it interesting that the two with the sidewalks were the ones removed, which seemed like the most important ones. One neighbor also talked about there's a path from the circle down off of Noyes that goes by his land, and that's where a lot of students cross. There is no crosswalk there,. And that is something that he was wanting to see addressed too. So the concern is still there. The speeds increased when those two were removed. It's still a dangerous place. And there's a lot of, there's a couple of new families on either side of me that have young children that were just within the last couple of years were born. So they're also concerned about the travel to school, so I don't think there's anything else, but thank you. Thanks, Doug. [19:21] Council Chair: Anyone else like to join us? Yes, please come on up and introduce yourself. Thank you, I'm. [19:29] Councilor: Elizabeth Bayer at 99 Forest and I'm I'd like to first of all to concur with Doug in that people do accelerate that we're missing those bumps because that they definitely slow people down and unfortunately, they also, after they've slowed down, we have this long straightaway, and there's nothing there. And I've seen people actually gunning it after they go over the hump at noise, and they have the whole stretch all the way down to where the hill goes down toward the next one, and they are going fast. And I, too, we have no sidewalk on that side. And I work I trim bushes I move the grass I have I have all kinds of garden work that I do at the front of the house and I'm constantly having to whip my head back and forth to see if anybody's coming and when they're coming fast I move out of the way which I don't think should have to happen and when you're pushing a snowblower when you get down to the road you have to turn the thing around and if cars are going 45 or 50 miles an hour it's it's it's hard to manipulate a snow blower in a way that you can easily get it turned around so I really wish and hope that there could be something added to that straight away one of the things I've thought of is I think there are two there are two 25 mile per hour signs but they kind of run an area with trees and they don't really stand out I mean I don't only know they're there is because I look for them to see if they're there and I've seen many streets that have 25 mile per hour signs with blinking yellow lights I don't know how hard it would be to put blinking yellow lights on one in each direction I don't know if you could possibly put a another bump on that straight away but that would help and also after that all that was done and we appreciated it so much there was also a police presence and that really I think police presence helps a lot and I haven't seen a police in a really long time but I have seen people running down the road at 45 or 50 miles per hour and I know that we're policed on Main Street and people know not to go that fast on Main Street because somebody's watching out for them and unfortunately when GPS came out all the traffic I think people know it's slower and it's you're more likely to get caught coming down Main Street so GPS has sent everybody this way and it's a fast way to get into town and you're not likely to get stopped so that's just something to keep in mind too and again as Doug said thank you very much for your work and your consideration [22:29] Council Chair: Thank you, Elizabeth. All right. Last call for conversations today. Come on up, Sean. You still have that radar gun? [22:45] Public Commenter: Thanks for your service and all that you do. I know it takes a lot of work. I just wanted to mention Sean Smith. I live on Forest Avenue, and I worked with Bob and others in the neighborhood to put together some data, which was actually other contributions of the data were from the town when they had the speed sign up. I just wanted to mention to refresh the memory the top speeds that were observed were in the 80s on one direction on Forest Avenue and in the mid 50s on the other, and if you do the calculations we had over 500 data points, so a car was driving through there over 10 miles an hour the speed limit every few minutes during the normal traffic hours of the day. The other part that I'll mention is just that zone where enforced avenue isn't just one or two students kids going across the street, there are a lot of kids going across every day. And so I said sit on the porch and watch them and worry that something was going to happen because there's evidence that, especially on the hill in that portion that comes from noise down to the towards the into the town people really accelerate down that and. And there was an accident right in front of my house there where somebody just couldn't stop because they were going so fast and there was a collision. And there's another one, there was a fatality up as you approach at the top end where it's 35. There was an accident that I've been told near Shadbush that actually where the turnout is. And not only are the, it's just, there's a big health risk. I looked through the CDC data on fatalities and they really go up a lot in terms of fatal accidents when you get above 35 miles an hour. The other issues that have already been brought up, it's just really hard even to turn your car out if somebody's going 45, 50, 60 miles an hour down the road. So there are a lot of reasons to do this. The other issues with the ones that were taken out is they are both crosswalks. And the one at noise is actually near, it's kind of a blind intersection. If somebody's going 50 miles an hour through there, you really don't have enough time to complete the turn. And the speed hump there, or the speed table, was actually making it much more safe to make a left turn from Noise on to Forest Avenue. So I just wanted everybody to know all those things because they're really important, and I appreciate the consideration of it. There's also a need, that place where the pedestrian walkway comes out in the middle of the hill is actually another need for another calming device, whether it's just something like they have on Main Street with the posts that stick up or something, because there are a lot of crossings there and people do sell accelerate down that, and one of the issues is if they're spaced so far apart there's a lot of room to accelerate in between them, so people speed up and gun it in between them. If there were more of them so that the average speed would be around at least less than 35, it would be very helpful, and that's can you email like a [25:33] Council Chair: address of what where you're talking about with that piece on the yes now it's 522 in the just track it for the YouTube right when I go back and watch this, but can you send an email address or [25:43] Public Commenter: address where you think that would be okay. I can also send you the presentation I gave when the statistics were put together, they went out to the and I presented it here. Yep, that was very [25:53] Council Chair: helpful, thanks for all your help. Oh sure, okay, thanks Sean. Okay, anyone else? So council discussion [26:01] Councilor: on where we go from here. Sorry, yeah, I'm indifferent, yeah, okay. Just as I said in the previous meeting, I think, in the absence of some more information about how this is impacting the wait times for emergency services, this itself was born out of safety concerns from the neighborhood, and I would not be in favor of removing these in the absence of having more data that suggests significant impact on service time. But I'm curious what other counselors think. I'd like to know. Well, I'm sorry, I'll let others [26:47] Council Chair: respond, but yeah, I'm glad, okay, well, all right, I'd like to know, I'd like to know what the service time, I don't want people who live up by the lake worrying that if it's 16 minutes, I absolutely want to know it, and if it's not, you know, 9 to 16 minutes, I absolutely want to know it, because that's a critical data point for our discussions in terms of, you know, this isn't binary. I think we can do better. I don't think there's a winner or loser in this conversation. I think we can do better for everybody that lives in Orono, but we have to have the right information that from a verified, you know, there are national state studies, but I think we need to ask our town manager to have the department, public safety, to do some sort of look that we can feel good about in terms of you know how they tested it what they did and we could be transparent about it with everybody and if it is nine minutes if it's a minute look that's one side of it if it's nine to ten Then that is absolutely something we need to be transparent about with the people who live in that part of town and those are hard comments make for a different conversation and I also think that we should look at what other elements we could consider particularly for that most the furthest out you know is are there other things like we're seeing impacts from the demonstration project here in front of Westwood that I think is having an impact on people driving 25 miles an hour and slowing People down is that an alternative like for outer Forest Avenue is some kind of element like that where we narrow the roadway from the perspective of the driver is that something that could be effective without having the same you know forcing the tanker truck to slow down to essentially nothing to go over it I mean is there a better way to skin that I'm not gonna the cat lovers in the room right but is there a better way to come at that opportunity than what we have in place now because The one out there now is extremely aggressive and it needs to be designed it should be designed to slow people down to the speed limit not slow people down to a stop and I do think it is I do think it's an extremely aggressive fixture on Forest Avenue [29:04] Councilor: Okay sorry Jacob so first according to the Department of Transportation Highway Administration done these studies yeah according to the Highway Administration who has done these studies, per speed table is between up to a 9.2 second delay per table. So there is data out there. A question I had, though, is I thought when we put the flashing speed sign up at the top of Forest, tourist that was going to track speeds is that being done I don't think those are you know [29:53] Council Chair: There's the, there's been a radar light where they'll show you your speeds on there, and then it's been moved before. I'm not sure where it is now. Okay, maybe I just got it lost. It might have been obscured by all the Leo Kenny and Mike Tipping signs on Forest Avenue, and I couldn't see it. But Dan, we know damn, look at that police chief. I'm sorry, don't put it on the spot and [30:16] Councilor: So the reason I asked that question is that if that is tracking speed data, then I, that would be in my mind more useful than kind of, yes, I realize that folks on Forest Avenue have been tracking the speeds, but you know, something from the same spot I think would be more helpful in those discussions. And so the other point is, so yes, traffic calming is needed through there. I also want to be cognizant of the fact, and I'm sure you're, could get angry at me for saying this, before seven, who is still a Thoroughfare from Stillwater to Main Street, so it's never going to be as slow as a side street. So how can we, what's the middle ground Here, okay, anybody else? Yeah, I just would, I'm curious to, especially ambulances, when people are called to the, to that outer Essex neighborhood, what is it, a hundred percent of the time that it's our ambulance that gets there first? Is it eighty percent of the time? Is it 90 of the time? Like how often does Bangor get there first, if they do get their first ever? Is it always 100? And then I'm just curious, and do they get there now more of the time, you know, or is it always we always are the first Responders and we're always there first, we've always been there first, and we'll always be there first going into the future, or whether their other ambulance services get there sometimes before us? And what's that percentage? And has that changed drastically since we put the speed bumps in? [32:16] Council Chair: It's, it was tables. Sounds like this. And we've been on this for a while. And it's an important topic to a lot of people. And they're, you know, again, I think we can do better. I don't think there's a winner or loser here. I think we can try and make improvement to all our stakeholders. I wonder if, and but I also know it's not going to happen between now and the end of this construction season. I wonder if it's something that a community development committee could roll into its oral stops work in terms of a conversation and ask for staff to bring back a test, you know, test runs, some data sources that we could point to that we think have some validity, our own little, our own test run, and then have a conversation with That committee about with public works or experts about what the right traffic elements might be, and those are public meetings, so people could come in and be involved in those. But what kind of elements we may want to consider that do better for both those who are concerned about instant in town traffic and speed and safety, and those concerned rightly so about how long how long it takes for first responders, homeowners to reach their reach their homes. So that makes sense to people, and so we could put an order on the next committee next meeting and refer it to Community Development. Andrew did you have something? Yeah I [33:41] Councilor: just want to first start with an apology to Clint, an apology to everyone here. My historical and working knowledge tends to be at conflict with making sure that information can be provided right away, so I do apologize for that attack. And as Dan so eloquently put, those speed tables are needed. I myself have noticed that having the two on the ends are not effective, you're missing the ones in the middle. I just think as policy holders we also have an opportunity right now where those have not been put in yet that we could talk about having them put in as we had planned or past council had asked for them to do, but perhaps they could be done at a different level of height so that it's traffic calming but at the same time not bringing [34:33] Council Chair: everything to a halt. Yep i do think i do think in terms of immediacy it feels like the town managers hearing us and maybe the public works directors hearing us in terms of understanding what i want to know when they're going back up, because it's important to me that they go back up this fall and i don't want to miss the construction season. And two, having some awareness about what the what the how they might be different and giving us a chance to understand that a little better could be useful information to have back and be able to report back. I don't think we're going to have a chance to change the outcome, but it'd be helpful to be able to report that information back to people. And any thank you any Andrea thank you do you do a really you're very graceful in how you balance your both knowledge you've had for a long time and be a counselor and the inherent tug and tug and pull from that and i appreciate you for that [35:26] Councilor: Yep, and this is going to get shot down very quickly, but good, there was discussion last time and then some inferences this time that perhaps the one at the 35 mark is not useful. So would a compromise be to not put that one up this time, knowing full well right now? I missed that. Yeah, I don't see it got shot down just for [35:57] Town Manager DeShan: different reasons. Yeah, to clarify, so there was four. The one closest to Main Street stayed, the one furthest from Main Street stayed, the two in the middle were removed because that's what they had to do for the work they were doing. So that's the way they approached it, the race crosswalks [36:11] Council Chair: were both, you know, and they both have the blinky RFIB lights on them, and now they're just smooth as silk. Yeah, so I do think that should be, I do think, I'm sorry, yeah, like legally you have to, you know, I'm just teasing the, but I do think, I do think there, whatever conversation, if we do go with the community development referral approach, I do think that fourth, that outermost speed bump is, it's incredibly aggressive, and it is, while I like it from a, you know, speed in orno and pay the price perspective that's not really, I don't, I don't need that satisfaction to, that's not good governance. So if we do the referral route with an order at our next meeting, we could absolutely take a look at that, you know, and get suggestions on what that design should be. Should it be bollards that narrow the traffic as opposed to a speed table or bump or something like that? So people, is a consensus, if I bring back in order in our next meeting, you [37:18] Councilor: won't laugh me out of the room is that all right no i 'll say i'm i'm definitely in favor of us sending this to community development for this i want to be clear and i don't think that this is really what's been said at all i'm not interested in talking in terms of the options that were presented to us in this presentation i'm not interested in us trying to pursue this at a consultant level yeah not at this point but definitely excited to see what the community development committee can come back with. And could you repeat sort of what we're likely gonna want to charge them with? One is it the, whatever it is, it's wrapping up some analysis of how that outermost speed bump is going, and then the other is trying to gain some understanding of impact [38:01] Council Chair: impact on response time, response time, and honest to God, or no, you know, an or no exercise of [38:09] Councilor: assessment where we take trucks we well I don't think we need to specify the methodology here. That might be the work of the committee to understand exactly what the specifics of the work need to be, partly because that's not work that either any of us are specialized to do, right? Although I appreciate that you're trying to be proactive in finding a concrete solution. Yep, and that should certainly be part of the conversation as one way maybe, but I wouldn't [38:32] Council Chair: want to over prescribe that. I agree, but we do need something that kind of frames the data, that data that we agree what the data is that we're talking about, and that to the extent that the fire department and that needs to be official from the department should be something on the letterhead with an assessment, and they can choose how they how they want to best their professionals and they can choose how they best want to present that information to the town and council. Okay, anything else on this one? All right, I do appreciate discussion. Thank you for, I know this is a big concern to people. I appreciate folks coming in and being part of the conversation, so thank you. We will move on from the presentation and everyone will be invited to in these community development meetings it'll happen, people will be invited to be made aware of that and ask to participate. Acknowledgement by council members, let's start, Rob, can we start on your end? [39:25] Councilor: No, none at this time. Thank you. Councilor Harrison, same? Same. Matt? Jacob? Nothing. John? Any acknowledgments? I'm racking my brain. I feel like I had one, and then everybody else went so fast with the passes. Yeah, [39:55] Council Chair: there's got to be something. thing, yeah, I'll say I'll say I want to acknowledge that the University of Maine, there's been some challenging news, national news and local news, yeah, regarding the University of Maine, they'll get some budget challenges that they've been, I think, starting to be really transparent about with the community. People have questioned research and motivation behind research publicly, it's been national news, and just everyone here pulls for the University of Maine, and I think there's a time and time again there have been a stand-up institution and for our community in the state, and I just want to acknowledge that, you know, even when things are hard, there are a lot of people pulling for the University of Maine here in Orono, certainly, you know, and I think on this table for sure, and we're, I think we're with them as a [40:49] Councilor: As a partner, so acknowledge that, John. I'm gonna go because it came back to me, yeah, even though I know you like to go last. I get in my work as a social worker in town. I get to communicate with a lot of different students in a lot of different ways and heard a lot of great things about a really exciting homecoming week up at the high school, and that they wrapped up with a really impressive blowout of a win in football over the weekend. So just wanted to give a little recognition to the high school and the athletics program up there and their homecoming [41:27] Council Chair: week. Yep, great. It's not that I like to go last, it's just I like everybody else to go first. Nothing, it wasn't even paying attention. All right, moving on. Consent agenda. This is an opportunity for us to move and vote as a single action on a number of items. Any member of the public or any counselor can pull something for the consent agenda where it'll be moved to the action items for a typical discussion. Is there anyone who'd like to call anything off the consent agenda? Seeing and hearing none, we need a motion on the consent agenda. Moved and seconded. All those in favor, that's unanimous, six to zero. Okay, agenda item eight, action items. This first is order 26211, an order authorizing parking restrictions and parking bans for the upcoming year. Can I have a motion? So moved. Okay, moved in a second. This was, we did have a public hearing on this last time. We do now, we've moved to an annual practice of approving instead of having pages and pages of parking ordinance in our ordinances that are cumbersome to change and revisit. We are moving to this method. And have we seen this interactive parking map draft yet? [42:46] Town Manager DeShan: You asked for it at the last meeting, so is this the first time we've seen it? That wasn't, we didn't see it last time, right? And it's not live, it's the first draft of what will hopefully someday be an interactive map, but it, you, there was an internal map staff's using, so we shared you the most current version. Does [43:02] Council Chair: anyone want to come and talk about that before we move on or just quickly i 'm i'm more excited about this than i probably ought to be [43:13] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: So Dan Merrill, Police Chief, I am honestly not going to profess to be the parking master. So if you guys have real questions, the brain behind this, the brains behind this, is going to be Megan, but somehow I'm up here. Yeah, loosely interpreted though. This is what I was talking about at the last council meeting. So Clint asked if we could get you guys the map. It's not interactive because it's still a draft, so I'm just going to say draft a lot. But this is what I think to some degree. I don't know, Clinton. Am I out of balance to say I put in my memo genuinely that feedback from, I think, council and the community as to how we can make this map most user friendly would be important, because we're still in the drafting phase, and Megan's giving me a head shake from the back, which is good, saying that I'm not just winging it too bad. But if so, the theory is, Mitch, you have the capabilities to pull the map up. I know, I'm sorry, I should have [44:07] Council Chair: prepped you for this. I'm sorry. Oh, so I know this wasn't, but I knew this was going to be quick, but [44:10] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: if you guys were looking at the map on your laptops up there, in theory you'll see lines on there that are sections that you could click on that would say this is prohibited parking from these hours to these hours. These are designated lots where you could park, and the line actually shows, so the span of the line, I know it came up, it's unfortunate that Councilor Marx isn't here tonight, but I know at the last council meeting it came up about College Ave, so the length of the line would actually show you where it's prohibited for that entire length of a street. So I know we talked about College Avenue, say on the riverside, it's intermittently parking and no parking. So if you were coming to a game or coming to graduation and you weren't sure, then maybe Megan's coming up here to bail me out, you would know this section is allowed and this section is [45:01] Town Manager DeShan: not allowed to park on the side of the road. And you don't have it in front of you, I'll add in, if people click on the map that we put in the agenda, it uses an example of the south side of Forest Ave from Bennett Road out to 130 Forest Ave, roughly, and it shows you the description. A person would be able to click and understand there is no parking on the south side for that distance. So that's the way it's listed there for people to see it. It will then also match in with what we put up for traffic markings, but since it's a draft and where we're going as a goal, we couldn't put the full interactive map available to the public. Yeah, and the ultimate goal would be to [45:33] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: make it essentially a GIS map overlay that's on the map that is on the town website right now, so like you have hunting or, you know, where this is allowed and that's allowed. In theory, you'd be able to select this parking box and just see the parking and no parking areas in town if you so [45:50] Tom Higgins, Fire Chief: chose. Is [45:54] Councilor: it anybody have any questions about Jacob? My comment is from an efficiency standpoint, this is the same list as last time we talked, we just, it's, we have an illustration that's new this time, so yep. Do you like the illustration? It looks wonderful. I think he's annoyed with me for [46:12] Council Chair: asking you to come talk about it 's probably what i'm hearing but with all due respect mr [Councilor: Chairman, I] can pass the gavel down if you ever want it, when you want, when it's your time. Yeah, all right, well, I'm excited about it, I think it's going to be a phenomenal tool, so all right, big goals, big goals, thank you. If you work any, we did bring it off the action, we did. We had it on the consent agenda, but moved it to the action just in case anybody still wanted a chance to talk about any of the updates from the public, but I'm not seeing that. So, any other clarifying questions? Any comments from the public? Any discussion, Jacob? You ready to move? Jacob wants to vote. All those in favor? Six to zero. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Megan. It's going to be nice. Order 26212212, order authorizing town manager submitted application for up to 17,000 from the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation grant program for the purpose of a new radio system for the police department, accepting funds, so forth and so forth. Dan, do you have any questions? [47:21] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: Pretty straightforward memo. I, oops, oh we gotta, the banker has questions. Yeah, oh no answer. Yeah. [47:29] Councilor: Yeah. All right. And this just came to me. Otherwise, I would have sent it to you before. But is there a way to roll in the upgrade, whatever we're planning for the Legion in communications, to this grant? [47:44] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: I would not recommend making it that money from being 100 percent honest, because my grants do next Thursday and I have a quote and they are very specific in what they require and is needed. [47:54] Councilor: It's a great answer. I don't want to add more to my plate if I'm being honest. Is this inclusive or additive to the existing budget for the station? [48:08] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: I think that the system that I'm probably trying to build is a little more robust than they probably have specified, because it would be a best practice system that has fully integrated capabilities that I'm not so sure we 100% agreed to in the contract. Because I was hopeful that I could attain this Firehouse Subs grant, because I've talked to them and they're a good partner, and I've talked to what's been successful. So if we don't get this, we will have some type of a system in there. I'm not so sure it's going to be as grand as what I'm going to try and get through the Firehouse Subs grant, but this isn't, this would [48:47] Councilor: help, and I know it's a small percentage of the total budget, but this isn't offsetting or going [48:51] Dan Merrill, Police Chief: going towards the, I think it could help us in some of the IT costs, right? So we had costs carved out for surveillance and the radio system, in theory would have been in that. So I think that there is an ability to realize some savings in this if we get this grant, right? So I'm hopeful. [49:11] Council Chair: Okay, any other clarifying questions? Any comments from the public? Any discussion? All those in favor, six to zero. Thank you, thank you. Order 26213. See if the town will authorize the town manager to apply on behalf of the town for federal financing assistance under the provisions of the Land Water Conservation Fund Act for the development of Martin Park, and so on and so forth. Could I have a motion? Yeah, Matt's got it. Second. Thank you, thank you for keeping the administration working. [49:44] Town Manager DeShan: And Clint, are you, hey, yes, yep. Council's seeing this, you've approved it, they've come back with some follow-ups, and I guess they've, and they've extended the deadline to the end of October. They want an exact article as they wrote it verbatim, so we're going to follow it verbatim. The short of this is the funds are available, there's a mixture of in-kind and some funds that are currently in the capital reserves. It's a summer next year project, if for some reason we feel we need additional funds, but there's not, we're 100 prepared to move forward on this project. There are some other follow-up questions they're working with, it's not a certainty we'll get it, but this is something that if we don't do this, they're going to reject our application and say apply again next year, and you'll see an article similar to this next spring when we apply for next summer. So staff and I reviewed it, thought it was best to bring it forward with you to see what's going on in the sample articles, the memos they've shared us and this is the exact language in order to 26213 as they wanted it for their grant packet. So any question, I'm sure you got a few. Is there anything about this? It is obligating [50:52] Council Chair: the town to matching funds at this moment with this act. This is a hundred percent saying you [50:57] Town Manager DeShan: will do this project if they give us this grant. What is that? The budget, so that we attach the budget. Yeah, in the budget workshop it's a combination of in-kind and local cash match. So the budget that there's attached, we have a recipient match of 67 000 in cash and we have a lot of that in reserves already. Right, let me get the right line. I'm looking two of these, sorry. Well, I'm not sorry, I guess sorry. 1067 is our in-kind, 105 is our cast match right now. Based upon staff's interpretation, we have it in your capital Improvement program, the funds are there. It's not all in a park renovation, but Martin alone has over 50. So what we're saying is that I know the reserves are there, 's other projects we've talked about reallocating towards it, so it's funds are there without new tax dollars being raised [51:55] Council Chair: and we'd trigger leverage 163 000 in federal investment for correct. Yep, 163 5, yep, and it again [52:07] Town Manager DeShan: we talked about this before, this makes it permanently designated as land and water conservation funded. You can never pull it out without some major steps and hurdles going through. There's an interactive map online of all these that exist. Orno has a couple in town already [52:21] Councilor: ready, so check it out. Okay, thanks for this glint, and yeah, I mean, I think this will, if we can get this and we can improve martin park, this will have a significant impact, especially on the ball players, the little league in the spring. And also when I read this, I was like, why is this so awful in terms of reading it? I was like, why did, why did clint let this go through? And then I read the memo and found out we had to have it exactly with this wording. All [52:51] Council Chair: right, any more clarifying questions? Any comments from the public? Nobody opposed to better little league parks. I think it's going to be awesome. I hope it comes together. Okay, any further discussion from council? All those in favor, that's unanimous. Thank you, and thanks to the team for bringing that forward. Order 26214, order authorizing town manager to draw $50,000 from the EMS Monitor Reserve, $7,500 from the SCBA Bottle Reserve, and $641 from the Capital Equipment Reserve for the purchase of SCBA compressor bottles and bottles. [53:30] Councilor: So moved. Second. [53:32] Dave Berker, Public Commenter: Okay. Clint? [53:33] Town Manager DeShan: And saying, yeah, so Zach and I had a discussion on this. This was brought to the council's part of the process. These were shared with finance committee and with council. We need an order for the audit. When he was going through and catching up on all his checks through the audit process, there was not an official vote of the council making this allocation. If you recall when we talked about this at the prior meeting, as discussed when the staff presented it to you, each of the reserves needed to be verified and there was a insufficient dollar amounts this clarified where all the reserves were sufficient to meet the need for the total 200 and I think it was 213,000 total projects. So these were the last steps to do it that way. All funds are allocated. You did approve them in the budget process, but he needed an order to clarify where they were because there was some ambiguity in the resolve. Okay. [54:24] Council Chair: Any clarifying questions about this clarifying order? Okay. Any comments from the public? Any discussion? Appreciate people bringing it forward. All those in favor of order 26214? Okay, that's unanimous. All right, order 26215, order assigning the community development committee to coordinate with the University of Maine student government leaders to identify a good neighbor student liaison to work with community policing and code enforcement to spread program awareness and to assist students in their engagement with the town of Orono. Know and we already have the referral form filled out. Second, Amanda, the form's already filled out. Okay, just thank you. Thank you. Yeah, she's not going to give me it, so thank you. Took her four emails to get me to fill it out, but I got it. So we've talked about this in the past. We've talked about we this comes as a Aaron, right, is with us from the university. He's our University of Maine student government liaison. We had a conversation. I had a conversation with a student leader, Peter Verhar, who was on the good neighbor committee, came forward. We've talked to student leaders about it. We talked about it at our last meeting, and this would just shift the work to the community development committee to work with student government, and it sounds like they've got people who have roles that are a good alignment with this already, and so we'll bring back a recommendation after this work. Any questions about it or anything else anybody else would like to share? Any comments from the public? All right, no. further discussion all those in favor order 26215 passes unanimously a little more work for matt's committee all right this is where i'm going to ask you to kill the stuff or vote down the stuff that was on the table and then we'll turn to a new order two six two one six order removing order two six two oh four and two oh five off the table should that be two different orders can we move them both at once staff [56:38] Town Manager DeShan: Discussed that we thought it was better to pull them both since you're going to [56:41] Council Chair: work on them both. Okay, so one motion pulling both orders off the table from our last meeting. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Anybody in the public want to talk about? Nope. Hope. Okay. All those in favor pull those off the table. Okay. Order 26204, order authorized town council shared us in a letter to the federal delegates CSX regarding the response we did railman on August 8th, 2026. So moved. Then seconded. And we're gonna Again, I'm asking people to vote this down. So do what you want, but it would be a lot easier. Life would be easier if we just kill this. All those in favor? Yeah. We're so used to, you know, a lot of consensus here, and I like that. All right. All those opposed? Okay. Order 26204. That was everybody, right? Okay. Order 26205, order authorizing. So moved. Second. Okay. Discussion? Anybody? Okay. All those in favor? All those opposed? All right, that's unanimous. We've defeated that or voted against that. Order 26217, order authorizing town council chair to send a letter to federally delegates regarding the CSX derailment on August 8th, 2026 and the collapse of the well in the Estes Bridge in Old Town on August 13th, 2026. So moved. Second and second. Okay. Thank you for, I apologize about the administrative challenges. So we had a, we discussed this a couple meetings ago, brought this letter in very last second at the last meeting, didn't really have it, didn't have in time for people to look at, but this draft is to Governor Mills and the members of the federal congressional delegation expressing concerns about our federal infrastructure and the transparency and responsiveness. It's, I think, pretty respectful and certainly Complementary of the work that Department of Transportation has been doing on the Llewellyn Estes Bridge in Old Town. I think they've been sort of, I think they've been a model of transparency on what's been a really challenging episode for their department, in our communities, and the university. But we've had more questions about CSX, and I think we're going to talk a little bit about that and maybe get some updates. David and I were down at the Pine Street today looking at the, with the train. Derailment, we were, Clint worked in our direction in our urging. I think he worked harder than any town managers maybe ever had to work to get an, you know, that's an embellishment, but he had to work very hard to get, you did a good job, and but you had to work pretty hard to get, what's that there for a second, yeah, no, you did a good job, but you know, Fortunately, that derailment didn't result in any loss of life or extensive property damage. We did have, but it was hard to get an answer in terms of what had happened. And we learned ultimately that it was essentially a drainage system, a culvert failure that led to water, moisture in the foundation of the rail bed. And then that's what caused the derailment. And then CSX reported to the media the next day. so clint broke this orno broke the story right in terms of what caused the derailment the company deal in response to the company responded to clint's questions but didn't really come out like the department of transportation has done to post information provide updates and things like that they just that's not how they operate and they don't have to because they're federally regulated and so and this accident this derailment in orno was i think below the thresholds for where like the federal Rail Administration would come in and do, I don't know what the, even what the right glib way to mention it, what their full-on response would be, but it was below that. Okay, so after Clint in our meeting two weeks ago disclosed what caused the derailment, the Bangor Daily News did a story based on that. So Casey, if you're listening, hello. And then WABI confirmed TV, the channel, the CBS affiliate out of Bangor, confirmed that with the company that they had done an assessment of the rest of their culverts. In the area and found them to be in good order, and that's where David comes in. So David reached out to Clint and I with examples of, David lives on Pine Street right next to, right next to the rail line where the crossing is, and you know the culverts there are clogged, and we saw it today due to the rain. We did see some water seeping through, but there was a backup, and I don't know if now, David, would be an appropriate time to share something with us about what you've experienced at that space or not, but be happy to hear from you. Is anybody having clarifying questions for me or Clint? You have anything you want to, why don't you share your updates now, and then I don't, it'd make better theater maybe if David went first than you did, but why don't you give us your updates now, and then that can inform what David has to say. Yep, so we get a fair accounting, so I mean there was a lot of the [1:02:04] Town Manager DeShan: the process and the learning phases of this and who to contact, and Dan, I think you did a great job, and I think council's done a great job setting the policy. I have a contact now with CSX, it's the vice president government relations. The gentleman has spoken to this council in the past before I was here as your manager, but and again and reminded me of some of those things, so I didn't have those contacts, but going through the channels I knew at Main Department of Transportation, they did connect me with them, and it's been a great conversation. They've been highly responsive to all the information that's coming out, and I think between what the council's done and his efforts, there's been some great work product. As of this afternoon, I did have a last follow-up call just to verify they had been in town today working on some culverts. They were, I don't know which ones in particular, but there was Pine Street, and now whenever I think you said Main Street and Water Street before, Main Street and Water Street, correct, Pine Street is where they're going to tomorrow. They will be there on site tomorrow. They did not go out there today, but they were doing two other sites. They're in the area right now. They will be in some other others of Webster neighborhood project that's going on. The clarification that was made is it, and they were wanted to make sure, and they apologize for any misinformation or confusion. They had looked at cross culverts that went underneath the railroad and some of the Culverts that are coming up now don't go under the railroad, but there was no, they are going out and looking, and they, from what I understand, had met or have spoken to you when they, that's what they related to me, and they will be out tomorrow. I don't know what fixing means. I don't know if they'll be able to fix it all. I don't think the head of government relations necessarily knows, but there's their working staff will be on that site tomorrow to make improvements. So I can answer any other questions, but that is a true factual update as to where they are starting tomorrow. The ones that are in the packet, they are coming to do work on, so I think it's a big win. I know the resident chair that had been a long time, I was not aware of your efforts in the past to get it done, but again, thank you for bringing the town, and I'm glad as a council, a community, and my role as a manager to speak to the staff and people I know at the railroad, they were able to come through and get that happening. So I'm glad for everybody. That's my update. Okay, any clarifying questions for Clint [1:04:25] Council Chair: or I before we ask members of the public to join the conversation? Okay, any members of the public like to come in, stand and be recognized? David Eriker, you wind up in my inbox, you're going to wind up at this podium before long, that's kind of how it works. Yeah, thank you for being here. [1:04:45] Dave Berker, Public Commenter: Okay. So I'm Dave Berker. I live at 67 Pine Street. I have lived next to the tracks for 41 years. I've seen a lot of changes over the years. To the credit of CSX, they put a lot of money into it, and the tracks are actually much safer at this point in time than they've ever been in 41 years. There are, however, some drainage issues, which I've been asking about for 10, 12, 15 years. Every time some railroad personnel comes along, I ask them about him, and they kind of shrug and say, that's not my job, it's not my department, I don't know who to talk to. But I did contact Dan and Clint by email after I saw the article in the paper, and I sent pictures of culverts showing that the culverts were completely plugged, you couldn't basically even see them. Clint responded and gave me the number. I called Maurice O'Connell, who's the vice president that Clint was speaking to, and had a good conversation. He said he'd get his bridge people on it. The bridge people handled culverts and drainage. So perhaps those are the folks that are going to show up tomorrow. So it does seem to be getting some attention. I would like to see them continue to maintain the culverts and maintain the drainage ditches so this doesn't happen again [1:06:13] Council Chair: in some number of years. Okay, any questions for David? I think [1:06:23] Councilor: Jake, you have a question, but I don't know who it's aimed at. So I can see culverts under the track being their responsibility, but if some of these culverts are not under the tracks, are they [1:06:35] Dave Berker, Public Commenter: the town's responsibility? No. So most people don't know this, but the railroad owns the road. Okay, in most cases we have a utility passing over a road, the town runs the road, and the utility has a right-of-way under it. In the case of railroads, they're, they're a government unto themselves, almost. The railroad actually owns the street, and the town sort of has a right-of-way across it. I've, I've mapped out their property boundaries. I know where the property boundaries are, and I know for a fact that these culverts are within the railroad's right away. So they're, there are culverts that run parallel to the tracks on the outside of the tracks that drain the uphill side of Pine Street, ditches under the, underneath the road, and shoot the water down along and where it eventually disappears down into the Penobscot. They [1:07:36] Council Chair: are, in this case, if you went to the pie, if you go to Pine Street on the way home from tonight's meeting in the crossing, you'll see on one side, on the north side of Pine Street, on the, oh my god, west side of the railroad, there's a standing puddle of several inches deep that ought to make for some interesting TV anyway. But that is kind of the concern. And you look at the culverts, it's completely clogged to the eye. Some water seemingly is able to get through it, but it needs to be taken care of. And we need to have the highest possible expectation for maintenance of this infrastructure in our residential neighborhoods. It's one thing, you know, on the backside of the Gulf, well, all of it's along the river, so that's always a concern. But, you know, on the backside side of the golf course, you know, I've been down there before because I'm a particularly bad golfer, but I'm not down there very much, David. You know, David, didn't a lot of our, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our residents live right next to the, right next to the rail line? You know, all every day if, and you know if that derailment had happened at Pine Street, there's a very [1:08:52] Dave Berker, Public Commenter: good chance that I would have had tanker cars in my living, you know, it was were that close, and the cars were off the tracks by quite a bit. [1:09:02] Council Chair: Doesn't make the stuff on Forest Avenue seem so bad though, does it? You know, no, it's all like, and I do, I would compliment CSX. The point you made about them being a government unto themselves, I think it's pretty real, it's pretty realistic there, you know, and we do not want, we I'd much rather have to bring the Forest Avenue folks back in it because I can't help but pander, you know, we'd much rather have the freight on the railroad track than we would on Forest Avenue or Main Street, and but and we can't have Orno with its own set of rules and VZ and Old Town with their own sets, it would be a disaster, it would not operate as a piece of infrastructure. So it makes sense, but at the same time they're governing it unto themselves, and we need to have responsiveness, and I'm ex, I'm pleased that they're talking with us now. It's, I 'm a little, it's telling that we had to ring the bell as hard as we did, I think, to get them to kind of focus on these things. We as a town have to be very [1:10:00] Dave Berker, Public Commenter: cognizant of the railroad's presence because it's going to become more of a presence in the next five years. The whole reason that they've invested 100 million dollars to rehab the tracks from Waterville to Mattawampke is because the Canadian government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading this, the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick, to increase container traffic. So they're gonna, their goal, they stated this at the town council meeting several years ago, their goal was to run container traffic down the east coast at up to, I think they said, 45 miles an hour. Yeah, so we'll have trains passing through here that could be a mile or two long. Yeah, double stack. [1:10:40] Council Chair: Containers running 40 miles an hour through Webster, through the tough end, through the basin, by OBC, across all seven. Yeah, 44 miles an hour. Yep. So and as part of our comprehensive plan, we do have in there, and this is why the working relationship so important, right? I mean, is the expansion of rail traffic we can anticipate, but also in our comprehensive plan we do have an item in there to pursue. I we didn't commit ourselves. Well, we don't commit ourselves to anything in the comprehensive plan, I suppose. But we do, we are going to work through an investigation of becoming a quiet town, a quiet Zone where but we'd have it would take a significant amount of investment in the crossings with the actual like you'd need the red, you know. We don't have, we only have the flashy lights at most, and on Penobscot Street out by Zach Pike's new the old town garage, there isn't even a flashy light there. It's just a you know, hey, figure it out when you hear the whistles. So it's important if nothing else if we don't send this letter, if we wait on it, redraft it, I think it's been a really good exercise for us in terms of communication with CSX. I'm pleased that they're being responsive to the town manager, and it looks like they're being responsive to us now. I don't know, are we taking advantage of a bit an accident to get traction, and is this not going to be available to us when we want to pursue investments in the in the crossings? I don't know, but I want to stay on good terms, but I want to be heard first and almost you know any other thanks David very much, thanks for your leadership on this issue. [1:12:17] Councilor: As a resident, any other discussion? Yeah, I just want to say thank you as well for was that the CSX meeting as well where I know you spoke quite well about the history in the area, which was really helpful for me to hear, and how much pushing it's taken, and that it does take an incident like this to actually move the needle a little bit, and to strike while the iron's hot, but also as much as we can, letters like this sending, keeping that pressure [1:12:47] Council Chair: On do we want to Clint rate, you know, clinch the one that's been on the front line, and so I'm gonna ask him, do you think it makes sense to sit on this letter for a couple weeks, maybe come back with a an update based on how well the company does with the and Clint, to his credit, you know, when I wrote it, I had shouldn't it said inaccurate in terms of the CSX response, you know, how they had characterized, and Clint was like, why don't we call it incomplete and see what we can do to Clint, you know what I mean, and that's good coaching on Clint Spartan, I want to thank him for it, because I think it accurately, I think it now more accurately reflects where they are, so and, you know, we want everyone to be successful, right, including international railroad companies that have passed through our town, you know, we want everyone to be, no, it may not as expensive, you know what I mean, right, I mean, yeah, all right, I want everyone who, you know, has an opportunity to work with or not to be successful, so and Clint's been working with him on that, and so what do you think, should we hold it or should we just pass it, you know, I don't know, I could be the only one who votes for it either way, but [1:13:59] Town Manager DeShan: I was rereading the letter because I hate to say it, but I was guessing where it was headed, I kind of sensed you were going to ask that type of question. So I looked back and reread the letter, and I guess based a little bit about what came in late today, I think we do know a little bit more that needs to be worked into your letter. I think I would follow up with you and see if there's another rewrite. And is it going to hurt us? And I agree with this. I feel the sentiment of the council is that you should send the letter, and I don't think there's any reason. I think you're on the right track, all puns intended. Suspended, sorry, bad, own it, just own it, just go, it makes me feel weird to own it, you're the king of the mini, I know, I try, just the chair, but the king, yeah, okay, oh yes, yeah, so I'm doing that, I think we should hold off, I guess give them a chance to take a peek at it, if there's, they gave me a lot of good information today, maybe there's some a little bit more follow-up that we'd get in the next few days, and I would just table it so that you could do a redo the draft and bring it back, that's all I Can that's all I could think and I don't know what you will or won't gain, but I think the worst case scenario is you just approved the same letter you have in front of you in two weeks. But I don't want to hold you up. I mean, I'm not, I mean, with what you have here, I mean, there is some information we have where they are coming back tomorrow. Does that change? [1:15:19] Council Chair: What the letter should say, well, what is the council's, council's expectation that this kind of goes out word for word based on what's in the agenda? Is there some latitude to amend it based on what we learn, or do we just want to wait to, and I don't want Jacob's head to explode, but from the sense of efficiency, but I'm happy to wait, learn more, and but I'm open to whatever and that you do. [1:15:42] Town Manager DeShan: Invite that one possibility to approve it with amendments that you would notify the council of once they're complete in the next week or so. Yeah, I do think like if they come through tomorrow. [1:15:54] Councilor: And all of a sudden there's this miracle and they've cleaned every single culvert completely through Orono and in the next couple weeks and it's beautiful and it looks great, then it's an opportunity for us to say at least something like, you know, we want this to be maintained and kept up and thank you for responding at this time and we look forward to working with you to keep this in pristine, you know, shape. And so I'm, I think we should give you some leeway to like add a little language like that. If we need to, and if they don't, then we just send it as is, okay. This letter is not to CSX, this letter is to the governor and the governor and the congressional delegation, right? And I don't think we need to write it for CSX personally, yeah, that we're asking for, because the ask when you kind of come down to it is that we're asking for some consideration and some reassurances and their continued engagement with our community around a safety issue that's true. And I don't necessarily, and if whether this goes out this week or in two weeks, I sentiments the same. Sentiments the same that what we're asking for and is not, shouldn't we, shouldn't be considering their response I guess and what our ask is of. Congressional delegation or of the governor's office. Okay, I'm happy to vote to approve this, giving you the ability to amend it slightly for the sake of accuracy. You know, I'm also not that concerned with sparing their feelings or whatever, but I, but I do, I think in order for us to be communicating good faith with all parties, I think being accurate and having good information and the most updated information in the letter, it's good, especially with it coming so soon. The most important thing to me in this, it seemed, it seems, is the sort of action item being requested, which is a public meeting or transparent plan developed in partnership with federal regulators, appropriate state agencies, the town and company safety officials, to address unresolved questions and ongoing concerns. I think having some sort of public meeting or transparent process regardless, I think that's sort of the crux of this, and I'm definitely in favor of you sending a letter. I'm happy to give that with the caveat that you can amend it. Okay, in, you know, [1:18:12] Council Chair: with reasonable edits. Yep, let David throw a PS on there just for sake of, yeah. All right, I'm happy to proceed that way and not take it any more time up if council agrees that makes sense. Okay, do we [1:18:25] Councilor: need to amend this order at all, or I don't know, it doesn't matter to me. Yeah, it doesn't matter to me. [1:18:32] Council Chair: I mean, I feel like we have a, I hope we've built enough trust up to, you know, I'm not going to, I promise that you're not going to surprise anybody with anything in terms of just be updated for accuracy, so the minutes shall reflect. Yep, okay, all right then, if there's no more discussion, all those in favor of order 26217, that's unanimous. Thank you, thank you David. Now we're going to turn to council committee reports, and up first is community development committee, the expanding [1:19:02] Councilor: ever-expanding agenda the community the committee received an initial draft of the orono safety action plan as part of the bangor area streets initiative it was written by town staff in consultation with backs and i personally was impressed it seemed like everybody in like in the committee was impressed with it bell ryder was the backs representative and gave us input put and answer questions about the entire program. And then once this program is adopted, it'll give us access to federal grants for like proof of concept grants. So that's kind of what we're still working on. We also receive a survey results on the future of the out of commission kiddie pool from Megan Mazzella. And we got 64% said they'd like to have a splash pad. So we will be recommending that this will go through the capital plan improvement plan for the next year's budget so we can move on this and get this out to the community, and we can vote on it, yes or no. [1:20:14] Council Chair: So you want to tell everybody why we're not going to do it this fall. [1:20:19] Councilor: Lighter wiser heads said that it would be a budget fiasco if we didn't go through the proper channels and I'm not going to say who that person was in rest I'll own that all day [1:20:32] Council Chair: Long yeah no John Quinn is a perfectly appropriate chaperone for Matt and I when it comes to that committee and we do truly appreciate it because it does help us our better angels sometimes get a little bit ahead of us and it was it was I thought a very responsible conversation that John topic that John brought up in terms of the sequencing so we'll come back to people with a proposal okay anything else Matt finance and operations committee yeah had our [1:20:59] Councilor: September meeting today talked about the budget schedule there were some minor revisions to it. And that will come to us in November for approval. And then also finance committee will be holding a workshop per se to talk about the budget binder and provide suggestions about what should be in the upcoming binder. Are there any changes that can be made? So if anybody on the council has any specific thoughts on the budget binder last year please get [1:21:41] Council Chair: Yeah let one of us know okay thanks Jacob anything from kneecap without Sarah today [1:21:50] Councilor: I don't think we Jacob I don't recall that there's any new information that we need to no I think we reviewed the charges of the committee at our most recent meeting just mostly housekeeping stuff checking in on things that have been assigned to the committee yep how about ordinance review while you're on the green light ordinance review met this past Thursday we basically were able to similarly did some housekeeping crossed off things that have been referred to committee we've sort of got a Clean slate of charge, but we've, we're, we have no charges currently other than sort of the ongoing charge of the committee to be reviewing ordinances on its schedule. We coming to council soon will be significant revisions to chapter 36 article two sewers. That's gonna be, that's that was put up sort of higher on the schedule because of upcoming waterline projects that are going to be underway, so that seemed practical. We'll be dealing with library ordinances soon enough as well as business licensing. We talked a little bit more about comp plan implementation and how that's going to be wrapped up into ordinance review committee work. You know, it's not just the purview ordinance review committee, but we're going to be discussing that a little bit more in October, and then there was one thing we wanted to raise with the full council, which is community development I think is engaged in some ways in some ordinance changes. And basically, as we keep sort of, we, mostly Shelley, keeps an updated sheet for both accountability to us, as well as the whole committee being able to see sort of the current state of ordinances, what's being worked on when, and what's been updated. I think we want to figure out how to make sure that things don't fall through the cracks in communication between committees, so perhaps when there are ordinance changes being made at the Community Development Committee level, perhaps there can be some just like pinging, that flagging that, because we have a different staff liaison working with our committees. We just want to make sure that we're working with the best information, that everybody is on the same page, so I don't know how if that requires a really detailed conversation, but if you have any thoughts we can talk about that over email too. Okay, I think that's everything. Good, I'll start with DEIB. We have no updates at this time. Heart of Orono Maine committee. Yeah, we got a exciting month in October for the home committee. The week of the 19th, the Downtown Revitalization Services will be in town and will be hosting an open house here in Chambers at 5 o'clock on Tuesday the 20th. I would encourage everyone to attend, all of our listeners to attend that and make their voices heard about the future of downtown. town and also wanted to share that the committee has been working on our i'll say halloween after dark for now because we're still tweaking the naming potentially but an opportunity after the end of the trunk retreat for folks to similar to cody's not here for me to look to but our orono night out is that the yeah similar to our orno night out have an opportunity for folks to kind of collectively go and enjoy the various restaurants and bars and opportunities around orono and potentially be winning some prizes, so more details to come about that, about places that are participating, and but it's going to be, I think, a really fun way to continue the Trunk or Treat spirit into the evening for folks in Orono, which be a good opportunity for everybody to come together and enjoy the downtown that we've [1:25:59] Council Chair: spent so long talking about. Okay, I've checked with HR and my Clint the Shan costume has actually been outlawed as a personnel violation, so I'm not gonna, I won't be, I will not be Clint for Halloween. I think I could have pulled it off, but in great deference and appreciation for our time management, how about liaison, anything from liaisons to boards and committees, the various boards and committees? Nope. Council chair update, I don't think I have one other than all the indulgences you've given me this evening for all the different things, so thank you. Thank you. Town managers report as [1:26:44] Town Manager DeShan: I've been providing before, I'll touch on. I mean, there's any questions I like to turn over there. But 2 things, one received today request from another town manager working with the county government. County Representative Dave Marshall has asked if there's any counselors elected officials in our region that would like to serve on their budget. committee, so if any counselor has an interest in serving that, I would say email me. This is an ongoing process where they're trying to rework how they do business and they need as much help as they can get. They're already behind from my estimations and they want to get started earlier and this is kind of on the normal track now of getting started a little later than they need. They want a budget done by November, so it's going to be some work up front with their budget meeting and schedule that They have, but they are putting a lot of effort in. I've seen marked differences, and I've shared that here. It's nice to see that there is some of those efforts coming in, since they are a significant piece of our budget that we just receive and pass on to the taxpayers. The, it seems like there was one other I can't remember, so others within that I did give an update to the council within the, in writing. There's a candidates form next week, October 7th. I will not be doing one of these reports for the next meeting after this because it's just one week turnaround. It just feels like it wouldn't be good use of time or information. I did talk about the speed tables. I did talk about CSX. Bridge is under construction this week. I want to say that again. I usually don't repeat them, but they are shutting it down from 8 to 5, the Llewellyn Bridge, for the work, repairs, inspections, upgrades, but they're doing a lot with that. 's been all on our social media. They haven't signaled when that's [1:28:39] Council Chair: just to prep the side bridge for the temporary bridge for the winner, right? That's what they're [1:28:44] Town Manager DeShan: doing. Yeah, and getting it, and then also the way it read to me is they were also looking at how to remove the decking that's there that collapsed, to get that out of the way before the winner hits there. I believe there's been a goal set to try to get this still done on schedule, so I think that means getting that out as soon as possible. [1:29:03] Council Chair: And this Stillwater Avenue Bridge project, that's the overpass that you're talking about? Correct. Or the interstate? [1:29:08] Town Manager DeShan: It's not? Okay. So that's planned for, and that's what's coming at us. We just received information on that, wanted the council aware. [1:29:13] Council Chair: Is that going to be after Llewellyn's complete? It is, right? [1:29:19] Town Manager DeShan: I'm not positive. All right. I would, yes. If schedules are met, as they're indicating, it would be after it's done. [1:29:25] Council Chair: Yes. Because you could imagine, right? because you know how i get into your inbox when these things are happening and we're like [1:29:31] Town Manager DeShan: we're communicating to all partners involved. The town also has projects, sewer, road infrastructure, etc. So there's a lot of things we're trying to make sure do come together, but yes, we are sharing that information. And the two I do want to point out too, because I think they are relevant, near the middle brownies, the Bennett Road parking area, brownies park, is that was when I was hired there was some work that was done there. Staff spent an awful lot of time at that, parks and recreation has met with me and we're making the decision there's the feedback's been fairly positive it's not as perfect as we want we cannot create ada accessibility that's the project if there's something else needed we need to get some more feedback on what it is the community's asking for that second ramp down in it's my understanding recreating information shared was they needed an access point closer that got them away from a very steep dangerous access point we accomplished that there was no ability to make it ADA accessibility. There's some questions about whether there should be some rails there in the future, but for now it seems to be meeting the needs of that area. But again it's not as perfect as we wanted, but it's again it's a it's a walking trail down into that area. But again I wanted to make sure that was put out there so that we could kind of get that information. And the other one I don't know if the council's been aware, but our elevator's been out for quite a few months, more than six. It's been an ongoing fight effort for lack of information. We can't even find out, we're receiving bills, no one knows what they're for, they're not able to fix it, and they're still giving bills. We're also having some issues also at one of our other sites. We are working closely with the vendor. We are down now that they're at the last step. There is a new board or a used board coming to us. What's interesting here is it's not a very old elevator, but due to some proprietary changes some very modern components are no longer available, and so it may mean to a full replacement which will be a very large capital investment that was not on the radar. And so we'll keep you posted, but I want to make sure you're aware if residents are complaining, we're very apologetic. We are trying very hard to get that fixed and we just can't get it done. Is the absentee voting in this room? Absentee voting's downstairs. They do it right in the town right in with the town clerk's office. Okay so you don't need an elevator to come both correct. Okay yep or have to come up all the way around the back [1:31:57] Council Chair: But isn't there doesn't she do an early she does an early day right like if you'd like an update [1:32:02] Town Manager DeShan: From the clerk on what's going on this room's going to be if there's if this room's going to [1:32:08] Council Chair: Be used for any kind of substantial voting. I think it's important that, because this isn't really accessible, the parking you have, there's no way to get to this entrance short of going all the way around on the sidewalk, because you can't come up the stairs, right? And unless we put a space or two here at the in the fire department parking lot, it works. I'll just get a little [1:32:25] Town Manager DeShan: Summary and put in my next manager. Okay, that'd be great, thank you. I just want to make sure people can vote. Yep, so that's it. If you have questions on the other items in there, I will pause here. [1:32:35] Council Chair: So the, I did the, we got a memo from Megan on the recycling. So the, order is the, ask is people just keep doing as they've been doing. It looks like we're having some success in terms of if people put stuff in there, is a recycling one with a blue lid, the black ones for garbage, the garbage, they are pulling recyclable material out of the garbage. It looks, is that what this memo talks about? Okay. That's great. So but it makes it easier on them if we continue to separate into our two bins. Okay, so we don't have anything really to communicate to the town on that, and we did link the videos that were made available by waste hub. Okay, that clears up, I'm glad we, that clears it up for me. And we had on the disorderly, right, we had seven this weekend, seven mornings, six verbal, one in writing. [1:33:28] Town Manager DeShan: Seven visits, one that's going to lead to a written non-fined written notice. [1:33:34] Council Chair: Okay. Yeah. A lot of nuance in there, but that's what we want, right? [1:33:37] Town Manager DeShan: Figure out working with people. I mean, we're learning what works, what doesn't, and we're, we're, we're using discretion on every case, but when they're very responsive with the police officers, we're not issuing a summons on a first time, first visit unless it's egregious. And again, that's doing the chief and I to figure out what egregious is, and that there's criteria and the ordinance that makes us clear what, you know, a lot of people underage drinking, parking in the streets, those are the things that get us to egregious. Yep, got it, all right, we [1:34:07] Council Chair: Do not have any public petitions. I don't think we've ever had a public petition, so but we keep it there just in case it comes forward. Future agenda items and council requests for supporting items, I've got a couple, but I'm happy to, anybody else have anything? Jacob? Yeah, real quick, I don't [1:34:20] Councilor: Know if anybody else got this email from a citizen wanting us to look at restrictions on the sale of vape products. Yep, okay, yeah, wasn't even on my radar, but I was going to do some research to, yeah, so okay, but it sounds like you everybody else got the same thing so. I didn't receive it, but I've actually a couple community members have mentioned this to me fairly recently, so it seems like it's sort of from my understanding, yeah, understanding, seems like it's growing in people's awareness and concern. I know nothing about it, so I was going to do some research. There's apparently a particular drug, I mean, I don't want to speak on anything I don't know anything about either, but there's some particular substance that I guess is relatively unregulated that's. Currently being allowed, I think Andrew you might have been raised this in a meeting with us previously. There's flavored stuff too, right, the vape, there's some that seems. [1:35:07] Council Chair: To target some communities have banned the flavored vape, you know, like banana or bubble gum flavored, you know, that seems to, it is, you can't buy it unless you're 21. I did it quick, so I'm going to invite Brett who emailed us to come do public comment and then to be a part of, and maybe even if he's ready to go, maybe even an action item for us to consider referring it to a committee. And I didn't know about, oh, I looked it up, tobacco and vape is nowhere in our ordinance, it mentioned you can't vape in the park, in the parks, and I think that's pretty much it. We don't have a tobacco chapter in our ordinance, we have alcohol, so I don't know, I mean, putting on my John. Quinn, you know, channeling his guidance about the process that we have instead of upending the apple cart every time I get an idea, it seems like ordinance review might be the right place for something like this, but I don't know, you know, it's a five-year process and I don't know where we'd want to sequence it, yeah, we could move it ahead for a discussion, but it. [1:36:06] Councilor: It could be, and maybe the chief knows about these laws, but maybe there's, I don't want us to also be engaging in redundancy and ordinance if there's plenty of state statute around this that's already sort of usable, that's already addressing these things. I think the concern, I mean, I'm happy for us to discuss it for sure, but I think the concern that at least I'm understanding that's bubbling is about a particular substance that's being peddled. [1:36:34] Council Chair: Yep, I invited but come in for public comments even I was short. No, it was this morning, so obviously he wasn't here, but if he, I'll follow up with him, and if you want to come in and talk [1:36:45] Councilor: with us and do it that way. Okay, John, did you have something? Yeah, I had an individual reach out who had a, I don't know, I won't get too into the details now because I think it's being something Alex Blanche- Something we're working on, but had an issue with their license plate and registration that led to. Alex Blanche- Their license plate being identified as I don't think specifically as a stolen vehicle, but as a vehicle that wasn't registered to anyone and kind of put them in a situation. Alex Blanche- Where. Alex Blanche- They spent a significant portion of their day navigating the both the initial stop and then sorting things out with the office. us here at town hall and just wanted to highlight that and that you know this is a conversation that we're continuing to have and I think Clint has been very responsive to the concerns and is meeting with this constituent to kind of map out what happened and if there's other individuals which it seems like it's possible that there are other individuals in the same position, that we can do our best to communicate how folks can check that, how they can navigate that, how we can kind of prevent that from happening in the future. Because as this person pointed out, they were in a position to be able to manage that situation really well, but not everyone is. And so I wanted to bring that up. And on a related note, out. Because one of their concerns was that they had been driving out of state with this license plate potentially unregistered to things. And, you know, driving past any number of flock cameras or license plate re automated license plate readers. And this has been something that's been on my mind for a while. And this kind of segwayed nicely into it, that I wanted to bring it up here if anyone else was interested in having this as a future agenda item looking at a automated license plate reader ordinance or expectation or like clarity around usage in Orono. I believe I hope that there are not currently any being used in like public spaces in the way that could be considered pretty harmful for folks living around here, but I'd be interested in that conversation if anyone else is. I would be as well. Cool. So I guess that's two things. [1:39:22] Council Chair: Yeah, okay, so tackling the first one first, that seems like it's, I mean, I didn't, what was the- [1:39:29] Councilor: There wasn't an ask in there, it was an update that this was an outreach that had occurred heard and that there may be more kind of coming in terms of updates on how that situation may have came about and how we might do you feel comfortable sending an email to the town manager for we've been the follow-up or have you been we've been communicating and we've got a meeting set and there may be some kind of additional follow-up out of that meeting of you know how we might just if there are other license plates out that are other people that are in this situation how we can best support that okay yeah so you'll come back to us when you [1:40:08] Council Chair: know more yeah all right so future yeah okay but that's good and it sounds like you're on the right track the flock camera piece could what do you think is it could we could you do a pres i'm thinking about like work plan stuff right and could you do something about i mean we know pretty quickly whether we're using them or not right as far as the town goes i think we get like a shake of the head ideally from the police flock cameras in any way so that's [1:40:41] Councilor: a no all right but we want more than that well and i bring it up the reason it's been on my mind and this kind of activated that thought sure that like you know i think orno does a lot of leadership in a bunch of different ways and this is an opportunity to state a value if that's a value that this council holds and i certainly do but secondly i don't know i don't know about anybody else sitting up here and i'm sure chief merrill can reflect this as well i get two three sometimes five emails from flock a week with the you know here's how you talk to your community about it and here's all the reasons why it's great and also here's all like the sketchy things it can do because maybe that's appealing to you i'm curious yeah just how [1:41:26] Town Manager DeShan: many emails i'll have tomorrow morning based upon this one conversation in the year right yeah listening to it yep and i'm curious of me pointing it out will maybe lead to a few of them saying no we're not going to send them those mass emails this time yeah but yeah it is so i know that [1:41:39] Councilor: pressure is there and regardless of what we're doing right now when that pressure exists and things maybe change from the existing dynamic that can create an opportunity can we have a [1:41:50] Council Chair: broader conversation about surveillance generally in terms of like drones and stuff too, or do we want to do just the, I know like the university, I think, has a ban on drones. You have to get a permit to use a drone. I don't know how they enforce it. But I don't know. I mean, I'm happy to, people are happy to have the conversation. I'd love to know more. I mean, I was asked to sign a petition when I was on campus a few weeks ago. And I was like, I didn't know. And I wasn't informed enough to sign it, right? I hadn't made it. But I'd like to ask some questions and know more. [1:42:23] Councilor: I'm not, I'm open to the drone conversation. And I can see how it's related. At the same time, I think the question about sort of mass surveillance tools like walk cameras by governmental entities is it feels like slightly separate from the question of sort of personal drone use. I mean, we could talk about governmental use or not use of drones as well, but I think I would be happy for us to take that question up as John has raised to just sort of state a value. I think that's a good way to put it. I'm sure if anybody else is, but I'm happy to have drones be part of that conversation too, but I don't feel as strongly about the sort of current pressing need for that as something to make a statement about, but maybe it is, I could be wrong, yep, what do you think Clint? [1:43:16] Town Manager DeShan: Thing is the council's coming in, if you really wanted to work on this, it is something we could either do more quickly if it's not something you think is going to be hugely time consuming, or we could just put it as one of those items that you know you're flagging for police and the town manager work on for the coming year and we'll get it queued up in a time that works in the [1:43:32] Council Chair: next 12 months. I'm hearing there may be an interest in the ordinance banning the use of in some way or another, yeah, and you know as that's that's more work than just a conversation about just you know Chief Merrill giving some memos saying we don't use them, so I'm certainly open to that. I think it's and I think that's reflective of a lot of people where a lot of people in Orleans would be in terms of I think it's a worthy conversation and something we [1:44:05] Councilor: could pursue. Anyone, maybe we could discuss sort of how in the weeds we want to get about it, I mean we could have a further discussion, yeah, and maybe determine some course of action depending on sort of how time consuming we want it to be, quite quick discussion next week and I mean we're only a [1:44:22] Council Chair: week away but we throw something together for us to kick around and it feels like a work plan item for I know you compliment us for getting ahead of you in terms of the work plan for that was pretty shifty of you by the way to yeah I mean when I just as long as I say well no I like being complimented right so you're telling me we're doing a good job for working on the work plan you were how you kind of back stuff into your work plan instead of having to do it [1:44:46] Town Manager DeShan: right now but well take doesn't take me take things out of the current one I know I think you also could yeah I think we could do it as long as the discussion is limited to you know maybe some general information of what they are what the status is I mean I just did a quick look here I mean you've got a half a dozen to a dozen communities in Maine that's already had this conversation if that's all you're looking for October 5th yes we can pull that together [1:45:08] Councilor: all right that's a good start John yeah that makes a lot of sense to me and I think I think keeping it focused and limited in scope to that particular kind of automated mass surveillance piece and some existing ordinances and options that might be out there would be useful and efficient with our time and I'm not and I and I don't bring this up as a reflection of any like concern about upcoming changes or things that are like you know that I view as we're not doing well or that need to be addressed but as a you know this would be an opportunity to lead and an opportunity to just be aware that as things change we don't leave openings [1:45:45] Council Chair: I like it that's what we're here for so okay so we'll do that anybody I have one more anybody [1:45:50] Councilor: have another Andrea yeah question I was asked again by a resident if the town is working on any type of a veterans day observance or ceremony and I'm wondering too if recommending the Orono engage for those who want to participate in organizing something so [1:46:14] Town Manager DeShan: came up a little bit think at the last meeting no nothing's been formally organized at this point doesn't mean that we can't just it's one of those ones that veterans day there are some other organizations that do quite a bit and we do support them from a from a advocacy standpoint but not from a spearheading standpoint okay [1:46:36] Council Chair: Okay so next week we're looking at ahead to October 5th. We're going to have a presentation on Route Two and from Megan and I saw he showed me a showed me it today walked me through it and I promised Clint and I'm going to ask everyone to promise it from the start. It's not going to be a chance for us to discuss all that we can imagine along Route Two. It's I want to set it up with people and that it's going to be a chance to talk about the sequence where things are and all the complicated because it's not just it's not just the pavement in the sidewalks right. We know about the clay the clay pipes that are being replaced but there's also drain storm water and you know how you sequence that then there's the plans the state bless you the state Department of Transportation has plans for major overlays and where they sequence that in their budget and funding. So it's really complicated and I think it really sets us up well for it's going to keep me from promising people brand new sidewalks by the end of next fall but I think it really helps sequence our capital planning discussions as we move into the next council year but I just wanted to preface that and I don't know Clint if you had anything else did I does that kind of get it but it's not just to preface it nobody gets more excited about talking about Route Two than I do but it's not gonna I'm gonna check my enthusiasm and try and be a you know listen be an active listener without being a suggester of all things possible [1:48:05] Town Manager DeShan: on during the conversation I think Megan and Adam together have been working hard as all the public works on this with the backs with main Department Transportation with the engineers that are working on it and I think they'd like to take this opportunity to share everything they've learned everything that's gone on I mean this is not to give it away but you know we went from a 30 million dollar opportunity to it to how we're going to piece this together project by project by project and I want to make sure we make the council aware these 30 million opportunities have existed my entire career. The first one I remember was called TIGER Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery. It's been gone for years it reinvents itself something's coming back sometime in what format we don't know yet. So as we're bringing this together I just want to make sure that we come into this that I think it's a great opportunity for the community to hear what's going on and there are some good new Developments coming out, we have some projects that are starting to take shape and will be happening, the CDS portion, so we can kind of lay out more on that schedule as well. But yeah, I agree, I just think they've done a great job, and I think it's going to be a great chance to update everybody and maybe have some suggestions of where we go from that meeting with more information. Yep, that makes sense, folks. Yep, all right, any [1:49:13] Council Chair: no more, any more future agenda items? Okay, last opportunity for public comment, anyone online? Line all set with their hands raised. Executive session, we are now going to move into executive session. Pursue it, we need a motion to move it in executive session pursuant to one MRSA 4056a regarding a personnel matter. I moved. Okay, moved and seconded, all those in favor, that's unanimous, and we don't anticipate coming back in after this, so this will be, this will be the end of it for this evening, or no, thank you