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[3:07] Select Board member: to accept the minutes from the meeting of wednesday september 16th any questions all those in favor meetings for october the first and tuesday of the month of 6 30 the red board of orc meets the second fourth Tuesday of the month at 530 airport meets second Wednesday of the month for 6 p.m. at the airport conservation Commission planning board the second and fourth Wednesday of the month is 6 p.m. select board the first and third Wednesday of the month is 6 p.m. solid waste the next THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21ST. THE CONCREHENSIVE PLAN MEETINGS ARE SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 8TH, NOVEMBER 19TH, AND DECEMBER 17TH, FROM 530 TO 7 PM. IN YOUR PACKETS ARE THE PAYROLL WARRANTS, NUMBER 14, DATED 922, AND NUMBER 16, DATED 10-6. The work on the basketball, pickleball court has been completed. Copies of the expense and revenue reports as of September 30th are in your packets. Copies of the Bingham Forest financials as of 10-6. I've given you a copy of my 15-year certificate of service with the Maine Town, City and County Management Association. Field Electric was here yesterday. Today they performed the first annual maintenance on the heat pumps at the town office. Everything was very clean. They said they looked like they had just been taken out of the boxes. We do check the filters periodically, as was recommended. We rinse them when they're needed. And they will be back in a couple of weeks to put a saline solution in the basement drain where one of the heat pumps drains to help with an odor due to that drain being longer and the water being unable to escape quickly. Stephanie and I had a telephone debriefing on September 29th with Jim Byrne, our EPA regional brownfields contact, concerning the brownfields grant we submitted on behalf of Bethel and Ogre Woodstock and Greenwood. This was one of the most competitive grants they had this year. They received 558 applicants and 193 were funded. In all areas of the scoring, with the exception of a few areas, Bethel received full points allowed, with Jim identifying those sections saying, we received a perfect score and if we reapplied for the same thing, we would not need to change those sections. The areas we didn't receive full points required more information to show how we would reuse the property by giving definitive examples how reusing the property would solve problems for low income and school lunch programs and how will this make the property better, how this will solve future problems, discuss how we need to discuss with the partners options to strategize ways to improve these sections. The guidelines are not out yet for the 2027 grant. They're expected to be out by the end of October, the first of November. Jim doesn't anticipate major changes. He'll let me know when the guidelines are posted on their website. Stephanie and I were very encouraged with the scoring we received after Jim explained how we were scored and identifying the few areas we needed to improve, which basically we're all to read how to reuse the property and identifying areas in doing that we will be scheduling meeting with the partnering towns to improve in these areas if we if we decide to submit the 27 grant for these same items the Conservation Commission, with the help of Tamara Benson from SEBE, will host a Community Resilience Partnership Community Workshop on Tuesday, October 20th from 5.30 to 7 in the Crescent Park School Cafeteria. Food and kids activities will be provided. The Conservation Commission will share some of the work they have done on energy conservation projects in the town and ask for input from the community about energy conservation priorities for the future. This input will help direct the commission in developing a five-year energy plan and preparing a copy of the energy conservation plan that was prepared for the town of Bethel for the co-block town office by the Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the future of the Maine Office of Community Affairs and Power Options. This document was sent to the Town Conservation Commission and is in a green 3. Travis Wojcik sent an email. Third, he has resigned from the Planning Board and Budget Committee. I included a packet. Brad Corson, the airport technician, verbally resigned to Randy effective October 1st. He returned his keys and gate opener. This has been a 20 hour per month position and does need to be re-evaluated. Randy and I are reviewing the job description for the technician position and will be reviewing Randy's position at the same time. We need to make sure the weekly and monthly tasks currently being done by both positions are identified in the job descriptions before the job is posted to identify the work to be done in this position. I also gave you a copy of a picture that we received in the mail. One was sent to me, one to the CEO from Boston, and it shows, was checked out, but given you a copy of the proposed 2027 state valuation. Pat and Sarah have been registered to attend Bethel's as Bethel's General Assembly members to attend planning day on October 28th in Auburn. Emma and Courtney are also registered to attend. Monday is October 12th. So for number nine, the event being hosted by the conservation commission, can that be sent out to the committee as well? Would that be a really helpful thing for some members to attend? Yes, we do have that posted online. There's quite information on it. The conservation commission actually set that up and Sarah sent us the information for it. I can send that to the, well we have a meeting tomorrow night, so I'll get everyone's copy of that on the flyer. And then I had a question about number 10, the energy conservation plan that was prepared for the town, what's the intended use of this plan? Sarah can answer that. Yeah, so it was, I don't know if you remember a while back, it's been, it took a long time to get all that information, but we received, we applied and then received a technical assistance award from EEPRC, and I'm gonna forget what that all stands for, it's like energy efficiency something. So we were, I think, one of 14 towns that got that, so they you check when you applied you chose two buildings to be fully audited and doing an energy audit even though we had an energy audit on all six buildings it was a more in-depth energy on it. So they did like the smoke test and they came I didn't get to see them in action Scott I don't know if you were and let's see so they also got us we've been working with this woman Claire what it doesn't matter her name is Claire and she helped got us on me energy portfolio manager or now maybe it's just energy portfolio manager it's not just specific to Maine and we can put all our energy data into that and then track what's happening with our electricity use, propane use. So far, Stephanie's been giving me the electricity bills, so I just finished working with her to get the electricity in. But anyway, it's just to give the town some information about how we're doing in those two buildings. So that if we want to do some work on this building to make it more energy efficient, we have that data to support. Yeah, just thinking about how we want to not let, there's a lot of really good information, we want to make sure it doesn't just go to sit on a shelf somewhere. Yeah, I mean I think depending on, I guess what the select board wants, like the next round of community resilience partnership grants, I think the application will be I think in the spring, so we could look at it and say we want to use money to take care of some of the issues in the buildings. Although the coal block, the community resilience partnership grant that we received last, well not two rounds ago, so the one we got for the heat pumps, like the heat pumps are already taken care of so you'll see that as an issue because they came before the heat pumps were put in and before the weatherization project so we're actually going to take care of or that grant has taken care of some of those issues not all of them but so if we want to use like take care of some of the issues of the public works building we could apply for another grant or I don't know you know set aside money or you know plan in our budget process to take care of some of this okay So, Sarah, was this a compilation of the reports that we had done in the past, or is this a totally new one? No, it's a totally new report. And, yeah, I know that group, you know, the two, the University of Maine students, we, clearly their data wasn't, like, I think this is more a real, because it's like a real consulting firm that did all that. Right I just noticed it says that it refers back to June of 2025. That's when they came and did the audits and they just and they it took a whole year Okay all right all right it took a long time all right so that's why it says September 2026 yeah so it's just got it to us okay all right all right so do we think any information is stale or well I guess when it's reviewed we'll find out Yeah, I mean some of the suggestions they made for the coal block were to get heat pumps and weather, do some weatherizing, weatherization projects and we are doing that as a result of the community resilience partnership grant that we got. Probably looking at the public works department next for what's in here. I did, I mean, it was nice because we, you know, it does include solar installations and how much that would cost, but it does look like it's pretty costly, and so we would have to decide as a town, like, you know, there aren't any more rebate programs, or so I guess that's where the town has to decide whether it's worth it to Right, yes, but it does look like you know the recovery to get that money back is pretty long, that's that's why the five-year plan would be great, yeah, I mean, I, but this would be, I think this will be helpful for helping us with the five-year plan, because actually getting that kind of data on all our buildings would be great. But when we had a meeting to go over the report, and they said that if we wanted to do a similar report for all our other buildings, it would be like $6,000 to $10,000 per building to do that. So that's a lot. So it was nice that we got two buildings done. Any other questions for Shannon? Alright. I think we're on to going over the 2025 audit. And we have Karen Oliveri. And Shannon, I don't know if you wanted to say anything first or just hand it over. No, just hand it right over to Karen.
[18:57] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: Well, I'm Karen Oliveri. I am a director with the RHR Smith and Company. We've been doing Bethel's Audit for a few years now, and I've been the one that's come every year. I have a little bit of a different role where I'm not the actual Audit Manager, but the Audit is in my group, so Tammy Caradue was the actual Audit Manager and Kathy Markovich as well. I think Sarah was also here doing the test work and things like that, but I'm here to actually report on the audit itself, so can you, everybody has a copy, awesome, so in 2025 bevel was an actual, it was a single audit because of the projects that were going on at the water treatment plant, so that's why it says federal compliance audit at the top, which, you know, that was not [Speaker G (unidentified): I can] bring you to, if you look at page 9, it talks about, this is basically a discussion analysis of what actually happened within the year for the town. The town, the revenues for the town's governmental activities increased by 13.94% and expenses decreased by 9.7%. The increase in revenues was primarily due to increases in all areas except for charges for services. And I'll show you the schedule after that you can go through. Other revenues for the town's business activities, which now used to be the airport and the sewer, but the airport was moved into the general fund and so now it's just the sewer. Those activities also increased by 3.2% with total expenses decreasing by 5.9%. We did make the transfers from the airport into the general fund. The fixed assets and everything no longer are represented in the airport itself. It's actually represented on statement A. It rolls up into the net position which, with the sewer, still shows the depreciation expenses. It still shows all of the assets because it is an enterprise fund and has to be disclosed that way. So on page 11 is the budgetary highlights again. It kind of talks about the general fund's actual revenues were in excess of the budgeted amounts by $699,739. And the actual expenditures were under the budgeted amounts by $399,000. And if you go to page 61 of the audit, Schedule 1, it's a budget comparison, which tells you where all of the positives are and a negative. Tree growth was a negative $206. That's not monumental in a revenue when you're over. You had budgeted $15,935,720, but the actual was $16,635,459, which resulted in the $699,739. Your property taxes were over and I'm assuming that is because of supplemental tax bills and when we do a deferred revenue calculation we usually take it from that revenue so your deferred revenue was less than expected. expected. You've had a positive again in your excise tax, state revenue sharing, tree growth, transfer station fees, which is always good to see, charges for services with an increase of $139,000 over what was budgeted, interest income, and we all know that the interest income lately has been growing. It's kind of hard to budget it to actual because there's always changes in interest rates, but they've been staying steady for the past few years. I'm not really sure if that's going to be a trend that you're going to see going forward, but I guess the increase in that is take it when you can get it, which is great. It just helps grow your fund balance. miscellaneous revenue there was an increase, and then you have proceeds from sale of assets and transfers from other funds. And then if you look at the appropriations, there were two overexpended, which was general government, overexpended by $9,956, and health and welfare was overexpended by $19,176. But in the whole total, you are under-expended in your budget by $399,900. So if you add the two together, it's $1 million that was added to the balance in FY20. Any questions on that? And then we're going to talk about, on page 12, the town has noted a subsequent event as a currently known fact, and it's referred to in note 23, and if you go to page 59, the town modified their bond anticipation note with Andrews Gargan Bank, and that was for the wastewater treatment project. It was a short-term borrowing, but it increased by $650,000, And so instead of 2,200, it went to 2,825. So we want to note that, it happened in FY26, but we try to tell you everything that's happened after the year occurred. So these are things that happened in FY26
[25:09] Select Board member: that you should be aware of. Will we see it reflected again in FY26?
[25:17] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: If it closes, if it converts from short-term borrowing to long-term borrowing you will see you will see it either way you'll either be shown as that short-term debt or at least shown as the long-term but usually and when the project is over sometimes they don't convert them from short-term to long-term and we look at short-term borrowings as a year or less but in some of these grant projects that extends out because the project isn't done and they're not ready to convert we still call it a short-term borrowing I consider it to be long-term debt in the grand scheme of things, because it is going to be long-term debt to you at some point, right? But we have to disclose it differently. And I'm assuming, I mean, I don't know exactly, and Sharon, I don't know if you've answered this best, but some of this will be converting, correct? Yes. And because some of the projects are completed, but there are others that are coming that have not. Correct. And is it anticipated in 26 that you will be single audit? No, I think we determined 27 because of the note on board. It will be, yes. And then it also talks about which we have never disclosed before, and I want to be transparent about that. The interlocal agreement with Beth Elhanover-Murray was something that in the 25 audit we discovered that we had never disclosed before. So that is this note 21 that's on page 58. And I think that was also a comment management letter comment because of the jointly held assets. We don't necessarily have the best list of who actually owns what. So as we get into 26, hopefully we can get a better idea of what that is, and then we can change that out of disclosure as well to include those.
[27:15] Select Board member: That's one area I hope that more information can be found on because the town of Bethel owns the transfer station and essentially owns the assets. But hopefully you can find more. The other towns help contribute and also they get a portion of the assets.
[27:39] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: So what is it that they actually own? That's something that we have not been able to determine.
[27:44] Select Board member: Right, but the actual capital asset is contractually, I mean, Town of Bethel buys it and has another contractual relationship.
[27:55] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: That the transfer station sits on, but I think that in that agreement itself, in that inter-level agreement, I believe that there is something in there that says that they share the assets, and that's why we disclosed it.
[28:11] Select Board member: And they do pay a portion of the asset by the percentage. Like in the situation with the scale, they paid a percentage of that scale. So they'll get, we don't own that solely. It's owned with the three towns because we all bought it. There is a lot more work that needs to go into the research of that.
[28:38] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: And again, we just learned this and it was never, it wasn't in a prior audit. And so, as you get, as you, the more years that you end up on, the more information that you come across and find, and this happened to be one of us. So, but we don't have all the data to show that, not how, you know, what actually is there and who, what percentage isn't here. And so that will be a work in progress. Basically, that's something that, you know, it's going to have to be worked on between the transfer station and Stephanie and Sharon and everybody to get us that list so that we can disclose that properly.
[29:18] Select Board member: Yeah, and the more you can dig would be great. I believe the intent was that Bethel owns all the assets and then the other towns contribute. And if there was a termination, they'd get something back for their participation in that effort.
[29:33] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: Maybe the interlocal government itself should be with them.
[29:37] Select Board member: Yeah, that would be possible, yeah. Yeah,. So in 25, that was actually drafted, updated in 25. It had not been updated in 20 years. So it was actually updated in 25.
[29:54] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: And that must be why we talked about it.
[29:56] Select Board member: Yeah, that's why you talked about it. There wasn't much material change in it. There was the board and stuff like that. And the percentages that are contributed we didn't put the other you know the percentages that are made for the expenses it wasn't a lot of
[30:11] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: material changes in that it does say we did disclose that the title baffles proportionate share for that was 280 000 to the transfer station so yeah so more to follow more to follow more to come more to come we did do a lot of restatements this year most of those restatements were due to fixed assets based on the fact that the airport went into the government side and not in the enterprise so we had to do a lot of restatement of that to put those assets into general fund and into statement a in that position because of accounting standards we don't show your assets on statement c those are all rolled up in statement you know it's a lot statement a is not something that you ever will probably have to worry about in your life unless you really want to dig into accounting and auditing. Most people will worry about statency, which shows your general fund and what your fund balances are and all of the other things. That's something that you want to learn more about next year, we can certainly, we can certainly do that. The other, while we're talking about it, I guess, we might as well just, we have a lot of OPEC and pension statements in the note disclosures. That is that is a must that is not a by an actuary firm that does the current report that we get
[31:45] Select Board member: from a municipal place called the trust.
[31:47] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: And so the information that we get from that note disclosure is put together. That is not a funded liability to you. That also, it shows it in that note disclosure, but that also is shown in the statement. This is an unfunded liability. It's not on the balance sheet anywhere. Kind of like your accrued compensated absences, so all of the employees who have accrued time that you have not paid them out yet, we disclose that in statement and we also put it in the no disclosure, sometimes it's in debt, so that you can see at that time what if everybody were to leave, that is the amount of money that you would owe. It's an unfunded liability. Again, you have the option to funded should you choose. Those are kind of important to know, so if you go to Statement C, which is on page 16. Statement C is basically your balance sheet for the general funds, which is always a major fund, and then all your other governmental funds. And if you look at your unbalance, you have no non-spendable, you have no restricted, but you do have committed unbalance, which is actually it's detailed in note 14 on page 41, and those are you have $700,000 that was put towards your FY 26 budget, you have the coal block town office roof, the town office basement, the contingency and the cemetery reserve funding, and those were articles in your FY26 warrant. So, and then the $300,000, $400,000 that went to your tax commitment for tax relief, $300,000 that was a special time meeting for the transfer station, and then the articles that were in your 26 budget that you were going to use fund balance to purchase. So, with that, and then there's we assigned also 500 000 and that 500 000 is note 15 and that's the 500 000 that you used for your tax commitment in fy 27. So we've reserved those out so that you because you have obligated those, and so your unassigned fund balance at the end of 25 was 3 million 973.618, and I know that we have talked about this, we talked about this last year, I'm not sure if we talked about the year before, the town of Ethel doesn't have a fund balance policy, which is really probably a good thing at some point for you to discuss. We recommend to all towns that they have a fund balance policy, whether you tie it to how many days, what it is that you're looking at that you want to keep, right, that you want to know that you have for operating. When I calculated out that 3.9 million, if you were looking, most people use between 60, 90 being an optimum, right, when I calculated it out and I didn't use just operating because a town's budget is a town's budget, you're obligated to pay those bills whether it's an operating cost, whether it's, whether it's a transfer of whatever it is, so I calculated your 90-day fund balance would have been two. Million eight eleven to forty and 120, so you're still operating above, and it's my understanding also that you're gonna be having a special right, so in this, and if you had the hundred and twenty day and use the 150, you're still at 120 if you deduct the 150 off that 3.9. So if it's the board's target balance to be 60 days, then you have a fair amount of access that you could maybe use for all of these capital projects that you have that you're talking about that have no actual effect to the taxpayer itself, yourself, if you're using your undesirable fund balance to fund those, or you could use it if you, if I think I heard five year plan, if you are, if you are going to put together a five year capital plan and you have this fund balance, you could actually use it to grow that capital plan so that it again is not a burden to the taxpayer, because it's money that is sitting here, so a fund balance policy helps you make those decisions what the target is going to be, how much fund balance you actually want, and then what would you do with the balance. Obviously, tax relief is number one. And then once you do that tax relief, what can you do with the rest? Because we haven't seen in the trend that your fund balance is decreasing. It increases. So what good can you do with that? And maybe you choose to keep it. And that's your choice, but there is no formal policy for everybody to look at to say this is what we would like to do. We
[37:56] Select Board member: can probably check with Sharon after on the page 41 for the general fund. Just trying to make sure we caught everything, and does that include the $300,000?
[38:09] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: Yes, so it's $400,000 that you used for the halfway 26 tax commitment. Yeah, it's the 300,000 that you took to support the transfer station and then the coal block, the town office basement, community, the cemetery reserve funding, and the transfer station scale were all articles in FY 26 that were, you were going to use, so we assigned that so that you know that we've already taken that and you still have this 3.9 balance. And then we also did the FY27, because that's what we knew. And then if you put the 100, you could also put the 150 in there. But you're still at 120. That 150, you could still. You're still at 120 if you deduct the 150 from that 3.9. So I'd say, financially, your fund balance is very healthy. It's
[39:13] Select Board member: probably not in the correct year. It was probably the year before. It was the year before. The year before Northern Borders.
[39:20] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: That $250,000 got transferred to the wastewater?
[39:25] Select Board member: Yes. That's right, too.
[39:26] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: The $250,000 was transferred to the wastewater because that was the town's commitment. We might as well talk about that, actually. If you if you look is that if you go to statement G which is on page 20 that $250,000 transfer that happened into the wastewater is one of the reasons that the transfer station isn't a positive this year, is because of that $250,000. In FY24, the sewer, if you look at, in FY24, for the sewer owed the general fund $253,991 if you look at this there is a due from other funds so basically the general fund now owes the sewer $20,000 the sewer hasn't been that way in a very long time so it's positive but I have to stress that the reason it is that is because of that $250,000 transfer that came and we put we took it and we put it in as deferred related to the contributions in aid of construction because that's what that money is earmarked for and when the northern borders grant comes in that may change again so your contributions in aid of construction may change and it will increase so the sewer will have a better position but it doesn't change it doesn't change the depreciation it doesn't change all of those other things that has to be shown in this enterprise fund so and that hundred and fifty thousand I believe that for the special town meeting is also frivolous water yes right so that will balance their budget which also will help and then at some point you can decide right because the sewer does have debt and it is and when it converts and you start paying then there are going to be there are going to be more principal and interest payments that have to happen through the wastewater treatment right in the sewer and how do they pay that and so if the town continues to do what they're doing that's going to help make the super department whole to a degree without having a rate increase do you need one that's something that you should look into, right? But it's not what everybody desires to do. And if the town also has extra and they don't want to do a rate increase, you can turn back the funds as a way to keep that rate low. So you have options, I guess is what I'm saying. But this is the first time that the sewer has ever, that anybody's ever owed the sewer and the sewer hasn't owed somebody else. So, you know, that's positive, very positive. I think maybe one more year and when all of these projects close and it's time to pay the debt, it's a different story. That is something in forward thinking that should be looked at as to how you're going to pay for that debt now. Either it's going to be borne by even the user or maybe there's a contribution or the deck, you know, the town pays a portion of the debt. But those are things that can happen to keep them in this positive trajectory.
[43:20] Select Board member: Was that the question that we were going to ask? Because the sewer is enterprise, whether we can have the town pay every year?
[43:33] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: The town can, just because it's an, when you look at an enterprise fund and the goal of being an enterprise fund is that it is self-sufficient, correct? And you could look at that, the sewer being its own fund, kind of like the airport is the department of the town, But because you have all of these loans and grant agreements with Rural Development things, they have said that you have to stay in an enterprise fund. Because that's one of the first questions that I asked Sharon, because I deal with other communities that have gotten loans, and the town that has to be borne by the loser. So I wanted to know, is that the same case? And I don't think it's the same case in the loans that you have with Rural Development. But he was very specific in his wording, based on what Sharon asked, and he said that it had to stay in the price fund. Can you investigate that further? Absolutely. I wouldn't leave it as gospel, but we did our due diligence and checking, and I think it's something that you should look into. Because if you do that, then it becomes, the sewer would not be in the price fund. It become a department of the town, the depreciation, all those things that pull it down would be also part of the towns again and roll up into that state, meaning we'd have another statement and do those things again. Most of the time, most places show their sewer departments, but they're not always self-sufficient. Yeah, but they still show that this, they still remain as an enterprise fund. Is it sometimes? Yes, sometimes no, because it's not right now, it's not, it can't support itself unless you do. something increase your answer and then when you look at the debt but you can make a contribution okay you can never do a transfer even if it's even if it's supporting their capital program yeah right so that is not something that is formed by the users right we set up capital funds this year right 35 000 or to go towards the purchase of a new truck and i think there's some more that's going in there that doesn't show that 's like rolled up if we i would pull it out of the enterprise fund and keep it in the capital projects fund so that you can you can as a town help grow that side of the house, right, and then you know the sewer the users aren't aren't paying for that, yes, so that's also you just
[46:28] Select Board member: have to confirm compliance with our codes too, yes, yeah
[46:34] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: agree and I did look in the code and just see if there was any type of fun balance policy in the code and I didn't find it, there was also something else I look for in the code but some things are policies correct that the board can do and some things are our code which are that ordinances of the time, so we talked about the deficit of the deficit fund balance that we have, the only one is the cemetery in 25 but obviously you've taken care of that in 26 with that these piece up unbalanced to wipe that out. So that is also great. And then if you go to the back.
[47:28] Select Board member: Question on that. It was money that came from one of the cemeteries when the tenant took it over. It was like over $40,000. Is that in that one year we talked about? That was in 25, right? No, it was earlier than that.
[47:52] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: That was a specific project, I do believe, that was a restoration project that was by itself. So I would have to do some research, Michelle, to find out about that. My assumption is that it would have gone to the cemetery itself and not that restoration project. But I can't be sure. But I can look. So I can look and see what happened.
[48:17] Select Board member: I think that was what the intent was, for it to be used for restoration? No, for that cemetery. I don't think there was definition, you know, whether it was for mowing or restoration, but I think it may have ended up going towards a restoration project. Just curiosity more than anything.
[48:37] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: I'd be happy to take a look at that. If we go to what I find most helpful, and I think this is a conversation that happens in, I know it happens in the town office a lot, or what are the balances in your special order programs, and what are your balances in your capital projects funds, and the best way to look at those and to review them, of course it's only a snapshot of what actually happened within that fiscal year, but if you look at starting on page 73, it starts, it gives you, or 70, actually 72 I guess, we'll start with that. Balance sheet for the special revenue, capital projects, and your firm funds, and I'd have to say, Michelle, if you look at the firm funds and the cash balance, it's like eight thousand dollars, so I would have to say that maybe that money never, it's on page 72, that money was definitely not in your cemetery. Based on an $8,000 cash balance and a $12,000 fund balance, but maybe someplace else.
[50:00] Select Board member: I believe that went towards the restorations that were done.
[50:05] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: And then you still owed the $60,000. Yes. So the schedule itself for these funds, the special revenues actually start on page 75 and it's schedule D so it starts with your balance sheet it shows if most of these they don't have cash basically they're due from the general funder the general fund holds the money airport we have is in your special revenue funds so is
[50:45] Select Board member: that they answer the airport, I
[50:53] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: think it's the airport itself, because I had a hundred and twelve thousand six hundred ten dollars over expenditures and a hundred and twelve six ten of revenue, it could have been a grant, but you have, you have, you have one, two, three, four, five, six, the ARPA which, so that's gone away, your ski donations, the signposts on the Bingham Forest. So this that you get on the Bingham Forest is the... Is that the net?
[51:38] Select Board member: On the Bingham? That's the net. That's what is in there as of fiscal year ending 25. So you'll see that on that sheet that you have there, that the number is different today because we're in FY27.
[51:53] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: Yeah, but that's what it was then, but these schedules actually show, the schedule D is the actual balance sheet, but if you look at schedule E, it shows your revenues, what you got in for revenues for each one of them, what the expenditures were in that fiscal year, if there were transfers and or transfers out, like we transferred out twenty four thousand dollars to wastewater for projects. So there were expenditures and transfers. So that, we finally, opera's done and you'll be in compliance, I'm sure. FEMA, you had a negative unbalance in 24 because you paid for projects you hadn't been reimbursed for yet. You actually did some more work in 25 and you got your money. So you're tight with that, which is really good.
[52:50] Select Board member: What's that balance now? So you have zero.
[52:54] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: You had a negative fund balance. And then in 25, you had $45,750 worth of expenses, but you had $190,355 worth of revenue that you had to pay. So that is now a zero. And so special revenue, the special revenue funds are generally your grant funds or your donation funds, and these, all of these schedules that I'm showing you right now, they don't lapse. So it's not like the general fund where you might have to carry forward, right, carry forward because you want to be able to use it in the next fiscal year and do a budget adjustment. You don't have to do that with your special revenue capital and current funds. Those balances don't last unless you decide that you don't want the program anymore, you decide to do something with it that is not contractual, or like perm funds, or perm funds, they don't usually go away because somebody gave you money or it's been sitting there for a purpose, but you might say that if there's something in capital that there's no longer a plan for it, or there are two or three with like, let's just say transportation, and you decide you don't want three of them, you want to combine them with one. So you can do that, but they never, they don't lapse, those are your, you have a fund balance at the end of the year, and if you take that fund balance at the end of the year, and you take any revenues that come in and any expenses that are going out, you take that fund balance and you add your revenue, subtract your expenses, and that's going to give you your fund balance for the next year. You can take these schedules, I can give you a blank one, you can do it every month to know every month where you're at with those, but they never lapse anywhere. So you don't have, these are, that's why they're in the other funds is so that they don't raise, it's not raised by taxation, unless you do a transfer.
[54:53] Select Board member: I was curious about that because it's consent decree that came over, it's almost like an enterprise, but I guess not like an enterprise.
[55:05] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: It doesn't have any fixed, an enterprise fund has to own something, right? Yeah, right. So it doesn't.
[55:12] Select Board member: Right, but the revenues and expenses would form like it because the select board is supposed to approve the budget, and then there are things that it could go to the two-town meeting if they wanted to get more money too.
[55:32] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: So if they need it and so yeah, but in it would act just like in your capital. Yeah, right. So yes, the town would have let's just say they wanted to put they wanted to put $45,000 towards being. Yep, it would act just like when you say we're gonna put a hundred thousand dollars into paving. You raise that money in the general fund and you transfer that money to the appropriate program in those other funds, and that would reflect as transfer in. Yeah, and you can see there was a transfer out. It's not revenue to it. We don't show it as revenue, because it's not. It's not a donation. It's not a grant you got. It's money from the town. And so we show that as a transfer,
[56:15] Select Board member: and it's reported that way.
[56:17] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: So it doesn't skew your revenues. And then on page 78 is your capital tax funds. They don't have their own actual cash in these funds, it's all the money from the general fund and some of the due from other funds. You can look at it as a cash balance, so to speak, and then there hasn't been much activity in some of these.
[56:55] Select Board member: What is the SCBA?
[56:58] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: SEVA, that is fire department, it's their apparatus, their breathing apparatus and those types of things, so yeah, doesn't have a big balance, so if they were, they have $51, so probably, it could have been a grant, it could have been, it could have been anything, but there hasn't been anything added to it, so that is their balance for that. So you have ambulance, the reval account, your sidewalk maintenance. You have quite a few capital project funds. Not all of them have significant balances like your public works upgrade and things like that. So again, if we're going to talk about the fund balance, these are great ways to increase your balances at the capital projects so that when you do your capital plan, if that's what you're going to do, you can tie this to that and know how much money you have and how much more you need to go to get there, and with a minimal impact of taxes. I find that these schedules, for me, are extremely important because it tells you what you are doing or not doing. It has the revenues, it has the expenses, and it tells you what your fund balance is. But there hasn't been a significant amount of activity in those. But you have a lot of them. Just gotta say. There are a lot to take care of, aren't there, Stephanie? Yes. Yes they are. And then there's the PERM funds. You can see all the revenues. Basically all the revenues, all the transfers and expenditures. And then your final fund balance is at the bottom, as of June 30. And then the total, like there's $1.2 million in your capital reserve total. And then you have the fund funds, which are your cemeteries, with a balance of $12,000. A fund balance of $12,000. Those actually have cash. Part cash and part due from other funds. So you can probably use the cemetery funds in there. And then, do we have any questions on those so far? We can go to the Fed compliance piece. So, on page 97 is basically
[59:54] Select Board member: this is your SEPA
[59:55] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: on page 97. So, this is all of your federal awards on this. And we only, in the single audit world, it's not about how much money you get, it's about how much money you've expended. And in 25, the threshold was $750,000. Dollars. In 26 it increases to a million by federal, by federal guidelines. So your expenses, but one of the wastewater projects, it was 1.8 million dollars, that put you to a single audit. We do major program determinations, and think in the wastewater was the one that made that determination. But you did get, so you can answer that. You have an airport program for the $117,000. That's what that was in the special revenue. You had some Northern Borders expenses and $245,000 were just declared disasters. So when we did the testing, we test the program, and the testing of the program is done by our federal compliance part of the firm. The actual audit managers don't do that. We have people who specialize, and because it's very specialized, there is a list of things that you can and cannot do in a way that you have to do them, that the federal government says you will do it this way. So when they were doing that, there was a significant deficiency that was identified. And that significant deficiency revolves around the procurement policy in the process. It doesn't meet the guidelines. So there was a finding during the audit procedures that it was identified that the town did not have a procurement policy per se. And that doesn't, so it doesn't meet the federal guidelines. So we put it in as a funding, and then you had to do a corrective action plan as to what is it that you're going to do to fix this. And so the corrective action was we found that Bethel will take the following actions to address the finding.
[1:02:34] Select Board member: Which page is it?
[1:02:36] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: It's the last page. Doesn't even have a page number. I believe that the corrective action plan is that there will be a government policy in place by the end of this year of the end of calendar year because it when you when you when you go into 27 and have this single audit again, this will be fine. Is it in there? It's in the cabinet. It's because I spelled Stephanie's. Oh is it? Yeah. Thank you for letting me steal it. You're welcome. That's how I screwed up on it. So that'll have to be addressed I guess. Yes, so that going into 27 you don't have that same funding. We can have management letter comments, but corrective action plans with federal programs is not always. And if you want to continue to get those grant awards, the procurement is number one. And then we can discuss the management letter if you want, or we can discuss any other things you'd like. Which of the comments in the management letter was the procurement then? The procurement is a finding.
[1:04:42] Select Board member: Oh, so it's not in the management letter.
[1:04:44] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: The comments that are in the management letter are things that we saw, things that happened, and how to make it your more best practice. These are things that we have to correct, right, aside from the single audit piece. So that corrective action is if you look in the back if you look on page 105 that's a summary of the auditors results and then it says were there any material weaknesses identified no but there was the significant deficiency and that requires a finding so basically a finding changes you from a low risk And what that means is that we end up having to test more. We have to test more of the program. And then if we were to find something. There it is.
[1:05:49] Select Board member: It doesn't say when it will be done. Oh, yeah. Anticipated December. At the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. But
[1:06:01] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: You'll have until, when we come to audit again, we'll ask you about that. And if it hasn't been completed, then it'll be a conversation. Conversation. So the management letter itself is different. Most of it is from our repeat comments. We will put our repeat comments up. In 25 there were a couple of repeats that were also in the 24 management letter. And I think everybody is working on those. I think that the biggest, one of the biggest things is the audit adjusting journal entries that not when we give, and again, audit adjusting journal entries are proposed entries. We're saying that we feel that what you gave us for a balance is incorrect and we want to fix it. And so we propose journal entries. If you decide not to post them because you feel like they're wrong, that's a different conversation. We would hash that out before you even finalize your audit. But these are just journal entries that didn't get processed that were ours, which change balances. So we have to go and do beginning balance adjustments and things like that so it is a it is a comment revenue and expenditure recognition for many years we've been and it's not just the town of Bethel it's all over I find it all over where we run revenues and expenses through one account that is not okay right those expenses need to be shown separately and then the revenue is shown separately because it ends up being like a net and that budgeting or you know not gross budgeting but net and so You take it and say well I have this money I'm just going to throw my expenses at it because I have to when we do it you have to show your expenses separately and it could be throw revenue at an expense account or expenses at a revenue account no matter what it is expenses are shown separately revenues are shown separately. So that is that comment, and we are working on it. General ledger reconciliations. There is a lot that's happening in the town of Bethel. A lot with the treatment plant, the health treatment plant, the sewer department, and the federal awards, the grant administration. Those things are a lot, and not only the administration of grants but it's the loans, those loans in the in the hoops they have to go through are they're intense. Sometimes there's a lot of work that has to happen, but we still have to reconcile, and so we've been working with Stephanie on ways to reconcile your ledger with also all of the other workload that you have. It needs to be done, and that will reduce the amount of journal entries that we give you from MOP. And some of those are, some are significant, and we call it material. We have a threshold that we look at, and we plan materiality, and all of those adjustments are higher than that material level. And then we have the reimbursement request. us that is basically we were finding that you know you're you have grant money and you're spending money out and maybe the reimbursements weren't timely, so we had those discussions and that is being worked on so that it happens more timely because you have money that somebody owes you and you should get it, so the town is not using your money to fund for it, and then the jointly owned transaction posting is you know it's more of the same, but the jointly owned capital assets that's our comment about the transfer station and that interlocal agreement that you have with other [Speaker G (unidentified): tell me] maybe early information for the fyi 26 so we haven't we haven't had the opportunity to really dive into 26 yet we work here there are some there are there's been some trio issues and how to get reports and they're not we will be coming back but we have not actually taken a prelim yet we will be We'll be coming back, I assure you, soon. When Stephanie's ready. You don't have anything clean as to when we might get that one? Well, that depends on when it's available for us to audit. So we did come, but we have to reschedule and come back. We will get here, I promise you, as soon as everybody's ready. That's all I have. That's probably enough. That's great.
[1:12:11] Town Forest representative: I just have a few things and then obviously I can try to answer any questions that you guys have. have. So we had a logging project which got extended a few times and ended mostly over the winter and that has left us over the time that we have had the forest with a balance of about $193,000. We were scheduled to meet last night, but due to people not being able to attend, to last minute, that fell through. So we'll be meeting again sometime in the near future, and we need to discuss whether we want to continue with logging. We have a proposal from the logger, I'm sorry, from the Forester. But I would, my personal, not that, not the will of the committee, inclination is to stop logging at this point because there's no real, there's no real reason to continue, especially since wood prices are down. So it's not necessarily in our best interest to be logging at this time and to wait for them, wait for a later time when we need money and prices come back potentially. So that's where we are with logging. Oh, I think they were just up last week doing some of the final chipping. There were some fairly large piles that needed to be chipped that accumulated over a few years, and I think they started taking care of that, which is, which is great. So some of the things that would be great to think about. living apart is actually one thing that 's like work to help us with probably in the short term is we could use another member on the committee last year, the Water District voted that they no longer felt the need to send an ex-officio member to the Bingham Forest Committee. So we're down to just four committee members, and it would be great if we had a fifth. And it doesn't need to come from the Water District. If it did, that would be great, but if not, that's fine too. Reggie Brown was the past member from the Water District, and he was really helpful, and you know, do a lot, and that was great. But you know, you guys could just maybe open up the application process and do the, do that would, that would probably help us out a little bit. I also, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a proposal soon from in the Woods and Trails asking for money to do some trail work in the Bingham Forest, but I'm still waiting to see that report. And the other piece is it would probably be. Worthwhile to look at spending money to potentially improve, to further improve the road that was built by the logging company, to bring it up a little bit, it beyond logging road standard, and make it a more useful recreational infrastructure, but also having a solid road so that if we ever had to do emergency evacuation of someone who was recreating the Bingham Forest, it would be a little more straightforward. Right now the road just needs to be crowned and probably have some gravel added to it to. Make it more drivable by normal, be able to buy more normal vehicles, you know. The one last issue that I would ask maybe the town to pursue, the select board to pursue, there is, it would be great to apply to Nuri to not pay taxes on that property anymore because it, that it seems odd to me to have a town pay another town taxes, because a town is more or less a non-profit. It's not an individual owner who's owning this property. It's one town paying another town property taxes, which seems it just takes funds away from the property, which could be developed into a recreation, into a which we're hoping to develop into a more robust recreational asset, and to have that $10,000 bleed out every year for no apparent reason seems silly. So I believe that application would be due before April, it's just like nine nonprofits who own property can apply to a town not to pay property taxes so that
[1:17:16] Select Board member: That happened once before. That would have to go to Rob, the assessor. And I think when I approached him about that before, he had a letter issued stating that 's not something that can legally be done. I'll ask him to respond to that again. OK, yeah.
[1:17:34] Town Forest representative: I mean, the other way that could be solved is it would have to be solved by the state legislature. Right. I was going to say. Yeah. [Select Board member: Yeah, don't worry] Yeah to change the boundaries of a town. Yeah, it was just something that was brought up to me and I don't know the answer and I so but it would be great to really make sure we look into that to see and, you know, it's also a resource that I would imagine people, I know that people from Drury use. So we might just want to like go talk to the select board and say, you know, we could make this even better, there's no point in us paying you $10,000 a year, it would be better for us to put the $10,000 a year into those, into the trails on that piece of property so that
[1:18:33] Select Board member: everyone could use it. I'll give that information to Rob again and then he can address that. That would be great.
[1:18:42] Town Forest representative: Okay so I think that's I think that's all I have for right now and when we when we meet again which should be soon we'll come back on to try to get back onto your agenda and talk a bit more specifically about trails projects and funding for that as well as whether we want to whether the committee votes to continue logging or to stop the time you share
[1:19:14] Select Board member: with us so we know when that next meeting day is? Or whenever you meet, can you let the town office know?
[1:19:21] Town Forest representative: Yeah, I always include Sharon on the emails for when we're going to meet. But yeah, I think I sent it out.
[1:19:30] Select Board member: Yes, he does send me an email to
[1:19:34] Speaker I (unidentified): post it on the calendar.
[1:19:38] Select Board member: They don't meet in town, but I can post it on the calendar.
[1:19:41] Speaker G (unidentified): Oh, yeah,. Yeah, that'd be fun.
[1:19:44] Select Board member: Yeah, I guess if there's a Zoom link. Do you do it by Zoom?
[1:19:48] Town Forest representative: No, we usually just do it in person, but there could be. No one from the committee has asked for a Zoom link so far. We've always met in person. The last time we met, we met in the community forest, I believe in July, and we looked at what the logging looked like so far, what they'd done and how the road looked. So we actually went up in there and met with the forester and had a look around. But we didn't vote on anything in that meeting because we were out with But we will yeah, we I'd like to meet with them again soon. It's a tricky group to rangle. They have very different schedules and Anyway, and the fifth person would maybe help because that way We're missing one. It's not quite as catastrophic, right? Yeah. No, I always try to include whenever we try to schedule something I include Sharon
[1:21:03] Select Board member: At one point a grant was put in and I know we didn't get it. Is there anticipated that we have more grants?
[1:21:11] Town Forest representative: I think that's going to be, I think Gabe is planning to reapply for that. That was the main trail bond and I think he was planning to reapply for that in the next round, which it could be now. it might have already happened well it actually had to go through I think that had to go through the town right I think that's the way that bond I think that's the way that grant works it is confusing like there are some grants that inland woods and trails can apply for and there are some grants that have to be applied
[1:21:53] Speaker G (unidentified): For by the town and he was going to update on those tonight, but he had to cancel it Yeah,
[1:22:04] Select Board member: so yeah, so on HC gave this not 80 which is to take action to approve the application for a permit for in and out of the garden you grow to operate a medicinal cannabis dispensary for the rails so what was in your packet was Courtney's letter and the partner to be signed I'll make a motion to approve our new application for the garden we grow to operate on medical care as dispensary for Gabriel's pain. So any further questions? This is the one that, no, I might want to mess up. No questions. No questions. All right. All those in favor? 4-0, and the motion passes. Thank you for coming. We're going to move on to take action to approve a permit that will expire October 1st, 2027, to operate or maintain an automobile graveyard or junkyard for Todd Wilson on the Gore Road. I have that permit. Any further questions? All those in favor? Four to zero, and the motion passes. We move on to take action to approve a permit that will expire October 1, 2027, to operate or maintain an automobile graveyard or junkyard for Jeff Goodrow for Goodrow's Repair on Route 26. And there is a new copy of that permit with the date corrected date, October 7, 2026. Any questions? So moved. Second. All those in favor? 4-0 and the motion passes. We're going to move on to take action to approve Meryl Kelly to the Planning Board for the term expiring And we have a copy of Meryl's application here. So moved. Second. Any further discussion? What does that sleep with in terms of open seats on the Planning Board? One. One. And that term will expire in 27. And that's from the seat that just opened? Charles' seat? Mojo? Yes. Yes. Okay. Great. It says vacant only. That's because it was already taken off. Wrong. We have that one. There's something in the technical. Anyway, he had his name there. Yeah. I just said e-mail, not e-mail. And phone number. We're going to show you this one. Sorry, there was a motion? Second. Any further questions? All those in favor? 4-0, and the motion passes. We're going to move on to take action to approve Gabriel's dipping to the Ordinance Review Committee for the time expiring 12-31-26, so you have a copy of that. Do you go by Gabe or Gabriel? Gabe. Gabe's allocation. So thanks for the other night. You said you didn't have time, but I'm glad you three kids are doing it. Yeah. I'll move that. Second. Any further questions? All those in favor? Sorry, just because you're here. We'd love to hear any more from you about your interest in the committee.
[1:27:06] Public commenter: I guess taking interest in some of the stuff with the town to kind of see where the organs are at that do exist. If something maybe needs to be updated after many years of selling and stuff like that. But kind of to see how it works with the town.
[1:27:28] Select Board member: And they meet on Tuesdays.
[1:27:31] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: Does that work for you?
[1:27:34] Select Board member: That's always a good question.
[1:27:35] Public commenter: Twice a month, right? Yes.
[1:27:41] Select Board member: All right. Ready? All those in favor? 4-0 and the motion passes. Thank you. We're going to move on to take action to approve the August 1st, 2026 lease agreement for hangar lot number 7 and the October 7th, 2026 addendum for Wear on Earth Services Inc. Michael Klein Go Aviation and authorize the town manager to sign the addendum. So in the packet you have a copy of the layout showing where all of the hangar lease lots are located. The back page of your packet should show on number 7, that is where the lease that Michael applying has for his lot he is and that has been approved and that was signed so the i did put the approval back on here for that in conjunction with the addendum the addendum is to add him leasing the parking lot and if you go to a few pages in, you'll see a collared... What it does is it shows where the 62 by 80 parking lot area is. Is this one here, Michelle? Yeah, I thought I had it colored. Okay. And so he's asking to lease that parking lot area. what he wants to have with his hundred by eighty hangar lot lease he wants to be able to have sewer and plumbing he there's no place to put excuse me a septic system so he need he can put a holding tank but the only crazy blue section with a parking that section there and then of course we would use that to store equipment and so in order for him to have plumbing and sewer he does need to have so I sent all of this to the town attorney and she's the one that drafted up the addendum tying it to the actual lease because a lot on the addendum is needed for the actual lot lease in order to have plumbing and sewer. The cost would be the same per square foot as the actual hanger lease for the 62 by 80. So in the addendum it shows that the cost for the first year's lease would be 12-35-04. Excuse me. Exhibit B is attached to this as well as a copy of the layout. Is the parking lot still going to be paved and still a parking lot? I'm not sure.
[1:31:34] Airport representative: Initially, it's going to be gravel because they've got a lot of work going on out there, so things are going to settle in. The actual hangar, if you look at where I highlighted in the yellow, the actual hangers 80 by 80 and then there's going to be a 20 by 80 add-on in the future. So it won't be immediate is the point. It's a it's a 2,000 gallon holding tank, but it's rated to park on drive over, you know. It's it's in the engineering that you saw from mainland development. They have that engineering built into it. No, it's actually the slide gate that's out there. It's way down, it's closer to the town garage gate. Oh it's way down, it's it's actually the furthest unit as you can go. Yes, you're absolutely right. Then there's a the slide gate, you go in and go all the way down. He's the one way down. Okay.
[1:32:36] Select Board member: Then he's paying to put this whole system in? Yes, of course.
[1:32:40] Airport representative: Yeah, they're going to put the tank in and also all the sewer, and there'll be permits and everything for Courtney at the right time for all of that. And CMP is going to come across the road and everything. So we're going to connect water and sewer and all that stuff.
[1:32:57] Select Board member: Do we anticipate this is going to happen more? I'm sorry?
[1:33:01] Airport representative: Do we anticipate this will happen more? There's only one other person out there that's even mentioned that they would like that, and so I don't think it's he's the first one. He's the one that's got about a half a million dollars worth of building sitting out there laying down that's going to be built, so his steel is here, he's ready to go. They'll be they said they were gonna to put in the forms and pour concrete today, but hopefully by the end of the week you'll have concrete. That's why this is important. The FAA doesn't care about the parking lot. We ran it by the engineer and whether that was permissible, and that's why it was in the prints, and these prints were sent to the FAA and they did sign off on this entire project. So yes, they reviewed it and they've seen it and there were no objections. And when they do a project like that, they'll say there were no objections. They don't approve anything, they just say there's no objection, right. And so stanpec does have that. Okay good, because this was submitted for approval, right? This is this
[1:34:11] Select Board member: is a little bit different, but it has the holding tank, so it's all that part was part of what they
[1:34:15] Airport representative: signed up on. Yeah i mean the parking lot i don't know specifically the holding tank or not i don't
[1:34:20] Select Board member: know because this is an additional. Yeah
[1:34:25] Airport representative: I don't know what that piece was or not, right? This parking lot was designed from the get-go, from the very beginning of the projects, like five years ago, and that's why it's in there, and that's why it was submitted.
[1:34:37] Select Board member: Is the parking going to just be for him now? Correct. Because he's paying for it.
[1:34:41] Airport representative: That's correct. He's paying for it, and he has discretion over the parking.
[1:34:46] Select Board member: Excuse me, he'll be leasing that 62-by-8 piece. He'll be responsible for the snow plowing and stuff.
[1:34:55] Airport representative: Exactly. Yeah, that's personal space. And so therefore down the road, 10 years, 20 years, I don't know when he retires, he could turn this into a business way down in the future, and then this whole thing would be with that differently. There'd be more permits and, you know, to change of use at that point, but right now this is his personal toy box.
[1:35:16] Select Board member: With a normal use of prerogative to make sure that the maintenance is up to snuff and everything else.
[1:35:27] Airport representative: Exactly. It's a responsibility to make sure that these people maintain these. There's been some issues in the past quite a while ago.
[1:35:38] Select Board member: Does he actually live in Bethel?
[1:35:41] Airport representative: Yes, he lives on the north road a few miles above the airport.
[1:35:44] Select Board member: Okay, that's the 807 Ultra, okay. Yes. Any questions? I want to approve the whole thing again. So it's to actually approve the lease agreement that you didn't approve in the first time that we did it with Block 7. It's to sanction it because there's an addendum to it. So having the select board approve the actual lease with the addendum and then giving the manager the authorization to sign the addendum because the lease was originally signed by the manager and Mr. Klein and this will be to sanction the entire process of the approvals that are needed. Okay, so it wasn't part of the six that we do? Yes, it was, it was, it was, so it's just kind of a repeat. Okay. Yeah, on that part of it. All right, so almost you're from the August 1st, 2026 lease agreement for a lot number seven as well as the Aviation and to do we authorize the manager to sign the addendum second all those in favor 4 to 0 and the motion passes thank you all right we're going to move on to J which is action to approve a generator bid for the airport to wire and install a 28 kilowatt next generation series standby generator and then you have the bids table. So Today I sent you, I emailed you the bid sheet, which I will be doing these in the future for all bids. It's a bid sheet that lists all of the bids we've taken in for whatever it is we're doing, whether it is a sealed bid or a rubble bid, and all of the bids are attached to it. So with this particular one, we have three bids for a generator. These prices were originally obtained when we did the budget this past year to get an idea for what we needed to budget for a generator, and Randy went out to all three again to see if they had an updated amount. One of them did not send. He did, he W Electric did not send a revised amount or updated it. We did get both acknowledging the prices they had submitted us when we did the budget. So the recommendation is to go with Flanders Electric for $17,480, and that does fit within the amount that we have budgeted. And I gave you a copy of the capital budget so you could see that. And Randy's here to help explain the need for this. I definitely recommend Flanders. They did mine, they did my son's, and they do great work. And they are more reasonable.
[1:39:39] Airport representative: They claim that they do more generators than the other two companies combined.
[1:39:43] Select Board member: They always give a good place. That's what they do.
[1:39:45] Public commenter: They did my generators. They did a good job. And I've also used Field and I've used Flanders today.
[1:39:53] Select Board member: We use both for different things. Yeah. Are they both quoting the same type of generator? Yes. It's a, if you look at these, the bid sheet document, that's why I'm going to start using these again. It's a 28 kilowatt Generac generator with a 400 amp transfer switch. [Speaker G (unidentified): I'll] make a motion to award the bid for the project of installing a 28-kilowatt Generac generator with a 400-amp transfer switch to Flanders Electric. So good. Any further questions? Does the other bed include other stuff? Is that why it's more? Fields is $20,300 for the same as Landers. Fields also includes an additional $350, which is why I listed it separately for service. Because they have the same warranties or... [Airport representative: Yeah, absolutely.] All right, all those in favor? 4-0, and the motion passes. Thank you, David. Okay, we're going to move on to take action to award the bid for the two Fisher-Klaus and Sander. And should I turn it over to Scott to talk about those? So Scott and I, 'll just start out. Scott and I opened the bids on September 30th at 1 p.m. And the bid was sent to four different companies. We only received bids from two of them. The information you can see on the bid sheet, and I included a copy of the specs. and scott contacted the companies the bids are included and if you have any questions scott is here he can answer anything where is that in the budget I'm just trying to match that up under the
[1:42:47] Airport manager: bid number one is firing the F-450 project
[1:42:53] Select Board member: and then bid number two is the plow for the airport
[1:43:01] Airport manager: and that was included in the regular airport budget
[1:43:08] Select Board member: And this amount is under what we anticipated paying for all of these. So is the airport fees coming under the airport?
[1:43:22] Airport manager: It's part of the airport flow.
[1:43:25] Select Board member: Part of the $100,000 that we lost? No.
[1:43:32] Airport manager: I didn't bring an airport budget.
[1:43:34] Airport representative: It's in the airport budget under capital, items, as in the generator was under capital items as well. [Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah. And it] should show it in that line. The
[1:43:55] Select Board member: generator was under building, oh yeah, building and ground. It's not under the airport capital.
[1:44:51] Airport manager: No, not capital. The normal operating budget that we make for snow plowing for the airport.
[1:45:00] Select Board member: It's in that one, but it's not in the capital.
[1:45:03] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: It's not in this piece?
[1:45:05] Airport manager: No, not in the capital.
[1:45:06] Select Board member: I gave you this for the generator and for the other two buttons. You'll see that in the regular budget. So this will be, this is under the regular budget.
[1:45:19] Airport manager: That's part of the, with the landfill for milk and rinse, all,, that's part of that line there. And
[1:45:30] Select Board member: then the F450 is, it's up in the vehicle. Correct.
[1:45:39] Airport manager: We've done the chassis with the body on it. Waiting for that, this is, this is part of that project.
[1:46:22] Airport representative: Item 21-50-52-5-19, there's an estimated $17,500 for $27,000, and then the next line down says plow for the mini-loader $10,000. That's line item 21-50-52-5-19. It was in operating, I apologize, that was in capital, because I remember she gave me those numbers when you guys worked those numbers out, and it is in here.
[1:46:45] Select Board member: Yeah, I just didn't print a copy of that. What's that? I didn't print a copy of that.
[1:46:49] Speaker G (unidentified): yeah I'm sorry if you want to see it yes yeah and these were sealed bids yes it
[1:47:09] Select Board member: shows what I also do is it shows at the top they were opened September 30th at
[1:47:19] Speaker G (unidentified): at 1 p.m I believe I was here as well thank you thank you it
[1:47:29] Select Board member: probably is I haven't been looking at the calendar if it was just going to be the opening is going to be on have it on the calendar that's all we did I think yeah I think you're good I haven't yeah I think there were Bits well I don't know maybe it was a different set of bits but I remember something being in the latest news, too, that maybe is a different thing. No, it's posted on a calendar, a quick look, like we did last time. I will make a motion that we award both bids for the two Fisher-Cliles and the Sander to Messer, Truck, and Vann out of West Berkeley. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? 4 to 0, and the motion passes. Thank you all right next we're on to approve the special town meeting warrant for October 15th 2036 and you have a copy of that So the budget committee and the sub board met on article two for the hundred and fifty thousand to use from to transfer from the town's undesignated fund balance and folks recommended approval and then we held the data center that's our three that special to end the special town meeting would be scheduled for October 15th at the Crescent Park School this will be posted tomorrow in the town office it's already on the website that we're going to be doing this but the actual warrant won't be Posted until it's approved and signed tonight I Will make a motion that we approve the warrant as written for the special town meeting for October 15th I would ask that it be amended so on article 2 select board and budget committee recommend $150,000 and then on article 3 that we delete select board and budget committee recommended approval because there wasn't that then on the draft that we have I'm not sure if the attorney read any further after that first part, but on the bottom of the first page, there was the addition, now therefore, to make sure that the legislative body is the one that has the authority. But then on the second page, on number one, it says the Town Select Board hereby declares. Number two, it says effective meeting upon its adoption by the Town Select Board. And there's a typo at the bottom that's not significant. So go back to your first one on the ordinance and tell me what you're looking at. So on page one, the attorney made sure that we had a legislative body is the one that is the authority, which is great, but because it had a select board, and it's not the select board that gives the authority for this, it's the legislative body, the town. But then when you turn on page 2, the select board wasn't taken out here. So on number 1, it says, middle of that paragraph, in furtherance thereof, the town select board hereby declares a moratorium on the siting permit, blah,, blah, and we don't. And then in number two, it says that the moratorium shall take effect immediately upon its adoption by the town select board. And it takes effect immediately upon the vote, positive vote of the town. Wasn't the attorney that wrote this up? Yes. Well, we also had to tell her to go back, and it's not the town, it's not the select board. And that's when she put in, she put in that part there, but the rest of the work wasn't, she put in that, you know, metaphor piece. So when we did the public hearing the other day, was it the right copy, or? This is the copy that was at the public hearing, and the copy that originally went to the attorney was what came from the ORC that was drafted as if it was a town council approving this. So what Mary did was she changed the language to show that, taking out that, the town council. SO I THINK THE ONLY THING THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN NUMBER ONE IS THE LEGISLATIVE BODY INSTEAD OF THE TOWN SLUCT BOARD. AND THEN IN TWO, IT WOULD BE TAKING OUT THE SLUCT BOARD AGAIN AND REPLACING THAT WITH THE LEGISLATIVE BODY. CORRECT?
[1:53:59] Speaker G (unidentified): How she has it and
[1:54:09] Select Board member: Shall remain in effect for 180 days from its effective date unless extended by order of the town select board, so the only thing that would need to change into is second line delete town select board and replace it with legislative body, and then on the first one just replace town select board in the third sentence with legislative body. What did you say the type of was On the bottom, the attest data sent to moratorium. My copy has moratorium. I'll be, that can be changed. So can I amend my motion to approve with the proposed changes? With these changes. So the changes would be under Article 2 to change approval to about $150,000 and Article 2 to delete the Select Board and Buddy Committee recommended approval and then those other two places on page 2 of the actual ordinance. Three changes on the actual ordinance that gets posted with the special town [Speaker G (unidentified): It was is] There and it's, it'll be on the website, but should, will we make it like a Facebook post to, we'll take care of that just so that we are getting word out that it's happening. We can move on and which is the action to accept a $4,000 donation from the town of Erie for the record. Oh, did I miss one? Yes, I, sorry, I checked it off. Okay, sorry, going back to 8m, we need to take action to accept the $2,700 donation from the Bethel area Chamber of Commerce from the dog mayor slash ACO fundraiser to be used for animal control purposes. I feel like we should use it for, I don't know, in a positive way. What's an anticipated use? We don't have any right now. So, to be discussed, I guess. We did set up a special revenue account because it can only be used for animal control. Would that not go towards the person who does that? What we pay him for we budget. This could be something over and above for animal control. Should we set up a meeting with the dog mayor to see what they want to do? As our newest legislative body. They gave us half, and I can have a conversation with Brian to ask him and what they plan to use theirs for. And then maybe we can get together and research together. The animal control officer ends up spending money for sort of not happy things, right, with animals? How could we make it a positive? I don't know. Do we have a maybe session or something? I don't know. Maybe Eric has some ideas. Is okay any further discussion all right all those in favor four to zero and the motion passes the chamber so now gone to 8n which is taking action to accept a $4,000 donation from the town of Erie for the Recreation Department and that's just usual right yeah that's just a usual yeah all those in favor 4 to 0 in the motion passes all right Alright, we are going to move on to the warrant articles and we are going to start with, I'll make a motion to approve the Counts Payable Warrant 2027-15 in the amount of $102,291.44. Is that part
[2:03:32] Speaker I (unidentified): of those street signs?
[2:03:33] Airport manager: Street signs, yes. Okay. We purchased them, Gordon sent them the bill.
[2:03:42] Select Board member: Okay. Great, that's how it works. And these are the actual street signs, it's not like the slat signs? [Airport manager: Street names.] Like the green ones?
[2:03:53] Airport manager: Yeah, the green ones. Yeah. All right. Mark and my driveways, but multiple houses in the driveway under the 9-1-1.. OK. All right. Right. That's why those two names. Yeah. OK.
[2:04:13] Select Board member: All those in favor? 4 to 0, and the motion passes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the Count's Payable Warrant 2027-17 in the amount of $516,327 seven dollars and 25 cents so the vault has been the lock on it we've been waiting for them to come because it wasn't working they had to do a number of things to get the locks working we're We're now using the bottom lock instead of the top lock, and it was a matter of finding the right person to be able to do it because of the age of the lock on the door. This is so indestructible. It's hard to believe this is a lot of parts that you can't get for it anymore. more this is kind of unrelated but they look so beautiful and these flowers look so beautiful and people comment on them all the time it's really a source of pride so yes they've done a really nice job two different groups yeah I was gonna say that yeah the one down by Davis Park is especially beautiful this year but that was a just one guy yes right cuz the two islands up there like a volunteer group but yeah I know they're stuck in like they're still So do we pay for the forms up here, too? Yes. They're in Scott's paycheck. But just to purchase, like, yeah, it's volunteers who, like, plant it. Water. Yes. It will all work. Yes. Are we ready to vote? All those in favor? Four to zero, and the motion passes. And then we have 9C, which is, I make a motion that we approve accounts payable warrant 2027-18 in the amount of $25,572.82. Second. Any questions on that one? That's the airport. That's the airport. They're putting in a taxi lane and it's just about completed. We have taxis?
[2:07:27] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: How many of you have seen the lighting? We have a special lane.
[2:07:30] Select Board member: There have been so many. We don't have a bike lane, but we have a taxi lane.
[2:07:36] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: It's great. It's great.
[2:07:38] Airport representative: We have bicycles.
[2:07:39] Select Board member: I was going to say, we have bicycles. [Airport representative: We're getting fancy.] That's why we pay the big bucks. Alright, all those in favor? Alright, on to select board items. I have a
[2:08:05] Karen Oliveri, RHR Smith & Company auditor: couple of quick ones.
[2:08:14] Select Board member: something that was brought up to me during harvest festival was that there was a password on the Wi-Fi so folks weren't able to access the Wi-Fi is there not a password no there's not okay my understanding is that there used to not be and then there was during that weekend so maybe just double-checking with folks I didn't I didn't try it myself but my understanding is that it's supposed to be free accessible Wi-Fi? So there at one time was and when everything was changed over we don't have Wi-Fi. Oh so there's no Wi-Fi? There's no Wi-Fi. But doesn't the library cover it? I might have heard that back when I came here, but the town does not have Wi-Fi. So we don't have that partnership with a historical Society anymore. They put it out, I think we paid for it, or we got it, we paid for it, and they paid for this. I'm not sure, I remember when Concepts had that, it was like these hotspots around town, and we paid for something in conjunction with the Historical Society, because it was on one of their things or something. It's kind of like a router thing. Yeah, it was kind of like a hotspot thing. So we could increase the Wi-Fi availability around town. That would be good to look at, because I think that would be nice to have. But I think also, you're right, I think I read somewhere that the library has something. I know, it was on their website the other day, so I'm wondering if I saw it there. But that may just, I know people sit in their cars in front, or have for ages sat in front of the library, because, so I don't know if it just gets that far, I don't know if it goes all the way. Oh, I see what you're saying, yeah.
[2:10:34] Airport representative: They were going to do an extender from the library a long time ago for that exact reason, to cover the comment, because the town makes a donation to the two organizations, but they talked about putting a Wi-Fi extender for that reason.
[2:10:48] Airport manager: I'm almost positive that is still on the gazebo. One of those proponents are on the gazebo. The other one is on the corner of the building at the historical confining.
[2:11:00] Select Board member: So the equipment's there. It's just a matter of figuring out.
[2:11:03] Airport manager: I'm almost positive it's still there, I haven't looked recently, but...
[2:11:08] Select Board member: Is that something we can follow up on? Because I know that when folks rent that space and they have vendors, really need Wi-Fi to run their card readers and stuff like that. I'll check with the library and I'll check with the historical society. We don't have access, we don't have coverage for the town for Wi-Fi there. So I'll find out what you've all said here about joint with either the library or the historical society. And then the other thing that I had on my list was just checking in about the upcoming, the future agendas list. So there was nothing on our list here, but there's a couple things just in my mind. Should I jump into that? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, just rattling off. So a couple of things that are, I think, most relevant is following up on the space rental conversation that we had a couple of weeks ago about the form and the process. And I believe it was going to the lawyer to get an understanding of what are, like, legal ramifications in terms of when is insurance necessary for space rentals. So we want to make sure that we don't lose sight of that. And the wi-fi conversation rolls right into that because we want to communicate what is or is not available for that so that did go to the lawyer. I have not heard back, actually. I didn't fill this space in, but that's still there. And I'll check with marriage where she is on that. Great. Thank you. The next was the community safety meeting, which I believe is on the agenda for next meeting. it'll be the next meeting. Great, because we have so many guest speakers, I had no idea how long everything would be. I did follow up with Mark Kenny and he and one of the social workers there are interested in being on the committee. So I told him I would get back to him and let him know when we had that on the, on the agenda, and so that he could attend the meeting and also send a copy of that document that you did to the department heads and invite them. Great, thank you. And is that's planned for the 10 21. Yes. The next thing that i was thinking about was following our hearing about the data center moratorium, one of the things that stood out to me was that we can start. We can submit to the Ordinance Review Committee to start work on that ordinance. So I think it would make sense for us to discuss as a board what we want to do. Whether or not the moratorium passes, we can still talk about what we want in place there. So we want to get that on our radar regardless of what happens at the town meeting. So would we, now that we've accepted the form, is that we would fill out that form at a meeting and then have it? I think so. I mean I do think we should have, like if we approved a form. It gives a timeline I guess, you know. If we approved a form we should use it. And I think we should use it for the moratorium too, that one too, just so we have a record. Oh, I thought that's what you were saying. I was saying for like ordinance around data centers like more concrete Ordinance not just the moratorium. So this really is like two different ordinances Because the moratorium is gonna end and we may have to extend it or even right we even talked about it even if Even if we get something in place we would extend it until the June meeting but yeah we need to have something ready for the June meeting and we should start working on it soon okay so you're saying so kind of post action we'll have a form for the data moratorium and we'll check the timeline and when we hit our marks and if we extend it you know that type of thing I get it but yes I mean if it does pass then that would start the timeline for whatever we want to work on it or what resources want to work on it and work we work on it well even if it doesn't pass right like we still want something or need to figure out an agenda item to talk about yeah so I it would be helpful to have something on a future agenda to talk like are we talking about a full ban or you know that what ordinance are be asking the ordinance committee to start working on because we need to start thinking through that because if it doesn't pass then the timeline is actually much faster than if it does pass then we don't have the buffer of having more time in place we have to do a committee too don't we that's one of the things we should talk about do we want to have it's own committee does it fit just with the ordinance review committee as they exist right we wouldn't want to talk about it we're going to throw more resources on it right and stuff like that yeah but if it if it if it does pass it or it automatically because the site plan right that's the piece right [Speaker I (unidentified): i have two] more in the future agendas piece one is the conversation we were just having about potentially having the animal patrol officer come in I remember there was a conversation about some concern there was someone who's who's been here I remember who was I believe it was at the airport yes and yes it still hurts and I think there was a conversation about a potential follow-up ordinance or like signs or
[2:17:28] Speaker G (unidentified): leash laws or something there were two loose dogs at the airport this morning
[2:17:33] Airport representative: I have no bite to do anything about it I guess it has to be on the leash we have an ordinance we don't have anything
[2:17:58] Select Board member: So we just need to take that and put it applicable to everything. So that would be an ordinance that's in bigger form. So maybe we can put those together in one part of the agenda. It's like a couple things that we want to submit to ORC. We could also, I would think immediately, put it as an agenda item. But we could institute a policy. Yes, easily. So that's another future agenda item. And potentially even if we have the animal patrol officer come in, something that we could talk to him about, it's less his jurisdiction, but might be worth. And then the last thing on my list was we had talked about, so we made a system for our town manager evaluation process. We executed that process, and we talked about making some updates to that system. So that would be if we can fit that on our next select board agenda to talk about what are the updates we want make to the process, how do we want to make sure we're not starting from scratch next time and continuing to move the same process forward. That's it. That's all I have. Yeah, it's kind of quick. Northeast Bank. I sent him an email on Monday. He said he thought that legal sent me a docu-sign. I went back and checked. Couldn't find anything. But I said if they send a docu-sign, they have to state where the docu-sign is coming from. Somebody did sign, open up a DocuSign that was, ended up being, we had to call Chris immediately because it was a, yeah, it was, and he was quick acting on it to stop it from spreading. So when we get a DocuSign from that we're not expecting and there's no return on it, delete the, everybody's been told to delete it. So I did let Taylor know that. He said he'd get back to me. I haven't heard back since I wrote to him, and he responded back on Monday. So that's where the bank is, well, to sign, which it's already approved anyway. So once that comes through, then. We had one code change at the town meeting, and then when is it going to be, when do we get the update for our book, and what's it going to be? Change. Something I thought of, we want to talk about cameras, and it's not the same, it's not the same thing as the block or flat cameras, but I'm just wondering if in this building we have a security system, we also have cameras here. Maybe just putting a little note or something, or maybe the sticker of the security company, so people know that there are cameras and such. And we
[2:21:39] Airport representative: have that at the airport. I think you've seen the big posted signs under every camera, letting people, making them aware that there were surveillance cameras 24-7. Yeah, it's
[2:21:52] Select Board member: Just there, this entrance, I can see who's coming in here, the front door and the back parking lot. Yes, and some inside, I can see when somebody comes through here, and we can see in the front office area. There's two different views that I can, I can see from. We can contact the security company tomorrow. Yeah, they have stickers or something. Just so people know, I'm trying to visualize them. We walk by them all the time.
[2:22:34] Airport representative: They're big, eight and a half by 11. So there's an unfortunate incident under one of them, so they put up signs.
[2:22:40] Select Board member: I don't know if it's that big, but. He should have the signs. Just like if you have the EDT, they give you their signs. I don't want to take a lot of time, but my husband was able to use scales, and I just want to double check, I'm probably missing it here somewhere, the first 20 pounds, we don't charge until after the...
[2:23:12] Airport manager: It's in the machine, it doesn't show on the ticket, it's calibrated into the machine.
[2:23:18] Select Board member: It waves the first 20 pounds. So when the weight is taken, is anything over 20?
[2:23:27] Airport manager: The initial weight of the vehicle is the initial weight of the vehicle. And then when they come back, the machine automatically plus or minus the 20 pounds. It does it all on its own, it's calibrated that way.
[2:23:45] Select Board member: Okay, that's what I was thinking. So like for example here, the first piece on was 5580, right, 5,580 pounds, and then when it came back around again, it was 5360, so that's 220 pounds as it's shown on here, so you're saying that really the weight when it came back would have been at 5360.
[2:24:17] Airport manager: No, the higher number is the first number. Yeah
[2:24:21] Select Board member: The higher number is the first number so it's not No,
[2:24:28] Airport manager: you keep driving back on the way in the truck empty and it keeps matching it matches it matches it's in the calculation. When it does what is it the tear? It's yeah. Yeah, it's in that calculation. I can't show you on paper where I know it's calibrated. When they calibrate the machine they make that okay entrance in there, 20 on 20 pound increments, 20, 40, 60, 80. Yeah, it's it doesn't show on the ticket that it deducts 20 pounds
[2:25:12] Speaker I (unidentified): automatically from your thing so the net here is 220 pounds yeah so
[2:25:23] Select Board member: the charge is on the 220 right so it's built in it's built in on the empty
[2:25:38] Airport manager: yes the machine does it all on its own
[2:25:50] Speaker I (unidentified): right yeah the attendants don't yeah and it keeps trying to because something for another
[2:25:58] Select Board member: Time I thought it'd be interesting. Well this to get the total tonnage you know like for the year by month for the year total tonnage for the construction degree and then what is the tonnage that there's payment for. Then you can really see you know what isn't being paid for picked up and what percentage of that is of the total. Just be interesting to kind of see. So it would pick that up the automatic piece that they have right it would because it's in
[2:26:38] Speaker I (unidentified): its calculation it just doesn't show on here. Yeah but I don't know what the machine the machine I
[2:26:46] Airport manager: It records that number through a, like a running total, so you'd have to add each one of those slips to come up with a total.
[2:26:59] Select Board member: Oh, so it doesn't like calculate it for like the end of the day with the total tonnage?
[2:27:04] Airport manager: No,. The only thing left in the machine at the end of the day is if somebody doesn't scale out, that Q is left in the machine until if there is a way to figure that out we
[2:27:18] Speaker I (unidentified): haven't been shown that. Yeah it does on the phone the daily like I said if but
[2:27:31] Airport manager: once you scale and you scale out that Q is clear. Oh so it's not we're
[2:27:37] Speaker I (unidentified): not getting long-term data about number of trips or if the machine does it we don't know how to extract it. There's nothing stored unless somebody
[2:27:54] Airport manager: doesn't scale back out that's the only thing that stays in the queue. You end up at the end of the day and we still have one here why somebody didn't scale out and you can see the ID number and then go back and find the slip.
[2:28:07] Select Board member: I would think you would be able to take that data. That would be great to find out. Because we can get the tonnage just from the tipping fees of that dumpster. Because everything else is put in that dumpster too. The people that don't pay dump it in there too. So you know the total from that. You would know the total.
[2:28:32] Speaker I (unidentified): Presumably we would know the total tonnage from that per day, per month, no matter what goes, gets hauled out.
[2:28:38] Select Board member: Right,. We just don't know how much of that is paid or not paid. If that scale software could keep something like that, would be cool. I'd love to ask that question.
[2:28:54] Speaker I (unidentified): yeah that's not a question yeah but you can be done yeah because then we really know what
[2:29:01] Select Board member: something's cool all right thanks if possible we would like to have a copy don't you know don't be the right way of the lock mountain planning board agreement and subsequent amendments to it white agreement the lock mountain the lock summit I believe is the is the project playing board agreement between the two towns of Marion Bethel I Don't have that. I just can't. Curious has. The big cut, yeah. People haven't been asking about that. I'm just curious, just from my own education, pretty obvious what those agreements are. And then lastly, I don't know if there's any update on the One Mill Hill, Five Mill Hill? Have you gotten copies of some of the revisions? So that is going to the Appeals Board right now. The Board of Appeals will be hearing an appeal on the 27th of October at 6 o'clock. The Tillmans have requested an appeals hearing. Was there a stop work order issued in that case? There was a stop work order issued and the attorney advised the code officer that she had no right to issue a stop work order because he came in and he wanted the stop work order put back in and she did not and so he disagrees with that. So there's a number of things going on with that and the so anyway he's asked for an appeal of the decision of the code officer and so that appeal has been set up for the 27th of October. So it's the appeal of the stockbroker or is it the appeal of the permit that's being no he's asked for the appeals board to reverse the decision of the code enforcement officer to put the stop work order okay and who said that she was not supposed to do that the attorney said that she could not keep the stop work order up she had to take it down and so there's no stop work order because the building permit was approved and it was over 30 days old so that permit was in fact in a building permit the building permit I don't know if there's a violation or not so I think that the best way for me to explain this is that it's in the only one that can We can hear this now, this case is, and that's where the case has gone, is for the board. So the planning board has no input on this? No, this has nothing to do with it. Even though it's in the historical district? Not for what he's asked for an appeal for. Okay, you're talking about the appeal, just the project itself should have gone to the planning board if it's in the historical district. It did go to the planning board. Oh, that's what I asked. Yes. Originally so they approved the building permit they know they don't approve a building what went to the planning board which is a building permit in the historic when I was on the plan what we had one it was on Park Street for windows I mean I know that it has to go to them right that's the only reason it goes to them Yeah, right. They didn't go to the planning board and they approved what they were asked to approve. He's challenging their approval for one thing, but I don't think that we since we were included on Emails can we I would not get involved Can we see I know the documents were very like You can say anything you want because it's public information. But the process right now is that, there's a process, if somebody appeals the decision, wants to appeal the decision, then go to. So why did the code enforcement officer put a stop? Because there was one thing that had to be checked out by. She asked, she put a stop, she did. Would she indicate that there was a violation? Or she just wanted information? I don't. So that was before the complaint came in? Or was it after the complaint came in that you put the stop on? Well, I don't know how to explain this. For three weeks, there's been constant emails and in-office visits about this. And the lawyer has had to be involved because of the challenges that have been issued. I mean, the emails are sent to me and to Courtney on an ongoing basis. And so right now, the attorney is making everything. And my experience in the past, once an appeal has been filed, it goes to the Board of Appeals and without being influenced, they can't be. And that's what I'm being concerned with is that appeals board members are not influenced by some other involvement because then whoever influences an appeals board member... Well, I was just curious because, again, I don't really know unless I sit down and look at everything, what's happening here. But for me, there's two pieces. There's the, like Pat said, the building permit and historic district needs to go to the planning board, and they apply the site plan standards to that building permit. That's one piece. So that's where appeals come in. But then the other piece that I was trying to understand is why did the code enforcement officer put a stop on it? Was there a violation? Whatever it is, was there a violation? And that's when the select board gets involved, is if the code enforcement officer says there's a violation, we get informed. What other further possible? But I don't know what it is. And that's just very quick that's why I was asking why she put that on it Was and I don't have everything in front of me, so I yeah, I don't know. But there were several things were challenged there, the size of the deck, the lot line, being able to see, there's a hot tub, so there's a number of different things. And when the stop work order, I mean the contractor voluntarily stopped doing the work until he could check on something, and then so all of this information was sent to the lawyer, and based upon that information was when the lawyer came back and said we really don't have any right to put a stop work order on this project. So there's a number of different things, and so when he came in the lab, not the last time but one of the times, and requested a to go to the Board of Appeals, so that's where it is right now, right? So from here I mean the only other option we have is to go to the to the meeting on the 27th. So Courtney can send you the same file because the Tumans had a very long list, Freedom of Access. That can be sent to you as well. Is that the same thing? I don't know. They just had a... No, it was something different. After that, there was another Freedom of Access request sent. The email I forwarded to everybody had a list of things that... Yeah. But you didn't get what was sent to him. No. I said that would be graded. So Courtney can... Another agenda item for... The Board of Appeals does not need an attorney. Courtney needs the attorney. Mary is going to be here to represent. According to... Mary's going to be here on the 27th. to represent Courtney on behalf of the town. But the Board of Appeals do not need an attorney at this level. Sometimes we just use different legal services and not the town attorney. If you have an attorney representing the Appeals Board then you're going to bring in a different attorney other than Bernstein and Shaw. In this case, we're not going to bring in an attorney to represent the appeals board because there's nothing to represent them for. Mary's going to come in as the attorney for the town with a code officer and she will address why she made the recommendations to the code officer and what she should and should not go, that's what the attorney is needed right now. did you have any other question? No, I think that's sorry, I know we're getting really, it's quite confusing, so great, I just feel like I would help me if I could see the email that got sent from Portland. Then at least, I don't know, then. We can make a motion that we go into executive session. Did you have something else? No, I'm good. Please go back. Oh, I'm sorry, do we need to? Did you have something? Yeah, I do. Okay, good. I'll try to just, I think we're done. I think we're done with such a show. I always want, I think I had one more thing to the 10 21 meeting, but could we finalize our goals for the year at that meeting? Yes, and the email policy, are we good to put that on the website now? We approved it last week, and then I just wanted to say the basketball court looks great. I've walked by it and it really looks so much better, and so thank you for getting that done. And I'm just wondering if, I don't know, this is just a thought, but just a meet and greet with Shane, is that the new REC coordinator? I'll have him come to, see if he can come to the next Slack board meeting. Okay. Who is that? Shane. The new REC coordinator. The new what? REC coordinator. Oh, okay. That's the name of the position, right? Yeah. Yeah, I just thought, I also just thought it, because of the work he's gonna have to do, it could be cool to do some sort of... I thought we're gonna have a meeting with the new J -bird. Yeah, I also have that on my list. Brian. Brian, yeah. I don't know. There's a lot to do. I guess at some point on some future agenda, do we need to work on how we're going to deal with the wastewater treatment plant budget always being $150,000 over? And just the, I know we tabled the Mechanic Street thing because they didn't come last time. Is that something we also still need to, there's nothing for the Slackman to do at this point. The Planning Board approved their requests that went to them, and there has been no appeal received by anybody, so that's where this is right now, but there's no action for this. Could we ever have the findings of the legal findings, Mechanics? Yeah, you said something that you had found out about, like it, you said something out where it indents, where it's paved in a little bit, the tenons, but I thought you said, oh, you're talking about something different. You're talking about, I thought you were talking about the project with the Weisbergers, went to the planning board for them. Oh, yeah. Is that what you were talking about? No,. No, I'm talking about Mechanic Street that, you know how the, what's it called, the residences, how they wanted to put a... Now right where that is right now is Tony Donovan has got to do a title search, he and I, and when we found, when Courtney found, he wanted the town to give him home that a section that is paved right now. He was advised to do a title search to find out who owned the other section because Courtney did find a deed at the registry of deeds showing this other organization. Okay, he, if he wants, if he wants that section of trail, it's up to him to do with title cert, okay, but he still has to go in front of us as far as what we own, right, if there's a section on there that we own that he wants. Yes, he would have to come before you or a town meeting warrant if it's something he wants, or if he just wants the other section and we don't own that, then he has the other person, so I'm interested in looking at that deed and a date on it, we have any option or right to retain it. I think there's water plates that go, I think these are right away, perhaps, I'm not sure, I don't, no, that's why I was interested in, well actually there are easements that are tied to the sewer in the water with that as well that go under both sections mechanics of the trail that Tony Donovan wants, so he told what he said was he would get back to us after he had the title search done to show he, with the title search, he's going to be able to. With deeds and there's subdivision plans. Yes. And there's also the subdivision plans. All right, all that, fine. All right. You done? Yes, I'm done. Make a motion we go into executive session. Second. All those in favor?
[2:48:56] Airport representative: Get out. You know you had a great question about the cameras, every time something happens at the airport it works, me on my phone I can look, see what keeps
[2:49:11] Airport manager: you dialed in