Hollis Select Board Sets Tax Rate, Moves to Hire Interim Town Manager

[6:37] Jack Regal: Good evening. Welcome to the Thursday, October 1st, 7 p.m. special select board meeting in the Hollis meeting room, 34 Town Farm Road. Call the meeting to order. Roll call on my left. Danielle Bradbury. Michael James Harnois. Roger Hicks. Jack Regal. Dan, you were in, we have a quorum, ask everybody to please stand for the pledge of allegiance to [7:19] Roger Hicks: the states of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, [7:27] Danielle Bradbury: under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [7:32] Jack Regal: Thank you all for coming tonight. I'm going to read a brief statement. Good evening, everyone. Everyone. The board wants to speak directly about the change in our town manager position. Many of you have heard some version of this already and you deserve to hear it from us. Dick Morin resigned as town manager effective September 24th and the select board accepted his resignation. On behalf of the board, I want to thank Dick for his service in Hollis since July of last year and wish him well. I know people have questions about why. Here's what I can tell you. State law and basic fairness limits what the board can say publicly about the personal matter and those limits protect as much as they protect the town. You may hear different accounts around town. Now, we ask you that you understand that the board's silence on these details is not a sign that something is being hidden. It is simply how personal matters have to be handled in Hollis and in every other town. I want to be clear about what this is not. This does not change in how Hollis is governed. Voters chose the town manager, former government, and the five-select board structure, and it's going to stay. What we have is one staff change, and towns across Maine make changes like this regularly. Here's what comes next. The board is working now to bring on an interim town manager so the day-to-day work of the town hall continues without interruption. We are working with our partners at Maine Municipal Association to do this. After that, we will begin a search for a permanent town manager who can serve at the level this town needs and deserves. We will keep you informed at each step, and residents will have chances to be heard during the process. The town hall is open, the staff are doing excellent work, and the town's business is moving forward. So as far as anything further than that statement, we won't be making any comments further on the matter, and that's at the request of legal. Since this has taken place, we've been working diligently with MMA and they're searching for [11:02] Michael James Harnois: an interim town manager. That's the main Municipal Association, for those of watching maybe not pretty [11:10] Jack Regal: familiar okay what do they do they 're they offer services I contacted the illegal and they And I have people that actually look for retired town managers that come in on an interim base just to fill in and tell a permanent one. Great. Also recommended by our legal team was a gentleman named Don Garish. Now he has a company that does the same thing as MMA. He is a retired town manager himself, has had over 40 years experience in this matter, and he's also in search of people that he can recommend to the town. So at this time we are diligently looking for an interim town manager. I do have this, I've been sent two names, and what I'd like from the board is a motion whether or not you wish me to continue on to contact these people and see if they are interested, so that's where we're at right now. I do have names, I'm just want to follow through, so you just need a motion to proceed or do you, well I just, I just want everybody aware of what's transpired in the last couple of days between Main Municipal and Don Garish, because I called him on Monday and had a great conversation with him. If it gets to the point and then we wish to basically hire him to assist us on a permanent town manager, then that will be another thing we can do at a later date. But in the interim, biggest and most upmost thing right now is to find an interim town manager. So that's where I'm at. How would you like me to proceed? [13:20] Speaker E (unidentified): I'd like to make a motion you proceed with John Garish for is our first one, and if he can't help us out [13:28] Jack Regal: Well, he has sent me names. But before I contact those names I want the board of prize, and what I'll do is later on I will forward those emails to everybody so you have the names of the people, and if you authorize me to contact those people I'll do that first thing tomorrow and see if I can get a written response from them. Yeah [13:56] Speaker E (unidentified): So I'll retract my previous half motion and make a motion that you contact those people that John Garish sent you and get some information on them and figure out. [Roger Hicks: Second that one.] Who can help us out? Owen Pavely? Hi. [14:13] Jack Regal: Yep. Hi. Okay, thank you. I'll continue on with that. Okay, a couple updates for the boards on other things I've been working on this week. Matt Roy was a certified public accountant that with the finance committee. When we had that meeting, we determined to reach out. So, Mark Roy, through Jack, he sat there and contacted Mark Roy. He agreed to work with us. When I talked to Mark the other day, he met with Ron Smith, our auditor, yesterday. And Mark will be starting here with Diane on October 15th to start getting our accounts in order for what we agreed to with the finance committee and the select board during that. How do we, it was just the forum so we could move forward. Okay, that one's not okay. There was a couple of matters, one being the elevator contract that Vic had signed, but there were two separate ones. So those were reviewed and signed and sent back to the elevator company because the warranty on the elevator in the new building ran out the other day. So we had to get it signed and sent back to them. Other business. Business. Anybody else on the board having any other business? Any other business? Oh, can I jump [16:12] Roger Hicks: enough? I don't the town, please, if you would. Yes. Okay, our town water, our system, we're, we're this close to opening that up, okay? I've been working with state. I've been working with our man who does the testing, the water operator. All our tests came back good. But the catch here is pH level is at 9, and it should be between 6.5 and 8.5. But they're saying we have to test it every day that we're here, Tuesday through Friday, which code enforcement is taking care of that and sending those pictures of, you know, the levels. And hopefully after, say, we get by next week, we can finally go ahead and I've got my fingers crossed. This has been a long road, and I hope the state don't find anything else. If you were to ask me at 9, would I drink the water, sure I would. But as this system works and back flushes, it's going to drop it down, and that's what's going to be happening. So on that note, we have to look towards two things. A, we have a service contract where they'll come in, and when they need to change filters and everything. Then, and I think we're going to need to approach our not acting as town managers, we need to approach and talk to our maintenance guy who will add softener as needed. We don't, we don't want anything going wrong with the system. This system's over seventy thousand dollars. You couldn't have a bigger system, I don't think, so hopefully. And that will take away, we don't have to be buying five gallon jugs, okay, of water, and then rely on Poland Springs giving us bottled water. So we're at that point, the Hardscaping, I'll jump over here now to the flagpole memorial monument and everything. I have all the quotes in. Tomorrow morning I'm going to sit down, go through them all, make sure they're all apple for apple, then I will present it to the board, and then we go from there. Hopefully we can close this up and get it done. On that note, I'm done. [18:54] Jack Regal: Okay, now I handed you a sheet of paper a minute ago, and the last thing that we need to do tonight will be set the commitment. Now I sent all this to our outside assessor, which is John O'Donnell. He's been working on this, and he came up with the figures for 20, 26, 27. Is that it? No. I'm trying to think. Yes. I forget what they are. He's given us three rate calculations forms, Excel form, and using the files. So basically on the first one. We have a $16 rate with zero TIF spending, provides $40,588 for overlay. Now, if you change that, it goes up to $1,640. If we decide to put $250,000 in the TIF, spending provides with a $53,662 overlay. And then in the last rate he put for us to consider is 16.78 with 500,000 TIF spending provides 53,583 overlay. He overlaid some on us because the tax rate is going up at least a dollar per thousand. The decision boils down to if we want any money going to the TIF fund, two choices with the tiff money give you a picture of the tax rate increase and that's putting money into the temp so basically we need to vote on this so we can get the commitment paperwork back in a timely form so faith has time to get the tax bills printed you know how [21:14] Michael James Harnois: Would you like to proceed? Oh, go ahead. [21:16] Jack Regal: No,, how do you want to proceed? You want to, I prefer to go with the 16 rate with zero TIF funding in 40,000 5a 588 or boy I [21:27] Michael James Harnois: Concur with you, Roger, and the 16, keep it as low as possible. I don't think it's appropriate to put more money in this TIF fund at this moment in time. [21:36] Jack Regal: Any other further discussion? [21:39] Roger Hicks: No, I totally agree with that. Okay, [21:43] Jack Regal: and attain a motion I [21:49] Danielle Bradbury: Make a motion that we prove the 16 rate with the zero to spending for the tax commitment. [21:57] Pete Eckhoff: 26 27 I second that motion all [22:05] Jack Regal: in favor. Hi Okay, so the tax rate will be 16 0 in the for 40,588 overlay Okay. There we have it. Okay. Now we're at the public comment. Do we have any public comment? Anybody on Zoom? [22:50] Catherine Hopkins: Hi, this is Catherine Hopkins at 36 Durgin Road. Hi, Catherine. Hey. So I just kind of wanted to bring it back. Obviously concerned about losing Dick. But at the same time, I heard there was somebody from the town who went in. he was playing games on his phone so you know there's that but like also it sounds like there was possibly some like already decisions being made in terms of who was going to replace him so that kind of makes me feel like this was already discussed also feel like retired stepping in what does that mean for the town in terms of if they're retired stepping in And are we going to get what we need? Also, I read through all the emails that were released. The divide needs to stop. I definitely think like we all need to kind of work together as a community to build Hollis of what we want it to be. And I feel like there is some conflict within public and politics within the Slack board. SO I JUST KIND OF WANT TO HOPE THAT MOVING FORWARD WE CAN, YOU KNOW, AGREE ON HELPING EACH OTHER AND, YOU KNOW, BEING WHAT WE WANT TO BE. AND I HOPE THAT'S MOVING FORWARD FOR THE TOWN MANAGER THAT WE'RE GOING TO HIRE. AND DEFINITELY THAT'S NOT RETIRED. [24:26] Jack Regal: JUST TO ANSWER THAT, KATHERINE, YOU KNOW, JUST, YEAH, WE DON'T HAVE THE TOWN MANAGER, But the court enforcement, Officer Dwayne, he's continually monitoring that situation and doing his job to bring any violations forward so we have a clear understanding of what's going on. Also, I had a great conversation with Lieutenant Burton. Come to find out Lieutenant Burton is retiring next month. No, actually, sorry. It's October 1st, this month. But when I get back, I plan on getting ahold of the new Lieutenant coming into Troop A and sitting down with him and making sure he's well aware of the situation as Lieutenant Burton is well aware of your situation going on there and they're diligently doing the best they can for you. [25:35] Pete Eckhoff: Pete. Hi, this is Pete Eckhoff. curious if there's any money owed to the former town manager who resigned and also is there money in the budget for the hiring process of the new town manager if there's a process and an agency that's being used is it is there money in the in the budget to handle that [25:59] Jack Regal: Thank you. I'm not going to get into anything about the former town manager, but if we do need money, that's where we have the meetings with the Finance Committee. If we do need additional funds, then I'm sure Joe Ponzetti is the chair we'll be sitting down with and keeping him apprised if anything like that occurs. Any other questions? Christy. [26:38] Speaker H (unidentified): Hello. Hello, with Dick's departure, which select board member will coordinate ongoing follow-up on the long-standing unresolved subdivision violations involving Harmon Way to make sure the work continues through the transition to a permanent town manager? [27:01] Michael James Harnois: CAN YOU REPEAT THAT, KRISTIE? YOU'RE ASKING IN THE ABSENCE OF A TOWN MANAGER WHO IS ON A SELECT BOARD IS GOING TO CONTINUE? we're going to get an interim town manager in as soon as humanly possible and that's i mean we're talking i'm not sure about like week well is what we're well our situation it's been almost four [27:23] Speaker H (unidentified): years that this has been ongoing so there are select board members that are aware of it and we've been trying to get help and so recently I've been in communication with Dick who has been trying to get some answers for us so that we can get this resolved and so now that he's gone my concern is that it will end up like it has in the past where this just kind of gets left behind. [27:43] Michael James Harnois: We'll make sure that the interim town manager takes this on and gets briefed on what you're talking about. But none of us as select board members can step in by the ordinance as any type of town manager and make decisions like that. So that's not something we can continue for you, Christy, but we will definitely make sure it gets passed on to the next interim town manager. Does that sound good to you? [28:03] Speaker H (unidentified): Are you guys able to authorize the code enforcement officer to work with us again since he did [28:09] Michael James Harnois: issue the violation that is also code of enforcement officer reports to the town manager okay [28:19] Danielle Bradbury: I'm [28:20] Jack Regal: sure we can get some type of I'm sure we can talk yeah I mean it's not there's nothing [28:25] Michael James Harnois: that the select board has to do there is kind of my point well in the past we've been told [28:29] Speaker H (unidentified): that the select board was the reason why he wasn't able to get involved so I just wanted to make sure in the absence of a town manager at this point that the progress that we did have continues [28:42] Jack Regal: Okay again, Christy, would you, we're dealing with the town manager, so what you dealt with him wasn't passed on to us at this point, so we'd have to do some research to find out where it stands. That's all I can tell you right now. It might be a good idea for you to craft an email. [29:02] Michael James Harnois: Christie and catch or just going through the website and use the select board, contact the select board to catch us up to make sure that kind of information is passed on to the next interim town manager because, like Roger just said, we don't know anything about this. [29:23] Speaker H (unidentified): New speakers. New speakers. New speakers. New speakers. New speakers. New speakers. [29:33] Pete Eckhoff: New speakers. New speakers. New speakers. New speakers. [29:36] Michael James Harnois: Giving you an option to let the select board know and inform us something that we don't know about or you can also take the option to contact the interim town manager when they're in place. [29:48] Speaker H (unidentified): And again Roger and Jack are aware of our situation, so I hope that maybe they can share some details with you guys as well, but I can surely get something together for you. [29:58] Jack Regal: Okay that's great Chrissy, because we haven't been updated on some of the things and I don't want to quote something that I don't have all the information on. [30:23] Catherine Hopkins: Catherine? Yes, I'm right here. Just want to circle back, not to say that word, but honestly about what she said. If we don't have anybody to report to on issues and we can't get a hold of who we need to solve issues, I want to know who we're going to. That's a good point, and I just want to bring us back to that. Yeah, [30:51] Jack Regal: Yeah, you still report to the code enforcement officer, and he documents any violations that he sees. [31:10] Michael James Harnois: I'm sure we have people in the audience who have public comment, correct? [31:14] Jack Regal: That's fine. Okay. Don, if you would, please. [31:23] Danielle Bradbury: Evening, Don Moran, 233 Bonneagle Road. I don't have a public comment, but I have a couple of questions. You voted tonight to submit your tax commitment, is that right? Correct. And do we know what the mill rate is? And does that put us in a position where we now can get a $25,000 homestead exemption? [31:45] Jack Regal: Once we get it signed, the commitment paperwork, that is a question I can pass on to John O'Donnell. [31:54] Danielle Bradbury: Because we currently don't get it because we're not in compliance with some things. And is this going to fix that, do we hope? [32:00] Jack Regal: Well, the re-evaluation will bring us up on those percentages that we talked about before, because we're at 19. [32:09] Danielle Bradbury: Is that in progress now, that re-evaluation? Are we doing that? [32:13] Jack Regal: Yes, as soon as we get the commitment done, O'Donnell's and Associates will start on the re-evaluation. [32:22] Danielle Bradbury: So is it possible that it will take effect when the tax bills go out, that we'll see the $25,000 homestead exemption? [32:28] Jack Regal: we won't get the full 25 I think it's half of it I believe it drops to half so it we the rebound won't be done until I believe April of 27 so it'll be the [32:48] Danielle Bradbury: following communities around us are already offering the $25,000 homestead exemption. It's too bad that we can't do the same for our population, whatever it is, it is. Any [33:05] Jack Regal: other comments from the audience? Jack. [33:16] Roger Hicks: I said what I said. Things I was handling. [33:21] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay Dan, any further comment? Just like a quick comment. Yesterday I met with Dwayne and some of the Durgan Road residents, and they're gonna have some questions for our attorney to be going over, and I think that they want to be on the agenda for the next week's meeting. [33:41] Danielle Bradbury: Mike. [33:45] Jack Regal: No. Okay. Yeah, if they have those questions Dan, we will need those in writing for the board to be able to decide whether or not we hold them illegal. Yeah, it should be coming from Duane. Okay, perfect, thank you. Okay, having no further comments, motion to adjourn. Second. No, okay, I'll make a motion to adjourn. I thought you're taking away. Oh, entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. I have it moved and seconded. All in favor. All right, thank you everyone for coming in listening.