Hampden council backs civility pledge, pump station bid, loader purchase

[2:43] Matthew LaChance: Good evening and welcome to the Hampton Town Council meeting of September 8th, 2026. At this time I would like to call this meeting to order and invite you to stand if you are able and join me for the pledge of allegiance. At this time I will accept a motion to approve the agenda. Second. If there are no corrections, adjustments, or questions, I will ask for a roll call vote. Please, John. Approve. Aye. Aye. Motion passes seven zero. With the approval of the agenda, I will accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion in a second. Is there any counselor who wishes to pull an item from the consent agenda for further discussion? Seeing none, let's go with, let's go with a random vote this time. How about Dennis? Aye. Kiki? Aye. John? Aye. Wally? Aye. Eric? Aye. Mark? Aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Next item on tonight's agenda is public comment. This portion of the meeting is designated for members of the public who wish to address council regarding matters that are not included in tonight's agenda. Do we have any members of the public present tonight or logged in from home? Seeing nobody on the live stream, okay, I guess before we go any further I do want to check with IT to make sure we are streaming live. We're good. Okay, but we are good to go. Okay, thank you sir. Up next is the policy agenda. Under news, presentations, and awards we have a council proclamation honoring the Hamden Garden Club for the 2026 Spirit of America Foundation tribute. And I would invite anyone in attendance from the gardens, garden club, to join me at the podium as I read the resolution and give you your award. The 2026 Hamden Maine Spirit of America Foundation tribute honors the Hamden Garden Club for outstanding community service and volunteerism. A resolution by the Hamden Town Councilors. Whereas a community is made from what the citizens value, the Hamden Garden Club exemplifies service leadership to the town of Hamden. Whereas the Hamden Garden Club has maintained Harmony Hall since 1937, has owned it since 1966, and facilitated placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Whereas, the Hamden Garden Club maintains six public gardens, the Gazebo at Lower Hoyt Pool, the War Memorial, and the Median here at the Town Office, Reedsbrook School entrance, Dorothea Dix Park, and the entrance to Harmony Hall. And whereas, the Hamden Garden Club provides the community and schools with the most current educational programming and offers their annual plant sale. And whereas the Hamden Garden Club utilizes Harmony Hall for civic engagement, including the 250th anniversary of the ride of Paul Revere, incorporating multiple civic organizations and allowing citizens to ring the Revere Bell. And whereas the Hamden Garden Club is a low-profile generous organization that gives back heart and quality to this community. Whereas the Spirit of America Foundation tribute honors those with exemplary volunteerism, it is the privilege of the Town of Hamden to make this presentation to the Hamden Garden Club for 2026. Thank you, Matt. One more picture? Okay. One more for the grand. [7:57] Dennis Marble: Thank you all. [8:01] Christine Cubberley: Can I ask a question? Were members of the Garden Club out front tonight as we turned in? I was gonna stop and say thank you, but then I thought it would be very bad to stop right as I'm turning off of Western Ave, so I didn't. So thank you. Yeah, we're [8:34] Speaker D (unidentified): gonna give you the actual resolution as well, so you'll have the certificate and the resolution. Thank you. Thank you very much for all your dedication. With no [8:52] Matthew LaChance: public hearings tonight and nothing listed under nominations, appointments, and elections, we'll move on to agenda item F, committee reports. Vice Chair Cormier, do you have any workshop reports tonight? No, not tonight. John, anything from the Environmental Committee? No. No? Soon. Okay. Later this month. All right. We're going to hold you to it. Having no unfinished business tonight, we'll now move into new business. First item of new business tonight is a vote for council adoption of a town civility pledge by resolution. This is a commitment to strengthening civic trust through civil discourse. This was referred from the August 24th workshop. Information on this can be found on pages 41 through 43 and tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to bring this to the floor? With a motion in a second. Are there any public comments on this? Seeing none. We have any additional council discussion or questions before going to a vote? [9:59] Eric Jarvi: Council Jervie, Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of the public, I think we've all come to an agreement that there will be a formalized version of this pledge resolution that will be in all public access areas in the town for [10:16] Matthew LaChance: the to be so that the community will be aware of it. Yes, yep, displayed around, yep. Council Marble, just want to give credit where it's due, these [10:32] Dennis Marble: Things don't just appear. We had a healthy discussion. It's not like this was a matter of grave disagreement, but there's still crafting and wordsmithing. It's something that may be mostly symbolic, I don't know, but it sure as hell gives good guidance. I think we could all use it. [10:56] Matthew LaChance: Yes, you're welcome. Anybody else? Okay, roll call vote. John? Approve. Aye. Aye. Motion passes, seven zero. Okay, don't take off tonight without signing at first. Next item of new business tonight is a vote for council authorization of an abatement request made by Bradley and Jody Dickey of 69 Hopkins Road to reimburse for a clerical error in that the acreage was overstated in FY 25 and FY 26 for the combined total amount of 319 dollars and 82 cents. This abatement was requested by Rick Thibodeau, our assessor. Information on this can be found on pages 44 and 45 in tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to authorize? Is there any public comment on this agenda item? See none. Any comments from council? We're going to vote. I ask, is the clerical error, is it, Mike, is microphone, yes, okay, it's the [12:10] Christine Cubberley: clerical error just Aaron transcribing, you know, numbers, transcribing square footage or whatever, or was there a measurement error? Did this require a survey or something, or where did the fix come from, I guess, is what I'm really, what's the nature of the fix, that's really what I'm asking? [12:32] Speaker D (unidentified): I believe the error was discovered during the reval when new measurements were taken. So there, I can't say when the original error took place, but they had too much acreage listed on the account and it was corrected after the reval, after the inspection. [12:52] Christine Cubberley: and should we be Going back and fixing things further back into time or is two years to limit or [13:01] Speaker D (unidentified): three years is the limit. So the assessor has already abated for one year and the Town Council can abate for two more years after that, and then that's all the law will allow us to go back. [13:14] Christine Cubberley: Okay, thank you. Any [13:19] Matthew LaChance: other questions or comments from council? All right, random vote. Mark? Hi. [13:30] Christine Cubberley: Eric? [Eric Jarvi: Hi. John? Kiki?] Hi. Walter? That's the first time I've ever said aye [13:41] Dennis Marble: with the minutes. [13:43] Eric Jarvi: She got me to do it. Aye. [13:48] Matthew LaChance: Dennis. Aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Next item of new business tonight is a vote for council award of the bid for the Sawadapsco Extreme Pump Station Replacement to T-Buck Construction, Inc. for an amount not to exceed $2,793,820. $20 this was recommended by Jim Wilson PE this was This was referred from the August 10th workshop Information on this can be found on pages 46 through 49 in tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to authorize? Okay, the motion in a second. Do we have any questions or comments from council? I Mean the public what I meant to say seeing none on any questions or comments from council [14:43] Dennis Marble: just for the benefit of the public and yes I don't murder it be great if either the town manager or in a public works your call just give the public a brief overview of this and remind us where the funding is coming from so [15:02] Speaker D (unidentified): this is to replace the sour dab skirt pump station which is the oldest piece of sewer infrastructure that we have and handles in excess of 40 percent of our sewer in town a couple of years ago we were recipients of federally federal grant money through the congressionally directed spending which used to be called earmarks and we were given two million dollars for this project and we also had set aside an amount in our matching grant fund because we knew that we were going to have to come up with a 20% match. So we had been setting funds aside and this will help alleviate, this will alleviate the overflow situation that we were having and we're not in fear of a major catastrophe if that antiquated system goes down I just remind the public of a couple things in [16:09] Dennis Marble: this one from personal experience that thing has overflowed when it does your nose tells you that it's happened the second thing you mentioned handling 40% of the waste from the entire town people don't realize and nor should they some of these routes but I think that pump station handles almost everything from the southern end of town, plus gravity feed things out to the west that come down from the stream and even going up main road north to be then pumped up. So that thing that we all drive by down near the water building and don't think about, needs to be taken care of so we don't have to think about it. Yes, it was good to see a clean report from the engineer and great to have the federal funding [17:01] Matthew LaChance: And you know, looking forward to this work being done. Yes, thank you Dennis, thank you Paula. Any other comments or questions from council? Okay, let's do a roll call from this end. Eric, start us off. Hi. I motion passes 7-0. The next item, a new business tonight, is a vote for council award of the bid for a John Deere 544 P wheel loader in an amount not to exceed one hundred and twenty eight thousand six hundred dollars to United Construction and Forestry. This was requested by the director of public works. John Clements, this was referred to us from the August 10th workshop. Also information on this can be found on pages 50 through 52 and tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to authorize? Second. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? See none, nobody logged in from home. Any questions or comments from council on this? Seeing none, this was something that we discussed at length during budget and at that workshop. Randomized vote. Kiki, Dennis, hi, Walter, hi, Mark, hi, John, hi. Motion passes 7-0. That's it. For new business, next item on tonight's agenda is the manager's report. Ola, I [18:55] Speaker D (unidentified): have a few items to report on, and to start with, I'd like to let you know that in recent weeks attorney Pease has worked with me on finalizing terminology, minor terminology in the lease agreement for the compactors that we will be leasing, and those have been ordered with an expected delivery date of November 9th. The plan for the transfer station is extremely important for the council to understand because you will need to understand and be able to relay perhaps and maybe defend the situation at the transfer station when we have to close down for limited hours, and you will likely get phone calls and emails. Of course we will field them in the office as well, and you can refer anybody to us, but I just want to make sure that you're aware of the timeline as it was developed today. We first of all, we cannot have customers within the gates during construction, and that is per our DEP permit. We also will be advertising on our website, on social media, we will send out the text, my government text as well just to let everyone know, and we will make sure that this is prominently displayed on our website and that it becomes a repeating story, if you will, on our social media. But the transfer station will go offline on October 13th, at which time the power to the current compactors will be cut and they will be decommissioned. The start of the new concrete slab and other electrical work will begin. The hours of the transfer station will be Thursday and Friday from 8 to 4 and Saturdays from 8 to 1. And this will be for a four-week period. For collection on Thursdays and Fridays there will be three low-sided containers in the parking lot area in front of the old Public Works garage, sort of where the employees used to park their vehicles. They'll be staggered in such a way that the loader will be able to access the back of each one. We will rotate hauling as these are smaller and will fill up. Faster Saturday collection will be limited due to municipal waste solution hours, but we are going to utilize a rear load compacting collection truck which should handle the volume on a Saturday. If not, overflow will go into one of the smaller cans. During that four-week period there will be no demo, no metal, and no electronics accepted. It will simply be for municipal solid waste, in other words household trash. The installation of the new compactors is expected to take place on November 9th with the. Opening slated for November 12th. We normally would have scheduled it for November 11th, but November 11th is Veterans Day, so we will be back online November 12th. So if anybody has any questions regarding these details please contact the town office or public works, or they can visit our website for the details. On Thursday of this week I will be in Augusta all day with the Legislative Policy Committee reviewing the first round of potential draft legislation that as members of Maine Municipal. Association we will be looking for MMA to create draft legislation and advocate for us on the top selection from all managers that send back surveys with areas of interest for our communities are increasing funding for K through 12 education, which means to pay for the amount that they should be paying for, increasing revenue sharing, housing reforms including restoring local authority over planning development and community priorities back to the towns and cities, amendments to the Freedom of. Access Act statute and the school budget election process, state takeover of animal control functions and use of tiff revenue is another proposal, and amendments to laws surrounding impact fees. These proposals will start out as many and will be whittled down through committee to three or four proposals that the majority feels strongly about. I am going as the alternate for Andy and Carmel, but as the alternate I will always receive updated information with from the LPC and will be able to zoom in. When they have their meetings last Wednesday I received a notice from the county commissioners inviting town officials to attend their honor ceremony for last year's Spirit of America award winners Becky and Todd Moore and Ruby Ann and Raymond Wade and I and I forgot that it was in your packet tonight under communications and sent an email with the invitation to the town council today but I just wanted to remind counselors that you have until the 14th to confirm if you will be there it will take place at the county commissioners office on Wednesday September 16th at 1030 a.m. I'm also pleased to announce that the repairs at the kitchen at the library are finally and fully complete and the packet of repair invoices in the amount of eighty three thousand five hundred and fifty seven dollars has been sent to our insurance company for reimbursement town clerk Jennifer Mahone took receipt of six new tabulators and two new AVS accessible voting systems for use in the November election on today's date these are self-contained units meaning that the tabulators and the base are all one unit rather than separate components training will begin within the next week for clerks across the state additionally I am pleased to report that we have received four candidates for district four and all other districts have one candidate each for our district election the RSU has two candidates and the water district has one so we've been able to have everyone every seat have at least one candidate running and although it feels early to let you know I will be on vacation the week of October 5th and Chief Bailey will be sitting in for me while I'm away that's all I have for tonight [25:56] Matthew LaChance: Thank you Paula next item on tonight's agenda is councillors comments we'll start with John no [26:07] Christine Cubberley: comment no comment no comment two things briefly we're going [26:15] Dennis Marble: to hear about the candidates running but I will say in all due respect at the same time I hope we get back to a government where seats are contested and we actually have campaigns and we actually get to hear contrast maybe this is a start and good luck in district four the other one is just taking advantage of the timing I would ask the town manager to simply keep in mind at the state level This is based on an article in the Bangor Daily News a couple days ago. It sounds like the whole system of EMS response, and I'm clearly not speaking about handout, is in trouble. And we have a story that includes someone dying because there was not an available ambulance. And that's something I hope MMA, either this year or next, starts making a priority about with the legislature. [27:23] Eric Jarvi: No comment. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to remind the public that Saturday, this coming Saturday, September 12th, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Hamden Historical Society is having their Heritage Day celebration. It includes exhibits, demonstrations, tours, scavenger hunts, and plenty to eat. And a special thanks to Hamden Academy Key Club, who spent this past Sunday half a day members of the Key Club helping prepare the Historical Society grounds for the Heritage Day events and I think that was pretty special of them so again a special thanks to them and good night Hamden well [28:08] Matthew LaChance: I was gonna say that but you just said it for me good thank you yes thank you to everybody who has submitted their desire to serve in this capacity it was great news to hear that we've got plenty of potential active candidates on the on the voter rolls yeah absolutely and yes just schools back in session off to a good start drive safe out there the school buses are out and kids are out thank you hamden and good night paula thank you i didn't mean to [28:56] Speaker D (unidentified): hijack your counselor comment there but i in both of your comments it reminded me that i forgot to mention that jen has already been in contact with the league of women voters and we will be holding another candidate night for those that are running for the town council so we don't know a date yet for certain the league will let us know we're trying to get somewhere in the middle of october so that it's close enough to the election that everything will still be fresh in people's minds but we're at a little bit of their mercy of what their schedule is and i will [29:33] Matthew LaChance: let you know as soon as i know thank you for that paula and at this time i will thank the public for attending and tuning in tonight and I'll accept a motion to enter into an executive session after which the meeting will be adjourned and the minutes will reflect the time of adjournment second with a motion of a second pursuant to one MRSA subsection 405 6f to include the town manager public works director public safety director and deputy fire chief roll call vote John I motion passes 7-0 we are now in executive session thank