Castine Select Board Approves Food Vendor, Weighs Off-Neck Fire Station

[0:00] Selectboard member (motion-maker): And then leader says hi and there is nothing else on the agenda. Okay, so we have a new Application for a mobile vending unit for Natalie Griffith salt and cedar kitchen and it is they want to start at 10 it's a Saturday burgers etc and it is very nice to have a mobile vending unit in October this is different. Okay, well, we're happy to have them end up where we're at, okay, and I will make a motion to approve that. [1:02] Amy Guthoff: I'll second. All in favor? Amy Guthoff says aye. [1:05] Selectboard member (motion-maker): And Dan Beder says aye. Okay, before I make another mistake soon, we're good? No,, no. Okay. it so with that i will make a motion that we end our select board meeting do i have a second section and now i will make a motion that we go into a work session i will go into a work session and the first item on the work session is the talent office or a workweek and I assume we're just seeing how it's going to [1:47] Amy Guthoff: I mean it's been going fine as far as work staff goes it's going phenomenal we haven't had any complaints that we have heard, as far as in the office goes, Wednesdays, it was slow. Wednesdays is our day that we're open until 5 p.m., which is the late day. And that was going slow in the beginning. But as of late, we've been noticing that's been picking up. We've been seeing more people come in and taking advantage of coming in for that late hour that we're here until 5 p.m versus the 4 p.m closure date time frame so it's working out just being open until five you don't think we need to make that longer to six at all i mean [2:41] Speaker C (unidentified): are people managing to get here by five yeah that's cool it's up to you i think it's working out well i know that i believe when i signed reverse she said she'd had some comments about [2:57] Amy Guthoff: people that so they couldn't get in by five o'clock say it was like four o'clock So that was not part of the shortening, you know, that was right No, that's great and yeah, like I said we haven't had any negative [3:45] Selectboard member (motion-maker): that feedback okay the next is food trucks and you know I've been really happy with the food trucks yeah it's offered a nice variety to people and I don't think there's I don't think [4:12] Amy Guthoff: For any of the local businesses, no, I don't think so. I did have someone approach me and ask how do we make our decision on which food trucks to accept or deny, and he said, well, at this point we pretty much just accept everything. And so the question evolved into at what point will the select board, or will the select board want to create sort of an outline or, you know, a way to choose food trucks so that we make sure that we always have new and interesting things or things that we can't normally get or things like that. And so I don't know if that's something we want to deal with now or we want to wait until maybe we have more food truck applications. So we actually have to choose between food trucks, right? I've had, I've had feedback like that as well. You're wondering how the decision is made, and I don't know what the origin is, if they're unhappy with something else that's been there or not, or looking to fill a void or a gap that they think, you know, there might be. I've had questions about even how the food truck vendors find us, right? And mine is mostly word of mouth, I think, in terms of, I don't think we've done any huge advertising or it's spent out where the word is. [5:43] Selectboard member (motion-maker): My impression is that we've had more applications this year than ever before. So I think the word is out that we've had more seating on the dock. I think the word is out that we're accepting food trucks. And, you know, I would say that maybe before next summer, we could just have a very brief, you know, kind of guidelines in the event that we pay more than X amount of food trucks that apply in any given day. This is how we would handle it, you know, whether it would be a lottery or whether it would be about equality. Quality, but I just think that, you know, I think it is building and I think at some point we will, we will be up against more food trucks than we can, than we can house. So I just think that it's probably, we're probably, you know, and of course the winter is a good thing to just kind of stretch [6:38] Amy Guthoff: out. Yeah, and I would, I would welcome feedback from residents and others who have been to [6:44] Speaker C (unidentified): the food truck. So, hi, oh, go ahead, finish your thought. I'm just weighing in like when you're [6:49] Amy Guthoff: I'd love to hear from the public if there are any experiences, if there are any that, you know, they have concerns about or maybe had service issues, or if there is a gap that some people are trying to fill and would like to see the food. So we can take that into consideration as we receive applications. I did have several, also four or five people come to me this summer and ask about the ice cream truck. Yeah, apparently they weren't pleased with the ice cream. I had several people who were not pleased with the ice cream. [7:23] Selectboard member (motion-maker): I thought the ginger was quite good. [7:25] Speaker C (unidentified): And so... Was it because it was too soft? Because, I mean, I did shut it off accidentally. No,, it was too soft. Oh, okay. [7:36] Amy Guthoff: I would... I don't know. They weren't pleased. I don't know if it's not the kind of ice cream that they like, or the flavors weren't to them. I would love to have that kind of feedback, but more specific, more specific. What is it that, you know, not that we can please everybody, but you know, to take that into consideration. Do you think it would be worthwhile to do a sort of a public comment period, or a public comment like come talk to us about, or send in an email and let us know what your thoughts on, right, on some way or ways to get the feedback? I definitely, you know, we're trying to do this for the benefit of the town and to grow it, and so I would welcome comments both negative and positive, so we can try to keep improving and being responsive to people's [8:29] Speaker C (unidentified): interests. So potentially there's somebody that may want to be similar to Stonefox and be there year round. Sue and I were talking to Natalie today about that, which wouldn't be a bad idea, but I think we're only allowed to have two down there. And if we lock in two permanents, then the revolving variety, which I think is important, needs to continue. So I don't know if that means we should go for a third one or not. The only other thing, I'm sure Ina's back there. She'll probably weigh in that Aina listens to people that complain that the Stone Fox blocks the view, and I'm like, it does in that one little spot. So the question is whether or not on concert days we move those over into the one hour parking spots up against the, boat launch bulkhead, if you will, which is one hour parking, and I think there's four spots, maybe plus a harbormaster and assistant harbormaster spots there. So we would want to use up at least the harbormaster spot, but if we move them Over there that can potentially change that, but if we add a third food truck, where that might go also, and that would be a town meeting question. I'm not necessarily opposed to a third food truck as long as that is a revolving type of thing, because I think that variety is what you want. You don't always want it being stagnant, the same thing. [10:09] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Luckily, the only person who's wanted to be here for a long period of time has been the food truck. [10:15] Speaker C (unidentified): And then we have every, like, Tuesday, or is it every Thursday, day with the, every Tuesday, every Tuesday with the barbecue, so that's always good to know that's going to be on the schedule. I think that leads to a question too, like, if we're presented [10:29] Amy Guthoff: with the option of two food trucks we want to be here and year round, is that something that we want, right? Like, what is, what do we, what do we want for this service, or any, and that's something I'm working with in town as well. I'd like to hear, I don't have a way in, would they want just two food trucks that are the same thing all summer, or do they want them to continue [10:52] Selectboard member (motion-maker): I mean, I, my impression, of course, in the survey, is that people have really enjoyed having more food in the dock, and I mean, even last week I was down there one day and every table was full, and you know, so compared to years ago when I arrived, it was, it was always dead, you know, I mean, so okay, so I would say that [11:19] Amy Guthoff: we'll revisit food trucks at some point. We should figure out a way to get the temperature of the town and find out where people are thinking. I don't know, we create a survey, or we create, we ask for emails or something, and I think, you know, if we could go back and look at the different food trucks, their names, you know, refresh people's memory, like what they specialized in, because people may remember an experience but maybe not the name of the business that was tied to it. Yeah, I wouldn't want to go too far into winter with it just because I think [11:52] Selectboard member (motion-maker): the feedback might be more pertinent, you know, and maybe we just have a select word work [11:59] Speaker C (unidentified): session we announced that we would like to you know yeah and i would just write so advertising what i have done is i've reached out to like the main food truck association two facebook sites is like two different ones and you usually say hey casting is booking for you know food tracks for the summer i think that's where we get some of them from of course whenever i go to any festival or any other place or in bucksport and i see a food truck i'll mention hey cast scenes always you know open as a Possibility depending on the days of the week and everything else too, so, but, and so I want to get that out sooner than later, so we're [12:44] Selectboard member (motion-maker): going to have, Merchants Association has reached out to you, right? Okay, great, okay. Well, I think the reason everyone's here is for the Hawks Neck Fire Services, and Derek, how would we like to begin [13:02] Speaker C (unidentified): this conversation? Well, I think I see a lot of people here, and of course there's two particular, those two right there, Tom and Gus, that had requested this be on the agenda to have a, so I guess I would open the floor to you guys, introduce the subject matter, and then go from there. Well, [13:27] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: I guess you got to go back to 2016 if you want to introduce it, 's 2016 for the year that it was introduced, and it was introduced as, this is before we realized that we are now considered by the insurance industry to be protected, so the thought getting when I made in 2016 the motion was because of the experience that I had with trucks getting down through the most important road on time and timely matter, and I thought that an off-neck fire resource building would be good off-neck someplace so that we could have a speedy recovery system, where we protect people's lives. And it was voted on unanimously, way unanimously. And money has been put into that code for the past 10 years. So I think we have right now probably over $200,000 for an orphanage fire station. [14:37] Amy Guthoff: Can I just make one comment? Because I think we've reviewed this many times, and I don't have the paper work with me, but I think it's, but I think it's been clarified that the vote in 2016 was not specific to a station. So I think we need to be clear on that higher reserve. But I don't think it was specific to an off-neck fire station. No, I don't think it. Well, anyways, so there's right now, we counted roughly about 45 houses [15:24] Speaker C (unidentified): that according to the insurance companies are really unprotected. And we thought the dry hydrants were going to meet the need. Yeah. But even some of our residents have called their companies to check on it and so forth. And they said, no, the dry hydrant would not meet the need. So technically, the only thing that's going to meet the need is a firehouse. But roughly, 45 houses that exist today are a walk outside that five mile radius.. But within that, I mean, Gus and I have taken a number of trips. There's a lot of property that could also be guilt-bound, which would cause more problems down the road. I haven't asked the realtors if it's their responsibility to basically tell somebody that they're building a house five miles outside that you are not going to be covered. I don't know if that's part of the thing that they have to do, but it's something that's could impact us building wise. [16:41] Selectboard member (motion-maker): So I have a couple comments. I wasn't here back then, and we're here now. So I guess what I'm, what I'm asking, and you know, I'm not an authority, I'm asking the question, that even if there was a remote firehouse, let's say we had an engine near the dock or something, the fact that the fire department, the volunteer firefighters are still going to have to, since the bulk of them are in town, they're going to have to drive from town to this potential off-night building and get to, get to you, is it a distance thing or is it, is it a, is it a time thing? You know, I mean, because just because, just because we would have this closer to you, I'm asking the question, is it really going to get, you know, a fire engine to you faster? Absolutely. No, but just, again, I'm just asking the question. If there's a fire, if there was a fire call at Wilson Point right now, the people are gonna get called, they're gonna go to town, and they're gonna race out as fast as they can safely out to you, okay? If we have an engine off-site, because we're not going to build another fire station, if there was an engine off-site in a garage, I'd say practically, how much time are we actually going to save? And I just want to tell you, let me just finish, and then one more thing. I'm especially sensitive as now we've had two forest fires two years in a row. That we're going to have more, and so, you know, I take this really seriously, and if you have 45 homes there, We really want to do the right thing. The question is in real terms, in terms of speed of getting the truck there, Does that, does that answer that question, and cuz I don't know. Please, I know [18:59] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: I apologize because I'm on your side. I know you are, all right, give you my experience. I'm Wilson Point red around 2015 and 2016. All right, there was a little fire, wasn't much. It was somebody called fire, people were screaming down the road to go to the fire. There were five firefighters, there were five firefighters, five of them left off that five of those firefighters that brought next who had houses that could go to that fire and been there. All right, that fire truck didn't get there at least until a half hour later. All right, now if there was a fire today on Wilson Point Road and my grandson was there, he'd be in that firehouse in 15 seconds, 15 minutes less, 10 minutes and you have a fire truck. Okay, so yes, we have a lot of people off neck that are associated with the fire department. We have a lot of kids that are a little more connected associated with the fire department. Our fire department is wonderful, like these fire chiefs are great. You're not going to find any better fire chiefs. Well, I think I'm speaking personally now, my personal opinion, do we need a firehouse? Damn right, we need a firehouse, but we also need something off net. I mean, right now, to be considered to be unprotected, what's the next step after that? There's going to be somebody that's going to tell you that they went to get insurance and couldn't get insurance on their home because they're more than five miles from the firehouse. Now, does that make sense? We're a community of people here. I want to just keep saying that. We're a community of people. You cannot leave all these people without fire protection. You can't do it. [20:47] Selectboard member (motion-maker): because i'm i'm with you know that i 'm simply asking the question of what is the best answer to this problem you know if you're asking a question i think i think also i would like the [21:02] Amy Guthoff: input from Chief Stearns, yes, and the leadership at the fire department, because none of us are EMS personnel, we're not EMS responders, but the fact that we might be able, someone might be able to get a truck to a scene faster, I question whether or not that necessarily means they can do anything once they get there, because it, in my observation, it takes multiple people to run a pump truck, right, depending on where they are, right. So I think, I think there's lots of [21:42] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Information that we don't have, you know, I just, one second, I also think that this is not the only, we're not the only town where you've got people outside of a five-mile limit, and I would like to get feedback from other towns of how they, how they solve this problem. I suggest that we plan another work session very soon with Chief Stearns and we address, we, you know, we address this question, and maybe between now and then we could get some more information for what. [22:19] Amy Guthoff: Other times it does, yeah, and I think we need to have some questions, we need to, if there are some specific questions for chiefs, perhaps he could come and he could let us know how many of these firefighters do you're looking at, yes, what are they like, what are they capable of doing, are they capable of driving a truck or whatever to drive a truck or what are they doing, and then again and I said just so that we have a clear idea, we could to come up with some questions. [22:56] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Gus, are we 100% sure that if there was a substation at the dump, does that satisfy the fire department? [23:07] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: Well, that's the purpose of the hearings, and I was hoping, I asked Derek to have the fire department chiefs here. It would be nice if they were. I think we could deal with, you know, we could come up with an agreement. I want to shine a little bit on the people on Wilson Point Road and the community spirit that you have on Wilson Point Road for a small community with only 20 houses, all right? Let me just take a few seconds of your time. Absolutely. Okay, let's start off with Heather Fitzholt in town, he's out of town, and he's the president, the president of our association, Rob Thomas is here, and Rob is not only the secretary, so we have a lot of kids, we have a lot of dads. I just, you know, I'm gonna talk about people, and I hope I don't leave anybody out. So we have, just for example, let's talk about Jeff Powell. He's a member of the Hussam Band. Janet and Jim Charlie are not here, Janet has a medical problem, and Jim of course passed away. I think all the years that Jim put into this town, you know, volunteering for setting up all the Memorial Day programs, working at the Hussam Society, a member of the, of the, Jim was he was the on the playing board, right, the appeals, the appeals board, and you know, and now we have Janet, she was in the garden club, to see Jack down here plant flowers, watering flowers, and they all, she also was part of the historical society, then you have of course you did all that volunteer work and for the town. Then you have Mike Marzell, Captain Mike Marzell. Anytime there's a fire in town, the first person that Randy calls is Mike to come back for services. And we good deal, I can't leave town unless Mike MAKE US STARE BECAUSE IF WE FALL DOWN, MIKE'S THE FIRST ONE TO DIE. [25:39] Speaker C (unidentified): WE HAVE TO COME STAND OURSELVES. [25:42] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: Karen and Bill Lyon. Bill is the chairman of the Appeals Board. Karen spent many,, many hours volunteering in the library, in our library board. Fred Doan, he's a commandant of the Yacht Club. You know, is there anybody else? Probably, if I did, I'm sorry. But for a little community like we have, you have a lot of people now and you, know, you just have a lot of people who are contributing to the community and you can't forget them. You cannot forget them, all right? Right, now, right now, what if somebody to do the work with incidentally being unprotected? If you're a real estate agent, are you required to say to the person that's not in the house, you know, these people realize your insurance is gonna double because, you know, you're unprotected according to the insurance industry. What happens when the insurance industry says to us someday, and it's going to happen all right it's going to happen if it hasn't already happened we're not going to give you insurance because you're five miles away what happened to your [27:06] Selectboard member (motion-maker): property guys we got to get ahead of the game yeah so i just want to hear what doug is saying [27:13] Speaker C (unidentified): I think this goes towards what Gus is trying to say and we've heard it before because you probably don't know I applied for a grant last year because we had a fire in the square I realized I had a well that was capable of producing 100 gallons a minute but I didn't have a pump there that would throw that water out to fight the bomb and so I got the money to put that pump in and I'm working on it now to get that and then we had the people come in and do the fire circuits about four months ago And she's going to give a final report here shortly and she agrees that there need to be fire roads cut through the square and then the idea of having hydrants and in ways to distribute water is extremely important so there's a whole bunch of little pieces here a pump system the dry hydrant is an excellent idea the dry hydrant needs piece of equipment and takes time a pipe that's there sitting dry that has the ability it is a big step forward in the classroom and just as right we all know we're All seeing that on the evening we're only going to be more susceptible to these casualties, and now is the time to really put all the pieces together in one room and figure out what we can do as far as cutting fire breaks now through the middle of the square playing pipe now. Okay, just again, just [28:40] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Because I'm not familiar with the square that you're referring to, this is town land, private land, would it's the middle of the middle of the box. Yeah, we used to have a map over there. Yeah, it's all there. Okay, so but in a case like that, if there was fire roads cut in the square, would that be something that's the town responsibility or is it private landowners? That's what this consultant is going to come up with. That's her [29:16] Speaker C (unidentified): job. I think that if you make the case to the property owners that this is being done to protect their property, I don't think anybody would say that they were against it, but it's only one piece. One piece is having that drywall, one piece is having a piece of equipment out there, another piece is identifying there are kids living in my mobile home park. If you go to Maine Maritime, they're also so there already are people out there that there are members of it, and the idea I [29:48] Selectboard member (motion-maker): mean, I mean, listen, we will be, this is just, this is just an idea, this is a work session, so I don't want to take this as any kind of definitive statement, but as we will be most likely doing about when we do the new fire station, it seems to me that you know between now and then kind of answering these questions, and if it meant you know adding, if it's as simple as building a building at the fire station that could hold another, it's a transfer, it's a transfer station to hold another other machines you know, I mean, I think I think we have the opportunity to look at the whole problem, and you know we, I don't think I don't think we're going to have the answers to the new fire station by the town meeting in May. I would expect that we're going to have a special, a special meeting, you know, when what we have to, what we have to do the bottom, you know [30:59] Speaker C (unidentified): Is that a fair statement? Well, I don't know yet. We'll see. We've just had a meeting today to set, I think we're almost there on the contract for the architect. So hopefully by town meeting we should have something, because it's one of the first things they're going to do, but we'll see. But let me, let me, if you don't mind, because there's a couple of things when I think about this satellite station. Number one is we know we have a problem at public works and inside, before many times we need to get running water, bathroom out there. I think we need to have some work space for the public works department, because right now we park vehicles inside and those, our vehicles should be inside. Of course we do have the contractor that also parks in there so they can plug in the truck and it's ready to go, and it's not snowing on the freezing rain on top of the sand that's loaded into those trucks. So really an extra bay or two, a work bay, another storage bay or so would be good, but having another fire station bay now i'm going to explain to you what i know about iso ratings so iso ratings if you don't have a fire station okay OK, and I'll go into what that is in a minute. Within five miles radius of your doorstep, front doorstep, then you're never going to get better than a 10 on that. And what that means, just so you know. So on these ratings, and I doubt we'll ever get below a seven out in that range, only because we don't have pressurized fire station. I'll go into that for a second, but so from my research and from other towns I've been in, like a class nine or ten of the highest rates for premiums, significant surcharges, right? You get a class seven or eight, you still get the higher rates, not the highest, but higher rates and possible surcharges. You get down around class five or six, you get standard pricing, minimum a note discount count. You get a class three, four, which is I think where we are, is a four W or something, it's a 10 to 15 premium reduction. You can get down to a class one or two, which would be full-time firemen, a bunch of dispatch, everything else, you have to 25. The way they set the ISO ratings is number one is your apparatus and fire station 50, water supply is 40, and then it gets into training, dispatch and stuff like that, and then there's like five or ten percent bonus points you can get. Okay, so the key to getting the rating below a 10, number one is having a substation or something, and I've researched it because I Started pricing it out. I used AI a little bit to go down this rabbit hole actually after Gus and I talked for a while to see what we'd have to do, because I was worried you'd have to isolate this, station, which you will. So if we built a three bay type of garage, let's say metal type of garage, that particular part would have to be isolated from the rest of the building, but we wouldn't have to, from what I'm finding out, wouldn't have to have a special washer or anything else because the guys could put their equipment in a bag and bring it to the other station to get the carcinogens washed off and all that. So how do you get below a 10? So you build a fire station, it might bring you to a nine, but the key is this, okay, so to get a nine you have to have a community must have a minimum facility and practices needed to get the PPC rating, which we would. That includes at least one piece of apparatus with a permanently mounted pump. The pump needs a rated capacity 250 gallons a minute or more and 150 PSI and at least 200 gallons of water in it. Fire department must also deliver, and this is what I did in Naples and I think we did it in LeVant and I'm trying to think, I think those are the two communities, I think Oxford might have, but they're different, they got hybrids and everything, but so the pump needs, so the fire department must deliver a minimum of 500 gallons of water to all reported first alarm structure fires. The community must also earn a score of at least 100 credit points on the following items from fire suppression rating systems. So records, it talks about 10, and then equipment that will tell you need 400 feet of hose, one and a half, 1.75, need to have portable fire extinguishers, nozzles, straight ladder of 12 foot, a 24 foot ground ladder, spare SCBA for each SCBA you're carrying, hand lights. You need the picket head ax, one flat ax, forceful entry tools. So you need to have those apparatus properly done, because if they're going to be the first respond. So that will typically get you a nine, right? And then you get an eight B, and that's everything I just mentioned except for it talks about community must have an adequate number of well organized, properly trained firemen, reliable emergency communications, adequate fire station facilities, which would be another one, operational records, and the capability to deliver an uninterrupted flow of 200 gallons per minute. This is the water volley thing that you get into, 200 gallons per minute for 20 minutes beginning within five minutes of first engine arriving. So in Naples we actually had the insurance rating guys come out and we proved that we could deliver to that point, but that's the best we got. We couldn't deliver better because you got lower, you get a separate tanker with water or you, well, what it is, so we put that dry hydrant out there, right, and of course we'll talk to Gus and Tom about whether or not we could put a fire sister and out by Wilson Point because the more water you have, the more it's going to sustain those levels. But also, even in any of our fires, water volleys are key, like in a forest fire. We go fill it up in a stream or a dry hydrant, and then we get it there and we fill up our portable pool, if you will, and they pull water out of that pool. And constantly, that's why it's so important to have mutual aid is to have those other tankers from those other towns there to constantly be delivering water to fill that in, because that's what you're trying to do is, well, in this case you're trying to prove if we have a fire out in the country we can actually sustain the water and properly fight it. We're not around twiddling our thumbs watching somebody's house burn down because we're in a hopeless situation. That's why the small towns mutual aid is key because we just don't have a fire personnel, but together we can. So if you want an eight, just so you know that changes the thing, you must have a minimum water supply of 250 gallons per minute for two hours for the fire protection in the area. Fire department delivers the 250 through tanker shuttle, large i able to hose, or other alternative supply. The water must be available within five minutes of the arrival first due engine. Department must maintain the flow without interruption for the two hour period fire department has to have one suitable equipped engine that responds to all first alarm structural fires. Pump capacity must be at least 750 gallons per minute at 150 psi. Engine must have a water tank and according to the general criteria of NFPA 1901. So that's where you can get to an eight. I doubt we'll get much below an eight, but we could because we don't have those pressurized systems. But that's why that water supply of like 30,000 gallons underground would be perfect. Because you get to that fire, you hook up to that cistern, and you have that there within five minutes. And then the clock starts to that two-hour period. So that's the key to the whole thing. It isn't just having a fire station. It's also you've got to show that you can sustain that water protection. And that's why it's important also to have automatic dispatch for like when a call comes in, like under, we used to have a box system that certain fire calls came in. If it said structure fire, you already knew you were pulling the trucks out of these other towns and they were coming too. We used to beat in Naples because we had our two cross train EMT firefighters in house, we used to beat other departments to their own fires. And that's how I knew that we could get those ratings down. But the other thing that we can think about, and I'm not trying to talk you into doing this or anything else, but if we're gonna do another structure out there anyways, would probably be a good thing to have. Because the other thing we have is we have storm surge, sea level rise and other things. And we're basically an island almost, right? We get another little bit of sea level increase or whatever, we get storm surge across Hatch Cove, it would be nice to actually have. I know that we plan for this stuff, right? Randy has said, well, if we know we get a big stormy parking engine out there, well, think about long term, we ought to have an engine someplace anyways out there for some surprise storm like this storm here was supposed to happen and be a big deal and we can see it didn't do anything but. Of course it triggered our warnings to say okay are we ready if we have a problem. So it may just be a good thing for the whole community because we're not just talking about structure fires we're talking about car accidents the personnel living around there those important too because they can't be driving five minutes into town and then five minutes out of town because that five minutes is key you have to have the water pumping by them. [40:53] Amy Guthoff: Yeah go ahead yeah everything just said really validated that's going that this is this is larger than just a building or a hydrant this is an entire plan that we need to work with and the fire department needs to work on and create because i just want to say. [41:16] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Because I really appreciate you've been persistent about this for over a decade and I appreciate it, but I just don't shoot the messenger what I'm about to say. So you know we had a meeting the other night where the engineers came in and gave us a presentation on the infrastructure structure of challenges they're facing the town there's 30 million dollars okay we have a new fire station that we're looking at we're talking about this I mean I'm not here to not embrace the difficult decisions that we have to make but you know the reality is that if we address the needs of the town the off-neck fire station the support for the fire station we had i think. I think annalee said we had 14 water main breaks last winter in town and i'm just saying that we have a lot of very expensive projects that we are facing and we're going have to prioritize that i think this is a top priority i completely agree with you but i just want to say that what we're facing is complicated and we're not we're not shying away from it we're not kicking this can down the road and we're not in and not address it but you know when it comes to the town meeting this year i mean. I would hope that we can address some of these difficult questions and hopefully by then we can prioritize what infrastructure challenges we have to meet and when that's why we had the meeting the other day and so you know this is this is in my opinion a top priority but there's a lot of homework we have to do to answer the question and I just think I think Derek explained it very well Doug you were help with us you were helpful and i just think it's it's a complicated issue yeah absolutely. [43:24] Amy Guthoff: I'm I'm concerned about you've been doing this for 10 years, so we need to get moving. How much have your insurance premiums increased, and when are you really looking at than doubling or not being an option? Like, how much is your insurance going up? [43:50] Speaker C (unidentified): Over the last five years my mind double literally, I think you want to talk to [43:57] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: josh hi i'm i'm joel that's good my wife and i are fairly new residents and before i address this issue the phrase i have never heard it before in my life you know brooklyn maine i'm from the other brooklyn okay there i'm gonna bring your neck and that 's when you're being polite So when I hear off neck, it just means something. So I'm gonna, if you take a look at the map, listen point is shaped like a thumb. So I'm gonna start calling listen point on thumb. Okay. That being said, I'll talk about a personal insurance issue. When we moved here, I was in a company called Amico, [Speaker C (unidentified): A-M-I-C-O.] year extremely well thought of in the insurance industry and by the insurance such as myself i mean they 've stood behind us they and we were good customers they ensure our two vehicles we have another residence in maine that they ensure and for 13 years they've been behind us and we've been behind them i called them about ensuring our house on this point road and they looked at the map and they said you're 5.3 miles away from the fire station we're not going to ensure you i go we've been with You for 13 years, we haven't been any, you know, we've been good insured and you've been good to us. A third of a mile ain't going to refuse insurance, and that's what happened, they refused to cover us. My agent, I'm not going to talk about another insurance company, I'm not going to say it's supplied by that company, but in order to get any insurance beggars aren't choosers to insure the house and allow us to move into the house and to buy the house, that's what we had to do, go with another company that As I say, I'm not gonna, but that was our personal. Now I really appreciate you spending most 90 plus percent of the time about the safety issue, because that is, you know, that insurance compels in comparison to what you have to pay more money less money by your coverages, so I really appreciate that. But just from the point of view of the residents who have to have insurance otherwise they buy a house, that's what we want, thank you. Thank you so much for Thank you for explaining that. Please go ahead. My wife, she's the one that wrote the grant to get this building repaired on the way in. She and Annabella and a committee of people worked on the start of preservation. It's a funny thing. You go online and you see a picture of this building in 1926. it and then you go online and see what it looks like now exactly the same and that's what the start preservation is and of course everything's up to date up to normal because it could go ahead [47:24] Amy Guthoff: and progress can I just say you also left out your friend on your on your right I'm gonna run [47:29] Speaker C (unidentified): them over when I get outside planning for it not even more yeah I'm sorry [47:40] Selectboard member (motion-maker): so this is this is what I propose I would like to have a special work sessions with Randy I would like to have a work session with I mean Derek helped me here are there fire consultants that could come in and answer some of these other questions did you feel like [48:04] Speaker C (unidentified): you have enough information to well I didn't go into there is a seven mile criteria then too so five to seven miles so and this is where the dry hydrant I actually thought would make a difference out there but I think they may be outside a thousand feet so there's also a seven mile rule like five to seven mile rule you must have a water source within a thousand feet and that will get you a 10w it's something that the underwriters use this is a little bit different than a 10 and that's why water supply is important to this thing for the whole thing so you do have some consultants and of course I think we'll get into some of this once we start programming and the fire department things like I haven't done research on what a fs what ws dispatch center exactly is a lot of towns will keep their local dispatch and I'm wondering if that's why it comes down to some of the fire insurance or not because we have regional dispatch of course but I don't know if that counts as one or if that's that local in you know you get an active fire in your town and then you kind of take over the dispatch locally even though you're in communication with the other ones so there are definitely consultants out there but you're talking about money for study and that's not to say that there isn't potential to get something like that because that's part of the whole wildfire grant was to actually open up the floodgates to study and actually using that to gain us extra points that we would need from some Other programs so and part of my knowledge that ISO rating stuff also comes from. We tried to take three towns, we had three departments and one or two substations around the Sabago Lake, Long Lake area, down in Naples, Casco and Raymond, and we're like, geez, we're all have manpower problems, why don't we create a consolidated fire department with by utilizing buildings and apparatus we already have. And so that's kind of how we did the water volleys is because we knew we could do it because we learned it from doing a study that said if you can do this you can get your down to like an eight, but you're never going to get below an eight without like pressurized water and everything else. So I said, so I don't know what the difference is. I talked about the extra fees and stuff and the highest rates eight just said you're going to be five, six is where you get the normal rates, no discounts. So really an eighth is mostly going to do in rural area. I don't know what that means to the actual rates themselves. So that we could probably find somebody, but it's probably going to have to pay him to look at our situation. So that's a basic question. [51:07] Selectboard member (motion-maker): What percentage of our population, if you look at the whole population, asking the number of households, how many of the households would be outside of the five mile radius from the [51:21] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: fire station? Because you know, you know that all depends on how the distance is from Battle Avenue you to the new fire station, because if they're going door to door, which I think they're doing, or driveway to drive, you can have another, it all depends if it's a long driveway at your house, it could be another 25, 30 people. This example Ewan's here, my neighbor [51:54] Speaker C (unidentified): or his driveway is three quarters of a mile off the road. So if you get from the firehouse from that lab, like I mapped it out, it was about five miles right to his driveway. But now he's got another half a mile, three quarters of a mile to get to his house. So that's a question that we need. [52:14] Selectboard member (motion-maker): No,, but the reason I'm asking the question. Okay, so how many households are out there? Five, okay, you've got 45 households, is that just Wilson Point or is that just I'm not I wasn't [52:28] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: wasn't pointing on that 's 20. Right, okay, but there are there are seven two acre lots that can be sold, all right, people don't have right now, but what we're getting at [52:42] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Gus is essentially we're a thousand people plus or minus in town right okay so if we're looking at 45 homes let's call it two people in a house with three people you look at ninety you at ninety to a hundred people so in theory ten percent of the population in town could be outside of the five mile that's a big number you know one of ten people so you know I just think that this is a like a serious question and deserves a serious answer and again we don't want to kick any cans down the road I think that my suggestion is we have a special work session Derek can do his homework we can have Randy do his homework we can research if we need to pull somebody in from the outside and really have a thorough discussion and come up with you know these are the five things you need to do in order to satisfy this that just answer this answer this question so you know I think I but that's my that's my suggestion is that we separate it from a lot of the other issues that we're dealing with and we just address it head up can I can I [53:56] Speaker C (unidentified): add something I just thought if you asked like what other towns are doing yeah so a lot of the fastest growing towns I'm thinking of Cape Elizabeth and Standish off the top of my head they had a lot of residential growth and everything they were acquiring under local ordinance that all those homes be sprinkled right so you had to have your own sprinkler system in those homes and that was to actually help control the fact that they didn't want to keep building substations out to control the stuff but also the recent LDs if I remember correctly restricted the ability to require sprinkling ordinances because it was controlling new housing and growth in those areas where they were it's too expensive right I would support your idea [54:45] Amy Guthoff: I think we absolutely need to bring the fire department in and we need to hear that was the final report from the wildfire study we need to know exactly what they think because it seems to me that as we're planning for our new on-neck fire station this is the perfect time totally to make this a whole fire safety package, for lack of a better term. Amy, your thoughts? Yeah, I think at this point there's just, in my mind, there's so much information we don't have. We don't have the practicalities of what this would mean for logistics and operations for the fire station, for the fire department, what their thoughts are in terms of practically getting apparatus off-site that can do something, having personnel to do something. I imagine there'd be requirements if it was housed off. Neck, your requirements for the truck, and you go down to Court Street, our trucks are plugged in, they're heated, all those things. And also the reality of if you, if the town puts an app or a piece of apparatus out there where most of our calls are on, that does that also have another impact on the town in terms of [56:06] Speaker C (unidentified): going out to get the truck to bring it in, or if we had to get another, we need to [56:10] Amy Guthoff: dip to another truck, that's another $300,000. There's so much information we don't know, so I think at a starting point I'd like to hear from Chief Stearns, the leadership at the fire department, in their practical experiences and their, they're, there, and also like someone like Jack Spratt, who's an assistant chief, he did a great deal of work to help, you know, the town, those within the radius, get a much lower rating [56:39] Selectboard member (motion-maker): considering that Jack is still shipping out. Correct. Yes, exactly. No, what I'm thinking is if we can look at Jack's schedule and have him here, if Tom can make it as well, it'd be great to have all three of the senior people of the fire department here really talk through this problem. And, you know, part of this, Gus and I, 'm speaking to you guys, but I'm really saying to everyone, is that if this is going to cost the town hall, which it will, to answer this question, I think it's really important that it's just not the select board, you know, doing more, it's, or for, you know, that we really will need community support to say, okay, this is going to cost money, you know, it may or may not affect the taxes depending on where we are and our expenses, but I just think that, you know, the more support the select board has when we have a warranty item and it comes up for debate, it makes it easier for it to pass, and that's just, that's just a fact, you know. So go ahead. I don't know if this factors in or not, but as soon as [57:52] Speaker C (unidentified): you put the station out there, then you're increasing that five mile radius into some of Penobscot, right? So at that point, can you say to Penobscot and say to whoever it is, the state of Maine, look, we're doing this and we're doing it for our town and our systems, maybe that's a way [58:10] Selectboard member (motion-maker): To get grant money because jobs right now, listen, you've got you've got the grant specialist of town city next year, so obviously, I mean, the five miles, yeah, so I thought about. [58:25] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: Today I'm glad you brought it up there, but yeah, I think we can make it as properly a cooperative effort because there's an awful lot of homes if an Oscar that are way outside of five miles and you know I don't know how that would work with grant, I don't know how the fire department's working, I know they have mutual aid and all of that, but that's a strong possibility you might be able to do this in a cooperative way and then you do have also other. [59:07] Selectboard member (motion-maker): So listen, I feel like we've had a great discussion. I feel like we have our marching orders that we need to have another work session. I don't want to have the work session until we have our homework done. So I don't want to rush this, but hopefully you know hopefully within a couple months you know that we could if we can have this and you know we really look forward to finding it finding solutions to this problem and as appreciate and as always we so appreciate your persistence one of the other things that we should. [59:52] Speaker C (unidentified): Also check is if we could get an insurance person yes in here to sit with us because I can tell you over the years the insurance company doesn't want to pay out anything all right so they keep changing constantly when I first built out here they basically told us if we put a pond on our property our fire rate was insurance was extremely low that's no longer the case doesn't matter if you have and we have I think we have six or seven ponds out on Wilson Point so it's one of those situations. Where the insurance company. [1:00:32] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Keeps changing that's a good idea I think I think getting an insurance perspective on this will be very helpful okay if everyone's good I'm I'm ready to move on yeah okay so the last thing we can say something the last thing is that I just we just wanted to review the infrastructure meeting yeah you know I personally thought it was it was fantastic it was so great to see the entire needs of the town and a small group of papers with maps with priorities it's it's I don't have my paperwork with. me but it was a shocking number it was 30 million years okay it was 30 million dollars and that is on Elise's estimate that's not like we've gone out for rfps and we actually are getting decisions yeah and so i 'm you know this is something that we have talked about for years how do we address the infrastructure challenges and i think that we have this now i am i think that it would be that we did have the newspaper there at the meeting hopefully they're going to there's going to be some real press to get the word out, but I think that this document, you know, everyone in town, every resident is affected by this on neck off neck, and I think it's just a critical piece of information that we need to get out into our community because this is complicated. We did have some of these [1:02:19] Speaker C (unidentified): is left over, I believe so, if anybody wants one, Sue just scanned it into her thing, and I do [1:02:28] Amy Guthoff: Yeah, it'll be tomorrow, okay, and it is on YouTube, on the website, yeah, okay, yeah, you can, you can watch that, you can watch it after the fact. I showed somebody it today, so you can go because [1:02:42] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Because it's my hope that we can begin, at this town meeting, we can address some piece of this infrastructure in a real way. And ultimately, I think that we need to, it's a moving target. We have to look at all of the bonds that are being retired, when they're being retired, how best to address this work. And hopefully, as bond payments retire, we can replace those bond payments with new bond payments for new infrastructure. But, you know, we do have these fire states, and we don't know. Derek, when do you think we may know yes or no on the CDC money? [1:03:32] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, we're in September now. I haven't heard them with the elections. I'm thinking they're all dragging their feet on approving anything. Things, so it's either going to be after the election and or it's going to be in the spring, based on when they approved the budgets last time. So you know, it's up to those in Washington DC, really. I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm assuming that the upcoming election is going to hold up any decisions on anything. I will say I think it's really good that we're having this [1:04:05] Amy Guthoff: conversation now, yes, because these are all things that we have to take with us into the budget, exactly, and to create the warrant, yeah, and so the more we can figure this out now and create [1:04:17] Selectboard member (motion-maker): our plan, this is really good. I'm going to go really things about theater. No, I thought, I thought [1:04:22] Amy Guthoff: It was nice. I'm glad that this was recorded because we had a relatively small turnout on that evening for the event, but I was really pleased with Annalise's clarity and, you know, and the PowerPoint. I thought was really useful, you know. She, I think she knew her audience. Like, it wasn't lots of engineering, you know, language. It was real simple, like, these pipes are too small, you know, and we need bigger pipes and whatnot. But really, you know, helping us understand, and I really appreciated the way that she and her team had taken those, I think, 11 or so projects and prioritized them and helped us understand why they ranked, you know, the first two as, you know, 1a, 1b, and why they chose number 11 as number 11. For those of us that, you know, are not versed in this profession, so I really appreciated it. And she also recognized that the town, for different reasons, may vote to, if you know, for pursuing these projects, we might change out the priority order, but I really appreciate them helping give us an advanced look and, you know, kind of like a first look and suggestion of how they would and why they would prioritize [1:05:36] Selectboard member (motion-maker): I think as we go into the budget cycle in January. Yeah, I think we will. Between now and then, we're going to look at these more about research. I just want to, are we done with this? Okay, I just want to add one more thing. [1:05:51] Speaker C (unidentified): I know, go ahead, mine's gonna take five minutes. [1:05:55] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Okay, well, mine will take, mine will take longer. So I had the opportunity on Saturday night to meet the Mad Dumb Love who's running for Congress. And I had a, what, let me, I just wanted to say, this is not a Democratic or Republican statement what I want to say right now. I had a very nice discussion with him. I said, would you be willing to come to Castine and talk to the residents? He said yes. And I just feel given this, you know, horrible, you know, political environment that we're in, I just feel like as a select board member, if we invite somebody from one side, we should invite somebody from the other side. Because I would hope that in our town, we can have a respectful conversation about who's running for Congress, or who's running for Senate, or who's running for governor. So I intend, he gave me his personal email, I intend to send him a note saying we would love to have you come to town, and I will reach out to a page's author and say, you know, we're inviting both you, not for a debate, you know, we don't want to have that screaming here, but at least we could, we could have them both come do a little public presentation, people can hear what they have to say. It was very nice that they allowed almost an hour and a half of questions the other night, you know, so it was, it was really great just to hear an audience full of people in Belfast ask a lot of questions. So I just, I just wanted to say that I'm, I'm going to do that, and I don't have a contact note page in office, but I'll buy it. Absolutely, exactly, and have it be that we just, we want to have a public engagement, people can come and just ask you, just like a meet and greet, just a meet and greet. Exactly, yeah, exactly, I mean, it's the right thing to [1:07:56] Speaker C (unidentified): do. So, Daniel, on that infrastructure projects and so forth, I know they prioritize the two which you mentioned. Is there a timeline that we're looking at? Is it a 5, 10, 15 years ago [1:08:12] Selectboard member (motion-maker): they did this document that we looked at started in 2009 the first time so basically the town has had this information since 2009 and unfortunately we have the can has been kicked for decades for decades you know and it has landed in our back well and i will say annalise was asked a question [1:08:37] Amy Guthoff: about a timeline, but I can't remember, it was specific to one of the items, and I think she said that, you know, kind of from start, maybe this answer to your question, start to finish, if when the town, you know, if and when the town decides they want to proceed project A, what, you know, and then you go through that design process, any grant applications, to completion, what would that look like? And I believe she said something like two and a half, three years. So if we [1:09:02] Selectboard member (motion-maker): decided something, if we decided something at the town meeting in May, there's not going to be any [1:09:08] Amy Guthoff: money spent for, yeah, but that's also, that also speaks to the idea of ways to be creative, as you know, have bonds that are expiring and you're paying those off, and how do you kind of maybe weave in another one that, you know, doesn't necessarily bring more, you know, debt service to the residents, it kind of [1:09:32] Selectboard member (motion-maker): continues what we're accustomed to pain and what I don't want to happen is I wasn't here during the main street debate but what we don't want to happen is that we try to do something good for the town and it becomes this whatever you want to call what happened with main street you know a very difficult situation let's call it a difficult situation we want it to be the town needs this work done this is what it costs this is how we're going to pay for it [1:09:58] Speaker C (unidentified): it and we ask the voters to approve it okay derek all right real quick so william redford who's part of the argyle highlanders group which we've met aina roberta and i about 2029 celebration or commemoration of the knob scott expedition recently came up last week actually on thursday day up from boston area where he's from to go to the historical society as they have professor from you made do a presentation i actually listened to it after our meeting got done and then finished it on the way home that was really good but so he came bearing gifts and one of the things he gave us was it's actually a picture that he a print that i believe they're called the 74th foot if i remember because they're an infantry highlander british troops that were here during the penobscot expedition that's what his troop does and we plan on having some come back so in the national museum of the marine corps if you will there he is no it is up there good i thought i was gonna have to share it i could for those at home too but so he gave us two pictures This right here is actually in Castine, the assaulting of Dicehead Continental Marines, climbing and pushing back the detachment, 82nd Regiment pickets under command of Lieutenant John Moore, assault on Penobscot, 28th of July, 1779, otherwise known as These Heights, Dicehead, just as a little side note there. So he's already talked to the artist here, Charles Waterhouse and Jeff Trexler about, and this is why it's a pictorial depiction of the 1779 Penobscot expedition. There are these other similar paintings of other places, but they kind of depict the same type of landing that would have happened in Castine. So landing at the cove, landing at Wadsworth Cove, it's actually a landing from New Providence, and then there's of course the assault on Dice Head, then there's the cannonading of entrenched troops, Massachusetts artillery Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere firing at incomplete British fort being constructed, and of course you'll see in the Glorious Cause of Liberty, the Battle of Beaufort, South Carolina, very similar actions. Oops, I don't know why I did that. And then there's also Back to the Ships, the evacuation of Billingsport, similar to when they evacuated Casteen, and then abandoning ship Continental Marines to sail as exiting ships before destroying them is another picture that he also had. They would like to do the giant I don't know what those are like four by six prints and actually don't know donate those to the town for us to put up around perhaps maybe even in this room to actually build up interest and actually depict what went on in 1779 and so I'm bringing that to you because they would like to start doing it they've already got permission from the artists to say hey we want to use your picture from this particular battle but to depict similar actions that took place the Cassidy in Maine exactly what I read so people would see that it actually was from someplace else but it's depicting big one is there. If you really want me to, I will pull this giant one out, Jess. Just because. Oh, that's one. Yeah, all right. So this would be the size of the pictures that would be put out, and there's different ones. This is actually, like I said, from the storming of Dice Head, but the other ones are of the similar nature. They all kind of blend together because they're [1:14:19] Wilson Point Road resident / public commenter: painted all the same way. [1:14:21] Amy Guthoff: You have to show us. [1:14:25] Speaker C (unidentified): So is this something that we would be wanting to accept a gift if they so choose to provide that to us to help build excitement and interest in a commemoration of the Penobscot Expedition? Well, you can do it at our next meeting. I just want him to have an idea because he was really excited that his group You know really went through this and said, you know, these are the pictures of me perfect to the tip what happened [Amy Guthoff: I have] They are not yet. Well, I'm pretty sure they're aware [1:15:17] Amy Guthoff: Derek and Ina, Gabe, and I have been meeting with the different groups of reenactors who are trying to pull together a really good, a really big reenactment for 2029. [Speaker C (unidentified): Including ships.] Ships and troops and cannon. [1:15:40] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, we're all cannon fire, right? [1:15:42] Amy Guthoff: You mean they're going to be running around town shooting each other? [1:15:46] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, they'll probably do some depictions around town, but they may be marching downtown in their red coats or in their kilts or whatever and asking people if they're loyal to King George and stuff like that for a few days. Right. Right. But anyway. Maybe a couple will escape across the British Canal. [1:16:09] Amy Guthoff: Now that was the main actors to want to give us these even if it is to, you know, create excitement over their reenactment, but still, I mean, this is really kind and very gentle and [1:16:26] Speaker C (unidentified): It's on loan, right? It's not, no, they're giving us these to have or whatever. Those two are ours. One will, the smaller one, we're gonna put, not over the winter, but put it up at the lighthouse so that it's part of the new display in there. That was the reason he gave us a smaller one, and then the larger one was, and I was surprised when he pulled that one out, said this would, like you to put it up at town hall, and I said, oh, that's great. He goes, wait, I got more, and then he showed me the other pictures. I've come across some of those pictures before and actually thought the same thing, wow, that looks just like, would be great, you know, of casting. So they actually, or in William, Bill went the extra mile and contacted the artist and said, look, we know this isn't casting, but it depicts a similar scene. Would you mind if we used it? The artist said, no, we'd love it. So it's a good opportunity for us to do it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And then, and then anything else? So we're good to be on that now. [1:17:36] Selectboard member (motion-maker): Okay, well, we want to thank everybody for coming. We appreciate, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate what you have to say, and with that, I will make a motion that we end this work [1:17:50] Amy Guthoff: session. Second. All in favor.