Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[0:15] Matthew LaChance: All right, good evening, welcome to the Hamden Town Council special meeting of September 14, 2026. At this time I'll call this meeting to order and invite you to stand if you're able and join me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
[0:43] Unidentified public commenter: and justice for all. At
[0:51] Matthew LaChance: this time I will accept a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. If there are no corrections, adjustments, or questions. Councilor Jarvi.
New Business
[1:06] John Swalec: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move amending the agenda to include two items, HB and HC, under new business. HB will be council authorization for the purchase of a 2027 Polaris Ranger. HC will be council authorization for a reserve run request, reserve request from streets and roads for that purchase of that equipment and then the addition of executive session pursuant to win MRSA 4066E to include our attorney piece and the town manager.
[1:45] Matthew LaChance: Okay. We have a second on that motion? I second that amendment. Okay. All right. Great. Roll call vote, John. Approve. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Amended motion. With the approval of the agenda, I will accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Is there any councilor who wishes to pull an item from the consent agenda for further discussion? I don't think there is in anything, is there? There. Okay, roll call vote, John. I motion passes 7-0. Next item on tonight's agenda for the special meeting is public comment. This portion of the meeting is designated for members of the public who wish to address counsel regarding matters that are not included in tonight's special meeting agenda. Is there anybody here from the public that wishes to address council? Seeing none. Nobody at home. Having nothing listed under news, presentations, awards, public hearings, or nominations, appointments, elections, or committee reports, we'll move straight into new business. First item of new business tonight is council authorization for staff to proceed with obtaining easements in order to build an access road to the northwest side of the Manning Mill Road. This was referred from the September 8th, 2026 council meeting. So moved. Would you like to open it to public comment? Anybody from the public wish to? Yes, if you'd like to step up to the podium. I've got to have you on the, for public record reasons. If you can press on the, yep.
[4:04] Unidentified public commenter: There, thank you so much. All right, I just wanted to say that I did receive something on my doorknob on Friday in regards to this access road, and I looked at the September 8th meeting and I didn't see anything in it. You're referring back to the September 8th meeting? I didn't see anything about this access road in the meeting. I was just curious that
[4:26] Mark Cormier: was discussed during executive session, but no votes can be taken during executive session, and that's why we needed to call the special meeting tonight. Okay, I just was curious. Yes, no, I refer to and I thought, okay,
[4:38] Unidentified public commenter: I'll find some information and to get a, you know, a message on my doorknob or type message on my doorknob just saying I can't drive over your driveway of, you know, you can't drive down the bridge unless you are under three times with no explanation, and I had no idea what was happening, so I just thought that was, it's a shock. My comment for now, I have more.
[5:03] Matthew LaChance: Thank you. Any other public comment in regards to this agenda item? Yes, if you would like to step right up. Yes, yeah, if can you just press the button on the note down on the very front. Thank you. So I just want to start out by
[5:31] Unidentified public commenter: saying that I don't know who was on this council back three or four years ago, but I feel like I'm repeating myself to you guys, but were all of you on the council back in 2021 or 22? They did, they did, but I just want to go over that. We had put in for a building permit, and we had lived in our homes since 2004, registered our cars there, put the kids through school there, paid our taxes, you know, did everything we needed to do, and we had put in for a building permit, and instead of getting a building permit, we got a certified letter telling us we had to leave our property in 30 days, or we were going to be evicted by the police, and needless to say, you know, we pretty much had a heart attack that night, and we found out that even though we had been living there our home was a classified as commercial property, so we hired a lawyer and we thought we had to pay all of the money and come to find out the whole area of our street was zoned commercial, so we paid all the money for everything. We fought it, I think it took us about a year, and we fought so hard to keep our house, and now four years later nobody told us then before we spent over $400,000, nobody told us then before we took our deck from out back and Moved everything out front where it would be private, that four years later you guys were just going to come destroy our property. And I don't understand, because I have been inundated with face of messages and people reaching out to me saying the town knew that this bridge has been a problem for a long time. And what I don't understand is, I know it cost more money, but, and I'm not saying you guys, you weren't there, but they tried to, or that our town tried to destroy us, you know, three or four years ago, and now I feel like it's all over again, and you have another option. I will I will add that after we got to this level, that people were very reasonable and understand and said, you're right, and you guys took good care of us. It's just before we got to the people who could make the decision, it's a tough job for everybody in the town. And you don't know what Ryan put us through. I mean, it was horrible. But anyways. We had a good end result. We did. We did. But anyways, what we don't understand is why we can't just give you a temporary access for the two years or whatever, and you do the right thing and you put the bridge in, because you know, and I've invited all of you to my property, and Tim and Paula came out, John has come out, and Amy's come out. It is like my property, because of the highway, is set up for entertaining. In my front yard, my pool is in the front, my patio is in the front, everything we do is in our front yard, so that we're not on the highway, and literally, you guys, every car, every truck, is going to be going through our front yard. Our property is about 2,200 feet long, but the mean width between the interstate is probably 300 feet. So by the time you guys take 60 feet right away, you're going to split us in half. So it would be one thing if we were 1,000 by 1,000, but we're like 500 down to 2,200 hundred feet, so it's a very small sliver, and works out good for you guys, because you know, half a mile road, we got a quarter of it, so we don't mind sharing it, but we don't want to give it up. Well, and it's not just that, everybody, you know, has an advantage except for us. The people that live on the road will now have a tarp road. The dice arts will be able to sell their property, other people will be able to sell property and make money. The town will benefit from the people that buy the properties, because they're going to get more taxes, and they won't have to spend five or ten million dollars on a bridge let me and just add something i'm sorry okay so one of the things that we talked about when we were here initially for the for the zoning changes back in the early 60s the town thought oh this is a good area to have economic development and I think they were talking about maybe a business park or something like that but as the years go by lots that argument was how are you going to have an industrial park because there's all residents residences on this road the road is posted past the dump so nobody can access that all the lots that are available all landlocked so nobody could build on them anyway and that's why we said it doesn't make any sense and overwhelmingly you guys agreed that was the case so we just don't want to give up half of our property and you know split it in half and well you guys have known that this might be a possibility i mean little things like we spent forty five thousand dollars on a driveway that you guys are going to come in and rip up so if we had known about this two years ago or three years ago we wouldn't have spent forty five thousand dollars on a driveway i mean like i'm shaking thinking about the fact that you're gonna have because it's not up to the standards of a road so it needs to go bye-byes so now the roads just wave goodbye to more money to the town you know i just had a landscape architect for 2290 well that money is gonna just out the window because I'm gonna have a road through my house and I just I don't understand why again I know it's more money but geez I mean I have never complained about my taxes to anybody but we're all paying huge amounts of well maybe to you but it's only when we pay it, but I understand taxes. I want good roads. I want good schools. I want good stuff. I get it. I'm not complaining about it that way, but I'm saying we're spending all this money and we're paying more money on taxes, but yet we can't afford to do a bridge. We just want to, pardon my language, but like screw us over again. And that's- I'd like to ask, I'm sorry, I just wanted to ask, explain to them, for those of the people who have not been here, they don't understand what's going to happen. So, our lot is very thin. Right, well, that's what I'm thinking. That's why I've invited them to come and see. Well, they may not be able to. So, my point I was trying to make was that if you put a road all the way through our property, we have lost all our privacy. The real estate agents that we've talked to said we're going to take a $300,000 hit on the value of our property. So when you're sitting at your pool and we've got people waving as they drive by, now we have no privacy. If we wanted to live on a postage stamp lot, we'd go and live in town. Have but we bought an 11 acre lot on the highway, not the best situation, but it has a pond and we've set up, you know, a pool and all this other stuff, and now we're going to have people driving by our house. So again, you know, we're, we're looking at all the things that we have done to make this house better for our 10-year plan, which is to live. He's 70, you know, we figured when he's 80 he's not going to be able to mow all that big lawn and that will want something smaller, but now for it's going to be taken away. And the other thing that we're having a hard time with is we've talked to some people about bridges and I'm being told that there are bridges in our state that are bigger bridges than this that did not cost five to ten million. So what I'm asking is, where are we getting that price from? Can I see an estimate that shows five to ten million, or is that just a number we're picking out of the sky? Does anybody know? And while you're pondering that, I think one of the things that we said in an earlier meeting with the town was the fact that we are civic minded. We understand that the people on that road are in serious trouble and if they need help it's going to be very dangerous. So we're very willing to bring the bulldozers, cut the trees down, make a temporary road in there. It's okay, we understand. We don't want to be the people that say, well, Joe died because they couldn't get to him, right? You know, that's our biggest concern. We're very willing to work with everybody, but we'd like to be returned to where we started in whole in at some point and not have to sacrifice and suffer because there's not an alternative at the moment. And you know, the other thing that we're concerned About is if we get enough money, then if we sell it, at least we'll recoup. Because I don't know whether I'll want to stay there, you know. I just, right now it's the end of the season, the pool's getting closed down. Got my long pants on, I'm not going to be out there in my bathing suit with all the contractors going by. And like John said, you know, it's going to be, you know, it's not going to just be a couple days, it's going to be a long time of all these trucks going in and out to finish the road and Then how many houses are going to go in? Right now it's six, but nobody's been able to tell me how many properties could go in. And as Dice Arts going to build a condo or an apartment, am I going to have 50 people going up and down my road? And these are the real concerns, because when it was brought to our attention, it was about six people. It's not six people, there's a lot of land back there. And what scares me is it's obviously to your advantage or the town's advantage to get as much money, but at What expense? And I just feel like we already did this once with you guys and nobody told us. So I would welcome anybody to come to our home, we would like to be there and you can to see firsthand what it's going to be like for me when I'm with my grandkids at the pool next year, because I won't be, I won't be. And that's what I live for. We 've, we live in Florida in the winter and we come home and our son is here and he drops the girls off to our house every morning and they go to camp sometimes and Other times we stay with them, but I live for the summer at that house. And you know, we're four doors down from them and it's just, it's really Upsetting. Mirror our sentiments about how they feel about their house and how the fact that it has limited access made it appealing to them when they bought it Or lived it. Oh, and we also have a warehouse that we use, a big huge garage Raj, we never lock it. We've never had a problem. He goes out there and works it all the time. And now that's going to be like 20 feet from the road. And, you know, we take our camper in and out of there, his camper, our boats. We have a lot of stuff in there. Now we're going to have to go get gates and fences and everything to secure that. You know, you can get cameras, but cameras are only so good. You know, people can wear stuff that you can't see or come at night. And we're not willing with the amount of things that we have in there to do that. So we got estimates today for fencing in our yard and mayor and it's over $40,000. I would have rather spent that than the driveway. So I don't think
[18:25] Matthew LaChance: So not at this time. I thank you very much for coming in. Appreciate your email also. So thank you. Any other? I
[18:44] Unidentified public commenter: Think this is already on. Yes, Linda battle for it. Since individuals weren't here that last are there on the update that they mentioned because it was an executive meeting from the eighth. Well they be going, will you guys be going over the information about that meeting as far as maybe what this design for me the access road or what you plan to do because no one really knows anything right now. There's no information. And there was some discussion in one of the previous meetings here about a road that initially went into that location at one time, and I was just wondering if there's any structure left there. I don't know exactly where it came in, but if there was a road bed at one time, there may be some structure there. If not, or possibly buildings have been built on it since then, But if that might be a shorter distance to get into that piece of property or to the Manning Mill Road I don't know. I'm not familiar with it, but I didn't know if maybe that was consideration to if anybody talked about that. Oh, and if they do discuss it tonight, I'd like to get more information about what they're planning or Maybe how long it's going to take or maybe your expectations. I know that there's easements and all that but and then the other thing was if there's another if they talked about maybe the old location but possibly using it or investigating it and if this access road eventually it might be being planned to be paved or not. I don't know how far you'll go with it. If you could give some information I'd very much
[20:26] Matthew LaChance: Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you Linda. Any other public comment regarding this agenda item? If you just press the button thank you. I may have other
[20:44] Unidentified public commenter: Comments but I have two questions. The first is for I believe they're 55 Could be 50. Tell us your name and address if that's appropriate. Did other Have other people done that? One did, one didn't. Okay, my name is Jessica and I live on Manning Mill Road. So for 55 Manning Mill, that's the only place the school bus can turn around. The school bus can't go on the bridge now. So they have an agreement with the homeowners, and I don't have a paved driveway because I looked at the cost when I bought the house in 2004, and it was too much then, so it's probably way too much now for me. But I'm just wondering, do we have a long-term commitment? From the people that live at 55, because it's a new house, it's a nice new driveway, do we know how long they're going to be happy with the school bus turning around? Because the school bus would come, you know, twice in the morning and then twice at night, so in the afternoon, so do we know from those homeowners if they're willing to allow that ongoing? Because that would be question, and I had another question and I forget, so but I'm sure I'll think of it, I'll come back.
[22:05] Matthew LaChance: Thank you, thank you, Ellie Al.
[22:24] Unidentified public commenter: Valcoy, the reason that the bridge is shut down was because of the, they could move the excess weight across the bridge, am I correct, right. The excess weight. Yeah. Excuse me. I'm having some issues. Now, what happens if you do put a road in there and mud season. Mud season. We live in a dirt road. Mud season to get these trucks in there with oil yeah any fuel trucks any fire trucks or anything else but safety mud season is a harsh time winter time who's going to keep it plowed open who's going to keep it that road maintained and is that all taken into a into account for it all but believe me we know what mud season is around our place and we had some we've had issues in the past and it goes up to it's an old discontinued road and it has a good base but I just want to bring that up thank You, thanks Al and. That's the snow plows for between, so we might get an access road maybe by the end of the year, but what do we do for snow plows leading up on Manningville Road, so, and that would in terms of like the fire department's an EMS plan, the snowplow would be critical from the bridge to the end, so yeah, so that's just.
[24:33] Matthew LaChance: Yes, thank you, any other public comment, so.
[24:45] Unidentified public commenter: I'm wondering if you're going to answer their questions or whether this is it, if I don't speak now, you know, they want to know what the plans are. I know what the plans are because I came this morning, but people are sitting here and they should know the background that I know.
[25:00] Matthew LaChance: From this morning, yeah, I wasn't here this morning, so I don't know what the plans to some of these questions are. I know they're all valid questions and they are points of consideration when making a plan. Is anybody going to answer those questions tonight? We're in
[25:17] Unidentified public commenter: public comments right now, right? We haven't gotten to that part of the agenda. I just think that they need to know all the details to be able to give you some public comments. Will there be an opportunity later? I want to say something, but I don't know if this is my last opportunity to bring this up.
[25:37] Matthew LaChance: Well, there's three agenda items tonight, all to somewhat in regards to Manning Mill Road and the future plans of it. This particular agenda item is in reference just to obtaining the easements. Right now we're just talking about directing staff to obtain easements. Paula, I think that to
[26:06] Mark Cormier: Councillor Swalik's point, typically questions are not answered under public comment. It just wanted to make sure I had an opportunity after. It is just an opportunity for the council to hear from the public, but I also think that with council, I don't know if you would call it suspension of the rules or that sort of thing, that I would be willing to try to answer some of the questions based upon the meeting that we did have today, which may help enlighten the public as well as the council that was not in attendance. So I think I'm kind of asking for a nod or go ahead or something, Mr.
[26:53] John Swalec: Chairman. I think when we get to the point of council discussion, we typically ask for staff input at that time as well, so that's certainly not anything outside how we would normally conduct business. I think what the public has to understand is that we are in a very awkward situation because quite frankly, we received a mandate from the state with very short notice to be proactive and how we address that, and I do understand this is that, and this is the first item of many things that have to happen and many things that we yet to have to fall into place, so we have a full package to discuss with the public and disseminate to them. But as was alluded to right now, that the most immediate piece of business that had to be dealt with was the easement issue so that potentially this access road could
[27:47] Unidentified public commenter: Be built. Certainly I am affected, my husband I are affected, we live at 141 Manning Mill and so I just want to know if I have a chance and all I would want to know is if you're going to keep it open so we could discuss it later. So that's fine with me as long as I got a chance to say something later after you.
[28:05] John Swalec: Share I think if you were to review our council rules of procedure the public always has an opportunity to discuss any new business item. The public also has an opportunity to request that agenda items be put on our council agenda. I'm just trying to help you out and help you understand that there is a mechanism that if the public thinks something needs to be discussed at council as an agenda item the public can in fact ask if that be put on the agenda as well. So we try to make every opportunity. To make a transparent process as we conduct our business.
[28:48] Unidentified public commenter: So I will be able to speak later. Yes I. Live on Manning Mill Road and I just wanted to just I guess kind of add to your comment. I know that you guys are under a difficult position. The people that are living on Manning Mill Road and the people that are looking at easements are also having a difficult time, and we're in a difficult position too. And I would like to, on record, make it clear that the council, whether members have come and gone and been here or not been here, the council has been well aware of the bridge being a problem and I've heard 2018 I got actively involved with talking with the town in 2023 so I just want to make it clear I know that maybe some of the newest stuff the new posting of the bridge is new but it most of us have seen it coming and if you can get under the bridge and you can see the rusted metal I'm not. A bridge person I'm not a construction person but it's it's pretty clear that the bridge is aging and it's aging really fast. We've been watching it and it's been since 2018 so I just want to make sure that we all understand that this is not new. Thank.
[30:17] Matthew LaChance: You any other public comment we're going to council comments or council comments simply.
[30:33] Eric Jarvi: Ask looking at the town manager and council for an overview to start with of where things are before we start moving this conversation in 19 different directions so that's appropriate that's my request agreed.
[30:52] Mark Cormier: So this did come as a urgent matter to us in a matter of a couple of weeks and once that took place we sprung into action with regard to looking at all of our responses whether it's plowing i have a point of order.
[31:15] Unidentified public commenter: It sounds like we're just continuing right out of public comments into a discussion of these issues, which of course is all the reason for this special meeting. But should we be just following the agenda, doing the policy agenda, the committee reports on finished business, which is we did that, we did. Yet we're in, okay, new business. H yeah, okay, so we're in new business. Yep, all
[31:45] Mark Cormier: right, excuse me, that's fine. So I guess this is sort of lead up to that new business item, which at the time that the agenda was created last Thursday, that was the only information that we had available to us to put on an agenda for the council to consider. Since then we have more information, which was the inclusion of asking authorization to purchase the side-by-side ranger in order for EMS to be able to respond on the other side of Manning Mill Bridge, and it is equipped with peripherals that will enable them to do medical response. We have a plan in place for the plowing operations. The sewer department is in need of a side-by-side, and that was going to be an item for goals and objectives in 2027. We have funds in our current budget that John and I talked about that we could utilize so that the sewer department could purchase the side-by-side, which would be equipped with a plow, and they would be able to handle the, it's not ideal and it will take a long time, but they would be able to get across the bridge and take care of snow removal. He also has a means of hooking, putting a sanding unit on there to take care of sanding. So we are trying to respond to both emergency services as well as the plowing operations on the other side of the bridge. We have spoken to the property owner who owns property right immediately before you cross the Manning Mill Bridge, who has indicated to us that he was wanting to sell a piece of his property, and he's willing to talk to us about selling a portion of his property in order for us to possibly put in a turnaround, which would not only assist with the mail delivery, which as I understand today, I spoke with the Postal Service today, and they are going to be suspending your mail delivery until such time as we can supply a, and this is news to everyone here, this just happened, until such time as we can supply either a mailbox unit or six individual mailboxes. We're not sure yet. He has to get, how there, they call it their asset management team Once it done, we're also talking about putting up a structure on that piece of property that we may purchase where we would house the side-by-side so that they would already be there in the event of a snow event or an emergency event. They would be in this covered structure. These are just some of the considerations that we've been talking about, like within the last day, and I hope you understand that there's a lot of moving parts to all of this, and we're trying to respond in the best way that we can. With regard to other access points, we are looking at other access points possibly with other property owners and not just the roads. We have not been able to make contact with everyone yet, and that is in the works. We don't have everything set in stone yet. We, and to Albie's point, we did discuss that Old Paper Mill Road today, and I think maybe Jason was going to go out and take a look and see if there was any form of access on that, on that old road at this point in time. So I 'm trying to remember all of the questions, but I know there were questions about fire suppression, questions about plowing, questions about other access. With regard to the school bus, that is a decision of the RSU that has nothing to do with the town. Even though I have been in contact with the superintendent, and the address that he gave me was the address that you recited, so I can only assume that he vetted it with the property owner, that they are fine with the bus turning around there, and I'm going to go with that, and I don't know if there are any other questions that I've missed or any other things that maybe you think, after today's meeting, that we should touch on.
[36:48] Walter Jakubas: I was just wondering whether it would help if there was a map or a proposed route. Are we still too far away from that?
[37:03] Speaker M (unidentified): Tim Peay is the town attorney, and when I started talking with Paula about it, sounded like that there may have been a preferred route already in place, but we had some meetings this morning with several people that are here today and some who are not, and we talked about, really, there's two buckets of things going on. One is the operational stuff, how do you deal with the weight limit, and read some public comments about that, and then the other issue is the long term access issue, and I think when we take a look at the map and hear the concerns of people, and I think there are a number of different solutions, and that's really what I want to make sure I talk to the council about. I don't think there's one obvious one. I don't
[37:55] Eric Jarvi: Want to go too far afield and speak for anyone else up here, but I think it's safe to say to all of you that this is something. Let me back up for a second. I served two terms on this council back 12 years ago till eight years ago, somewhere in that range, and I, and I only say that because I know there were times in hindsight, a year later, where I might have said something differently or reached a different conclusion. I don't think we're going to make any progress, and I don't think anyone is strongly suggesting this, but I want to be careful when we're talking about what our previous counsel should have done or when a bridge should have been addressed. Those arguments are valid and can be made, but they're not helping a situation right now. What we tasked staff to do within the last week is to confront, unexpectedly, what we felt was an emergent situation for people living precariously, maybe, who had a series of issues ranging from childcare to school to snow plowing to fuel and everything like that landed all at once like the town manager just said. I don't think there's going to be one answer that's going to be perfect for everybody. It's not my expectation, but I know as I sit here that the people on this council and the people representing the town who are hired staff are really earnestly trying to be transparent as much as possible before they go someplace that hasn't been vetted yet or verified with the parties who need to do so. I just hope that people have faith that while it may be imperfect, we really are trying to do the best thing we can to look at both the immediate need and down the road. And if you can do that, if you can bear with the town a little bit on this, it'll be greatly appreciated. That's not to say people shouldn't feel upset right now, shouldn't feel blindsided. What the hell is this? What are you doing? I get that. I think we all do, but we're gonna have to go forward through this together, and I think we can. Would
[40:19] Matthew LaChance: you mind, would you mind stepping up to make
[40:22] Unidentified public commenter: sure that your comment is, I was part of the meeting this morning with the town staff, and there is a proposed route, and someone here said you don't even know, they'd like to see it. I have a picture of it if you'd like to see it. I think you probably made copies this morning that you distributed, so there is something if you want to, we
[40:56] Mark Cormier: also have a large printout of what you have on your phone okay I was running late to get into tonight's meeting so I do have a copy of that here and John could I would
[41:46] Matthew LaChance: just like to add that I appreciate your comments, come some herbal, but well said. I
[42:21] Unidentified public commenter: do, yes, I have
[43:43] Matthew LaChance: a question for John, if you wouldn't mind stepping up to the podium. I believe I remember from back in May or June when we were talking about this that in order to do the work on the bridge, we're going to have to get equipment to the other side of the bridge.
[44:05] Unidentified speaker (town engineer/staff): There's a few problems now with what has changed with the state's ruling of the bridge. The original design that we worked with TY Lynn was a simple deck replacement, which means we were going to leave the superstructure, the steel under the bridge in place, reutilize the abutments, and put a new concrete deck on it. That will get you the compression forces you need to reinstate what we were hoping for to get it back to a 30-ton bridge, an unposted bridge. With this new ruling, with the new superstructure, the difficult challenge is that any professional engineer that is going to design this won't want or will not stamp the abutments that are currently in place for the bridge. So the abutments that are there are more or less a foot of concrete poured over a millstone. So back from Manning Mill, there used to be an old mill down in there back in the day that they had, I don't know what it used to look like, but it was basically an outcrop of rocks that they poured concrete on. And that's what is supporting the bridge now. And so for them to design a bridge, they need to know and have verified load ratings through whether it be a micropile or you know concrete cast on the ledge or in you know a solid foundation with what they have there now that they don't know, right, it's just hearsay. So they will want to have all of the abutments demolished or put new micro piles on either side past the past these abutments, right, and so to get a micro pile installed as a large track vehicle similar to what you see on the Hogan Road interchange in Bangor, those big blue towers, right? Those are the kinds of machines that install combination micropiles. So obviously you wouldn't be able to get that across the bridge to do the work on the far side. And on top of that, we're working with a road that's only three rods. So this is an old road, so rod is 60 and a half feet wide. So the old town roads were three rods, or roughly 49 and a half feet wide, and that's what the town owns, right? So for any sort of crane or construction equipment or concrete mixture to work and a 49 foot on a slope at the end of a dead-end road, it's very challenging, right? And especially if you cannot get the equipment to the other side that you need to do so. That is to answer the question of the cost factor. We don't have a solid cost number. That's simply, that was a ballpark number I threw out. I used to do heavy commercial construction for Chimbrough, and I'm relatively familiar with this kind of work, and I can tell you the difficulty that any contractor that would face here is exponential. And then on top of that, you're going to have state agencies that dictate in water work that is only allowed to be done basically from the middle of the summer to the beginning of the fall. So now you have an accelerated short window schedule to get this in water work performed. So those are really the difficulties that come into trying to replace this bridge. And as I stressed council in the executive session, you leave cost out of the equation and the difficulty out of the equation, the most important issue here is time. And so the time to be able to get a bridge design funded, we would have to go to public vote for another bond, we would have to get the DEP permitting, that you're looking at probably a three-year process before work could even begin. And so to try to be operating on emergency measures like we are setting up currently with public safety and myself is, it's not very feasible to do for this long of a time frame, and especially for the people that are living across the bridge. And so really that was why it was encouraged for council to consider a, an alternative access. And looking down the road for taxpayers, it may cost a million dollars to build a road, but you're not either rebuilding a bridge or painting a bridge or doing the maintenance on a bridge every 10, 20 and 30 years like you would need to do in today's world to maintain these bridges so that they don't get to this state. So really you more or less invest that cost once and we pave it every 10 years and we maintain it like any other town road and that was a lot of the reasons why we were persuasive
[47:57] Walter Jakubas: towards this rail mr chairman thank you john yes wally question for john okay no john have you looked at any other possible locations let's say if you're going to try to move from the existing bridge site to someplace else that might be more suitable is there any other place that would be more suitable to put a bridge?
[48:18] Unidentified speaker (town engineer/staff): For a new stream crossing? Yeah. We have not even evaluated that option. Okay, thank you. If you go any to the west and the residents know there, you get a lot, there's like a natural stone dam formation that creates a larger bit of the stream and it's a lot deeper. And as you go more to the east, I believe that gets even more ravine as a pretty big ravine right in through there as the elevation changes, and so really that difficulty from there to the Paper Mill Road doesn't, I'm sorry, to the Emerson Mill Road does not change greatly in nature, and then you're talking about a lot more easement deeding and then still you're back at trying to build a bridge and design a bridge. Thank you, Counselor Jeremy.
[49:03] John Swalec: Mr. Chairman, I remind Council that we in fact are still expecting reports from the state, but they're not coming till the end of the month, and it's the state's position about multiple options, and that was one of our concerns as Council felt we could not wait until the end of this month to receive the options from the state, that we in fact needed to act more quickly and in this matter because of the weight restriction, so I do think even our state is going to come back to us with some options. Because that was the original plan. Right. Yeah, thank you.
[49:43] Walter Jakubas: Right. Wally? A question for Paul. Have we reached out to the state, either DOT or Department of Environmental Protection yet to ask for their help or expertise T's or either engineering help or siding on wetlands and trying to avoid some of these problems? Well,
[50:13] Mark Cormier: we're working with an engineer, we had been working with an engineer ever since we did the phase one, which was the scour revetment portion, right, and DOT is the ones that did the inspection and sent us the report, so I'm not going beyond the people that we're dealing with and have been dealing with. And we have not, we're not at the point yet where we would reach out to DEP.
[50:45] Walter Jakubas: Yeah, I guess the reason I brought that up is I may have pointed out before in discussions that in emergency situations like this, you know, the state does have provisions for the commissioners to, you know, to grant help, you know, to two towns to do, you know, to help out with these emergency things, including engineering help, construction help, and so forth. And it would be my hope that we would try to use these organizations, not look at them as obstacles, but rather as partners in trying to solve this emergency situation and not get our, especially with the Department of Environmental Protection, if there's any, you know, significant wetland issues, and I have no idea whether there is or not, but that those could be identified so we could have bought, could avoid possibly high fines or a mandatory rebuilding of the road. Thank
[51:52] Matthew LaChance: you. Any other council comments or questions? Typically was it in regards to this? Yes. Okay, I just want
[52:13] Unidentified public commenter: to just say that I may have started off by you thinking that I'm criticizing the town council or Paula or whoever else has been working so hard on this, and I just wanted to say that I came to this meeting this morning, it was really well done, and I can see that everyone has jumped on board to try and fix this situation for, especially those of us who live on Manning Mill Road, on the other side of the bridge, and I really appreciate everything that everybody's done, because I heard everything you know, some people haven't been sleeping trying to figure out how to keep us safe, you know, how to make sure that if we have a fire, what do we do? So please don't think that I'm criticizing the council when I say I was shocked to get this. I was shocked. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing you for that. We're all in shock. Yes, we're all in shock. Yes. So I just want you to know that I really appreciate everything that everybody's done so far. However, if you looked at the map, which isn't up anymore, that access road goes right to our property. Now we live at 141 Manning Mill Road. We moved to, we moved to this area in 2018. We bought the property of our desire for the rest of our life. We wanted to retire. We live on a dead end road, a dirt road that the town does not have any access to in terms of, you know, paving or anything like that. We've made some significant improvements on our property. We love it, and it's going to change, because if you put a road in there, we're going to get all the traffic. Go Right by our house every single day, so we're not happy with that plan of that particular road going by our house, dumping right in front of our driveway. So that's my comment. I'm hoping we can come to some maybe alternative plans. Just as the roads are hoping that there's some alternative plan not being so close to their property, I don't know what that would be, but I know you're all striving to please as many people as you can, but obviously you won't be able to please everyone, but appreciate all the effort. Thank you. Thank you
[54:15] Matthew LaChance: very much for that comment. Yep, so
[54:28] Unidentified public commenter: if the council would agree to using it temporarily until you can do a bridge, I mean, we would give you permission ASAP. You wouldn't have to worry about snow plows and trying to get people out of there in blizzards and everything else. It's only September. I mean, we are on board to do that until you can put a bridge in, which would make us happy, the people on Man Hill. I know it would cost more money, but it would also be the quickest thing because we keep hearing about fires and people getting hurt and everything, so we could eliminate a lot of things if we did that. So like I said, we are 100 on board for temporary. And what is temporary
[55:14] Matthew LaChance: in your mind? Three to three to three to five years, six years? I mean, I wouldn't want more than
[55:19] Unidentified public commenter: three. We would have to have a conversation, but at least I would know that before we sell our property, that we will, you know, will be made whole, and I could find a way, you know. I got to sleep at night too, you know. Somebody dies on that road because we're being, I don't want to say jerks, but we're being selfish because we love our property, I would not forgive myself, you know. If I have to put something temporary up or we have to figure something out, we can work with you. I mean, my feeling is you have other options, and I don't think there is a person that is at home or here, except for, you know, people that work here, that would like to see anything other than just fixing the bridge and giving everybody on Manhill their privacy and giving us our privacy. And you know, you can use our driveway as long as you put it back to the way it was, and you know, I don't care about my field. Go through the field if that's what you need to do. You don't even have to put that back. It's less grass for him to mow, so That would save you money right there, but I know that John said that they would like to start in three or four weeks if we can come to an agreement. I don't have a problem with that. We're going to Florida, just, you know, we'll figure something out in the summer. It's a couple years, I can live with that. Thank you very much, appreciate that, John. Just as a point of clarification, is this just the public talking at this point in terms of this discussion, or can we ask questions right now? We're in the
[57:08] Matthew LaChance: the councilor comments and discussion portion of the agenda under new
[57:13] Unidentified public commenter: business. So, John, do we have any numbers that we're using to look at some of these options? I keep hearing folks say that there are alternatives, there must be alternatives, we have other ways of doing this, and I'm looking at this map app and I'm trying to figure out what those other ways are. And boy, I can see the Sabbath desk cook wines all the way around it. It's on two sides of this long oblong and in another location, you know, then you have 95. On the other side, there's only so many ways of getting in here. And I'm assuming that crossing the Sabbath desk book is going to take money at one location just as much at another. Maybe it's more costly trying to use these old mill pilings or whatever, however you describe them, but rather than starting out new, but is there a way to put a road in not as close to 95, but closer to the Sabadaskook, or is that your vote just because of the environmental concerns and the proximity to water.
[58:34] Matthew LaChance: Well, I think at this point, we're waiting for it to get surveyed. Well, we could see what the lay of the land is.
[58:39] Unidentified public commenter: But some of this is just location. And, you know, I'm sure all the people, we've had all these discussions about trying to save the Savadascook and all this stuff. I'm sure no one is excited about us putting a road right down the length of the stream. you know so what and you know you'd have to clear out forest you know there's some this way too but I think I've said enough good tell us what you're thinking
[59:15] Unidentified speaker (town engineer/staff): Or how you got to staff first looked at the access, you know, we obviously look at the number of landowners we need to cross to get from point A to point B. We look at the acreage, the homeowners, the site distance on the road where we're going to be coming out, right? You have a incline slope from the hill all the way to the top of the hill there that you'd be trying to end the road on a incline. And so once we got the direction from the large landowner that's landlocked that they're more than willing to work with whatever shape the road would need to go through there, we started looking and it's kind of how we landed on the roads property who had reached out previously when they caught wind of this. And we knew that they, it sounded like they were somewhat receptive, so we started with them because they directly about a parcel that we knew we were already good to go through. And based on the topography maps we looked at and just some knowledge of that land, we thought that was a pretty valid route to spend energy and time trying to make. This is higher land compared to
[1:00:22] Unidentified public commenter: some of the stuff, it's yep, so next to both north and south, so through the
[1:00:29] Unidentified speaker (town engineer/staff): field across, you only change 10 to 15 feet elevation per the topography master there. Of course you get to the South could all start sloping downhill, and this parcel here that isn't touched, that we, the YMCA, might own, is a shoreland zone. So in those shoreland zones, you're very restrictive on what you can cut and the flood risk and things of that nature.
[1:00:56] Unidentified public commenter: If we attempted to do that and didn't get an environmental statement, we're going to get hauled into court immediately by the state, is that correct? Correct, that's if you get into the shoreline, so yes, that's a question for our attorney. There are things we can do that would be frowned upon, correct, it's
[1:01:14] Speaker M (unidentified): more than that, yeah, there's, I think there's a lot of
[1:01:18] Matthew LaChance: risks that we would have to. John, I think this is all stuff that might come several steps down the road. I think we need to let staff do what they need to do for their next six or seven steps before we micromanage staff too much, but
[1:01:36] Unidentified public commenter: just spitballing this, you know, I heard this phrase other alternatives, other alternatives, other alternatives, but I haven't heard another alternative explicitly enunciated yet, and that's what I'm trying to get to. If there's some one or two other obvious alternatives, I'd love to hear. Paula might be able to, so
[1:02:01] Mark Cormier: With regard to, I think I said alternative access, so there is another property owner off of Manning Mill, I mean Emerson Mill, that would possibly be an option. The problem is there's another large landowner whose property we would still have to go through, and we even if we were to use the preferred access through the roads property, there's a great possibility that the same landowner we would have to still access a part of that property, and I think John could point that out to you on the map.
[1:02:45] Unidentified speaker (town engineer/staff): Per our GIS, this vertical here on the end of the survey that the road. So for a town road, we built the town road standards. We looked for 66 foot right-of-way to put a 24-foot road in. So, again, that would be more or less a small. Liz Zott property. Liz Zott. Paula was referring, there may be somebody else on Emerson Mill that would let us go in, but we would have to directly cut through the middle of the Lizotte property to make it across to the Dyson's property for a buildable lot. So if you take that away to put a town road in, they're gaining more road frontage from the town road that would be installed. John?
[1:04:01] Walter Jakubas: Is it correct to assume that you know if you were to say wiggle the road around some of these properties, you know, where people have objections, like maybe even extend the Manning Mill Road so we wouldn't have to be close to the one house and made the connection someplace else, that we might be able to solve these problems, or my, you know, is that just wishful thinking on my part? I think
[1:04:32] Unidentified speaker (town engineer/staff): there are a lot of things that can be done through the shape of the road, through planning's along the sides of the road, fences could come into play, but unfortunately the roads have a valid argument. They have a very skinny lot and it will write road relatively close to their house that seems particularly
[1:04:49] Walter Jakubas: problematic. Correct. Mm-hmm. Thank
[1:04:55] Speaker M (unidentified): you sure fight if I could address, there was a question over here about the alternatives, and I maybe I can shed a little bit of light on that. I attended the meeting this morning and have some additional comfort about the short-term operational issues, and I think you've got a fantastic staff and a good plan to address them. The, I think the question is how long can those be maintained. I think there's still some testing that's going on tomorrow, hose pressure tests and so forth, but when creative People put their minds to it, I think they can put some solutions in place. And on the issue of solutions, if you think back to the 395 extension for example, that took a long time. And if we had time, what we would do is we'd hire an engineering firm and say come up with solutions. But those are things that the town would need to consider. Do you want a new bridge or not? Do you want a temporary road so you can build a new bridge or not? If you want something that's a larger road, where's the best place to put it? Are landowners willing to work with you or are they not willing to work with you? Those are all factors that an engineering firm would be able to help shed light on. And then normally you would come up with three or four different preferred solutions, you'd have a public hearing on it, and there would be more discussion. What I don't know yet and want to have a discussion with you privately is what is, what is the ability of the 101a from Paula as well, ability of the town to hold out so we can put a framework in place and how much can we dig into these alternative solutions so you have those choices. And that's a discussion that I want to have later tonight. Right, okay.
[1:06:45] Walter Jakubas: So it, I'm sorry, one other question for staff. All right, yeah. If I understand right, you know, maybe explain to the public that the council's learning many of these options just at the same time that you are. That right now we're planning on extending a fire hose, is your microphone on Wally? Yes it is, I'm sorry. Right now we're planning on extending a fire hose across the bridge. And I'm just wondering how well that would work in the winter time.
[1:07:23] Unidentified speaker (public safety/fire staff): That is part of the plan. So we kind of approached this in our meeting this morning, hopefully that was helpful. We tried to lay out the best we can what our response would be both for EMS and fire. Obviously our department runs far more EMS calls than we do fire calls, but the degree of risk is much higher for fire calls. So our plan from a fire department standpoint, and it was referenced about some of our testing. I have a meeting, I thought in full transparency from a leadership standpoint, I have called a meeting with my fire officers tomorrow morning to discuss this further. And we are also going to go out and we are going to put hose on the ground and we are going to test what our thought process is on how we would deploy it in a real life situation. We want to make sure that our equipment can actually do it. We want to see what type of problems we run into, and we want to try to solve those problems as we do it before we need to do it. Hopefully we never need to do it, but yes, the thought process is we're severely challenged by this situation. We are going to have to put our lead engine on the town side of the bridge, the safe side of the bridge. We're going to have to back that in. We're going to have to hook our large diameter supply hose to some kind of a device, the hitch on the pickup truck or something that I have public work to make for us that we can deploy the hose and lay the hose out. Typically when we lay large diameter hose line out for a fire, we would wrap it around a hydrant, we would have a firefighter kneel on that hose, and the fire truck would continue. The fire truck cannot continue in this situation. So having our folks, maybe a crew of three, hand lug four inch hose all the way down to the end would not be practical. It wouldn't be fast and it wouldn't be practical. In an effort to try to be accurate with this situation, I had gone out with a measuring wheel and I've measured every single distance from the bridge to each property on Manning Mill Road. I have every single measurement. What I can tell you is it's approximately 1,300 feet to the Rosses, 1,200, 1,300 feet from the bridge to the front of their property. It's another 200 to 250 feet to their, to the front of their house, so that's the furthest distance we have to go. I need to test and make sure that my fire truck with what we have for equipment can safely push water 1300 feet down the road and then another 250 feet up. That's a big ask. We have minimal elevation, there is some, but we have minimal elevation, and you have friction in loss, obviously. We've determined that it's about 65 to 70 gallons of water per 100 foot section of hose just to fill the hose line with water. So what we've done is we've looked at all of the different scenarios combined. We know that Mr. Beland, his property is 1250 feet off the Manning Mill Road, so even if we get the supply line to the end of his driveway, we have 1250 feet of a winding driveway down into his property. I've investigated, he has a farm pond on site, and we will probably Deploy a portable pump and some hose lines on his property so that we can take care of that. The addition of the side by side to the agenda tonight was multifaceted. It helps with our EMS response as far as getting crew where they need to go and getting medications and equipment where they need to go quickly. But it also will give us 85 gallons of water, and I know we think 85 gallons of water, what the heck is that going to do? It's better than zero. If I have an ATV or a vehicle on fire that's 10 feet from someone's house and I can't put any water on it, I could lose the vehicle and their house. So that limited amount of water on that piece of equipment is our lifeline to get some sort of fire suppression going until we can set up the, you know, the large diameter hose, and which is going to take a little bit to do. So we've thought about this, has been all I've thought about as a matter of fact for since I found out about it, and we've grouped our staff together, everybody's kind of teamed up We're coming, we're thinking outside the box and trying to come up with the best plan possible. And you know, just so the council knows, because I feel like I'm gonna be asked this afterwards and I'm kind of gonna get it out of the way, all right, now our EMS response, what that looks like is I immediately contacted our medical director Dr. Sakai, who happens to live in Hamden, and told him what we were up against. I've also spoken to Mania Mess, which is the licensing agency for our department, our state, and I explained the situation to them and told them, you know, if we have ambulatory patients, that can move and walk and help us, our plan is to get them either in a side-by-side, if it got approved, or the white pickup truck that we have on our fire department. Those would be the only two vehicles that we can safely get across the bridge. We would put those people that are ambulatory in those vehicles, we would get them back to the waiting ambulance that's on the other side of the bridge, and we would transport them to the hospital. If we have a non-ambulatory patient, a patient in cardiac arrest, a patient having a seizure, a patient that has an injury that they are not able to move, we would need to load that patient onto a Stokes rescue basket. We would need to put that basket either in the back of the pickup truck and somehow secure it, or the vehicle that I specced tonight, the Polaris vehicle that you're talking about, has a flip-down spot that can secure a Stokes basket on top of it so that we could get it across the bridge into our ambulance and transport the patient. These are not ideal circumstances. These are outside the box by a long shot, but I have faith in our staff and the people who we have working here. They are thinkers and we always seem to get the job done. Yes, thank you. Yes, they did as well. So we do have, and the other thing I want to point out is the Ross's, it sounds like, might have a water source behind their house, which I will be investigating tomorrow. I want to learn more about that as well, but that's where
[1:13:30] Matthew LaChance: we're at now. Questions for me? No? Fantastic, as usual. Thank you, deputy, appreciate you. Okay, now we'll go to vote for council authorization for staff to proceed with obtaining easements in order to build an access road to the northwest side of Manning Mill Road, Kiki. [Speaker M (unidentified): Yes.] The vote, please. Eric? Aye. Mark? Aye. Wally? Aye. Dennis? Aye. John? Aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Next item of new business tonight under the amended agenda item HB is a vote for council authorization for the purchase of a 2027 Polaris Ranger XP-1000 and accompanying peripherals needed for an EMS response to the northwest side of Manning Mill Road and for use in other forestry responses within Hamden. Do I have a motion? Second? With a motion and a second, is there any public comment on this agenda item tonight? Seeing none, there any council questions or comments? My only comment
[1:15:04] Eric Jarvi: Mr. Chair, is that the case for this has been made to us multiple times and I find it, yes, it's an expense, but it's an easy vote. Thank you, Mr.
[1:15:17] John Swalec: Chairman, I rise in support of the motion. I do think the last part of the motion is entirely redundant. It's up to the EMS services how they're going to use this vehicle and they've told us many times that this has multiple purposes. I think we're almost tying their hands, are restricting it to northwest side of Manning Mill Road and other forestry responses. This vehicle has imminent use in many situations, we've heard that, and I'm sorry, the motion, I'm not going to move to amend it, but I think we have to be careful about how we word motions going forward in the future. Thank you, I [Matthew LaChance: agree, would] You like to amend question the way the motion is worded does not limit it intention I think in theory it limits it that's not the intent I just think it's unfortunate the motion was made that way but I don't we've got a lot to go through and I call the question on the motion as it stated okay
[1:16:25] Matthew LaChance: Any other questions or comments of counsel questions
[1:16:33] Eric Jarvi: Been called okay roll call vote, John. Approve. Aye.
[1:16:40] Matthew LaChance: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passed, 7-0. Next item of new business on tonight's agenda is council authorization for a reserve request from our streets and road reserve account, 3-761-00, in an amount not to exceed $39,403 to pay Rochester Motorsports and Northeast emergency apparatus for the 2027 Polaris Ranger XP 1000 and peripherals so move the motion in a second are there any questions of the public seeing none any from council Eric
[1:17:24] John Swalec: Mr. Chairman for the benefit of the public that account currently stands at nine hundred twelve thousand dollar balance and reserves so there's more than enough to cover this unanticipated
[1:17:35] Matthew LaChance: Expense thank you John
[1:17:40] Unidentified public commenter: Still approve Wally
[1:17:43] Walter Jakubas: Over calling are we still in
[1:17:46] Matthew LaChance: Discussion if you have a question I was already starting the votes but yes so I
[1:17:53] Walter Jakubas: Guess one question would be was this the only bid that we sought for this I
[1:18:03] Mark Cormier: Guess I can't answer that you're asking if that was the only yeah did we only was that the only person that we saw we're very limited as to where we can purchase this and Jason can speak to all of the places that he called and one of the units is coming from California so I just I will
[1:18:27] Unidentified speaker (public safety/fire staff): Be brief there was about maybe ten different locations that were contacted dealerships what we found was that there was very limited inventory for this specific type of vehicle and the a lot of the different vendors that we spoke with were actually quoting the machine that was located there because they used the dealer locator so they didn't physically have anything on site so the dealer locator they were going to end up you know you could take one spot was going to actually buy it from them And then sell it to us and that's what we found out was the circumstance there were two machines that would be appropriate they were within four hundred dollars of each other but just to answer your question that it was heavily vetted
[1:19:17] Walter Jakubas: Out okay thank you sure and
[1:19:21] Matthew LaChance: With that, the third time, Wally. Oh, for me, yep. Hi Mark, hi Dennis, hi Aye. Motion passes 7-0, and that concludes new business tonight because we are in this agenda format. Paula, do you have a manager's report tonight? No manager's report. Run through counselors' comments real quick. John, do you have any councilor comments? No comment. No
[1:19:59] Walter Jakubas: comment. No comment.
[1:20:14] Unidentified public commenter: Of staff and Shifrin, Storm, and everybody, thank you so much.
[1:20:20] John Swalec: Mr. Chairman, I hope the town appreciates that we are all in this together, and council and staff are going to work very hard and as transparently as possible, try to come to some appropriate solution. Thank you. Yes, thank you.
[1:20:36] Matthew LaChance: Yes, I would also like to thank the people who took time to come out tonight to sit through this meeting and express your concerns and let your voices be heard by us. We appreciate it greatly. We're here to serve you. I also like to thank public safety and public works for their diligence and coming up with the solutions for this and working so closely with the town manager to make sure that this was addressed thoroughly. Thank you for that. And at this time we will adjourn the meeting to enter into executive session pursuant to one MRSA 405 6-e attorney-client consultations to include attorney P's and the town manager, after which we will return for a public workshop. So you're welcome to hang around or go home if you'd like, but we're going to go into an executive session. Thank you.