Skowhegan board backs rec-hospital partnership, dam talks to continue

[0:07] Chair/Presiding Officer: Testing,. Testing,. To order for Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026. Opening with a pledge of allegiance. I pledge 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 and justice for all. Well, we've got a new person here that's came to help us out. I'd like to introduce Aaron Miller. For those that don't know him, he is our Newtown manager and he's taking the helm and he's hit the ground running. So without further ado, I'll [2:01] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: let him give the report for today. Okay, thank you. Hi everyone, we got some familiar faces here tonight and some new faces as well. So my name is Aaron Miller, I'm your Newtown manager. I've been here for seven days on the job. And so it's a pleasure being here. I have been very busy over the past week. It's been a real pleasure meeting the staff here, department heads, some community members, in the short amount of time that I've been here. So super excited to be here. Thankfully, we're moving forward towards second interviews on the executive assistant position. The previous, the interim town manager had worked with the staff to vet some of those applications, and so we are, we're gonna move forward with the second interviews tomorrow. So I'm hope, hopeful by the end of the week that we can make a decision here. Also we will be, regarding the other vacancies, we'll be advertising the economic developer position this week. This is a department head position overseeing the CEO and building maintenance, which was a great fit for the town. But in moving forward, I would like to see the job description focus on purely economic development, marketing, and public relations, somewhere along those lines. I think I can help take up the slack with the CEO and building maintenance end of things. On Friday the town was represented by town attorney Ken Lex here on action against the Trinity of Evangelical Free Church. I've answered some questions from the press on that matter. Through our attorneys reported that the court has ordered the occupants to be removed 30 days from Friday, September 18th, due to life, to safety deficiencies. On another note, based on the interim term town manager's recommendation, I've reached out to Competitive Energy Solutions who's locked in the town with a 60 month rate of 0.11471 kilowatt hour with an estimated annual spend of approximately $145,310. So it's my understanding that our current rate is at 0.107, so we believe the overall cost will be relatively in line with what we're paying now. Now, Donnie explained that pollution controls 57% of the town power usage and believes that we have enough in the budget to cover this. Given the market and recommendations, the thought was that it would be best to lock in on that. And speaking of Donnie, he earned a certificate of achievement from the State's Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, who has recognized his outstanding job of revitalizing the treatment facility over the past 18 months, as well as looking ahead for future upgrades. I think he sent out an email today talking about his achievement. He also graduated the Joint Environmental Training Coordinating Committee, which is a program that consists as a partner of New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission. My understanding is that this was an 11-month program aimed at teaching professional development and construction planning and skills, training areas such as personnel management, communication, and working with regulatory agencies and budget preparation. So I'd like to congratulate Donnie on that, not only for these achievements, but really in going above and beyond in this community in recent months and assisting with the town manager's duties here. So I'm looking forward to working with him and all department heads. And lastly, I'd like to share really an extraordinary opportunity for our community. As we approach the nation's 250th anniversary, Chief Bucknam stopped by today. He was kind enough to bring me over to the school where we stood before a piece of living history. And what's happening right now is the historical society, the Maine Historical Society, is conducting a historic statewide tour of the original 1776 Dunlap broadside copy of the Declaration of Independence. I learned about this today. I didn't know this was a thing. But to put it in perspective, this document was printed in Philadelphia on the very night of July 4th, 1776. And when that happened, they were to rush these copies to towns to be read aloud in the town square. And the criers would, you know, every day would hear the news of our independence. And so it was a humbling experience really to see this. Out of 200 copies that were made, there are only 26 known surviving copies left in the entire world. There's one right here in the town of Skowhegan. So instead of keeping this artifact locked behind in a vault in Portland, the Historical Society is bringing it to all 16 counties. And so, and this week it's Somerset County's turn. So I spoke with the principal today and he told me that about 1,200 of Skowhegan students will have the opportunity to see this incredible piece of history. This coming Friday, it's my understanding, September 25th and Saturday, September 26th, the Dunlap Broadside will be on public display right here at the Margaret Chase Smith Library. So I wanted to formally bring this to the attention of the select board, incredible piece of history here in our backyard, and I would encourage your staff and residents to visit, and I believe they are taking tickets, so you may want to check into that if you, if that's something you wish to go visit. Thank you, thank [8:04] Chair/Presiding Officer: you. Okay, department committee reports. Denise, have [8:22] Denise: a few updates just to give you an update on our USDA summer food grant that I do during the summer we had 6094 meals come out this summer at the community center we had 3710 congregate mints which means they eat at the center we had non congregate which is a to go structured set up where they can grab a meal and go we had 2384 grab-and-go so our numbers were a little low than the previous years but we just keep on doing it I don't know I think between programs people working getting the kids they're driving, they're just getting accessibility to even get to the center. We used to have transportation through KV CAP a little more in the past years that could provide like transportation to get people there. So I think it's just everybody's busy and the kids at home and parents are working and it's just trying to get there. But that's why we do two goes, you know, people can come and pick up their whole families meals and stuff. So we try to do the best we can. This is a full hundred percent reimbursable grant, everything I do from staff to groceries to mileage. So great program, will continue to do it, and we were the first rec department state of Maine 20-something years ago and we still continue to do it. So fall programs are in full swing. We had a football round-robin last weekend which was well attended as always. We have just to give you some numbers and just our sport programs, we have 50 littles in our flag football program, we have 51 in our tackle, we have 165 kids from ages 3 all The way to grade 6 in our soccer, we have 55 kids. In our field hockey program, we have 39 kids. In our football cheering program, we also provide preschool programs, a little pumpkin series. We have open gym activities, and we have about 15 signed up right now. We do senior your program in luncheons, mystery lunches, that kind of thing. We typically have about up to 20, 25 that participate in that. For this month, we had 344 active members, memberships in our my rec program. Those are members that utilize the community center, either open gym, exercise room, or pickleball of that sort, and walking. So just kind of wanted to throw those numbers out at you right now. Also on the previous agendas, there was an item for the partnership proposal from Reddington Fairview General Hospital and the rec department. As you know, we partner year-round with many partners in our community to provide services and programs or anything we can to give opportunities and keep everybody busy. This wasn't put on the agenda, but I feel it's necessary to bring it up under my items. We did lose out on the month of September with them, so that's why I'm bringing it forward to you today. So basically with the proposal is for the Reddington Fairview and Sky Weeken Parks and Rec to get together. I do have Bethany is here and back from, she is a director of education at the hospital, so we have been working on this since the end of last, the beginning of fall last year. Nick and I have met with the administration at Reddington, just trying to think and be proactive on the pool closure and what we could do to increase some programmings connecting together and utilizing staff and services. So I'll just kind of go over this proposal just to bring it out for public just so they know what this is about. So this just outlines a partnership opportunity between the hospital Reddington Fairview and the rec department to expand access for community-based health and wellness programs that will provide clinical expertise from the hospital staff and health promotions with the rec department, the community center for as we have the gathering space and increase opportunities for residents and participants and evidence-based wellness physical activity programs that promote healthier lifestyles. It's Basically a transition following the plan closure of the Reddington pool by preserving access for wellness programming and expanding services to the whole broadened segment of the community. So yeah, with that, the purpose of the partnership, as I said, would deliver a lot of fitness classes, health education programs, and evidence-based lifestyle interventions at the community center of all ages, abilities, fitness levels, with the emphasis on promoting lifetime, physical activity, chronic disease prevention, management, healthy aging, and social connection. That's what we're there for. So rather than duplicating existing offerings, the hospital's goal is to complement to supplement and enhance our rec department programming by introducing health-focused services that broadens the opportunities for our members. Some ideas of programming, our low-impact chair yoga, our seated to standing strength and balance in training, our circuit training, our individual health coaching, and it's not all physical, it's also gonna be an educational piece as well. Tai Chi, arthritis-friendly exercise classes, and obviously the benefits to our community would increase access to affordable wellness opportunities close to home, reduce barriers to preventive health programming, improve physical activity and chronic diseases and promote healthy aging and independence. Overall, strengthening our overall health and well-being of our Somerset County residents. Benefits to our department, we expand our wellness and health offerings at our center, which I always try to get if somebody has a certification or any kind of experience doing something. I'm very open to providing a service that would broaden our programming as well. Bring healthcare expertise in the community recreation program, bringing the Reddington staff in to educate people on those kind of needs. Increase our utilization at the facilities. facilities, attract new participants across the region, strengthen our collaboration between municipal and health care organizations, and enhance our role as a designated community wellness department. All we are doing at the rec department, we're going to provide the space. I coordinate scheduling with the Reddington Fairview General Hospital on the time, dates, whatever works at the center. We facilitate facility access for health and wellness specialists, meaning will utilize the Reddington certified staff that have that expertise to provide services. We include partnership program for community center publications. We collaborate on marketing efforts as appropriate. We're going to coordinate with Reddington regarding fees associated with participants for non-residents. We've talked about that they will provide the fees for the non-resident participants become members at the center, so there won't be any cost to us. They are also looking into providing a new equipment or anything we need for our fitness classes, and to financially support that on their end to provide these. So I'm bringing it today. I did bring an October schedule. This is a monthly schedule that they produce. We work together. These will be all programming that health and wellness programming that Reddington will be on-site during these times. We do expand this is their schedule but we do expand in our brochure more opportunities and programs but this is provided for them to give to their clients their people of the hospital so I'll and some of our things are in here as well. It might be limited times but this just tells when one of their staff will be there to participate in the activity give some insight some you know educational piece as well as health and wellness so I'll give you these. I just didn't want to lose out on October we lost out of the whole September so the quicker we can get this approved the better it is and we can start promoting it Bethany and I to the public so I'll pass these out. Denise can you remind us the date of the [17:41] Speaker D (unidentified): letter that we were first presented that you were just reading from I [17:49] Chair/Presiding Officer: almost [18:03] Denise: think it was because September the end of October so it was August I think it was the second the first selectmen's meeting in August that was on the agenda and you tabled it, requesting that, I think I was on vacation or somewhere. [18:24] Speaker E (unidentified): I just, we wanted more information on it because we just didn't have. [18:28] Denise: Yeah, and to have somebody here for the hospital just to speak up on that behalf. So Bethany's here if you have any questions. It's basically, like I said, we partner with a lot of, collaborate with a lot in our community to provide programs or services. We do it all year long, so this is just one thing we're trying to get out there to promote because of the pool closure at Reddington. That way it gives those people over there at the hospital, and it's going to increase our, it's potentially going to increase our membership and our programs at our center, which is good. Is there a possibility trainer there for pull your mic down Mike? I was looking for Mike and Bet, no Bethany. You could have Bethany come up here because she can tell you what staff she has and what I mean, because there might be some younger high school [19:22] Speaker E (unidentified): kids or whatever that would like some training or workouts that they could possibly do to help them with a sport or, yeah, so we have four staff coming. You want to come up here? Come right up Bethany, [19:32] Chair/Presiding Officer: please, so [19:36] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: we have four staff coming on board to our athletic trainers and to our certified [19:40] Chair/Presiding Officer: personal trainers. Yep, I think the only other question that we had, Denise, part of the reason why we tabled it was is we didn't know how this would weave in with current programming. I think that was another one of the questions that we had is if this is the Redington programming, how does our community center programming weave in with this, and is it bumping any of our [20:09] Denise: programs or, so if anything, a lot of those programs are already ours, and I coordinate the programming with Bethany, it doesn't overlap anything. If anything, it's gonna be more attractive to people. They're gonna do pickleball, then we put some programs after pickleball that they can extend their exercise or whatever for a little bit longer. So it is all scheduled accordingly, there is no overlaps. And we really, I looked at all my senior programs, for instance, and then giving them another opportunity when something's not going on. So we filled in the gaps where there wasn't any or extended from what we existing what's going on existing right now, so it kind [20:47] Speaker D (unidentified): of flows, yeah, okay, Denise, would you like a formal motion tonight to endorse the partnership? Yes, the Skowhegan rec department and our FGH, yes, please, so [20:59] Chair/Presiding Officer: moved, second, all in favor, thank you, all right. I'm gonna do the same thing here and stay out of order. Gail, would you like to come up? I [21:20] Town Clerk: Just want to report that absentee ballots, we have taken a lot of applications online, over the phone, through the mail, a lot of people. If you're on the ongoing list, I know there are a lot of applications going out in the mail. If you think you've already applied, call us and we can let you know, because we're getting a lot of duplicates. We will not have the ballots until, we'll probably get them next Friday, and we might not, they probably won't get out until the mail to the fifth, sixth, and seventh, but they will definitely be out the first week, full week in October. And Kevin asked me to talk on the agenda under number nine, the number 17, it wasn't in your packet. It was a warrant that was pre-approved not to exceed, I believe it was 84,000, it was for the tax liens, so I was gonna file them. It needed to be approved, US Selectmen signed it, so it really shouldn't be on this agenda because it's already been signed. It was for eighty four hundred, sorry. Yeah, you're fine. Yeah, it's just another zero, yeah. I'm sorry, but thank you for that, would have been way too many liens, there were too many as it was. Anyways, the other thing I just have to speak on is, I'm wondering, I know I wasn't here on the 25th of August because I was in Boston, but I'm wondering, did we do anything on talking about it had said transfer station public hearings, and then it said something about the clerk treasurer prerequisite about public hearings 922, which is today, 1027, 1124, that will make it thorough and easily to access a possible December town meeting. I'm just wondering, every meeting that goes by is an opportunity that we're not getting information out into the public, and a lot of people are approaching me because they know my last day is June 8th of 2027, so I'm just wondering about that, because if we, if the board decides to do any changes, it's gutted, and if it's gonna get voted on, it's got to be done 90 days before the election, so maybe we really need to start so we can get to December, and we might need maybe a couple town meetings to get it to go through, from elected to appointed, but I really don't have a horse in the race, so it's really up to the people what they want to do, but I'm just thinking it's really something we need to look at, because the position in the town of Skowhegan to have one person and do town clerk, treasurer, bureau motor vehicle, and tax collector. There's not enough hours in the day if I work 24-7 to get all the work done that needs to be done, and it's a lot. So that was one thing, and another thing, I did have a discussion with Aaron about tax collector, so somewhere along the line, we gotta figure out what's going on with that, because I was kind of hoping that wouldn't be in my realm of things to do, but it looks like I'm gonna be doing, And it's going to be done to me as a tax collector. And we really need to get people in places that know how to do the work, because there's a lot of knowledge that's not going to be here. But it can be taught to people, definitely. But I've done it for so long that even when I do it, and I only do it once a year, I have to go back to the books. And I have to go back and look at everything because you only put you only do 30-day notices once a year you only do liens once a year you only do a tax commitment I don't do the commitment but as tax collector I definitely do the bills and usually I'm the deputy tax collector doing it but for the last couple of years I've been the tax collector so there's a lot of learning that needs to go on and we really need to be Johnny on the spot with it or down the road it's gonna be difficult treading For somebody I remember my first three years I thought if I can get through the first three years that'll be awesome the next three years were worse than the first three so I'm just saying it's it's a lot definitely so all right where did we land on my note [26:09] Speaker D (unidentified): From August 25th says that Kevin was going to ask Renee to reach out to MMA for more information on prerequisite skills for an elected position versus an appointed position. [26:22] Chair/Presiding Officer: Yeah, I have not done that. So that's still to do. And I'm not sure if that even sounds right coming out when I go to ask her that question, if we can have prerequisite skills for an elected official. [26:36] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: With elected, it's elected, right? Yeah. [26:38] Town Clerk: Yeah, because you have to be 18 years of old and a resident of the state of Maine. It doesn't even mean you really have to have... Yeah. [26:46] Speaker D (unidentified): I think the question was, is there any way to lay the groundwork for prerequisite skills if it remains an elected position? [26:53] Speaker H (unidentified): Is that like IE job description? Yeah. [26:56] Speaker D (unidentified): I think... Prerequisite. Like before you get the job, you have to have this skill set. [27:00] Town Clerk: Yeah. And I don't think you can. Right. Right. Yeah. Not in an elected. [27:04] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: I mean, the statute talks about what the duties are of the tax collector and treasurer. You mentioned them, right? There's 30-day, there's liens and the tax collector and the side, treasurer is dealing with foreclosures, you know, and then with your job descriptions, I mean, you can put more layers to that in that position, such as like the work you're doing with the reconciliations and things along those lines. Right. I mean, I can tell you for the past four years I've served as tax collector and treasurer in vassal borough and i did prepare the lien notices the 30-day notices looking at the deed research things along those lines and the tax collector and decide end of things and the treasurer side of things i wasn't doing the reconciliations like you're doing and so i think it's important to just under have an overall understanding of what the roles are the duties and then how you want to position those in the in the staffing here [28:04] Town Clerk: So I mean that'll take some time to write and I'm just saying it's a lot. It's a lot when your town clerk it's a lot when your treasurer and it's a lot when your tax collector and then It's also Bureau Motor Vehicle. I mean I have all of those hats and it's like Bureau Motor Vehicle every day in that front office I mean sometimes our weekly bills our weekly bill to the state can be $9,000. That doesn't include excise tax. And sometimes we're $14,000 to $21,000 just a week. Our week equals sometimes in smaller towns what they do in a month and two months. So there's a lot of responsibility. And the sooner we get things in place of what we know what we're going to be doing, it's going to be so much better for the people that are going to be in those positions. [29:00] Speaker D (unidentified): So your request tonight, Gail, is that we get to it, scheduling some public hearings to discuss elected or appointed for these positions, and that you're requesting Erin's help getting onlookers onto these once-a-year tasks to make sure that there is a transfer of knowledge. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. [29:20] Town Clerk: I mean, I have a new deputy clerk, deputy treasurer, and believe me, I have been very selfish since 2009 to now to not let anybody know what I do when I do my work. So I am NOT that way anymore. I have definitely taken it this lady that used to work for us Donna, she is ambitious and wants to be busy every minute of the day. So she is learning things and we're going that route. So we've got you know beginning of the month bills that I pay as town clerk, the things that we need to do responsibilities like we need a tax commitment ASAP because we have bills that need to be paid. And so yeah, the sooner we can get on this the better it is, the better we can educate our public, because Somerset County people like to keep their vote and who does their books, who does their roads, and who's their town clerk. And Skowhegan being the size that we are in the responsibility of that one job, that's a lot for one person, especially, unless you've come in off the street and you've done it somewhere else, because it's a lot of work, but it can be done. [30:37] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: May I jump in? I'm sorry, just real quick. Is there a time that you think that we can get our heads together and meet back with the board and report on what our findings are and potential recommendation? What do you think would be a reasonable amount of [30:56] Town Clerk: time? I mean when anybody's ready I'm ready. I mean you know I just got to get through the next week or a couple of weeks or so and then I'm is would be for [31:07] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: everybody two meetings from now be too late or too early or what do you think? I [31:13] Town Clerk: think we need to talk about it at the next meeting and then I think that I think the end of October we need to have our first public meeting and get it out there for people to know what we're trying to do, because we don't want the public and the voters to say you guys did this and we didn't know anything about it. Not you guys, the town is doing this and they don't want us to know about it, because I think the best place to vote on this is at an open town meeting because everybody needs to know the facts and you know we just need to be, you know, the truth's gotta be there. A town the size of Skowhegan for one person to continue to do those two jobs, I mean, it's nights and weekends work. I mean, I have a workstation at home that for like the last two weekends I haven't been working at, but I'm gonna be telling you that most weekends my husband's sitting in a room other than myself with me and I'm working and he's like watching TV and we're not having our time that you know you need to have with the people in your family and so you know I don't want that for anybody who's gonna take this job. I've totally enjoyed my job. I actually love my job, but the last three years it's it's been it's been trying on personal life. So if we can if we can have a public meeting and get it out there to our voters that you know so March would be 90 days. Yeah I know we get we get to try. I know it's bad to do it in December and January but we got to do it and know where we're going and if it pans out that they still want to have it elected I don't know what happens to happen to the town other than and put it in the budget, because on the ballot, it's town clerk and treasurer. And when it goes that way, it's two separate positions. And as it is right now, it's two part-time positions. But if it's going to stay elected, it's going to have to be two full-time jobs. And then I believe you can do that as long as you have it in the budget. But you can't saddle one person. Even if somebody is a town clerk or a treasurer from some other town it is a lot of work a lot yeah so those are just my thoughts thank you we can brainstorm thank you Esther you wanna come up yep [33:58] Chair/Presiding Officer: please yep thank you well [34:04] Esther Franklin, State Senate candidate / Public commenter: the first thing is a huge thank you to you then you've done so much work that's amazing. I was just going to ask does it make makes sense to do a background check for the next position that you hire to do her role. It's so essential. And you have your fingers in so many places. And clearly, you're trustworthy. And you've done an amazing job. But I think we've seen over time that it makes sense to understand the background of a person. I don't know if there are means to do that or if there's a protocol. But it would be. They're elected. Well, I think it might be a nice time to integrate a process of some sort of background check for a role that's this essential to the town's finances just a thought yeah [34:46] Chair/Presiding Officer: well thank you I [34:52] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: Mean on the elective side, I mean, I it's it's by the it's by the legislative body that you know gets that person in there, so but if the town, if you, if your wish is to move forward with a special town meeting and ask the town do you wish to change the position from elective to appointive, then you would have that ability to do a background check, which is commonplace for sure. [35:21] Chair/Presiding Officer: So we need to get some information out on this at our next, I'd say at our next one. [35:27] Speaker H (unidentified): Are there any like investments that we can make for those positions? Are we using our resources like, I mean, I hate to hear that a salary position means that you have to work on your weekends until 10 o'clock at night or whatever, right? That's awful. And so I'm just curious like are there investments that we could be making into technology or into other programs or anything that would sort of cut down some of that workflow I [35:54] Chair/Presiding Officer: don't have an answer for that. Yeah, I'm just curious. [35:55] Speaker H (unidentified): Like what are towns that are just a little bit bigger than us doing? So I [35:59] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: mean is that I think it I think it boils down to staffing -huh I think you need you know I mean it's a gales been wearing many hats over the several years [36:09] John Gross, public commenter: And so yeah John Gross 23 Sandy Lane talking about the gales job I hope that wouldn't be have these special meetings that you break down the two different categories what 's going to be responsible for them whether it's elected or appointed in other words it let's have a job because the people in the audience are gonna want to know that they're gonna they gotta settle the next person like her they're going to break it down and this is what the assistant town clerk and the town clerk are responsible for. Thank you. Thanks John. All [36:56] Chair/Presiding Officer: right Cynthia. Thank you Gail. Just [37:10] Speaker K (unidentified): really quick reminder hazardous waste day less than two weeks away schedule's getting full so if you've got stuff to get rid of please call if we a lot of times we're not able to answer the phone we're running around so please leave a message with your name and number and I will get back to you as soon as possible that's all I had Donnie had asked me he left me a little memo just to read since he couldn't be here Aaron had already mentioned a couple things with the schooling and the certificate of achievement that he'd gone through. He wanted to just mention that Rick Bennett visited the town hall while he was interim manager. Excuse me, he asked what needs and concerns cow he can add. He's Donnie had spoke to him about energy costs, community events, investments into training and retained skilled workers. Anyone to just let you know he is the only candidate to reach out to the town when he was interim. Also he wanted to mention that he recommends approving the USGS stream monitor to be placed at the treatment plant. The USGS has been instructed to find six sites around the state for monitoring. This site has been initially identified. I think it's important, he thinks it's important to collect the data and it could support the town's protection of its drinking water source. And also he wanted to recommend improving Jason Finley's request to fund collection system improvements. So that's from Donnie. He just asked me to [38:42] Chair/Presiding Officer: relay. Okay, he wanted to do what on his collection system? He recommends [38:48] Speaker K (unidentified): approving. Okay, Jason Finley's request. Yeah, thank you, that's it. [38:53] Chair/Presiding Officer: Appreciate it, Cynthia. Save the best for last, we're doing Jason. Good, so [39:06] Public Works/Road Commissioner: wrapping up paving. They get the last road done yesterday. We've got driveways, they're finishing up on. Gonna go up to transfer station, fix that bead bump. If anybody's seen a Bobcat, they're looking for one. They had one stolen out on Glenview this week. Our pavers papers and ben rowdy, 's paving, they had it parked there Friday night and they come back Monday and it was gone. So they're looking for a skid steer, a bobcat, it's a bobcat. So ah, so yeah, so they're looking for that. They packed it on the end of glenview Friday night and they, yeah, it's gone. They've called the police and they're looking for it, but doesn't have keys or anything. It's just quote the back road, keep going, I don't know how to explain it. So like [40:36] Speaker H (unidentified): people are looking for ring [40:38] Public Works/Road Commissioner: cameras or I mean it would be interesting. Yeah, it was there Friday night, I went by it Friday night, it was half a dozen, so it was in between Saturday and Sunday or Friday night. I went by after the football game and it was there. So that [40:57] Chair/Presiding Officer: russell road project finished up. Is it russell road? [41:00] Public Works/Road Commissioner: Projects finished up, that looks wicked good. Anybody wants to go look at it, got a little water sitting in it so fish passage can go through. Come out real good, real impressed with them. [Chair/Presiding Officer: But all right.] They have put a coat on Norjo Cab. They are doing the sidewalks. They got to put the first coat on, and then they put their curb up the 29th, I believe it was the 28th or 29th, that they put a slip curb, cement slip curb, up through there. They're going to do that, and then they can put their sidewalk on the back side of that. They're going to fix the driveways and all that. How about Court Street? Is that getting another layer? Court Street will be next year. We'll have to mill it again because of the gas company. I see. I thought they were going to do it this year. I'm not going to do it this year because I'd like to, if it's going to settle, I'd like to let it settle. Can [42:03] Speaker H (unidentified): Can you have a look at kind of where the Eagles Club turns left and right, there? Just one building in. It's pretty washed out. Yep. [42:12] Public Works/Road Commissioner: It's probably like a four inch, three, four inch thing there. Yep, I don't get on that back side of that very often. [42:18] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, it's a big deal, but I was just thinking about it. Yep. [42:21] Chair/Presiding Officer: Now, the sidewalk projects downtown there at the intersections, are those going to get filled in and paved and all that good stuff? [42:30] Public Works/Road Commissioner: Oh, I have a meeting tomorrow. Actually, I have two meetings tomorrow because I don't know how I'm going to get both of them in at the same time because one of them is for that project for the light, and the other one is for Norwich Rock Ave. They're both at 8 o'clock, so I'm going to have Dina do one, and I'll do the other and back and forth. But, yes, so those are supposed to be paved in as soon as they get their crosswalks in there, crosswalk lights go in. And they get their pole up, but there's no sense doing that before they do that because they're going to have to dig it all up. I agree it looks terrible, and I offered to go on my own and put some in there to smooth it up, and they told me not to. That's a DOT project. [43:23] Chair/Presiding Officer: The plan is to get it finished before winter. [43:27] Public Works/Road Commissioner: That's the plan. [43:28] Speaker M (unidentified): The lights are going to be up before. [43:29] Public Works/Road Commissioner: Where that's the plan. Well, no more tomorrow. Okay. Yep, I wish their meetings were on instead of Wednesdays, then I'd know more. Okay, but anything else? Anything else for me? [43:45] Chair/Presiding Officer: Not right now. I'll have plenty for you tonight. All right, sounds good. All right, I think that gets us through department and committees, conflicts of interest, Matt. [44:01] Speaker H (unidentified): I've been going back and forth on it, but I think I am a, say that, I'm not going to vote on the, on number one. [44:14] Chair/Presiding Officer: So the property, regular, it's number one, regular agenda. [44:19] Speaker H (unidentified): Okay. And, you know, I would like to comment on it before, you know, at some point, but, yeah, I'm gonna declare a conflict of interest on number one in the regular agenda. [44:37] Chair/Presiding Officer: Ethan. I have none. I have none. And I have none. Select board items, Matt. [44:49] Speaker M (unidentified): Yeah, I wanted to bring up a, for the select board to consider, it could go under other items or it could just happen. And now what our follow-up might look like for the dam conversation and how we want to like piece that together with all of the parties that are engaged in the process. Yeah, I was going to bring it up under other, but okay, we can, we can skip that. Otherwise, I have nothing on my be [45:17] Speaker H (unidentified): Thinking about it then. Okay, Elijah. Just congratulations to Donnie on his award. I think that's really great. Congratulations to any of the fall sports athletes that are out there, you know, doing their thing on the soccer field and the football field. You know, I try to get to those games when I can. And I think it's an exciting time. I see, you know, we have like, you know, elections coming up and I see candidates in the audience and you know, I just encourage everybody to get out and vote and kind of do their part with that. It's I think that it's a good time for Skowhegan. I see more events happening and things like that, so that's really neat. And I think that's it. Do you feel like it would be appropriate to mention the regular agenda number one or because I declared a conflict of interest? Because I mean, I don't have an opinion on that, right, so I'm not gonna speak at that point in time. Is it appropriate to mention my thoughts on it? Actually, I'm just going to withhold my comments on that. Sorry. [46:25] Speaker M (unidentified): Okay, thank you, Eliza. Yeah, let's not be confusing, Ethan. I'm all set, thank you. Amber, I am just [46:33] Speaker D (unidentified): Bringing as a messenger a letter to the select board members presented to me this week at a meeting with Bob McLaughlin, a resident of Skowhegan, who is working closely with high school teacher Kate Drummond on understanding the Courier Brook watershed, the Courier Brook being the brook and watershed that extends kind of across the street from the high school and on up to the Row Road. So it is a letter that outlines the efforts at partnership to understand the current state of the watershed and The health of the watershed, and I will let you read it, but the end sum game is that they request some time in front of the select board to educate us on the happenings of the watershed and are encouraging us to continue to support the findings of the Skowhegan Conservation Commission to work on restoration of the Courier and Whitton Brooks. So I'm just the messenger of this letter and formally noting an interest in a workshop from this group. So [47:49] Chair/Presiding Officer: We want to put this under other just so we don't lose it. Sure, yeah, that'd be great. Alright, and for myself, I don't have anything this week. Oh, I have one more thing. Great to see you here. All right, excellent, let's move on to items by the public. Raise your hand and please come on up and the microphone please. Yeah, I [48:30] Joe Almond, public commenter: wasn't able to make it to the last meeting after we had done some work on the Skowhegan Indian. Oh sorry, you want to use myself, I'm sorry. I'm Joe Almond, been working on the restoration of the Bernard Langley Skowhegan Indian sculpture. We just had a whole bunch of volunteer and donation of time and materials that got it to get its face back. Did a little plastic surgery there to kind of reconstruct it. But also, while we had the lift there, we did a complete inspection along with the structural report that we had and went over all of that and identified some spots that are gonna be taken care of coming up in the springtime. We did find that the biggest culprit and the biggest problem with the sculpture was squirrels had gotten in there and chewed holes and what had happened was underneath the neck where the jaw connected they chewed up underneath and then chewed around the bolts and that's why that whole entire section fell right off and fell to the ground. So very little rot that's on the overall sculpture, it's really instilled pretty decent shape. We're hoping to get the paint job and all of that stuff done. We're cutting lumber over the winter to have it stored and dried because that's some thick material. It's, we all pull a lot of hemlock and a lot of specialty pieces that we have to have cut that we're gonna set aside and get stored and you'll should see some more of that work happening in the spring. So decide give [50:11] Chair/Presiding Officer: you an update. Excellent, Thank You Joe, it's nice to hear a report on a project like that. All right, anyone else items by the public? Esther, come on up. Hi [50:34] Esther Franklin, State Senate candidate / Public commenter: Many of you have met me. My name is Esther Franklin, and I'm running for Senate in district 3, and I really do hope you'll vote. Regardless of who you vote for, it's very important to put your voice forward these days. We have so many big things happening. We need, we need everyone to be thinking at this time, and if you're not adding a vote, you're letting other people think for you. I don't think you want that. [50:59] Chair/Presiding Officer: Thank you, Esther. Anything else? Send our items by the public. Okay, we'll close that, and we'll move on to the consent agenda. We're going to approve and sign minutes for the following meetings: regular select board meeting August 25th, 2026, and regular select board meeting September 8th, 2026. Amber did detect a few errors in the September 8th version, and she has forwarded those to Erin, and those will be updated, and we'll be able to sign those at the next meeting. Other than that, I'd look for a motion to approve. So moved. With the amendments. So moved with the amendment. With the amendment or September 8th. I'll second that. We got a motion and a second. All those in favor. And we'll sign those at the next meeting after they've been updated. Okay, number two, approve a poll permit request for CMP for one poll located eleven hundred and thirty one feet going east from the intersection of the East River Road and Oak Pond Road. [52:23] Speaker F (unidentified): Discussion or we're just approving? So move for discussion. Second. I [52:31] Chair/Presiding Officer: think this is pretty standard stuff you do. Okay, that is really all I needed to know. Yeah. [52:42] Speaker M (unidentified): You're all going, it's in the middle of someone's driveway. We're good to go. [52:47] Chair/Presiding Officer: You're all set then. Who knows? Okay, all right, I have a motion to approve. We had first and a second, first and second. All right, thank you, and all those in favor. All right, moving on to regular agenda, picking up where we left off, the last one, discussion and decision regarding the warranty deed and town's interest in the property located at 57 Meadowview Road, map 8, lot 21-4. I have a movement for discussion. So moved. Second. Discussion. What [53:37] Town Clerk: was the legal [53:38] Speaker F (unidentified): finding we needed? We needed updates on there. Would there was, I guess that did [53:45] Chair/Presiding Officer: not need to be transferred in there into the deed from the previous sale. It didn't need to be transferred, but it accidentally was, and it was put in, but Ken did not see a reason why that it was a big deal, because if we have no interest in it, I mean, it's not a feasible [54:09] Speaker D (unidentified): thing. Okay, so the discussion and decision tonight is whether or not the town wishes to hold onto or release its interest. Correct. In the decision about what happens to that property? Yes. Okay. [54:24] John Gross, public commenter: John. Ah, John. Richard. Change my name again? I did not. Where is this piece of property located and what would be the interest as far as the town is concerned. [54:37] Speaker O (unidentified): It is in [54:39] Speaker D (unidentified): between the driveway to the high school and the driveway to the rec center so it is the former Montessori school the preschool that was tucked back away from the woods there. Okay. It's changed hands a couple of times but the issue we're discussing is the fact that there was a first right of refusal that the town secured in the deed in one of the transfers and that language carried over in another transfer when it really didn't need to at that time so in a [55:06] John Gross, public commenter: layman's terms we don't have any interest in it correct we don't know of [55:10] Speaker D (unidentified): any well I don't sound has owning that property we don't even know how much [55:13] Speaker E (unidentified): money is in our bank account so I can't imagine we want to buy something else [55:16] John Gross, public commenter: That's right. Amen to that. Here you go. [55:21] Chair/Presiding Officer: All right. [55:25] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay, so would we, hearing no interest that anyone knows of in the town owning that property, shall we formally release the town's interest and first right of refusal on the purchase of that property at this juncture? [55:42] Speaker M (unidentified): I will make that motion. Can there be a second? We're already in a motion. Sorry. You can say so moved. So moved. [55:49] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay. We're already in a motion. We're in a motion for discussion. Yep. [55:54] Speaker M (unidentified): Okay. Yep. So. And decision. So decision. So the move. [56:01] Speaker E (unidentified): So. I make a motion to release. Who made the additional motion? [56:05] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: Amber? Yeah. Amber is seconded by Ethan. [56:08] Speaker M (unidentified): Oh, okay. Right. You want to amend your motion? No. [56:12] Speaker E (unidentified): We're just going to close discussion. I second it. Right? She made the original motion. So she can change her motion. motion Amber made the original motion so she can amend that and then we can do [56:26] Speaker F (unidentified): the second to release it okay I moved it for discussion I move we close discussion so second [56:37] Speaker D (unidentified): what was the discussion yeah I move that we release the town's interest in a first right of a few refusal on the warranty deed for the 57 meadowview road map 8 lot 21-4 property second okay all in favor you're [56:57] Chair/Presiding Officer: abstaining okay thank you okay number two discussion and decision to approve the lights up productions application for parades and processions for the walking ghost tour of downtown skowhegan approve is written [Speaker M (unidentified): second all] In favor. And number three, discussion and decision to allow Aaron Miller to sign the agreement with the USGS to place a streamflow monitoring station at 53 Joyce Street in Skowhegan, Maine. Second. Discussion on this. I don't see any downside to doing this. I only see an upside. [57:55] John Gross, public commenter: Where is Joyce Street, and what's the purpose of the monitor? [58:00] Chair/Presiding Officer: It is, well, I don't have intimate details, only what Donnie has told me. And what this is, one of six places, I believe was mentioned earlier, that there will be flow monitors put in the state. And it's, it's gives us a choice to have the state agency viewing what's going on here in Skowhegan, so we have, I would say like a foot in with them and helping them to determine, you know, water flow, quality, quantity, you know, that whole nine yards. So it's, it gives us, you know, like a foot in the door to be able to have discussions and, anything that, you know, that could help us down the road. Now is this a stream [58:59] John Gross, public commenter: or a river or a sewer system it's the kennebec river yes okay thank you yes joy street [59:05] Chair/Presiding Officer: is where okay joy street's the end of the division so it's right down by pollution control thank you It would only help the portfolio in the future, right, in terms of, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? All right. All those in favor? Moving right along, number four, discussion and decision to allow Cynthia Kirk to expend an amount not to exceed $4,488.43 from the solid waste capital reserve account equipment designation to Alta Equipment for repairs to the JCB backhoe. So moved. Second. [59:54] Speaker K (unidentified): Discussion. This was an emergency repair that has already been done because, as you guys know, this is our only piece of equipment up there. Went to start up one day, it started but wouldn't move, so apparently the deaf header needed to be replaced. Luckily Alta was already in town at Jason's facility, so once I called them, they said yep, we'll skip right over, take a look. One good news is this was his estimated cost. I have since gotten the actual invoice from the work and it is cheap, a little bit less, so if you'd like to amend it, the total was four thousand one hundred eighty four dollars and twenty seven cents. I [1:00:38] Chair/Presiding Officer: think we can leave it like that. It's not to exceed, so yeah. [1:00:41] Speaker K (unidentified): We'll just wanted to let you know what it actually did cost. Yeah. Somebody would drop a bolt, get it up and running, the deaf header needed to be replaced, it quit like that, [1:00:54] Chair/Presiding Officer: so it wasn't moving anywhere. Questions? Ethan, pull your microphone down. What is [1:01:08] Speaker E (unidentified): Is that part, what does it do, it's diesel exhaust fluid system? Yes, what was your emissions, which is a pain. I have my own, is a pain. I'll keep my mouth shut. It's [1:01:24] Speaker K (unidentified): it's a pain basically I will say it 's a pain of a system continue to cause [1:01:29] Speaker E (unidentified): problems because that's all it does, it doesn't, yep. Anyway, oh I know, but we got [1:01:35] Speaker K (unidentified): it running very quickly, which was a good thing. Jason was nice enough to help us while they were hauling sand as far as moving a container and whatever, but he's busy this time of year, so we definitely needed to get it fixed as soon as possible. Okay, all right, all those in favor? [1:01:56] Chair/Presiding Officer: Thank you, thank you. Number five, discussion and decision to allow Jason Finley to expend an amount not to exceed $6,210 from Public Works Equipment Capital Reserve account to Alta Equipment for a five year extended warranty for the newly purchased 2026 loader. Second. [1:02:23] Speaker E (unidentified): Is the DEF system included in this extended warranty? It is. [1:02:27] Chair/Presiding Officer: It is. Sounds like money well spent. [1:02:30] Public Works/Road Commissioner: And when they come up here and work on it, is also included for mileage. That's, that's a huge thing, because they, even if you have a warranty and they come up here to work on it, they charge you for what, things are covered under the warranty. I could give you a list, I'm not gonna go over it right now on so [1:02:58] Speaker E (unidentified): you've reviewed the list and you think that we need it? Yes. Okay, definitely it's [1:03:02] Public Works/Road Commissioner: five-year, it's a no-brainer. Yeah, three years, I think it's a smart thing to do. Yeah, because after three years it's going to break. [1:03:17] John Gross, public commenter: But they don't give you any options, just five years, that's it? I mean, extend it five years, or do you want a three-year extension, or a two-year extension? Because you might decide to get rid of this machine, or whatever the case may be. [1:03:29] Public Works/Road Commissioner: Well, we've got to lease for it for five years. [1:03:34] John Gross, public commenter: So you've got coverage for it now, but you want an extended warranty on something you're leasing? Yeah. Yeah, but the alteration you're doing to the machine is covered under the five-year warranty. [1:03:47] Public Works/Road Commissioner: I don't have anything I'm doing to it. It's a brand-new machine. [1:03:49] John Gross, public commenter: Oh, what's this alter? [1:03:52] Public Works/Road Commissioner: It's a brand-new machine. [1:03:53] Chair/Presiding Officer: That's the company that we're buying, we bought the machine from. [1:03:57] Speaker O (unidentified): Alter? Alter Equipment. Oh, that's the name of the company. Yes, it is, yes. [1:04:01] Speaker E (unidentified): So it comes with a three-year warranty. We have a five-year lease. Yes. And you want to extend it so we can get through the... [1:04:10] Public Works/Road Commissioner: this police I can get you the copy of it for the next gender if you'd like what's [1:04:23] Chair/Presiding Officer: The, I guess, just real quick, what's the current plan? When would we be looking to replace this piece of equipment? I know this is a ways out, but when would we be? Probably ten years. Ten years. Okay, all right. So it makes sense then. Yeah. All right. All those in favor? Thank you, Jason. Oh, you might as well stay right there, huh? Here for a while. Number six, discussion and decision to allow Jason Finley to an expended amount not to exceed $19,250 from Public Works Roads and Sidewalks Capital Reserve Account. Bridge improvement designation to Bono and Sons Excavation for the town's portion of the removal of the Hilton Bridge on the Red Bridge Road. [1:05:07] Public Works/Road Commissioner: So this is basically a little bit... Hold on. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. So this is basically just cleaning up some stuff, because I did bring this to the board, and I couldn't find a vote on it. I found it. [1:05:25] Speaker D (unidentified): We already approved to spend 50% of the cost shared with Canaan, and this is the right 50%. [1:05:32] Public Works/Road Commissioner: What was your date on that, June 10th? [1:05:34] Speaker D (unidentified): I can't find it for you. 25 [1:05:40] Public Works/Road Commissioner: Because I had Canaan come here on May 13th, the 25th, February 10th of 2026. Okay, I just couldn't find the vote on it, so I wanted to make sure it was cleaned up. February 10th. Okay, so we're all good. So we're all good. I want to take another vote on it because I couldn't [1:05:59] Speaker O (unidentified): find it and shh. Yeah, that's in the notes then, right? We approved removal of the bridge [1:06:08] Speaker D (unidentified): with Bono and Son at $38,500 with Cain and Pang half. So, I mean. Okay. Okay. [1:06:16] Public Works/Road Commissioner: All right. Very good. As long as we could pay it. Because I couldn't find it and I wanted to make sure it was cleaned up. Okay. [1:06:24] Chair/Presiding Officer: So we're gonna drop number six. It was previously approved. Okay, number seven. Discussion and decision to allow Jason Finley to an expended amount not to exceed 72 650 from pollution control capital reserve account treatment plant sewer collection system upgrade designation to pay vortex services to clean camera and uv line pleasant street drainage. So this second. Okay, so this was that culvert that [1:07:08] Public Works/Road Commissioner: I don't know if anybody remembers that the state found that was in bad shape and it went underneath a building on Norwich Walk Ave and they put it in our lap for maintenance because we take care of the maintenance on that and I did get a grant MPI on that, and they'll pay 50% of that. So I have to pay it and then they give the 50% back, which we put back in this account, so. [1:07:46] Chair/Presiding Officer: So we're gonna get half that back? Half that back. Half of 72,000 is $250 back. Yep. [1:07:58] Public Works/Road Commissioner: But I have to pay it and show them that we paid it, and then they reimburse us. Okay. Probably it'll be a while getting repressed, I'm sure. [1:08:09] Chair/Presiding Officer: All right, and we have enough money in reserves to cover this for right now? Yes. Okay. All right, all those in favor? Last but not least, number eight. Discussion and decision to allow Jason Finley to waive the bid process and to expend an amount not to exceed $24,500 from the Pollution Control capital reserve account treatment plant sewer collection system upgrades designation to pay Vortex Systems, Vortex Services to clean and camera sewer main lines on Mill Street, St. Mark Street, Parlin Street, Cody Street, Door Street, Blair Street, Beaufort Street, Short Street, and Harding Street. [Speaker M (unidentified): Sounds like] a [1:09:08] Public Works/Road Commissioner: a lot of feet of pipe. Yeah, so we have to do so many feet a year for DEP. We have to do cleaning, camera so much. The real reason is to, this is that's one of our oldest sections of sewer that would, I'm having camera and it's pretty flat section. It really needs to be looked at, cases leaching in or, and it helps Donnie with some of his grant stuff because he needs to have so much showed up cleaned and camera and done every year, and we recommends us doing this too. We already [1:09:50] Speaker E (unidentified): know where all of these pipes are, like exactly, or they're gonna map it out? [1:09:55] Public Works/Road Commissioner: Or they'll map it out to the GPS locate all pipes and services to, like coming in, and they'll clean it. And sometimes if, like we did Madison Ave, we lined it, and if it's in bad shape and cracked and this and that, maybe we can line it, maybe we have to pull it up and fix it all, but lining is a lot cheaper in the long run depending on the size of the pipe. But was there any particular reason that those streets were, so our oldest section, oldest sewer, you have the most problems up there too. I don't have a lot. It's pretty flat though, so, and I think there's a lot of roots in it, so clay pipes. Yep, clay pipe. And one of them was where we had that outfall last year. I want to camera that and clean that around that 90 over here on the, do you remember when that had a problem? I want to make sure that's clean and safe so we don't have that issue again. And I really don't know how that tank works over there, so there's another reason to clean it and camera it. So I'll know how that tank works. So if we have issues again, we'll know what to do. [1:11:22] Speaker D (unidentified): And Jason, just can you explain the reason to waive the bid process so we [1:11:28] Public Works/Road Commissioner: This company is in Maine. The other companies that do this are most of them are out of state, and they are in a co-op with the state. That's why we waived it when we did Madison Ave, because they give us the best rate going around, because they're in that cold off, they work together with other towns, estates, and stuff like that, and give the price, best price, that they don't have to go out to bid. All right. [1:12:04] Chair/Presiding Officer: Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor? Thank you guys. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Number nine, treasurer's warrants to approve. We're gonna remove 102, 18, 19, 20, and 21. We're gonna remove 17 per Gail's explanation earlier. [1:12:29] Speaker M (unidentified): So moved as presented. [1:12:33] Chair/Presiding Officer: Second. All in favor? Okay, moving along to other business. Oh, yes. Let's do that. Yep. Let's go ahead and do that right now then. And I was just reminded that we do have a general assistance hearing that needs to be had so that we can stay in compliance. I'm gonna have, turn it over to Aaron to review that information with us. [1:13:13] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: Oh, I'm through the chair. I would just entertain a motion to go. [1:13:21] Chair/Presiding Officer: Okay, all right. I'll entertain a motion to go into public hearing. So moved. Second. All in favor? [1:13:33] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: This is standard, for general assistance that the state does every year. We have to get, we have a public hearing gives the opportunity for us to talk to the public about the changes that have been met at the state level. And so we gotta do this every year. We gotta get done before October 1st. So we can remain as a chair had mentioned compliant, and just looking at the, localized framework here for Scout Hagan and Somerset County, I can give you a snapshot of what the changes are from last year compared to this year. The appendix A, the overall monthly maximums are one person is nine hundred and thirty two dollars. It's change, that's unchanged from last year, as well as all of the maximums under appendix A. So two people is one thousand $2002, three people $1177, four people $1532, and five people $1661. They did add $75 per month for each additional family member. If you were to compare, just to get a sense of what that means, if you were to compare, compared to neighbors in Kennebec County, the maximum is going up there and it's higher over there. So it's probably based on what they're seeing as far as the work that they've done on income levels and things along those lines. But really, the takeaway here is that these figures are calculated directly via HUD's so localized fair market rate matrixes that they have there, and adopting these values guarantees that the town will remain compliant with the state's Department of Health and Human Services, Family for Independence. So with general assistance, if you approve this tonight, we move forward, ensures this continue release that we'll receive the 90% that the state gives us back, the reimbursement shield that we'll receive here. [1:15:50] Speaker E (unidentified): And we don't really have an option not to approve it? [1:15:53] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: I think it's a bit of a formality. I mean, they do this every year. You can, but it could create some problems, I guess. So I'd recommend that you approve it as discussed. [1:16:08] Chair/Presiding Officer: Any discussion? Esther, please come up, thanks. [1:16:17] Esther Franklin, State Senate candidate / Public commenter: I was just wondering if the rate of general assistance,, the number of general assistance gifts, donations that you've made have increased or not. I attended the Madison Select Board meeting and they said that they're giving, they're seeing the need for more and more. And I wondered how it was compared to Madison and are you seeing an increase in the need for more asks? And I was just wondering if you had a plan since the shelter is gonna go out of use I wondered if you had a plan for a response as a town I've been hearing reports of more people hanging out downtown around businesses and on the one hand I don't know what it's like to be homeless and I sympathize and on the other hand I also sympathize with local business owners having people hanging out all day long in front of their business can be off-putting and I wondered if there was any kind of plan Underway to mitigate or respond to those two things I realize they're different but they're kind of in the same ballpark so [1:17:39] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: It's just curiosity I've only been here seven days but I'm glad you asked that question because that was a that was a question that was raised by the media you know is there any sort of contingency plan for the town to react to this and really the best answer that I can come up with is that we can work with the owners or the operators of that and have discussions with them so we can open the lines of communication with them. As far as that, the only answer that I can come up with is really the general assistance program. The town, that's what this is for, and we have to take that on a case-by-case basis. So they can apply for general assistance. We would go through the process. We would work with the state and discuss it with them. And then it's a fast-moving process. We have to, you know, give them a decision within 24 hours. So there's that. As far as any other sort of assistance, I'm not aware. I just haven't been here long enough to understand what kind of, you know, programs are in place, whether it be through local churches or anything like that can offer some sort of assistance but that's that's something we can look into as I'm as I sit here hope [1:19:08] Speaker D (unidentified): that helps and any information that you're aware of around [1:19:12] Speaker F (unidentified): usage rates being up down flat on for which general assistance I don't it's a [1:19:19] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: good question happy to look into that I just don't know I mean and you mentioned Madison as well like comparing comparison to Madison I mean that would just be a phone call what's [1:19:38] Speaker D (unidentified): the general trend yeah Renee handles general assistance here right yes yep so with a little more than seven days on a job I bet Aaron will be able to answer that question yeah I move we adopt the new [1:19:53] Speaker F (unidentified): updated general assistance guidelines do I need to close the public yep. Discussion? I'll close it. [1:19:58] Speaker M (unidentified): Yep. Oh, do we have to make a motion? [1:20:02] Aaron Miller, Town Manager: Take a motion to second. There's no other discussion. [1:20:05] Chair/Presiding Officer: All those in favor of closing public discussion? Move to approve the updated general assistance guidelines. Second. All in favor? Thank you, Aaron. All right. Other business, this one's a little. [1:20:25] Speaker D (unidentified): I'm not sure we voted on the warrants. I think we skipped to the public hearing. We did. No, we voted. We did? [1:20:29] Chair/Presiding Officer: did all right i had something brought to my attention i believe it belongs here gail's pilot's father's funeral is going to be wednesday september 30th at 11 a.m her staff would like to have the time off to go and pay their respects and give their support to gail during that during that time and to do this the front office would need to close at 10 45 through 12 30 p.m is that something we feel we can authorize to allow her staff to go and support her do i have a motion to close the front office from 10 45 a.m to 12 30 p.m on september 30th so move second all in favor thank you one more thing that I have is there anything else before we move into a discussion on the dam purchase and [1:21:49] Speaker F (unidentified): Removal and on all that good stuff just documenting for the minutes that we will [1:21:55] Speaker D (unidentified): schedule a future workshop to learn about the conservation efforts for Whitman, Curry or Brooke. Perfect. [1:22:02] Chair/Presiding Officer: All right. So I did have a meeting scheduled. Well, actually it was more of an informational thing scheduled with Donna Casassi and what was the gentleman's name? Alex, Moss. Yes. And it was for tonight, but I, after talking with Aaron a little bit, I decided that I should give him a little bit of time before we jump into this conversation and hopefully put our heads together and develop a good path to share the information and ensure that we're being fully transparent and there's nothing left out of the conversation as we explore and discover what this project is about so I'm looking to take a few minutes tonight to just hear from different people and what they think That we should be doing for a process to get this communicated and take people's input and be able to work with these companies and entities to get the best results that we possibly can for the town of Skowhegan. I would be remiss in saying that myself personally, I am very interested in this and this has a lot to do with our town and we need to be out front of it and in tune with what is going on and giving our feedback to these folks so that we can hopefully come up with the best possible solution to this issue. I'm calling it an issue because the downside is not, it doesn't bode well for the town. So I probably already said too much, but here we go what are people's thoughts on what we should be doing on for a venue and for a around a discussion and representatives and all different kinds of things sure I'd [1:24:38] Speaker M (unidentified): Like to go personally for any sort of opportunity that allows for all parties to be involved in a respectful way in a manner in which we can gather information and have conversations around this whether it is a town meeting forum of partners with a moderator or if it is a town sanctioned subcommittee or committee that could also lead efforts in research and then present to the select board my biggest concern is that there has been a lot of time that has passed since we've had I mean glad we Have Erin now, but two town managers ago this topic has been up, and I just really would like transparency for the townspeople. I think they deserve to hear the things that are happening and what are, what's going to be in front of us in a public way, and a way for us to also hear more than just rumors around town. So whatever method works best for us to have civil conversation, to share information from all sides. I am interested in learning more about what we can do for that. [1:25:53] Chair/Presiding Officer: Okay, thank you, Matt. John, you wanna step right up, please? Yeah. Thank you. [1:25:58] John Gross, public commenter: I kinda know what you're talking about, but I think we gotta get our finances in order here because we're still talking about an audit we haven't done yet for the town. So it'd be like going out here with having a strativarius in your hand and in the case down there and asking for money we don't show that we are financially sound if we're still trying to get a get an audit done with the town and I and my next question would be is do we have enough property down there in the industrial park to fuel your idea? [1:26:39] Chair/Presiding Officer: Oh, well, first of all, this, I wasn't real clear in what I was talking about. I was talking about the Nature Conservancy and SAPI and Brookfield and anybody else that, you know, has anything to do with the dams and their potential removal. [1:27:01] John Gross, public commenter: I understand that, yep. [Chair/Presiding Officer: And I've] heard talk of AI or the plants the data centers okay that and I was just wondering if there was enough property down there by sappy at the industrial park something to something to approach that's all oh okay yeah it's [1:27:26] Speaker D (unidentified): It's a different topic for another night and not I understand I understand that [1:27:30] John Gross, public commenter: But what I'm saying is we have to get to get our finances in order I mean I couldn't go out [1:27:36] Speaker O (unidentified): And buy something if I had didn't balance my checkbook right we're actually talking about [1:27:41] John Gross, public commenter: A different topic right now well I know but you can't go if they somebody sees that you're not you're doing your books why would they buy your flower you know we're not talking about spending money right now. I understand that, but what I'm saying to you is that when people don't balance their books, it doesn't give you much, how can I say it, strength as far as doing business. [1:28:11] Speaker M (unidentified): Yeah, totally understand that. Yeah, thank you very much. [1:28:14] John Gross, public commenter: That's the way I'm seeing it. It's great to go out and buy new firetrucks, public safety buildings, and everything else, but a new bridge. But let's, let's get our books in order first before we start thinking we've got a champagne appetite with a beer income, that's all. And I like to ask you a question, this is Miss Lampe, how come everybody doesn't have laptops? You, I noticed you're the baker in the flour maker have computers, but I just wanted to know, we can't afford the rest of you to have a laptop? No, those are all personal laptop. Well I understand that, but I mean, are they, are they doing, are they doing [1:28:59] Speaker O (unidentified): town work while they're sitting there, are they doing? Oh yeah, taking notes on the meeting. [1:29:03] John Gross, public commenter: Taking notes so I can remember what we talked about. One, that's my second question to you is, don't you guys get minutes from the meetings? They don't, I guess they don't tape the, they don't tape [1:29:13] Speaker O (unidentified): the, they don't tape it anymore. They used to tape it and put it on channel 11. It is taped, I take [1:29:19] Speaker D (unidentified): take some notes because it helps me search the notes to help Jason answer his question about what he last talked about. No,, I have no problem with that. [1:29:25] John Gross, public commenter: I just wonder why nobody else has them, that's all. [1:29:28] Speaker D (unidentified): Kevin, I'd like to speak to the topic at hand. [Speaker F (unidentified): Sure, please.] So to the topic of how we get ourselves educated on the transfer of dam ownership from Brookfield to the Nature Conservancy and how that impacts SAPI, which is a major taxpayer and contributor to the town of Skowhegan. It is my hope that we start having open and transparent conversations that are educational in nature. Since I've been on this select board, I have, you know, when I got elected, like Don DeBlasi had one address that was brand new when the news broke and it was a declarative statement about her feelings about it. But to, in my eye, we have not yet had any public discourse just simply to educate, so people have read newspaper articles, we've never tried to help the townspeople educate, so I do feel like this select board has a role to play in bringing forth information before we, before we create opinions or to also get ahead of rumors and mistruths that will go faster than we are able to catch up if we are not being proactive about education. So I know a little bit because I've been meeting with principals to learn more who have invited the sharing of information. I know that there are advisory groups forming that involve our townspeople who will serve on those groups. Donnie for one was starting to serve on that advisory group. group, I know that there are counter efforts forming to have a voice around what happens. And I think the Nature Conservancy and the Kennebec River Restoration Trust is trying to be open and transparent. We know that there is conflict in meeting SAPI's needs. We as a town, we need to understand what are those needs, what is the nature of those needs, and get answers from people who can answer them truthfully. I have a concern that this be done in the public eye and not. We could form an ad hoc committee. An ad hoc committee would form short term to learn more information. But then we need to decide how do we fairly elect people to serve on that committee. And then it's behind closed doors and it's not helping folks that watch these meetings become educated. And then we're still in the same position that an ad hoc committee comes forward with information and says, here's how it is. And the townspeople feel as though they're left behind on the education so it will require sort of moderated ground rules and you know I think back to the newly elected officials workshop we went to where we were learning as newly elected select board members that the town body has elected us to represent their interests and help facilitate conversations and decisions on behalf of the town that's our role and we need to exert that role which is to help in a situation like this a public hearing Is a sanctioned way to ask for feedback from the public when it is required. A workshop is a way to educate abs a workshop does not require a public hearing when there's no decision to be made. And even these meetings I think we need to be square about what is required these meetings and the decisions that come out on the agenda. We were taught involve our discussions the sanction time for the public to speak is really the items for the public section of the meeting. It is not on every agenda item. And in the interest of transparency and voice, we've been allowing that, but the state says that is not, that is not the purpose of a select board meeting and the agenda in a public meeting. So I'm just laying those out because using the right words for the right kind of conversation we wanna have for education is going to be important. And setting ground rules around who speaks, who asks the questions, how many questions, how long does it go on? We all have been to meetings in the town where we could talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk all [1:33:55] Speaker E (unidentified): night all right so I mean I'm with it so I'm with amber that there needs to be some educational stuff that goes on so we can see both sides but I think if we're going to have speakers come in and explain what's going on that we need to allow the public and the people to ask questions so it needs to be a workshop and not have it be only them speaking i think that there's a lot of concern from the residents of scowigan so i think we need to allow them to ask questions i think i think that's important i think it's important for everyone to be able to have a voice that it's going to affect like i mean this [1:34:41] Speaker M (unidentified): isn't just the five of us and so maybe it's a moderated forum in which we have a moderator that is right aside from our board chair that can help lead that in a respectful way like we do with our town meeting have some sort of do we have any say in this it's a good question well [1:34:59] Speaker D (unidentified): say in what is the question whether to have a conversation i mean yeah do we have a seat at [1:35:05] Speaker O (unidentified): the board of what they're going to do with these dams this is why we want to we want to bring [1:35:12] Speaker D (unidentified): information forward in my opinion and part of our ethical duty and the oath we sign is that we will give fair process to learning about an issue before we make a decision so I don't feel like any one of us can ethically decide a position on this by deciding what this is without proper we have a decision or they just going to do whatever they want so there is no decision for this board to make at this point what we would like to understand is what is happening on what timeline what is being done to address concerns what when will next steps be taken etc and correct that 's what we [1:35:57] Public Works/Road Commissioner: want to bring 100 this is and that's why our town if we don't have x y and z we are going to be [1:36:04] Speaker M (unidentified): I mean, the question is what other maneuvers [1:36:06] Speaker H (unidentified): We might have as well. Yeah, I like the idea. I mean, see, right now we're generating some really quality questions, right? And so I love the idea of the education. And my thought process is like, how do we flood the public with education and in a way that will allow them to trust the process, right? I've taken phone calls about false narratives, right? So if people just like come in and like say their bid or whatnot and we aren't able to ask questions, then are we really just kind of bystanders in the process? Like, it's a huge deal, right? Like, it's a big deal to change something that's been one way for all of our entire lives, right? So I guess I'm trying to figure out like, how do we, you know, what are those questions that we do need to ask? We are elected officials, Saul dot Elijah at gmail.com, 207 612 6308, right? Call me if you have questions and we will start to put together a list of questions, I would think, I would hope, right? Like, I feel like we need to be asking good questions, serious questions, in a way like, do we have a say in this, right? Like, in a way like, how do we, how do we, I think education should come first, but also we don't want to miss those opportunities, do we, in terms of like, if we have people here, are we able to at least, is the moderator able to have a list of questions from the community that are asked, right, where it's not just like an open forum for people who don't understand the process whatsoever to be belittling other people based on gossip and you know other situations because they think they have a hypothesis of what might happen, right? I think that's a situation we want to avoid, but a situation, you know, I think you guys both said it really well, so I agree with both of you in terms of like, how do we flood that education, how do we get more meetings, and how do we sort of, you know, exert a little bit of control that we may have in that process. [1:38:17] Chair/Presiding Officer: Joe, come on up. [1:38:19] Speaker E (unidentified): Is it really about the salmon? That's my question. Do it right this time. [1:38:24] Joe Almond, public commenter: Joe Almond. My whole thought on this whole thing, this is a very controversial thing that is happening amongst our town. There's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of questions about it. And the biggest thing that I see is we're not getting the right people in the room, right? Right, like you have the TNC, you have SAPI, you have Brookfield, our legislators that have been working with this and seeing this. We need to have information from environmentalists and scientists that have information about how this will affect. And they all need to be in the same room. Because if we're just bringing one or two people in at a time, we're not getting the full picture. We're not getting the full story. And until we can get all of those people sitting in the same room and asking those questions, we're not going to get the truth because somebody's going to say one thing and then the next person will come back to say the other thing and it'll just be an ongoing battle of trying to figure out what is going to happen and realistically once we have these people all in the same room we're all smart when we can all work together to figure out a solution because this is going to affect our town we're talking workforce we're talking tax revenue Brookfield's the third or our fourth largest taxpayer in our town. That's a lot of revenue that could go away once these dams are gone. And we need to figure out, well, what are we gonna do to mitigate that? What's gonna happen if somebody else takes over and decides that the dams need to go, or what needs to happen? We need to have these questions answered before we just start arguing amongst each other and really have good solutions. [1:40:06] Speaker D (unidentified): Amber. So I think I just wanna raise something thing I shared with Kevin, which is that this is a big issue. It's going to unfold over many years. It's not one conversation. It's going to be many. And even if we try to get all the people in the room that are interested parties, that may not happen on one evening. And there may not be enough time to talk about it in one evening. So it really is a set of scheduled workshop, whatever we want to call it, workshops to learn. We've got a lot of learning to do. And there's, as Joe said, lots of layers to the impact and the interested parties and hearing a lot of sides, so. [1:40:51] John Gross, public commenter: I'd just like to say one thing. Maybe a steering committee, maybe invite the big businesses and ask them to join a steering committee. With the selectmen and do a little brain trust get them together they're all participating they're all heading for the same thing they want to keep things going here nobody's ever like Joe says nobody's ever invited them where they all come together I think that's a great idea and if they choose not to come it's one thing but give them the invitation and read you know, let them talk and see how they can help the town of Skowhegan other than paying their taxes. [1:41:40] Speaker D (unidentified): So back, Kevin had a conversation scheduled for tonight that we canceled in the interest of making sure that we're all in agreement about what the process is to get educated. And I think there's no decision to make tonight about this, other than we wanna work towards a plan. And we have a brand new town manager on board who has to get caught up to speed. Donnie's been our interim town manager, has been sitting in on some of the meetings. I think for the for the townspeople listening, you can trust that we want to advance conversations and education, and we probably need some time to put forth a proposal about what that might look like over a series [1:42:26] Speaker F (unidentified): of meetings or a period of time. So it sounds to me like what we need right now [1:42:32] Chair/Presiding Officer: is a list of significant contributors that could bring their information to the like a workshop and be so that we can invite them. I agree with the [1:42:49] Speaker E (unidentified): workshop thing. This I don't think this I think this is too big to include in a in a select board meeting. I think it's going to, I mean, it's going to, it's going to take three hours for that conversation. Then we're going to try and fit a three hour select board [1:43:00] Speaker M (unidentified): meeting in public hearing versus moderated forum. I think that's what we need to choose though, is what kind of forum, right? Is that what we're? [1:43:08] Chair/Presiding Officer: I think we need to choose a forum and I think we need to, we need to figure out just how big this is really going to be, because it's got to be upstairs. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's, it's like, Joe was saying it's not just sappy or the TNC or Brookfield, it's it's gonna be biologists, it's gonna be, I mean that the whole list of that you rattled off [1:43:35] Speaker D (unidentified): there, that's a day long. You know what you're describing is a day-long event, and what I'm suggesting is that a series of invited guests that address this board on camera, that begin to get the public educated, could culminate in a bigger conversation with questions. But what you're describing, try to think of every single interested party and get them all in the same room as a first conversation, I think is perhaps overwhelming and unrealistic for to get issues on the table, to keep emotions in check, and to get good information. This will be years of work ahead of us, and there's lots to know about. [1:44:28] Joe Almond, public commenter: Real quick. I mean, realistically, obviously, some of the first steps that can happen is, you know, granted this lovely Newtown manager is gonna get thrown to battle really quick, but having him have and start these discussions amongst all of those groups, right, to get something developed, because I think we can't just basically like say hey show up and we're gonna answer all these questions right there's gonna be a lot of homework and background that has to go into this amongst finding out from what's going on with the purchase and sale finding out legally what we can and cannot do I mean there's we got to talk to the lawyers about like can we do anything about it is it a private sale and we're just shit out of luck I mean sorry excuse the language but you know what I mean and it's like are we just gonna suffer from that I think that you know that's gonna be the biggest part is getting all that information put together in a timely manner and making sure that there's a lot of support given to the town manager and his staff in order to get that done so that we can present a really good meeting in a town format way so that people can come in and ask their questions and get their concerns all set [1:45:40] Speaker D (unidentified): up I think I and that I hear what you're saying Joe I just want to say that you 've already got a position it sounds like and you're asking of us that [1:45:53] Joe Almond, public commenter: we mount a defense no I have no I'm not giving you a position on anything okay what I'm saying is we are all everybody here everybody in the community are lacking information and agree right we can all agree on that everybody there's all these like different things going on we lack information to make a good decision all we hear is a lot of the negative stuff you know the river is going to dry up and it's going to be nothing all of these things and it's all about fish like that's great it's great we're hearing these rumors going around but guess what we're not hearing any facts we need people to give us correct factual information so then as community we can actually stand back and make a decision and or at least understand what's going to happen when these things go through because yes there is a part of it is a private sale it's kind of like how much of that do we have control but we need to have all these questions answered that's that's where we're that's where I'm at and it's hard to make a decision on any of this yeah [1:46:57] Speaker E (unidentified): Until we have those questions and I don't feel that when we have this meeting that they're gonna come out and openly answer any questions. I feel like this is way too big for that and that there's lawyers involved and I don't believe they're gonna just come out and answer anybody's question. I think they're gonna have limited information. [1:47:15] Joe Almond, public commenter: They might be able to give information. [1:47:17] Speaker E (unidentified): But I don't believe they're gonna answer. I guess in the end though, [1:47:19] Joe Almond, public commenter: it's like you don't just pack your bags and go home. You just sit there and fight and you still try. Figure out what our lawyers say too. We got lawyers that can help us. We can fight to figure out, to get information. Whether we get anywhere in the end, we gotta fight first. [1:47:36] Speaker H (unidentified): Come up with one of the most important things is a list of it's like who and what right we seem to have the who figured out right now maybe that who list will grow right and maybe we'll have a series of who but then it's the what right so how do we come up with a series of questions that are important to the folks of Skowhegan that we can ask those folks or even we can give them those questions in advance so they have to you know answer the questions to inform the people of Skowhegan, those are the important things, the who and the what. What do we wanna know, right? Like, if we can come up with, and I don't know, I haven't been a select board member long enough to understand the most efficient way to get the what, right? To get those questions answered from the townspeople. That's why I throw my email out there, I throw my phone number out there. Like, if you have questions, ask, right? So that way we can, you know, it's not I heard, it's this is the answer to that question Esther I liked what you said [1:48:40] Esther Franklin, State Senate candidate / Public commenter: amber about a systematic intentional series of meetings because we all have busy lives and it can be like trying to herd cats to bring many good thinkers into a room I think you could approach it like a needs assessment and in a needs assessment you do it's a study of what are the questions and it's a study of who are the discipline which are the disciplines that need to be involved so before you even try to answer a question you try to understand what are we asking and like you said what can Be answered, and if you approach it as a system, as it as a needs assessment, it's it's kind of a recipe for how to approach a multidisciplinary over time problem, and I'd be happy to help you think about that. The words fail me right now because I'm standing in front of you, but I do have a doctorate in human services, which is the study of systems as they play together and how to work together and how to compromise and how to combine multiple disciplines to get you the most amount of information and the most amount of productivity in this context. [1:49:58] Speaker H (unidentified): I agree, Esther, I think that you're spot on in terms of assessing and needs assessment would be coming up with a bunch of good questions potentially because we're trying to build something, right? What are we trying to build? We're trying to build a truthful, transparent, informational campaign. [1:50:16] Esther Franklin, State Senate candidate / Public commenter: It's not come down to, it's not a yes or no investigation at this point. And I don't believe that you should accept any of this as a yes or no black or white question. As you said, there are lawyers, there are modifications that can happen. I don't know what they would be, I don't have an opinion yet, I don't know enough, but it's not a yes or no process, that's my opinion, and a series is it is the way to go, all [1:50:48] Chair/Presiding Officer: right, I'm not sure if we're any further ahead than when we started, other than it's [1:50:53] Speaker D (unidentified): to take some thinking i don't think we need to feel pressured to have the right answer tonight it's going to take some thinking about how to present and start to structure conversations so let's just keep talking about it and let's get the expertise of our new town manager and come back to future meetings with a proposal and a plan just start conversations continue it just [1:51:16] Speaker M (unidentified): doesn't fall off. Yeah, I would, yeah, should be landing on the next agenda to figure out what options we have for engaging the public and rescheduling folks to come back in and chat with us and whatnot, yes. [1:51:38] Chair/Presiding Officer: All right, good stuff, we'll close that for now. Anything else for other items for tonight? [1:51:53] Speaker E (unidentified): Nope, okay. All right, very good. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second. [1:51:58] Chair/Presiding Officer: Got a first and a second. All those in favor? Sign the documents we got over there and we will get the minutes, the next meeting. [1:52:09] Speaker D (unidentified): We'll get them, we'll get them. [1:52:13] Speaker E (unidentified): It'll be my third this week.