Skowhegan Planning Board OKs 8-lot subdivision, hears courthouse plan

[0:44] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay. Good evening. We'll bring this meeting of the planning board to order. We're going to begin by organizing. We need to make a decision on who will be our officers, our chairman, vice chair, and secretary. We'll begin by entertaining containing, you know, nominations for the position of chairman. [1:23] Planning Board member: Yes, I would nominate, Steve Conley to remain the chair planning board. [1:28] Chair (Steve Conley): Do we have a second that is there any one else that would like to nominate anybody else for chairman? Seeing not, we will vote all those in favor. Please raise your hand. It's unanimous. Okay. Next item. is vice chair I'll entertain a motion for vice chair I'll nominate Jeff he's good do we have a second Dan seconds it are there any other nominations for vice chair seeing none all those in favor please raise your hand [Jeremy Reardon: most] emotion passes unanimously next item is nominations for position of secretary, I said, we nominate Andrew. Okay. I'll second that. Okay. We got a nomination in a second. Is there any other nominations for the position of secretary? Seeing none we'll vote all those in favor. Please raise your hand. Very good. So we, have our officers, we'll now begin, a public hearing for comments for proposed eight lot subdivision submitted by Durgo Engineering. For Jeremy, and I asked this the last meeting. It's Reardon. Reardon, Jeremy Reardon, to be located on 4th Street. And who's going to be presenting? So why don't you step up and give us your name and for those here that are from the public that are looking to maybe make comment or ask a question. Can you give us a very short summary of the project? [3:33] Jeff Fitzmaurice: Sorry, get on the mic. I'm Jeff Fitzmaurice from Dearborn Engineering. Okay. [3:38] Jeremy Reardon: And I'm Jeremy Reardon, owner of 4th Street. [3:43] Jeff Fitzmaurice: So project, not sure if you guys been out and about on the 4th Street right now, but we're just looking to add some additional mobile home lots to the existing park out there do you guys have plans because i do have extras just in case yep we're good could you take [4:05] Chair (Steve Conley): yours and turn it towards the folks that are here even though you can speak to me you can look at them we're already have looked at this so we have some familiarity yeah and yeah apologies [4:24] Jeff Fitzmaurice: For you probably were speaking to Randy before, but he had some medical issues, and so he's down in Boston right now working on that stuff. So basically here we have the Fourth Street Mobile Home Park. It's pretty simple. There's one, two, three, four different mobile homes right now on the existing. Looking to add a couple more, bring one back, one in the front, and then there's gonna be a little bit of groundwork. Basically in the new day of storm water is any water that's rolling on your lot that you're messing with. If it was existing ground that was forested, you have to treat that and make sure you're not pushing too much out into the system. So that's what that potential base is doing is slowing down the water, making sure you're not pushing too much out into the existing stormwater system. And then really up here, I mean, again, you can see there's, we're kind of cutting up these blocks, but really it's just going to be grading, adding some mobile homes here, and then right here is really where most of the technical work is going to happen is where that extension basin is created. You're going to add a culvert, and there's an existing catch basin down in on Front Street, West Front Street, and we're going to add that pipe going into that. There's actually an existing, I believe it's an 18-inch CNP is what I saw up there, and we're going to be tying into that area going in. A part of this, and I don't show it on this one, I don't think I made a big blow off of it, but there's going to be some sewer and water as well. And then we're replacing some of the water lines out there to the mobile home park because that was requested by the water district, and then we're going to be replacing [6:20] Chair (Steve Conley): that's basically what the project is. So basically you're taking four existing dwellings that are there that aren't defined as lots, and you're going to turn it into eight blocks lots and possibly have eight mobile homes, but one of them could possibly be an actual house. [6:40] Jeremy Reardon: Is that correct? No, not on the house. It might maybe be a double wide or something I had considered. You know, maybe I would occupy that, but most likely it will probably be just another single wide. But I wanted to leave the option for, a slightly larger law in case maybe I wanted to put a garage there or something. [7:05] Chair (Steve Conley): Is there any questions about this project from those here tonight? If there are no questions, then we will close the public hearing. Public hearing's closed. You may sit down. Actually, you might as well stay up because you'll be the first item after we go to the minutes. We do have a quorum here tonight. I think this person, oh yeah, go for it. I'm sorry sir, I didn't, I didn't hear you speak up. [7:48] Jeff Fitzmaurice: Yeah, so I believe the center's right here and actually that's something we didn't talk about. We are, we're providing a 25 foot, so we're not going to cut the trees on the back end. [8:02] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. So moved. We have a second. We have a second with Dan. Is there any corrections or additions? Seeing none, we'll vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Those opposed? Motion carries. Minutes are approved. Next item of business, Site Plan Subdivision Flood Hazards for Land Zoning. A, Discussion and Decision for Proposed Eight-Lot Subdivision and submitted by Durgo Engineering for Jeremy Reardon to be located on 4th Street. Okay, you're already up before us. Is there any questions from anybody on the board? [8:51] Planning Board member: Just looking at the plan, I, there was no changes since the last time we saw the initial plan that I'm aware of. [8:59] Jeremy Reardon: Sure. The sewer and water plans. So I was here in August. Yeah, and we didn't have the sewer and water. Okay. So that's been updated. Yes. Okay. [9:08] Jeff Fitzmaurice: So that's the actual. Okay. Yeah. And I know as well, the, detention base has been more defined cuz okay. I did that about a month ago. [9:15] Speaker E (unidentified): So there's a lot more detail. Yep. [9:22] Speaker F (unidentified): Is there any update on the, letter to serve from the water company at this time? Yeah. [9:27] Jeff Fitzmaurice: We, submitted those, I believe, I think we had maybe submitted them or maybe not. And then we, I, know we did Monday. [9:35] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. [9:41] Chair (Steve Conley): Aaron, do you have any, issues at all with this project? Everything? Nope. [9:59] Jeremy Reardon: I did want to add in one thing. So I've been talking with the contractor and we would like to wait until June. So school isn't in session because of the proximity of my property to the high school. We really don't want to be digging up under the road. When school's trying to let out and stuff. So I don't, I don't know if that changes anything, but we were targeting next June. [10:21] Chair (Steve Conley): Put this one before you actually begin at least the road work, the road work. [10:28] Jeff Fitzmaurice: Which would make sense because we're getting close to the paving cutoffs anyways, you. [10:34] Chair (Steve Conley): Don't want to get that. What kind of time we've got, a like a one-year timeline on beginning, don't we? Subdivisions don't expire, so it doesn't matter. [10:43] Speaker F (unidentified): Matter. Sounds good. [10:58] Speaker G (unidentified): Any more questions? Seeing the, actually the, large lot is that lot eight, the larger lot? I was just curious which one is the. Yes. Okay, Mr. [11:25] Planning Board member: Chair, I move that we accept the eight lot subdivision submitted on behalf of Jeremy Reardon located at Fourth Street [11:33] Speaker H (unidentified): as presented. We have a second. Michelle is [11:42] Chair (Steve Conley): there any further discussion on the matter? Seeing them, we'll vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes. You have your subdivision. Thank you. Next item, pre-application review or proposed development submitted by WBRC Inc. for State of Maine, Judicial Branch, to be located at 47 and 55 Court Street. [12:12] Speaker E (unidentified): Did I orient the board to the audience? To us. When [12:26] Chair (Steve Conley): you have a public hearing, you can face it towards the public. All [12:38] Dave Woodward: right. Good evening. I'm Dave Woodward, WBRC Landscape Architect Planner. I'm the agent for this project for the Main Judicial Branch. I brought a cast of characters with me. I have Jeremy Gray representing the Main Judicial Branch, Matt Ward architect, Jackson Ford the brains behind the operation, he's an architect as well. It's a pleasure to be here. It's been a long time coming. It's a big investment. It's a 33 million dollar project. It's a big investment into the town. I'm sure it's a sign of good things, some better things to come, and definitely an asset to continue to be in downtown Skowhegan. I was just going to give you a quick overview of kind of how we got to where we are. This is a survey, and as you know, the existing district court is here and the parking's here. It's kind of a disjointed layout, right? All the parking's here, you got to walk through this little narrow pathway to get to the building, with plans to do this expansion. In addition, there was two things that occurred. One was the acquisition of what was is lot 55, I think it's the Copley residence, that was done in 2024, and then just recently this year there was a 60 foot strip of land acquired from the Height Property Group, so that has created this new parcel. So the original parcel was one and a half acres, now it's two. So the existing building is going to stay, they're going to do an addition of space. It's a kind of U-shaped building now, they're going to fill in the back, and then this part of the building is a three-story building, it's two stories for this footprint, and then there's a like a Three-story part that's kind of in the back part of this building. You can see the parking, the driveway is still in the same location as exists today. We have 74 parking spaces for visitors. I think there's 24 for staff, and then there's a judge. They have nice, there's a four-car garage with some three spaces outside. That's in a secured area, so this is a secured area. Employee parking lot is a secured area, and the visitors parking lot is obviously open to the public. There's a walkway for them to walk from the parking down to the street and enter. The new entrance for the building will actually be here, which is much better than it was before, because everybody had to walk and the main entrance was over on High Street. There's an entrance plaza here, and we're proposing a drop-off on Court Street. Could be for any of the public transportation or just people dropping off somebody for a court hearing. Let's see, I mean, I can go through, so I don't know how much you want me to go through, but kind of if you read through our whole submittal, I'm sure, God bless you, it was a lot of paperwork. We're actually, we're really ready for actually making a formal submittal, so it was probably more than a pre-app needed, but it's just our understanding that, you know, this goes through a site plan review ordinance because there's no actual like zoning on the property. We don't have any shoreline zoning. You know, I can go through whatever you'd like. I had a cover letter that kind of addressed all the review criteria that you guys go through when you review a plan, so I had that provided, and there will be some landscaping that and we'll have some buffering because we have some residential properties bounding us on two sides. Got some landscape islands now in the parking lot. Current parking lot doesn't have any. We'll have some foundation plantings. We need to keep them low for security reasons, but it'll enhance the architecture of the building. This is like a blow-up. So the sidewalk comes down from the parking lot to this entrance plaza, and there's a covered roof here, then you enter into the building. The drop off is here. Got some trees, some granite benches, and a nice area to gather pre and post being at the courthouse. Everybody loves pictures, so yeah. So this is again, this is that front plaza. This is the entrance into the building. We have the new facade and the, this is the existing building, and you can see like the three-story element is actually in the Towards the rear respecting the existing building line, you know, you guys like to have buildings pushed up towards the street, parking needs to be on the side and rear, so we've got all that with this project is [18:36] Chair (Steve Conley): There anything new that'll be taking place in this building beyond what is actually good question [18:43] Dave Woodward: So there are two courtrooms existing in the existing work, there's a courtroom in the I think it's called the Superior Court building that'll actually be coming over to this building and then another one, so they'll be will have a courtroom right, we're moving the courtroom from the superior court into this building, so there's two existing in the district building and when we do this expansion project you're going to bring the courtroom over from the superior court and add one more courtroom so in This area in this vicinity they'll you know there's three courtrooms today, there'll be four when we're finished so [19:30] Speaker G (unidentified): So you're bringing him over from the Somerset County courthouse, the,, yes. So what's gonna happen to the, I don't know, the old courthouse. [19:39] Jeff Fitzmaurice: We will give that back to the county. Yeah. We owe, we are to buy that space for a statue from the mid seventies. Mm-hmm the county provides that to us at no cost. And we are to, once we vacate that space and have no need for it, [19:53] Speaker F (unidentified): We'll turn it back over to the county. [20:02] Chair (Steve Conley): Anybody have any questions for it? [20:04] Speaker H (unidentified): I have a few, I don't know if you wanna answer to go first though. [20:06] Planning Board member: It might be easier if you flip back one to the picture, it's my first question, yeah, that space there, so the drop-off area as it exists now, just sort of thinking of the street, would you anticipate reducing the size of that sidewalk in front or how are you anticipating or is it is literally just creating a further bump out onto that street and I looked at another good question yeah I wasn't sure from looking at okay [Speaker J (unidentified): Yeah the] Sidewalk comes so that won't change, you're really creating kind of the [20:54] Speaker J (unidentified): The road widens, or is wired, or something like that, at one end or the other of Cork Street. [20:59] Speaker E (unidentified): When you look at the artist's view of the building, there's no sidewalk. The street's right up to the building, and there's no vegetation. There's no seating, so that view is very different than your drawing. [21:20] Dave Woodward: Well, that's just... [21:21] Speaker J (unidentified): It's an old drawing. the plan so this dark this dark gray is the sidewalk and it comes up [21:49] Dave Woodward: The road has the road stays the existing Court Street, it's kind of stays kind of wide, so all we're doing is there's a taper in it today and we're just creating, okay, just a more formal, yeah, you know, some landscape knuckles in [22:05] Planning Board member: a drop-off. A lot of our roads in town are too wide for what they are, so, you know, creating this. It's also a street that people go too fast on. Yeah. And if you are increasing the use, which this will increase the use of that area. [22:20] Speaker E (unidentified): They're not modifying the road. [22:22] Planning Board member: Well, you'll get the same effect if you put vegetation in and put vegetation close to the road. And also, you know, it's sort of establishing that lane. [22:33] Dave Woodward: It's two 11-foot lanes instead of it being, like, whatever. It's, like, 15-foot wide lanes right now. [22:39] Planning Board member: Yeah. I just walked it the other night. And I was like, but the drawing made it seem like maybe it was coming from the sidewalk, but that makes sense, the street's real wide there. My next question was you talked about the buffering, there's existing buffering now in that parking lot, it's sort of, I can't tell if it's those people's fence, I think some of it belongs to the courthouse, but I was kind of curious if you're planning to fence that lot as part of the buffering plan, which I, there is a fence around the entire park. Yeah, they should show the picture and then with the new it'll stay kind of an [23:09] Dave Woodward: establish fence or okay, the boss, the boss says there's going to be a new fence all the way around, okay, I thought there was just a fence kind of because right now there's a, there's a black vinyl chain link fence between the courthouse parking lot and the entire heights, okay, so it is this [23:25] Planning Board member: thing, it is the same, yeah, and then I'm assuming for the staff parking that'll be separate fence and then for the parking garage I'm assuming that will be gated access of some kind, yeah, so [23:35] Dave Woodward: we have actually there's a six foot fence, there's no barbed wire but there's a six foot fence and there's, there's two sliding gates, one to come in, one to go out for the employee lot, and the judge's lot has one cantilever gate and that's actually an eight foot wall with brick and [23:54] Planning Board member: finish and looks pretty nice, so it was 74 and then 24 was the number, I heard 74 in the public lot and [24:02] Dave Woodward: and 24 in the correct, yeah, what is it currently, so right now there's 108, so [24:12] Speaker H (unidentified): totally you'll end up with just around 100, 106, okay, so you only lose two spaces, right, how will that [24:24] Chair (Steve Conley): you're moving the other court over, no one uses this lot now, no one uses it now, so [24:31] Planning Board member: They all park over here in town. [24:34] Dave Woodward: Yeah, all good discussion. Actually, in your 500-page report, there's a report from Barton Laguitas that we actually had them do not just a trip generation, but we also had them do a parking generation because obviously $33 million, you don't want to build something and it doesn't work, right? Right. So they went out and assessed the York County courthouse, which is much, larger facility. And they went out on one docket day and two jury selection days, which are the busiest days at a courthouse. And through their magic of analysis and then doing the ratio between because this project's a third the size, they determined that we need 76 parking spaces and we don't generate enough traffic to jet to warrant a traffic movement permit but that was 76 spaces but we're giving you 106 if you take the town's ordinance which is two spaces per thousand it needs like 96 spaces so we feel pretty good we've you know we're meeting town code and we're also meeting what the professionals are saying we need for parking so that was that's how we arrived at where we are the superior court [25:57] Speaker E (unidentified): parking area is always jammed on court day it's never enough good [26:08] Planning Board member: to see this so yeah, we often talk about parking in the downtown and then we observe that this parking lot doesn't get a ton of activity on court days because a lot of people especially superior court days they park in the municipal walk lot walk over some of the businesses like it because then it gets them right which I understand but no that's more why I was asking sort of the overall size mm-hmm it seems like putting Superior Court there it's gonna draw more attention to the fact that there'll be a parking lot it seems like I think a lot of people just don't realize what existed beyond that old house it's not [26:45] Dave Woodward: a stick of landscape in it though I'm gonna put we're gonna put some in there now when we redo the lot except the trees are taller four feet sorry what [26:59] Planning Board member: so [27:01] Speaker J (unidentified): what is the timeline on this project we're looking to go out to bid the end of october with a construction informal groundbreaking by the end of the year potentially breaking real ground this spring we still need to get det permits which we think we'll have by february and [27:26] Chair (Steve Conley): we also need your approval so you'll be looking will you go out to bid before you meet with us again yep probably be gentle [27:40] Speaker J (unidentified): we'll have time to incorporate the changes into the documents before bids are due [27:47] Dave Woodward: they kind of got ahead a little bit with the building because we had some land [27:50] Speaker E (unidentified): Stuff going on and it all finally got finalized, so we are trying to remove [28:11] Speaker J (unidentified): some utility poles because they're right in the middle of the building. So there's one at the intersection, right, which we need to keep, and we need one back from that off the interstation, from the intersection, so that it has support of the other pole. We'll guy wire down, and then from there we'll go underground. But we're still working with CMP to figure out if we're going to go all the way down the street and we feed the neighbors across the street, or if we can go across the street. We're still working through the logistics of that. It's like working [28:40] Dave Woodward: with the railroad, you know, the kingdom fruits of CMP. Yes, no question, [28:51] Chair (Steve Conley): question. Aaron, do you have any questions? I don't. I think I was with Ann. I'm not with Parkin. [28:58] Speaker K (unidentified): Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. But they very nicely worked through that. [29:15] Speaker H (unidentified): Anybody else on the board? [29:19] Chair (Steve Conley): I think we're all set for now. We look forward to you coming back. [29:23] Dave Woodward: So when can we come back? What's the timing? I have to deluge you with hard copies of everything? [29:32] Chair (Steve Conley): Typically we meet once a month. In emergency situations we meet a second time, [29:43] Dave Woodward: so Aaron, when is it, do we have to give it like 30 days or two weeks prior? So when would you, when would you need everything from us, I guess? Okay, [Speaker L (unidentified): in] the meantime we'll bring our check. [30:27] Chair (Steve Conley): What if, what if we just had a second meeting this month because we know the logistical problem we're going to have doing it voting day, [30:40] Speaker L (unidentified): we have everything that's needed. [30:50] Dave Woodward: So we're good. It's guys need to bring a check, which we will bring to pay for the review. [30:56] Chair (Steve Conley): You, work it out with Aaron, the office staff, Aaron, and we'll, I think as a board, we would comment, get this community [Speaker E (unidentified): center.] Okay. So thank you very much. Very good. Thanks for your time. Okay. Next item is by public have [Speaker M (unidentified): any removed] to a discussion and recommendation regarding appointment application of Esther Frank, this, [Jeff Fitzmaurice: select] select board has chosen to have us as a board actually review applications for positions on this board to make recommendations to them. Which is, I don't think it's something that we've done. There might have been some, there's been nothing formal in the past this way, but each select board can choose how they want to administer that, I guess, themselves. So we have an application before us. Anybody have any comments or questions? [33:03] Planning Board member: Yes, sir. I have one thought. I did appreciate that they sent this along. Your summary of that was how I viewed it, where I don't remember this being the case before. My recommendation is that we invite the person to come and observe a meeting, just so that they can see it live as sort of a first step. I think it's always hard and nice to read about things. I know Esther personally. But just so someone could come in and interact with us, I think, is an appropriate step. I think sometimes people, when they apply for these things, they probably don't even know when boards meet or the process. I think a lot of us know that all these meetings are open,, but you know, some people might not even recognize that. So I [33:54] Chair (Steve Conley): think that's a good idea. One thing I didn't notice in here is, you know, she mentioned about, any supporting financial planning decisions, you know, we, don't really, you know, there are maybe some planning boards in big cities that might do a little more, than we do here, but that's sort of nothing that we are involved with, whatsoever and you know that might you know her visiting us might be a good time for her to learn actually what we do yeah [34:33] Planning Board member: i did i did highlight that and i had a feeling mr chair you were going to bring that up but you didn't i was going to lift that up i think that's an accurate you know sort of depiction i think when people think of planning they probably think more financial planning or the health of the community so what board we did into that we're the budget committee can [34:54] Speaker N (unidentified): we do that yeah we can do that i think she submitted just a blank a blanket application to be on anything that needed a spot oh interesting okay so she may not have [35:06] Planning Board member: known what to fill in on that description so it could have gone to the budget committee as well yeah that's fair [35:15] Chair (Steve Conley): so that would be can we send out a letter to her to ask her to come and visit us at our next meeting and that way she'll get an eye idea what we do is [35:29] Speaker G (unidentified): she still running for state [35:30] Planning Board member: Senate she's yeah she is she's running for State Senate yeah she you know it's interesting the other thing I will lift up after the town meeting she talked to me because I stood up a couple times during town meeting to talk about the ordinances wasn't gonna throw anybody in the bus that I was the sole person there from the planning board but you know towards the end it got a little wiry with some of the stuff around the homeless ordinance and so I just sort of spoke to the process that we and After which she came up and did say, like, well, like, that's pretty cool, I would be interested in kind of the ordinance, how that's created. And I said, you know, we get into it, the select board gets into it, but I think a lot of people don't understand sort of that process. It was interesting because I think there was a number of people in the room that just kind of thought, like, that thing just came forward in its draft, and a couple times I did answer, like, this is not the first draft, and this has gone through, you know, many steps. Okay. [Chair (Steve Conley): Yes. Well, and] then I did, quick question, so this is for an alternate slot, is that where we're at right now? [36:54] Chair (Steve Conley): Well, we don't have any positions open on the boards that'd be altered. Yeah, okay, yeah, that's, that's what I, yeah. We do have an alternate position available. [37:08] Speaker M (unidentified): I was gonna say, I met her at, well, not personally met her, but I've seen her at a lot of the selectmen meetings. Actually, I think she ran for selectmen a couple times back. I think she did, [37:18] Planning Board member: yeah, a time or two ago, yes. Yeah. And she, like, to that point, she does come to the meetings. [37:22] Speaker M (unidentified): Yeah, I've seen her at the selectmen meetings because I try to make all those, but I've, you never get anybody here, except for me when I came. I mean, [37:37] Chair (Steve Conley): if somebody's willing to help. Well, and it isn't like you got a bunch of people rushing down the door to, [37:44] Speaker M (unidentified): to take, right. Yeah. We haven't had a full board in a while. No. [37:49] Chair (Steve Conley): At the same time, it might be, it might be good for her just to see what we do. [37:53] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Ask questions. Yeah. Okay. [37:59] Chair (Steve Conley): Nothing under unfinished business, new business. Where are we at on training? [38:09] Speaker K (unidentified): So we have the video that we talked about. You guys will have to be on your own, coordinate and follow up on it and see if we can get it in here and watch it. Okay. [38:19] Chair (Steve Conley): So it's just a DVD or something digital or? [38:23] Speaker N (unidentified): It's digital. It's digital through my email. [38:26] Speaker E (unidentified): Do you know how long it is? [38:28] Speaker N (unidentified): I don't, I haven't viewed it, but I think it was like three hours. [38:33] Chair (Steve Conley): It's something we have to view here? [38:36] Speaker N (unidentified): Yeah, because it goes through my work email. [38:38] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay, so really we need to have a meeting to do that and [38:46] Planning Board member: we can watch it like once because they don't want us all coming in it individually. Can we watch it on this TV? [39:00] Speaker M (unidentified): We're all like turn around with this many people, I think that would be the best plan. Yeah, you want to start it for you can get it, figure out a day that works. [39:12] Speaker L (unidentified): It isn't three hours. Yeah, it's three hours or something, I'm sure there's individual sessions. [39:19] Speaker K (unidentified): We own it, we own it for a few months, okay, so it's not that's the conversation that we [39:25] Speaker L (unidentified): had last year. Can we do it in two parts? Yeah, there's multiple sessions. Can we do it in two parts? [39:34] Speaker K (unidentified): I don't see an issue, but you're obviously, you guys on your own, if you can stop it during the day or at night. [39:46] Speaker M (unidentified): Yeah, but most of us work. Yeah, me too. We have to. [39:50] Speaker G (unidentified): I know, I'm not gonna test that on you, [39:52] Chair (Steve Conley): but it is a voluntary board. Yeah, you've already done it. Okay. [39:54] Speaker K (unidentified): We brought it up last summer that it was needed, and now it's like a couple months away from her. [40:00] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay, why don't we, why don't we have a. [40:04] Speaker E (unidentified): This is for the purposes that you said we did [40:09] Chair (Steve Conley): Yeah. So why don't we plan on having a second meeting this month and we can do the first hour and a half of it. I [40:22] Speaker G (unidentified): got a question. Yes. How many people are not current? [40:29] Speaker M (unidentified): I have six on the list that was given to us. [40:34] Chair (Steve Conley): So you got you got the list right there? That was handed [40:39] Speaker M (unidentified): out a while back. Okay. Whose name is on it? You and Jeff, Randall, me, Garrett Quinn and Colin Quinn. Okay, they're on rec committee, I think. Oh yeah, so [40:57] Chair (Steve Conley): on the board there's who, me and [41:00] Speaker M (unidentified): Jeff Randall and myself [41:04] Speaker K (unidentified): Jeff Friend. Yeah, we'll have to figure out whether we can when the when the decision to buy this was because so [41:38] Chair (Steve Conley): they would need they need to do it at the same time [41:45] Speaker K (unidentified): no not necessarily that's why it was bought rather than [41:53] Chair (Steve Conley): I'm trying to figure out why I would be on the list because the last time we had it publicly was when Joel gave it to us. Is there a time I was the chair of that meeting when he was given to us and you was there, you remember that 's about the time Dan came, we did it. [42:21] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah. Oh, I don't remember. [42:23] Chair (Steve Conley): I sat in on that before Dan sat in on it before it was over to the [42:30] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, I think, and I'm not sure, I think there was a title, but I can't remember now. I think there was a title that said on it, and that's why, and that's the list that we have. [42:39] Chair (Steve Conley): But nobody, but the rest of you wasn't here at that time, because Dan, okay, so that makes sense then. [42:47] Speaker J (unidentified): Well, I've sat through it recently. [42:49] Chair (Steve Conley): Don't ask me, within the last year or so. [42:54] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay. How often do we have to do this? [42:58] Speaker N (unidentified): How often? And I think it's like every three or four years, but I don't know. I did. I did call them a probably last year to when this started. OK, to find out what the particulars were on. But I don't have that right now. [43:15] Speaker E (unidentified): Probably two years, a year and a half. [43:24] Chair (Steve Conley): OK, well, struggle to stay. Well, we'll plan on having a second, the second meeting. And I mean, we've missed a bunch of meetings, so there should be money in the budget for a second meeting. [43:40] Speaker L (unidentified): So the 20th, I don't know that 's the answer at the time when we were, when we were looking into the video. Okay. [44:08] Speaker M (unidentified): Well, yeah, if you were, if you can't take time off from work to go to Bengal or Augusta, [44:15] Chair (Steve Conley): I mean, you know, I've probably got more flexibility than, but, [Speaker E (unidentified): well,] Dan's semi retired. Retired, he's got a lot of flexibility right now. I don't know about Jeanette. Yes. Okay. She's all set. She don't need it for a while. So if you're finding them, there's no reason for us all to do it. [Speaker L (unidentified): Oh, that's okay.] He wasn't making it for the whole now. Michelle's all set. [45:04] Speaker M (unidentified): No. No, Michelle needs to take it. I need to do it. Okay. She needs to do it. [45:08] Chair (Steve Conley): I think Randy does Michelle can't do it during weekday, normal business hours because she's working. So we, need to get it for her in evening time, sometime in the evening. And you know, I can, I'm more flexible. I can. So,, well, [45:32] Speaker M (unidentified): if we could set it up, like if Garrett and Colin needs to do it too, [45:36] Chair (Steve Conley): needed to, or is he all set? I [45:40] Speaker H (unidentified): thought I might, but I'll go back. We sent you guys an email. Yeah. Okay. [45:51] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay. Well, okay. That's something to look into. [45:55] Planning Board member: She's good. I mean, you know, I, have flexibility. I can take time during the day. So, okay. [46:03] Chair (Steve Conley): no slight one here. [46:07] Speaker H (unidentified): Aaron, do you have anything for us? [46:10] Speaker K (unidentified): every second gentleman outside i think what we'll look at is where we need a public hearing for the there's a lot of the letters having that one earlier there's a time schedule we'll probably just move more to follow up probably just move the site of our meeting from [46:46] Chair (Steve Conley): does anybody have an issue with changing the day of the week to wednesday no that's no,. No. All set, okay. And that'll be the first time we've ever moved the day, at least in my 18 years here. [47:07] Planning Board member: I think it's a better solution than trying to have it on election day. [47:11] Speaker K (unidentified): I just can't try to shove it downstairs and maybe there might not be anybody, but if we have an occupancy living downstairs and recording and not having it up there,, remember we did, I think part of the river park or the board walk down there. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out my tablet with you guys so I could get it recorded and I still screwed it up. So if you guys are for it. [47:34] Chair (Steve Conley): I don't have any problem with it. It'll work out fine, but it's just unusual. The room's available. Room's available. In the past, we would, before Aaron's time, we would go to the rec center. That's where we would go on every election time, so somebody would forget and come here and then [47:55] Planning Board member: have to drive over and they'd be late. Yeah, well, that's why I'm bringing it up and then trying to [47:59] Speaker K (unidentified): move it if you guys are okay with that, especially with the way we're set up digitally. I think it'll [48:04] Planning Board member: work great. Just, yeah, I think it's the ease of it's also interesting because the project is literally over here, so literally the abutters could in essence walk here. [48:20] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay, Anjanette, do you have anything? [48:23] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah. What did the resistor chant while it was meditating? What did the resistor chant while it was meditating? Oh, it's a riddle. I don't know. Om. Om. That's pretty good. Get it? [48:46] Planning Board member: Resistance. I got it. That's good. Anything else? Dan? No. Jeff? No. It's a tough act to follow, so. I'm good. [48:59] Chair (Steve Conley): Andy? A little sick. Okay. Nothing from me. Nothing from me. [49:04] Speaker K (unidentified): Nothing from you. We do also need to have a chat. I heard Mike had a chat. Yeah, we're gonna start looking at ideas and stuff to put together a controlled substance and a moratorium on it that does expire in December, which we'll probably, the special town meeting will have to get renewed. [49:29] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah,, we only went to- [49:31] Speaker K (unidentified): We're gonna get some ideas, yeah, put something on paper. So I'm just bringing it up that Turner and I have spoke on this, that we need to start addressing, you know, portions of it, I think. Whether we look at an option, he's gonna get a couple different ordinances, some of the newer ones that different towns have put into effect with all the changes with the cannabis policy and some of these sober living houses with the private pharmacies or methadone clinics I'm not really sure but we do have restrictions for and things like that so I don't know we'll leave it up to you guys obviously we get the information from him in different towns whether it's a [50:17] Speaker F (unidentified): I can talk about this a little bit now, as well, because I've looked into this. Basically, what's recommended is keeping methadone as a separate subcategory. Most of the ordinances that I've looked at so far have zoning, so they deal with it like you can only build a methadone clinic in an industrial zone or something like that. So I need to look at more specific examples, but generally what me and Aaron have talked about is opting in to the state, and you correct me if I'm wrong about any of this requirement. So that would require creating ordinance and having it meet the Office of Cannabis Policy standards, and what that would allow us to do is you put max number of establishments and storefronts. You can specifically divide to find how many, for example, medical use clinic, medically use storefronts you want to allow, adult use like cultivation sites, growing, manufacturing. There's a bunch of different ways that's defined, these requirements, and by, you know, hard-coding those different aspects, and it gives the town a lot of control on exactly where these and what types of facilities are being, and you can determine setback or you can separate their locations that you already have. We've already developed safe zones at this point. [51:51] Planning Board member: So a quick question, so for the cultivation side, if we said the two locations in town for cultivation are the two industrial part, would that be with something that [52:05] Speaker K (unidentified): that specific be acceptable? We have two ordinances now, so we do actually restrict areas now through safe zone. Yes, that is the advantage in sure 16 or 17 we have in a retail and [52:55] Planning Board member: there's not a requirement for us to have retail, no. [52:58] Speaker K (unidentified): There's not, there's just, there's different stipulations, yep, where we know. Yep, so [53:18] Planning Board member: so in the in the cultivation, you could have cultivation for recreation. You can have cultivation for Medical in those two zones. We have currently one. Do we still have one? Yes, and that's it, so the folks don't know on 201 headed out of town there is Cannabis [53:53] Speaker K (unidentified): license is expired, and then the moratorium would in effect. So basically the only license they can hold is the owner of the property. [54:11] Planning Board member: Oh, okay, I thought that, I was thinking closer to town, there was a place at one time that I thought was like. [54:18] Speaker G (unidentified): Isn't it in Madison, are you thinking of Simple Toys? [54:20] Planning Board member: No,, I thought, was it Nuggies or something? [54:23] Speaker K (unidentified): Oh yeah, that is the one, yeah, that is still a medical storefront. We do have restrictions that we still follow. Right now, we do east, that's the allowable area in town. [55:21] Speaker E (unidentified): We've got the storefront up on, and we've got another one on South Main Street now. Or something like that. [55:38] Planning Board member: Oh, you're talking Main Street, like instead of going left to the church, go right on Main Street? Yeah. That's actually, are you talking about the building on the left? Yeah. It's a medical spa, if it's the building I think you're thinking about. So it's like, I think you can get, no, it's like liquid IV. Yeah, I think it's like liquid IV. Is it? Yeah. No, it's like, it's like facial types. Yeah, it's [56:14] Speaker L (unidentified): not cannabis. Yeah, it's a nice space. Yes. [56:31] Speaker E (unidentified): I don't [56:41] Planning Board member: have any more questions. That was helpful, but I think to everyone's point, either we're having a special town meeting, so [56:51] Speaker K (unidentified): getting anything written in, you know, by the time it gets through here to the select board and all that, so just something we can extend the moratorium once it is something that we're going to start getting, you know, we'll start bringing information in and we can extend the moratorium. [57:09] Planning Board member: so if we extend it is another six months or can we go a year it'll be six months from that so [57:15] Speaker K (unidentified): So we can extend to the actual town meeting back in June. But some of it is just food for thought. We'll start bringing stuff in. [57:25] Planning Board member: We could do a holiday party and do a moratorium town meeting. [57:31] Speaker H (unidentified): You know, cookies and brownies. Edibles. [57:34] Speaker E (unidentified): For some reason, we bought into the state's program. Would we be susceptible to any changes that came along from them without being able to reconsider? [57:48] Speaker K (unidentified): You would depend, I believe, on how we word it, if it were just to follow state statute, whatever was put out. At a minimum, I mean, we do have home rule authority, but we lose some of that on ways that we regulate it because we didn't opt in. So towns that haven't regulated, I know Madison did recently, I think when they were trying to do the methadone clinic on Taylor's drug and things like that, they looked at it, redid it, I believe, and that's where they got, yeah, I think they have like a limit of like three or five, and you know, there's a system in place that no, nothing else, there will be no other storefront or operation until one of those goes away, and then I don't know if it's just next up for applications or a lottery system or how that works, but OCPs, the Office of Cannabis Policy, the state does have standards on it. Like I said, we're just so far out of date. [58:48] Speaker F (unidentified): And if you're interested in further, the Office of Cannabis Policy website has a lot of useful guidance documents, explaining the requirements, examples, those sorts of things. So just theoretically at this time, what this document would look like, it would be a medical use, and there would be the requirements for medical use, and then, for example... [59:17] Speaker K (unidentified): Right, and we already have that. [1:00:22] Speaker F (unidentified): And also on that website, there's... That's a good idea. On the Office of Cannabis Policy website, there's a reimbursement... [1:00:58] Chair (Steve Conley): So the town could apply can apply for reimbursement for you know but not individuals [1:01:04] Speaker F (unidentified): It's the town no they won't pay me cash for yeah that's pretty much what they said when they [1:01:11] Speaker K (unidentified): Change like a state session they change they need to once we figure something out like any ordinance it goes through an equal review it's not just kb cogg helping us and working with us to draft the paperwork and draft the ordinance and go through this in the planning or professional fees yeah right yeah different mechanisms to build those into some social money [1:01:57] Chair (Steve Conley): I think i got one comment this was much simpler when it was illegal [1:02:08] Speaker M (unidentified): Agreed yeah it was much simpler [1:02:14] Speaker F (unidentified): Well i don't i mean you could start the campaign to make it illegal again that's one avenue [1:02:21] Planning Board member: I think there's a ballot ownership out there trying to change something. [1:02:23] Speaker F (unidentified): So I actually signed up, I'm just making an observation. [1:02:27] Speaker L (unidentified): No, I,, I agree manageable [1:02:31] Speaker G (unidentified): Situation into a massive bureaucracy. [1:02:37] Dave Woodward: I didn't legalize it at all, but that's what's happened though. [1:02:41] Speaker K (unidentified): I was, I was, I was with an individual that a house was shut down where, wherever he was from or whatnot, but we have quite a few groups of that nature in the state and he was pretty blunt with it we had a good conversation he just when we came into the state of maine and nobody cared he said hey we're gonna do this and now they're trying but he said how or why they just have a fun figure [1:03:29] Speaker F (unidentified): It out i think that's why some stuff's so out of date medical has been legal in maine for it's one of the first states, I believe to legalize mentally 87, 97 third,, that's a long time. [1:03:43] Speaker G (unidentified): I thought California was all right. [1:03:48] Chair (Steve Conley): Okay. Any other pressing thing anybody need to bring up? [1:03:54] Planning Board member: I would move with adjournment. Okay. We've got a motion. Do we have a second? [1:03:59] Chair (Steve Conley): I'm good. You have a second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. You are adjourned. There is. some paperwork to sign over here we've got the minutes two sets of minutes