Acton Select Board backs recreation director, spars with school committee over tax post

[0:00] Speaker A (unidentified): Later. It's not necessarily that it's late, it's just the dates that she decided to start it based on other towns and what she had to do to organize it and get it all ready. So we just wanted to put that out there. We want to encourage people that have concerns with the rec or soccer or anything to call the town hall and we'll provide you with the rec director's phone number or her email address and that's really the best place to share concerns or ask questions because you know not everybody's on social media and sometimes when it gets on social media it just kind of takes its own its own way which isn't always positive [0:36] Speaker B (unidentified): That was terrible that was that was honestly I we haven't heard any complaints about our because it's my sister-in-law I didn't hire her these guys did but we haven't heard it was a very I think we haven't heard a complaint at all how many years she weren't working and it takes one per boom and that just blew up I mean that was crazy and I mean some of the stuff and a lot of people don't even already involved in the rack who just got crazy and I you know I think she's been doing a pretty good Job and social media yeah wow that was that was really bad everyone's [1:13] Speaker A (unidentified): An expert yeah so David's right he did recuse himself he wasn't part of the interview process he didn't make a motion he didn't have anything to do with the process but Dan who's the liaison is going to add a little more to it but before he does we also want to take a minute to thank Sydney and Tucker Pearson along with the rec director which we understand it is her job and her husband Harvey who as we understand spent the weekend doing the lines and volunteering so we appreciate that from the Pearsons and I think I understand the coaches offered to or were asked and I think some replied or offered to help out with it keep it updated as well so [1:52] Speaker C (unidentified): Dan you want to piggyback on that yeah I've I've been involved in the wreck in some iterations since I want to say 2020 I started off on the committee I served with the previous rec director I served before we had a rec director and I was the fortunate person to actually interview the candidates for rec director and what before the recognition to hire current director one thing that I will say is that they had a vision and they knew from the get-go that I was going to take time and over my Experience watching her do her work, she is starting to achieve these things, wanting to get new people involved with the rec. I think she mentioned that we have eight new coaches this year. Last year we had six new coaches, tried to get new and diverse people involved in the committee so we don't have burnout, we don't have to struggle with my coaches. I told, I had the town administrator pull the registration that was the previous years because one of the complaints we talked was loss of registration. And looking at the numbers, they are on par and even potentially that you're ready to surpass previous years, so enrollment in the programs are pretty consistent as they have been in previous years. And I will say that serving as a director is quite enjoyable in the sense that this is a department head that, and I believe I can say for the board, but we have the utmost faith and confidence in them. They're organized, responsive. I did look back when I saw the comments, I didn't look back in previous. Years, I didn't notice that it was a week or two behind, but as the town administrator said, it's extended and those are just the dates. As somebody who again has been involved in rec in numerous capacity, on the board, as a select person, and at least on one thing, and I think everyone watching in here knows that I'm the biggest advocate of showing up and being involved. I think more voices is important. I never see anybody at a rec committee meeting and I know attendance is hard. It's Mondays at 6 once a month. Even if you can't come to a meeting, you can send an email to the rec director. I know she's very responsive. You can send an email to the town administrator, even the select board as a whole. I know that there's always opportunity to grow. I will never deny that. There's always opportunities to create a better program for our youth in town. But when it's a small committee of people doing all the work, it means that people who want to be engaged, you have to speak up and not at the last minute when it bubbles bursting, but saying hey I noticed something I'm gonna come to a meeting and say hey this is something you notice what can we do to handle this in a professional manner. But I think we're very fortunate to have a rep director who's organized, who has a vision, who has set plans and motions that we are seeing come to fruition this. Year and beyond, I just, I just want input. We want feedback, but we also want it in a, in a constructive way that encourages engagement and doesn't tear each other down. That's all I have to say about that. [4:44] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay, that's it? [4:45] Speaker E (unidentified): All done? Okay, thank you. Select board update, we'll start with John. [4:53] Speaker F (unidentified): All I have this week is a couple of people, I guess last week, late last week, reached out through Facebook and Jennifer for about a grant opportunity called the 77 1772 grant. Thought that maybe it could be used on the Lincoln School, but problem is it's only for 401c3s, so I'm not going to be, I'll look into it a little bit more, but probably not going to be doing that. I'll be to be focusing more on what you and I talked about, and maybe one of these days we'll sit down and maybe get somebody to come over, have a look at it, give us a list of what needs to be done, and then I can start working on that. [5:44] Speaker E (unidentified): That'd be that other grant that we couldn't do this, it was a couple of weeks ago it was due. We only had like a week notice on it. Right, so this one. But there's another round of that coming next year. [5:55] Speaker F (unidentified): And I have to have it in by the end of March for that one. The work has to be done by the end of June, so that's why. [6:03] Speaker E (unidentified): The public can pick pots and pieces, you know? Right. [6:05] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah. So that's what I have to do. Okay. [6:09] Speaker C (unidentified): Okay. Dan? Speaking of the committee, they have a meeting coming up this Monday, September 28th at 6 p.m. Just a reminder, it is open to the public. You don't have to be a part of the committee. As I said, it's a great opportunity to share ideas, any wants, any concerns, see who's actually doing the work in front of us, seeing what work is being done, so highly encourage anybody who's interested in learning more about it will be better than forever, you just move to town, to consider joining that committee again if you can't, reach out to the rec director if you could, sort of things you want to do that you can probably dress and bring up during that meeting. I also have the opportunity to interview a candidate for the rec committee, which you will be later done on the agenda, and a reminder that Mary Grant has their Pumpkin Carving Festival October 17th. It's one of their signature events. It's great every year. If anyone's interested in volunteering, learning more about it, please reach out to the committee chair, Dan Kramps, to learn more information about that or how you can help out. Other than that, I have no other updates. Dave? [7:13] Speaker B (unidentified): Did you get the update about the reclaim of the ball field? You did good. So we were gonna try to go up there this weekend, but it looks like the weather's gonna be pretty crappy, so probably won't get there this weekend [7:24] Speaker G (unidentified): to finish it and spread that stuff, but have they already dumped it? Yeah, oh, I got the impression [7:28] Speaker H (unidentified): they were going to do more reclaiming. I saw the things that they had done, so yeah, what [7:33] Speaker B (unidentified): I guess I'll just give a recap. I got a call from RJ Grinding the other day, and I was on my anniversary, and I said that we're gonna be doing some melon and needed a place to dump the melon, so I instructed them to dump it at the ball field, which is really good stuff to use for ball field parking lot, and as far as I know, they dumped off three loads there, and we were gonna go up and spread them this weekend, but it's supposed to be raining and stuff, and I ain't gonna go and make a mess, so we'll just have to pick another weekend to do it. Anything else? No, I think we've got a, I think submitted by Samaya, it's a bagel. I haven't, I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, we just got it [8:23] Speaker H (unidentified): That's for the law here, yeah, it's combination of both, okay [8:28] Speaker E (unidentified): Thanks, Tom. I don't have anything, okay, and I don't have anything. Founding Heads Committee Chair updates, Fire Chief. Good [8:43] Speaker I (unidentified): evening, everybody. Been a while, so I'm here just give a quick update on some stuff that's, we're doing and where we're at. Overall, everything's going good. Still trying to work on iron a couple of the last two full timers. We've been making it work. Everybody's been stepping up, picking up the extra shifts, so we're working on it. The applicant pool is slim, so it doesn't help that Sanford decided to let them. So it dips into the pool of people. The DEA stuff, that's up and running, everything's going good over there. Acton, we were one of the first communities to sign over our meds from the hospital. As a matter of fact, the first one. And everything's going smoothly there. Working on the rest of our meds, the non-controllables with the hospital, which is supposed to end sometime in October, but we'll work through that. But that's just nothing big there, you know. Also don't work on some cost sharing with other departments without non-narcotics for those meds, because a lot of it comes in like packs of like 25 and I use like one of that specific med for the year. So we're gonna try to buy some stuff together and save some money for everybody and not have so much waste. I got three pending grants out there right now that I've submitted for PPE turn up here, hoping we get one of those at least, if not all of them, but that's through the grant writer through Goals. When we signed up for that account, it's pretty much non-stop grants. Middle they find money wherever and he helps me build the template and I just input the information. So who is this? Who does this? Galls. It's a company where we buy our PPE from and uniforms and stuff. [10:38] Speaker H (unidentified): They actually search for the grants and assist you in filing them? Yep. [10:42] Speaker I (unidentified): They have a grant writer that actually puts all this stuff together and I give them all the information and then he pretty much puts it in a Google Doc and then we spit it out in the application. [10:52] Speaker A (unidentified): The incentive to them is that when we sign on with them, the incentive is that we would buy their products later on. [10:58] Speaker F (unidentified): Can I use that too? [10:59] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, as long as they sell something you're looking for. [11:03] Speaker H (unidentified): You know, one time you were behind a little bit on your PBEs. How is that standing now? [11:08] Speaker I (unidentified): We're behind, but I'm making it work. I got agreements with some other towns that people work in multiple places that they're allowed to use their stuff here, as long as we repair it to wherever something happens. So we're okay as long as nothing major happens. I should be okay. Okay, obviously these grants will help us significantly get over that hurdle. Two per diem members just completed their advanced D&T certification, and I got one. Their full-time job is in paramedic school, so that paramedic school is probably 12 to 18 months by the time they're fully licensed. So that's huge for us, and we're not paying that cost. Just the tuition for that class is just shy of $20,000 right now. Never mind time in class, clinicals. As you've been seeing on Facebook, you're going to continue to see part of our community outreach is our CPR classes. Those have been a huge hit. Cassie's had pretty much full classes, so it's been huge. And you're going to continue to see those on a regular basis, monthly or every other month, whatever her plan is. But she's our CPR instructor, so she's taking that lead and does everything. [12:34] Speaker C (unidentified): Do you only get people from town, or do you get from other towns? [12:38] Speaker I (unidentified): I believe we get people from other towns, but I'm not 100% sure. A lot of it's been our own people. Right now we're doing all our preventative maintenance to all our apparatus. Oil changes, inspections, all the services. Usually the two trucks that get the regular services is obviously the utility, the ambulance, the oil changes, but everything else pretty much annually. This year with everything, engine one, which is the 2003 Peterbilt, the oldest truck, some of you may remember. When Rick was the fire chief, it was brought to our attention that we were having some spots on the frame, it's a double frame rail, which then that is what led to yearly undercoating through Knox's to get all our vehicles to protect against assault. This year, the mechanic has indicated that engine one probably will not get an inspection sticker next year because of the rot and the rust. What that means I don't know. We got to talk about it, come up with a plan, but right now that's that's kind of on the horizon, which I believe in this capital improvement plan I put that for 27-28 to replace anyways. NFPA recommends it's one, I believe it's a 20 year replacement. Obviously that trucks at 23 years right now, we're trying to get 25 five out of it. And here we are. So what that looks like, he gave us the heads up this go-around, so we've been watching it for six or seven years. Now it's finally gotten to a point where it may not be serviceable. What's. [14:35] Speaker E (unidentified): The dollar amount to replace that truck today, that truck the way it sits, I have. [14:46] Speaker I (unidentified): The command staff over there and I have talked a little bit of what that replacement looks like. I'd like to maybe explore the option of a mini bumper in the aspect of we have a good tank truck now, we stay on engine 2's replacement plan. The min, the mini pumper only has 300 gallons of water, but it has a 1500 gallon minute pump like the big trucks, but it can get into some of our smaller camp roads, serve some of that community a little better than our big trucks, not that we can't get the big trucks. In there, but this would be a little bit maneuverable. When we wrote the grant two years ago for that, was a 675 ish ballpark, so obviously a small platform a little cheaper to maintain, but how much did you say 675 for that? 's on like usually on like a 550 type chassis. Neat, but we would have to, I'm not ready to commit to that yet, but that's an. [15:44] Speaker H (unidentified): Option I think, alternatives to replacement, rehabbing them, not that not. [15:52] Speaker I (unidentified): This specific truck, because it's the frame. I don't know specifically, I mean, [15:58] Speaker B (unidentified): you can have it, you can have the frame down. Yeah, it's all of it. There's [16:03] Speaker I (unidentified): companies that do frames, so we can look at it. I mean, either way, it's over the 20 year mark. I'll have to double check that it's 20 years, but this is what it is. That pump already, that particular truck already has, does not pass pump tests. Every year I get it tested, every year it does not pass at 100. It passes at, it's a 1250 pump in that truck. It passed this year at 1151, I believe. Doesn't pass 100% on tests. Minimum standard is 750 per the NFA standard, but it also costs about seven grand to read to decertify that pump to a smaller pump capacity. So on a truck that's aging out, I didn't think that was a wise purchase, but I get it tested every year, so that way we know [16:53] Speaker F (unidentified): what is pumping and we know it's capable. If the frame, like David said, was new, and you have a new pump, does that bring the truck back to newer vintage? You still operate on a 2003 truck. [17:10] Speaker I (unidentified): Everything else in there is 23 years plus. How many miles on there? If I had to guess, probably, let me, 50-ish, 60. [17:22] Speaker H (unidentified): You see where we're going. Yeah, oh yeah. It's a million dollar item, if I got it right. Wasn't it a million dollar item? Yeah, there's some way of rehabbing this thing and having a piece of equipment that gets us another five, 10 years, that may be worth it. [17:39] Speaker I (unidentified): There's other conversations to be had here. I'm not ready to commit to this yet because I gotta study this a little bit more. But I, if we were to replace engine 2, which is the next truck to be replaced, which one's the Spartan, the cab over? Yeah, if we really place that in a timely manner, I may entertain we could get away with not replacing that truck. But I don't know if that's a great idea, because then when engine 2 is out of service for whatever repairs, that just leaves a tank truck, which is not super nimble in some of these back roads. So I don't want to say I could do without it, but I would want to look into it a little more before I commit to that and what our backup plans would be, surrounding communities, providing mutual aid. [18:25] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, food for thought. I mean, I deal with trucks all the time, and I understand the frame issues, and that's why I know you can get the frame done. I just priced on having a frame on one of my trucks that was like $50,000, then redo the complete frame, everything on the truck, and that was on a tri-axle. But I'm sure the firetrucks can be a little bit more complex with the pumps and all that, but whatever. And you said the pump. Is that the one we just changed up? [18:50] Speaker E (unidentified): We did do a pump on that one. Years ago. [18:53] Speaker I (unidentified): Oh, was it years ago? When Peter Smith was the chief, I believe. [18:56] Speaker B (unidentified): Which is the one we just did that? I did two. I did two. Okay. That's what I was asking. [19:01] Speaker E (unidentified): Both of them had pump work. [19:02] Speaker B (unidentified): But I mean if I know you're concerned about the getting into these smaller roads which sounds like that smaller pumper would be a pretty good idea but you're talking 675 for that you're talking a million for a new engine one if you if you were you know just food thought I mean I know the 20-year we everybody I know looking for the o3s and o4 they're trying to buy those trucks because those are the good trucks. Those are the ones that don't have all the emissions crap on it. The ones that stall out all the time because they go into default. So we all, they're like the holy grail, anything 2000 to 07, you know. But if you, say if you were to look into having a brand new pump installed on that truck, say even if the pump was $50,000 and say it was, you know, even if it was $100,000 to have the frame done on the truck it's only 50,000 miles on it so you've got $150,000 out of that you could go buy that truck and it would still be less than a million dollars [20:12] Speaker I (unidentified): We'd have to look into it [Speaker B (unidentified): I'm not prepared] To make any decisions I'm just throwing it out there at the same time I get where you're going but we're talking about a fire truck not a dump truck. [20:27] Speaker B (unidentified): No,, no,, but I get that. The frames on those trucks are the same frames on mine. And I get the stickers from the same place you get your stickers. [20:35] Speaker I (unidentified): Right, I understand that part. I'm talking about the NFPA, the Governance of Fire Service. We may not have that option, and I don't want to sit here and say, that sounds great, and we get there. [20:44] Speaker B (unidentified): Or it's one earthy gate. Yeah, correct. And I do understand that they talk about a 25-year life period on these trucks. And you know you take City of Sanford, Rochester, all these bigger towns and run those trucks a lot more than we do. That's something you whether they think how you know is that part of their figure? City of Sanford replaces a fire truck every eight years. Yeah, well I get that you know. [21:12] Speaker I (unidentified): The two trucks they just ordered were 1.2 million each to replace something similar to what we're looking at. [21:18] Speaker B (unidentified): Because I know we were talking about with the ambulance, possibly with the new ambulance being able to, that's why we're going with the second ambulance so we can refurbish the old one possibly. [21:26] Speaker I (unidentified): That box we can take off, correct. [21:28] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, and it's tough for me to think that truck is absolutely no good over 55 miles per hour. [21:35] Speaker I (unidentified): And I'm not saying it is, right? I'm just preemptively just, hey, that's the information I was giving two weeks ago. I'm not in any point ready to make any decisions at any point. [21:46] Speaker B (unidentified): Got to do what we're going to do we're going to buy new truck we're going to buy new truck and [21:49] Speaker I (unidentified): Just we're just trying to yeah no I'm all for looking at all the options 100 I just don't have the answers obviously right now thanks for the last thing that I would like to do is permission to not go out to bid on an item because nobody can't find anybody that hasn't that we deal with but it's online. Basically I'm looking to buy, purchase a rescue mannequin. It's a 176 pound mannequin and it's it's almost like a giant sandbag of a human. Sandbag of what? A human. Like it's a full size, legs, arms, head. Sorry. But it's like a giant sandbag. Yeah. We always keep borrowing one and it's always a pain to borrow one. So I'm trying to get one of our own using our pat we use it for training taking search arresting training down on the ladders the whole deal so we're not using an actual person basically the cheapest price I can find online this does not include shipping so I have no idea what shipping is going to be for all of these but 13 50 to 2200 and just to be clear he actually [23:05] Speaker A (unidentified): Actually, he's got competitive pricing. [23:07] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, we've got like five different prices in the range. [23:10] Speaker A (unidentified): Oh, okay. So he doesn't, he's kind of in this work a little bit. But you have competitive pricing. You did what the policy says. You have, you solicited no less than three competitive prices in writing. So you're just looking for them to write. So he's just looking for you to award the one of his choice. [23:24] Speaker H (unidentified): Oh, it's really nice. An exception to policy. No, it's not. He's following policy. This is not an exception to policy. [23:29] Speaker A (unidentified): Because you've got them in writing. [23:31] Speaker B (unidentified): It was under $5,000. Right. [23:33] Speaker I (unidentified): It was over the $1,000, so I just wanted to. [23:35] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, I appreciate it. That's fine, thank you. So which one are you recommending, the [23:44] Speaker I (unidentified): one that's 13.50? The price is still the same the last couple of months I had this paperwork. Was it [23:50] Speaker A (unidentified): the lowest one? This is the lowest one as well. I just don't know which one the lowest out of [23:56] Speaker I (unidentified): the competitors. It's through CPR Savers. They sell it. It's just a vendor online. [24:02] Speaker B (unidentified): Are you sure that's, you said you've had to pay for a while. Do you ever check to make sure that's [24:07] Speaker I (unidentified): of price? I have not checked in the last month because I might not be in here before that. What's [24:13] Speaker B (unidentified): the next competitive price? Are they all basically just going to make a motion to accept them? There's [24:19] Speaker I (unidentified): none of those vendors, none of our current vendors. So they sell a, they sell a version, forget, I think it's a Drager one, but it's the, it has a, it uses the weight vest that you got to attach to it, which right when you're driving this thing around, it's not practical. So I, this one is all sort of a picture of it, but it's just like a giant a bullfinger, it's like a giant beaver, they go all different sizes. The next one is like 15. [24:49] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, 17, 21, and Wayne, what would you like to recommend for the 1350, just to [24:57] Speaker I (unidentified): to purchase one of my five shoes. [24:59] Speaker D (unidentified): Which is about, I'd like to make a motion. [25:02] Speaker I (unidentified): If we say a commotion, I don't know what shipping [25:04] Speaker E (unidentified): is gonna be for this thing. [25:06] Speaker B (unidentified): I'd like to make a motion to agree to spend up to $1,500. [25:11] Speaker H (unidentified): Is that exclusive of shipping? [25:14] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, let's book that. [25:16] Speaker H (unidentified): Make it exclusive, excluding shipping. [25:18] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, exclude shipping. Do I hear a second? Second. Move to seconded to approve $1,500 dollars for the purchase of a mannequin for the training, not including the shipping comment. Okay, call for a vote. All in favor? All opposed? Great, thank you. [25:46] Speaker A (unidentified): Thank you. Miss, any questions for me? Not a question, but before Wayne sits down, I just want to mention that so we've had the command vehicle for about a year now. October will be the year. Policy was created with a lot of concern from some voters. Yesterday, while meeting with the fire chief, he went out and brought me his log, which the policy requires him to keep. It's, I just want to go on record with saying that it's very impressive details the last year every time it was used to and from mileage. reason I spent a good notebook with a policy in there and he's done a really nice job of keeping up with it so thank you for that thank you thank you thank [26:24] Speaker E (unidentified): you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next week, next we have school committee. Yeah, we're back before duty [26:33] Speaker J (unidentified): gets into numbers. I have some breaking news. The boys middle school soccer team beat Thornton [26:38] Speaker D (unidentified): Academy. Well, you know, we were here a few weeks ago and had a meeting with you and [26:58] Speaker K (unidentified): just really basically to explain how we put our budget together, and that's, that was fine. We probably wouldn't have been back here tonight except for the fact that we were very disappointed to find a posting on Yorktown website about school budget comparisons at the same time that taxes were going out. It would appear like were being thrown under the bus for the raise in taxes. And the figures that you put on there were not the figures that we asked the people in the town of Atkin to raise. They're a million dollars more than what we actually asked the people in the town to raise. And that we do our best every year for the citizens and giving back as much as we can and including all of our revenues. It was really disappointing to see that on there and have somebody mention it, mention that to us that it was on there. It would have been nice if you wanted to send that comparison, if you would have emailed it to the school committee. I know you sent it to John, but it would be nice if you would have sent it to the school committee so we could have had a little heads up. I'm not sure why you wanted to put school information on the town website. We have a website. We wouldn't think about putting any of your information on there or anything about the select board on there. So I just wondered if you [28:48] Speaker H (unidentified): could explain why you put that on the town website. Well, the schedule was one that I had prepared, and actually, I had shared it with you and John, I think, at the last town meeting. It's the same schedule that I had shared with you back then. And with the tax bills, the tax rate went up what percent? Nine. Nine percent. And I think I felt that it was appropriate to get information out to the people about what was causing that increase in the tax rate. I was not trying to throw the school under the bus. I think if you listen to my comments, in fact, I think I was trying to avoid that pretty clearly. And there are many ways of calculating. I think what you've done is you've shown, and I think I mentioned this last time I spoke, I think you're looking at net budgets. The actual amount is being requested to taxes. And as I mentioned to you before, I'm particularly interested in the growth in the expense budget. And that's what we do in the town. And that's basically what's on the warrant and I think the numbers that I presented accurately reflect that. The numbers, I've gone back and looked at them and they all came from schedules that I got that originated from the school. So there was a particular schedule that was useful that broke down between salaries and other expenses equipment and so on which normally isn't presented in the audit report or presented in any other fashion so but that was I thought particularly useful so that you could see so that I could see when I did it where the growth was coming from and so I think with tax rates going out tax bills going out with a nine percent increase you know that's something that quite frankly we're responsible for The board is responsible for and the board gets questions about that and I thought it was appropriate to get that information out there into the public it was in no way intended to cast dispersions on the school I don't think I said anything or there was anything in there that would have been inflammatory anyway all I saw was the schedule I [31:18] Speaker L (unidentified): I didn't see anything else. [31:19] Speaker H (unidentified): Well, did you listen to the tape from the meeting? [31:22] Speaker K (unidentified): From what, the meeting that we had? [31:24] Speaker H (unidentified): When I talked about it, was two weeks ago. [31:27] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, I know, well, from the meeting that, when we were here, and John gave his, [31:33] Speaker H (unidentified): I think it was a week after that. In his analysis, yeah, his analysis. It was the week after that. Yeah. Yeah, it was when I had gone back and dusted that schedule off, and just looked to make sure that I could track all the numbers back to the schedules that I received from the school and in fact they all checked out but if you go back and listen to that I think with a I think a nine percent increase in the tax rate deserves an explanation [32:02] Speaker K (unidentified): But it's irresponsible. I think it deserves an explanation too. But I think part of the explanation should be that you decided as a board not to move any money forward this year at all, which is the first year you put zero dollars to put forward for tax relief. Yeah, and we voted at town meeting in article 31. It's in the little paper that I gave you there. We voted, you approved the article, the Warrant Finance Committee approved the article, and we voted it through, that money will be used from town revenues and from your own designated fund to for tax relief. I [32:53] Speaker D (unidentified): don't believe so look at it 's in the warrant [33:02] Speaker G (unidentified): The town voted for you to do that. That's what I'm saying. [33:08] Speaker A (unidentified): It's a generic article that we have every day. [33:12] Speaker H (unidentified): It gives us the authorization to do it. It doesn't say that we're going to do it, or it doesn't say to what amount. [33:20] Speaker M (unidentified): It just gives us the authorization to do it. [33:24] Speaker H (unidentified): We weren't instructed by the town to do any specific appropriation of reserves to lower the tax rate. We had the authority to do it if we chose to, but we did not. So I don't think we violated anything that the townspeople asked us to do. [33:42] Speaker K (unidentified): So I think it would have been nice if you would have put in when you put our article, our figures in there, if you would have put that the school does always give back from our undesignated fund to lower the burden of taxes on the citizens, and that the select were did not, and that might have, that might have helped a little bit with a sting of the school being of those figures of a million dollars more than what we actually text has asked for taxpayers to pay for to be on there. It looks like anybody that doesn't know the difference look at those figures, anybody that doesn't watch a selectman's meetings, we look at those figures on the town and think that we ask the town for that extra million dollars, which has already been reduced by our own revenues and by our amount from our own designated [34:44] Speaker C (unidentified): account. I can see that. I think for me what I'm hearing based off of the conversation that we've had, what we said and what you said, I think context matters, and I think that's something that I'm seeing on both ends, is that we seem very separate in our budget process. It seems like there's not much context, but we're not coming together and showing the residents, you know, that this is all one big budget, and I'm hearing that from you saying there's other contexts and factors that we negated to add. Just like I feel like there's some context in the school negates to add when the budget comes out, and I do think that is a good conversation to have, especially this upcoming budget, is making sure that when we present any numbers to residents, that they have the full picture of context, they understand all the factors, that everything that gets done in this town does impact the budget. So I can definitely see and hear what you're saying in that regards. [35:37] Speaker K (unidentified): It's always in our budget books, and we distribute them pretty well. The school and the select board have always worked well together, and we all like each other, and that's a good thing, and we want to keep we want to keep that, we're going to keep that relationship good, but the school budget and the town budget are like apples and oranges, because you have total control of everything in your budget, you can say to whatever department I'm sorry we can't do that this year, we have a lot of contractual obligations that we can't control, we also can't control the fact that we have, what is it, 34 new students this year that have come into this school through pre-K and then across all the grades, to put us in another bind as far as our enrollment goes. There are a lot of things, and I know you say, well, you could lower your budget by not giving the teachers any raises. Well, tell that to somebody that's teaching. [36:52] Speaker H (unidentified): I'm not suggesting that, Judy. [36:53] Speaker K (unidentified): Tell that to somebody that's teaching and trying to keep up with things these days. [36:59] Speaker B (unidentified): Judy, I don't, it's tough for me because I see big numbers. I see what the school does. I understand these numbers are going to go up [37:07] Speaker F (unidentified): and up and up and up. [37:09] Speaker B (unidentified): Since COVID, everything's just gone stupid crazy. You know, I tell people all the time, I used to do house slots for $12,000. Now we start with 60. 60 you know i mean everything is just blown up we understand that i don't think that the i don't think what i 'm sure you're probably talking about tom because he's the one brought it up but i don't think we were trying he was trying to throw the school under the bus i think what the select was probably doing is trying to mitigate the us getting blamed for it like we always do okay we've tried pretty hard to get our budget down our numbers down even when we get our numbers down we get accused of over inflating our numbers so we can bring them down. Okay, so but when you see that, you know, the and we and we didn't put the money forward. We didn't put the money forward because at some point we keep giving a fake tax rate because that's what we've done for how many years. Every year that we put hundreds of thousands of dollars in, all we're doing is camouflaging what's going to happen down the road. Now it's great that we, you guys are able to do this and we have that amount of money in there. That yeah, maybe it would be a really, it'd be a real shame just to go throw it towards the tax rate all at once and just to get it down for a little while, but eventually it's going to catch up with us. And I think we're doing a responsible thing right now of getting with the times. That tax mill rate's going to go up eventually when we run out of money to offset with, so we gradually start doing that now. And it would be great that you guys are able to put that money forward and we appreciate that. But at the end of the day, when people like Mike, you know, I had a family member call me say yeah up, you know, and it is all kinds of variables to, you know, I mean our, we went up, we are, you know, we would still pull a contract or still went up. This is going up, all kinds of our County tax went up, okay. It's not all the school, you know, because you know you're not a hundred percent, you're, you're 9.2, you're not 100 of our budgets. Obviously that was an unusually high year. Exactly, this was an exception, you. know myself, I will, I would, I don't know, I just saw this, I, you're just gonna. [39:46] Speaker G (unidentified): put in front of me, but it's stuff we talked about last time. I wasn't here last week, so but you. [39:54] Speaker B (unidentified): with these numbers here, you know, say we'll take, well, we'll just take 2000 26 27 6 million 503 269, it shows a 9.2 percent increase. Okay, is that after the 300 000 or before? That is after. Okay, so I think what we get questions about is you see the 9%, you $300,000 in. What would it be before if you didn't put that $300,000 in? That's what he posted. And that's what we do. We give you that number before we give you the offset. That's the difference between how we do our budget and you do yours. And we just, and it's fine. At the end of the day, I guess that's the only number that really counts. [40:45] Speaker K (unidentified): You've done the same thing that we have done. What's that? What's that? You have? Put money forward to offset. Yeah. [40:53] Speaker B (unidentified): What we do, but what I'm saying is we typically give you the number that you know. When we're doing our budget process and we know, okay, where we meet with the finance committees and everybody else is, okay, well, right now we're looking at a four point five percent increase, okay, before we decide to go into the undesignated fund to offset it. Okay, most people know that number. Okay, I think it would be beneficial for us and yourself to show the number before the offset so we actually know what the increases are, because we have to start looking at like these numbers should exist in a perfect world. We, you shouldn't be able to give 750,000 back to town. Yeah, I know, I know, but what I'm saying, we've had years where we've given a half million and we have people complain all the time, well, you got, happened, you over taxed us. Well, in theory, maybe we have, but so when we're able to give all this money back to make a fake tax rate, because that's what we do every year, it's a fake tax rate until you do a zero. When you budget for exactly what you do, right? Am I correct? I think so. Yeah. [42:12] Speaker G (unidentified): Well, I get that. I get that. And I get that. [42:16] Speaker B (unidentified): And right now, you know, like I said, I appreciate what you're doing here. The numbers mistrue because of the 300,000, it is what it is. I understand the school has to do what they have to do. I never vote against your budget, you know, and nobody really does. It just, it's really hard on us when we 've gotten raked over the coals because we're trying to cut this and we're trying to cut that, and then we get it on that end of it, and then we see a nine point two percent increase, and it's like, well, contractual, that's what we got to do, and it's not your fault. It's, it's, I think a lot of, a lot of it's a lack of knowledge on the outside of how this all works and [43:08] Speaker K (unidentified): yeah, for instance, I can give you a for instance. In every surrounding town or city around here, if you look at their tax bills, you're going to see that the percentage that goes to the schools is anywhere between 60 and 70 percent, sometimes higher. And if you look through these, you'll see what our percentage has been over the years. Some years it's been much less, in the 50s. Some of these people have been doing some research here, but people don't understand that either. They just see that, okay, this is my tax bill, this is 60 some percent of this is going to go to cover the schools, and then right near that you see these figures that have been posted to show how the school budget is going up [44:02] Speaker H (unidentified): And up and up. I guess when you get a resident come in and says, look, your tax, my tax bill went up nine percent. Why did it go up nine percent? And so what do you say to them? [44:14] Speaker K (unidentified): Because the selectmen didn't move any money forward to take that down. To keep it down because the selectmen didn't move any money forward. [44:23] Speaker H (unidentified): The town portion of that tax rate I think grew by four and a half percent. The rest of that increase was attributable to the school. So we had made significant cuts in the budget because we were generating surpluses and we said we shouldn't be doing that. We'd rather try to bring the budget closer to the margin, which is what we've been doing for the last few years. That's gotten us to the point where our reserves are below the maximum threshold and somewhat above the minimum, not significantly. And we're going into a period where we're trying to put together a capital plan for the town. You just heard the chief talk about a couple, [45:13] Speaker D (unidentified): you know, two, you know, very, significant. [45:16] Speaker H (unidentified): And so we have to plan for that. [45:18] Speaker K (unidentified): Right. We don't complain or are against anything that you as a board decide to do for the town within your budget. [45:31] Speaker B (unidentified): Well, Judy, the problem we have is you keep saying, well, you're not offsetting to make the tax rate go down. I had to look at it differently. I see all the tax mill rates in the whole area, and they're a lot higher than ours. [45:45] Speaker K (unidentified): Oh, I know they are. [45:46] Speaker B (unidentified): And but I think anybody that sits and looks at those numbers that we, you know, in the increases and everything, you don't want the shock and awe of all of a sudden, oh, we gotta go way up like a certain town in the in nearby just had that shock and awe, and we don't need that by that gradual increase, which 780, what's our mill rate? 786. From what? 707. We're still under the $8 mill rate. But at some point if we don't increase that mill rate up, okay, unless we want to get rid of all the undesignated funds, which I don't believe is a good idea, we have to prepare for that, and we're seeing the increases in your side and we're going to have increases on our side, they're coming, we, you know, they just haven't come yet, and by key, you know, what do you say million dollars that next fire truck, you know, we don't want to have to go to the town of Acton on a special town meeting and say hey We need million bucks because that's gonna be bad for everybody. So by maintaining what we have and going up very small increments, I think you're going to find at the end of the day it's going to be better for everybody, you, us, everybody because [47:12] Speaker H (unidentified): it's not going to be the shock. You know, I, when I step out of this role and I'm a taxpayer, I would like to have a simple explanation why the taxes went up nine percent. And I don't think we as a, as a town, including the school, necessarily have historically done a very good job of explaining that. And I think it would be great to work with the school and the town to try to develop on an annual basis something that explains our finances and why the tax rate is what it is and why is it being changed and you know if it's a school or if it's the town, you know, the chips fall where they may. And we're all comfortable with what we're doing it, what we're doing, and we think we're doing them for good reasons. But I think we have an obligation to the community to make sure they understand that, they know, you know, what is driving [48:09] Speaker K (unidentified): the increase. Well, how do you get that information out? Because we put out budget books that and letters of explanation, and then at town meeting I explained why our budget was a lot higher this year because of having to hire an additional teacher because of enrollment and hiring the math interventionist to help us bring up math scores. That was the reason, and that was explained in the budget book and it was explained at town meeting. Would it, would [48:41] Speaker B (unidentified): it be better, I understand that you guys might think the buck put that on, I haven't seen it, I don't know the website, I don't do that stuff, so but if it was on the website where and so it didn't look like it was kind of for you guys that we could be put in, you know, our, I can't remember off the top of my head how much our tax went up, but it was a lot. [49:03] Speaker K (unidentified): It would be better if you didn't bother to print that, those figures on your town website. Well, I mean. It's kind of unnecessary for you to do that. I think that's the thing that really. [49:15] Speaker B (unidentified): I think, Judy, I think you guys, I think you guys have taken it the wrong way. Anyway, I'm all about, I talk to people all the time, and when they ask about this and that, da-da-da-da-da, not one person that I hear go and say, well, they gotta start cutting some stuff at the school, because we know you can't, okay? But we have to be able to say, why is my taxes going up? And I, we're trying to be as transparent as possible. You know, putting stuff on, and everybody asks, well, can I see it on the website, da-da-da-da-da. [49:50] Speaker K (unidentified): I was just a little upset that the school figures were put on the town website and we didn't know any about it until I saw it on the website. With no explanation. Or me. There wasn't an explanation. With no explanation. [50:08] Speaker J (unidentified): It was just, here's some numbers. [50:10] Speaker C (unidentified): I can understand the explanation, but you have to remember the school department is the department of the town. [50:15] Speaker N (unidentified): No. No. No. You are incorrect. [50:17] Speaker B (unidentified): Correct. Sorry, you're going to indulge me here. I think we should start. [50:22] Speaker K (unidentified): so sorry here 's how it's set up dan the school department the school committee is a government is the governing body of the school department the school department's connection to the town is only through voting for school committee members and budget those are the only connections between the two according to [50:51] Speaker H (unidentified): school law. You can look it up in the book. So there is one, there is one more, and that's the tax rate, because the tax rate funds both of us, it funds everything. And what I've been trying to say here, that it's, I don't know, it's just not getting through, is people are concerned when they get a 9% increase in their tax rate. That's a big increase. CPI is like two and a half, maybe three percent. That's three times the rate of inflation. Anybody who knows that is going to be asking questions, why is that what is going on there? And in all honesty, I can't say it's the town, and this year it was principally the school. And it's not saying that there's anything wrong with what you've requested and how are you managing their money. It's just the facts. Now I'm just, I'm just [51:44] Speaker K (unidentified): trying to get those facts out there. Well, we like to think that, you know, when we get back to the town, we're giving back money that they've already paid, they've already paid in for school stuff, and any excess that we can possibly get back, we try to get back as just as a courtesy to the taxpayers in the town. Well, that's all the right [52:10] Speaker B (unidentified): thing to do anyways. I mean, I mean, it's like you said, it's already been touched. It's not a courtesy. [52:15] Speaker H (unidentified): I think it's required. I think it's required after so many years to return it to the town. [52:20] Speaker K (unidentified): Well, you didn't return any this year. That's what I'm saying. No, I'm saying for the school. [52:25] Speaker H (unidentified): I believe it's required that after so many years you have to have a plan for your balance. There's a minimum threshold, or a threshold the state allows you to keep, and anything above that you have to have a plan for returning that to the using [52:40] Speaker K (unidentified): It well, I'll say using it. Yeah, we don't try to keep our fund tapped out at the top. [52:47] Speaker H (unidentified): Necessarily no, I know you don't. What I'm concerned about is because I don't think you have much in reserves right now. I don't know what you had for what you [52:57] Speaker K (unidentified): you have for a surplus this year? There was about 200,000. You guys had 600 and some thousand [53:04] Speaker H (unidentified): left over, you said. That's right, Judy. And there's going to be a capital plan that will come forward that will either explain how that money is going to be used in the future to fund our capital needs, or the board next year, if there's excess, can decide to use that to lower the tax rate. We did not want to do that this year because we're in the middle of assessing that capital plan and we didn't want to spend money before we knew whether we needed it or not for that capital plan. First I've heard about two fire trucks. Yeah, you know that's a million seven. That's that's a that would practically wipe out our reserves and you know you wouldn't do that huh and you [53:43] Speaker K (unidentified): know you wouldn't do that. No, you wouldn't spend, you wouldn't spend a million on a new fire truck. You figure out a different way. You wouldn't do it all in one [53:51] Speaker H (unidentified): one year. No, but we spent $750 on an ambulance, or $650, [53:55] Speaker D (unidentified): whatever it is. So these people would take it up. We'd like to be able to do it if we could. [53:58] Speaker B (unidentified): We don't want to have to take a loan if we don't have to. Yeah. But honestly, Judy, I think this is coming off the wrong way. Nobody, your budget is what it is, we know that. I think everybody in town should be able to know why their taxes are going up. Not going down artificial. Officials at the end of the day if we neither of us did that there would be an increase in our taxes right if neither of us put forward I would like to get [54:32] Speaker G (unidentified): to the point that we were done before I got cut off. That's what but part of my [54:41] Speaker C (unidentified): point was saying before I got interrupted was the fact that there's people who don't have students in the town, they're not going to go to the school website, but that taxes are being impacted by the school budget. So we talk about having information to multiple places so people have access. There are people who they only go to the town website, so how that information gives them access to that data that they otherwise may not utilize. So it's I don't see it, I don't see it as we're attacking. It's Making sure that information is available to as many people as possible, that's one of the biggest things I constantly here's the stock person is well we don't see this information where is this posted where's that 's how I see just making sure it's more readily available. I do agree that as some of you stated that there shouldn't be contacts, I will as myself I can't speak to the board I do where there should be more contacts with that information, but I think it's also important to recognize that Not everybody goes to the school website, so saying we're only going to limit to this one space I think is unfair to residents who then otherwise would not have access to that information we just but [55:40] Speaker K (unidentified): It would have just been nice if there'd been something in there to say that what the taxpayers are actually being taxed on this year after our state revenues and after what we've given back is a million dollars less than the money that was there. [55:54] Speaker H (unidentified): Anybody? I can see that. Point taken, Julie. [55:58] Speaker K (unidentified): And I'd like to see it taken off the town website because I think it's skewed in the wrong way because what the taxpayers are actually being taxed on this year for the school is a million dollars a little over a million dollars less than that big evidence on there. [56:20] Speaker M (unidentified): Anybody else want to say something? I'll open it up to the school board. [56:29] Speaker N (unidentified): Good evening. Mayor Johnson's acting school committee. I'm not going to reiterate anything or go into anything that Judy just said. She hit pretty much all the major points what I do want to say is that it's disappointing because the action of posting that document which projects itself as an authoritative audit on the budgetary process of the school is misleading without all that context that needs to be provided such as the actual 2025-2026 audit that is on the treasurer's website for the town right next to it right next to it so we can see if that's if that is the option to project it on the front page for everyone then Everything needs to be side by side because the optics to the incredible professionals that work in the district is that was a direct insult to us in terms of questioning at the very least the competence of the professionals that work there, and at the very worst, the integrity of the folks that work there. And that's why we're here tonight in response to that. All of the information, financials, from the school as they pertain and affect the town are posted publicly on the treasurer's website. Via audits, via the warrants, if someone has a question, why am I getting taxed well let me point you to this year's warrant and let's go through it and let's go through it well I'll show you here's the numbers right here this is where it is the tax rate went up because of everything that was voted for I mean it's it's easy enough to point to I think I remember after listening to your recording there is that I think part of the context that is actually still missing is the equation of how the mill rate is even derived i remember distinctly you mentioning that you wanted that on there as well that and that is that is missing okay i was looking for that to even start that process all right of providing that context the biggest disappointment is that action eroded trust between the two governmental bodies in the town and that is not good that is not good that does not create a good working relationship sustain a good working relationship as we move forward no one's in here for the in it for the money or the fame right and so we're all doing our best by way of the town and so we need to this should be a collaborative effort between our two bodies all right we need to have that trust between us okay and it felt like an underhanded slight on behalf of the body and so that's why we're that's why I'm here tonight to make sure that context is provided and that we can point to the very visual public postings not on the front page but on the treasurer's website as well as the postings of all the warrants that have to go back decades that's where all the data that you have in front of you has come from I would like us to get back to businesses as usual as we keep delivering the outstanding services to the tents of the residents of the town and educating its children [59:55] Speaker F (unidentified): anyone else I would yeah so I'm just going to go by the war so 26 27 you've You've got $6,503,000 for your budget. [1:00:11] Speaker K (unidentified): That was what? That was the amount to be raised by taxes. Is it that budget? All right, so. Amount to be raised by taxes. [1:00:22] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay, so I'm just looking at the warrant. Okay. So Article 22, see if the Town of Akron will authorize the school committee to expend $7,492,000. dollars how is that different than this i'm i'm not i'm not a budget guy i'm not i'm not a financial [1:00:44] Speaker M (unidentified): guy i'm just looking at the one so i want to know not ask the town to raise that amount further [1:00:51] Speaker N (unidentified): Further down it should say no, that's, that's the last time, yeah, and the amount to be raised by the town, okay, yeah, the amount to be raised. I'm not throwing stones, I just wanted no clarification, and that's, and that is the right way to read it, and that's what people are going to [1:01:08] Speaker F (unidentified): consider if they go to the warrant. They're going to go to the warrant, they're going to see seven and a half million dollars. If you're going to, you're telling me, you're telling me you're six [1:01:17] Speaker N (unidentified): and a half, that's what I want to know, absolutely no, and but it should always go back to the warrant. When they say I'm seeing this number, then the clarification needs to be you're absolutely right, that is how much this school is going to spend, right, yeah, but the amount that's going to be raised from you and everyone else in town is going to be six and a half, so that's right, that is how I would explain it to folks, to anybody who comes up [1:01:48] Speaker B (unidentified): So Mr. Johnson, he spoke, he spoke about us working together and all this other stuff, and you know he sent some emails out talking about how that we shouldn't be speaking without you guys here and this and that. I don't know where you figure that's speaking about us or any of [1:02:07] Speaker N (unidentified): our policies without someone to provide the context, yeah, that's what I'm talking about, because otherwise you're shooting from the hip without all the requisite information. [1:02:20] Speaker B (unidentified): You came up here tonight and you and you said blah, we got to work together, you know, you crapped on us on the thing, da, but we all have to work together, but then you write this stuff, your email saying oh but you shouldn't be able to talk, we're the selection of the town of acting, okay, if we're talking about money and this and that, oh do we have to stop when it comes to the school, because that's what I feel like, I mean honestly this is a big misunderstanding I think, I don't think anybody's running around gonna say we're gonna not pass your budget, okay? It was just putting information out. What's our next vote, in April? It's a long time from now. Honestly, this is worse for you, sitting up here talking about it, because most people don't know it's $6.5 million, but they do now. I think this is getting way blown out of proportion, but for you to come up here and say, you can't do this and you can't do that, we're the overseers of the town of Afton. You're on a school board, okay? Okay, it's not your job to come tell us what we can and can't do. [1:03:27] Speaker N (unidentified): And it's inappropriate for you to speculate on anything that occurs in the school without us present to be for the context. Speculate? Yes, speculate, because the information that you provided is incorrect in the way that it was presented. [1:03:42] Speaker B (unidentified): The way it was presented, was it really incorrect? [1:03:44] Speaker N (unidentified): Yes, because there's no context. [1:03:46] Speaker G (unidentified): There's no context related. [1:03:48] Speaker N (unidentified): So it's nothing but speculation with respect to why one thing is or not the [1:03:53] Speaker G (unidentified): other thing, so clarifying it the way it was done, so if you invite us, [1:03:59] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll leave you now because I know we're getting our KLM's tuned out because we've done something wrong because we've just tried to do the right thing but that's a lot more disappointed in you Andrew I'm going to take a step back Andrew that's what I'm disappointed in you want us to get along this and that And I feel we have, okay? You guys are going overboard with this, I think. And you're coming up and telling us, blah,, blah,, that we're not going to do this and do that. That's not, I don't know what you think you can do that, but when it comes to any town department in this town, no, we don't want to slander any department in town. That's not our intention at all, but I'm not going to have you come up and tell us we're not allowed to do this and we're not allowed to do that, and we're doing this, we're doing it with good intentions. we're trying to help everybody okay now we 're the ones who have we're the ones not you guys we're the ones that have to say this is why your mill rate is this you guys are lucky you don't have to do that we do and by doing what we did i understand why you would think that this is you know not good a good look for you guys i don't think it's a bad look i really don't i think it just over overblown situation I'm sorry if that's what happened but for us to get along and deal with the school I don't need to get barked at and told what we're going to do, what we're not going to do, okay? I'm just throwing that out there right now. I really want to deal with the school in a really good [1:05:28] Speaker E (unidentified): way, so okay, thanks, okay. I think we'll move on from this subject, okay? Old business, we have none. New business, liquor license. [1:05:50] Speaker A (unidentified): So the roaming catering company out of Wharram was doing a wedding at Bluewood Hill Farm this Saturday. They have the liability insurance, they're licensed through the state, and they've paid the applicable fee. Motion to approve it, you have to approve liquor licenses policy, you got a big [1:06:21] Speaker C (unidentified): You got the big bar? No. [1:06:29] Speaker H (unidentified): What's the date on here, Jennifer? [1:06:31] Speaker A (unidentified): It's the 7th. It's the 26th. Okay. [1:06:37] Speaker H (unidentified): I'd like to make a motion to approve a one-day liquor license for the Rowling Catering Company for Saturday, 9-26. [1:06:51] Speaker E (unidentified): Do we have a second? Move the second. End to approve a liquor license or was it roaming catering Saturday? Any discussion? Call for a vote. All in favor? All opposed? Very good. [1:07:06] Speaker A (unidentified): Budget timeline. So I know you're seeing this for the first time. Tom passed this down, copied it from similar to last year, confirmed with the superintendent. We're looking at April 10th for town meeting. They're going to work backwards. [1:07:24] Speaker H (unidentified): so you want to discuss this next week sure okay you've got a tentative date of april 10th for town meeting correct i guess that's the important thing okay thank [1:07:42] Speaker E (unidentified): you i believe okay appointment just one for the right committee [1:07:48] Speaker A (unidentified): That Dan and Ken talked about earlier? [1:07:52] Speaker H (unidentified): I'd like to make a motion to appoint Karen Nash to the Recreation Committee for a period ending 6-30-27. [1:08:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Move to second it to appoint Karen Nash, was it? Yes. Okay, to the Rec Committee. Discussion, maybe Dan can give us a quick update on it. [1:08:13] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, had a great interview with Karen. Karen's somebody who's newer to the tablet, but brings a lot of experience from Kennebunk and their experience with the REC. Has a lot of great new ideas but also ideas that seem to be very in line with the current REC committee's like direction of where they want to go. It seems to be something that's very motivated and just ready to, you know, work on things like transparency communication, wanted to do programs beyond just youth, talk about like art and other programs like that, which is something I know that the REC program is looking to expand but also wants to make sure is that there's you know especially coming from someone who's moving to town that anyone moving in knows what's available for their children but also ahead of time. We had a great discussion. I think that they would be a great fit to the right committee. Okay, thank you. [1:09:04] Speaker E (unidentified): Anyone else have any discussion? Nope. They moved a second. I'll call for a vote. All in favor? All opposed? Winter. [1:09:20] Speaker A (unidentified): road payment schedule so based on the approval of town meeting and the improved contracts are assigned by the town. These are just exhibits for district one and two. Both of the contractors have been in to review them. One signature from the slug for chair. It's the total amount districts. North District is going to be a hundred and fifty thousand six seventy based on 6,100 a mile times 24.7 miles. South is $7,004 a mile based on 25.2 miles. So total is less than 10% divided by six payments. So they agreed to those numbers, they matched it. [1:10:02] Speaker E (unidentified): So we don't need a vote or anything like that? [1:10:04] Speaker A (unidentified): No, just need to acknowledge them and sign them. [1:10:10] Speaker E (unidentified): So it's 150,670 for District 1 and 176,500 for district two. Capital [1:10:33] Speaker A (unidentified): plan. So Tom is passing down the updated capital plan. Mark Roy was very gracious to work with me again on this and basically we believe we've done what you've asked us to. We're going to bring this back around next week so this is just informational, but very quickly the changes. You had us remove a couple of them. We took little projects that were paving or anything like that off. Changed the timeframe from zero to five, to ten to fifteen and then anything over that the current cost and then mark created the minimum the maximum based on whether it's the current zero or the five years out and based on the workshop that we had you guys went through and updated quite a few of the numbers so we made those [1:11:15] Speaker C (unidentified): changes as well I have a question did we add any of the rec and I know the [1:11:20] Speaker A (unidentified): director to put one thing in at least the parking lot I know good point we didn't miss that but we'll have it on to be a fresh one next week when these in case you can start working on this one. So this, I think, is all the changes that you wanted, so if we look at it next week, we can talk about what the next step is. Is there any new lanes, trucks in here? No, he just mentioned that tonight. Is there a new one? No, that's online. Yeah. No, they're there. Oh, not newer than, right, not, yeah. [1:11:45] Speaker B (unidentified): But that's just, those are the ones that were places, right, that's why you got it down? We didn't update anything. Yeah. [1:11:50] Speaker A (unidentified): This is only updated from your last. [1:11:52] Speaker H (unidentified): Okay, so we'll go to the next meeting? Yes. [1:11:55] Speaker E (unidentified): All right. Okay, any other questions on this? Okay, and we've added number six, [1:12:05] Speaker H (unidentified): property across the street. [1:12:07] Speaker A (unidentified): 229, lot 52, looking for direction from the board in terms of the motion. [1:12:12] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, I think we're down to a motion and then we'll do some more discussion if we need. [1:12:17] Speaker B (unidentified): I think we'll make a motion to allow our administrator administrative to, I would say, consult or negotiate with the realtor on this property across the street. [1:12:34] Speaker H (unidentified): Well, and see if they're open to a contingent purchase of the sale. That's really the point of it. And so, yeah. [1:12:47] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, do I have a second? Second. Moved and seconded to advance on the property across the street and give our town administrator the authorization to have that discussion. Any further discussion from the board on that? [1:13:04] Speaker A (unidentified): So if it's something, I mean, you're looking at 60 days, 30 days, you're willing to move on it if they are, just when they ask me how long, just the length of time to schedule a special time meeting? [1:13:14] Speaker B (unidentified): I guess the best thing to do is have the realtor ask the individual whether or not. [1:13:18] Speaker G (unidentified): How long, what's that, how long, how long they'll come back by the day, yeah, you know, if it's [1:13:23] Speaker B (unidentified): something there, I mean, obviously if we decide to do it, we're gonna have to, you know, you got weeks, so you know, playing in between public hearings and all that, so I mean, you gotta do a timeline how long we're allowed before we can be able to do it. We don't want to string them along [1:13:40] Speaker A (unidentified): either, but if it's an open town meeting that really minimizes what we have to do because that's considered the public hearing, so you could turn it on very quickly. Good. Yeah. [1:13:48] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, okay. It'd be nice if maybe if anybody's watching, if they have any ideas or concerns about this next week, maybe come in and let me know. I'll have an answer for you. You'll be able to hear from me. [1:14:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, great. Okay, that's been moved and seconded. We've had a discussion. Call for a vote. All in favor? All opposed. Great. Okay, pending we have a list of policies [1:14:12] Speaker M (unidentified): and mess gathering so I have just a couple updates if it's okay go ahead all [1:14:16] Speaker A (unidentified): right some policies so the sabbatical techniques something else for next week which just came in take this home some reading material this is their plan after meeting with David and John this was their recommendation and plan for from the design piece of it all the way down to the bidding. So there's quite a bit of information there. So we'll read it next week. But I think it came in at around $30,000. [1:14:49] Speaker E (unidentified): And this is for the packing lot out here. And the memorial. And the memorial out here. [1:14:54] Speaker B (unidentified): It's going to take everything. Okay. This is going to be for everything. Yes. [1:14:59] Speaker H (unidentified): So does it provide a strategy for making this handicap accessible? [1:15:06] Speaker A (unidentified): That's what you're going to pay them to do. They're not telling you what it is. [1:15:09] Speaker F (unidentified): We came up, we came up with some ideas, right, John? Yeah, he was, he was pretty open things that we said. Yes, my dear. Yeah, okay, this is a surprise. Okay, this [1:15:34] Speaker E (unidentified): is what they'll do to come up with the ideas. He took a couple of designs [1:15:38] Speaker B (unidentified): of the ideas that I come up with and John and I were all discussing it and kind of we said we gotta have ADA parking. We have done this, we have done that, you have to incorporate this all in here. And it's going to be a complete reconstruction of this parking lot. It has to be to make everything work. And between the memorial, the handicapped parking and everything down below, I feel that if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right and do it once [1:16:08] Speaker A (unidentified): right the first time. So yeah, okay, so sam bid is out, scrap metal bids are out, the transfer station concrete analysis, I'm just waiting for one. So remember we had three companies and one of the issues that we ran into is from the beginning we had one of the contractors reach out to us, we had a conference call with david, he made some recommendations of rebar over wire. So that's what he was comfortable knowing what we were using it for, bidding on, so he bid based on that rebar instead of the wire mesh. Not every contractor or not every person that bid on it called and said that same thing. So some of them bid just on the wire mesh, so essentially you're not comparing apples to apples. So I'm waiting for... [1:16:53] Speaker H (unidentified): Is one of those more appropriate than the other? [1:16:56] Speaker A (unidentified): I mean the two of the three... [1:16:58] Speaker F (unidentified): I bought a concrete guy dude. Anyone here? [1:17:01] Speaker G (unidentified): you know I mean I felt like the wire mesh was enough. Yeah, they did, okay, we're doing a six inch [1:17:08] Speaker E (unidentified): battery right. Yeah, that's what's in most of your concrete floors is flyers and I mean I can tell [1:17:14] Speaker A (unidentified): you I know that and I'm not gonna say I should say I know I'm not a man but I can tell you that we have a lot of concrete poured at our farm with a lot of heavy equipment, I mean heavy equipment, that six inch wire mesh is what all of our contract people have always poured, so it's, I think it's funny. We should have. [1:17:30] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, hindsight's 20,, and you know, even I screw up and I probably should have put it. We should have put them down for either or. And we didn't put the pounds for 3000 pounds. [1:17:43] Speaker H (unidentified): Is this other person interested in bidding with wire mesh? [1:17:47] Speaker A (unidentified): Yes, he's going to give us an updated number. Fine. So we'll talk about that anyway. So that's on hold one more week. [1:17:56] Speaker F (unidentified): And I was talking about that the other day, and Ed said, and David probably knows this too, but Ed was saying something about putting high beams in for the rollers. [1:18:07] Speaker E (unidentified): We actually need to have two runs of steel for the containers to slide on. [1:18:14] Speaker B (unidentified): Is that something we'll do afterwards? [1:18:16] Speaker E (unidentified): Not really. I mean, you could mount it on top, yeah. You could. You could. [1:18:20] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, wouldn't that be better off to do it on top [1:18:22] Speaker F (unidentified): so you could place it if you could? [1:18:24] Speaker E (unidentified): I've been thinking about that a couple of ways. It probably would be. I think it would be stronger for the concrete because if you put steel in it, you're now separating that concrete split, right? So yeah, I wouldn't think later down the road if [1:18:35] Speaker B (unidentified): you had to replace it, because you know those things were hot, you could just undo them, redrill [1:18:39] Speaker E (unidentified): it. Yeah, and that's something typically the installer of the compactor. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. So that one's down there pending, I guess. It in a public comment. Welcome back. Good to see you again. [1:19:05] Speaker L (unidentified): I'm glad this was a meeting I decided got permission to drive yesterday. [1:19:11] Speaker E (unidentified): Mr. Denning, you can come in here. Congratulations. You could have walked. [1:19:15] Speaker B (unidentified): Oh, yeah. Oh, well, the new knee. [1:19:18] Speaker L (unidentified): It's not, it doesn't work here very much, you know. Very interested in the discussion with the school. There's one thing I'd like to say, having been on Wharton Finance, particularly. On Wharton Finance, we've had, how are we gonna work? How are we gonna work together? We've come up, I think, in a very good way, and I hope it's how we do it this year, is you guys bring in people we're here we can ask questions we can do that 's not how it happens with the school but what has happened with the school and I've seen it a hundred not a hundred honestly I've seen it three times there have been times when they a school has their school budget forum that is open to the public and usually it's warrant and finance and the school committee who's there except the year that it was David, warrant and finance and the school committee, David showed up, that everything is talked about there, where the money is coming from, what it's for, and all that. Last year Ed and Dan and I were, and maybe three or four other people from the public were there. It does say everything. And I just want to say for the people, I'm kind of assuming you still will have that process where you present your booklet and talk about that. Let's get the people to come there. Let's encourage the citizens to come to that. I know Ed and Dan and Dave even said something to me it's like don't these people know how much money they're spending and they were spending a lot of and that might have been about three years ago they were spending a lot of [1:21:13] Speaker B (unidentified): money three years ago actually George probably what I said was people don't [1:21:16] Speaker L (unidentified): know how much they should be here to know they should be here to know because there is going to come a point with everything that we're looking forward to in this town. We know the way we're growing. You know, it may, the school's got an increase quite a bit that had to hire a new teacher. Fire department, I mean, just all the building that's going on is incredible. But there's going to be a time. If you look at the municipal, I'm going to just say the municipal budget right now there were times when we had $600,000 over budgeted about a quick hypothetical spot over budget I mean a [1:22:08] Speaker A (unidentified): lot of its revenues that we don't know what or revenues right but all of a [1:22:12] Speaker L (unidentified): sudden we had wow we got money then another time it might have been 300,000 And the board has been working, budget and warrant finance, to cut that budget down as close to what we need. And one of the things, I forgot who said it, we used to have the maximum that, I don't know who would, the financial people of the world would say a town should have, you know, three months' money in the budget. Twenty-five percent. In reserves. in reserve and then been times when we had a little higher than that and there have been times like now that were very close to the minimum and it doesn't take much to blow that up you have no minimum so I think if we encourage people to go to the school committee their school budget forum will learn about the school because it is separate right now no matter how we think about it 's thought of as two separate entities I'm not going to get into whether it's one or two or a department or not a Department, it doesn't matter. What matters is it's all our money. So if we can encourage them to go to those school budget and the forum, particularly the booklet page they print, and they can answer questions, and that those questions, I know Judy, you're very good about answering questions at town meetings when people are getting donuts and coffee, and they're thinking of the last one and how are you going to vote on the next one. It's it's a very difficult time to do it, and I think money right now. Forget it, I don't even want to know what it's costing you to put your buses on the road, if they use diesel, or what it's costing us at what, almost $6 a gallon for diesel now. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy, but that's my thought. [1:24:12] Speaker B (unidentified): Joyce, you know one thing I've told people for years is if this town hall's only got two people to show up on Wednesday nights, that means something's being done right. Something's being done? Something's being done right. Meaning, if only two people show up, which that's usually our average, okay, until we get you guys mad. So but if only a few people are showing up at school unless the same thing, you know, at the end of the day when the mill rate gets high and you start seeing this place not packing up, you know, problems. I just hope it's not. [1:24:52] Speaker G (unidentified): While I'm still here, something more than you realize, I think what David's got a. [1:24:59] Speaker A (unidentified): Point that, you know, they don't come whether it's a school budget meeting or the weekly slot, my meetings, I mean, you know, even though there was a school increase, a county increase, in town had a small increase, they're okay with the way it is, so sometimes that they don't come, then it says something as well, but it. [1:25:17] Speaker H (unidentified): Will be a time, it will be a time. I can't help but say when we get that kind of attention because the mill rate is high, it's too late. Yeah, very difficult to make cuts in these kinds of budgets once they're in place. You can do it, but it's very difficult to do, and so what I'm trying to do is encourage diligence and attention all along to make sure that what we're spending is what we need to spend and no more to be approval, because you know social security recipients are probably going to get with. Three and a half percent this year, something like that, if they're lucky, and you know the tax rate's going up nine, that's a big increase. Yeah, and you know, we have a lot of seniors in town. [1:26:06] Speaker L (unidentified): Oh, picnic? Yeah. Yeah. [1:26:10] Speaker K (unidentified): Exactly. But my point is. All right, I don't want you to feel bad. [1:26:21] Speaker L (unidentified): We've got three kids on this plan. [1:26:23] Speaker H (unidentified): Is Joe getting up to talk? [1:26:25] Speaker O (unidentified): Yeah, I've got a question. [1:26:26] Speaker L (unidentified): But no, what my point is, Tom, what you said, you break the glass of milk and you don't get it back, and you don't get another chance to get it back. People don't know what's going on. They can assume it's fine because I'll tell you what I just told the neighbor who said, my god, did you get your tax bill while you were gone? And I said, no, mercifully not, it's still at the post office. The thing is, our tax rate here in town, my opinion, go sell your house, no matter what you get for it, you're going to pay the same to buy a new place. Go see if you can rent an apartment for what you pay in taxes every year. You can't. [1:27:18] Speaker O (unidentified): Well, maybe not. I'd just like to make a suggestion. It would be nice for the taxpayers in the residents of this town to have a list of all the ingredients of this tax increase, like the snow plowing and the county tax and whatever contributed to this 9%. And I don't think we should just look at the school. If they put 32 new kids in school, what's it going to cost in the following year, if we could get a list? [1:27:59] Speaker F (unidentified): It's all in the budget. [1:28:02] Speaker O (unidentified): I think it would be more beneficial for the town if you came out and specified exactly what $100,000 for the county, snow plowing, this side, that side, what it averaged out, whatever it was. [1:28:17] Speaker F (unidentified): Everything in the budget has gone up. So we can't... [1:28:21] Speaker O (unidentified): People are asking why it went up. [1:28:23] Speaker B (unidentified): Okay, that's right. I think what Joe's getting to is kind of like what I was talking to earlier is, you know, instead of just putting the school that I've said on the website, you don't put on the county tax, put on this, and that's just a bunch of stuff down. [1:28:39] Speaker O (unidentified): You've got a list of what you bought and they give you a bill and that's it. [1:28:43] Speaker F (unidentified): You should at least, I think that's what you're asking for, I think that's fair, but I mean [1:28:47] Speaker O (unidentified): everything on our budget has gone up this year from last year. Well, we know that, John. But what? What particularly went up? [1:28:53] Speaker A (unidentified): So a breakdown of the 4% of the town went up. Okay. Got it. Yeah. [1:28:57] Speaker O (unidentified): Okay. Now, when you say the town went up, was it salaries or what? [1:29:01] Speaker A (unidentified): The town budget was up 4% and that was based on the additional road projects and the. Snowplow line? Snowplow line. [1:29:11] Speaker H (unidentified): Snowplow line. And the. If you strip that stuff out, it was very little of an increase in the town. I think it went down, but I may be mistaken. But it was less than a 1% increase. [1:29:27] Speaker O (unidentified): Looking for some numbers, some real numbers. Yeah. Like the county tax, okay? Yeah, no, it's, yeah. [1:29:31] Speaker H (unidentified): The county tax went up. Joe, what I don't understand is you're on the Warrant and Finance Committee. You see all of that. [1:29:37] Speaker O (unidentified): I haven't seen this year, so. [1:29:39] Speaker B (unidentified): But you saw, we just. Well, we haven't gotten it. [1:29:41] Speaker A (unidentified): We haven't been paying last year's. [1:29:43] Speaker H (unidentified): But what we're doing this year is what you reviewed last winter. So I appreciate what you're asking for, but as a member of Warren Finance, you ought to know what that is. [1:29:56] Speaker O (unidentified): I don't think I saw the county tax go up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all in there. [1:30:05] Speaker B (unidentified): We voted on that, just put that money into our meeting. Yeah,. [1:30:10] Speaker O (unidentified): Well, that's what people have been asking me. [1:30:12] Speaker B (unidentified): Well I'm getting it too and you're in the finance committee you should be able to answer that [1:30:18] Speaker H (unidentified): just as well as we can all right before we adjourn I have a oh someone is [1:30:27] Speaker J (unidentified): Cj governor school committee but one thing school committee and one thing is not school committee so one of the reasons why the budget has gone up the last couple of years it was it was pretty much flat for quite a long time as you can see in the packet and we 've grown like we have more kids in the building than we have in entity or suffering together with the numbers for the school student numbers what we've tried we are committed to doing is keeping class sizes small so when you have 26, 27 Kids in the class, we're committed to breaking those into two classes per grade. I think every grade in the elementary school, which is pre-K through fifth grade, has two classes per grade. So yes, you get really small classes in that. So my son's in fourth grade. He has 13 or 14 kids in his classroom. And then there's another classroom of 13 or 14 kids so we're building a base to grow more obviously we're not going to get a third teacher in fourth grade for you know 30 kids but we have now have the empty spaces in the classrooms to grow further so it's really an investment in the future of this town to take on more teachers at this point so that we can keep growing and not have to invest later as well so it's it's kind of one way to think of it that we're trying to build the foundation here And it's a little bit more money now, but then we're not having to do it later. But we've done it a little bit at a time, so we've, you know, kind of grown the third grade, and now third grade moves up to fourth grade. They have the two teachers, and now we, you know, this grade gets more, so we build more teachers in at each grade level here. And it's a good thing to have. We want more kids in our town, means more life in our town. So the other thing I had, I wanted to ask, just while you're talking about, you know, lining the parking lots and all that, please put yourselves in parents with young on children's shoes. Everybody in town has bigger cars, bigger trucks. Nobody has like little Honda Civics. If you think, so I think the last time we lined the parking lot here was roughly 10 years [1:33:10] Speaker B (unidentified): ago. We're talking about lining it right now, okay. We're talking about absolutely reconstructing the [1:33:15] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay, well, it's something that's going to be a consideration, but you'd like to see, I'd love to see slightly larger parking spaces. Yeah, me too. I gotta, I gotta park out with a dirt, I had, I had [1:33:27] Speaker J (unidentified): actually asked for that the last time the parking lot was lined, roughly 10 years ago, when I had two kids in car seats and I had a Nissan Rogue at the time. It was still really hard to open the back [1:33:39] Speaker G (unidentified): seat and take a car seat out. I think what you'll find is our designer is going to [1:33:46] Speaker B (unidentified): design them to specs, you know, there's certain sizes for it. We could [1:33:52] Speaker E (unidentified): probably tell him to kind of use it, usually higher spec. It's just something [1:33:57] Speaker J (unidentified): that like when you have small children you think about, and if you don't have small children like that, you're getting out of the car multiple times a day, you just don't think about it. Same thing with like hooks in the women's bathrooms. You guys don't have purses, or the, you know, people who are putting the hooks up or not, don't have purses, look up a dress shirt in your life, you just don't think about it. So I'm just asking you to keep it in your heads to think about, and just ask whoever's doing it in the future, just kind of like for us, because it's so helpful, and it's just really something that you don't think about necessarily if it's not like in your life all the [1:34:39] Speaker M (unidentified): time. That's all, thank you. Thanks for the explanation of the school. Yeah, that [1:34:45] Speaker E (unidentified): actually helps to put things into context more than what I thought. Okay, any other public comments? Do we have motion to adjourn? [1:34:53] Speaker H (unidentified): Okay, hold on, I just had a question, maybe we've covered it. Okay, is the vote gone? No. [1:35:00] Speaker A (unidentified): The vote is not gone, it's just this week. [1:35:03] Speaker H (unidentified): This week and the Sanders? By Friday. By Friday, okay. [1:35:07] Speaker A (unidentified): So it's day four? No. They're doing it all on the same day. The Sanders couldn't be picked up, I had to organize it with the real commission, so it's Friday. Okay. The vote's scheduled for Friday. [1:35:19] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay. It's all two separate people, right? They're two separate people. Okay. [1:35:24] Speaker H (unidentified): Now we can, I'll make a motion to adjourn. [1:35:27] Speaker E (unidentified): Move to second to adjourn at 7.55 p.m. Full meeting. In favor? All opposed? Thank you all.