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Board of Selectman

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And Flattman Wood.
Right.
Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
We'll face the comment.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,
a one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Next item is the consent agenda.
These items are routine and will be approved in one motion.
Well, as a board member, request removal for a separate discussion.
The categories included are approval of the minutes from June 18th and May 21st.
Manifests and financial signatures required on accounts payable for June 17th and June 24th.
And those amounts are $95,624.10 for June 17th accounts payable.
$6,946.003 for June 24th accounts payable.
June 17th is $10,985.70 for the payroll manifest.
June 24th is $12,477.70 for the payroll manifest.
We also, tonight, had several tax exemptions and credits to sign.
We had several trust fund expenditure requests to sign.
And we also had a land use change tax to sign.
There is also included the department report from the highway department.
Does any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda?
I do not.
I do.
Yes.
For, give me a half a second here.
The latest minutes of inaccuracy that will be fixed.
Thank you.
The June 18th minutes.
My name is represented as not only making the motion, but also seconding myself.
Thank you very much.
Well, that needs to be revised.
Just a tad.
Yeah, that's fair.
That was really simple.
Yep, thank you.
Other than that, still need to provide revision on the May 21st.
Okay.
So those can be removed until revisions are completed on everything.
Okay.
Okay.
So we are not approving of the minutes from May 21st.
21 and June 18th.
And June 18th until revisions are made.
No objections to anything else.
Okay.
I think we should take the highway department month report out for review,
seeing that we have the rest of our department heads here.
So that's my thing to pull out the highway department.
Barring that, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?
I motion to approve the consent agenda barring the items already noted.
Do I have a second?
I will second that.
All in favor?
Aye.
Thank you.
Okay.
All right.
So we are now on to our public comment section.
And before we begin, here's a quick overview of our public comment policy.
Public comment is a limited public forum.
Speakers must be daring residents, taxpayers, town employees, or business owners.
Non-residents may seek only with permission of the chair.
Please state your name and residence for the record.
Comments must be directed to the chair and must remain respectful and civil.
Individual comments may be limited to three minutes.
The board will not engage in debate during public comment.
And once public comment is closed, no additional comment will be taken unless invited.
Would that be open for public comment?
Okay.
Barring none, we will close the public comment section.
At this point, I would like to bring forward a request from the town clerk for a non-public with us.
Do I have a motion for bringing this forward on the agenda?
Not by me.
Okay.
So then we will now go into non-public.
So, and that is under RSA 91-A, colon 3, normal 2, C.
And that is, we'll take that up at this point in the agenda.
C has to do with reputation.
So, I'll have a, is there a motion to entertain going into non-public for this reason?
I'll make a motion to enter non-public at 6.05 p.m. under 91-A3-2, Part C.
I'll second.
Roll call vote.
Michelle Johnson.
Aye.
What?
Roy White.
You don't think you're going to call the roll.
Roy Watson.
Aye.
Charles Wood.
Aye.
Okay.
Thank you.
I will, at this point, need to request that everyone make the room, and we will be right after.
Actually, we can't shut the camera off.
Oh!
So, we need to leave the room.
If you want to use my office, then slide over.
Okay.
Everybody sit down.
Be aware that you are going to be on camera.
We're not going to be able to leave.
Um, do you want me in for the minutes, or?
Uh, yes.
Hey, behave, kids.
Okay.
So, do you guys have a drone, man?
No.
No, we just use those boroughs, because we contract with them for police.
Yeah.
It's all by the base.
Oh, that makes sense.
Yeah.
It works out good.
You've got to try to know what you're doing, I think, right?
Yeah.
They send a sergeant with it.
Yeah.
And, um, it was, uh, the fire and wear.
They used, um, and they were able to record with it.
So, they were able to play it back and stop.
Okay.
And they could look at where, where it had burned yesterday, where it had burned today.
You know, so, yeah, it worked out pretty good.
Did you guys get, uh, a storm last night, right?
I'm over in Francis.
Wasn't that crazy?
Oh, right.
I've been here, right?
Yeah, and I worked at a handoff over there, right?
So, we had all the time, and I was like, what the hell?
So, yeah, great.
He's left, I'm like, good.
All the atmosphere is, oh, yeah, fire, fire, fire.
There's a truck in the driveway, it's on fire over in, um, shower.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah, shower.
Yeah, shower.
Yeah, shower.
It was with yourself.
Oh, no, no, no.
That's what we're talking about.
Yeah, it was the, uh, it was the way, uh, you know, I'm like,
what's that fancy mean?
We go?
Oh, yeah.
It was their farm.
They had 300 cows over there.
Burned the barn.
They got all the cows out, though.
Burned the barn?
Yeah.
I don't care if I'm out of the barns, I'm going to be really sad if my barn burns.
I don't mean that.
Yeah.
Um, do you have an opinion on, uh, lightning rods on the top of barns and stuff?
No.
Nobody knows.
Nobody knows.
They were there when I got there, and I don't know.
It must have been like, I should take them down, because I don't know.
I would just make sure you kind of grind it really good, and, you know, have some good, uh, cable on it.
See, that's the thing.
If you, like, I've tried to, I've talked to electricians, and I've tried to, like, nobody does it anymore.
It's kind of a lost, I don't know if I would call it an art, but, uh, it's, um.
I would rather have a lightning rod in the middle of a field than on top of a house.
Yeah, that makes, actually, more sense, right, to draw it away from.
Where do you live in Greenfield?
We're in Hull Park, sure.
Okay, you're right here, you have an eating out.
Uh-huh.
So, it's all traffic, you go, and it's like, and I do, I'm on Texas to bring you to Boston.
Oh, okay.
So, for a day, and that's why I watch, it's the thing I get every night shift, and for a day, I got called in at Bananoc, up in Peterborough, tonight, so, it was an 11, but not too much.
So, so, yeah.
That's a schedule.
Well, my daughter's in college, so she doesn't need us as much.
That's a good time.
That's good.
Yeah, there's no, they had some pretty good pictures on the face page earlier.
Oh, from the, uh.
From that fire last night.
Yeah, they saved the, they saved the big house.
Put it right in the L and stuff.
Mrs. Mason?
Yep.
It's a pretty house.
Oh, great.
It's a little far away for us to go out.
It was, it rained so hard.
I have to say, I suppose, if it, um, but I guess if the fire's going.
No, there's a, there's a video of it.
Oh, my God.
Does it burn?
Yeah.
Oops.
Look at that.
I can see that.
So, what do you do there?
You just have to let it burn.
Like, are somebody spraying water on that right now?
Yeah, they're, they're probably in the main product.
I was pushing it back out.
So, they're in a house there or a barn?
This is the barn.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, they had a store there as well.
It was, it was in between the house and the barn where they sold the meat.
That's a treasure.
Yeah, they, they, they, they were on Channel 9 and they said that they're, they're coming
up with some sort of a temporary, um, store to keep selling their stuff.
But they said they lost $50,000 worth of meat.
Because they had, they had got it all ready for the weekend.
Did you see, um, the fire.
We had in the winter in Franciscan.
That was, uh.
The one over by the church?
Yeah.
Right in, right in number one main.
One of the oldest houses in town.
But it was like, it was, I don't know what it was, like minus degrees out.
And, and the, the guy who owns that, people who own the house have the chocolate cafe right
next to it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he said that fire crews were coming in to thaw and they were literally, like they
couldn't even bend their arms.
They were just all frozen.
It took us three days to get the hose from there.
We laid hose from the dry hydrant up the street.
Yeah.
And he said that fire crews were coming in to thaw and they were literally, like they couldn't
even bend their arms.
They were just all frozen.
It took us three days to get the hose from there.
We laid hose from the dry hydrant up the street all the way to the fire.
And we couldn't even put it back on the truck.
Because it was so frozen.
It was frozen up.
So they put it in the back of a pickup all wobbed up and then they brought it back.
Put it in the station, cranked the heat up all the way.
Really?
And it was two days before all the ice was out of it.
Someone said they were almost spraying ice coming out of it.
It was cold.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the wind was blowing and it was snowing.
That was brutal.
Somebody else told me that if it had happened during the summer, if the town could have burned.
It would have been the whole town.
Yeah.
The whole summer town, yeah.
Scary.
Yeah, from what Larry was saying, they said they were going to go right back up again as soon as they could get going.
It's interesting, whoever is doing the contracting work does it all in their shop first.
So yesterday the floor was down and now today the post and beam frame is up in a matter of two days.
That's got to be hot work.
There will be no fireplaces in the house.
No.
I talked to the owner and they don't want anything to do with open flames.
Mm-hmm.
But they're going to make it look like the original house from the outside.
Oh, yeah.
They're going to try and hold on to the look.
Well, that's probably something you're planning.
Yeah, it was Levi Whitberry's house and he was governor.
Yeah, yeah, trying to keep it as close as possible, yeah.
Radio systems have been fully restored.
Lightning hit out the fire lamp last night.
Fire lamp where we get dispatched.
Blew out eight pieces in the console.
So I take it there were no calls from John and Surchie.
I had a conversation with, I was telling Deb, I had a conversation with Andrew.
Yeah.
Because whenever you guys are off, they go, I had a conversation with Marshall Gale.
And I explained to her how to do loans.
She's cognitive enough where she doesn't pass that placement.
So when she calls, we're sending her a certified letter.
She's ready to get the lien with 30 days to respond.
If not, excuse the lien.
And then go forward.
I said to Marshall, I mean, what are you going to do?
Because I guess she called Marshall a couple weeks ago to find her TV remote.
Oh, yeah?
And he's like .
I did go over one time to turn my mom's TV off for her.
She goes over in Peterborough.
She couldn't get her TV to call her.
That's sick.
I came from home that night.
I live in where?
And I came all the way to the house.
And I walked in and she gives me an attitude like, I don't even know you.
And I'm going, well, you ought to know me.
I've been here 38 times since January 1st.
I know.
When you called me in morning, I was like, let's call.
I went, oh, no.
Bob's living in my room.
And I saw your text.
I'm like, hey, gang.
It's Janice.
Oh, my.
That's sweet.
That's sweet.
That's sweet.
That's because like even when I had Valancourt to winter fuel this, like, please don't tell
them we're dropping it off.
We'll just go there and drop it off.
Don't tell them we're coming.
We'll just fill it.
Okay.
Just send me the invoice.
The attitude from the daughters, though.
I mean, God.
Oh, my.
Social work.
Tell me in Congress.
They said they have to talk to them.
They just don't want anything to do with the whole situation at all.
No.
You know, she's trying to give me, call them on your phone because they won't answer my
call.
And I'm going like, I don't know what I want them to do.
Because I want them to have my phone number, you know?
Right.
So I did.
Being the nice guy I am.
And it was like, yeah, so what?
Good luck to you.
Yeah, because the social worker at Conker told me, you know, she tried to explain to me.
She said, you know, if you disauthorize all this, then you don't have to deal with anything
that you don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
I don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
I don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
You don't have to deal with anything.
This is for their mom.
We're just so lucky that we're not busy.
So when we're dealing with her, you know, if we transport or not,
we, you know, there's not another call waiting for us, you know.
So this is endearing.
Did this kind of thing happen and we're aware also?
We had Crazy Yeti, yeah.
We'd go to his house sometimes three, four, five times a day.
I mean, we just need to buy him a cat.
If we'd just buy him a cat or some food, he probably wouldn't call us, you know.
And then he, you know, he would get, you know, you say,
Eddie, you know, we've been here five times a day.
Really five times in a day?
We had staffing.
So they were either going to be sitting at the firehouse or down talking to Eddie one or the other.
And then he would get violent.
And then he would take a swing.
And then he winds up, then he would get, then he would get hooked up.
Yeah.
And they would bring him to the police department.
And then you would end up transporting him from there.
Because he was, oh, my chest pain is bad.
And they're like, oh my God, Eddie.
And his kid was the same way.
He'd call him and he's like, good luck to you.
We probably, oh, no exaggeration, in a year we would go see him 50 times easy.
Public safety has a lot of, you wear a lot of hats.
Yeah, I can't see him.
And then he burned wood, which was even worse.
And then you get a reported trail of fire.
Oh, God.
This is going to be a fable, you know.
Eddie's going to be in there dead, you know.
And you get there and there'd be smoke coming out the front door and he's standing on the porch.
And, you know, stuff had rolled out of the stove onto the carpet.
And, you know, take his wood away.
Well, if you ever have to use your phone to call somebody, you don't have an extra phone, just do *67.
I thought I'd lock my number in my car.
Wait, what is that?
*67.
It locks your number for them.
It comes up as unavailable.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So you dialed *67 and then you dialed the number?
Yeah, and then their phone number.
But, you know, I left like four or five messages with each one of them.
And then they did call me back.
I don't know what to tell you.
We got your mom at Conker House.
That's all I'm telling you.
Well, that's what I told Marshall.
I said, you know, because when we get there, there's no reason to transport her.
And he said, you know, then she's like wasting services.
I said, I understand that.
I said, but by the same token, you know, call.
And I told him about Grand State V&A.
And I said, call them.
They will call her.
And it'll lock her up the ledge.
Okay.
So you're in Greenfield.
How do you know all this?
Well, I'm the welfare director here and the welfare director for Temple.
Oh, okay.
And the tax collector in New Boston.
Okay.
Yeah.
One person heard about it and was like, oh, hey, they need somebody, they need some help.
So I literally met Steve Deers back at 24-23.
It was like a bunch of vials at McDonald's because he decided he was going to help out.
And I said, oh, okay.
And I met him and I was like, all these people.
And I'm like, okay.
And I've been here ever since.
So as welfare directors, is there a separate kind of council on aging?
Or is it all encompassing under that welfare?
No.
There's resources out there for them.
It's just knowing where to go.
Because the thing is, like, it depends on where they can transport it to, too.
And you know as little as I do.
Like, you could transfer her to, you could transport her to, like, CMC, Mananoc or Elliott.
And they'll assess, find, discharge.
Then they call, like, break --
She's home before your report's done.
Yeah.
You call it Smart Ride or one of the transit to get her home.
And Concord Hospital is resourceable.
They will put resources in place.
And that's how she got granted to APNA.
She went there.
And they said, no, we can't release you to be home.
Because she is clinically partially blind.
And because I thought she didn't have any power, one time she called and she said,
"Oh, I have nothing."
And she goes, "No.
I won't see you again until 6:00 a.m."
And I'm like, "Do you have power?"
And she says to me, "Yeah, I have power, but I have a night blindness."
And I'm like, "Night blindness?"
I said, "Are you diabetic?"
"No."
I'm like, "Okay.
Why are you turning your lights out?"
Like, I'm trying to piece this together.
This is the first time I talked with her.
And then, you know, it all unraveled after there.
And then, like I said, Concord got her placement, you know.
And I did tell her, I said, "You can't keep calling EMS to transport you, because they come to your house for you.
And you have to be there for them to help you."
Yeah, they were on their way one day, and we had her in the truck.
We met each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They were waving as you go by.
Yeah.
Like, we've been there four times and she's not there.
I'm like, "That's because she's transporting the hospital."
So that's expensive, right?
So is that -- and that's not --
Well, it's expensive for her insurance company.
Yeah.
So is she Medicare then?
Because they're going to -- because Medicaid is for -- Medicaid is getting cut back so much next year.
Right.
And that's part of the reason why I increased my budget at Temple, too.
Because with the new cuts and everything, I said, you know, we're responsible as the Welfare Department for sustainable income and sustainable medicine for people.
Yeah.
So if you have insulin or you have things that aren't covered, they have a problem.
And, you know, and I had to push back from the chair over in Temple.
He's like, "Well, why do you need this?"
I said, "Well, I'm not going to be over budget, so this is where the ceiling I need my budget to be."
And that's what we did, because I did get requests and things like that.
A lot of times the resources, because they're cutting all this money and everything, you have to kind of know how to navigate.
Like, they just came up in community action, put out, I think, for the 26-27 electric budget and everything, for the fuel assistance and everything.
For a half of two people, you could make up for like $5,800 a month.
Yeah.
So they increased the housing limit.
So that qualifies a lot of people.
So all the people that call me in the summer, I mean in the winter, for electrical assistance and fuel and everything else,
it'll cover them for oil or whatever.
I'm going to be making calls to them this weekend to say, "Hey, you need to get on this list.
Do it before September, so you're in the pipeline."
And you're not sitting there in November.
But that's why we updated the website.
It said, "Do not wait until you're not in an emergency situation.
Call us."
Okay.
So just because you had it last year, don't assume you're going to get it this year.
Yeah.
No.
The thing is, you have to qualify, obviously, to determine eligibility and things like that.
But because they rolled out the program, they've run out of funds and things like that.
That's part of the problem.
Trying committed, yeah.
Right.
Like the low to moderate for people with house taxes.
They have the elderly exemption, but they have low to moderate, which goes right to the DRA.
Select board has nothing to do with it.
The town has nothing to do with it.
And they do the low to moderate, and they ran out of that program for a while.
Now it just came back up in the last two months.
So.
So do you work for the town or the state?
No, I work for the town.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was a loan officer for 25 years.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
So I was on the opposite end of it.
Yeah.
Opposite end of the state.
Interesting.
Interesting.
It's just like if I was a tax collector, all people come in and complain when they're paying
their tax bill.
I said, oh, the opposite end of the spectrum, you deal with people who don't even have homes.
So consider yourself lucky you have a tax bill today.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes.
Okay.
You got a lot coming back out.
I'm just showing you how.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That's it.
All right.
Great.
So we're back here.
Business.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm just showing you how.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That's it.
All right.
Great.
So we're back here.
Business.
Thank you.
Cybersecurity follow up.
Anything?
I did.
So I did complete the document.
I sent the copy of it to the town administrator.
But I don't think we should pass it today because I'd like to take the document and hold
and forward it to the fire chief to see if he's able to comply with that.
Because one of the things I'm worried about is that they might have systems there that would
fall under this, the town things.
And I want to know whether or not the personal information that he has will remain protected.
For instance, like there's things in this document that specify changing your passwords every 90 days.
Okay.
Or backing up things off-site.
I want to know whether or not he's able to comply with the policy as written or whether
or not we need to do something or not.
So what I'd like to do is ask the board to support the town administrator taking the current
revision, which I've already forwarded to.
We can find it in the board of select the folders in the cybersecurity draft policy folder.
Okay.
And forward it to the fire chief to see if he's got any thoughts on it.
But yeah, other than that, it's got all the phone numbers and all the information in there.
Excellent.
So your request is yes.
Is it a motion to request the town administrator to forward this to the chief and for a response?
Yes.
I'll check it.
Okay.
As far as going to the motion, do we have a deadline that we would like to have the chief
get this back to us?
Do we want it by the next meeting to move this along?
Yeah, I think that's probably him.
So we would like this sent to the chief and we want a response from him by our next meeting,
which is two weeks from now, July 16th.
Yes.
Second.
All right.
All later?
Aye.
All right.
Okay.
Next is the draft of the off-boarding procedure.
And I wonder if anybody had not changed to look at this more.
Oh, off-boarding, on-boarding.
I combined that.
Oh, great.
Okay.
Yeah.
Would you like to talk to us about that?
I just want to -- I combined them so that way the on-boarding and the off-boarding procedures
were the same.
Mm-hmm.
And I forgot to add the checklist to this, so I need to add the checklist back on here.
I just filled this back.
But what I did is I just basically went into her RSA 4219.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
To make sure all of this complied to her.
And just wanted to see if you guys had any input of anything I missed or you would like added,
of course, besides the checklist.
Yeah.
Because I think there should be some kind of means of making sure there's information that
is actually received by and then signed off on.
Yeah.
I have the checklist on the last one, so I don't know.
Okay.
It's probably on my old draft.
Okay.
Okay.
It's looking pretty good, but I'd like to make sure that we have the --
The checklist.
The checklist complete.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And then let's see if we can finalize this by our next meeting.
That's okay.
So maybe you can send that back to us again if there's a comment.
See if we can finalize it on the 16th.
Okay.
Do we need a motion for that?
We're good.
Okay.
Excellent.
Okay.
Amendments to -- we have amendments to the internal controls and the cash receipt, petty
cash, that include electronic, digital, signature adoption.
We have -- that was what most of our -- most of our packet this week was, is the revised policies,
the onboarding packets for those.
Basically, it was an addendum that formally incorporates the electronic signatures in the
way to secure digital signature platforms with the town of Darin's internal control policy and
procedures manual, as well as the cash receipts and the petty cash policy procedures manual.
It establishes the standards for when electronic signatures may be used, when digital signatures
are required, and how those signatures must be verified, routed, and retained.
The purpose is to strengthen internal controls, ensure compliance with RSA 294-E, improve audibility,
and secure -- support secure and efficient financial operations across all the departments.
Is there any further discussion?
Doug, how did you feel about the --
Oh, that's great.
Yeah.
Okay.
Good.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
So I'll entertain a motion.
Do you have the motion in your packets?
I'll motion to approve the account appearing internal controls policy.
You can just pass that one to me.
Yeah.
There we go.
Yep.
Yeah, because it's got the other parts of that.
Mm-hmm.
So a motion to move that the select board approve and adopt the electronic and digital
signature policy section and the electronic and digital signature procedures section and
incorporate both sections into the town of Darin's internal controls policy and procedures manual
and the cash receipts and petty cash policy and procedures manual effective immediately.
I'll second that.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Great.
Okay.
On to new business.
Madam Chair from May, even though you don't like that term.
If we could kick back for just a second on the consent agenda.
Sure.
I believe that we had a couple things that required all our signatures.
Is that correct?
Yes.
The tax-exempt stuff.
Do you want to do that now before you move on to other stuff?
I included it in the consent agenda.
Understood.
So I need to sign them.
You did.
We did?
Oh, okay.
Those are your copies.
Oh, these are mine.
Oh, sorry.
That's your packet.
I just have no signatures on it, so that's why I was thinking.
There's no signatures on your packet.
Yes.
You passed around the one that had the little.
Last time.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's your packet.
I just have no signatures on it, so that's why I was thinking.
There's no signatures on your packet.
Yes.
You passed around the one that had the little.
Last time.
Yes.
That's your packet.
That's your packet.
I just have no signatures on it, so that's why I was thinking.
There's no signatures on your packet.
Yes, you passed around the one that had the little.
Last time.
Yes.
Got it.
Just making sure.
I know.
We're still trying to get that all worked out, but I think we're pretty close.
Okay.
So, on to the new business.
Introduction here is Tim Coffin.
Our first new item, business, is a brief introduction from Tim Coffin.
For instance, I'm a resident running as an independent candidate for the state representatives
in our district.
And Mr. Coffin, you may proceed.
Thank you.
And you've said a lot of what I mean to say, but I really just came by to introduce myself.
I've already been canvassing and Deering for over a month now, not being on doors, meeting
some of your neighbors and other voters.
So, just as a courtesy, I wanted to come in and put my face in front of you and introduce
myself.
I will be out and about all summer long, right through the season.
I am running as an independent, so I won't be in the primary.
I have collected the necessary number of signatures to get on the ballot.
Those are now with the -- I dropped it off with Annette two days ago and then yesterday
in the Francistown town hall as well.
And so, once those are verified, then I'll be qualified to be on the ballot.
I don't want to kind of cross the line here into kind of making any kind of campaign pitch,
but I'm happy to answer any questions about myself.
But for the most part, I really just came in so you know who I am.
Is there any questions for us to go?
All right, none.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you guys.
It was great talking with you.
Yeah, it was a pleasure speaking with you.
I was chatting with you guys.
Yeah.
All right, let's get to know each other while you were gone.
We have it on recording.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Have a good night.
Happy 4th.
Thank you.
Happy 4th.
Okay.
Let's see.
Then, let's see.
We went through the draft.
I think we're at the Department of Incommediation.
Okay.
Let's, can we change up the order?
Is that all right?
All right.
And we'll ask our Welfare Director for her quarterly report.
Or report.
He'll report.
Yep.
I did email it to everyone.
Yes.
Do you want me to just read it?
Sure.
Okay.
We had, for the month of June, 2026, the Welfare Department for Deering had total or thorough applications.
We did have eight phone calls of inquiring just resources.
Um, everything from 2-1-1 to just when fuel assistance starts and things like that.
And, I did have one email from a Habitat for Humanity Service, but they don't do, like, mobile homes and things like that.
So, anybody that I can think of in need, they're all high school students.
And, my question was liability.
Who does liability fall on?
Mm-hmm.
Because, our high school students, they said, well, it's a lot of volunteer bases.
Mm-hmm.
We'll come and paint, replace different things.
But, when I researched it, there really wasn't a liability insurance thing that they, so I don't take that risk.
Um, put that on the town.
Because, they said, okay, if the kids go out, so the person's out, and they do fix it up or things like that.
It's like a summer program for the teens.
Um, what happens if they get injured?
Mm-hmm.
Where's that fall?
Well, it's a volunteer basis.
I said, no, I understand it's a volunteer basis, but who covered the injuries?
Mm-hmm.
You know, who's liable?
And, they said it falls under, like, Habitat.
But, I wasn't comfortable with it, so I didn't move forward with it.
Mm-hmm.
I was in one of the other towns that I was municipal, or, uh, welfare director in.
It's very convoluted the way they kind of present it.
And, it's great, but I don't want to put that liability on a resident.
Especially when we have a lot of residents that are in need here for other things.
Mm-hmm.
If you had a contractor that said, and their license that said, hey, I want to help out.
Let me go fix this, this, and this.
Or repair and things like that.
But, not when I'm dealing with, like, kids that just want to be part of their community service, or something like that.
Mm-hmm.
So, I didn't go forward with that.
Um, Chuck, did you end up being able to take that, um, training back in May?
For celebrity?
Oh, New Hampshire, Minnesota?
Yeah.
No.
Um, you know, there was a whole section on insurance that was lengthy.
And, PrimeX did make a big deal about insurance and liability, obviously, of course.
Mm-hmm.
But, there seemed to be, um, uh, some issue.
Well, the issue was that, uh, you had to make sure they were volunteers under the town.
Mm-hmm.
And, as long as they were volunteers under the town, then it would be covered by?
Because, and I believe we have a volunteer form.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe I should pull that.
So, I just wonder if that can be verified, and that might be something that could assist with
that, Marian.
Mm-hmm.
If towns under, you know, depending on who they have their liability insurance with, um,
because there are volunteers in town.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and as long as it's specified who is a volunteer.
Mm-hmm.
And there are certain signatures that are, are, can be verified.
Mm-hmm.
With forms, that might be something that can actually be utilized.
Yeah, she was, she was, she was looking to fill up some other spaces, like they already
had commitments to help with other houses and things they were talking about.
Mm-hmm.
So she was reaching out to other welfare directors, including myself.
Mm-hmm.
So that's what I said to her.
I said, well, you know, when I reached there, I was like, you know what?
I'm, I don't want to put that liability.
Moving forward, maybe down the road.
Right.
Once I have more clarification.
And that's where I run into a lot of the people that want these clothing receptacles.
Yeah.
Oh, we can put this here, there, and then.
Okay.
But where does it go?
Are you making money off of these donations?
Mm-hmm.
Or are they going someplace that actually people in need?
Mm-hmm.
Well, we can put them here.
But you're still not answering my question.
Okay.
Because if there's something monetary they're going to make, I'm not going to okay it or
even entertain it, bringing them before the selectors.
Mm-hmm.
Because it's, that's the whole purpose of the welfare department.
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other questions for Mary?
Nothing.
No.
Fantastic way of thinking.
Right.
I'm right there with you.
Thank you.
Perfect.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much for coming here tonight.
It was nice to put a face in the name.
Yeah.
It's not a phantom anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been a minute.
Yeah.
I think when we, it was.
Yeah.
It was when you guys brought me on.
It was like two days after I met Steve at McDonald's with the 15 stack of files.
You know, and I came on and met everybody and been here ever since.
Yeah.
Two years?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Two years.
Yeah, this is the second year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a relief to have someone with experience who knows where to actually send someone for
the assistance they need and how to make sure that you're verifying what they need.
And the response time has been great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I always explain to people, you know, I'm 24/7.
Mm-hmm.
So I have some, you know, things like that.
And a lot of times, and I explain to them, they're all starting to bother you.
Emergencies don't happen between nine and five.
Right.
They don't happen just between Monday through Friday.
Right.
Can you verify that, Chief?
Yeah.
Ten at night until seven in the morning.
That's what I don't have to worry.
Yeah.
So, you know, and I think that's the key to being resourceful and also available.
Mm-hmm.
You can't say, "Oh, don't bother me.
This doesn't fit my agenda."
No.
That's what you signed up for.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully it also broke down the road and we're trying to get our website, like, reorganized
so that we can actually have some, you know, helpful, useful information for people.
So if you have a list of things that might be --
Well, that's what we were talking about before the meeting, yeah.
Yes.
With the tabs and things, different things to upload.
Yeah.
Things like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that would be great.
Okay.
Yep.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
All right.
So next, why don't we take a look at what our building inspector has to say.
It's been a while since we've seen Rich LaVoy.
Thank you for coming in.
Yeah.
So this quarter -- well, this last quarter, we had a total of 48 permits.
It totals $5,241.
It's just under $500 what we were at this time last year.
Okay.
How about the number of permits?
Are we about the same?
48.
Are we about the same this year as last year?
Actually, I think we had like five more last year.
Okay.
It wasn't really that much money.
Okay.
And are most of these permits for new or --
No.
It's repairs, roofs, propane, mechanicals.
I've done a lot of gas lines.
People upgrading from old boilers to new boilers, getting new propane tanks.
There's been like four or five -- no, it was four new modular homes over in Songwoods this year.
Hmm.
How about the ADUs?
Have we had a --
Russian notes?
A Russian note permit?
Sorry.
I think we're at three.
Three for this year so far?
Yeah.
Okay.
There hasn't really been that many.
Not here, at least.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Are you thinking down the road that you would still like to have the Board of Slutman review
the permit pricing?
Yeah, because really what I want is for like new builds, new houses coming in to be hired
and to kind of adjust the prices for existing houses, like getting a propane tank, dropping the price of that.
There are a few things that, you know, we can keep right about the same price.
And then there's a few things that, like, I got to go out and do more inspections and they're like, it's a $50 permit and I'm out there four or five times.
Mm-hmm.
So that one should be a little bit higher.
Mm-hmm.
But, yeah, for the most part, what I would like to see is a little bit on the new builds, whether it be an ADU or a new house into the property, those would be what's a little bit higher.
Would you be able to provide us with suggestions?
I have a list.
Yeah.
I believe I still have a list and an email, but do you want to just re-look at it to make sure that's what you want before we move it forward again?
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
That'd be cool.
Okay.
I think it's actually short on an agenda.
Yep.
Yep.
Because we'll be looking at budget season soon.
Okay.
Anything else you'd like to go?
She just swore.
Ooh.
She did.
Budget?
I'm sorry.
Budget season.
Yeah.
Come on.
Budget season.
You said budget.
You threw me out for a little bit.
Okay.
How is everything though?
Any issues?
Well, definitely under budget.
Like, right now we have -- so all the new code books got adopted this year, which means every single code book that I have in Deering is no longer -- you know, any building permits prior to the first are still under the old codes, but now we're into the new code.
And I don't have the books and that's like a whole hundred dollar -- are we on 23 now?
Yeah.
So the 2023.
Yeah.
And they got -- so New Hampshire actually adopted a new one.
It's existing building codes, which kind of ties into -- which kind of ties into -- the new code.
And they got -- so New Hampshire actually adopted a new one.
It's existing building codes, which kind of ties into -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
And they got -- the new code.
If you're doing an addition onto your house, now there's certain codes you got to do it by -- by -- for that addition tying in.
Before a lot of stuff was grandfathered in.
Now there's some changes to that.
You can't just build on the side of the house the foundation and everything on that wall that you're attaching to.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
As it should.
Yeah.
But it wasn't strictly enforced.
So somebody could just cut a hole in the wall, say, "That's my door," and then build.
Where now you've got to look at the foundation.
You've got to -- there's a lot more involved.
Well, I mean, anything like that, I think, would be, you know, worthwhile for you guys to talk about.
I'd be real interested to see what --
Well, no.
It was a dog.
No, I didn't mean that.
I just mean anything you need through that channel.
'Cause I'd be real interested to find out, you know, how -- at least I could assist.
You know, on that.
Yeah.
No, it was -- the books alone were way out of my budget.
Yeah.
And I've just done things that --
Put this here.
Yeah.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
There was some stuff like the slips I use and some of those tags, stickers.
There's things that I'm required to do that I don't have.
We're working on it.
We're working on it.
We've got the tags.
We've got the tags on it.
We've got the labels going.
Okay.
Cool.
We're getting there.
All right.
All good?
Yep.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
Any other questions for Rich?
Thank you for being here on Fridays.
Yeah.
And helping out in that assessing office.
Oh, really?
Greatly -- we -- Kristen and I greatly appreciate the help that you have on Fridays.
Yeah.
It actually makes it easier for me, too, because then when people have questions for me, they
can actually come see me and face the face.
That's great.
I've had a couple of construction meetings in this room.
Yep.
Okay.
Good.
Awesome.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
Okay.
If there's no further questions for Rich, then we'll move on to Chief Richards from the
Air and Rescue Department.
I just finished up the June activity sheets this afternoon, so I made a copy for everybody
there.
So it's kind of what I was going to talk about up earlier.
Is there any specific questions for that before I just kind of randomly go down through it?
Yes.
This one should be in your packet right there.
This one?
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Okay.
You can have the next one here.
I got one.
You can have one, too.
Okay.
I got one.
I got one.
You can have one, too.
I got one.
You can have one, too.
I got one.
It's true.
Thank you.
I got one.
I have a picture of the truck.
Yeah.
I don't know what it is.
So I guess we'll just start off below the activity because we've got that sheet.
We did a couple more assembly occupancy inspections this last month and we're going to plan on doing
a couple more buildings in the fall or later this summer.
One of them would be the Highway Garage and the other one would be Robin Hill Farm.
We're working diligently to get the 150 hours a week covered.
We're going to end up hiring a few more people to cover in some of the gaps.
But that was kind of expected.
We started with five and we'll probably end up adding five more just to get the whole time covered.
Now that we've bought the uniforms for five and the jackets for five we know where we're going to be with that.
The new truck chassis is at the plant in South Dakota and it was sent to the paint shop.
So it's sitting in the lot where you can go inside and there's a picture of that somewhere floating around.
I can send it.
I thought I printed it out.
I don't know where it is.
I remember seeing it so I think you sent it.
Oh, okay.
And they're still talking of September delivery.
I'm not holding my breath on that one but let's go with it.
The Zoll monitor had some issues transmitting EKGs off to the hospital again.
We had Zoll service come in.
Luckily we're under contract now so it didn't cost us nothing.
So a little bit of service issue maybe and a little bit of driver error issue.
But we're going to wait and see what AT&T does for us before we go any further.
I just don't want to buy anything that we don't need.
We talked about the striker/stretcher power load in the past.
That hole you know at the trolley and the mount have been replaced.
So that's a $28,000.
Finally.
Finally.
When they were changing it out they were hoping that it does it again so that they can blame it on the ambulance manufacturer and collect the money from them.
So I'm going I don't care as long as it works.
I can't be out in the middle of the night and not having it at work.
We're waiting on adding the seventh tablet until AT&T service is finalized and then we'll go from there.
And that will finish up that project.
So that whole project will be done so you won't see them adding more tablet next year.
You'll just see the service.
Now we have the oil changed in the ambulance.
We did that over here at Public Works so that we didn't have to send it anywhere.
It was just here and done.
Once again Jimmy and Eric keeping us moving.
Yesterday we noticed a little bit of antifreeze on the engine 3 and Eric came down took a look at it and found a crack in one of the coolant lines.
It almost looks like they over tightened it at the factory when they built the truck.
So he changed it out and adjusted it and it's not leaking anymore.
Still waiting for one estimate on the McAllister station to get rid of the rot and the broken solar panel.
I did get a price so I would be on the agenda probably two weeks from now.
If you know of anybody, Chuck, just let me know because I've been begging people to come and I can't find anybody.
I was able to get two prices.
One of them I have not gotten yet.
He's promised it to me and I guess he'll have it.
I mean if you have, you know, a need, I don't know.
I mean everybody has their specialty so I'm not in the game to do something like that of course, but I have contacts all over.
But I don't know exactly what it is the scope of work is that you have over there.
Well it's basically getting rid of all the rotten trim and replacing the rotten trim around the doors, the overhead doors.
We had the new entrance door put in and then getting rid of that solar panel thing on the side of the building.
And because the glass is broken in it and I don't know if the heat's just going out through that or what.
So we're going to take that completely out and then we'll put three regular windows on that side so the suns can still come in.
Because there's only one window in that building so it's pretty dark in there.
And in two weeks when I come back I will, and I have two prices to finish Murdo inside.
The get rid of all the penetrations, new paint and paint the concrete block inside and paint the floor.
One of them, the highest estimate, wasn't going to do the floor or the concrete block.
The other one is going to do the concrete block and the floor.
So I guess it was going to get that.
So, the car is coming right along.
We did the light package was changed out yesterday.
And the wrap and the lettering was completed a few weeks ago.
Next week I promised the radios installed.
And I put on, it was misestimated.
We didn't realize that we were going to take a radio.
We had to take the radio out of the old car, but we also had to take the radio out of the new car.
So that wasn't included.
The installation of the two radios that were here wasn't included in that.
So I don't know where we're going to be with that.
But whatever you approved, that's going to come out of the truck or the ambulance, one or the other.
And the rest of it I will take care of.
So under maintenance or whatever.
We picked up the high-vis jackets today.
So those will be good for the rain we had last night that I, that they didn't have.
I probably said this before.
We had to reprogram all our radios for the new repeater system in Capitol area.
And that's all been done.
So I can actually leave my house now on a portable radio.
And I can listen to Dennis talk here on a portable radio, believe it or not.
So that really makes a big difference.
So it isn't like I've got to call FireLand and tell him to tell Dennis something.
I can just talk to him.
So it made a huge difference.
We had a carbon monoxide call.
We went with four gas meters to the carbon monoxide call.
And all four of them did not work.
Well, that's the problem buying all four at the same time.
All the oxygen sensors died at the same time.
So it won't let you, won't let you feel calibrated to get to the point where you can actually use it.
So I called and had them send me the sensors because we can change them in the field.
Two of them had some sort of corrosion in there.
So I had to send them back to the factory to, well not the factory, send back to the dealer to, with the new sensor so that they can fix it.
One of, I was able to change one sensor and get the calibration done.
And the other one won't recognize the sensor.
So three of them are shipped back to the dealer.
I think by the time we're done with that, I think it's almost cost prohibitive just to buy one every single year.
And that way you don't have that all at the same time issue.
So that's something we need to think about maybe next year.
But we'll see when they come back what kind of a longevity that they would have after that.
The piece of hose that was failed, that failed at the hose testing, that's been purchased and it's sitting at Highway.
We're going to get in on the truck.
Now the two pieces, two 50 foot lengths of two and a half inch hose that failed, we're not going to replace those.
We've got 300 feet down here that we can use, so we're not going to buy that right now.
Engine 3 and the forestry, the tires. Engine 3's tires will be out of date next, I think it's February next year.
So those will have to be bought. I've got some handshake estimates of around 6,000 for Engine 3's tires.
And the forestry, when we was trying to find dates on them to figure out how old they were,
because now I found out that they bought them used from somewhere.
And then now I found out that they're not really over the road tires, they're loader tires that they put on them.
Well now they're starting to show that they're weather checked.
So my plan is to send it down to Mr. G's and say, "How old are these tires and can we still use them?"
And if not, then we need price on tires to replace with that one as well.
Is there a specific requirement for a forestry truck tire?
Well it would be seven years just like anything else.
I just didn't know if they needed to be solid or filled or run flat.
Those seemed to be pretty good. I mean we gave them a pretty good run for their money going up to Hedgehog.
I don't know how many loads of water they hauled up there but they were going up over the ledge.
I didn't have any issue with them.
But my concern is the age and now I'm starting to see that they're starting to check pretty good.
Aren't we all?
Well I can tell you I am. I don't know why I am. I'm not feeling it.
So look at, you know, as we're talking about budget, like next year Striker, the Striker cart will be coming off contract.
So you'll see that and the reason that I like to think that that one is important is it includes the batteries.
The batteries are probably, I'm going to guess they're close to a thousand bucks a piece.
And they're both like at the same age so we'll end up buying two batteries if we don't get the contract.
We haven't spent a lot of money in training this year.
I've been waiting to see. There's a company that comes around and they do a pump simulator.
I had a chance to see them guys the other night in Hillsboro.
They were at the Capitol meeting and they brought their stuff over and showed it to everybody.
Everybody, all the chiefs that I've talked to about that, you know, sending people to do that,
they think that in the long run they save the money just on damaging the pump.
Because you're not pump training on a pump on your truck.
You're using a simulator.
So my thought we would send four people to that.
They asked me if I would host it here and they would, that way we could be guaranteed our spots.
So I said, well I don't have a good spot in the fire station to do it but I can do it at the town hall.
They said as long as you have a flat area and have a room.
So my thought is I'm going to pull the trigger on that and get those guys to, and then they can advertise.
And we would just sponsor it and have our, guaranteed we would have spots.
And that would be for this, sorry, that would be for this upcoming or future?
No, we would do it this year.
We would do it before.
I would wait until they get a little cooler because we spend a lot of time outside.
I'm just going to.
So how many people is that usually?
I would want to send four.
I meant if you hosted it here, what are we talking about for a crowd?
Oh, I think they limit it to 12.
Okay.
So it would be 12 people.
I didn't know if it would be something fun to put out to the community of, you know,
come see what we do type of thing.
Yeah, well it could be, yeah.
You know, a family fun day scenario.
Well, I might be able to get those, if you could tell me when safety day is,
I might be able to get those guys to come bring it that day.
I thought we would do it then.
Well, my suggestion would be to do it the Saturday prior to Five of Engine Week.
Right.
But I have not got that committed yet, so.
Well, what weekend is that?
It's October.
I can't remember.
I know it's in October.
It was the safety day.
Yeah.
It was the first Saturday in October.
First Saturday in October.
I think you may be right.
Yeah.
So I'm trying to get things for a show.
Where?
October 3rd.
Oh, here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So October 4th through the 10th, so whatever the savvy prior to that is.
I mean, would that be something worthwhile, Chief, to kind of roll that in with the town safety day?
Yeah.
If I can get those guys to come.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it would be the 3rd.
So it would be the 3rd.
So it would be the 3rd.
Which is not a great day.
Why?
Because that's the same day as the Society for the Prevention of Antique Motorized Firefighting
Apparatuses.
And everybody goes for that.
Okay.
Well, you could move it to Sunday.
I mean, that would be the first day of Five Adventure Week.
I don't know.
It's up to you guys.
But I know that last year we didn't have great attendance.
So I just...
Isn't there a holiday in October or so?
I don't know.
That's the 12th.
Yeah.
That's the 12th.
Yeah.
That's the next week.
Well, you could finish it up.
You could finish it up.
Finish up Five Adventure Week.
Finish up Five Adventure Week on the 10th.
The 10th.
And that's a Saturday?
Yeah.
I think that would be a neat idea to have all of it.
Saturday the 10th.
See, it's working for everyone.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
What do you think?
Yeah.
The safety day on the 10th and then...
Well, I don't...
They wouldn't...
They wouldn't...
I would ask them if they could bring this ever later.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it wouldn't be the same day as the class.
Because they have four hours inside, four hours outside.
I see.
So what would be beneficial with that?
Yeah.
Well, I think that would be a neat idea to have all of it.
Saturday the 10th.
See, it's working for everyone.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
What do you think?
Yeah.
The safety day on the 10th and then...
Well, I don't...
They wouldn't...
They wouldn't...
I would ask them if they could bring this ever later.
Right.
But it wouldn't be the same day as the class.
Because they have four hours inside, four hours outside.
I see.
So what would be beneficial in your mind as far as the training or simulating
or some type of day like that where we can have a community event, if you will?
Well, that safety day last year was kind of the community event.
But it...
You know, I had the forest fire people here.
I had fire marshal's office here.
Yeah.
You know, she saw six people outside and they saw ten people inside.
So...
How about coordinating this with the Hillsborough Police Department?
That's someone looking for that a little bit.
That's with the canine...
Yeah.
Let's see if we can coordinate the two of them.
I mean, I think to make it worthwhile.
And also, let's talk to the highway department because, you know, you've got big trucks.
Well, they do like a touch a truck.
Remember last year?
Yeah.
I parked them out here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The other item too, and I know it's sort of like not a safety day item, but I'm thinking
about a drawer.
Steve Olberson, they have the apple press.
Yes.
And because...
Yeah.
The Daring Association.
...fit on.
Yeah.
We might be able to get them to be there.
I mean, you serve food and drinks anyway.
Yeah.
So why not implement that as a draw?
And it's in October, so it's like a fall thing too that people love to go and see.
Right.
So that was something else to bring forward too is one of our ideas.
Yeah.
I just think it would be neat to have a demonstration and/or training or whatever with the fire department
to, you know, have little kids watching blast the fire hoses 150 feet away.
Yeah.
We did that.
We did that both last year and the year before when I've been here.
Yeah.
We've got a little house that has little doors in it and with flames on them and you just squirt
them.
And they did that out.
They did it out with the forestry people.
They've got some trees that have got little flames in them and they squirt it and knocked
the flames over.
I think to make it successful we need to have it so that there's going to be structured
things in an actual program.
Right.
Maybe like face painting and just.
Exactly.
And Halloween is also in there too.
So if you're going to make it engaged for all ages, maybe kind of push it maybe to the
middle and include the kids and have like a trunk or treat and have residents that obviously
the police are going to be there and things like that.
The trunk or treat was a huge success at the fishing game.
Yeah.
Right.
That's what I'm saying.
But they didn't do it last year.
So just to keep order.
Yeah.
Let's make sure that we coordinate it first with the police department so we can set the
date and then we can move forward with thinking about how to organize it.
So how does that sound?
Great ideas.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Love it.
But yeah we need something more that has more like a, you know, a whole full program that
people know what they can expect and it's not like, I don't know, I'm just looking at
trucks.
Yeah.
And with canine, I mean you could probably get the working dog foundation.
Well that's what I'm working on now.
Yeah.
So thank you.
All right.
That sounds good.
So we'll work on a date.
So maybe we can get that wrapped up sometime in July.
Let's make that a.
So we're going to get it for October 10th.
It is.
At Hillsborough.
Yeah.
And let's talk with the highway department too about that.
Sure.
And I'll get smokey there.
Get smokey there.
And I'll get the forestry if they can come.
Yeah.
And I'll confirm seeds.
Yeah.
That's why.
Yeah.
And maybe we can, you know, even expand the whole idea with some point the Conservation
Commission, Deering Association, maybe the Historical Society can do their town tour that
same day or something like that.
I think it needs to be advertised a lot better than last year.
I think it was a short advertising.
So I think that needs to be.
Mm-hm.
Yes.
Yeah.
We need to have that.
We finalize in July.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Pittsfield balloon sit rally had a hot air balloon with some kind of safety
thing because it was a fire thing.
Is there.
Is that.
Do you know of anything like that?
There's a hot air balloon.
Fire dog.
Safety.
All right.
Let's see what I look.
It was really cool.
It's like, wow.
Hot air balloon.
I know the Marshall that has the absent dog just retired this week.
So I don't know if he's, if they have another one all ready to go or not.
A dog you mean?
Oh, an arson detection dog, yeah.
Oh, okay.
An arson detection dog.
Mm-hm.
Well, that would be an interesting thing.
They will go through and they'll put one drop of some sort of an accelerant under a person's
foot in the crowd and they'll run the dog through the crowd and they'll sit down there
every single time.
One, one drop.
Just sits there, right?
It just sits there.
Well, it just sits there and go, this is the guy you want to talk to because he's got
an accelerant on his shoes.
Okay.
Well, I think this is a, you know, exciting.
So, yeah, let's see what we can do and get some targets on that.
That would be great.
Thank you.
Another thing I just want to ask about, Chief, is back in May we were trying to formally assign
some reporting standards and we had requested the vehicle maintenance and equipment.
Yeah, it was.
I have not done it this month.
I was going to do it the other night or the other day and we had five calls and that.
Okay.
So, yeah.
It's being done.
Great.
It would be great for us.
I set it up last month.
Okay.
So, you could see it for us.
I'll say the word again.
Fudge it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And also, understandably you're dizzy, but it would be helpful for us to be able to
take a look at your report prior to just this evening.
So, we try to get our packets.
Which report is that?
What you just sent, what you gave us today.
I just finished it today because I had to do all the reports for those five calls.
Yes.
So, typically Deb will send out our reports packets on Tuesday so we can review it and we
have some intelligent questions to ask you that maybe tonight we'll go home like, "Oh,
I wish I asked that."
So, it's been working out really well, of course.
Home call away.
But we're not supposed to talk to you individually.
We're supposed to go through Deb.
You can talk to me any time you want.
Okay.
Well, thank you, Chief.
I appreciate that.
Moving along.
I will be attending the New England Fire Chiefs Conference 25th through the 8th.
Small engine service.
I scheduled that in October.
It usually shows up in November.
So, that's going to be coming up.
We talked about the tires already.
We had an ISO visit the other day from the insurance guy.
It sets our fire insurance rates.
I still owe him a couple of incident reports and some training records.
So, that's going to be sent out probably the first part of next week.
I just jotted some stuff down at the bottom that I forgot about today.
I told you about the coolant line in engine 3 already.
So, I guess we're done.
Anything else?
I think that's good.
We're keeping stuff moving forward.
Luckily, I got out of here before the beep went out.
Yeah.
Okay.
Great.
Thanks.
All right.
Jeff.
What?
It's your turn now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'm not going to say that.
Actually, I really don't have a lot to report except if you want to go over those questions
that I...
Sure.
You had asked me?
Yeah.
They were all follow-up questions.
I think you have it.
Yeah.
So, the follow-up question is I did send out the letter to the concerned resident regarding
Park and Rec.
I did not receive a response.
Okay.
I did send the two items to Chief Parson.
Yes.
And he's actually requesting a non-public for the next meeting.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I think the board...
Do you recall that?
Uh-huh.
Email that we had received requesting information from the PD?
Okay.
Sorry.
Okay.
So, he'll be...
Yeah.
If I could just throw in a question for the other board members.
Because of the nature of that email and what we're about to talk about, do we really
want to push it towards intersecting with an actual meeting or do you want to do, like,
next week?
Oh.
He's the one that requested for the 16th, so I don't know if it's a...
Well, we're going to be here on the 8th because we have a joint meeting with the planning
board.
We could arrive early.
The planning board meets at 6:30, don't they?
Yeah.
Yes.
We could meet at 6:00.
I just don't know how long we're going to meet with the chief for that.
You want me to ask him that question?
Yeah.
That'd be great.
How long does he feel?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That'd be great.
Okay.
I'm not opposed to that.
If he's good with a half hour or an hour, I'm good.
Whatever's most convenient for him.
I should be able to accommodate, you know, bumping up the schedule to come in an hour early
or something like that.
Okay.
Okay.
The 8th?
Yeah.
The 8th.
Is it Wednesday?
Wednesday.
Wednesday.
Yeah.
Okay.
I let Central New Hampshire know that we're good to go for the master plan.
Good.
And the funding was secured.
Good.
So that's all set.
The only other items that I've been really working on is I'm pretty sure I'll finish all
the contracts so I can send it to you.
Okay.
And it'll be the contract, start date, end date, yearly fee.
Wow.
Awesome.
So I'm pretty sure I got all of them so I should be able to get that to you next week.
Okay.
And --
What do you mean next week or next week?
No, I'll just send it out for you.
Okay.
Great.
Okay.
I think you just wanted it for your records, correct?
Yeah.
And then with questions or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of the things that I've been buried in is getting all the stuff for the audit because
that's --
Yes.
It starts on the 13th.
Okay.
So I've been doing my due diligence and trying to get everything I possibly can ahead of time.
Okay.
And so I've been digging in with -- they want policies, you know, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So I've been pretty busy digging into the audit information is what I've been pretty much
occupied with in between all the other things.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because the internal control policy packet --
I have to go with everything from --
Oh, before that.
So --
Yeah.
It's in the shared folders.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I have the booklet of all the policies from --
Really?
Did you know that?
Is it a booklet?
Yeah.
We just wanted to --
My folder.
We've been trying to get a --
We've been trying to get that folder.
Not you.
It's not a folder though.
It's a Bible.
It's a big brain thing.
Yeah.
But if you --
I had to write in my room.
Six rubber bands and 17 binder clips.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so I do have a draft on the vendor credit cards that --
I just didn't have time to put it into this meeting.
Okay.
But I do have a draft for the next meeting.
Okay.
Great.
We'll put that on new business, I think, right?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Yep.
And then let's see.
Anything --
Any updates on the budget?
Perhaps we could get a --
Well, I wanted to wait until after the end of June and you'll have the new budget --
Oh, yeah.
-- and revenues before your next meeting.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do you like saying that word tonight?
G-E-G-E-G.
Yes.
So I just wanted to finish out the quarter before I sent it to you.
Okay.
Okay.
Because everything needs to post --
Okay.
-- once you guys signed everything.
So that's the reason I didn't send it this week.
Would you include a summary of how the -- you know, based on what is on budget or maybe
like off budget, like last time we received the revenues and the expenditures -- because
we'll get the revenues again, too, right?
Yep.
You'll get them, too.
Yeah.
The highway department had -- we had some concerns about where they were on the budget.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe you could give us a summary of, like, well, how are those -- how is it doing?
Okay.
It looked like it was, what, maybe 8 to 15 percent.
Yeah.
Moving over budget.
Yeah.
So how is everything else catching up now?
Every -- that's -- there's only those couple items that are still -- the maintenance line
is the one that's really going to hurt.
Loving.
Yeah.
I think so.
Fuel.
Fuel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Emisle.
The materials.
And then -- and then -- and then --
Yeah.
Materials have skyrocketed.
Yeah.
Okay.
And highway department, is there anything else you would like to include for what you know
Jim has been up to based on his report there?
So they were on -- Fisher.
Fisher.
Sorry.
Not getting used to the roads.
Okay.
And there was a little bit of a concern on Fisher Road.
And basically when they were doing the culverts, they did put rip-rap down in the stream.
But we had a complaint about them, some sediment maybe going into the stream.
So DES was called, reported, and this was just developed last -- this week.
Just the other day.
Oh.
So I figured I could wait.
Okay.
Because I really didn't have anything to say except DES is coming out to doing an inspection
until they do a final.
Conscom's going in and doing a water test, I guess, too.
Okay.
On that.
Okay.
So this just unraveled the other day.
All right.
So I just figured we were going to be here anyways.
Okay.
So -- Jim has been on the phone with me about it.
Yep.
Because I brought Darren in because he's the supervisor right now.
But Jim called.
Jim did speak with the DES already on there and explained to him what he did, his whatever.
So he seems like it's going to be okay, but we're just waiting.
DES will come out and do an inspection.
Okay.
So they're supposed to be out here in a week until then?
Yeah, they've been about a week.
I thought they were going to come this week, but my understanding, I think it's next week.
Okay.
So.
Other than that, that's about it.
They're on Reservoir Road.
I'm going to stand on Reservoir Road, too, so.
They're getting right after it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They were welcoming to Reservoir because of the shade it wasn't true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Jim is still on vacation next week?
Yep.
Okay.
Yeah.
But he's been in touch with me three or four times through this whole thing.
So he's been --
Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
Okay.
Right.
I mean, with that, it's definitely appreciated, but I think it needs to be discouraged.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yep.
Well, that's what I told him.
Even though it's great.
Yeah.
I know.
He really is on a personal level or a professional level, however you want to look at it.
Mm-hmm.
However, any time that he's spending taking care of things here, he's not technically on vacation.
He needs to leave his work phone here.
So --
100%.
I mean, it's appreciated as a taxpayer, et cetera, et cetera, but I would strongly advise against that.
Got it.
I understand.
Okay.
Yeah.
I understand 100%.
I know you do.
Yeah.
I do.
I get it.
Okay.
Rich gets it, too.
Look at this.
All right.
So, good.
Anything else, Deb?
I can't think of anything else I have to ask you.
Yeah, I think --
Yeah.
Okay.
You answered all my questions on the follow-up.
Yeah.
Anything else for Deb?
Excuse me.
Will we get started with the budget session?
Can I be included in that email?
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Because I wasn't in the 25, so I want to make sure that I'm in that wheel with that.
That's a good point.
Thank you.
Yes.
Yes.
Let's see.
I think the next item of business, then, is our board member requests or information.
I don't have any other requests or information.
I got one thing.
Yes.
And that is Gabriel Roxby, Hennecker, wrote me an email last week, which I forwarded to
the town administrator concerning Hennecker Deering perambulation.
Oh, I didn't know that.
So, yeah.
Can you explain?
What was that?
Oh, perambulations are just one of the absolute duties this lab is supposed to do, which is
walking about.
Understood.
Okay.
Now, I knew I heard it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, we originally were going to try to do this in the spring.
So, it was the last board that volunteered me to go do the perambulation.
I wrote him back saying, "I think that it's probably going to work and see what's going
on."
But I wanted to ask the board if I will be doing the perambulation for Hennecker, which
I think we should probably do it because I've already got the contact with them if it does
happen.
Would you like to do it?
Yeah.
Sure.
Okay.
Well, shall we make a motion?
I'll motion to appoint Roy Watson to do the perambulation with Hennecker.
With Hennecker.
With Hennecker and Deere Hyde.
That works.
Second the motion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Great.
Awesome.
Let's see.
Any other board requests?
I don't think I have anything.
I was going to pass you out.
Are you coming to the 4th of July?
I don't think you're able to.
You can pass that to Deb.
Me?
Yeah, we're reading.
Okay.
Good.
Both of you?
No, my son is.
Okay.
Yep.
So, that is what's happening.
Thank you.
That's what's happening.
Would you like me to, you know, as President of the Historical Society, but also as Chair
of the Selectman, I just want you to know I'll be reading some kind of little introduction.
Would you like to read it to make sure I'm not, you know, saying anything that you don't
feel is appropriate?
What's the domain?
I'm holding it in my hand.
Oh, yeah.
That you're reading as which?
I know.
As which?
I don't know.
Well, that's the question.
I know.
I've been on a committee as a resident.
I'm just wondering how you were reading that as chair of the select board or -- I know.
Which one would you want?
Chair of the select board or do you want -- because I mean, you're going to be there too, right?
Did you want to read the program introduction?
You can do that.
I can do that.
I can do the introduction to the fourth and then you can do that.
This is the same thing you were talking about the other day where you're doing the track
one, right?
Yes.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have been like -- I know.
I've been on a committee as a resident.
I'm just wondering how you were reading that as chair of the select board or -- I know.
Which one would you want?
Chair of the select board or do you want -- because I mean, you're going to be there too,
right?
Did you want to read the program introduction?
You can do that.
I can do the introduction to the fourth and then you can do that.
The other day we were doing the track one, right?
Yes.
It was great to meet you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mary.
Thank you, Rich.
See you later.
Happy fourth, man.
Yeah.
I hope so.
Yeah.
This is fine.
I feel like I can switch.
Okay.
I'll go with that.
Okay.
Did you want to read it in there?
Budget.
Budget.
Yeah.
That's the next thing I'm going to bring up.
Do you like me -- and you'd like me to read it as the chair?
Yeah.
Do you want to read it as the vice chair?
Yeah.
I mean, it sounds like what the chair should be doing.
All right.
I think it would be three or four pages longer.
Yeah.
I think the next -- well, I just want to have like a general consensus that you're okay with the representation.
I'm 100% okay with that.
Okay, good.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Definitely.
Okay.
I would even revoke Devin Zerlocken.
I did.
Wonderful.
I did.
Okay.
So the only other thing I have, if you don't mind me going forward, is I would like to spend some time this month talking about our reviews, and that includes us as a board.
And I did spend some time consolidating and using AI people to kind of analyze all of our minutes with our motions and decisions and analyze our governance style.
So I have that information compiled if you'd like to see that, and then it has a general review of what we are based on the onboarding packet that we have created for a selectman, what kind of governance style or what we should be shooting for.
So I'd like to present that next week -- well, our next meeting, if that's okay.
I can send it all out to you.
Yeah.
Sure.
I'm perfectly fine with anybody, including ourselves, checking our work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we can also -- Deb, I think I had mentioned the reviews.
I was going to ask you about that tonight, actually, was how do you want to handle them?
Because there are all the reviews plus the 2.8 you have to sign off on as well.
So I encourage the raise for July 1 increase.
So I didn't bring them today because it was effective yesterday.
Yeah.
So I was going to bring forward all this on the 16th.
And it's going to be a non-public.
Yeah.
So if you want to do it on the 16th, another day.
So you guys --
It's all going to be retroactive no matter --
Yeah.
It's already -- it should be effective because it was voted on at town meeting.
Mm-hm.
So you're just signing off to say, okay, this person was this.
This is their new rate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then you have all the evaluations from, you know, highway, internally here.
Yeah.
Fire.
Well, we don't do your employee.
Right.
No, but I don't know if you wanted -- last year, if I remember correctly, you still just browse through the department's evals.
Yeah.
I believe you guys just kind of like went through them real quick just to see.
How did it go?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would agree with that.
Yeah.
I mean, not that I really want to have any say in it.
No, it's just a review.
Right.
Just to see them.
Yeah.
So I didn't know how you guys wanted to handle it.
That was my question for today.
Do we just want to look through them?
Yeah.
We'll look through them.
I think we should just look through them.
But we do need to decide on are we going to use the same evaluation that we had last year for the highway department, road agent, and the fire chief?
Or do we want to come up with something different?
I don't know if it's very fair to come up with something different unless we come up with --
Something different for everybody.
Well, I think it should be something a little different for everybody because everybody is doing something a little different.
And right now we're using the same form for everybody.
I know.
Yeah.
I think that is inherently wrong.
Yeah.
Just on the fact that you can't -- for a department head or some supervisor level, there is such a higher level of oversight necessary.
Yeah.
You know, to the job that they're doing because they're not only, you know, of course, dictating their employees.
Mm-hmm.
But the reporting standard coming back to the municipality has to be much higher.
Right.
Right.
You know, somebody that's just making copies, you know, they don't need to report anything other than how many copies they need.
But that comes down to the importance of the job description in which, when you arrived last year, we didn't have a particular job description, the specific one that Jim signed up for or the fire chief signed up for.
I had requested these when I first came on, and they couldn't be found.
And they're just not.
I started working on some of them, actually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just didn't have time.
And so, of course.
Of course.
I mean, with everything --
I do have a small folder started.
Yeah.
But just not completely new.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, how about if we used the existing forms for this year, and while we're in situ doing the review, we could brainstorm and come up with maybe what we would like to see in a future form.
Yeah.
And we could develop it and then next --
Standardize it.
-- next board, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I think -- I mean, in my mind, the job description should be the basis for what we're -- that should describe --
That's what you're evaluating.
-- the skill set that we are looking for, the objectives for -- and the goals of those positions.
So they should accurately reflect what it is that we are hoping that the department heads, including our town administrator, is actually doing.
So then the reporting monthly and the reporting quarterly, again, should be reflective of what that job description is asking for.
And then easily enough, we do the evaluation, and it's not like random.
And it's not just signing off.
Because it's important for people to know, you know, objectively, how am I doing with this.
That's the thing I never liked about them, is that you -- when you see things like this, it's either on a scale of one to five, where you're graded three on everything, satisfactory, where you're graded five on everything.
Yeah.
And it's taken as a format, I can see kind of why, but it -- at least for my part, I would argue that I -- I think that, you know, if you're getting a perfect score on everything, it's probably not real.
I mean, really, honestly, I mean, I don't know how you guys feel, but I just never really, you know, performance evaluation, you know, isn't it subjective based on who it is that is your boss?
It's hardly ever a real good objective.
I never saw really the point of it until I started doing this job.
Because to me it was -- it was like, you know, why am I -- if I sucked, you would have fired me.
So why are we here again?
But now what I understand is that this is really the only opportunity that you would have as "employer" to give any feedback back to the employee.
Because normally your day-to-day, you don't interface that much with them.
Right.
And with that being said, if that's the only opportunity that we really have to speak back down to the employees, I think we should be taking it as seriously as we can.
Yeah.
It's definitely beneficial.
And what I've found with employees in the past has been a two-fold type situation where you have the generalized evaluation of the direct supervisor of that employee.
Mm-hmm.
But also you have a questionnaire that's presented to the employee to fill out how they feel they, you know, have done over the past year.
Mm-hmm.
And their accomplishments and what they're most proud of.
Mm-hmm.
Because that is more constructive than sitting up on high going, "You missed 13 days this year."
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Well, that just breaks people down.
Mm-hmm.
That it's antithetical to having a good core group of people.
Right.
So if you ask them, "What's your proudest moment?
What did you do?
How did you help the town?"
Mm-hmm.
I think that's a really good idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It makes a massive difference.
Mm-hmm.
So as an employee, if I came to you and asked you that instead of just giving you a, you know, "Here's what I think you did."
I'd be like, "I don't know."
Exactly.
But it makes you stop and think because I actually want to know.
Yeah.
I care.
Yeah.
Because if you're happy, you're producing more.
Mm-hmm.
You're looking for ways to help the town because you're valued.
You feel valued.
Mm-hmm.
That's true.
That's the whole point of the evaluation process.
And have that open dialogue somewhere on the sheet of how can we improve things to help you succeed more.
Yeah.
All right.
So maybe we should instead say it's the re-valuation or evaluation.
Maybe it should just be the valuation.
Take off the first vowel and say, "Okay, we're going to go through the valuation season now, and we want to hear from you what you think you've been doing great and why you want to continue working with us, reasons why you wouldn't want to continue working with us, and how we can be better."
That should be step one.
And how we can be better.
That's step one.
Yeah.
To open the door for, you know, nobody's going to list a major grievance.
You know, it's going to go through the proper channels.
It's just going to be, you know, kind of nonsensical.
Well, you could provide more Twinkies in the break room or something like that.
You know, it's things like that.
Yeah.
But it at least opens the door to the employees to provide feedback for them.
So it's there.
It's in the review process.
Yeah.
And then, you know, you're basically doing the majority of the work on the review process type thing, but then it gives us the opportunity to review the words coming up and the words going back down.
So we get to see the whole picture and not necessarily just the zeros and ones of employment.
Mm-hmm.
So here's the other thing, too.
I mean, should, in the overall scheme, because Deb also, in my understanding of the chain of command, the department has to report to her.
We're the ones that are hiring or appointing them, but they report to her.
100%.
So shouldn't she be evaluating?
She sees them on a regular basis.
That's right.
Shouldn't she be the one that comes to us and says, well, this is how I evaluated them?
That's not what my understanding was.
Yeah.
Good.
Yeah.
Because that was not what we did last year.
I was too new.
I think I wasn't even here long enough.
Well, of course you didn't.
Yeah.
I know, right?
So, you know, so, okay.
Yeah.
So let's do that.
Let's do that.
We'll evaluate the chief, and Jim, and the other, and Kristen.
Kristen, bridge, fire chief, highway, bird agent, I think.
Right?
I think it's just those four.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course, that is also evaluating Kristen.
Right?
Yep.
Yep.
And then Jim and the fire chief do their evaluations.
They evaluate their people.
Yep.
But I still think it would be great to open up the door for a standardized review process.
Right.
Right.
You know, so the guys working at the highway garage under Jim have the ability to put whatever
they want on their overall review, their side of things, if you will.
And if that muscle memory gets built, what that would do is, as an individual employee throughout
the year, you'll be making a mental note of this thing that you just did that you'll want
to highlight on your review.
Bingo.
Because it's, this is an extraordinary thing that I just did that might not have otherwise
gotten captured.
Sure.
And they'll remember that to continue on what you're saying.
And it, it stays a proud memory.
Mm-hmm.
And it incentivizes them to do more next time.
Yeah.
Versus now, versus better.
And more next time.
Exactly.
And they feel appreciated.
Mm-hmm.
Not only because of, you know, a 2.8% raise that everybody gets.
Whoopee.
But it might incentivize them to go that extra mile, that extra thing to, for themselves.
I did a good job this year.
Right.
Right.
You know, I got five golden stars because I did, I did a good job this year.
Mm-hmm.
That kind of thing.
Mm-hmm.
Well, more than that, it's just that the town governance is both receptive and responsive
to the needs of your individual job.
Well, it should be.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that would be a beautiful line if we could capture that.
Okay.
Beautiful line to put on that review paperwork.
It's recorded.
Exactly my point.
That's all I pointed out.
Because that, the way you just said that, right?
It was spot on.
Now is that like moving forward to next year because I've already received most of the evaluations?
Yeah.
Yeah, we have to.
Oh, yeah.
I would have to.
I just wanted to make sure.
Like when we're going through them individually, we can start coming up with a framework of
Yeah.
what type of evaluation this particular role would need.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like that.
Okay.
Cool.
So, Wendy wanted to bring this all forward to you.
All the evals and the...
How about...
It's going to take a little while.
Should we have like a workshop?
No, we can't have a workshop.
No, we can't have a workshop.
You would have to have a non-public.
We would have to have a non-public.
Non-public.
Social non-public.
Uh, well, it looks like...
I think the eighth is already blown up enough.
The eighth is blown up enough.
It's going to have to be the week of the 60th.
Sooner or later, or?
It's whenever you're ready.
I mean, the evaluations are done.
The department head did theirs.
Okay.
I've got a couple more to do.
When Jim comes back, I've got to do his, but...
Yeah.
Um, so I would...
I would...
I don't have a calendar.
I mean...
Well, most of them are probably going to be in by next Wednesday.
Oh, absolutely.
So then...
Well, no, because Jim's not going to be back.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Well, the exception of that, we've got a week to chew on them before then and the meeting
the following Thursday.
Yeah.
So they could be in our select one box of whatever it was that we wanted to come through and go
through them individually.
Yep.
Then...
There's nothing to do with them.
No, there isn't.
So it's just to look at.
Yeah.
And then we'll have the non-public on the second meeting.
Okay.
Okay.
It's the 16th of this month.
But we'll also talk about standardizing.
During it.
Yeah.
It's going to be a longer non-public because we'll have to do that.
Yes.
Yep.
Okay.
Okay.
So where are we going?
What are we doing?
We're going to get all of the reviews that we have with the exception of Jim's.
Okay.
They'll be in the box hopefully by the close of the meeting next Wednesday.
Oh, the 8th.
And then we'll have a week and a day to review the ones that we've got.
We can go home and we can come up with our own ideas of what we might want for this.
And then we'll have the non-public to tie them all on the 16th, which would be the second.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm going to make copies, all the evaluations, all three of you.
Yeah.
And make sure they're in your boxes.
Well, I think we probably only need one just in the Selectman's signature folder, right?
Well, yeah.
Because then that way we can just kind of pop in here.
But you were talking about going home with them.
Well, no, no.
What I was saying was that we could, you know, come in and review them.
And then in the week that we got some ideas about what we would like to see in the evaluation, we could come up with our own ideas and bring them.
Back to the 16th.
Back to the 16th.
Back to the 16th.
So we have all the emails and the signature mail for you guys by next Wednesday the 8th.
Yeah.
And then we'll have a good amount of time to come in and just take a look at you.
And see if Chief Parson can also meet you on the 8th prior to the planning board meeting.
Yes.
Depending on the amount of time he fails, he may have.
Yeah.
Got it.
Okay.
That sounds great.
I don't know how early if we wanted to give the Chief an option.
5:30?
Well, I'm just thinking that the planning board is at 6:30.
Mm-hmm.
If the Chief needs more than a half hour, then we're going to have to be here at 5:30.
Yeah, that's fine just a lot.
I mean, I can get out.
As long as you know I had a time.
Okay.
And of course you're good.
Okay.
I have no idea, so we'll just go to the floor.
Okay.
If you weren't supposed to.
All right.
That sounds great.
Cool.
Wonderful idea, sir.
All right.
As far as budget goes, we cannot wait.
We've got to start thinking ahead.
Mm-hmm.
And I really think we should be thinking out of the box on this.
The last three years have not worked well.
And it's kind of onerous, the whole process.
And I'm just going to put this out as a new idea.
I think we should do a whole rehaul, zero based budgeting, one department at a time.
Bingo.
Bingo.
One department at a time.
We'll choose one department.
Admin, highway, or fire rescue.
And it's just going to focus on that.
The rest of the budget we can take care of.
But I'd like to have, I was wondering if the committee could be reassigned to do a zero based budget on just one big department.
What do you think?
Only?
Well, it's just a lot to choose for one year.
Or just the start?
Just the start.
And then the following year, it will be a different department.
All right.
Well, now, what do you think?
You want to do a whole thing?
Zero based everything.
Start at zero and tell me why you need the money.
That's just really...
Yeah.
It is.
And people get paid to do that job.
So if, you know, the fire chief or highway department or whatever is going to come and present numbers of "I need X amount of money" justified.
Why?
Roy?
I don't think that that sounds totally inbound to me, right?
And I would imagine that if you're doing basic due diligence, it should not be hard to justify those numbers that you asked for.
You've got to know where the money is going.
What is it that we would want to do as far as putting guardrails around the BAC itself?
Would this mess up their workflow at all?
Zero based budgeting?
Doing one department or doing all of it?
Doing one department.
So what you're saying is doing...
I guess my question is how onerous will this be for one department?
Will it interfere with the BAC, which would be technically a different committee, right?
They're a different town entity than the board of selectmen.
Would there be anything that we would be asking in this evolution that would encroach on what it is that they would be doing?
And if not, what would be the cost for doing them all at the same time?
So, to your point, yeah, everybody should be able to justify every fickle that they're spending here.
Is that enough of a lift for the department has to be able to do by themselves?
Can we do them all at the same time?
And then subsequent to that, is that going to affect any of the work of the BAC?
Well, I think those are all good questions that need some thought.
I don't have all the answers to those questions right now.
Anything that we can do to get ahead.
But that's why I'm bringing it up now.
It's like, well, what kind of questions?
What does this really mean?
What's the real impact of it?
What if we started off the other way with something that, instead of something really large, like fire?
What if we started with something that was really small?
Like library?
That's pretty small.
That's pretty small.
Okay, what if we started off with that just as a trial mock table top exercise?
Oh, you mean just for us?
Yeah.
Oh, that'd be interesting.
I mean, a lot of what I have is, you know, price expenditures fluctuate all over the place.
Got it.
But for, in the past whenever I've had department heads bring me their budget requests, prove it to you.
So with that, what I thought was, so if we started with the smallest one, right, and then we could identify what questions we would want to ask and whether or not these would be transportable to other departments.
Some of them, obviously, how much does electricity cost?
How much does electricity cost?
You know, or something like that.
But then to have some sort of a muscle memory and then be able to carry that thing forward, maybe it would not be so onerous that we started with the smallest piece and try to scale up.
I can see your point on that.
I can see your point on that.
The only concern I have is just the typical municipality conundrum of, well, I've looked at the past three years, here's my average, let's add 5%.
I'm not voting for anything like that.
Period.
Never.
Never.
Sure.
Sure.
So with the BAC, the department heads did go in with them and justified their budget.
Yeah.
So just to let you know they did do that.
Oh, understandable.
And I'm not slighting the department heads at all.
It's just every year we're pretty close, if not a little bit more than last year's.
Yeah, we always are.
And it's like, well, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense.
How are we now, you know, in the 20 plus percent overage on, you know, something out.
Let's say vehicle maintenance or fuel or whatever it is.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, because the prices went up.
But if we're going to be saving all our money until the end of the year to expend it, then that process was not accurate.
Right.
So, you know, that's kind of my point is you need to justify exactly your expenditures throughout the year and not save all your money until the end of the year just to spend it.
Use it or lose it.
Yeah.
Well, it's taxpayer money and it needs to return to the taxpayer money base, which means zero-based budgeting and we start fresh with everything.
So, I guess...
See where we can cut, not spend.
So, I guess the thing that is coming to mind is the culture mindset that many of our department has already set is I look at my, you know, I look at what I did last year and I'm just going to add more to it because I've got so many other things to do.
Uh-huh.
You know, these are my projects.
Duh.
All right.
So, it's kind of a cultural thing.
And then the other thing I'm realizing is the zero-based budgeting would work well if we are all on the same page for what our goals are for service.
And that's kind of a master plan type thing.
That's kind of a master plan thing.
And that's why I'm thinking like, well, I think that's why I thought like one department at a time because we need to make sure that we're on the same page.
And the other chief and the road agent and the Board of Slepman who is representing the town and budget advisor and advisory committee that are watchdogs per se, all understand this is the service we're expecting and we all agree to it.
That seems to be the little conundrum right there in zero-based budgeting is are we going to get a budget that the town wants or that the department head wants?
Mm-hmm.
Bingo.
Right.
That's the thing.
That's why I was wondering maybe one.
But I mean budget is a policy and it's a philosophy and it's a cultural habit basically about how we're going to devise it.
But if you can do it right then you should be able to assist the department.
Right.
So like an example would be, you know, if we're going to start with random X department.
We could send information out at the beginning of the process to solicit, you know, these are your expenditures.
Are there any alternative suppliers that you could have?
Yes or no.
Is this particular thing eligible for reduce, reuse, recycle savings?
Yes or no.
How do you look, you know, in the tomato cans out back to see if there's any nickels, you know, and rattle around in there.
If it might not be onerous in the future so long as the templates are built and people know ahead of time what they're going to expect.
Right.
If that makes sense.
So I'm going to put this out here too because there's another way of looking at the budget that is kind of interesting and it stops the idea.
Because sometimes you also get people on a budget advisory committee that are very pro one department or another and will defend it per se.
Right.
And so if categories are collected instead of departments, that kind of can make a difference.
So like grouping all vehicles into one vehicle goes to what it is.
Well, so here's the thing that I always thought was kind of, you know, also very interesting is a huge chunk of our budget is personnel.
Yeah.
Because of course we need people to do the work.
Of course.
It's a huge chunk.
Well, if you take that out of the budget, you know, if you take it out of the rest of their equipment and maintenance budgets and personnel and all those benefits or in just one group over here.
And then you really look, oh, this is all that the fire department is actually spending.
That's a whole different kind of thing.
And sometimes, too, when you look at a category like, all right, contracts, oh my gosh, most of all of our budget is contractual.
We don't have a lot of play in that outside of how we negotiate a contract to begin with, right?
So when you take that out of the equation, then you're coming down to like, oh, well, we're just coming down to materials.
So then you start thinking about how else can we do this?
Is there some kind of bargaining that we can do with other towns?
Is there some other kind of arrangement that we can, you know, create with our neighboring towns for a better rate or something like that?
You see what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
Well, you're investigating that.
Yeah, I just mentioned that last meeting.
Right.
Exactly.
But it kind of takes, it shakes the way, shakes up the way people are looking at a budget instead of just looking at the department saying, oh, my God, we're spending so much money on this department.
Mm-hmm.
You are now looking at just what is a cost for this.
I can see that.
You know what I'm saying?
Because personnel is the thing.
I mean, the wages are tremendously different post-2020 than they were pre-2020.
Mm-hmm.
And it is so thrown our budget off that it's really hard to get over the fact that these equipment costs are starting to climb up.
And we can't do much about the personnel.
This is just it.
Exactly.
This is what it's costing.
Well, other than the master plan changing and we provide a different level of service.
Exactly.
Outside of that.
That's the only way that changes.
Exactly.
Yep, yep, yep.
And I'm not sure that the tax base would be amenable to that at all.
So do you see what I mean?
I mean, different ways of shaking up the budget that would create kind of a different perspective or different angle
and maybe come up with some more creative ideas or saying, do we need to have a service like this?
What about that?
Yeah.
So with that said, which is a great point, with that said, if the directive was given to all the department heads as far as when we are zero-based budgeting, figure out ways, you know, whatever, without factoring in your labor costs.
Right.
Your contractual obligation costs.
Right.
Here's your bucket with everything else that's in there.
Yeah, yeah.
You tell me how much you need in that bucket to make your program work.
Right.
And don't factor on last year's numbers.
Figure it out.
Do the work.
You know?
Yeah.
Okay.
You can...
I don't think the...
What's the word I'm looking for?
Percentage of hike last year was considered the increase.
Like inflation.
Right.
That's what I was looking for.
So, actually, I was sitting there at my meeting last week and I'm, huh, inflation for 2027.
They don't really have a number quite yet, but they're looking at 2.3 to 2.7 in between there for inflation for next year.
Yeah.
You know?
And last BAC is they just said we're cutting it within 10%.
Right.
Right.
Right.
So, I mean, there's the other thing, too, is if we did that, right, we take all our personnel costs and just put them over here.
And then we take all our contractual things and put it over there.
And then what we have left, we're looking at, like, okay, what can we do with this?
Well, I'd just like to have a justification.
If it's going to be the same or more, so be it.
It's just, show me.
Well, it would be a matter of saying, like, oh my gosh, if we're faced with this amount of inflation, can we keep the same expected service?
Or are we approaching a point where we're going to have to say, we can't?
Okay.
Think about it.
We can't keep this level of service any longer.
Yeah.
We need to know.
And budget planning is just money.
Right.
I mean, it was interesting.
I've been talking to a real estate agent who mirrored exactly what you've been saying, Roy, which is,
I'm going to live here no matter what.
It costs me.
Because I like Deering.
It's a beautiful town.
And I like the recreation.
And it has a lot of conservation land.
And I appreciate that.
And she said, this is the reason people are coming here.
Because of the conservation land.
Yeah.
It just happens to be, you know, we're situated here.
And our uniqueness and our niche is the fact that we don't have economy.
We're quiet.
We're peaceful.
We like the privacy.
We can shoot guns if we want.
We can, you know, fireworks.
Most of the time, our dogs are not leashed.
But sometimes that's a problem.
And we love hiking.
God bless America.
There you go.
Right?
We're on a brochure.
And that's what she said.
I know.
That's what she said.
She said most people are moving here because of those reasons.
Not necessarily the guns.
But, you know, people feel like they have their privacy.
And their freedom.
And their freedom.
Right.
Right.
I like these ideas.
Do we want to try to do both before we make up a new policy for this year?
Like, separate out budgets?
Yeah, I runs type thing.
Or do a zero budgeting?
I think that would be fun.
Dad, it looks like you're over there holding your breath and you're like,
"Oh my God, how much work is this going to be?"
Oh no, I'm just following along.
I'm just going, "Okay, I'm just trying to suck it all in."
Yeah, I think if we wanted to try to start with the smallest library and do it as a tabletop
exercise to see if this is going to work.
We could do it at the cemetery too, I guess.
But maybe you're right.
Just let's go with the library first.
Yeah, see, you know, whether or not the communication channels work.
Yeah.
And how everything, and maybe the most important thing would be the time, so next year, the
next board won't be guessing when they need to be starting this evolution.
Right.
This could be a year-long thing.
It could be just a continual thing.
The budget should be a continual thing.
I mean, it should not be something that we think we'd finish.
Yeah, it really shouldn't be a planned season.
No, no.
It should always be top of mind.
Right, right.
We're preparing, I mean, January, February, March, we're preparing for the town meeting,
which is like the equivalent of Christmas or Easter.
I guess it depends on which end of the, you know, the church season you're on.
So, but that is what is leading us through the whole rest of the year.
We're watching how well we did.
And by this point, we're preparing for the next round of.
But yeah, we, and we're getting there.
I think, you know, based on the evaluation, like I said, of our decisions that we've made
and our governance style, we're really positioned well to standardize this budget season and everything
a lot better because I think we really understand that the CIP and the Master Plan and the Board of Slapman
need to be a cohesive package.
And that's all happening this year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, in the future, you should be able to tell what a six-inch snowstorm will cost.
Agreed.
We should.
But we've got to standardize our templates.
There's no reason why we shouldn't.
No.
We can apply formulas to figure that out and throw in, well, what's the current fuel cost?
What's our anticipated fuel mileage on whatever plow or truck or whatever, et cetera, et cetera.
I mean, that would be fantastic if we could nail that.
And then we could have our trust funds there for these particular things that happen like,
oh, the blades are costing a lot more for the plows this year because of an unanticipated hike in the material.
But we should have trust funds that are going to be able to support these fluctuations.
Mm-hmm.
Sounds like government to me.
Right.
Right.
That's what we're supposed to be doing.
Okay.
Wait, put it.
So, all right.
So, it sounds like we've got some good things moving forward.
I like the idea, too, of the zero-based budgeting for one little budget.
And then, do you feel okay about separating out what all the personnel costs are?
I don't know.
Well, essentially what you're saying is remove all the things that we know that are going to be fixed or semi-fixed.
Right.
Or semi-fixed.
Because we're like, okay, if we say all our employees, which is primarily the service we're
giving, is costing this much and these are the associated costs with us, we can evaluate how well do we think this is supporting what we need for services.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
I mean, I for one think we really need to look at a good overhaul of is our benefit package up to speed, up to date?
Is there a better, are there, you know, better things out there?
Are we as competitive with other towns?
Yeah.
I know our pool is limited for health.
That's what the problem is.
Our pool is limited for health.
There are other towns right next to us who have better deals, but they're in a different pool.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, we're limited.
The health insurance, the increase in health insurance is by far the biggest driver of the increase in costs.
Yeah.
Not just for the government.
Right.
Yes.
It really is for everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But how, you know, maybe looking at all that personnel cost too, we need to have a survey of our employees
and ask them, how do you feel about the benefits that you're getting here?
If there's another option that's available, it's either cheaper or faster or better?
I mean, like what we ran into with the policy for the highway department on their four-day work week.
You know, is the sick day and the holiday schedule that we have set up what people want now?
Or do they want more flexibility?
Do they want floating holidays?
Do they want floating sick days?
Do they want a little more flexibility with their time off?
That one, the highway department seemed like it was pretty low because it was kind of unfair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You should have been in the department head meeting before you got it.
You got it.
You got the con side.
It's the right thing to do.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
But.
Okay.
All right.
So what did we agree to do?
We agreed to start off with the smallest piece library for a zero dollar budget.
Based budgeting.
Yep.
Yep.
We agreed to separate the fixed and semi-fixed costs from the rest of the budget.
So the budget will be material costs and excluding what we say, personnel and contractual agreements.
Well, there are actually fixed, semi-fixed, and yeah.
Yeah.
That's it.
Fixed and semi-fixed, yeah.
Yeah.
And then basically just contractual obligations and personnel.
Yeah.
And then you'll have the contracts.
Yeah.
Spreadsheet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That'll be great.
Does the cost come along with that?
Excellent.
I have the name, the cost, term, expiration, and what it's for.
Okay.
Okay.
Now as far as separating out like what we were just discussing, how easy or difficult is it
to ask for a report of these, you know, specific categories, account numbers.
So if you said I want just the account numbers that are based on personnel and --
Can't you just hide those columns in the spreadsheet?
Yeah, because I can do -- I can get a spreadsheet in an Excel and just delete it all.
Okay.
Whatever you want.
Okay.
And then leave with the variable costs in there.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm happy to do it too if you send me the Excel sheet.
That's easy.
Yeah, it's easy.
I mean it should be super simple.
Those first two.
Remember, three lines.
There's no payroll.
Why don't you have to delete that?
Yeah.
Right.
So maybe we might want to look at something a little bigger.
Okay.
Sure, but the harder part is going to be what questions are we wanting to ask the library.
Why don't we just throw admin in there?
Because I really like that challenge on my budget.
I would really like to be tested of zero budget if you want to go with a large -- you don't --
Sure.
So Mayan's not our huge budget, but it's --
Right.
It's there.
It's a little -- I think it would be the next one over and above the cemetery and library.
Would most of yours be --
Personnel.
Personnel, labor, associated?
No, it would be BOS, myself, Kristen, and then the rest is all service.
Hmm.
This thing has not a whole lot to it.
Other than personnel.
It's just a little bit bigger than me, too.
No.
We've got that.
So why don't we do library and admin simultaneously?
Yeah.
And then that way we can just kind of -- I mean, this is an exercise anyway, so we're going
to be fudging with things just to see how well it will work and what would be best.
Okay.
How we go about doing it.
Okay.
I like it.
Just a thought.
Okay.
Sounds good.
By September, though, the department has to know what they're going to be requesting -- requested
of.
I think so.
And by the end of September, the budget advisory committee needs to be formulated and given
their terms of agreement for the year and --
Marching.
Yeah, their marching orders.
Weren't they able to meet any time?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This year.
So they did -- just to let you know, they did receive the first quarter of expenses and
revenues.
Okay.
And they'll be getting the same report that you receive in the next company, too.
Okay.
Great.
Also, this year we really need to look at our revenue streams to understand how that is part
of our budget.
And that's why I was asking about the price increases.
Because a while ago you sent us out a whole list of the fee schedules.
Yeah.
I believe I still have that one, but that's the one I asked Rich to put his eyes back on.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
But, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
It's not a revenue stream that comes in.
You can't consider taxes.
No.
Revenue.
It's more of your departments that bring in money and pretty much is the building department
brings in the money.
Yeah.
In the town.
Planning board, if there's activity.
Yeah.
Limited, but, yeah.
Yeah.
Whatever is covered on the escrow for the same area.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, that sounds really good.
Maybe we could actually entertain the idea of seeing if there was other ways of creating
revenue streams through the town, you know, maybe changing the way we do things around here.
I don't know whether looking at, you know, looking at how we have the zoning to open up potential
of commercial zones if the town wanted to go that route.
If we wanted to look at town owned property to lease out at times, kind of like what we do
at the town hall.
But, I don't know, just open the door to talk about whatappers.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I don't know what.
Right.
I'll throw it up there.
It doesn't hurt.
Right.
It's lonely on the camera.
Anybody want to rent a pothole?
Yeah.
You could get your name on it.
Donate money to fix your potholes.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
Donate money to fix your potholes.
That's right.
Yeah.
That would be great.
I do think that your taxes could be reduced if we put an Amazon factory next to your house.
But true.
I don't know that everybody is going to.
One of the reasons it makes it a premium to live in Gary and people want to pay for that
premium to live in Gary is the lack of commercial development.
Yeah.
That might, you know, be as serious.
It might be untypical to what it is.
See, I wouldn't mind it because Amazon's at my house every day anyway.
Yeah.
What if we just encourage bigger houses that get bigger taxes, bigger taxes, bigger houses,
more taxes, but only two people live there.
I think that one of the structural things in town, you know, because of the transient, I don't want
to say that word, but because of the concentration of affordable housing is such in the town that
it will, I think, probably prohibit that development from shrinking the size of lots and houses because we do have enough to qualify for workforce housing.
Oh, we do.
We do.
Yeah.
Is there for the rest of the town to come up with smaller lot sizes and more affordable housing?
We need bigger houses.
Yes.
I think we need alternative sources of income, whatever it is that we're allowed to be able
to do.
I know in the past that people have done things that may or may not have been the best idea to
try to increase the revenue in town, but it's still going to be a constant thing.
Yeah, any dollar that we can generate that is not reaching into somebody else's wallet and pulling
out a dollar, to me that's the number one thing that we should be doing.
It's trying to rob people from their money less whenever we can.
100%.
Okay.
Another item I'd like to bring up before we end, that we have a committee for the solid waste.
Yes.
I have no idea who's on it.
No.
That I believe is going to be expiring next year, so we need to work on that committee to
build that committee and really digest that.
I was reading the contract, trying to get familiar with it, and I'm like, oh man, this
needs to really be...
Yeah.
I've been on that committee before.
I think it dissolved.
I think there's only one or two people.
I don't know.
Mike Collins was the last one.
He resigned.
He resigned.
Last year.
Yeah.
Was it Sue Thompson on it?
No.
I don't...
But we really need to revive that committee, same as the beach one this year.
That's in Hillsborough.
Yeah.
But that's a solid waste committee that's in Hillsborough with Hillsborough people.
Which is fine.
Yes.
But we need better...
Well, I can't say better.
Sorry for that word.
More people.
We just need representation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If someone's interested in that.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Somebody might be interested in being on a committee for negotiating with the transfer station.
Things that are happening there.
It's a significant driver of cost.
It can be.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This year is what?
135?
That's a lot.
That's 5% of our budget right there.
I'd like to know what Stoddard is costing for there.
Have you ever driven by the recycling?
I have.
Okay.
It's a few dumpsters.
Well, this is a couple discussions I've had with a couple people in town about why can't
we do our own?
Get a couple dumpsters, have Nonning come pick 'em up.
And if there's recyclables, why don't we get the revenue from it?
And, um...
I think those are all very legitimate questions.
Actually, last year, that was the first thing in my head.
Yeah.
I started just talking to residents when I've seen them.
Some people feel like, oh, we got a good, you know, I don't mind going to Hillsboro.
Where is it going to be?
Which are all valid questions.
But if you can do your own at a cheaper expense, because I would really like for you to see the bill and the chargers behind it.
Let me send that over to you.
Sure.
There would be...
I mean...
You're going to get an eye-waking.
The town...
Again, and this is Ed Cobbett.
Ed Cobbett had proposed that we have our own transfer station.
And people did not want it.
Right.
But this was 20 years ago.
Lots changed in 20 years.
It's the historical, recent historicity.
Historic-sicity.
Historical-sicity?
That...
More on that one.
I believe it's shown that Daring is wanting to reevaluate many of its relationships with its sister towns.
Not just this, but many areas.
And it sounds to me like it's...
Hey, that's...
There might be some things we can do better now because things have changed.
And there might be things that we can do better with others because things are changing.
And on that point, a resident kind of made me aware of Hillsborough and the park and rec thing and all that.
I believe it was the last Hillsborough Selectments meeting started talking about...
Yes.
It failed.
...hearing and us...
Hmm?
The HYAA?
Yeah.
It failed.
So they're...
Right.
I'm not 100% up to speed on it other than they're going to be looking at us to pay more in different areas, I guess, is what the gist of the meeting is.
The gist of the meeting came up, too.
So...
Tell me.
What?
I don't know what's going on.
I don't know.
I just...
I went home fuming for you guys, honestly.
Yeah.
That day when I read it, I was beyond fumed for you for Daring.
Yeah.
But basically it was because town...
My understanding now...
Understood.
Don't take this...
What I'm hearing is because the town of Daring did not pay the $25,000, which my understanding
that $25,000 did not go towards HYAA anyways from conversations that I had.
And now that we're not paying the $25,000, they want to have HYAA pay $8,000 to maintain the fields down there.
And, you know, my granddaughter was on HYAA this year.
And the amount of home gains that we had on that field?
Mm-hmm.
Farm field.
Okay.
There wasn't $8,000 worth of gains at that field.
That field.
Okay.
Grins field.
Yeah, including practices.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I...
I mean, my granddaughter paid the non-resident rate.
Yeah.
She lives in Washington.
Yeah.
You know, and that's what we paid.
And they're not looking to Washington to say, cough up $8,000 so your kids can play softball with ours.
So what they're, what they, what I see is that they're going to, well, they failed to do the HYAA.
They were going to, HYAA would have been forced to Windsor, Washington, Daring, or anybody that wants to join, eat up it.
So now instead of $150,000 that they paid for, or $100,000 for non-resident, they're going to go $250,000 for non-resident.
Yeah.
So that's what I got out of the whole packet.
Yeah.
And I was, I went home.
Yeah.
I was, I was, I really helped.
I was mad for you guys.
I really was.
I was happy about it.
Well, we'll have to have more discussions about that anyways, just because of the hoopla that's been coming up this summer.
Yeah.
About the price of Mac and stuff like that.
So I'd really like to dig into it more, understand more of why, how, the historical on it.
Yeah.
So that's a different time since we're after eight.
Um, if I could throw one more thing in here.
Yes.
The, um, HHS report on, that we received.
Yeah.
About the water.
Mm-hmm.
Is it possible to maybe have a rap from Tom Tom come in and just kind of give an education
one?
Yeah.
Cause I, I send this to them too.
Yeah.
I send that to them too.
It's a bunch of gobbledygook numbers that I don't know what it represents.
Well, why don't we just, uh, why don't we just ask, um, Tom come to just give us a report
like they usually have.
Or something.
Yeah.
You know, what does it, what does this mean?
Yeah.
You know, where's the, where's the level where it's bad?
Mm-hmm.
Cause that doesn't even, at least I couldn't discern where the bad level was.
Mm-hmm.
It was just, here's your number.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So, it'd be nice to have something like that.
Yep.
Okay.
Uh, uh, and next week we have, uh, our meeting is planning, planning to go over stuff
about.
Class six.
Class six roads.
Yep.
Private roads, stuff like that.
I think after that meeting, um, I'd like to at least potentially revisit our policy with
a select board.
Yeah.
After we talk with them about stuff.
Cause I spent a little bit more time on this and I now have a bit of a different, uh,
uh, thought on grouping class six and private roads into the same thing, which I don't think
they should be anymore.
They should be a completely different animal.
It is?
In comparison.
So, in comparison to the, it should be even more separate than what we, um, put in, uh,
agreed to the policy that the lawyer came up with?
Right.
I, and I'll raise that after the meeting.
It may, you know, in the planning board, it may pop up during that.
But I'm just, I have concerns with private roads, with us mandating anything for private roads.
Because it's private roads.
Mm-hmm.
It's essentially the driveway, the way I look at it.
And, you know, for us to even think about forcing a potential builder, you know, property
owner that's trying to even renovate the property into upgrading the road or doing anything for
that road seems a little cumbersome.
Until it's, um, until it's, it's a town road?
I mean, town roads are town roads.
No, but there are, there have been private roads that have been, uh.
Brought up to.
To a town road.
Yes.
That's where I have a concern.
You know, as a town mandating that something like that happens or you don't get your building
permit.
No, but no.
Oh, sorry.
It's that, uh, over, say, um, it was over off 20, it was across from the, uh, end of East
Erring Road.
There's a little development out there.
Um.
And that's on a class six, isn't it?
No.
That's a private?
It's, it's, we take care of that road now.
Oh, so it converted from.
It converted.
I see.
So you have to be careful about the conversion.
I think that's its own animal also.
Right.
I'm just thinking that if I, if we're going to mandate anything for, like for instance, if I
want to build a property, you own the road, I have an easement down to my property and I
want to build a house there.
you as the town is going to, before approving my building permit, I have to bring the road
up to do anything with that private road.
Now, I would have to incur the expense.
I would have to get your permission.
If you don't want to be doing anything in my house, all you've got to say is, no, you can't
touch my road.
Your private road?
You know, if he, if it's his road, and I have an easement, you know, if he owns the
majority of the road or whatever, how can a town mandate somebody that has no control over
a property to upgrade or do anything with that property?
In lieu of, it's almost like it's an equity thing, you know, because if I live on a private
road and Ford lives on a class six road, he can do whatever he wants, but I can't.
Okay.
Well, let's be honest.
Most of these private roads are around the lake.
Okay.
100%.
So, most of them are around the lake.
So, if the town, so if the town is mandating what happens on a private road and we're saying,
for instance, let's just take an example around the lake, then it could very well mean that
they can't build on that lot because it can't come up to the standards.
Okay.
So, basically, it devalues the land that's around the lake.
If it's unbuildable.
If it's unbuildable.
Correct.
Yeah.
Or you have to go through.
It's almost a de facto conservation.
It's one more thing that you can't develop.
Right.
Or that you'd have to, that would stand in the way of your opportunity to develop a lot.
And do what you want with your property.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, it's just something I want to throw out there.
We'll have another hash at it, you know, after the meeting with the planning board.
And I'll have a little bit more particulars.
I just want to.
Because I mean, still, I mean, I mean, no matter what, if you've got a lot that's grandfathered.
It's grandfathered.
It's grandfathered.
And you've got to have a way of getting to it.
Mm-hmm.
But if you wanted to obtain a building permit, which isn't necessarily building a new home.
It could be enlargement.
It could be renovations.
It could be anything.
That has to come before the board of slackment for approval.
And one of those approval points, correct me if I'm wrong, is you have to make sure that
that private road is passable for safety equipment.
Well, if it's not, then what?
Right.
And can't you get a variance?
You tell me.
Does somebody on a class 6 road have to go through the same process?
I don't think so.
Exactly my point.
So, basically, the private road and the class 6 road should be.
But what you're saying then is the class 6 and the private road should be treated the same.
So, to an extent, yes.
And it's not.
Because the private road doesn't have the ability to modify that private road unless the owner of that private road says yes.
Or the group of people that own that road.
Because usually it's a conglomerate of people that own a chunk of the road all the way down.
You would have to get 12 people to agree on one thing.
And when's that going to happen?
On a class 6 road you don't have to.
The town makes that choice.
It's their property.
Mm-hmm.
Or the town's property.
On a private road you have potentially multiple owners going down that easement.
Mm-hmm.
You would have to get permission from every single one of those going down that easement.
Before you could put it on.
Before you could put it on.
Based on the way this is threatened.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
I want to revisit that.
Think about it a little bit more.
But I wanted to throw that little thought process nugget out at everybody.
Just to think about it.
Just to let you know too.
When I spoke with Matt Moncan.
Mm-hmm.
He and I met Wednesday.
And we're going to bring two files on Wednesday.
Mm-hmm.
And those one's on a private.
One's on class 6.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm going to leave them out here for you guys.
Okay.
And Matt's going to explain a little bit about those two.
Yep.
Entities.
So because they need to be moved on.
They need to be moved on.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, I'm fine with whatever we're going to go through.
I think class 6 and private roads need to be thought very carefully as far as the implications
on what people are able to do with their own land and the liability that the town is going to incur based on that.
Mm-hmm.
I did not.
I didn't see that this class 6 issue was finished.
And if the policies need to be amended, then I'm fine with that.
How about you?
I just seem like it's going to be done.
Yeah.
But I expect all the policies to be field tested.
Yeah.
I just think with people on class 6 roads basically they have a weaver that they have to sign off.
Yeah.
No fire, no medical, get away to the school bus.
Right.
I would like to see the insurance policy because they have to be insured.
Yeah.
That's one of the things with a new policy.
Yeah.
And I'd like to see who's going to insure these houses.
The amount of money that they pay for those insurance policies, they don't care.
Insurance companies don't care.
You can see some of them.
Yeah.
So what about the private road?
Is it there's no waiver as far as safety goes?
I'm sorry.
Private roads don't require waiver for safety?
I believe they do.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I believe they do.
But my point is that just --
There is no private road waiver I thought we just --
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's just like with this here, the old RSA and to the new RSA, like subdivision or site
plan on class 6 road, upgrade road make class 5.
Subdivision or site plan on private road, same thing.
Upgrade road make class 5.
And there's no change to that.
At least that's how that leads there.
Yeah.
For us to mandate somebody to upgrade a road, a private road, to a class 5, in my opinion,
and I don't know if this is legally accurate or not, but just the way I read that, it should
be illegal or --
It's honest.
It's a private road.
Exactly.
Unless it's going to be public.
Right.
And then with that --
How can the town mandate that?
It would have to do that.
You have to spend $3 million to upgrade somebody else's property before you can build your
$150,000 house.
We can say that on class 6.
Because the town owns it.
Right.
Right.
No, I got you.
Okay.
But anyways.
Yep.
All right.
Go for it, Roy.
Anything, Roy?
All right.
Well, we could have gotten out of here at 8:00.
8:00.
8:00?
I'll motion to adjourn at 8:26 PM.
I will second that motion.
All in favor?
Aye.
Happy Fourth of July.
Happy birthday, America.
Yeah.
Happy birthday.
See you all there.
Yeah.
That's my poor boy.
I've got to pick him up here.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Happy birthday, America.
Happy birthday.
Yes.
Happy birthday.
See you all there.
Yeah.
That's my poor boy.
I've got to pick him up here.