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Select Board Meeting

Video

Okay. All right, welcome, everyone. It's 6 o'clock. It's July 13. It is a meeting of the Kingston Select Board, and we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Okay. Thank you all. We have a full board tonight. We'll do roll call. The board members, Ellen Falconer, Peter Bakie. To my immediate right is Electra Alessio, our Vice Chair.
Chair. I'm Glenn Coppelman, your current chair. To my left, June Philbrook, our select board administrator, and to her left, Board Member Lorraine Sweat. All right. The first appointment on the agenda is, and I'll remind Board Members, please remember to have your mics on when you're speaking. George Skip San Suisi. That must be you. All right. Why don't you come to that chair right there.
Okay. Okay. All right. Use one or the other, George.
How's that?
Well, that's good. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
That'll work just fine. Can you hear me all right?
No. Sit yourself down, and you're going to need to bring the mic really close to you. There we go.
How is that better?
That's good. Good.
That's good. And let's start by you introducing yourself to us.
Well, I'm Skip Sansfoozy.
I'm from Lancaster, New Hampshire. And as you know, we do your utility values and have now for a number of years.
And I wanted to come down and say hello to you. I know you've got some questions on this abatement, as well as the solar field.
And so I thought we'd come down. We were coming down through on a run to New York, so we thought we'd
stop in and say hello and go through everything with you and answer any questions that you might.
have related to it, related to the abatement itself, but also some areas that I want
to bring to your attention that are going to be happening in the next couple of years with
utility property valuation also going forward with additional changes in the law that's
occurring. So I thought I'd wrap everything together into one meeting.
Okay. And we do have a letter from you.
This is actually from May 11th, and it's in the board's packet.
And this was related to a particular valuation that was adjusted.
This is the, this is the sole farm.
Right.
Right. That's right.
Right.
And I think, I know that you're going to talk about other things, but I think the board had you here because we wanted an explanation of that that
that's a significant reduction in value, and therefore,
in taxes. Right. So. We were advised that you wanted an explanation. And so
we, you know, okay, Skip, this microphone thing's not working well.
Okay. You're turned this way and the mic is that way. Okay.
What we're going to do. That one there. Is that better? Yep. Just and leave it in front of you.
Just don't, don't such it, right?
Don't hold it, but just leave it. Okay.
Yeah. Would you like me to start?
Sure.
Okay.
As you all know, the law changed on how you value utility property.
There was a direct result of what we call the Big 100 case that we did for all 95,000 cities that we won at the Board of Tax and Land Appeals.
And that precipitated a collaborative.
at the state and precipitated the development of RSA 728D where there was a formula to
be used to value utility property. And then that formula was enacted by the town through its
own contract, as well as many other communities in the state. Now, that particular
that particular law separated the poles and wires in the street, which was part
of the fight, and the poles and wires that were transmission lines, the very large transmission
lines, from all generation assets, all product, what they call production assets.
So all generation assets were excluded from the, the, the
the development of a formula to value the utility property.
So the generation assets became their own, they'd always been fair market value, but then
they, that codified the fact that they were fair market value, and then the transmission
and distribution plants followed a formula that, um, that, um, that, uh,
was developed ultimately and conified as RSA 72 .
Now, there are components of that type of value that enter into this discussion.
One of them is kayak, capital C, capital I, capital A, capital A, capital C, contribution,
and A to construction.
So when you have the utility, build you a line down your driveway,
and they give you a bill for $10,000 to build that line.
That's called contribution and needing construction.
You give them the money.
They build the line.
But they own the line.
Okay?
You've paid for a portion of it.
That particular instance, that money has to be recorded and managed separately,
and we have to value that separately, as an example.
The other one is quip.
And you're part of the Seabrook clan.
You've got your sirens here.
You know everything about QIP because you've lived with it for 35, 40 years with the nuclear plant.
Construction work in progress.
And construction work in progress is the amount of money that's being spent on an annual basis,
but did not yet put in the books for rates.
So if, you know, they're building new lines and they're adding new substations,
they're booking it as equip, construction work and progress.
And that books build up.
They move it into bookkeeping and they add all the overheads.
And when it comes back out, it comes back out higher than when it went in.
Okay, so we have to manage that part of it also.
Okay.
Now, those two accounts, for example,
have federal account codes attached to them.
So those federal account codes, we have to keep an eye on when we, especially when you're valuing anything that got a lot of quip.
And there's been a lot of quip in the town of Kingston.
There's been a lot of additions, a lot of new wires, new poles and wires being built, etc.
What is specifically excluded in the law, completely excluded, is that any,
utility assets cannot have any electric generation facilities in it.
All electric generation was excluded from the transmission and distribution law.
Okay, that's 78, that's 728D-2, which is electric generation facilities are out.
They're valued at 100% of fair market value.
All of your poles and wires are valued at 30% of the book cost and 70% of the original cost.
That was the compromise.
And then the, but as far as the electric generation, that's 100%.
So something like this particular solar field is 100% generation so that they have to report.
support separately and differently.
We have to pick it up separately and differently in our valuation when we value it.
And we had a split year, so we had to do the partial for you on that.
So the generation portion of that is separated out now from the actual utility pieces.
The first step in the process, when they built that solar.
field that actually tripped us up originally was that they actually put the quip for the solar field into the distribution system originally.
And that tripped us up because they did not issue it to the quip in the quip number that is
used by the state, they issued it in the federal number without any indication of what it was.
When you say they, you mean unitill?
Unitil, yeah. Okay. And you could argue that we should have been, you know, that should have just stood right out at us.
But you were having so much new property, new distribution property and transmission upgrades that the amount of
did not jump off the sheet of paper, and it was actually listed as distribution to it, okay, even though it was, it was, it turned out to be the solar plant.
So when that hit, we put it in initially as value, okay, initially for the first half year. That was on the first half year.
Okay.
Now, the second thing that happened on that is they then took that, which they shouldn't have done.
They took that, and they then split that with the 30-70, and they're supposed to be actually valuing it 100%.
So they split it and put it in the upper part of the form, and they split it between on the distribution split.
So that actually reduced the value on that particular piece that, because we had done it as a partial, we picked that up basically about five or six months later when the numbers weren't tying.
And that also added to the era, so to speak, but it also decreased any abatement because they were splitting it on 30.
And that was all basically a no-no. Now, is that bad because Unitil did that? It's a brand new law.
We've got literally an office full of problems that were constantly solving for other utilities and communities with all of these changes in this law that people are getting finally accustomed to and using.
So we work with the companies and we work with the revaluation companies.
I mean, all we can do is give it to the revaluation company to fix the tax cards and to fix it and put it on the MS1.
But, you know, we have a lot of problems that need to constantly be solved during this transition phase.
And they're getting solved, slow but short, you know.
In your particular instance, you've got $4.5 million worth of land associated with that solar field.
that just evaporates into the law and into the land scale that is all solid value.
You know what I mean?
So those was, now the first step in the process was that the company misread or misapplied the law.
Okay?
And I'm not making an excuse for ourselves, but that's the first step in the process was the first step in the process.
Then the process proceeds with a five-year program where we take 80% or 20% each year of the additions,
and then we apply those each year to the town of Kingston at the 30-70,
because public service and the utility did not want to get hit all at once for the increase in value that came out of the court decision that we won in the courts.
Conversely, if there was any reduction in value, the town didn't have to take a hit of 100% of the reduction, only 20% a year.
The rest of the law deals with that 20% plus or minus.
The second step in the process is that we put out a data request for each of the utilities, for all your different utilities that we do for you.
We put out a very, very specific data request.
And the data request follows the law very carefully, including down to the point where we said,
you know, that, and I'll just read you the basic sentence, owned by the company and the municipality that are not part,
please provide the detailed continuing property records,
This stuff here, you've got the set there, for the surviving historic original cost, if any, of all distribution plant, transmission, production, regional transmission, and market operation plant, general plant,
a general plant, kayak, again, quip, and undistributed plant.
Now, undistributed plant is the problem child. That's the one where they're booking it.
So the invoices come in from the work orders, and it adds up, and they book it in, they book the invoice in, but they don't code the index to an actual account code, a distribution pole or a transformer or these, until the job is done.
So when they'll finish a street, then they'll book it to the job.
And that can be one to three years later.
So we're constantly watching for that kind of stuff.
But once it's finally back,
booked, then it gets finally added to your books and finally value.
And then the last part of it says, owned by the company in the municipality that are not,
and this is in bold, that are not part of the distribution plant calculation.
So we're very clear on what they cannot put in the form that enabled the law.
And in this one particular instance, with this
company, they ended up putting it into the form and splitting a power plant 3070 that we had to unravel.
Okay. And they, but they did end up putting it into the power plant on the 3070. Now, at the end of the day,
and this is all occurring in 2025, you know, after the first half bill went out and everything, this is now occurring in 2025.
At the end of the day, we're seeing numbers that are not tying.
They're seeing numbers that are not tying.
We know the company, and we start talking to the company, what's this, what's this, what's that?
And then I went back down and did a follow-up site to it, to do it confirm on the 100% completion.
In and around the, I'm going to say about June-ish of 2025, everything was complete that we don't have a full tie on.
on the numbers. We did have also a large
QIP account that was growing,
but it was still in a federal number. And the federal number was also
listed as having no other transcript
against that federal number. Usually there's some type of
transcript on it. 1.07, QIP, Kingston. There was
zero transcript on this one. Nothing.
So, you know, we finally said to the company, you know, what's going on here?
They said to us, what's going on here? We've said to them, what's going on here?
But at the end of the day, what came out of it was that they had misreported the plant,
and they got it mixed up inside the transmission and distribution.
Okay?
We picked up the first half at PA-81 for 2025.
We picked up the first half PA-81 and getting all of our values done in the late spring,
and we carried in the wrong number into that value.
We carried it in because they had carried it in once, and we carried it in once, and we carried it in
lunch. So we ended up basically double dipping. It doesn't matter who double-dipped.
It ended up getting double-dipped. We found that error when we went to close out for the year
on the final bill. And at that point, I called Whitney Consulting, and I said we need to straighten
this out. We want to reverse this. We've got time to reverse it before the appeal process.
because we can hit the MS1 and get it reversed.
We already had one power plant on the MS1.
We could reverse it instead of two power plants, have one.
And we were told, no, it had to go through the abatement process.
But I wanted to reverse it right there and then.
If I could, we would. We wanted to.
We did not. As we were advised, we couldn't.
Which is fine.
We're not your assessing supervisor. So that is why it ended up in this abatement process.
But the abatement process is you've got two power plants on there now, but you only got one in the field.
You only have one, one, you only have one solar plant in the field.
And that's what you're abating. Because of the 30-70 split, the abatement itself is less than it might have otherwise been.
You know, I mean, by a few, by a hundred and something thousand dollars, just because of the lesser amount on the 30-70.
It's less than otherwise would have been.
But so it's a combination of our mistake.
It's a combination of their mistake.
And then it's a combination of getting it fixed.
The only part of it I don't like is that we had an opportunity to get it set for the MS1.
And so it would be one and done.
And we didn't, we did not, we were not allowed to take that opportunity.
That's the only piece for the other thing that bothered me, you know.
So that sort of summarizes it.
I don't know if that helps or hurts.
Well, it's a lot of information.
I appreciate the detail.
I'm not sure that, I mean, I think I understand the basics of what you're telling me.
We should ask you if, if there are a question.
from the board however so and Mike's please if you do if you do speak so I'm just
trying to refresh my memory on the original number was way lower than what came in
right would you like me to read the request for the abatement yes that would be
very helpful yeah so this is actually a letter from your firm right skip dated
May 11 2026 addressed to this board
regarding 2025 unit-till energy systems abatement application.
Dear Select Board, we have received and reviewed the tax year 2025 abatement request for unit-till energy systems.
After reviewing the application, we recommend that the board grant a partial abatement for parcel R11-10 Mill Road by reducing the 2025 total recommended assessment from
The assessment now from $366,366,100 to $29,645,200 for a total reduction of $6,720,900 in assessment.
The reason for the abatement is as follows.
The valuation is based on information that was provided by the company in their PA-81 submission on May 21, 2020.
On June 2020-5, the company resubmitted a corrected PA-81 form reflecting revised information.
However, in the processing of the valuation and transmittal of recommended assessments to the town,
the May 21, 2025 submission was used when the revised information from June 2025 should have been used.
we recommend the town, oh, okay, so there's that one.
But then there's another parcel, skip, which says we recommend the town deny the abatement sought for parcel R829 due to insufficient information in the abatement application.
Yeah, I believe that's a land possible.
And I'm, do you have any information on that?
And is it is it, is it?
I believe that's a land possible.
It's an adjacent piece that they have thrown in to the abatement that should not be thrown in.
Okay. And we took those out. We do not believe that those should be abated. Okay. So. They subsequently agreed to take them out. And you know further abatement other than straightening this out.
out. There's no further abatement on the land because they subsequently resubmitted with the correct
land in there. So the abatement request for the R11-10 is the one where that's still to be dealt with by
this board? That's correct. So, Lori, do you have? For those of us in the back of the bus, what does that mean for, like,
dollars? Like, what's, what's the impact of the approval or the disapproval?
I'm sorry? Someone from the audience just said $108,000. Okay, somebody did the math and
estimates it over $100,000. So the question is, is it in fact, legitimate for us not to
authorize the abatement? No, I don't think it's legitimate, but I don't, do not us.
I think it's a legitimate abatement. It's a legitimate new law. You know, everybody trying to make work properly. And I think the abatement is legitimate. On the land side, the land value is a land value. And I don't believe there's any abatement required on the land value. But as far as the double dip, I think that's a legitimate abatement that should be reversed. And as far as the double dip, I think that's a legitimate abatement that should be reversed.
and move on because we will be during each reval under our current contract.
We're going to be revaluing that property again.
And so we'll be picking that up again and revaluing it.
Well, it's very unfortunate that there was misunderstanding and misreading, if you will, of the law,
because, I mean, it puts us in a tough spot right now.
I said it puts us in a tough spot right now.
Yeah.
And I said that it's unfortunate that there was, that there were errors made in the original submittal.
Yeah. Now, would you like us to talk to the company and would you like us to negotiate some type of settlement where they extend the, the amount over a couple of years where we do it as credits and something like that to assist your budgeting?
we can do that.
And that isn't the first time we've done it and we'll do it if you wish.
Okay.
Well, hold that thought.
Okay.
Other questions from the board.
And Mike's please, if you were going to speak.
And we're between a rock and a hard place.
I'm conflicted only in that.
If the reverse were true, you'd be hammering our heads to pay up to do more.
I almost regret doing the solar field.
Is that where you're trying to tell me you made a mistake it from the beginning?
and we shouldn't have done the solar field?
Is that what you're telling us?
No.
No. No, no.
There's nothing wrong with the solar field.
And besides it.
No, this is all bookkeeping under the new law and under the federal account codes.
This is nothing wrong with the solar field.
I understand that.
But you guys do this all.
all the time. This is a major error. For a small town like Kingston, $100,000 is a lot of money.
Yeah.
Just saying.
But these things do happen on a statewide basis, on a New England-wide basis. We do hundreds of values a year.
And utilities make their mistakes, and every once in a while, we make ours.
Yeah, but when the mistake is on the other foot, we have a hard time getting equity that way.
Say again, ma'am.
When the mistake is reverse, when the town makes the mistake, and it's not in our favor, it's in your favor,
it's not usually the leeway. That's my opinion.
We're going to have to work something now, but I don't know.
Now, there's going to be room for more problems if we're not careful.
There's some changes coming in the law again.
So I just want to point out to you that, you know, it's going to be, there's going to be, we've got.
Everybody has to continue to be careful.
We are careful, but there's going to be changes again.
As of July 27, you are no longer going to have to have to build the solar farm, only three tax rates.
You are going to be allowed to bill them four.
They are going to have to begin paying the full tax rates, school,
100%, state school, 100%, county 100%, and town 100%.
And that kicks in in the second half bill of 2027.
And that will have its own, on a statewide basis where that will have its own bumps and grinds.
But we know they're coming for our communities. We've been involved in this for
so long, and especially that piece of it, that four-part piece, that will, you know,
we will be making sure that we've got that correct.
But the revaluation companies have to cooperate with this.
When I call and ask questions of the revaluation company to apply to these utility values,
to try to avoid this stuff, I need a call back.
And I probably called five to eight.
times to try to straighten this out with no callback.
So I just want to point that out.
I'm hearing that.
Yeah.
So I'm hearing that we don't have a choice in this matter.
Is that correct?
I'd like it stretched.
If you want it stretched.
No, no, no.
That's a separate question.
Okay.
As far as the abatement request, it's a legitimate request.
It's a legitimate request. It's backed by the law.
and we're stuck with it.
That's correct.
At this point, I'm just trying to reiterate what I'm hearing you say.
Yes, that's right.
And that from this point forward, the best situation that we could find ourselves in is to be extending payments out
so that we don't have to write the check all at once.
Yeah, that's correct.
And that's your choice, and I would be happy to negotiate.
in your behalf with the company to stretch it in a manner that you would like.
Don't we want to talk to our counsel and our assessor make sure this is the best way for us.
And if so, I don't know, what's to negotiate, other than we'll set up a payment plan.
That's all.
Well, that's, and that's what, and that's what Skip is offering to do if that's what we want to do.
We're not to see.
What is it?
You get a charges to do that.
No.
No.
No. We are under contract to you.
Yeah.
We are under contract to you.
You're not going to get charged for that.
You're not getting charged for that. You're not going to charge for the night.
Well, that's good.
That you bring such good news.
Peter or Ellen, anything?
Part of your conversation, I didn't quite hear when you were talking about the amount that they, I see what the assessment is.
But you were talking about.
about in 2027 they have to pay four things are they only paying a percentage of the tax rate now yes and what is the percentage that they're paying right now right now they're only paying three tax rates okay which is they're paying they're paying the state school tax they don't pay you you know that was it to a dollar 20 to state school tax so they don't pay this they do not pay the state school tax
Okay.
They pay the town school tax.
Yep.
They pay the town tax.
Yep.
Okay, and they pay the county tax.
Okay.
Now, starting in July of 27, they are going to pay the full state school tax.
So right now, if your state school tax is $12 and you've got then another $2 dollars of state school tax, so it's $14, and you've got then another $2
school tax, so it's $14.
total they're only paying 12 and then they're only paying 12 and you're paying 14
you individually okay they're gonna pay the full 14 starting in July of 27 but in the
meantime it's not like they're not paying us taxes on 29 million they're paying the
taxes on 29 million but they're not paying the state school tax on 29 million
That's correct.
And that's going to, that's what's changing.
And did you say something, again, I couldn't quite hear at all, but did you say something about the fact that instead of paying them this money,
we could offer them a compensating, like, amount off of their tax bill to cover this amount?
Where we control the value, we can create a credit in each year that credits them.
a portion of whatever budget portion you believe you would like to stretch, we can create a budget,
we can ask them if they would accept a credit for X number of years or whatever to reduce the impact,
immediate impact on the current budget.
So we could, for example, stretch this out, say, four years,
ask them if they take whatever it is, $40,000.
Yeah, I don't know if they'll go 20,000.
No, I said four.
I said, like, four years.
Four years.
Yes, you could.
And so that instead of us having to actually, quote, unquote, pay them,
we would tell them that they would get a certain amount of money off the full value that they have to pay us in taxes.
Usually it's between revals.
It's between revaluations is the best time to do it.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know, are we the only town in the state of New Hampshire at the only?
Right now, you're the only one we have that has this problem.
We don't have any other...
Correctly if I'm wrong.
We don't have another.
You're the only one this year that has a problem like this.
Well, a lot of that is because Unitil, by mistake,
that's because Unitil by mistake, misrepresented on the form to figure out what the value would be.
Is that correct?
See again?
Part of the reason why we're having the problem is because Unitil misrepresented
some of the value on the form they initially submitted.
That is correct.
Part of the need for the evapement is their own fault.
That's right.
So I would think that on the fact that it was their own fault, they might agree to some sort of...
They might. That's correct.
I can't tell you what they're going to do.
But I have negotiated a number of settlements over the years with them on a wide variety of things.
It's clearly not the town's fault, Ellen.
So...
It's not a town fault.
It's not a town fault.
Right.
Now, Ellie asked the question,
do you want any of this to be reviewed
by counsel
for recommendation and advice?
Well, I have a question as to what I would like to ask council.
Due to the fact that this error in Lodgepott
was due to Unitill themselves,
do we have any leeway in our
responsibility to pay this entire amount.
They're the ones that cause the problem.
And now we're going to be having to give them somewhere between $178,000 and $190,000 or give them that amount back.
But since a part of this was their own error, is there's some other way to negotiate with UNITIL that might benefit the time a little better?
We can ask the question.
I don't know if that has to go to counsel or whether that's just something you can provide.
opposed to them. So that's my question.
Well, Skip has already volunteered as our utility assessor to try to negotiate with the utility
with regard to this extension or extending payments, if you will. I don't know what
more counsel could do for us, but I don't know. I mean, if you want us, if you, if the board wants.
Well, we could ask him to ask the question.
put forward the reasoning behind the question, and then I guess we can wait and see what the answer is
before we determine whether or not we need to go to counsel.
We could.
I'm just saying that a lot of this is their own fault, and we're going to be hit for it.
So I just want to do some way to, you know, alleviate some of the pain.
So, you've got everything to gain and nothing to lose by me going after to find out what they'll agree to.
So is the board comfortable with us directing Skip and his organization to see what can be done in that respect?
And once we get the answer, we'll then determine whether or not there are any further steps we want to take.
In order to satisfy the DRA at the end of it, if we drafted up an agreement that I came up with and you approved,
we would draft it up for your review by your counsel for the DRA.
and so every inch of hard time is covered under your current contract.
Okay, good.
How soon do you think you could do this and have an answer?
Of course, I'm sure that getting in timing on an answer back is going to depend on how quickly the utility gets back to you.
Yeah, we would get on this immediately because we want to close it out by September 1
before the appeal process, we don't want it to go into September 1 where they have to file an appeal at the district, at the court,
and then we've got to get a lawyer involved and everything else.
So it would be between now and August 15th, and we're going to be just dealing with vacations and that type of stuff.
That'll be the same thing.
Does it been your experience that the utility would be reasonably responsive?
to getting back to you with something?
It's been my experience that they recognize they have, that they recognize they might have some liability here.
You know what I mean?
That they're culpable too.
Yeah.
Well, well, they do.
They do have that responsibility.
Yeah.
And they have been very cooperative with us in getting to the bottom of this because it took several reiterations to get them to the bottom.
because they were using a set of a federal account codes that tripped us up at the same time.
So, you know, they've been cooperative once they finally figured out that they were not telling us and reading the law right.
And then they finally gave us a complete redo.
We proofed it.
Okay, guys, you've got the right numbers finally, you know.
So I'm hoping that they will be cooperative.
I think it's just going to be vacations.
these types of things during the summer that's going to bog this down a little bit,
but we really would want to see it done for September 1, 2026, done for the MS1 for 20206,
so that they don't, you don't, they don't file in court, and you don't have to answer in court with a lawyer.
I would like to hope that they would accept some of the, I would like to hope that they would accept some of the responsibility for creating this.
ever, but creating this ever in the first place.
Yeah, me too, but I've seen them not accept it.
It depends on the side of the bed some of those guys get up on it.
I understand.
But I've seen them not accept it also.
I don't want to leave it in any type of falsehold.
We'll go to bat for you for certain.
Okay.
We're on an every other week schedule now during the summertime for meetings,
so we have one more meeting in July, and then our first one in our first one in our
August would be on the 10th.
Can we catch up on Zoom or teens?
Do you do that?
Get an answer first and see if we'll bring the time.
Get us an answer first.
Okay.
We'll worry about getting together.
Okay.
All right.
It might not require you coming back.
So I realize you've come a long distance and we appreciate that.
If we don't have to have you make that trip back.
We never would have gotten into this conversation if I didn't come down yet.
I'm sorry, say.
We never would have gotten into this conversation if I didn't come down here, and that's a positive conversation.
Oh, absolutely.
Right.
But going forward, if we don't have to have you make the trip, we certainly won't burden you with that.
Right.
Now, we'll be down doing our pickups in August, so, you know what I mean?
You know what I mean? You know, we'll keep you posted when we're in the area, too.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right.
So, do you?
You need these back.
You need these back.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, because I just want to make sure we don't have, we don't have a experience.
We don't have a clear that's not confidential at this point.
So, Skip, if you can use June as your contact point.
Yes.
And get back to her as soon as you've got something, and she can get it, she can get it to the board.
And hopefully we can discuss this.
no later than our August 10th meeting and get a resolution on it.
And just to confirm, Mr. San Suu, your team, your team has my email.
We do have your email?
You do.
We've been communicating.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right, that works.
Okay, everybody.
Any further questions?
Anything else from the board?
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming down and for the explanation.
My pleasure.
Okay, our next appointment is Chief.
Joel Johnson, police chief, and this is regarding a discussion of acceptance of funds for the Federal 287G program.
Good evening.
Good evening.
It should be an easy act to follow.
So I'm here today to answer some questions about the 283, a 287G program and the benefits of it.
What would you like to know?
lot.
Okay, you want to go right for the money?
No, can you explain the program first before you talk about the money?
I'm just kidding.
Just kidding.
So I get involved in this program on May 31st due to Motor Vehicle Stop, where we stopped an undocumented immigrant that was in town.
He was in NCIC for a warrant, and they wanted to take him in custody.
So we contacted home.
Homeland Security and gave the information confirming that the NCIC hit was active.
They said it was. They wanted them to take them in custody.
We took the individual into custody, and the Homeland Security came to the Kingston Police Department to pick them up.
And that's when they made me aware of this program and asked me if I was interested.
They told me what the benefits were, and I definitely was interesting.
I had to do, there's an online course that you have to take in order to get federally certified as a task force officer.
Seven of us have completed that course, and we, right now currently are actively TFOs for Homeland Security.
TFO, I'm sorry, task force officer.
Thank you.
Okay, sorry.
In my mind, I know one of the second.
So.
That's where we're at right now. And the benefits are really good financially for the police department and the South of Kingston.
So right out of the gate, we submitted the invoice for $100,000 for an automatic purchase of a vehicle, a cruiser.
Okay, with $100,000 I can buy two, which is a great benefit.
there is a $7,500 per officer stipend that will go into the account.
It doesn't go to the individual officer.
It goes into the 287G account that we set up at Part of's Bank.
We sent the invoice in for the $100,000 for the car and three certified offices right away.
So that comes out actually comes out.
about $130,000 is what we're waiting on a check right now.
And that's where this meeting comes in place to accept these funds.
So we also, we've got the other four offices certified.
So on an annual basis, we're looking at $500,000 annually coming into the police department.
Okay, which will hopefully offset my budget.
a little bit and help out, and maybe I can return money back at the end of the year to help out.
It sounds like we need it.
We know you with.
Oh, you know. No question about it.
So that's pretty much it, in a nutshell.
Why I want this program, why I want you guys to accept the money.
I've talked to each of you individually throughout the month, explaining the process.
You had some very, very valid questions, and you wanted to some.
answers that I got all the answers you needed, as you know.
So I'm just looking for acceptance of the finances coming into the town.
So at this point, Joel, just to be clear, you're requesting of us authorization to accept what you've asked for thus far, which is $130,000.
That and I was going to get to another one where we submit another invoice for $75,000 for the other offices.
So we're looking at.
another 75000 right that wasn't any heavy lifting doing that even and I think it's a great
you're not doing anything different than you're already doing anyways except you'll get some more specialized
training for your officers correct and we have we have federal authority now that we can actually
enforce the immigration right it's probably normal duties right it's just through the course of the day
course of the duty if I'm on a motor vehicle stop and we come across someone that is
illegal, we verify, we make a phone call to the 24-7 number, they'll vet that individual
and say, take him into custody or let them go. That's it. We do it. It's no different if we had a
DW IRS, a wanted person, or anything. It's just police work. That's what we do. We enforce the
rule of law. And you don't have a travel out of state with the specific thing issue. We have that. We
have the online training where we all get certified. We all got credits.
I want to say credits. I'll give you examples.
Is credentials? Official. Federal TFOs, task force officers.
So that's it? Sounds like a no-brainer.
And there's also a, there's a, there's a $15,000 stipend quarterly throughout
the year per officer that's certified. So that's $60,000 per officer. They don't get it,
like I said, I want to reiterate. It doesn't go to them. It goes into the account. It comes out
to $540,000 annually. Do you need us to wait for a check to come in here before we
we approve the amount of $205,000? That should work for now?
We have the account set up at the bank. I'm expecting these checks to go through.
When they do, I'm asking you in advance, when they do come through,
can I have permission to accept the funds, whatever they end up, to go into the bank.
So any monies above that is still come back to us for approval to accept?
Any money above?
Any additional monies you'll come back?
Yes, throughout the year, as this program continues, because it could stop in six months.
I don't know.
So I'm just, whatever comes in under this program, I'm asking you to accept.
Sounds good to me.
So could we do a blanket acceptance?
or do we have to accept as the money comes in?
I don't know that we can do a blanket acceptance of stuff.
Well, can we vote to accept up to $205,000 at this tank if you're expecting to,
chairs?
Why don't you just go $5.40 and call it a day?
How about we don't do that?
Let's just backped a little bit.
All right, so what if it's a little higher?
What if I end up giving more?
We'll come back to us.
You just come back to it.
But right now, at this point, just to try and think
this out. At this point, you
you have an invoice in, but it's not for the
We have two invoices in. You have submitted
two invoices? Yes. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought one you hadn't yet.
130 and 75.
What's got a hundred and thirty four? That's the first
that's the automatic qualification
to get the card. Okay.
100,000. Okay. And the other 30 was for the
three offices that we submitted for.
For the training. So how does the reimbursement work for you said
because I have a lot of questions.
I'm not ready to vote on this yet.
So there's a stipend per officer.
Explain that.
How does that work?
There's each officer.
Is it just a guaranteed stipend?
Yes.
That's part of the incentive to do this program.
They give $15,000 per officer four times a year.
As long as we're not in the training, nothing to do with training.
As we did the training, we got certified.
So they're going to send the funds.
Yeah.
And this is to.
okay so it's 15,000 a quarter per officer her officer so what do they
have to do to do to get that it is it in the program okay there's no there's no
there's no limit and nobody said hey you've got to get you got to arrest
five a week nothing it's just stay in the program do the work if you come
across them process process go through the process call the
the 24-7 number and like I told all my offices they don't say take them in custody let
them go don't just to explain can you explain that process sure so which part you just said we
don't do anything until they say take them in custody so I you know a lot of people don't
understand the program and I'm still trying to understand it so I'd really like more information
if I can interrupt before you speak can I just say one thing and then go back to all the
questions
I just want to let everybody know that what we're talking about why we have a lot of
questions is it's the 287 G which is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and
and this is something that the chief has every ability to sign and enter in
this without any further approval and you're being respectful enough to come to
the board tonight to explain the program further to the Board of Selectmen and any
public who are interested.
in it so this isn't something you have to come to us tonight for any permission
other than to accept the funds but you have come in this evening at the request of the
board to be able to answer any questions to the board and the public yes I can answer
questions up to my Kingston portion of anything to do with the Homeland Security
I don't answer those questions if you need them you have to go through them per their
protocol okay anything to do above and beyond I just want to say something also
that for folks who are in the audience who might be here for this particular topic
this is not a public hearing because as Ellen said the chief is within his
rights to sign the memorandum of agreement and he and he has done that however
we're going to get some details on the program which is appropriate however I
will move public comment one up to right immediately following this session
with the chief so that if there are folks that want to make comments
they can do it immediately after this and not wait till further in the agenda so
so how it works like I said earlier we go through the course of our business
every day just through the course of our daily routine or whatever we want to call
it if a motor vehicle stop is made when we run into a situation where there's a
robbery any any crime committed and
And the suspect or the motor vehicle violator, we get their identification.
We just like we would on anything else.
If something triggers the suspicion of maybe here illegally,
like a foreign driver's license, okay, that's a flag.
We're going to go on MDT, we're going to mobile data terminal,
we're going to punch in the information,
and we'll, we'll put in the information.
look for little signs and if we suspect enough we call 24-7 number and give them the
information of who the individual is who they are or whatever it is and they will
vet that person and then it will let us know they want to take him in custody because
he's unlawfully here or if they say let him go and if they my offices all know if they
don't say take them into custody we don't we don't do anything else we let them go they don't
say those magic words they'll leave it thank you for that clarification so you know if
you've read the program or the MOU with a service agreement because there's a lot of
documentation and there's a lot of legalese and and all that kind of stuff right so I
know that a couple of us have had a concern that if you get direction from
above to deploy your police force what does that look like so it is it this is
all about as far as I'm concerned this is just about Kingston right so if if you're asked
to send half of our force for some enforcement program or or or job in the north of
the state like how does that work it's not happen okay okay and that that part of the
agreement
it is referencing that if Newton, Hamping, Brentwood, Danville,
somebody needs our assistance, we will go in a system.
We do that now anyway.
It's called mutual aid.
Okay, if they have a problem, I would expect them, if I have a problem in town,
and then I need their help, I would expect them to come to help us.
We can just do, we can give them assistance under mutual aid even under 287G authority.
That's all it is.
So you're not going to lose your force to some other enforcement.
I will drop this program in a second if they try to force me to do that.
That's how we do this.
I'll walk away because nobody's taking my people away.
So since you brought that, I remember reading there is like a termination,
a mutually termination clause in here, right, which is, I think, 60 days, right?
So if for whatever reason you decide, it's just not working.
I will put the brakes on immediately.
Okay.
I'll give them the 60 days notice.
and we will put our blinders on it's example thanks okay okay okay and Joel this is
basically at this point a three-year program that can be extended as as necessary
is that again because this is this is a three-year contract 2020 I think
it's at 2,029 they may restart it right that may be continued based on both parties
agreement it can stop tomorrow correct so and it could go till we're expecting 2,000
beginning of 2009.
The MOA that the chief signed said the agreement will remain in effect for a period
not to exceed 36 months unless extended by bilateral modification, et cetera, et cetera.
So back to the money.
So there's a separate account set up in Partners Bank, right?
Correct.
So this money is not going to hit the general funds in any way, right?
Right?
Money doesn't touch anything, but that account, that money is to be used for equipment and technology.
Okay.
Technology, meaning I can output my police department with state-of-the-out computer,
state-of-the-out surveillance.
I could go with body cams.
There's a ton of choices, and I just have to sit through what I want.
Okay.
I'm going to the candy store, aren't you?
What was that?
You're going to the candy store.
I am going hard with a lot of money.
Good.
That's great.
Is it okay, believe you'll copy of that that you're talking about?
Your list of equipment.
Your list of things.
As soon as I get it.
When they get my 347.
That's the optional 347.
They will give me a list, along with that, of what I can't purchase, is my understanding.
So I can't commit to anything as far as what I'm going to buy.
But for one and a half of the towns, I'm giving you just a little snippet.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Chief.
You're welcome.
And so what are the dollar numbers?
Are we going to just approve the ones right now?
I think we can only approve the ones right now.
Yeah.
And if there's any.
change to those amounts you need to let us know as soon as you can.
Yep, either up or down.
So we can.
So it was email.
So it's 130 and then 75.
Okay.
Is that what you said?
130 and 75.
Okay.
It's $205.
$205.
Yes.
$205.
That's the zero.
Okay.
Okay.
Do you guys?
Do you guys think about it?
Other.
other questions from the board.
So I still have my issue, Joel.
I know you provided this note that you got.
The MOA, however, says, and this is not part of the MOA.
I realize that you got this from them, and that's fine.
But I was asked to get that just to show you that it wasn't.
When you and I spoke, and I said I had an issue with this particular statement in here,
you said, okay, I'll get it in writing.
And you did.
Let me just read this, though.
So the board, and presumably the board has read the document.
We've all had this first.
It's on page six of the of the
of the, of the, of the, um.
Is it in the service agreement or the MOU?
It's in the, it's in the MOU.
Yep.
And it says L-E-A, which is local enforcement
local enforcement agency agency that's that's us okay participating personnel authorized pursuant to this MOA may be assigned and or
co-located with ICE as task force officers to assist ICE with criminal investigations that's what it says
all contracts say that as a matter of fact my actual contract I signed with you guys said may
that's a word that people use in that contracts to either
back out, give them an excuse to back out, okay, or go forward.
May is just a, it's that word, it's that funny little word that they put in all contracts.
Okay.
And all I'm saying, and I said it to you when we met, and I'll say it again here, is that
if I take this literally and if they do have that option, I would hate to see,
us being accepting money, which is very attractive to the town and to you as a police force
at the potential expense of having our force depleted for our community.
Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
That's it. That's all I want. That's it.
Our force is not going to be depleted. They're not leaving my jurisdiction, period.
They wrote it in a letter to me saying that. So whether it's in the original MOA,
They just told you in writing, they're not going to do that.
So you always got that to call back on.
And I have it right here.
Unredacted. So this is a no-brainer. Don't overthink it.
I will say, because we've had this, that unfortunately, sometimes we do have to look at the language,
because, well, you don't have to overthink it.
We're the ones who's going to be on the hook for it after the fact.
But that's why one of the things that was, we talked about, was to get something
from them that we could then have, that they wrote to us that said, we're not doing it.
That's why I did that.
So, and you said you, you talked to him.
Yep.
And that he says that was the case and that he would put in writing that we didn't have to worry about that,
which in my opinion covers us in case it ever comes up and you say, no, I'm not going.
They can't come back and say that we want $100,000.
You're never going to tell us to go.
It's a jurisdictional, it says right in there.
Well, that's what I'm saying. You've already, in my opinion.
you've taken care of it by getting the letter from the person who's your supervisor
for this grant that that's not going to happen okay so if it does we have
confirmation that they said it wasn't going to so I think that
well I'm going to hold our vote until we do public comment well I'm going to hold our
vote until we do public comment okay thank you appreciate it all right I'm going to open
public comment one.
Barbara?
Barbara?
Hey, God.
Peter.
Hi.
Hi. How are you?
Good. How will you?
You know the drill?
I do know the drill.
Barbara Ryan. I live at 35 Mill Road.
And for transparency, I am the Budget Committee Chair for Kingston.
I just would, I am 100% behind this program.
I wanted to just be well established that it does not touch the operating budget.
So the chief graciously said he would hope to be able to turn money back from his budget.
But I don't want to mingle the two at the moment where clarifying that his budget should remain
because we don't know how long the program lasts.
So we don't want to long-term look at his budget and start to cut stuff in hopes of the program.
That's all I have to set. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment?
Disappointed, Chris. Good evening. Chris Basha, 49 Danville Road. I just want to say I do support
the chief in support of this program, even if no money was involved. I believe it, for a public safety
standpoint, it's the right thing to do. But, you know, the decision for a law enforcement to participate in
this program should not be viewed through a political lens, which unfortunately has.
particular of the 287 program was voted into law by Congress back in 1996 30 years ago
as an amendment to the immigration nationality law that was passed by Congress as well.
It has only been recently politicized in turning communities against each other.
So 287G it authorizes DHS to enter into written agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies
to give them limited immigration enforcement functions under direct supervision of ICE.
The primary purpose of the program is to identify.
individuals who have violated immigration laws and also have come into contact with the
criminal justice system. It provides a lawful mechanism for cooperation between law enforcement
and federal authorities. Critics will always suggest that immigration enforcement is only a civil
matter so that local law enforcement shouldn't be involved, that statements incomplete and frequently
misleading. Many immigration violations are civil proceedings, however, federal law expressly
authorized, locally trained officers operating under 287G to carry out certain civil
immigration functions, and there are many immigration enforcement functions that include both civil
and criminal components.
Now, one of the things that often gets misled is law enforcement already routinely involves
as involved and enforces laws under civil authority.
This includes civil protection orders, mental health commitments, child protection orders,
civil contempt warrants. We often have American citizens arrested for contempt
of payment of marital non-support, child support. Those are all civil infractions. So to say that
law enforcement is not already engaged in civil types of enforcement action would be
inaccurate. So we already involved in that with local law enforcement. This is just
a better way to ensure that this civil authority has oversight and training tied with it.
And there are specific state laws. I know of communities that prior to engaging in this program,
I know of a local community, which I'm not going to cite the town, but a couple of years ago,
they pulled over a person that had an ICE detainer. And currently under New Hampshire law,
if you're not partnered as a task force officer under 287G, you had no way, if you didn't,
if you only had a local violation that was not arrestable, you had to release that person.
You couldn't detain them any longer than necessary for ICE to get there.
So if you had a motor vehicle speeding ticket, you could only hold them as long as it took
to write that speeding ticket. Within 48 hours, that person left this local community very
close to us, committed a homicide in New York. So to say these examples don't ever happen
in New Hampshire, they absolutely do. I know over another local community that recently arrested
somebody under 287G, that individual had numerous aliases, numerous Social Security
numbers, four previous deportations, and this was all the result of a motor vehicle stop
in a participating community. I understand this has been highly.
politicized, but the question is not about whether or not these immigration laws exist.
Congress has already answered that. They passed it lawfully. This was not by executive order.
This is not by unilateral decision. This was part of the 287G program that was passed in 1996
over 30 years ago. So a lot of the contention that we've had has been very unfortunate. So right now,
the MOA is really, the language in the MOA, their boiler plate MOA is they don't allow any
modification to it. And it does a lot of a broad swath of authority. You have seen communities
that go out and participate with ice raids or roundups where you see them jumping in with ice
agents and going and rounding people up. From my understanding, that's not the chief's intention. I would
say most of the law enforcement agencies in New Hampshire, if you've looked at their own internal
policies, they have restricted it to throughout the normal course of their duties. So they're not
going in vans. They're not targeting work vans. They're not targeting restaurants of certain
nationalities. If they come across somebody during a motor vehicle stop or through the
commissioner and the investigation of a crime, they're running that individual. If something pops
to NCIC where there's a warrant for that individual with ICE, they're calling to confirm that.
If other issues come up where the person is maybe not giving them a true identity or being
deceptive about their identity or providing insufficient information to identify them, then they can
call them those resources to see if that person is who they are. So at this point, it's really
that language in the MOA is irrelevant to the acceptance of the funds because the
chief has already engaged in the MOA and state law says that no board or governing counsel
can restrict the chief under his authority under RSA 105 to engage in that. So the MOA is already
under agreement. At this point, it's just the acceptance of funds. And quite frankly, with some of the issues
going on in many communities and tough budgets, default budgets, financially restricted opportunities,
I think it would be fiscally irresponsible to just not accept the funds that are available.
These funds, hey, we don't know. After the midterms, there could be something that happens where
the, congressionally, it's defunded, the money that's available. So this could disappear in a matter
of months. So I think we take the opportunity that these tax dollars are already being taken out of our
pockets at a federal level. I'd like to see as much of it possible come back to Kingston. And there
are some talk about where the money goes in the fund. These funds are specifically for. There's one that is
for transportation.
so it is limited to the use of vehicles. Another one, it is specifically used for technology
and equipment for the furtherance of law enforcement. So towns can't take this and say,
hey, we're going to go buy a new plow truck. It is designed to further the enhanced the capabilities.
So this may be an opportunity for our police department that has needs that they couldn't
fiscally justify coming forward with over the years because they knew the town is being crushed
financially and couldn't ask for that, but an opportunity to get equipment, software,
and other technology and equipment that they otherwise couldn't justify asking the taxpayer for
that we may now be able to get. And there may be opportunities for things that are already there.
I tell you, unlike every other federal grant, I have never seen money come from the feds like this before.
It is the easiest federal funding that you will ever receive.
There's actually, there's no requirement for public hearings. Covering bodies can do a blanket acceptance of funds for any funds related to the program.
You don't have to accept it on an individual basis. It is something completely unique to
this. Because as we know with federal grants, you usually have to have multiple public hearings,
then an acceptance of fund of exact dollar amounts. This is the only federal money I've ever seen
handed out like this without those restrictions and the paperwork that accompanies it.
So at this point, I would encourage the board to accept the funds. It sounds like the police chief's
going to participate in this program, whether the money's there or not, because he feels
it's the right thing to do from a public safety standpoint.
Thank you.
Any other public comment on this or anything?
else because I've moved public comment one up on the agenda.
So if there are other items on the agenda that folks wish to address, this is your opportunity to do it.
Sean.
Good evening.
Shaw Tillton 10 South Road.
So this isn't, this isn't why I'm here tonight, but I'll just comment.
Since the state legislature chose to, you know, take out of the responsibility that you as a select board
don't get actually to decide whether to participate in the MOU or not.
You do have a fiscal responsibility around it, and that's where you have oversight.
So I would just encourage you to take your responsibility.
That's where you can have local control over what these funds are doing and whether to accept them or not.
Sure, the MOA has already been entered into.
That is the chief's prerogative, but it is your responsibility, not telling you your job,
but to really just consider whether those funds should be accepted or not.
That's where you have authority to overview the program.
and to have a say.
So that's just what I'd like to offer.
I'm sorry.
I was distracted by the chief.
Sorry.
I just want to make sure that I understand what your comment was.
Sure.
Just to repeat.
So I know that the state legislature created the rule that you, as a select board, can't determine whether the chief can enter into the MOA or not.
That's been taken out.
out of your hands.
But you do have the fiscal responsibility to decide whether to accept the funds or not.
That's your oversight ability.
So just to really consider that, right, which entails you considering the nature of the program
and the impact to our community, right, and having somebody else, right, again, the chief is
appointed, right, not elected, and you are the elected body to oversee.
So I just offer that.
Thank you.
Thank.
Anybody else?
again on this topic or anything else on the agenda okay seeing none all right so any more
discussion by the board and if not be happy to accept a motion
we authorize the chief Joe Johnson to accept $205,000 from Homeland Security for
additional vehicles and supplies to supplement their department in support of the
287G program thank you motion by LA and second by Peter any more
discussion I just said it's my mind my but also just to clarify for everybody
even though we've accepted the funds before they can be expended the board of
selectmen authorizes the expenditures sit say again I'm sorry the chief would
still have to come back to us to say I want to buy two cars out of this money
Yes.
That's all I'm saying is that the board is selectmen, just to clarify sort of the comment made that the board
selectmen.
Correct.
I just wanted to put that out there for the public and make sure we're all on the same page.
That's all.
So we're approving what he wants to spend the money on within the confines of what the money was.
Right now, we're just accepting the money.
I understand that, but he has to come back for approval to spend the money on equipment or.
Right.
That's all.
I have a comment.
So I appreciate everybody's comments, and this honestly was not an easy one for me because I have to separate my personal feelings with my obligations for the town.
And Chief Johnson and I had a couple conversations, and most of it was about ensuring that our police force is not rated to do ICE enforcement.
someplace out of our town because this should be about Kingston and keeping Kingston safe and if another town wants to do it then they can enter into the program other than our mutual aid right because that's what we operate on in New Hampshire anyway and I'm even though what you provided to us says they're not going to there's a lot of squishy language so but I'm taking you for your word saying that you're not
going to allow that to happen. So if we hear, and I'm going to call you on the carpet and say you would
get out of it in a heartbeat before we allow our force to go for other, some other ICE enforcement agency that's not related to Kingston.
Okay. Anything else? I'm really torn on this one. The chief knows my concern. I expressed it to him personally. I expressed it to him personally. I expressed it again here tonight.
With all assurances that you've provided to us, I am still uncomfortable with that language in the MOA.
And I realize the whole fiscal responsibility thing, if not.
But I was just going to say based on discussions with the Chief and his assurances and his intentions, that if
his intentions that if anything came up that would dispute his intentions and force him to do
something he didn't want to do, it would only last 60 days because that's how long it would take
for us to get out of this agreement. So I'm just saying that the chief has expressed publicly
and to the board that his intention is not to diminish the police presence in Kingston.
And that is his full intent. And if something happened that
he could not stand up to that intent we're out in 60 days it's not like this as you
signed it you can't get out of it ever again anybody he can get out of it in 60 days so you know
i had questions too based on those things i think everybody had that highlighted to make sure
that that wasn't an issue um we have that in writing so if nothing else that would support
his decision to not do it um and again 60 days were
out if it's not if this is not the program that it's been explained to the chief for him to sign it
and then what he's explained to us we haven't out in 60 days so that's why i'm not i'm not that
just since we got that in writing and knowing that we can get out if we have to um i think that the
chief has given all assurances of what his intention is to protect the town of kingston all right i'm
going to call for the vote then
all in favor say aye opposed i'm sorry i have to follow my conscience on this one i'm
going to vote no so the motion carries four in favor one opposed and no extensions fiscally and
financially that perspective i'm glad that it passed for sure um okay all right thank you all
thank you all for your comments and for showing up all right next on the agenda and joel thank
you for the background work on that should we should we do magnuson first and then go into nonpublic the paper
or we're going to do it all the way to the end does he do does he know that it that it has to be
oh okay i did as long as he knows pedro uh robin spoke with you i think and okay okay so
we're going to because yours needs to be in non-public so rather than separating the meeting we'll we have to do non-public at the end anyway for some other things so we'll do yours first on that segment okay all right okay uh shaw and the young lady with you uh i assume that you're here for the magnuson property update okay okay so shah tilton thank you good to be back again um every every week getting to give enough
So this is for the Magnuson property. So with the conservation, this is Caitlin Deo, she's with SELF.
So we provided some documents to Robin and now to June to provide to the five of you regarding just where the Magnuson property is.
The documents that will sort of, um, we talked about a letter of intent with the Wickham property.
This is a letter of agreement between the town and so there's a draft, uh,
We just wanted to go over that with you for you to review, presentive, perhaps legal counsel for review.
And then there are two attachments that I provided, but those are blank attachments, they're just templates.
And Caitlin's the expert on this, so she can really speak to this more.
Yeah, so I don't know if you want to say more.
Thank you. Yeah.
So I'm Caitlin Dayo with Southeast Land Trust on the Conservation Project Manager that's handling this project.
project. So it's good to be back in front of you and this, giving you a little bit of an update.
So like Shaw was saying, we have the letter of agreement. It's basically laying out everything we've been discussing for the last year and a half.
So we've laid that out in here. I know maybe there's a little mix up in the communication.
I'm not sure if you had a chance to review it yet or not. So it's not super time sensitive. If you need more time to review it, please take it.
I don't want you to feel rushed.
Well, are you talking about these three documents?
Yes.
All right. Well, well, just so you know,
you folks were not on the agenda for tonight and it only got added at the very last minute
at Shaw's request. So we haven't looked at these at all.
That's what we are hearing. Yeah. So that's okay. I don't want you to feel like you need to
ask questions tonight or need to sign it. You know, there's no pressure from our end. If
anyone did look at it, had initial questions, I'm happy to address it. But we can come back if you
haven't had a chance to review it. We obviously want it to be a helpful discussion for the board.
since you're here, is there anything you'd like to highlight for us?
Sure.
It's pretty standard.
There's two things that I will point out, something that we discovered during the due diligence of this project,
from the title work, and then the work that the surveyor did.
If you flip to page, assuming you have it in front of you, page five.
Of the letter of agreement.
Of letter of agreement, yes, thank you.
That's the project map.
So there's two areas.
a white hatched area on the property and then there's a kind of like yellow dotted piece
that's that's off of the property. So the yellow dotted piece is currently owned by the
town of Kingston and the kind of issue that popped up with that is we couldn't find a
recorded deed for it. It seems we have is the yellow dotted piece. The yellow dotted
piece is a long little river so it's on the western part of the property.
It is not in color. Oh perfect. Okay great. So so I'll
pointed out to you here maybe then.
Yep.
Yep. So there's the landfill there, the closed landfill, and then there's that piece just over the river
that kind of indents into the property. So that piece is currently owned by the town,
but the surveyor went through a lot of work trying to find any kind of deed for it and was
unable to find it. So what will be, and it's laid out in this agreement, but what we're
being asked to do is basically have a boundary line agreement that's just laying out
these boundary lines so the surveyor can note that and reference it on the survey plan.
So that's the first thing. And then the second item, there's this white hatched area.
You can kind of see it on the eastern side of the property. Okay. So that is a portion of a
tax parcel that's currently owned by the Magnuson Farm LLC. And that portion, it's basically
there's no clear title on it is what we came back with from the surveyor. And then we
We also had our title attorney take a look as well.
What seems to has happened is sometime back in probate.
It changed hands and was mistakenly left out when it got deeded to another party.
So the Magnusans have owned it for decades now, and they've acted as it's their own.
But we won't be able to get that insured because there's just not clear title on it.
So what we're suggesting on how fast to move forward on that is we would suggest a quick claim deed to the town because you will be
gaining the ownership of this whole property. And because we will be working with our federal
partners at NRCS for this, they have very stringent requirements that would be difficult to overcome
and place this under the eased area. So what we'd like to do is exclude it from the easement.
So it would still become undertown ownership. That small, and it's about four acres.
That small four acre area would just be simply excluded from the easement, but still under
town ownership via quick claim covenants.
You said it was about four acres?
Yes.
What survey you're using?
We're using JVA associates.
Are there points of interest in here?
I mean, it's really, it's laying out that the town will own the property.
It'll be subject to the self-held easement.
The other thing I'll point out is, as, you know, we've talked about this a good amount,
but as you may be aware, the magnusings are giving a very generous bargain sale on this.
Part of the, one of the main concerns for them in entering this agreement is they're very attached to the fields that they've worked really hard on to cultivate and the wildflowers out there.
So there is a clause in here about the town's management plan, which basically you'd be laying out how you plan to manage the property,
and an important part of that is just ensuring that you would continue to maintain those fields.
It is in the budget that we have a $60,000 perpetual care fund that would go towards that.
So there is money we talk to farmers to understand what the cost would be so that you'll be able to have that year over year.
It's a great piece of property.
Yeah, it's a great, great piece of property.
Does those two areas, the stifled area and the hatched area that you described, is that also described in the text of the document?
Yes.
Okay.
Okay. Yes, it's very well described in there.
Okay.
So the question is, is this, is all this document?
documentation ready for us to be getting reviewed, or is it, does it anything more need to be done with it?
It's all set from our end. We're ready for you to review it, and if you choose to bring it to council,
to bring it to council, that's kind of the point that we're at. So we're ready for you to do as you need on your end.
Well, anything like this, that's legal like this, I mean, the board does typically run it through council,
and I would expect that we would do that.
Yes. Yep, I would expect that as well.
Yeah, no worries.
And that was our intention for bringing it early to, and that's why I thought we were going to be on the meeting tonight,
and then when I saw the agenda, we weren't.
So a doubt was, it wasn't like, anyway, so there was some confusion around that.
Okay.
So June is the one who will be communicating this to counsel.
Do we have these electronically?
Yes.
And if we don't, can we get them?
We have them electronically.
Shaw was kind enough to send them on over before I threw them in your vinders, before bringing them up there.
I will submit this to Carrie Ann, our town council.
Do we want them back once we have an update from town council?
Shaw and Caitlin.
You're designing, right?
You have to sign anything else?
I think it would be for review to send back to Seltz if there were any changes.
So that's true.
It's a little bit of back and forth at this stage before a final document is drafted, so it's not a signing.
So once it's gone through whatever iterations it needs to between the parties, and it's ready to go.
At that point, we can schedule you to come back, and we can do whatever official act we need to do here.
Ellen?
I have a question for you.
Yeah?
Oh, good.
Who figures out what the management plan is?
Who figures out what the management plan is?
Who's responsible for creating the management plan?
That would be the town.
No, anyone in particular?
Right.
Well, I think conservation assumed that we would be in charge of that,
just like we develop a forest management plan for all the forests,
so it would be developing whatever that would be.
And is there a timeline by which that, once this is signed,
is there a timeline by which that needs to be created and adopted and all that kind of thing?
We don't have anything hard for.
In writing or anything like that, usually sometime around the closing, which for this is expected to be about a year from now.
So there's a good amount of time.
So you'd expect that when this is all the paperwork signed, that a management plan would already be in place?
That would be at least underway.
Yeah.
I don't know if you want to speak.
There are two additional attachments that are templates that are not, they don't have any writing in them, the R-CPP.
Yep, I can point that out.
Yeah.
Thank you. So there are a couple more exhibits, so there's that map that we looked at.
There's also the self-easement template, so it's just referencing that that will largely be what the easement looks like.
We don't have that fully drafted yet. That will, of course, come before the town as well for the council to review,
and that will be another discussion in the future. And then we also have exhibit D, which is NRCS, RCP, minimum deed terms.
So that's a regional conservation partnership program. That's the federal program that we're working with for some.
funding for this project. So they have some minimum deed terms that will basically get
worked into the self-easement template. So that's included here as well.
All right. Other questions from the board? No.
Ellen? You all set. Now?
Okay. Great.
So unless the board has objections, we will ask June to provide these to our council and
we'll start the process of comments. Okay.
Great. Thank you so much. Thanks for taking us.
Yes, by appointment, versus on the attendant.
Thanks for coming in.
Thank you so much.
Okay, next item on the agenda, approval of meeting minutes from, oh, we have three sets of minutes,
public and then three sets of non-public.
So one at a time, I would presume, yes, June 17.
Is there a motion by Ellie?
Second by Peter. Discussion.
All in favor, say aye.
Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Extensions. That's unanimous. The public meeting minutes for June 26.
So moved.
Motion by Ellie. Second by Peter. Discussion. All in favor? Say aye.
Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Extensions.
No, no. I'm abstaining.
Okay. Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's 29. Never mind.
Motion carries unanimously. June 29 minutes. Public minutes.
So moved.
Motion by Ellie. Second. Second by Peter.
Discussion on those. June 29. Public? Okay. All in favor say aye.
Aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Abstensions? One. So motion carries. Four in favor. None opposed? One abstention. One abstention.
non-public minutes.
So as we go through these, I just peruse them.
I'm going to make a motion that we unseal them as we go along because there's nothing in here.
So I'm going to ask that we do that.
So just read those so we can go through and approve them and then unseal them.
On the non-public?
Yep.
All right. So first of all, folks, if you'll take a look at the June 17, non-public.
they're all okay.
I thought so, right.
There's nothing, and that's just going to get three that we don't have to worry about later.
Right.
Not yet.
All right. Let's do them one at a time.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
So a motion on the June 17 non-public minutes.
To approve and unseal.
Okay. So the motion is to approve and unseal by Ellie, second by Lori.
Yep.
Discussion. In favor, say aye.
aye aye opposed abstentions Ellen did you vote yeah I said it real quietly
my looks feeling thank you so those are approved and unsealed June 26 minutes
non-public okay motion by Ellie to approve them and unsealed them second by Lori
discussion in favor say aye aye aye opposed extensions thank you it's unanimous and the
June 29 non-public minutes.
Second.
Okay, motion by Ellie, second by Lori.
Discussion. All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Aye. Any opposed?
Abstensions, you're abstaining.
So
motion carries four in favor, none opposed, and unopposed.
And one abstention.
Okay, old business.
June, is this something you're going to update us on?
is the volunteer and employee summer event?
Yes.
So the community barbecue, I had reached out to Fire Chief as well as the administrative assistant
to come up with a date.
We were looking for something after the, of course, primary election, between or before the general
election, someplace in the middle world, things calmed down and decided on September 18th, which
is a Friday, to hold.
to hold the event, and then the fire calendar had that availability.
So still working out the details, of course, also communicating with Marissa, our finance officer,
regarding budgetary funds, to utilize.
Okay.
And Chief, you're all on board with this.
June, did you discuss with the chief of a particular time window?
As of right now, I have not discussed a time window.
dough. It sounds like Tara is going to be kind of my go-to. She also offered to kind of assist
to helping hand for organization. So she is fairly new, so bringing her maybe on board
to kind of be within the community as well. So hopefully the next meeting I'll have a time
to report for you guys if that's acceptable. Okay, good. But for now, we can lock in September 18
as the date and details to follow.
Yes, Chair.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Right.
We've done public comment, number one.
New business, temporary access and construction agreement.
The original is in the orange folder, it says.
We do have Tom here to speak to it as well.
Okay.
Okay.
So this is, for anyone listening and who might be interested.
You all have your copies in your book.
finders.
It's in the degree number five.
This is a temporary access and construction agreement.
This is from the Department of Environmental Services, the Dam Bureau.
The Dam Bureau.
Not to be confused, but the damn bureau.
My favorite bureau.
Yeah.
It's a commercial.
Tom, would you like to give us the Cliff Notes version of this, please?
How about?
Yeah, over here.
Yeah, this is one of the final steps.
Obviously, the Dan Bureau owns the whole sides of...
Can you just brief us on where the site is, the project site?
All right, I guess we'll start with this.
Governor and Council okayed the bridge grant.
I don't know if we knew that.
I think we all did, but maybe just I knew it.
That was a few weeks ago.
We had a kick-off meeting with the state today.
Just a little financing and a little how the invoicing is going to go, so on and so forth.
Basically, that's the initial meeting to say, go ahead, start the bid process,
which will be CMA's responsibility.
Write the bid specs.
I'm hoping within a month, six weeks, two months.
months are the latest. We should be here picking the contractor.
Fingers crossed.
So this is just part of the process. This is
in order to do the work, it is we have to
access not just the right-of-way, but into
the dam bureau's property.
So that's just a standard access construction
agreement. And that, uh, that, that
the wetlands permit is going to still be
it's in
process now
and everything should come together
in a few months.
So reading the
exhibit A, which sort of outlines the area
of the access
construction,
it looks like on both
sides of Main Street,
one side on the pond side,
which is that
near the Belmont area?
Yeah, that is the
launch area. And on the other side?
And on the other side, it's the state shed area?
Because they have to
dam the water. They have to
you know, they have to
re-slope, tear out
the yellow, put in the new.
So I'm assuming we're going to have to,
or somebody's going to have to limit that
area for public
use during this process.
That will be
probably the case
that
the
because
the state boat launch
definitely would probably
be impacted the most.
Well, I guess that's what I was thinking
of. Yeah. I think
it's probably
going to be too close
to that construction
site to really access
that. When do you
think they're going to get started in a couple months?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'd like to see something by
I'm hoping
two to three
months, you know, and this
this is all contingent on.
I'm sure this contract is just
sitting around waiting to work for the town of Kingston.
Absolutely. So
that's my biggest concern.
It's not the bid process.
I'm sure, you know, I'm sure we'll have
bidders on it. It's a
decent job.
It's time frame.
When can they do it? And then
you have winter. And the
the program, the
90-10 program ends in
May,
but obviously
we're pushing right now to get
it started. And
if it's started,
we'll have to keep accurate records
of every rain
day, every this, that, and the other things
so we can justify an extension.
But it's good.
As of now,
we have to start the quarterly
reports for this project.
so it's so it would close the boat ramp essentially yeah okay and across the
street is it the road into where you keep all your stuff that's going to be
impacted or is it no right of it yeah it that one the
the the site I should I do have a a map it on my computer it's not it won't
quite impact our access I don't even think it will impact the town boat launch
but I'm not sure I'd have to check on that one well if it's later in the year yeah it's really
not going to be much of an impact anyway but okay it shouldn't be okay okay so this is
for for just our signature the original is here Tom do you have any questions or
reservations about this now
this this this is just we're on their property you know and I believe
you signed the wetlands permit I think that's already I think that was last week or
two weeks ago I think we've gotten that all squared away so we're really the next
meeting on this or the discussion will be I'll show you that when we get the bids
that's the final the final design is in draft form but it is a final and it looks okay so
the Josh from CMA should be back midweek he's been on vacation so that's been a
little bit of a drawback but it should start rolling right at one he gets back we
really have to we have to go get this moving okay
There are spots here for three signatures.
I'm going to suggest that we have the other two members that we're all here so that everyone signs it.
There are lines for three, but we'll add, we'll do all five.
So may I have a motion on this to sign for the board to sign off on the temporary access and construction agreement?
Motion by Ellie, second by Laurie.
And this is to
to terminate on December 31st of 2027, it says.
Okay.
All in favor? Say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Extensions?
That's unanimous.
And the date, I assume today's date is what we want.
Yep.
So that's July 13,
2026.
Pass it to Lori and then you can get it back to us over here.
And there's something else in that folder for later.
So.
Okay.
All right.
Lia, thank you, Tom.
Thank you.
You'll be back because we're going to, we want you for part of the conversation of something on the liaison reports.
So.
Oh.
All right.
But, I mean, you can hang out there if you want, whatever.
All right.
Okay.
All right.
Ellen.
What?
Liaison reports.
Oh.
And your microphone, please.
Can you bring it closer to you?
I'll get closer.
The budget committee meets Wednesday.
I went to Conservation has met, and I have to ask the Planning Board if we get some of the documents for conservation and they ask for comments.
And they ask for comments, but it never says when the hearing's going to be or when the data is that they need them back on the paperwork that we receive.
So we just didn't know if maybe that kind of information could be included on the comment sheet.
from the planning board well that's the first i've ever heard of that it's the first i've
seen it because usually we have trouble getting comments back from conservation because they
meet after we meet so they don't seem to they're not coordinating with us too well i'll i'll speak
with Vanessa about there but just so we'll know but right now they don't and i'm saying that's a two-way
street well except we we technically meet before you guys have your public hearing i know you've had some
earlier public hearings and some extra ones and i think those the conservation probably
meets after the fact but usually the conservation meets before your public hearing
do you still have the last notification can i can ask every for it but it's we were noticing
it doesn't say the paperwork when she picks up the plans i'll talk to Vanessa yeah just to have the
date on it's not a big deal but that was that was pretty much it oh thanks
oh thank you thank you peter ellen anything else uh no okay thank you peter well the only thing i had
was tom and i was going to have him speak on behalf of the front oh okay see you should have
stayed there yeah two things the uh the clean water grant uh the 30 000 stormwater grant um
was should be this month
um the governor and council governor and council
approval uh we thought it was on the agenda for the a
aides it didn't uh show up so anyhow that's that's that's coming and then the truck
the grant to the truck that we received the truck will be in mid-Aug
truck and chassis then it goes to the body shop and gets a body shop and gets a
body and plow put on and so fingers crossed we should have it before snow flies i'm sorry fingers
crossed what before snow flies okay because it's going to be used as a plow truck yes that's it's the main
job all right yeah and is it replacing another vehicle yeah it's replacing that's that that's the
idea of the program yeah that's that Volkswagen replacement uh so we have to actually destroy that truck
right when we get and that's not far
so thankfully we got this because it's the truck's in if well we couldn't plow
with it right now like you literally have to destroy it yes yeah the engine lock it's the
room you cut the frame and destroy the engine so we make a fundraiser out of it and like people can
like you know what i mean like you know what i mean like you know whack a truck you know what i mean because
if you have to destroy it anyway just a thought well yeah they they actually have to come down and
witness so yeah they don't you know they don't fool around they're giving you money they want
to make sure well the idea is to get the old diesel stuff off the road yeah so that's yes yes
that that that was the whole intent of the grant and we were fortunate to get it um other than that's
that's that's that's about it nothing huh just what he got nice all right yeah yeah yeah just just hang out there
all right thank you you're all done peter ellie a couple things could you put your mic on please
thank you see how nicely i asked you well you did put that well i know well i know
that's my favorite i love that okay okay um a couple of things i had spoken the chief
last week at the end of the week um the phone system where the trucks is not working it needs
repairs it looks like he did not put in a PO as yet because he hasn't got the actual estimate
but it's going to run between 1200 and 1500 but uh it's something that has to be done it would come
out of the rolling stock budget line um if we don't fix it it's only good the truck's going to deteriorate
even more quickly so it's something that has to be done and as soon as he gets the price he'll submit the
invoice to us for our signature yes it is over the 500 but
it's a necessity it's not a it's not a want it's definitely a need maybe we can pretend it's a
police radio no just kidding just don't tell joe don't tell joe don't tell joe um
also the plan board met last week and master plan came up and they want to hold the community
forum here to town hall it's looking at the 23rd i don't know if that's cleared the fences
well the 23rd for the master yeah open house uh
i feel like i project very easily yeah you do but it's a recording you know i know um that's where i'm
with you and now so ellen and i had had had a discussion about this um as she is the select board liaison
for the budget committee um and the 23rd has not yet been booked by the budget committee so it is open
so we are going to move forward for september 23rd for that event and i would definitely go
ahead and do that book it for the 23rd because there's wednesdays in either side of it
it it didn't seem to me that based on when the budget committee was doing their
scheduling the 23rd would be the one but so we'll just let them know on wednesday that that's
already taken and they can go on either side yeah and ellen put that on her to do this room and they're going to need
this room and they're going to have stations throughout the circumference of the room
and we had a chair and mill around it he said they usually get about a hundred people so
she gets why this room should work i do Vanessa um our land use administrator did
submit a facility use application to uh me yeah at that time though i was still in review
for the september 23rd um so i'm going to move forward in process for that request
so it will be okay and i'll be brought forward to you guys certainly i have well i get the
library too we have some issues with the building over there with falling stones and um we don't
have enough paperwork at guess to find what was originally free to and whether or not is decorative
or substantive think those are the questions to come on my right on that do they yeah um sort of yeah
that's what strikes me odd is this the set of plans was that i remember was always over in the library i don't know if there's a set over here somewhere i have no idea i have a partial set at the highway garage but um yeah it it is Pedro could speak on this um perhaps more eloquently than i but um but um
It's a, it's a cultured stone.
It's a decorative process, um, and but there, there is question of, uh, there's questions about how it was installed.
Um, and what do we do going forward is really the question.
Right, right.
And, and, oh, here we go.
There is.
Beautiful.
You didn't know you told me under the water at the point.
You're throwing me under the water here, too.
So, Friday, we actually went, by the way, outside, we tested the pond for a comment that we received about possible contamination.
And we got a canoe, and Mr. Rogen sent me with one of these beers who twisted the canoe and we all went under the water.
So that happened Friday.
So all they went.
Anyways.
Yes, I was invited by Melissa at the library to see what happened with the column issue.
Right on the spot, you can notice that it seems that there was foam insulation, sheeting, or plywood,
and then water and vapor retarding on top of that.
Initially, my understanding was that,
maybe there was another piece of plywood on top of that, and they put the stone pieces
right on the tile on the board, and that created rotting and the dilapidation of the structure.
I was invited by Mr. Rogan to the yard where I get to see the piece, and you can witness in the
piece that there is a lot of moisture in the plywood, but not only that, but not only that,
you can also see several pieces of waterproofing and damp and insulation beyond that.
That can lead to condensation in between the pieces, which can lead to what happened.
That I do not, I did research to see what was the code that was applied to and inspections.
It seems that the inspector at the time performed the inspections.
But I didn't find any documentation to see what was applied as far as what code was taken into consideration to build or perform the installation of the column.
Do we know if it was built per the plans?
I didn't find any plans.
Have we been in contact with the people who built it?
I understand Ms. Melissa from the library.
to get a whole of them to see, and she's also looking to see if she can get any type of documentation behind it.
I found one of the placard that we used to give away in paper that has all sign off.
But, again, there is no relation to what was seen when it was.
It doesn't have dates.
So there is a lot of missing pieces.
Leslie, you have something on this?
Oh, come on up.
Melissa called me, and I gave her some.
You are?
Leslie Hume.
Thank you.
I'm the chairman of the building committee.
I built a new library.
My pleasure.
I see you at many of these hearings.
So, yeah, she called me.
They do have plans.
They should also have product and material detail sheets of everything that was installed.
They should have, and she does tell me she doesn't have the pictures.
anymore, but she has a CD where there were detailed photographs taken at every stage
and every aspect of the job.
Okay.
And I was able to explain to her that every Thursday morning at 10 o'clock, they used to have
an inspector's meeting on Thursday mornings here.
They went over to the site and met with the building team and reviewed what work was being
done that week.
Our clerk of the works was there as well as our architect.
And they planned all their inspections and went and checked out anything that they had questions about,
and then they scheduled their inspections as a team.
So there was a lot of oversight throughout the process?
There was.
And yes, we totally wanted that, so there'd be no questions.
The gentleman who actually did the work, unfortunately, we invited him to the opening of the library,
and he had passed away very suddenly.
And so his wife.
was actually dismantling the job.
He was very highly regarded guy in his trade, and I thought he did beautiful work.
And it would be interesting to find out from the architect in Bowen Construction what they might theorize
has led to this problem.
Is his company still in existence?
Bowen Construction is still in intersection.
Okay.
The Mason is not.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do we have any type of letter from the
architect of an infield inspection that were performed by the designer of the structure?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, there were weekly reports and everything else, very detailed.
Yes.
That will be incredible.
LaGalady Blasinger was the architectural firm and Ron Lamar.
So, yeah, there were detailed reports.
Okay.
And all of that was turned over to the town.
Melissa has all this?
I don't know what she has.
Unfortunately.
We had an interim library director who threw away the plants.
I don't know.
Who threw away our binders, I think, that had all the pictures and also maybe the specs on a lot of the products.
That weren't, that we had big binders so that he would know all the materials and who the manufacturers were.
And those were space harts, maybe, in someone's view, rather than important things.
I mean, they were substantial firms that worked on this.
Yes.
So, I mean, and it was.
During the time when things were electronic, so, I mean, they might have electronic files that could be printed and recreated to help us get some of that information back.
You know, Valley Brezinger will have detailed, detailed things.
And, again, we should have had all the products that were installed, like the masonry and would have been guided by the manufacturer of the product and all the steps.
So most likely, well, what I need to be able to be able to.
get up to perform a proper analysis of what went in to what standard it was set on the field is pretty much those specifications and details and definitely a set of construction documents that depict the year of the state building code or the building code that was taken into consideration to develop the project with that in mind
yeah Melissa told me that she has the plans she has a set of plans
She doesn't have the big ones.
Those will shout.
Okay.
So.
It appears that
we have a source and maybe Leslie
you can be of assistance.
Yeah, I've certainly offered, was there any assistance I can
have? And she asked me any questions
over time. Yes. But again,
my concern
on site
are of a couple, of several
nature based on what I have seen
in my experience
doing these inspections.
There was a very
large honeycomb inside
the wall, which tells me there
was some level of infiltration that
should have been addressed some.
So that's why I need to
Steve. Yes.
So that's why all that
information is very critical
in order for, to make a determination
and where is
the missile.
I mean, if everything was done according
to the code of the time,
of
where the project was
built, I should be
able to take that
to that edition of the code
and see what type of
protection and how
things split together to see
if there is some level of
critical thinking that I can
put forth to prevent this from
probably happening, which is
the main goal.
Okay, so you guys are going to work on this.
Yes. We're not going to
solve it here, but
if you can get the documentation
and some of the background stuff, it should be a big
help. Thank you, Leslie.
Okay.
Thank you.
Will you get something for us?
Well,
do you want to do it during public
comment, too?
Well, hang on, Leslie.
We'll do it during public comment too.
And we'll get to it as quickly as we can.
All right.
Oh, you were, this was your
fault. I'm looking at it.
How did we get here? It's you.
My phone has been very busy lately.
It's you. Okay.
The only other thing I have is we need to talk about
some
payroll procedure for the
fire department and the calls. We need to get that
squared away. We thought we had
worked it out, but I don't
think we have. So we need to
make sure that our policy manual
and procedure are on the same
page. So that's a work
of progress. And that's being
worked by the chief, I assume, or?
And Robin. And Robin, yeah.
Okay.
And John.
Okay. And Jen, probably as well.
I would assume.
All set? That's it. That's it. Okay.
Plenty for me.
That's a lot. That's more than you've had in a while.
I know. All right.
I've told you. My phone's been busy.
Yeah. All right. Thanks.
Let's see.
I'm going to mention one thing, and then I'm going to tag on to something that Lori is going to bring up
afterwards. But, well, first of all,
Historic District Commission, which was due to
to meet tomorrow night for its monthly meeting.
There were no applications for this month, so
the chair reached out to the board and asked if it was
all right if she canceled it, and it was a unanimous decision, of course.
Yes, go ahead and cancel.
So there is no HDC meeting tomorrow night.
And you probably are all aware at this point
that this coming Saturday, the 18th, from 11 in the morning
to 3 in the afternoon.
preceded by an event at the library, which I'm sorry, at the museum, which I'm sure Leslie will tell you about at 10,
is our town celebration of the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence.
I reached out to the governor's office.
I requested the governor be there to attend and to make comments.
She gracefully declined.
It was not, didn't fit her schedule.
but I did work with her office to get a commendation recognizing Kingston commemorative celebration
for our nation's 250th anniversary on July 18th.
I'm not going to read it, but I will read it at the event.
If any of you would like to see it now, you're welcome to, but it's the usual nice, nicely done thing that they do out of the governor's office.
So we'll have that, and I will
on behalf of the board, I will read it on Saturday.
That's all I got.
All right.
Okay.
I'll do the one that Tom has involved us, so then he can probably go sit down.
So I met with, this has to do with our initiatives list.
I met with Heidi Porson from Down to Earth Garden Shop and Tom, we met early last week,
to talk about doing the landscaping for the town hall, the two front parts.
Heidi is going to do a landscaping.
plan, and then I am going to beg and plead with some landscaping companies.
It's not going to be taxpayer funded.
Everybody listening, not going to be taxpayer funded.
So it'll either be private donation or landscaping companies contributing, really small
footprint, so it's not a lot of work.
And with the help of our great grounds, maintenance and grounds crew,
They're going to, you know, prepare the land there, and then the monument right out front where we have the two stones.
Heidi and I tomorrow morning are going to dig up some of the plants, and then Tom's crew is going to come and paint the flagpole and dig up the rest.
And that leads into what you want to talk about.
Yeah. So another thing on the initiatives list, and it's something that was carried over from last year,
for me, is the possibility of creating a little space, a landscape space over in the area
where the Grace Daily House used to be.
And we now have a propane tank there buried, so that creates some limitations on what we can do
and so forth.
But thinking about doing something, you know, from that point a little bit out toward the street.
And I happen to be at town hall when high.
Heidi was here talking with Tom and Laurie.
And so I snagged her and I said, you know, would you also possibly be interested in, you know, providing us with some thoughts on what we could do there?
And she said yes.
So, and she's, again, she's, you know, she's not charging.
This is a volunteer thing on her part.
And so we'll be reaching out to her.
And I'd like to re.
sort of bring her in and re-form that group.
Leslie, you were involved in that at the time, and I'd like to bring those folks back and see if we can do some brainstorming and think about that.
It's nothing substantial.
It's not going to be fancy.
It's certainly not going to be something.
We don't want to be creating something that is going to be a maintenance nightmare for our grounds crew.
So, but a nice space, I mean, we've got that blank canvas there, maybe some plantings, maybe some places to sit, some sort of a marker as a memorial to, and as a recognition of the town volunteers.
And so, anyway, that's it.
So more on that.
So part of that, for the Kingston Memorial, Volunteer Memorial, the plantings, there's, the plantings, there's
some good plantings out front that Heidi wants to dig up and then sell those for a fundraiser
to start a fundraiser. And so that's what I wanted to speak to. Is that okay if whatever that we were
going to just, Tom's guys were just going to dig up anyway, if she could, because some of them
apparently are really nice plants out there, but they're lost in the weeds. But if she could
then sell them by donation and then it would start.
to fund. So thoughts on that? I'm fine with it. I'm assuming that if anything that she
collects us should be brought to us and we would accept the donations on behalf of that
project. And that would just start, you know, some money generating for the little memorial
garden over there. Any issues with that? No. I don't know. I've been asking to have somebody do something
to the front of this building for use. I know. So we're getting some momentum on that.
Yeah.
Tom, did you want to weigh in on this at all?
No, you've covered every base.
You've done a terrific job.
And you, you were all in and then support.
I'd like to know.
No, I agree.
You seemed supportive when we were talking about.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't need to embellish.
But no, I think, I mean, it's limited.
Those two corners that are.
A mess should be cleaned up as well as the front is a little out of control.
All for it. It is the center of town.
Yep.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tom.
All right.
That's just one thing.
Oh, I know.
Okay.
It goes back to Elliott brought up the master plan.
So there's something in our emails that's due the 23rd.
It was like an individual comment sheet.
But does the select board have
as a board, do we have any project or something that we want to include in the
master plan as an initiative to think about for the town for the next 10 years?
Well, sure, but there's a lot.
I mean, Ellie, you had mentioned the other day, and I don't remember what context it was,
but thinking about water infrastructure.
So as the board, as opposed to our own individual things,
is there something we're putting forth to this master's?
master plan group that we think should be included.
Clearly not to be answered tonight, but I really think we should kind of head that up
and really think about what as a board we would like to get included into it.
Well, and it would be important.
I mean, this is the kind of thing that really belongs in the master plan.
And so, you know, when they do have that event on the 23rd of September.
Yeah.
that, you know, that we participate and, you know, provide input either individually or collectively.
We need to put the town hall on that list because we must like a big one of these.
Yeah.
You know, really, I mean, it's a beautiful building, but we have to make some changes to accommodate staff in privacy issues, security issues.
This building needs to be on it.
I mean, I'm not sure there's anything else throughout the time, but this building would be the main thing other than water pipes.
I don't probably won't be around long enough to see that.
But, I mean, that's a plan, right?
Like, there's got to be a step that you take.
Recognize the need, right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
So I would really like to think as a group that we should have some input into that.
So I don't know how we want to live.
that but anyway I just want to throw that up there yeah yeah interject but just really
quick just based on that email the deadline to add anything is noon time on July
23rd so there's select board so after the 23rd people can't add to the based on
the email received by Vanessa and the Planning for its email they're going to
have a number of dress yeah we're not in the final stages of the master plan and it won't
be till after
They want input now, so they don't want everything in the last minute.
Right.
But you'll get more input when we have the community forums here.
Well, that's what I was going to say, that if they have any community forum,
September 23rd, you can't add anything after July, then why do you mean?
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe that's just the initial.
You're clean on the top.
You're going to think of the things that are obvious, but other things are going to come up in the discussion that we have going forward.
Right.
And I can report to Vanessa that the select board is considering
adding something as well just to put it on the radar and and if it's the town hall like, you know,
we should probably be specific about what we want to do, right?
Yeah, because the match plan requires to have estimates.
Yeah, exactly.
And we do have, for what it's worth, from SMP a year and a half ago, they did do do some preliminary stuff.
So we do have something that we can at least look at to just generate ideas.
So I think I just don't want us to be confusing.
the master plan stuff with capital improvement plan stuff.
That's true. That's a good point.
It's the CIP where a lot of the details on the dollars and the sources of monies,
the master plan is really a visioning document.
By the same token, the CIP stuff is due this next month.
Oh, I know.
I know.
So closely, because if it's in the master plan, the CIP should support the master plan.
Correct.
Yeah, and vice versa.
Yeah, and vice versa.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm going to try to do the, okay, so the BSNA software, Marissa had a couple of meetings,
and I know that she had sent some stuff out.
So they, we are on target.
They had, she met multiple meetings with AAF, CPA, and BSNA, and AAF is fine with.
I know that they had expressed reservations about the launch date, but they are okay with our launch date.
So we are on target for the end.
of this month to install.
And they're going to sort out, they're still going back and forth with what phase two looks like
and costs.
So we should expect to see something probably by the end of the week.
This is AA-A-F-C-B-A-F.
Yep.
So, but we're still going to launch on time for the new software.
Is now the appropriate time to ask a question about that?
About which one?
The phase two.
Yeah.
Okay, I wasn't sure.
I didn't want to break your stride.
No, no, no, no.
I got a big job, obviously.
Okay.
Yes.
I looked at some of the documentation at the meeting that I wasn't here for.
And I have a question about phase two, specifically about the 500 deletions things.
Because before I would want to spend any money to have that researched, I would want to know what our own auditors say about that.
about that because are they finding it as big an issue as the second group you know
what what's the deal because you know they could be looking at this saying this is
terrible and our own auditors could be saying no we already you know that's not
as bad as you think it is so that seemed to me that the way the discussion was that that
was going to be a good chunk of money whereas we could have our own auditors come in
and explain number one their audit to us and then we
we could also say, there were 500 deletions.
Did you pick up on that at all?
And if you did, why is it not an issue?
And if you didn't, why didn't you?
So I just think that there's an additional information before I automatically decide to spend money on something that could simply just spend something
where somebody, I understand that correct accounting procedure, that should be a void instead of a delete.
But that could simply simply.
be of who, you know, I put in the wrong thing and just automatically hit delete.
And I don't want to spend a lot of money on that.
So maybe we could have our own auditors in and number one, they could explain the audit to us
and then also ask some of these questions before we jump to phase two.
Do we know if, and I'm looking at you, but do we know if AAFCPAs has discussed, for instance, that particular item?
because they were talking with our audience.
I don't know if they've discussed it, but I did raise that point because we had talked, and I asked Marissa to check with Flodzick and they hadn't got back yet about, you know, do they have that same concern?
So we're hearing about, we're waiting to hear on that.
But as soon as the audit is signed off, right, because we don't have all the, she's waiting on our legal, there's a process, right?
Then Plodzick will come in and brief us.
So they're just waiting on that.
So they will come in and do that.
Okay.
So valid points, though, because if it, it sounds awful, but it could just be, oh, crap, and you just kept deleting it because you made a mistake.
I mean, to spend the person going, oh, I made it and deleted it instead of doing a bullet.
Right, exactly.
So, no, that's a valid point, though.
So talking about the BS and A thing, so I actually only have just, this is the last thing on my list, though, though,
though it's the biggest part.
So the training for the end of the month is purely for time sheets.
At first, Marissa thought it was for folks who were going to be doing other stuff in it.
But it's for people who are going to be entering their time.
Clearly, anybody can attend.
It's virtual.
So some workflow things still need to be sorted out as far as who's approving whose time cards.
So I'm approving whose time cards.
pretty sure highway fire and police are going to do very similar things that they've done in the past.
Their administrative assistants are going to take it, enter their time, the department head approves those time cards.
The department head enters their time. Who is approving all of the department head time cards?
So we sought to answer that question.
I thought we had you said HR word.
I can't, honestly, I can't remember if we did or not. So we said HR.
I'm pretty sure that's what we said.
I think you're right.
I think you're right.
So HR, so all of the department heads are going to HR for consistency, say, because if one person's looking at it, they...
And it would change.
If it's like what changed, then hopefully H.R won't change.
Yes, right. So the HR...
You're sitting right now.
Well, we are, yeah.
But I think you're right, Ellen, or Ellie, we did decide that.
So, and then internally to the town hall, like just...
what that is for all of the employees downstairs.
And that's not up to me.
It's just has all that been sorted out.
And upstairs.
And upstairs.
Well, they're department heads.
They're both department heads.
But I'm talking about, so, you know, you have Melinda, you have Tori.
Understood.
And to be able to Vanessa.
I mean, to, I don't, I just, we need to make sure that workflow that workflow is sorted out.
Well.
They get to that young lady.
To June, right.
So then, okay, so that's that.
To June will approve those two.
Okay.
And then they go.
And then the last one was Cindy Mulcahy.
So she does time, she does minutes for three or four separate boards.
She, they can set it up.
You know, she charges her time according to, you know, on the charter accounts, right?
So it's to each budget.
So she could have separate lines on her charter.
on her time sheet that goes to that.
And I think June is...
Yeah.
I didn't have to go to June.
So these were just the last kind of minute things so they can set up the workbook.
Well, that person, okay, so let me just clarify, though.
So that person approves the time sheet.
Yeah.
But that's not the person who submits the time sheet.
No, no, no.
Cindy would submit her own.
Okay.
I'm just trying to...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cindy would submit her own.
So these are just...
So like all of the preponderance of the other employees, their admins are doing it for them, right?
They're entering their time and they're submitting it on their behalf.
Okay.
Right?
So Cindy would submit her own.
Okay.
Unless we want June to submit all of Cindy's time.
I don't.
I don't say I need to do that.
I think she would have to sign it.
Yep.
And then June just approves it.
And then it goes through the workflow.
So these people will be, the people we've talked about,
you submit.
their own time sheet yep that information will go there and she's just approving it she's
approving it she's approving it goes to fine finance it goes to finance and payroll at the yes
so there's two approvers that like final approvers yep all right so I think we got
all of them awesome that's it okay for now so I forget all right thank you
I can talk again I know I just said unless I remember so do you have anything
under liaison reports I just wanted to inquired
as Marissa had brought to my attention that the auditors would actually be in-house
in August was the board aware of those dates where are you interested in knowing okay
I thought Marissa told us I don't remember but she did tell us first week in August it is so
it will be from Wednesday August 5th through Friday August 7th they will be here in our
meeting room from 8 a.m. until 5
p.m. on those days. August 5 to 7? 5 to 7 yes thank you I know that
Marissa did tell us the last time she was sitting here with us but I didn't
remember all right question yes who's going to be here because the town hall
closes at four normally so who's hanging out would be here I'm just double
checking yeah she would be here if not then I'll volunteer myself to make sure that someone's
and lock up yeah well sure I mean right I just didn't want to
assume and throw her into the bus and she's like oh I didn't even think about it
yeah thinking that it was it for when it is fine okay are there any other board
matters all right oh there's oh I'm sorry I did no I yeah I did no I yeah I I I did I
did I skipped over the action item probably because it has something in there for me that I
didn't do yet and I'm well I have to say but anyway I like the fact that you set the
email was what we were supposed to go back wow I cannot take full credit because my
wonderful predecessor who's in this room encouraged that that is a good way to go I
will also admit I don't think I sent it to everyone so I will get in
a motion to when Cindy sends me the updated action sheets to send them out to
you guys so you are reminded on what needs to be done so I apologize if there are things
that I haven't been tended to yet in just a general conversation it seems like
every action item that we talk about we automatically put for the next meeting
and then it I don't know that that's necessarily what the intent
is because all of these were discussed last time and now they're all due this time so
like we're not really talking about when they're due we just put them on the action item
list and then they're due the next week oh oh oh we don't pick a due date we don't pick a due
day okay all right so we'll pick a do yeah I mean a recommendation do you want to give us like
two cycles until they're due or well it depends on the item all right well let's let's
go through them and well I mean ultimately again when I
receive after a meeting the action sheet I could always just send it out and at that
time frame we could right confirm when a good date would be how long it would
you feel the action item would take you to complete if anyone likes that
recommendation I do because then sometimes it's going to be like well you know
still nothing because it's kind of a longer lead item as opposed to a week or two
weeks so we can try to run it too and see it works yeah okay
Item number one has June's name on it, but it's June and I sort of working this,
and it's the Comcast franchise agreement.
Council had made recommendations and some edits and counsel told us that as long as
Comcast didn't make any changes to her comments, she was fine with it.
I reviewed it and I noticed that they had made some edits to her edits.
So June has sent it back presumably.
Correct. I did send it back to town council.
Town Council has not gotten back to me yet.
I'm starting to think because town council has responded to other emails that I sent after sending that email that perhaps
that Comcast contract that may be lost in her inbox.
So I'm going to send it to her again.
And so what do we want for a new due date on that one?
well we meet in two weeks hopefully we should be we should have it back by
then yes yeah I'll send it to so what's the date on that the 20 do you on day 9th 27th we'll be
the next department department head meeting all right so we'll establish keep it on the list
and we'll add a new due date of July 27 okay the next one was assigned to Robin and
explained discrepancy and assessment on the solar field well we talked about that
ad nauseum tonight and that's done so it goes off the list some of these were
cut off in the printing in must be an Excel spreadsheet and the fields weren't big
enough but the next one is actually yours Robin also and it's regarding
correspondence for Lefeve Drive who's back is over to June now doesn't that that do you
want to speak to it yeah one of all right a conversation took place between
Robin and I regarding that topic so she'll come in share her thought process
with you guys so this kind of is still in my court since there's so much
background to it and it started with planning and I was there and now in select
board so I kind of have this it is now right now in town council's hands so we're
waiting back feedback there so that's where it's so so it's an open item so I'm
assuming we would assign probably our next meeting date of the 27th
seventh as to follow up on it yeah yeah because that's two more weeks yep okay
Lori did you have something to say okay Robin the next one is yours also it says it's
in progress same issue same issue okay so we'll change the due date on that also to
the 27th Ellie the next one is yours
and I did speak with Chief Pelman about the way and see it because they had all
also contacted him directly before coming to us and the same issue pertains if
we allow the large sign like that to promote an event for a private company we
have to do it for everybody so it would be best not to allow it whether it be the
town saws through the fire department so it's not to say they can't put little
roadside posters and whatever this was for a very large sign announcing the
hundredth anniversary which is coming up at the end of this month
correct so we need to send them a letter saying I'm sorry we can't help
you out it's basically what needs to happen you know we well we would love to be
able to do it once we open the door it means that we'll always have large signs in
the front of the fire station or on the planes promoting various events I mean
there are other corners in town where campaign posters go up like in the
corner across from the diagona across from the police station
for example I mean that's common land they wanted to do something there
or contact some private land owners that have I think they should contact a
private landowner because election signs have different requirements than this kind of
that's true that is true that's true so they should probably I don't know how on that
section right okay Chief you're on board with that okay so we need to
communicate back to to Camp Lincoln
say sorry we can't
June do you want to take a stab at your response to them yes I can generate a
draft I will send the draft to the board for your review to make any
recommendations before you and I don't you Glenn oh you yeah yeah yeah
can sign it you get sent to the two of us and is the board okay with that if it goes
to the two okay okay and we need to do that this is coming up fairly soon so
I'll work on that tomorrow.
So we want to, this will have to get done, you know, before our next meeting
because the event will have taken place.
Right.
So, okay.
Okay, so item number six stays on the list.
Do you want to leave the 27th or pick the?
No, do the 27th because you really want to get that done.
Okay.
June, next one is yours.
It says here that somebody followed up with Kim,
Donahue, details operate. Again, I think there are lines missing.
Yes, I will have to go back to the dark board and see if I can re-format.
Robin actually followed up with Kim.
She, a letter, an email was sent. Is that correct?
So.
They're still in draft form, if I remember correctly.
So that's why they haven't released.
Okay.
Operation of all trust funds.
Okay.
So new due date on that then, 27th?
Yeah.
All right.
Next one is mine regarding drafting thank you letters to some volunteers.
And that's the one that I said I would have done by this time, and I did not.
So please put the 27th on that one.
That's item number eight.
I really had all good intentions.
Actually, I did social media on it.
I didn't do the letters, but I still need to do the letters.
letters.
Okay.
Number nine.
Peter.
Spoke to Tom.
Tom.
The answer was no.
They're two different things.
And if you'd like him to elaborate, he'd come up and speak to you.
But they're two different things.
If you read the description they asked.
It says if stormwater grant may offset the
Verdantus cost.
The answer is no.
The answer is no.
So we have the answer.
That one's off the list.
Thank you.
It's easy.
We'll help in the future.
Okay.
All right.
Lori, next one is yours.
Number 10.
Yeah, I'm not having much luck yet in my reply.
Really?
Yeah.
Nope.
That's interesting.
I know.
I don't know what happens.
Okay.
Keep it on the list.
I keep it on the list.
27th.
Okay.
Number 11.
It doesn't have an assignment on it,
but board to decide who will follow up with Deputy
Health Inspector regarding Article 1302, Solid Waste
and Littering article.
Well, that was
something that was something I think that was brought up from Lisa in the highway department.
So I think Peter has to follow up on.
There you go.
Tom, is that something you can work on with Peter?
Yeah.
All right, thank you. We'll put Peter's name on that.
Jen, do you have your hand up?
Oh, okay.
And we'll put the, we'll update that one to July 37 as well.
number 12 lorry and again i don't know what all of that says but it's regarding the bridge grant yeah i know marissa or
yeah marissa's yeah marissa's working that with Lisa and you know it's it's on our list so it can just
do we keep it on the list just keep it on the list i mean if you want to put the next the 27th as a date or you want to push it out
i would push it out
how about august about august 10
a couple of audit stuff and the things so i would push it out
august 10 we just got the grant so we're going to have to do
some financial documentation on the grant so we shouldn't put that out too five
August 10 yes all right number 13 is Lori in June
Opportunities web page I'm assuming that's board and committee
opportunity yeah and again I mean that that was something you know she just started
so we're not going to jump into that so I don't even know when we would get to that
so it was about volunteers and the volunteer form and just
a lot of stuff so i that's kind of like when we get to it yeah june you may want to
talk to kately too about that she's got a pretty good rap on what's it she could talk to kately
about it you know she does the web and for our deputy town clerk yeah yeah she manages
the she'd be a good person that's done to on that so do you just want to put pending
yeah rather than keep putting you want to say ongoing yes yeah ongoing yes that would be
number 14 is for the board and it's regarding the cyber security policy
per auditor's recommendation this does not have an assignment
well I have a question on this don't we think somebody probably has this already
and we can just steal it from them we can probably call the NHMA and say do you know
anyone who has it maybe June could reach out to them and find out yeah I can reach out
to NHMA so we're going to put June's name
on that see robin it's uh it's not your name anymore you do all right well before we put it to bed
you better come up and tell us she says she has something
oh the auditors they're a recommendation they must know somebody who has someone who has it
so we got the cyber security policy from council and it has been distributed it's just been a while
because it was reminded us we didn't do anything with it so it's at the point where we got to put
into format and then have the board look at it oh oh all right oh so that's
we're further along than we'd like to put it into format she could
um yes yes i i can absolutely do that all right so we're still putting we're still
putting june's name on that yep so i won't contact nhma i will work with robin to
gather the information and then she says she's got it already we have the
document from it we need to format it we need to format it and then we need to format it and then
yeah you don't have to contact anyone just have to format that's always easy um the other thing i just
if i could go back to the policy i mean the ordinance for the solid waste yes that was actually
brought to the attention of us on the select board from lisa it is doesn't really fall in the court
and she's basically said this needs to be updated who wants to take responsibility for it so it's kind
to be in assigned somewhere so it's not really in the highways i just knew it was lisa who
brought it forward she did but it kind of she's brought it to the attention because of some stuff
that absolutely has to be updated but it really isn't her job i mean you can put it back on her but
she's pretty much just brought it to your attention to get updated and assigned to somebody
so item 11 which is the um out of the 1302 that needs to be assigned to someone and
so the actual thing says who will follow up with the deputy health inspector so i think we
identified it's a health ordinance so the whole tasker was who's going to follow up with them
being pedro and kevin as the health folks to figure out this ordinance to give it to our illustrious
building inspector to civil rights or or kevin why don't we give it to ellen to follow up with them all right
there you go there you go jes peter you get out of that one again perfect all right i love
these people just taking jad you i love while we're talking about this so number 11 is now assigned
to ellen so um marissa had this is the investment policy so it was another policy um she had since
because we had talked about this it went to tammy uh mattie and then june and robin was cced on it
and she gave a deadline
for input for july 30 first which one are we talking about now the investment policy it's not on the
to-do list that's why i'm reading from an email so we can get it on the to-do list
um it's already on robin and eyes radar i know marissa did send it i think yes no
it's been out a couple of times actually but the latest was on the 10th we are waiting i think
on comments back am i remembering correctly i know i'm looking down at you
So i guess the question to that one now that marissa has reached out is this now in marissa's court to follow up or do you want you to follow up on that?
I think marissa you can assign it to marissa i just if we're talking about policies that are on the to-do list let's add the investment policy
because we can't lose track of it needs to be updated it needs to be updated because that's another auditor item so and you can assign it to marissa
but basically just didn't do okay how we just basically just basically
saying we were just waiting to see if anyone else had any comments and if they didn't
it's all set and ready to go i could have sworn that marissa sent that out already and she did
it's on my desk in my to-do list folder because robin provided it sorry uh robin provided it to me
has one of my welcome gifts um but we are just waiting on the comments back and we haven't received
anything back as it yet it's from the trustees that we're awaiting on okay but
but that went out a long time ago that's what i'm saying it has been circulating so and she's trying
to put this to rest but she hasn't gotten any feedback well without any feedback that shouldn't we just
move forward people have had the opportunity to give feedback for i think over a month haven't they
i am i it's been a while that's what i'm saying we gave a deadline till the end of july yeah oh you did
yes because the trustees got it in june and they only meet once a month so they needed but there is a deadline
for the end of July okay so we'll pick that August date so we can find
don't you think August 10 yeah isn't that what you're asking for Lori I'm asking it to be
I just read an email I'm asking it to be tracked that's all outside of email on the
to-do list okay that's what I'm asking so we can get it done
I've added it as number 20 to the list and it has Marissa's name on it and it has an August 10
time for us to be looking at it or deciding on it or something okay thank you Robin
all right going back up to number 15 Ellie we have not done any further work he knows
that we need to get it squared away to set one up we have not done that yet all right and
this is with regard to the little Fave Drive all and not just that any any new development okay
we want to policy on the development not specific necessary okay and do you
want to leave the ASAP as a or do you want to pick a date all right all right
okay so we'll add number 15 review date or a due date of August 10 yeah so we'll add
number 15 review date or a due date of August 10 yeah number 17
on hold June this is set of public hearings today the sale of land
it's on hold peter no i'm sorry we've got a date of august 30 on that one is that still a good
date okay okay number 18 is it says it's on hold it's assigned to tom uh board and tom to
discuss secondary access to great pond park via four h camp when tom rowan is ready so that one's
on hold but uh tom when you want to talk to us about that you should do so okay uh number 19 is
also on hold so it says it has a board responsibility to it and it's to discuss feedback
regarding the fact that we now are closed on on Fridays and so we were looking at
in September reviewing that again right see where we are with it all right so something that's
not on the action
at action items list that laurie and i were briefly talking about is going to be the joint
loss committee um i know we want it was on the list used to be on the list it's i don't
think it was on there ultimately uh we want to really get momentum on that so i will bring it back
uh for july 27th i haven't received any emails where people are asking to join um enthusiastic about joining
so perhaps at this point it works that that's the department head meeting so we can assign
that's what i was going to say so as well i say it voluntold so june for our next meeting which is our
department head meeting we should have it on there as an agenda item yes yeah that's your plan that's my plan
good all right now i had skipped over that now we did that now is there any other board any other board matters
well i'm going it's what that's where i'm going before we get into the financial and
administrative matters i'm going to move public comment number two until now so leslie come on
up we want you to get to bed at a reasonable hour thanks for letting me come in on public
comments i want to share you need to state your name and your affiliation or your whatever
my name is leslie hume i'm the president of the friends of the kingston historical museum i'm here
tonight to personally invite you uh ruth would be here with me tonight but she's
not able to come tonight as planned um to invite you all to heritage day uh we've expanded
to two days uh august first and second and um on august first we'll be awarding our boston post
k yet again and glen is kindly agreed to speak at that uh at that event
and on sunday we'll be having our own little 250th celebration so you all see our t-shirts
and all purchase your t-shirts wow i hope the governor's uh office thing mentions josiah because he's
kind of the star of the day as far as we're concerned it's there oh very good uh perhaps we'd also
like to invite a member of the board whoever would like to speak at our little uh little gathering
it'll be on noon time on sunday which will be our family
day with a lot of family activities i'd like to thank the police and the fire department
and the highway department they've all worked out with uh dan doyle we're going to have one-way
traffic for the event uh last year was kind of a blowout uh so we're anticipating hopefully
another beautiful day cross our fingers um but it's a it's a big thing for us to do two days
i'm not sure we'll continue to do two days but this is a special year in this is a special year in this
is our opportunity the fun continues with people who love history last saturday we had a
presentation from the new hampshire historical society at the museum talking about redcoats and rebels
and new hampshire and the american revolution lori did you like it no it's really interesting and
stuff that you just they don't tell you they don't tell you yeah uh and this saturday uh for the 18th we
of course have the town official 250th uh
celebration which starts at 11 o'clock on the plains lots going on we've actually moved
our talk which is it's a metaphor of visual history of the declaration of independence from 10
o'clock to 1 o'clock because there was a little conflicting things going on and people didn't want to
miss being in one place when they had to be someplace else so uh we've we've moved it to 1 o'clock oh it's not
10 it's not at 10 it's going to be at 1 and we'll have plenty of time for people to join
over at the cemetery for that celebration sally stevens is our presenter she's a museum
volunteer retired civics in history teacher if you've been to one of sally's talks you're going to find
out stuff you never even knew you're going to love it you're going to be telling the things that she
tells you you'll make sure you'll talk to all the other people about it so we're really excited about
that and august first and second is our largest fundraiser the fire department's going to be
joining us they'll be flipping some hamburgers and rolling some hot dogs out for you we have quite a few
few food trucks this year we have about 85 vendor spaces reserved best far we have six
food trucks on saturday and we'll have the car show the big car show last year we had officially
people who registered about 426 cars we had about 500 on the planes and then we turn people away
so please come out and enjoy it you'll be seeing these around in our different businesses and we
can't thank our sponsors enough without them we
wouldn't be able to cover the cost of the event so we don't make a lot of money but we
hope we put together a fun event for people in Kingston to get together and hang out with
their with their neighbors and we appreciate the selectmen's support for this I
appreciate you Ellie I see you sharing my posts every time I see you share that you
shared it again you shared it again I so appreciate it different different views it helps it
does certainly help yeah it really really does so we're excited are you going to video
record Sally's TV yes we will be
video courting her speech that we can stream it on our website yes yeah yep yep
she does great she's a great job I don't know if you went to the stained glass window
presentation she gave the talk about the history of each of those stained glass windows
which is yes she does a nice job she does an excellent job she's a great teacher I wish I
had had had her for my teacher so so Leslie you said that this event the Heritage Days is
it's not a big money raise her
you will it's not a big fundraiser but it does generate some funds and they
are used for oh completely for the historical museum all the money goes right
back to support equipment and supplies and to host events to bring people we
the we got a grant from the Hampshire Humanities we match that grant to pay
for speakers to come and try to do more of that so thank you all very much and
thank you for taking and moving public comment up because you must
saw my head nod back there questions for Leslie come and join us thank you
thank you very much we'll see you on the 18th yes and then on the first and second
all right so I'm gonna take a moment because under other business I forgot to bring
forward that the award letter for Elm that the board had requested Robin had worked on
composing for it so I do have the draft here so I'd like to hand it out so you
guys can take a look at it so you just bought it for me and this is the contract
award to ELM okay we have stolen back and thank you Robin for
composing for a letter did are we requiring a performance bond from them from ELM
performance fund we we we I don't think we decided okay it was an it's
something we discussed and I don't think that as part of the award we actually
said whether or not we were going to require it Tom but I think we we should
understand the ramifications of doing it or not doing it and so well only because
we're stating that submission of the required certificates of insurance performance
funds so we're stating in this letter this contract award letter that we're
requiring it
right and that should be it was discussed I think to be discussed it
and at the board level or we did talk about it okay we didn't come to any
decision right it's my own personal opinion I don't think if the
contracts with the termination clause if it's written properly 30 45 day 60
day whatever it may be my sense is that if if he's underperforming or
that company is underperforming and we we we we need to move on I really don't see a
big hurdle in getting the there's wind Waste Management Casilla on and on and on and on
it's not it's not a hard contractor you got two trucks and a you know a human being okay
let's go pick up the trash so I don't see where the performance bond expense would
really if we were building a building I would say yeah definitely but that's my sense
what would a performance what would a performance bond get us essentially in the end
it's really nothing and so the other yes I agree because they're just going to
pass that cost on to us somehow oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so we're just going to mark that up
and then so I just want to talk this through the town will be in contact with you to coordinate
preparation and execution of the contract so what are we saying there that are we waiting
for them to provide something he's working on he is working soon okay he's working on a contract yeah
okay okay so we should receive something from him and then we'll go back and forth through the lawyer
yep okay yeah we'll forward it I assume he'll he'll send his version yep forward it and go hey we want
this this this and this yeah okay no this is great so other than taking the
performance fund out I think it's fine if we take the performance bond out
and when we get a contract to review it'll go to council and I'm assuming we'll provide
that along with a copy of the RFP because council will want to see if the contract mirrors
what the requirements are all right thank you Robin for helping to draft that so we'll
need to I should do this by motion I mean this is a significant thing
A motion authorizing the chair to sign this once the edit has been made to remove the requirement of performance bond from the letter.
Motion by Peter. Second by Lori.
Any discussion? In favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Extension. So thank you. That's unanimous. So June, when you've got the original, just let me know and I'll sign it.
Yeah, okay. All right.
Financial and Administrative Matters, assessing items in the orange folder.
Which orange folder?
A big one.
Oh, my God.
So a lot of them are for veteran and elderly, so because they contain confidential information,
our assessing, assessor wishes that you don't disclose any of the...
And we don't.
And we don't give their needs to...
No, we don't.
The first one, however, is an intent to...
cut so it's a timber cut permit and it's for map r 33 lot 21 and this has been taken care of by
can I make a suggestion sure we get people waiting to meet with this can we do this at the end I mean
well except that I assume that are we talking non-public yes yes we have to sign all this
public
there's exemptions that we have to vote on.
All right.
This is all signed off on, so just sign it.
June, I'm going to ask you to pass, I'm going to do these.
I'll pass them to the Lori and then the pile.
Just to, well, however you want to do it, start moving around.
all right application for property tax exemptions this is veteran yep and applicant
qualifies and it's been signed off on so we're all set there your tax credits exemption
this is for elderly this is recommended to be approved it's been reviewed yeah
I was supposed to print property tax exemption
it's another elderly exemption it has been reviewed and says the applicant qualifies
who reviews these is this assessor assessor
the fellow people work that goes with it and they verify it this one is a veteran
request application where property tax credits exemptions applicant qualifies another
property tax exemption this one's veteran
and looks as though it's for both items on this one applicant qualifies for
all so thinking about this veterans credit we just had that Warren article that
increased the limit so when we're saying they qualify for all are they disabled
veterans or veterans because that's I mean I think I'd like to not that I would
ever disprove it but are we getting a sense for because it's two different monetary
amounts
I believe from conversation that I had with Katie today that majority of these are
fully disabled the next few in here are abatement request so it would it be
improper because all they're saying is recommend for all that credit so we
see all the background they get the done no I understand I don't want to see any
backgrounds my question is can can we know what
the monetary amount is just so we know because it's a huge it's an impact
obviously right at the back end so is it the 750 or is it the 2100 that we're
going for here so just just so they can make a note so it doesn't it's not ringing
about when they say approved for everything that could mean a number of things I can
gather that I mean clearly I don't want to see their paperwork just the
tax credit that yeah what's the amount that's it next few in here are abatements
this one is looking for the place where it shows that it's either been
recommended or the assessors note that's usually in here due to the above
reasons we recommend that the abatement be granted okay and this is for
our 41 dash
7 lot amount of abatement actual dollar evaping $25 and 6.7.
The next one, map R5-4.
The assessor recommends the abatement be granted for physical changes only and the
property's assessed value reduced for the 20-25 tax year.
And if we grant the abatement, the amount is $424.23.
Does the Board?
want to be voting on each of these or no all right just to address the board
because Tori is watching at home she is confirming that it's the seven hundred and
fifty dollars for all of those ones that we did I will actually one of them had
both checked so I think it's the full thing well correct the one that has for
there's a least one that has the full okay thank our five dash four
dash 6.
It says due to the reasons above we recommend that the
abatement be granted for physical changes only and the
property's assessed value be reduced for the 2025 tax year
from blah blah. If granted this would result in an
payment of $2,03 and $11.
The last one in this folder is
certification and appearance of
representative applying
unitill energy systems
the abatement
we're not signing this one
right because this is the one we're waiting for more
we're not going to sign it. We're not signing off
on this because we're waiting for San Susi to get back to us
with perhaps a
payment schedule.
Right, so we'll
so June we'll hold that one.
Okay.
Are you looking for the, yeah we have three requests for
I'm looking for the
the, yeah, one for the church, which
We need to re-vote the three churches, right?
Yep.
Bethel and then Carriage Town Bible Church.
Yep.
And then the other one was actually.
The first congregational is the revote.
Right. Yep.
So, Ellen, we're revoting this because of the last meeting.
We had a two-to-two tie vote on the question of
granting the
the tax exemption to the first congregation.
Church of Kingston. Does
anybody want to rehash the discussion
on that?
I don't need the discussion
re-hast.
Well, the reasoning
was essentially
they
forgot to submit the paperwork.
Right.
That's it.
Didn't we get a letter that said they hadn't
done it in the past and then we found out that
wasn't?
No, that's not the same.
They got the ball this year.
Okay.
And they've been heading this thing.
The second paragraph is probably what you need, Ellen, it says.
First, allow me to apologize for not submitting the form prior to April 15 deadline.
I was unaware that this filing was required, as our church has not previously been required to submit this form.
Additionally, during an in-person meeting with the town staff last year,
I was informed that this filing was not necessary.
And it goes on to support the
request for the exemption.
So we need to vote again.
So I need a motion, first of all.
I move that we approve the abatement request for the first
conversation.
Okay, hopefully my mic. Thank you.
Is it an abatement or an exemption?
What are we?
It's a charitable exemption.
Okay, charitable exemption.
Yep. All right. So motion by Ellie to grant the exemption.
Keeping in mind that, I mean, we have to vote on this because
because it came in after the deadline of April 15th.
I'll second it for sake of getting it.
Motion by Lori, and it's on the table for discussion.
Further discussion.
It's my understanding there are multiple ones that are also, come on.
Multiple ones that have before us that have also been late.
All of the ones that are coming,
all of the ones coming before you this evening are all late.
And again, it's my understanding that
we double-checked that information and it wasn't 100% accurate that it hadn't been
submitted before and that we did have the paperwork from last year for the one we're just
talked about yes and do we know what the reasons for the other two are or it should be that's
not germane to this vote it really is I'm just saying as a person as a person I would love to
grant it to them but it's a person who is a fiduciary responsibility of the town and the
requirements I'm not going to go for it so I'll just let you know ahead of the time and again
probably because we had found that it has been done in the past so who was telling them
last year that I don't know we asked that question to see if we that was supposed to be one of
the action items that had somebody had them tell us who it was they spoke with I don't
have that information so well I got to think that they're not going to do this again
like to think so too and again as a person as a person I would really love to but I
think it's a selectman I really shouldn't take any further discussion call for the vote
all in favor say aye those opposed motion does not carry two in favor three
opposed and no extensions and I apologize not being able to but I just can't
the next one is for
Ethel, Baptist Church of Kingston.
This one is a letter received on June 30, actually received at the select board office on July 1.
What's the deadline for these? April 15.
We got this one in the office on July 1.
This is from the pastor, Norman Bennett for the Baptist Church on 11 Mill Road.
We received a tax bill this year, and when speaking with Torrey,
in the town assessor's office to inquire about this, the issue.
I was informed that we failed to comply with an RSA of the state of New Hampshire.
I would like to make an appeal for a reconsideration in regard to our tax burden.
And again, it goes on to explain the church and what they do.
As a member of the church, I'm sorry, a member of the church is an accountant,
and she handles all of our bookkeeping and paying bills.
When I receive it.
those forms, I was more intent on getting them back to you as quickly as possible
and truly failed to understand what it was about.
I would also say that the term RSA was a foreign concept until recently.
My conversation with Tory today has made our need to file these forms each year before April 15th, quite clear.
The church will comply with state laws and
and with our knowledge of the forms necessary to be filed,
and where I can find them, I will assure you that we will file them along with our financial records
early after the first of the year.
From our financial records, you will see the building this is a tremendous help to the ministry.
Okay.
All right.
Is it just me?
This is like this year only.
We have never dealt with it before.
Not like this.
Not like this.
I mean, this is like multiple churches.
Well, that, and then we also had the VFW.
They were also.
I'm talking about the churches right now.
Is this a new church?
No.
It's not a new church in town, so they've had to do it before.
That's what I'm saying.
I don't understand what I'm, I don't know, none of these.
It's almost like, I'm curious if they call them, somebody talk to them.
It's just kind of weird if we haven't dealt with us before.
Well, I believe in mercy.
I do believe in mercy.
I do believe in mercy.
I give him for the first offense, and I'm not going to move it.
regret the exception for the Bethel Baptist Church in Kingston.
Okay, motion by Ellie.
I'll second.
Second by Peter.
More discussion.
Call for the vote.
All in favor?
Say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Okay, motion fails.
Two in favor, three opposed, and no abstentions.
Presumably for the same reasons that the other one was denied.
Okay.
And the third one.
One is Carriage Town Bible Church.
This is addressed to the select board, and it is from Mr. Patrick Phillips, the interim treasurer of the church.
Carriage Town Bible Church had the misfortune of having our treasurer die unexpectedly toward the end of 2024.
I took over the role as interim of treasurer, and while I did file a real estate exemption for 2025,
I mistakenly did not get the structure in place to regulate.
claim for a real estate exemption year after year.
The oversight is my responsibility.
We will be installing a permanent treasurer in the coming weeks, and I will coordinate
the need to get this done annually by April 15th.
I do ask for your consideration to accept this late exemption submission for 2026, given the circumstances.
Well was that submitted?
We received it on July 8th.
Exception request by Carriage Town Bible Church.
Day.
Motion by Kelly.
Second by Peter.
More discussion.
No, they had me for a minute, but when they said they did it last year, that did it for me.
Call for the vote.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
And opposed?
So motion.
Fails, two in favor, three opposed, no abstinials.
On these abatements, shouldn't we be checking off whether we've been transferred to them on.
Oh.
Yes.
We did that.
Apparently.
Yes.
So, okay.
So while you're doing those items, I would you please check them off.
All right.
Item B under number eight, payroll, invoice review and approval and purchase orders from finance officers.
See, finance folder, now blue and white folders.
It's over there.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Is there any purchase orders in there that we should have talked about?
There are people?
She didn't hear you.
Are you talking to me?
There's a big ones.
Yeah.
Are there purchase orders in there that we should talk about?
I haven't looked.
I'm still trying to figure out evadements that any check them all.
What about this?
On hold on.
While we're working through finances folder, something that I want to bring to your attention
that was brought to the Select Board Administration's attention from our deputy town clerk,
Caitlin is a relatively new resident, I would say, within the last year, moved to Kingston,
or her garbage or trash bins were actually claimed by her neighbor.
She came in a little bit upset because ultimately, based on ordinance, residents responsible
for their own trash bins.
So she, there was an original check.
I believe there is a copy of the check, but this resident was upset feeling like,
well, you know, it's not like they were damaged, they were lost, they were taken by my neighbor,
doesn't feel like they should be responsible to pay for that.
So Caitlin wanted to bring it forward to the Select Board because it would be based on your decision
if you wanted to grant leniency this one time and allow her to have the trash bins.
The trash bins had already been ordered at the time that Caitlin
came over, payment just has not been taken at this time.
So there is a check here of dated July 9 and in the amount of $145, and it's for a property on Rella's Ridge Road.
And this is, in my understanding is to say that these people bought the property,
but the neighbors took the bins that go with that property?
Correct.
Tom's coming up.
Tom.
Oh, you mean the people that moved, took the bid?
Yeah, the new, the new, the new residence.
Tom.
Okay, I think Tom has something.
Yep, Tom's taken over.
All right.
So there was a call last week.
Dwell is rich.
Woman's new assumed it happens all the, not all the time,
it happens frequently, that somebody moves out to take the bins with it.
Okay?
That means the advice given would be contact the realtor, let's see if we can work it out.
Otherwise, you will have to pay.
They're gone.
We don't know where they are.
Now, according to this, this is the first I've heard, that all those are numbered to a specific house.
If they know they're at this house, they are waste management property,
and waste management, or I will take them, and put them in the house.
the proper place.
This is the first I've heard of this.
So we charged this new resident.
From my understanding, and Tom, I don't know if you can confirm, but
this resident had contacted for new delivery of the trash bins,
correct?
Correct. And at the time, and I might be wrong,
but the message
that was conveyed,
was, I don't know where they are.
Now, if
this resident knows
where her barrels that belong
to that house are,
and we can confirm it, they're all
numbered,
problem solved.
The point is,
we're being asked if the town
we're being asked if the town will
cover this cost,
and personally
I don't see how that's even our
responsibility, but.
This is the discussion,
this one Caitlin came in the other day
because I was in the office. That is, that is correct
because this is the one that she
openly spoke with us about where the resident
was upset and felt like
it is not her responsibility
to pay for these bins.
But what Caitlin
explained to us
was this person had said to
her that the last
people that she bought the
house from took the barrel with them.
Right. And then I heard
from somebody who knows a lot
of stuff to do with real estate
that that would be an issue between
the person who used to own the house
and the other one
and they should go back
to the realtor to say we need our trash barrel
back, otherwise I have the pay for it. Yeah, I'm correct.
But that's when, as we heard
that the resident didn't feel like it would be their
responsibilities.
I'll go back to the real estate agent and ask them to get the
find.
Correct.
Yeah, it sounds really, I just want to do that.
But that's why, ultimately,
end results is twice before you tonight.
I'm not, no, we're
not covering the costs.
Isn't that?
Correct.
But ultimately, the request here tonight
is to request that the town do carry
or do cover
for that fee.
May I have a motion, please,
one way or the other on this?
Make a motion not to cover the fee
is they have another request that
they can use to help them
get the barrel back
and it's not a motion
by Ellen second by Lori
and it's not the town's responsibility I'm sorry
they have they have there is
recourse they have other recourse
right and as Tom said those barrels don't even
belong to the town they belong to waste management
so okay
any discussion
because wage management is probably
a child just and they don't pick them up
all in favor
say aye
aye aye any opposed
I need a negative vote but that's okay
we have to vote yes
for something we don't want to do.
Oh, I can do the motion
of it.
Either way, we're going to get there, so.
Okay.
Votes unanimous.
Okay.
So,
any other things that we're missing?
Do you guys want to vote on these
high numbers?
No,
oh, we have some things in the...
Let's talk about, yeah, what are they?
Well,
this one's only
550.
It's from fire.
Ellen, would you mind
bringing
a mic closer to you.
I'm sorry.
I'll speak up.
Especially for the recording.
I'll speak up.
Okay.
So this is just a $559
purchase fire department.
It looks like it has things to do with medical supplies.
Okay.
Okay.
This one is comfort air services,
an HVAC maintenance, replace a heat pump
in the rec center for 13,600.
Okay.
Are you kidding?
Whoa.
I'm not.
Whoa.
The outside, the condenser unit, Tom?
It's the Tom show.
You can get a whole new central air system,
but then so.
Get a hold you.
You just keep them at the table.
You need a couple splits.
Keep you kidding.
Yeah, the, uh, there's, there's three units up there.
On the rec center.
Yeah.
And the, the,
the one in the center is a heat pump, propane, heat pump, heat, AC, and I'd say it's probably almost 15 years old.
It was 15, 60, it was 2011-ish when we redid the rec center.
And, yeah, they serviced it last week, and that was the estimate to replace, it's the rec center.
it's the old Freon system it's coils leaking can't get the part for the machine for the
which in the end it's it's a four ton unit 48,000 BTU so it's a big system, a big unit.
And that's that's that's that's the estimate.
Do you do any way this can hold off till like, I don't know, octauntary?
Yeah, yeah, we can, we can, it's certainly not, you know, I mean, we could, if we don't want to heat the building, we can hold it out forever, but, is it, is it, but it's not, it, like I said, there are, well, the heat, is it, it, it's a heat AC unit, is it, it's a heat AC unit, there's backup heat, just propane only, and there's an, an AC unit.
but it's way too small.
This is the main unit.
This is the big, the others are
secondary.
When it's really hot.
I'm not a construction person, but can we put a couple
mini splits that we have that price?
I don't think so.
You don't think so. Okay, all right.
And that, well, you know, I'm no expert, but
that's a big, big, big space.
Yep.
And mini splits, you probably could.
You probably need, I don't know, if I had to guess four,
and you're talking 13,000 would look like a dream compared to four.
Good-sized mini-splits.
Okay.
Tom, this, we have one quote, right?
Well, here's the thing.
This, yes, we do.
And is it from a vendor that?
Yes, we, we, we, we,
we contract that vendor to service our equipment.
Okay.
Now, if we're putting in new, like last year, that was a different story,
but you won't find a, you would have trouble.
If I have a service contract, and just because the number is high,
I'm not going to service, you're going to go out to bid.
That is a problem.
This company,
was probably, and this is their second year doing it,
no problem at all, they're fair, they're thorough,
and they tell me what's going on, this, that, and the other thing.
And they're half the money of what we were paying,
and what I got quotes for from other service contractors.
And he's a smaller company, I don't know,
he's got four or five guys, and he's just, he's a local,
so I would prefer not to go out to bid because
okay
yeah
in all honesty though, because I don't know what this actually does
for that building
what would be the negative impact
if we put this off till like, you know,
tax season? No,
I mean, does it mess up any
activities they're doing now?
I don't want to say this in a public
meeting, but I haven't had any complaints
about, oh, it's hiding here.
That's it.
Okay.
So open the window.
Is the AC working?
Yes, there is a small unit.
This is the beginning of July,
and they have summer camp, so what are the chances?
That's why I'm asking.
You know,
but, yeah, that's a possibility.
I mean, there's doors,
then they can get cross-freezes going and stuff.
And it's summer camp, and they can open.
the door, run fans like they used to.
We didn't have heat and AC in there for a long time,
and we still had summer camp.
There's a lake right there.
You know, that's my opinion.
Yes, can it wait till fall?
Yes.
Let's not sign it yet.
Does it need to be done if we want to heat the building?
Yes.
If we don't.
So certainly by heating season, it needs to be done.
Yes.
And it needs to be done.
we, it wasn't too long ago.
We didn't keep that building.
We shut it down, drain the water,
see you next spring.
Okay? So that's a possibility.
And we might do that again.
Well, before we even talk about that,
because there's a lot of people who use that wreck
every single day.
Like I said, I'm just laying the possibilities
out there. We either
do it in the fall
at the latest.
or you're not going to be able to heat the bill.
Okay. So, Ellen, to further to your question, though, about, you know, putting it off until tax revenue,
I mean, we're not going to be getting tax revenue until the end of the year, and this needs to be done before then.
Well, that's why I wanted to know when, by waiting until we get later in the year,
we'll have a better idea of what we have for.
Right.
Cashful.
Exactly.
Okay.
All right.
Well, dare I say.
Is this an infrastructure fund thing if we had to go that route?
I'm not sure how much we have any infrastructure fund at this point.
Okay.
If it does not come from raised and appropriated improvement repair line,
it certainly can come from the building maintenance capital reserve,
not the infrastructure fund.
Okay.
The building maintenance capital reserve.
Okay.
That's basically what that is for.
Yep.
Yep.
So.
But again, at that time, depending on what else may or may not come up throughout the E.
Exactly.
We may have to have a whole different discussion about the use of that building in the winter.
Yep.
I agree.
But we'll have to with that, that's a later discussion.
Okay.
Don't leave.
There are other things that we do name on.
The $3,500 repair?
Yeah.
Well, when a bucket truck goes down and it's Friday.
Friday night, and Hunt Road's closed, if you remember right in front of Jericho.
I do. I tried to get by, and I'm like, I think it's...
And I decided that that needs to be repaired, ASAP, and sorry I didn't inform you, but...
And we don't repair that bucket truck, because that is...
You have warranties and stuff, right?
Yeah, no, it doesn't have warranties, but if something was ever to happen when you're 60 feet in the air...
Yep.
And, oh, yeah, we fixed that.
So...
It goes to the proper place.
It gets properly fixed, and that's that.
I just figured that you could tell us about it.
It's already fixed and back in the yard.
Okay.
Well, let's think we signed it.
So it's all signed it.
So this is from, this is something that Amy knew was coming in.
It's 13,213, which is the miller was coming in.
213, which is the milfoil thing that's in the budget for the milfoil or invasive species thing.
So I'll sign that today, so what, 13th?
This is for tires, for Joel, the police department, for 1859.
Now, I was going to suggest that if he hasn't bought these already, we could probably wait a couple of weeks.
That's just me?
But probably know he's bought them already.
I don't know.
I did not.
Because I would ask that question.
So it would come out of something that's about to show up any second now.
So that was it for...
Okay.
All right.
So we can...
So you can carry on with that, and we can...
Correspondence.
Okay.
This is just notification to us of planning board decision, and this was for...
H&N Realty Group for the...
The draft house.
The draft house, thank you.
So this is just their approval,
which is now recorded at the
Registry of Deeds.
And this is the same?
This is, or is this something different?
Something different,
correspondence.
Vanessa received this on May 30.
So actually, it's an older correspondent.
Could you put your microphone, please?
It is an older correspondence that received, but it's just coming back, I believe, based on recommendation from the program.
Okay, this is all back up that goes.
It goes with us.
Yeah.
Why don't you give me that was the one to be easy?
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
Okay, this is just, okay.
All right.
This is a copy for us.
There's no action on our part.
This is a response from, I believe, Mr.
Bresnahan.
He was not able to attend the planning board meeting where this was discussed, and so he was just providing his comments and writing,
and it's to the planning board.
So it's, I mean, it's here, if anybody's interested in seeing it.
I don't know.
Um, we've had public comment number two.
We could, we could, unless someone has other business, we could, uh, we could, uh, we could do non-public.
Let's go.
All right.
You want to take a break?
Well, let's, let's, let's do non-public and, uh, we'll take a quick break after that.
And, uh, okay, uh, I need a motion then to come in, to go into non-public.
Motion by Ellie.
Oh, I'm sorry.
RSA 91-A-A-A colon 3 Roman 3A it says it's 2 Roman 2a sorry what's 2a
it's just missile promotion compensation of any public employee is a
right?
Sorry
What are I'm coming to C?
There are two people, so I don't know what they have
All right, it's not D
it's not D, it's not E, it's not L, it would be A.
A and maybe C?
Yes.
All right.
So, a motion to enter non-public session per RSA, 91-A, 91-3, Roman 2, A and C.
Motion by Lori, second by
Ellie.
Roll call, Ellen.
Peter, Ellie, Glenn, yes, Lori.
Okay, we're in non-public session at 9.46 p.m.
And we'll take a quick five-minute break and come back.
And for anybody listening, this will be the end of the meeting.
We'll come back into public session just for the purpose of closing it out.
Thank you.