Littleton Selectboard 8/24/26

Speakers are labeled SPEAKER_N. This transcript is machine-generated.

Recording

[music]
Okay, I'd like to call the meeting to
order.
>> August 24th select board meeting. Can we
rise, please, for the pledge of
allegiance?
I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
republic for it stands one nation under
God indivisibley
and justice for all.
And a couple moments for a moment of
silence, please.
Okay. Thanks for coming out. Um, this is
Dave Harkas's first full meeting, so
welcome.
>> [applause]
>> All right. So, we will start um first
thing on the agenda is approval of
minutes. And we'll start with the July
27, 2026 um select board meeting.
Anyone see anything they want to change?
>> That look good to me. I'll make a motion
to accept [snorts] the minutes as they
are.
>> Thanks, Taylor. Got a motion on the
table.
>> Second.
>> I'll second. Um any more discussion?
All in favor of accepting the July 27th
minutes. I
>> Okay, unanimous key. All right. Next,
we're going to be looking at the um
select board work session which was on
August 17th, 2026. So, we accepted the
grants.
Um any discussion?
>> No, I didn't see anything.
>> Okay,
>> I'll make the motion if everybody's all
right with that.
>> Yeah, Paul makes a motion.
>> I'll second. Dave seconds. Um, all
right. All in favor of accepting those
>> I
>> I'maining.
>> Okay. So, 401 Vicki. Thanks, Ed.
All right. Um, we have about nine items
or so on our business. So, we'll just
we'll start right away here. We got the
2025 audit presentation.
2025. Oh, yes. By Corey Filbrick from
Vashan. How do you say it? Vashan Cluke.
K.
>> Did I say that right?
>> I think so.
>> Nice.
>> Couple of I think we're both French.
>> Definitely.
>> Hi, good evening. My name is Cory
Filbrick. As Carrie mentioned, I'm a
manager with Dash Pukang Company. I've
been with the firm for
13, 14, 15 years. It all blends together
after a while. Um, been working with the
town for roughly the last 10 or so. um
first as audit staff and then later on
as a lead audit manager on the town's
audit. Um I've got a brief presentation
for you tonight. I'm going to go over
some of our official communications that
we provide to the board and the town at
the conclusion of our audit. Um touch on
some financial statement highlights, go
over a couple management recommendations
that we had, and if anybody has any
questions, feel free to stop me. Um glad
to discuss. I'm not going to go too deep
into the financials themselves, largely
because if anybody's looked at the
town's financial statements, it's 50
some odd pages, um, and a lot of it,
unless you're really into municipal
finance, um, can be a bit heavy in terms
of discussion. So, um, if anybody does
have any questions, um, you know,
especially the board, I know you just
got these drafts. Um, you know, feel
free to either ask me tonight or if you
want to shoot me an email, um, a phone
call, whatever is more convenient for
you. Happy to discuss things further.
So, we provide a number of letters at
the conclusion of our audit and I'm
going to step through them one by one
um, and then I'll touch on the financial
statement highlights at the end. The
first letter that we provide is a letter
to the board. um we refer to it as a
governance letter or communications to
those charge of governance. And what
this letter is is sort of a 20,000 ft
overview of the audit process. Um we
touch upon the professional standards
that we conducted our audit in
accordance with. Um you can use the term
audit in many different ways. So a
financial statement audit conducted in
accordance with generally accepted
auditing standards is the framework that
that we use when we're conducting our
audit. So it's kind of like the gold
standard of financial statement audits.
Um and additionally what we talk about
in the governance letter are areas where
the board might want to place specific
attention um either because things
change or they're just significant
matters that kind of arose during the
course of our audit. So some of the
things that you'll see are new
accounting standards that were adopted
by the town. Uh for 2025 the town
adopted Gazby statement number 102 which
is over significant risk or certain risk
disclosures. Um what this standard
focuses on are the various
concentrations and constraints that
municipalities might be up against in
their normal day-to-day operations. And
specifically when one of those
concentrations or constraints and when I
say that I mean like you know
concentrations like a specific vendor
that provides a material amount of of
your supplies or budgetary constraints
when you're dealing with like statutory
limits on spending um when those might
cause significant financial stress um in
the course of the next year. And when
that happens, there's additional
disclosure that now goes into the
financial statements. Um there wasn't
anything going on that triggered those
disclosure requirements for the town for
2025. Um but it is new still a new
disclosure requirement that's in place.
So that's addressed in the governance
letter. We also draw the board's
attention to significant estimates. Um
and the reason we do that is that
estimates by their very nature could
change. They're often times subject to
management judgment. Um, and so we like
to draw the board's attention to them
because they tend to be some of the more
volatile numbers in the financial
statements yeartoear. Um, specifically
for the town, your major estimates
involve your allowances for
uncollectible accounts receivable. Um,
both on the taxes side as well as
ambulance are those are your major ones
and then sewer to a lesser degree. um as
well as things that may not be thought
of as estimates like the useful layers
on your capital assets or some of the
inputs that go into your actuarial
valuations um for various uh payroll
benefits.
Some other areas that we would draw
attention to would be if we had
significant difficulties in working with
management. Um and that's one I'm happy
to say that I've never had to report on.
Um but specifically with your management
team, they're great to work with. Troy,
Lori, um the rest of the team over there
in the town offices, they really do a
great job in getting us what we need,
what we ask for in a timely manner.
Helps to keep the process moving along.
Then if we have any material audit
adjustments, um we're required to
present them as part of this letter. Uh
we take the approach of simply providing
you with a schedule of all of our
proposed audit adjustments. We feel that
that gives you just a better feel for
the scope of of the work that's being
performed as part of the audit. So the
the attachment that you'll have in that
letter um is is more than just the
material adjustments. Really all the
adjustments the material adjustments for
this year really focused around timing
differences um largely at the the
capital project fund timing of recording
certain payables and receivables. Uh
adjustments to some of those allowances
and estimates that I previously
discussed and those would certainly be
considered kind of more typical audit
adjustments that we would come across in
an audit of a town the size of
Littleton.
And moving on from there, the next
report that we provide is our internal
control report. Um, and this letter is
certainly a letter where uh less is is
better. Um, and you'll find that it's a
single page. It's often referred to as a
clean internal control report because we
did not have any material weaknesses um
or significant deficiencies to report
on. When we conduct our audit, Yep.
That's always what you're shooting for.
When we conduct our audit, we use a
riskbased audit approach that goes back
to that generally accepted auditing
standards that we talked about
previously. Um, and with a risk-based
audit approach, what we're doing as
auditors is we take everything that we
know about the town and everything that
we know through looking at things like
your annual report, past experience with
you, talking to management, um, and we
look at the types of activities that the
town is engaged in, what type of
purchases the town's making, what are
your payroll benefit structures look
like, um, what are your major revenue
streams, and we [snorts] use that to
kind of develop a a a overarching kind
of risk analysis of where the town's
most risky activities would be. From
there, through discussion with
management, observation, and testing, we
look at what controls the town has in
place over those activities. What sort
of review and approval do you have? What
sort of budgetary reporting and
monitoring are you doing? Um what sort
of um you know, reconciliation processes
are in place. [clears throat]
Based on that, we determine what
controls we're going to test. Um, and we
test controls over the town's major
transaction cycles. So that includes
your cash receiving, your vendor
payments, and payroll transactions. Um,
and we'll test those usually on a
rotating basis unless there's specific
issues in an area and then we may test
much more frequently. Um, this year for
reference we were focusing primarily on
vendor payments. Um, and any deviations
that we might know in that control
testing serves two purposes. On the one
hand, we use it to modify our risk
assessment. So more risky areas tend to
get more attention when we're actually
testing uh the accounts and balances of
the town. And then we'll also report
those findings um to the board either
through a internal control finding, a
management recommendation um or in very
severe cases it could even result in
altering the audit report on the
financials themselves. So again didn't
identify any issues in our testing that
required reporting uh in the internal
control letter.
From there, we have a third letter that
we use, and we don't always have this
letter. It it sort of depends on what
sort of things we come across throughout
the audit. That's our management
recommendation letter. Um, this letter
is really where we would communicate
things that are less significant than
what would go into the internal control.
So, this could be like a a minor control
deficiency, let's say, or it could just
be a place where there's an opportunity
to improve the town's processes. Um and
so we had uh several items that we
identified for inclusion in the manager
recommendation letter this year. The
first is over the uh single employer
OPEM excuse me sens um one of the town's
benefits and this is uniform across the
state. You look at any municipality uh
they have the same sort of benefit. It's
it's called a single employer
postemployment benefit plan. really it's
a it's a long way of saying that
retirees are allowed by state statute to
remain on the town's health insurance um
at their own cost.
Simultaneously because the town is a
town um they're not able to obtain age
adjusted health insurance premiums which
means that while indirect that ability
to remain on the town's health insurance
raises the premiums on all health
insurance plans. Um, and likewise for
those people that are in retirement on
the town's plan, they're paying less
than they would if they were to go out
and get a plan on the open market. Um,
that fact that they're paying less is
viewed as a benefit. Gazsby, which is
the financial reporting standard centers
that set government accounting
standards, um, says that that benefit
represents a liability to the town even
though it's implicit. It's not anything
that the town would ever have to pay.
Um, and because of that, you have to
record a liability. Now, that's a long
way of getting around why this is a
[clears throat] management
recommendation. So, because that
liability is difficult to value, the
town has to engage an actuary to
actually provide evaluation study and
that's done on an annual basis to some
degree. The actuary uses census data.
The census data that was provided to the
actuary this year was incomplete and as
a result that initial valuation um
needed to be revised and updated. Uh so
really our recommendation here is just
that the town develop a review and
reconciliation process over that census
data prior to it ultimately being
submitted to the actuary just to avoid
any potential delays or having to have a
reassessment done um after the fact once
the initial evaluation is completed.
The next recommendation that we have is
over timely investigation of stale
reconciling items. Um, and this is an
example of something that is internal
control related, but in this case was
very minor. Um, during our audit of the
libraries cache accounts, we noted a
couple reconciling items that were
clearly stale, old, outdated, and not
likely actual reconciling items,
probably related to errors. Um, clearly
trivial amount. We're talking very small
dollar amounts here. Um, not enough that
it required any sort of audit adjustment
and really any follow-up that was
worthwhile, but more so just the
recommendation that when doing cash
reconciliations, and this would apply to
any cash reconciliation that's being
done, if there's old, unusual,
outstanding items, um, such as a deposit
in transit to the bank that's over
several weeks old, um, that those things
be investigated. Usually the the result
of just an error oversight and corrected
in a timely manner. That way information
that's being viewed is accurate. Um then
the final recommendation that we have
and this truly is a recommendation
is on collateralization coverage um of
the town's financial deposits uh with
banks. The town has FDIC insurance over
all of its deposits. Um and FDIC
insurance covers up to 250,000
um for checking, 250,000 for savings.
Obviously the town has much more than
that on deposit with the bank. Um, and
so the town has certain
collateralization agreements or um,
subsidiary insurance policies in place
to protect against those deposits over
that federal insurance limit.
What we found is that that additional
coverage is tied primarily to the town's
operating account. And so
[clears throat] there's a number of
other smaller accounts that while they
don't have a significant balance
compared to the operating account,
they're effectively uninsured or
uncolateralized. Um now state statute
does require that any uninsured deposits
be collateralized. So as far as staying
in compliance with state statute,
certainly something that you would want
to look into. And our recommendation was
really just to engage your um deposit
institution to make sure that all of the
town's accounts are kind of picked up
when they're determining the level of
collateral that you would want to have
at any time.
From there, we get into the financial
statements themselves.
So, I'm happy to report the town
received an unmodified opinion on all of
its reporting units uh for the year
ended December 31st, 2025. and
unmodified opinion is often viewed as a
clean opinion. It means that the town's
financials um are fully anticipated to
be presented uh in accordance with GAP
in all material respects. I say
anticipated just because we're still in
draft phase. Um but there's there's
nothing at this stage that would cause
us to believe that the opinion would be
other than unmodified. Um some financial
statement highlights total current
assets of the town. So, this includes
cash, investments, receivables, prepaid
items. Uh, declined approximately
684,000
year-over-year. Um, that's
about 7%
annually. And the largest decrease was
seen in cash and investments combined.
Um, those two line items, investments
went up a bit, cash went down a bit
more, but in total they went down about
840,000.
Now, that sounds like a big number, but
to put that into comparison, the town
used 760,000 of fund balance to offset
its annual appropriation. So, really,
when you think about it from what you
budgeted for, it's actually not that big
of a swing. Non-current assets. So, this
would be uh things like your capital
assets, uh long-term lease receivables
on the office space of the new town
office building. Uh those increased by
about 1.8 million. largest portion of
that increase was in capital outlays.
So, these are going to be things like uh
the donated historic fire truck that the
town received, uh the new office
building that the town purchased,
ongoing upgrades and repairs at the
wastewater treatment plant, um and
various transportation and road
improvement projects.
current liabilities. These are things
like your vendor payables, um your
current portions of debt. Uh those
increased by approximately 107,000
year-over-year, and that was really
driven by the increase in some of the
finance purchase uh arrangements that
the town entered into during the year.
And then likewise, the long-term debt
also increased by about 124,000. And
that was really just the the net
difference of scheduled repayments on
the town's existing debt offset by new
issuances. Um the I didn't touch on the
total liability change and really that's
just because once that new OPED
valuation is obtained that number is
going to [clears throat] change. So
there's really not a lot of sense in
talking about it from a total
standpoint. If we look at the
governmental fund
statements, governmental funds, these
are really the funds that you're used to
looking at on an ongoing basis. So this
is your general fund, your capital
projects fund, your sewer fund, um and
then your various other non- major
funds. Um general fund end of the year
with unassigned fund balance of 1.2
million. That's just a bit under 5% of
the town's gross appropriations, which
that includes amounts raised for school
and county taxpayers. National Advisory
Council of State and Local Governments
and the Government Finance Officers
Association recommends a range of 5 to
17%. Um so end of the year just shy of
that low-end range. Um the town has used
a fair bit of surplus to fund um its
appropriations in the last couple years.
That's brought that percentage down a
debt. Um and still has some non-lapsing
appropriations to kind of carry over
that also tie up that unassigned fund
balance. So definitely in a position
where it's manageable and it has been uh
an intentional uh decline in that fund
balance number but getting to the point
that it's it's worth monitoring. I mean
you always want to be monitoring your
fund balance but food for thought. Um on
the budgetary basis the town had a total
decline in fund balance of approximately
673,000.
Um and again the town budgeted for a bit
over 700,000 use of fund balance. So
that 600,000 is somewhat anticipated. Um
overall the town raised roughly 189,000
less in revenue that it budgeted for.
That was largely impacted by that change
in the allowance for uncollectible
taxes. Um and that allowance again it's
it's a management judgment but there's a
few things that go into it. And one of
the things that goes into it is of the
taxpayers that are uncollected at year
end has anybody entered into bankruptcy?
Um, and if they have, state statute says
that you can't go after them in the
normal way that you would in terms of
leans or deeds. And so the town's hands
are kind of tied, at least in the short
term, in regards to its ability to
collect. That allowance is looking at
what's likely uncollected within the
next year. So, [snorts] it's not writing
the balance off. It's not saying that
you're never going to collect it, just
that your ability to collect it within
the the upcoming fiscal period is
somewhat limited. And so that causes the
allowance to go up. Um, in theory, in
future years, if that got resolved and
those amounts were collected, the
allowance would come back down and you'd
get that increase back. Um, that's
really just Gazsby requires a very
conservative approach when it comes to
revenues. That's one of the ways that
they make sure that a conservative
approach is taken. Cory, can I ask?
>> Yeah. Who sets that?
>> Who sets the allowance?
>> Yeah. So accounting thing that your
firm's doing is what we're doing when we
set tax rate.
>> No, it's it's not it's not
[clears throat] directly part of tax the
tax rate setting process. Um it is
something that more often than not we're
looking at as auditors because GAP says
you need to have an allowance.
>> Um the way to approach it is very much a
management decision. Um, our firm has a
methodology that we use for approaching
it and if management doesn't have um,
their own method, we present that to
them as one possibility, but ultimately
it's management's decision on how to go
about it. As far as the tax rate setting
process, this is a place where state
statute and uh the state department of
revenue administration DRRA kind of
differ in how they view allowances for
uncollectible taxes. Um, DRRA very much
views the allowance as overlay and views
it as a forward-looking mechanic where
if you don't think you're going to be
able to collect new taxes going forward,
you should increase overlay so that you
increase the amount of taxes that you
bring in now in order to give you uh
sort of a cash flow buffer going into
the future.
Gazsby looks at it differently. I mean,
Gatsby looks at what have you already
raised in taxes that you're not likely
to collect. So, you're you're sort of
looking at current factors and then
[clears throat]
historic and setting an allowance based
on that. The adjustment to that
allowance happens to go through overlay.
So, sorry if that's a a little kind of
accounting [clears throat]
[snorts] jargon, but um does that answer
your question, Troy?
>> It sounds like the account set that
number. It's not it's not something
we're doing other than when we decide on
overlays
hard role in that.
>> So yeah,
>> but I understand in a perfect world the
two would would align. Um you know
really you'd like them to be as close as
possible because they both while in
slightly different ways do reflect a
cruel basis accounting estimates. Um,
it's just
GAP requires one viewpoint and DRA and
I've had several discussions with them.
They view it very differently than how
GAAP does which does create a bit of a a
contradiction because the state says you
have to apply GAP in your financial
reporting.
But then state the state also uses it
for budgetary purposes and then doesn't
necessarily apply GAP for budgetary
purposes. So um you know I do have to be
careful in how I present it because we
can't make management decisions in order
to be independent. That's why you know
we have a methodology that we use and we
present it to management. If manage
wants to take that that's fine with us.
If they want to come up with their own
estimate that's fine with us as well as
long as that estimate appears reasonable
based on facts and circumstances.
Um
on the expenditure side of the budget,
uh the town actually had savings of
about 442,000.
So you know, kind of to recap, estimated
revenues was short about 189, but
expenditures on the appropriation side,
you saved 442. So overall, while you
claim to use about 700,000 in fund
balance, you actually use significantly
less. Well, not significantly, but a
fair bit less than now. Um and again
that savings on the expenditure side was
largely payroll related. Um just savings
across the board whether it was open
positions or or voluntary um positional
savings and and the associated benefits
that come along with those.
So I know I've kind of moved quickly
through those things. Um but on behalf
of Ashuki I do want to thank the town
for continuing to ser choose us to serve
as your independent auditors. Um we know
that there's a number of firms out there
that provide financial state and audit
services. Um and it's it's really a
pleasure um to be able to come up and
[clears throat] enjoy a beautiful
community while we're here doing the
audit work. Right. So um thank you for
that and thank you to again to Laura and
Troy um for their work and hospitality
while we're up here really helping to
get us everything that we need so that
we can get back to our families at the
end. Any questions?
>> I just wanted to if you could give us a
summary of the component unit. Uh little
to modern light is still I'm assuming
presented in the financial statements
but we are um audited by the same firm
but separately with independent reports
to the commissioner. So if you can just
cover that what
>> Sure. Yeah. So, and unfortunately I I
didn't even think to pull numbers
together for Littleton Water and Light,
but so what a component unit is, as Lori
pointed out, Littleton Water and Light
is considered a component unit of the
town of Littleton. Um, essentially a
component unit can be triggered by a
number of different things. In in the
case of Littleton Water and Light, the
board of commissioners that govern
Littleton Water and Light are selected
through the town's board of selectment.
Um, additionally, any general obligation
debt issued by Littleton Water and Light
is backed by the full faith and credit
of the town. Those two things combined
trigger what's what's known as component
unit reporting, which basically means
that the certain elements of the
financial statements of Littleton Water
and Light get pulled into the town of
Littleton's financial statements.
Specifically, if you look at uh the very
first statement that actually has
financial figures on it, it's a
statement of deposition. You'll see two
columns. The lefth hand column is the
governmental activities. That's all of
the town of Littleton's activities. And
then the column next to it is the
discreetly presented component unit and
that's Littleton water and light. And
then also on um statement B which is the
uh statement of changes in that position
statement of activities that statement
presents the revenue and expenses of
Littleton water and light in a section
directly below the town of Littleton's
um program specific revenues and
expenses. Then again there's a side
column there. So it allows users when
looking at the town of Littleton to kind
of say okay you know they do have this
other organization. Should that other
organization have any debt, it could be
backed or in theory should be backed by
the town's uh full faith and credit. So,
let me see what that organization is
doing. Um, in the notes, there's far
less specific information about
Littleton Water and Light. It really
focuses on those elements that kind of
are tied in with the town. So while the
component unit doesn't have any debt
issued and outstanding at present, were
it to that debt information would be
included along with the town's debt
information. Um likewise authorized and
unissued debt because for the same
reason is also disclosed in the town's
financial statements and then the
capital asset activity of little light
is also disclosed in the financial
statements. really the the thought
process there is that for the most part
when you issue debt it's to build out
capital assets and infrastructure. So
there's a tie in there. Um other
disclosures like pension, OPAD, those
sorts of payroll related activities are
not included because they're not the
obligation of the town or really have
any tie-in with the town. So that's why
it's it's a very condensed presentation.
Um, but that information is there. And
then there's also a reference to the
separately issued financial statements
of Littleton Water and Light just to let
the user know, hey, if you do want more
information, you can find a full set of
GAP financial statements just by going
to, you know, this location to find
them. Is that
>> excellent question on that? So, it's
it's disclosure in the audit. it it's
not strictly a liability and a revenue
on the town's line, but it's a related
disclosure. Is that the correct way?
>> Yeah. I mean, it's it's in some ways
it's like a related party. Um although a
traditional related party, you would
have far less. You would just have a
small footnote really discussing the
transactions with that related party.
with this because there's a statutory
tie-in. Um while the board of selectmen
don't have direct control over the
organization, they have an indirect
control through their ability to appoint
board members of that organization. And
then again, that general obligation debt
tie-in are what really require it to be
presented, but it is presented entirely
separate from the town. So, their
balances and activity don't get
aggregated with any of the town's
balances and activity or any of the
town's disclosures. It's all presented
separately and clearly labeled that this
is the information of the component
unit.
>> Thank you.
>> Have a good question.
>> Y um seems like the stuff that's
highlighted in this report is almost all
having to do with the op.
Um, is that because there's a change or
is that to bring attention to or
>> No, that's that was specifically for you
as board members just to know that this
is the information that's all going to
be changing. Um, most of the information
that you're seeing there is actually
last year's disclosure. You'll see
there's a failure of disclosure that
goes into it. And as opposed to updating
it based on valuation that we know is
going to change, I just highlighted it
to bring your attention to it because it
it is going to change.
>> Okay. Thank you.
So Corey, just before we wrap up, you're
here live. We've got some budget
committee members here and we're going
to be working on budget soon and doing
all that budget talk, fund balance talk.
Um,
>> so you you already stated this, but I
just wanted to bring it back to
everyone's discussion.
you're we have a policy that you know
that we're trying to maintain at a
minimum 5% of the unassigned amounts
with a goal of getting it to 8%.
>> What you reported this [clears throat]
evening is probably when we see this we
benchmark not against the audit but
against [clears throat] the tax rate
sending form
>> um we're probably not going to see much
growth. We're going to see it pretty
flat. How how much did you
how much did you use in fund balance? Do
you remember off the top of your head to
support subsequent appropriations in 26?
>> Uh we only maybe had two
warn articles we use fund balance. I
don't think we were much more than
200.
>> Yeah. 226.
So when when BRA looks at a number um
when they provide that number in
that funding of subsequent
appropriations in your financials it's
assigned not unassigned because as of
1231 you have a plan for it. Uh when
DRRA does the tax rate setting and when
they give you that percentage that
number comes down into ass uh
unassigned. So you're unassigned 1.2
realistically it's it's going to look
like 1.4 4 1.5 not
>> yeah on on the when the when DRA does
its calculations I wanted percentage
could be that was my assumption I just
for people here that occurred that our
fund balance in the coming
>> format it's it's one remain flat but
when we see our DRA form this fall I
think you're going to see that it grew
um
>> yeah substantial but it grew beyond the
>> it's going in the right
you know, benchmarking against the DR
form.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and to Troy's point,
it's one of the joys of municipal
accounting. You really have three
different ways that you can account for
any one transaction. Um unlike a
business where there's one way to
account for it and that's it. So, it it
really depends on, you know, are you
looking at things from a budgetary
basis? Are you looking at it from a fund
basis? Are you looking at it from a
governmentwide basis? Um and and each
one of those has kind of different
intricacies. on a budgetary basis. DRA,
it'd be about 1 mid 1.4 1.5.
>> Great.
>> Great. Anyone else?
>> Thank you very much.
>> Yeah, sure.
>> Have a nice evening.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
>> All right. Um, up next is Littleton
Water and Light Wellbe Interconnection
Report and one other I think report from
Lorie Hogan, the CEO of Littleton Water
and Light.
>> Thank you. Um so uh the commissioners
and I are um happy to report that we
were successful in getting an SRF grant
um this year. Um we call it wellbe or
it's otherwise known as Lafayette well.
There's a well directly behind our
facility that was um recently permitted.
Um so we've been trying to raise funds
to interconnect which is about $720,000.
Um so we um applied last year and did
not make the ranking unfortunately. Um
but we applied this year and we actually
got ranked seventh in the state of New
Hampshire for priority projects and we
are um eligible for up to 50% of um
grant um and then 50% loans. Um so
actually if I can I'll just read the
bullet points. Okay. Um you'll be seeing
a warrant article um because we need the
warrant article um to be able to accept
the grant and the and the loan needs to
be approved. Um there will also be a
provision um of Bureau of Rail and
Transit application has been submitted
and is going to need additional approval
and information to be provided. I'm sure
for that approval. Um the town is the
owner of the land and LWL is the
operator. So, um we're going to need um
some approval for that um application to
be approved. Um typically we don't
borrow funds um as well to water and
light. Uh but in this case um the SRS is
a very low interest rate loan. Um so it
would free up cash for other some other
of our system priorities. But also what
it does is it projects need like when
you apply for these funds, you know,
saying well we have a lot of need. We
can't afford to do this. and then you
come in and you pay your portion all in
cash. It's like, did you really have a
need? So, you know, some of it's just
making sure that we're sending the
correct message. Um, this is our first
SRF, any I should say significant SRF
that we've ever um that we ever got
funded. So, I want to continue the good
trend.
Um, but also too, we were projecting an
increase, a second increase in the water
rates that we had reported last year.
And because of this grant, I would say
that we would defer doing that in 27 and
maybe just do a small cost of living
adjustment. Um to be determined
obviously by the commissioners, but
that's my current recommendation for
them. Um so the issue, oh yes, the issue
that gets resolved is we will now have
100% redundancy for our water system,
which to me is huge. um if we ever have
a problem with the transmission line um
we have enough um permitted capacity uh
to be able to meet the needs of the town
which is 500 gallons per minute um and
we will be able to produce that you
through Brickyard and Lafayette well
combined
um so coming up our recommendations is
that we are going to have a warn article
to submit to Miss Lori over there and I
have that I'll send it right along to
you um but we'd also request a vote to
approve the town manager to be able to
sign any permit applications
um that are you know being presented by
the Bureau of Rail and Transit.
>> Great. And that's it. Thank you.
Do you want to do these into separately?
>> Yeah, maybe maybe we'll discuss on this.
We'll do the vote um on per having town
manager be able to sign the permits and
then we'll go to your second. Makes
sense to me. Does anybody have any
questions about this particular issue?
>> One little question.
>> Yeah. Um, a whole bunch of work was done
on that recreation trail last year. And
so you're going to kind of are you going
to go under it or
>> are you going to put it back? Nice.
>> Yes. [laughter]
>> Do we ever do anything that's not
>> Oh, I'm the new guy. So,
>> no, we're going to be um doing two.
We're going to be going overhead for
power um which will not have an
interruption to the trail. Um and we are
going to bore under for the water line.
The inner connection is well there's a
little ramp that goes up over the trail
um where the homeless encampment used to
be
>> and so as it starts to go up the inner
connections right there.
>> Okay.
>> Um so we'll that's what we'll be doing.
>> And you're just going to bore through
the trail.
>> Yeah. So you won't even take the top
surface up.
>> Yeah. Towards the middle cuz we want to
bring it down. I'm sure it'll be sloped.
>> Um I 10 12 I can't remember the size of
the pipe. I would imagine it's going to
be somewhere around a 10 in or 12 in.
Um, which it'll be a big good size pipe.
>> Yeah, cuz we're doing like 190 gallons
per minute off that well.
>> Oh,
>> yeah. It was a good one. [snorts]
>> Yeah, we got lucky. And it was right in
our backyard.
Anyone else?
Everybody comfortable with I am with um
we have to do a vote to give Troy the
approval to be able to sign the permits
because they're going to come in
different times and I'm certainly okay
with that. Um anybody
>> Troy okay with that?
>> Troy, are you okay with that? I guess I
should have asked you. Well, whether is
or not
optional.
>> It's not optional. Yeah.
>> Ask you
>> um if somebody wants to make that motion
unless there's more discussion.
I'll make that motion to give the town
manager approval to sign permit
applications as necessary leads to this
grant.
Anyone want to second that?
>> I'll second or
>> second. Taylor motion second. And any
more discussion?
>> All right. All in favor?
opposed. Okay. 50.
>> All right. Lori, you want to do the
second? Sure. Well, just as a segue,
you'll be seeing a little bit more of me
hopefully because I just um I just put
in a Northern Borders grant application
for more than half a million dollars.
I'm doing a a federal department of
energy for 2.3 million and then I'm
going for the drinking water trust fund.
I've got three different applications
going in. So hopefully I'll be
announcing some more soon. We won't know
until October, November on any of those.
Great. So the next one is related to um
oh I guess this is another grant that we
received was American Rivers. Um we have
a 19 a DM that was built in 1960 at our
intake at the northern branch of Gail
River and um the dam is no longer used.
Um and nor American has approached us to
remove the dam um and we actually the
commissioners approved as a two phase
project. um they're going to redo our
intake and then this year and then next
year they're going to remove the dam
because we if in a e situation we could
use the dam to get water into the
intake. So we want to make sure that the
infiltration gallery is working properly
first before they go and rip out our
redundancy. Um so
um once again the property owner is the
town of Littleton. I've already provided
a deed from 1905 um to the town manager
to Troy um for their review
um because um obviously the location of
the intake is um strictly um
confidential. The commissioners are
recommending the project um we're going
to receive new infrastructure at no cost
and it mitigates any exposure to uh
little water and light to park to
potentially remove the damage in the
future at our cost.
the Oh. Oh, that's okay. Got it. I'm
losing track of what I'm doing. So, as
part of the um funding, um New American
Rivers uh approached New Hampshire Dam
Removal and New Hampshire Arm Funds and
New Hampshire Arm Funds as being one of
the granters um required a perpetual
easement to the property stating that we
would never uh touch the remediated
area. Well, we can't do that. That's
just not feasible. If our intake is not
working and it's our only source, well,
other than the back of the wells now, um
if it's it's our only source of water,
we're going to do what we have to do.
And if it goes into that area, it goes
into that area. So we negotiated
separate language um with the ARM fund
and army corps of engineers that
basically says that we don't have any
intention any stated intention to go
into the area but if something does
happen we would approach ARM and we
would approach dees for proper approvals
um to ensure so okay um so that
agreement was attached
so what I'm looking for is um permission
for the town manager to approve and
sign. We cannot do it now because it
requires some dates of when the grant um
form is approved and we don't have that
yet. It hasn't been signed and approved
yet. Um so it'll be something that we'll
be doing fairly soon into the future,
maybe late September, early October
>> and we're we can do a vote to give him
approval to sign it for the future. This
has been reviewed by legal counsel, your
legal counsel, the towns, and the a lot
of this wording came from the attorney
um because she wasn't very happy with
the uh dees wording, so she rewrote it
and they approved it.
>> Is the acknowledgement perpetual or just
for the life of this grant?
>> No, it's um I believe
I have a copy of it.
>> It was my understanding the
acknowledgement is perpetual,
>> but but was no easement being granted?
>> No, there's no
granted. Correct. That's what they asked
for eventually, but that's what we
refuse to do.
>> Yes, chair.
>> I would just like to say that uh if we
have any further negotiating that we
need to do with the Army Corps of
Engineers for DEES, then we put Lori in
charge of that.
I've dealt with those for many years.
I've never once heard someone be able to
disagree, much less say, "Oh, no. We'll
do what we want." Thank you very much.
>> She can be persuasive. Someone
[laughter]
wanted to save the fish.
>> They also always want easements, right?
It's it's an overreach, I think.
>> Always request easements and in this
case on town land.
>> Yeah.
>> Good for you.
>> Close that deal as quick as we can.
>> Once you give it, you can't get it back.
And we are in a watershed protected
area. So, um I think we've got all of
our eyes dotted and te's cross on this
one.
Anyone else questions?
>> All right. So, we have to do like the
last one. Give um Troy the
>> motion to um give Troy the approval to
sign the Make sure I have it right here.
You have aquatic resource
fund mitigation fund project owner
acknowledgement
>> has the same just the acknowledgement or
is there more is there a grant
application?
>> Yes, I guess more and forms related to
this. It wouldn't just be this form.
>> Um I think that the grant's going to be
under water and light. So you'll
commission or you will just this is just
the because you're property owner.
>> Okay. So, it's about the touching of the
property and restrictions on the
property. So,
>> okay.
>> All right. Um motion to approve and
ensure I sign the acknowledgement letter
that goes with the grant.
>> Taylor second. Any other discussion?
>> All right. All those in favor?
>> Okay. 50.
Thank you, Lori. All right. Next, we
have um two people from or three from
Schilling um to tell us about the
October Fest event which is coming up in
about a month.
>> Does everyone have resation?
>> Yes, we do. We have it in our folders.
Thank you.
>> Hi everybody.
Um, so my name is Scott Looney. I'm
joined here by Nolan Barber, who works
at Shilling. Uh, he's our New England
brand representative, as well as Tim
Egan, who is a consultant of ours, who
works with special big events, um, and
is generally a pretty okay guy to hang
out with. Um, we are here to talk to you
briefly about Schilling's October Fest
and anniversary party. And uh also along
with that comes a request for a road
closure which we'll get to as we get
into the presentation. Um so we Nolan's
slide presentation. I'm just going to
kind of go into it today. The rough
overview what we'll be discussing is our
team, our story, a map of what October
Fest is going to look like, the
community and economic impact that we've
had in years past and that we aspire to
have this year as well as safety. So,
first and foremost, I'm Scott. I've been
with Shillings since 2021. I am
presently our sales director, but I've
done everything from dish pit to brew a
beer to whatever. Uh, pretty much
everything. Swiss Army guy.
>> You want to talk about your role?
>> Yeah. Uh, well, started as his intern
thanks to Tim. Um, three years ago, a
little over three years now. But, um,
same kind of deal. I started from the
bottom doing uh dish pit expo hosting
you name it. Um went to brand ambassador
representative and now sales manager for
Vermont.
I'm Tim Hill. I'm an adviser to shing
beer company. I'm also the on the board
of Catan Arts who utilizes the mobile
stage for first Friday. That stage is
also utilized for October Fest.
So, some folks that couldn't make it
today but are just names for you. If
you're ever at Shilling or if you come
to October Fest and you see, there's
photos of Victoria Thompson who's our
hospitality coordinator, brand
ambassador. If you can call, she was
here last year speaking with me as well
as as well as Sarah Lame who's our
general manager. So, a little about uh
Shilling for those of you who don't
know. Shilling is a familyowned and
operated business that started here in
Littleton in 2013. We specialize in the
production of old school loggers. Um,
continental European inspired beer,
Germanic beer, uh, Czech style beer, but
mostly logger beer, lower ABV, more
traditional style beer. Um, the name
Schilling is the name of the owner's
maternal grandfather, uh, Dr. R.J.
Schilling. He was a philanthropist who
inspired the founding of the brewery.
Um, Shelling is presently recognized
globally as a top five brewery, which is
really wild. Um, there is a rating
system called Untapped, and we've been
recognized for the last 3 years as one
of the best breweries in the world. Um,
uh, so our October Fest is a an
anniversary celebration, but it's turned
into much more than that. It's an
opportunity for us to bring breweries
that typically the north country will
not see into Littleton. uh give our
local community a chance to try some of
the best beer uh in the world. We have
breweries from South America, uh Canada,
Europe, um all kind of and and all sorts
of states in between kind of coming to
Littleton to to show off what they can
do and to be a part of the community for
a day. Um this year's October Fest, we
will be featuring 50 breweries from 19
different states and four different
countries. And that runs the gambit
from, you know, other logger breweries
like us and then some other breweries
that produce, you know, IPA and stout
and other styles of beer. So, we run the
full gambit. Um, before uh the board is
a map um it's the October Fest site map
and if you recall, if you've seen
Oktoberfest site maps in the future,
it's going to look very very similar.
And the reason for that is because uh it
works. That format works. Um the the
road closure that we wanted to speak to
you folks about would be you can see
that there is a um a small area that's
kind of boxed. It is part of Porter
Street as well as part of Mil Street. Um
and so uh just like the first Fridays
that you've seen. Uh that's kind of what
we'll be requesting from you today. And
actually in front of the board is also
the special events application which I'm
just realizing that appears to have been
signed um by uh all the lovely people in
the town that need to sign it. Um and
just to that end I wanted to bring up
something that we started this year um
based on feedback we've gotten from the
community. Uh Nolan is holding his hand
written kind of acknowledgement
acknowledgements and agreements with all
the abutters that we could possibly
interface with on the day of October
Fest. So, our team went door todo and
spoke to business owners and said, "Hey,
just wanted to give you a heads up on
this. This is going to be happening. We
know it happens the last Saturday of
every year. We wanted you to be kind of
aware. This is what's going to be
happening. This is when it's happening.
Let us know if you have questions or
concerns." And so, Nolan has in his hand
basically every business that's showing
a butts a signature of an owner or a
manager who is duly authorized to sign
that acknowledging that October Fest
will be happening. so everyone's on the
same page. Um,
>> yeah,
>> that's an important part to make sure
that there's always a relationship with
the community. It's not an event, a
standalone event, but it's an event
that's part of the community and engages
the community and honest discussion.
>> Yeah. And and part of the special events
application generally is that we list
all the abutters, but sometimes just,
you know, having that extra
conversation, we're hoping it can go a
long way because even last year there
was a little bit of confusion. We wanted
to make sure that we were, you know,
everyone was on the same page. Um, so
that was great. Um, and just to that
end, you know, we always try to have
local businesses, we offer local
businesses tickets. We offer them to
come down, be a part of the uh be a part
of the revery. It's a ton of fun to be
when our worlds collide with the beer
industry and then our local community
all in the same place enjoying the same
thing. Um
last year we were able to donate $17,000
in charities um from our ticket proceeds
uh which was awesome and a big chunk of
that went to uh local charities. This
year, the charities that we'll be
donating to are adapted sports partner
partners, Littleton Area Mutual Aid, the
Band Croft House, and the Michael James
Jack Jackson Foundation. Uh those first
three are kind of Littleton North
Country based. That last one is a
scholarship fund that allows people who
don't have access to learning how to
brew or hospitality or how to distill.
It funds grants for them to get into
that kind of work. Um
and uh yeah, we've invited all main
street businesses to join and to attend
Oktoberfest. Uh last year we had 30
local businesses come and and uh join in
on the festivities.
so last year we had approximately 2,000
guests hailing from 21 states across the
US. We also had ticket holders travel
from Canada, France, the United Kingdom,
Austria, and Mexico. Um, we had about
130 volunteers that all pitched in and
that was tremendous. Uh, and, uh, like I
said, we were able to donate, you know,
a good amount of money to the local
community.
that's that's really all I had. And so,
and part of this really, the reason why
we want to come to the town is to make
uh, the board aware, to speak to the
community about it, and to also, you
know, the road closure is a huge part of
it. We wanted to make sure that you guys
had your eyes on it. So, I think that
that's all from
>> Oh, yeah. I I had I'm sorry. These are
like a little janky. In the history of
Oktoberfest, we've had no arrests. Um
that's something I always like to talk
about because people always assume
you're festival with a lot of boisterous
um maybe slightly intoxicated people. Um
we haven't had any arrests out of so um
we've had a couple people that have to
be removed for being a little boisterous
but yeah
and I think an important part of the the
safety plan is the road closure that
ensures that no traffic comes down Mil
Street which protects those not only
enjoying October Fest but community that
might be out there. Um, we nowadays we
have to be conscious not just of local
traffic but of those that might want to
cause harm. So we think that's a wise
use of our closure
>> questions.
>> Sure. Any
>> you probably want to clo ask her for a
vote to close Mil Street
and
>> Long Beach and Li.
>> Okay. Yeah, we'll do that. But any other
questions before we
>> I'm assuming the chiefs you guys have
reviewed this and you don't have any
concerns or know
>> we're still in a review process but we
have no concerns.
>> We've worked with shillings before.
They've been great partners. It's a
great event. We'll work through the
details.
>> That's a good question.
>> I think it's a great event to have here
in Littleton. It is uh like you say, you
bring people from all over the the the
country and from the world to Littleton
to get a view. And for those of you who
don't know that almost every can that
shilling shilling sells has a
description of Littleton on it. So it's
pretty good advertising. I think you
know
>> can every drink there [laughter]
>> never a little bit of Alexander would
have been nice to bring to the meeting.
Just alltime favorite.
>> Interesting enough, we we travel so much
for work. We get to represent the
company as we have beer festivals, open
up new markets. We distribute in about
15 or 16 states at this point, fairly
consistently.
>> Wow.
>> And when I go anywhere and I talk about
chilling, one of the first things
inevitably that I hear is, "Oh my god, I
looked you up on social media. What a
gorgeous looking town." I'm like, "Come
visit. Come visit. It'd be awesome to
have you." So, yeah. Cool. Everybody
knows.
>> Cool. I think it's a great idea.
>> Yeah. There's one question. Go ahead.
December.
>> Yeah. Um actually, um I just had a
couple. Does the showing um obtain a
beer and specialty festival uh license
for for the event?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Um and to my understanding,
chapter five of Littleton ordinance
chapter 5 public drinking um the select
board or designate has to give
permission to allow drinking on public
public property on little town property.
Is that has that pro process been
completed or who who from the select
board or a designate
gives Schilling uh permission to
>> do we have to do we have to do that?
>> I haven't noticed it in the past. So
that's why I'm asking it's you know if I
understood the the ordinance correct
that you know there does need to be
permission for drinking on town owned
land and Mil Street is town owned land.
Um curious we do that application
>> that is in the ordinance. Um you can
give that permission to
>> you can add it on to thanks for sharing.
>> What exactly where would the the the
public drinking occur? Just on
>> just three the three streets but not the
three streets that
>> just one of them.
>> Well no Porter and B
>> lots
of that. So there must be some access
control.
>> It's still of age and take
>> we can add it to our the thing about our
vote. We can vote to close down loafy
porter and mill and then give permission
to
>> public.
>> It's a very good point that's been
raised then but I think it's just
>> I think everyone's probably been aware
that closing the street was going to
have public jury in this area. It's
actually Mil Street too because there's
some place that is covered by just say
>> snow fence. So I would say the area
designated what they but also on their
plan.
>> Yeah. The Thank you, Chief. The the
event um that you could when you look at
the special events application or the
maps that we provided that October Fest
area will be completely snow fenced with
with a security team that we work with
at Rome. So there's one point of entry
and then everything else is a closed off
liquor licensed area. So that in cap
that includes part of Porter Street, Mil
Street B.
>> Yeah. We don't we're not a town that
allows for the what is the term for the
>> social district.
>> Social district. Yeah. It was something
that got brought up once and
>> a couple towns have it now. I think
Laconia and Portsmith.
>> I know Laconia.
>> Laconia has it. So that might be
something in the future. We wouldn't
have to do it for every time depending
on it would be voted by it wouldn't be
voted by us. The PE would have to go to
the people. But for the sake of tonight,
let's just add it to whoever makes a
motion. Let's add it.
Um.
>> All right.
>> Are we ready for that?
>> Safety question. Just a quick safety
question.
>> Just because they you guys have
advertised the the unlimited uh certain
admission tickets get the unlimited uh
tasting pores from 50 vendors. So how
how what is the
what is the control of if someone you
know is is deemed as overs served
>> true at one particular vendor how is
that relayed
>> to the other like how is that taken care
of so that that person is known to be
not served anymore
>> yeah so all of our volunteers
sign a waiver effectively saying and we
train them the day of October Fest to
look for signs of intoxication.
In addition to the fact that we have all
these volunteers looking for the signs
of intoxication, we have session
captains that are team certified and
oftent times MTS certified managers on
shilling [clears throat]
that are actively kind of observing the
area. In addition to that, we have a
uniform police officer that is typically
there throughout the day to assist and
then we also have a private security
team there.
>> Well, I appreciate that. No, no, thank
you. I just not, you know, not nothing
against the event. I just want to make
sure that the community of course and
the people attending are safe. So, of
course, thank you very much.
>> What is the date?
>> September. September 26th.
>> Good point.
>> September 26th.
>> September 26th. Of
>> course.
>> All right. Any more discussion from the
board before we do a motion? Read a
motion.
>> All right. So the motion
>> the three locations to close
>> make a motion to close the the lot B
mill quarter
>> and apply what's the ordinance standard
we're applying to that same space that
we had to do more formal
>> drinking on public land.
>> Yep. That we giving permission for that
event.
>> Giving permission for that one event on
September 26th.
>> That's the motion.
>> Yep. Okay. Can we add subject to
approval of Chief Smith, Chief Miller?
Because there's maybe other conditions
unless you've already signed off on it.
Guys,
>> we have the you can if you want to, but
we we have the form that we require them
to fill out in
>> the special event form.
>> We we take care of that. So,
>> all right. No worries.
>> Okay. So, that's the motion on the
>> I'll second.
>> Ed seconds. Any more discussion about
it?
>> Okay. All in favor?
>> I post. Okay. 50. Thank you for coming.
>> October.
>> All right. Great. Um, we're about
halfway through business. All right.
Next is December Russ with the community
garden discussions.
Thank you. So, my name is Rush. I'm a
Littleton resident and I have
volunteered at um local places that
handle food insecurity. I've also
utilized some of those organizations as
well. And as much as you know there's so
much support in this community already
in supporting those pantries
um and and and food insecurity
organizations, but one thing that we
really don't have on a steady basis a
lot of is is is fresh produce. That's
something that, you know, low-inccome
people u people uh you know classified
as poverty that it's something that when
you're trying to make meals it's it's
not always the most cost effective thing
to be able to get produce. So, um, in in
reading, um, recently I've been reading
some Little Wilton history, and I
haven't found yet where there's ever
been an actual Littleton community
garden where, uh, community members, um,
can for a nominal fee every season can
have their own plot and they can go in
and if they want to plant, whatever
vegetables, they want to plant, some
pollinators, um, they can they maintain
that one plot and, you know, and then it
what it does is it provides the
opportunity for for a lot of aspects.
So, I'll kind of go through here. I
don't want to miss anything, but this is
something I'm starting I'm picking this
up on my own. It's my own it's it's not
I mean it's it's my initiative to bring
forward, but this is going to take a lot
of effort by a lot of people to to pull
off. Um so, I'm kind of here to present
to the select board and to the public.
Um get it on record and then hoping that
I can build some interest in this over
the winter and we can go forward. So the
purpose of Little Little Littleton
Community Garden is to establish a
welcoming sustainable community space
where Littleton residents can grow food,
share knowledge, build relationships,
and contribute to the broader community.
The project is currently in its
exploratory and organizational stage.
The purpose of presenting the initiative
to the select board is to introduce the
concept publicly and seek the board
support for continued exploration,
encourage community participation, and
begin identifying the partnerships and
resources necessary to make a community
garden a reality. I've already spoken to
a couple of organizations and there is
one building organization that would be
interested in in in purchasing a renting
a plot for the for the season because
within the organization they have
clients that that deal with food
insecurity. So they would love to
maintain their own plot to be able to
help out their clients. So the concept I
would be would consist primarily of
individually um you know either raised
garden beds or plots depending on the
property depending on how the the soil
is um in in Littleton for Littleton
residents for a nominal seasonal fee and
I've been throwing out I mean just
because many years ago I was part of one
in a different municipality. I paid $10
for a season. I got a 10x10 plot. Um,
and it was amazing just so $10 is a
little unrealistic for for nowadays. Uh,
that was 16 years ago, but um, you know,
this intended to be a nominal fee so
that anyone who's resident can go ahead
and have a plot. Um, the fee would not
be intended primarily as a source of
revenue. Rather, it would offset
recurring expenses associated with
water, soil maintenance, tools,
supplies, and administration while
keeping participation affordable. And
the eventual design would depend upon
the location selected, available space,
accessibility, sunlight, water access,
community interest, and funding. So,
potential components include individual
garden plots or raised beds for
residents and organizations,
accessible raised beds designed for
gardeners with mobility limitations
because we want everyone to be able to
be involved. So that would that would
obviously dictate to how the structure
of the property is laid out so that
anyone can be involved in this. Um the
let's see uh the eventual design I'm
sorry uh let's see shared pathways and
gathering areas a small tool shed for
shared gardening equipment and supplies
water access and appropriate irrigation
composting and other sustainable
gardening practices were practical
pollinator friendly flowers and
plantings and educational and community
gardening opportunities. That's one of
the big [clears throat] um uh benefits I
see with this is that it gets neighbors
seeing other neighbors that maybe they
don't normally get a chance to see. It
gets gets our community interacting with
each other over a shared need. We all
need to eat and we all I mean I love
fresh vegetables. So, and I'm sure most
people do. So, you know, that's
something that you know being able to
enjoy that being able to be a part of
that. Um and also it's something that
can be started before the growing
season. So, it can start indoors. We
have long cold winters here. So this is
something where because of you know um
different mental health issues and
things. This is something where when
that seasonal depression kicks in and we
have sustained winters, people can start
growing indoors. You know we can offer
seed packets and different things so
that it [snorts] it it keeps the the
excitement and just look look something
to look forward to being outdoors, being
in the sunshine, growing. Uh there's
something I find very satisfying about
about growing. So I'd like to share that
you know with the community. So the the
plots uh would be in uh maintained by
the gardeners themselves but the
community garden would reserve uh two or
three plots depending on the space and
we would maintain those for distribution
back in the community. So whether it's
uh through dinner bell over here at All
Saints or whether it's through Llama or
um the Readington uh uh pantry over
there or over here at the Luffy Pantry,
it all of that food would be dispersed
back into our local community so that um
so that people would be have that
opportunity and and chance to eat fresh
vegetables. Um so they'd be maintained
collectively by the community garden
organization and volunteers rather than
you know rather than actually like um
our our plots and rather than being
leased to individual gardeners. Um so
there's quite a few different benefits.
Local food access, you know, residents
without suitable gardening space at
their homes or apartments would now
actually have a space to to grow
whatever they wanted for vegetables or
pollinators. Um, dedicated community
plots would produce fresh vegetables and
herbs for local pantries, meals,
organizations.
Um, community connections. Like I talked
about, this is a a place for residents
of different ages and backgrounds and
levels of experience. Maybe someone's a
little more knowledgeable than someone
else. This is a great way to start
teaching each other to pass along skills
that maybe we don't possess. And maybe
we actually want to learn it from a
human being rather than trying to find
out how to do it online. So this is
another way to promote real human
connection and a connection to the
ground because before we had the grocery
stores and everything we were that's how
those used to do it. Everything used to
come out of the ground right here
locally. Um you know the education
aspect it would be a great place for
workshops and programming involved in
gardening, composting, food
preservation, uh pollinators which are
very important uh to our ecosystem,
nutrition and environmental stewardship.
um health and recreation. You know,
gardening uh provides outdoor physical
activity and another form of recreation
within the community. I know that there
are mental health organizations in
Littleton where they are looking for
public space where they can take their
clients and go and have conversations or
take their clients and go and and this
would be another place where you have
maybe a bench or two. So, people could
sit and enjoy the garden. If they didn't
have a plot there, it doesn't mean you
can't be there. are just, you know, this
would be a place welcome for anybody
that want to go in and enjoy the space.
Um, you know, um, and inter
intergenerational participation. That's
the beautiful part about this, too, is
it provides opportunities for children,
adults, and older residents to all
participate in the same project. It's
not just a a game night for adults or
game night for kids or whatever. This is
something where everyone can be involved
in the process. Um I am uh presenting on
this the 15th of September coming up
here at the public library starting at
5:30 a community participation
presentation. So um I've um in the McLar
program room downstairs I'll be there
discussing uh with anyone who's
interested. This is totally open to
anyone who wants to be involved at this
point. This is totally um exploratory
and it's in its infancy. So, it's it's
ideas I want, you know, it's it's not,
you know, it's not just ideas coming
into me. I want to be able to pull
together a bunch of a bunch of
interested residents and all work
together on this. So, I I may be leading
this at this point, but this [snorts] is
something that's going to take more than
just me going forward, you know, and and
me um leading this because these types
of projects need a strong internal
organization so that they last
throughout you know the years and that
would be the intention of this. Um,
you know, uh, one of the beautiful part
about this is, you know, there's the,
uh, chance for community partnerships.
Like I, like I spoke about, there's one
organization I already spoke with that
is interested in in their own plot. Um,
you know, there's there's, I mean, all
of the questions essentially are still
there to be answered. You know, I you
know, there's the the idea on this is,
you know, I can't say it. It's not it's
design my design idea would be with zero
or very little taxpayer impact. What I
mean by that is is that either through
grants uh donations uh you know this is
going to be a volunteer effort and then
you know hopefully um I can find a land
owner who'd be willing to we can work
out a trust so that this could be
something that could be established and
then saved within the community for
generations. This isn't something that
should just be built and then, you know,
goes by the wayside. this should be
something that's thought of 100 years
down the road is how are we planning so
that this can still remain here isn't a
burden on taxpayers and and where the
there's actual like u steps to be able
to ensure that you know like I've
already spoken with um Riley Clark um
parks and w and you know we she
definitely shared some concerns as far
as because parks and rep now they're
they take care of all the green space
that's a town land so the idea of this
is not to add any extra burden on that
department or anyone over there. Not
that they can't be involved, but it
would be to actually have all the
volunteers that are on the garden group
that would take care of everything. So,
doing that um you know, again, not that
the parks can't be involved in it, but
this is not adding another green space
for the t for our town department to
worry about managing or cleaning up or
overseeing or any of those aspects. Um
so at this point you know what I'm what
I'm doing is I you know I I'm asking the
select board um I'm hoping to express
support and continue exploration of
establishing a garden. Um you know
encourage appropriate town departments
and officials to participate discussions
you know um regarding feasibility and
potential locations.
um help where possible to inform those
residents that the initiative is
underway and that public participation
is being sought and to support the
broader goal of creating an accessible
sustainable community resource that
promotes gardening, local food
production, community engagement, and
food uh food security. So, you know,
this is I don't have a this isn't, you
know, uh asking for, you know, your un
I'm dying uh you know, support, you
know, at this point. I'm not asking for
financial support. I'm not asking for
town right now. This is just I'm asking
the board for support in the idea so
that you know there's there's there's
when there's some buy in into it. You
know, there's at least the the the
support buying aspect of that so that
when I'm talking with other community
members that there's understanding that
it, you know, that there's more than
just me interested in making this
happen. And I I I would hope that you
know this is an aspect where we don't
have anything like this where the
community itself is actually involved in
the planting involved in the growing
involved in the harvesting of their own
food plot. So this is something you know
this is a this is a a community
initiative that isn't just about food
but about me about mental health about
community um camaraderie about you know
about just the neighbors working
together. And so that's that's what I'm
kind of asking the the board to at least
support the idea going forward and you
know I'll bring back more ideas to the
board as they develop. Um that's kind of
what I'm I'm here today to talk about.
>> Yes. So first of all I have to commend
you this well-written proposal. I mean
well thought out um and it really
interested me. So, I like did a little
bit of homework myself and I somehow
remember there was a small community
garden attempt I would say at Remick
Park.
>> Oh.
>> Probably 12 years or so ago and it
wasn't very long.
>> That's correct.
>> Oh, okay. Well, then
>> um but you know it didn't happen. So
then so then I did a quick search and um
I found out there is a community garden
quote up at the Daughters of the Charity
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
>> Yes. And I was like, wonder if they're
still doing it. So I got on my bike and
I rode up there this morning. [laughter]
>> You're a gogetter, Dave.
>> And sister Monique was up there and they
happened to be harvesting at the time.
So of course they put me to work. But
I was watching.
So, uh, they, you know, they have a
great thing going and I wanted to make
sure that it wouldn't be something that
what you're looking to do was going to
anyhow step on the toes of that or
whether it could collaborate together or
not. And, uh, Sister Monique took a lot
of time to explain the whole thing to
me. They have three acres up there that
they're working on. It is a community
garden. They take all their uh, produce
and get it to all the area food
shelters. Yes. uh to the tune of three
tons per year. I was like, "Holy cow."
Uh no pun intended. Uh so, you know, I
think your idea is a great idea. Um you
know, finding a place and sustainability
are my only concerns at all. You know,
everybody, you know, will take their
turn to do something and then, you know,
then what do you do with it? But I I
think it's a great idea.
>> All right. Well, thank yeah. So that
that the I definitely want to step on
the toes of Sacred Heart what they have
going on up there cuz I had a the news
article I read was like 10,000 square
feet or something like that of of space.
So it's
>> but you're a community person can't go
up there and get a lot. So
>> yeah, that was that's the and that's the
reason why I went this route and
actually the history I've read I've been
reading. So I'm glad thanks for the
update on 12 years ago the I'm reading
John H. K's crossroads in the north
country book that was published in ' 84.
So it covers like 200 something years of
of history but not the last 40
unfortunately about. So um but yes this
wouldn't be to step on my toes at all.
This would be to the sole purpose is to
get the community involved in the actual
gardening itself. Um so that's you know
which I mean again not that this isn't a
criticism of what what they're doing but
that this would be different than what
they're doing. This would be where, you
know, someone who rents an apartment
here in Littleton or someone who owns a
home but doesn't have the space for
gardening or perhaps the ability to to
till up their land and make, you know,
make a plot. This would be provide the
opportunity
for community to be involved together in
it, you know. So that's that's the idea
definitely not step on toes. Um and
that's why you know only two or three
plots I mean depending on the size
that's where you know the community
garden would give back. Again it's not
it's not to step on toes but to add to
what's what's already being given you
know I know that they they have a robust
program and the way they preserve over
the winter make sure preserve it make
sure it gets out to people. Um but this
would be a way again for like um
teaching food preservation you know this
is a way to to get actual like workshops
so people can understand oh I can how to
how to how to can it how to you know how
to how to preserve some of these items.
This is this is a bigger you know bigger
concept to be able to get everyone
involved instead of yeah just so I
appreciate the information. Thank you.
>> Any other discussion from the board and
then I'll see if you go ahead.
>> Yeah, I did. I was going to tell them
about this charity.
>> Yeah, they they had a really good thing
going for a long time. It was great.
>> Lori, um also um don't forget the impact
of children too. um ch children to be
able to get their hands in dirt and and
learn how to grow vegetables and be
fresh and you know that's a invaluable
experience. When is your um next one
that you said you were going to hold?
>> It's September 15th.
>> So 5:30 at the public library and not
too
um yeah he also has an email going and
I'm going to share it little community
gardenpm.
We've um emailed a couple times. Um, one
thing about community gardens, I've
lived in towns with them, is also if um,
the burden of taking out a garden
yourself, but the thing with community
is if you're on vacation, someone else
will water your plot. So, it's a lot of
shared experience. Um, and I'm sure
people were happy to have the
conversation on water.
>> Yeah, that was you were on my list for
depending on depending on where you know
what property. I mean, there's a lot of
legit steps a lot of steps. this I'm not
coming to the board with like all these
>> um but it's to get the ball rolling and
you know yeah
>> go ahead Tim
>> and since I'm not a resident I'm
actually speaking on behalf of my client
Emus community health center we actually
have a food is medicine program and a
cook together program where we're trying
to educate uh low-inccome folks how to
cook better using food from the food
food pantry so I think this would be of
interest to our CEO Ed Shinshala Um, so
there's a lot of interest there.
>> They Yeah, they come to the senior
center and do like cooking classes from
>> and personally I had a victory garden
when I lived in Boston for 12 years
>> in that logic.
>> So I think um we have funding from
Northern Borders.
>> Yeah, there might be some funding. Did
they have grant funding from Northern
Borders for the for the teaching
kitchen?
>> So there might be funds. I think there
are a lot of over. So I think um what
was
>> sorry I think what he you're looking for
is just um something from us to say it's
in the early phase and feel free to
continue to explore it more.
>> Um I don't know that we need to do a
motion or vote for that. But I mean
isn't that the general is that the
general consensus? No one's like
>> I think it's a great idea.
>> So I think that's that's what you wanted
was support and yeah keep going and talk
to a lot of community. you are already.
I know you already keep talking
community. I mean, you know, the co-op,
the there's so many places out there,
nonprofits.
So, um I think if we're good, thank you
for the presentation. It was really well
done and I think we're all in agreement,
correct? To um keep exploring
more information. There's a Facebook
page too community.
>> So, reach out to reach out to reach out
questions and come to the September 15th
meeting. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. Thank you.
>> Great. So, we have a public hearing um
which we're popping in right now. It is
to um I will open it at 6:21. It is to
accept um I'm just going to read it. Um
all right. Accepting and expending
community development block grant funds
in the amount of 500,000 for the
Littleton Community Center project,
which is where we are right now. Um, so
I opened the meeting and do you have
anything more to kind of any
information, Troy? It's pretty
self-explanatory.
>> No, this is the, you know, the first
obviously the grant application was
written uh we had public hearing
actually through that process and
everyone that came up that night
supported it. it was uh submitted
awarded half million dollars for
renovation for this building and the
carriage house.
Um and so this is just our our
responsibility [cough] in accordance
with state law to accept it um upon
receiving input from the public. So
that's
>> and I know all of us have been part of
these discussions and um I think so um I
mean I'll any questions or comments and
I'll bring it to the public if there's
not
>> question timing does if we accept this
and we take another half million dollars
is that where do we stand then in terms
of getting all of this done?
>> Um is there still a gap?
>> There's I don't know. [clears throat] Uh
we so this grant will be it's going to
be managed by the uh North Country
Council. It this grant application did
have some other matching funds which I
believe the report we had was that they
actually had received all the
>> they've got the matching funds but
they're still trying to do some
fundraising for some other things but I
believe they have the match.
>> No tax dollars.
No tax ours but our federal tax
somebody else
ours
not that we control
I think that's an important point for
the public is that this particular grant
program which is fedally funded uh only
the town could be the applicant right so
we allow to apply and receive these
grants on behalf of other eligible
>> and this was the grant where we had that
I can't remember her name that nice
woman that came and said Littleton,
there's some other grants that you you
guys should go for because you are
January.
>> Yeah, I can't remember her name. Katie
or something. So,
>> um All right, I'm going to open it to
Does anybody have any questions or
>> a grand what time is it?
>> I already opened it. I I opened it at 4
uh 621.
>> 621.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I did open at 6:21.
>> Um
question. All right, we can does I
figured it would be really quick, so we
don't Okay, so we're going to close it
at 6:24 and then we'll take um There's a
motion here. Someone would like to read
it.
>> Okay. Well, I move to accept the CDBG
grant to be used for the renovation of
the Littleton Community Center and Annex
and to authorize town manager to execute
any documents and agreements associated
with said grant.
>> I'll second it. All right, Dave seconds.
Any more discussion? All right, all
those in favor?
>> I Okay, unanimous. Good key. All right,
next is me. All right. Um, Ber, the fire
engine management and storage
resolution. I have a resolution to read.
Is the last name Hen or Hoen?
>> Hoen.
>> Hoen. I thought so. I didn't want to
mispronounce his name in the resolution.
All right. This is about Bertha, the
antique fire engine that's now been out,
Bill, in how many parades? Two.
>> Three. Yeah. Three. Okay.
>> Do you want you Let me just quickly say
that
>> the purpose of this resolution was
because we had heard from at our last
meeting, I believe.
>> Oh, from Roger.
>> Republic. Yeah. There were a couple
people that spoke um and there was
concern about the you know what is the
select board doing of finding temporary
and permanent storage for it
>> and um and then the maintenance of it uh
having different parades
and between the chair myself and the
fire chief I go you know I I really
think that we this board needs to take
an official position on who is the
designated person in charge of this task
and they ongoing. So it's it's
generically written for the fire chief
which is Chief Miller right now but this
resolution would carry forward uh you
know 10 15 years from now until beed by
this board.
All right. All right. A resolution
establishing responsibility for the
custody, preservation, storage,
management, and use of the 1931 American
Lef France fire engine, Bertha. Whereas
the 1931 American Lef France fire
engine, known as Bertha, is it La
France? I don't know, served the town of
Littleton for many decades and
represents an important part of the
history and heritage of the Littleton
Fire Department and the community. And
whereas after leaving town ownership in
2004, Bertha was subsequently acquired
and extensively restored by former
interim fire chief David H. Hotton to a
condition representative of its original
1931 appearance. And whereas following a
public hearing on October 27th, 2025,
the select board accepted the donation
of Bertha from the Eureka Host Company
for historical ceremonial community
pride purposes. And whereas as a
condition of acceptance, the town agreed
to provide maintenance to preserve
Bertha, to provide heated storage for
the life of the vehicle, and to grant
Eureka Post Company the right to
repurchase Bertha for $1 should the town
determine that no longer wishes to own
the vehicle. Whereas the select board
recognizes that clear responsibility for
Bertha's custody, preservation,
maintenance, storage, transportation,
and use is necessary to protect the
vehicle and ensure that decisions
concerning Bertha are made consistently
and in the best interest of the town.
And whereas because of Bertha's
historical connection to the Littleton
Fire Department and the specialized
knowledge necessary for the care and
operation of an antique fire apparatus,
the select board finds that the fire
chief is the appropriate town official
to have primary responsibility for the
custody and management of Bertha. And
whereas the town must secure temporary
and permanent safe, secure, and heated
storage for Bertha consistent with the
conditions under which the town accepted
requests that the fire chief develop a
temporary um and permanent storage plan
for Bertha to include the feasibility of
establishing permanent storage and
public display option at the opera
Littleton Opera House. Now therefore, be
it resolved that the Littleton Fire
Chief is hereby designated as a town
official having primary responsibility
for the custody, preservation, and
management of the 1931 America France
fire engine known as Bertha. The fire
chief's responsibilities shall include,
but are not limited to, coordinating,
overseeing, routine inspection,
preventative maintenance, mechanical
maintenance, and repairs necessary to
preserve the vehicle, proper cleaning
and preservation of the vehicle and its
historical components, safe and secure
temporary permanent and permanent heated
storage, maintenance of records
regarding the vehicle's condition,
maintenance repairs, transportation, and
operation of the vehicle, participation
in parades, ceremonies, community
celebrations, educational activities and
other appropriate public events and
reasonable access to and display of
Bertha for historical and community
purposes. So this is adopted by us today
if we make that motion and and vote on
it. We can discuss it first. I did talk
to chief and he's okay with this. I was
like I called text him. Are you sure
you're you're good with this? Yes. So
and it makes sense that it would be
under the purview of the fire station
and the chief whoever that is at the
time. I know nothing about antique fire
engines, but I do like the looks of
Bertha
and she's been in a couple parades and
it's pretty impressive that we have a
almost 100year-old. We'll have to
celebrate her 100redy year birthday in a
few years. But any more any discussion
or would you someone like to make a
motion to Oh, chief. Yes. I would just
like to thank Bill Tulip who's here's
done an extensive amount of work and
continues to uh do a lot of work around
uh Bertha
>> uh fundraising uh which we're continuing
to do for for Bertha and uh ongoing
maintenance operation.
Uh yeah, he's just kind of been a go-to
guy and um this project really would
have gone nowhere without without him.
So,
>> thanks Bill. Yeah, you raised a lot of
money.
>> The the I think the situation here is
the historical society, okay, would like
the truck down there,
>> you know, in the armor house. But, you
know, talking with the chief, you know,
we we
you put it down here and if you do,
you're going to have to drain all the
all the fluids and all that stuff like
>> yeah.
>> Okay. Well, it's yeah, it's that's why I
think it was mentioned in here as a
feasibility of doing that. There may be
another location that becomes more
apparent or we might have to just store
it in a heated place where it doesn't
get seen for now and you know waiting.
>> Yeah. Well, well, it can't be solved
today.
>> You should close all this. I'm
confident. So,
>> yeah. I mean, we've got some temporary
storage now and I think you're right.
It's about developing what what's our
long-term plan and vision as a community
for for this antique piece. And so
there's a lot of work to be done yet
still and we'll work we'll work through
it. I'm sure there'll be some ups and
downs. So
>> y
thanks thanks Bill for all your work and
the other members of Eureka host
company. Um
any other December?
>> Yeah I just have a question if I
remember right from the last meeting um
in the general [clears throat] when Mr.
first talk about you mentioned Franconia
wanted to borrow Bertha I think for a an
event or something or maybe okay yeah so
uh so what's that possibility of
something like that so that I know it
has been a flatbed now to do it but how
how would we
solve that so that it actually could be
loaned out to other surrounding
communities [snorts]
>> so that that was inaccurate
it was my hope there was no ask it was
my hope that we could get it to Francia
and uh it didn't work out with the
trailing aspect. So, we have some more
work to do with Bertha really to look at
taking it further distances. Yeah, but
there was there was no ask and whatnot.
We just want to try to get it out there
to be seen. So,
>> to work through those challenges.
>> That's our how could we
>> sol you know like accomplish that so it
actually can go out out of town.
>> The fire chief also really restricts who
can drive that.
I believe me, I've asked
>> I've asked that plays into we have
somebody we feel qualified to operate
>> the historic apparatus.
>> Well, that 10,000 an hour, right?
>> Yeah. That is not saying that Littleton
firefighters uh have driven this piece
for almost 100 years and it's gotten to
this point, but uh yeah, we we're
certainly cognizant of the challenges of
operating the uh antique apparatus
>> hard shifter.
All right. Um All right. Anything else?
>> That's great.
>> Let's make a let's make an official
motion to adopt this um
resolution.
[snorts]
>> If we adopt the resolution as written.
>> Great. Thank you, Ed.
>> I'll second it.
>> Dave seconds.
>> You're the second guy today. I love it.
Um all those in favor?
>> I I Okay. Thank you. All right. Um
questions.
>> All right. Um
>> do you mind if I move the budget
committee member appointment up just in
case
you
>> mind? Is that okay? I don't have to ask
for it.
>> I would like to move up the budget
committee member appointment cuz he's
here and then maybe he wants to stay for
the whole meeting but it's you know I
just wanted to. So, we um opened up in
um Mary Mensy's um resigned from the
rest of her um budget um committee seat.
We put out an ask to the public through
um our usual channels um web, email,
blast, paper, and um we got a letter
from a very qualified person who's here
today and um his name is Tom Godfrey and
he moved to the area recently. keep off
the Beal House with his wife and um do
you want to say you no pressure but if
you want to say any words um we're going
to we're going to call for an
appointment but if you want to say hi or
all I can say is that I'm just delighted
to be here. I'm happy uh to be in
Littleton. We searched high and low for
a place to live and uh we literally went
to 200 different towns and we chose
here. Uh and um and the uh welcome from
the community has been phenomenal. Uh uh
so uh we're happy to be here and I'm
we're happy I'm happy to to contribute
in any way I can.
>> Good to have you here.
>> Welcome to the neighborhood.
>> All right. Yeah. Um he's has a lot of um
you didn't bolster up your [laughter]
but he's had done a lot with financing
and budgeting and he came with a lot of
experience. His resume was really
impressive and his LinkedIn profile and
he sent us a a good amount of
information. So unless people have
questions for him or discussion, um we
officially can appoint him tonight and
he will be ready to go to the quarterly
budget meeting if you want to come in
two days. Um any questions for him?
>> Sure. First week.
>> I know.
Please stay. [laughter]
>> I have no questions. I make a motion to
budget.
>> All right. Motion to appoint Tom
and seconds. Any more discussion?
All right. All those in favor?
>> I welcome to the club. [laughter]
>> Thank you very much for standing up and
and offering to do it. It's not an easy
thing and we appreciate it. Okay. So,
now we're going to go back to um the
purchase policy and that's Troy review.
We're reviewing policies, a lot of them.
So, just one time. So, this just
continues the um annual policy review
and as I communicated to the board in
the packet, this policy went through
pretty much an overhaul last year. So,
and one of the conditions that was put
as a change to it is that would be
reviewed annually by the board. Um but a
really high level what it does is policy
sets up the guidelines for our
department heads and some of the boards
and committees that make various um
purchases.
And what we did was we um established
basically three different [cough]
guidelines [clears throat]
um where we said that if you're if
you're making a purchase that's $10,000
and less than 25 that you need to get at
least two written quotes. If you're
going to make a purchase that's $25,000
and up to 50,000 then we want at least
three written quotes. And the real and
we had a lot of discussion about this
because we we did relax the uh
conditions with these ranges and a lot
of it was from the outcome of co where
we found it more and more difficult to
get quotes and get people you know to be
interested in in um putting together
responsible proposals for um different
services and equipment and material. Um
so we didn't get into the official
um you know legal notice in the
newspaper advertising on website and
everything until you hit that threshold
of 50,000 up to 100,000
and um that's where it starts to trigger
the different levels of [snorts] what's
required.
But everything um everything's working
really well. Uh it sets out also in here
that um you know the department has they
know they can turn to this policy and
follow the guidelines. If they
have an issue whether it's an emergency
issue or it's very unique then there's
two sections at the end of the policy
that allows the town manager to to wave
the conditions.
Um sometimes there's certain things that
we buy that only one vendor can provide
with them. That might be software, might
be special equipment like um in the
police department some of the equipment
we use.
>> Uh the fire department definitely has
that same situation. So the waiver will
be um
authorized because of that unique
situation.
discussion or questions about it.
>> Um,
>> I have a question. Sorry, Troy. I'm
going to be that guy. Um,
>> it's not your turn to be that guy. Sean,
>> one other person that actually reads
these policies. Recurring policy is
important, [clears throat] right? It
protects the the uh the department
heads. All right. So, it's above board.
It's taxpayers money. So, this this is
not just another policy. It's an
important one. All right. To to defend
reviewing decisions are made. Um I I
have a quick question on section 4 on
soul source. Is there a standard form or
or um a threshold for soul source
justification
something more than my cousin works
there or we've always gone to them. is
it there's usually has to be
demonstrated there's only one qualified
vendor
um or some other reason like for example
specialized equipment maybe only one
vendor that can provide that so I'm just
running is there's some guidelines
around a source justification so
typically what will happen is um as it's
noted here there's on the check request
the either the department head will come
to me and say you explain to me that we
need to soul source this and explain why
um or it's kind of the annual purchase
and they'll just make the notation on
the check request. So, as I mentioned
earlier,
the best example is that we have
software that runs the town clerk, the
tax collector, and that's the software
we have. we're just paying for the
annual license renewal and and so we'll
note make a notation that this is still
service.
Um a good example would be and I the
auditors that we had here this evening
they've been our auditors for many
years. Um there's no reason that we
should um I think go out to competitive
bidding. I think the price is in line
with a a competitive market the
competitive price right now. So that
could be a soul source that I make a
discretionary decision on
a market check to know like contract
them for 10 years. Occasionally you want
the town manager to check with a
competitor to make sure that they are
still offering
>> they truly are getting the best price.
>> It's easy to fall into inertia.
And then there's that point in time when
you're like, you know, maybe it's time
to really put out our annual audit just
to make test the market and see where
it's at.
>> Okay. Um, next question is, I'm sure it
happens more than a few times that we're
unable to get two or three qualified
biders.
All right.
>> So, I'm not suggesting changes, but it
doesn't clearly address what is done in
that case. All right. If you are
required to get three qualified biders,
you only get one. It doesn't say you
have to rebid [clears throat] it. Or is
it discretion of the town manager?
Sometimes there just only so many
contractors or sometimes we get bids
that don't meet the the requests that
are in the RFP. They disqualify
themselves by
>> and that happens. That's happening more
often um lately where
department head will come to me and say
couldn't get three quotes. I reached out
to this person. They have to respond.
Reach. And so what we'll do is we'll
just put a memo to file
>> the documents.
>> The documents say we reached out to
contractor X Y and Z only receive this
form response. So that way if the and
the whole of this is one
>> for you know um for the taxpayers to
know that we're managing their money as
prudently as we can. two, the auditors
are going to they look at this policy
and they do a random check, you know,
they randomly will check um
[cough and clears throat] half dozen
purchases made over the years. So,
random check and they'll catch that
stuff. They want to see the
documentation that why was there not
three quotes? So, we have our memo
saying we reached out to five
contractors, only received one. Okay.
Um, yeah. So,
>> for us also, just so you're aware, like
more and more, uh, the equipment we're
purchasing is franchised. So, while
we're buying a brand of equipment, only
one person is authorized to sell it in
New Hampshire.
>> So, even though we'd love to be able to
reach out and be like, hey, where it's,
you know, it's a widget. It's an item.
Like, whoever can give us the best
price, we have to go through this vendor
in order to purchase that. Oh, you
document that. It protects you as a
department head making those decisions.
Say, "Here's why I did it."
>> Okay. Um, last one, again, not a
proposed change to this. I need to
consider the board next year and a
little bit of a a pipe dream, but um is
joint procurement with other towns. I
know that's anathema that heaven forbid
we [snorts] work with another town. Um,
it's often tried and often failed. There
are some lowhanging fruit road sand
gravel occasionally emergency services
of working with Franconia Battle and
whatever getting battle usually our
schedule of purchasing is not going to
line up with theirs but I don't know how
often we even try right so we operate as
as a as a stove pipe in a small town as
do all the other towns and sometimes
there's some advantages to be had by
doing collective bidding again it's a
I'll call call it a pipe dream because
it it rarely happens but that's out
there as a possibility.
>> All right. And I think of the stuff
that's in diesel fuel road sand that may
be simple. All right. It's harder for a
police vehicle where it depends on when
it comes up and town meeting right but
there's there's always savings if you
have a bigger buy as you get more
competitive prices.
>> Yeah. I made a note and we can take a
look at that next year. for next year
and there could be actually a joint
>> but we're looking I think it's primarily
you know highway department but
>> you don't know unless you try
>> the heating fuel is an interesting thing
>> getting deals
our demand for heating fuel in three
different towns the school
>> you attract more biders bigger biders
and usually better
>> prices are so
>> and the towns I feel like I I see a lot
of um the towns getting along the
community like with our with our pool
that when that happened right away Riley
was able to reach out to Bethlehem and
the kids were still able to swim like I
feel like there's a lot of and certainly
the fire department with Franconia
Franconia and um EMS but we I feel like
we have a good relationship with our
surrounding towns too. So I like that's
an interesting idea. Thanks for bringing
it up. I haven't thought about it
>> for no changes. I'm not going to have
you perhaps bring it back next meeting.
Just ideas, thoughts.
>> Yeah. Yeah, it's a good one.
>> Appreciate your work on it.
>> Yeah, we are 10 policies and we're I
think we've done seven and we have maybe
two or three more in the fall. So, we're
trying to review these yearly, some
bigger edits now and you know probably
those will not be heavily edited. But um
any other anything [clears throat] else
before basically the motion's to approve
>> Okay, I'll make the motion. I move to
approve the annual review of the town's
purchase policy as written. Okay,
>> I'll second that.
>> And second beat you to it, Dave. And any
other discussion?
>> I want to make up the fruit. A good all
those in favor of adopting the
you keep him on his toes.
>> That's what we're supposed to do. It's
part of our job to keep you on your
toes. Um so we we have a first uh from
Paul and Ed seconded. So all in favor of
I Okay. All right Vicki that was also
unanimous. All right. We are on We just
have one more business. Solid Waste
Transportation Service Contract Award
and Troy will be um speaking to this.
>> And we have Mike Chamberlain here as
well,
>> transportation director. Um so we we had
as you know you had reviewed I brought
forward the um RFP
to the board. We reviewed it. We put it
out um advertised on website, newspaper
um and we did get two responses back. We
opened those uh responses publicly at
our last meeting for full transparency
and then Mike and I have gone off and
reviewed the proposals and come back
with a recommendation for the board this
evening.
not uh an easy task whatsoever to uh
review these and try to um come up with
what we feel is the the best way to
proceed. Um there's there was different
approaches by both vendors and the way
they presented their numbers. So just as
a recap, we were looking for um
responses. There were like three there
were two different ways that um the
biders could present their um figures.
One was a fixed cost. So everything
allincclusive.
This is your fixed cost per hall
and the other one was option two was
a a cost with a fuel adjustment.
And then there was another option. They
said, you know, hey, if you can come up
with anything um
that's more efficient and just
[clears throat] something we can't think
of was a new way of trying to provide a
service to the town and transport out
waste to the landfill and bring back the
empty containers. Um you know, feel free
to offer something else. So, Cassella
offered they decided to just do the
fixed cost and they um offered $624.75
fixed cost everything included and this
was for the period in our bid specs.
This would the goal is to get this
contract on a calendar year basis. So
this um would carry us through the
pricing would carry us through to
December 31st, 2027.
From that point in, you know, in the bid
proposals, we said, "Hey, we we have um
retained the right to negotiate for
future renewals or at that point in time
we could go out to to bid again."
Norando had submitted um
the option two and they had
um for I guess apples to apples well
they're not apples to apples cuz there's
normal here's um option two which was a
cost with a fuel adjustment. So, their
cost was a base cost of $589
per hall with a fuel adjustment. Um,
once we hit they that that cost of 589
was based on, I believe, the fuel being
at
um $5 per gallon. And based on that, if
[clears throat] the fuel went up to
$5.25
uh per gallon, it would kick in the
adjustment. There's a certain dollar
amount um that would trigger that
adjustment.
And then every 25 cent increase in fuel
um would be an additional cost per.
So, if you looked at today's pricing, I
think the diesel fuel, I just did a
quick Google, the diesel fuel was
somewhere right around um from what I
got back was around 550 a gallon.
>> And yeah. Um so
again, the 589 that at the
[clears throat] time of the proposal was
based on diesel fuel being $5 per
gallon. So if you would have to, you
know, we'd have to adjust the fuel
adjustment um to get what the actual
cost is.
so Mike and I looked at this, we we
didn't really see when you start
factoring in the unknown of where the
fuel is going, that unknown number, it
makes it very difficult for us to
budget. I really do a municipal budget.
We like to be we like fixed. We like
predictable. Um so we know we're we're
kind of basing
uh our estimate on that we're going to
have about 150 loads uh to the landfill
in the next 12 months. And
if that worked out based on the Cassella
price,
that would cost about $93,712.
And on the same number of loads with the
Normando price, that's at $589
per load. And then I think we
[clears throat] calculated another
$16.50 50 on top of that, which would
bring it to um $65.50
per load.
A total estimated cost of $90,825,
a savings
of $2,887.
So very uh a little lower than Cassella,
but you still have that risk factor of
where we're at in today's economy of
this probably more likelihood that the
fuel is going to increase more than it's
going to decrease. So
uh my recommendation to the board is
that we do the seller contract. We lock
in that fixed price. it'll secure it
until December 31st 27th. At that point
in time, we can reassess, renegotiate
with the seller, see if they can offer
something. Um, they might be able to
adjust their price because maybe this we
know better, you know, a year and a half
from now where the actual fuel cost is.
Um, or we decide that we're going to put
it up to bid again. I think if I bid
this again, um I think I would only have
one option. I think we just bid it as a
fixed price so we don't have these
different variables.
This is a big cost for the town. This is
why we're doing this because we're not
just hauling our trash to the town next
[clears throat] door,
>> right? We're going
>> considerable distance and the hauling
cost is going to be a big part of your
budget as you'll be reviewing here soon.
Um, you got your hauling costs and your
disposal costs and both of those are
going to increase every single year. So,
>> What's the current tipping fee we pay?
>> Current contract.
>> Uh, the haul cost,
>> but that that's inclusive the tipping
fee. I said tip fee at that land.
>> The tip fee is a different tipping fee
for different company. [clears throat]
The landfill.
>> This is just the hall and then we also
pay the tip.
>> They would pay the tipping.
>> All right. So, what's the hall cost
currently?
Never mind. Uh
>> 595.
>> 595. Okay.
>> Did you consider the three-year option
that Normando uh proposed?
>> Well, I I did because I wasn't
>> didn't ask for.
>> I didn't ask for and I didn't think it
would be, you know, it wasn't fair.
And to do that, I think I'd have to
disqualify both biders and rebid.
So, the fixed rate that Normandelle
provided was just for a three-year
contract, not
>> the 615.
>> I was I think this the way I interpret
the response to that is that if we did a
three-year contract,
um that this this fix rate would be 615
plus with a fuel adjustment,
>> right?
But I didn't I didn't the bid spectal
talk we talked about a period of time
from September 1st to December 31st 27.
>> We also have Norman Doe in the audience.
So if we have a question too for him.
>> So 615 is the fixed rate for over 3
years plus the fuel
>> charge because if you read just so what
is I think what you've got there is two
proposals for adjustable rates. Um if
you you got one on an annual basis and
you can see how each year that goes up
and then you got a fixed rate of course
it's level funded but both those
proposals subject to the
>> fuel
>> okay
>> cuz in the bottom par right underneath
those numbers
>> 525 it triggers that
makes statement about all holocaust.
>> Yep.
>> So, but the So, I'm just trying to
understand the numbers. So, we're at
5.89 for normal 670
>> 624
>> 624. So what that's like 35
>> $35 separate
>> but you but you got to the 589 and this
proposal says is based on diesel fuel $5
per gallon
>> right so it increments up and I think he
actually gave us
>> he gave us the increments for
>> so it would be somewhere around 625 a
gallon where we hit equalization with
the cassella rate I
>> I don't know that it's gotten up that
high that often, but I guess given
everything going on in the world, it's
tough to say.
>> I just and again
looking at
the you're talking about right now the
best numbers you can do. um we have a
difference about almost $2,887.
So having and then there's some unknown
in that because we just don't know where
the fuel prices are going to go. Um so
we're not that far apart. there's
unknowns and then if you look at the
fact that we've had a company that's
been doing this service for many many
years to us um I don't see that there's
this not a great amount of savings they
switched the contractor that's been
doing this service for
>> was that based on the 550 you said or
520 what it is now you said yeah
>> the 90 90,800 is based on the $550 for
the diesel
>> yes
>> yes Okay.
>> And Cassella will stay at that price for
the entirety of this cycle. They'll stay
up to 624 or will they lock in until no
fees or anything?
>> It only goes to the end of next year
>> and then they'll then'll be a whole
another ask when we put it out as an RFP
again or Okay.
>> What in here? Um the entirety of what
was submitted by the two companies.
>> Uh not not everything. I've had um it is
for Cassellar. I think Normando have had
some emails. Um
>> I just had a question cuz I see a
certificate of insurance from Cassella,
but I don't see something from Norville
on insurance
or a COI.
That was a big requirement.
Can I speak for a second?
>> Yeah. When's the board? Are you good for
now? We'll open it to the public. All
right. Go ahead. Go ahead. This is very
long [clears throat] though.
>> So we just focus on this first year.
The questions are coming up
why nobody's got this all here. Yes. You
get to a threshold. You have to go way
up to 660 a gallon. I don't know how
many how much more this is going to go
up. You got a crystal ball get me a
lottery tickets. Uh but the thing is is
that's a long way to go. I'm not even
find I'm not even operating 550 a gallon
right now.
Two, there's something else there.
There's a double haul. You're you're
you're when you haul out of this station
quite often, every weight talk to Mike.
I can't speak for now. Historically, you
got a second hall at the same time. The
your trip rate goes down.
That's even more savings.
So, I'm not understanding why this is
this is so difficult. All the other
towns around around here are doing the
same thing.
>> What towns do you call for right now?
>> Oh, go ahead.
>> Well, start right here locally. I every
every town around you except I for
uh over here in Franka, those three
towns over there. So, you've got those
and you got twin
They all operate in the same thing.
They're all getting the same deal.
They're not going anywhere.
>> Can you explain that double second trip
again, please?
>> When you when Michael probably come in
with a different way to explain it quite
often when you call and for a service
with us, he's got not one but two
containers ready to go.
>> We pull those both at the same time.
>> So like a trash and a building disposal.
It does. It doesn't matter if it's an
MSW compactor or the uh CND. I Frank
Conor right now on the phone to me. They
got three containers to haul. So,
they're actually getting that double
haul for the second time around. So, I'm
there hell of a lot of savings in this
thing.
This this is something all the other
towns are using because it does save so
much money.
Yes.
The problem is that is very difficult. I
understand the double hall utilizing
that um is can res will result in
savings.
We just don't know
through our process how many times we
can do the double haul.
so again it's another variable. It's
another unknown. So it's not who makes a
decision not a difficult maybe you made
a comment about don't understand why
it's difficult but it for me it's it's
not difficult. I'm looking at it from a
municipal budgeting standpoint when I'm
trying to know the best I can my cost
and when I look at the fixed cost versus
your cost with a fuel adjustment. Um my
recommendation is go for what you know.
We know we're going to do about 150 um
loads and we're only about we're just
under $3,000 apart. That's that's not a
difficult uh decision for me. For a
company that's been doing our business
for over 20 25 years. I just don't see
that. We have no issues with the seller
have had no issues. They've helped us
with our containers being down. um Mike
and Rattle, you know, a lot of the
things that they've done for him. So,
for a potential savings, that's unknown
because we don't know where he was
going. Just under $3,000, it wasn't a
difficult decision for me to make.
>> So, I just wanted to ask if in terms of
the double hall like who is that who's
making the decision on whether to send
two or just to call for what? Because if
you and I don't understand
>> I think Mike would have to answer that.
We've kind of right now for the past 6
months that we've been doing residents
only, the trash container has been going
out every Tuesday
and we kind of scheduled that with a
open top floor demolition to go with
that at the same time.
>> So two
>> and sometimes the the pre-crusher can is
kind of once a week to once a week and a
half. That's kind of random, but we at
least ship out two once a week.
Sometimes there's three loads a week.
>> So if you send two and one of them's at
589, the second one's at 565 plus your
fuel search charge it with normal versus
625
twice,
right?
If you're doing the double hall,
>> yeah, that goes up every week.
>> Is page two of the RFP a representation
of number of loads? Cuz that you add up
the municipal and the the CN is
48 loads in 4 months. That's not a whole
lot.
>> Yeah,
>> we're not doing as much because since we
changed the
>> I can't imagine there's that many
doubles unless it's for convenience when
you have 48 loads over 4 months. All
right. Over 120 days.
>> All right, Bill.
>> Yes, I have a question, Barry.
So, my understanding, your trucks have a
trailer, correct?
>> We have both concepts.
>> Yeah, both. So, doesn't matter whether
we use two trucks or we use a trailer
because little sits, you know, anything
about double hauling. Little sits on
quite the wrong side of line. Use the
trailer. It's faster and easier. Just
that two trucks grab it and go.
>> Okay. So, the trailer is not cheaper.
>> No, you use
Plymouth, New Hampshire on Noah with a
trail or Pittsburgh, New Hampshire. I'm
not There's one other question. There's
a COI. Usually, we just That's just a
matter of we just issue that when
contracts being issued. That's not a big
deal.
We do this all the time. We've been in
business since 1937. The
>> CI typically prior to starting the work
>> that's not the requires proof of
insurance. That was one of the
requirements. I nitpicking. I'm just
>> And tomorrow morning I have that thing
issued to you.
>> Well, I would say mine I looked at it uh
more from cuz he put the thing in for
three years. uh and if you start
crunching the numbers for three years uh
it turns into pretty significant
savings. Uh whereas with Cella
um if you go for an annual fee increase
it will be either 5% increase or the
year-over-year percentage change in the
consumer price index for garbage and
trash collection which I had no idea
there was such a thing.
>> Learned a lot
>> but apparently it was 3.89% 8 9% last
year but the the funny thing is is that
whichever is more so it's going to be at
least 5% or
>> that's what they ask this is only goes
through 2027
>> right that's why I said
>> it's going to be redid next year their
terms saying if you want to extend it
those are the terms they put out there
doesn't mean we have to accept them
>> and I and I think about this time next
year
uh if you if we rebid it
we could do it on I think a fixed um
cost basis so that we don't get into
fuel adjustment.
>> It's hard for both these vendors to
>> bid your president
five 550 for
>> and they can't they can't bid out you
know 3 years not having a fuel
adjustment. That's the only way they can
protect themselves.
Well, I I see that again going back to
the straight price and equalization
price. If you assume that that 625 price
level is where you trigger
uh being then going over the Cassella
price
um you know I looked at the USCIA and in
the last five years there's been five
weekly
um points where it's been over that
price.
just just two just two weekly times over
the last five years. So, each time
you're under 625, you're you're saving
costs. And I know that you don't like
the the the upside, but you know, I
think there's a value to um being able
to play the downside also.
I just I just think
the likelihood I think that we're
heading that we in a time right now
where
the reduction in the cost the increase
is more likely than the reduction.
That's my it's that's the my fear
>> for a short contract period just over a
year locking in a price we can put our
budget together know you know and
revisit this again next year we
this time I think traditionally I don't
know if we bid
this service um like I said we've done a
lot of a long time doing cassellar so it
wasn't until about 3 years ago that um
Steve Bean, the former transfer station
attendant, had put out the bid and um
there was some problems that I had with
with the uh award of that bid. I think
there was some misinformation. So we we
we rescended the award which was
Normando and um extended Cella with the
understanding that we wouldn't put it
out.
I just think sometimes it's it's easy
having been in government a lot myself.
It's easy because you have a
relationship with somebody. You know
what you're getting. You know you know
they do you a favor here and there and
it makes it easier for you in your
relationship to manage your facility.
you know, because you've got somebody
that's been there for 25 years that, you
know, like we talked about under the
purchase policy, that's not always, you
know, the best way to go, the best way
to go. Um, and having, you know, an
having others participate in this
process who have demonstrated it, you
know, for the most part, I think, um,
the willingness to be a very affordable
comparison is something that we got to
consider.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And again, I I I
with that small from the best we can
work the numbers with a $2,800
potential savings that we're looking at
if we went with the Normano with the
added risk. [clears throat]
I just think uh the long the
relationship that we've had with high
quality is just not the risk. If there
was 10 $12,000 that are there, um I
would say I think my recommendation
could be different here.
>> Mike is I I don't want to put you on the
spot and I won't but is there are you
maybe I am maybe now maybe I won't ask
that question but are you are you h are
things going well? I'll say that right
now like with how things are going with
the halls.
>> Yeah, I haven't had any issues
scheduling. And
>> you haven't had issues with scheduling?
>> No,
they're usually there. I call them I
usually call them on a Thursday to
schedule it for Tuesday. They're usually
there like 3:30 in the morning.
Have the can swapped out for the
following week.
Yeah.
>> Is there I I just look at the fact that
we're doing business with somebody
locally versus a huge [clears throat]
company as I do. I don't know. I mean, I
think we try to look in the north
country and we're
trying to
work with local people. So,
>> that is in our purchase policy. Yeah.
>> Well, it's an issue for me.
seller. I think actually that the
vehicles that they use are stored here
in this town, I think.
>> Yeah, they're they're back to Littleton.
>> Oh, really? I didn't know that.
>> Probably they're probably Littleton
residents or local to the region driving
the trucks and paying rent to store
their trucks wherever they are. So,
>> these decisions are very hard. One thing
just a reminder, it is just for that
year and a half or whatever. So
whichever choice we make, we get to
revisit this again and again. You know
what I'm saying? So it's not it feels so
heavy, but I think um we get to see it
again. [laughter]
Um yeah, Bill,
>> are we going out with full loads?
>> And they'll pack great.
>> We wait till they're full. Yeah. Saves
>> Yeah. Usually the open trash container
that's full by Saturday night. Sometimes
in the 40 yard open top is demo is full
every week. Those two go out together.
>> We've got to make a decision.
I wish Lori was still here to ask her
about the
how is the [clears throat] for the
financing or keeping it you know in our
budget. Um what are the like what are
the extra burden for that you were
saying to have to what's the extra
burden just having a fixed cost versus a
>> well the fixed cost we we're going to
budget if if we go with Cassellar we're
going to budget 150 loads
>> at that price
>> at that price and
we went with the Normando one I I think
I'd have to we're still keeping the 150
low but I'd have to try to figure out
[snorts] I'd have to have a a little
extra money in there just to cover if
the fuel prices went up.
So, but it's easier to budget on a fixed
>> Yep. Lori, just a clarification
question. When you calculated the two
$2,800 in savings, Troy, did that
include anything for the double loads?
>> that was just that was just price
>> because I don't know.
the double load savings
is um it'd be a difficult thing to
actually
really nail down as what what it
actually would be. There's no doubt the
savings is there. It's something that I
think
definitely worthwhile revisiting. We we
bid this out again.
But again, if you budget, if you're
willing to budget a fixed price at the
Cassella rate,
you basically hold that same budget with
>> and he he comes under.
>> Yeah. and and with a small amount on top
of it, a couple grand really probably
because between the second loads and um
and the fuel downside savings know that
you have to hit 625 to equalize,
you could just budget the same amount.
It's tough. I mean, you're talking about
budgets here. you're talking about
trying to hold a budget, you know, 3%
growth or something like that. And
[clears throat] if
and you know, if you don't, you know, if
you can save some money without
affecting the quality of the service,
that is there's your key right there. Uh
and not making it harder on everybody
involved. Um those are kind of the keys
to me. Uh
>> well, I'll play devil's advocate. I
mean, it's it's it's very modest savings
based on the math and number of loads.
It's like maybe 2%.
And I think if the transportation
manager has a
um reliable history with Cassella, all
right. Um rather than, you know,
I'm not saying that goes any way
unqualified. It's just that they've got
a long state.
$2,000 is pretty minimal for the
certainty and for the continuity. It
seems to me
>> Yeah. And even though we don't have to
follow recommendations, I guess I'm also
piggybacking the recommendation also
from our
um manager of that department is was to
stick with Cassella. So, and you don't
have not put you on the spot, but with
you know, I mean, they discussed that.
So, that is not saying we can't go
against their advice. I'm just saying
that was for reasons.
>> He knows how that station operates,
right? And how anybody else in the room.
So I mean that doesn't mean that like
you said we defer to anything he said,
but given the really small delta when
you add up the number of lows over 15
months to me it's an easy best value
decision and it's not one I know enough
to decide. I don't know anything about
trash hauling. I just know I take my
stuff there and it disappears, right?
magically [snorts]
>> it magically goes away. So I I would be
inclined to to support Troy's
recommendation.
>> I think it worthy of a longer discussion
when we rebid this about how and who uh
tough to do three years given the fuel
volatility, but um it's probably one way
maybe the board wants to weigh a little
bit more on criteria and how we do the
RFP.
Maybe so we don't get into this thing
where we're looking at fuel. You just
we're asking for a three-year price
moving things in here. You've got a
three-year price, you have a decible
price, you have So, as Troy mentioned,
like just
>> clarify the RFP like this is what we're
bidding to. All right. Maybe wants to be
fixed price or maybe it's say give us a
base price based on today's fuel and
adjustment. But make it consistent
because you're making guesses otherwise.
All right. And
>> we are at war.
>> The Iran war is not so any signs of
ending anytime soon.
>> So at some point, you know, if they
don't end it, prices will go up more
because there's only so much product
that's seen around.
>> I think that's part of the question
mark. If this was a year when we weren't
at war, I don't think we'd ever imagine
a time that it would go to six. But I
think if there's any year where we're
going to maybe creep up to a ridiculous
amount for fuel, it might be this year.
We're going to see in our municipal
budget, you know, too, just for our own
fleet of vehicles and such. So,
>> and this contract is supposed to take go
into effect in
>> September 1st.
>> So, we need to make a decision and it
goes for till to 2027. So, oh, this is a
tough tough.
>> It'll get you it'll get you on that um
once we get to December 31st, it'll get
us on a 12 month
>> right
>> contract. So, we can
if we bid it again, you know, we can
say, hey, we we'll have that discussion
here and we say, let's what do we want
for bids? We want them we want to stick
to fixed cost and do we want to ask them
to bid for one year,
>> two years, and three years? Yeah.
>> And then you can actually
we can tell them on 150 loads it and it
should match it, you know, then it's
really bottom line. It should be
>> that's an interesting way to do it is do
it as a
>> not to exceed estimated loads. Then
they're they're they're bidding on a
quantity.
>> All right. If we don't want to end up
and then you have a per load after that.
>> Okay. I think we got one more quick
question and then I think we probably
need to make a decision.
>> Yeah, I just want to touch real quick.
So I think Mike kind of partly back here
about getting our own truck and stuff
just in thinking ahead not for this time
around but the joint um purchasing
aspect that Ed had mentioned earlier.
Maybe this is one of those avenues that
we look at down the road where we can
partner with uh other municipalities and
the purchase of a truck and and or
something like that where we're actually
doing the work ourselves with employees
that we already have. So I know that
doesn't solve I'm not trying to you know
convolute the problem here but I'm just
saying you know maybe looking forward
maybe there's other ways where we can
actually let's take a fresh approach to
this rather than just what the same
approach has been. So that's all.
>> Yeah. No, I get that idea, but I think
we're now in a on kind of a time. What's
it August 24th? We have to make a
decision. And it might be split and
that's okay if we feel differently. But
I guess is there I don't I feel like
we've talked it out. So we almost just
have to look for an emotion and see
where it lands at this point. If someone
feels confidently enough one way or the
other um to make a motion, feel free.
I'll take the plunge um and make it go
down. I'll make the motion back on your
good side. [laughter]
>> I'll make the motion we award the solid
waste contract to Cassella Waste
Management um for a period of September
1st, 2026
through December 31st, 2027 for the
terms in their bid.
>> Thanks, Ed. And would anyone want to
second that?
>> All right, Dave seconds it. And I guess
because this was a big topic, any more
discussion before we take a vote on
this?
Okay, we're ready to take a vote. All
right. All in favor of awarding Cassella
um that time frame say I
>> I and opposed.
>> No.
>> No. Okay. So, and Okay. So, 410.
All right. So, Oh, wait. Yes. 410.
Sorry. I was like, okay, we finished
with business. Now we're on town manager
report.
>> Who was that?
>> Who did what?
>> I did.
>> Yeah. 410.
>> Okay. Real real quick here. Um this is
your July general fund report expense
report and it reflects right now. Um it
should reflect that we have 41.67%
on appropriations remaining.
We're in a good position with 43.27%.
>> So that puts us at um about $27,000
above where we should be or 1.6% under
>> how much? 1.6. Okay.
>> 1.6%. Great. So this is your, you know,
7 months into the into the budget. So
we're still trending exactly there. So
right on target. Um I do bring out that
one reference in here that the welfare
department is uh we only have 38% left.
Um and we've had some personnel um
issues in there in that department. So
we're going to we're going to start
seeing some obviously we we're way below
where we should be. We're heading into
>> the season where people are trying to
find housing and and electric and
heating cost start up. But what we do
have is this board's on record of um
authorizing us to access $50,000 from
the expendable trust fund um that we had
held in reserve for the last two years
for um for this exact um scenario in
case we find ourselves uh looking at
overexpending the the approved budget.
So we'll keep our eyes on that. Keep
keep a close on how the welfare budget
is doing.
Okay,
>> I just got back from vacation, so I
don't have much to report for you today
on other items other than um obviously
you probably saw it was concrete for
it. So, it's starting to really take out
shape and I don't know um if the pool
assessment report has been shared with
the board or not. Um yeah, I got a peek
at um not with everyone buddy. So, but I
got a peek at it as well just from Riley
showing.
>> So, I know the um
parks and rec folks are there having a
meeting I think September the 14th or
15th.
>> 15th I believe
>> and they'll be reviewing this assessment
report. I understand create or have
created a subcommittee. Maybe at that
meeting officially they're creating a
subcommittee and obviously now they have
a tool that they can use to try to
figure out
the next steps to
>> Can it be fixed in the offse or we come
to next summer and start to fix it and
lose it
>> indoor some of the indoor components
could be worked on offse correct. So
essenti I' actually not report but
getting to getting to the end to find
out what the real cost is. Um it looks
like it was about estimated to to do a
complete
uh renovation about $2 million.
>> That's so I did go to the meeting parks
and recck meeting the other night
>> and uh they did form a committee.
>> They did. Okay.
>> Yep. And they have
I could be wrong. Nine or 10 members of
the community on that on that committee
um Heidi Harley is heading up the
committee that
>> do we have a read on insurance? What
kind of insurance money you will
>> that claim is still pending. We have
received feedback back. Um
so if if in fact all of this damage it's
really more the filtration system that
would be covered, right? And if that can
be directly linked to some foreign
object, something that came into the
system and caused it to fail, then we
would have coverage. If it's due to age
and just age, um, then most likely
there's no coverage.
>> That was part of your Oh, yeah. You're
on your reports. Okay.
>> That's
>> Is it pertaining to this?
>> Yeah, I attended the parks. Yeah, I
attended that meeting. So it's in
regards to the insurance claim was
denied.
>> Oh, the private. Okay.
>> Correct. I'm not surprised if that was
so much
match.
>> I can't imagine they were going to Yeah,
I didn't think they would cover it
either, but it was worth a try and
Danny, you did did due diligence and um
I want to commend Riley and and her
commissioners and the people and the
town's people that have kind of come
forward to deal with this. And it's been
a, you know, it's an intense topic when
something goes down cuz everybody cares
about things. Um, and I think she's done
really well under a lot of stress. So, I
kind of want to just do a shout out to
Riley. Um, are you good? Should we move
on to select board reports? All right.
Anybody have a select board report?
>> What? Nothing.
>> Dave, are you going to stay on the
board? Do you not We didn't scare you
away yet.
>> Haven't scared me away yet. I didn't
know I had to do a report, BUT
>> YOU DON'T KNOW.
NO, IT'S IF YOU have something
>> for instance things like sometimes
>> yeah we're good but you're allowed to
say like lots of things like talk you
know we talk about events coming up say
like kind of what I just said about
Riley but anything you can just bring up
if you want to bring something up
basically. Um all right so we're not
going to do that. All right. So, we have
public comment. Um, it's been a long
meeting. Obviously, we'll keep it open
because I like public comment, but
please try to be synced and keep the
three [snorts] minutes. And yes, please
go. Yes,
>> um, I a couple of things. I just wanted
to comment that I was really um very
excited to see that the hero dogs for
the police department is going to move
forward. I think that's a very positive
thing. And a question, does that also go
to the fire department? is are they
involved with that?
>> They got their own fire doctors.
>> Well, we're still in the beginning.
>> Yes. Yes, of course.
>> Still in the beginning stage. Um and
once we secure all the funding, then
we'll be bringing proposals to the
manager and then from there. But um the
hero the the uh comfort dog would be
available for the paramedics,
firefighters,
public safety.
>> Okay, great. Um, as you know, I've been
on the sidewalk kick here. So, I'm
questioning, um, is there any more
information from the engineering firm
from the North Country Council?
Mr. Brown, have you heard anything from
them?
>> No, it's it's still under um their their
review process.
>> Okay. And the last thing I just wanted
to say, I'm trying to do a sidewalk um
event and uh October is safety month and
I've contacted the schools and going to
drive try to do some safety posters and
see if I can get some community
businesses to post the posters and so
forth and just offer that to the school
and I've talked to the school about
that. Just a
>> Thank you. Yeah, I'm sure they'll be
happy to do I remember doing that when I
was a kid, making posters for fire
safety and stuff.
>> All right, thank you Karen. December.
>> Um, yeah, just I had some for myself,
but I just wanted to touch base on the
parks and recck meeting. I attended the
last meeting. I'm one of the volunteers
uh that signed up for the subcommittee.
Our first meeting is September 2nd.
>> And then we are putting together there's
a discussion of a two-phase basically.
The first phase, getting the pool up and
running for this next year, which is not
the full $2 million projection. And then
phase two is longevity because some of
the equipment has been estimated to last
the next 5 years, some of it's 5 to 10
years. So there's a lot to discuss, but
it's definitely um so there's yeah, we
have a subcommittee meeting and then
we're going to be bringing it to the
parks and recck commissioners at their
next meetings in September. So there's
some good movement on that and there's a
lot of people that signed up to be. So I
was really glad that people were really
excited about pool. It's a really
important I mean it took it was approved
in 51 to get it built. It took 18 years
to actually build it to 69. So it's it's
something the community loves. So I
think it's something you know need to
work on.
>> One second guys. One second. One more
>> Yeah. So just this is just for myself
personally but so I'm trying to obtain a
New Hampshire state driver's license.
>> Okay. And so the the department of motor
vehicles in order to prove residency
most of the require you know the
documents they require to prove
residency are for people living in
conventional houses deeds leases
mortgages utility bills all those types
of aspects where people who live in
conventional house housing have access
to but there's a specific RSA uh 263
uh-5E which recognizes that the town
clerk can write a letter on the town
letterhead that just says I'm a resident
of Littleton and sign it and I can bring
that that one letter to the DMV and that
authorized that says that I'm a resident
of Littleton. There's another RSA for
someone who for example wants a a
non-driver ID um that covers that
aspect. But again, the town clerk has
the authority to to to write a letter
and it's nothing complicated. It's just
on the town letterhead says yeah
December Russ is a resident of Littleton
signed you know Andrew. So um but I I
asked today and was told that she does
not do that and I was asked for a reason
and I was told she's not on vacation
this week but to come back next week but
she just doesn't do it. So that doesn't
that seems rather arbitrary and because
this is a mechanism that essentially is
only being used by people who are
homeless. So anyone else in conventional
housing has a myriad of choices on
documents that they can bring to DMV to
prove residency. This is the one one
piece that is approved by the town, you
know, for the town clerk to to to to
authorize to sign and she's saying that
just as a blanket, no, I don't do that.
So I'd like the the board or the town
manager. I don't know if this is a
policy question, but [clears throat]
this is I mean, maybe I'm, you know, I
don't know if I'm the only one that's
asked for this,
>> but I'm obviously a town resident. I'm a
registered voter. So, this isn't like,
it's not a big report she has to file.
There's nothing. It's just a letter on
the letter head with her signature. So,
I'm hoping we can come up come up to an
agreement or something where you can
kind of talk it out with town clerk's
office and maybe something can be done
about this cuz it's not something going
to open up. It's not a floodgate kind of
thing where hundreds of people are going
to come in. It's just
>> give us a Yeah. So, we'll check I mean
give us a chance to check. I appreciate
looking into that because this is
something I I I need licensing.
>> I get it.
>> Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much.
>> It's great that you're going to get a
license. I was at the DMV today. Okay,
Eric.
>> Uh, just a quick statement, I guess, um,
with that quote on the hauling.
>> Um, from my experience, I just want to
let you know those decisions, they are
really tough. I get it.
>> It's been there with contractors and
engineers and usually the uh, distance
between them is razor thin and you have
to make what you think is the best
decision. But the one thing I can tell
you is especially like the shear in
paving.
The paving was awarded to a company that
was $42 a ton cheaper than everybody
else. When I asked him why you were so
cheap, he said, "I wanted to be in
Littleton. I wasn't let to get away.
It's a 15-month contract.
We're going to be bidding it again next
year. I think you're going to see
pencils get sharper, and it's going to
be better for Littleton in the long run.
The competition's there. people want to
work with the town of Littleton.
[clears throat] So,
if that helps you guys out, you know, I
think I think you'll see in the end,
>> competitive pricing.
>> Competitive pricing.
>> It's it's like what had mentioned, every
once in a while, you got to put it out
even though you have and you don't know.
I've seen it work both ways. So,
>> yep.
Thanks for that. It's a good reminder.
>> People want to work here.
>> People do want to work. I want to work
here.
>> It's great.
>> All right. Anyone else?
>> I just because I know the town clerk
will will come and knock on my door, but
I just want to make sure the public and
everyone's aware. The town clerk is an
elected official and um and that's that
position has been elected this state
since it was incorporated. And it's done
so intentionally to separate government
from
>> We can't direct the town.
>> Oh, you're right. Yeah, I wasn't going
to direct her. I just was going to
>> No, I just want to make sure on record
understand this is not a department
[clears throat] head that the town
manager can
>> Oh, right. She's one of the Yeah.
>> And I know Mr.
>> And it could be similar to the issue you
raised a few weeks ago, your your
>> supervisor,
>> your appeal to that is to the Secretary
of State. the the the select board does
not have authority over the town clerk,
>> right? Again, they are elected
separately with good reason as a check
and balance. We can't tell them, oh, our
role is to provide them with office
space and they have to provide we can't
even set their hours. So, who would I
So, like I'm not trying to think of
time, but like oversight wise, who would
I see to [clears throat] try? I'm not
trying to like have someone force her to
do something, but I want to address this
issue of why is it because her her
decision is kind of arbitrary and it's
only affecting
a a small specific demographic in
Littleton. So, that's that's what I'm
saying. There's an equal protection.
>> Did you talk to the town clerk today?
cuz she's not there. So,
>> whoever the other lady was.
>> Was there right?
>> But but she said that well I believe
that Angie was actually in the office
but she was on vacation. She I don't
know and would but so I was told that
that was the situation. I can come back
next week and talk to Angela. But
>> it's been a it's so yeah
>> I recommend that you talk to the town
clerk face to face.
>> Okay. depending on and then whatever the
outcome of that is if it's you're not
satisfied then I think um the secretary
of motor vehicle person that's in the
state charge of motor vehicle
registration driver's licenses whatever
that title is
>> okay I make a phone call
>> department of motor vehicles
>> department it's within safety department
>> thank you
>> thank you for that information I haven't
read my driver's license in
>> [laughter]
>> All right. Now I can look for a motion
to make a motion to
>> all
10 and seconds. All in favor? I
>> [music]