City Council - Regular Meeting

the world. That would be awesome. The March 16, 2026 Auburn City Council workshop will be called to order. Two items uh related to the budget tonight. Uh one will be the um review of public safety and the second is a 5-year CIP. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mayor Council. I'll ask the chiefs to come up. Um really this just gives you a good opportunity to have a conversation. um with the the chiefs regarding the budget request. Um as uh for the public, I know you all know this, but for the public, the uh directive u by the council was to present a budget that was um adding no new services and maintaining what we currently provide. Couple things within the budgets uh for the public safety that you'll see. Um one is that the command uh unit uh within uh police negotiated their contract settled their contract last year. So what you see in the budget for them it would be the increase in salary for FY 25 I'm sorry with for FY26 and what the proposed is for FY27. So you're getting two years and that's the same thing that you see in FIRE. fire also negotiated their settled their contract last year. So now this budget reflects that FY26 increase for a much larger unit. The command unit is not as large as as the fire unit. Um and so it reflects that increase as well as what we already know their increase to be for FY27. So that's really what you're seeing within this budget. And the uh the remaining item within fire is that um in FY26 the council approved adding the third ambulance for 6 months of that that fiscal year. So what you're which just recently started um so what you're seeing in the FY27 proposed budget is that remaining uh 6 months um for the full now it's a full year uh funded um service. So those are really

the three drivers within the budget. The chiefs are here to answer any questions you have. Uh Chiefs, I don't know if there's anything you would like to add, but feel free to do that and then we'll answer questions from the council. Uh the only thing I'd just elaborate a little bit uh on the city manager's um comments uh with regard to the wage as he said we were negotiating last year during budget time. So there was nothing built into that last year's approved budget. Um for us that was 4% uh and then this year um the contract has an additional 3 and a half uh equivalent to 3 and 1.5%. It's 3 plus one in the second 6 months. So that's about a 7 and a half% um difference between last year's approved budget and this year's in wage. Uh and we just tried to maintain, you know, based on on direction and guidance um and trying to to maintain um and control costs and other areas to to set that off um and have a have less than that 7 and a half% total increase. With regard to the third rescue, um as the city manager said, um we had that funded for six months last year. Um what we've done is um within our existing employee base, we've hired an employee to do that. So rather than having that third rescue staffed, as you remember, it was just during peak hours, 40 hours a week um during our peak hours, rather than having that staffed with overtime um with two individuals for that. uh in order to to um minimize those costs, we've uh changed our uh staffing model a little bit and we've hired somebody to do one of those positions uh on straight time rather than on overtime. A way of again helping us maintain that cost change with that u program continuing for a full year rather than six months.

Thank you. As far as excuse me the uh police budget is concerned as the city manager reflected uh the only increase that we had in our budget was approximately that 4.1% increase due to the command contractual issues. All other line items were flatlined flatlined from last year. So this is a bare bones budget to maintain the essential services that we provide. There's no extra in the budget. So, council, I think, um, this is the first time you're getting into departments and, you know, just for our new council, um, really the the budget process is a marathon. It's not a sprint. We're going to we're going to bring pieces to you. Uh, those uh, budget numbers are going to continue to evolve as our conversation happens, as we uh, fine-tune things. We're constantly um working through some of those numbers now, but we'll we'll get to this by the end of the month where you'll have you'll have a full plan. But for right now for these two departments, this is the this is their number. Nothing's changing here. These are um locked in numbers based on the initial directive that was given and that's no new services, continued services as we currently uh currently exist for the city. Uh so happy to answer questions. There's, you know, for every every department, there's some nuances to them. You know, for for fire, if you, you know, if you make certain changes, that has an impact on revenue. Um, because it it certainly does as it pertains to uh revenue that we bring in regarding um uh EMS services. So, we bring just over 1.7 million in in revenue for EMS services. um as if changes happen with um the amount of uh service we can provide that would change that revenue. So as we go through these and again like this is our first one we're having this conversation we'll

talk through some of those uh revenue impacts uh but you will have a full presentation on revenue um and we'll we'll we'll dig into that further and we'll we'll go through uh more detail on that but um but we'll we'll talk about that as you might have questions or you might have recommendations we'll talk about what some of those impacts would be as well the chiefs will certainly talk about impacts uh with their delivery of service. So, open the floor up for conversations. Mayor, questions from the council. Council,

thank you, Chiefs. Uh, I have a question for both both of you guys. Um, I'm curious what we what you guys use in your industry as like a KPI to measure calls, calls per employee, calls per employee hour. Like, how do we measure that? And how's Auburn Auburn's departments, police and fire, how are we trending in those regards? are are I know that the the general theme is that there's more calls than there used to be, right? So, I'm just curious if you could educate the council a little bit on how you again how you guys measure those and where does Auburn fit again with the trend, but also like state averages.

Yeah, I can start. Um there's a couple of metrics that we monitor. I wouldn't say that any one of them is the explicit golden nugget for what we look at. Um but one that we monitor um is our response times and those are most um negatively impacted by um duplication of calls at the same time. And so we look we we try to trend uh we're looking for an average response time of around 6 minutes. Um that's the national average. We trend just slightly within seconds higher of that. Um that was really shown well on our um ISO evaluation where we scored a two on our ISO score. show that we have a strong response model based on where our assets are are distributed around the city and and our staffing levels. Um but what affects that a lot and as our call volume has gone up um is for example our EMS calls when we um have both of our EMS units tied up on an emergency and we now have to call mutual aid and have an ambulance come from Lewon or Poland or wherever it might be. That drives that that average response time up. So that's one of the things we look at and that was one of the precipitating factors um in us bringing on the third ambulance during those peak hours. Um and then with regard to um unit utilization, if you will, um that's really a metric that is hard to have a national benchmark. Um in in a lot of cases, the national benchmark for ambulance unit utilization um is around 27 to 30% of their time um active on uh EMS calls in the phase from the time that they respond until they're back in the station. Um we we're running in the low 20s right now. And the reason that that's a difficult comparison is because our EMS units are also fire suppression units, right? They don't strictly do EMS. Um and so maintaining the training levels for fire and all of those types of things tends to take up a lot of the day as well. Um and so doing a direct apples to apples comparison. We monitor it and we measure it. Just hard to

measure us against that baseline of strictly EMS providing units. if that helps.

And on the police side, we uh we average about 28,000 calls of service a year and that averages to about 90 to 100 per day. Um for a city of our size, um you also have to consider that not not only is our population about 25,000. That population, daytime population grows to 100 to 150,000 because we're a service center for the area. So with that increased commuter traffic that's bringing more car accidents, um more issues at uh industrial and retail locations as far as uh theft calls. So we try to measure on where those are happening and depending on what beat that officer is assigned to. Typically the 101 beat or the what's called the north beat um is a lot of center street retail district area. They're they're probably the busiest throughout the day. So when we have enough officers, we'll create what we call a cover car that will go up and assist those beats with uh those calls for service. Our minimum staffing during the day is uh four officers and a supervisor. Um and our patrol teams are staffed at six when we're fully staffed at uh six officers per patrol team. So we're allowed to use those extra officers as those cover cars help try to minimize the the workload for each officer. I think councelor Plattz makes a good point that I'll just also mention is that if uh in comparison, so if you were to look at other municipalities and you were to maybe just take the uh the flat number of what they have in their budget, um I'd really encourage you not to do that. If there's some specific details you'd like from another community, we'll we'll work on getting that. But there's so many different variables when it comes to municipalities budgets. Um, you might be comparing with a municipality that includes fringe or benefits in their department budgets. We don't do that. Um, we also, um, the costs for the facilities for the fire department, they're not built into the fire department's budget. We have a facilities budget. So, the the the

utilities for that those three buildings that that the fire chief manages, you won't find that in his budget. Some other departments you might other municipalities you might see within the police department they might have uh a 911 center that's 91 service that's built into their budget. Ours is separate from that. So so it's just you know we've done I think it was two years ago we did a good comparison with multiple communities and we we worked the departments across across the board so you could see some of those comparisons. But it just sometimes you might be like well I wonder what this community looks like as far as a budget. just know that there's a lot of different variables that go into building these budgets and we want to make sure we're comparing apples and apples. So, mayor,

other questions? Council B,

I have a couple of questions um for both of you and would like to start with if we were to ask your teams if they have the training they need to maintain best practices in the field, do are they do you have enough of what you need to make sure they're keeping up with that? Uh certainly, you know, we uh we're one of uh two nationally accredited agencies in the state at the advanced accreditation level. So, we're bringing those best police practices uh forward and we're employing those every day. Uh as far as the training goes, we have a very robust training division. Um we are facing some challenges this year with that because with the elimination of the professional standards lieutenants position, that whole training coordination piece is going to have to be broken up amongst other supervisors. So, that's going to create a little bit of a deficiency in organizing and scheduling that type of training. Um, we're struggling. Um, and we're struggling. Um, I think it's a it's a transient thing. I don't think it's uh going to go on forever, but we're struggling because we're really young. Um, we've had a lot of turnover. We have a lot of our staff that's really young. And so, over the past couple of years and for the next few years, um, we are pulling back on some of the more advanced skills and on some of the stuff that, um, we need to be prepared for, but doesn't happen very often. and f in the need to focus on core behaviors and core skills with a very young staff to keep them safe. Uh the best example I can give you um focuses around um you know basic firefighter safety and training. U making sure that they're really strong on that because as I said you know 25% of our staff has been with us less than 5 years. Um and some of the other things you know we're we're trying to maintain competencies but it's it's tough and tough budget times trying to do these things on duty. stuff like a confined space rescue, you know, rescuing somebody from a manhole and those types of things. Those advanced skills are things that that we struggle to maintain and we're always, you know, every budget year we're doing an assessment about whether or not that's a program that we can maintain, right? Um

it's something that certainly we have industrial sites, you know, water rescue, hazardous materials response, rope rescue, confined space rescue. We have industrial sites that could call on us for that. the frequency at which they're calling us is very low, but the impact of us being able to do those skills when it that time comes is very high. And so we're doing a value assessment every year about where we spend our value, where where we put our training the assets um in order that, you know, to make budget and to meet the needs of our staff and and and we're struggling. I think we're navigating it okay. Um but again that's because we're focused so heavily in the last few years and I think for the next few years on the the core functions of what we do 95% of the time um which is you know EMS transport and firefighting and some of those other specialties have just um we we've um had to provide um I would love to be able to to do more um but we've just repri we've prioritized differently

with um the intensity of some of the calls and some of the work your teams are doing. Could you talk a little bit about what you have in place around debriefing or emotional health supports?

Certainly. We uh we have a very robust peer support team uh that we utilize that will uh meet with officers and we will do uh critical incident stress debriefings after every major call that we have uh where there's some kind of trauma or highintensity call. and we have about 15 members on that team that all have received training um in critical instant stress debriefings and peer support. So, not only is it about just doing the debriefings, it's about monitoring our employees well-being as well. So, we'll do check-ins with our employees, the team is very good about reaching out to people they think might be struggling to uh ensure that they're okay and if they're not, getting them the resources they need to be able to navigate that. Yeah, we have we do um we don't have a defined list of what reaches the threshold of of critical incidents. Um but we have ass access to uh critical incident stress teams um that have come in from time to time based on the the nature and severity of the calls. Um and our supervisors are are trained to monitor that and make referrals. Um we do have uh access to uh behavioral health specialists as well as employee assistants that the supervisors are trained to direct employees to.

Great. Last question for now I think um with um the interface of behavioral health with law enforcement in terms of community response. Could you just talk a little bit about what's set up here in Auburn? So certainly we have what we call our PSY program uh project support you and we have uh two contract specialists through Spurink that uh deploy with our officers. They do check-ins with some of our homeless community uh to ensure that they're getting proper resources. Uh they will do follow-ups with uh mental health calls. Uh they'll get those complaints and that information. They'll go out and do their own follow-ups with those people to ensure that they're um getting the resources that that they need. and we've seen uh somewhat of a reduction in our repeat calls for service to those locations because we're being able to reach out and touch those people and get them the resources that we need. So, so far the program's been very successful for us. Ju just to follow up on that. So, the last couple years in the spring we've had a presentation to the council on PSY with the chiefs. We haven't scheduled that yet, but we have that on our list um to give the council, especially the three new counselors, um more information on that program and the success that they've had. Um other questions by the council, council count.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to expand on that question um to the to the issue of homelessness overall. I know that the newer structures or procedures in place with the shelter warming center uh 121 mil they haven't been around a long time but I'm wondering if you're sensing that there's been an impact on on the burden on your staff with those in place.

I think that the burden remains the same. I think the availability of resources is expanding and those folks getting the the help that they need, but as far as um the workload, that's still there because we're still uh going to encampments and working with public works, whatnot to get those encampments cleaned up. So, we're seeing the same amount of encampments, but the mental health part of it might be going down a little bit because of PSY and the mental health resources that they're getting and the resources they're getting through the uh 121 Mil Street Center as well.

I would kind of kind of echo the same sentiment. Um, one of the things I'll say with with regard to our PSY uh deployment, again, we have a Spurwink employee embedded with the fire department as well that responds um during the weekdays with our EMS units. And um those calls still come in and we have actually seen some um call deferral. And what I mean by that is that once uh we go to a a patient um that might have behavioral health or substance abuse issues, we can direct them to PSY and they're getting some more def they're getting more definitive care than they were just with EMS transport and release. Um which has helped us. Um and I think that that with regard to the bird, we're going on those calls. We've had some call deferral, meaning we've gotten some people into definitive care that's c kept them from calling the third, fourth, sometimes 14th and 15th time over the course of six months. Um, and that I think that the real benefit for our staff for that is not just the reduction in calls, but um, combating what we call compassion fatigue and and going to the same call 10 or 12 or 15 times over the course of 6 months and feeling relatively helpless because that individual isn't getting in definitive care and it's really it's it's mentally drawing on our staff to keep going to those same types of calls um, and you know, transport them and see them walk out the hospital an hour and a half later. Um, and so one of the things that I'd think PSY has really helped with is um, our folks feeling like they have a mechanism to direct somebody to PSY and then that ultimately we've seen success in them getting some level of treatment and care out of that that they weren't otherwise getting just by us doing a transport.

Other questions? C. Um, now I'm losing my train of thought. I appreciate those comments. Uh, Chief, on the I know you all have been working um on addressing traffic enforcement. That's something that certainly I've heard from residents. I know you're working on that with your current budget. Could you speak a little bit to the challenges of that or do you feel that you're going to be able to make progress or is that you know of our our request of keeping this is a flat and very bare bones budget. How does that have an impact on that?

Uh so currently our our pace unit our traffic enforcement unit is consists of a sergeant and patrol officer and they've made great improvements over the last two years on traffic enforcement in the city. Our numbers are through the roof. um our our enforcement levels are up over 100% from years past. So, uh with those two off officers staffing that unit, uh we're making great strides in traffic enforcement.

I think one thing to keep in mind on this, and I do owe you the update that the chief provided regarding the uh uh the traffic enforcement plan, but I think that uh the mayor and I have had a lot of conversations on this too. one of the it's it's changing culture not just internally with the the team it's also externally with drivers driver behavior right and so it takes a lot of effort to do this I you know when I was when I was chief one thing I shared uh was that many people who travel through the town of Lisbon you you know where that section is you better slow down because they're always there right they're always there. In Auburn, we have like 30 of those sections. So, we don't have just the one. So, if they if an officer's freed up and they can go and sit in a section, we they're just so spread out. And so, as the chief moves his team around, it's really difficult. And then when we add on to that, another layer is when you have such traffic that again, this is about changing culture and providing additional resources for the team. Because if you're on some of our busy corridors, the time or effort and the safety issues with trying to get your vehicle out and around and back to try to make that stop becomes difficult. So then it's am I trying to make an impact by being on the road and being visible or am I making an impact by making a traffic stop? because every traffic stop you're going to have, you know, another few dozen cars see you on that traffic stop. But then there's that human element that comes in with the chief's team because when it's a distracted driving or one of these citations and you're looking at three four $500 fine, there's that human

element that comes into that as well. Right. So there those are all the pieces and the mayor and I have been having good conversations about this. We're having conversations with the chief about how do we deploy where we need to be. How do we have um a better impact especially on I think one thing that we have is we have a lot of data. We can drill into data but then how do we deploy based on that data because that's changing culture as well. I could tell you that when I was a patrol officer I'd know right where I'd want to go sit. It was easy. I knew where it was. I'd sit there and I knew you know I could do some updates to report. I could do something else. Well, handwriting sheets. I didn't have the MTS, but but you still you had that place where you could kind of be, you know, that we may not need you there. We might need you over at another location because we know based on data that every day between 10 and 11:30, there's a crash right at this intersection. So, how do we get you there so you're making that impact? Those are things the chief is working through with his team. But the challenge is is that there's a turnover, right? you just get somebody kind of understanding that, getting them in the place. Next thing you know, you know, they've been promoted or they've transferred to another unit and then you've got to work that through again. So, there's a lot of moving pieces, but u but I think it's changing that culture internally and externally and there's also a learning curve too because understand that within our patrol division, 61% of my patrol division has two years less on. So, we have a very young patrol division. So getting them up to speed on our culture of traffic enforcement that takes some time as well. But also one of our greatest challenges is technology because everybody runs ways or Google maps in their cars and somebody sees an officer parked on the side of the road, they hit the button that pops up on the screen so everybody knows where that officer is at. So they know, oh half mile away, here's a police car. I'm going to slow down and as soon as I go by that

officer, oh coast is clear. I'm going to speed back up. So being able to enforce it is challenging for us too because we're dealing with technology as well. So we're getting that voluntary compliance for that short amount of time because they know where the officer's at. They're going by the officer and then they're picking their speed back up. So that's been a challenge for us as well. Other questions? Councilor Gary.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I've been getting a few calls dealing with school crossings. There's some days when there isn't an officer uh watching kids cross the street and usually that's when you have a distracted driver because they don't see they look for the officer don't see him and they lose their concentration. I've been told over on over o over by the middle school a kid almost got hit because the car got distracted and it just corrected itself before a kid got hit. And then over on Park Avenue, there was another another group of kids. So, do you have police how often do your police officers man these crosswalks during school hours?

Uh, very rarely, honestly, because it's about resources and resources management. Um, when you're looking at that time frame, that's also prime commuter time. We're dealing with car accidents. We're dealing with people coming out their cars and reporting motor vehicle burglaries, uh, reporting businesses opening up, finding they've been broken into. So, if the officers are available, yes, we will monitor certain school crossings. But, um, from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., our minimum staffing is three patrol officers and one supervisor. So, during that time frame, I've got, you know, typically three officers and supervisor. I don't have the personnel to be able to to sit on every school crossing. It's just not possible.

I am having conversations with the superintendent. They are the school's looking for some solutions. They want to make sure that crossing guards are safe as well. Uh we're talking about, you know, do you do you bring in someone extra to be able to help out during those times? What's that cost? What's that impact on their budget? So, we are having those conversations. I think it's a priority for them as well. Uh we know that Fairview has had uh some tragedies and so um the there's effort there to find a solution. Um but unfortunately a lot of it comes with um lack of resources and uh because if even if you had it every day, you could say you could fund it, we'll pay overtime every day. Finding people to work those overtime then becomes your challenge. And so um so it's it's a struggle and uh but I think we keep looking I know we have we'll talk about it in CIP we'll keep looking for what technology can we bring to that area to make sure that it's visible we've got it's well lit um and then again continuing to try to change behavior for drivers to know that they're coming into school zone and the importance of driving slow. Other questions from the council? Council B.

Just in followup to that, one of the recommendations because I I hear this um quite often actually around the school zones. Um one of the recommendations I've been asked about almost the most is whether or not speed tables could be put in. Is that something that's being considered?

Yeah, we can talk about it when we do um our CIP for FY27. Um and we'll talk about some of the traffic calming. We we currently have that at Washurn School. Um, you would not be able to do that on other roads because there's restrictions for those roads. Uh, we were able to do it on on Lake Aernab because of it's our road. We can maintain it. We can make adjustments to it, but you would not be able to do that like say on a mined avenue um or a court street to some extent. there's DOT does have, you know, some some restrictions with that that we need to comply with, but then it's also it's a short amount of time for impacts to traffic as well that uh you have to weigh out and and determine okay is that really beneficial. Uh one thing that we started doing was that we do have um we are able to collect data on at some of those areas and what you end up happening is if you have that speed table they know they're coming into it so they go fast coming up to it slow right down hit the speed table then you you're going to mentally budget I mean you're going to project how long it takes you to go from home say to work regardless of what happens happens along that way, you're still going to get there at that time. So, if you slow them down that way, a lot of times that just means they're picking up speed the moment they leave. It is safe for that crosswalk, right? Because you're slowing that, but then they're gunning out afterwards. So, it's a there's some work there. The uh city engineer um will be with us um at a future meeting. He had surgery yesterday, so he's he went home. He he wasn't able to stay. Um but we'll uh we'll work through some of those discussions regarding traffic calming.

Other questions by the council.

Uh so um Chief Chase, I just wanted to follow up on uh mutual aid um with the ambulance. So, I know the last couple years there's been a discussion regarding the volume of mutual aid calls to Lewon because um and just for the new counselors and the public uh the city of Lewon doesn't have an ambulance service. they contract with United Ambulance. And one of the challenges we've had in the past is whether United Ambulance was actually staffing to a level to handle the projected calls in Lewon and um an excess number of mutual aid calls. C can you speak to that? Is that gotten better? Is it the same? What what's the current situation?

It has gotten um it has gotten better, but I'll say that it's inconsistent and streaky. Um and so we'll see um a week, we track it on a weekly basis. Um and we might see a week where we're um in Lewon 3 to five times. Um and a little bit harder it's data for us to track is how often we get mutual aid back from United um because we may not even be on those calls sometimes. Um so it it seems empirically that um typically in that three to five a week um there's some par um with us but then we'll we'll have a week where we might see um you know 10 to 15 calls to L within a given week. Um one of the things our model and our structure builds in is is remarkable consistency. Um and that's with um you know we have a a a workforce um that a large workforce and only a portion of it is used for EMS and that gives us the opportunity when people are out sick and all those and other things might impact it that we have a larger pool to draw from to be sure that those units get staffed. Not every ambulance service has that and so I don't really know all of the details sometimes about what has happened from a staffing perspective over there. Um but certainly we see that we'll go some weeks where it's very lopsided. Um now I if I go back to the few years postco it was lopsided very very very frequently that has improved it's lopsided less frequently um like I said we we might see um if I were to look back at our data for the last 3 months I would say that we had maybe 3 weeks in which you would say there was a big disparity of something like we were in law 10 to 15 times um whereas they were here 3 to five Um, yes. So, I guess my my um followup on that is I I I understand mutual aid and I understand that the business that both of you are in is completely inconsistent. You're at the

mercy of when someone punches 911 and says, "Come on out." So, there will be some unbalance. I think the bigger question is the staffing, right? We we've taken uh some time and looked at this and added the third ambulance on and and I guess that's where my question is. When we have these unbalanced weeks, is it because they just happen to have a circumstance or there's a lot of EMS calls and they happen to run around the same time or are we getting those calls because United is not deploying enough resources to handle the average load?

Um I think Yeah, I think that it's um I'm I'm speculating only but within their operation, but that there's times in which for um people calling out sick or whatever, and they don't have the same tools that we do to fill those shifts. I think that's part of it. But there's at least a third, if not a fourth player here, too. And and one of those players is the hospital, the hospital's capacity and the hospital's ability to take patients. And so, um, when the hospital is sending a lot of patients south and there's a lot of transfers that need to happen, that draws a lot of United Resources. They're now out of this area. Um, and we as a system, and we really have to look at EMS as a system, and I I appreciate the comments because it's something we we watch very closely. Um, but that, you know, the the hospital's ability um to take a patient. So, you might pick up a patient, the hospital says, "Yep, they're going to to Portland." They may go to central Maine first, they may not, but either way, United's probably taking them out of central Maine and sending them to Portland when they need to go. That's drawing resources out of the system. That then means that they may be a little compromised and that's not always easy to predict, right? Um it's based on surge in capacity. Um but what we do see from that, again, because we think of it as a system, um we have actually over the past year seen an increase in what we call um requests to us for what we call paramedic intercepts. So, we have EMS units coming in from further away that aren't licensed at the highest level of paramedics um and they're looking for assistance. So, we're meeting them in route um to put our paramedics on board their ambulances because they may only be at the EMT basic level, for example. And we've started to see more of those and we we we're intercepting with Turner, Buckfield, um Poland, Oxford at higher frequency than we were. Um and that's kind of trickle down from the same um same problem, right? the the system resources. Um those a lot often were were um United was being called for

those intercepts. Now we are um if you remember back a couple of years ago, we changed our intercept billing rates, right? To try to balance that out. We increase the fee that we charge those ambulance services when we intercept with them. Um in a way of of trying to say, hey, call us when definitely needed, but as you do, we recognize it's a drain on our system, too. And we've tried to adjust the revenue accordingly. Um, but the generally as a system, um, I think that we're still working through the logistics and and I talk about the system with regard to the all of the MS providers within our our our circle. We're still working on the system of how mutual aid um, handles surges, right, and the unpredictability. None of us can afford to staff at the highest level where we want where we could always cover all of our own calls. Um, one of the things that I'm grateful for in the service that Auburn has is the consistency and predictability, right? Um, I can always staff those shifts. We have mechanisms built in. I can tell somebody they can't go home in the morning if that would leave me without a staffed ambulance. And we do that to ensure that we maintain consistency. Um, and we always have those services available. Um, so it's a tool that's available to us. It positions us really well to be strong partners in this mutual aid system. For sure. I think I think I'm biased, but I would say the cornerstone of the system um for for that reason because we have that um staff consistency. Um and I I think that I think that your point's really valid, mayor, and that's to continue to wash that there's parity um and maybe try to find some tools that we can collect some better data on how we're getting um that repaid to us, right? And that's a difficult thing for us to track, but maybe we can try to find some better ways. Yeah, I think it's a significant it's going to be a significant problem especially I uh I appreciate your comments about being a system and I think that is exactly right on the EMS side but I think it's going to be a problem when you have a situation like

United who's uh filling two roles. they're the emergency response for Lewon and they're doing the transports and if they take off units that are going to be doing emergency response to do a transport and now we're responding and if these outlying communities can't staff with a level of training they need so we have to keep uh expending resources uh to do the intercepts. It's uh you know it's a significant it's a significant problem. It's something that we need to watch because it doesn't seem like it's going to get better.

I think you're right. I don't think I don't think it's going to get better. And I think that um you know one approach that we can continue to do and and you know I'll look at through this process again is um is if there's a revenue model that helps us u to ensure that that if you don't get equity through parity of service, you get equity through reimbursement. Right. Other questions or comments? Just a quick comment. It's not going to get better. Is it going to get worse?

I don't I don't know. Um, one of the things I will say is I I value the fact that we have the security in the system that we do in Auburn. Um, you know, we've struggled with um to some extent with staffing and we've have some ongoing vacancies and we're kind of constantly hiring, but I have a big pool to draw from, right? And the fact that we don't have just a fire department and just an EMS department means that I have 64 EMS providers that can fill all of those roles. And that builds an incredible amount of consistency, my ability to be dynamic with staffing and meet those needs. Um, and so I'm very comfortable with where Auburn stands with regard to the regional system. I think there are some other weak players and there's some vulnerabilities in our region. Um, the best I think we can hope for is to remain strong and be able to pivot quickly when that happens. Yeah, I think just as followup to that, um I don't know whether it's going to get worse or not, but I think that the legislature recognized it was too big of a problem to tackle. The the manager is well aware of this over the last couple years. There was significant amount of study by the legislature with the lack of EMS services that were available and there was lots of discussion about having a regional EMS model and lots of different ways to do this. None of that came to fruition because it's a really big problem to tackle and it's probably going to be very expensive to do so.

Yeah. And I would just add to mayor I just you know how fortunate I am and how fortunate we are as a city. Uh we've got two chiefs that are in the room when those conversations are happening at a state level. Um the legislators tap them to be on committees because we've been so dynamic in how we deliver our services. We they know we have different models here. They're tapping and bringing them into that conversation. So that's for us as a city to be in part of that conversation to be able to um share the challenges that we currently have uh talk about lessons learned. What have we done in certain areas that uh maybe we need to pivot away from that and we're not afraid of that. If there's some we're okay with trying something and saying okay let's let's throw everything we have at it see what takes place and then as the economy changes as the the you know so many different variables shift with our health care system you know they're pivoting as we as we maneuver um there'll be a pivot again you know we'll see what takes place with the sale of central main medical center right there's they're part owner of United what does that look like how, you know, what changes will we see with that? And so the team's at that table, they're having those conversations and at at a state level and and for for both of them, they're also in conversations outside of the state, too, just as in their professions and and what they do. They are looked upon as as the leaders in the state. And so we're really fortunate to have that with with both of them. So,

other questions from the council. Thank you very much. I'm sure we'll have further opportunities to talk with you as we work through the budget.

They're not going to go far because there's they can sit back there in that gallery for now, but uh we do have CIP items and you might have some followup and I've asked uh some of the staff to be here for for some of that followup with the CIP. Um, you know, I'm a generalist. I can tell you the surface of some of these items, but it's really important for them to talk about the real impact on why is that replacement schedule coming? What are they what are we what's on the horizon for additional um addition additional capital infrastructure? So, I did provide in your packet the CI the CIP uh 5-year capital improvement plan. I I you know a couple highlights uh for the public and for and for you Mr. Manager. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Before you get into the details, it might be helpful for the council and the public uh to provide a brief explanation about the relationship between the five-year CIP plan and how uh current year CIP uh funding gets appropriated.

Yeah, that Yeah, absolutely. I think that um so what what you have is this five-year plan and it that's it's it's a plan. It's what we are anticipating. Um we are moving all of our assets into an asset management system. There's a predictor that's coming um in the future and that asset predictor will allow us to really uh evaluate every piece of asset we have and determine are we spending too much in maintenance on a piece of equipment that it's really it's time to replace the the software tells us that we'll work through that because when you think about all the the numerous facilities we have equipment that's in those the HVAC systems um we have um a lot of assets that it's really important for us to to manage that. What you'll see next year, one thing that we're going to be working on is actually providing you a 10-year plan. U because that's really that will be able to capture just what's what's around the horizon for us. and and so it's timing up well with how we believe we'll be able to to roll out um our asset management system, but then really be able to give you a 10-year window of what we're looking at. And again, you know, we're we're we build some of these numbers off from what's the cost today. You know, when if you go back 5 years when some of these items were put into this plan, uh we had no idea we would be seeing some of the cost escalators that we've had with tariffs, with other labor shortage, labor increases, with some of these costs, uh price of steel, all those things have impacted us greatly. And so, uh so we're working through that. So, as the mayor said, this is a 5-year plan. This is very different than what you will eventually adopt. What you see in that column for FY27,

that is not what I'll recommend. But, we want to make sure we're putting we we make sure that you know all of the needs, the best that we can identify. So, you know what those are. We'll prioritize that. I'll I'll provide it in a list. But for you, you might look at that list and say, "That's not what I think we really should be pro funding. Let's go and look at this other item." And you have the plan to then work off of them. Sometimes what ends up happening, there's some items that we put in the plan that they're they're in there for if all things were great and we had this additional money, could we move forward with say a dog park? That's one of the ones that you'll see in here, right? That's a that's a request that's come from the community in every survey we do. Uh we've tried to find some ways to to make that happen. We've looked at some grants. We've done different things. We carry it over in the in the uh 5-year plan. It just gets pushed off a year until we can really find that right balance between can we get some funding for it? Is there a desire? Is there a location? And if it all comes together, we typically will will look to move forward on projects like that. So, there's some of those projects in there. And then there's projects that immediate needs. We know that there's they weren't in the plan. They may not have been in that five-year plan. If you were to go back and look at the 5-year plan and go, how how does how did this item creep up on us? It's because there might have been a match that came along that we're now able to do it. We didn't even know, but it's something that there is a need there. So, let's move with it. Let's um we try to make as many of our projects as shovel ready as we can. So if things do come along, they're ready. Uh but it might not necessarily get into our plan. Uh because it might be a need that has come up and made we're now available made available or made aware of it rather. So u mayor does that cover what you're

so uh in your budgets when I talked about here's the here's the amount that we're currently looking at. Kelsey was able to float in amount an amount in there. Basically, it was the same amount that we um the council approved last year for CIP. We just floated that it's in there. That number will move based on what you actually determine it to be. You as a group might say we want to reduce that by a million dollars. Well, then we'll float that down. You might say we want to increase that. Whatever that looks like, that's that's the work that you all will do. But we need to carry a number just so that you we don't want you to get towards um that point in the process and then we put in um the interest cuz the first year we only pay the interest for that bond. But then we put that amount in and then your numbers increase and you're like wait a minute I thought we were we were talking about this for an increase. So that's why that's floated so you don't see that big swing later on when you're ready to to finalize the budget. So, I'm going to walk through these for you just in categories. I'm not going to go into a lot of uh the detail on them. Um we can we'll make that available for you. As you'll see, some of these are are very detailed. There's items that we see oftent times in the CIP that they don't always meet our definition of a uh something that we bond. And capital improvement does not mean bond. When you get to the point where we provide you the FY27 um CIP, you're going to see a category that's what will be bonded. Then you'll see a category that's operating capital. That means we've worked it into the budget. And so that item might be in the plan, but you're going to see it in in the budget. It just means that it's not something that we see not always see on

a regular basis. And so we plan, we put it into this capital improvement plan. Um and then um then there might be another funding source. And so it's in the plan. It's not going to be bonded. It's not going to be in the operating, but there's a additional funding source that comes in. I think the best example for us on that is uh the um EMS um ser equipment, right? So, if we're replacing an ambulance, you're going to see that in that category because when we collect the revenue, we skim off some of that revenue that go into a capital improvement account and then that capital improvement account then pays uh for that um debt service pays for that debt service or it'll just it'll fund that piece of equipment. Uh they might have a new um new piece of equipment that's needed on the ambulance. Well, it's funded that way. So, that's the structure. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of a um sense of how we we work this. Um trying to make this smaller so you can see the whole screen. All right. So your first item is the Arban Lewis um municipal airport. This is you'll see where it's tagged here that it's the city share. So that means that whatever line item that you see um the one for annual pavement management program for 150,000 the actual cost that they're looking for is 300,000. This is Auburn share. Lewis would have the other 150,000 requests. And so, um, couple things, you know, I think, uh, the airport manager was able to put together a really great, uh, five-year plan for the airport because we are, we've been working through the master plan, the airport master plan. Well, that's identified a lot of things for us. And so, so Jonathan's done a great job of of putting that in here for you. um trying

to project what's happening and anticipate some growth that might be uh beneficial or driven uh because of the uh the increased use at the airport. Um but I think this gives you some items that are really clear for us. I think that couple of these items, you know, we'll need to do um a CDS match means that um that's congressional directed spending uh for a hanger project that the project was funded through CDS money. However, this the municipality needs to pay the percentage share and so that 68,750. That's something you will see in the FY27 request from the manager because we've got to pay that match so that we can get that larger item, larger, uh check for that project. And so, um, so you might see items like that. Um, and as you see in this one, and again, I won't spend a lot of time here, but you'll see where, you know, for the first three years, and you'll see this on most most departments, pretty pretty aggressive year 1, two, and three. They know those projects. They know what they look like. Sometimes it fades off three and four unless it's say a fire department that knows year five I got to replace a a fire engine. Well, those are going well over a million dollars. You'll see that in that year five where it kind of balances out those requests. But you're seeing for the airport um pretty minimal requests for a million dollars uh for some of the items that they're looking at. But we won't I won't recommend all of those because the challenge with the one of the with the airport and a couple of our other um department budgets is that we need a willingness on both with both cities to be able to move these projects forward. And so uh so we need to kind of have those conversations that dialogue takes place. What are you looking to fund? What can we fund? What could we present before the council for consideration? There's times when you will go ahead and

approve something in the capital improvement plan for the airport, but at the final hour, Lewis may not have and so we won't fund it. It'll stay in a um you know, Kelsey will manage that in that account and it might come back up to be reappropriated if Lewis's not funding it. And the same thing that happens on the other the other side as well. We've had times when they've approved something and we didn't on this side of the river, the project didn't move forward. So, okay. Uh, questions about airport. Again, these are um certain upgrades to areas. It certainly aligns with the master plan. Um, but these are the items. Sorry, councelor. Yep.

Uh, thank you. Yeah, my question about the airport is relative to last year's 5-year uh CIP in that plan. I think all we had was the CDS line item for 68 and then pavement. Uh, I'm looking there was one other it was for FY27. It was terminal parking lot engine 175. Can you just help us understand what has changed in the framing or the the in inclusion of uh airport CIP? Just so we're clear, the items that you're looking for are in the funded CIP for the airport or it was in the CIP plan.

It was in the proposed 5-year plan um submitted at last year's March meeting. And again, I my guess is this is just my understanding of what's being represented visually in front of me, but could you help me understand what I'm seeing?

Yeah, it's a great great question because like I said, I think uh the director has put a lot of work into the plan. I think you're now seeing some really um significant growth, but you're also seeing um the master plan is feeding this information for us now. And so um and then there were you know to be honest it was just um you know the airport wasn't stable for a few years and so we didn't have that consistency and it took Jonathan a little bit of time to to really get into there and to identify what's really our needs and what are we seeing and how can we forecast the future. So this is what you're seeing with having somebody that has a good knowledge of what's going on, a good plan to work off from and then start providing you that. You should have had it in the past. we were we were lacking in that area.

So, it is it is safe to say then that what we're seeing now in front of us this year, it is it's additional spending. It's additional consideration. Obviously, elsewhere in our city council discussions, we've determined that there's additional value in the airport. And so, but I just want to be clear, this is new spending. This isn't something that was hiding before. This is new requests for something that was possibly underfunded. Yeah. Or being neglected.

Yeah. Or neglected. That's a great way to say it. Or neglected. you know, it just wasn't it was never brought before uh anyone really to say that, hey, this is a this is a need and we need to we need to make sure that we're planning on it. I think that the the the great benefit that we've had is that with Jonathan being part of the staff and being assigned there, he's now working with the other departments on getting some of the just the general maintenance, um which has been working out really well. We build the airport when that happens and so the airport's paying for that. 50% from us, 50% from Lewon. Um, but we're we're we're tackling some of the the lowhanging fruit, I guess you could say. Um, but these would require more than what's built into the budget. Yeah, great question. Big change. Council C

just to point out that just to highlight and reinforce your comment uh Phil that there's been substantial growth in the utilization of that airport and that you know so I think um kudos to the the the work that's being done but I imagine to your point counselor plus that some of this is because of the expansion for that demand to to react to that. So

and it's driven by some conversations that we're having with other partners and I think that's the other piece too. um statewide public safety. We're having a conversation with them about access to the airport and how it's centrally located, how this could be a good location for them. So, there's an item in here that talks about the public safety hanger project. That's in conversation, but we want to make sure we're plugging it in now. So, you you know that conversation's happening. I think in in year two, you'll see a line item that's in there regarding Lifellight. Lifellight, the Auburn Lewis airport is the home base for Lifellight, but they're they have expanded needs as well. And so we're having those conversations internally with some of our partners on what does this look like forecasting moving forward. And so sometimes it's not necessarily where, you know, we might be putting it within the CIP because it's a CIP project. How it's funded will be different. It doesn't mean, like I said before, doesn't mean that we're going to be bonding that. It just means that we'll partner and hopefully bring in another funding source for it.

Um, yeah. Quick question. I don't know disappointing in case it's an oversight, but annual pavement management program only has dollars in f fiscal year 27. Is that intentional? Yeah, this pavement uh management program really has to do with um the area around the airport um as you're coming in. Um, so it's not this isn't related to the runway, right? So this is related to um once you do that, then you've built that out for now. It'll cover us for quite a few years. Thanks.

Yeah, it probably hasn't been done in 20 plus years, so you can just drive up there. You can you can tell. So, um, all right, I'm going to move on. um record restoration. You say you see you'll see here for city clerk as well as as well as a fireproof vault. Um that's something that we've been we know that we need to work on. The amount of records that we retain inside the facility. Uh there's a need there for us to continue looking at expansion on that. Even though record restorations here doesn't mean that we bond. It means that it might be in capital operating. Um when you take a look at finance um you know Eagle View is one of those items that that hits um um hits the finance budget as well as uh Reval. You know we're in a that final uh this will be the final year of the Reval. So that's one that we won't be pushing off because we're in a we're currently in a multi-year contract with um KP um say that wrong. K

KRT

KRT Thank you. So KP is the place we get hot dogs. So K KRT and uh so uh so this is the final year of that their work will be done after the completion of this. Um so not not a lot of capital items really drive uh drive finance you but you might see them in IT because it has to do with some software purchase or management. So uh and that goes for all the departments. We've tried to consolidate these over the years. So you're looking at the IT budget and you're looking at how the software impacts all the departments. So fire department again this is um you know a rotating schedule on equipment is critical for us. If we push off something one year it now pushes off those other capital um infrastructure for multiple years. Um and that's a challenge. The fire chief is here and certainly will will speak to any of these items for you. Um but there are um really critical needs here. I think the turnout gear is one that I want to highlight is that um having an additional set of turnout gear is really critical for our firefighters. Um because we go to multiple calls and we could go to multiple fires and cleaning that and having being able to set aside uh turnout gear so you're now you're not bringing those contaminants back on your body back in the area that you're working in or back to another scene is really important. So um it's an area that I know is a priority uh for the chief. We're working through that. This is part of that plan on on building up that uh additional PPE equipment. So, when you see that, that's just that personal um protective equipment for our for our firefighters. And then um we're on a a decent schedule as it pertains to some of our other equipment like fire hose replacement. Those you'll just constantly see those. you're going to

you you think about at one point I don't remember what the amount is but just how many feet of fire hose we have and you've got to change that out regularly and again that's an item that in the last couple years we've started moving that to the capital operating so we're not bonding on that and so that's just some of the internal items that we really focused on and then the EMS um again um you'll see these funded these items funded in that other category when you start taking a look at the budget Um, these are just you'll always see cardiac monitor replacements. You'll always see stretcher replacements just with the sheer volume of calls that they go on. And then we'll always be uh working on the ambulance. One thing that I think they're creative on is how can they replace or remount um you know the chassis still good. How can we take the the box off, bring a new box on that piece of equipment so we're not replacing the entire piece of equipment. the fire apparatus replacement. Uh you'll see that's 1.6 million. We'll be needing to have that conversation because it takes three years for them to build a fire truck. So, so we've got to get our order in. And so we'll be working through that with you to talk about how do we do that? What does that look like? Sorry. Go ahead.

Yeah. remind me um because of the long lead time now my recollection is we have to set aside money out of the fund balance basically to account for this ahead of time. Is that is that right?

Yes, that's correct. So we would do a council order uh authorizing restrict it's called a restricted fund balance. So we'd restrict that amount in our fund balance. So it's not technically spent. It's just saying if for some reason we don't have any funding come in for this, we have agreed that this dollar amount will be used for this purpose. Uh because we have to do purchase orders for these items um several years in advance. And a purchase order is basically saying we have these funds to pay for this order. Um whether or not we decide to bond for those or use fund balance, but we have to at least use fund balance to say we have some funds to pay for this order even though it's three years in advance.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that that gets into the you know we we always are challenged with you making decisions that are how does that going to impact a council that comes on maybe after you, right? And so this is uh an area that we worked on the last couple years finding that solution because not just fire trucks, uh public works vehicles, some of that was equipment, it's it's three years out. That's how long it's going to take for us to get it. So this allows you to take the order, place it in there. You're saying that even if the other council chooses not to bond that item, you've said, "Well, then it comes out of the fund balance." So, it can come out of there or that council can choose to pay for it out of a bond. So, it really you're not you're not tying their hands. You're just you're using your authority based on what's available for you today. So,

yeah. Now, now that the lead cycle's so long that you can't uh obtain the item in the year in which you order it, you've incurred this liability and you have to have the ability to pay for it. Uh because we've occurred the liability when we order it. Correct. And if that future council determines that bonding is the direction they want to go, those funds that were restricted in the fund balance just become unrestricted fund balance. So they it remains part of the fund balance until unless and until it's spent. Great. Yeah, great conversation, mayor. I think that's a lot of moving pieces with that. So just so you it's clear on what that looks like. Um information

technology. Is that a Sorry, out of curiosity. Um for a firet truck like that or equipment, are there down payments or is it you pay on a receipt? Yeah. So sometimes there are uh sometimes they require a certain amount um to show or some there are other times where they'll say um that purchase order that we've agreed yes we've set aside funds for this is enough. It depends on where we're ordering from uh and what their requirements are. Uh we do put out uh RFPs in order to get the best prices we can from the best known vendors. But

yeah, what we typic we we typically go out to bid and we get the bid from multiple vendors. Um and and in most cases they can offer us um if you will the price in three different ways. You know 15% down your total cost is this. If you want to do 50% down, your total cost is that. And they're completely willing, believe it or not, to let you put 100% down. We never do that, of course, because because we want to hold something and make sure we've put eyes on the truck and it's passed all of our testing. But the but the price actually is slightly cheaper depending on how much you put forward. So we always do a value assessment there on whether or not we what we want to put down um but still have obviously some collateral so we can make sure it it's manufactured the way we want and it test it tests out before we paid the last of the bill

and we can uh basically refund our fund balance for anything that was prepaid for example that is later determined to be bonded. Thanks Chief.

Thank you. So information technology, I've asked Jill to come up just to talk about our infrastructure, the network as it pertains to fiber connection. This is something we started probably I think 2020 maybe somewhere in around there 2021 really making a an effort to start building our infrastructure and fiber and there's a return on that. Jill can cover some of that with you as well as uh the security camera project. So, we've we've started making some changes as it pertains to really identifying areas where where does it make sense, especially in some of our parks, playgrounds, those things. We we've built in some some cameras as as a means of uh security for that.

Good evening. Um, so they kind of go hand in hand. A lot of the security and enhancements that we've been working through and a lot of the parks throughout the city need fiber connection. So, the fiber money allows us to have the cameras in different locations throughout the city. Along with a lot of the new buildings, we've been putting our own fiber um from city hall. So, that's giving us that direct connection instead of leasing lines. So, we've been working through that. that that's a real big piece, you know, about just the savings on leasing lines and being really beholden to someone else and being able to have the security of our own our own system is really critical. So, um, so we were able to kind of put a large injection into this project, uh, with ARPA funds and so that kind of got things started for us and then now we're we're just really putting money in to just do small incremental increases as we move along.

Questions for Jill on our system? What what's the um what's the life cycle of a of a fiber network? If if we get this fully installed, how how many years until we have to start doing it again? Um, I would say quite a few years, like 30 years. Yeah. How far into the project can you remind us like are we 75% the way or?

So, currently we've only done uh new buildings. We haven't started doing all of the lease lines with the fire station project. So engine two will be our first that we'll replace that line and then next we'll do uh central station and then continue to pick off. We have like 12 lines total. So each year if we do small amounts then it gets us to that number.

Jill would probably tell you I keep moving the goalpost because um she has a plan that she's working through and then I say oh by the way we're setting up a community resource center at 121 Mil Street. So she pivots and she makes that work. And by the way, we now have 67 Kittyhawk. And while we're out there, we might as well tie into the airport. And so, so the goalpost moves on her, but I think she's she makes those adjustments and we we continue to to make those improvements. Great. Thanks, Jill.

Yep. talked a little bit about Norway Savings Bank, Arena and Ingresol that even though those are enterprise accounts, if you remember last week when we talked about their budget, their capital items come in through our capital improvement plan. And um when it comes to Norway, uh the arena is uh sitting at about 12 years old. So, we know and many of you were on the tour, you saw you saw the um they do a great job of maintaining, but there's a lot of use and that use is wearing out um some of the uh um surfaces, whether it's, you know, we're constantly they got a rotation of when they're painting walls, they got a rotation of when they're replacing uh some of the equipment. Um, but there's been been a great investment by the city. Um, not just initially, but then also as we move forward. Um, I think Mark's here, so I'm going to have him come up. And, um, but there are some definite needs when it comes to um, some of the rubber flooring uh, not just at Norway, but also at Ingresol. Um, and that's just because of safety, good use for uh the am what the type of services we're providing in these areas, especially with the the the newer gem area within Norway. But Mark, I don't know if you want to cover some of that.

Yeah, sure. Um, I'll start with Ingresol and and again, thank you for coming to visit and and taking a walk through and seeing the facility. Um, you know, we got to remember that Ingresol was originally an ice rink. So when we repurpose it, there's there were some differences there in how we were going to put the turf in. Um we actually purchased a gently used turf uh product at the time. Um and also uh the rubber or the current kind of laminate flooring that's outside of the turf. you know, at that point it was that's what we felt like we needed to get done in regards to making sure we got it operational. Um, but as we've gone through the years at Ingresaw, we figured out, you know, now we're seeing the major, you know, the major wear on the turf right now because of its usage. Also, we found out some of the insulation wasn't necessarily uh put down right underneath the turf. Um, and then also now from a safety standpoint as we're seeing how people use the turf, right? Is now we're seeing that laminate wasn't necessarily the proper u, you know, floor structure for that, right? And and having a rubberized floor structure out there will allow a good safety piece for all of our users. Um, as well as putting in a brand new piece of turf that allows us to not go through something where it affects the operational use. Um, and as we get to the arena, you know, we are, it was built in 2013. Um, I will say rank one is our heavily used area and the the rubber has withtood a really good amount of usage, but we're seeing, as you saw, a lot of wear right now because we've never replaced it since the day the building is opened. Um, and then to um,

uh, to Phil's point about maintenance on a major piece of equipment, they do have a life cycle, and those Zambonies are or ice reservicers are 10 to 12 years. Um, and we're reaching that point with our current um, ice reser.

Questions regarding Norway, Ingresol? Okay, I think we can put we can probably uh cover PD tonight and then we'll pick up on the CIP plan at our next next workshop. Um, but I'll ask the chief to come back up. And so with the PD there's a you know there's a bit of a pause because and I think uh both the fire chief and fire chief less so because he has other buildings that he's he's working through. But for the PD, there's been a bit of pause on some of the capital because it's always for the last few years, it's just been an anticipation of the new public safety building. So, you're not seeing some of the u maybe some of the requests that you would normally see, but we certainly have items and needs um you know, from some improvements for when they're doing their firearms training just for storage. We never seem to have enough storage anywhere. And uh and then as well as uh that were the annual replacement uh for uh the cruiser and body camera system replacement. I'll let the chief talk about that. Doesn't mean we're we're changing it out every every year. We're taking pieces within that. And then or we're paying rather on the system that we just put in. And so these are the payments for that. And um and so chief, I don't know if you want to cover uh starting off with vehicle replacement. Um, you know, we've determined over the years that our patrol vehicles have about a 4-year life cycle and our support and administrative vehicles have a 5 to 8year life cycle. And what we'll do is as you determine Sorry, they're not covering vehicles. That's under fleet. We'll do that. Sorry,

we'll bring him in later. Sorry, you don't have that right in front of you. It's down under another section. So, he's got the individual sheets. That's what he's covering. But for the uh the 5-year plan, I'll just give you that.

So, with our body with our body cameras, um we have a 5-year contract with our provider to provide services for our body cameras and our incar cruiser cameras. And so, um you'll see that under the cruiser body camera replacement, um there's actually an area that's supposed to be 152,000 across all five years. What that does is that it's our annual contractual fee for that over the 5year period that we have for the contract. And within that five years, that also includes a equipment refreshment for us that we're actually currently going through now with both body cameras and cruiser cameras um that have some additional features in those for us. So um those are included in that 5-year contract. It's not our equipment is lasting probably 3 to four years before it's being refreshed by the company. So that's all part of that contract. Um, when we talk about the firearms training equipment, um, we currently do our firearms training at the Anders Fishing Game Club. And over the years, uh, we've struggled with using some of their equipment, uh, depending on who, uh, the executive board is at the time. For the last couple years, um, we have what we call steel targets because we're not just shooting at a paper target to do qualifications. We're spending an entire day of training working on proficiency, accuracy, timing drills, uh stress drills, and this the steel targets are an integral part of that. And the last couple of years, we haven't been able to use uh the the gun club's um stuff, and we're to the point now where we have to invest in our own equipment to be able to use it and order maintain that proficiency that our officers are required to go through on an annual basis. So that that firearm training equipment is a vital piece of training vital training need for us that we need to purchase. Also, we have the storage container where currently we have a tractor trailer that's out there that we're allowed to keep at the fishing game club for storage of all of our equipment.

That trailer is about 25 years old and it's rotting away. It's no longer weatherproof. And by purchasing this storage container, this would allow us to uh weather tighten that and replace that trailer that's simply um disintegrating. And uh we're well past the service life for that. And we're finding that some of our equipment is is being um compromised because of the lack of weather proofing for that for that item. And then also we have um our AED replacement. Um we our goal is to have a automatic external defibrillator in each one of our mark patrol cars that our officers are trained on. So a lot of times they're in the immediate uh vicinity of uh of a cardiac event and they're able to utilize uh those AEDs. Our AEDs have reached the end of service life and we've been taking them out of service because they're no longer replaceable. Um, so we're down to, I think, four or five in the patrol division and we need 15 of them to be able to maintain that that type of readiness for our officers and for the citizens of uh of Auburn. And I think that's our what we had for the capital improvement for this year.

Questions for the chief? No. Okay. I think um as we wrap up the 5-year plan, just know that um you're seeing a line item. You know, we have more more information. So, this is just each one of those items. There's a lot more, you know, about maintenance, replacement schedule, uh description, and so as you have more questions, we we'll be able to answer those as we go through and certainly spend the time that I think is really necessary when we start taking a look at the FY27 uh requests. So, that's it for tonight. Mayor, uh, are you gonna Are you Is that as far as you want to go tonight?

I think so. I think we're pretty close in in time. I think it it lines up pretty well with um Dan being here at our next meeting to really spend some time with you on the engineering. Okay, great. In that case, we'll adjourn the work session and we will um reconvene at 7 p.m. for the regular council meeting.

The March 16th, 2026 Auburn City Council meeting will be called to order. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. If we could have the counselors introduce themselves, starting with council Gary.

Good evening. Belinda Gary, city councelor at large. Good evening. Rachel Randall, city councelor. Ward two, ward one. I thought I had the night off. Darn it. Good evening, Tim Cow. W two. Good evening, Matthew Duval. W three. Good evening, Jeff Harmon, Mayor. Good evening, Kelly Butler. Ward four. Good evening, Leroy Walker. W five. Good evening, Adam Plattz at large. Good evening. Brandon Edwards, student representative. Phil Croll, city manager.

Thank you. The first item on tonight's agenda is a consent agenda. There are three items. The first is confirming Jane Koslo as the conservation working group representative to the sustainability and natural resources management board. Uh the second is the appointment of Eric Gould to the Auburn Water District Board of Trustees. And the third is the appointment of Steven Nast to the Auburn Sewage District Board of Trustees. Is there a motion? Motion to move. Moved by Council Walker. Is there a second? Second.

Seconded by Councelor Gary. Vote will be by show of hands. All those in favor? Opposed? Seven. Having voted in the affirmative and none in the negative, the motion is adopted. The next item is approval of the minutes of the March 2nd, 2026 regular city council meeting. Are there any errors or corrections? Not seeing any. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Motion to approve. Moved by council Walker. Second.

Seconded by councelor Cowan. Vote will be by show of hands. All those in favor? Opposed? Seven. Having voted in the affirmative and none in the negative. The motion is adopted. The third item on tonight's agenda is communications, presentations, and recognitions. The council will find in your packet a copy of an application for the 2026 AARP community challenge grant funding. This is a grant application in partnership with the age friendly committee uh for accessible public perennial gardens providing free food to the community. We'll move on to the first open session of the evening. If there's any members of the public that would like to address the council on items that are not on tonight's agenda, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Hi, I'm Ben Lounsbury, Ward One, 505 West Balbert Road, and I'd like to invite you all to a free showing of a movie uh Friday night, March 27th at the LA Arts Whoa. um headquarters on at 168 Lisbon Street. The movie is named Unless Something Goes Terribly Wrong and it's 73 minutes long. It has to do with wastewater treatment. Uh which and you can get a tour of various wastewater treatment plants and the smell is terrible, but for this event, you don't have to suffer a bad smell. Uh the movie is really professionally made. I I went to a a uh the Camden documentary film festival in September and saw it and it won first prize and I was really impressed with how professional it was. Uh so it it talks about wastewater treatment plants but it's serious and funny. It's funny in in many places and

you'll get a great education out of it. Um I was so taken with it that I have promoted it uh in this area. It's a free showing. Please show up and enjoy yourselves. Thank you. Thank you very much. If there's any other member of the public wants to address the council, please approach the podium and provide your name and address.

Uh my name is Peter Rubin. I'm the chair of the Grow Olay River Working Group. Uh the Growlet River Working Group's mission statement is to be the conduit between Lewon and Auburn for best use of the river since 2014. There are two major river licenses that are on the table right now that will affect both cities for the next 40 years. To be or not to be is number one. The reclassification of the Andersken in LA from lowest class C to the current tested class B was rejected by the Environment Natural Resources Committee last week. The DP said it did not meet their computer model and that Lacqua would have to expand, which it will probably have to do anyway for projected growth. We will continue to do dissolved oxygen testing for the next trienal period review and reapply for class B in three years, re-imaging the river from the dirty Lou up to our beautiful Androskaga. Number two, Brookfield's rellicensed for the next 40 years is on the is on the books right now. The two cities have worked together with legitimate ask for recreation and aesthetics. 40 timed releases over the falls plus holidays, possibly in the evenings to bring people downtown, some public tables, portages, Lewon's ability to ask for more water for possible recreation in the canals, and money for maintenance at the West Pitch and other river trail need. I was here 40 years ago, and the same asked to CMP. They replied, "Great idea, but nothing needed now. nothing in 40 years. We are now asking the two cities to commit to continuing our legal goals to of a clean river and aesthetics that draw people down to the water for the next 40-year period. The Great Falls is our natural wonder. Before the Monty was

built, water ran over the falls 42% of the time and after it was built down to 12% of the time. That's about 140 days of running and down to about 40 days of running. Right now, our river is our public domain and it is the center of the communities. Let's protect the Great Falls and demand the aesthetic flows for LA. Look what Bford, Scow Heaggan, and Westbrook have done with their rivers. Let's continue the hard work together um on the river that that brings us together rather than tears us apart. We need to be ready to challenge Brookfield over the next few months with our demands for water over our little and Niagara. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other member of the public would like to address the council? Please approach the podium. Provide your name and address. Not seeing any, the first open session is closed. There's no unfinished business before the council this evening. We'll move on to new business. The first item is resolve 0103162026 granting the Auburn Water District approval for the issuance of a bond in the amount of $2,700,000 to complete meter change out installation of meters and any related work necessary to complete these scopes of work. Um, as background on this, especially for the public and the new counselors, uh, while Auburn Water District has their own authority to bond through a uh, peculiarity of their legislative charter, they have to come before the Auburn City Council uh, to get permission. Um, the superintendent is here and uh, once we have a motion, if there's any questions, I'm sure he'll be able to answer them. So, is there is there a motion?

So, moved. Moved by councelor Platt. Is that a second? Seconded by councelor Cowen. If there's any member of the public who would like to address the council on this item, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Not seeing any discussion by the council. Council plat. Sure. I I have a question as this is the first time this is something like this has come across our plate in the last two councils, I guess. So my question is I understand that this has no bearing on our budget. This is a formality. Are there any guard rails that we as a council are supposed to be aware of as far as limits to their ability to bond or authority for us to do anything? Go ahead.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, no, it's a great question because it's it's not like you said, it's not something we typically see. The mayor referenced that as well. Um, but it is a requirement for them. So there you do have that regulation, right? So you you're you're regulating whether or not um they should be moving forward with this and how that um capital improvement bond could impact the rateayer. So that's why it's really in in your seat to determine where are they at, what has been taking place there and and what's what's the need. And I think you you have appointed trustees that are that are assigned that work through this. I think the um they've done a good job of um I think communicating a lot of their needs uh regulating some of their increases um and this is this is that one step in that formality. But it is a you could look at it as you're the gatekeeper. You're you're really deciding is that impact necessary uh for our rateayers um or is it something that we should we should sit on. But I think that they when it comes to their debt I was looking for the superintendent. See uh Oh, you didn't have your hat on. So I I think it'd be good for him to come up just to talk about the need. Thanks, Mike. Um

and if I could just I mean I guess so in the uh spirit of formalities then I would just ask either the director or a trustee is this in their opinion is this normal maintenance? Is this in line with what has been bonded in the past? That would be my only question. Yeah. So before the superintendent broadband talks about the project, this has been in the works for quite some time. There's detailed plans. It's been in front of the board of trustees and the board of trustees unanimously supported the bonding and um the transmission of the request to the city council. Mr. Broadbent.

Yeah, thank you uh for taking the time to consider this and look at this. Uh my name is Mike Broadbent. I am the superintendent of the Auburn Water and Sewer District. I just want to start with that this bond in no way constitute any debt on the city of Auburn. This will be paid for through the rates of the customers of the water and sewer district. Our meters that are currently in service have been so uh they're aged right now between 15 and 20 years old. Uh those meters were only guaranteed accurate for the first 3 years. Um you know typically you see meters cycled out after 8 years. We've we've gotten many more years than that. Uh we did go out to bid with this last year. We selected a new meter technology. Uh and the meters that we selected have a guaranteed life of 20 years. So that'll pay off the life of this bond. Uh it's likely in 20 years from now they'll be coming back to replace the meters again. Um so there's a lot of technologies that come with these new meters. Uh we're going to be able to have alerts. The the meters won't be read by a reader that drives around once a quarter. They'll report real time back to the district. So if somebody has a leak or a break or something happens, we're going to know instantaneously, we'll be able to alert the customer. So right now that that doesn't occur and we don't find out that somebody used a lot of water until the end of the quarter. So we're going to be pushing a lot of that information out soon so everybody can be informed and and have that and and customers will be able to set up their own portal. Uh landlords will be able to see what's going on in their apartment buildings. They can they can see real time what they're using for water. So I think it's going to be a big benefit. Any questions for the superintendent? Yes. Council Ren.

Hi. What are the impacts on the paying customer? What what what are the increases you're expecting? Uh so the average customer is going to see uh an increase of less than a dollar a week. Uh we are raising our rates uh 8%. Uh partly uh to pay back this this bond. Um so they'll there'll be minimal minimal increase. I didn't I should have brought those numbers with me, but it's roughly uh it's like less than $30 a year of an increase. So, it's pretty pretty minimal. I'm sorry, per quarter. 30 per quarter. So, council,

just to follow up that uh superintendent, the my recollection and the communication from you about that rate increase is there has not been much of an increase or at any for a number of years. So, can you put the details to my memory?

No, you're correct. Water district has not raised its rates for a few years now and and looking at our peers around the states. Auburn currently has the third lowest water rates in the state when you look at utilities of our size. So, we've done a good job of keeping our rates really low, but we have to maintain the system. We can't neglect the meters. Um, you know, once they're not accurate, we're losing revenues from that. Uh the tests we've done on the meters we've taken out so far is they're reading uh 11 to 12% low, which means they're not accurately reading the water. We're we're losing revenue. Uh it's it's part of the reason we're we're we're doing this. So and my recollection from the board meeting is after the 8% increase, we're still the third lowest.

Yeah. No, that's Yeah, we're the third lowest with the 8%. Yeah. Other questions for the superintendent? Council Gary. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If it's an 8 and a half% now increase, which will which will level out, you're like you said, bring in make sure everybody's paying their fair share. Is the rate going to go up next year or is it going to pretty much stay solid with this 8%? Now,

uh the 8 8% increase is is going in now as you've stated. Uh, I think the district's going to be looking uh closer at raising the rates on more regulated intervals. Rather than waiting every 3 to 5 years to raise the rates 8 to 10 to 13%, we're going to be looking at instituting uh you know 1% 1 and a.5% uh probably on an annual basis uh just to to avoid the larger increases and the and the bigger impacts. So I I definitely that's something we've been talking about and discussing. We haven't put that into motion yet, but that's that's what we're looking at. Other questions for the superintendent? No. Thank you very much.

Uh, further discussion by the council. Council ready for the question. The vote will be by show of hands. All those in favor? Opposed? Seven. Having voted in favor and none in the negative. The motion is adopted. The next item is ordinance 0503022026 amending chapter 60 zoning of the city's code of ordinances regarding protections for important farmland and natural resources. This will be for first reading. Um the council will remember that this item uh came before the council and was referred to both the planning board and the sustainability and natural resources management board for their review and rec uh and recommendations. Um as you recall from the last meeting they did transmit their report back in a timely manner. Both have reviewed this and have recommended passage. Uh there was one um small suggested edit from the SNIB and that has been included in the language that is in front of you. Is there a motion?

So moved. Moved by councelor C. Is there a second?

Seconded by councelor Platt. If there's any member of the public who'd like to address the council on this item, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Stephen B575 Johnson Road. Uh, one small comment very quickly. The one addition or the suggestion that was made by the SNRB for addition to the languages previously proposed was with respect to determining whether soils are prime soils or soils of statewide importance. It's necessary to use a licensed soil scientist and the issue that occurred to the SNRB and is in the amended language would require that the applicant pay for the cost of that soil scientist, not the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to address the council on this item? If so, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Not seeing any, we'll move on to discussion by the council. um is background. Um councelor Platt when this first came in front of the council asked for two pieces of information that are included in the packet. One was a map uh showing uh the various uh soil types and the other is the um some data regarding the percentage of um these types of soil uh throughout the city and in the AGRP zone. While the raw numbers are in there, um just for clarity here for calculations, um the uh if you combine both of these prime farmland and farmland of statewide importance, um th the those soils exist outside the AGP zone in the city. 72% of the soils and 28% of those are within the AGP zone. Um the impetus for this change regarding sighting of solar was concern uh that um solar sighting in the A zone um the prior ordinance um uh did not have a firm regulation that you could not site it on these soils. it allowed you uh to site it if there was nothing else available on the um parcel. Um if in looking at this ordinance just for clarity for the public and the council if you uh look at the red line version the languages in

section 3 4 5 6 uh are nonsubstantive. Uh these are cleanups that uh for clarity in the language and um conformance to terms when this uh section was being worked on. Section 16 just uh conforms that section to the substantive change and the substantive change can be found on page 70 of 8 in section G. And the change uh the substantive changes here are that uh it prohibits sighting on prime farmland and farmland of statewide significance. Uh it lays out a method by which that is determined. This method is in alignment with the method that the state department of agricultural conservation and forestry uses under their authority for um solar sighting. uh in uh uh sites of 5 acres or greater. And in effect to summarize, it requires the actual soil to be tested because while the soil maps are good estimate, they're not based on actual soil analysis. They're based on uh geological surveys. And uh so the substantive change here is that um an applicant who wanted to site a solar array uh in the a zone would have to test the soil through a uh licensed um person licensed by professional financial regulation uh to determine um the suitability of the soils. Um discussion by the council or questions.

Council Randall, this isn't looking to reszone any other zones, correct? This is only for the A zone. It's not changing any of the other zones into an A zone.

That's correct. It doesn't extend the egg zone and um the the regulations around um solar arrays in the A zone um around both soil and percentage of the uh available land that could be used for a solar array. Those regulations do not apply any place else in the city outside of the egg zone. Other questions or comments? Is the council ready for the question? The vote will be by roll call. The clerk will call the role. Councelor Walker, yes. Councelor Plattz,

yes. Councelor Gary, yes. Councelor Randall, yes. Councelor Cowan, yes. Councelor Duval, yes. Councelor Butler, yes.

Seven, having voted in the affirmative and none on the negative, the motion was adopted at first reading. uh for the public. Uh this will uh be on the agenda two weeks from now for the public hearing and the second reading. We'll move on to the next item which is a public hearing regarding um the renewal of funding for automated license plate readers. So as some background on this um this is the uh item I think you've probably more commonly heard this referred to by the vendor name flock cameras. Uh there's been uh a lot of discussion about this in the community. Uh it was all triggered by the budgetary request. So um I think uh how I'd like to to work through this is the chief um is going to give an overview of the system. We'll have some discussion and um chances for the council to ask questions. Uh it would be helpful at that stage if we're just trying to make sure everyone understands what the system is that is currently in place and how it operates. We'll then take uh public comment and then we'll return for more discussion about the council and we can certainly entertain uh thoughts people have on policy considerations at that point. Uh so with that uh Chief Mullen,

Mr. May, thank you Mr. Mayor. Um, you're going to hear me say the term LPR quite a lot and that stands for license plate reader. Um, so we're clear on that. Uh, so what the flock camera system is is an expansion of existing LPR technology we've been using for well over a decade. And what the flock camera is, it's a traffic camera that's set up at a specific intersection and it's taking a still photograph of a vehicle as it passes. And that's important to note. It's a still photograph. It's not a video. It's a still photograph of a vehicle going by. What that photo kit graph captures is a license plate number, uh vehicle details such as make, model, color, um any visible damage or alterations to the vehicle, and it's a time stamp and location of where that vehicle was. Uh it's important to note that uh the Supreme Court has ruled um license plate readers, they aren't private information. Those are governmentissued identification tags to identify a vehicle. And they've also said a vehicle traveling down a road is knownly exposed. So there's no right to privacy when it comes to that. So what this what this is doing is it's capturing an image. And what it's important it's not capturing they don't record speed. Uh they do not track individuals or provide GPS movements. Um they're not taking a photo of the driver. It is merely a rear view of the vehicle and a close-up of the license plate. That's it. Now, the Flock system is not connected in any way to Department of Motor Vehicles. So, there's no way Flock system can access who owns that vehicle. Uh there's no way for them to access that. What the Flock system does is it will take that data and bounce what's called off a off a vehicle hot list. There's a system known as the National Crime Information uh National Crime Information Computer System. It's called

uh NCIC. So, whenever we have a stolen vehicle, we'll take that vehicle information and we put it into NCIC as a vehicle uh hot list. So, anytime a stolen vehicle goes by one of these cameras, it'll send an alert that, hey, you just had a stolen vehicle pass this past this camera. Um, we are also able to run our own hunt list. So, if we're looking for somebody to check the well-being, um, if somebody's involved in a serious crime, we can input that vehicle information in there and be able to see if they pass by a camera at that point. Um, so it's also important to note that with the Flock system, there is no federal law enforcement access to these systems. We own the data and we determine who has access to our systems. Currently, we have seven agencies in the state of Maine, all other municipalities that have access to the system to include, um, Lewon, Felmouth, Scarro, South Pole, and York, um, and Freeport. Those are the departments that have access to our data. And what they can do is they can input a vehicle if they're having an issue and it'll ping off of all the other systems to see if that vehicle has passed through Auburn. That's it. Any any access from another agency that has to be approved by me and it's managed by our police analyst who is our administrator for the system. So, uh we're guaranteed there's no federal law enforcement access to the system whatsoever. Furthermore, uh this data is highly encrypted living in the cloud and they've not had any type of security breach within their system at all. And what's also important to note is is that specific vehicle uh data captured by the system is protected from freedom of freedom of access requests. So, somebody can't file a freedom of access request saying, "I

want to know if Jeff Harmon's plate passed through these license plate readers at any time." We can't do that. It's prohibited by a main state law. Furthermore, mainstate law requires that our data is deleted every 21 days. So, that image that's taken at that specific point of time stays in our system for 21 days and then it's gone. We have the ability, the officers have the ability to run uh searches to see if um a specific vehicle type has passed through a certain location. When the officers do that uh search request, um they have to have a case number. They have to have a reason why they're doing it. And we run monthly audits on all of our search to ensure that that policy is being followed. We have a very stringent uh policy regarding LPRs in place that we enacted before we um deployed the system. So we have very stringent uh guidelines in place for how it's used and we conduct monthly audits for that. Um one thing uh we we can provide aggregate data so we can say there have been so many searches done within the month of April and so many searches for stolen vehicles, so many searches for wellbeing. We're required to provide aggre accurate aggregate data but not specific uh specific data on a specific vehicle and uh we deployed these in August of 2025. We've had 20 success stories so far using the systems. They vary from locating uh theft suspects from car dealerships uh from some of our retail outlets shoplifting uh to uh locating an elderly person that was uh the subject of a well-being check. by a neighboring agency. So, we've had 20 success stories and what the system is doing is it's using AI to um go through this data and provide those searches for us where it would take an officer 4 hours to look at a traffic camera, try

to whittle down a specific date and time to try to find an image of that vehicle. And nine times out of 10, our traffic cameras are not going to capture the license plate because they're just not positioned for that, nor are they equipped for it. where a flock will uh take that data for us and we're leveraging AI as a force multiplier uh to maximize our resources and able to conduct certain investigations. Questions from the council council Randall. Of your 20 success stories, do you have any that are not success stories? We do not know. Council Dval,

um two questions. first uh national crime information system. You said that was um just for stolen vehicles. Are there other

there? If anytime a vehicle is involved where it's put out is to be on the lookout for. Say a stolen vehicle was used in a homicide in Massachusetts. That information gets uploaded into um the National Crime Computer. If it's a vehicle that's tied to a specific uh violent crime, they can input that into the National Crime Computer. So, anytime an officer runs that plate, it'll pop up as a NCIC hit or if it passes by one of our cameras, we can get an alert saying this vehicle was just seen. It's the subject of um an investigation from another state.

Second question is related. So, did you did I hear you I might have misheard you uh say that you have to supply aggregate data if required by uh a foyer request. Uh aggregate data. So we're talking about totals number of total assertions. Yeah. Yeah. So that's only for a foyer request. You would provide aggregate data. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Council Gary. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It was mentioned earlier that there's other type of cameras throughout the city. How many cameras do we have currently and what types are they?

Uh we have 12 traffic cameras located throughout the city at two major intersections being uh main and court. Here we have, I think, four four or five cameras monitoring that specific intersection. And the other one is in in New Auburn um at Milan and South Maine, Milan Broad to And those are video cameras. Those are constantly recording. Um so we can go back and review that footage if we have a have a specific or general time. If we're looking for a specific vehicle, we can go back and look at that. Um but the uh the cameras automate that function for us. So it saves officers from having to sit at a computer for four to five hours looking for a specific vehicle where Flock will do it in a matter of seconds for us.

You also have our camera over by what was called Mechanics Bank or Community Bank now? No, I don't believe so.

Council PL. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chief. Uh I have two questions pos kind of unrelated but I'll ask them in succession anyway. Uh the first is have we had requests from federal agencies to access our data? We have not? No. We have not? No. Uh and my second question um was my second question just escaped me. We'll come back to you. Uh council Butler.

Are there other approaches that would achieve the same success? Not that I'm aware of. Um because these cameras are utilizing AI and you know as we as we look to AI to try to maximize our resources. I don't see other systems out there that are able to to do it with the efficiency that this system does. Since there is a fair amount of anxiety I think when a system like this is being utilized. Um you've answered this I think but I'd like to to re ask the qu a couple of questions. Um, one is there's absolutely no facial recognition that's coming correct from the from the picture and the picture from behind the vehicle. Correct. It sounds like the vehic the the technology has been helpful in cases like silver alerts or Amber Alerts.

Yes. Okay. And can you talk a little bit about how if a if there is um someone on your kind of hot list and that car is identified um how that plays into the um requirements for a problem will cause

certainly. Um so the officers if they get that alert they have to do a little bit more research as to why that vehicle is being sought after. Is it a confirmed stolen vehicle? they will run the plate and verify that it's in the NCIC list or it may be one of our cases where they can access the case and see exactly why um that car is being sought and traffic stops you required to have articulable suspicion. It's a little bit of a lower standard than probable cause. Uh the officers need that articulable suspicion to be able to conduct that motor vehicle stop. They can't do it on the alert alone. They have to do a little bit more research to confirm there's actually an issue before they stop the car. And they have to have that articulable suspicion to do that.

And in this system, would you be able to just put in a person's name as opposed to a plate number? No. At all counts. I remembered. Thank you. Um, okay. My second question. So, as I understand this system, AI is aiding immensely in the analysis of of still photos of of data. I think, you know, the the concern that we're fielding from constituents or at least that I am from constituents is is breach of privacy, stuff like that. So I I want to understand what were we using prior to this? What were license plate readers doing? Were they storing live feeds onto the cloud that could be breached and taken? I just want to separate is the new element here AI analysis of data that we've generally already had?

Yes.

Or is it the actual collection of data that is different? In the in the um in the previous systems that we've had, uh these were cameras that were mounted on the rooftops of our cruisers and they were taking again still pictures of vehicles going by as they're going down the road. The previous systems, they would actually take that license plate, they would run that with the Department of Motor Vehicles and it would pop up a flag, say that vehicle was suspended for tolls. Uh we got an inordinate amount of alerts for vehicles suspended for tolls. We're not stopping those vehicles. Um so the previous systems were actually much more intrusive because they were connected to Department of Motor Vehicles where this system is not is intrusive because um there's no data. The only data they're collecting is the uh the plate in the vehicle description. It's not connected to DMV. It's not running owner information. It has no access to be able to do that. the officer then has to take that initial step and run it on their mobile data terminal to see that information there if they have reason to do so.

So, and and I say this not not to defend or support flock, but I just I want to make sure I'm making a a accurate statement. Is it is it safe to say that these flock cameras are not the first time as a municipality that we have mass collected data stored in some format or another? That's correct. And utilize that data. Yes. To to affect change. As I said earlier, we've been using LPR technology for over 10 years and um when we first started uh that was brought before council. They approved it with the use of CIP funding to be able to get that program off the ground. Other questions by the council.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh Chief, thank you for this uh presentation. I just wanted to confirm of those 20 success stories your thoughts on whether you know how many of those you may have been able to solve without this.

Uh probably not many of them because uh we're taking a small amount of information uh such as um we had a hit and run vehicle where they were able to describe the vehicle. That's it. They were able to take that vehicle description with no plate and upload into the system and based on the location of the accident say okay you had this many vehicles that were match that description passed through this camera and then they were say able to know oh that vehicle's got right front end damage which is consistent to the accident they were that were investigating. Uh we had another one where um a stolen vehicle out of Massachusetts was wanted in connection with the strangulation of a 5-year-old child in Massachusetts. We located that vehicle as it was going through Auburn. ASO deputies were able to locate that vehicle in turn and make a vehicle stop on it. So, um, we're pulling what we're doing is we're taking a thread and and pulling that thread and AI is doing the work for us. Um, and it's been it's been very successful for us so far. Um, and it's maximizing our resources.

Other questions from the council? Council Butler, is there an ongoing annual report on the success of this? Uh, we can provide one as uh we come to the close of the of the year in August. Once it's been up and running for a year, we can do an annual report. Sure. Mr. Manager, did you have a comment?

Just to clarify, council Gary asked a question regarding Elmmaned Avenue. I I think what you might be referring to is that we were the pilot location for red light camera um system and there was a camera at Elm in Min Avenue because that was actually one of the highest red light running low intersections in the state of Maine. So we were capturing a great deal of data to councelor Plat's question. All that was being stored. It was being run as a pilot. We had three I think three locations. We had four in Auburn and two in Lewon. So we um this was back in 2003 2004 where they were recording red light violations. I was the lieutenant overseeing the project. So I had to review. We averaged about 4,000 violations a month that I had to review each one and they got sent a warning letter and then we did a presentation to the legislature on the efficiency of them. However, if the legislature wanted to allow that, we would need to have some revenue sharing from the fines. and they turned around and outlawed photo enforcement as to the answer to that. So Jason owner is responsible for uh photo enforcement not being allowed to man.

So Chief, um I've I've received many many emails, calls, and texts about this. So I have a you'll have to bear with me. I have quite a long series of questions here I want to ask uh to make sure that it's crystal clear to the public exactly what this system is and was it what it isn't. So you you mentioned earlier NCIC. So just to make sure I'm clear um as the license plate number is read um a query against NCIC is run in real time. Yes.

To give alerts. Um, okay. So, um, leave flock cameras aside a minute and let's go back to when the city manager and I started in the law enforcement world when all this didn't exist. And I think these things still go on today, right? So, when when your officers are out on calls and they begin an investigation and they receive some information um that someone's left the scene of a crime or uh it's a missing person or whatever, you mentioned bolos, be on the lookouts, that's routinely sent out today, right? They could through LA 911 would notify the police officers in their cars. They would start looking for that, right? M and that also might be sent out on what's called an all points bulletin or an APB through the state police metro system that's been going on for over 50 years where that same information would be set out sent out made available to every law enforcement agency in the state. Correct.

Yep. And if if you have something like that that happens, um would it be unusual for a police officer to pull over on the side of the road and watch traffic going by trying to see if they can locate the vehicle that's a subject of a bolo or an APB? Correct. We do it all the time.

Yeah. So, so as an example, let's say Livermore Falls police that there's a robbery at the gas station and somebody says that they uh saw a vehicle fleeing the scene. It was a red I'll use my vehicle. It was a red pickup truck with a cap on it and they got three digits on the license plate 264. that officer of city might go and sit on the side of Center Street, right, and watch cars coming by if they were last seen heading south on Route 4

and observe the traffic, right? And and they would visually watch these vehicles going by in the in a in a the public space and they would look at those vehicles, right? and they'd be observing them visually and in their head they would be saying, "Is that one a red pickup truck with a cap on it? Does it have 264 in the license plate?" And they would be comparing that in their head in their head against the APB or the bolo that had come out from dispatch. Correct.

Correct. And there's no difference other than a piece of technology is doing this than that exact thing, right? The camera is like the police officer's eyes watching what goes by on the road.

And AI is a substitution for the police officer's brain is reading those visual images and saying, "Oh, this is a red pickup truck and it's got 264 in the license plate. It's comparing that against the bolo that's been entered in the system by your officers or say a full license plate against NCIC. Um so do you see any actual difference in the function that's being provided other than it's being provided by a piece of equipment instead of a police officer on the side of the road?

Correct. Uh there's no difference at all and actually it's a force multiplier because we have typically four officers working in the city and we have seven cameras. Those officers can't be at every location looking for them. So by simply, you know, inputting that vehicle that they're looking for in there, it puts it out throughout the city. So we're not having an officer parked on the side of the street because our officers listen to our neighboring agencies all the time. and if they hear something going on, they're going to go to that main street coming from that city to look for that vehicle. I'm a prime example of that. We had a violent kidnapping about 4 years ago uh where a girl was kidnapped off the side of the road and um this was like 6:00 at night and had we had LPR at the time, if we had the system at time, we could have picked that vehicle up as it left the city. I was leaving the station at 2:30 in the morning to go home. After we've done this investigation, I see the suspect vehicle going by me. I was able to turn around, initiate a traffic stop and get the girl out of the car. So, for me, that was pure luck. I was in the right spot at the right time. These flock hammers are nothing but a force multiplier and enhancing that luck for us. And when this officer might be sitting on the side of the road looking for my red pickup truck coming down from Livermore Falls, if they see an orange Dodge Charger that goes by, they might say, "Hey, that meets the description of the vehicle that roll call yesterday, the sergeant told us in South Paris there was a criminal restraint by a parent and the vehicle, the person's from Massachusetts. They may be in the central main area. when they see this vehicle go by with a mass plate, they might stop it, right?

Sure. And is that any different than the retention of the vehicles that go by for 21 days and they and they're able to check those later on? No, sir. It's not no difference. Um I wanted to move on to some issues around privacy and security. So, um, you mentioned the state statute and, um, I'm sure you're familiar with 21, uh, excuse me, 29A MRSA, uh, 2117A, which is the state statute that regulates, um, automated license plate readers.

Yes, sir. and and that and that statute um um as a general law outline uh outlaws automated license plate readers except for very narrow uses. Is that correct? Correct. And and is one of those uses investigatory activity by police departments? Yes, it is. And it it you mentioned the 21day um the 21day retention period and you're using 21 days because that's what's specified in main law. Correct.

Correct. Yes. And if the police department or a vendor such as Flock violated that and used that data for something other than those very narrow law enforcement purposes or retained that data longer than 21 days, they would in fact be committing a class E crime in the state of Maine for which you could be sentenced up to 6 months in the county jail. Is that correct? That's correct, sir. And I've gotten lots of calls about people expressing their thought that they have a constitutional right to privacy when they're driving on the road in Maine. Uh you're familiar with 29A MRSA 452, display of license plates?

Yes, sir. And it would it be fair to say that in the state of Maine, you're legally required if you're in a motor vehicle upon a public way to display two license plates, one on the front and one on the rear in an unobstructed manner that are visible to the public. Is that correct?

That's correct. And so, relative to the to your general um comments before, um the um the police department um keeps up with um um new laws uh and appellet court decisions that could um have impacts on the activities of your police officers. Correct. We have a mand annual mandatory training on new case law and you get the FBI law enforcement bulletin and you get circulars from the AG's office and from the main criminal justice academy.

You're starting to date yourself, Mr. Mayor. So, but you get regular updates so that if there had been a change um in law that was first established in 1967 that made it uh extended a right of privacy to a vehicle that was legally required to display license plates driving on the road in Maine. you would be made aware of that and would adjust the practice of the police department. Absolutely.

Um and then relative to the systems that you're using, um it's my understanding that the flaunt cameras are NDAA certified, the National Defense Appropriation Act, uh which um governs the hardware that can be used in these cameras to prevent unauthorized access and hacking. Is that correct? That is correct, sir. And when the and when the when the uh images are captured and they're transmitted to the cloud um they're encrypted on in transit utilizing the sis which is the criminal justice information system security standards. Correct.

Actually it's it's more enhanced than that. They're using military grade encryption for it. But yes, it's very heavily encrypted on transit and and when it where it's stored in the cloud, the the um data storage and the computation takes place um in Amazon Web Services GovCloud. Is that correct? I believe so. Yes.

And um GovCloud is sees certified and subject to audit by the FBI to ensure it's meeting all of the CES security standards. Is that correct? That is correct. Um, and then I just wanted to reiterate um because one of the most predominant questions that I've received is about sharing this information with ICE. And I think you've fully explained who has access to this data. Mhm.

And that is fully within the control of the Auburn Police Department as to what other agencies you want to permit access to the case information that you put in the system. Correct. That's correct. Yes. So the there's flock users all over the country and if some I don't know a particular agency but some agency in Idaho uh is using flock it it's not accessing the data you put in the system because you've restricted it. You've restricted through permission settings in the application which agencies you allow to have access. That's correct.

Great. That I appreciate your patience and thank you very much for as I went through all of those questions. Um, further further questions by the council. Councelor Randall. So, you're saying that Auburn had the Auburn Police Department has the um the final say as to whether they're going to allow some government agency who may request information from us whether we share it or not. Yes, ma'am. If you deny that request, does that then open the city of Auburn up to lawsuits? It does not because we own the data. We don't have there's no law or right to have to share that data.

Other questions by the council council PL

just a quick comment I without um without trying to say how this will end up from a budgetary uh conversation. I do think in the brief research I've done on Google and chatgpt about flock, it seems that most of the the insecurities or the data breaches have to do with people getting fished for their login or losing their passwords, things like that. Um I I would think that regardless of how this plays out, perhaps there's there's a need for just a deeper look at our policies around this. Sounds like you guys have a great policy. Um policies can always be made tighter. Again, for my research, it seems like individuals losing their credentials are the same are the biggest risk here. Again, I I would think it's the same risk as the technology we had 10 years ago. Um, anyone can can get hacked in that regard. So, for me, regardless of what happens in in this budget conversation, I think um perhaps we could put further efforts into what our policies look like from municipal standpoint. I'm sure they exist to some extent already. So,

yeah. And Chief, you um to follow up on Council Plattz's point, there's numerous systems um that you access that has state and local data through the metro and NCIC uh system um that requires um has significant rules around um authentication for those systems. Correct. um physical location where that can take place, who can access that, how often they have to change their passwords. All of that is audited uh every agency is audited on a triannual basis by the main state police.

That's correct. And we actually have an a we have an audit coming up April 1st. So I I think I think council plat it's fair for us to look at that. But I think there's there's already very robust. We have stringent safeguards in place already coupled with perhaps just educating the public to the fact that that already exists is I guess my point. Exactly. Other other questions by the council. If not, if there's any member of the public who'd like to address the council on this item, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. I just wanted to ask you, can you come to the microphone so the people at home can hear you? Sure. call at home? Yes.

Does the system work 505? Does the system work at night? Yes, it does. Thank you. Thank you. Other members of the public would like to address the council on this item. Please approach the podium. Representative Chapman, nice to see you tonight.

51 Eastman Lane, Auburn, Maine. So, I find myself in a very peculiar position, very pro law enforcement. used the cameras before. I have AI assistant uh on the cameras I use in a retail shop. I choose not to use the AI. My concern isn't so much where the data is, what we're doing with the data currently. It's just how it can expand. I know it's coming. I know we can't run from it. AI is here to stay. We're going to use it in every application. But I can't help but think in my mind if we have another COVID incident where everybody's terrified, how we can police it. If we have another lockdown and I want to go get something to drink outside of my house now I can be penalized by fine or any other way. And it sounds a little extreme, but I can picture it. I think you can, too. It's coming whether we like it or not. But if we could slow it down, that'd be good. That's my two cents. and again pro law enforcement and I found myself partnered with the ACLU of all I mean me ACLU but we're on in agreement on this one. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other member of the public would like to address the council on this item? Please approach approach podium and provide your name and address.

Stephen Be still at 575 Johnson Road. Uh I strongly support the chief's position uh in in turn in support of this technology. Boiled down to its essence, all that this is is a more efficient way of doing what we've been doing by other electronic means for a decade or more and uh which is in practice throughout the country in a variety of fa fashions. The uh standard that both the chief and the mayor have referred to in a Supreme Court case is whether one has a reasonable expectancy of privacy uh in a particular setting. And here consider the facts. These are public roads built with public money. The vehicles are licensed are registered rather via the state of Maine. The vehicles are inspected to state of Maine standards by private body shops or inspection facilities. And the driver is a licensed driver licensed by the state of Maine. Those are all public functions. There's nothing private about the exterior of a vehicle. I asked the chief uh before the meeting how many officers it would take him to achieve the same efficiencies as these cameras do. He couldn't make an exact estimate because it's just too difficult to to contemplate but it's a lot and hiring police officers is a very significant budget factor. Uh the policemen are not overly compensated but the training and the equipment and facilities take a lot of money. Uh so in this situation uh this is is not been deemed by many courts uh to be a an improper search. It's not a search to look at the outside of a vehicle. There's no penetration of any rays of any kind, any electronic media to the interior of the vehicle. It doesn't affect the individual's person's

activities within the vehicle. A much more intrusive police function which is done regularly without objection is on periodic times throughout the year uh when uh there are mass traffic stops uh completed on various public ways July 3rd in the evening everybody's winding up for a weekend and police officers routinely take several officers to stop every vehicle in a line of traffic have them roll down the window, take a deep sniff, and there's a lot of arrests made under that uh passage, which is far more intrusive than looking at the outside of a vehicle on a public way with a with a uh an electronic device assisted by AI. The other final point is AI here is just aiding the efficiency of the process. It's not doing any analysis. It's not making uh the uh the judgment as to whether or not this is a defensible activity or whether the person really did commit a crime. That's for courts to determine. This is just providing the information about parties that have uh suspects characteristics that have already been created in some other setting, i.e. a car in Massachusetts or somebody running down Route 4 from Livermore Falls. Thank you.

Thank you. If any other member of the public, please approach the podium. Provide your name and address. My name my name is Fred Broer. I live at 836 Street in Auburn. My concern is that uh bad actors coming in to hack the system uh including the federal government uh and uh uh or a flock camera or somebody pressuring any of those groups to release the information. I trust the people here to do the right thing, but uh breaches of security could really cause some real problems, especially where there's uh you know uh actions against the democracy, where the government doesn't follow the Congress, doesn't follow the law, doesn't follow uh judicial orders. So, I'm really concerned about that. Thank you.

Thank you. Does any other member of the public like to address the council on this item? Please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Not seeing any, we'll close public comment and uh and uh return to the council. Representative Edwards. Yeah. I just wanted to just like one last time, do you feel that this would genuinely protect our community from what you've seen so far? Yes, I do. Any any other discussion by the council? Councelor Rand,

this information was wonderful. I appreciate you coming in and and and clearing the air. I still have my I I I'm still have my reservations about it. But thank you. I'd be willing to follow up with you to discuss those if you'd like. Other questions by the council? Council Dval.

Yeah, I just I I want to second that. So, this has been really helpful. Thank you, Chief Mo. Really appreciate it. Um, I trust Auburn. I trust the state of Maine. I get more worried when things get put into a database that they have to go away after 21 days. Totally get it. But um, and that's a that's a good safeguard. I just my concern remains the fact that the data go out of our though we own it they go out of our hands and they remain out of our hands offsite on Amazon Web Services for 21 days. So

just remember council that there's no private information being transmitted. Totally understood. Any other comments from the council count? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just kind of out of curiosity, 21 days, that's part of the statute for the state of Maine. Uh, of the use so far, which is limited, it's less than a year when you've had these success stories, how far out, how many days out a couple of days. So potentially if there was discussion we wanted to think about from a policy standpoint we could potentially shorten those days on our regs and change that in the in the systems.

Potentially yes I would want more discussion on it. Oh absolutely. But you have control over that in terms of Representative Edward. Sorry I'm asking another question but um we talked about the federal government but is the state bureau of motor vehicles getting any of this data? No they're not. And just to be clear for those that are concerned about other agencies, there's nothing to prevent any federal agency from putting these any type of technology up that they're authorized to use, whether they tell the city of Auburn and the Auburn Police Department about it or not.

That that's kind of something I've been thinking about and and I again I appreciate this conversation from all all participants. I I just want to make sure if we're if we're kind of heading towards that um segment of the argument where we're saying we don't trust technology where people could hack it. Okay. But let's extend that to every piece of technology we have in the city because this is not the only and and I want to be clear. I'm not just defending flock. I I don't honestly I don't know much about it other than what I've learned here. Uh but I'm a you guys have heard me over the last couple years. I'm a big proponent of parody and being fair in the conversation. We can't we can't scapegoat one thing and not talk about others. So that's fine, but but if if we're talking about things getting hacked, let's get Jill Cunningham back up here and ask about every system that has a vulnerability um in the city. Again, this was different. We're talking about citizens talking about citizens transiting through our city. So, I get that this one's a little different, but you know, we're we're we're on the doorstep of a can of worms here. So, I just want to be careful there.

Yeah. To follow up on that, having lots of experience at AWS GovCloud when I was in the private sector and having many many many criminal justice agencies around the country that we provided services for. Um, if if one thinks that what you have on premise in the city of Auburn is more secure than AWS cloud, GovCloud, you're sadly mistaken. um the um if you use an appropriate uh cloud service with appropriate standards and like with AWS GovCloud that has actual auditing for compliance, it's likely far more secure than what municipalities have um in their own buildings because of the scale that they operate at and the expertise that they can employ to provide provide these advanced security measures.

Mr. Manager, sorry. I'm sorry. Just to add to that, I would suspect that uh systems like that also keep up with the always changing threats far better than we would be able to. Councelor Rand to follow up on your comment about the federal government can come in and put other surveillance items in the city of Auburn and not even tell us. If something were to happen and bad actors got into the system, that would be on the the federal government, not on us, the people who are supposed to be protecting the constituents of our city, the people who elected us to be here representing them.

Council Dval, did you have followup? Oh, I just wanted to reiterate a point that councelor Plattz made earlier about um social engineering actually being the way hacking happens. And so I think you know the technical hack is not actually the weakness. It's always the people and and city staff go undergo training to prevent that type of thing with social engineering whatot. uh city staff goes under uh training to make sure that they're aware of those social engineering hacks and whatnot and how to prevent them. Understood.

In alignment just with the feedback on social media, if I'm not mistaken, there are lots of cameras that we're all interfacing with on a regular basis in our neighborhoods with door cameras, on cars with dash cameras. Each of those have cloud storage as well. And I'm guessing, but it'd be nice to hear some verification that the system this is stored in has some higher level security than what I might find at my neighbor's door. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Great point. That's what I was going to mention as we start kind of peeling back all these different layers. I think Council Plattz made a good point regarding um you know, cyber threats. We we've uh we meet probably once a month with the IT director, Dennis and I just our biggest conversation is regarding where's where do we have vulnerabilities regarding our cyber threat and um because we also have cameras on our school buses and so um and so probably a larger presentation about as I've been sitting here thinking about where else do we have this technology you know I know the IT director has that all laid out you know we probably Um, I just a guess, but we're we're probably between 800 and a and a thousand cameras in the city that we regulate because every one of our schools, every corridor, every back door, every you know, those cameras are facing outward, but they're also facing inward. So, we have a great deal of technology that we're leveraging every day. Um, so maybe a larger presentation uh would be helpful and we'll start gearing that up for a future workshop. Any final comments by the council? Council Butler,

I just want to go back to the concept of an annual report and maybe looking at that maybe maybe as we're hearing a lot of feedback on this particular topic, being able to have that a little more frequently with success stories, maybe with our breaches, if there's um other authorized permissions um just as a check-in. As a reminder, if any of you get a email saying that the mayor really needs your help to go get him some gift cards or anything else, that's a cyber threat. But we get him every couple weeks. So, just so we're clear, it's a good reminder. Councilor Randall,

I know that we're having this discussion based on the flock cameras due to needing funding. Um, and a lot of my holdup is about the funding because we have a very, very tight budget that we're working with. And we're going to have to make, you know, some calls maybe about not funding certain things. Um, and I just wonder how important these cameras, specific cameras are for the police department to have. That's my first part of the question. The second part of the question is, are there ongoing um, subscription services that we need to pay for? How often do they need to be updated? How often are we going to be asked for more money for these particular cameras?

So, so I appreciate the questions. I have some of the exact same questions. I think we should defer that until we're talking about that piece of the budget. Uh I think they're very fair questions to ask, but I think um let's have that when we get to that that budget item. Um any final thoughts from the council? I appreciate uh the members of the public coming in and the discussion from the council. Um as we go forward on this um this will I believe Mr. Manager this will be in the IT line. That's correct.

Yes. So when we get to the IT line we'll have a discussion about the uh potential funding and um prioritization. But uh hopefully this has been helpful to the members of the council and the public to make sure they understand exactly what is happening with the system that we're using here in Auburn. Chief, thank you very much for coming in. Appreciate it.

We'll move on to um reports uh a few items. So uh I hosted a couple budget town hall meetings. one uh last Thursday evening and one um Saturday afternoon. I appreciate um Councelor Walker and Councelor uh Butler and Councelor Cowen came by um had some great discussions with members of the public. Lots of uh Q&A about how the budget works. Um reminding everyone there's a public forum tomorrow evening regarding um mobile home parks and rent stabilization. Uh so again, that's tomorrow, March 17th. It'll be at 5:30 p.m. at the senior center. Um there'll be um a presentation by uh the office of policy innovation in the future in main housing about uh what's happening uh at the state level regarding this issue. Um and then we'll have an opportunity for members of the public to share their thoughts with uh with us and ask questions. um comp plan meetings coming up. Uh the next two are Thursday, March 19th and Tuesday, March 24th. Both are at 6 p.m. here in the council chambers. Um there's two meetings during the course of the month instead of one. The committee is trying to finalize the growth zones and land use characteristics. And finalize in this sense means finalize to prepare it to go out for public review and comment. Um, there's a Safe Voices Grownup Bookf Fair Friday, March 20th at the Hilton Garden in which should be a a great event if uh swing by if you want to support Safe Voices. And reminding everyone that uh next Monday night, the 23rd at 5:30 here in the council chambers, uh it's an off

week for a council meeting, but we will be continuing with budget workshops. Uh with that, council Gary, nothing at this time. Council Randall, nothing. Thank you, Council Count. Uh just if anyone wants to come tomorrow morning at at 9:30 to 11:00, we have a Auburn homelessness committee meeting. It's at 121 Mil Street. Council Dwall, nothing at this time. Council Butler, nothing at this time. Council Walker, nothing. Sir and council plat

I would like to uh report that the Auburn school department budget um presentations have begun. Uh at the last meeting the budget was presented um I'll just give you guys a quick overview um but as presented the uh expense budget was an increase of 5% uh from 64 million to 64 64.5 million to 67.6. Um, I will say they report their debt service in that number. So, I'd like to pull that out because I know we don't. Um, I think when you pull that debt service out, I think the increase is about 7%. Um, but I'll confirm that number. Um, we went through the first several cost centers last week as well. Um, if anybody's interested, feel free to tune in to the videos or ask me any questions. Again, the premise of the school budget is the same as the city budget. there's no new services, um, no new headcount. Um, and it's really driven by health insurance. It's driven by increases to special education costs, and it's driven by transportation. Those are the three major cost centers. Um, there is attention being paid to a bill, the mayor could probably tell me the the exact number of the LD, but LD something or other up in Augusta, which could change the uh funding formula for one component of school funding, it's not all of it. Um there are hopes that for municipalities such as Auburn fitting the characteristics such as Auburn, there could potentially be benefits in the revenue funding model. That's not built into the budget though. That's more of just a fingers crossed. Let's see what what happens. Yeah. And to follow up on that last point, I don't recall the LD off the top of my head, but um this is um this is a bill that um the main mayor's coalition, the city of Auburn, I know that both on the city side and on the

school side have been supporting. Um it's what is it?

ED27 279. So, so the issue um this is really an equity bill and it allows um some changes in the formula uh related to the percentage of students in poverty, cost of special education, some minor changes to ESL. The whole premise behind this is that it costs more to educate disadvantaged students than um students that aren't that don't have those challenges. And with the current formula, the way this was rolled out over the years, uh, some of the more wealthy school districts act are actually now getting more money per student through, um, uh, general purpose aid education than cit cities like, you know, Auburn, Lewis, and Bford. Um the most recent analysis, if this bill passed as it was, this if if this had been in place this year, the um uh general purpose aid to education in Auburn would have gone up over $900,000. So, um this is a really important bill. Um and we'll continue to um support this as it goes through the legislature. Um, Representative Edward.

So, today was the first day of March Madness at E. Um, but I was honored to be on Absolutely Auburn. Um, but I think that's all I have to share for this time. Thank you. You did a great job, by the way. Um, Mr. Mayor, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Uh, so the C the LD is 226. Yeah. Um, that's correct. Yeah. Um, so the legislative process is winding down. um this is the uh the time to really be paying attention. Sometimes that 11th hour is where certain things happen and so um I think between the mayor's coalition and also the uh main service center coalition uh we are monitoring every bill. We're probably communicating daily uh even over the weekends because uh there's hearings that uh we might be getting some feedback or there's a change in the schedule regarding a hearing that's coming up Monday and we want to make sure we get testimony in. Uh the mayor the uh main service center coalition did submit testimony in support of the uh LD2226 which is the EPS uh funding formula. Um and uh and we're also submitting testimony in support of uh funding regarding um the jails. So the jails at some point the state had set the funding at 20% but it was for that year and so every year after that as the um budget changes changed the formula is back to the 20% of that funding amount um and it has not changed. So, the bill that's going forward is that that would adjust that that would be a great benefit for for our county tax and uh because that's the major driver in that 13% increase within the county tax was regarding jail funding. So, we'll continue to watch these bills as they as they come through uh making sure that we're providing testimony either written or in person. Uh we do that frequently as well and uh we'll we'll continue in that process. Um, other than that, the uh, councelor Plattz mentioned regarding uh, school uh, budget. So, I'm meeting regularly with the superintendent. We're actually meeting tomorrow, Dennis, Kelsey, myself, Scott, and uh, and the

superintendent to discuss uh, their debt service. Uh, so we'll have that number. We'll make sure that's available. Um, and and I believe council will have it tomorrow night at the at at the meeting so that they can discuss that further. Um, and we're also meeting internally as we get feedback, as we work through the workshops. We're going back and we're pivoting and we're having conversations with the directors as well. Uh, if if you want to see something different in the presentations, be sure to let us know. Um, we'll get into more detail as we have more discussions with you. Uh, but we'll we'll take that information and we'll we'll make adjustments as needed. That's it, Mayor.

Great. Thanks very much. Uh, we'll now open up uh public comment in the second open session of the evening. If there's any member of the public like to address the council on an item not on tonight's agenda, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Not seeing any, the open session's closed. There's no executive session scheduled for this evening. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Moved by council Walker. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by councelor Butler. All those in favor. The council will be adjourned.