City Council - workshop

The July 6, 2026 Auburn City Council workshop will be called to order. We have a single workshop agenda item this evening, continued discussion about the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance. Before we go back to council discussion, we have invited the representative from the Maine Manufactured Housing Association and the Climate labor council to provide some feedback to the council from the manufactured housing perspective, the owner's perspective, and for the residents. So Julie Smith is here. Julie, if you'd like to come up, introduce yourself. I don't see the gentleman yet from Climate Labor Council, but I'm sure he'll be right along.

so much and can you take this mic okay yep just uh if you can pull the mic just a little closer never good at this good evening mayor harman and members of the council thank you so much for providing me with the opportunity to speak today i really appreciate it and i know our members do as well um for the record my name is julie ann smith and i serve as the executive director of the manufactured housing association of maine MAM represents owners and operators of manufactured housing communities throughout Maine. We also represent all the sectors of the manufactured housing industry, including the manufacturers of the homes, the installers, and the lenders. We recognize that homeowners choosing to live in land lease communities face unique challenges. Unlike apartment tenants, they own their homes but lease the land beneath them. Moving a manufactured home can be expensive and in many cases impractical. Those concerns are real and they deserve thoughtful public policy. We appreciate the work that you have done so far. Our shared goal is to preserve safe, stable, affordable manufactured housing communities where residents can continue to live with confidence and where community owners can continue to invest in and maintain the infrastructure those communities depend upon. We do not disagree with the goal. But after reviewing the proposed ordinance, our concern is whether this particular draft will actually achieve that goal without creating unintended consequences that ultimately harm the very communities it seeks to protect. We believe that there are significant legal, economic, and practical questions that remain unanswered. This ordinance is described as rent stabilization, but in reality, it establishes a comprehensive municipal system regulating the pricing of privately owned manufactured housing communities. It freezes existing rents and many fees to February 2nd, 2026. It limits annual rent increases to the lesser of the consumer price index or 5%. It requires owners to petition a municipal rent stabilization board for increases above that amount. It regulates certain fees, creates a new quasi-judicial board, and establishes a new administrative appeal process. Those are significant governmental powers. Accordingly, they deserve a complete legislative record and careful analysis. One of the central assumptions of this ordinance is that the selected consumer price index accurately reflects the cost of operating a manufactured housing community. We would suggest otherwise. Insurance premiums have increased approximately 16%, 22% and 18% over the last three years. Wages have increased well beyond CPI due to minimum wage increases and state mandated healthcare costs. The city is currently conducting a property tax revaluation and owners reasonably expect property taxes to increase. Through a very cursory search of homeowner property taxes in Auburn, we found that the average property tax increase for mobile homeowners last year was 9.6%. That is significantly more than the 5% that is being suggested our increases be limited to. Construction materials, engineering, utilities, and infrastructure costs have likewise increased at rates that do not necessarily track the CPI used in this ordinance. Manufactured housing communities are not simply rental properties. They are infrastructure businesses. Owners maintain private roads, water systems, sewer systems, drainage systems, utility infrastructure, and common areas, systems that in many neighborhoods would otherwise be maintained by a municipality. The ordinance assumes that CPI adequately captures those costs. We are willing to provide aggregate data to show that assumption is incorrect. The ordinance does allow owners to petition for increases above the annual cap based on increased operating expenses and capital improvements. We appreciate that recognition. However, the petition process itself raises significant concerns. The standards governing approval are highly subjective. The board is asked to determine whether expenses are reasonable, necessary, or produce an appropriate return. Those terms are not clearly defined. The ordinance also focuses heavily on capital improvements, but provides limited guidance regarding the ordinary operating expenses that every community faces every year. Insurance, taxes, wages, utilities, healthcare costs, and regulatory compliance. Owners need a predictable, objective process for recovering legitimate operating costs when those costs substantially exceed CPI. Without that predictability, both budgeting and long-term planning become far more difficult. The definition of capital improvement also deserves reconsideration. The draft attempts to distinguish capital improvements from maintenance by referencing concepts such as failure to perform adequate and timely maintenance. Those phrases are inherently subjective. What constitutes adequate maintenance? What constitutes timely maintenance? Reasonable people may disagree, and those disagreements become fertile ground for disputes and litigation. A simpler definition would be more effective. A capital improvement could be defined as an improvement that materially extends the useful life of an asset or provides a lasting benefit to the community. That standard is easier to understand and easier to administer. We also believe the proposed annual increase formula should be reconsidered. The current proposal limits increases to the lesser of CPI or 5%. Given the documented increases in insurance, wages, taxes, and other operating costs, we recommend consideration of a formula based on the increases the city is proposing in its budget. That adjustment would not eliminate municipal oversight. It would simply reduce the number of petitions required for ordinary cost increases and lessen the administrative burden on both owners and the city. The petition process itself also presents a practical problem. The ordinance permits only one increased one increase each year, effective only on January 1st, and requires petitions to be filed by August 1st. That creates two concerns. First, January is often the most difficult time of year for residents because of heating costs and holiday expenses. Many residents would likely prefer increases to occur during the spring or summer. Second, the timeline is currently unworkable. The ordinance remains under consideration. The rent stabilization board has not been created, yet owners would already be required to submit petitions in order to implement increases next January. The process simply cannot function as written. The ordinance also places deadlines on property owners. It places none on the rent stabilization board. Owners must file petitions on time. Residents must receive notice. But the ordinance does not require the board to meet within any defined period or issue a decision by a certain date. We respectfully recommend that the ordinance require a review meeting within 30 days after a complete petition is filed and establish a reasonable deadline for board action. Without reciprocal deadlines, delay itself becomes a financial burden borne entirely by property owners. The ordinance also limits the fees that owners may charge. We believe reasonable fees should expressly include pet fees and occupancy fees for unusually large households, such as those with more than four full-time residents, where those uses create additional operating costs. Another provision prevents rent increases while certain land use violations remain outstanding. While well-intentioned, that provision may produce unintended consequences. Correcting violations often requires significant investment. Preventing revenue adjustments while requiring costly corrective action may actually delay compliance rather than encourage it. If retained, this provision should be narrowly tailored to serious unresolved health and safety violations. Finally, I would like to address one of the ordinance's underlying assumptions. The discussion surrounding this ordinance has sometimes suggested that manufactured homeowners have little or no practical economic alternative because their homes cannot easily be moved. Moving a manufactured home is certainly more difficult than moving from an apartment. But moving a home and selling a home are not the same thing. MAMA's reviewed the sales data for manufactured homes in Auburn in the last year. The data reflects 29 sales with a median sale price of approximately $167,500 and an average sale price exceeding $170,000. One home at 41 Webster Street sold for $5,000 was renovated and resold four months later for $235,000. Another property on Harmon's Corner Road sold for $89,000 in 2000 and 280,000 in 2025. Even lower value homes found willing buyers. A home that was built in 1970 sold for $15,000. That's likely more than the owner paid for it back in 1970. These sales demonstrate that there is an active resale market for manufactured homes in Maine. The legislative record should distinguish between limited physical mobility and marketability. Those are not the same issue. As we reviewed this ordinance, we found ourselves returning to the same questions over and over again. Why was this particular CPI selected? Why was the February 2nd, 2026 chosen as a historical baseline? as the city analyzed how this ordinance will affect financing, infrastructure investment, and future manufactured housing development. Has the city consulted lenders, engineers, or economists? Has the city evaluated alternatives that might protect residents while also encouraging additional manufactured housing supply? These are important questions because this ordinance does far more than regulate rent. It regulates investment, infrastructure, and financing. It creates an entirely new municipal administrative system. Those decisions deserve a complete legislative record. Manufactured housing remains one of Maine's most affordable past home ownership. The people who live in these communities deserve protection. They also deserve communities that continue to receive investment, maintenance, and long-term stewardship. So we respectfully ask the council to slow this process, answer these important questions, strengthen the ordinance, and ensure that any final policy protects both the residents who live in these communities and the long-term viability of the communities themselves. Ultimately, we would like to see more manufactured housing communities in Auburn because the more that are here, the more competitive it is, That's how you get low rents, not from a regulatory board. I thank you for your time and your consideration. I'm happy to answer questions. We can provide, I'm happy to email Mayor Harmon with my written remarks and a full analysis if that is appropriate. I just wasn't quite sure, never having appeared before you before.

All right, thank you very much. Questions from the council? Council Randall.

Thanks for coming. Of the mobile homes that you said sold for $200,000, were they on their own lots?

There were, I believe, two that were in a community, and then there were some that were on private lots, yes.

Okay, so the ones that were not on a private lot and were in a community, what was the difference there?

I can pull up. Would you like me to email you the spreadsheet that I have? That might be easier.

No, I'd like you just to answer what you said.

So I did an aggregate in my testimony, so I would have to pull up the specific spreadsheet if you want to give me a minute to do that. I'll wait. So I can tell you, so 44 Samantha Lane in Auburn was 33,000, sold for $33,000 in November 2023, 70,000 in November 2024, 77,500 in June of 2025. 41 Webster Street in Auburn, an investor bought it for $5,000 in August 2025, renovated it and sold it for $235,000 in December. 17 Harmon's Court Road in Auburn was purchased for $89,000 in 2000.

I only need the cost of the ones that were in the parks.

So I don't have, all I have are road names. I don't have park names.

Samantha is in a park. So I can see that that increased, yes, I see that. But that also shows that we've had three turnovers in less than 18 months also, right? Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from this man I Have a question I saw thank you for your testimony I just wanted to ask I'll have some comments later as we're not following up with you specifically But could you elaborate a little bit on the the dates and the timing you had mentioned? Winter is a tough time for the people you represent to see that as their one opportunity to

for a rent change i you know obviously i think our dates are stipulated a bit by the way the dates in which we pass moratoriums as well as the language in the ordinance but i was just curious if you could add a little bit more detail to that comment so that's actually not a concern for the owners it's a concern for the residents when owners previously have tried to raise rent january 1st they have residents come to them and say please don't do that that's a really difficult time for us and our owners have always been compliant with that

That's helpful. Thank you.

So as a follow-up to that, if that's a concern, what would your thoughts be if the council changed the date from January 1st to March 1st? Because The current date is driven by when the moratorium occurred and the period of time to be able to make the 90-day notice and have time for a petition to be heard in front of the rent stabilization board. So if the date were pushed forward, it would just delay however many months it was pushed forward the first rent increase under the ordinance.

I think our wish was more that there be flexibility, that it not just be a January 1st date. So if there is an owner who says, okay, I'll implement it January 1st and I'll come before the board with that request, great. But if another owner says, hey, I really don't want to implement this until June, we'd prefer to see flexibility with that.

Councilor Reynolds?

We have three parks in Auburn. I think we can come to a conclusion, a date that would work for everybody.

Any other questions? Great, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming in and sharing your thoughts with us. We also have Mr. Newman here from the Labor Climate Council. Do you want to make a few remarks?

Sorry for being late. Thank you very much for having us. Thank you very much for the process. Some of you guys have come to our community meetings since, I think we had our first meeting in December as residents. My name is Dan Newman, I'm with the Maine Labor Climate Council, and we have been kind of assisting and just helping organize residents around issues about creating livable mobile home parks in Maine. And one of the top issues that we've kind of come across is this affordability issue. And I've knocked on, I think, every door in every mobile home park in Auburn, at least I'd probably say half a dozen times. I've had a lot of conversations. There's a lot of intimidation out there. There's a lot of people that are just, don't believe that politics is working for them in any way. We've had a lot of, I think the residents have done a lot to change that, and I see a lot of hope going forward. I just want to thank you for moving this issue forward and responding to their needs so urgently. I guess my couple comments towards the proposal which you put forward, which I think is overall very strong. I don't know if I've seen the most latest iteration, but the concerns I want to put forward, just because I've been helping organize in several communities around Maine right now six communities have passed mobile home or lot rent stabilization ordinances We've been involved with almost every single one of those There's about 16 more that could pass ordinances by the end of this year. This is very much a snowballing effect I think it's a You know where we've been able to pass things by either a hand vote or by petition when they've been they've won with super majorities, you know, or Rundle just earlier this month with one with a town meeting with 90%. So I think I appreciate your. Your concern around this, I think this is a cross-cutting issue. I think Mainers see it for what it is. It's largely out-of-state companies. One quarter of all mobile housing is owned by out-of-state companies right now, some of them large investors. That's not necessarily the case in Auburn. But this threatens to destroy a very critical part of our housing stock, which are mobile home parks. Right now there's more people living in mobile home parks than the entire portfolio of subsidized housing controlled by Maine Housing. So it's doing a lot to protect, especially seniors, who have a lot of them downsized from their stick-built housing to live in mobile home parks as their kind of retirement strategy. There's a disproportional high number of folks who are disabled or unable to work that live in mobile home parks. So it's doing a lot to kind of fill, I would say, some of the policy inaction, our inability at all forms of government to build affordable housing to meet demand. And we risk losing it. And my main concern with the policy that I've seen is the vacancies. Other municipalities have stripped that provision out, allowing some sort of higher cap for vacancies. Or what we've seen in this one, I believe, is just allowing vacancies to go to market rate. And I've seen some national data. I could produce that to you guys from realtors in California that estimate for every $100 increase in lot rent the value of the the residents homes actually decreases in value by about ten thousand dollars so this is not normal kind of like uh... a market a normal market like uh... like a landlord who might put a uh... apartment up for rent uh... and uh... if they set the rent too high they won't find tenants, in this case the owners can set that rate very high or whatever they want it to be and it's actually the owners of the housing, the mobile home residents that have to adjust to that. And they adjust to that by coming down in their asking price if they want to put it up for sale. We've seen this. I don't have that kind of statistic in Maine, but I've talked to people in Lewiston, in Biddeford, who have had to lower their asking price or make some sort of accommodation, meaning I will pay your lot rents for a year if you buy it at this price. So I really worry about allowing that vacancy to go to market rate, because it's basically stealing equity from the homeowners. Also, it creates an incentive for eviction. If you're not regulating vacancies, and that's the only outlet that can turn over, is the only outlet where you can increase rates, You risk the chance of incentivizing eviction. We know that the big corporate owners evicted a higher rate than the smaller owners. But there is a lot of people that are not in this room today, especially in the parks owned by a local owner, who have specifically stopped coming to meetings because they are intimidated. They are scared of losing their housing. Some of them have talked to you guys or sought legal help. And it's a very real feeling. So I think the fear of eviction is very strong out there. And I just want to say one other thing, is you can almost count on it if you leave the vacancy part unregulated or allow it to go to May. market rate is we've already seen this in Arundel. Arundel passed a lot stabilization ordinance in June. They did it by town vote. But the select board actually crafted the policy and they put it forward to the people for a vote. And they allowed, they carved out, they made no CAP ON VACANCIES. THE RESIDENTS EXPRESSED, I MYSELF GAVE THEM THE SAME KIND OF SPIEL. THE RESIDENTS WARNED THEM THAT WAS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM FOR THEM. They were pretty adamant in going forward with that. That rent stabilization went into effect at the beginning of June. And in one park, we've already seen vacant lots, or one vacant lot at least, go up from 750 to 850, just since they passed the ordinance there. So if that's the only outlet to make increases at an unregulated point, that's what you can expect. One other point I'd like to make about the overall cap is I would like to recommend that folks consider some sort of, I think the last time I saw it was CPI or 5%, whichever is lesser. Is that correct? Yeah. Other towns have that. I appreciate the fixed amount. It creates, I think, it lends them some predictability because CPI can float all over the place. In 2022, I think it was eight something, could go higher, you know, with the energy crisis and energy markets in flux. There's a lot of speculation that CPI could shoot up. So I, on that 5%, I would ask that you guys consider something lower, like 3%. That's what Sanford passed. Because 5% is still a lot of money for folks. And I think the standard we're seeing, whether it's by petition or our city government's passing these things, is closer to 3% than 5%. I just want to advocate for the residents on that piece. But other than that, I thank you all for your consideration and moving forward with this in good faith. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much. We appreciate you coming in. Questions from the council? Council Randall.

Hi, Dan. How are you? Good. So you mentioned that if we don't eliminate the vacancy rate, that the rent can keep going up, keep going up, right? And so when a resident wants to sell their mobile home, they're going to have to lower the price. Do you agree that that creates a very different economic relationship than the traditional apartment and rental thing?

Yeah, that's what I was explaining, like kind of market logic is like, well, in a Rundle, for example, like they're very, the select board, you know, it's kind of buyer beware, right? If somebody can pay a higher rent, They got into it. That's an economic choice they made. Therefore, buyer beware or whatever. It's kind of their concern. That kind of ignores that there's a huge amount of scarcity in the housing market and people make all sorts of decisions under duress to find housing that they can't necessarily afford. That flattens that argument. But also just like, I guess like, you know, the market, like a market depends on what they call a price signal, right? So like if a grocer puts a product on the shelf for a certain amount and that product is not going, they have an instant feedback loop to kind of understand that that product might be overpriced and they would adjust it as they're responding to the price signal. Same with like a landlord in an apartment. That apartment is placed too high, They can adjust to that. But in this case, it's the home owner, the mobile home park resident, that has to adjust to the park owner's decisions about these lot rents. So the price signal is being detected by the residents. So if we're going to make these very market logic arguments, then the owner is separated from the price signal. Other questions from the council?

Not seeing any. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming in. We'll go back to discussion by the council. Council Randall, I know that you weren't able to be here last time, so we'll give you the floor if you'd like to have items that you'd like to bring up.

So I know that we've been talking a lot about the vacancy and whether limiting the vacancy resembles rent regulation. And I understand why that's part of the discussion. None of us want to regulate rents for traditional rentals. However, I don't think that's the question before us when it comes to the vacancy issue. I think the question before us is, are mobile home communities unique enough to deserve a policy change specifically for them? I believe the answer is yes. We as a body, even though I was not here on June 15th, we voted to support 1300 more housing units in Auburn. We already have a large amount of mobile homes that are unsubsidized and affordable for people. And if we don't protect them and we price them out rent-wise, we're not preserving what we have. And we're gonna look back and say, We should have preserved that because now we have all of these other people and now we have to subsidize their rent and now we have to do this. Right now we don't have to subsidize their rent. They're in there and they're doing just fine. So I feel like the argument that we need to protect them. So the purpose statement that we have currently says that the purpose of the ordinance is to protect residents living in mobile home parks from unreasonable lot rent and fee increases. I also believe that we are trying to promote long-term housing stability and so part of something that part one thing I'd like to bring up as a motion for a motion is to add that into the purpose statement so that we can be focusing on the housing stability long-term as well as protecting these people here right now we're making an ordinance we're trying to protect what a hundred people No, what we're trying to do is we're trying to promote the long term stability of this type of housing that we don't have to build because we already have it and we don't have to subsidize because they're already in them. And it's a model that works for them that they can afford. And if we allow the vacancy reset to constantly happen every time the mobile home swaps, it switches ownership and it goes up market rate. And then the next time it happens, we're not gonna have the affordable housing there anymore. And for the argument, just for the point of how often do vacancies, do turnovers happen? Well, I don't remember your name, I apologize, but you pointed out that Samantha Lane turned over three times in 18 months. So that right there tells you that there's a lot of turnover in there also. So that's what I needed to say.

Other thoughts or questions from the council? Council Randall?

I was curious, and I don't know if there's any data that could be gathered quickly or provided, is just what is that overall turnover rate? So if it is multiple times per year, that might have an impact on what we're really trying to achieve here. So I don't know if that's something that's quickly available. Council Platt.

Thank you. Yeah, I've got a bunch of notes here, some that I took from the presenters, some that I've just had going all along. First thing I want to say is I'm proud of the ordinance that we have currently on the table. Obviously, we're talking about if that needs some work or not, but I think we've done a good job to acknowledge what the needs are, at least the immediate needs of these citizens in these three mobile homes, parks. So I like our starting point. I guess I'll start just with some reaction to the speakers just so we can maybe, I'm sure you've got a couple points you're gonna bring up, Mayor, but I think there's something to be talked about with the date they suggested. I don't know if there's a more beneficial date that, again, is more beneficial to the tenant as opposed to being Jan 1, so that was just a note I had. As far as the number of rent raises, it was brought up to have it perhaps be flexible. I don't know if that's the right answer or not. All I could think of to satisfy that would be some language saying no more than once a year separated by no less than X months, 10 months. So you could do it on month one and month 11, but could only do it once a year so give a little bit of flexibility is just a thought I had I don't know if we need to read visit the definition of cap X in certain terms such as that the speaker brought that up I don't know if that's something we need to discuss or not And now, yeah, so that was it to the speakers, and I guess I just wanted to react to what Councilor Randall brought up with regard to the vacancy clause and just the general notion of what is our purpose. I think I strive for the same goals as Councilor Randall. I think I see it a little bit differently. I don't know, to me, this particular ordinance isn't about the long-term preservation. To me, personally, this ordinance is about these folks and about where they're at today. If we wanna talk about, again, in my opinion, if we wanna talk about future development to achieve 1,300 units, I'd love to talk about new mobile home park development. I'd love to see what we can do to get developers in here to be excited about building new inventory, and perhaps with even stricter regulations because they're entering a system that could already have those regulations. I have a lot of trepidation overly regulating these landlords. I'm happy to do quite a bit for the folks that are currently housed. When a vacancy comes up, understand the economics there but i'm also doing the math in my head at the same time so a lot rate goes up a hundred bucks a month that's twelve hundred dollars a year so the owner of the house when selling their house might need to decrease the value of their house so a two hundred thousand dollar house or a hundred and eighty thousand hundred fifty you have to subtract twelve hundred dollars from that so i get it the point is not invalid but I DO WANT TO BE AWARE OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE MATH AND THE NUMBERS. IT'S NOT AS BIG OF A CONCERN FOR ME. AM I DOING THAT MATH WRONG?

WELL, IT'S COMPOUNDED, RIGHT, THE MATH? SO IT'S A MONTHLY INCREASE. SO ESSENTIALLY IF THE LET'S JUST CHOOSE $100. THE LOT RENT GOES UP $100 A MONTH, THEN IF YOU FIGURE YOU CAN PAY $1,500 IN MORTGAGE, THEN THE EFFECTIVE MORTGAGE IS THEN ONLY $1,400. SO IT'S NOT JUST $1,200. IT'S A COMPOUNDING.

That's a fair point. Even so, I personally would say let the free market dictate if someone's willing to pay X, Y, or Z. And further, let's look into how to provide force and power from the city to subsidize new developments. If we're looking to preserve low cost housing, i i struggle to put that burden on landlords i believe that burden comes on the city and so if we truly want to to put resources towards that i would love our conversation to go beyond just this ordinance but what comes next what's after this ordinance how do we create more affordable housing stock in this city so to wrap it up i guess i'm not I'm hoping to keep talking about it. I'm not super excited about changing the language of vacancy, at least not yet. But I understand the points that are being made. I'm not close to that.

I JUST THANK YOU I APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS COUNCILOR PLATZ THE ONLY THING I WOULD ADD WOULD BE ONE THING THAT DOES THAT THAT IF THOSE DYNAMICS ARE TRUE IN AUBURN OF RAISING THE VACANCY CAUSE WILL CAUSE THE PURCHASE PRICES TO GO DOWN YOU DO HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE CURRENT RESIDENTS IN THE IN THE SENSE THAT THEY WOULD BE LESS ABLE TO MOVE THEY GET LESS MONEY OUT OF THERE SO IF THEY IF THEY REACH A POINT IN THEIR RENTAL WHERE THEY HAVE TO MOVE THEN THEY'RE ACTUALLY LESS ABLE TO MOVE BECAUSE OF THESE PRICE DYNAMICS RIGHT THEY WOULD SELL THEIR PLATE THEIR HOW THEIR TRAILER FOR LESS SO JUST I THINK THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE WE SHOULD CONSIDER AS WELL OTHER QUESTIONS COUNCIL

TO PIGGYBACK ON WHAT COUNCILOR DEVAL WAS SAYING, I UNDERSTAND THE HESITATION. I DO. BUT WE'RE ALREADY ASKING A LOT OF THE MOBILE HOME OWNERS. THEY'RE NOT RENTERS. THEY'RE OWNERS. AND WE'RE ASKING THEM A LOT TO We're talking about the mobile home park owners and all of the expenses that they have that go up. And one of the expenses was taxes. The mobile home owners also have taxes. When the property taxes go up, so do the mobile home taxes. So that part, I don't see the argument there because it's going up for them as well. So to pass even more of that on to them is unfair. There are two owners in this situation. There are the landowners and the homeowners. And I feel like... The vacancy reset does give the landowner a little bit more flexibility to bring a little bit more of a little bit more of them their recoup back So instead of maybe eliminating the vacancy reset altogether, we could maybe put a cap on that Okay, so if the if it's they could have a one set reset of for simplicity 10 or or two months of our two years worth of increases but no more you know there's flexibility there but to make it to make it be unrestricted to market value i believe is is going to we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot because we're going to have a lot more homeless people in this city so perhaps we'll

For the moment, let's limit the conversation to this vacancy issue and see if we can resolve this. So any other comments about vacancy?

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate all these comments. And I think at the last workshop, I expressed concern about how much do we rely on the market. I have to say that I don't know that I fully appreciated the nuance potentially uh in terms of mobile home parks that there's an owner and and then there's the the rent of the land and that potentially there's an offset to that value i don't know that that really happens in the market for a house uh perhaps it does if we see a 25 increase over three years of taxes in the city would everyone that has a house have to reduce their price enough to pull someone in from buying a house from lewis and then bring them to auburn like so i don't it seems to me that we may need to for myself I'm kind of rethinking and struggling and grappling with well maybe it's not quite the same as what I was thinking originally and how do we perhaps we need to think more about that nuance it does seem more unique to me than I was appreciating before and and And also, you know, the other thing, again, if the vacancy is frequent without some potential thought of how we regulate that, there could be a potential override of what we're really trying to do here. I agree with Councillor Platt's comment that, you know, we have a really solid ordinance in terms of the intent. We're trying to limit unbudgeted... Increases that cannot be budgeted cannot be sustained by the those that are renting the lots And are we gonna is it too much of a loophole there if it was you know someone stays in their place and they don't vacate that Building for six seven years that would be a very different story in my mind Potentially then if it's truly more often that it's happening more than once a year So if we can build that in I don't know other thought

So I have some thoughts on this vacancy. And I guess perhaps some of these I'll ask as a series of questions. So the first thing that I don't understand from the conversation that's taken place is, and any counselor that wishes to answer this, go right ahead. Who are you intending to protect by limiting to less than market rate, potentially, lot rent increases on vacancy. Who are you protecting? Councilor Anthony.

Future potential affordable homeowners.

So my answer to that is the city's not in that business. The city's never been in that business. And if the city wants to get into that business, then we need to have as a council a discussion about rent control broadly in the city and not through the narrow lens of this ordinance because the city doesn't own this and in the city of auburn today that type of a construct only exist in two circumstances auburn housing authority owns the facilities and provides uh... some below market rent through the programs they offer or the state or Auburn Housing through federal money provides subsidization to people. So if the idea here is that somehow it's the responsibility of the city to take property out of the fair market, which doesn't exist any place else in the city other than through Auburn Housing Authority, WHY WOULD WE EVOKE SUCH A DRAMATIC POLICY CHANGE THROUGH THIS ORDINANCE?

IT'S BECAUSE THIS MODEL, THIS HOUSING MODEL IS UNIQUELY DESIGNED TO BE PREDATORY. AND I KNOW THAT WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SAY THINGS LIKE THAT, BUT THAT'S MY TRUE BELIEF. I ALSO, IT IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MODEL THAN RENTING FROM SOMEONE. In an apartment, the landlord owns the building, the tenant rents the unit, and if they wanna leave, they can leave if it's too much. In this model, the home is owned by the person living in it, and they're renting the land from the person who allows them to put the trailer on the land. And I feel like not having, excuse me, I don't feel like it is a fact that The protections that are in place benefit the landowners over the homeowners, and it is unfair.

Well, I'm not sure what protections that you're referencing, but I think that probably everybody on the council would agree that this is a different model. And that's the basis I think from the very earliest discussion that the council had about why we would take this up is because unlike traditional ownership or rental situation. If you own a house and you decide you don't want to live there anymore, you sell it and move someplace else. Or if you're renting, if you don't like the rent, you don't renew your lease and you go someplace else. And the going someplace else is the hurdle here because it's difficult to find another location and to assort the cost of moving the mobile home. And I think that's why this ordinance is before the council, which is to prevent unreasonable lot and fee increases. But I think it's important to note that the reality of the situation is that nobody made any one in a mobile home park move there they they move there of their own volition and it's all within the free market system so it may be correct there's no data in front of us but i'll take mister newman's at his word that there are instances when if you don't have a vacancy cap that in effect it might make the appreciated value on the mobile home somewhat less than it would be if the rent stayed the same. But that's the free market system that people are in. We're going through a comp plan process today and we're going to change land use characteristics and zoning in parts of this city that may cause some property to have an escalated appreciation and potentially others to have lower appreciation. So I get the economics of it, but I guess my point is that if we want to have as a council a discussion about putting a cap in place, what we're introducing into this ordinance is rent control. because we are determining what the forward-looking market rate would be for the lot. And if we want, as I've told the council before, I'm open to the council having a discussion about rent control in its various forms, but not through the narrow lens of this ordinance. Because if you, some other cities have set the rent. This does not do that. This controls the escalation of the rent, but it doesn't set what the baseline rent is. But some of the other proposals that are out there, including the one you've all seen from Lewiston, sets the rent. That's rent control. If you set the increase at vacancy, that's a form of rent control. And I understand the situation, the $125,000 mobile homeowners are in but there's literally thousands and thousands of renters in this city that are going to raise the same question if we're going to enter into any form of rent control they're going to ask the same question about their rent being raised and they can't afford it and so they move uh... so i understand the concerns Putting a cap on increases in vacancy and not leaving that to the free market forces is a significant policy direction, different policy direction from what's in here now. And I think if we're going to have that discussion, it'd be taken up broadly. about all kinds of housing situations within the city and not limited to mobile home parks. Councilor Randall.

I'm not asking the council to decide whether rent regulation is a good policy generally. That is not where I come from when I speak. I'm asking whether this unique form of homeownership deserves a narrow tailored policy that protects homeowners' equity while preserving one of the last sources of naturally occurring affordable homeownership in this city. That doesn't require any of us to change our view about rent regulation generally. It does not, because this is completely different. Do not be gaslit into thinking this is the same. It simply asks us to decide whether this specific housing model warrants a different approach. If we agree that mobile home communities are different, and I believe most of us up here do, then I think it's reasonable to ask whether they deserve a policy specifically designed for their unique circumstances. That question isn't whether this resembles policies used elsewhere. This question is whether this council believes this unique housing model deserves a solution designed specifically for it before we end up with a bigger problem and not have enough housing.

So the question I would raise about that is that if if it's the council's intention is to protect the equity of the mobile home of the owner, what's this council's position going to be in September when we have people that come in and say, hey, I don't want my property taxes to go up because I want to sell my house. I'm going to get less money for it because somebody says, oh, the property taxes have gone up here in Auburn. Nowhere in the city of Auburn today does the government or any government that I'm aware of at the state or federal level insert themselves in protecting the equity value of a residential housing of any type. And again, I think that if we want to get into that discussion, we need to get into that discussion broadly because there's lots of use cases that are the same policy area, even though the circumstances aren't exactly the same as with a mobile home park. Councilor Duvall.

I just have a question. What are the, I'm thinking of the word, but are there any rules about needing to declare sort of rents in a building or in a facility? Like we have that for housing prices, right? We have their most recent sales value, et cetera. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. I'M JUST WONDERING, WOULD IT BE APPROPRIATE TO ACTUALLY HAVE PUBLISHED DATA RELATED TO AVERAGE LOT RENTAL PRICES WITHIN A PARK OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT SO THAT PERSPECTIVE, YOU KNOW, PEOPLE WHO WERE COMING INTO A VACANT LOT WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE SOME SENSE OF WHERE THEIR RENT FELL WITHIN THE SPECTRUM OF RENTS WITHIN A PARK?

Well, to your first question, there's no requirement for other rental of dwellings, whether they be apartments or houses, that there's some prior notice. There may be if you have a lease and it's a renewal situation, but if it's a vacancy, the owner publishes the rental rate at whatever it is, and people make their decision whether they're going to rent or not. I think that it's an interesting issue that you've raised about what the range of mobile home park rentals might be, but I think we've seen a somewhat similar approach in the state legislation that I think by all accounts hasn't really worked because not every mobile home park is similarly situated and they're private businesses and thus there's no reporting requirement that somehow they report their rents to a central authority. I think it's probably no different than someone buying a house or renting a house or renting an apartment to understand what the market is before they enter into some purchase or rental agreement.

I would say, I think, I'd have to look, but I think the only reference in our ordinance is regarding a daily rental for a hotel or something along those lines. There's nothing else in our ordinance other than there's that requirement of what's the average daily rental rate for a hotel. That must be posted. Councilor Cowan?

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm sure I'm going to sound wishy-washy here. I'm really struggling with all the aspects. But to Councilor Randall, you mentioned this economic structure, this housing structure does seem different to me. However, I feel that we need to point out the reality that even in rentals, where I agree if someone doesn't like the price, they can leave. except for right now there's a scarcity of low low enough rent costs that is struck people do struggle to find rents as well as as in the the trailer park so i think we just need to to be thinking about that as a reality if we are talking about that the homeless population was only going to be driven by those in in the the trailer homes is simply not a reality And we have several hundred people that are homeless in this area so that it goes beyond that. And so I think what I'm struggling with is just how much if we tried to put this in and we do start into a zone, into a space of rent control, because that's that is whether we want to or not, it would be what we're doing. I don't know that we're really going to. Prevent the the the challenges that we're facing with homelessness uh... and at the same time we could be causing issues of you know i agree with council class and and you can surrender what they do could be really great uh... to to have more trailer parks in the city will we start pushing in uncertain aspects of what's going to be even more of a uh... limitation on owners of the of the property That's not an incentive. That's a disincentive potentially So I just wonder if we need to think more are there other options for example could Auburn Housing Authority look into the option of of a subsidized trailer home park You know, I just wonder if there are other other places. I I do think it's a potential loophole. I agree that there are going to be landlords that are going to abuse it. To me, the whole reason that we're focusing on this and so many other municipalities are focusing on it is because this particular type of home has been a target for people that wanted to make a lot of money quick, and we're trying to respond to that. I just don't know how far we can go and have the same impact that we're looking to have. So I don't, I'm not, I agree with Mayor Harmon. If we're gonna get into the space of rent control, we need to look at it beyond that. And I don't know that that's something that we're really in the best position to do. I think there's multiple levels of government that need to get involved with affordable housing, so.

Other comments from the council? Council Platt.

One more note I had here on my paper, it does, It's in the context of this vacancy clause. I do get concerns about the increased incentive for eviction. I'm also a realist about what our role is as a city to get involved with that. But I am curious if there's language that we could be looking at that might make it more difficult for an eviction. Or again, if you're about to tell me that that's not the legal role of a city, then I understand that as well. But it is a concern of mine.

Yeah, so I guess my question, I guess I'm not quite sure how the vacancy reset drives eviction, because the person's leaving.

It's vacant. Might it not drive a landlord to find reasons to evict a tenant, an owner-tenant?

Well, that might be. You have all kinds of different landlords, not just across mobile home parks, that look more closely for reasons to evict than others, but you can't just evict somebody on a whim, right? And I understand that there's a system that exists.

Right, and so my question is... Are there situations in which municipalities add additional layers to the existing legal language of eviction? The answer might be no, that doesn't happen. Or the answer might be yes, there are certain classes of housing or other types of, in jobs, we protect certain working classes. I just was unclear if that exists. If it does, I'd be curious to explore that. If that is not something that municipalities typically do, then we can move on to a different subject.

Well, I don't know what the answer to that is. Generally, the city manager can correct me here if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of the city having a role in evictions at this time. It's governed through state law, through statute and case law, and I guess if someone has a valid reason to evict, what their motivation for trying to move that case forward is, we can't be in everybody's head. Council Gary.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Has city staff or anyone really looked at the contract or lease agreement that some of these tenants may have in a mobile home park? because how i view things is if i've got a a water cache and i've got my eye on this mobile home park i'll buy it and but i have to honor what whatever the lease is with each individual Renter of the land the the renter may own that the Mobile home, but I own the land and like you guys are saying that if they don't like me raising the profit the pay they have to Park their house there then they can move but a lot of situations they can't I understand that part That's not a viable solution but the protection for the homeowner is that lease that paper of what their terms of I Mean it might be a 20-year lease. I don't know I've not I mean I've never read at least I've read apartment leases would landlords on the outside and and until that lease came up for renewal you couldn't change you know what was set basically in stone that should be what it is with these mobile home park owners and if I can't If I say, heck, I can't do this, I can't do the rent, my mobile home is the home that I've lived in for the last 15, 20, 50 years. It's not in a well enough shape for me to move it. It's gonna be easier for me to just say, okay, Mr. Landowner, if you want me gone, then you're going to have to buy my place. That's where it opens up another situation where it could potentially be doable if the landowner fixed it up, and then he could go to maybe an agency like Auburn Housing to get Section 8 tenants to come in and take over That unit already that house. I mean there's other things to look at it. I mean, I don't want to force people I don't think it's right that if I buy the Mobile home that just because I want to do something or I need cash I can raise their property rent Three times a year. It shouldn't be allowed. It should be only what the lease says if there is a leash and

So I don't know that the city knows for every single lot what the situation is. I can tell you that from some recent interaction that city staff had, there are lots in these parks that are tenancy at will. They have no lease whatsoever. That's perfectly allowable under Maine law. There's apartments out here in the city that are tenancy at will month to month. AND THAT'S REALLY A SITUATION BETWEEN THE OWNER AND THE RESIDENT RELATIVE TO A LEASE. TO SOME OF YOUR OTHER QUESTIONS, I THINK, COUNCIL GARY, THE PURPOSE OF THE ORDINANCE IS TO CONTROL SOME OF THESE THINGS AROUND THE RATE AT WHICH You can increase lot rents and whether you can have fees, and if so, at what rate those fees can escalate for the very reasons you point out, the difficulty of moving. So the intent of this is to provide protection to the residents, not necessarily in the scope of the way this is written today, to provide some type of future protection to potential lot renters or to the community at large. Council Butler.

As I've listened to the speakers this evening and then also just our discussion on council, I keep coming back to the purpose and the label we have at the top of the ordinance. And part of the reason I'm revisiting that is it's not matching up with the conversation that I'm hearing. So on the one hand we want to grow Housing within the community. I think that's an agreeable point for all of us while also offering some Representation to the residents that are living in the mobile home parks and I'm not sure that Either the title of the ordinance or the purpose actually creates that balance But it does set up the structure for the remaining of the document and Not sure where I'm going with this exactly, other than to say I want to be sure that we're not, I want to be sure that we're focused on creating balance that does support growth in the community while also really responding to the concerns that we've heard from the residents. And where we start off just simply talking about unreasonable lot fee and fee increases, Any citizen reading this is gonna see rent stabilization and I think they're gonna see the unreasonable lot and fee increases and there won't be a Context for that that speaks to balance of both of those pieces for our community Which maybe is my long-winded way of saying maybe we do need to slow this down and take another look.

I

Any other thoughts on the vacancy reset issue? To get a sense where the council is going on this, is there some proposal with some specifics to modify the current language on the vacancy reset?

I MOVE TO AMEND SECTION.

THERE'S NO MOTIONS. THIS IS A WORKSHOP. WELL, YOU CAN JUST EXPLAIN WHAT YOUR THOUGHT WOULD BE ON THIS AND THEN WE'LL GET A SENSE OF THE COUNCIL AS TO WHAT THEY, WHETHER THEY AGREE WITH THAT.

I THINK I'VE ALREADY STATED THAT THEN. I THINK THAT WE SHOULD POSSIBLY it seems like there isn't it seems like there isn't an appetite to remove the vacancy reset completely so maybe what we do is we start talking about an alternative to that and possibly upon transfer you know allowing like i had mentioned earlier one reset for a specific amount so that they're still able to go a little bit closer to market value and get it and start there and start it so i guess the way i would put it is that um upon transfer of ownership the park owner may increase the existing base rent by just for conversation purposes lesser of 10 or the two two uh maximum annual increases um and the adjustment shall become the new base rent and thereafter subject to all annual rent increase limitations and other provisions of the ordinance and no additional vacancy adjustments transfer fees mandatory surcharges or transfer related charges may be imposed and maybe that's where we move the conversation to not removing it completely completely but still protecting the type of housing, the affordable housing in our city.

So if I can make sure I understand, what you're proposing is that there be a cap on the reset of 10% or what was the other?

Or two times the maximum annual rent increase.

And these are just for- In that particular year. Because that's going to vary year to year. So just as a use case.

So if the maximum is 5% that year that it's empty, I would say two years of that 5%.

Well, so what if it's at CPI and it's 3.5% that year? CPI is 3.5, that 5% wouldn't come into play.

Then it would be 7%.

So it's 10% or two times whatever the allowable increase is that year.

YES, WITHIN THAT BECOMING THE NEW BASE RENT FOR THAT LOT AND KEEPING THE PROTECTIONS ON THE LOT.

AND THAT THIS RESET COULD TAKE PLACE ON AN ANNUAL BASIS? IF IT BECOMES VACANT, LET'S SAY IT BECOMES VACANT TWICE IN A YEAR, YOU COULD RESET IT ONCE. IF IT'S EVERY YEAR IT BECOMES VACANT, YOU CAN RESET IT EVERY YEAR?

I GUESS THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING WE WOULD HAVE TO DISCUSS.

Uh, thoughts from the Council?

I guess just for the sake of efficiency for the conversation, I'm open to the ordinance as is. So I'm open to continuing to have a conversation, but you know i wouldn't necessarily participate in a conversation adding additional detail because i'm i'm happy with where is today uh... again i i think we raise a really good points about what is our purpose how are we going to outside of this ordinance i don't get too far off topic but if we have a goal of creating housing and affordable housing how do we do that i look at the number of people that were trying to help with this ordinance it's not thousands rates dozens a hundred i believe that the city has the resources in the foresight to create new housing and to create new opportunities for people who decide to leave mobile home parks. Again, maybe we find ways to subsidize new developers to create new mobile home parks that can compete with these mobile home parks. And maybe there are more regulations because they've agreed to a contract with the city to do certain things. I'd rather focus on that than be more burdensome on this So I won't say take up any more time, but that would be where I stand. But this has been a good discussion. I appreciate it.

Other thoughts?

I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY SIMILAR THINGS. I WOULD WELCOME THE OPPORTUNITY FOR CONVERSATION AND DISCUSSION DEBATE WITH AMONGST THE COUNCIL ABOUT ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES FOR ADDRESSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING. MY INITIAL QUESTION THAT COMES UP, YOUR SUGGESTION IS, YOU KNOW, could be a viable one, but is it rent control? Is it cap? I mean, I just wonder, like, where are we going? And so that's where I, again, if we're gonna do that, I think then we need to be seriously thinking about, is that something we're gonna do for some other forms of housing? So that's where I get stuck on that. That particular suggestion, which I think is well thought out, it's just, that's, for me, the slippery slope that I'm getting, I'm struggling with. OTHER THOUGHTS?

COUNSELOR DUVALL.

SO, AGAIN, I THINK THE ORDINANCE OVERALL IS REALLY GOOD. I DO TEND TO LEAN TOWARD WHAT COUNSELOR RANDALL IS DOING AND THAT I WORRY ABOUT THAT VACANCY RESET CLAUSE A LOT. MAYBE NOT A HILL I'LL DIE ON. But I also agree with Councillors Cowan and Platts that we should have a broader discussion about affordable housing because it really is the issue, a major issue for the people in the city of Auburn.

Any other comments? So, look, I understand the point that Councillor Randall's making and I'm somewhat sympathetic to it But I think the bigger picture to this is it's rent control. And I'm happy, as I've said many times, if the council wants to have a workshop and discuss this, let's discuss it. But once we introduce any type of rent control, It's the tip of the iceberg, and there's going to be lots of other people coming before us asking for some type of accommodation, and they'll have very compelling stories about the struggles they're having to pay for the housing that they have as well. So, you know, if we want to have that conversation, let's have it. But again, I don't think we should be introducing that type of a policy discussion through this type of an award.

just make one one more feel-good comment here and it's probably a comment i'm going to make in one of our agenda items in in the meeting but this is a starting point and it's a good starting point and i think there's something to be said for moving forward with a good starting point and i also think there's something to be said for acknowledging that we as accounts are open to discussing this further and and seeing what works and doesn't work SO, YEAH, I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT. I THINK SOME TOPICS WE COME INTO THESE AND EVERYONE THINKS, OH, IT'S A DONE DEAL, IT'S BLACK OR WHITE, YOU KNOW, WE CAN REVISIT THIS. WE CAN HAVE THIS DISCUSSION AGAIN. BUT I THINK THIS IS A GREAT STARTING POINT.

I THINK I WOULD JUST ADD IF WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING CONVERSATION, THEN WE OUGHT TO ALSO INCLUDE IN THAT DISCUSSION OF RENT CONTROL. LIKE WHAT THAT, YOU KNOW, JUST IN A BROADER SENSE WHAT IT MEANS.

Sure. Yeah, I think that was, I don't think they're necessarily two separate conversations. Anything else, Councilor Randall?

If the only way to get a conversation about the vacancy reset on the table is to bring forward broad rent control, then I will do so.

Any other comments from the council?

We have a few minutes left, so I think that was a major item that Council Randall put on the table. There was a couple other issues that were raised here, and Council Platts made some notes of them in his first comment. So the date. So I guess there's two things I would say about the date. The date in this case is basically driven by the moratorium and holding rents at their current level for, in effect, a year. the council could make that anything you wanted to long as it's not sooner than january first because there's some practical limitations about understanding what the uh... cpi index that we're using when those numbers come out the ninety day notice and giving some reasonable time for the uh... rent stabilization board to entertain petition so That's one. I think the other reason for setting a date in this is just some practical... implications about administration. I don't think you want to be having the rent stabilization board coming in dealing with these things every single month. Right? It's much more efficient from an administrative standpoint just to trigger all the rents, since they're all held in abeyance at the same time, trigger all the rents on some date. So it's January 1st now. If someone wants to make a suggestion that it not be January 1st, entertain what that might be.

Hearing that that could be a challenge from a timings perspective, but also not wanting to go too much further beyond a year, maybe March 1st may be a better option.

Other comments council do all is it possible to use no earlier than language so keep January one, but just put no earlier than January one of the following year. Which leaves some flexibility for the park owner to actually start charging the approved higher rent. Works for their residents.

So we could do that. You're going to cause a lot of difficulties in administering this because all the data that you're gonna have to generate about the CPI, what the current situation is, If they can just come in whenever they want, we're going to know.

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting keeping the timing. I mean, it's essentially what the ordinance allows for now, keeping the timing the same. But you can implement it just you can't implement it before January 1st. But as a park owner, you could implement it whenever you wanted to. And so if it didn't work for your residents, you could change that date, even though. PER ORDINANCE, YOU COULD START JANUARY 1ST.

YES. SO IF YOUR POINT IS THAT NO EARLIER THAN, IT'S ACTUALLY ON THAT DATE OR LATER THAN, RIGHT? SO IF WHAT YOU'RE SUGGESTING IS IN A CALENDAR YEAR, THEY CAN HAVE ONE INCREASE BASED ON THE DATA THAT'S GATHERED FOR JANUARY 1, BUT THE Park owner decides not to implement it on January 1, I think that would be fine. It doesn't change any of the administration of this.

But don't you then need some sort of gap? Like I suggested, you can't have somebody implementing a rent raise on December 31st and then on Jan 2. That's two rent increases in two separate years separated by three days. That would be devastating for a tenant, right? 90 days.

that has to be ninety well then let me tell the next there's a ninety-day notice but i think the council platz's point i would say i don't know that that matters in this case because if If it's the same structure that we have now and you just allow the park owner after January 1st, if they want to go a whole year and not raise the rent and raise it December 31st and do the next year on January 1st. Yeah, that's a good point.

It's actually a benefit to the tenant if a landlord were to make that error. Yeah, thanks for talking through that, yeah.

So it's a sense of the council that we have a no later than provision? Councilor Randall, sorry.

I don't even know if the provision of no later than is even necessary. I have met with the mobile home resident several times and spoken to them about many things. And not once has the timing of the increase been an issue. They're going to have 90 days notice. They're going to be able to plan for it. I don't think the date is that big a deal. It was brought forward by someone pretending to consider the residents. to just kind of make it like they were being fair in their statements to both sides. There's no consideration here. The residents do not have a specific date that is difficult for them. They have never once said that.

So your thought is to leave it at January 1st?

Actually, as I was saying, functionally, that's what the ordinance says now. So I don't think we need the no later than language.

Anything else on that issue? I think the point around the CAPEX wasn't, I think that the current definition has the items that were brought up about the CAPEX. I think that the issue was the exclusions from what's in CAPEX. I CERTAINLY WOULDN'T PROPOSE CHANGING THE CURRENT DEFINITION. IS THERE ANYONE ON THE COUNCIL THAT THINKS THAT THE EXCLUSIONS ON CAPEX SHOULD BE CHANGED?

I'M SORRY, WHAT IS IT YOU'RE ASKING?

SO ON PAGE 1 IN THE DEFINITIONS OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT, I THINK THAT THERE WAS A COUPLE POINTS MADE, BUT I THINK THE FIRST PARAGRAPH COVERS THE ISSUE THAT the capital improvement extends the life of the park or its infrastructure and it increases the value of functionality of the park or adds a new amenity of facility takes care of the first issue. That's in our current proposed language. I think the second point had to do with the exclusions about what's You know, it's not a capital improvement if they don't perform timely and adequate maintenance. And so I guess my question is, under our definition in the second paragraph, is there any thought to modify that?

My thought is that needs to stay. What routine maintenance excludes needs to stay because it closes the loophole for the landlord to put extra expenses in there.

Manager, you were taking notes as well. Are there any major policy items that I...

I think the first four or five items, I think, have been covered. I think, Councilor Calhoun, you had requested data on the sales within the mobile home parks.

I think we'll do that.

I think we'll do it for probably three years. I think that would be a decent amount. We'll look at all sales within the three parks. also Duvall, the posting of the rates. That's not a city ordinance. We have nothing in the city ordinance. It's a state statute regarding hotel rooms, those kind of things. So there's no other requirement in the mobile home park language. Regarding terms of rental agreements, I think the state statute outlines pretty well in Title 10, 1997, all the items within the terms of rental agreements and the section regarding retaliation. for eviction, it's spelled out very well in the state statute, and as well as language if there is no lease or an at-will tenants governed by Title 14, Section 602. I think that covered the rest of the items.

Mr. Mayor, just for, I know we're running out of time, that I think there was, we just talked about the capital improvement, and I think there was a comment that it might be vague to say owner's failure to perform timely and adequate maintenance. I would just ask if that's standard language or if that's something that our legal could provide advice on.

So I understand the point that was raised. The manager and I met with legal about this language and they have indicated that they are comfortable and that they understand the standard that they would communicate to the board that they would use and they would feel that they would be able to defend the city's actions under these definitions. Great, thank you. Councilor Randall.

Are we scheduled to have another workshop? Because I didn't get to the rest of my concerns.

Yes. Well, I think that the idea tonight was we'd see how far we got. Well, we didn't get to the end, so we'll have this again on the agenda for 20th? Yeah, July 20th. Anything further on this for tonight?

I am working that agenda up currently. So we've had some items in there. So the question would be, you know, do we need a full workshop or we've got a couple more items that we think that we can cover?

I have a few. So I don't know if we'll need a whole workshop or not.

I'll meet with Council Randall and I'll talk with you about the schedule. Anything else? The workshop will be adjourned, and we'll take a couple-minute break here and then reconvene for the regular meetings. The July 6, 2026 Auburn City Council meeting will be called to order. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance 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 city councilors introduce themselves, starting with Councillor Geary.

Thank you a good evening. I'm Belinda Gary city Councilor at large.

Good evening, Rachel Randall Ward 2 1 Ward 1.

She really wants to come back toward to go good evening, Tim Cowan City Council for Ward 2.

Good evening. Matthew of all city Councilor Ward 3. Jeff Harmon mayor.

Good evening, Kelly Butler, ward four, city council.

Good evening, Leroy Walker, councilor of ward five.

Good evening, Adam Platt, city councilor at large.

Good evening, Brennan Edwards, student representative.

Good evening, Phil Kroll, city manager.

Thank you. The first item on tonight's agenda is the consent agenda. There are four items. I'd note for the public that's following the agenda that item number one, order 5907062026 has been removed from the consent agenda for this evening. Of the other four items, there are nominations from the Appointment Committee for Sally Gagnon to the A.E. Trenly Community Committee. asset forfeiture in the amount of eight hundred and sixty eight dollars to the police department from the main criminal courts and the slate of nominees for the 2027 vice president executive committee for the Maine Municipal Association and And lastly, confirming chief Mullins appointment of Sean O'Donnell, Jr. And Darien Jimeno as constables with firearms. Is there a motion?

Motion to move. Second.

Moved by Councilor Walker, seconded by Councilor Geary. Vote will be by show of hands. All those in favor? The motion is adopted. We'll move on to the approval of the minutes for the June 15th, 2026 regular city council meeting. Are there any errors or omissions? Council Duvall.

Just one note on item ordinance 1206152026. In the vote tally, there's one L in my name where there should be two.

Any other corrections? Is there a motion to approve the minutes as amended?

Motion to approve.

Moved by Council Walker. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Council Cowan. Vote be by show of hands. All those in favor? The minutes are adopted. We'll move on to communications, presentations, and recognitions. This evening we will be presenting a Spirit of America tribute presentation. This is an annual award that the city provides. I would ask Mary Bunnell if you could come forward. So our community is filled with truly exceptional people. Each year, Auburn joins more than 100 Maine municipalities in presenting the Spirit of America tribute to recognize outstanding community volunteers. Maine's first Spirit of America Foundation tribute was awarded in 1991, and Auburn proudly joined this tradition in 2018. This evening, we're honored to celebrate someone whose passion for working dogs is nothing short of inspiring. Auburn resident, Mary Bunnell, launched her nonprofit, Coins for Canines, in 2021. Since then, Mary has tirelessly raised funds throughout the year to purchase vital equipment for local law enforcement canines and their handlers, items that municipal budgets do not always cover. These contributions include critically important canine medical kits, training bite suits, personal safety lights, ballistic vests, and much more. On behalf of the City of Auburn, the Auburn Police Department, canine handlers across the region, and this grateful community, it's my honor to present Mary Bunnell and Coins for Canine with Auburn's 2025 Spirit of America tribute. Thank you very much. We'll move on to the first open session of the evening. If there's any member 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.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and honorable members of the City Council. My name is John Cleveland. I still reside at 183 Davis Avenue in Auburn, Maine. I just wanted to take a moment tonight to talk about the primary election. I WASN'T HERE AT A PREVIOUS MEETING. BUT I WANTED TO COMMEND CITY CLERK EMILY AND HER TEAM AND ALL THE CITIZENS WHO PARTICIPATE IN THAT VERY IMPORTANT ACTIVITY IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. THE ELECTION WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH. ANYBODY WHO WAS ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED AND WANTED TO VOTE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO VOTE. PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITY BOTH PRESENT AND BY ABSENTEE WAS PROVIDED TO THEM. AND ALSO TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE AND FRANKLY THE 50 YEARS THAT I'VE BEEN VOTING IN THIS COMMUNITY, WE NEVER HAD AN INCIDENT WHERE THERE WAS ANY kind of real significance of anybody who was not eligible to vote to vote because the system is so well orderly and constructed that only those who are allowed an eligible vote get to vote. Never been an issue in the community. And also all of the citizen volunteers that help with this. This is not only important because of the excellent administrative work we do here, but it's important because elections and democracies happen at the local level everywhere in this country, including in Auburn. And democracy is the most essential part of what we do so that all citizens can be confident that a fair, accurate election went forward and the individuals who received the most votes were the ones who were elected. And it's so important that that happens locally and we do a fantastic job and I just wanted to recognize that for a moment. Thank you.

Thank you. If there's any other member of the community that would like to address the council, please approach the podium, provide your name and address.

Good evening, mayor and city councilors. My name is Paul Witten. I live at 103 Harvard Street in Auburn. Thank you for the opportunity to talk tonight. Our community is facing consequences we just can't ignore anymore, the safe syringe programs. They were created with compassion and with the intention to reduce harm. I understand that they are often described as evidence-based practice with no harm model. Excuse me, sir.

Are you intending to speak on the syringe service program? Yes. Yeah, so that'll be later on the agenda. This is open session for items that, sorry for the confusion, but you'll have an opportunity to come back up in a few minutes. Is there anyone that would like to speak on items not on tonight's agenda? If so, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Not seeing any of the open sessions close will move on to unfinished business. The first item is ordinance 1206152026 amending chapter 14 business licenses and permits of the city's code of ordinances to adopt regulations regarding syringe service programs. This will be for second reading and public hearing. The counselors will take note that there's a proposed amendment in the packet, so the way we'll proceed is we'll take a motion to put the ordinance on the table from the last meeting. We'll then entertain a motion for the amendment, and once we resolve that, then we'll open the public hearing. Is there a motion? So moved. So Councillor Cowan has moved the original item on the table. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councillor Duvall. Is there a motion relative to the amendment? Councillor Cowan.

Thanks Mister mayor. I move to amend section 4 H and section 8 F of the draft article as shown in the draft in our packets to align the background check requirements with the existing city standards and industry practices. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councillor Duvall. Is there discussion by the council? So it was background on this for the council. After the first reading, the manager and I got feedback from the staff and the service providers regarding the specific language in here. I guess I'll give you the feedback in two pieces. 24H currently This provision applies to the business license and it's limited to staff that would not be operating in any way in the city of Auburn. The inclusion of the prescriptive standard is not in alignment with Section 1433, which is a standard that's applied to all business licenses in the city. So this amendment is just aligning the business license portion with section 1433, which does include criminal background checks, and it does include a review by the chief of police. The other item is in section 8F, And here, this removes the prescriptive standard. A number of issues were pointed out around this. I'll provide a couple examples that the service providers mentioned. One was around possession of hypodermic apparatus. within the look-back period, someone that had been convicted of possession of hypodermic apparatus would be prohibited. That was decriminalized by the legislature. They did not expunge the prior convictions. Those of you may remember the two instances when they went from a felony to a misdemeanor and then a misdemeanor to a civil infraction on marijuana, when they did something similar, the legislature expunged the prior criminal history. So, in effect, you would be potentially eliminating someone who is—had engaged in conduct that, while it might have been a violation at the time, is no longer a violation. And the other one is regarding that they found problematic is possession of some type of narcotic for personal use, which might have not risen to the amount that would trigger a trafficking charge, but was still an offense. And typically, There are people that earlier on, and I know some members of the council are familiar with the example, some people that work in options that fall in this category that in the past had been substance abuse, people with substance abuse disorder that had used opioids but had successfully transitioned through a treatment program and those people would be eliminated. The other thing I would point out is that these background checks are for a non-criminal justice purpose. Typically, these prescriptive standards like we had in the ordinance are what you see in an ordinance related to background checks for criminal justice purpose. And the standard of review that's being substituted here is in alignment with what you would see in the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Equal Opportunity Employment Act for how a background including criminal history is handled in the screening process. So questions or comments from the council? Council, ready for the question? So on the motion to amend, the vote will be by show of hands. All those in favor? Opposed? Seven having voted in the affirmative and nine in the negative. The motion is adopted. We'll move on now to open the public hearing on this item. If there's members of the public that would like to address the council on the syringe service program, I know there's at least one gentleman. Please approach the podium and provide your name and address.

Hi. My name's Kathleen Light, 143 Mill Street. I was asked by many to speak tonight because I have a voice. In recent months, I have met a lot of unfortunate homeless individuals. from different cities and beyond drawn here by our resource centers. I spent 12 years building trust with the local homeless individuals, being a recovering addict myself, now 14 beautiful years clean from alcohol and prescription opioids. With so many new arrivals, I hardly recognize them as I used to. out of fear for my safety i no longer walk up in streets talking with them not all dangerous i have met a lot of kind souls i've seen addicts cry wishing for my strength to end their suffering um desperate they are so sick physically mentally from heroin fentanyl just wanting to feel normal even if it kills them yeah Sad. On Wednesday, June 24th, 2026 a.m., when the drop-in center was open, I and others witnessed a 911 overdose and others on the grass at 121 Mill Street in zombie-like states. It was complete chaos and heartbreaking to witness. If your programs worked, why do you keep adding more? Why do we see more addiction, more homeless, more mental health crisis, more overdoses, more needles, more illnesses? I along with other residents at the senior housing complex just 30 feet from the drop-in center see the impact on Wednesdays and Saturdays, people so high they barely can walk, standing in zombie-like stakes, frequent overdoses, and those with mental illnesses screaming and fighting in the parking lot and the grass. Adding a needle exchange program will only worsen the chaos for all Auburn residents, making the situation even more unstable and adding more hassle for our city responders. No one wants to see people cold, hungry, but if you open a resource center, instead of just sharing guest numbers and overdoses on your Facebook page, show us long-term recovery. People healthy in apartments, building lights, putting people in those empty chairs, showing us that these programs really work. That's it. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council, Mayor Harmon, Quentin Chapman, 51 Eastman Lane. The reason why it's growing is because there's no incentive to make it better. So if we give out 200,000 needles and we run out of needles, if I'm a business that's giving away needles, we get incentives to give out more needles. Here's more money to buy more needles. Here's more needles to hand them out. But if you reduce the number of people using those needles and get them to be productive parts of society, where is the incentive there? There is none. They don't get rewarded for that. So why would I, as a nonprofit, try to encourage people to get off drugs? I know it happens from time to time, but there isn't a big push for it. I'm super disappointed we're here now and the comments were made that, oh, our hands are tied, legislation is what it is. Well, that's not necessarily true. You could easily impose a moratorium, extend the one you had. You could do it up to 12 months, and in 12 months revisit it and extend it again. Problem solved. Not solved, but further down the road, a little better than we were, or what we're facing right now. This is a bad idea across the board. And then I've also heard it said that I've been, now I didn't hear it myself, but I was told, Mayor Harmon, that you went for a walk and didn't see any needles. I would invite you to take a walk with me tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. I'll meet you anywhere you want. I found them from the start of Washington Street by International Paper all the way up to the dam on Broad Street. I then went South Main Street all the way back to Rupert's Lighthouse Liquor and down below. Needles everywhere. I can find them, and I can find camps, homeless camps. I took pictures of them. And at a meeting you were at with me, A police officer said that they didn't exist, that it wasn't there. They are there. I can take you there tomorrow. And then city services, public works, I'm assuming, goes down. Bonnie Park cleans out the big rubbish, right? And this is me assuming, takes a leaf blower. And so now you go down there and there's vacant dirt plots where the tents used to be. And if you pay attention and you look, you can see them sticking up everywhere, needles, all the way down to the river, all the way all around. And you wonder why when I first, when I retired from the Army, I had a house before then here in Auburn, retired from the Army in 2014. It was all drunks down in that park. They were pretty harmless. And now it's all junkies, and it's all needles. Kids used to go fishing down there. Kids don't go fishing down there. There's a couple of places over here by the dam on Washington Street side that are beautiful, picturesque. I mean, beautiful, but you can't go there. It's full of Narcan, trash, needles, and camps, tarp camps that don't exist. The more you invite here, the more you have. It's just that simple. How do you invite them? You offer them freebies. Again, as I said last city council meeting, I understand feeding somebody. We came to that conclusion a long time ago. Somebody needs a sandwich, you give them a sandwich. You want to help them kill themselves? It's not on me. It's on you. And I can't believe you guys would be for it. Thanks for your time.

Hi, my name's Tom Campbell, one Fairview Court in Auburn. This is my first time to city council. I felt this is pretty important. I'm retired Air Force, retired Air National Guard in Maine. And I am shocked that we are trying to do something that has been proven in the state of Maine, looking at Portland, Bangor, Augusta, Sanford, all over the state of Maine. You see this program has failed, has miserably failed all over this state. Why would we even consider bringing this to Auburn? We see it across the river in Lewiston. How many people do you see in a comatose state standing there, slumped over, whatever they are? You drive through downtown Lewiston, you used to see people walking around. What you see now is homeless and drug addicts. And I actually saw an open air drug deal on the corner of Lisbon Street and Main Street just this weekend. Is that what we really want here in the city? I don't understand what would possess people, and for me personally, my own personal opinion is each and every one of you is criminally and civilly responsible for every drug overdose that we have in the city. Because we are, chief, excuse me, former chief. I appreciate your service, and I appreciate the service of every one of our law enforcement, our firefighters, our EMTs. My eldest daughter is an advanced EMT. She sees this on a day-to-day basis, the drug use. And it's killing people. And they say they're saving people by having HIV prevention. Show me the facts. that a drug addict is taking and looking at a needle and going, wow, this is clean, or this is dirty, or they don't give any care at all to it. I was going to swear, but I'm trying to really be good here. I just don't understand it. I don't understand how we can even consider it. It's an illegal act. It's illegal drugs. And we are now providing the paraphernalia to, or talking about, providing the paraphernalia for an illegal activity. I just, I hope you guys say, stop, no. And if you decide you have to push forward, do a 10 to 1. You drop off 10, you get one back, but you're mandatory to go to rehab. Thank you very much.

Stephen Beale, 575 Johnson Road. At the last time this matter was before the council for the first hearing, I spoke about the aspect of the program, which is not, as some have alleged, to promote drug use, but rather to preserve lives. Because if people are using dirty needles or infected needles, there's a substantial chance that they will kill themselves by such use. The Clean Needle Program preserves lives. And on the other hand, it does not reduce in and of itself drug use, as prior speakers have stated. That's true. But the second aspect of this program is that by providing free needles, you give the drug user the opportunity to get something for free that he's going to pay for otherwise, he or she. And if you have a chance, a choice between buying a product that you use every day or getting it for free, you're going to go to the source that provides the product for free. Those people, as has been made amply clear in prior workshops, are experienced in dealing with drug use people and weaning some of them, certainly not all of them, but some of them off drugs. And you heard a lady speak at the last workshop in that regard. So there's the opportunity that the program presents, is to salvage at least some of these lives by interacting with people who have experience in inducing people off drug use. Unlike the prior speaker, I don't believe we can mandate nor should we, that they have to agree to get off drugs in order to get free needles. But by inducing them, by working with them, by presenting ideas and concepts toward a new and different lifestyle, there will be at least some of them who will come off drug use. And that was evidenced by the speakers in the workshop. so i think the program has a good dual purpose and the second part of it is equally as important as the as the first and it ordinance should be adopted for those reasons thank you hey let's try this again

Paul Whitten, 103 Harvard Street in Auburn. Yeah, so our community's facing consequences we can no longer ignore. Safe syringe programs were created with compassion and with the intention of reducing harm. And I understand that they're often described as an evidence-based, within a no harm model. Evidence-based practices are expected to produce consistent results over time based on the rigor of the research and the reliability of the outcomes. However, I believe that in the coming years, this practice is not going to be viewed as strongly as it is today. We're already seeing evidence in our communities. I work in Portland. It's almost unrecognizable down there now. When I go to work, actually, my guys and I have to kick needles out of the way to get into our building. So other main cities have experienced unintended consequences with the safe syringe programs. In Bangor, there have been more than 40 new HIV cases in the last three years, a dramatic rise from their one to two cases in the previous years. In the Portland area, there's five new HIV cases in the single year, when historically there's usually only one. These numbers are not abstract. They represent neighbors, families, and lives that are being changed forever. So we've got to worry about rising localized crime, more lawyering and public substance use, increased panhandling, a decline in neighborhood safety, and less comfort for residents in parks or sidewalks and near places where children should feel safe. We actually walked our neighborhood. There's a little path the other day just to see what was there. And luckily, there was nothing in our neighborhood, but I know it's everywhere. So we all know the saying, if you build it, they will come. My concern is that if a safe syringe program operates in Auburn, it's going to draw more people struggling with substance abuse into our area, along with the related challenges that other communities are seeing. These programs can also be unintentionally, they can unintentionally enable continued substance use by reducing the pressure that might otherwise lead someone to seek help. Instead of helping people reach a turning point, we risk patting the bottom and prolonging their suffering. In our deep empathy, we could actually end up loving people to death. Compassion should never mean enabling harm. Today, Auburn has an opportunity to take a stand. We can be the first municipality to say, no, not here, and set a precedent that maybe others could follow, not out of cruelty, but out of courage and a desire to build something better. Auburn's motto, loosely translated, is no steps back. So let's step forward in the right direction. I honestly think the safe syringe program is not that direction.

Mayor Harburn, Auburn City Council. My name is Audrey Murphy, and I'm a resident of Auburn. Our city is at a critical junction. The ordinance laid out pages and pages of restrictions of inspections, background checks, setback requirements, cleanup mandates, and safety rules for syringe service programs. And I want to be very clear. The sheer volume of these requirements proves what we all know. Syringe service programs are not safe, not compatible with our neighborhoods, and not something Auburn should ever allow. Look at what the ordinance acknowledges. Needle waste sweeps away within 250 feet of every site. That alone tells the city that it expects needle litter. It requires sharp containers at every location because the city expects dangerous waste. It requires strict hours because the city expects problems after dark. It requires criminal background checks and banned staff with serious drug or violent convictions because the city expects risks. It prohibits drug injection near the site because the city expects drug activity. It mandates constant inspections, reporting, and compliance checks because the city expects violations. These are not the hallmark of a safe program. These are warnings. And this is exactly why Auburn must be proactive and not reactive. We should not wait for needle litter to appear in our parks, or for drug activity to increase near a licensed site, or for a tragedy like the one in Lewiston where former City Council Ren Sol was stabbed by a discarded needle to happen here. If a program requires this level of control to function, the danger is already clear. The responsible choice is to prevent the problem entirely, not attempt to manage it after it arrives. Prohibition is the proactive path that Auburn needs to protect itself before harm occurs. Safety, drug activity, and needle waste. We've seen what's happened in Lewiston. Auburn does not want to become a Lewison. We do not want needles in our parks, our trails, and our business districts, and anywhere near our homes or schools. And while this ordinance tries to regulate SSPs, it will still allow them. It assumes that with enough rules, enough inspections, enough cleanup, enough background checks, enough restrictions, these programs can be made safe. But they cannot. If a program requires this level of control to function, it is not compatible with Auburn. No amount of regulation can make a needle distribution site safe for our families, our neighborhood and our future. We should be investing in treatment, recovery housing, mental health services and long-term solutions. not enabling drug use by distributing syringes. Auburn's focus should be on helping people get better, not help them to continue using. Tonight, I urge you to take the only position that truly protects Auburn. Prohibit the syringe service programs entirely. Not two licenses, not one license, none, no license. Auburn is strong, proud community, and we have every right and every responsibility to keep it safe. Please reject any attempt to license or operate SSPs in our city. Our neighborhoods, our family, and our future depends on it. And I, like others around here, I have been witness to the zombie people in our neighborhoods. We do not want that. Let's be proactive. Please, do not pass this for our city, our children, and our future depends on it. Thank you.

Hi, Kristen Chapman. I live on 51 Eastman Lane. I was once told that dogs attract dogs. What does that mean? Well, I live on the outskirts of Auburn, and this is my story. One evening, while being in my backyard with company, all of a sudden a drug addict appeared. I didn't know even what was happening at first. This woman was strung out high as all can be. I called 911. Two officers came to our house and an ambulance came. It took four men to try to get this woman into the ambulance where she refused. After she was already done destroying my backyard, my garden, trying to get in my chicken coop and every other thing that I was terrified. Don't think that this is not going to happen to anywhere that you live either. The more drugs that come into this town, the more drug addicts we have. So even if you think that it's only going to be on the inner part of the city, on the river, or wherever, they show up. So you think that you should be safe at your house no matter where you live. But the more that you give these needles to people, the more that they're going to let everyone else know this. And then they get here. Then what? This happened months ago. I remember telling my class and my students about it. Hey, Mrs. Chapman, how was your weekend? I'm like, well, let me tell you a little story what happened to me. Some of these kids shared their stories of how they see drug addicts. Do you think that they should be telling these kinds of stories? So now you're going to say, OK, here you go. We're going to pass the syringe service for you kids. Have fun. That's on you. This is a choice that you guys are going to make. And these are the stories I get to hear after. So take that into consideration. Thank you.

Hi, Jeffrey Wilkins, 33 Lafayette Street. Thank you for taking the time tonight. A couple things, been some really good points and comments. I won't reiterate them. I agree with what most of the people are saying. A couple of things, though, that are not being talked about enough are the studies that keep getting banded about. The studies are very old, especially in terms of drug use. Most of the studies are pre-2020. Almost all of them, if you look at them, they're a needle exchange of one to one. And most of them are tightly coupled with addiction therapies and treatments and programs for those addicts to be in. In that situation, yeah, you're going to see very positive results as are crawling across the board. However, somebody who also has worked into Portland until very recently, I can tell you the needle waste is insane. And you're lying to yourself if you don't think it's going to happen here. I parked in a parking garage for 15, 20 years right off of Congress Street. 511 Congress Street was our office until we just closed it recently. And I can tell you, once COVID hit and Maine switched to the 100 to 1 ratio, needles were everywhere. I would park in the morning at 8 AM. There would be 20 or 30 needles in the stairwell. That was every day I went into the office. That's what I had. So I want to be very clear. When we talk about evidence and facts and studies, those aren't really applicable here. A couple of the big ones are out of Maryland, some of the larger cities. and there's millions of dollars that go into the cleanup of all that. And if we're giving into this business, we're going to be spending a lot of money in the next 10, 15 years. You can look at Portland. They're starting to do a needle buyback program, which is ridiculous now. Lewiston's been an abject failure in terms of theirs. I believe the guy that was running it over there OD'd after all the assurances that they weren't using on-premise and blah, blah, blah. So I just want to be very clear. I think this is a bad idea. It should be put on moratorium. It's frankly foolish to think otherwise. Thank you.

All right. If I speak, I'm from across the bridge. OK.

Any member of the public.

Okay, so Erin Sol, and I'm from Lewiston. And I just wanted to come out and speak to you tonight about what's happening across the bridge. I'm sure you've all heard, it's a disaster. They call it harm reduction, and that can't be further from the, it's not. It's not even harm reduction for the user any longer. It is destroying our economy. It's discouraging the public from coming out and enjoying our parks. When you're not requiring individuals to bring back their dirty syringes, they're gonna end up on the ground. You're expecting individuals that are in deep, deep addiction to make reasonable choices, and it's just not gonna happen. So Lewiston right now is in the process of, tomorrow night they're going to be talking about the amendment to the needle ordinance that I brought forward to the council. one for 100 is completely unacceptable one for 10 is unacceptable they need to be bringing those syringes back or you need to vote no on this program i keep hearing that this program is responsible for ods being down that's not true the ods are still happening they're just being given narcan so that they can be brought back out of that. So when you have a government program that's handing out paraphernalia to use illegal lethal drugs, and they follow up with a Narcan, what's that telling you? This is what we're teaching our kids. So I'm just here to really hopefully encourage you all to vote this down. You will regret it, especially two. So I hope that you can just maybe come across the bridge, take a look at what's happening, and maybe make a better choice. So thank you for letting me speak.

Good evening. I'm Beth Bell, and I live at 86 Nottingham Road in Auburn. Been here for 25 years. I don't need a lot of words to say what I have to say. I'm a taxpayer. I don't want my money spent this way. Do better. This is common sense. I can't even believe where we're going. This is just another program. Programs cost money, all the side expenses involved on top of that. So I don't care what this program is. I'm against this program 100%. Stop acting entitled to the taxpayer, me. These people pay their taxes, they're responsible citizens, and it's a free-for-all spending our money. So that's another whole topic for probably every meeting. Stop spending our money so foolishly. And what about if my grandkid goes out and gets a needle stab and gets something from a needle? What about the people that are responsible paying taxes? Where's the common sense? Do better. Just stop.

Hi, my name is Leslie Gary. I live at 38 Flanders Street. I've never been to a city council meeting before either, but this brought me here. It's ridiculous. A, I don't think we should be giving people the needles if it's anything less than a one-to-one exchange is wrong. We know there's needles waste everywhere. That's one of the big issues, and we're going to give them way more needles so they can throw them on the ground and not take care of them. Make them, bring them back. They don't bring them, they don't get any more. And doesn't giving people needles bring drugs into the city so that our police department has to fight more drugs being brought into our city? They need something to put in their needles. So somebody's selling drugs, so somebody's going to bring more drugs into our city. So there's something to put in those needles. Makes no sense. We need to be safer. I don't like to go to Lewiston anymore. I'm worried. A, I'm going to get shot. B, walk around, go down to eat on Lisbon Street. No, it's not safe. I don't want that to be for my city. My city's supposed to be safe. It's supposed to be a good place to live, and it is. But if we do this, it's not. It's just harming anything that we have in this city. We don't need to have drug addicts. We need people that want to live and have a good life. We don't need to invite people that want to do drugs. Thank you.

Hi, Steve Milks, 82 Alderwood Road. Again, I'm here to speak against this ordinance. A couple of things I just want to clarify regarding the ordinance, that this is for two brick and mortar locations. And as was spoken before, with 250 feet restrictions and everything else. And I want to address that that's going to create incentive for businesses that are in the needle industry. There's businesses that are doing this to come here and hang a shingle off of these locations. As opposed to the example that was given in the last meeting of an 18-year-old kid going out and just giving away needles or selling needles or whatever. It doesn't happen today, even though it could, because there's no incentive. There's no money to be made doing that. And nobody, excuse me, I talk with my hands. There's nobody that wants more drug addicts here. So no one is going out and doing it and giving away needles to just go and do it. No one's buying them. There's no incentive. But now when we put two brick and mortar locations up that people can go out and get grants to put their business here, we're creating an incentive to bring them here where there was no incentive. The other thing, just a couple other things that very concern me about the ordinance. Kids can't drink till they're 21. But this ordinance is going to allow us to give needles to kids that are 18. That's ridiculous. And so we're going to put, and that's not counting the third location, which is a mobile delivery. And are we going to have people go to apartment buildings and deliver needles? Call up Needles R Us and deliver? What about the people that live next door in the neighborhoods? What about the people in the apartment building that are trying to work and live? And we're going to have needle delivery programs into these apartment buildings? The kids that live there? Whose house are we going to put these programs next to? Whose neighborhood? Are you guys going to volunteer to have these next to your house? Because I'm guessing it's going to be downtown, down near Belinda's house, probably down there, right? Whose house? Because I don't want it next to mine. Everybody knows why they don't want it next to theirs. Whose house is going to, who's volunteering to put them up next to their house? So the last thing I'm going to say is if you put nice words and you call something that's evil good words, it doesn't make it less evil. Giving people tools of their destruction is evil. You're inviting evil into your society, and it's wrong. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Herman and Auburn City Council. My name is Laurel Libby, and I'm a resident of Auburn. And I don't really know what I could say that hasn't already been said very eloquently by the folks who have preceded me up here to speak to this. It is a little bit shocking to me that here in Auburn, I as a mom, as a resident of Auburn, need to come and speak against this program, which whatever we've heard regarding Maine law requiring an ordinance, Maine law does not require that we allow a 1 to 100 needle exchange. So just to be clear on that, Auburn, if it passes an ordinance that would allow up to that, is stepping way outside the bounds of what needs to be passed according to state law. I am thrilled to see so many Mainers attending their first city council meeting tonight. Bravo, city council. This ordinance is bringing folks out to speak up against this ordinance. You wonder maybe what it takes to drive people to take action and to speak up when maybe they're not watching what's going on politically every day of the week. Well, you know what? A needle exchange, putting our kids at risk in the streets, sidewalks, and parks of Auburn, that will turn people out. And most people haven't even heard about this proposed ordinance yet. And yet, this is the turnout that we get from just the folks that are plugged in. Wait until you hold a vote and it makes the press. You know, I've been serving in the legislature. I'm not here representing myself as a representative, just as a mom and Auburn resident, but I know what it looks like to hear from constituents when they care about an issue. And most of the time folks don't necessarily reach out. You know, if I hear from two constituents on a bill, I go, whoa, people are really fired up. You should listen to your constituents because this is what it looks like when they speak up. And we do not want this ordinance in our town. We've seen the results in Bangor. We've seen the results in Portland. We've seen the results right next door in Lewiston. Were any of you shocked to read the newspaper article about human feces being found on a Maine newcomer's porch recently? Do we want human feces on our porches in Auburn? Let's learn from the mistakes that other municipalities have made and hard pass on a needle exchange like this. We are seeing an increase in HIV, not a decrease. Maine citizens Auburn citizens, we want clean, safe streets and parks. We do not want more work for our law enforcement. We do not want more people coming to our city to engage in illegal activities. And that is exactly what will happen if this ordinance is passed. So I'm just wondering. And this is, of course, a rhetorical question. I don't expect an answer. But I am wondering how many of you got phone calls from your constituents asking you to pass this ordinance? Because I don't think that you did. And I don't think that this passes the straight face test as something that Auburn citizens want. We do not. Do not pass it tonight. Continue the moratorium.

If there's any other member of the public that would like to address the council on this item, please approach the podium and provide your name and address. Not seeing any, the public hearing is closed. Discussion by the council? Councilor Randall.

So I was under the impression that this ordinance was going to require exchange. And what I've heard tonight is that we're not exchanging, is that correct?

Well, despite what some of the speakers said, the city, in this ordinance, does not set any limits. So 1 to 100 is not an exchange rate. It's a cap. It's set by the state. In fact, the two representatives in the audience were in the chamber when the 132nd took this item up. And voting's out. I recognize that, thank you. But the legislature reviewed this and decided not to amend the statutory guidance, which is now in the CDC rules of 1 to 100. And if you'll recall from the treatment providers, it's not treated as an exchange rate. I don't have the numbers in front of me. We could go back to the prior workshops. The vast majority of the needles are returned. the local service provider of course no one's going to expect all of them are there's lots of other disposal methods available and I think it's true to say is as Representative Chapman pointed out especially in encampments you'll see Needles but the service providers are look at everybody on a one-to-one basis they don't automatically give them a hundred needles they give them the number that they feel is appropriate and it's often less than a hundred so it's not an exchange rate it's a cap uh... my question wasn't about the rate it was is it an exchange if they bring back five can they get five if they bring back zero can they get any they can bring they can bring back three hundred and they can get a hundred As a cap, and it might be less. That's not my question. I understand. If they provide less, they can get up to 100 needles. It's not an exchange rate.

Do they need to exchange any to get any?

They don't, and that was the change in the rules, and that was reaffirmed by the legislature in this past session.

So the legislature says that we don't have to have an exchange, that we can just give them the needles without getting any back?

If I hear comments from the audience, I'm going to ask you to leave. It's not appropriate to be giving commentary from the audience. You had your chance to speak. This is the time for the council to discuss this. The answer to that is that they evaluate each case, and they provide them the number of needles that they think are appropriate, regardless of what they bring or not. But if you recall from the service provider's presentation, most people return needles, and the vast majority of the needles that they give out are returned.

So a vast majority have returned, however, they don't need to return any to be able to receive any?

Correct.

Thank you.

Other comments from the council?

I'll make a similar comment. Well, first, I want to thank everyone who's spoken. It is very clear this is an issue that brings out our taxpayers. It's exactly the way I got involved with municipal government, showing up to speak with something I was pretty pissed off about. So I understand why you guys are here, and I thank you for speaking. um there are a lot of points brought up today there's a lot i agree with a lot i disagree with i i don't think that these needle exchange programs create more drug addicts i'm not an expert unfortunately i think these drug addicts exist my issue is with is with litter so there is some common ground here my issue is the increased amounts of litter it continues to be there are anecdotes of people not finding it i i've got several properties in lewiston i find them all the time I have been vocally on the record right in the middle on this. I do acknowledge the need for getting people into the SSPs. I think it's one of the best tools we have to get people connected to resources and give them any chance to get back on their feet. That said, I continue to have extreme issues with the zero to 100, with the 100 cap. I know this is kind of last minute. I'm inclined to be open to a discussion, but I am feeling like I can't support this, and that's different than every other vote I've taken thus far. I'm not looking for participation. if if there is another outbreak in the audience we'll clear the chamber this is inappropriate it's a violation of the rules i'm i'm not looking for feedback i'm not looking for applause i don't care if you guys like me or not i'm just telling you how i feel so so please please hold it together um this isn't to say i don't support an ordinance this isn't to say I don't agree that we just shouldn't be giving out needles. There are health professionals that say clean needles save lives. I don't believe that they're all wrong, but I'm concerned with litter. I'm concerned with finding needles in our parks. I do find them in Lewiston. I set up an event on Samardpane Park last week, beautiful event. I found one. It wasn't a lot, but it was one. I don't necessarily want that for Auburn. At this moment in time, I'd love to continue talking about this. I could be convinced one way or the other. This is where I stand in this second. you know that said i i would i'm willing to make an amendment for a continued moratorium i i think it's probably short-sighted to make any amendments altering the language of the ordinance and i'm also open to voting against it but i just wanted to put that on the table council random

I also agree. I agree with a lot of points that were brought up today. Again, as Adam has said, I'm not an expert in the field. However, you don't hand the keys to someone who's been drinking, and I feel like I can't hand needles to someone who's going to be ill, and I don't support this.

Other questions or comments? Council Walker.

Thank you. Well, I like what I'm hearing tonight because I've been against this from the start. And I'll tell you the big reason why I'm against it is because I do find feces. I could bring the owner of the business of New Auburn in here and he would stand up and tell you he has to clean it off his backyard. There's no need of it. We can't throw them in the river. We can't shoot them. We can't do any of that. But we've got to put up with them, but we don't have to help them to do even more. And the other thing, needles are found all over the two cities. we don't need more needles we need less needles so i say we can tell augusta if they can't wake up maybe they ought to go and move into massachusetts and then maybe we can have somebody smarter than the people that we've elected to protect our people because 18 year olds that are messed up are giving their 16 year old buddy the same needle that they got It is ridiculous that this has to go on in our city, but we cannot allow this to come in here and start even feeding more people.

Councillor Randall.

I have to go on record as not agreeing with that type of rhetoric. However, I still stand that I can't vote for this.

Councillor Geary.

Thank you Mister mayor, I too have been against this I don't think it's right. I think it's giving more booze to a person that's addicted and and I will not be supporting this.

I just have a question I'm not 100% percent sure the answer to if we don't pass this then what.

Syringe service programs are currently authorized by state law. If under limited circumstances, they're regulated. So hypodermic, possession of hypodermic apparatus, distribution of hypodermic apparatus is legal. You can go into any drug store and buy them. You can go on Amazon and you can have them delivered to your house the next day. That's the current situation. The statute authorizes the SSP program, and if they get certified through the state, they must comply with the CDC rules that the council has had. If someone wants to uh... engage in a syringe service program regardless of where they get the money. I think one of the speakers said they could get a grant. You could go get a grant today and do unregulated needle exchange. You only have to follow the CDC guidelines, the main CDC guidelines, if you become certified with the CDC. So if we don't pass some type of an ordinance, unregulated needle exchange will continue on. A certified provider wants to operate in Auburn, they're free to do so. All they got to do is certify with the state. But the additional regulation that we have in this ordinance won't be applicable if we don't pass an ordinance. So there's been discussion about continuing the moratorium. That's not been the practice in the city of Auburn. We engage in moratoriums to prohibit certain activity during the period of time that we are discussing a regulatory ordinance. Once that's over, the moratorium would expire. The council could decide to dramatically change that manner in which the city is operated But that change would not be limited to SSP programs. You'd be setting a policy that you could, without taking action on regulating something, prohibit it. There's also been discussion that the council could just prohibit needle exchange in Auburn. But you remember when legal counsel was here, and um legal counsel's advice was that um it would we would be unlikely to prevail by prohibiting something that's explicitly permitted by the state counselor that was that was our legal um opinion correct our city's attorney legal opinion i'm sure there are attorneys out there that have other opinions also so we've only heard from one well i suggest if you don't think we have a competent legal opinion then you should take some action to terminate their contract and hire another attorney but um We rely on well-reasoned opinions from our legal counsel. We asked them to give us an opinion on this matter, and they did.

Mr. Mayor?

Council Platt.

Thank you. I guess I'm trying to think about the trajectory to move forward, at least based on what I've said for my own beliefs and opinions here. I want to be clear that I don't want a prohibition. I don't agree that we should be in the business of moratorium, moratorium, moratorium. That's a very slippery slope, I think, as you get perhaps legal challenges if that's something you continue to do. What I, I guess, am most interested in is and i hate to keep kicking this down the road i know leadership staff have put a lot of time into this so i'm aware of that but my hang-up is still on a cap as opposed to an exchange rate and so my question is is it appropriate to table this what what type of mechanism would postpone this such that someone could come back with an amendment well you could postpone

TO A FUTURE DATE, THE COUNCIL COULD POSTPONE THIS ITEM TO A FUTURE DATE. I WOULD SUGGEST THAT WE GIVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO THOROUGHLY TALK ABOUT THIS WHILE IT'S ON THE TABLE TONIGHT. IF YOU DON'T FEEL THAT AN ACTION IS APPROPRIATE WHEN WE GET TO THE END OF THE DISCUSSION, YOU COULD MOVE TO POSTPONE.

OK. THANK YOU.

OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

Council Cowan I'd be curious to hear if anyone would be interested in talking about an exchange ratio I you know this is the we haven't talked about that in a while if that's the hang-up then we could talk about some reasonable amount I think My hesitation to do that without counsel is I would want to be talking with the experts to see, remind us, what is the average number? My recollection, and again, this is memory, so probably flawed, is it's more like 20, and it's rarely, rarely 100. And so it's... I think to... For me, it's more dangerous to not put some guardrails in place and ensure that we're having someone that's certified with the state to follow what are the more evidence-based practices as opposed to an unregulated person coming in here. we would be facing ourselves a potential lawsuit at a lot of money from the cost of our attorney for the city to go up against what the state regulations are and it's a slippery slope too what else are we going to prohibit that the state has made a law so i think sure we could get other opinions but the reality is it it passed in the legislature and so we're trying to put it in as safe a mechanism as possible. I think we would be doing Auburn a greater disservice to not pass an ordinance at all and have it be completely outside, we have therefore no control over it. Is it something that we desire and want to do? Is this a fun topic? Of course not. Maine has one of the highest addiction rates in the country. And that didn't start because we handed out needles. It started because we were handing out oxycodone because we had a lot of people with injuries and we were told, at the time the clinicians were told that it wasn't addictive. And it was. There's been a lawsuit against it. That pharmaceutical company has been sued and gone bankrupt. So, I mean, the root causes here are far more broad than that. I heard a lot of people say we should fund treatment. I would love that. I think that's a state responsibility. We could try to do that. We are putting in a homeless shelter where there's going to be wraparound services with social services there for people who are chronically homeless and very likely are people who have been struggling for years with substance use disorders. So we are trying to do what we can. This stuff takes time. I think we're, I really am, I'm far more concerned about putting, to vote down an ordinance without any other response and then open the doors back up to what was a worst case in Lewiston and could become a worst case in Auburn. Council Platt.

Thank you. Just one more comment to Tim's. Well, yeah, I appreciate that comment as I've been saying that, right? I think we need something in writing. We need something on the books. I'm not opposed to prohibition. I'm not in support of a prohibition. My question is, my thought is, you know, if I were to make an amendment in the context of an exchange rate, Do we feel that it might be, is it a possible and productive process to start with something more restrictive, get something on paper, and then have continued discussion if we need to have more liberal exchange policies or cap policy? I think what we see from municipalities is people go far and then they have conversations about if they should claw it back. Some have, some haven't. I understand the importance of this ordinance. Obviously, I don't want to beat a horse dead, but I think I'm pretty clear on my hangups. I don't want to blow this thing up here, but I think it's pretty clear what people's concerns are, and I share a lot of those. I'm willing to make an amendment. If I were to make a one-to-one exchange amendment, I know it's something we've talked about not wanting to do. My question is, is if we do that, are we in a place within the municipality to accept that and to understand that if there is an appetite to change that, we can? That's kind of what I'm thinking.

Well, certainly the council can put whatever language they want in the ordinance, and you can always amend it later. I think it important, you know, we've heard a lot of viewpoints throughout this whole process, but I think it's important to remember when it comes to the exchange rate two things. One, the hundred cap was a compromise. All of the experts that testified in committee at the legislature and the experts that appeared here, every one of them says there should not be a cap and they should be able to provide the number of needles necessary, whether that's 10 or whether it's 110. And the 100 was a compromised position that was reached. And as Councillor Cowan pointed out, and we heard repeatedly from the service provider in the area, they rarely give out 100 because it's not warranted. The second point I think that the council needs to think about is, if you're going to set an exchange rate, what's your basis? Who's sitting here that has the expertise to decide what the exchange rate should be to accomplish the purposes? And we should remember what we've had hours of workshops and we had many experts come before us. And let's remember what they told us. What they told us was that SSPs, the data shows it doesn't increase addiction. They told us that what the data shows is SSPs don't increase needle waste. In fact, we have peoples where they have SSPs, they have a marginal decrease in needle waste. They told us that when you have an SSP and they have recurring contact with people with substance abuse disorder, they have a far higher rate of successful referral for these people in the treatment programs. These folks are addicted to opioids, right? They're not addicted to needles. They are going to use intravenous substances whether they get the needles through an SSP or whether they go down to the local pharmacy and buy a box of 100 for 20 bucks and use them over and over again amongst a group of people. What we have clearly seen, and we have an expert in this area on the council, is that the rates of communicable diseases is significantly decreased when you have an SSP and you are not having high rates of reuse of needles. So again, my question would be, we can have a discussion about what the exchange rate should be, but when someone says this is what it should be, articulate what your basis is for picking that number. That would be the challenge.

and as a starting point again just uh... take you have something we continue work with i i would start with one-to-one because that is what allows us to then decide if it's enough and if it's not if we have an s s p comes to town and within a week they say we're having cases where people walking in there leaving you know we could You know, we could reassess that, because I agree with you. I'm not concerned about the exchange rate and what it does to drug addiction. I firmly believe that people are addicted to drugs because they're addicted to drugs, not because we're giving them out needles. But I do believe there is a difference between 100 to zero, you know, a cap as opposed to an exchange when it comes to litter.

So if you have a one-to-one exchange rate, and the person gets some needles, and they go over to the resource center, and they meet with some of the folks that are there, the service providers of all types there, and they take some of the needles they have and they put them in the sharp spot. Is your proposal that they carry these around with them until the next time they go to the SSP? What if they, there's all kinds, we have sharps boxes in the city. There's sharps boxes in public bathrooms for not just for this, for people who are diabetics or on any other type of medication. So the one-to-one from a very subjective opinion sounds great, but in practicality, how is that going to work? It doesn't work and that's what all the experts that we talked to told us. One-to-one doesn't work and the issue isn't the exchange of needles, the issue is that you're not going to find this out the next week because the issue is going to be in the increase in communicable diseases and that isn't something you find out next week. So, We've not heard from anybody that has any expertise in the field that one-to-one actually accomplishes anything positive. And again, what's the basis of one-to-one? or 10 to 1, or 20 to 1, or whatever it is.

I think it's not medical. It's people who don't want to see litter. And again, we've all got our own experiences with seeing it or not, but I think that's the argument.

I'd issue the same challenge to the council that I've issued several other times, right? We heard these people come in and told us about this. So I'll ask the council right now, how many of you on a regular basis, go to the Riverwalk, go to Moulton Field, go to our softball fields, go to all our parks, walk around and check this out. How many? Put your hands up if you do. OK? In Auburn, no. In Auburn, yeah, in Auburn, because we're not regulating this in other cities. And the issue is that, is there needle waste? There is. And I do this all the time, right? Mr. Chapman talked about me going on a walk. So we've had this, and people keep coming in and talking about these thousands of needles. Well, this weekend, I made my 61st trip since last August 1st on this whole loop. In that whole time, I have found one used needle in Anniversary Park, three used needles on the Riverwalk, and one used needle in Samar Paint. And I don't go two hours after Public Works comes and cleans this up. I go like on a Sunday afternoon, or if it's a holiday, a Monday afternoon, when there's been days when they haven't come to clean this up. Where do I see needle waste? The same place Mr. Chapman's talking about, around encampments. And a lot of these encampments, unless you know where they are, you're not going to be there. And the public isn't frequently going.

That's where it used to be.

The public isn't routinely going to these sites. So we do have issues with encampments, and we have a strategy to deal with the needle waste that's there. But my question is, Tell me where you've seen it. If people are asserting that we want to go to one-to-one when the experts tell us it won't decrease needle waste, and when we don't see this, what's the basis?

You don't see it on your watch, because it's not a policy in Harvard yet. You're delusional.

You'll have to leave the chamber if you're going to interrupt the discussion. You're delusional.

I am not spending my taxpayer dollars

So just to respond to the gentleman's question, it isn't all taxpayer property taxes that pay for the SSP program anyway. So that's my question, is if you're going to set a differential besides the cap, leave the chamber.

Unelected. Unelected experts who have no expertise in anything about what these people want. Hear me?

Sir, leave the chamber. You're being disruptive. So that's the question for the council. If you want to set a rate, then articulate what the basis of that is.

Mr. Mayor, to, you know, to Councillor Platts' point, yes, this is coming out of, a one-to-one would be coming out of the concerns about increased litter, right? I think the reality is that there's already efforts to help make, ensure, clean up where there is waste. There, you know, waste is here. I don't know that we've seen any study to say that it's dramatically larger or more in Lewiston than it is in Auburn because they had an SSP, but what the data showed from the studies was that the SSP actually had a larger percentage that are being returned back in than if someone went and purchased them or got them other ways and then they just landed on the ground. So, you know, I would look at it from the perspective that we do have efforts in place to try to clean up what we can. This would be adding a program and, you know, what I struggle with, the argument that that's gonna mean there's that many more needles is gonna be a dramatic amount of waste, but the waste is here and those, Those ratios don't necessarily hold that up. So I think there's more coming back into an SSP program. And I think the more we have it with a regulation and there's a program that we can potentially be working with that's certified is better than one that's not regulated that isn't necessarily gonna be cleaning up. Yes, there's gonna be waste. But there's already waste. There's already people who are dependent on these drugs that are using intravenous needles. And they're getting them from wherever they can get them. And they're either bringing them here or not. The other thing that I think, as Mayor Harmon pointed out, we have sharp boxes around the idea of someone potentially carrying, you know, they may need, someone that gets assessed at an SSP might use 10 needles a day. So, you know, if they had to bring all of the 10 back, they would have to carry them with them instead of potentially dropping them off in truck boxes. So one-to-one could potentially mean that they're carrying risky paraphernalia with them, which is not as healthy or as safe for the community. I kind of look at it as from a perspective that it could potentially be even, it's not helping, so I wonder if a larger exchange rate would be better. But I understand the idea that they're bringing back one-to-one You're ensuring that there's potentially greater incentive to bring them back, but I don't think that the data supports that. And so there are still people that throw away soda cans and beer bottles. They could get five cents, but they don't. So it's not going to be 100%. It's never going to be 100%. But the needles are out there. whether we give them to them through an SSP where there's the added benefits or we don't. Again, I don't think we're in a position where we should think that a continuous moratorium is a precedent we want to go. I agree with Council Platt on that point. So do we put in some guardrails and try to have a safer program in Auburn than one that's unregulated like happened in Lewiston? Otherwise, we're going to have to do that. But I think one-to-one, I think the experts would say that puts a lot of limitations potentially on what they could give out for certain individuals. And so I understand, I hear, and want to respond in kind to those that are concerned about, you know, the potential of giving out 100 and having capital. I'm happy to talk about that. I think one-to-one, if we ask the... providers that are certified by the state and the experts of the state that they would they would we could remind us of some of the limitations that puts on their programming and the effectiveness of ultimately getting people into treatment.

My concern is less about the litter and more about the statistic of, at least at the beginning, the increase of opioid mortality rate, because now they're getting the needles and they're shooting up a little bit more right at the beginning. I would like to hear from an expert if that is true.

Well, we heard from the head of the state opioid response office that that wasn't true. That the needle exchange doesn't increase opioid addiction or opioid use. They're addicted to the opioids. They're going to shoot up, however many times they're going to shoot up. And the idea behind this program is that they shoot up with a clean needle. One, and two, that you have interaction with these folks so you have the ability to try to steer them or refer them to appropriate treatment options. Sounds to come.

Yeah, the other piece of that comment about the mortality, and I can't remember who it was that said it, they were correct. A big reason that we're seeing a decline in mortality, as big of a reason as the small progress that we've been able to make in the state in terms of access to treatment, and I say small because compared to the number of people who need it, is the availability and the training and the provision of Narcan. And that's not just to people that are addicted, it's to those that are in the community members who might be able to help someone. But just to reinforce Mr. Mayor's latest comment there, if they need 10 doses of opioid, they're gonna use a needle 10 times if they only have one. And someone else might also use that needle because they have none. And then there's potential of spreading that, and there's a potential of spreading hepatitis and HIV to those who don't use drug use, because it can be passed through other means. And so, again, the programs are to try to maintain the outbreaks as best we can by preventing them in the first place. The other piece that I don't know that we've talked a lot about, but if you had, say, if you had the one needle and it got chipped or broken, and you still needed to use it you know this you were in health care but you are at risk of creating a larger wound that could potentially become very much infected and requiring health care so there's there's beyond just the spread of disease it's just not as healthy um and so uh the It would be great in a perfect world if we could say, well, we're just not going to give you opioids because it's all about willpower and you can stop tomorrow. The reality is it's not, right? We all know that. And the reality, too, is that studies are out there and they've been out there for 25 years and they started with tobacco. uh... and they it's the same case for heroin and opioids you can force people into treatment and your rate of success will be the same as if those people quit on their own because you're only going to help those who are already motivated to quit Alternatively, there's a whole science around trying to build relationships and help motivate someone to get them to a better stage and a better level of success because they're going to help put themselves into treatment with support. And that's another thing that the SSPs can do. So I think it's important to remember that relationship piece. We aren't gonna be able to stop them from from getting to the drugs if they really need it because their body depends on it what we're trying to do is create a safer environment not only for them but also from spreading very harmful diseases deadly diseases to those that aren't using drug and dependent but might be at risk because they have a sexual relationship with them so i think you know we just have to think through that it's not a The notion that we're giving them the demise of the destruction, we're not. If they have one needle, they're going to keep using that needle until it's ready. They're going to find a way to get it. So that just, to me, doesn't ring true from all of the addiction medicine people that I've worked with over the last 20 years.

The other comment I'd make about the mortality rate is that the SSPs don't just do needle exchange. And they do the treatment referrals. They provide Narcan. They do health screenings. provide fentanyl strips to try to keep people from overdosing. So I think it's pretty clear that if the concern is that having SSP will increase mortality rates, I think the reality is it's the opposite. It decreases the mortality rate. Council Walker, did you have something?

Yeah. I have a real hard time with this SSP, or P's, whatever you want to call it correctly. First of all, New Auburn is the one that's taking this biggest hit on where these people are coming from now and going through our little city downtown. And anyone that doesn't live in New Auburn doesn't have to care about how many people are walking through there, hollering at people, screaming at people. People are calling the police every day pretty near because we got a joker down there right now that he's hauling his things all over the New Auburn area. and camping out every night that he can in one place because the police will let him get away with one night. He's been pushed out of every park down there, every sidewalk, every doorway that he can put his thing in that a business isn't open. We brought that guy to this city because we give him 121 Mill Street to go to twice a week. So he goes there and then he runs around downtown New Auburn. But we have hundreds of people that are coming through New Auburn now that never came through the New Auburn area. And when you have a restaurant that sits right there on Mill Street, and South Main Street and Main Street that you get these people looking in the windows and gawking at you and making all kinds of crazy suggestions on who you might be on the inside because they don't know who they are on the outside in most cases. And you know where they're going most of the time? When they're doing this on Main Street, Mill Street, South Main Street, 121 Mill Street. So the people that do live in Auburn don't need any more of these people brought to this area because we want to give them 50 needles, 10 needles, one needle or 100. We bring these people to our area because we allow things like 121 Mill Street and any other kind of association that wants them. When we had them go into Pleasant Street, And Elm Street, we pretty much shut them down over there. We forced them to take them on the inside because they camped out all around the church. And they thought that was OK. They found out, oh, no, we have laws in this city. Unless you're a registered, licensed campground, you can't do that. But we allow these people to travel into the New Orban area and camp out the night before, they can go there on Saturday and Wednesdays, and then we have to put up with all of these people that we never had in the New Auburn area. We didn't need to put 121 Mill Street there. Look what they've put across the bridge. They've got something much better than what we've got. We could have let them all go right over there, and we wouldn't be arguing about any of this stuff today.

So I hear your comments about the homeless population. I'm not exactly sure what the connection is to syringe service programs. What we heard from the provider is that there are homeless people that go to the SSP. They go today. There's one out on Outer Lisbon Street, which Spurwink runs. They go there today. But lots of the people that go to the needle exchange are not homeless. All people that are substance abusers are not homeless people. There's lots of them living all over the city. And so I hear your comments, Council Walker, but I'm not sure that we should draw the conclusion that the only people that use an SSP are somebody that's homeless, because lots of them have housing. Lots of them work. Councilor Randall.

As the assumption of all homeless people All people who use needle exchange are not all homeless. Also, all homeless people are not drug addicted. So we have to draw a distinction there. We can't say that every homeless person is a drug addict. Unfortunately, I was able to hear some things from the public today that struck a note with me, but I do understand also the science behind it and keeping the diseases away from other people, the spreading of diseases. It is a safety measure. where the argument gets lost is when people speak poorly about the human beings that they're trying not to give the needle exchange to so you lost me there so so the council platts's earlier point you know my advice to the council would be that if you're worried about

THE EFFECTS IN COUNCIL PLATZ'S CASE OF LITER EXCHANGE, THEN YOU WOULD PASS THIS AT 100 TO 1 BECAUSE THAT SUPPORTS THE PUBLIC HEALTH PURPOSES OF THE ORDINANCE. AND IF WE FIND THAT THE that we see dramatic differences in the needle exchange rate, that then we come back and revisit this. But in the balance of public health and waste management, it seems to me that if we're going to err in the beginning, it should be on the side of public health and make adjustments if we see outcomes that we're not expecting, and it dramatically increases the needle waste. Because to do it, to start at 1 to 1 or 10 to 1 or wherever you are, it may or may not have any change in the needle waste, but it's very likely to have a change in the public health issues. But it takes quite a while in the public health surveillance system to identify those. I mean, you can look at Bangor today. They have, I think someone pointed out, 40, I think it's 40 or 50 verified HIV cases, almost all among the homeless population. Why? Because they know who they are and Bangor Public Health is going out proactively to test them. All the people that those HIV infected folks had contact with, Unless somebody says, hey, I routinely had contact with so-and-so and they go test them, you're not going to know for years down the road until the AIDS manifests itself or for some other reason they get an HIV test. You know, I think we should err on the side of public health if that's the case. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Duvall.

I just wanna take a step back a sec, and so what this ordinance is doing, and somebody can tell me if I'm wrong, but what this ordinance is doing is saying we, the city of Auburn, are gonna provide some guidance as to how someone distributing syringes in Auburn should operate. That's it. That's all we're doing.

that that yes that's correct what what this ordinance does is it requires an SSP to be certified by the state and then comply with additional regulations that the ordinance would extend beyond state requirements.

And if we don't pass it, then we are providing no guidance and no regulation of how syringes are distributed within our city. So that's the question in front of us.

That's correct. You'd have no more guidance unless they were certified. They'd have to comply with the CDC rule, but not the additional city guide. Council Platt.

I would agree with that outlook. I will say, again, just to invoke my own personal opinions, Mr. Mayor, I understand your point. I think I disagree slightly. You say you kind of hedge on the side of public health first, see how that affects litter. that's where I'm still hung up. I understand what you're saying, but that's still my hesitation. I feel like there's still a further compromise personally. So I guess in the function of a vote that we need to take moving up, again, personally, I would want to see an amendment that changes this. And I know you said we can't just pull numbers out of the air, but I've heard us say 20 needles is what The average person.

Yeah, I don't think that's correct.

Then I won't quote on that. I think what I'd want to see is a 10 to 1 exchange. You asked the question of how would someone exchange a needle. I think if you want 20, I think there's a lot of ways to bring in two used needles. I think there are personal sharps containers that people can get. Maybe we could make SSPs hand those out. I would be willing to support an ordinance that started with that language. AND I DON'T KNOW IF YOU WANT TO TAKE A STRAW POLL BEFORE WE TAKE A STRAW POLL BEFORE WE TAKE A STRAW POLL BEFORE WE ACTUALLY VOTE SO WE KNOW WHAT TO ACTUALLY VOTE SO WE KNOW WHAT TO ACTUALLY VOTE SO WE KNOW WHAT TO DO HERE, BUT I STILL WOULDN'T DO HERE, BUT I STILL WOULDN'T DO HERE, BUT I STILL WOULDN'T SUPPORT IT AS IS. SUPPORT IT AS IS. SUPPORT IT AS IS. JUST A COMMENT ON THAT.

JUST A COMMENT ON THAT. JUST A COMMENT ON THAT. I WOULD FAVOR IF THE COUNCIL IS I WOULD FAVOR IF THE COUNCIL IS I WOULD FAVOR IF THE COUNCIL IS INTERESTED IN MAKING SUCH AN INTERESTED IN MAKING SUCH AN INTERESTED IN MAKING SUCH AN AMENDMENT TO A DATE IN THE FUTURE, OR POSTPONE WHATEVER THE CORRECT MOTION IS, AND BRING SOMEBODY IN WHO CAN HELP US UNDERSTAND WHAT A GOOD NUMBER WOULD BE. I KNOW WE'VE TALKED TO THEM, BUT WE COULD DO THAT AGAIN. I WOULDN'T WANT TO JUST AMEND ON THE FLY HERE WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE AT ALL.

Yeah, and I would agree with that because I think the seminal question is, what's that number based on, right? If we're trying to support an evidence-based practice, just making up a number because we think it sounds good is not the way to do this. So I guess other than the exchange rate, are there other particular issues that counselors have? I recognize Council Walker is opposed for lots of different reasons.

Well, I am opposed to it, but I think 90% of the people that got up and spoke tonight are opposed to the whole thing coming to Auburn. So, you know, whatever you come up with for a number is fine with you people, but I don't think we should be supporting it at all.

Right, and I understand that. So, other members of the council, are there other particular issues other than the exchange rate?

I was curious about the public participant's comment on age, and I was just curious, was that true? Was, you know, an 18-year-old who's addicted to opioids could get needles through an SSP, is that correct?

Yeah, the issue is that that is true, but that's not the basis. So the state law regarding the possession of hypodermic apparatus is adults. And adults are defined as 18 years of age. Look, there's lots of arguments to be made about different ages, but the legislature has defined legal possession of hypodermic apparatus by adults. And that's what it's based on. Councilor Duvall?

I would also just add that there's a logical fallacy there that was presented, right? So it's sort of like saying, well, you can't own a solo cup until you're 21. Like, right? It's not, like, it's illegal for everybody to buy opioids, unless you have a prescription for painkillers. It's never legal for anyone, whereas it is actually legal for somebody who's 21 or older to buy alcohol. Anybody can buy a cup, but it is more restrictive to buy a syringe than it is, you have to be 18 years or older. So you see what I mean? So it's not...

Although I also don't think that if if an 18 year old showed up at an SSP and said well I'm just interested in playing trying it out. Could you give me some safe needles? I'm not gonna give them around right so like and I don't think that that was the intent of the comment I think it was mr. Milk's that that made it And I'm glad you brought it up I was gonna ask the same question, but Yeah, I don't I'M HEARING THE EXPLANATION, I'M OKAY WITH LEAVING IT AT 18.

ARE THERE OTHER TOPICS IN THE ORDINANCE OTHER THAN THE EXCHANGE RATE? PEOPLE HAVE AN ISSUE WITH IT, WANT FURTHER INFORMATION OR FURTHER DISCUSSION? YEAH, COUNCILOR RANDALL.

Are you asking, are we going to have somebody come in? Is that why you're asking what other issues there might be that we want?

Yeah, so I think it's two things. That's one. I think it's pretty clear that the majority of the council isn't prepared to act tonight because there's this debate going on about the exchange rate, and we'll bring back the experts to refresh our memories and answer questions. And then if there's other topics in there that you or any other councilor has questions on about the nature of what the ordinance is, we'd be happy to have someone who can answer those questions as well.

I don't know if they have the data but I and again I feel like I don't want to say too much and we're starting this process over which we're not but it's I can it's frustrating to have to go through this all again but it's an important topic so we need to give it the time I don't know if the public health professionals have the data but Economically, what does an AIDS outbreak, in addition to being terrible for human beings, what does it cost a municipality? Sometimes there are also economic pieces that should be talked about, not at the forefront. I don't know if they have any data for that or if it's pertinent or if it even matters. Really, we should be talking about the health and safety of people who need it. It's not something that has been brought up, and it's a basis for a lot of what we're trying to decide, these discussions of outbreaks. I'd be curious if there's a lens that they have that they could apply.

So we can ask. I doubt that they have something that talks about general impacts on the economy. I think it's likely that they have data about what the incurred cost is to treat somebody with HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, and those things. So we can ask if they have it, great, but I think they can probably tell us, Councilor Cowan probably knows this, about the cost of treatment of certain diseases.

It's not a stat I have memorized, but I would agree with your assessment that clearly it would be pretty easy to get information about the cost to treat. And probably some people that have the cost of an outbreak in terms of the size, things like that. Councilor Duvall?

Yeah, I'm almost certain that someone would be able to find studies on the impacts of lost productivity related to people who have HIV, hepatitis, whatever. I mean, those studies are done routinely by economists.

And eventually they end up on the disability role. So from that aspect, they're going to be part of our needed support system. Council walking, yes.

So that means if we get 100 people the next time to come in and don't like this whole thing that the only thing we're going to talk about is the exchange on the needle. How many are we going to allow the people to still speak in? Well, because every time they come in we're growing in numbers on people that are not happy with this This SSPs.

Yeah, and and I realized that I would say the same thing I think it was council Duvall that mentioned this or maybe council Cowan a minute ago much of what said is not accurate information It's their understanding, but that doesn't mean that it's accurate. And to people being able to speak, that's fine. Our practice has been to provide an opportunity to public comment, whether a public hearing is legally required or not. We allow public comment on every item. And if this is postponed, when it comes off ON TO THE TABLE, WE'LL HAVE PUBLIC COMMENT FROM ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO SPEAK. COUNSELOR ENDLE? I SAW YOUR HAND GO INTO THE MICROPHONE. OKAY. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

If you're asking for questions, to be able to bring in the right expert. I would like a relevant study that's been done most recently about if there is an increase in opioid mortality when these programs are implemented. I would like to know if it goes up, even if it's just temporary.

Sure. So I guess if there's nothing further at this point,

I can make a motion. Is it appropriate?

That's what I'm thinking through because typically the motion would be to postpone this item until the next regular council meeting or some other date certain. The issue that we have here is that uh... were asking to schedule uh... some experts like we did before and sitting here tonight i can't tell you that they're available on the twentieth uh... So perhaps what we should do, let's go ahead.

I was just gonna ask if there's a way to, I know we're the committee, but to remand it to committee. In other words, send it back to committee. And then we would, as a committee, would have to bring the motion back forward.

So the what there was no committee.

Right now I know. If there is there a mechanism there you know within Robert's rules there is that mechanism.

Unfortunately, we're also the committee will body and the committee that's right and it would be a if we're taking that motion on the floor would be a committee of the count with the council members and I don't know that really accomplishes anything.

I mean, listen, if you think there's four votes here, you can also take the vote and next meeting I'll propose, you know, an amendment. The vote on this ordinance as is. I don't know what the...

YOU WOULD BE, SO JUST MAKE SURE WE'RE CLEAR ON THAT PROCESS, RIGHT? SO YOU COULD TAKE A VOTE. IF IT FAILS, IT COULD BE PUT BACK ON THE AGENDA AT A LATER DATE. IF IT, BUT THAT'S NOT TYPICALLY THE ACCEPTED PRACTICE. IF IT PASSED, YOU COULD CERTAINLY amend it but you have to go through 2 readings right through a regular adoption process. I guess what I would recommend is that the motion that that the item be postponed until the next regular meeting of the City Council. City Manager and I will attempt to schedule the right professionals to be able to do that. If we're not able to do that when we meet at the next meeting, we can report on that to the council and the council can then, if we can't get the people there on the 20th, the council can then postpone that to a date in which we've been able to affirm that the experts will be able to attend. Would that be acceptable?

Wouldn't it be safer to postpone it until August 3rd? You should be able to get somebody by that date. That's one month away.

We may find out they're not available on August 3rd. I think we should just postpone this to the next meeting and the council will either have the people here or will have a report on when they can meet and AND IF THEY AREN'T ABLE TO DO IT ON THE 20TH, THEN WE CAN POSTPONE TO WHATEVER DATE IT IS THAT WE KNOW WE CAN GET THE EXPERTS HERE.

WOULD THE PUBLIC SEE ON AN AGENDA ON THE THURSDAY OR FRIDAY THAT IT HAD BEEN CANCELED? WOULD PEOPLE BE SHOWING UP AND SAY, OH, IT'S CANCELED? OR WOULD THEY HAVE PRIOR NOTICE THAT IT WAS REMOVED FROM, IT WILL BE ON THE AGENDA?

IT WOULD HAVE TO BE ON THE AGENDA AS OLD BUSINESS BECAUSE WE POSTPONED IT TO THAT DATE.

It makes sense to me, and if it doesn't work for the next meeting, we postpone it to the next. So with that, shall I make a, I would like to make a motion to postpone this vote on ordinance six, sorry.

So it'd be 1206152026.

Great, postpone that ordinance number until our next city council meeting.

Second.

Our next regular city council meeting.

Second.

It's been moved to postpone to the next regular meeting by Council Platt, seconded by Council Randall. The vote will be show of hands. All those in favor? This item has been postponed. We'll move on to new business. I would suggest the exact same motion BE MADE ON THIS AFTER I CALL IT, BECAUSE THIS IS DIRECTLY TIED TO THE ITEM THAT WE JUST POSTPONED. SO THE NEXT ITEM IS ORDER 6407062026, AMENDING THE CITY'S MASTER FEE SCHEDULE IN APPENDIX A REGARDING LICENSED FEES FOR SYRINGE SERVICE PROGRAMS. IS THERE A MOTION?

So moved. Do I make the, okay, I would also make a motion to postpone order 6407062026 until the next regular city council meeting. Second.

Council platts has moved to postpone this item in the next regular City Council meeting was seconded by Council Randall vote be by show of hands all those in favor items been postponed move on to the next item order 6, 5, 0, 7, 0, 6, 2, 0, 2, 6, granting a food license waiver of $200 to the Great Falls youth core for the concession stand in Lake Grove Park for the 2026 summer season their motion.

Motion to accept.

Moved by Council Walker. Second. Seconded by Councilor Cowan. So this is a cooperative agreement that the city's worked out with Great Falls Youth Corp to run an actual concession stand at Lake Grove. Those of you who have been up there, you know we have the concession stand, but it's not manned. And this is a non-profit organization, so they're requesting the waiver. A DISCUSSION BY THE COUNCIL. COUNCIL READY FOR THE QUESTION?

I THINK IT'S GREAT THAT WE'RE GOING TO OPEN ONE.

THEY MAY BE COMING TO YOU FOR A HOT DOG RECIPE, COUNCIL WALKER. COUNCIL READY FOR THE QUESTION? VOTE BY SHOW OF HANDS. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? THE MOTION IS ADOPTED. WE'LL MOVE ON TO REPORTS. A few items to report. Since the last time we met, there was a ribbon cutting at the Auburn Resource Center. Very well attended. I appreciate the counselors that were able to attend and the city staff that was able to attend. It was really large turnout. A reminder on the comp plan committee, the next meeting is Wednesday night, 6 p.m. here in the council chambers. The committee will be working on the policy document, and the meeting after that will be at 6 p.m. on Tuesday the 28th here in the council chambers to finalize the land use maps. I want to thank the staff for putting on the solid waste information sessions. It was a pretty good turnout at all the sessions, lots of great questions. And I think the staff's been pretty supportive of responding to people's individual issues and coming to their residence to evaluate things. Carts are now being delivered. If you have old carts trash cans that you want to get rid of from the 13th to the 25th 7 a.m. To 7 p.m. Excluding Sundays, correct? Mr. Manager you can drop those off at the Kitty Hawk facility 67 Kitty Hawk And if you're unable to get them there, you should call Public Works as they'll schedule a pickup. Automated collection starts on Monday the 13th. Councilor Walker and I were down to roll these for a session and got to see one of the trucks in action and it seems to work pretty well. So we'll see what happens. We went to the Fall View on Main ribbon cutting at 186 Main Street. Really beautiful facility. We got the tour of some of the vacant apartments. They did a really nice job there. They're about three-fourths rented, and their commercial space on the first floor is rented, and they're looking for a tenant, restaurant or pub or something like that on the Riverside. And really impressive day with the ribbon cutting at Main Mill. If you have not gone and seen the museum, you definitely need to put this on your list. really um great job by rachel ferrante all the staff uh the board uh it's it's a great addition to lewiston arbor and it's really uh meaningful exhibit so every everyone should put it on their list of things to do so with that council randall nothing tonight council collin nothing tonight council duval just briefly snrb it on thursday Council Butler.

Nothing tonight.

Council Walker.

Just a suggestion. There's been some people that have gone online to try to look up the recycling rules and what's happening is they go into Auburn and Auburn has completely different rules than they do. So we might want to eliminate them somehow because ours says no glass, no tin, blah, blah, blah. So it's mixing people up in what they're thinking.

Yeah, so I think it is a bit problematic, especially if they use the app, because it has the current rules. My understanding is that's going to change on the 13th and after when you get the new rules. And some people have had difficulty finding the information, so communications and community engagements working to get something better posting on the face page, the home page of the website so you don't have to drill around so much to find this, because it is a topic lots of people are looking for. Council Platt?

The only announcement is that there is no school committee meeting this week.

Representative Edwards. It's summer, so I don't have much, but I'm really excited to welcome the new student representative very soon. Yes, thank you very much. Mr. Manager.

Just a couple items. First, we had 10 individuals use the Auburn Cooling Center last week that was opened due to the heat. We mentioned Lake Grove Park earlier. We have four park rangers that are assisting visitors during different shifts at the park. The addition of the snack shack will be beneficial. That is comments that we've heard from those who have been attending. Also, there's a photo contest in progress for the 2026 comp plan. There's a link on the website to submit your photo for consideration. And then lastly, the police department, one officer graduated from the academy and we have three leaving in August. We had our orientation today. with those four plus a new employee within the finance department that will be the payroll assistant. So great onboarding of new staff, coming on board and filling some of our vacancies.

Thank you very much. With that, is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

Moved by Council Walker, seconded by Council Cowan. All those in favor? The council will be adjourned.