Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'll say it again.

Trying to put it on line. Okay. Good. Good evening, citizens of Bloomfield. We began FY27 budget process in the same manner we have always conducted budget development under our town charter. The town manager presented his proposed budget to the town council and it was received. I am not aware of any town manager's proposed budget ever being accepted without changes by the Bloomfield Town Council and the FY27 Town Manager's proposed budget will not be the exception. I have spoken to my colleagues and we have given direction to the town manager to revisit the budget development process to include a few items that have been removed. Although we still have work before us to arrive at a council adopted budget. The FY27 budget will include no cuts to waste collection other than a possible reduction in the frequency of bulk collection and no cuts to senior services, social and youth services or parks, recreation, and leisure services. Please understand that the $4.6 $6 million saved by the town manager's proposed budget with no use of fund balance will be challenging to maintain within the 6.8% increase stated in his proposed budget. However, this council is determined to maintain services while making every effort to maximize excuse me minimize the tax increase. We are encouraged to see the support of an engaged public here tonight. We look forward to productive public comments to assist us in the budget development process. Thank

you for your willingness to assist with the most critical process we undertake each year as a council. Uh you are not scheduled the Okay. India. India. Who who who is the first one? First. Okay. So, this is what we're going to do. We have people online and people in the room. We're going to call two in the room and two online. We're going to alternate. Okay. First person in the room is Ruth Hanks. There is no roll call.

Do the roll call. One second, Miss Hanks. One second, please. One second. Go ahead. Thank you. Councelor Cooper,

councelor Debon Brown, councelor uh Mahan here. Councelor Oliver present. Councelor Merritt. Uh, Councelor Waterhouse will be here at 7. Uh, councelor Goodwin. Okay. Deputy Mayor Lloyd present.

And Mayor Anthony Harrington is here. So, we are awaiting uh, one counselor is on vacation. and the other is out of the country. Okay. So, all are accounted for. This public hearing is for the FY2027 town manager's proposed budget. We are moving to the discussion and possible action regarding excuse me, we are in the third phase. Oh, public hearing. We are looking for the f the first speaker of the evening. Ruth Hanks.

Thank you. So, if you could just state your name and address and then you can begin. You will have three minutes. Um has to turn it on. There we go. There we go. Okay. My name is Ruth Hanks and I live at 10 Applewood Road. Just a little closer to the microphone if you can hear.

My name Yeah. My name is Ruth Hanks and I live at 10 Applewood Road and I'm here to I'm here to um ask some questions about um the proposed budget and the precise pre exactly the u the part of it regarding um cancelling home uh collection of what of garbage and trash. Mhm. Um and I can see that it's going it will have massive massive um can we please one second ma'am I'm sorry allow her to speak and be heard

it will have massive impact on the town if this is removed uh it okay in the way of excuse me please let the speaker speak and be heard. Okay. Thank you. Now, now, ma'am, we'll we'll get a we'll get us situated, ma'am. But we we have to show respect for our fellow neighbors that are trying to speak and participate. Um ma uh Mr. Mayor, can we can we reset the speaker's time so that she can have her full time? May we plea please please everybody, let's have respect for one another, please.

She said somebody the ambulance. We're going to situate it. But sir, we have to we have to keep things,

sir. We have to have respect for she's here to she's here to participate. She's here to participate and I would love to hear you and I don't want you to be interrupted. So, can I at least allow her to participate without interruption? And we'll get and we'll get that taken care of. We will get that taken care of.

We will get that we will get that taken care of, sir. But we have to attend to business in here as well. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Someone is speaking and you know, we've had we've had like 10 interruptions. I think it's very rude. I'm a counselor. I'm a neighbor. I'm a resident. I pay taxes. I am here just like you. But please, we Let's give people respect. Let's give people respect. That's not a hard thing to do. It's not a hard thing to do. Be kind, please. Be kind, please. Be kind.

Point of order, Mr. Mayor. Will not get us to where we need to be. It will not. So, please let us allow this speaker to continue. It's your full three minutes. Okay.

Okay. My name is Ruth Hanks and I live at 10 Applewood Road and I am concerned about the consequences of eliminating trash pickup. Uh, one consequence I see is increased litter all over town. Um, I can see that there would be illegal dumping of people's trash in public spaces, parks, roadsides perhaps. Uh there would be uh and I've got a question about you know okay the around the town green there's a number of trash barrels for people to put their litter in um and is that going to be picked up by the you know by the town or are those going to be overflowing? Um what is the plan for getting rid of trash? The trash isn't going to go away on its own. We there has to be a plan and whatever plan it is should be looking to the future not to the past and the future is finding a way to reduce the amount of trash. Uh, and I know West Hartford has done a lot of work on this and they have done some research and they find that if they can remove food waste from the trash stream, they save thousands and thousands of dollars because there's just that much less going to a landfill. And I think we should investigate that and work on keeping our costs down and look to the future because this trash has got to go somewhere and we have to reduce it if we want to keep our budget uh manageable.

Thank you. Next speaker is Ununice Medinter. Ununice Medinter, 46 Newport Drive. Um, speaking to the microphone. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. Much better. Thank you.

Okay. Well, first I want to say thank you to the public works department for the exceptional job with snow removal this season. I can I could tell when I left the town of Bloomfield and entered an adjacent town because the roads were not as well um kept. So, I want to say thank you um to the public works department for that. That said, I am here today to oppose um some of the proposals. Um I I cannot even imagine why those were proposals. Um why they were thought of and the consequences. Trash removal. I'm happy to hear that um the council opposed them. But that said, we want to also come out as citizens to let you know the entire Bloomfield. I have spoken with young old um renters and everybody opposed them. So I don't know whose grand idea that was, but that is not a go for us. It is absolutely not a go. That said, if we are in if we're in such a deficit, can you please explain to me how we were able to give bonuses in the during the 2024 2025? Last time I checked, we are a municipality, not a for-profit, which bonuses, as I understand, come from profit. How did we have such a profit that we could give bonuses and now we are leaning on the residents to increase taxes because we can't pay for trash? I think for too long the residents of Bloomfield has taken too much and allowed too too much to go unsaid. And today we're here to say enough is enough.

Thank you. Next speaker is Mark Slit. Mark Slit. Well, that's a hard act to follow. Uh I'm Mark Slit. I live at Seven Beth Crescent Lane. Um, some of what I'm about to address is probably mute at this point because I heard the the mayor's statement that uh the council is not planning to move forward with the removal of uh the trash proposal. I I would echo though the lady who spoke uh first about um removing food from the uh from the waist stream. Uh, I was invited to participate in the um in the pilot program for um composting a couple years ago. I never heard anything more about it. I think the every every resident in the town we should be we we should be composting the food waste of every resident in the town to take waste out of the waist stream. But I will just make one comment about the town manager's um proposal and I'll be as kind and as charitable as I can. Um, this was a really boneheaded, ill-advised proposal that was not well thought out. And it makes me question and it makes me question the town manager's competency and his and and whether he should remain um in office or not. My understanding my understanding is that he does not even live in town as he is required to do by town law and I wondering when he plans to move into the town as is required. But I really question his judgment and I question the council's judgment on having hired him in the first place. And that's all I'll say at this point. Thank you,

John Bailey.

Hi. Uh, John Fenza Bailey, 12 Kensington Park, Bloomfield, uh, Belra. Uh, taxes were, but it's a non-issue if the if the trash is, uh, not going to be on the table here, uh, to be remove uh, it's going to be removed. So taxes were raised last year. This does not seem fair. It appears the town is uh planning budget constraints to serve taxpayers. This does not seem thought out for taxpayers. Um you know, mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody in here is a mistake. So you know, God bless everybody. Thank you, Sid. Mark Sanderson.

Hello all. My name is Mark Sanderson. I'm at 17 Oaklane. Um, I guess to start out with, if any of you have seen the video of the presentation of the town manager proposal, it to me it was more narcissistic and self-centered than it was really about a budget. It was about me, about what I'm doing, and how great I am. and I never lose. I always win. That's not a budget. That's not a cooperative effort. You should have sought their input from these people first before you went off and did your own thing. So, to me, that's not a it's not a proper budget. It's really not. And the the I think that the trash and some of these other things are just things that you put out there, you can put back in and say, "Well, we raised the budget, but we put in what you wanted." It's just a political ploy. It's ridiculous. It's not a real budget. And all of you know that that's the case. You know, there's real cuts that can be made in town hall. We've got a communications and operations budget of almost $800,000 and there's three people.

Where's that money going? Right? Where's the money going? Right? And then there's MDC amounts. That's over $500,000. When you do their homework, it's not real. Where's that $500,000 going? It's a bunch of money that they're pocketing in all kinds of places trying to hide money. That's what they're doing. It's it's it's about paying Crumby Law Outfit this year. They've already paid almost $500,000 to our town legal expenses. Right. He's got a he's got a retainer. The last finance the purchasing agent was let go by Mr. Schwab because he wouldn't she wouldn't process the payments to Crumby Loftit because it should have been covered by his retainer and he was one who'd get paid for stuff that should have been part of his retainer. So that's why one of the finance people left and did the others. Right? So this whole thing is about hiding money and paying money to people that don't even work here. This is the friends and family plan and I've had enough. No more make if if there aren't serious cuts in if there aren't serious cuts in town hall. You're fight I don't think this budget should fly. No way we should take a tax increase without serious cuts to town hall. $200,000 he makes plus a car. His assistant, hey, his assistant makes $170ome,000 and then their assistant makes $100,000. That that's almost $500,000 in three people in town hall. Give me a break. Right. The town the town manager the town manager in West Hartford makes less than this man. They've got 68,000 people. We've got 22. Where's the reasonable? That's not right. Right. That's enough. Enough of this crap. Do the right thing.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Robert Burman. I know. When Karen,

Robert Burman, a Hyram Lane, before I start my comments, I wish you guys would sit in the seats where your names are in front of. Yeah, Jamar, you're not. Your name's over here. You're there. Mr. Town Manager, your name's over where Todd Cooper is. How are the people supposed to know who's who we are supposed to sit? Mr. Chair, members of the town council.

Excuse me. Excuse me, please. Members of town council, citizen of Bloomfield, and especially the town manager. Section 903 of the town charter requires among items that a an itemized statement of revenues showing in parallel columns. One, actual revenues collected in the last completed fiscal year, actual revenues collected in the first eight months of the current year. B. an itemized statement of expenditures for each department, office or agency except the board of education showing in parallel columns. One, actual expenditures in the last completed fiscal year, actual expenditures in the first eight months of the current fiscal year. The only items in this budget that might be accurate, the revenues, expenditures for fiscal year 2025. If the amount shown in the budget poke are accurate as the revenue expenditures for the eight months, then the figures reported by the finance director, the town council finance subcommittee of March of this year were inaccurate. Which leads me to believe that every reported figures were probably inaccurate. If on the other hand, the amounts reported must accurate the amounts in this budget book are inaccurate. Which set of numbers are we to believe? I'm providing you with a comparison of some of the revenue and expenditure amounts from each report. You be the judge, but good luck. However, this does not solve the problem of section 903's requiring the figures to all be presented in parallel columns, which this budget book does not do. Therefore, this budget does not conform to the charter requirements. It is another example of the town manager violating the charter in his oath of office. If you town council members will not take action to correct these violations, the citizens of Bloomfield will do so.

Thank you. Next speaker is Felicia Emanuel. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Lorie Schaffen. Same thing. Okay. Next speaker. Next speaker is Stanley Sorcin.

Good evening. My name is Stanley Sorcin. I live at 10field Lane. I am president of the Greens Edge Gillette Ridge Association. We are an association of 168 homes. We are a planned unit development. We are responsible for the maintenance of our roads. Snow removal, additional services typically provided by the town, including electric lights. Garbage collection was one of the only services that the town provides to our community. I'm glad to hear that is now out of the cutback and we really appreciate that. But it is hard to believe that the recently passed budget, which included $4 million in unallocated funds, did not allow the town to continue this much needed services and other services mentioned by the other speakers tonight. We've been hit hard with increased taxes based upon the revaluation of property recently undertaken. This cutback only adds to the negative associated with being a Bloomfield resident and sends a major deterrent as to why someone would buy a home in Bloomfield.

Eliminating citywide trash will affect the cleanliness of the town and drive down property values as brought up before. In short, I'm asking that for the good of our town, you restore garbage collection we are doing in the proposed budget and think about the pool that was also in that budget that was cut back where you mentioned leisurely services. I assume that's now back in. Thank you very much for doing that. We appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Joan Ger.

My name is Joan Ger. I live at My name is Joan Ger. I live at 14 Shebaway. A few years ago, I was the chair of the library board. As you consider the town budget, I'm here today to tell you how vitally important it is to fund the two positions that Elizabeth Lane, the library director, has requested. If Bloomfield is to have the kind of library it needs and deserves, these two positions must be included in the town budget. Modern libraries are complex facilities. They may not look it, but they are. Let me give you some examples. Of course, you can take out books, but you can also download those books into your phone with Hoopla and Libby going for a long drive. You can shorten the hours by listening to the book you took out. Want help with your taxes, how to use your computer, how to navigate Medicare? The library helps you with all of these. Using the library, you can join others in becoming adept at everything from managing menopause to gardening. want to talk about stuff you've read, you can join groups discussing everything from articles in the Atlantic magazine to relations between China and the United States. And then there are the children. From story time for toddlers to helping teens find a summer job, the library has a program dedicated to that. Then there are the physical possibilities. The new library has provided study rooms and places for community meetings. But without the staff to be responsible for these spaces, the new real estate cannot be used. An analogy. Would you build an eight room house but refuse to furnish it? Would you invite people over and ask them to sit on the floor? Obviously not. without the positions it takes to run this new building. That is what you were asking the library to do. With an

upgraded and new facility, we have fewer staff than we had in our old space. We have two buildings, but we have fewer staff and our neighboring libraries w with one building. Reading scores in our schools are declining, but without the staff, we are unable to offer all the programs we need to bring them to grade level. The number of residents taking out library cards is increasing dramatically. Since 2022, the library has experienced a 69% increase in registered borrowers. But more visitors require more desk coverage. with that what with the requested positions we will be able to maintain our hours and not have to curtail services. Do not force us to limit our hours of operation. You have built a wonderful library. You put Bloomfield on the map as a town that in addition to winning football games and building a new senior center cares about the life of the mind. Now, please finish the job.

Thank you. John Monaco III. Next speaker is John Monica III. Can you sing it?

Good evening. My name is John Monica III. I want the rec center and the pool to be here because my friends are here and it hurts my heart to get rid of it. I have money in my piggy bank that I can donate to keep it the to keep the pool and the rec center open. I love the rec center because it has lots of fun activities and I get to go to every single activity there. I won't get to have a fun summer vacation without the pool rec center and summer camp. All the staff at the rec center are my friends. And if we get rid of the community center and the pool, I will lose my friends. My family and I would see my school friends there, too. I learned to swim in the deep end at that pool. Thank you for the opportunity to share my feelings and thoughts about the pool and the rec center. Good evening, Bloomfield community. Is it safe to say my address on here? I don't I to to begin I will say that um I have been an advocate for a very long time and I do believe that roasting is not the way and you know there's a there's a way and a a means to think to change right um and as all of us in this room who are adults except my son and as an advocate for the town of Bloomfield and the children here I try to lead by example And I brought him here tonight in hopes that he could see what it means

to fight for what he wants and needs and what the definition of fight is. Right? So, as we move forward through this meeting, we are all here today right now to advocate for something that we want or we're passionate about. There is a way to do everything. This isn't a rally. This is a a a meeting that has an agenda. So, I ask that everyone has the opportunity to hear each other out. This is what we were provided. Let's make do with what we have to say what we need to say and everybody have that opportunity. With that being said, I did prepare something for you guys tonight. It's null and void, it appears now, based off of what the mayor said, but moving forward, I think it's important. I come here as a concerned resident and parent of two kids. After reviewing the recent proposed budget, I was saddened to find deep budget cuts to programming and activities that directly affects the parents, families, and children of Bloomfield. I was also disappointed to find suggestions for money to fund other categories like a dog park or a walking trail and heftier paychecks for some examples while deeply cutting or even closing facilities and programs our children are actively engaged in. I was raised in Bloomfield my whole childhood and after unfortunate events I was left running from a dangerous domestic violence situation. I returned home about two years ago when I decided to stop running in an attempt to offer my children a sense of community, safety, and long lasting friendships. The first place I turned to for this was the community center. I and my kids were instantly welcomed with open arms, love, and support. Fast forward to today. My family and I attend all the applicable programs for children and families offered there, and the staff have become our family. I also utilize the rec center as a parent ambassador for Bloomfield where we help families connect to resources. In my time at the rec center, I have observed the staff make it a point to know every family, every child that comes into those doors to keep them safe. I've seen

many new children who have come to the rec center as their first point of contact and join the many activities offered there to spend their community their time productively. Our children have learned so much valuable skills from being involved with the rec center activities. Studies even show children who have access to and are enrolled in afterchool activities primarily display academic improvement, stay out of trouble, and support working parents. If we take away the rec center after school activities, we put our children of Bloomfield at a higher risk to idle hands and place an even heavier burden on our parents of Bloomfield. Where will we go and what will they do after school every day? Wouldn't we rather our children off the streets and in a safe environment doing productive activities? Sorry.

It's okay. His and because well I cut in with his. Okay. I have like two sentences if it's okay. Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. If we take away the rec center after school activities, we put our children at Bloomfield at higher risk to idle hands and place an even heavier burden on our parents in Bloomfield. Where will they go? What will they do to a What will they do after school every day? Wouldn't we rather our parents are our children are off the street and in a safe environment doing productive activities? This leads me to the closure of our town pool. I and my brothers and sisters learn to swim in that pool. And my kids were learning there, too. These budget cuts are going to force Bloomfield families to invest elsewhere out of town, which will place a hardship on many who decide to outsource to keep their children productive. This will cause an increased burden on the need for public safety in Bloomfield, which is already a struggling department here. I know the cost of things are always rising and and we as residents also have to consider rising fees to cover those costs, but the solution is to consider fair pricing to help, not at the expense of our youth. There has to be better solutions to the problem than handicapping our children's growth and safety. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Faith Taff. thought you okay. Thank you, Roy Duncan.

Good evening. My name is Roy Duncan. I reside at 18 Barnhill Road and have been a resident for 50 years. I'm here tonight because I'm concerned for the town I have spent the majority of my life in. I've observed local government closely for the last 25 of my 50 years here. I've served on various town boards and commissions, including the Economic Development Commission. I want to begin by saying that I have never witnessed our local government in such awful condition. It seems to me to be a rudderless ship. Tonight's topic is the 2027 budget. What I see is a disastrous presentation that shows a lack of leadership and creative thinking. I've learned that the mayor and the council gave no particular guidance to town management about its goals and object and expectations regarding this budget. I understand this budget was prepared using expensive new software. Great. What I believe is missing is any common sense and a human element. The budget presented does not even comply with the terms set forth in the town man in the town uh charter. This has been brought to your attention and disregarded. The town manager's response to a list of deficiencies presented by former councilman Rickford Cirten was a curt have a nice night that was totally disrespectful but reflects a general attitude this town manager seems to have toward public input which he has declared to be noise. He also stated publicly publicly he doesn't need this job. I'm going to skip and go forward and then come back. Remember this. The town manager serves at your pleasure, town council, not the other way around. How can you be pleased with his performance? By all objective

measures, he has failed. Yet he has been rewarded handsomely and he has been he has rewarded his friends and family with jobs and pay increases. He has engaged in politics which is a big no no for a manager. He has caused chaos and disruption since his arrival. He has driven the town's legal expenses dramatically through dramatically through some of his actions. You know what I'm talking about without my going into detail. He has become an embarrassment and a liability. He serves in violation of his employment contract. He doesn't even reside in Bloomfield as required by the charter. It is time for this town to sever its relationship with this man before he costs us even more. Please begin there and make it one of your goals and objectives. Now, let me offer some advice based on 15 years of experience in the private sector doing executive level budgeting and planning as well as 10 years and founder and president of an effective small group called taxpayer advocates for Bloomfield. The role of this council is to set policy. The role of the town manager and all his department heads is to execute that policy. It is their job to manage the budget. The council should offer guidance and set goals that it expects to be accomplished. You haven't done that. It's not too late, but your time is very short.

So, they suggest that you set We're going to give you another 30 seconds. Outline your Almost done. Outline your goals and expectations. Then give the town's professionals the job of managing to those goals and expectations. Name the goals. Decide, for example, what it would take to achieve a 0% tax increase. Never mind budget increase tax. Sir, thank you very much. I'm almost done. I believe it can be done without doing structural or services damage. I will say that pockets of money that have already been identified in the budget before you, sir. Rickford Curtain and others have present. I'm going to speak whether you like it or not.

Others have gone beyond three minutes and I will too. I've given you some extra time. of money have already been identified in the budget. Good place to start. Do it. Clean it up. Make it comply with the town charter. Management can start there and make their decisions without Sir, I'm sorry. Move forward. All right, I'm done. All right. You're so godamn discourteous. You don't want to hear the truth. You can't stand. So, we have a lot of speakers and we want to give everyone an opportunity. Good luck. didn't speak. So, LET HIM FINISH. TWO OTHER PEOPLE DIDN'T SPEAK. We did give extra time.

Our next speaker, next speaker is Sharon. Sharon Luella, excuse me. Moving forward, please review your notes and try to make sure that you fit within the threeminut time frame. There's a lot of people that want to speak and we want to give them every opportunity. Next speaker is Katherine Swat. Katherine Swatw. Did you say JW? Katherine, I'm sorry. Jew. I'm sorry. It was look like I asked. 10 Maple Avenue.

Yes, that's Hello. I'm Katherine Jwitt from 10 Maple Avenue in Bloomfield. I wanted to come here tonight to speak not about numbers, but what about the direction that this budget sets and this message that it sends to all of us? You're cutting services that all of us use and what makes this town and all of the people in it a community. You're breaking up a community here.

By closing the pool, you're saying we don't care what happens to you all summer, what happens to your children. We don't care, you know, that, you know, our overpop populated bear situation is now going to come through and pick up all the trash for us that has been left around. Okay, we don't care that the bears are running down the street. Um, and all of the budget proposals, I don't want to talk about numbers here. I want to talk about the heart of the council and what your morals and principles are, what standards we're setting for the town. I was member of the uh the town uh traffic caling committee, which we haven't really done a lot. We haven't done that much. We need to do more, but we need to work together. When is the town council reached out to these citizens and said, "What would you be willing to do? here's our situation. Here's what the numbers look like. What What can we do together to make this work? I haven't heard that yet, but I'm I look forward to hearing it very soon.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Rick for Curtain. Good evening, council, residents of Bloomfield. I'm happy to see that it's just not 10 residents online being an upstart. So, thank you for coming out and speaking on behalf of this budget. Now, I'm just going to go through the list of things that I will propose to the council that could help alleviate a lot of stress, I guess, that has been presented to residents of this town. So, we could use 2.75 million of the fund balance to help balance this budget. The MDC right now there's $550,000 projected in the budget from a year ago. That's completely wrong. Why? For the last four years, the MDC in the last two years went up by point4%. That's $15,000. How do you justify $550,000? That's a slush fund. We have a communication department. When I was on council, I caution everyone that this will get out of control. We're looking at almost a million dollars in communication for a few folks within that department. That's unacceptable. How could you justify looking at this budget, cutting services, but have a communication department? What are we communicating? That Bloomfield is not a place to live. As you all know, I'm an accountant. I work in the private sector.

There's no way possible that you give anyone a raise during a year when we have challenges. Now, now, now for the for the employees where there's contractual agreement where you have to pay that increase. There's no one within town staff that does not have a contract should be receiving an increase. Period. That's not optional, guys. Second thing, we have the town attorney. One of the proposal that I heard from this council when we hired this new town attorney was the previous town attorney had a lot of outsourcing. This attorney comes with a firm that there will be a lot of savings. That line item has balloon. It's actually tracking roughly around $800,000 in the FY26 budget. What was presented in this budget is not accurate. A lot of the numbers that's presented here, and I know you guys know that because I've been communicating by email, I haven't received a clear answer, but they're not correct because the the tool that you purchase, what is it called? The

munis. When you look at Munis and you compare the data that's in the budget, it does not does not match. Thank you, Mr.

Could I just have 30 seconds to wrap up, please? So, what I'm also suggesting that happened, we spend 35 million residents of this town, 35 million plus on a beautiful library. There is no way that you should be cutting back hours and not opening the library on a Saturday and Sundays. Restore the pool. restore our senior services. Our seniors have invested in this community for years. Don't take away stuff from them. And most importantly, public works. When I first moved to this town 20 plus years ago, the one thing I used to rave about is public works. When there's a snowstorm in this state, Loomfield did its job.

Thank you. Restore public works. Next speaker is Esther Harris.

Hi, my name is Esther Harris and I live at 104 Huber Street in Bloomfield. I didn't plan to speak. This is like my only second time, you know, attending a meeting, but I just have one thing to say. I I know that everybody is aware what times we're living in and democracy is really important to everyone and I hope that everybody keeps that in mind because we're fed up of voting in people that don't do the job that they said they were going to do.

Thank you.

Thank you. How the St. Graham days. My name is Hollistine Graham Days and I live at 89 Wentonberry Avenue in Bloomfield. Uh, I came here tonight because I wanted to address three areas and most of those areas, all three of them have been discussed, but I just want to say that um I support um um leaving the pool open. I support the trash staying within our taxes and I also support selfish reasons but logical. This is a aging town and to cut the senior um budget, senior services budget is just asinine. We have we have a wonderful director of senior services and I'm sure everyone would agree. And so when I look around this room, I see the grays. And so let's just support the departments that service us well. You know, cutting that budget just doesn't make sense. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Shman. Good morning everybody. My name is Sage Schman and I live at 8 Road. Uh and I was proud to serve as the your mayor for about 12 years. I only tell you that so that I can relate that I have a little bit of experience in budgets and municipal budgets and um I would say my Bloomfield Lines Club has a phrase be kind and I believe in that. So to be kind, let me just say that I'm speculating that the manager's budget was calculated to wake everybody up. And I would say it's met its op. Yes, it's done that. I stood here a year ago and I'm not going to say what I said year ago, but I sort of predicted tonight. Unfortunately, nothing changed. Nothing changed. Now, I have some confidence in our new leadership. I will tell you that I have some confidence in our new leadership that some things will change. I have a list of cuts and ads and so I don't want to waste more time, I'd like to I don't anytime you want me to tell you where it came from or however, I'll do that. But let me just go through the cuts and ads that I recommend. Number one, we are the only town in the area of anything remotely like our side that has two administrative assistants to the town manager. We are not Hartford. We are not Stanford. We are not New Haven. So, I recommend that $82,888

be taken from the uh the uh manager's budget for his office. and we only have one assistant town manager. Number two, while a lot of people don't know, we have a thing called a council contingency fund and a manager's contingency fund. Except last year, if you look at the things, we didn't have much contingencies. So, I'm recommending that 50,000 be reduced more from the council's contingency fund and 50,000 from manager's contingency fund. Now, I recommend in uh operations and communications part-time that that be reduced by $82,347. Um an extra town manager personnel, I recommend $100,000 be uh deducted in uh IT and other uh contractual services. Uh, I recommend that $80,000 be reduced in that line item. In, uh, town clerk advertising, I recommend $500 be reduced. Every little bit helps. The assessor's office professional services, I recommend that $50,000 be reduced. In human resources, education and training, I recommend $100,000 be reduced.

Thank you. And in town attorney, I recommend that $50,000 be reduced. I'm not going to explain why. There is a thing called STP. Share the pain. I will end. And in sharing the pain, I agree with no non-union non-contractual raises at all in this town. Now, I have some things to put back and I will not go through that because I know I don't have time, but a couple people said they didn't want to speak. So maybe they gave me their three minutes. All right. Let me just say thank you.

That this town needs to have a full-time economic development director reportable to the mayor, the council, and the town manager. Thank you. Because in here is a town economic development specialist, Mr. Land, whatever. That is a waste waste of time. It will accomplish nothing and I won't even bother to tell you why unless I'm called back to speak. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Gail Riley before one one moment. Sorry. Councelor Cooper. Thank you uh Mr. Mayor. Thank you um for this moment of privilege. Um there's there are a lot of people in here and that's been acknowledged. Uh I'm going to just as a privilege as a as a counselor um say that you have three minutes and after that three minutes your three minutes are over. Um we will be here all night long. And so and so and so and so and so um ma'am and that type of thing also is not kind. Neither is it civil.

And we need to point we need to point it out. We need to point it out. All right. Councelor Cooper, just let let it let them continue. I'm going to finish right now. I know I know that we can call the next person. I know that we've done this, but please if we could others do have people do have things outside of here, so I just wanted to ask Thank you. Next speaker. Next speaker is Gail Riley. Miss Riley.

Yeah.

Gail Riley, Maple Avenue. I am disappointed in this budget. Um I know I harp on this all the time, but every little bit helps and I do feel like the trades line item should go back into the general fund. Um that little bit of money could maybe, you know, help the senior citizens not lose a lose a lose a program. Um I do agree that the contingency fund for the town council and for the mayor, I mean, and for the town manager should be reduced. $50,000 is a lot. Maybe do 25 or 20. Um there are ways that things can be reduced without hurting the citizens of this town. I have been to so many meetings where all I hear is we want to do good for the greater greater good for the you know for the people. We want to serve more people by doing things. These cuts that you have proposed are definitely not doing for the greater good. They're hurting the seniors, the kids. It's just not right. And I hope you would really think long and hard and make some decisions that are going to be really hard and not give everybody raises in town hall, not do some um not give everybody you know raises and just reorganize maybe give India's some things that India does to somebody else in town hall you know the FOI we spend how much money between the town and the board on that program to help do the FOI complaints. Have you used it? I haven't heard that you have. So, we seem to spend money on things that we don't end up using. That's wasteful. I just wish you guys would really think long and hard on what you're cutting.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Keith Martin. Good evening, mayor, town council, Eth Martin, 357 Park. A I'll just be brief. Um, I believe in this town. Lived in this town my entire life. Well, off and on. But I'm a product of this town and I believe in its potential. And the challenge I have with Bloomfield, it never seems to reach its potential. There's such great potential in this town. Instead of taking it here, we go about here. We say we're comfortable.

And it's time for us not to be so comfortable and find ways that we can bring money into this town. They're building all kinds of apartment complexes, exclusive apartment complexes, but it never seems to be enough money. I have a couple of um somewhat challenging and thoughtful ideas on how Muffy could make money. When they put together the community center/cenior center, I was initially hesitant because it was across the street from my house and I knew they were going to have a lot of traffic, which it is. But I also said, "Well, why don't we have the pool?" I looked at the Jewish Community Center in West Harford. No, it's not part of West Harford. However, my mother, rest her soul, used to go there for exercise. and we have supposedly one of the top senior center senior communities in the country yet we don't necessarily do as much as we can with them. If we had had a pool in that center, we could have been bringing money in for exercise programs and things of that nature. But no, they said, "Well, it's going to be 5 million." They didn't bring it out for bid. They just said, "It's going to be too much and put it aside." That could have been money coming into the community. Education. I'm a retired administrator from the town of Manchester. I can tell you special ed is always a ticket. It's always an item. They say, "Well, special ed cost." Well, you know, I hear people talking about how great our education system is. Why don't we see about bringing some of those services into Bloomfield? They do it in Manchester and they actually make money, but we're always farming out. It's 110, 120, 140,000 per student. If we have such a great system, and I know I have some concerns with CRE, because CRE has put a cap on some of the things that creative ideas we can do here, but that's another discussion that if you brought some of those services into Bloomfield, you could actually make money. People would be paying people to come here. Initially, it might be a cost. But those costs would be remitted over time and you could have services in in house instead of farming them out and

spending all that money. That's not a knock on special ed. I would I work with special ed kids. I work with needy kids. I'm just saying bring some of those services in town and then actually the money can come in. Um, the other thing I have a problem with, and I don't know how much time I have left, probably 30 seconds, is when the community finds out about things, unfortunately, it's already after they made a decision. When it came to the community center and when it came to community center, senior center, they had already spent a million dollars on the land before they said, "Let's have a talk with the community." Yeah.

You'd already spent a million dollars. You know, you're going to do it. The other thing, they've got a greenway project, which is going to be behind my house on the trolley. Um, those of you who don't know about the trolley system was 1920, 1929. Do your homework. You can Google it. All right. Now, that's great. Most of the time you'll find that in rural communities. I used to bike and rollerblade and and inline skating and all that. I know you're looking 15 seconds left. And I think it's great conceptually, but most of the time you've seen those out in the rural areas. You're talking about putting it between Blue Hills Avenue and I sleep. That's like putting That's like putting an alleyway in my backyard. Thank you.

No lights, no security, no fencing. So, please in the future, Bloomfield, let's bring the community together before you've already made your decision and think of some ways that we can make money. Follow the Thank you very much. Next speaker is Steven Zelman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, thank you council members for listening to all of us. Uh, first of all, I will implore all of you not to speak out of place. If you were in my court, you would have been kicked out. Do not become a rabble. You are here to represent yourself, not to be a rabble. As far as the budget is concerned, I'm a student of history. I spent roughly 20 years working in this building. A lot of things were accomplished by prior administrations. the senior center, the human resources building, uh the pool, uh I think the library idea germinated from earlier councils. The difference being the town hall administration was not as bloated as it is today. I think you really need to take a look at cuts in that area. work a little bit leaner, maybe more effort by everyone involved. I will speak just briefly as to bonuses. Bonuses which were prevented from my giving out to staff because I ran a government agency was could only be given out on performance review with certain standards per contract. I'm not sure that's what's being followed here. Uh, not much else to say except sharpen your pencils. Not only putting some of the things back in that are essential to the life of the community, but also some cuts so that there's sufficient funds to be able to utilize those functions properly. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Ed Garcia. I'm so proud to live in a community where people stand up for their rights. Yes.

And where neighbors give a damn about their neighbors. And how about that young little young man advocating for for his fellow buddies? Okay. Um, I wrote a speech, but you guys beat me to uh situation on the trash and recycling. So, I'm going to cut it short. I live at 30 Cenon Drive. Own that property since 1991. I just have one short question because I'm a retired teacher. Teachers love to have questions. You know, this goes to any councilman here. How does the town council justify a tax increase of over 6% headed up to seven in 2000 in the 2007 budget when residents on fixed incomes because we have a lot of seniors here particularly those relying on social security widows to teachers and to law enforcement public servants uh which were provided on social security a 3.5% cost of living adjustment in 2005. They're clearly unable to keep pace with such increases. Can you explain to the town and to the seniors because I'm getting up there as seniors. How could folks that are retired on a fixed income with that type of cost of living get a tax increase? One year tax increase, another year tax increase. Now this town I I get to talk to people here. The issue is affordability. I have to make a decision whether I stay in this town and I love this town

and I don't need to leave this town because you guys want to eat the house steaks. If you can't afford it, eat hamburgers. And if you can't eat hamburgers, eat chicken. And it's NOT GO ON A DIET. Y because you're reaching into everyone's pocket, right?

And what's going to happen is flight. People that have been here, invested here, are going to leave here. What you're going to end up with is a Newark, NEW JERSEY OF THE 1970S, and it never recovered. So start cutting. Get your scissors out. Cut whatever you got to cut. But leave some change for us in our pockets. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Joe Washington. Joe Washington. Good evening.

Good evening.

Evening to uh town councils, the manager, all their assistants. Just wanted to let you know I was coming to Opine about basic things such as three basic things that I had. No cuts to the waste deduction, no cuts to recreation center, and no cuts to the Bloomfield Library Board. But I think that's been handled. I I think uh the mayor made a statement regarding that and uh there's no need to further uh talk about that because everyone I've spoke with thus far have dwelled on the same subject. So I just want to speak to something general. I'm I'm concerned about our Bloomfield citizens. We must support our seniors, our children here in Bloomfell, Connecticut. First, we must redirect those huge town hall salaries. We need to get back to helping those of us that are so vulnerable to and intolerable to the treatment of our citizens. We don't have to reintroduce any kind of new legislation. But I think if we would just dwell down on the monies and funds that we have presently, we can get to that.

I know because I was a Bloom Tech town counselor for six years, 2011 to 2017. We did those things that they mentioned, the library, the wreck, the pools, the money. We were able to do that. Sid knows that. Others of you who've been on town, Merritt knows that we've done all of those things. So, I know that you can do this. I know that you're going at it the wrong way. I know that you're mistreating the citizens here. I know that you can do better. I know that you are intelligent enough to come up with some conclusive answers to the needs of our vulnerable citizens, the seniors and the town, our our babies. Now, I'm a senior citizen. I'm 79 years old. So, I want to be included, too. So, help me so that I can help you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Nicola Pop. Nicola Poplin. On a call. Good evening everyone. My name is Nicola Pavlin. I live at nine Brighton Parkway. And before I begin, I just want to apologize. I am typically a very pleasant, lovely young lady. So, um, yes. So, my apologies in advance. I'm I'm really upset today for a number of reasons. I'm upset because I came to this meeting and I saw that there were three police cruisers outside and you guys had the foresight to get police protection here, but you didn't have the foresight to anticipate all these people. I don't understand how that works. Um, what they say make it make sense. You bring the police, but you don't bring accommodations. I'm standing over there because I knew that I wanted to say something and someone spoke from behind and I felt their saliva on my head and my neck. Now I have to go home and wash all of this here. Suffice it to say, I'm just really disappointed in how the citizens are being treated. The citizens that some have voted for you, some that pay your salary. Mr. Swap, I hope that you would like put down your phone and actually listen to me because you're next on my list. Um, this is the first time I've met you. Um, but I'm concerned about some of the proposals that you put in your budget, including the assistant for $132,000 at the low end. There are teachers that have reached step 13 that have a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees that make, I think, 2425 $17,000. So, how do you justify

having an assistant that makes $132,000 on the low end when there are teachers that have been in the Bloomfield public school system and I know this because I worked in the Bloomfield public school system. They don't make that much money. I don't know how you sleep at night. And then I was also thinking, my god, this meeting started at what 6:30 and you didn't even have the decency, sir, to get here on time. And I have to ask, did this did the traffic from Simsbury, you know, stop you from getting here on time? because I don't even want to get into the residency issue that I have. And the reason why this budget is so atrocious is not because well, it is because I believe that you're incompetent. But I also think it's because you don't know what community is. Because there is no one that lives in Bloomfield that would do this to the Bloomfield citizens. If you lived here, if you went to sleep here, if you woke up here, if you went to Planet Fitness to go to the gym here, if you went to to to the Jamaican Beef um shop um in Kapakaco Center and brought your lunch there, if you went to the gas station here, if you visited any of these services and you were actually a community member, you would not have gutted that the budget the way it is. You would not have presented that. So, you need to gut that. It is ridiculous. And I'm also going to say this last thing. it. Thank you. Um I heard allegations of essay with you, sir, and it's very triggering for me. Number one, because I'm a survivor and I'm quite sure there's probably dozens of survivors in here right now. And the fact, council members, that this man is not on administrative leave bothers me. The fact that he is not fired bothers me. You said, sir, that you don't need this job. What's stopping you?

Thank you. What's stopping you? If you're going to be here, if we're scared to deal with you, sir, I would hope number one that you would figure out, get some help. If you're having a problem with the audit, you know, I'm almost done. If you need help, ask someone that has experience in accounting. I'm looking at all of these members and I'm wondering what is your area of expertise? It's not finance. It's not budgeting. What is it? Thank you.

And lastly, I just want to say for all of you that are here, please vote. I just hope that you tell your neighbors because th this is too late. This really is an action that's too late. Whoever voted for this, put this here. So, we need to undo this. You worked for us. You were elected for us. Thank you very much. Be on your phones while your citizens are talking. Mr. Cooper is disrespectful. You talk about civility and respect. Have some. Have some. Try it. Respect me as I'm talking to you. the way I respected you when you said be civil and be kind. Thank you. I don't know how you people sleep at night. I hope it's well. Your time is numbered.

Next speaker is Karen Robinson. Karen Robinson. Hi, my name is Karen Robinson. I live at 9ine Caramore Park and uh many years ago my husband and I had a small business in this town until we retired. Three years ago, we moved to 9ine Caramore Park and we love it. We love Bloomfield. Um I'm I'm going to keep this very short and simple. The ding isn't going to go off for me. Um I really I appreciate you know that expression that person speaks my mind. Well the men and women and the young men who have spoken today speak my mind. But I would also like to say short and sweet is it doesn't make sense to me when you bloat the administration and then reduce the services that require administering.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Mary Burstein. Burstein. Mary Burstein. I'm sorry. Hello, my name is Mary Buren and I live at 24 Reg uh not Regency Drive, that was before 24 Brown Street here in Bloomfield. Before that, I was on Regency Drive. Um I came out today to primarily speak on the pool closing. That was the main part of this budget that I had heard about before tonight. I was also astonished to hear about the trash, but I'm so glad everyone has spoken on that. Um, I just want to mention that my husband and I work full-time and we have an elementary age daughter and over the course of the summer, we rely on the town camp here at Bloomfield at the rec center. That is the only way for us to really afford a good child care situation for our daughter. And all of the afterare afterchool programs, the extracurricular things, those are all gone over the summer. She has ballet through the entire school year. Over the summer, she doesn't have any of that because everyone else goes on vacation. So she relies on the getting that out in the pool. She relies on being able to use her energy in that way, specifically at the pool. And she has become able to make friends with many other children that function the same way she does that don't go to Bloomfield Public Schools even though they live in town. Nothing against those families that make that choice for them, but it's an amazing example of how services that we have in the town bring

everyone together regardless of socioeconomic status, whether or not we go to the public school, the private school, who has special needs that might require different approaches to education. We can all come together at places like those summer camps. The library programs I heard mentioned several times as well. We go to many of those and she meets her friends from school. She sees her friends from camp. We have begun to make friends with other young families in town, people our age, which is really nice. Um Yeah. Right. Um, and so I hear that hopefully the pool will be staying open and that the town cuts will not the cuts will hopefully not be happening for the town camps for the kids. But I hope that you take this story um, spoken from the adult perspective as opposed to the adorable young friend who was here earlier. Um, take that with you as we go forward and reflect on that going into other budget meetings and things like that. These are very important for building our community, maintaining relationships, and helping our town flourish. Thank you.

Thank you, Jonah Weidman, Mayor Harrington. I just want to say there's uh seats available if anybody wants a seat. I'm seeing some seats open up. Uh about five I'm looking at if anybody wants to sit. Two up front here and other places. and right over there.

Good evening. I'm Jonah Weidman, 247 Park Avenue. I've been in Bloomfield for over 30 years. I don't think we need to have anything cut. We need to bring more things into Bloomfield. There's not enough activities for the seniors or the youth. There's a lot of money that Bloomfield is sitting on. I know because I call the Department of um public works. My street is a mess. It's like going on a roller coaster every day. My house shakes like crazy when the trucks that not supposed to go down Park Avenue go down the tractor trailer trucks. There is nothing being done about that. I called um the person, the accountant over at the uh public works and they told me the money's been allocated to fix the roads. It's been that way for three years now and nothing has been done about it. I call all the time and ask them, can they please fill up the gaps, the holes in the roads? Nothing's being done. I call the police department to ask them to please stop the tractor trailer trucks from coming down the street. I have one of the oldest citizens in Bluefield on Park Avenue. She's 104 years old this year and the houses shake. We have um hardly any protection from the police department because um they're just sitting there across the street at the historical building sometimes watching the trucks go down, watching the cars speed, watching the people with the loud mufflers and they hop like there's a gun going off and um scare the hell out of you. And uh there's just nothing being done in Bloomfield. Kbacles is a hot mess. It's filthy dirty. The roads over

there are terrible. Uh something needs to be done, but no cuts need to be done. We need more and more activity in this town. We need the movie theater opened up again. We need uh bowling alleys. I propose to Elizabeth, the uh person in charge of the public library to Why don't we have uh pedal boats going under that bridge there? Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be nice to have some foot pedal boats going under the bridge? Flare the little uh water route that's going over towards Farmington. We can have rowboats going. We can charge money for that. The children will have activity. There's so many things we can do. The council needs to talk to the public so we can get different ideas going on to improve this town. I put um all a lot of these signs out that vote for these councils in front of my yard and I expect them to do something something for us. This one right here I had in my daycare when he was little. So I know him. But thank you. And um I know we're going to do better and uh we're a community and we're going to work together. Thank you all. Thank you very much.

So now we're going to shift to our residents that are on our Zoom online. If you would like to speak, please raise your virtual hand and you will be called upon. I will if if there is anyone online, I would ask that you raise your virtual hand so that you can be called and recognized if you would like to speak. Anyone online? 25 of y'all know somebody has something to say. I don't see anybody raise their hands online.

Would you like to speak, sir?

I don't think so.

My name is Robert May. I live in Ellsworth off of tons and uh I've been knowing the mayor for a long time. Everybody that I heard tonight said what I was going to say. Uh I mean I may look young but I ain't. I I did my time in the service. I retired from Colts manufacturer. just retired December 27 years and I I lived as just like I said earlier about social security and um pension or whatever. That's not enough. I had to get a part-time job. Now you talking about raising taxes and getting away getting rid of certain areas uh that we need. We need to help the people instead of letting the people down. You know, uh I don't know how long I'm going to live in Bloomfield. Cuz where I live, we don't have city sewage. We got to pay. And bad enough, you know, you get rid of the garbage. We have to pay for that. You know, it's it's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard for me. It's going to be hard for everyone. not speaking just for myself, but I'm speaking for the town itself. Uh, no disrespect on no one that's on the board here or whatever, but you have to find a way to help this situation where we can benefit from instead of suffering and worrying about. You have to realize people forget about God.

You know, God made this earth so we can nurture it and live by it, but instead it's all about money and greed and all this. I wonder what's going to happen when everybody pass away. Which way they going to go? So, God don't like ugly. And uh I hope the situation will turn in a better way for us, all of us. And that's all I got to say. Thank you.

I'm going to call once again. If anyone online would like to speak, please raise your virtual hand and you will be called upon. Thank you. One person, Jeff Clement.

Hey, good evening. This is uh Jeff Clement of 24 Hoskins Road in Bloomfield. I'm uh very happy to hear that uh it's been rescended as far as removing the trash services. Um there's quite a few of the proposals and I'm confused as to why they were even presented. And you know, my thought is were these just easy things to have people come in and riled up and knocked down? they take their wins and you know um we just move on increase the budget and say well you all won increase the budget and go do everything you were looking to do anyway. Um again just don't understand you know why those proposals were made as has been previously stated tonight. Um pure idiocy frankly. Also, you know, I'm just confused as to how property values have increased uh substantially percentage-wise. And at the same time as property values go up, the mill rate goes up. Uh maybe it's my misunderstanding, but I thought that the mill rate was a way to offset property values uh and to try and help match um the income to expenses. Uh it it's kind of like a lever as I understand it to you know develop what you know your expenses are going to be and then go and match it with the income. It's just a lever to do that. I'm just again confused as to how property values go up. Um and the mill rate goes up at the same time. Um and that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else online that would like to speak? Now it's 27 of you. So somebody you like to speak, please raise your virtual hand, please. See no hands raised. Okay. Would we be going back to any others that have not signed? No. Okay,

every everyone in the room has spoken, but there is a question whether or not you will allow a second round of discuss or comments. I think we should. So, I know two have expressed interest, Sid and Rickford. Yes. So, let's move forward with that. Sid Shman Sid in Rickford would like to speak. Which which one? We'll make sure you have an opportunity. Okay. Everyone has spoken. So it's me again.

I've told you about a bunch of cuts that I suggest. I now suggest how you add back. Not me. The manager says in his budget that we should keep between 15 and 20% of the budget in the rainy day fund. That's fine. Except the rainy day fund for 2026 count as 23.7%. So it seems that we could pull out 3.7%. But I'm suggesting that we pull out 4.7%. So it brings our rainy day fund to 19%. Which is still pretty good in 15 and 20. Now, by my calculations, that means we pull out 21 I'm I'm sorry. Uh 20 we leave in the rainy day fund 21,587 85 21,5876149. I will contribute the $49. Now, that means that we have available $2,112 and $339. I'm sorry, 2,112,339. But so if trash collection is 2,250,000, that means we're we pay for trash collection. Surprise. only we only you're short 137,661. So this is what I did. I said let's put back in 137,661. Let's put leisure services grants manager which by the way makes us money put back in. Uh that's 40 thou $90,000. Add back the senior minibus hours of $483,975.

We should not be My earring is off. We should not be worrying about time in on the minibus serving si seniors in this town. I also add back five $54,049 in social and youth services for emergency and foster care. I mean, well, I'm not going to go into the reasons why because I don't have time. But we had staff hours, youth programming, and community. So, if you add up all the things I'm putting back in, that comes to $675,685. By the way, what am I cutting? $645,735. I am sure that the manager or the council can find $30,000 bucks somewhere to fill that gap. I have the greatest confidence that they can find that $30,000.

I'm not going to get into a whole bunch of other things. Thank you. My time is up, so I got to sit down again. Thank you very much. But economic development director, not service something or other. Thank you. Thank you. break the curtain. No, he's going to go after ma'am in the pink shirt in the front. Yes. Just state your name and address, please. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, folks are saying online they aren't able to raise their hands. There's folks that want to speak online, but um they're not able to raise their hands. I'm not sure

anytime. Hi. Yes.

Hi. Good uh good evening. My name is Drienne Ellington. I live on South Barnhill Road and I've moved to Bloomfield in 2018. Um I just came to speak on the leisure services cuts that have been proposed. Um I just would like to object to that because um I'm not sure if it's true that a dog park is planned, but I feel like the children are the future is more important to um contribute to the children because I don't believe when dogs grow up they're going to be contributing to our society. So, you know, there's plenty of green spaces. Maybe the town hall could be a space for the dogs or whatever, but the children are important, more important to feed into and nurture them so that they can contribute to us in the future. So, I just want to make that point.

Thank you. Thank you. Work for curtain.

Thank you for allowing me to speak again. The one thing that you have to factor in that this budget does not reflect, there are two fire districts within the town of Bloomfield. If you live on the eastern side of town, it's roughly around 2% 2% mill on top of the 35 whatever percent for the town. So historically, that's reflected in the town's budget. what this town manager has been doing is pulling that out. That distorts the actual exposure to residents. So, I believe it's important to show that within the budget because I live in the center of town. The last budget it was 1.87%. So, just add that to the 35%. So, you have to factor that in as well. That's important to let residents know what's the true exposure on their taxes. I think it's also important before you start a budget process to educate residents about the budget. I know it's easy. I I've heard from members of this council that says, "Oh, no one comes out. That's the reason why you do what you do." But honestly speaking, for the last few years, I've invested my own time in getting information out to residents. I know a lot of folks say, "Oh, it's online." But guess what? because of that advocacy, folks came out tonight. They're paying attention to what's going on with their local government and that's important. So, I think it's important for you to take that in, get back to the drawing table, and I hope after you make adjustments, you'll have an opportunity once you publish those numbers for residents to come out and to speak on that budget. So tonight shouldn't be the only night that we get to speak on the budget because honestly speak I think as Ronald Reagan said trust but verified.

So everything that you said you're going to do I actually want to see it in the numbers to see how you're getting to to that result. So I would encourage the council make those adjustments publish it so voters can get to review residents could review that and then we come back for a second round to discuss what you're presenting to us. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Unice Medwinter. Unice Medinter. Thank you again for having me. Ununice Medinter 46 Newport Drive. Um I spoke about the um the removal of the uh trash um earlier and I wanted to also add in terms of the actual increase in our taxes. One of the things that I'm very confused about is that there's no tangible benefit to a person who owns their home for 20 years to be charged penalized for value that they get no tangible benefit from. If I'm living in my home, how am I benefiting from an increased value? It seems that we are being penalized for making any improvements to our home. And you are benefiting the town benefits increase our taxes. So you do something to your home, you pay more taxes. I've often been told that well that's the value. Yes, that's the value. But council has the power of the mill rate to adjust the mill rate to make it more representative of what our taxes should be. If I'm going to continue paying taxes, then it seems to me I shouldn't fix my roof. I shouldn't do anything. I shouldn't the the beautifification committee goes around and they look at homes and says, "Yes, this is beautiful." But why are we paying taxes just to make our homes beautiful? Why is that a penalty for us that we make our homes beautiful? So, I'm going to ask that it we really look at our mill rate. If we can't adjust um they say if you can't if the water is over the bridge, if you can't raise the bridge, lower the water, lower the mill rate. Let taxes be real. We can't keep paying these taxes. We are being pressed from all ends. We have the gas prices

and every single thing that that impacts being increased. We have our own local uh state government giving um authorizing the MD all the utilities MDC and Eversource to increase their rates and then we come to our own local municipalities that are collecting our um property taxes and car taxes that is also squeezing us to the limit. So we're asking please look at the mill rate and see what we can adjust there.

Thank you. Thank you. Online we have Jeff Clement. Sorry, wait, wait one second. Mr. Clement, we have someone in the audience that would like to just state your name and address, please. Good evening and thank you. Good evening and thank you. You folks, it has become obvious you have not done your job. I am commanded to forgive you and I'm going to do that but I'm also going to say you need to do your job. This issue with the mill rate in the assessment both in the same it's double indemnity. My taxes should likely go up from 5,500 to $12,000. This is this is not manageable. So where am I to do leave? And that's been that's what's been brought up. It's the issue of affordability for Bloomfield for people who want to live here. And I come to you to say there are ways to do this. We've seen the overexpenditures that have been brought up by so many people. Please do your job. You're here to serve us. Help us. The issue here is trust. And I see today this has been lost and you need to earn it back and I encourage you to do that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Um online we have Jeff Clement. Thank you again. I did just want to mention I'm here independent of Rickford and anything that he does or any of his um notices etc. Uh just wanted to make that clear. There's people here for you know other reasons and without Rickford. Um I know that Sids put forth quite often about like a town planner or economic development uh specialist or some type of that role. I don't know the true value of that. There's probably pluses and minuses of it, but I think that 132,000 uh annually minimally um would probably cover that. And I would just like to state, you know, I'd be more in favor of, you know, uh, economic development or a town planner like in in that aspect of, uh, value to the town over an assistant, another assistant for 132,000 annually, minimally. Um, and just wanted to to notate, you know, I I'm still in my working career. I had uh pretty much hoped to retire and die in the house that I'm in now. Um but you know, I'm hearing a lot of people and I understand what they're saying, the the being priced out and you know, to think that you know, spend so many years and decades and create your home and for this to be the the the home and where where you want to to be until your to your last days and to to be pushed out. uh is a frightening thought to me. Um it's a terrible thing to have to deal with. Um and so everybody that's stating that concern,

it's just yeah, that's very heavy and uh should be really carry a lot of weight, I think, uh to to everybody in town and and to council and uh to the town manager. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That's it. Okay. So, at this time we will move to a discussion and possible action regarding the FY2027 budget council deliberations part one. Council Cooper. Uh I move that we uh move to council deliberations. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion?

Any counselors uh interested in starting the discussion? Council Oliver.

Um I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight. Everybody had great viewpoints. Um we do hear you. We're not looking past you. Um this wasn't Town Council's budget. We are here to listen to everything everybody's saying, all the departments, all the residents. We're going to come back to the table and we're going to take what residents are telling us that have experienced in the past and we're going to we're going to see what we can do. I mean, this is a rough year. You got state mandate reval. There's a lot of things at play here, but we do hear you. We are you. We live here, too. though, you know, some people might have different opinions about certain things, we all care about the same amenities that we have here. You know, I I want my garbage picked up. I want to be able to go to the pool. So, we do relate to you and you are heard and that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, uh, Council Mahan.

Thank you, Mayor Harrington. And, uh, I also want to thank all the residents for coming out tonight. Um, this is what excites me about about the job. Seeing residents get engaged, seeing residents speaking out and being passionate about their town, showing up and showing out when it counts. This is what matters in our community. So, I appreciate everyone for taking the time because I know it sometimes it it takes a bit to make your way here. And for those that are online, I appreciate you as well for taking the time out because there's a million and one things that you can be doing or probably should be doing, but the fact that you prioritize your community is very important to me. So, thank you everyone for coming out. Um, I also want to uh speak a bit about uh a lot of the items that were proposed uh as potential cuts because these are also things that I've been kind of beating the drum on for the last few years such as um raises, such as the raises, such as the bonuses. Um I've been someone that has opposed those things um vehemently even when I've had to stand by myself. And I want to I think we should look at those things as we go uh into our budget deliberations and take the town manager's budget and create a council budget. We do need to consider those items and and to scale back. I agree with a lot of our residents. We do seem a bit topheavy here in town hall and I'm I'm seeing the uh the great inflation of uh a lot of these departments. One of them I spoke to in our last uh budget presentation meeting was um our uh sorry it's not it's no longer strategic communications it's um operations and communications I believe uh thank you um operations and communications and how you know I was here when that department

started and the budget for that department was nowhere near what it is now. Um especially in a time where we're uh especially in a time where a budget is proposed to cut funding for police cruisers um for uh the maintainer that we gave to the Department of Public Works and now we're trying to take back when we have double the square footage uh that needs to be maintained and taken care of so that we have a beautiful community. We paid like many residency, we paid uh $30 million for a library that isn't even oh I I can't even access the library because my work schedule doesn't permit me to make it to the library during their opening hours. And there's a lot lot of residents that fall into that as well. I talked to the director of the library. She says, "When are you going to visit?" I said, "When I get time off of work, I guess." Um you know, it shouldn't be that way. We have these things in Bloomfield to make uh our town more beautiful, to make this community um enriched. And um I'm seeing a lot of places where we can make uh drastic cuts. One of them is reducing the uh the town attorney's budget. Um the town the town attorney's budget was raised uh I believe it was last year by $100,000 in order to what was said to compensate for the um for the charter revision process um and with the hope that with the hope that it would eventually go back down but we're seeing of course the town attorney expenditures rise we're seeing uh that that budget continue to explode yet like I said we're taking away from the things that our residents care about the most. Senior services, they they care about how their roads are being

maintained. Uh they care about how our our buildings look. They care about the things that are touching them. Um so, you know, I I would implore my colleagues to take a a really hard look at this budget. Look at the budgets. I I know that it's it's hard to cut from departments, but I see a lot of places where we can make meaningful cuts that would deliver a better budget, not only uh for our residents, but for the future of Bloomfield because uh actually my colleague uh Suzette Death Brown, she actually said this. She's not here tonight uh but she said this, the budget that we're drafting and when we go into these budgets, we can't just think about this year or next year. We have to think about the next 5 years and look into the future of Bloomfield. Uh because that is how we strategically plan to avoid situations where we have residents that are priced out of their homes or put into uncomfortable situations combined with all the economic pressures. Um so once again, I'd like to thank everybody for coming out. Um quite a bit of work here cut out for us, but I already see a clear path where we can make some things happen. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Uh, Reputing Mayor Lloyd and then Councelor Merritt.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Um, I can occur with a lot of the comments made here this evening, particularly regarding the fact that we want to retain as many services as we can. I think that sometimes we don't quite understand the numbers and it does bear going through them with specifics so that our public understands the impact of the rebal. They understand how the mill rate can be used to offset the taxes, but also understanding that you can't lower the mill rate so low that you don't raise enough revenue to run the town. And indeed, we all recognize as I say that that there there is many opportunities to adjust this proposed budget. That's exactly what it was. I do appreciate everyone that spoke out today, but I would try to say that keep in mind this is proposed and we do have work to do. I would specifically say that there are some adjustments that need to be made in town hall staffing wise and different things. people doing certain roles that would alleviate some budgetary issues, right? We had to outsource the baton attorney to work for FOI because we came so luminous. So I don't want us to lose sight of that. This is not friends and family as someone said earlier. This is a necessary service that outgrew our staff capacity. And so unfortunately that there are some additional expenses that we had to spend in addition to litigation that we had to spend those dollars. and that litigation is fine because it is indeed people's right to petition, to referendum, and to challenge those things. I absolutely respect the right to do that, but it does come at an

expense. So, we just need to keep that in mind as we make these comments. Lastly, I'll say before we start hopefully talking about a few specifics um as far as our desires as a council for ads and drops, I would also say people keep saying about they remember when comms was started and that the current expense related to it is astronomical. It's astronomical for comms. This is no longer comms. There is dual capacity in that office. Miss Rogers is not only she is now director of operations. She is taking care of the daytoday issues that also come up. She is responsible now for many many many a plethora of special projects and ad hoc issues that come up that would have otherwise fallen by the wayside but get handled for the betterment of the community. Work that is totally unknown. So I would say if you guys want more impact or excuse me more anybody in town leadership would have a problem letting you know some of those things that have been picked up that had historically maybe fallen by the wayside. So I would encourage us I I will also say I don't know that we'll finish deliberations this evening. We certainly can start deliberations, but I would also say I would hope that we would not try to wrap things up this evening because in the absence of our counselor Susette Debum Brown, I know that she very much wanted to be a part of the process and I think we have so much work to do that there should be another day so that everyone can have that opportunity to weigh in on this budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Merritt. I was going to um I mean I would like to get going with some adentine deletes. Are we at that point now or not? We have a couple more.

Okay. Well, um I do we have a scenario prepared by the time managing a lane short for a lage. We were recently given some guidance uh to uh basically uh do the adbacks uh to the budget and we're working those right now. Um, I would just ask this council to be mindful of what it is that you want to accomplish with the budget. Um, in terms of where should we focus the sacrifice? Now, I've been given extensive guidance thus far. Um, but I haven't heard from all council members. Uh so if you have any any thoughts in terms of what you'd like to uh see uh taken away uh then please uh that's what we're here to do to respond to your thoughts.

I can Yes. Yes.

I I was going to say that we we've already said that we intend to restore the trash human services recreation. These are all things that u uh and the swimming pool all that is going to be restored and so those those will have to be motions but it would be more convenient to have it all packaged up for us. So we so I'm not sure we can go far tonight go far tonight without that kind of write up but for everybody to know here that we are pretty much going to restore everything that was taken away and that might be helpful and maybe all you were interested in because that we found a way to do that. So that that's all I have to say now.

Thank you. Um, we did have council go that had his hand raised. Yeah. And I'm sorry I have horrible internet connection, but hopefully you can hear me. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. Cuz you all are crackling on my end. I just wanted to briefly just tell um the residents that I really did hear you loud and clear tonight. I don't think we just heard about dollars and cents, but I think we really heard about the pressure people are feeling, the uncertainty, and the heaviness that they feel in day-to-day life. So, I do think the decisions we make tonight aren't just about this budget cycle, but I think we have to think about people's lived reality, not only for this budget cycle, but the budget years to come. So, I hope that we won't just allow their voices to stay in the room, but they should be shaping our questions, our decisions, and what we wrestle with. I also want to name I heard a call for accountability. and I really appreciate the honesty, the care for showing up and I just want to offer my commitment to do as much as I can to get this right as well. So alongside my colleagues, thank you, Councelor Cooper.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh first of all, you know, I want to take a moment to um uh say thank you all for coming out and and secondly and more importantly really I want to apologize because um you know this the the sometimes the vitrial um you know gets to me um you know I do have uh some PTSD and so you'll see me get up and walk away and I think that I do that for my safety. um you know these these positions that were in um you know folks voted people on this day in um they voted the mayor in they voted uh councelor uh Goodwin in they voted councelor Mahan in you know um we live in this town I brought my family here 19 years ago my kids swam in the pool my kids went to my youngest went to Bloomfield High School um they use the library. I was a a library board member. I believe in those type of things. One day I will be a senior citizen. Um and we one day and um you know the people in this town here, you're right. We're we're all going to grow old together. We are there's going to be one day when folks here won't be on this council. There's going to be a younger uh generation of people. And I hope that we treat them better. I hope that I treat them better than I've been treated on this uh council. Guess what? I can take it. I can take it. But I just get up and I take a deep breath and I come back and I do the work because I love this town, right? I had a friend who lived here and he was an attorney. He had a business here. His name was Yan Vanderworth. He was a great um uh uh grade school friend of mine and he said, "Why don't you move to Bloomfield?" And so I did. I came here. I love it. I have a great view. I

have great neighbors. I love the things that you're able to do here. And also, I pay taxes here, right? My garbage is picked up here. All of those types of things. We live in an age right now where anxiety is at a 100, right? We have gas prices. We have leadership at the national level that gives people anxiety every day.

But that person is still the leader, right? And so having said that, just like I said, the respect and the civility I think is sorely needed. But I will get to what we are here for. We will deliberate this budget. We will do the best that is going to be I tell you what, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm going to do the best for every citizen in the town of Bloomfield. Am I going to get everything that I want for the citizens in the town of Bloomfield or for myself? No. But I'm grown enough and mature enough to know that I'm going to work with my colleagues who have different perspectives than I do, different ideas of what things should be, and we're going to come together to make this budget work. It is the council's final decision. It is not the decision of the town manager as those who know works for us and we in turn work for you. We are your representatives here. We are your representatives here. Everyone on this stage has heard what you said. You don't have to shout out. You don't have to interrupt people speaking. We've heard you. Right. And for those who disagree, I'm okay with you disagreeing. I really am. I certainly am because I don't go home with you, right? I come here to work with you and then when I leave, I do the job that's necessary, right? For us all to live here and live the quality of life that we've all expected when we came here. For those of you who came here before me, I want you to continue to have the quality of life that you have. For those who are here that came with me, I want us to continue to have that quality of life. And for those who come after me, I want you to have the quality of life and better than I had. That's why I'm here. There were folks who were here before me. I did not disagree. That's why I ran. Who raised taxes, that's why I ran. Who bought in

uh the water company. That's why I ran. Who allowed buildings to be built in my neighborhood that I didn't like. That's why I ran. And so I'm here to try to not have those things happen to all of us, but to also think wisely about development, think wisely about how we spend our money, and at the end of the day, where our money is spent is where our hearts are. And my heart is with the town of Bloomfield. Thank you.

Thank you. Now, we do have a counselor that is going to go for the second time around, but I'm going to intercede and make my statement and then I'll come back to you, council Mahan. So, uh I would like to thank each and every one of you for coming out this evening. Uh we wondered what the response would be. We did anticipate based on the the uh preliminary budget that was submitted that there was going to be a lot of concern. What we've done this week has been to work on making sure we are going to reinstall or or not take out certain elements of the concerns that you've expressed tonight. A trash collection. be uh senior services. I mean, I I live right next door to a lady who needs busing every day. That is her life. And and I would be foolish to even consider at least my vote on something that would deter her from having a good quality of life. Um I think um our our many have expressed concerns about recreation, you know, leisure time activities and things of that sort. We have programs currently through capital workforce partners through our uh you know many other programs that are through that um organization. We want to keep those and the message has been clear all week ever since it's been put out what we needed to keep. So, I appreciate the folks who who understood that we did address that early on, but for those who came in after that didn't hear our statement at

the outset, which was stating that those uh uh areas were not going to be impacted to the level that was stated in that preliminary budget. And again, as councilors have stated, um the town manager is responsible to put a budget together to submit. We we the council review that make decisions upon hearing from you. You've made your statement. Whether or not we'll have other opportunities for public uh comments, that'll be determined in the coming days. But we know what we need to do and we will use the information that you've provided to us tonight and the whole week because we've this has been sort of like leading to a crescendo but we have heard you and we will be addressing these concerns. Uh councelor Muhammad.

Thank you again Mayor Harrington. Um, there's nothing more frustrating for me to sit and have to listen to than uh council members being combative with the public. Um, I hate that. And I and I don't hate anything, but that really just gets under my skin. I do not like it at all. And I've I've spoken out against it many times because our our residents, like I said, I've taken the time out of their busy schedule to come here and to make this a priority. We treat them with respect. We we give this we give this uh the gravitas that it deserves by being respectful to them. Um I did have a and then you know to deputy mayor um Lloyd's uh comments of justifying a lot of the budget during a time when residents are feeling a lot of pressures a little tonedeaf but um I do I did have a question that I asked via email uh because I I am very concerned about the town attorney's uh budget amongst many other things but very concerned about the attorneys uh expenditures and uh you know the deputy mayor mentioned the FOIs and um and that that's driving up costs um to let many folks know here as a council member I was instructed to put in an FOI and I've never had to do that before under any other administration. So I feel like a part of it is the administration directing folks to put in FOIs that for things that don't necessarily need an FOI. So they're almost exacerbating the issue, but that's not really what I wanted to ask. I asked the town I asked the town manager in the email uh because he stated in our last uh budget presentation that uh he raised the town

attorney's hourly rate to match uh that of his as he described subordinates. And I asked the question of what what was the hourly rate? What is the current hourly rate? And when was when was this decision made? And I asked that because of uh a couple things. One, that is a contributing factor into the expenditures from the town attorney's budget. And uh secondly, as far as I understand, the town attorney is an employee of the council, not of the town or the town manager. So, the only folks that have the jurisdiction to decide the compensation for the town attorney should be the council as far as I understand. If I'm wrong, please correct me. That's right. I know I know I'm right. I was being anyway. Um, thank thank you. Joe Joe has a lot of experience. He's been around, so you know, he knows. Um, so I do I do need the answers to these questions because uh that was incorrectly done. And if so, it needs to go back to what we decided. It needs to go back. We can't keep moving forward with something that was inappropriately done. And this isn't the first time that we've had uh funds allocated without uh without our approval. That should have been our approval. So, I I I need to know the answer to this. I asked it via email um and it wasn't answered. So, I'm asking again. I I the town I I put in the town manager. I address it to the council. I address it to the deputy town manager. I have no response and I'm asked to make a decision here. And you know, like I say all the time, my stepmom says there's only two things you could do with a halfbaked potato. You either throw it out or you put it back in the oven. I need information to bake this potato.

I'll manage. Answer would be

answer would be great. Okay. And um counc Thank you for your question and I do apologize with the many balls that we had in the air trying to um adjust to the budget and prepare for tonight. Uh the um attorney Crumby's last contract and and this year's contract uh I did not have the time to get to you, but I will. But um your question was a bit startling to me because I do not have the authority to give a raise to the town manager. I mean I'm sorry to the town attorney. Nor did I give a a raise to the town attorney. That was done by the leadership of this council. So uh I I just assume and sometimes it may be incorrect that this council is is is speaking or that you would reach out to the the the head of the body and and understand how that went about. Uh the mayor made that decision and um and

so the mayor made that decision unilaterally. So so I am there needs to be order.

So I left that sometimes for folks who are in um in the chatter to or in the uh email to bring clarity but I didn't have a chance to to respond to you. So right here on mic on camera I'm letting you know it was not my decision. I did not negotiate any part of the effort for attorney crumbi. Uh so hopefully that helps you to understand my role and and his increased rate. Well, well, perhaps the mayor can then shed some light on if it was decision made from the mayor because I don't recall taking we we of course voted to raise the budget and the the um the justification well I voted against that budget but nonetheless the justification that was gave that was given to us was that uh we're going through the charter revision process therefore he needed more funds. I didn't agree with that. I vote against the budget, but that's the justification that I heard. Yet now I'm hearing that uh we raised the hourly rate and that was done by the was that done unilaterally by the mayor? I don't recall that coming before the council and if so, both are highly inappropriate. Excuse me. So, so let me just say this mayor who has been in this office for a very short period of time had nothing to do with that.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not Oh, oh, oh. It was done before my time. So, you know, this is not taking responsibility off my back, but I did not make that decision. So, while this is being raised, it would be addressed. We're playing hot potato. Well, hot potato. Call it what you want. I'm I'm saying as the mayor, my name is Tony Harrington. I did not make that decision. That's a problem. Well, who was the last mayor? The town

wrong that actually it's on the record. I'm going to go to the video. town manager did say that it was his responsibility. That was on the record. That that was said it's on YouTube. You said that you approved the rings. So, it's either that you're No, no, no, no. So, so I'm sorry. This is a council deliberation. We're not communicating. Okay. Understand? Well, you guys have YouTube. All right. I'll go to councelor Cooper.

Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. Um so so I I do want to just follow up and that this certainly is not um to speak on that situation but um I think it is a it's a small product of what appears to be a lot of information um if I may have liberty that is incorrect. There is a lot of information that is incorrect. A lot of folks uh were up in arms about um the trash removal, right? Uh this council had decided a long time ago that we would not be um affecting trash removal. And so and so and so it was in the budget, but I'm saying again this and I I'm sorry I'm not supposed to address the public, but this was this was decided decided a long time ago. There are many things and I I am going to be truthful with you. I told you I'm a counsel. I don't have to lie to you because I I don't fear anybody here. What I'm saying to you is there are a lot of things that are happening that are untrue. It is misinformation. And I wish And I wish I could tell you I wish I could tell you I wish I could tell you straight out that it is misinformation that folks are feeding you.

Okay. Okay. That folks are feeding our public in in the town of Bloomfield. Mis folks are feeding misinformation in the town of Bloomfield. And somehow somehow it keeps going on. But I I I do thank you for coming out. Whether you believe me or not, I'm gonna keep a smile on my face and I'm going still do my best I can for you. Thank you. So, ladies and gentlemen, the council is going to deliberate until we come up with a budget that we feel most comfortable.

I'm just saying people. So I believe at this time and I see uh councelor uh deputy mayor Lloyd as well as councelor Mahan uh waiting to speak but I don't believe we can move any further with deliberations this evening.

I agree. I I wanted to motion to um well I I wanted a fivem minute recess, but I think ultimately we should probably move to a journ and come back here with actual Cong. First of all, we need to see that new budget with everything added back in and what that would mean for our mill rate um and what that would mean for the the total uh taxes uh for our residents. But then we need to come back with actual concrete ad drops and I don't think that we can do that currently without all the information. We have a skeleton budget here.

Don't we usually have the finance director here when we're adding we're asking for ad drops and he works it in real life scenario and tells us yes

and he was um he has been working that all day and he continues to work it this evening as well. So, uh, basically to get to to a point that, um, everyone is basically alluding to right now, you get you a finished product. He received that information today and, um, we provided a number of scenarios to him. So, he's still working that and, um, when he comes back then, uh, he'll be able to do that. But what I would ask this council to do is to please, um, let us know, right? um what is it that you're willing to do without as we look through this budget? Right? When we talked about a number of areas here that we put back, um what are we willing to do without? Right? And and when we talk about um using fund ballots, right? We we have some in the community that are very vocal about uh not using our rainy day fund, right? According to the mayor, and we have some that um that say go ahead and use it, right? So, which is it? Because uh you know, we can't be damned if we do, damned if we don't, you know. So, uh how do we feel? And and I'm answering the qu I'm asking the question out loud, but my guidance comes from the council, right? So, um we'll be seeing where where that's at and um and what's palatable for this um for this council and and for this community. So, everything has a price, right? Everything has a price and um we understand that. And as if you had the opportunity to be a part of this um uh budget process thus far, which is a proposed budget, town manager proposed budget, then uh you will realize that what I have said from the onset is that we could keep everything as is status quo, right? A status quo roll forward budget that basically addressed all mandated increases, right? cost of

health care, cost of contracts, cost of utilities, all those things in place, all the services not cut at all and takes into account the reval that was voted on last year where we spread approximately 40% increase over four years, right? Because I think if we would have put that burden on the taxpayers last year, it would have been tremendously cumbersome and and traumatic, right? for someone to take a 40% increase just based on the increase of your home value, right? Because although you have that home value increase, unless you're looking to put that into effect by selling your home or or taking out a second mortgage, it it's it's just a reality, right? And that's something that the town is forced to do by the state on a periodic battle rhythm. We have to do this assessment because we pay to the state as well, right? So you have to understand when we start talking and folks uh try to uh speak in terms of reducing taxes and mill rate I wish it was that I wish it was that simplistic. I really do right but uh but as the examples have been provided if you have a home that's assessed at approximately $400,000 and and I'm not too sure what that actual retail value of that home would be. I would probably say it's somewhere around 700 to possibly eight or maybe mid6 to possibly 800,000, right? And I'm just going off of values and and and neighboring communities, then your taxes on that type of home, right? Where you can sell your home for that market value would probably go up about $173 a month. If you have a home that's assessed at 250,000, right, which is going to sell for

considerably less than the $650 to $800 range, $800,000 range, then what's going to happen to your taxes then? Well, your taxes will go up approximately $25 a week, right? So, $108 a month. So, we could have kept the the roll forward status quo budget for a a home assessed at 250k for about $25 a week for a lot of homeowners here. But I hear the concerns about the increase in taxes. I hear the concerns about uh using fund balance. And I said I was going to cut it as much as I could. you're a smart man because I wanted to make people understand what the value of a tax dollar is and how it works uh uh for the public. And now we have understanding. I'm hoping that we have some interest and I'm hoping we have some engagement that lasts longer than one night. And I'm truly hoping that we could have uh a collaborative effort so that we can get out get after this problem together and stop all the fingerpointing. I can tell you I've never been more embarrassed to sit up here uh on this council. This is my hometown. And whether or not you realize it or not, I've been associated with this town and living in this town. I have three kids born in this town. I've been affiliated with this town since 1979. And when we allow ourselves to look the way we did, when those cameras are on, I I I just felt my heart was breaking for our town because oftent times I feel like is Bloomfield against the world. And when we show that type of behavior, we're not showing the love and the and the harmony and and the camaraderie that I grew up knowing this town to be. We show people the the ugliest side of our town and they go back and that just

confirms who we are. And I think you know what I'm saying when I say who we are because there's no other community like Bloomfield in this whole state or in New Or in New England. But we we show this side of us to our own detriment. And that's that's that's hurtful to me. You don't. Yeah. But it doesn't matter where I live, sir. Well, it may matter to you. It may matter to you, but I spend more time in this house. More time in this house, Mr. Mayor, and I do any place else. Okay. So, M Mr. Mayor,

so listen listen. There are a couple of questions from our counselors. Please make them brief. We are going to move toward adjournment, but I don't want to uh disallow you the opportunity to speak. So, we're going to go with Deputy Mayor Lloyd, Councelor Goodwin, Councelor Mahan, and then Councelor Merritt. Have a good night.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Hopefully, this is not choppy, and I'll be brief. I'm asking that we at least start the process of deliberations by virtue of at least giving the guidance on the record to some of our council desires for items we want to see added or dropped. And although we cannot have them done real time in the absence of uh director Hill in the room, I think it would be good to put some of these concerns and request or add drop on the record so Mr. Tom manager can take that information back if there's anything different than what he's already been working on. Right? so we can at least start that process and give them a head start leaning into Monday or Tuesday on our subsequent deliberate uh deliberation days. I'd appreciate if we could just get some of that because there may be some things that he doesn't have on his uh radar yet that he may be able to take back and bring forward Monday. And again, I repeat, so we will have a full counsel at that point with the inclusion of councelor Dea Brown to be able to also in, but she may bring something different to add to that next deliberation date. But if we could get a few things on the record, that would be great.

Thank you. Um, Council Goodwin,

please forgive me. I just for for my own sake and I think for many of the residents sake and also for the other counselors can I just please call call for a pause of the constant need to admonish and I'm just talking about not only for how we interact with residents but also how we interact with each other. The purpose of tonight was to listen to the voices of the residents, spend some time and actually listen to them think and deliberate about what they have said and allow that to inform decisions that can move forward. But constantly admonishing, shutting people down, trying to, you know, it just for me it diminishes any invitation to have our residents come offer their voices and tell them we will hear them and act accordingly. If then we spend the immediate time after that with admonishing and I'm saying again admonishment not only to the residents but admonishing to each other. Civility and respect says can we create the space to actually hear one another respectfully without again choosing to be the one to admonish. Not any one of us wants to be admonished. And so if we could have the same respect that we're hoping people will give us, I think we might model that this can be a council that can actually hear what residents have said and act on it. And quite frankly, I think people are tired of rhetoric and just words. So at the end of the day, our admonishment can show up in the decisions we make to meet the needs that our residents have come to the table with and asked us to do something different. I just needed to say that because this back and forth and the I'm going to point at you and I'm going to say this, but you need to respect this. It doesn't matter if we cannot show some form of civility for one another. Okay? So, if we're going to not continue to talk tonight, let's think on it and come back and do something tangible and actually that's going to matter because this back and forth and how we talk to each other is

beyond embarrassing.

Agreed. Thank you. So on on behalf of uh Deputy Mayor Lloyd who had made a suggestion for us to put a couple things on the table so that the town manager and leadership can uh make some appropriate modifications prior to our Monday meeting. Is that something that you'd like to move forward with? Now, I know there there are two others that are to speak. Yes. I just want to know the parameters of what we're looking at right now.

Yes. Okay. You can speak and then council man and then let's move in that direction. I'm sorry you're still going to speak. I'm I'm trying to manage the uh counselor uh Merritt.

Oh, okay. Um I'll be brief. I I really care about some modifications being added back in as well as the things that we mentioned already. And one is u our um our finance person, our accountant that we badly need. I am tired of the behind us and uh our downgrade our credit. I I I think we we I think we have been understaffed and we continue to be and I think it's ridiculous that we don't deal with this and I think that's so important that we hire somebody and I I would want the $173,000 which with benefits and everything the accountant would require. I also care about the library and but I have a strange idea there um that that part-time people are very economic and the library does a very good job with part-time people and I've noticed other towns have lots and lots of part-time employees. They don't have benefits. They're cheap and sometimes that's what you need. Um and they can do a good job for you. They have other inconveniences. I they're not always available because they have multiple jobs. But if we can get part-time people, it's just dumb not to use them. And I I just think it's silly to try to get rid of part-time people. And I I would like to restore the part-time people to the library because they don't cost as much and they really work very well in library. And I would like to see I've talked to the library director about having more weekend hours open. Not necessarily with full services. She thinks it ought to be an official li graduate librarian press whenever it's open. But yeah, right. But we could still have limited services like having the computers available and being able

to withdraw books and do a lot of things without a a graduate librarian there. So, um, if there's some way of arranging that, I really would like to see Saturday and Sunday hours and maybe some evening hours, more evening hours, too. Um, I think we've discussed trash. Um, and and we're going to restore that, but and I'm I'm not sure. I would like to keep also the u um monthly collection of of what do they call it? Heavyweight

smoke pickup. I I really need that. I've always got something waiting for it and I don't want to go oh somehow I can't. It would be a real inconvenience to get rid of that. If you want if you want to make it every other week every other month okay or something like that but I I hope hope we can keep that in there. Um we've said all the human service things we already discussed and expect those to be restored. Um I at swimming pool and and 330 park for seniors and the the most uh challenged people. Um I I I think we I I would like to keep any tax increase to a minimum, but I mean maybe we we have to we have to have a balanced budget. We have to have income and expenditures match and we may be able to find some more cuts, but we're not going to save millions of dollars in cuts without hurting services. I don't want to do that. Um, I mean, believe it or not, you it's very difficult to cut people without hurting services and cut our other things. So, I but those are what I care about most. Um, and so if if if you can include those in your considerations, I would appreciate it. As well as the things other things we've talked about, time.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Hunt.

Thank you, Mayor Harrington. Um, I I was going to actually recommend that we um send our recommendations via email and and come prepared or or have the town come prepared with uh those different scenarios and we work from there. But I'm I'm more than willing to provide some suggestions now. And um as we uh go into the weekend or think of things, we can always send followup emails to so that we have those things provided um in our following meetings because um at least that's in prior administrations um as actually councelor Waterhouse pointed out uh we ran multiple scenarios and I remember times where we've ran many many many many scenarios but after a while you begin to fine-tune and you begin to get to exactly where you want to be. And I don't mind running as many scenarios as need be. It helps us to figure out uh what our what our priorities are, what we're willing to sacrifice for those things. Um and and really uh puts into perspective our tax dollars. But a few things that I I want to see. Um one thing we talked about was the um education and training element for for HR. And that's uh for the uh for our town staff to take advantage of um of different uh of educational opportunities and and the ability to um uh have tuition reimbursement uh for Yukon, which I think is important for our town staff to become uh more educated and hopefully they'll bring those uh skills back uh to our community. I think one, we need to work on of course ensuring that um ensuring that those uh folks do stay in the town for a certain amount of time so they're not utilizing that benefit and then leaving. But we also because of how much

it's how unpredictable it can be and how much it can like explode. Um we have to cap I think we need to cap how much we're willing to allocate per year to that. And it sucks because I I'm a firm believer in education. Like councelor Cooper uh said in in our previous meeting, I'm a firm believer in education, too. And I I do like the fact that we provide that for um for our town staff. I think it makes our town better, makes them better able to serve our community, but it's it's become the cost of it has become too cumbersome for our residents. So, we have to cap that. I would recommend capping that at um at 100,000. Um I I think that we need at least one vehicle. I and I guess that we can do that moving forward if it's if it's in the contracts and we can negotiate that moving forward for any new members of staff. I understand that there may be some contractual um obligations for current, but moving forward, like I said, this budget isn't just for today, it's for tomorrow. So, we got to think about moving forward. Anyway, we need at least one new vehicle for uh the Bloomfield Police Department. I got information um I got information today and I actually got the opportunity to tour the Department of Public Works uh facility, which was amazing. Um but I I um got to go around and look at some of the work that they're doing, including uh talk to the mechanics that are working on our police cruisers. And one of them I actually know very well. Um, and uh, you know, there's there's a lot of hours that are on these vehicles. Um, it's very taxing and a lot of those vehicles, it's quite a few of those vehicles that are out of warranty. So, it's going to cost us more and more to maintain those vehicles. We need at least

council, I'm sorry. I'm providing my ad drops. Okay. I stated So, you want a vehicle for public works? Yeah. May I continue? Yeah. We're just trying to okay isolate and identify

and I and I will do that sir. May I? Thank you. Um so we need at least we need at least one new vehicle for the Bloomfield Police Department. Is is that okay? Um I believe we need to reduce the uh operations communications budget down to uh 542 which was I think was the fiscal year 2025 uh budget. And I understand that that means that there would be a reduced scope in the job that can be done by that department. But I think that department has taken on too much and we we've put too much responsibility on that department that needs to go back to uh uh departments like the talent like the town managers uh department and others. we we we've put too much stress on it and as and and as a result it's grown hundreds of thousands of dollars from its inception. We just can't we can't afford that. Um our our residents have been very clear that they would like their dollars allocated towards those things that are more public facing like senior services, like leisure services. Leisure services is losing um in this in this budget is losing a person that is very meaningful uh to that department that I've heard folks rave about. Oh, you're you're keeping them now?

The mayor announced that all services would have been restored at 3:30. So there are no reductions to leisure services, sir.

Okay. Okay. So, so I'll leave that alone. Um, but I do think that we do need to make some reductions there. Um, and in for operations and communications, um, I do think that we need to reel the town attorney's budget back in. Um, and I think reeling it into 175 would be a more comfortable number. I've traditionally seen that budget uh especially with our previous home attorney be around 150 and uh and like I said it went up to 250 and it's around there uh it's being proposed to be around there now even though expenditures have uh blown past that. I think 175 is a more palatable number for the public and a more reasonable number for where we should be. And we also need to, like I said, revisit that uh that hourly rate so we can bring that back down to a place that our residents can afford.

May I ask a question, sir? To if I if I may just finish and then um you can of course respond from there. Um we uh I believe we need to keep the maintainer for uh DPW. Is that something that's also Yes, sir. Okay. And I believe we need to fund an additional custodian. Uh, same thing happening with a budget mod.

Keep it. Okay, so you're keeping the custodian as well. Okay, cool. Um, well then yeah, I got through quite a bit. If I find anything else Oh, let me see one. Oh, I agree with Councelor Merritt's point. That's that's what I wanted to to add. That's the last thing. I agree with councelor Merritt's point and I and I brought that up to um to uh uh director Lane about uh part-time help um and how that could be a lot more cost effective for us. She did bring she did raise the point that um it's part-time help can sometimes be unreliable. Um but I think this is a situation where we need we need more hands at um at our libraries. We need we need the library to be open for uh for more hours. Um and right now with this budget, it's kind of a budget where we have to crawl before we walk. So the part-time help isn't the most ideal, but it can help us to get to a better place uh with the library. Um so those would be some of the suggestions I have. If I have more, uh I'll be shooting an email hopefully. Can I can I just ask please because um we've added considerably back to the budget and um and and a lot of things you're talking about are adding back to the budget. We've added millions back to the budget in an effort to have uh um a tax increase as minimal as possible and to not use any um fund balance. But what are you proposing or are you going to

I I don't know if I don't know if you heard my cuts proposing to uh actually do the cuts I don't know for a simple moment. Okay. So perhaps you didn't hear I didn't ask I heard you talk about possibly excuse me excuse me excuse me one at a time please.

That's not that's not all I said town manager. No he asked a question so I'm responding. Um that's not all I said. I did say we need to also reduce $300,000 from uh from operations uh and communications. That's one of the places that identified. Yes. Cutting some from the town attorney uh town attorney's budget. Um uh as as we move through capping the education and training moving forward as we move through I do uh I will identify uh some more things but that's oh um no non-union non-contractual raises and bonuses. I didn't mention that part for the for the upcoming year as we move through. Definitely I I will uh be able to provide more and I will give you more. But those are just a few things off the top of my head that I'm thinking uh for this budget that we can uh that we can have as possible reductions for for upcoming year.

Councelor uh Susette Deathan Brown and then councelor Merritt.

Thank you Mr. Chair. So, please forgive me once again. I had to to be out of town, but I I'm I'm in an event and my phone is blowing up. Um, a couple of things. I want to thank the residents for coming out tonight and for speaking. I think it's really important as counselors as we're making decisions on behalf of our town that we hear from our town. I'm hearing and I just caught a little bit piece of uh councelor Mahan, but I heard the town manager say that we're adding back into the budget. And I remember um I think they said if we kept the budget with all the numbers in um we're looking at a 11% increase. Was that correct town manager? That be 11.8 ma'am.

So let's say a 12% increase. So there's no way that we can keep things as they are. I I believe it's extremely important that we get our services back. I think someone told me that we're not we're not considering uh removing trash anymore. So, I thank God um that uh cooler heads have prevailed, but I'm still at the point of rightsizing our town. And I think if we rightsize the town now, it's going to help us in the future. As I've said, we cannot just look at a budget for 2027. We need to look at 2028 as well and going forward because those years already start at a tax increase. So we need to do the difficult work now of rightsizing our town. I as a taxpayer would rather pay taxes for services that will increase the quality of life in the town of Bloomfield for our seniors and our youth and rights size town hall. And I'm just putting it out there because we can't have our cake and eat it too. It's way too expensive. I didn't know that we'd be doing deliberations tonight. I thought we were going to listen to our residents and then also give them an opportunity on Monday to also have a say. I don't know if that is in the works, but I think that we need to do our due diligent. Now, I'm hearing that the uh finance director is doing scenarios. I think it's a little bit backwards. The town manager has presented his budget. Now, it's time for him to do scenarios based on what the council is looking to do. I'm gonna I'm gonna step back and say these scenarios going forward should be coming from the council. Right. The town manager has presented. I

would like to see what a budget would look like if no one got an increase except what was agreed to in the union contracts. We're asking everyone to do as best as they can with what we have. We've got to start that at town hall. We've got to lead by example. Okay. So that's what I would like to see because the services are needed and I understand that some of the employees have already been identified told that they would be losing their jobs. That's unfortunate because the council have not yet made a decision on this budget. So once again the town manager has presented his budget. Council, it's time for us to give them scenarios. I would like to see put the services back. We can look at staffing patterns, see where we can tighten up to make sure that we're not creating any more chaos and or financial burden for the residents of the town of Bloomfield. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, uh, Elizabeth, uh, Councelor Waterhouse.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I believe we had talked about it maybe a year or two ago, uh, last budget. I know Ken harped on it for a while and it was kind of pushed to the side when we had actuaries come in for an analysis of benefits for the town. Um, I think that's something that we should definitely look into. Get the actuaries back. Ask them what can we do because it's not going to help us right this minute but in two three four five years it's going to make a huge impact in our budget like 7 million maybe in savings there and what is the other one we tried was a matrix study I know all of these studies to see how we are efficiently staffed and where are we heavy where are we not heavy Can we move things around? Can we lighten things up? And I know we have to do the matrix study because we have a lot of unions here to, you know, be on the up and up.

Yes.

And thank you, Council Waterhouse. And um and I will be endeavoring to um have an actuary u meet with myself and and HR um to basically see what we can do with exactly what you're talking about. Right. if we if there's an opportunity to um uh reduce an expense and I have to look at it from a legal perspective as well because we do have um former um we have retirees right who paid into uh a plan uh for their entire career and now they're they're living with that plan while retired. So, if we're going to change the conditions of the plan that they paid into and are living with, um, do we have any legal exposure to do that or not? I have to look into that. And we also have present employees who signed a paper that told them that they would have retirement health benefits. And if now we're going to be impacting that, I have to see what the legality of that if any of that happens. So, and in regards to the matrix study that was done in 2019, um we're here in 2026 right now and um why that wasn't pushed at the point in time that that came out, I'm not certain, but um but we've changed since 2019. So, uh, I believe this, uh, council is committed to having a new study done and, uh, and to basically making sure that we're talking about things as they exist today because the town has changed since 2019. So, but but I thank you for your commentary. I do find it to be constructive and I I did want uh, councelor Susette Retham Brown to know that um, I'm not running scenarios um, off of what I believe to be running the scenarios. I'm running scenarios off of guidance I received

from from council leadership. So I know they tried to spear you from uh being engaged as you're out in um and and engaged in your retreat, but um I just want to make sure that that that clarity was and distinction was made because um I understand I take direction. So uh with the direction I was given, we we had a little bit of head start before it could um be made public tonight. Can I um can I just jump in? U Mr. Chair, thank you for that. Um town manager, can you see that once again is a little confusing as well. There are nine equal members of this council. Nine equal members of this council. And so therefore, if anything is happening, council leadership needs to share with the rest of the council. That's how it works. That's how it should work. So then I'm coming down on you and I should be coming down on council leadership. This is how it works. We are all representing the town of Bloomfield. And something so important as setting our tax base and our mill rate should be a collective. Once again, if I had known that we were going to be deliberating today, I would have sent my thoughts to the entire council. But since I didn't know, that's why I said at this point, the only raises should be those of the union members and we need to rightsize the town. However, going forward, council leadership, we are all duly elected members of the body and our voice matters. just like anybody else's. So, let's try to do this together for the betterment of the town of Bloomfield

and its residents. Thank you.

Thank you. Before yielding to uh Council Oliver, I just want to mention there was a statement at the outset of uh this public hearing and basically I'm just going to pull one piece of it. Um though we still have work before us to arrive at council adopted budget. The FY27 budget will include no cuts to waste collection other than a possible reduction in the frequency of bulk collection and no cuts to senior services, social and youth services or park, recreation and leisure services. Now, that was information that was given to the town manager and and leadership based on our conversations as a council. We did not go into any deep dive into other areas. We just knew that coming into the public hearing that those decisions needed to have been made to eliminate confusion and and uh a higher level of criticism. We knew those areas were of concern to all the council. And so those were things that we were able to mitigate before we go into formal um deliberation. So that was the information that was given to the town manager and I hope that

we'll discuss offline sir. Okay. Thank you. Uh councelor Oliver and then councelor.

Thank you Mayor Harrington. Um, I would like to see responsibilities that left the clerk's office be deducted from her budget. Um, I would like to see a a freeze in raises for non-contractual employees. I would like to see a minimized use of vehicles for unnecessary departments. And I would also like to minimize training. And I would also like to put a hold on the digital forensic program from the police department, seeing that's a 300 plus,000 um ad. Not saying I'm against it. Um just not right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh councelor Merritt.

Okay. Go ahead. Um uh yes, thank you. I'd like to speak about reserves. Uh I think some of you have heard this many times from me but when I started the council in 1975 there were no reserves was lineto line budgeting which by the way the board of education has that now if they have a problem though they come back and we give them money out of our reserves. Um but things worked out. You can do lineto line. When the first year I was on the on the council uh they they were running a deficit. they weren't going to have enough money left according to the accountant at that time to pay salaries the last few weeks of the year. Uh but lo and behold they they found that he still had some money in the um uh another fund which they could transfer back into the operating fund the capital budget and uh so they got out of it. But that's the way things worked back then and it's they could work that way now. They had no reserves. They had no no kitty, no no council contingency, no tax, no contingency for the town manager. We live without it pretty well actually. Um but so I I don't think of reserves as being a sacred cow. I it's it's I if we have $20 million sitting there, there's two problems, several problems with that. One is we can't get investment grade returns on that money. we can't invest that money. It has to be or all we can get is interest. So that's not a very good use of of uh of taxpayers resources to not invest their money. Well, um so but the other thing is we haven't ever really had to use much of that. We haven't gone deep into that in all the time I've been on the council

and they've they've kept returning it. So I I think I think it is something that should be available. We also have $4 million that we put aside shared for our economic development fund and we're not going to get started with a Senate project without that money. That that's that's got to be there to be matched with any grants we've applied for um or not. But maybe we ought to put off the center project. Maybe it's just we can't afford to do that right now. And I know we all are very unhappy with the situation of the malls, but hey, other things are important too. So that may be $4 million that we could dig into somehow. But in the meantime, it is it's we're available from reserves because we aren't spending it. So we can put that back into the reserves. So we should think of it as reserves. So I I I I really think that our reserves are available. It's a ready day fund. Well, this is a rainy day and I I don't see any reason for not using it if we have a good use for it. I'm not saying we shouldn't make any cuts should make cuts. If there's people that um shouldn't be there ser things we don't need we ought to do something about it. And I agree with that wholeheartedly. But on the other hand, I don't think we should join services or how we handle things like I mean our finance situation has been bad for years. I think we really need to add some help there. So I I I think that ought to be on the table and stop considering it a sacred cow. We do need to have balanced budgets because we've got two more years after this of phasing and people are still going to be upset next couple years to with this huge adjustment in their tax level even though we're not raising taxes. We have

that and that really over it's not what we're putting for tax increases. Now we're not going to solve the problem of those people who have these huge increases resulting from the u um phasen but uh phasing actually is a good thing because it minimizes amount of taxes people holding houses uh have to pay versus the people that uh had have lower increases. So thanks I just wanted Thank you. Now, there are two counselors that that want to speak, but one counselor wanted to retract something. So, I just wanted to give him the He's good. He's good.

He's good. Okay. Okay. Um, we had uh councelor Goodwin and then we'll go back with uh councelor Deathan Brown.

Thank you, mayor. I I wanted to just add voice to some of the things that have been named since I guess we are adding our thoughts about deliberation. So, I also echo a pause on salary increases and cola for non-union and administrative positions. I think we should freeze on filling any open positions as we re-evaluate efficiency, reorganization, and true staffing needs has been said. I also echo the point about the critical review of public safety spending, particularly around pausing any investments that do not meet a clear immediate need. And I think this the threshold that I named the other night was emergency need or state mandate need. The other thing was pause or delaying non-essential spending across any department. And then lastly, a critical look at anything where it seems that we are shifting costs onto residents as opposed to fee reductions and pulling things back out of um central office or town hall.

Thank you, Councelor Dean Brown. Thank you so much. I want to just make a point. If we're going to use money from the rainy day fund and we've been doing it for a while and we're not replenishing the rainy day fund, when a tsunami comes, we're going to be out in the cold, right? So, I'm not in favor of using money from the rainy day fund. However, I am definitely in favor of capturing money that is out there for pet projects. These are taxpayers dollars and these are the time that the taxpayers need every single penny we can give to help them out. So I am also saying if there's money out there for any pet projects that have not been spent, I'm not saying capture all of it back, but probably capture a portion of it. We need to get ourselves ready not just for 27, but for 28 and for 29. And here's the thing. I don't think things are going to get much better with gas, with food, with medication, with whatever. So, we need to do all that we can do to make sure that we're balancing this budget and not digging ourselves a deeper hole and not balancing it all on the backs of our residents. So, I want us to be very intentional. And I know that this might be uh a little shocking to everybody, but just like how we're trying to dig and find money in the seat cushions of our pouches and our cars, we're going to have to do the same thing with this town budget. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Councelor Waterhouse. Okay.

I guess I'd like to make a motion to adjourn at this point. Second. All those in favor? I I I. Any uh nays? Any abstensions? Okay, the motion passes. We're the Thank you. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you.