Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

we'll see you next time for Tuesday, August 11th, 2026. Is that noise back feedback?

I can hear volume from the public. Who wants this? Wow. Yeah, that goes back trying to. Can we deal with that? Yeah.

I think you just have to turn the volume off.

I think you just turn down the volume on the TVs. On that one. Test. Test.

Test.

Test.

Is it that way too?

Yeah.

We're in here testing.

Yeah, it's at 54, that's why. That's fine.

Wow. Is that it?

Yeah. Try that. Mute mute. 53 Kidney. They're working on it to improve the sound.

Can you hit mute on this one? Hit mute on both TVs, though.

Do what?

Are they separate TVs? Yes. Hit mute on both.

Now I see why you're confused.

Yeah, it's weird, right?

Test test.

That one's off.

Mute.

Is it coming out of the? We got it, we got it. Got it?

Yeah.

Okay.

And you're still showing, okay.

Nice work, guys. Did it, okay. Anyone here from the public who wants to comment on something not on the agenda, speak now. Seeing none, we're gonna move on to public hearings. We're gonna first deal with a public hearing notice. We are required by RSA 31-95-B to hold a public hearing to discuss the acceptance of the state of New Hampshire emerging contaminants small and disadvantaged community grant in the amount of $1.5 million to be used to extend the water main from the city of Concord's municipal water system to the Bow Junction to address PFAS, chlorides, and other contaminants. If anyone wants to speak to that, they can speak now. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. Do we have to make a motion?

Make a motion that we accept the grant from the state of New Hampshire in the amount of $1.5 million under the Disadvantaged Community Grant Program funds and authorize David Stack to sign any documents necessary for the town of Elk. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes. Ayes add up 3-0. We're now going to move on to meetings. We have a community building discussion citizens group meeting. If you could, I guess, pull your chairs up and turn the microphones on in case people are listening. Just state your name and address.

The shirt is something, Harry. Hi, my name is Jeffrey Knight, 8 Peasley Road. I'm here with the same group that came to you, I don't know, many moons ago. Harry Judds, Glenn Dugas, and Colleen Hunter. We have kind of banded together to see if we can get an affordable community building built. We did some work over the summer. And so one of the things that we'd like to do tonight is talk to you about getting a RFP. So our goal would be able to bring a firm price design build cost to the taxpayers in March of 27. And in order to do that, we'd like to put out an RFP for design build with a firm price with the same approach as the public safety building. And we actually did use input from the last committee to gather information on what might be required. We haven't started that process of putting the RFP together because we wanted to come to you guys first and make sure it's okay that we do that. Because that is a process that will probably take a couple months. Chris, you might have been around when we did the public safety building?

Just after.

Just after.

I was here for the work, but not the planning.

Yeah. So what happened in that was we had a committee. We got together and basically gave specifications on what we expected in the building, and we let... The public general contractors look at it, come up with a design that would meet the needs that we put forward the requirements to see if we could come up with something that was affordable. And through that process, we, we did come up with something affordable products to the taxpayers. The taxpayer said, okay. And it was built, so it's kind of the same process. It would be a construction manager type, but with a firm price. The minimum requirements would be given out to anybody that put together the RFP. The approximate space would be about 17,000 square feet. It would have one full-size gym. The other items in that space would be determined in the RFP. The location is to be determined, but it probably would be somewhere where the existing building is and across the street. And as far as requesting some funds, we're looking for $7,500 that will be used to do the same thing we did at the public safety building. We hired somebody that reviewed the RFP that we came up with to make sure it was complete, we weren't missing anything. And then we also used that same person. And I can't remember, do you remember the name of the person that we used?

I don't.

Okay. we also used that same person to look at the quotes that we got to make sure that we were in the realm of things.

Awesome. Two quick questions. One for Cheryl. Cheryl, how much is in the REC, Revolving Fund, not, I'm sorry, not Revolving Fund. Community Center Fund. Community Center Fund, yeah.

I have to check what we put in now. three years, I believe, were $500,000 and $150,000 two years from record volume.

About $2 million.

So I think we owe it to the community. At this point, we owe it to the community to start thinking about what plans look like, what this building looks like, where it's going to be sited. I think it's been the support from the community for three years now to put away that kind of savings is testament that at some point we're gonna have to do, we should do a project like this. I think $7,500 is cheap. It doesn't hurt at all that the person asking for it is the same winning bidder who just delivered us in addition on our rec center about half price the competing bid. Nice play to have Jeff do that introduction. Thank you, Jeff. I don't think I've seen a government project go that efficiently in my time in government.

No change orders at all.

That happens when you do it that fast when it's done. So I think I'm prepared to make a motion. I've been moving around a lot. And I think the selling of this, I think is going to be key to its long-term success. And I know that there's some people who think the Sliding Hill is awesome. It's probably not my favorite location, but I'm just going to offer the community group that's spearheading this, a suggestion that they consider the school forest. School forest has a deed restriction that is right next to Bell Rock. There's a house in between, but as I understand that deed restriction, it is for recreation. It's a very broad recreational use. I did, maybe 18 months ago, have a very brief conversation with the school board about what they thought of that and I don't think they realize they owned that land on that side. And so that may be a flatter piece of land closer to the schools and worth consideration. But I'll make a motion to make $7,500 available from agents to expend that money. No.

No.

So where is this money coming from?

Possibly the REC Revolving Fund if we were to do the $7,500 prior to.

I had a conversation with Darcy to say if we were to ask for $7,500, would you be okay with it? And she said, I think it's a good use of the fund, but obviously I have to check with Dave. So my thought would be the $7,500 would come from her operating budget.

Okay.

Yeah, whatever that's called. Makes sense. The revolving fund, I think, is what we... Okay. All right, so we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I didn't finish the motion because I didn't have... No, I just want to be clear that the $7,500 would be expended by the town for the purposes of obtaining a professional to review the RFP. Um, that the money is not would not be going to a ad hoc committee, um, to really nearly. It's a 3rd party. Yes. Yes. I'm working in the 3rd party would be working on behalf of the town.

For information gathering, so we could understand the scope and the potential for a potential building there. Right. That. Would allow people to make informed decisions at next time.

And I am happy to make the motion to expend up to $7,500 to cover the cost of the review of an RFP for completeness and the review of the quotes when they come in for the community building.

The other thing I would like to mention is if a select board member would like to join us when we meet, we're happy to have one. Or we're happy just to report back to you when we get an RFP that we're ready to go out to the public. It's whatever your pleasure is.

I would love to join just so I can see the inside of the process.

Sure. Thank you, Kev.

So we have a competing motion, but Elena had them. No, I didn't. I never finished them. Okay. So it's not going cold, but he has a motion to accept it. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, moving on to a second meeting, Courtney Financial Report and End of Year Report from Finance Director Cheryl Lindner.

Hello. Hi. Thank you for having me today. I am going to go over where we currently stand at year end. These are pre-audited numbers. Our auditors are coming in in September and we'll make any of their year end adjustments and those will be posted accordingly as we receive them back from them.

But we did end up, our operating revenues,

78%. And again, this is due to the fact that we only bill in June. We bill yearly for some annual services, especially from the school. And also we request reimbursement from the trust funds once a year. So we will be seeing a bump in those revenues once those come in. Unaudited expenditures out of the operating account came in at $434,000 below budget, but after we counted in the encumbrances and the accrued payroll, we ended up for the year right around, I'm going to jump to your year-end report, right around $157,000, almost $160,000. That's pretty damn close. That's the one percent. Yep. I think.

that doesn't leave a lot of a bit of them, but that's because we gave you a pretty tough budget. And so thank you guys for delivering all the services to the town and not going broke.

Our revenues, again, motor vehicles overperformed at 116% of their budget.

And that was my question. When does that end? What is the natural cap on us always overperforming, not just our budget, but like previous years? So looking at last year actual versus actual this year, you're like $900,000 up. And at some point, this can't go on forever. The cars do get more expensive.

We are benefiting from a really good economy. which I think people buy a lot of cars. But we're also benefiting from our town attracting some big trucking interests that have chosen to register cars here. And at least one of those has left.

That's what I think for next year's budgeting process. We can't keep assuming a $900,000 performance from that department.

You know, I think... It doesn't make sense. It shouldn't have done it this long.

Is any of these results because of the increased fees at the state level? I could check with Marjola on that. I know that... I wonder if that could answer part of the question. We pay the state their fees daily. There's a transmission that goes through that reimburses the state for their fees. But I think that cars are getting more expensive. We did see this year there was a fleet that was not allowed to register here due to the I guess it's a mileage thing that they had more miles in another state, so they couldn't register their fleet here. So I don't know if that will impact us in the coming years, if that law continues to be in effect. But other than that, it was only, I believe, one fleet this year. And I can confirm that with Merdula. But yes, I agree. At some point, that overage is going to come down. And again, this year, she was only at 116 miles. So it was over, but just over. So interest on deposits, again, the interest, we never seem to know what it's going to do. We are at 3.99% now in our banking institution, which is good. It's up a little bit from last quarter, but our interest on deposits beat our estimates again. Public works revenue, due to all the additional snow plowing, came in over budget. And they did a great job, the public works team, all winter. So kudos to Tim and his crew. And then we had the sale of our co-op piece of property that didn't end up being developed. So the town ended up with $68,000 in sale of property that we were not expecting. So that was also a good year. Railroad revenues came in at $4,000. We were not expecting to get anything from railroad revenues. So we did have some unexpected revenues, which was nice to see. Our cash flow continues to be strong. Expenditures, again, talked about the overtime lines due to the openings in the departments. Recycling fees, the average was $132.49 per ton this quarter. Those do fluctuate. And I did pull the diesel and gasoline rates for June. Those fluctuate a little bit as well. Diesel was at 4.249 and gas was at 3.519. So lower than you're seeing at the pump, but still higher than we've seen in the past. Property taxes continue to be strong in the collection area, so we are at 95% with about $2 million outstanding. And prior year tax liens are over 98% collected, only about $246,000 outstanding still. So, and then the REC Revolving Fund, again, this is as of June 30th. It is a point in time. It stands at $704,000. Her camp registrations were collected at that point, but she hadn't expended her costs for the summer. So at that point, she was expecting to see $141,000 surplus, which Darcy has been saying for a while should be around about $100,000. So she's close in her estimates. The addition was started at the time, but it wasn't finished, so only some of the bills had come in at that point. And her programming revenue continues to cover her expenses. Awesome.

Yeah.

I'd echo Chris's comments.

It's great. So we're in good shape. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? I like this.

The old man over here has seen some stuff.

Awesome.

Thank you, Cheryl.

You're very welcome. They also have one request. There is a request for reimbursement from the trust funds for the water. We had a water leak. Is that something that the board would like to take up now? It was $23,000.

This is for Water Capital Replacement Fund.

Yes, so we had a leak and it was $21,002.

In the motion that we authorize a withdrawal from the Water Capital Reserve Replacement Fund of $21,002.63 pursuant to the documents in our packet, pages 10 to 17. Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes have it 3-0.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good night. Chair, with you, Chairman, I'll make a motion to approve the motion from July 14th.

With one, actually, with one variation, Sonia, on page six, there's at the top of the page, motion says, did the motion pass in the minutes? The motion did pass, I checked.

Thank you.

The check passed. So as amended, we have a motion. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. But we jumped ahead there, so we have the consent agenda.

Make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Sorry, second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Consent agenda passes 3-0. All right. So moving on to discussion, oh, this is the town manager's part. Okay, so we'll do a town manager's report. Thank you. Yes, three nothing as amended. Motion second.

Okay, the landfill solar project continues to roll on. Not a snail's pace, but there's a lot to it. We have submitted here Sarge in the town. The last required documents for 1B permit, which is the again our closure plan and Kier Sarge has submitted whatever documents they are required to submit to us and they said they hope to start the project before the end of August. Legislative policy conference. This is the annual meeting that the NHMA has to discuss. Upcoming legislation and what legislation the association and all the communities would want to support or not to support. I just need to know if the board wants 1 of you to go. We can have 1 voting member for. Community, or I've done it in the past. I know you had done it.

I'm not available. I have no idea if I'm available. I think, David, you can represent us unless somebody speaks up. Yep. Thousand sword for you.

Nice try. Thank you. Thank you. The Route 3A water extension and interconnect. We did, I think I sent it outward to the board, but they've released a project funding priority list for water projects for the state revolving fund. Our project was ranked at number 11, probably out of, look like 45 or so were submitted.

About 60, I think.

Yeah, it just kind of goes on. But then I did notice, if you're within the ones that are highlighted colored, we're probably, I hope, pretty good. They held a public hearing and then there's a public comment period. Once that happens, the playlist will be finalized, and then we'll give the decision letters. And then we'll just follow pretty much the same process that we have with the Boat Junction. We'll find out, is it a mix of grants or loans? It seemed, I think they discussed, it was probably just going to be revolving funds. So we'll see what we get. And if the board wants to proceed, we'll go to town meeting and get approval to borrow. And we'll do, again, what? And actually, with this one, I'm very confident that we will actually break up and do the connection. So that's good news. Download intersection. The final learning course has been completed and payment markings need to be done and they probably a few smaller items here and there. The state hasn't signed off on it yet. We know the town. There's a few items that we need to just punch list items. We'll be all happy to know that, particularly Selectwoman Holby, that our new fire captain, EMD Craig Bolak, took a look at the mitigation action list. I'd ask him, please take a look. And I said, the board, you know, we were going to wait till you came on or whoever it was. So he, there's 67 actions. He's been researching the status of them. He's been working with department heads to see maybe what, have been done or what the thoughts were there are some that are of unknown status or where they're at and he's going to focus on the on these right now particularly the ones that involve public awareness and outreach type of work because what I'm guessing I haven't been able to talk to Craig about it yet but that those are ones that we can you know not low hanging fruit but that we can pick up and pick off and get those efforts going and Like he said, update the emergency management website. So that's good news. I haven't looked through it all yet, but I'll be sitting down with him. Yeah, the lighting conversion project. It's begun with Baker Free Library. All those lights were converted. Work is continuing with the municipal book building. um there's no controls yet necessarily right now they're just set to when you walk in a room right you get surprised yeah but there are controls that you'll be able to set which will do light harvesting so if it's a bright day they're not all the same lighting there's a whole bunch of other things that we can do so uh chris andrews will actually have it on a tablet he can go and and there's still a little more programming to do And then they're going to be doing the bow rec center after, but it's going great. You know that they have. It's a one one person. They have one person doing the install and he's quick, efficient and unobtrusive. So state bridging we have submitted. Hard work by Cheryl and pulling together the backup about this. Literally this thick of everything checks and bills and we're looking for 1.4 million. Which is 80% of the total project cost. So, and complete from soup to nuts from engineering design study. Construction and the state has that and we're not quite sure how long it'll take to. But, you know, we're prepared to answer questions so that that will be good to get those funds back. And any questions that's what I have 1 for me.

make a motion to accept the bid from both plumbing and heating for the new boiler at the community building second have a motion a second all those in favor say aye aye aye aye three nothing thanks to both plumbing and heating as always are you going to make the motion on the landfill um i can't so i'll just give some background submission brief background if anyone's listening Due to some outdated ordinance, we have a conflicted ordinance in our hometown ordinance that Carrie and I will work on fixing in the future. And there was a question about whether CureSarge needed a special exception through the planning process. The planning board has already approved the development. And we have worked with our town council to just make clear for both parties, because both parties want this to proceed as quickly as possible, that Cure Sarge does not need to get a special exception around the size of the facility. And as I said, it's not a result of, you know, Cure Sarge not doing the job. It's really a result of an ordinance, which just referencing a RSA that has since been out of date. And so we have been told by our town council that by making a certain motion tonight, we can make this issue a non-issue and it can proceed as all parties want to. So if someone would like to make a motion on that topic.

I would like to move that while it is unclear whether a special exception is required for the proposed solar array to be constructed by Cursage Bow LF LLC on the town's landfill parcel, which is tax map 14-471. To the extent that one is required, the select board hereby waives the Kirsage-Beau LF LLC's obligation to obtain such relief under Section 3A.I.2 of the lease agreement as the proposal constitutes a governmental land use pursuant to RSA 674-54.

I second. It's almost like a lawyer wrote that motion. That was, that was all. That was a page. That was an obstacle. Yeah. I just, yeah, I read that. I just winded it. Yeah. All right. All right. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Um, sort of project. All right. So we now move on to board committee reports from a planning perspective. It's obviously we go to one meeting in the summer. Um, the only thing that is sort of ongoing is a potential cell phone tower in South bow. Um, we did a sidewalk. We've done some further discussion and that will be up for discussion again next Thursday. Uh, as usual, it's being well managed by Carrie and the department, but other than that, any other board reports from the summer?

None for me. So Heritage Commission met this morning. They were kind enough to give the 300th Anniversary Commission a sneak peek tour at the lower level for some inspiration last night. Yes, last night. But this morning they did make a decision to hold an open house down there, which will officially be called the Bow heritage room as voted and approved by the committee. The open house will be November 14th, 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. So that is their official opening date for the downstairs. They are still pursuing a National Registry of Historic Places designation for Bobag Meeting House. and the New Hampshire registry for a few other properties. They did have a question regarding the board had approved, the select board had approved an expenditure of, I believe, up to $500 for a resident to volunteer to clean gravestones. and they weren't sure on the status of that, and DPW didn't have a status on that. So I don't know if you have her contact information.

Yeah, I'll follow up. Because I know we did, you know, we said we would pick up, yeah, the cost of the cleaner, and I believe we went ahead and bought it, but I'm not sure.

I think they were just wondering.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll follow up.

And then the 300th Anniversary Committee decided on a rough logo design that will be sent out to someone to give a more artistic, cleaner, more exciting option. They are pursuing the idea of a town-wide carnival. It is very important to them as a community to bring back a carnival that used to be held by the men's club over at Bow Memorial School for decades and then just suddenly fell off to the wayside. So if we could be thinking about possible locations to host a carnival, that would be most helpful. But they have decided on a spring, summer, fall, and winter big events.

So lots of progress being made. Okay, so any bottom lines, Chris?

I need a place to hold a carnival.

Carnival sourcing.

And I just want to thank Darcy Little for all of her work with our kiddos down at Bell Rock. That summer program not only is successful financially and helps out by taking quite a bit of property tax burden off of us. But all of the kids feel so included and loved and safe. And they have such a great time. And that is priceless. So special thank you to Darcy and her team over there.

Great.

We have no non-public, so a motion to adjourn.

Did you ever do public comment? We did. Do you mind? Of course.

It would be interesting. You can just turn the microphone on and then say your name.

You guys something real fast? Thank you for letting me speak.

I'm Jason Gerhard, and I live actually in Northfield, but this is related, I can assure you.

I did a deep dive on the grand jury in New Hampshire, but specifically the county grand juries. They are currently told, they meet for four months in Merrimack County, and they meet for three days a month. And it's public information when they meet, and they've actually been going to the courthouse and giving them information about their historic role. So if you will go to page two, now granted, this is from 1978. I found this in the State Library, which, fun fact, the State Library, our State Library, is the oldest in the country. It was founded in 1719 with two law books. But if you go to page two, you will see grand jury as an investigatory body. The grand jury has two roles. One is the accusatory role, the prosecutor, county attorney in our situation will walk in and say, I want to indict this gentleman or woman for a crime. Here are the facts and so forth. They either say yes or no, goes to indictment, doesn't. Their other role, which they are currently not telling them about, is their investigatory role. And I'm just going to read these few sentences. In addition to the duty of the grand jury to hear evidence and decide whether formal criminal charges should be made, the grand jury also has the important power to make investigations. The grand jury, on its own initiative, may on rare occasions subpoena witnesses to appear or compel the production of documents. This type of investigation is thereafter reported to the court in what is called a presentment or report. This is critical, I believe, because there seems to be some accountability problems within the state government. I was actually a state rep for Northfield Franklin from 22 to 24, and there's no way to actually have anyone testify under oath, even though it's in the RSAs, according to committee rules, in the RSAs, I should say. Anyone that comes before the committee, you can require that that person be put under oath. Because if somebody's not going to be telling the truth, what is the point of listening to them when you really think about it, if it's a matter of grave consequence? I wanted to bring this to your attention because I'm having difficulty having our current county attorney who's not running for re-election, but I want to make this an issue because traditionally our grand juries in this country, now granted they were created in 1166 AD, but when they were brought over, Paul Revere, who you should know, and Anthony Zahancock, who was John Hancock's brother, first governor of Massachusetts, were grand jurors in Boston. And so it's traditionally been a bulwark against a tyrannical overarching authority, which I believe is what we need. Because these grand jurors, there's actually a really good New York Times article from 1835 in here, but I don't want to bore you with that. But the basic thing is the grand jurors are a rotating body of the people. It truly represents the essence of the people who are not politically aligned or they're not trying to protect their job. They simply want the truth. So I wanted to give that to you so you can see that this is a real document. I'm just interested in pursuing this, and I actually created the New Hampshire Grand Jury Association, but really, you know, it's just me. But just to give the grand jurors the information of what they're actually capable of doing, because unfortunately, we just do not have any way to get to the bottom of matters, especially at the state level. It's pretty disappointing. And being in Merrimack County, with Capital Concord being here, it's actually a, I believe, critically important grand jury. So I just want to bring it to your attention. So thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you, Mr. Gerhard.

Thank you. I have a motion to adjourn.

Sure, I will make a motion to adjourn. Yeah, you did. Oh, okay. I will second the motion to adjourn. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.