Select Board - Regular Meeting

with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. All right, non-public and public meeting minutes of May 7th.

Make a motion to approve the non-public and public meeting

Motion by Scott Sanchez-Gren. Second. Second by John. Any questions, comments on the minutes? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, abstentions? That's five plus zero.

Make a motion to approve the consent agenda for May 21st, 2026. Accounts payable payment manifest dated 5-14-26. Accounts payable payment manifest dated 5-21-26. Payroll payment manifest dated 5-21-26. 2026 MS 232 report of appropriations actually voted. Current use application for map lot number 206-007 to be applied in 2027. Denial of charitable exemption for Upward Bound Youth Development LLC for map lot number 224-024. 224-0254. Administrative abatement for map lot number 114-182 in the amount of $9,079.08. Removal of veterans credit from map lot number 109-040 as it no longer qualifies. of Mark Schaffner to the Downtown Decorative Committee Approval of quarter two water penalties in the amount of $1,660 effective May 5th, 2026. Sorry, May 7th, 2026. Approval of quarter two sewer penalties in the amount of $50 effective May 7th, 2026. Is there a second? I second.

Thank you. Is there any discussion on any items?

I just want to point out I didn't have Mr. Schaffner come in. He's pretty much just going to be driving for his significant other when he will get trained on UTV. Okay. So we just appointed him to the committee. And then there is another, I'm going to start doing these in your meetings. I had, there's a small document in there that explains which ones are ratified votes, which ones are, and key points on the manifest in case you haven't had a chance to see it.

Thank you. I will be abstaining from the consent agenda vote as I did some work for one of the applications that is on there. All right. Any other comments or questions? No. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, we have one abstention.

Do you want to seal the minutes? So I'll make a motion to seal the non-public minutes because it's determined the devolved reservation likely would affect the reputation of any person other than a member of this board.

Is there a second? Second. Motion by John, second by Scott. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. All right.

PD.

I put the PD first because he has to be out of here. So because normally we would have first. First thing on the agenda for Chris is a PO, and it's in your packets under number four. And I'll let Chris explain it.

So this is a purchase order for the Cruiser for this year. We want to get it purchased now. It has been taken six to eight months to get it outfitted. So our Cruiser last year I think went into service the end of December, maybe even into January. So this is a purchase order for the new cruiser. It's a Explorer, just like we have now. The one that I want to go forward with is out of McGovern HQ and Masks, who we've been using now for the last, since COVID, they keep cruisers on the lot. So for the most part, we can get it pretty quick. They won't start outfitting anything until we have taken ownership. And then from that point on, it goes the six to eight months from there. It looks like I sent the other two quotes, which was new car in Hillsboro, both of which need to order cruisers, which takes up to six months probably anyways. Those two, new car looks like it's significantly cheaper. However, it's not. They don't paint the doors. The McGovern price is with the doors painted white, so it includes the painting. New car does not. And their quote... It's going to be anywhere from 2500 to $3,500, depending on where they go with it. They ordered a cruiser from them prior to COVID. That cruiser is nothing but a disaster. They ordered it completely wrong. It's not keyed properly. We had to wrap it. and we're on a second wrap on it, which they paid for, but that wrap is not good either. So they look cheaper. In the end, it's gonna be about the same price, but we've had major problems with them. McGovern has been great. And they kind of, we're not a huge person for them because they're dealing with Massachusetts and all over. But because we have bought cars from them, we have gotten some priority from them now where something on the lot that... that might have been going to another town, they bumped it up to give it to us. So that is why we would like to go with them. They do, at times they have delivered it for us too, directly to the outfitter, which has been handy for us too. So the drive down, and we have had to pick them up in the past too, but if they are able to, they will deliver it for us.

This PO is just for the vehicle. It's not for the upfitting. Once Chris gets a number for that, we'll bring that back. I did it last year.

I did it all, but by the time, everything's going to change, so. All right.

Oh, for the whole thing.

Yeah, so we got an estimate and I actually meant to include it in there. It's roughly $20,000 for the outfit.

Roughly what it usually is, is roughly, yeah. Yeah.

So basically it's $67,000 right now.

Yeah, there's other things that we need to buy too that we buy directly, that's not part of the outfitting, which is a cell phone booster, There's some computer equipment that comes out of the computer stuff. That being said, Christina doesn't know about it yet, but we might be able to get a grant which might be able to pay for 80% of that coming out of her computer line item. We're just making sure that it's all going to be done. So that's our goal. But there are some other things individually that will be like... I don't remember the total.

Their MDT and their docket station is roughly $4,000.

All right, so let's just call it $70,000 just for argument's sake. So if we say it's $70,000... Is there 70,000 in the CIP line for the police?

No, we were putting 70,000 in was the vote, if I remember correctly. I think we bumped it up to 80,000. I think we bumped it up to 80,000. Because we need to replace radios. Well, we kept depleting .

Our radios. I'm good. I'm just trying to figure .

It'll be about, it'll be right about there.

Yeah, we did bump it up to 80,000.

Our radios, well that was going to be part of my next thing.

Go ahead. So is there a motion for the purchase order?

I'll make a motion to approve purchase order 4225 in the amount of $47,232. I'll second.

Motion by Scott, second by John. Any further discussion on the purchase of the... Should we authorize... And to authorize the town administrator to sign.

I have a question.

Generally no, but go ahead.

What is wrapping the vehicle?

Instead of painting it, it's like a big sticker. It's a film. So this car ordered our car white and we were supposed to order black that year. So we got one car that all black is a wrap. The whole front of the car is a completely different color black because of the heat from the motor and the sun. We went with actually a really good company, but it's done the same exact thing again. But that car's getting pretty close to, yeah.

So my only other question for you, Chris, is which one is this replacing?

This one replaces, I believe it's car two, I don't know which year it was. This car wasn't even being used anymore. It was moved over to the range, which we're going to do training. I noticed that. Yeah. We're going to do training. We're driving around one day. We're using it as training of yearly firearms of exiting the vehicle or anything that way if something's damaged. It's not going to matter. It's going to go to Steen's. Steen's going to come over and pick it up and crush it afterwards anyways. Okay. By the time they are done, we used to trade them in. McGovern's won't even take them as a trade-in anymore. We were getting $1,000 to $1,500, and we were literally pushing them into the... All right.

Any other questions?

Part two is the 2019, just so you know. All right.

I think it's that. I'm pretty sure it's that part.

Well, oh yeah, this might not be updated. This is the canine car, so never mind. It's not updated. That's the oldest car now. Okay. The one he's replacing. Okay.

It was one year we switched years because one car was in patrol longer, so it made sense to keep an older car because that was . Yeah.

All right. Okay. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Abstentions? That's 4-0.

So Chris is also here for police department updates. This is one of the regularly scheduled meetings.

So for this year, our stats to today's date compared to last year, we're up 600-something calls. It was roughly a 12.46% increase for calls for service. 600 calls over what time frame? From January to today. Okay. Compared to January. Yeah, compared to 2025. We've been quite a bit busier with bigger investigations stuff. For our canine calls, especially as of lately, we've been getting called out quite a bit. We've had seven tracks with her this year, which is compared to probably about two to three in the past, which have all been successful tracks. He's gone out on training tracks 47 times while working. That doesn't include his training that he does every other week. But she's phenomenal. She's in the process right now of actually becoming a dual dog, which Hounds, it's unheard of. She's going to be able to find articles now. So if you threw your keys over there, you could send her out and find it. Hounds usually are just a tracking dog. Mike was adamant that she was good enough that she would be able to do articles. The trainer wouldn't let him do it until he proved to the trainer that she was going to be able to. It's believed she will be the first dog problem, first hound to ever do it, at least in the state of New Hampshire. She would be certified in it. However, you have to have obedience as well. And she's not very good. which has a historical... She's a diva. Yeah.

Not touching that.

Mike isn't very upset about it because he would definitely be certified in it, but she will, if you let her off on a leash... She's not going to do what you tell her to do. That's awesome.

In the discussion, I mean, the info folder under number 12, there's some Facebook posts if you didn't see them.

We actually did it and didn't know they posted it until she sent it to me today. But last night there was a clip on, I think it was 101.5. They did an interview with Mike, which we knew that they did the interview. But she sent it to me in an email saying this was on the radio last night, which would have been kind of cool to try and advertise that better. But they just called him, did an interview with him.

Maybe it's on their website where you can pull it up.

Yeah, so she sent me the audio clips. I was going to ask her if we were able to post it or if they had a link directly to their website to post. But yeah, she's great. And we've got an autistic child who keeps running away and unfortunately lives right off of 104, so has successfully trapped her.

I ran into him one night, one day on the way home.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough situation for us. Yeah.

She tracked one of our Alzheimer's people as well.

Okay, and you mentioned the...

About the radios so yeah, so we Franklin dispatch is doing a huge radio update It's been around five plus years now that we've had to make changes to our system unexpectedly the town has had to pay for We we fixed all of those things Radios were still a major, major problem, so we've been fighting with the company. We now, it's kind of up and running, they came yesterday to reprogram all of our radios, and one of our radios is too old that it wasn't able to be reprogrammed because of the software. They're coming back later. They're trying to do some updates to it. But we did know that we were getting to that point with a bunch of our radios that parts are no longer there. I talked to you guys about replacing radios for this next coming year, and we have the company looking into the lease program that we recommended. It's not going to be the same as the fire because two different companies, but they are reaching out to different programs, which we haven't gotten the answer to that yet, but we will. But that is continuing to be kind of a priority for us. Right now, we're still having problems with radio. They're claiming that our radios are too old, and that's what the issue is. There's more than just that. Even after the tower being... Yeah, there's more that needs to be worked out. When you say they, do you mean Franklin, or do you mean the radio people? The radio people. They're saying that our antennas must be bad and all sorts of things, and that very well could be on one radio, but not on all of them. Right. So we're working on that. We knew it was going to be, we were going to need to adjust things when it comes to radios. So we are across that. We will be replacing a radio with this cruiser. So that's where that extra line is going to end up coming from. And then we'll be trying to replace all of them come next year.

You mentioned, what's the lion's share of the increased calls? What's your most active call?

I didn't pull those numbers, so I would have to pull to get an exact thing. When it comes to major investigations, we are definitely at a pretty good increase on sexual assaults. and some drug stuff right now. Some of the drug stuff would be more proactive. Detective Schaffner is doing a lot of work. We're working with Franklin Detectives where we've gone down there to help them out. They've come up here and helped us out. And because of both of that, there's a good amount of proactive stuff coming from that. I would assume based on our calls day to day that our alarms are probably up right now. Majority of that is all false stuff though. However, that's something that has definitely been an increase. Our motor vehicle activity is probably a little bit higher. We've got a couple of officers now that are are big into that, so I would say that 50 to 100 of those calls would probably be more vehicle calls.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, because it seems like based on if you're at 600 calls by the middle of May, So what's the annual rate around 1400 or so?

An increase? Yeah. No, every year is so different. You could have a year. No, they were up 600 calls. Yeah, up 600. Oh, up 600. Oh, I'm sorry. So our total calls to date are, it was right around 4500, 2600. Thank you for my age. Yeah. Now we're coming into the busier season. It was right around 4,600 calls that were added. Okay, all right. Year to date. Up, total, 600 and something. Okay. I got you. Okay.

All right. Sweet. All right.

Cool.

Thank you. Anything else, Chris?

I think there was something else, but nothing important. All right.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you guys. Have a good night.

Have fun.

Thank you. All right. Commissioner Hedberg. My apologies. I called you council. I should have said that.

All right.

Welcome.

Thank you. And thank you for inviting me. So I'm Katie Wood-Henberg. I'm the District 3 County Commissioner. I wrote up a few notes, and I'll talk about the things that I thought you might want to hear. But if you want to hear about something different, we'll switch. And I'll try and be brief. The questions I've been getting most are about the county budget, the farm, the courthouse, the sheriff, and EMS. And if those are topics that interest you, I'm just going to go right into it. Please. So first of all, the budget. We are just getting towards the end of our budget season. You may know that the commissioners, the three commissioners, come up with a budget, but then it needs to get approved by the entire county delegation, which is all the state representatives. So the commissioners have done a budget, and I brought some copies of the PowerPoint. We had a public hearing, but no one came to it the other night, which was unusual. Wow. So if people wanted to see that. But starting on June 1st, then we meet with the executive committee of the delegation. And towards the end of June, the delegation votes on it. I'm sure you, like we did, and like Plymouth, where I live, had a tough budget season. Our first budget was really terrifying. It was a total budget of about 63.5 million, which was a 10.28 increase overall, with the amount raised by taxes at about 36.3 million, and that was up 19.25%, so certainly untenable. With the hard work of all our departments, we were able to reduce the total budget by about three million and the amount to be raised by taxes down to 3.1 million, which is an 8.78% increase, but still way better than close to 20%. As you know, each town won't see that 8.78%. The DRA has to do their whole revaluation, and some towns may have a higher increase, some may have a lower increase or even a decrease. The major drivers of the increase were additional staff, rising health insurance costs, and overall inflation. Where was that? I'm getting to that. Okay. We had voted for a 3.03% COLA for staff. That had been negotiated. We have two unions. It had been negotiated with the union for our nursing home, and so we offered that to the rest of the staff. It's based on a rolling 10-year CPI average. Our health insurance, which we currently have through Health Trust, They were offering us a whopping average of about 23% increase. So we were able to change carriers. We got a premium credit for the first year and increased what the employees need to contribute. So that is a 7.92% increase, better than 23%. So where we added staff, um, the department of corrections, we added, um, two full time nursing positions. Um, and that was due to an increase in population at the department of corrections and a surge in medical needs for the inmates. We are way over budget for medical costs. Um, if someone's in the jail, Insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare do not pay for any of their health costs. So if someone needs to go to the emergency room or is admitted to the hospital, it comes out of the Department of Corrections budget with the addition of two nurses. So that gives 24-hour coverage. In the first few weeks, they were able to save what they thought of about three emergency room visits. The inmates are older, they have significant health issues, and the drugs that are being used are way more dangerous and causing way more issues. So that's where two of the positions were. The nursing home has an increased census. And so that calls for more nursing staff and more associated costs. Also with the nursing home, the state has decreased the Medicaid rate. And the majority of our patients are in New Hampshire Medicaid. They've decreased the rate, so that impacts our revenue. And the other huge driver is utility rates have skyrocketed. Some of them were several year contracts that came up to be redone. Our trash removal went up by 66%. Electricity is up 15%, water up 10%, and sewer 22%. So overall, being a commissioner and I had been on the school board for 12 years, Overall, if I looked at an 8.78 increase, I'd say, hold on. And actually, I'm quite proud that it's only an 8.78% increase. Any questions on the budget?

So, forgive me, because I don't know a lot about the county budget. So, the county budget covers, well, obviously, the correctional services, the courthouse. What other things, like, sort of, when you look at the,

and corrections versus other services? So the nursing home is our biggest revenue and our biggest expense. And then the Department of Corrections Thank you. And I have one extra that I could share, but I might need that for data.

And this is just the nursing home. So is it one nursing home or multiple? It's one nursing home. And all of them?

It is, well, it's the only one that's run by the county. There are other private nursing homes. But it's the county. Thomas has two somehow, but I don't exactly know how that works.

You've got the registry of deeds, you've got the probate court, the superior court, it's run by the county. Grafton has a

The courts are actually not paid for. We house them, but we don't have to pay for them. But we have the Department of Corrections. We have a nursing home. We have a farm. Again, the Register of Deeds, the sheriff, the county attorney. We have an alternative sentencing. And we have 200 and some acres of land that we manage.

Yeah, yeah. Quite well, actually. What's the maintenance line in the pie graph?

So they, they, our maintenance, we don't divide it out per, we don't divide it to the nursing home or, you know, so, So it's the care of all the buildings and...

I see, which is why you have an Infotech line of 1.2 million. Yeah, 1.2 million. Right. Okay, so that's Infotech for everything in the county.

It's kind of like our general government budget.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. All right.

And the county cap, which you see is 12%, that is money that we... So it's very confusing, but New Hampshire Medicaid is the biggest payer source of nursing homes. And New Hampshire, a number of years ago, it's a federal and a state program. And New Hampshire requires the counties to pay the state Medicaid portion for elderly and people with disabilities. So that county cap, there's a certain amount that the counties have to pay. If it goes over that, the state will pay some. It's supposed to only go up 2% a year. The legislature changed it so for this biennium, last year and this year, it will go up 3%. Yeah, it's a huge amount of money. And especially because Medicaid, when we get paid for Medicaid, only pays for about two-thirds of what it costs to have a person in the nursing home.

It sort of speaks to your budget. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole. I don't want to... He just wants to do what I do.

Yeah, I don't want to... Well, feel free to call me and we can meet because I'll go through all this. I have the leads too.

On the budget side of things, you mentioned the state decreasing the Medicaid payments. Obviously, that is just another thing that they've kicked down to local communities for whatever reason. What's a real hardship on the towns, and I know you can't do anything about it, but the idea that we have to pay you everything at once in December is crippling. to towns who don't have that tax revenue in yet. Sure. From the December billing. So I would like you to take that back to your delegation and say that, you know, you heard from the town of Bristol, it's the worst thing in the world.

Because it's December 15th, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it basically forces us almost into borrowing to be able to make that payment.

So, and I can understand that because the county, We don't get any revenue until that December, and we are borrowing money.

I would think it would be better for you and for us to be able to spread it out because we have to borrow money.

I think last year it was September, but we think this year it may need to be sooner to borrow money until we can get that tax return.

The whole point is everybody in New Hampshire knows.

We pay taxes twice a year? No. We do, but other people can pay quarterly. Other towns pay annually. It varies throughout the state.

I guess my point is if we can align to when we actually receive the revenue, which right now is twice a year for us. For us?

Yes. But other cities and towns? It varies. Right.

So I will bring that back, and I don't think I have any control over it. No, because it's actually by law. It's weird. This was December 15th, right? Somewhere.

It can change.

Yeah, so I understand that because we also have to do that.

So any other questions on the budget? Okay, the farm, Grafton County is the last New Hampshire county that has a working dairy farm. For years, there have been discussions on how long they will have it. Discussions are ongoing as to the long-term viability. But it does bring in revenue, primarily for the sale of milk. It also gives a place for the inmates to work. And it's really a source of pride for many people in the North Country. close the farm, we will still have the expenses associated with the building. So we're trying to figure out that balance. We also have a prize winning herd of dairy cows. And there's really a wonderful little video from the American Holstein Association on our farm and what they've done and the breeding and whatnot. So it's really a wonderful little farm, but Where do we go so it's ongoing discussions? It's right at the complex. We're all together. When we are sitting at our commissioner meetings, we can look out the window at the farm. When you open the window, you can. You don't have to open the window to know that it's spring at the farm. The next thing I'm going to talk about is the courthouse. We have a courthouse, and you may know that we wanted to build a new one. The current courthouse was built in the early 70s, so you think that, oh, that's not that old, but there's many things that are original and can't be fixed without a complete overhaul. I think it was 2019 that a first study was done on how to do the renovations, and that person came, that team came back and said, it would be more cost efficient to build a new building than try and retrofit because everyone would have to leave the building. So there's many original mechanicals and there's significant asbestos throughout the building. The previous, before I was elected in 24, so the previous board approved ARPA money to pay for a conceptual design and the current board approved the plan that they gave us. We held public information sessions. And as often happens, the people who turned out were the people who really didn't want it. And to move a plan forward, it would need a bond. And that would need to be voted on by the delegation. It also needs 2 thirds of the delegation. And so it was not brought. The executive committee didn't bring it forward. between those meetings and the executive committee and our board of commissioners went back to the building committee, and I'm on the building committee, to go back to the architects for a different plan to see if there was redesign in areas that there could be cost savings. Our sheriff was against the original plan because it had the courts on the second floor And she felt that that was, she's responsible for the security in the building and felt that that was harder to monitor than on the first floor. So with the redesign, that was incorporated because she was someone who spoke out at our public hearings that she didn't think it was a good design. So the architecture revamped the plan. We're going to be discussing it within the next few weeks. Unfortunately, despite the cost saving changes, there were some cost increases with associated moving the courts to the first floor. But more importantly, there's expected to be about five percent inflation per year and since we're not going to be able to get this going in the next couple of months um there's probably about five percent so we really didn't realize any significant savings and it has a smaller footprint um so what the commissionals will be discussing next week on where we go from here unfortunately with the mechanicals are well past their lifespan and I personally am worried that there will be some catastrophic failure of a mechanical that we can't fix because some of them they have a hard time getting parts for and then we would need to close the building because to get to any of those things that goes through a lot of asbestos And there are not buildings in North Haverhill to move people to. So I was very disappointed with the response, but that's what happens. So anyway, I will keep you updated on that. EMS, you may know, well, I'm sure you all know how hard EMS is for all the rural areas. The county commissioned a study looking at EMS services. It's on our website. It's really in-depth and ways we can look at it. We are also looking to submit a grant for the Rural Health Transformation to work on EMS programs. We have, when Warren EMS went out of business, Plymouth is covering that and has some contracts. Six towns, I think, are working to create a village district for EMS. And what we're hoping for, if we're able to get the Rural Health Transformation Grant, the county will be able to give money, that is a pilot project, and requesting money for each of the four years to start with that one, because it's pretty shovel-ready, and then look at another area of the county.

So that's kind of interesting. We've been doing, I think, that. I mean, honestly, we're providing EMS services to .

So it started.

Because you talked about the system being ready. I guess my point is I think that they've been very successful here.

No, and so they're successful, but they're looking to do it in a different model as a village system instead of contracts. It will be, and so it was on the Warren articles, it would not be, like Clinton takes care of a lot of towns and it's a contractor teaching the towns, which is I think the same way that they're doing it. And it's the same way Littleton does it. So this is a different model that several towns who could not afford to keep their own EMS or they went out of business to, coordinate so it's shared and through a, and I'm not explaining it well, but it's a new village district, so it would be through taxes and whatnot through that. But the ones, the towns that we're looking at are Warrens, Wentworth, Romney, Hebron, Groton, and part of Dorchester, and they would have a primary location in Rowney, and that's kind of equidistant getting everywhere. That makes a lot of sense. And so if it's successful, Kevin Pierce, the chief in Plymouth, had actually looked to see if they could just do it otherwise, but with liability to Townsend and whatnot, it wasn't going to work. that there's a board who are looking to do it it's from the select from the select boards of each of those towns Romney owns the old rest area on Route 25 and they've offered that building it would need some renovations renovations can be done for the If we could get the rural health transformation, some of the renovations would be put in there. It would need a garage. New building is not, so that would be money. And so they have to figure out, you know, some have new ambulances, some don't have ambulances. But it would also be a way to, in what we're looking at at the grant and what these towns are looking at, is to increase training, so there's EMS perhaps working with some of the universities or the community college system or whatnot to get more people trained as EMS and being able to work locally instead of going other places.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I find it interesting, right, because today we only do generally, the way I got it from Ben, was one-year contracts. we need to regionalize, because honestly, it's going to be the same thing with certain things from a fire perspective. A $2 million lab truck, a $1 million engine, right? We're going to spend $3 million on new trucks in the next several years. So there's a whole .

That's why it's really exciting. And if we can get money to do it, because the biggest holdup is, will these towns be able to afford money to make this happen because in Grafton County as well as probably most of the rural counties throughout the United States are really struggling with EMS. The volunteers are aging out and whatnot. So this would be, we would hope, we would love to get this grant and then be able to start with one project and then move to other areas who want to be part of it. Or, not part of it, but started their own. So, anyway. And then the last thing I had on my agenda was the sheriff, because there's been a lot of talk about the sheriff. Last March, the sheriff signed an agreement to cooperate with ICE and that caused a lot of, just a lot of uproar around parts of the county and what that was and whatnot. And this month, she withdrew from that agreement. They hadn't done any enforcement activities with ICE. She was getting a lot of requests of information through the 91A that was causing an inordinate amount of time. And I met with her personally. She has not come to the board to discuss it with us. But she said that staying in the agreement with the administrative burdens didn't make sense from her perspective. And that's my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions. And we did get in some of the weeds that I hadn't planned to, but I'm more than happy to.

That's great. I don't know if I have any questions. Scott? Does not.

cooperated with ICE? No.

They will continue to, they've always cooperated with federal authorities when needed. Like with DEA or ATF or whatnot. But these two 87 agreements are a special task force model and whatnot that So the sheriff had said they would not go out proactively to find things and promise no racial profiling. But they're not the people that ICE is going to call for backup. However, if something's going on, the sheriff might do backup to protect the citizens and that kind of thing. So the 287 program had been in effect years ago and then there was a lot of misuse of it and it really they stopped using it um you know 10 12 years something like that there were a lot of abuses down in arizona it was brought about again um in 20 in in 25. yep of course standing on that was uh did the county or the sheriff's department receive funding from from that program No, no, they didn't. And when they signed on the agreement, according to state law at the time, case law at the time, the sheriff probably should not have been able to sign that contract, but she went ahead and did it without consulting us because there potentially was a fiscal impact of it. in paying if the deputies were going out on enforcement or whatnot. And certainly would have opened us for liability if something had happened. The state law, there were two laws that were enacted last year that said local towns and counties could not interfere with a local law enforcement agency signing onto these contracts. So we really had our hands tied, you know, you're not, you can't do anything. We were concerned about fiscal impacts. I guess the only thing, we had one deputy trained and we paid for his hours, you know, that 40 hours of training. They do do other trainings and that's one of the things she says that would go towards that deputy's required trainings. Glad that we did not have any financial impact. There have been some areas that have had big lawsuits on some things.

Yeah, there were like 17 New Hampshire towns that received funding.

If they had had... From my understanding when I spoke to the sheriff, we didn't get any because there was no... enforcement activities, and so you had to do certain, at least have some enforcement activities depending on what you got, but there definitely were towns that got a lot of money. We did not, and I was not unhappy that, although it seems like a revenue stream, it wasn't one I wanted. All right. All right. I really appreciate your time, and you can always call me or email me.

And what you wish for. In all seriousness, thank you for serving in that role. It's kind of obscure and can be tough at times.

You know, there's much more to it than people. And no one knows what the county does. When I was knocking on doors, my first question after introducing myself was, Do you know what a county commissioner does? And I think I had one person who actually knew when they'd been on some committee with the county.

So anyway, thank you very much. Thank you. Jeff, you're in the hot seat.

On number six in your folders, there's a picture I'm going to try to show. Jeff went to the HDC first. would like to put some benches in the downtown area. At HCC, it was recommended to go to planning board, but I have a discussion with planning board, and the planning board discussed it at their last meeting, and they didn't feel that he needed to go to planning board. And so the reason Jeff is here is because he needs permission from the select board to put it in.

I know, I was trying to share another piece of keys. No, so it looks like a bench. Oh, wait a minute. There we go. Sorry. So this, I'll put it up on the screen when it pops up.

This is the picture I got of the bench, and Jeff is proposing .

Jeff, are the slats wood or composite?

Originally going to be wood. I was leaning towards the public. After meeting with the HTC, they... They'd rather have wood. What do you think? I mean, you know me, I'm on the wood side, too.

I just know it takes more maintenance and stuff like that. First of all, thank you. I would just like to see continuity.

Right now we've got one red bench in front of, I bought Norm's building there back in December. That's his, he put that out there. But I'd like to keep them all kind of uniform and around, you know what I mean? Yeah.

It's very nice and we greatly appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah.

He's looking currently, well HDC also asked him to consider.

Two or three other locations. In the square.

Yeah. So but in front of his building, the buildings he had two in front of 21 Pleasant Street and one on the side of Pleasant Street near the tea shop.

Yeah, not in front of the tea shop but on the Pleasant Street side. Side, yeah. Yeah.

So like near the parking spot that we closed off. Excuse me? Like near the parking spot where we closed off.

Yeah, a little further back. What do you want to call it? Goodness me, I can't remember. Mary Lee doesn't want anybody in front of her window sitting there because she wants people. And I totally get it. It would be uncomfortable sitting there looking around such a mess. So it would be on the brick portion of that, kind of between the two window boxes there. It would be right in there for that particular one. And then the other two would be down on my Pleasant Street building, which is... where Raymond's retreat is now there. Julie's old hair salon. There'd be two on that kind of idea. I'm sure it would benefit Gina's customers greatly. You know, this is always a line there. And then after meeting with them, they had requested Dorcas and Lucille that had asked about if I'd be willing to put a couple in the park, because they'd really like some in the park.

In the square? Yes.

We did have to take out

I think there were one or two that were red that didn't make it through.

Okay, well the red ones were ones that Steve Hanser had painted and put out.

We ended up having to take, I think, both out because one broke and then the other one I think was weak. The only bench I think that's downtown now, I don't know if there's more, is the one that was donated by... I don't think there's any others. Not that I can see from my window. How much does a bench like that cost?

Well, originally I was working with Steve , and he had some of those irons, and he was going to make me some. We'll look at that option, but if I add the others additional, which I'm probably going to in the square, single square pack, I guess it is, I would end up purchasing, and they're around $1,200, $1,300. So, to buy something with the slats out of oak and, you know.

And the ends are cast?

Those ends are cast, and I believe the ones that I would purchase would be cast.

So are they bolted down? No, they're not. Are they seasonal, so they come out in the wintertime? Is that what you're thinking?

Yeah, that question came up at THTC, and I've got plenty of storage, so I volunteered to set them out before tomorrow, this year obviously, set them out before tomorrow, and I would pick them up.

I mean, I'm just thinking about clearing sidewalks and stuff. Yeah.

So I did ask Victor for any input, and Victor's only input was you'd like a condition that they'd be removed before November 15th each year.

Yeah. All right. So not that I don't appreciate you putting ones in the square, right? Okay, even if, okay, you get them for the town of Bristol, you put them in the square. Is it appropriate that you take care of all, you know what I mean?

Victor wasn't talking about ones in the square because that came up after I talked to Victor. So Victor's only talking about the ones on the sidewalk. No, no, I get it.

If those are at Jeff's buildings, then, you know, to me, that kind of makes sense that they're part of Jeff's buildings. But if there's other ones in the square, I'm not sure we'd Right. I'm not sure you need to be responsible for them until in perpetuity is I guess what I'm getting at. Right? Like just.

I will until they don't function anymore. I get it.

I'm just saying like, okay, you know. All right. Anyways.

I also create an environment for my own rentals, right? I don't know how many it is, 30, almost 40 of them now, right? So, but if it's a nice area, have them in Bristol working. I have many people that pull in Bristol, come look at an apartment or a storefront or a commercial, something for me, many pull in, especially with the flowers outside, they're like, oh, they don't even want to see the unit, they just want to look around. Do you see what I mean? You know, it's all inclusive to me, so.

Awesome.

And if you want it, we can certainly take over the ones in the square and pull those out and put those into storage. It's up to you.

Just let us know if it becomes a burden. Yes.

Maybe that's a better way. All right. My biggest vein was to, my biggest reasoning, I should say, for the two in the square, they don't just buy them and put them in and pick them up or whatever. It's a half hour, half hour in the street, half hour in the hall, I think. But I want them all to look the same. It's a good thing. I don't think it's fair to a property owner to be. I appreciate that. That's all I'm saying. I do a ton of work in downtown Paris. I take your mom to every hotel and restaurant over there. She's over there all the time. And it's just nice. Rusty did a wonderful job. And TPG owns most of that now. They're continuing on. I'm not trying to rebuild Paris, but I'm trying to keep the same feel.

Yeah, 100%. So I'll make a motion to approve Jeff's getting of these benches in the locations that are defined in the email to in front of 21 Pleasant Street, one on the side, the tea shop. and potentially to the square.

All right. I'll second. Second by Scott. Any further questions, comments? All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Very good. Thank you, Jeff. Welcome. The ECC had asked me about one over in front of Abel's. I went on a look at it, and there really isn't

a good place to put it over there.

You know, you've got the, if you go over to the corner there by the mill, you have the old boiler room that goes down in there. Then you've got the big stairs, which I built years ago before I sold it to Russ, right? And then to the right of that, you've got a shack that's kind of set up with his, what he's got going on there. And the only place you're actually going against the building would be right against, almost against the glass, and that glass is really low of the massage lady there. It just isn't a good spot. So, that's not, my intention is... If they had asked me at the ATC and I said I'd look into it, I just don't think it's a good idea. So right now it would be a total size. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you guys for serving.

I've been there, so thank you. Are you leaving? No, you won't be. Yeah.

We're going to talk about C-base.

Okay. I need public. He needs public for his public hearing.

There really isn't any documents in your folders. They did have a public information session last night in the library.

Yeah. All right. So hold on. So I need to open a public hearing, right? You do. All right. So at this time we'll be opening the public hearing on the CPACER program. Is there anyone who would like to speak to this?

Yes. So last time I had a public information session No one showed up?

No.

No one. So just to remind you, this is commercial property assessed clean energy. So the way this works, it's really a financing program. It gives you a long amortization schedule. There are people that are interested in it. I think the best interest in it, TTCC, the pizza place, everybody's busy. So I get it. But I wanted to just review, just for your education, a little bit of what I've been working on already. We took a look at the TTCC, and Les has been pretty interested in this, because she's paying $1,000 a month over there in electricity. She's $12,000 a year. So we took a look at it, and I've got a solar company who will do projections. So they'll take a look at the property. I have a program, too. It's not quite as accurate as theirs. you basically take a snapshot of this building and you can project the amount of solar it's going to put out. By the way, C-Pacer's not specific only to solar, but it's a easier example than trying to do an energy improvement and predict the energy savings, right? So we put a solar panel, we put 50 kW on this, the TTCC across the street, and this drives her cost per month to almost zero. I mean, she's going to be producing over there enough energy to offset the cost altogether, $12,000. Now, the array is not inexpensive. The array is going to cost roughly $90,000 to put up. But the payment on a 30-year loan for $90,000 is $500. She's going to be saving $500 a month by putting up her solar array and amortizing it over 30 years. So the long amortization schedule saves you the cash. So she's going to pocket $500 a month, could be $400, but in that range. of cash by putting solar on that building. So this is the kind of thing that it does. And she's pretty excited about it. Now, I'm talking here about solar in that case. By the way, there's a 30% tax credit that's still there for solar for commercial buildings. And if you get some American components into that solar array, not quite what they call BABA, Buy American, Build American, not quite that level, you know, 60, in the range of 60, and it makes the economics all that much better. So we're one of the first towns that adopted this. There is a piece of legislation right now that's passing through the House and the Senate. It should be signed by the government. It doesn't require towns to agree to wait a town meeting. They can do it at the select board level. But that's just sort of bureaucratic in a sense, you know, getting it passed. The issue is getting people to adopt it, getting people to accept it. By the way, Jeff, it's retroactive. So you've done some energy improvements to buildings already. That work that you've done could be forging a sea basin over a longer period of time. Right. So I'm interested in engaging, you know, companies or businesses in the town that might be interested in this because I think it... cooking, because he's cooking with electricity up there. And a solar radon is a similar set of economics. You know, it's cash positive out of the chute. Ovens are a lot of power, though, right? Ovens are a lot of power. And they're quick. In other words, when you turn them on, they're a dead short. Yeah, the demand charge. Like a pump. Same idea. That's what I mean.

It's like What's the interest rate at the moment?

Well, it does vary a bit. But even the one I did for, I did the one across the street, I went to 8% and was still ahead. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I just did it. I was sitting here. She's saving $500 a month, but the repayment is $180,000.

I mean, listen to this.

$90,000 investment over 30 years, 8% interest, monthly payment $660,000. She's paying $1,000 over there.

30 years. And they'll live longer. It's just that we haven't had 30 years .

I mean, people who have them are in the 20 years now, and they're still producing. You do have to change this. Occasionally, you have to change the converter rod. Occasionally, the inverter will fail. It's a piece of solid state. But the glass itself and the solar, they're degrading about a percent, a percent or 1% or 2% per year over time. But they still produce. In fact, some of them, they're decommissioning. They were given away and put in places and lightened back up again. because they still produce. So these things last, you know, and that's just solar, and that's not, and the C-PASER program is good for water, and it's good for converting- Energy savings too, right? Which isn't insulation. For example, insulation's a big one. Right. Even going, windows is a big one. You just did windows. The other one is going from oil to propane, because that's energy savings. The business finance authority is the one who handles it out of comfort. They have lenders lined up. And I haven't brought a lender to the table yet, you know. Yeah. But I would love to work with businesses in the town. I think that's part of what an innovation committee ought to do is work with people to try to lower costs for our citizens. Yeah, so it would work.

How far retro will it go, do you know?

I don't know the exact number, to be honest, but I know that it's retroactive, and they'll pick up existing financing, and yours is new. Some of yours is new. Some of it. I can find out. But I lost your contact information. Do you have it? So I'm working with a few. Jeff's one of them. The pizza place. We did some projections on your buildings, too. I put solar rays on your buildings, just to see what it would yield. Yeah. Yeah. It's easy enough to do. You just take Google Maps and you Google Earth and you pick the location and you do a triangle on it and hit the button and it will give you a projection. So it's pretty easy to do it. It's called P.D. Watts. It's a little bit...

Sorry, it says... I lost my spot. A property owner may be eligible for financing if otherwise qualified improvements were completed and operational no more than 36 months prior to submission of the application. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. So new program, really just getting started in the state, but I think it's a good one. It's one that I have been watching. I didn't really even know our legislators were looking at it, and then they brought it forward. It was our state senator who co-sponsored it. It was the first bill the governor signed last year. So it's all good. I wish we had it for residential, because they do offer, in other states, same program for residential. And I've been kind of pushing that forward, and the legislature trying to get them to put a bill forward. But so far, I haven't been able to get them to do it, because they claim the overhead is, the juice isn't worth the squeeze from the lender's point of view. Because the overhead, they set it up and run it, chews up. enough so that, and the number, the quantity is small, and the loan number is small. So you're gonna be with $20,000 solar array, but your administrative cost is so high that that's the pushback I get at the moment. But there are funds that some people will do in other locations as well. They'll do a green fund, and use the green fund to do it instead of using traditional. This is all done by private financing. There's no public financing. Yeah, so there you go.

Sean, even if you did the math, what was the total outlay? I was using his numbers at 500 a month for 360 months with 180,000. Double. Yeah, that's most mortgages. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you're talking about total outlay, right? Yeah. Yeah, the long term does make you pay more, no question about it. It just improves your gas decision. Yeah. And these go for the property. You'd be smart to pay it down as you go.

You are right. It is longer. It pays more over the length of the loan. Yeah. Even the 90, I was just doing the 90 and you're paying 237, total interest 147 on the $50,000 loan. So you are right. Yeah. But from a cash point of view, if you're operational, like a pizza place, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's all how we pay for our houses, so it's not unknown. All right. Very good. So any other questions or comments? From the public? From the public. All right, the public hearing is now closed.

Thank you, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Paul. Appreciate your work on this stuff.

Thank you. Yeah, we're going to try to, from an Energy Committee point of view, you know, support the town, try to help people, try to reach out and work on projects to help businesses, I think. Yeah, I think it's great.

Can I ask a question?

How are you doing on this building?

this building this one's a train wreck and the funny part about this building is it falls into this category of it's not a commercial building it's not a you know it's a municipality um so we have an energy audit we know what to do we've got to get some folks on installation first and i don't know exactly how to handle it it's a good question though if you want me to bring it here i mean Here's what we're done here. We've done an energy out of this place. We know it's a problem. We know what the problem is, and we know how to fix it. Do I go get quotes and bring it here?

Yeah, why wouldn't we have the building maintenance? Even if we have to do a little bit at a time. Yeah. Like, because I've been in the attic a couple times.

If nothing else, I'd like to know what we're looking at.

Yeah.

In terms of what I mean, like, I've done the bump and crawl, and there's nothing up there. So, like.

Yeah. Because I know quality insulation does a lot of this stuff. I can get them to come and do a quote. The first thing we're going to do is up. I'm going to get the up down. Done.

So that we're not leaking it out the top. Because that's your biggest problem right now. And also because it causes the ice problems and then it just leads to the water. This side doesn't have ice. That side has ice.

It's a safety issue for sure.

And we need to do something about the air.

We've got leakage. Well the other thing is we need to pressure test it and find whether So, you know, put the pressure in there. You can put a thermal on it. That's right. Yeah. Not hard to do.

We also have no air exchange units upstairs at all.

Yeah. Well, you've got dead air here in general. You don't have any air refresh. It should be, you know, 75 CFM per person plus a certain offer. That's the spec. And you don't have any air exchange in here at all.

I thought downstairs did. None?

I don't know of any.

Because that one there is over there. No, okay, got it. We have nothing upstairs.

No, you're good. Nothing. And by the way, you know, the largest form of transmission for colds and flu and everything else is airborne. Half-life on common cold pathogen is 1.1 hours. Achoo! This room is crime.

Yeah. Petri dish. It is.

So why do you think he's running the door?

Yeah, we'd like to know that information for sure. Okay.

I'll contact and get a board on that. Great. And we can also take a look at some other things as well. But we should probably get a pressure test done on it. Yeah. We have an energy audit, but they didn't pressure test it.

Okay. All right.

Thanks, Paul. They didn't want to know the answer.

Yeah, yeah. There's a little bit of that.

All right, you're back to being public. Let's try not to spend an hour on MetroCast, please. All right.

Don't worry, that was directed at me. All right, where are we at?

Actually, I emailed it out to you for you to take a look at this. So if you.

When did you do that?

I send out emails every week, but I sent it out last week.

That?

That, yeah.

Okay. They agreed. They basically agreed with whatever our attorney had asked for. So the only real question I have after looking at it again, because it seems like they just said, okay, we're on board, yeah, go for it. Number one, the question that I had for Christina was, can we sign a 10-year agreement?

Yes.

What do they want?

It's that, well, we signed a lot longer on board.

Well, I know, but I know we've gone back and forth about whether we can or not, right?

It depends on users.

It's not a fee. It's a payment to us.

It's a franchise. Yeah. It's a franchise payment to us, and it depends on users. So it will most likely. So two things I want to point out. You can sign a franchise agreement with another provider as well.

Yeah, there's a non-exclusivity clause in there. Oh, interesting. I want to say it.

Making me go look.

Yeah. Because he's the one who pointed it out to us.

And this is just a cable, correct?

Or is it cable and internet?

Well, the franchise, the payment that we get is only of our cable.

So essentially, I mean, there's definitely a lot less TV watcher or cable users because they've cut the cable, right? So that payment's gone down over the years. That's correct.

Yeah, so our payment has dropped.

anything in there about taking their lines off their deadlines off of houses Did we have a current agreement that's expiring?

It's technically expired. All structures and all equipment, cable and wires, in, over, under, and upon streets, sidewalks, alleys, and public ways of the town, wherever ever situated the book is, shall at all times be kept and maintained in a safe and suitable condition and in good order and repair. So it's not really talking about from the It's if they have services in town, they're going to keep them in good working order. So in 2024, we received 48,950.

And in 2025, we received 43,204. Does that come in one shot at a certain time of year? Usually it comes up. It's supposed to be February, March timeframe. This year's came a little late, but we had booked it as a liability or a, wrong word, a reimbursement or something.

Okay. And then section 2.4, which is answering your first question. Non-exclusivity of franchisee acknowledges and agrees that the franchising authority reserves the right to grant one or more additional franchises to other cable service providers within the town for the right to use and occupy the public way. So the bottom line is we could if we needed to with other TB providers. Again, given our population, it would not be helpful to us.

So technically this agreement has expired, the old agreement continues to act until we make a decision. So we've met with them, I've talked to them multiple times, but John and I had a conference call with the individual. And the attorney has reviewed it.

The only other question I have was, I think I had asked this before for the attorney, I don't remember his answer. When he looked at the old agreement to the new agreement, was there any material change?

I don't remember his answer. And he, so when they review it, they review it for anything that is going to be a problem.

Sure.

So.

The only reason I say it that way is because any material changes, because basically it looks to me like there isn't a material change, but. Anyway, other than that, it looks like it's good to go. All right. Would you like me to make a motion for tips?

Actually, you're in a motion before you do it for me to sign it.

Yes, for you to sign it. of Christina to sign the franchise agreement with Breeze Line for this new 10-year term. And we will get that answer from legal just to make sure there's no material change from the old contract to the new. But there you go.

All right. Second. All right. Motion by John, second by Scott. Any further questions or comments? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Abstentions? 4-0. There you go.

See, that didn't take an hour.

No. All right. Kristina, you're on.

In your folders under TEA report info, I figured you'd want to take a look at that first, see if there's anything you have any questions on. There's some pictures in there. I thought some of you, if you're on Facebook, you've seen them. But some of you who may not have seen them, I thought I'd share. So I'll let you look that over.

Under Info 5... yes that's not the usual one we deal with over there um no it's new but the usual one is probably coming back yeah i thought so yeah based on what i've seen um someone went to look at a property there and sent me a picture yeah so all right all right discussion

I posted this message from the Bristol Water Department, but I thought it would be nice to share again. They wanted to extend a sincere thank you to all residents and businesses affected by the recent closure of Central Street during our water main repair work. They truly appreciate the patience, understanding, cooperation while couriers work to restore service and complete repairs as quickly as possible. Water and Zero also want to recognize and thank the Highway Department crew for their assistance throughout the project. Their support with trucking materials, equipment, and providing additional labor was invaluable in helping us complete the work efficiently and safely. Projects... Sorry. projects like this are a team effort and the water and sewer department are grateful for the continued support from our community and fellow departments thank you again for your patience and partnership as we work to maintain and improve bristol water infrastructure i'm glad you brought that up i uh i went i wandered down to see how they were doing i think it was about

It's about 4.30, quarter of 5. They'd been at it for almost 10 hours and they had another couple hours ahead of them before they could leave. They did a great job and they were in good spirits but they were tired and they ran into a couple of...

Concrete encased pipes.

Yeah, concrete encased pipes that they didn't expect to find. But they were doing a great job, and just kudos to both water, sewer, and the highway.

Sir, did they dig those, they had to chip away all that concrete? No, they went under it with the water.

So at one point, like an old arch, you know, they had excavated. But, yeah, no, just, I know it was a long day, but much appreciated.

Okay. Under number two, reminder, I didn't send an invitation out, and I'll explain why. I'm going to tomorrow now, but we have a special meeting next week We had set it for 5 p.m., and we were going to just be doing update of the BAM documents. I'm going to send your invitation out before the night's over or by tomorrow morning. So on your number two in the folders, the TTCC is asking. They have Maggie Goodlander is coming to Bristol to meet with the TTCC to get an update on the project. They provided $1 million in CDS funding towards the new building. So TTCC's been asked to put together a group of people that showed support for our project application. They are doing a tour with Maggie Goodlander at 2.45, but they're asking us to come, if possible, at 3.30. Because we are one of the biggest supporters for them. We're the responsible entity for the project. So 3.30? 3.30. Les says that it's an exciting opportunity for us to share the vision and it would be great if we could be a part of the day. So that's at 3.30. We were supposed to meet at 5. I think we still can. I'm hoping it's no longer than that. But my second question, so You know Central, I've given you a sort of heads up about Central Street Force main project. Yeah. We've run into a couple of additional issues and Underwood Engineering would like to meet with the board. Okay. I did not, we didn't have the numbers or the plans ready tonight, but I don't want to make them wait until June 4th because that will hold up the project longer.

So you want to have them come in on the 28th? On the 28th. We're going to be here. Let's do it because it's an important project to get back.

And the ban is for water sewer, the project anyway, so they could come at 5 and once we're done, do the documents, go right into.

28, no, I don't need to look very much.

Yeah, you're not here for the 4.

I'm not here for the 4, correct.

So, all right, so I'll send invites. We'll do all three of those things technically on the 28th and we'll go from here. Your inside scoop submission is due on the 28th, but I did a blurb for you. I don't know if you want to use it or not, but it's in your discussion folders under number 3A. Otherwise, I need someone to volunteer to write it. I rewrote mine.

The last one. And that's great.

All right.

I'll meet your deadline for you.

Thank you.

You're okay? Yeah, I'm totally fine. Okay. All right. Number four, there were some inquiries about life insurance that the town offers. It hasn't been changed since I've been here, so that's 18 years or so. Currently, the town covers a $25,000 life insurance. So we put, there's a quote in your folders. This is what they gave us for options when we looked into it. I'm putting it out there. Also, if you look at the report I break down, this would change as of July 1st if you're interested in making a change. Option A, if you roll down, goes That's a monthly cost for all of those people. So there are 49 people currently that are covered under the life insurance. So currently, the town pays annually $1,738.80 annually for those 49 people for the minimum. If you change to option A, it will double. So it will increase by $1,738.80 But it increases to $3,477. Hold on. Those numbers aren't matching.

Those are not matching anything. All right, so it's not just me.

Yes. Those are monthly premiums. So if you look at current, currently we pay $144.90 a month, which totals $1,000. No.

Ours says current, $1,207.

Oh, what is that? That's monthly volume. That's a million.

What does that mean? Yeah, it's a million. Oh, that says total of all coverage.

Yeah. So right now, the monthly premium for us is $144.90 a month we pay. For 49 people. No. We pay like $3 a person. Okay. Roughly. So for 49 people, it's $144.90 a month.

And if we go to, if we double it to $50,000, it goes to $289. $289.80 a month. Yeah.

Which then totals $3,477. Yeah.

Or if it's the times this salary.

That, well, they gave us that number, but I don't trust that number totally because the salary changes every year. So that's going to go up every year if you did that.

Right. Right. Do they have an option to select additional life insurance over and above? No. Not right now. So as a paid option, right? They don't have that. So that may, like, so it might be a good one for us to look at option A and then ask about if somebody wants additional life insurance. Right. Because if you can do that through work, it's generally cheaper. than if you go and get your own term policy. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's usually the group rating. It's just a wider pool. However, the challenge becomes for just individuals, you look at it and go, well, if I lost my job tomorrow and then something happens over the weekend, I don't have coverage because it's all through work. But like, it's just a balance of that.

I have time to ask, so let me ask.

I'm just saying that, for the employees, it might be good to get the provider to give them options on a paid process, right? So if they want two times the salary or three times the salary, whatever.

Years ago, when I worked for JTIL, that's what I could, they gave me a base, and then I could do two times, and sign up and pay it off.

And then that way,

Okay, we'll look into that. I'll come back. Okay. Number five, there is a, so the time for tax collector under RSA 7613 has the ability to waive interest due in an amount up to, and I apparently deleted the amount, but it's $25. They've been doing that. And it gets booked to overlay when that happens. But what we've discovered is that we don't have an actual signed copy here. So Cheryl's asking for you to approve and sign so she has an official document. So it's only interest due. And it has to be voted on by the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Assessors, but you're both. So this is... She can't waive more than 25. More than 25 bucks. That's it, yeah.

Okay. So basically, we're giving her the ability to deal with the things that it's like, that's just really annoying.

Right, because otherwise, everything, so if it's $2 that she has to waive because a mailing came in late, she has to bring that to you and can't do anything without this. Exactly.

Yes, so you will have to motion if you agree.

Okay, so I will motion to approve the Title V taxation, Chapter 76, appointment assessment and abatement of taxes.

All right, we have a motion by John. Second. Second by Scott. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Number six is a report of consent agenda. I had already.

Oh, I was going to ask why it was, yeah.

Yeah, I had already, it came in late and they would have to wait until June 4th for the vote and there's a, Now you have to turn them around within 15 days.

Well, no, you're completing the intent account. Oh, yes, sorry.

So, sorry, otherwise this would have to sit until June 4th. Right. So under the TA report, if no concerns, I just would need you to motion to approve the intent that's there. It is a total of $1,107.83. The report. Tax, yep. The tax, how's that?

So I'll motion that we approve intent 25-059. Report. What? Report of cut. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, yeah. Oh, oh, oh.

Oh, yeah, actually, you know what I'm making?

I'm reading at the top. You're actually approving the tax memorandum.

Report of the cut and certificate of yield taxes. It should be your motion, sir.

All right, sorry. So I make a motion to approve the certification of yield taxes assessed with intent for... And the report of cut. And the report of cut. All right, for intent number 25-059.

I'll second. Any questions or comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, it's 4-0.

Under 7, I just thought there was a speed sign previously located at Millstream on the Old Mill property side of the road. We did remove it. There had been a concern raised last year, and we couldn't remove it last year. So it has been removed. It has not been reassigned yet. Okay. The PD is working on options. What was the concern? It was blocking the business sign.

And it wasn't a great It would be more effective in a couple of other locations.

I talked about coming down the hill and I think there might be a problem with that.

Yeah, there's not a lot of places to put it.

Yeah. Under number eight there are pictures of two golf carts. Rob, actually we were at fireworks meeting yesterday and we were talking about do we have a golf cart for the fireworks to bring people down? Well, these golf carts are being sold for $2,500 each. It's the cheapest we've seen. I looked up the same golf carts on their website. A pre-owned one runs from $4,900 and up. So the question would be, do you have an interest in this? The PD would use it for accessing River Falls. We would use it for River Falls Park, and when the new path is built, they would use it to go down the new path for enforcement. We would also use it for events, fireworks, community events, and the TTCC. We'd be interested in using it.

I think it would be a good idea.

Rob did look at it, and I asked, he sent this.

Who has them?

You know. No, I'm kidding.

Dyer. Yeah. I don't know which one, though. I just know Dyer. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Rob said that they're good for the price. They are gas, and they will require maintenance. PD is volunteered.

Yeah, they're not a bad price. I mean, I... I've seen used golf. They're insanely expensive for what they are. Has any of these people come to us before saying we need to buy a golf cart?

We've talked about it for years. Yeah.

You know, it's one of those things like every now and then. I mean, I can remember JP donating his little electric car.

I know. We get to drive it. From fireworks.

From fireworks. We would have one to bring folks up to the, for voting. If the weather was good, we rented them for a full home day for fireworks. Okay.

If you count how many we've done. So if you count, so community and I know that they rent one usually. We rented them for the fireworks before. Full home day, they've been rented before. How much does a rental cost? I can tell you what the fireworks was. It was $270 for one. For one set for a day. And last time I had to drive it up the sidewalk and then find somebody to help load it to bring it to the fireworks for me because you can't leave it up there. And then we had to bring it back. So for the fireworks, So if you just base it on that, 270 with three, just those three events, it's almost $1,000.

Right, there's 11 days, basically. There's 11 days in a rental for the cost of one of those machines. Where would they be stored?

Police department.

Police department talked about one, not two. Right. But we also have the concession building.

I was going to say, is there room in the other green building over there? No.

Well, and the question would be, instead of, because the UTV is used, but I don't think we could break this for watering. Yeah. So the UTV would still be in the other green building, so there's no room.

What about the? Highway department maybe. Yeah, the building with the signs and the.

There might be room there. Yeah. For what? Actually for, maybe for two. Yeah. But I don't know if they'd be in the way.

Yeah.

Although we joked about water and sewer and PD said, yeah, they're not going to be happy if you try to put anything else down there because PD still has stuff there.

Is a gas one the right one versus an electric one?

We just came to you because we thought this was a good deal. Yeah. I think it is a good deal. And whether it's one or two is the other question. Yeah. Do you use one better at this point, just one or? That would be my . I think that the cost could be shared between fireworks and events. Potentially, I think fireworks is going to have to pay the most of it. Where are the photos? They're in the discussion under number eight. Those are what Rob sent me. The only thing, I don't know.

It's got to be Chris if they're in decent shape.

I was going to say the only thing I'm not clear on is they don't look like they have a back seat. It doesn't look like it has the cushion on either one of them.

You can get them. No, it's under discussion. That's why I have a TA report discussion. We're always looking for one for events.

Somebody donated one for an old home, but now they have to get another one, and they just sent me the cost. Mine's electric, and that's why I asked the question. Because when you replace the batteries, the batteries go up, and it was on that. Every other day.

So she did just send a cost. So we're having trouble, too, with the former vendor. It's not consistent. But the new vendor they found is $255. Weekend rate, 1400. I mean, I don't know. I don't think we should do two right now.

utility bit on it.

They both do, it looks like, doesn't it?

Yeah. The one in front of it. Oh, which two are we talking about?

Oh, no, not that one. It's the other two. The two in the back? Yeah. Yeah, the two in the back of that picture, yeah.

I don't know. If two would get used?

I mean, at that price, I'd grab both of them.

I don't know that there's anything specific.

We've been doing it already.

If you're an employee or a committee member, right?

They sign a waiver.

Okay, I'm just saying that's all.

Yeah, so with the UTV, we required a copy of driver's license and they have to be trained at the UTV and they have to sign a waiver. The golf carts.

So what are they being offered at?

2,500, but I haven't negotiated anything.

Yeah, because that's what it says on the window. All right. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I see.

That's a bottle. I shouldn't have. Yeah, I didn't. Yeah.

Oh, there's a whole bunch here, but those are the two that are, I didn't see the ones on the other version.

We could do a selectman jousting at Old Home Day.

There's actually, so the one way back.

You can stand on the roof.

Okay, to watch that. The one way back has a back seat, and it says 2,500 on it.

Yeah, that's what we're looking at.

Yep. Yeah.

Well, the two in the back, those are the ones you're talking about?

That's what he sent me, was the two in the back. But there's one way up here, though, up in the front that, if you zoom in, says the same price on the window.

The only difference, that one's got cushions on the seat. Which is what we would use, but...

Well, I can ask Rob to talk again and look at them again if you're good. One or two.

At that price, I think two.

Yeah, I think so too. Right near the 10, right? Yeah.

He didn't say he was there, but his wife works for them.

Well, works for Chris. Works for Chris, yeah. Yeah, at the store.

So he didn't say who he talked to.

He talked to Kelsey. All right. Okay. What year are they? base of the seat so that where the engine meets underneath the driver.

I can ask them to not look at them. Just make sure.

Yeah. We'd be interested in two if they could give us a deal. A civic minded. That's right. We can prove it on the 28th.

Sorry. Number nine, this also missed the consent agenda. I asked this one up. So it's a refund of a credit. This person is moving. And he had a credit on the tax account, and so he's not going to use the credit. So I did a manifest. So if you are good with approving that manifest, it's for $308.70. Okay.

I move that we approve check manifest for payment number 730. Is there a second?

I'll second. Second by Steve. Any questions or comments? I figure you'll get the, you'll get all the last names. Steve, sorry, Scott. Scott.

I was like, wow, all right.

I'm like, he's renaming. I'm going to just call him Steve.

You might as well just do it, yeah.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Great.

Number 10, the input event brochures, if anybody's interested, are available at the town offices in various locations in town. And people should really check out the summer events for the Newfoundland area. Number 11, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to all groups of volunteers who have participated in cleanup efforts across our community over the past few weeks. From the town beaches to Kelly Park, River Falls, downtown, and so many other places in between, your time, energy, and commitment have made a visible and lasting impact, helping to keep our town clean, welcoming, and something we can all take pride in. Thank you to the Newfound Regional High School students, the assessing and land use departments, the sustainability committee, area realtor groups, and all the many volunteers who stepped up to help. I apologize if I missed any group or individual, but please know that your contributions are appreciated and make a meaningful difference.

That's awesome. Did we end up having the high schoolers today? Yes. At the beach?

They were at the beach. They were downtown. Awesome. There is a pile near the shed at Kelly Park. Yeah. I've talked to Mark at the transportation, and they're going to pick it up on Saturday. I let Les know it's there, but we'll make sure it gets picked up on Saturday. Okay.

Excellent.

That's it.

Did anybody report any alarming finds?

Les found some alarming stuff today, but not next week. I'm not telling you now. All right. But she was taken care of. Oh, and I will share that there's a Lakes Region maps and books there. I'm going to try and get some more because I thought those were really nice. They cover the newfound area, and I've reached out to find out how we add or people can get added. But this does not... Ron Taylor did the design. The weight of it is very nice. Anybody who wants? I just bought mine.

It was on Facebook. I'll send you the link. It's through Selly.

It benefits the person

So when you run into others.

I was going to say. Who would judge the hierarchy? Well, they're going to judge the jousting competition. Yeah, it's coming. Yeah.

Okay, that's it. Sorry.

All right. Selectman items. No columbos. Scott. Nothing here. Nothing there. Okay. It's because . Nothing. Nothing? I reserve the right.

All right. Okay. I got a few things to say. Well, I mean, so last week I went to the event for Joe Kenney and had a couple of good conversations just about some of the things that we're trying to do economically, right? So trying to get some more conversations going with the states so we reconstituting our economic development committee or economic opportunity committee. We can give them tasks that are achievable versus the high level of we need more business. So that one's, I think, pretty good. Hub 66, I think we've got to continue to kind of dig in with their progress. They said in our last meeting that they're intending to be done We got transfers to do. There's a bunch of things to do.

Some of the contracts are up, too.

Yeah, and then the contracts, because we have to redo them for this building and stuff like that. So, anyways. There you go. That's what I got for now.

Oh, okay. I got a complaint about e-bikes in the park. Well... E-bikes in the park? E-bikes in the park and safety and...

In Kelly Park? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. You know, the fast bikes.

What did you say?

Yeah, there's a lot of litigation on that stuff going on right now. Yeah. And I don't want to, you know...

I did get a response.

It's great that kids are out there on bikes, even if they are E-bikes, but...

I did get a response from the chief before, but I'll find it.

Yeah, I was going to ask you to just relay it to the chief. I don't know what the policy is on bicycles in Kelly Park, or if we even have one in Kelly Park. So there's different classifications on e-bikes, and at some point they're motorcycles.

His response said that electric bikes follow the same law as regular bicycles.

Yeah, no, that I'm aware of on the roads, but... Yeah, in terms of, do we have a policy about riding bikes on the grass or, you know? That's a good question. Yeah, I know. Or does the park committee want to look at that? Somebody was concerned because someone had gone bombing through an area at like, you know, they go like 25, 30 miles an hour. Yeah, they do. Yeah, I know.

It's not going to stop. I know, I know. Well, that happened in California. The mom is being held accountable.

yeah so that's what i'm saying well we also have a budding business from a business perspective in town right like you've got the e-bikes that are trying to be sold or rented and yeah right so so i think i think it's it's going to ramp up not get not slow down right so just just something to keep on that on our minds um

Okay, so you talked about the construction project. I was going to ask about that. Do we want to talk about the driveway or do you not want to talk about the parking lot?

We probably should a little bit. I've got to call them and try to meet with them tomorrow. I'm going to try to get out there and meet with them. Okay. Are you talking about? Yeah. Okay.

So we ran into a problem with, is it because of parking in the construction?

When I talked to them, there were some things that are supposed to be happening. There is one that is true. There is a vehicle that parked down there. I'm with a flat tire. It's been there for a long time. I noticed that one myself.

I talked to Chris a little. This is at the new pump station parking lot.

It's at the River Falls parking lot. There was a slight altercation on Monday. On Monday is a real Monday. And the police department was called, were called. And then I got a phone call at 6.30 in the morning And I made the decision that we were going to paint spots, and I made a decision not to because of that. And then I have talked to, there's a new person that will be taking over who's training. Okay. And they are claiming ownership. And I said, no. I said, you own the land under the easement. And I said, let me get whatever information I can find, and let's talk about it. And what are your concerns? And I said, we've been maintaining it since it was built. And I said, what are your concerns? Well, they claim they don't like that the car doesn't ever move and it's got a flat tire. And somebody's been sleeping in the parking lot. And I'm like, okay, well, you don't know these things. If you don't tell me, I can't do anything about it. Well, we're supposed to enforce it. We should be. People have been peeing and going to the bathroom in their field. And I don't know how frequent that is. I don't know more than that. But I said, I can't do anything about these things if you're not telling us. I said, I do believe the parking lot is our responsibility. We should stripe it. If you want us to stripe other areas off, I've talked to the highway department about it. There was a discussion a few years ago when Mark was still here and Les was here. We went and met at the parking lot. And they said they were going to stripe off in front of their access so nobody parks there. I guess they parked there and blocked them before. Yeah. They didn't do that. So I talked to Victor and Victor's willing to stripe that off. Yeah. We also striped off extra parking space that's near the fire hydrant. because nobody should have been parking there anyway and there was one vehicle that was always parking there so we took care of that I didn't honestly know there was anything else going on until this happened I think it exacerbated between the two parties and then that's why I decided not to paint it until we had another conversation but this guy seems to be I mean, he seems to be agreeable for our conversation, so we're going to try and set something up tomorrow.

All right. Very good.

Thank you for inviting me. Anything else? Actually, a little while ago, I think I missed the meeting and talked a little bit about the crosswalk at the school. Yeah. What did we ever end up deciding around how we're going to look at that? Do we ever figure out what we're doing around the flashing, whatever? We need to follow up with Steve at the state.

I will reach out to Armin because I think he is the one talking to him. They won't pay outside there, but the school has to be willing to pay for it unless the tenant is willing to pay for it.

Right, but we're going to talk to Steve to approach the traffic So Steve said he would, we emailed him and say, hey, we're just following up on a conversation we had at the DOT public hearing that he will then tie in the appropriate person to approach.

I just, it's one of those things where it feels like it's like everybody's seemingly waiting for somebody else to take the first step. Right.

Yeah. Just one more thing. Do we have a timeline on the pipe replacement on Beach Street?

No, not yet. Okay.

All right, anything? All right. No one here. Make a motion to adjourn.

Are we going into it? I was waiting on, we don't have to go into it. Oh, sorry, public comment.

Is it possible that you bring the website up for a second? I just wanted to kind of shout out the community events committee, specifically Janet Snyder. You can take a look at their committee page on the website. She's been really actively sending me stuff and getting me to do stuff for her. And it looks really good. Obviously, it's a pretty public-facing committee. They're doing things that people come out to do and want to know about. I've also had people contact me directly through the Facebook page with questions about community events. And I've found that people are looking at that part of the website. But I just wanted to encourage anybody who's involved in any other committee committee stuff. We went through a little bit of heartache with the new website and I've got it pretty much figured out and Janice has done a really good job of having like a tiny bit of a vision for her committee and then making it happen. And also once, you'll see once we get it up there, there's just a tiny bit of imagery on there so it's not quite so much dry text and menus. And when we have something that looks like that, it makes more sense to funnel our Facebook posts towards the website. And so in the process of looking at all this stuff, I looked at the analytics on our Facebook page, and on a random Tuesday in May, when we're ramping up for all these summer events and stuff, our Facebook page might get 6,000 views. And that's not an anomaly. That's once or twice a week sometimes. So if we have information that we want to disseminate and we can build a page that looks like this, if you look at the menu items on the side, everything that's happening throughout the summer is already there. And there's links to, you know, forms, sign-up sheets, volunteer opportunities, everything's there. And she's got imagery to go with it. So yeah, I know the Energy Committee has stuff that's going on, and Paul sent me stuff for the Buzz, which is great. And there's a lot of other stuff like that that I don't But if I do, I'd be happy to work with the chair of whatever committee to make this happen for them. And I can help with imagery and stuff too, so.

That's awesome, Kate. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.

So we reached out to Janice of the Fireworks Committee to ask her what she would charge to market the fireworks because we just don't have time. Yeah. I'm waiting for a quote.

Which brings me up to another point. She's the one who organized the thing last weekend, right?

Yeah, I think the majority. The block party? Yeah, the big love.

So kudos to her for that. I talked to her in the morning, but I've been hearing so many great things. I took a walk around. The community spirit is really great, and it's much appreciated. She did a lot of work on that.

Yeah, she did a really good job.

Yeah, so thank you. All right.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

All those in favor? Aye. Thank you all.