Select Board - Regular Meeting

of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

After years, the engineer who usually says that things were off-center would say something.

Oh, yeah.

We fixed those. Don't look at the floor. We fixed those, too. Okay. Center around the window a little bit better.

I'm trying to find the piece that makes the flag actually sit. Hang out? Yes. I know it.

Sorry.

All right. Consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda for August 20th, 2026. Counts payable corrected payment manifest dated August 20, 2026. Counts payable payment manifest dated August 20, 2026. Certificate of yield taxes and timber tax warrant for timber intent number 25-059-02-T. for map lot number 102-018 and 102-050 in the amount of $1,199.05. Intent to cut 26-059-05-T for map lot number 114-059 and 114-059-001. Request for advance from the bond anticipation note for the Central Street and Forest Main Project in the amount of $392,000. Okay, is there a second?

Second, I, Slutman-Milbrand. Any comments or questions or individual items?

There was a thing in there that explained some of the items, but I just wanted to in case you have questions. Yeah.

Okay. Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, abstentions, that's 3-0. Police department updates and highway safety grant.

We have general updates. Chris is going to give you general updates because we rescheduled his, actually this was your regular meeting. We've scheduled each of the department heads for twice a year at minimum to come in. So he'll give you some updates from the police department. And then we can do the highway safety grant agreement we have to approve as well under Crestlater.

So we've had a busy summer, one of our busier summers that we've had in a while, dealing with the e-bikes. trying to get them under control with the juveniles and the bikes that are illegal from riding on the road. Scooters, electric scooters that are riding on the road that aren't allowed to be. bike helmets too which has become a major issue that everybody under 16 they're really not wearing bike helmets of town the beaches knock on wood have been pretty good this year we haven't had much going on up there kids jumping off the bridge has taken place, tried to have some conversations with some of them. This week it seems to be tied down according to today while we're in there for the day. We've had some conversations in Wellington which next year we're hoping to have a meeting before the season with whoever's going to be the manager there. I think it's a much needed meeting with them which also probably means Fish and Game being involved is the goal to try and work on. Actually, the Marine Patrol guy, he's actually been stopping in our PD and talking to us, so I think we can probably work. And get a meeting. Kind of like what we did with the beach attendance this year. Have a before the summer meeting with everybody. One of the problems with Wellington is the manager. Every year they go through it, they get a different manager. Which makes it pretty difficult for us just being all on the same page. So we're hoping to fix that by having a meeting there. We've been having some pretty solid parking issues that hopefully will be addressed now. We've had some parking issues with some of our parking lots. which right now seems to be pretty good with some long-term parking that specifically the Central Street lot the intentions of that originally wasn't really for somebody to park their vehicle there for 90 days. So Christina and I have talked about the new parking ordinance, which isn't ready to be presented to you guys, but try and...

Sorry to interrupt you. The draft to get to talk to you is on tonight's agenda just to talk and feelers out. Victor is going to be here too. So it's a perfect time to have that conversation.

One thing when you guys are looking at it that we've kind of seen in the past, I don't know that I'm for parking permits or not. I don't really know. We've kind of done that in the past, which didn't really work out too well. I don't know if maybe now is a time to do it and maybe limit some lots to permits. I don't know. I can't give you a good answer on that. I think it helps us. with some of the people that are leaving their car. Not even Front Bristol parks a car there and leaves it there for a while, which does take place. One thing that I recommend to Christina is maybe not every one of our lots downtown is opened up for overnight parking, to include in the wintertime, too.

And those are in the ordinance to ask you those questions, too, so you know.

Because like what I've talked about with parking in the past, same thing with Winter Park, and it's usually people who live downtown. They don't move their vehicle at 8 a.m. They wait for us to do something about it. And one of the big lots for plowing-wise is that Central Street lot. And anybody that pulls in there pretty much messes up plowing for them after a storm. So I wouldn't be opposed of that not even being a lot, even in the wintertime, for overnight.

I agree with that, too. Now that we have this lot here, we can't get any one of the machines in there to open the lot up and there are cars in there and there are cars in there 24-7.

There's a couple that are owned. Slots right over those the ones right up against the building. Those are against the building.

There's a high entertaining wall with a control dam Yeah, yeah, there there is one Area that the hydro is supposed to be a lot of parking There's also they don't know how the planning board why the planning board did this but they did tandem parking and And when they allowed the tandem parking, I don't know how there's any way that the hydro can park or how those vehicles get in there if the hydro's there. So I don't know if there's anything that can be changed on that. I've talked to the building owner, the building manager, and they sent out notices to their staff too. I mean, their tenants, but...

That lot, and I think it's because it's kind of out of the way, has always been our biggest problem when it comes to winter stuff. Because sometimes you'll have somebody from Concord leave their car for three or four days and you can't get in touch with them. And you can write them a ticket, but in the end, it doesn't help with the plowing.

Then we lost the ability to use that as a snow dump because of Jeff's new building and that. So we can't move snow down there in bulk. And now with the cars, if we do stack in Spring Street parking lot and we try and move it down there, we're going to hit a car. It's just getting too dangerous. It's just too tight.

Do you want to jump ahead and talk about the parking or do you want to finish updates?

I just want to make sure my update was part of the parking. So we did address some issues there. One of the other lots I did is An issue with the parking, we'd like to address is the parking here in front of the bank seems to be an issue with long-term parking, which I don't think that the town probably really ever intended on somebody to leave their car all summer long.

We're going to try the same mechanism that we did with the other one that was on Spring Street with two different vehicles in two different locations. The attorney has given us that mechanism, so I'm just going to take the letter I wrote for the other ones and we're going to have it delivered.

On Park, the only other thing that I kind of had that I've heard from people is some or all of the parking spots in the Central Square are having some sort of time limit on them. which we don't have parking enforcement that's going to know exactly when two hours happens, but it gives the police department the ability that if somebody's left there all day long, we can address it, which I think is, I do think it is a needed thing.

Something's got to be done between. I never understand anyone who would. We may have solved a little bit of the winter parking, hopefully, if you agree with our recommendations.

Okay. Yeah, we're fully staffed still.

So we just had a really good drug narcotic training that we hosted that was put on by the government. So it was a free training for us. And a gentleman came up from Texas to teach it, and it's training that... We would have to send somebody out of state. So this is the same one. We had the same group do one a couple months ago that we hosted. We weren't supposed to host either one of these, but the place that they were supposed to host it backed out last minute over some insurance things. It's the government who did it, and they weren't able to show them an actual certificate that they have insurance, but they do have insurance. So it was a business. So they said, sorry, you're not coming. So we hosted it. Here at the PD, we're hosting a third one in the fall time. And they've essentially said it's a perfect location for them. They love it. So probably moving forward, we'll host two or three of them a year. Different ones. This one, people from New York, Maine, all over the place came to it.

I was just going to ask that.

Yeah, so Eli was in it and an officer from Alexandria was in it and they said it was a phenomenal training. The next one is a wilderness tactical training which will have a bunch of Franklin, Bristol and Alexandria officers in that one. So we're going to hopefully move forward with probably two or three a year, which are high level. They're good trainings.

Now because you're hosting it, are there any perks?

So it's technically free for everybody. So some of the trainings you host, you get free spots for it. This is free for everybody. That being said, there ends up being some extra perks that we get when you get five boxes of ammunition rounds shipped to you that nobody wants to ship back to Pennsylvania afterwards. So it's been great. oh yeah uh kelly park um we've had the we've had some vandalism there um we've put extra patrols kind of throughout there throughout the night time throughout the shifts um doing double double patrols in there um kind of anytime we see somebody in there after hours making sure they move along or at least talk to them So no, we've got a group of kids that really started in the springtime, but they like the plastic chairs at the tennis court for some reason. We're breaking those up, doing some spray painting. Right now, since we've been doing the extra patrols the last couple weeks, we haven't had anything else happen, but...

How's the call volume so far, like this year compared to last year? Is it roughly the same? We're a little bit higher.

We're a little bit higher than last year, not much. From what I'm seeing for calls, though, I think that call for service member is a little bit more of like a 911 or a little less self-generated, a little more proactive. Okay. So it's definitely been a busier summer. The summertime has definitely been busier. I think a lot more people have been here this summer. Haven't really dealt with tons of major, major crimes. We had a little bit of a theft spree, people walking around. We were very successful at tracking. to the residents where these people came from. We're not overly successful if there's multiple people that live inside these residents. However, they were put on notice when we showed up at their door with the dog that the dog led us to their house. We've debated on a Facebook post. It can kind of go, I don't know which direction we'll end up in.

I think everybody appreciates you guys being more and more with the dog.

So one of them was up on the Willamette Road area that an item was stolen. And the dog legitimately tracked pretty much every house in the area that you, they clearly went looking around for shed doors that were unlocked until they found the shed door. And the dog was dead accurate and ended at our residence.

Made a lot of few treats.

Yes, yes. We had a dirt bike that was stolen. And that was kind of the first one we did. We just tried it. She trapped where they had, they ditched the dirt bike on the bike path. We tracked where they walked from it, brought us to the house. Then from the front door of that house, she tracked right to where the dirt bike was stolen. So we did a big circle with her. Unfortunately, Charges probably aren't coming from that, but we made everybody aware that we were watching. Those two thefts are, I think, two completely different things. I don't think they're related whatsoever. So we have had some thefts, not tons of them, but we have had them.

On the new vehicle, what's the status of that?

So we've got the new vehicle, which came really, really quick. Now it's sitting there waiting for it to be outfitted, which we were hoping because we got it so quick. They won't order anything until you get it, but we were hoping we were going to be pushed through. The outfitting downfall of only having one cruiser to a company is when Salem PD shows up with 10 of them. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Salem PD has 10 cars go in front of us. So right now, the new one, it's lettered. It's there. It's just not outfitted with anything. We used it to put out no parking signs at the beginning of the summer. We'll probably use it to pick them all up at the end of the summer. It's got a big trunk area. Cool.

Was that the board? This was Explorer, yeah. This was just a real Explorer.

of all the parking ones, is that what you?

That's really weird. First thing is the Highway Safety Grant. Oh yeah, Highway Safety Grant. This, so I have specific wording. I put it in your folders too, but I'll let you read it off of this. So it's the second one, because I have two different grants tonight. So the Highway Safety Grant is?

So this is actually for next, this will be in next year's budget, not this year's budget because the state works, the state works different, different months of new work. So this will be budgeted for, for 2027. These are speed patrols, pedestrian patrols,

This is DUI too.

DUI patrols. These are the ones that we actually tried to get rid of two years ago, but we bought a bunch of like the speed signs, radars, and stuff. And when we said we're not doing them this year, they came back and said, no, we gave you all this other stuff. If you don't do them, don't come back asking for anything ever again. So we've decided that it's in the best interest that we do them.

So we have done in usually the year before, and they require specific wording on the motion. And then I told you what you needed to sign. These particular ones, you can't vote me to approve them or to fill out the documents. They're very particular about these. All right.

I'll make a motion that the board approve.

by majority vote accepted the terms of the highway safety grant as presented in the amount of six thousand nine hundred dollars I second okay we have a motion to second any questions or comments here are none all those in favor aye those opposed that is 5-0 All right, I'll start working on it.

Did you want to come up while we talk about parking? Come up. You can stay, Chris. Oh, we're both going to be in the back seat. Look, I can put you both in now. So I figured it would be good since Victor was here also. This is in no way, shape, or form final at all. We talked about it yesterday at the department meeting. I've made some of the changes. Oops, from the department meeting. I'm trying to get it to share on the screen. Sorry. Okay. I had to recreate it. We didn't have it anywhere. We're a document book person. I looked for it. And we were able to just take it and convert it, but we had to clean it up a little. So, actually, section, one and two are pretty much the same that were in the original ordinance. It just is expanded upon. I just took out that weird wording that was in there, the no stopping standing wording because it was very confusing. It made it sound like don't you dare stop on the road on foot either. But some of the things we wanted to point out to talk to you about, tonight was to make sure you were on board with some of our thoughts. Let me get down. So even section three, general provisions, is pretty much the same as what was there. Section four, definitions, we added new definitions. The only definition that was here was commercial motor vehicle. I don't know where, oh, it's because I turned it into a PDF. So commercial motor vehicle was already in there. We didn't touch that definition. I can make this bigger. And then we added emergency vehicle, any police, fire, ambulance. So not that we should have to define these things, but sometimes it's good to have the definition in there. It includes also public works, public services. public safety, public works, and any other vehicle, town vehicle, it should say. I'll fix that. Engaged in emergency or official municipal operations, so. Overnight parking, municipal property we defined. Overnight parking was defined. That had already been in the ordinance, and we talked about that and kept those hours the same. I did add, after meeting with the group, Yesterday I added recreational vehicle or camper, a definition for it. So, and we'll explain why we added that as we get further down. But we added that as a definition as well. And then the final definition was in there. We just made it streamlined. It's winter event. Sorry for the weird things in it when I converted it apparently to PDF. It did this weird. Signs all through it. There you go. So section five is a new area. So we've talked about this a couple times at the department head level. I talked to the board first about naming the parking lots. We didn't like your names. So we were coming back to ask you to reconsider after talking to the department heads. We also thought it would be good if we're going to name particular parking areas or lots that we list them out, put them in the parking ordinance as well. So we have listed out all of the ones that we, right now, that we felt should be in there. We would, instead of calling the Parsonage lot the Parsonage lot, we're recommending Summer Street Municipal Parking lot. Bristol, we left the bank because you guys wanted the bank, but we wanted to put Bristol in front of it because for the old bank, that used to be around that area. So we put Bristol Bank Municipal Parking. I did, I can take the, Pleasant Street, North Main Street out, but we called this a parking. I split it up between lot and area, and there's a reason, because it's really not a lot. It's got parking spaces in it. So that's why I called it a parking area, but we don't have to do it that way. I'm just putting it out there. This lot we put in as well, the Barbara Greenwood, because we thought there should be some regulations here. The Kelly Park Municipal parking lot is the, everybody calls it the tennis court lot. Bristol Falls Park, we're Central Street Municipal Parking. That's what everybody refers to that lot, not really Bristol Falls. Cummings Beach, we broke out into two because we're referring to upper and lower. Avery Krause Beach Parking. Central, this, I might, I'm going to try to put this in order and put it on a map as well because I think it would be nice if it had a reference.

I guess that would be the, like just generically, each one should have a map so that people can actually reference where they are.

I'd like to put them in order too. I just didn't get to that piece of it but, so Central Square's parking area is down here near Wynn Cross and those area, those businesses. Millstream Park. parking area. We put the public safety building parking lot on here. Post office municipal parking area because we do own that section and we have some questions about that when we get to that. My Not Sleeper library, we broke it off into upper and lower because we do have the lower set up as a winter parking event but not the upper. Spring Street Municipal Parking Area is a handful of parking spaces, but we included them because there's some regulations we put in here when we get further down with those spaces. And then we're recommending to name the Fowler River access parking area. I will also mention it came up in our quarterly session this week that we have we have one more but one of the things that came up in that session was we should really consider defining that that area a little bit better we're going to use it then we should define where the parking is we are buying a new sign to put on the gate that says do not lock gate in big letters because we have to put a sign Yes, and they're blocking the fire hydrant too, but we didn't put a, we didn't get a sign for that right now, but.

I don't know that I've ever seen that there is an issue at the gate, but Jeff is concerned that there is.

Oh no, they've gotten there and they can't get it. They were able to get around a vehicle luckily, but they couldn't open the gate.

I mean, they just, they do. When they can't get to Wellington, they just go there and park everywhere. They got a chain, right?

Well, and they're parking boat trips.

There's a chain on Fowler 1. Oh, I mean on the truck. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So we named it in our department head meeting, if the board agrees, the Fallow River access parking area. And then we talked about even though technically Planky Spring isn't town all of it, it's state too, we did think that that should be added to this Planky Spring parking area. Yeah. I just don't know, I put it there, Sean, but I wasn't sure if conservation commission wise.

Yeah, it's technically conservation commission land, but I don't see a problem with that. And how they would feel.

We have had a problem there where the campers. The campers. So that's why we .

Yeah, we wouldn't, we'd be in favor of anything that would be detrimental to the spring, so having someone there.

for three days is not great yeah that's what we're thinking that so we didn't this is this is the the ones we've addressed so far i don't know if i'm missing anything or anybody um can think of another spot so well not a spot but up above so you're referring to area and lot is that also reflected up above I can actually, I can define that, because I just realized this doesn't say it here, area slash law. We can define it. The only reason I did the difference is because Spring Street isn't a lot, so to speak. Right. It's a handful of spaces around the corner. I get that, but it was a challenge.

But I should define it. I didn't, I don't want to have to withhold.

at the Masonic lot that we sort of work as an agreement.

I could, actually I should put this on because there isn't, we're still working on the MOU. We should have that back to you soon. But we should put that.

Plow and that's under Winter Park.

And they're not allowed after certain time of day. So it would be good to put that in here at Masonic. Good idea. Okay. Anything off the list for now? Okay. All right.

So further down. I have just a quick question. Are the spots. Go ahead. Are the spots like along by the diner and the restaurant, are those here?

for those in town. Parking spots are ours.

Yeah, parking spots are ours. They're controlled by us.

We paint them.

Yeah, on street parking.

That would be, yeah, that would be on street. Okay, on street parking. Yeah, okay.

Which is where you guys might want to think of maybe some structure. Yeah.

We should probably consider adding it.

Add a section for on street parking.

So I'll give those folks credit there. They're pretty good at figuring that stuff out.

But there were times they were blocking people and they couldn't get out of their driveways. It's honey and lemon, Chris. Thank you.

But now on Central Street, right now, you have probably eight cars that maybe they move if somebody goes to work, maybe. But those eight cars right now have moved out of other lots. Some of them have been told to, so now they're on Central Street. Back on where they were a couple years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'll add those, I'll add something more with those. Are you, what about these titles for, are you good? Once we agree titles, too, and once we get this adopted, we're going to sign these properties because, sorry, my screen's rolling really slow. This one? There. Summer Street. I love that. I can't put it back to parsonage, but none of us like parsonage.

I think you're also encouraging that that's just the church.

But I do address the church easement when we get further down. I think we call it mighty oath. We should. Mighty oath.

These are sort of long.

These are sort of long names. Very good signing. I wouldn't probably put parking lot on them. Right. be simple i can take the parking word out of these it can just be summer street municipal lot bristol bank municipal eric oh it would be a lot fun maybe maybe i'll change them all a lot period it doesn't matter yeah yeah you don't need municipal each and every day you don't need parking

If we're going to put the big blue sign with a white P on it, that's an invisible parking lot. Right. Simple.

Okay. Other than that, though, are you good with names? Yep.

There's no name that...

so moving down further so section 5b these are just so these are general restrictions for all all of these laws because these are municipal laws so some of this is just regular basic things but no parking where if it's posted pavement marking parking spaces those are Hopefully common sense. Permit requirement or time restriction. If anything like that, they can't do that. They can't park in a manner that occupies more than one marked parking space. They can't obstruct traffic, block paths, block pedestrian paths, sidewalks, crosswalks, loading zones. Good God. designated travel barriers. They can't block, they can't park in a designated handicap accessible parking space, I fixed that wording, without authorization required by law. So this section is general. What we added though, no person shall conduct vehicle repairs maintenance dismantling washing storage activities except for minor emergency repairs necessary to move the vehicle no camping i gotta fix the wording no camping sleeping and overnight occupancy they're prohibited unless specifically authorized by the town and then no vehicle shall be left unattended for more than 72 consecutive hours Any vehicle remaining unattended for more than 72 could be deemed abandoned or unlawfully stored and may be issued citation, moved, relocated, or towed. The reason we did this is because we are getting vehicles that are left for days and days and days. And we thought 72 hours was good, correct, Chris, because of weekends. Yeah. You know, but again, this is up to the board. And commercial vehicles was already in there, but they can't park in town lots. Jesus Christ.

For any time? Or what about like... Actually, it's... Deliveries are always allowed.

There's an exemption for deliveries when making deliveries.

Sorry, when we get to that.

So sometimes there's a contract, a local contractor parks in the square, goes to get a coffee. It's okay. It's a commercial vehicle. You're not allowed to do that?

No, I'm taking the, I'm going to take this sentence out because Section 7 addresses commercial vehicles. Okay. We'll get, so when we work. Yeah, the intent was over, I think. Right, right. It does also have a clause that says we can establish permit parking areas, seasonal parking restrictions, time-limited parking areas, resident, you know, I put this in so that we could,

we were going to use that is one scenario when the commercial is um uh parking for what just happened four or five um work vehicles and one parking lot taking up the whole entire parking lot just simply because you didn't want to park them on your own property yeah um a section 5c is specific lot ranks so

Summer Street, the former president, we put in pursuant to the terms of the recorded easement rather lawful agreement up to 12, because that's the agreement. Parking spaces may be reserved for the use of the church on Sundays and during church services, functions, meetings, and other church-sponsored events. Such, we did feel they should be identified. Maybe we put them further in the law over. But they shall, such spaces shall be identified by signage approved by the town. We also said during periods when church parking rights are in effect, members of the public shall not park within spaces reserved for church use.

You talked about putting signs up there too.

Yeah, I did put for signage.

enforce that or check that?

It's just Sundays. I think it's only if we get a phone call.

So we decided that we'll put signs up on 12 spots so on Sunday everybody should know not to park their car. The down problem potentially is a random Tuesday or a random Thursday.

I am going to check. I think the I think this is too much. I think the easement is specific that they have to put a sign out 24 hours before they're having a funeral or a wedding. And if they don't have a sign out, I don't know why we would have to enforce it then, in my opinion, because that's part of our easement. But I will get the exact wording, so. Because Sunday may be the only day you really have to. Yeah, Sunday is definitely the big day. Cummings Beach area, I guess I should say, it's actually all of them. I've got to split it up though, upper and lower. So during designated beach season, the following shall apply 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Parking shall be permitted only by valid permit issued or recognized by the town, and parking shall be prohibited outside of posted beach operating hours. That's what we said yesterday, right guys?

Yeah, it should be noted that the winter time during ice fishing season, we historically have allowed people to park there if they're sleeping out in their bob house.

That's why we're only putting it in for... Overnight parking is addressed for camping. mean you're not allowed to overnight park there but the guys that are going out in the bob houses are parking and going to the bob houses for the most part anybody that's done it usually calls us and asks for permission before we've usually allowed it and it comes only not avery because avery's a road that they could have to plow right there on windy night even if it's not snowing A for Krause, we did the same stipulation but added parking. So it's still during beach season, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. And then parking is prohibited from November 15th to April 15th annually. Does that cover using Victor for you? Yes. Because the snow is piled up in those parking spaces. Kelly Park Municipal, tennis court. Kelly Park lot shall be open for public use from dawn to dusk unless otherwise authorized by the town. Here's my question for you. The Kelly Park ordinance is at 9 p.m. I said dusk, but I can change it and match the ordinance. I just have to confirm what the opening date and time is. But parking shall be prohibited outside of the posted operating hours, so. I have noticed that sometimes.

They just parked overnight.

I think . I think a lot of it . Yeah, across the street.

Well, that's a question. Do you not want, we can take that out, but.

What if we did like later in the night because if there's special events at the community center or the school.

Right, which would be authorized by the town for those, would be authorized, but the question would be, I guess we can not put a restriction on this lot.

I'd like to keep a restriction on the lot because I think that makes it a bigger headache for us. I don't think that somebody needs to be parked overnight there in that lot.

And then during concerts, so like tonight.

Will it be okay? It would be no, it would be okay.

No, not during the concerts. It's only like, yeah.

It does say, shall be open for public use from dawn, I can put 9 p.m., which is what the park is allowed, unless otherwise authorized by the town. So if we're renting out at Kelly Park for an event, we're authorizing it to be open later. Like Halloween, no, they're not late. Who's late? I don't know how often we go that late.

Yeah, it wouldn't be too often. It's just sometimes when the elementary school has something going on or TTCC has something running late. And they're not usually down in that parking lot from TTCC. They're just down to the elementary school or a little further.

I'll add the hours from the Kelly Park ordinance into it, but I will say unless an event is otherwise authorized by the town, something like that. Because we have an MOU with the TCCC, so it's implied that we're approving whatever events they're doing. Same for the school. And then anybody I would permit for event permitting would also get a town permit. Right, right, right. So do you think that covers it? I think so. For this building, the Barbara Greenwood Town Office parking overnight parking is prohibited. Authorization may be granted by town. For town business, official meetings, emergency situations, or other purposes determined to be in the public interest by the town administrator designate. I didn't know how to put that one park. I don't know if you want to do this or not. Do you want people to park in this parking lot overnight?

This one?

Yes.

Your one problem is. I have two.

We have two.

We have two. We have someone from Golden Rulers. Oh, we have three then. And then this one here.

And.

Oh, yeah, that one's permanent. That one's permanent. Yeah, but there's outside.

When you have, when you address this issue here, they're going to come up here and have an issue here.

So the other question, I have a question though.

Yeah.

When we go back to Kelly Park.

Yeah.

Is there something that's, is there no parking on the, right? Because we do allow permanent parking on the field during like a marathon, special events, concerts they park. Do we, is there somewhere in the Kelly Park ordinance?

There are no vehicles allowed on the field.

Well, technically, but then there are. But they do.

If the town authorizes it.

So for events, like concerts, do we let them? Yeah, same thing.

If the middle school does their graduation, that's pre-organized between.

So it's covered somewhere.

Yeah, it's covered through coordination with either my department, his department, or her.

And I cringe every time. Well, I was going to say, do you want me, if it's not in the county court ordinance, do you want to say that parking is prohibited on the field unless an approved town event?

I don't know if that's covered.

Are you talking about the gold digger?

Yeah. Okay. On this lot, the only thing I was trying to figure out wording was how do I cover, I think technically they're approved because we have to, Other than that, are you good with that? Yes. Okay. Public safety, there was a lot more in here. I know we talked about it, and I scaled it back out. So this is, I haven't run this yet, by Chris and Ben. We were talking about it yesterday, but we said parking shovelers, I did this in the upper. I wasn't sure how we would, if we would do anything in technically the lower. Oh, the upper. Yeah. So this is parking shall be restricted to official public business, authorized visitors, town employees, public safety personnel, and town vehicles in the upper lot. I think that's right. In the lower, I didn't have any restrictions in yet.

Yeah, no, I think if you're concerned about people parking along the fence, you should be able to park across the road, walk across the...

Yeah, and I said that. It's mainly on the weekends, and that's not that big of a deal. We have had a couple times some problems with some overnight style parking. But I think some of that's been a patient who's walked into the fire department and then been transported. I do think there's been a couple times where we've had people just literally leave it overnight, which maybe that's an issue. weekend when there's no business it's really not a busy area it's not that big of a deal i think that we're trying to not encourage 20 people to walk across the street but when four people park on that side of the parking lot especially on a saturday or sunday it's not uh For the police department, our biggest thing, and we have had this as a bit of an issue, but it's happened before, is the Outback.

Who?

I know, I know. You never would have thought you'd have to put authorized people only down there. Who's parking back there? Not necessarily parking, it's driving back there, which is some of the bigger things. Seeing what's going on. Seeing what's going on. one it's a lot of personal vehicles but two especially right now we've got a couple of things back there that you just don't want any everybody hanging out back there we should probably make sure we have all the proper signages so we've talked about getting the restricted area because and and i've seen the videos where that is like oh i'm not a vehicle that doesn't say yeah so there's like four big spots that need to happen the two i think in the driveway going back put them all the way to the right-hand side of the fireside they're walking back there and then actually that upper lot the the retain walls here the side up there to keep anybody from going Not that we've had a problem with anybody, but that exact thing of, well, there's no sign here that says I can't go back here, and you don't want anybody up there.

Scott has a question. So as far as lots, I was just thinking, do we want to include, or who's in charge of this study now? Say what again? We don't own the state, right?

Yeah. Is it state or is it Eversource?

It's Eversource, actually. You're right.

No, the front end of that is state. Oh, right, yeah. Down where they park is state.

The top of the hill, the very top of the hill is Eversource. Right, so we don't have anything.

Right. And technically the parking at the top of Wellsfield is not ours.

Yes. We posted that first, Steve.

Post office municipal parking, I don't know if the board wants to address specific regulations there. What we talked about yesterday was that we plow it, we maintain it, but we hire a subcontractor to plow it because it's just too hard for Victor's crew to get in there.

Yeah, we may go in with a loader in the middle of the night when it gets big. That's about it. And then we'll apply salt if it ices up. But other than that, we don't maintain that lot. I have a subcontract to do it.

But what Victor and I think Chris also said was that their employees are parking there for weeks on end and not moving vehicles.

There's seven parking spots they have one hand in.

I have seen some long-term parking.

And it's their employees. A lot of what they're doing is those that sub out and they trade one vehicle for another. Sometimes they don't even move the vehicle because they haven't been subbed out for two weeks because they're only subcontractors. And they're putting them there so that down back the trucks have enough room to back in and make their deliveries. So, you know, our hands are kind of tied with that.

You know, 99% of the parking that goes on there is for the post office. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So here's the question then. Our policy does say all municipal lots, you can't have long-term parking. If we feel that what they're doing is, Probably okay because there is the staff for the post office and leaving room for trucks. We may have to put something in here that long-term parking is allowed for employees only of the post office.

I think also, and Chris and I talked at the department of meetings, I think we might need to have a conversation with the postmaster about it. and maybe they can restrict it a little bit more than what we're doing and then see where it falls from there.

Since we have to, we sort of have to catch all the authorized by us just having an agreement with them and talking about it. Right. We can have an agreement with them to authorize them.

Right, and that's what Chris and I were kind of saying, is if we have that conversation with the postmaster and the TA, then that can be presented to us. It's no different than with...

Yeah, it's kind of correct. One thing I'll say with that is it's the same thing as like downtown for them is people do complain that there's a parking awful in there and you're taking up your five best parking spots with your own, I mean, it's by a lot still.

That's the only... And again, that complaint comes to me and my issue is go talk to the postmaster.

We don't do really, yeah.

I just say talk to the postmaster because he's the one saying you can park there.

In the end, it makes no difference for the police department, whatever you guys want. My only thing is...

I can take them off and we can just put it on our list to talk to the postmaster. Let him know that we are going to sign it. Number eight, Spring Street Municipal. Parking shall be eliminated. Parking shall be limited to designated parking spaces in any area specifically identified for public parking. During the winter season, all or portions of this area may be utilized by the town for snow storage, snow removal, and other winter activities. The town may restrict, limit, prohibit parking within the lot as necessary to facilitate operations, such operations. Or is the board good with that wording?

Well, if you put a plot down below in the last line, you're referring to area.

I'm fixing all plots, yeah. River Falls. No parking or blocking of access to the hydroelectric facility entrance or associated utility infrastructure. No parking or blocking of the fire hydrant. No parking or blocking, this wording may not be perfect, but of the driveway entrance exit gate or travel lane serving the parking area or adjacent properties. The question in caps is consider central square or portions. Oh, this is the wrong one. I put it in the wrong spot, sorry. So, no, I didn't remember to put the question in, but the question would be it's under winter events, so we'll talk about it down further. Sorry. Do we have to call out no parking or blocking of the fire hydrant? You shouldn't have to.

It's actually not a fire hydrant. It's a draw out of the river. It doesn't even look like it.

I guess what I'm getting at is if you call it out there, then they can tell me that we should call it out everywhere. I just don't understand why. There's a sign. Yeah, it says no parking in front of it.

Yeah, I think it already says that, the very abnormals, it says no parking within 15 feet of the parking lot. Yeah, I'll take that sign and check.

Yeah, it's all good.

The hydrants out on the road, in the parking lot, there's a draw.

I'm just thinking from a consistency perspective, if we're calling it out there, then why wouldn't we either call it out everywhere or it's covered somewhere?

Right, no, I get it. So I'll add Masonic in here with their special. And then the last question would be, do we want, I didn't have, Central Square's not on here. There's really not a specific regulation for Central Square, just regular. This is where I put in, do you want to consider Central Square or portions of Central Square two hour limit?

It was brought up in the department meeting the other day, and I'm sure somebody else will bring it up too. Downfall to the two-hour limit if you don't go higher is like the tea place downtown. Maybe somebody's looking to be there for three hours or something. Purple Pit's got something going on.

Check, it's got something going on.

No, it's not. I don't think the intention is to stand by hard two hours, but in four years, five years, somebody's reading it in that manner. What if we did like four hours?

I think it goes back to what Chris and I had talked about and then the TAs. To see a vehicle out there at the beginning of your patrol And then you're eight hours into your patrol and the vehicle's still sitting there. It gives the officer the ability to write a ticket and say, for sure, you've been here more than two hours. Isn't that how you kind of described it? You and I were talking.

The two questions I think just become then is for the apartments that are downtown, where are they? You know, because I think some people, and I'm not saying they should park there. I'm saying, okay, how do we make sure that we deal with that and then... Whatever timeframe we're intending to enforce, that's how they would do it. They see the beginning of the shift, they go back to the end of the shift. They're generally given a grace period, but it doesn't sound like two hours is long enough. There could be times that sometimes there would be more than two hours a day. So if that, because when you think about it from a business perspective, is it Francine's, the ceramics place? Like if somebody's going in there and they're doing...

And that's what you're trying to, I feel like that's what you're trying to accommodate more is those businesses. Right. But that's a major problem with the people upstairs.

The tenants upstairs are the one that are going to fall outside of that two-hour because they'll, you know.

All I'm saying is where do they park?

So here's my question.

Is it our responsibility? It's not. No, not necessarily.

But the funny thing is... Well, the funny thing is, from November to April, they're not parked there at night.

Right. Yeah, they can't.

So they're parking somewhere.

Hmm.

So, I mean, we've gone, our whole life here with that square has been that issue. When you look at bigger cities, Plymouth, Concord, and all that, they don't even talk, they just talk.

And I have used that kind of line to some of the tenants downtown that are annoyed by it is, Sorry, but it's not the town of Bristol's responsibility to get... You do have a parking spot. You might just not like where you have to go. But if you're a contractor, then you're going to have to do that.

So for the roadblock, they're down behind the building and they don't want to go down there. That's a different problem.

I think those other lots, the Summer Street lot, those other lots are your overnight lot.

If there are places... Because pretty much all of them, anything from a business perspective, have got to say that to the planning board. This is where my parking is going to be for people coming to my business, right? In their site plans.

They're allowed to count it towards their site plans, but there's no assigned parking to them. So if the parking lot is full... That's where...

Possibly the yearly parking passes come into play. You come by a parking pass and you can park in the Summer Street lot. And you pay X amount of dollars, whatever you guys decide that's going to be, you pay that dollar amount to be able to use that parking lot.

I think right now all I'm saying is based on what I know about the square, the two-hour seems too tight for the types of businesses that are down there. Because if somebody's going in and sitting at John's for a beer, he wants them to be down there for a while.

Would you be able to reach out? I'm thinking Plymouth obviously does it. Can you reach out to Plymouth? Plymouth is very strict.

There are two hours. They've got parking passes for sub lots, but for wintertime parking there, you're literally figuring something else out on your own.

And they have all that, but they do have more space because they have all that permit parking down back.

No, that's all two-hour parking lot parking now.

They changed it to two-hour parking.

Down by the floor is two-hour parking. It's either a meter or two-hour parking.

But that being said...

You are affecting businesses by people going to Biedermann's and if you're going to hold a strict two hours.

I was ticketed because I had a long dentist appointment. I came out, had a ticket, and had to go.

They've got two or three parking enforcement. That is all they're doing as well. Well, the alleged retired.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Allegedly. We'll look into that a little bit more and come back. We just wanted to get a feel for what you were thinking. Okay. The next section is winter parking restrictions and snow removal operations. so winter parking November 15th April 15th it just says no public street public right-of-way or municipal parking I'll fix area versus lot between the hours of 12 midnight and 6 a.m. unless specifically authorized by the ordinance signage or written approval from the town the next part is the designated winter event areas These were already in the ordinance, except for the one we added, which is Summer Street. The Bristol Bank law, Minot Sleeper Library Lower Law. And the question we brought up, or Chris brought up, and Victor earlier, was do we want Central Street to be winter parking?

i only go my my opinion is more on the highway departments is us trying to help them out to do what the intention is and that lot is our biggest it's our biggest every single year it doesn't affect us at all whether they park or not it yeah you know i'm all for like you said we've already made it harder to get rid of snow so i'm all for changing that to make it Usually I'll ask when they're down there with the loader about moving a vehicle or whatever that didn't move, but then you'll be like, well, it doesn't matter if you get that vehicle all the way because that vehicle right there is legally there and that's my problem.

Yeah, we have the problem of even though That spot didn't get clear because there was a car in there. By the time they get it out of there, there's two cars beside it. We don't fit in it. Now, granted, sometimes I've sent the sidewalk machine down there to punch it, but, you know, you're caught in these little conundrums. But I will say, the last five years between Chief Bean and and and tim woodward and all that we've done a much better job at it it doesn't please all residents but it it works for both the pd and us that we're getting 99 of everything every storm of 90 some storms and then it might take two storms to really clear the lot you know but

What people don't understand is that there's going to be, you'd be surprised, at least one of those cars down there, you run the plate and it comes out of 423 Main Street in Comfort. You got no phone number from the person, you have no idea where in Bristol they are to ask them to move it. There's always one car that is from nothing to do with this town. Now, a lot of that is they either moved to an apartment here and didn't change their registration, but we've also had, we dealt with an Andover car, a nonstop problem, and it was, they were literally leaving it in another parking lot as a spot to leave it from Andover. Yeah.

So this section might cover concerns if we did leave it winter parking, but we talked, added that all vehicles utilizing just, well, this part was in there, the winter parking, shall be removed from parking area no later than 8 a.m. For purposes, we actually define what removed mean, because it means the vehicle must be taken out of the designated winter event parking area, relocating a vehicle from one parking space to another, or otherwise moving the vehicle within the same designated winter parking area shall not constitute removal and shall be considered a continuation of the original parking event. We also added shall remain vacated between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. unless otherwise authorized by the town. So we would like to keep them out for that two-hour window to clean those lots specifically after a winter parking event.

There's always one or two cars that pull in afterwards. You get it cleared out and then one person pulls in who's legally there and it's still.

Do people ever shovel out like?

No. No.

What we'll do is pull it out to the parking area, out to the drive area and dump it there. Pull it off and then pack it in. And again, Chris is 100% correct. He might have cleared two cars and got them to move down behind the library. And while he's doing that, the tow truck shows up and pulls one out in front of the bank. By the time my truck gets from the lower lot through to that lot, it's got a car in it. You'd be really surprised. You'd be surprised how often that happens. And, you know, You show up and there's Eli going, I can't tell them they can't park there, you know.

And we're going to, I think we're going to start to, I think the Summer Street lot, as that becomes more known, that's going to, if we don't address a lot of these, that's going to be a big problem. it was somebody used i think somebody used that as their own lot yeah for the winter time then yeah so they could clear out their own parking lot can we can you oh yeah sign for when you're going to do that put out the entrance no parking i'd love to but again you know we've locked up crystal road and they go right through the road close signs you know And he battled the loader. He kind of bounces all the time.

Yeah, I have to pinball him around when we're doing cleanup in the morning. Being one because the traffic's already begun. It's just not as easy to move around. Like I said, he'll get two people to move, not tow them, move them down behind the library. So we've now shuttled from Central Street over to the library. And then the tow truck shows up at the bank. And again, by the time we get there, it might already be parked or, you know.

At some level, it is what it is.

Right, and that's what I'm saying is I can very adamantly say that on any given storm by 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. in the morning, We have got 90% to 99% of the park spots open. It's just so, it's always the 2%, and it's always the same cars.

And I definitely will get an email if there's one spot that's not cleared out. I promise. We have a silver patrol. We didn't come down there and do anything.

It's too bad we couldn't blow the old horn at the fire station. Yes. All right. That would be perfect. Oh, man. Or just.

Yeah.

What's the parking ticket for?

We'll talk to you about changing those, but I think it was only $50 or something.

So it sounds like it should be $150. Yeah. I'm not saying $150 because I'm trying to be funny about it. I'm thinking, okay, the cost of moving vehicles around.

The sting is what's going to make them feel it.

We had to do it with the beach because people were saying, it was like 25 bucks, people were saying,

great example is Chris and I have been doing this so long that we know the usual suspects. And so come November, what his officers do is a great job. They'll put a warning going, hey, you know, there's a light event. We didn't really ask, but you know, you could have been told you could have been ticketed or you could have been told next time you'll be ticketed or towed. But we've got people that we've known for 13 years, i.e. Central Street, They don't even warn him anymore. They're like, you know better. We've been dealing with you for five years.

It is literally the same. A lot of them are the same people.

I know. You could leave Central Street on the list because you've got this other teeth now, or you could take it off. I don't have a horse in that race, but my only concern would be Are there, is there enough parking in those other winter parking lots? Because you've got Bristol Bank is only what, five spaces? Yeah, that's full. That's full. I mean, we do more in Summer Street, but not when you're filling it up with another.

If you're dumping the other lot. Right.

And then.

They don't even like walking up the hill and imagine they've got to walk across the square.

Even the library isn't that many spaces really. No, the library is usually pretty filled. Right. So that's my only concern about taking away that spot. But I would support whatever. So you can think about that if you want. I don't think you need to make a decision tonight on it.

But I will say this. I mean, I'm for whatever makes your guys' job easier.

Central Street is the one I would say remove it from the window parking because we can't maneuver in there on any given day anyway because of the cars.

And it's 99% of people who live in downtown who know who.

Yeah. And the other thing is that's the only one that's really got a slope to it where if it ices. Right. I won't even put him in there because he's going to slide down there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know. I'll creep through it and throw some salt out and then tell him, you know, the salt's been down for an hour. Go ahead and try it. You know. Yeah. It's just a dangerous lot. Okay.

Yeah. Section 7 is overnight parking commercial vehicles except as otherwise authorized by the town no commercial vehicle so this was already in the ordinance so I didn't change that part but no commercial motor vehicle shall be parked stored or left standing on any public street public right away between these hours the restrictions so there is some exceptions Commercial vehicles engaged in construction, utility, emergency repairs, municipal service or deliveries authorized by the town, municipal, state, federal, government vehicles engaged in official business, emergency vehicles as defined in this award. It actually repeats it, so I'm going to fix that. There's a duplicate, sorry. And then commercial vehicles parked on private property with permission of property owner. The exceptions weren't in there before. Pretty much it was Buchanan's Park, period, between 12 midnight and 6 a.m. in the regular ordinance. It's not old yet, so in the ordinance. So I don't know what your thoughts are, so.

The next piece, I thought so, the next piece does talk about we can give temporary exceptions to certain things. Oh, yeah. Good.

Construction, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a guy living in the apartment in the Mason lot driving a wrecker and parking it in the upper parking lot to the library and you.

That was the start of the commercial.

No one could get in there, even with a you-go.

And then he moved it, he moved it onto the Pleasant Street. Yeah, onto Pleasant Street, and it just cost more. That's what started the commercial talk.

Yeah, that is what started it, because he was moving from one other place, one place to another.

Yeah. He backed in at the, Bristol Bank parking lot and the ramp was out over the sidewalk. Oh, geez. Smack your head? Yeah.

And commercial definition is pretty specific. I didn't realize it was specific. I didn't touch that, but it does say any registered motor vehicle or trailer having a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or more. Excluding recreational vehicles used solely for personal, non-commercial. So should we change that? That's specific to what was already in the ordinance. I'll show you. It's up here. It's under definitions. We based it on gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds. Is that too much?

So since we've compared to Plymouth a few times, what does theirs say? We can check.

I don't know. They're commercial and I don't remember. i don't know that you want to do just the 10 000 pounds because then you're getting rid of that right 15 business vehicles that are being left in the lot just to leave them in the law and not have to play with their own out of town that filled central street with three commercial vehicles right now central central street they're just moving central street right now yeah that was rough they're not a lot but they're on them nothing to do with us

and they don't live in town anymore so we just don't we so we we can check what um says i'm just saying yeah it makes sense yeah that's what we have in that address the concern at the time was that tow truck and yeah bigger vehicles because you couldn't get through but the question would be

Yeah, I can look, I can look.

We should probably look into whether we should add additional things, not necessarily on every street, but definitely in some of our lots. Yeah. Okay, skipping sections eight through 11, because there's, this came up with way too much on enforcement, so I'm going to, Chris and I are going to work on it. So, sorry. So we're going to section 11. Schedule of penalties. So these penalties are in the current ordinance. There's a couple I've added and a couple that AI recommended we increase and these guys agree. But I also think we need to consider increasing because this is not, this ordinance that was adopted was, that's in place right now has been in place since 2017 with no change. Yeah, this goes to just the . Yeah, so at minimum, there's a couple that we need to match up to changes we've already made. But parking on a sidewalk park, these are all $50 all the way down. So you get to overnight parking on a commercial motor vehicle. So all the ones here, so you see sidewalk, crosswalk, obstructing a driveway, 30 feet of a stop sign, parking within the intersection or within 30 feet of an intersecting road, parking facing oncoming traffic, parking in a posted no parking zone. So that one at minimum, might be one um those are all and then overnight parking that's in violation of this ordinance is 50. those are all 50 from there uh is there any of those before we get into the other ones i would like yes i think i heard scott say i would i would double all of that and then the no park uh the overnight um let me just make sure sorry

That's one that needs to stay, right?

Yeah, yeah. And when you .

Oh, so the no parking . No, oh, never mind. I'm on one. So, yes, I agree.

When they give out a warning, just document, hey, next time this is going to be.

Yeah, we do. We actually put, we actually write it on one of our parking tickets to show what it is.

Do we know roughly how many of these types that we've given out in like the past year? And I'm not expecting you to know what I'm talking about right now, Chris, but like that would be an interesting thing to me

There's definitely some of them that we don't ever end up writing. Like parking in a fire lane, you want to have that, but that's something that, for the most part, everybody knows that's a bad thing to do, so they don't do it.

My thought is you take.

Oh, we doubled that actually already. Sorry.

It says that if you want a second offense, it gets doubled. Third offense.

Doubled further. But so up to this one, everything, those, all the values above are 50 in the current ordinance. So you say double it.

Those should be, those should be 100. The overnight parking should be 150.

Okay, yep.

and then i would say you could probably the commercial vehicle would want to make that 150 too yeah yeah fire lane 150. Yeah, 50 of those. What's the one at the bottom? That's a big one. I'm getting, sorry.

Probably here to get it. Parking within 15 feet of a hydrant. Yeah, that's state law regularly. 150. 150. Move those up. So the handicap one, I got to fix the word. I'm missing the word there. But we, I thought we should put Chris's number in from the state. Because if the state says shall. Yeah. I don't want to contradict. I was thinking we moved it to 250 because right now it is only.

Did you know what the number is for this thing?

Right now it's 150. Yeah, so right now ours is 150. So I bumped it to 250, but then Chris said 750 is that you.

750 is the real.

Yeah, we didn't know until we rented a couple last month. Oh, yeah, you missed that. Yeah. It states that you shall write a ticket for it. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. This is, so parking, it's weird in the current ordinance, so the next one says, so the current ordinance, it says parking in an unapproved location during a winter event, but the way the wording came up on this one said parking in violation of winter parking restrictions or snow removal operations.

Yeah. I mean, this is, It's the same thing.

Yeah. It's only 50 in the current ordinance. Do you want me to match it to the other ones or 150 or leave it at 100?

I think that should be 150 because that's talking about if somebody parks in a lot that he's trying to clear out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's fine. 150 is good, I think.

I think this is a, for me this is a duplicate sort of, I don't know what you guys think, obstructing traffic, emergency access or municipal operations. Yeah. I think, what do you guys, Chris? I think that's kind of a duplicate of all of these in a way.

Well, that could be talking about a water break on a road in the summertime if it's in the way.

So this one, so when this got copied and put through AI to fix it into Word, it changed it. It says obstructing traffic at a construction site, $50. I don't know why it changed it to that. Yeah, I don't know. I say we'll leave it. Okay, leave it at 100. Yeah. Parking without a required permit in a municipal parking area.

But I would say. This is Beach. Construction back because I think that's a. Okay. Distinction at all.

Yeah, because it could be just a legit, the town would be redoing a road.

Yeah. I think the wording got changed on this one. It should go back to parking without a required permit at the beaches because those are the only places right now that we have it yeah and currently this it should be 80. i don't know why i overwrote it to 50. it's currently 80 at the beaches so you leave that 80 yeah any other violation of this ordinance not specifically list

You two are dying tonight.

We have to change the beach ordinance too. But we are doing a beach closeout in middle of September so we could do it.

And I guess this is for anybody and anybody who or all the three people that are trying to watch this right now This isn't a money graph.

This is about just trying to actually have something so I think Sorry this needs to go to the very bottom because if new ones on the next page I'd be curious

of what I guess Deb has to say too but I do think on that piece that when we bumped up to 80 I think that that started working because this year the tickets are actually down so I think people because we definitely have had are you serious $80 and we've said yeah because everybody else was just willing to pay the fine so I think the $80 had proven that it wasn't much more than the has proven that people are like, okay, we won't do that anymore. There you go.

So I'll fix that. And then this one will bump to the bottom, but you've doubled the others, so I think we should make that at least 100. Yeah. Yeah. And then these are two new ones, camping, lodging, sleeping, or overnight occupancy in a municipal parking area. We put it in at 100 based on what was already there, but. I say 150.

Me too. That's the cost of our parking.

I don't know what we were thinking. We could tell that we're in sleepy air. Yeah. I mean, at least we know what.

I encourage you to drive a Walmart. Yeah. Yeah, yes.

And then this is the, I'll fix some, I'm still fixing the wording, but this is the long-term parking technically. It's the left unattended. We just threw it in at 100, but do you want to put it at the 150 also? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Late fees was already in the ordinance at 35. We thought that should be increased. Yeah. Okay. And then this is, I don't, this is not in the ordinance currently, but we added it. A second violation of the same offense occurring within 12 months of a prior violation may be assessed and double the scheduled fine. That's a question.

At least for me, I would say, to compare that to other towns before you say, look, that, because 12 months is a long time for the size increase that we're talking about. Especially when you think about some of those timing.

We have repeat offenders now every year.

What's that?

We have repeat offenders now every year.

I can tell you that there's four people that that would be nice for. But that being said, like what Victor said, they've now got some tow bills from it because it does state that we can tow and we give the ticket and then there's one that doesn't pay the ticket so they don't get a ticket anymore so they get a tow bill.

And that's the next one says a third or subsequent violation of the same offense occurring within 12 months may be assessed triple the scheduled fine and may result in the towing or other enforcement.

So it says nay, which I like that because I think on your point, it does give us the ability to say, hey, this gives us the ability of this person every year. If it's really flagrant. Yeah.

yeah we are we are usually very good with trying to work with everyone i can validate that statement that yeah come november they they do their best to just educate educate educate and then after the second or third storm the officers are like we're done we're done with you because you're i've talked to you three times right yeah okay so i think i'm going to skip the rest

too much repetitiveness in some of those other sections, so we're going to move on. But is there anything we missed or anything that you think we missed, both of you?

I think the biggest thing is trying to make it easier for is the big thing. And then the businesses downtown.

Yeah, I think the businesses downtown during the other seasons in control. Like I said, if you're that one business and the two of them sit, I don't know, they'd tow everybody. They'd get so mad.

We won't do research. Yeah, there is a thing about parking on sidewalks. That's covered. Yeah, no. However, there's an area that people park on the sidewalks every day. If we start enforcing that in front of a gas station,

Should I put a disclaimer in that says except as grandfathered Gillies?

Oh, yeah, the overlap and the breakdown.

Oh, Gillies is the only one you can park on the road there is on the sidewalk.

Do we want to add something that says except as grandfathered in specific locations? But is it grandfathered?

It's got to be technically. I'm not saying we should start enforcing them.

I don't think we call it out as grandfather. We say from this address to this address on Lake Street.

We can't, though, because Lake Street is a state road, so eventually if they decide to do something with the sidewalks, they can't park there anymore. They put a curb in.

I will say that technically, a technical... There's no parking there.

Yeah, I mean, there's really no parking there.

The no parking signs are not in that section for the reason being, but the state law states no parking on that whole road.

Right, you see it's marked all on the other side of the road. Same thing when you look at West Shore Road, it says from the beginning, down to Frosty's Corner. For two miles. For two miles.

And people parked there and there's no enforcement of it. Because what does their site, what does Gilly's site plan say?

They probably don't have one. The only problem is that we're parking, people are parking across the street, which is sending, which he's really upset about. I won't say it didn't used to be a

used to be able to do that, you parked towards the front of the lot, and no one really cared. But now they're using that for sales and other things. So yeah, no, I get that. Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. That's what we've kind of always done. And that has been brought up before, though. But the state may force their hand, and then they're going to have to look at, do we tear the building down?

Okay, so let me play contrarian for a second. I know that's shocking, John. Have there been any safety issues about how people pull in and out of the way that they park today that then exposes us because we have an ordinance that says we have to do that and we're saying we've got to leave sleeping dogs alone?

Well, it's a state road.

Who owns the sidewalk? The state owns the sidewalk.

The state owns the sidewalk, but we may . So the sidewalk, for the most part, when people park there, people go to the right. They can get around to the right.

It doesn't put people walking out on the road. They still can walk through. All good. I'm just, right?

Well, if somebody buys the Chinese restaurant, that's, in the past, the question has been brought up of... Why is there no parking in front of here?

And also they were parking on the side of the road and we had no parking signs.

The bailout on that mark in Iowa is used as a crosswalk right there almost directly into it and we need the 15 feet Right and left of that. Yeah.

And they do have a block.

And that's their lot across the street for their business to park at. And the state allowed the crosswalk for that reason. So we've always used that one when people have taken it to our office of 15 feet from the crosswalk. That's why there's no parking.

research to do to finish this up and bring it back to you again for a review. But if you think of something else, because I know this is a lot.

No, it is. But good work here.

And this is, I think it's going to help. I do think we had to put, we definitely had to define more and we definitely had to put some more teeth in it because it's been miserable the last few months.

And it's only getting worse. Yeah, so.

Okay, I think Chris is off the hook. There isn't anything in your folders for your next item because Victor was very efficient and did folders for each of you that are on your desk.

I want to start by saying thank you to Victor and the department and Morrison Construction for being able to mobilize quickly on the color repair on Bristol Hill. I know it was a huge headache. But job well done, and it looks great. They did a great job.

Thank you. The crew did a lot of it. I did a lot of pumping of that field out for four days so that the crew could stay working around town. But the contractor worked really well with us, and it worked out very, very well. I think Jeff was able to keep fishing in Alaska. Except for the night that I called him. I could have sworn the email said he was back that day.

I swear to God it said he was back. That's so funny.

Victor calls me and I'm like, you know he's in Alaska, right?

He told me that. How many hours back is it? Five. He said, well, the sun wasn't really setting anyway, so... Oh, okay. It was funny.

All right, so we're talking about the back boat purchase.

We can stop with that if you'd like pictures also.

Oh, yeah, no, if you've got an update, let's do that.

Yeah, I had it all written, but I forgot it. But I can still update it. I read it several times today, but.

So Victor was scheduled for a different day, but because we were having him come in to talk to you in the back, we had him move to tonight to do that.

So since May when I talked to you before about it, we've done a lot. Of course, we were just getting into painting. All the painting was done this year. They did a phenomenal job at it. We went right from into that to turning over all the dirt roads on the west side of town. Hemphill, Hemlock, Robie, Newchester Mountain. Ditched cleared that and multiple other roads. Did some small minor repairs to some of the roads, North Main Street, Overlook, things like that. Then... The Bristol Hill problem kind of raised its head, but before that, we went to a failed culvert on Batten Road that was scheduled to be replaced this year, but the spring thaw took it early. We got that repaired, and at the same time, we jumped right over while we're kind of in that mode, and we repaired the bike path down by Riverdale Road. We made some improvements to drainage down there while we were down there. And we've got all those areas paved, plus some water breaks that Jeff had from previous years. We removed some of the old coal patch and put some final pave on it. So we've been extremely busy. The Bristol Hill problem raised its head with a 78-year-old culvert that just decided it was going to let go. I... I think we handled that very, very well. We monitored it for a month while we were trying to get the bids out. It turned into an emergency. With the very little rain that we were getting, the field just kept building up to the point where it overtook the road and there was nothing we could do. We were going to lose the road up by, more so up by where Jeff's pump station is where we were going to lose it and we had to do something. contractor did exactly what we needed him to do and we were in and out of there in basically a half a day on the day of the repair. He did some work the week prior to prep us for it. He went right by everything that the engineering firm recommended to us in the DES permit allowed. So I'm very pleased with that.

Do you want to tell them he came in under?

He came in way under than the... The proposed bids that were coming in were sitting about double of what we were billed. So... A lot of that is because we took a lot of the work and supplied 90% of the material, which helped us knock that bill down. You were there. You saw the crew was just right there, ready to go, and his crew did a very good job. I can honestly say it worked very, very well, and I appreciate everybody who was out of state at the time. I hate bothering you guys, but what a great crew as the administrative end between The town administrator and the board, we all came together and we were able to get everything done.

I was out of town talking to him while I was driving to Virginia on the phone.

So I appreciate everybody picking up the phone. It worked out well. I was kind of shocked that everybody was out except for Scott. And then I found out he's got a secret phone. So that's all going to work out. Then the crew was not slowed down. We turned right around. And while that project was going on, I was able to split them. We started fixing the drainage on Danforth Brook Road, getting ready for the road to be reclaimed and paved this year. We finished that up and we were also able to turn over Jeffers Road, Schaefer Road, Barron Road and add material where needed on those roads. We're not caught up yet. I feel like I'm behind the eight ball because we've been down again this year. We lost Dylan. We haven't been able to replace that. And then rotating them in and out of their vacations is really shorthanding us, but somehow we're getting it done. The crew, I can't say enough good about them. They always seem to come through in the clutch, and they plow through all the problems between down equipment and that. On a good note, another good note is the vac truck is back up to 100%. John deserves all the credit on the repair. He saved us thousands of dollars by in-house doing this repair. And had we farmed it out, we probably wouldn't get the machine back until next year anyway. So we're back up and running. I can't say enough good about what's going on with taking care of the green spaces, the parks, the beaches, and all that. Kelly Park has never looked greener, even though we're combating the drought the way it is. They've got the water cannon going any time we can get it going. The embankment this year is looking good. For some other years, I've worked with the community center about, you know, when we can, we've got to get water on it. We can't work around the, you know, it's all worked out with the community center in full support of what we're doing. They moved day camp around a little bit for me so that we could get water on that embankment. The embankment actually looks pretty good. We do have a plan. We're having trouble down behind the softball field. Nothing we could do at this point, but we are going to coordinate the whole thing off. in a week or two after day camp ends and soccer will begin, but they don't usually use the embankment for soccer. But we're going to fence the whole thing off with some arms construction fence and reseed it and put some water on it, trying to get some seed to take. But the softball, while it was going on, they were on that embankment and they just dug it up again and nothing happened. But a good note, with all the work that we did do last year on it, it seemed to help the drainage this spring out there. We did discover the French drain behind the stop. And we think we might have got it working again. We're not really sure without really exposing it, but we put a lot of effort into that. And, of course, that field was redone last fall and then again there. So, again, kudos to everything that's going on. And the guys taking care of all that are just doing it. outstanding job between the bike path and all the green spaces, the library, the square and all that. I can't be more proud of what they're doing.

And some of the things just pop up that took a lot of your efforts.

Yeah, and we're dodging a lot of things too that has been an extremely, and I'm sure the Chief probably touched on it, a lot of vandalism in the area on all our kind of green space areas from the walking path to Kelly Park really has been getting hit lately a lot of vandalism down there But we've been right on it when we find it get it turned over. It looks like it never happened I think that is also deterrent that we're not fooling around It's they can't be proud of what they've done for more than a couple hours the way we look at it So again, the kudos go to the the crew. They've been just doing an outstanding job So and that's pretty much my update

I did. There's one thing that we were going to bring to the board to talk about. I think we still should talk about it, but I can't use the funds that we thought we could. It was the mower.

Oh, from the fire funds?

Yeah, I can't use them. Okay. So we thought we could use the insurance money. The insurance money that was left over still, but you can't repurpose it for something else. So go back to the general fund, that money at the end of the year. But we could use it if there was something else we still needed to fix from the fire. We could do that.

Well, we were holding that money because of the bucket truck in case. Right. on that purchase in case we had something that we just unforeseen we wanted to hold it but then when when the gearbox exploded on the mower uh i didn't know whether we could use that it wouldn't use it all up but it would use some of it up yeah um i wanted to so victor doesn't really have it in his budget right now the gearbox how much is it totally the whole package is i think six thousand some odd dollars oh which mower It's the side of the road mower that goes on the front of the holder. It was bought in 2013 when our initial, very first one was purchased. It takes an immense amount of beating on that front end. It's got a front PTO driving the pump out there, that gearbox, and it just... 13 years, you know, but it exploded. It literally exploded. We had to do a lot of research to get it. We tried to sidestep the dealer in the United States and go direct, and they just weren't going to allow it. And then we would have got hit with a direct tariff on it. So it ended up, I came up, we got the number.

We even looked at a new one.

Yeah, if we were to replace it, I was like, boy, that's a big number, but how much does one of these things cost? And it's $30,000 some odd thousand dollars. Oh, for the whole mower. For the whole mower, yeah. So we do have the parts on the water, so we're going to have to pay for it somehow. And I do think it's a five-week turnaround. We waited about three weeks before the TA and I decided to order them because it's a five-week turnaround. If it does come in in five weeks, we'll still be able to hit the sides of the road and at least knock down any growth to keep it from getting bigger. Right, right.

Because it's a flail mower, not a hog. Right, yeah. What do we have in contingency?

That's what I'm checking right now. Does it have to be contingency? Why couldn't it be out of the Highway Department vehicle fund?

Well, because we're about We only have about $1,000 left in there from some other.

The vehicle fund isn't just for that piece of equipment, unfortunately. It's also for tobacco. It's also for your other trucks as well.

We've had some big expenditures, the truck tobacco and that fund. And we also took $10,000 out of there the last two years of cutting the budget, one year and five the other. So that number was a lot smaller than it usually is.

I thought the CIP number for equipment

was more than a thousand dollars that's in there cip is cip we're not talking about cip so the highway equipment fund is for heavy his heavy equipment it covers all the trucks it covers everything and we've cut it two years in a row i don't know if it covers parts right yeah that's cip doesn't cover cars equipment that's this um i um this number is a little bit off i have to double check it but it technically only had 14 000 left oh you're talking about contingency yeah um actually 13 3 sorry because we still debate for the rest of the downtown plaque i guess i'm still probably a little confused about the cip line because we've done where i think we've taken some stuff is different, police is specific that you can do those things. His is not. It's how it was enacted. It's how it was enacted.

Okay, no, I'm good.

I'm just, because for Microsoft, it's a $6,000 item, right, and you're really replacing the gearbox and stuff on that. It's not like it's a, I'm not talking about... You could use

but you can't buy a $6,000 apartment for the older guy.

Okay, right. Unless you . Okay, got it.

So we've had to do a couple of things. The golf carts, obviously, plus their maintenance are taken out of contingency because we didn't really. That could be adjusted though depending on what we, we agreed that we, I thought we did, that if there's any funds left from fireworks or any funds left from events that we might be able to split that and that might adjust that fund off here. We paid for the Zoll monitor out of here for the fire department. That was 75 roughly hundred. The memorial we had to replace the plaque is out of here. What was the other thing? Sorry, Franklin Savings Bank doc fee for the TM, because I didn't have, I could probably take that and move that somewhere else too. So that was $500. There's a penalty from New Hampshire. Actually, no, that came out. Never mind. The penalty from New Hampshire retirement came out of here. So, well, the other thing was just we tested the, we did the second water test on the upper ditch. And at that point, we just did the test and it came out of here because we didn't have another line at the time. Yeah. Okay. But we could, I think we can adjust. I think we'll adjust some of the $5,000 out of here. We just have to look at those accounts.

But we also can take a look at other, because it is a bottom-line budget, we can take a look at other... Transforming the clients in our state. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, for now, we can book it to your vehicle main.

And just run out some cost overrun right now. And if my budget... is running heavy at the end of the year, we can look at the number. So either way, we can pay the bill. It's just how the line... Oh, we need it. Right. So when the town administrator made that decision with me on that or authorized it, I still said, you know... I sat like 10 grand heavy at the end of the year last year, so if we put the negative in there, let's just see where we're going to ride. And not worry about it until we get close to end of budget season. Okay, let's talk about... Oh, and one of the things in the update was Winter Sand's already up.

Yeah, I saw that.

Great job. And he's almost out over there, so I'm glad I did it when I did it.

You got almost all of it undercover.

No, actually, don't be deceived by that. What we did was, what happened last year in the last three years is Jeff has had breaks late in the season and we've robbed him from the front of the pile to cover the pipes. So what we did was we took five loads, six loads at the end and put it in front that's not salt.

Okay, just saying.

And then at the last minute, if Jeff doesn't have a break or anything like that, we'll just salt it and push it up in.

Yeah, great. Good planning.

So in front of you, you've got three bids. Case, Milton, Cat, and John Deere. Kind of hands down, I'll tell you John Deere's the way to go price-wise and that we don't have to do any modifications whatsoever and all our equipment exists to it. And price-wise, it's sitting very, very well. The municipal rate that they gave us at $141.50, $450. So if we're to decide to go for a new machine, I would like to go down that road. In the back, it shows you he does do a breakdown that if you don't pay the full price that we could spend it out over several-year plan. I believe this one shows it.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that would be the first conversation. Based on some questions, the last time when we talked about it, the question is whether we turn it in or do we not turn it in. I had a conversation with the TA today. I would still like to see if we could keep the old one for at least three years, maybe four, based on some questions that john had at the last meeting i did collect some data on on that um so in the year 2024 we put uh uh four major repairs into the machine costing about twelve thousand some odd dollars over that year um 2025 we only did one this does not count any service or broken hoses or anything like that i'm talking anything that was well above 2025 we put $1,600 into it of a major repair, and in 2026 we put almost $10,000 into it over the course of the whole year with four major repairs. When you look at that, I also broke down because he had a question about usage. I did an average based on the hours logged into the maintenance logs for the year of 2024. Do you have it anywhere?

It's not in there.

That's not in there. This is my worksheet that I made myself so that I could.

The quotes are in there. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah. I like to try to, you know.

Oh, I'm sorry. This was kind of all put together a month ago in July and then the whole Bristol Hill thing. So I broke down based on maintenance logs and hours from year to year. In 2024, if you take the 52 weeks and apply the hours that were used that year, it comes down to about 30 hours per week the machine is used. But it doesn't mean we did 30 hours this week. It means, you know, because they're. Average. Right. It just comes out to an average. The year of 2025, it came out to about 27 hours per week, and 2026 from January 1st to July 15th when I did these numbers, adding in there also that four of those weeks the machine was offline completely because it was down so hard. It comes to about 22 hours per week at this, but we are not in the heavy season of deploying, like, it's been out every single day for the last month, you know, or two months. Right, so the average is probably back to somewhere around 27 to 30 hours a week is what it averages out to throughout 52 weeks to try and give you some perspective, John and everybody else. I do have copies of, so 1,500, what year is that machine now? So we bought it used. It's a 2013, I believe. Okay.

And how many hours on that?

I don't have that number right in front of me. I just did the averages because that's kind of what you asked me for. So I broke it out in kind of the direction that you were looking. So with that being said, In three years, we've dumped about 24,000 into it. And if you look at the John Deere package, they're offering us 25. That means we've beefed up a machine that they can now sell for probably like 32 or 34,000 to someone else. My concept is, I'm trying to prove two things by holding this for a couple years. We held it, Jeff sat out in the back lot and never used for six years and then he auctioned it off and got rid of it. We could hold this machine and if we restrict this one to the salt bin in the winter and not put the new one in there we can probably extend the life of the new one very you know help us do that uh we can do the yard stuff with it instead of the the new one doing that but and also give us a chance to be able to split and go in two directions to try and also build a status for you all of you to go we've always been asking for an excavator do i believe we need an escalator i don't but i do believe It would prove like what happened on the Bristol Hill job is we don't have the ability to do a 360 turn and load a truck, and we can't cut a road the way an excavator can. So, yes, an excavator would be nice, but I can also prove that due to the training that we've done over the last two years since I've taken over, we can split the crews in two directions sometimes, and especially in the spring and the late fall when we're trying to prep trucks. for coming out of winter and going and normally when we fail it is because the maintenance on the sides of the road hasn't caught up with what we're able to do by able to split the crews now we're having multiple operators on the cruise we can go after the most damaging thing to our roads is the size of the roads yes so by holding it three years we might be able to prove a point to ourselves to whether you stay as a selectman or not as a selectman but as a collective group between the town administrator myself and a collective group we can look at that issue of an item that's been sitting on the cip for years as a dream is it worth going down that road? And I still say at the end of three years, we can do a closed bid, start it at $20,000, and probably still match the 25 coming back. Those are just some of my most general thoughts about that. At the end of the day, whether we do the trade-in or not, I think the new machine is warranted at this point. I'm sorry, don't...

When were we scheduled to replace it?

We moved that down to this year. This year. We had a long conversation last year with the CIP and with the select board about moving that one down because we bought it. It's only one year. Right. We moved it down one year. That's fine. So you're either looking at a price of $116,000 or you're looking at a price of $141,000. And then, again, your decision whether you want to break it up into payments through their loan program or whether you want to buy it outright. Again, those are decisions that are in front of you guys.

It's like $32,000 over five years. Yeah, but this is just a spreadsheet problem.

This is just the cost of it. And you just do the calculation compared to where it sits in that.

the cash flow into the capital reserve fund. That's what I'm saying. Because we have more purchases coming up, right?

I can tell you the capital reserve fund currently has $193,000. However, we're putting $180,000 into it this year. That's just what's in it right now, $193,000. We voted to put in from the Warren article to fund this. if we were to say we're going to do it over five years can we do it for two years and pay it off we'll buy it we can't actually we can't do it over five years this year we'd have to wait and buy it next year so the question becomes before we don't have a budget to buy the financial useful life of the thing so like i don't know if we can buy it over five years if we're buying it now i i think we have to buy it outright because we don't have it in the budget to to have a debt for five years. So if we buy it now, I think I'd have to do some research just to make sure. But I do believe we have to buy it outright. I don't believe we could...

If we bought it, we'd have to have a non-incorporation clause.

And go back to town. But can we take only one payment out of the... A highway equipment fund? We don't have this. I think so.

We've paid, like the holder I think we paid out. Don't we pay that out of the capital? We do.

We didn't pay the holder out of the capital. I thought we did. No, it's budgeted in depth.

And I thought the CV just got paid off through the CIP.

We did. No, that was out of debt. So debt is a budgeted line, a budget. We bought the debt service, sorry.

John, maybe that was . I have a few.

You guys let me know when you... Yeah, go ahead. I'll choose. Just a few things that concern me. Number one is, okay, so we're talking about splitting the crews, okay? Yeah. So when you start looking at the amount of equipment that we have, okay, and we're saying, okay, now we're going to run two crews, does that increase staffing at all?

No.

And then what's the utilization of the rest of the equipment by keeping that?

And then... Well, what do you mean by the rest of the equipment?

So, okay, so it's like, okay, we have a lot of our stuff is purpose-built, right? Like the back truck, right? You only use the back truck when you need the back truck. That's more about a purpose-built truck versus, okay, now I've got two crews running two different backups. I guess I'm fundamentally concerned about two things. There's a way to kind of go about the math and figure out what's the most appropriate way to buy the new one. That's literally just going to be what's the interest rate, how much is the interest going to cost, what's the cost of money to keep the money, whatever. That one's fairly straightforward. What worries me about increasing the amount of equipment is we end up in a scenario where now we have two crews, and now we used to run in two crews, and then because we now used to run in two crews, now we have two backhoes forever. And again, we're a town the size of 3,000 year-round. Everybody's pushing back on where the taxes go. If the taxes go, they creep up in these little ways. So we've got to be super, super purposeful about when we say we want to try to keep something. And right now, my personal opinion is I completely support replacing the backhoe. I absolutely do. I get it. I run them. I understand it. We need to have good, solid equipment that we can trust and deal with. If we start developing a work process where we're now saying we're going to have two different crews, I kind of want to understand a whole bunch of things. What does that mean for the rest of the equipment out there? Now do we have other things that are sitting idle that aren't getting used as much as they used to because we now have two of these?

No, I can give you a rough example.

And generally I like, just for me, I like to have the numbers, and I know why you did it, but I like to sort of see the numbers. Because if I look at a 2013 machine, 30 hours a week, that's roughly 1,500 hours a year. So that machine should have somewhere around probably, given winter's off, because we didn't own it forever, it's probably got around 10,000 or so hours off.

Yeah, it's probably sitting right around there.

Right? So anyways, just... Yeah, I see what you're saying. So that's just, so replacing the machine, a million percent. That makes total sense to me. I worry about the long-term implications. Because it's more of a convenience. I'm not saying we don't need to do roads, because we do. All the work you're talking about is important, and we've got to make sure that the group, your team, has the right tools to do the job.

Right.

So it sounds like you're kind of worried about Mission Creek, right? Do we need an additional truck because now you have two crews working on it?

Right, no. So I'll give you an example of Chestnut Street and 4th Street. So when we've got the long trench out, we had to either bring the loader out now. When we send the truck back, we don't have a loader to load it. So we started taking on off days of the transfer station the skid steer out. Of course, now we're walking a skid steer. you know, a mile into town and then to wherever the point of it is. We don't usually take it further than the downtown area. So that one machine can keep moving forward with laying the pipe while the other one's starting the backfill operation. Multiple times that happens. And more so because the guys are unlike the way it used to be, which was only one person was allowed to operate. And then now that we've got multiple operators and multiple truck drivers and multiple things that we can do more than one thing at once. And I understand the concept of mission creep. It's not with that intent.

I don't think anybody's intending it. No, no, no. I know.

Sometimes it just accidentally happens. And I agree with the premise. But I'm looking at 40 miles of road and about 4 miles of sidewalk that we maintain on a daily basis. When we roll out on the average week after a weekend, if there's been rain, the road inspections have to be done. There are a lot of things that have to be done, and we split up when the trucks go. There are jobs where we sit there and go, we don't need a freight line on it. We're only going to use the one tons because we're lifting something heavy, and we can't get it up into the back because we don't want to damage the live bodies in it. So there's a lot of thought that goes into everything that we do. saw an opportunity here to prove a couple of points that we've all talked about for years and years and years and now we have the staffing to validate that to give you the information that you're looking for to sit there and say you know by having this other machine for two or three years just to see and then also prove the point that we can multitask right now sometimes I'm too heavy with guys on a job because I don't have another machine or I have to leave a sleeper back there. We used to have to leave the sleeper back there because we only had two people that were allowed to run the machines. Now anybody can load their own trucks, et cetera, et cetera. Cause we we've enhanced the training program there and everybody's getting trained. So, um, I think every question and every, every worry is, has a right. And, um, And every good intention can turn bad. I think in the two years that I've taken over with the changes that we've made, I'm just trying to prove that we can do more for the taxpayer if we hold on to this holding machine for a couple of years is all I'm trying to say. If it becomes a burden, then we... And what we don't want is a huge... Can we define what a burden is for a second?

Like when we say if it becomes a burden, what does that mean? I think if we're looking at a $10,000 repair, we ship.

We ship. We get rid of it.

We auction it. Okay, but not for nothing. If we're looking at a $10,000 repair and we say we're going to auction it, now at that point we're going to get what? We're not going to get much for it because it's going to be a broken machine. So you're going to be tantamount to junking it at that point unless you go, okay, now I'm doing the $10,000 repair. So I've got a $25,000 machine that I can get some money for now. Right. And I'm looking at that. I mean, to me, all of this really does come back to utilization. Yeah. Right. Let's just say we all agreed. We said, okay, you know what? We're going to do that. There's no way in life I would ever agree that we're going to keep it for two to three years. I'd lock it down to me to go, you know what? In six months, we're going to have an hours conversation. Sure. How many hours are on it now?

Yep.

How many hours are on it then? When is it done? You know what I mean?

No, I agree with you. Right. I agree with you. But we can't give it a year so you have a full cycle.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. Right? I just, this is exactly how, this is why we have, you know.

This is why we have a select board, a town administrator, and a department head so we can have these conversations.

Can I add, so when Victor and I talked, and these are minor points, but they also, when Victor and I talked about it today, He said one of the other reasons was you can use this to load the salt and lessen the impact on the brand and extend the life of the brand new backhoe because you'd be using the old backhoe to be with the salt. To continue what the operation is. Packing the dumpsters so the new backhoe wouldn't be doing something that could potentially break it. Hopefully it wouldn't break it because it's brand new. You know what I mean? There were other things that you could use this for that would also extend the life, hopefully, of the new backhoe. That's not my vote yet. I'm just trying to give other reasons for it that Victor did mention and forgot to mention tonight.

I was going to say you did mention the salt.

Yeah. Oh, we did. Yeah.

Sorry.

My head's bright.

give it a year and see whether we utilize it or not. Right now, you're just guessing whether it's going to do well. From what Victor has pointed out, it's going to actually utilize the crew better, so you're making better use of your employee salaries. And it's also going to be using, instead of having five trucks sitting and you're only using one, now you're at least using two trucks. You're actually, from my perspective, Does it increase utilization?

All I'm saying is, right now, this is why I use... 13, I believe. This is why I use comparisons all the time. This is why I say, how many other towns are our size and then how many do they have, would you say, 40 miles of road and... Oh, us?

Yeah, we're sitting around 40-some-odd miles of road and four miles of sidewalk.

Other towns that have the same amount of stuff. Because I'm never going to be, I'm not trying to be an expert. I run them. I think they're fun. I mean, I have my emotional support tractor at home, right? So I get it. I just look at this stuff and go, it's too easy to go, you know what, we're just going to do that. And it becomes a, you know, like when you talk about the salt, right? So it's not like we're never going to be able to do salt again, right? We shouldn't have to have a dedicated machine to do that business. But my point is, I think that's a job that the machine's got to do regardless. So to me, before I say yes to keeping it, it would be more like I would really love to understand how other towns that are our size compare and say, do they have a couple of them or don't have a couple of them? Again, get the new one.

That's the ultimate no-brainer in my perspective. So I just did a quick for 2013 back home if we put it out to bid. More condition, high hours, 8,000. This doesn't mean it's totally accurate. It just gives us an idea. Yeah. 8,000 plus hours, this estimates at 20,000 to 35,000 is what you could get. Average municipal condition, 5,000 to 8,000 hours, 35 to 60. So we're getting 25 in.

Yeah, and you know you're taking, if it's a trade, you know, you probably, they're going to add 30% to that, probably, if you try to sell it. About 40 grand they're going to try to sell it for.

So even if we gave it a year, could we get more than 25 in a year, potentially? What's the logistics on the purchase?

Is it in stock?

This is based on a production of 2000, of July.

Oh, so this would be next year anyway?

No.

Oh, sorry, this year you're saying? Yep. So it's 141,450 without the trade-in?

Right. I guess what I'm trying to ask is if we said yes, we definitely need this, when do they need to know about the trade?

so uh oh it'd be on the package on the return to them is i'd have to be saying we're either agreeing to it with or without yeah um i did look um so i just double checked the holder the holder is in the debt um so the sidewalk tractor um it is in the debt um that we would we budget each year we just paid off the 2021 international so that was our final payment this year so we took mean page here we just of course not we just stopped making a $25,000 payment this year which will lower our debt depending on what Central Street brings in and then the sidewalk tractor let's see we pay a PO $40,000 a year right now

Oh, no, I have to get it from her.

So we don't have a PO.

It's a 2013 what? 310 SK. SK.

So the other thing I just looked up, and this is referring us to talk to the town's attorney, which is interesting. But it said the town could make the first year's payment from an existing appropriation. So if you could find it in the budget and then do a non-appropriation clause. So you could do it that way, but... we don't ask a lot of money for your first time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It says using a capital reserve fund, it said could include these purchase agreements provided the expenditures are for the purpose of the fund, which this would be. However, this is saying that they think that we need to contact the town's attorney because they're concerned. The concern is that they didn't It says that the lease relies on a non-appropriation clause using the capital reserve fund for continuing lease payments may not be the cleanest approach because the financing is intentionally structured as an annually appropriated obligation. Right. So I could talk to the attorney and go to confirm that, but that was what my concern was. But we could buy it outright. We could buy it outright. We have the money right now, and by the end of the year, what's the next year's vehicle?

I don't, off the top of my head.

Let me pull up CIP, sorry. Because that fully observed will have enough.

I think we removed the F550-17, well, because we extended the life of it out three years because of the core 10 body on it, and we did the transmission, so we extended that out three years, so that's the next one in line would be the 17th. I think that's how we move it around. The 17 freight lanes? No, no, 550. Oh, 550. But you still sit in the same neighborhood as money. You know, it's not very far off. It's crazy. Yeah.

So I'm just open CIP to see because this is so tiny. So 2027. And you do, it does say the F-550. Yeah. So F-550 is roughly under 100, but even if you estimated 100.

No, once you put the live, I think the last time we did it was 128,000 for the red one.

So you still have enough to buy that next year, even if you didn't fund the fund. But you deplete the fund between the backhoe and that, so. What's in the fund now?

190.

193.

It'd be about 50 plus the 180 that's going in is 230. Yes. And next year we'd be spending about $1.30. Yeah.

So I get very different trade-in numbers than you did, Christina. That's why I said it. Mine is not trade-in.

Trade-in, the only thing we've got for trade-in offer is 25. That's period. Well, the other one's at 30.

That was K.

What? Your equipment. Did you tell them about that if I didn't hear that? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I did. You did say your equipment. Yeah, sorry. Whereas going to the case or to the cap, we would then have to be talking about possibly new equipment, you know, the forks and stuff like that.

You're going to need new 550 next year.

Well, so the CIP, you guys, I don't know if you were at that meeting, but I said I thought we could extend it out because we did that new transmission a year and a half ago. I wanted to stick it out two more years or another year because it takes a year to order one. So I was looking at 2028, but they told me to back that number off and reevaluate at the end of this year the truck status, which it's running pretty strong right now.

Right. Possibly, so the cash flow that's already planned into that fund is probably intact.

Yes.

So since we're dealing with estimates, roughly, how many hours? So if you're doing, what, 1,500 hours a year with a single backup today, what do you think you're going to be doing if you kept this one? Any idea? If we kept the second one, what does the second one end up? Does the first one still do 1,500? And the second one is maybe 700?

No, I think it would be lighter because especially if we're pulling it out of the salt ship where it has to run the entire storm, it would be sitting idle in the bay. So you'd be reducing the hours on the new one and probably maintaining the hours on the old one. But just not as hard because it wouldn't be assigned the bigger of the jobs. It would be the lesser of the jobs.

So the maintenance line, the fuel line is in the budget. Yeah, I don't think... Those have to go up by at least 30 or 40%.

I don't think on the fuel line. No, it's not. You're using the same number of hours as the fuel line.

You have two machines now. You're using the total number of hours.

The total number of hours is going to be a little bit.

Just a little bit, but not.

Time out, time out, time out. If you're telling me we could run two crews, I have no idea how you end up with the same number of hours on two different machines.

six weeks to do a certain amount of work, right? You're doing that same amount of work Yeah, and in a storm where that's sitting idle, not using fuel, the other one is using those hours. Whereas you still need to use X number of hours for a storm. It's just which machine you put it on.

I need a spreadsheet. Which one you put fuel in. Yeah. 2026 310 backhoe loader uh manufactured by john deere for the amount of 141 450 dollars uh with no training allowance and to allow the ta to sign off on the purchase order and take it from the highway department capital improvement from capital reserve reserve

All right, is there a second? I'll second. All right, Christina? Yeah, but was there a comment?

Well, I was going to, even if, I mean, this is not corrected to that, if you want to change that year. By the way, it still says 2027.

Yeah, that was under the CIP conversation. Yeah, this is the CIP. Yeah, they wanted me to review it this fall. Oh, okay.

So I'm just going to say, even if you, 180 we're putting in, if we took 130 out next year, and this back out, you're still going to have 101 left in the fund. You just have to decide how you're going to fund it next year. Right. And if we are taking a year off, that gives you time to. What's next on our list? So. No, after. No, after that. After that, the next thing is not until 2029. There's two. No. According to this.

It's probably the RAM or the CV would be the oldest things in the fleet.

So 2029, you have the CV on the top.

It's the Chevy slash international equivalent to the 550. It's turning radius is terrible. We bought that when we added that other route. when we extended, so we bought it off the shelf.

Right, because they had one.

They had one for a year. Right, we waited a year. We had Hall's subcontract that, and we spent the 40-some-odd thousand with Hall's, and then we took it over the next year when we bought that off the shelf. Yeah, that's it.

If you move the F, so say the F550 just moved to 2028, that would technically be the next one. Yeah. And then 2029 is the next one after that, which is the six wheel dump. That would be the six wheel. And the sidewalk tractor.

Yeah, the sidewalk will come do the five-year rotation. We usually get rid of it because of the nightmare that it is.

The sidewalk tractor will be paid off in 2028. So I'm surprised this is 2029. We're going to have to do something. We might have to move those around.

All right. Any other discussion? Nope. Nope. Okay.

You're not going to like it.