Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, the left side is the message on the back of the postcard. He's so clever, isn't he? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but I think all the pricing, you know what? Okay. What we said, we're just going to do to occupancy. They're not going to do this. They're just going to do occupancy. And if we can get and see, I've been waiting to get the bulk mail number from Kathy.

Okay, we should be on. We should be live. We should have this.

Yeah, this EDDM. They have a program that is do that with the member's chair.

If you'd like to call us to order.

I'd like to call us to order at 6-20-18, 6-18. Apologies for our audience on Zoom that we're late.

Josh, do you have a sound email yet?

Yes, I do.

Thank you. You just made it. I did? Yeah, we just called the order.

I have received some in their email.

Okay, I was sending them both because I wasn't sure if they were going to kick in or not.

Yeah, please go to the phone. Sorry about being tardy. I just got home. Did I change?

What a day, huh? Yeah.

Spent some time at the Augusta Courthouse.

We are streaming, so I'm just going to... Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

So you should have in front of you the June 18th planning board meeting, Mitch.

Do you want a minute to look at them? Oh, thank you. Yeah, sure.

I will change the, I didn't put everybody's name in the board attendance. I will do that before I send it to Kathy. I just, in my notes, I'd written full for it because I didn't want to write out everybody's names. I'll do that.

When you do your meeting and it says something, can you email it?

I send them to Kathy. We post them on the channel website. Oh, that's a good one. But I would be, I don't send them to these guys either. Oh, you don't? But I can.

Good. Yeah. It's a very good website.

Well, actually, when I send them to Kathy, I copy everybody. So, yes. And I do them once a month. Oh, okay. If we go in this one, this will be the month of June. It will not be complete. Okay. So,

Did you finish the permit? I did.

I'm so excited to show you guys. I have rearranged our folder a little bit.

So when you come out onto the folder now.

You should have, we sent the select word, this link to this drive, which has all the ordinances on it and everything.

Okay.

So go down to the concept.

Yeah.

If you go into our, because Google Drive. Yeah.

Google Drive. Can you see that? Okay. We had just the chapters in there. And because I was putting other stuff in there, I didn't want to lose organization. So for the chapters, I just put a one in front of them. So all of our chapters are together. And when you scroll down, you'll see a two that's got our PowerPoint, our bigger document, and then our folder for our vision and mission. And then last, three, is our new folder for the public input folder. working session. So all of the meeting notes and everything that we've been gathering up, I was putting in this folder to be able to send links out. And then where did, oh, got to go back to the planning board here. And then permit lock, number one. So go, if you look on top here, oh, no, it's back. Yeah.

Let me know when you get back. And so back up without having to go out and come back in.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, there you go. There you go. So right up on top. And then here's our Excel log. So you can do two things. I'm trying to look on your computer for that. Right here is 2005. So this is all the permit information from 2005. So you want to come back to 2025. I was just going through documents that said 1978 on it, so I did a bit of a time warp here.

And then this is 2026.

And then Aaron has agreed to keep this updated. We had some staff who was totally my fault in getting him access, but I think he's good now because he hasn't asked for it again. The only thing that's missing is the silver permit.

I sent you.

Okay.

Again.

Do we have a number? I mean, it's on the log, actually. What is it you're missing? Our solar permit for the solar farm.

It should be in 25, shouldn't it?

Yeah, it should be in 25. Because it got approved in 25. I just need, like, the key information to be able to put it in there.

Okay.

Get it right in there.

How come I don't see a permit for the house that's being built up in?

Where? Staples Hill? You do. 2026 town. 66 Staples Hill Road.

Oh, it's under, oh, date, build. Okay, gotcha. I see it's under the contractor's name. Got it.

So you could put it in there or you got it? It's labeled as commercial permit 2026-001.

So when you put 2026 there, is it? Okay, so I'm putting it under 2026.

And what else do you want to know about it? I have all the information on it. I mean, the permit itself has... 2026-001.

Name the permit was issued to. BAP Power LLC. Matplot R08-17. Street address?

I don't know that it has one.

Short description, solar energy.

Tenello Solar Project. One N, two L's in Tenello.

Was it actually accepted in 2026? No. The permit?

Yeah, it was, wasn't it? This is 2026, right? We issued the permit. Well, The final review, I think, was 12-19-2025.

Final review, but the actual acceptance, I didn't think that.

We voted it in on 12-19-2025. I'm just going to put 1-1. But it was labeled Permit 2026-001, commercial permit.

I'm going to put January 2026 for the permit date. OK. That one's in there. That was the only one that.

Actually, the select board approved it on January 22nd.

Yeah, we had approved it, but they didn't approve it until the next year.

Should I put a dash, dash, dash in there?

Yeah, sure, if you want to. Erin, put those in. So maybe it doesn't have dashes. I don't care. As long as we got a log of it. So yeah, the new ones are... A single family home on Staples Hill Road. A garage on Hodge Road. And a deck. The deck's done. On Turner Street. The deck is finished. Okay, cool. So permit log review complete?

No.

Oh.

Now did you give, I think because we have access to that drive. We have access to everything in the drive, but I'll double check.

I gave open read access to anybody who wants to come and read that guide. And then I gave edit access to the planning board and to Aaron.

So at some point, I think this, somehow this drive started because I had it in my Google drive. Anyway, I'm getting a lot of storage. issues, because I bought a garage store, so I'm trying to clean stuff out, but I may need to move the town of Canton Drive. Somebody else might need to host it at some point, so I don't have all my stuff in it. But I don't know exactly how that works, because if it's in the cloud, it shouldn't be sitting on my computer. Yeah, I don't know. I refuse to pay.

Sounds like a question I would ask an IT department. Something happened to those anymore. Yes. Let me see if I can read this one. So you are Jay Stearns or Josh? How are you?

Let me just double check.

Yes, Jay Stearns. I feel like that all the time. You don't have a Google account.

I didn't have a Google account either. You can send me You can send him the link. He can try to open it. You'll be denied and then you'll have a little message that will say request access and then that'll go off to Diane and she can give you access under your normal email address.

Link to Google Drive.

What the heck is this?

Google account too, but I don't use it very often.

But the fact that you have it is all that matters.

Do you want it?

No. If you try to open this, it'll say you can't do it, request access.

Yes.

So it'll just respond to me to request access. We grant you access and you can get it back.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Cool.

Wow. Such a basic plan. So while we're in this drive, let me ask the question.

There's two COMP plans in here. Well, there should be a COMP. It's the one that says Canton COMP Plan WIP. Work in progress.

That's the one we're working on. The other one is all the old ordinances. We have a current existing COMP plan.

Canton Comprehensive Plan 2026. State submission and WIP checklist.

It looks like you're in some kind of screen that's showing you.

Okay, let's go back.

Yeah.

So one of my questions has been about, can I connect to this because we're in here and it's got all the organs, so I'm sitting on this Google Drive. Our town website is seriously underutilized and we're paying huge amounts of money for it. I would like to suggest that as a planning board that maybe we make it we work out a proposal to the select board that says here's our priorities of things that we think should be routinely put on the town website for for transparency for communication for all that kind of stuff. And one of the things would be all the ordinances, they should not live. on my Google Drive or my Android.

Because people, I mean, the public should be able to see them. Well, there are ordinances out there. I think, I don't know.

No, if you go to the town website, they've got a link to the ordinances.

Yeah, they do. I don't know if it's all of them. But I think the link sent them to this Google Drive. And that's the thing I don't necessarily want to have.

No.

in town office.

So I saw a lot of communication about town emails, email addresses. I didn't get the gist of it, though. I mean, they can't fund email addresses?

Well, there's a cost. They asked about three or four months ago. They're like, because of Freedom of Information Act stuff, right? Somebody asks for the history of our conversation around... a solar ordinance or something, right? Because I'm using a personal email. They said, technically, they could subpoena your entire laptop. I'm like, well, my company, I need to get a separate one because my company pays for this. They would not like it if you took the whole laptop.

Exactly.

Certainly, I could give you access to my Gmail account, which is the one I use for town stuff, and you could have anything you want out of that. So they said, you know, we demand you all go on can emails. We're like, great. Okay.

Sign me up. That was a month ago. They just mentioned at the beginning of this last one.

It came up last week about, you guys have to go on this. We're like, okay, we've been waiting for months.

Do it.

You guys have to set it up. Tell us what you want us to do. We'll be happy to do it. Then I saw a question about paying for it. I believe they, I didn't judge them to say more, but I believe it just was, it's in the town's budget somewhere. It's not that much money. They'll figure out a way to pay for it.

yeah that's kind of what they said they may take it out of a little bit of everything or something yeah so basically we're just waiting for direction yes yeah yeah go ahead give me one i don't care i'll even pay for it i don't care i'm gonna forward every i keep all my planning board stuff on a folder yeah me too my email so once i get that i'm gonna just take the entire folder and forward it yeah

My personal email is a mess. So I'd really like to have an account. That would be great.

All my travel planning and, you know.

Yeah, I mean, we need to access any of that. I'm pretty sure it'll be handled at the next board meeting. The town email, the less than 24 hours, you'll have it.

I'd even pay for mine. I don't want to pay for everybody's, but I'll pay for mine. Yeah.

No, it's good to protect all parties.

Nobody's disagreeing. Nobody's disagreeing.

These were not all there that long ago.

But I don't know if, like, oh, yeah, solar's there. Sewer's not there. So, oh, here it is. Oh, no, that's a county. So, like, I don't know that. Oh, here it is up at the top. So...

So here's a question. Can these not be in alphabetical order? Why is the adopted date not there? All these should have adopted dates. Yeah.

I don't. I would suggest, because there's policy stuff here and ordinance stuff here. And if I'm just Joe citizen, and I want to know what ordinance to go after, It would be easier if they were all kind of grouped together. If the ordinances were together. Yeah. That's one thing we can suggest.

Separate ordinances and policies?

Yeah. Yeah. And we can fill in adopted dates.

Well, we can't post anything on here.

We could ask that they're filled in.

Yeah.

That would be very helpful to me for the planning board purpose. If I could just go there and say, what's our oldest ordinance? Maybe that's what we should be looking at next, right? To see if it's up to date.

Cool.

Those are suggestions.

Yes. Looking for meeting minutes of something to an agenda when I was finding them.

We won't say. From the town.

Meeting minutes right here. Right.

I heard a recent meeting. It's by date. Adopted date. Oh, but it's got a lot of filters on the top. So that's. Let's see. I want to get. So none of these ordinances were adopted.

Well, no, they don't.

No, they just don't have the dates on there. That's why I'm saying that would be helpful to be able to add a glance, right? I don't see. Oh, here, boards. Apply. So you can. It seems to only have the most recent. Oh, this is upcoming meetings.

Right. I went to recent. Oh, and then recent. I see.

And then it's got a recent meetings tab.

Right. I was in recent. And I can't find it.

I think they moved that movie night. Movie night. Movie night was the meeting right here.

Oh, here's the PDFs.

See, they start down here. Where are you at in here?

I'm in recent meetings. I don't know. I don't remember why we were going here.

That's where we are. Agendas and meetings?

Yes. Then if you click on the recent meetings tab. I'm there. There you go. When you scroll down, now you start seeing the meeting minutes in PDF. Okay, gotcha. Great. And these are like the upcoming meetings that she doesn't have yet.

This is better than it was the last time I looked. Because there was no select board meeting minutes on here the last time I looked.

It has been.

Or Erin, I don't know exactly.

We don't have any posting privileges. We did get some feedback that we need to copy both of them in case she's at them. Yeah, I usually do. So maybe they don't need groups, maybe they just need better filters on that page that we were looking at, the ordinance page. Because this says ordinances and this says resolutions. but there's both ordinances and policies in here, right? So maybe just another filter.

I think they did an excellent job of updating like the meetings. Like we switched, we didn't meet on July 2nd or whatever it was. It was too close to the 4th. Everybody was busy. So we moved it to the 30th. That's already on here. Good job, good job, good job.

we want to look at this feedback on the yep well yeah so restricted i don't want to change that they're restricted we wanted to put something in like in the first one cemetery Because these are really prohibited activities. There shouldn't be dogs in the cemetery. We talked about this. We talked about why, too. With members of the planning board that were here. I don't think we should change that.

Let's say you were coming down to... Plants and flowers at grandma's headstone. And you have to bring your dog with you. And dogs on a leash.

I think what it is, it's like service animals. You can't restrict them.

Well, you can.

Okay, then why not? I remember how the conversation went. This was about people thinking that they can walk their dogs in the cemetery and all the things that happen when you walk your dog. And it's supposed to be a place of dignity. where people are putting their loved ones to rest, and that's not an appropriate place to walk a dog. The same reason that there shouldn't be firearms or offensive weapons in a cemetery. It's a place of dignity, and that's why they shouldn't be there. And that's why they're under a heading of prohibited activities.

Well, I guarantee that's probably what they're doing.

If somebody's going in there with a service animal, Or somebody else, who's going to complain about that? No one is going to complain about that. But if somebody is consistently going and walking their dog and somebody's finding poop all over graves and whatever, people are being disrespectful. There needs to be a way to say no to stuff like that. And this is what that does. It says, no, you don't. This isn't the right place to do that.

And this change would basically allow people to walk dogs in a cemetery. That's what it looks like.

And that's not okay. It's not unless it's on a leash thing. It's not about that. It's just not the right place to go and do that. I would be upset if I went and visited my grandfather and grandmother and visited them and found that. I would be really upset. So that's what I think.

If it was grandma's Grandma died and it's grandma's dog that came down to say goodbye.

These are not anything anybody's going to complain about. Come to the town office and complain about.

Grandma's dog's not going to know grandma's there. Right. Are you sure?

Yeah, but the family might want to bring them.

The family might want something that night. The same thing with those. Somebody wants to have a drink at a grave. Okay, that's Who's going to complain about that? But people partying and leaving bottles on graves? Yes.

Like, no, that's not... No, but the way this reads, I agree with you 100% on this, but the way this reads, it says glass bottles and alcoholic beverages are prohibited. So... you've got to make a decision. Is it going to be all alcohol beverages?

You don't want people partying in cemeteries.

But you're saying... No, I agree. I agree. I don't see the need for it. But then on the other hand, you're stating, well, you know, if they want to come down and have a drink... I'm not saying that.

It says they're prohibited. What I'm saying is, who's going to complain to the town office that you just toasted your loved one on their death? Oh, no. I mean, no one's going to do that. But this keeps... people from doing what they're not supposed to do. Right. Exactly. Right.

No, and that's what it really pertains to. We don't want a bunch of people down there partying and doing stuff and leaving glass.

Anyway, when I read that, that's kind of how I felt. Like, what would I feel if I went to visit my grandparents?

I don't understand why. I know this is, I mean, New England in general and country places, it is hunting and all that kind of stuff. But I don't understand why. why the select board may have had a problem with, I don't understand the word offensive. I mean, I just think that wording should come out and just put fire on bow and arrows, slingshots, air rifles, or other weapons. Just put other weapons. If offensive is going to be offensive, okay.

I don't understand what that means when I read it. When I read the word defensive weapons. What do you mean? Like, I understand what that means. You know, that means a sidearm.

That means, you know, you know, that's what that means. But doesn't firearms cover that? And then.

Thank you. That's a great example.

A lot of things that are under this, like military barrier.

Don't come with a hand grenade. That's an offensive weapon. Don't do that. I don't know.

What do you think? Should the word offensive go or stay? It doesn't bother me either way. The word offensive itself is offensive, so it should probably go.

Okay. Yeah.

And strike it. Other than weapons of any kind.

On the other hand, is anybody that doesn't like military burials?

That's covered. Where is it? Except with permission in the town office as part of a military. There you go. So it could be. That is totally appropriate. Yes, it is. Thumbs up for me.

Air rifles or other false or Bullets. Other weapons. Would that fit that? I'm sorry. Instead of having offensive weapons, say, you know, after air rifles or... Or just our other weapons. Other weapons. That's fine. I mean, somebody could take a paintball gun down there. And, you know, I mean, that would be considered, would that be considered a weapon?

I wouldn't throw one on a cop, I'll tell you that.

Yeah. Okay, so we're basically agreeing that we're keeping prohibited instead of restrictive. I don't.

Yeah. And I really think.

No, restrict it. I think you're right. I think we'll want to do.

Or should we just put it in less part of a ceremony? Like a family bringing the family pet during a burial, I don't think should be an issue.

But is anybody going to complain?

That's what I'm saying. Nobody's going to complain about it. I hope not.

Right?

Right.

But should we cover that in this, though, and say, okay. You'd have to think about it.

If they're in her butt. I don't know that we should do that.

Let's say Joe's out walking his dog in the cemetery and he gets, you know, comes to the town office and he gets reported. Joe gets mad and he sees Frank's bringing his mother's dog to visit her gravesite.

But the difference there is that dog should, the one who's visiting the gravesite is not walking around.

Yeah.

The real key here is we don't want people walking their dogs around the cemetery. Yeah, it's not for recreation. Well, because everybody isn't good, or not everybody, there's a lot of people, I mean, I would pick it up, but there's a lot of people that may not. No, no, no. So the difference there is they're staying in one location versus they're walking the whole cemetery.

Well, let's say Joe's upset that Frank's allowed that privilege, but he's not in this ordinance.

People get fined is up to the town office. And that stuff's supposed to be in there so that you can take care of people who are really just breaking the rules in my mind. You don't use that as a stick on everyone. So we want to use it to people who are really violating and upsetting people. Everyone who's got loved ones there.

Wouldn't you want a blanket policy that covers everybody and there's no exceptions left out of it? So Joe comes in. That's why it's going to say restricted.

That's why it can't say restricted. It has to say limited.

But if it says restricted and you guys don't like that he's walking the dog around the cemetery, technically you can tell that person not to do it, right?

Okay, fine. I didn't understand. Restricted. Give me the example again.

No, restricted means it gives you leeway.

Yes. So Joe's walking his dog around the cemetery. Maybe he lives next to the cemetery. Frank wants to go bring his mother's dog to see her gravesite. sentimental to them you know so if you say no dogs at all frank technically can't do that but you're making a policy that covers everybody you can say restricted and that will give you more leeway but if you do it the way you can't find the person who's being right You're saying you can't find the person.

Yeah, later on it talks about compliance and that the town office can issue fines if we do that.

The way this is worded, anybody that has a dog on a leash can walk through a cemetery.

Right.

And that's not right. That's not okay. Right.

I mean, even, yeah, yeah, basically what you're saying, okay, it's restricted. In other words, as long as they're on a leash, you can walk them any way you want.

In a cemetery. In a cemetery. Yeah. Not at all.

I mean, actually, it should be done in a cemetery.

Yeah. So we don't want to make it a prohibited activity. No dogs are allowed in cemeteries. You don't want to say, I don't know. Wheat dogs visiting a family grave site may be allowed for a short period of time.

That's okay.

Ceremonies or visitation.

Ceremonies, that's good. I'm trying to think if we're going down a rabbit hole and now we're going to be asked to... No, it's dogs.

I'm not going to go on a rabbit hole.

You can even say that and then put...

You know, now do I have to list everything else?

No. Leafed animals may be allowed site visitation.

Not on daily walks.

No daily walks or something to that effect.

For ceremonies and visitation, it should be absolutely fine.

Okay, I think I agree with that. I understand where you're coming from, too, because everybody likes to push the Just a little bit.

I would get really upset. I would be really upset. If you're visiting somebody who's next to my loved one, I think I would be upset.

That's why it's the way it is. I think anybody bringing an animal for visitation is going to be respectful.

You would think so. You would hope so. I hope so. All of us would be. Yeah.

Yeah.

You mean.

I'm not going to bring the dog. The way this is where we go about this one. Is it restricted or prohibited to make a motion?

I would say prohibited. Except for ceremonies and visitation.

Now, this we're changing this word right here.

No, I believe I would leave it prohibited. So, except for except for ceremonies and visitation.

So Section 6 shall read prohibited activities.

Yeah. You want to second that?

I did. Okay.

Except for Sharon.

We'll get to the A next.

Okay.

Okay. Everybody agree? Prohibited activities. Okay.

Okay. A. You want to make a change. Okay. Yeah. It said no domestic animals shall be allowed in ceremonies, except for cemeteries, except for ceremonies and visitation. Yeah. What did I say? Something stupid.

No, you, you, you said ceremony.

You can specifically say, this is not a place to walk your dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not a recreational place to walk.

Yeah, because that's what I'm concerned with.

Yes, exactly.

When you say, yes, let's go ahead and do this, but be clear, this isn't a place to go walk your pet pig.

You wouldn't want to live there playing football in a cemetery either.

What do you put to walk your pets?

Well, it says dogs are domestic animals. Oh, okay. I am really good at wordsmithing that. Okay. So we make a motion. You make a motion to amend that. Yeah.

I make a motion that Section 6 subpart A reads no dogs or other domestic animals shall be allowed in cemeteries except for ceremonies and visitation.

So everybody agrees with B.

And I didn't see B. Dogs. This is not a place to walk and talk. Yes. We have a second. Thank you. Now it feels really clear. That feels better to me.

Do we have a second? All in favor?

All in favor? There. OK. You want to make a motion about E? I move that we take out the word offensive. OK. You want to second that? She moved that we take out the word offensive. OK. Lynn, second it. All in favor?

It is. The other thing we have to look at is because there was a question on it, the alcoholic beverage situation. It was brought up at the Slough House.

I believe we should look at the town policy because I think we have elsewhere in a town policy that there's no alcohol in any town. It doesn't mean that people don't bring a beer and a cooler to the ball field. It doesn't mean that when it's movie night, parents don't have an adult beverage and a to-go cup because nobody doesn't matter if you're managing it

So that should stay the way it is.

Well, I know there are some families that would do that, and it falls under the slippery slope. You can't let everybody...

It's prohibited on town property, so then it should be prohibited here.

The cemetery is not that part. Do they consider it town property because people own individual lots? Is that the difference?

People who own the cemetery...

The town.

They don't need the town's property then.

People borrow spots when they want ones.

Or rent them.

Or buy them. Or die in perpetuity. But you can't deed it back to somebody else. You can't pass your lot. Remember we had the whole... That's in there somewhere, right? You can't transfer your... If I buy a lot that I haven't died yet, I can't... I choose to be buried elsewhere. I can't will my lot to another family member's Oh, I can't. Actually, I can.

To a family member, yes. You can't sell it.

I think to anybody, but you can't. You can't sell it. If there's not a legal document doing it.

Okay. So are we leaving D the way it is? Yes. Okay. I agree. Motion to leave it D the way it is. Second. All in favor?

Section 12. I make a motion to leave the way it is. Well, I thought the entire paragraph above it addresses trees and shrubs. We've had a long conversation about this. Okay, where are you at? With people who are at the town meeting. Talk about that. Through insurance safety, town's ground crew.

Official flowers must be placed in the containers, okay? The placement of wax containers is prohibited. The town deserves the right to remove trees and shrub planted.

We didn't want to get more prohibitive than that because the argument was from folks that were here was, you know, listen, people do plant really small bushes right next to a headstone. We don't want to be, and if it's not in the way of, you know, keeping up the the cemetery or the people who do that, then we really don't want to, you know, say you have to take out your little flowering bush or whatever. So we worded it this way to say, Hey, if you put stuff there, we're going to come talk to you about maybe having to remove it. And if you don't, then we're going to go remove it. And that's how the whole conversation went. That's why it was worded like this.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't see the need of putting more in.

No. So basically, what is your argument? That no, it's in the first paragraph. Now we're going to address trees and shrubs. I don't think we need to change anything. No, no, no.

We don't need to add that in.

We don't need to do anything else with trees and shrubs. And that was on the advice of the people that were here. We had a whole discussion about this.

Yeah. I remember that. So is this basically saying that if you plant these, they're going to be removed?

If they're impacting our ability to keep up the ground.

For instance, if you planted something and never did anything to it, eventually it's going to become too unruly and we're going to have to remove it. That's fine.

Or if it's going to be a plant that's going to be too big, we're going to come talk to you about that and ask you to remove it, put something else there, have some other option. I thought the animals was all kind of planned. That's why we are. That's why we went around and around with this stuff, right? And so that's why we ended up keeping it like that.

Yeah, so that the interface would say no. Does not need to be there. So I knew that we'd keep it as it is.

Is there anything that we want to say here? So you made a motion. Okay, let's vote on that motion. And I'll ask another question after that.

I'm going to keep it as it is because I feel like we addressed it.

I second. All in favor?

So this was what they, the select board, no planting of trees. So they didn't want anything. This is what they're saying. Yes. So we're going to say no, that's not.

The public has already said don't do that. That's why we had this wording in the paragraph before.

That was at the public town meeting that two select board members attended and they gave us their feedback. This was their feedback.

Yes. So we already did what the- I don't want to keep going around and- Exactly.

So this is, okay. Addressed above.

By using the word plants, also you're taking away that annual flower stuff, which is what everybody wants. That was the result of the discussion.

Yeah, because I know my sister, when she was alive, she would go and plant these, I don't know, they're called, every year my dad would want- You're putting restrictions on people that are respectful.

And that's not okay. That's not okay.

I mean, I understand.

I went and got some black-eyed Susans, and I cut them, and I laid them on her grave.

I didn't plant nothing.

Yeah.

So anyway. Okay. Do you want more restrictive wording? We can put it in there.

I don't think it needs it.

No, it's funny how it is. So it's basically planting any tree or shrub at your peril. Right. So you plant it and it's going to be, if it stays tiny.

Yeah. If you take care of it, it's going to be fine. If you let it run wild, we're probably going to have to remove it.

Well, I think there was a, I think if I remember right, some of the comments too, were that even if it's a small shrub and it's planted close to the grave marker so that they can mow around it, that's all good. But at some point the root system from that plant is going to disrupt the great market potential as well.

We had conversations about that. That might be another reason to take something out. Or have a discussion with a person that put it there to say maybe replace it with something different to be given people options.

Is there a question here about prohibiting? So yes, if you currently have trees or shrubs, they may be removed. Is there any reason to say no new planting of trees or shrubs? while annuals and small flowering plants are encouraged? I thought that was already put in the ordinance.

Because here it's saying it's eliminating all plantings. Right. I know. But people do like to go and put spring flowers or annuals that are going to go, I don't know. It probably should be more clarified. And I agree with the fact that if the shrubs get out of control, they have to be taken out, or the trees.

Maybe if you're going to, okay. New plantings of trees and shrubs are highly discouraged.

I'm wondering if you did something to, who manages the, does the town manage the cemeteries? The 101-108. Is that the town's? I mean, do they manage it? Like, if you wanted to plant a tree or a shrub, which I don't see any reason to plant trees at all. I don't see any reason to plant any tree, any trees. I mean, that's just the root system of trees are really bad. And then we're going to remove them if they do. We're going to talk to you and we're going to remove them. Okay, shrubs. We're going to talk to you and we're going to remove them.

Right. Like that's what this says. If it's going to disrupt it.

No, I get it. I get that. And what I'm explaining, no, I'm not. What I'm saying is the problem with allowing shrubs even to be planted is the fact there are small shrubs that don't grow very big and never will. And then there are huge shrubs and people may not delineate that, you know, so they can't determine. So you're probably better off not to plant any shrubs. But I do think people should be allowed to plant small plants in front of the grave. That's my belief. Because I can see where this could get completely out of control.

It feels the least restrictive and the most in our control to me by saying, you know what, we might take out your tree or shrub.

Such trees or shrubs may be removed after we've attempted to take them out. You're actually saying in there, you're saying if you plant plants, we're not going to take them out. You're just saying trees and shrubs. That's all you're saying.

Well, you could add a line that says annual plants and plantings are encouraged.

That's fine. Yeah. Oops. That would be okay.

I agree. I don't think we need to add this, but we could say that. No. That we're encouraging annual laws.

Was that in the original? Something about animals?

No, I don't. I can't remember. I remember going around and around and around. Extensive list. And now we're going around and around again.

Yeah.

That's the way the horses told me there was being some more. So where are we at?

I don't think it really needs to be changed.

No. There is a motion and a second of no changes. I second it.

All in favor?

What are the hash marks they put in? Today's face. Oh, OK. There's a space . All right. That's all. So that's that one. And then there was some feedback on the planning board about They're going to use, they want us to add that to the ordinance to use town email. Add news town email.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Do other ordinances say that? Ordinances say that? I mean, I was just talking to that. So maybe otherwise we're being consistent with that when all the other ordinance groups.

Well, to me, that policy is not really important.

When I first saw that, I'm like, it feels like overkill. It feels like an unfunded mandate. That's what it feels like. Definition of an unfunded mandate. But I don't care. Let's put it in. Let's hope it makes somebody show up. I don't know.

So I made a motion under organization and tools, section six. that we add a new item at the very end of that that said, members will use town provided emails.

I second it. Do you want to add that in there?

All in favor? I'm not sure right now. OK. I love ordinance. You want to go through that? You have your meeting notes still? From the ordinance workshop? Me? No. Did you lose them? What are you talking about? LD 2173.

Yeah, oh.

But I didn't completely finish it. I didn't completely finish it, though.

What temperature is that thing? And I'm never told.

But I didn't bring my other notes. Oh, you got that? I have pages of notes there. Okay, we were going to add some things to that.

What am I going over? Just saying what it means? Yeah, so they're basically upping the... The...

2.1.7.3 is an amendment to 1.8.2.9, which is the main multifamily lot allowance changes and requirements. So on the first page, it just tells you what all the requirements were for 1.8.2.

So basically it allows three units per lot, four units as a use in a designated growth area, or... An area that's served by water and sewer. So they want to encourage water and sewer routes by allowing more units per lot. The minimum lot size required must be 5,000 square feet for that. Yeah. And local... Yeah, there's demand requirement limits.

5,000 square feet of land area per unit for the first two dwellings. Yeah.

So they had the nice charts, right? Like the limits to the minimum lot size, depending on if you're on water or sewer or not on water or sewer, what those limits would be. So they talked about that. They talked about limits to the lot area per dwelling unit. And that's also... kind of categorized by with and without water and sewer. And also in growth areas or non-growth areas. So they're kind of divvying this stuff up by whether or not you're designating something a growth area or not.

Which is something that we know we don't have at this moment, but we have said that's part of our plan. That's one of the number one things we want to do. These are primaries for growth.

Yeah, what do we want to focus growth on? Right. Where our water and sewer lines are.

Right. Or where we can easily extend them.

Or where we can easily extend them, yes. They talked about what an accessory dwelling unit is, a self-contained dwelling unit located within, attached or detached from a single family dwelling unit, or multi-unit structure located on the same piece of land. It's a real word salad. They talk about being exempted from density requirements. You know, they're really pushing adding more housing within us, right? And like, you know, like it's that when you bring your parents. In-law suites. In-law suites.

Stuff like that, you know? Yeah, bring all the kids. That's really the main thing is to get more housing within. Add 14 seat height bonus. Yep.

Up to 55 feet total for affordable housing. Ties affordable housing density bonus relief to municipal growth areas as defined by the comp plan or the sewer and water. They talked about a rate of growth ordinance, but that's not applicable for PS. Keeps the 40 feet bonus

establishes a strict physical cap of 55 feet, the new one, 130% of the town's previous five-year building average, restores the right to use the growth cap.

So lots of ucky detail about what we can do. But then at the end, they talked about Hillary and her application portal for grant funds for $10,000 to help us do this. And We can use that. We don't have to give the money back. So like if we got a grant for $10,000 and we use five grand, have a lawyer help us go word these to have this law applied and we had 5K extra, we can keep that and use it for other housing related topics. They don't want to take it back. They don't want to take a bath. No, we have to apply by the end of July. We have to apply by the end of July. Yes. And there's a portal. And apparently it's very easy to apply for. Can I put that on my list of things to do this weekend for you?

Would you like to do that?

I would like to do that.

Okay. Okay. I was very happy. I'm very happy to hear you say that. And he's taken the application grant portal training or the grant training. That's awesome.

I couldn't hear them at all. I really had to. I do have notes, but I could not.

And I think I have a PowerPoint. I got to dig it out.

Is that through Mocha? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's all in the information she originally sent us. So let me dig that out and I can forward it to you if you can't find it. That is Erica. So there's a PowerPoint I can send out to everybody that does way better than my stupid little boxes that I was trying to draw. And then there should be a portal link.

So no pressure, but yeah, end of month.

Let's go get some money. Okay.

So I had a question.

The permit process and documentation, can we consider that closed now that we have?

We can pull up that Excel file at the beginning of every meeting and look at it.

So we can get that.

So that permit process, that was something different. Oh, this, yeah, this document. The old business, yeah. So the, that was, somebody had asked us, do we know for every single ordinance that we have, which ones required an application? And is there an application? Like if you need a, there's a building, there's a solar application we now have, there's a marijuana application we now have, but we haven't really gone through every single ordinance and read them and said, do we need an application for the sidewalk? Permit, whatever. All the different things. We have like, I don't know, 20 ordinances. We should probably just read through them again as a group and say, if it says you have to apply for this particular, for something, we make sure we have an actual form that people can use to apply.

Right. We don't know that yet?

Well, we haven't done that work. We haven't done that work. Brad started this. Brad started this. And I will find his original notes. They're Oh, Brad. Okay. So he did that. He went through and he made a list and I can't remember if he actually drafted some of the ordinances. Okay. Do you remember his email?

So under the next steps on the ordinance progress, that's probably not going anywhere, right? Because of funding.

So we have four fiscal year.

Right.

So What we need to do, I think, is be clear that we are returning the cemetery. We're returning the planning board ordinance with a request for that they go on the next available town meeting warrant for a vote. And the select board can decide if they want to send them out for a legal review or not.

Right. That's just those two?

They didn't get to the other two yet.

Well, I saw Carol's note today that basically said Josh from the sewer department, the other Josh, looked at it and said, the only question he had was in there, we talked about, I think the universal plumbing code and he said, should it say the main state plumbing code? Then he said, well, they're essentially, they're identical. So it doesn't matter, which I think we moved it to whichever language the attorney asked us to put it. Well, language in there is the attorney requested language.

So nothing should have to change on that then?

I don't know, but I will double check. I'll send that note back. With the sewer, it reflects prior fuel direction. The other one they have is solar, and I think the question there was all around the, we took out the use of the and or word, and we added in appeals. Diane Goldenberg- Language. Diane Goldenberg- But that's also going to say that we took that out because there wasn't any need for.

Diane Goldenberg- There is no. Diane Goldenberg- Be clear. Diane Goldenberg- And or and.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Diane Goldenberg- That's the only thing that changed on it. Diane Goldenberg- So we'd have to look at Diane's helpful spreadsheet because she sent us the changes in the image.

Diane Goldenberg- For my first meetings.

I'm hesitant to go over more ordinances until they get the ones finalized that we have there.

I don't think we have anything more at this. Well, we talked about, let's see at the top, with junkyard nuisance, commercial ordinance, cluster housing, we've already talked through. It just needs to be drafted and moved along. But let's get these four first, and then we'll come back to those.

The file cleanup. Did you get boxes labeled and stuff for storage?

I came in early today and I'm going to try to come in early before the meetings and just hunk away at it if anybody wants to come in. There's a what I'm finding in the first folder that I opened is about 80% of it was just garbage. What I'm trying to do is separate the things that we do need to keep into two piles. So anything that's ordinance and comp plan is an ordinance. So anything that's ordinance related, we must keep.

Yes.

And then anything that kind of looked interesting that I thought maybe we shouldn't throw out, I'm also keeping. But we're going to put them in two different boxes. And then we have to put a piece of paper on top that says, here's what's in this box.

Yes.

So we have boxes and we're starting to make progress on the pile. So, yeah, the stuff that's done, if anybody is in here working on that, is in the box with pieces of paper on the top that says keep it.

And this is what it is.

Or keep it interesting information. And then that's the trash pile. That's not bad. But, well, no, we already took a giant staff in there to throw out. So that's the rest of the trash pile that we didn't get to our commercial level. So that's what we're doing. Just plunk away, I think.

That's what I was looking for. There's a whole, oh, yeah, like I have a whole list of, there's a building permit application, a commercial permit application, a solar application. think is a sewer application that we want to make sure we have a plan for that isn't just at our next meeting, I can bring you the ones we have for solar and marijuana, because one of the things we thought was helpful for at least the applicant is it also, it said, give them a checklist. Your application should include check, check, check, check. Yeah. Right. And it also gave us as a review board, something to look at when they submit their application. So it wasn't like, yes, I like this or no, I don't like this. It was like, does it have these 10 things that does it have to have in there?

That kind of thing.

And we just wanted to see if we could clarify that and make those applications available on the website for townspeople so they didn't, because what happens now is somebody says, I want to apply for a solar permit and Kathy gives them my phone number. Like, let's just give them an application.

We don't have to necessarily chat with them.

Up the digital game.

Okay. And I think for building permits, there's a different, our building permit, I don't look at the application to see what's there. It's pretty, it asks for some information on a form, but it doesn't necessarily give them a checklist. I don't know that anything else, like the checklist or something, but we could do a quick look. That's taping. Really cold. I'm shivering. I never get this cold. Okay. So that was June. That comes up with. So is this something that's on the town website? No, no, we didn't get to this yet. Okay. You want to go through this?

We can if we want. So I had a to-do in my working session to find a calendaring tool so that we could, you know, we have four working sessions we want to plan. We could put two different dates times out there and people could vote for which session worked the best for them. So we could get the maximum participation. That doesn't mean we're having eight sessions. It means we're having four. We're just giving people a choice, right?

Right.

So I was tasked with let's go find a tool that we can use on social media, on a flyer in the office, et cetera, et cetera. And so I asked my friend, And he gave us, don't look at, look at that page last. Look at this page first. This page first. So Claude is recommending these tools, Rally, Doodle, and When to Meet. And he says for our situation, because, you know, he knows all about our comp plan. He's been helping us. He leans towards Rally for those reasons you see at the bottom. So he's recommending a tool. I'll go take a look at that and see if that looks good. But it's got shareable links. So yay.

Well, it has voting interface as a tool. Right. So we can put in the next crier.

So then Vlad said, because I gave him our meeting minutes from our working session, I uploaded all of those and he read them and he said, would you like me to write up a, you know, an announcement to put on Facebook and an announcement to send in your emails. And I said, yeah, Claude, you're awesome. So on this, you'll see draft one. It's just a suggestion from Claude on how to put our, this is for emails that we would send out. blast emails that we might send out to people. And then draft number two is something that we could put on social media. So we could post on Facebook. And then if you keep flipping draft three is where he put together for key stakeholders. So we talked about, we really want, planning board or selectmen there. We want both former and current selectmen there. We want Kathy there. We want, you know, the fire chief there. So this would be a letter that we could send to email directly to those people that we've identified. You know, we really want to have them there. We have those list of people. So that's what draft three is. And then the last part is He read Don's to-do, and he said, I see Don has a to-do to make a postcard.

Would you like me to make the postcard?

So Don has a boyfriend named Claude, too. So that's both the front and the back of the postcard that he recommended. And then he gave some helpful information for Don about what that should cost us.

Yeah, and I looked it up. I mean, I've already... And he's roughly 600. See, the town of Canton said they roughly send out about 500 of the criers. That's kind of what they send out. And we would send it out to occupants, occupant, not resident. We would not have to address all these. Now, the post office has a system called the EDDM. I know that that's the EDDM counter. And they can help us do all of that. Um, I can get more details, but the pricing is what this is saying is, is about right for that many, that many postcards.

Well, no, no. If, if, okay. It is.

If we use, we went through the challenge because I asked Kathy and the measurement is exact. So 6.125 inches and 11 is what she said, the standard postcard. Now, if we went through, um, using her bulk mail key, whatever, if we did it that way, it would probably be like 75 to 79 cents a piece. But if we go through EDDM, it would average between 150 and 175.

For the whole thing?

No, I mean each. Yeah, I think it was almost, it was like $1.50 to $2. To mail a postcard? Well, if you went through the EDDM,

You just said you're going to flat rate per piece currently around $23,000.

That's what Claude says.

Well, I thought you said the same thing.

I said $1.50 because I meant $150.

Like they said, so it would be cheaper to go through EDDM than it would be to go through her bulk mailing because I think she said, I'd have to look it up, but I was pretty sure that they said... that they would be more expensive post office than if you used her. Okay. Whichever way is cheaper than this month.

Yeah. So as we go to do this, um, and maybe it's once we get and do the polling and get the dates, right. Then we send out, okay. Part of the postcard is for that.

Okay.

Yeah.

The postcard shows the dates right on.

Yeah. Right here. And so what we do is we, We pick our dates on this calendar tool, and then we create links. And then from the links, we can put the links directly on different media applications, but we can also create QR codes out of those links. And then you just put the QR code on the post, on the mailer, and on the town office flyer. And they can vote, and that takes them right to the voting. Yep, yep, yep, yep. So that's the idea is, if you guys want me to look more at Rally, that's what Quad thinks we should use. I would say that's the one you should use. And then all I need to know is, well, what dates do we think we want to put out there? Maybe that's the next discussion.

Just to address the pricing here, the post cards through the post office is 23 to 25 cents a piece. You said the bulk mailing through the town office is 60 to 70 cents. So it's three times as much.

Yeah.

So we'd have to really look at it. I have the right experience. We're not 11 inches. That's huge. No. That's this big.

No, it's like four by six.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't have my notes. I'm sorry. But the 6.125. Yeah, 504. Yeah.

That's about right. Yeah.

Well, he's saying... Yeah, that's crazy.

Well, you know what that is. What he's saying, it's like, yeah, a half a page. Half a page. Oh, got it. But it's a half a page. And that's what the town sends out. Right. I don't know that we're paying $150 every other month for that.

Can we find out? It's quarterly. It's quarterly.

I'll go down to the account office tomorrow.

Yeah. There's just for a one-time mailing for postcards, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the answer. Okay. I'll try to find out. Yeah.

You're in the, you're in the pricing part.

You put it today. I did. I certainly gave it to me. I know. I have literally been working eight to 10 hours a day. I will get it together.

We can put it up in the town office. But when I went into the town offices, my answer to me was, so I'll look at Raleigh. Everybody want me to look at Raleigh?

Take a deeper dive? And put a couple up in the stores as well?

We'd love to know how much I'm spending every month on, or every time we mail out a crime. And how many pieces they mailed.

Because she told me approximately 500, but she didn't know the price.

Okay. We can, I mean, I've had postcards printed really cheap before. So if we had the, what's it called? I don't know what it is.

Rally? Rally. With all the L's. With all the L's. The multiple L's. Rally.

If we had four QR codes, I mean, I can scrap your postcard with those four codes in them and get that printed back in a week.

Yeah. So we just have to identify the dates.

Identify the dates and then Rally gives you the code.

Right.

I set up the calendar.

And then it's usually a button. Like I've developed a code from something like a link or something else. Yeah. One of those like right click. Do you want the QR code? Right. Exactly. They're pretty easy. I talked to the Historical Society. They will give us four meetings for free. Oh, cool. So we can use that upstairs meeting space.

Okay.

At no cost.

We want to talk about dates. That's great.

We're making my phone up. We're thinking about October, right? I would like to start sooner than that. If we thought we could start, it's going to take a while to do four of them. Let me get the Federal Society to see that they're... You're thinking maybe one a month or two a month?

I think two a month would be great. So dates for these sessions.

We said they're going to be two hours.

Yeah. Just so people can feel everybody can be heard.

Yeah.

And if we end up, if we, I'm an advocate of let's have more time than we need. And if we end early, yay for us. So then I budget for three hours.

I think you're going to, I think you're going to take that next time.

Yeah. People, a lot of people, people want to be heard, you know, hopefully we've got good turnout. Right.

Well, and I saw people at that yard sale on Saturday from the Lake Association. Every time I saw Jason, our chief and his wife, I'm like, because they contributed to the early stages of the account plan. I'm like, hey, we're doing great progress. We're going to have these workshops. You guys need to be there. They're like, we're there. Okay, that's great.

That's fabulous. I love it. So what are we looking at? September? I don't want to do Thursdays.

No, no, no, no. Let me pull up, where's their events?

Events. You should do it on the same day each time.

Yes.

That helps people. I think we should.

Yeah, we could. Let them vote. Let them vote. That's where we're going to put two for each session, right? We got to pick two dates for each of the four sessions. So we can put them out there and let people vote which one they would rather go to.

Oh, I see. You're going to ask people and then set the date. And then we'll set the date.

Do we have to check with the Historical Society and make sure those dates are okay?

I know she said about the weekends because they have weddings.

Oh, they have.

And nobody's going to want it. Don't people hunt around here in September and October? I mean, I'm not a hunter.

And then you have birds. Right.

People get into that. Not as many people do that, though. No.

You can't hunt on Sunday anyways. There you go.

So it is September. September. September and August.

And so...

Hold on, Labor Day.

Labor Day is the 7th. The other thing is, if people with kids in school have activities, I'm wondering if a Monday night wouldn't be the best time, only because of different- Freshly night. I see what you're offering.

I see what you're offering. How about Monday and Wednesday?

Oh, I don't do that. No. A little spoiler surprise. Yeah?

Yeah. Monday and Wednesday and let people work. I mean, I can look at any ones. Which one's easier for people to get to?

So we said starting at six. Well, six or nine is too late. I know. And you got people working. I think you're going to have to do a Sunday, like Sunday afternoon. We can have football on the corner if they need it. So you mean don't do any during the week? I think you give them an option.

It's a weekday option or a Sunday option? That's fine. How's that? And let's see how many we can get. You know, maybe people want it the weekday and maybe they'll want it.

So I have one option. Let's do Sunday, September 13th.

Okay. I got to write these down because I need to figure this out on rally. Okay. So this is for our session one, right? Yes.

And the next one will be on Monday or Wednesday. Okay.

And I think the afternoon would be when, that's a Sunday for when?

At what time?

Can we say two to five? Or two to four and it may run over?

When do the Patriots play football?

Late or early? It depends on, it's not the same every time.

I know, but it's generally the same when they're home. So like the Bears always played at noon when they're home. When do they play when they're at home? They're late game usually, right?

Don't ask me.

I'm telling you, it'll affect people if they have to miss a game. It will. How about 11 to 2? Wait, let's see what she said. Start at 1.

Yeah, they usually start right at 1.

Well, then people will be mad about.

Well, they're not going to. If they start at 1, they're not going to count from 2 to 4.

No. Schedule for 2026.

uh september they're not playing the 13th right on time diane she said two to four two to four two to five is that what you said yeah sunday from two to five sunday the 13th and it's kind of like is it a meeting okay do people just come and go or or is this a meeting for the whole time yeah Three hour meeting?

It doesn't matter. I mean, they can. Obviously, if you have something to do, you can leave. Yeah. We encourage your participation for the whole time.

Okay. And then the other option for meeting one was going to be what? Wednesday. Wednesday?

Do you want to do Wednesday that same week?

That'd be the 16th? Yeah. From 5 to 8? Yeah. I object. That's my birthday. Okay. Oh, no, it's my birthday.

I'll have refreshments for you.

Oh, my God, that's funny.

Good job, Lynn.

During his vacation.

I'm serious. So you don't want the 16th? That's fine? Oh, I don't give two.

Okay, we're bringing refreshments. Wednesday the 16th, 5 to 8 is the other choice, right?