Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Can you join the meeting when you are preparing to live stream other? I'm not touching anything here. We've got sound there. Right. Steve Barrett, I can hear you.

Can you still hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me? I think we got it. All right. Not going to touch it.

All right. So, we will call the meeting to order 610. Okay. Got attendance. We're good. Okay. Do you have in front of you the meeting? Only thing Tom is I think you weren't here was We had all those questions on the permit application for the Main Street permit.

Okay. We'd sent that applicant a direct letter. Uh covered everybody in the office so they all knew what was going on. So I asked what's happening and they said, "Oh, he came in, changed his permit, and Aaron gave him a building permit." So I said, "Okay." But I'd like I just sent an email today asking to put a copy of that revised permit in our box so that we could see it. I said, "We want to know what did he change? Did he add the right actual property owner? Did he change his design? like what changed that you now gave him a permit. So we don't know if I saw that. So that's what's happened, right? Um just go back down the old business for two seconds because again you weren't here. Okay.

Um the select board held the cemetery ordinance because Robin had one she had one from another town that she just sent over. um take a look before the end of the year and make sure what's in the one that she sent and see if there are any additional revisions that we need for the cemetery ordinance so that hopefully by the first of the year we can send them a clean version of that. Okay.

Um solar ordinance we saw several notes from the select board chair last week was attached in the previous meeting minutes. Um I'm drafting a response for that. I'll send that response to everybody to see if we're okay with the response and then we'll that after everybody takes a look at it. But I don't have that for tonight. Um, we also did the planning board ordinance a couple weeks ago, a couple meetings ago. Um, I'll just make sure that we have that all drafted to everybody here to take a look at before the end of the year. Um, and then if in the first meeting in January, we could finalize that for select to send to the select board. Okay.

Um, cluster housing, I think I think we've all been through it now. Um, I just need to put that into one clear draft and get that again for everybody to review. So hopefully at our first meeting in January, we can have those ready to go. Um, cluster housing is new, right? No, that's an old ordinance. So you all have markup and Okay. Yeah, we've been through it now as a group several times. I just haven't pulled all those changes into one final document. There's like a lot of end ofear stuff going on my job.

If I didn't drink, I would start drinking. Um, we talked at the last meeting, um, loosely kind of get everybody up to speed on what's happening with the comp plan. We talked about kind of the assessment of work done. We talked about two chapters we reviewed and discussed. Okay. Um, we sent out connections to Erica Buffin from ABC who's going to work on a chapter, the beginning with Habitat and the, um, Mainland Farm Trust, I think, is the group. Um, so you guys are all copying on those correspondents just so you know what's going on. And then we had the work session a few days ago which we can discuss tonight.

Can I move to accept? I second. All those in favor? So Lyn, you're getting it because the meeting if I call you April is the meeting with you. You can call me April. Just don't spell my name with an E. Okay. All right. Okay. So, tonight, um, all that old business can is still old business, right? We'll get that all done before the end of the year. Yep.

Um, I just want to bring up the solar ordinance for one minute before we jump over to Mr. Barrett. Um, which is really under the new business. Um, one of the things that came up in review of the solar application from the select board, it does say in our ordinance that it has to be consistent with our commercial ordinance. And so, I went through that with a fine tooth comb. I'm going to go through it one more time. And I didn't see there was actually anything in the commercial ordinance that wasn't already in the solar ordinance. So, I'm thinking we take out that reference because otherwise people go, "Well, how does this line up with the commercial ordinance?" And I was like, "Okay, let me go look at So I looked at everything. I'm like, it's all here already. Like signage, square footage, setbacks, all that stuff is in the solar version ordinance existing already. There's really no need to cross those.

That makes sense. It just added confusion. Okay. So um at our again I'll I'll make any changes like that to the solar ordinance and have that for the first meeting in January. Just take out that reference to Okay. All right. Was that the only thing that came up though? No, no, no. That's We're going to talk about that about plowing as well. We're gonna talk about that. Oh, yeah. I've got I got an Well, we all got an email from from Christine basically with a bunch of questions. Yeah. So, right, which I sent out the meeting. They asked me in the select meeting to send out the meeting notes. So, I did and then she sent her notes on top of that. Yep.

Let me just get that open. And Mr. Barrett, you can hear us. I can. Can you hear me?

Let's So you're down to the new business and then we'll come back to Duke comp plan after we talk. Y is that okay? All right. I wanted to start with the solar stuff anyway, just because of of the email that we received. Just making sure that we're we're crossing all the te's and dotting the eyes. So,

um, you know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna So, let's this

uh So, let's go through that one at a time. Maybe I'm looking for Let's go as we go through. Let's go through Christine better. Mr. Barrett, we're just printing out a copy of that letter. So, we've got every bullet point in front of us. That'll take one second.

No problem. The first part is an email that Diane sent and then on the next page this was from the select board with these all of these questions. Okay, you can pass that up. I got I got one.

So, Mr. Barretts, so we did start at the top and go through these one at a time. Sure. You have uh the copy of my memo. I don't have his phone.

Sorry, just checking to make sure you can hear me. Yep. Yep. Yeah, we can hear you. Oh, awesome. Thanks. Have a response. Uh I could probably phone and put that up screen if you'd like. Either way, I think you were copied on it. You should have it in the email if you look for Stephen Barrett. See it? No, I don't. I'm not in there.

And then hold on. should be in that same email stream, I believe. Oh, nope. So, my bad. Sorry. Going to take one more second. Uh, Mr. Be, my computer won't talk to the printer that's in this room. If you can see the screen, just for your information, I put up a copy of the memo.

I can't read that. I did. I think if I put my nose on the screen, I could see. Okay, I can make mine bigger on my screen can share. All right, so this was a member to the fringe lord. If I go on the other side, you can do that. You want can you email to me? I did. You did? I'm emailed to everybody. So I can just that's the

So I can start with the the original responses which uh one is the application fee. Has the application fee been received? Um during the select board meeting that question was asked and Kathy confirmed that it had been received in order to positive and I think Christine was connected to that meeting remotely and I don't know that she heard that response so she asked it again in her letter but uh Kathy confirmed that it was in fact received and um we also uh talked about the fire chief and EMA officer who had reviewed the plan agreed to it in like June or July. Um, but they had not signed an actual piece of paper. They uh those signatures. We now have those.

Okay. So, that's done. I'm not going to print that because it's 27 pages. It is. So, you have a copy of it. I do have a copy of it. Sharing.

I will swing over there and share with you. So there is now an attachment be um that gives. So the third question is So the third question was around the um uh the town ask for more information on who's going to be managing this project and um they sent a little bit more information in here about ongoing operator information as attachment B. So that's in the in the new and Stephen is this a complete application or are these just revised attachments?

Uh these are just revised attachments. Uh the the um CVS and the uh professional engineering information I think was specifically requested by Christine. Yeah. Yeah. So, do you have one uh if I scan the signature page and send it to them tonight um for the emergency management and the fire chief? So, if you have all the that document, can you put together one final composite application that has everything in it?

Um you mean to uh submit the original application and then incorporate this information into it? Yep. Yeah, I can do that. I figured uh this memo if we uh had kind of some agreement on it or incorporated all the comments then I wouldn't have to update the application twice. But um this is a good standalone document because it addresses uh the specific questions. But I can definitely um update the the full application with this information.

Okay. Because I think what we once we've been through it if and we've had comments from this group if every once we're copetic all these things I think it's probably good to send them both um here's a completed application with all the stuff incorporated here's just specific things you asked for so that they could look pull those out easier.

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. So, you've got this uh ongoing here's examples of the projects that they've been working on, the companies, the contractors, and the resumes of the attached people, the resumes of the key operators. Okay. So that takes us through section attachment B section three. Hold on.

I got the list of contractors. So we're with with what the select board is asking. Is there are we in there? Well, who wants excuse me? Um, so that is there's the contractors. The contractors. Okay. Uh, that's the details of qualifications. Okay. So, we're now

Yep. We're at number two on the letter. Number two was questioning emergency access when there's snowfall and the driveway sightelines. So, I think Christine's question was um she asked for River Road, even though I think that's called Canton Point Road, not River Road, but um so the response here is that they contacted a trucking company that plows commercial sites. They say that given the maximum gradient of the proposed access road, 8% plowing a minimum snowfall of 3 in would be sufficient for access by emergency vehicles. They would salt the road prior to each forecasted snowfall, which would be sufficient to melt snow for lower snowfall totals. Proposing to augment the snow maintenance program with salting all measurable snowfall. There's also a question about available sight lines distance from the driveway where it meets Canton Point Road. Uh it says contractor will also be sent to the site to remove any large trees or branches that have fallen and obstructed entry into the site. Um so no mention of trees obstructing the sight lines. The shoulders of canpoint road have been cleared so there are no trees obstructing the view of a driver exiting the access road on camp road. The access road intersects with camppoint road perpendicularly. The campoint road is very straight allowing a driver to see a minimum of 500 feet down each side of the road. Those sidelines are not a problem.

All right. So, that sounds like they've met all of item number two from what the select board was looking at. Section three. Did you, you may have already mentioned this, both emergency management plan must be reviewed with local EMA officer and local fire chief and have their sign off. Has that been done yet? Correct. It has been done. Yep. Okay. Okay. What's item four? We're on item four now, which is the decommissioning. Okay. Okay. They had a question about it not being approved by the state. Um

the response here is that are you looking at the response? Yeah. Okay. I don't have to read it out loud necessarily, but for any viewers who want to look at this later, uh developers need to comply with decommissioning requirements of both municipalities and the state. In order to give the municipality more influence over the process, uh the applicant generally seeks the municipalities approval first and then submits the decommissioning plan to main D. So what else in there specifically? Oh, there was a question about the bond. Uh Robin,

yeah, at the celebrity meeting, um one of the members commented the bond is paid in these installments and if decommissioning had to take place before the bond was fully paid for, the town bears the difference in costs. Which didn't sound right, but that was the statement that was made. So he's responding here to that.

So the full amount of the bond gets paid regardless of correct how much they paid into their policy basically. Shouldn't it be 150% to cover costs for expenses that go up? Yeah, that's the next question. Did they Hold on. The estimated

the estimate of for decommissioning does not include disposal of the materials. I want to make sure that's in there. So that's in there under um it's in the list. Removal and disposal costs are described in the decommissioning plan. This line item in the decommissioning estimate as removal and disposal has been updated. Okay.

While the value of resale is not included in the cost, removed materials will be disposed of at resellers. The 150% of the estimated cost is looks like they've updated the that and that. Yep. um a comment about the legal estimates. Yeah,

they're using internal counsel which does lower the costs um but they've also increased that from 2 to 5%.

Okay. and share those changes in the application. It's that part. So the question about uh decommissioning in winter They're saying there's certain elements that can't be done in the winter like underground wiring when the ground's frozen. Um but all other elements, solar modules, routing systems can be done anytime. Certain things cannot be done due to winter ground conditions and you can't recede in the winter.

Okay. This was comments that were made at the select board meeting. The comment was uh because the application says uh we would decommission is is intended to occur outside of the winter season. There was questions like well do we have to wait like nine months for the winter season to go away before we do that? So the response is the plan's been updated. Some decommissioning activities can be accomplished in the winter. Others cannot due to ground condition. So those have been updated in the plan.

Okay. So bond has not been secured to date. Little comment. The bond cannot be secured until the amount of the bond has been agreed to and finalized. At that time the decommissioning plan will also be signed case. Yeah. And then the commercial ordinance compliance.

So I had to go back and look at that. I mean the key measures in the commercial ordinance are lot size, impervious surfaces, frontage setbacks, noise, vehicular access, emergency vehicle access, fit with the landscape and signage which we did. All those are addressed in the application. they just weren't called out as commercial ordinance elements. Okay.

Which is why in the future I think that whole thing could come off because it's already replicated in the ordinance and then comprehensive plan. So, we're working on that at the moment. Um, while the application states it complies with the town's comprehensive plan, it does not indicate the date of the plan, nor does it show how it will comply. So, they're ask the select board are asking us to help get that in there for them. Uh while the application states that the time of comprehensive plan does not indicate the date the plan nor does it show how will comply. Uh date of the comprehensive plan was adopted 313 of04. This is the response. We understand the town's work and updating the plan but has not yet been drafted or provided for public comment as stated in the application. The purpose proposed project supports the goals of the town town's comprehensive plan as established and applicable town ordinances uh and the requirements and standards in the solar ordinance. Comprehensive plan generally seeks to promote economic development, reduce demand for public infrastructure and promote scenic and natural resources. project will provide economic benefit in the form of construction and operation and maintenance activity and reduce electrical costs on local rateayers. Uh project will not strain existing infrastructure uh as there is no demand for public services such as schools. Project will enhance electricity reliability by providing a local source of electricity generation. project also preserves scenic and natural resources due to its location which avoids

wetlands and rare species and associated wildlife habitats. Is also located such that it's in a surrounded by surrounded by forest land and cannot be seen from viewpoints in town. This hasn't been sent to the select board yet. Correct.

The response. No, we want to be that first. I think what maybe I suggest is once the final once an application has all these things updated in it, we send that along with this note specifically because this is like the red line version so you could see the specific answer specific questions. Okay. And then say this.

Yeah, I I I would like them to see this as well as a full final thousand% agreed. Is there a is this

who has to sign the um decommissioning plan approval or is that just part if they if they uh oh I see so if the if the select board signs the overall a letter of approval of the overall thing that's it the select board isn't signing anything in this application correct other than the the signatures from emergency management, the fire chief regarding the emergency plan. So there's no actual select board signatures required in this document. Is that correct?

If you ask me, uh I don't believe there is any. Okay. Okay. So, with this taking longer than we originally thought, is this going to not allow them because it's in the pipeline, but the permit hasn't been issued before the end of the year. Is this going to stop the project? I just want to make sure that I don't believe so. Okay. Stephen, you can answer that question. The project doesn't stop because these signatures don't happen till January. Is that correct?

That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, you're going to send this on to the select board. I would say that we probably need a motion to accept the updates to the applications as submitted by We don't have updates yet though. We just have this response, right? These are the updates. I mean, these are within the application itself. He's saying once we say that we agree with all these things and have any further comments. Yeah. Then he'll just actually incorporate these into the actual finish. Right. Right. But we're going to send this document on ahead of time at that.

No, I think we're waiting and doing both at the same time. Okay. Because they're not going to meet again till January 11th or something. No. Stephen, how long do you think it would take to turn around an updated application? Uh, a couple days. Okay. Yeah. They don't meet until the 8th. Yeah. So, it would still be good to get them something as soon as possible so they have time to potentially review it before the 8th. So, the next meeting is January 8th for the select word. Correct.

Yeah. Okay. If if this isn't going to Well, obviously you you guys can't start doing any type of construction till spring, correct?

Yeah. I mean, we have some um additional pre-esign activities like doing some geotech uh surveys of the land as well as um doing a professional land survey, boundary survey, and things like that. So, we'll start those things once we get the permit. Uh, but actual construction uh won't be happening until uh certainly early summer.

Okay. So, what I am I'm going to throw this out here only because this seems to be a hot point with with everything. I think we need to have the application with all of the changes that need to be addressed within the application before we should vote that it's complete and send it on to the select board. Okay.

Um as long as that isn't basically I don't want to get put this in a situation where because we're right at the deadline that you miss out on the subsidies that you guys want. I don't want to I I basically want to make sure that it doesn't look like we're dragging our feet. So, you miss out on those subsidies, but I also want to make sure that we're following the guidelines the way that we're supposed to so that we're sending once we have an application complete with the changes, then it is deemed complete. Even though we're you're going to add them, it's technically not complete because it's not a complete application at the moment. Will that hinder you guys moving forward if I'm if we have you do do it that way?

Uh when is the next planning board meeting?

Yeah, because we agreed to not meet on the first. Um yeah, I'm not Did we Yeah, we did set a date for the seventh. Okay. Do we not? My only concern is then if we approve it, the select board won't have time to review it. So, do we send them the response first for their preliminary review and just say the we review these changes, they're now going to be incorporated into a final application. I think that's a good I think this document should go ahead and go to the select board because it addresses all of them um and they have time to look at it. Okay. Is they would meet on the eth, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Meeting on the 7th. They would meet on the eth. Okay. Sounds like a plan.

So, I need a motion. I make a motion that we submit the memo from Barrett Energy Resource Group uh answering all the questions that the select board asked. Um and then we wait for a compiled application from Barrett Energy Resources to move forward. Second. All those in favor.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Barrett, for your time. Thank you, everyone. I'll get you to that signature page. Happy holidays. Okay. Happy holidays to you, too. Thank you. Dash got some. So, let's jump over to the comprehensive plan document. Um, you guys should have all gotten an email. Uh, before we do that, y

um, can I have you send them that? Yeah. Is that a note? Yes. I just I wanted to make sure they knew who was doing it so they don't all get it from everybody. So I got it. So um I sent you guys access to a uh Google folder. In that Google folder is it's the same one the town can one that we had before but there is now a folder in there that is just the comprehensive plan.

Okay. It is now a different color so you can find it easily in that list of audiences. Um, let me see if I can put that up here real quickly. I think we'll lose the where

where did you put it? It's in the sound again. The one same folder that we were using before. Okay. It is um to you may not have the compress plan. Oh, comp plan with progress. Yes. Got it. Okay. And which one do we want to go into first? Uh the Excel file that has the work.

Can you share? I am. I'm going to put that on the screen as soon as I figure out it works. You see that? Yeah.

Did it pass? Excuse me. I'm I'm fairly new. This isn't the land that's over there up on J Hill next to where the old uh Where is this located? Um 140 near the farm. Oh, okay.

Yes. Right beside the point trailer park. I I unplugged the HDMI there on my computer so I could share my screen. Not sharing. You guys confused when I saw that river road. It's like we own land. Yeah. Make sure you were confused. That's the point road. Yeah. It's interesting to see how you guys and select meetings here how you guys try to work together. Right. Right.

Oh, are you going to share this up there? Okay. While you do that, I just steal a cookie. Yes, this one's Would you like a cookie? No, I just picked a bunch of brownies though. Okay,

so under our work in progress, but like a hard progress. So, we put together a loose plan that has all of the elements we think we need for the state review. went through the state review requirements that were sent over from FCO. We kind of reproduce those here. That document will I'll pop it here as well because that's but that's like 14 pages or something. It's a lot.

So we have activities we have a vision guiding principle. Um so the notice of which of these things are part of the state or not. Actually these are not. all these things are um strategies, action plans and accountabilities like that's the end document has all those things in it, right? And then they'll talk about the inventory which is all the background stuff process. We have the public input on vision and brainstorming. That's the only thing that's officially legally done. We'll need to have another public input on action brainstorming. So once people understand the background and where we want to go, they then can do some brainstorming on how to get from point A to point B select board input uh we will get state has to review it then we have a public hearing and then we have a town meeting vote. So that's the overall lengthy process.

Okay. Below that are the inventory chapters. Um so we started saying uh what's in progress and who's going to lead the next steps. We're going to go back to the vision mission guiding principles because Robin and I worked on that uh in our work session. So transportation chapter Erica Buffkins from Acog has already said she would review the updated chapter. She'll have it to us in the first quarter like probably sometime in January. So like yay and that was the old one was very nice and very complete but but it was the data is like years old. So she's going to update that at the most recent data.

Okay. the natural resources chapter uh including water resources. So state review had those as two separate things. They have natural resources and then they have water resources. I think there's not a problem incorporating them both into the same one but there's one actual water explicit in our chambers. You know it includes both. So maybe we change our title to say natural resources. Um Greglair from the uh be beginning with habitat. He looked at the original one that we had. I sent that to him. He said this is really excellent. I'll may maybe suggest a couple tweaks and he will give us an original draft of some of the action strategies. So that should be coming shortly as well. Um agriculture and forest resources again the state has those together. Um, I think we had forest resources under natural resources. I think they were thinking forest like the town manages our town forest. Like we have a wood a forest management guy that town place pays to come in and

tell us things like spruce wood borers moving north and you need to harvest all your spruce now or you're not going to get any money out of your town woodlands. So I think if we maybe put agriculture and the forest resources that we manage as almost like agriculture in the same chapter I think um Brad started a chapter on agriculture. He had some data there. Um we did reach out to main farmland trust and I can't remember uh Katie Chappelle I believe. Um, and so they're going to get take a look at what we've got and get back to us with more information on the main the main far do that um housing. Um, we did get a link from Erica to the latest uh state the state planning office has put together a website that's supposed to be helping towns get access to data easier. I've only I opened it up the other day. I have didn't have time to dive into it, but I think we can update what we already have on housing pretty quickly with that. And because I'm familiar with that, I'll take housing population demographics. Um, and I will talk to Rob Marshall from the historical society on the historical and archaeology resources. We did not have that as a chapter. Um, I know that when we had we had some work done when the town was potentially going to build a subdivision where this solar farm is now, we had state archaeologists come in and they looked around and said where there might be possible Native American sites. I mean, they did some digging and checking and did all that kind of stuff. Um I know that I have that report somewhere from years ago. So I will find that and see if there's anything from there we can pull this.

Okay.

We haven't we had a chapter as public facilities. Um I don't think it has the key takeaways data updates. It's in this folder as well but or I can make sure it's in this folder but we somebody else can take a look at that potentially. Don did fiscal capacity. We did not have capital investment plan which is something the state has. Um I don't know the town thinks other than road maintenance and maybe larger scale equipment purchases. We don't necessarily think too far ahead about capital investment. Um you know it's like we're just now thinking about what's going to have to be done to update sewer but that's been 30 years. So, um I feel like I mean we could take what Don's done. Maybe part of the strategies and action is the capital investment plan. I don't know that we have one. So that I don't know that we can really say anything on this particular chapter. Um but I'll post what Don I think Doner did post her latest chapter. We can take a look at that. She had all the data. I don't know if there were the bulleted takeaways at the top of that chat. Um, recreation. We never had recreation as an earlier chapter, but we probably could because of the lakes, the rivers, hiking trails that we have existing in town now.

Softball field. Yep. Somebody could write a chapter on that. I know. Have you seen that uh over in Turner? Somebody taking us not a very big plot of land. They made all the like motorbike. Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, I would like to do that. That would be really cool. Like as the guys cleaning house on my land, I'm like, is there a chunk of that that I could put to the side? And they got like a nice bikey trail in the cast. Well, you know, years ago, skateboarding parks were really big. All that kind of the town is we had a skateboarding ordinance at one point that was disbanded. think about.

Does the town have anything else that's similar to like the Whitney Burke trail system? Well, we we are part of um the state interstate snowmobile system, right? Yeah. I think we're IT 82 or something like that. 89. 89. Yeah. Um that's really it. And we have the old railroad bed uh that extends across the road and goes that over there. I don't I know you can go from there all the way to the Canadian borders if you are anxious. People have use that for ATVs. Yeah. As well. I know a number of trails have been banned now for ATVs because people are just destroying

Oh, you want to take recreation? I could do that. um economy and economic development. We didn't really have those in a chapter per se. I think it might be interesting to have we know what the town spending stuff is, but I don't think anybody really has set a stage for here's a bigger picture of what's going on in the economy. Like the economy is shifting from manufacturing to a data economy or a service economy. Um, you know, as a town, we're a bedroom community for a lot of other things. Other than the nursing home, who is our largest employer, I believe we have very little industry in town.

And then where would you put it if we did get it? And what kind of industry would you want? I mean, that kind of thing could be discussed in that chapter. Um, the state requires some comments on existing land use and then future land use. That could probably all be one chapter. Um, I mean, I think the whole idea of this plan is to do future land use. What are you going to do? Where where do you think you're going to put housing? What if, if you had a business coming, where might you put that? And, you know, that kind of thing. Um, but these were all things that state reviews. So, we have to be explicitly addressing those things.

U, Daniel, do you want to take on public facilities and services? If I get you to the existing chapter that we have now. Yeah,

we can pull that up in a minute. Take a look at it. Put my name on whatever you want.

Um, I'm gonna put John on. She's already done the fiscal capacity. Uh, she could probably work on that. I mean,

so I have a I want to ask kind of a weird question, I think. So, with existing land use and future land use in terms of like, you know, what do you want to put in for housing, economic development, whatnot, the what if the people that own the land don't want to do anything with it currently? So, how can we build a plan stating that, oh, yeah, you know, we're going to put in infrastructure so that we can do um apartment complexes or we can bring in businesses in when those people that own the land don't want to they're not doing that.

I think all you can say is um uh you know, the town is willing to support uh or invest in

affordable housing. And the other thing that I use that word invest a lot and Canton doesn't think about investing in things like affordable housing like because they don't think that's their job, right? So I think there's perhaps the idea that there's a mindset shift that says investment might mean tips or it might mean something else. Um it might mean, you know, partnering on grants, it might mean whatever. Um, I just think this is the place to start seeding those those spots,

right? But but the town can only do that stuff if they can get the people that live in the town to do it into one or the people in town can donate their land after they pass away. Right. Right. you know, like this piece of land that's right here that's been for sale forever, you know, would it make sense to to have like a McDonald's come in or would it make sense to turn it into a recreational park or the guy can just say, I'm just going to pay my taxes and sit on my piece of land for the next 50 years and not do anything with it. Yeah.

So, that's where I think it's it's hard with like future land use and it would I think it has to be town. Yeah. How much? So I think you just have to talk about what are the strategies or what what's the vision, right? is sufficient to have additional recreational and we think that because recreation we buy a kind of land that might be amanable to setting up some type of a recreation facility or do we think that you might want to have a community center somewhere that has I still love the idea of classrooms um a stage you know theater sections you invite anyone

so how How much land does the municipality of the town of Canton actually own? Quite a bit because of the buyout. That land is is restricted for certain uses. You can put a campground in there. You can put trails. You can put all kinds of other stuff in there. Um, you know, some of that land could get you could put in you could utilize in some way. You put a gazebo that has water flow through in the bottom. Yeah. Other towns that have had the same kind of process put in like a camp with underground electricity and all kinds of things. Or a dog park. Yeah, dog park is high on the list. People have been talking about that now for the last couple years. I thought it was neat the little park they put in by the the bridge is discontinued there by the church.

The little park is right there. That's really cute. Yeah. You know, well, all those plants properties. Yeah. That was the other reason they did that because it was like, hey, let's do something kind of commemorate. Yeah. Have Have you gone in the Whitney Brook Trail at all? No. So, that's the beginning of the Whitney Brook Trail. Oh. So, if you follow that, it'll bring you pretty much to the sharp corner on 140 where the dump road would be. It'll bring you pretty much right to there. Dump road. It brings you to the parking lot that's over that way. Yeah. It comes out of the parking lot. That's where I walk my dog. Yeah. That's where I walk mine, too. Yep. Oh, well, we run to the trail. Get my daughter.

Oh, good. We can assign time all the seconds. Yes. What? Don't do that. You have a moment. Can you look at the Ziggian mission guiding principles that are on this website? Okay, I can do that. Which I know.

Thank you everybody. Thank you for the treats. Yep. Careful with that one.

All right. Have a good night, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. So, I sent you guys a link to this. If you're not if you don't use Google Docs or Google Sheets, um what you want to do, if you can see this up here, is when you open it up, you're going to find this little star over here, right here on the right hand side of your browser at the top, you're going to want to click that and bookmark this page and it'll go up here into your um from page to just find it with one click in the future. Just so the vision mission,

what was uh Steve Barrett's company called, but they're out of Massachusetts. He is a company that helps solar companies get their permit. So he does the application, he does all the contact with the town. He's Barrett Energy Resources Group, I think. Um he's representing Synergy C Y N E R G Y Synergy Energy group that that runs about a dozen different solar farms in

this is what we did the other day.

So um this kind of sets the stage of the vision for the town. Um you guys can read it. I don't have to read it out loud, but maybe for the recording that uh so our town embraces its rural character, abundant farmland, lake and rivers, and other rich natural resources as the foundation of a thriving and resilient future. We envision a community where young families, longtime residents, and senior citizens can all find opportunity, belonging, and a high quality of life. We commit to fostering sustainable and carefully managed growth, supporting local agriculture, small business, and innovative enterprises that strengthen our economy without compromising the landscape that defines us. With thoughtful planning and fiscal responsibility, we will invest in infrastructure, town services, affordable housing, and community spaces that meet the evolving needs of our residents. By balancing tradition with forwardinking solutions, we aim to build a vibrant, inclusive, and enduring rural community where people of all ages can live, work, and flourish.

Looks like a little town with a big heart, huh? It does. Does. What What is population like 1,000? We're back up to a little bit over,200, I think. 1,200. Yeah, it might. Yeah, I was asked that question um in a different county. How many people do you have in your town? And I'm like, I think about 5,000 maybe. And they're like looking at I don't think so.

Uh town camp mission statement. Uh our mission is to strengthen our rural community by protecting our lake, rivers, farmland, and natural resources, expanding access to affordable housing, encouraging sustainable development that supports residents of all ages. Works collaboratively collaboratively to attract and grow local businesses and small-cale industry, and invest in essential infrastructure that enhances daily work. Through transparent decision-making and responsible budgeting, we are committed to delivering high quality services while honoring the town's fiscal realities. We strive to create a welcoming, resilient, and forward-looking community where families can put down roots, seniors can age with dignity, and future generations can thrive. And then we have some guiding principles uh that just kind of take those same things and put them into bullets basically, right? We we want to support policies and services that help young families grow roots, enable senior citizens to age comfortably, lively safely within the community. We want to steward the land and resources. We want sustainable growth. We want fiscal responsibility, including transparent financial decisions. And we want local businesses and innovation. And then we have collaboration, civic engagement, which all sounds great. If you can make all that happen, they're going to be wonderful. But see our participation we have one person. So thank you for your

I was thinking if we live next to Loretta and um Ben and Megan are the like the young people that moved in like by the railroad tracks right there and like we're in between them. So it's it's just it's kind of a it's kind of a culture shock for to make a long story short. My wife and I, the last town we lived in was Kerry, North Carolina, which is like a big town. And we bought a house in Mexico, Maine, because we wanted we wanted to live in Mex in in Maine.

And we moved to Mexico, Maine. I got big garage, threecar garage, nice house, mother-in-law apartment. And we bought it in winter. And come spring, we fixed it. We fixed up the we fixed up the house and had it all perfect. and my wife didn't like the logging trucks going by and she had her allergies and so next thing you know we're going and getting a house in Canton and I mean we got a good deal on it you know but still had to stick you know 20 grand and thing but everything replaced roof and half the side was gone and you know just one thing after the other

and a septic system and but now that we finally have it managed manageable to live there. You know, it's and we lived through the flood there, you know, it was we didn't get wet or anything. But, uh, now that this winter, the first winter that I can take a little piece, I got the addition finished where I can have my HO railroad or my whatever I want to make it room. Yeah. Maybe my radio room. And all I have left to do is do you upstairs and make a a couple little bedrooms and an art room for my wife and then I'm set. You know, we're thinking of he's got the illusion he's set. House never ends.

No, but the the the getting back to my point. So when we got to Mexico, Maine and Rford, I'm like, what a dinky little town, you know? And then we were lived there for a while. Then we came to Canton. And I'm like, "Wow, what a really small town." And I was out here for like four or five days on our land, you know, just doing stuff. And then when I went back to Mexico to to my other house, I looked at I'm looking around Mexico. I'm going, "Wow, what a big city." You know, we love it here though. This is our

Did we kind of hit the mark? Yes. Yeah. That was very What do you think went very good? Did a good job. So, Don, let me add your name to a few things here. Right. Yeah, I I was going to try to make it, but I got like 3 hours of sleep the night before and by I don't know 2:00 I was ready for bed.

So, Rob, I might get you on the last three things. Well, let me put Don also on in front of you because that's right at the river capacity. Yep. uh you want to do the land use the two land use and you can we can find a few examples of other I can yeah that's yeah I'll I'll be looking at other towns and how they wrote theirs

well we when we first started this one of the things we saw was several towns call this giant do their land use plan and in their land use plan are all their ordinances. Like it was all under this one giant thing and I'm like all of them. That would be so that means every time you change an ordinance you got to change your entire land use plan. It just felt really cumbersome. But

I was surprised to see how many people were doing that. Cool. All right, Daniel, if you in this document, if you need help getting into it at some point, let me know. Uh but there is a public services chapter in here if you back up like one page and there was actually a document that was started sometime. So um when we say like the bullets are the key takeaways that's that section at the top

that we did not have in previous a previous comprehensive plan. We just had all this inventory like tons and tons of data on the history of the town in the background and how many acres of land and it was just people were like overwhelmed with so much data and I said let's just can we do a couple bullets at the top to say so what what is all this data tell you so that people aren't going to read 82 pages but they might read the bullets at the top right thing I like bullets

too and can it start to direct us toward the action plan by those bullets so I'm making a little bridge So this has got all the backgrounds. Um we can go can probably update this. Um select board, school board, planning board. I mean most of this is data driven community building buildings. I mean we probably need to update this talk public services about what kind of uh equipment we have in the town. I'm pretty sure that's all changed. Yeah, because it seems like we replace one or two pieces every year. I have no idea what we know truck got replaced. That's right. I know trucks almost.

Yeah, those are probably same thing with the equipment that the fire department has. I don't know get updated. You had Didn't the fire department just get a new truck last year or the year before? They did. Um if you look at the uh right on that shelf over there is the most recent um town meeting document that top shelf on the left. You'll see those binders there. Yeah. One of those is the document for the town meeting that was there held last June that has the budget in there. Some of these some of the data for this you'll find that.

Perfect. Uh, I don't know that a lot of this needs to be changed, but you could always catch up with Jason Bond and run it by him and he can tell you if anything's been changed. Just here talk about sewer and I know that the select board has been really doing a lot of discussion because we have a new operator, right, that they're seeking right now. We don't have I mean, they know they're gonna have to replace the operator. They also know that there's a lot of other maintenance on the equipment itself that's going to have to happen. And I don't know how long those pipes have been there. Like they were in before we moved here and it's been 25 years.

30 years by our house. They didn't even know there was over there and it came out and they didn't dig it out and they're like, "Well, that's collapsed. We're going to have to come and dig the road up and put a new one in there." We didn't even know it was there is what what uh Andy said. So are you your house is connected to the town server? No, no, not at all. But it's goes underneath the road for drainage. So, it's a town's it's a town is a sewer that's been there for 30 years that the town didn't know about a septic a septic system. We have a septic system which is separate than this drainage. It's a drainage ditch basically. Has a big steel grade on it. Yeah. Oh, storm drainage. Oh, storm water. Storm. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So, storm water drainage is slightly different than residential switch. Yeah. But anyway, if you want me to, I can email you. Well, you you can download it from this Google sheet. Okay. There. If you need if you need access to it, let me know and I can. Cool. All right. We have a plan. Yeah. So, our next meeting, the next working session for the comp plan is Monday, January seven. Um, and I understand that's a holiday which is irrelevant to me, but I don't know if that affects anybody else.

19. So that's Martin Luther King. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that changes anything. It's at from 4 to 7 on the 19th. Well, if people are available or the 7th anyway. Yeah. 7th and 15th. Yeah. Because you want to meet, right? So, no, we mean we mean the 19th, right? Yeah. 7th and the 15th for a regular playing board meeting and then 19th for the workshop.

Yeah, I get to see you every week for three weeks. How exciting. Thank you all for letting me uh get your meeting and stuff and yeah, thanks for coming. I have a I have main side banders leaving which is a ham radio thing. So, thank you very much for having Very cool. Thank you, Stephen. Y to take some cookies. Motion to turn. Daniel second. Oh, there. Good job. All in favor. Oh, I brought baggies.

Yeah, I did. I brought little Santa baggies. A, that's so cute. They just started getting me at night. He's like, "No, I don't want to come out." Here we go.