City Council - Regular Meeting

council. Of course, we're meeting on a Tuesday because uh the uh second Monday of the month was a holiday. Uh before we get started, I'd just like to remind folks that there are devices available for those who uh need hearing assistance. Uh and those uh use a transmitter and a headphone. They're available at the Computer TV booth in the back of the room where Michael right now is waving. So, if you need that kind of audio assistance, uh please uh talk to Michael. Um Okay. Would you please all stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Madame clerk, would you please call the role? Yes. Councelor Brown, here. Mayor Templan, present. Councelor Fennessy, here in the bathroom. Yes, correct. Councelor Foot present. Councelor Grady Sexton here. Councelor Horn here. Councelor Keech here. Councelor Kovik uh excused. Councelor Curts present. Councelor Mclofflin here. Councelor McNamera here. Councelor Slasher here. Councelor Schultz here. Councelor Seiku and councelor Todd here. Excellent. Um I'll entertain a motion to approve the city council minutes uh of September 8th, 2025. Approval.

Seconded. Right. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed? No. Eyes have it. Uh we have uh four items that were removed from the consent calendar. I believe they're items 9, items 24, 25, and 28. Am I correct, madam clerk? That is correct. All right. Those items will be taken up at the end of our other business. Uh do I have a motion to adopt the consent count? I'm sorry, counselor. Yes. I would like to move to accept the consent calendar and I have a request which is that I was not able to pull item eight and if there's no objection I would simply like to request that it also be referred to uh the EDAC committee economic development advisory committee.

Does anyone have an objection to that? I'll just can we just look item eight. It's the uh report on the CPACER program. that's being referred to fiscal policy, city solicitor, community development, and I would also like it to go to EDOC for their feedback if there's objection. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We have a motion to adopt the consent. So that was a motion. That was a motion. All right. Thank you. Second. Seconded by councelor Seku. Right. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I

opposed. No. Eyes have it. Sent calendar is adopted. Thank you, councelor. That brings us to the public hearing portion of our meeting. Madam City Clerk, item 33A. It's an ordinance amending the code of ordinances. Chapter 18, parking, stopping, standing in parking, parking prohibited at all times in designated places to modify parking requirements on Pleasant Street between Langley Parkway and the intersection with Hopington Road and Dunarton Road.

Thank you, city manager. You know, members of the council, the parking committee discussed this referral and heard testimony from residents uh along Pleasant Street. And following discussion and examining alternatives and have given uh that the grass panel and the sidewalk are not designed for parking, the committee recommends that both sides of Pleasant Street between Langley Parkway in the intersection of Hopington Road and Dumbartan Road be restricted to no parking at all times. Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? Right. Hearing none. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to testify on this item?

Your honor, I would like I would like to say that my um constituents are unable to be here due to a death in the family, but they um are in favor of this. They actually live across the street and they have had numerous issues. So, they just asked that I um speak on their I think I've met with the constituents as well. They live across the street from Beach Hill, right? Birch.

Yes. Burches. Yes. All right. Correct. Thank you. All right. All right. Seeing no no testimony, I'll close this hearing. Uh, Madame Clerk, item 33B. It is an ordinance amending the code of ordinances specific to the zoning court code chapter 28 by amending article 282 zoning districts and allowable uses section 282-4K table of accessory uses number 13 specifically accessory dwelling unit article 28-5 supplemental standards section 285-52 single family detached dwellings with one accessory dwelling Article 28-9 administration enforcement section 28-9-4 decisions by the planning board section 28-9-4F architectural design review and the glossery

congratulations on conducting that steeplechase Mr. city clerk as a city manager. I'm sorry. Close uh the um the uh but you're pay more. Pay a compliment.

The uh with less experience uh the in accordance with the requirements of House Bill 577 as well as input received from the city's economic development advisory committee, the architectural design review committee, and the planning board. You see that ordinance that the city clerk uh just proposed in front of you. Uh the proposed ordinance was reviewed by the planning board on August 20. Uh during its review, the board voted unanimously to modify the original draft ordinance to eliminate provisions that required that either the principal dwelling or the uh accessory dwelling unit be occupied by the owner. The intention of the owner occupancy provision was to discourage investors from acquiring single family detached dwellings to operate as rental properties. And by eliminating this provision, the principal dwelling and the ADU may be used as rental units simultaneously. Glad to answer your question.

Thank you. Any questions for the city manager?

All right. Seeing none, is there anyone in the audience who would like to testify on this? Mr. Schwer, welcome. Good evening, everyone. and I'm Roy Schwiker and I'd like to thank you for batching a great number of things up for me to testify on in one meeting to save me traveling. But anyway, uh as revised by the planning board, this thing is essentially the slum board's delight. I mean, we we already have a problem with the legislature that uh the more liberal members have seem to decide they really want to join the Free State Project and eliminate zoning. So, they're doing all sorts of silly things which unfortunately we have to put up with. But, uh, the planning board has tried to make this worse. And part of the problem we have in the city is that, uh, one way to make housing cheaper is to make it smaller. But the city likes to keep allowing bigger and bigger things. If you would, you know, stick to making things the minimum size, then there might be, you know, things that were cheaper that people could afford to use. So, you know, increasing the allowable size of things is only making housing more expensive. So, that's my first comment. They are banning manufactured housing from accessory dwelling units. To me, that seems like a very, you know, convenient thing to have if you could find something that fits. And I don't know whether tiny houses, for instance, might be considered manufactured housing. I mean, that might be something you might want to put in your backyard, tiny house, but the way this is written, you can't do that. And my chief complaint about what the planning board has done is occupied by owner. In other words, the advantage of

requiring this thing to be occupied by owner is that number one, this is a way to provide housing that people can afford. You know, if they buy a property that uh has, you know, an attached dwelling unit, then they can rent it out or they can do like the people next to me live in the small unit and rent out the big one. But by making this an investor thing, then you're eliminating this, you know, chance for people to get cheaper housing because the investor will pay more for it and rent them both out. And the other part of this is unfortunately that if the owner has to live there, then, you know, they don't want to create something that is not livable. Whereas once you the investors buy it, you know, they can cram anything they want to in that lot because they don't have to put up with it. They could even be out of state. And so we if we want to make our city livable, we need to uh you know quit making things easy for the slum lords and you know make it uh you know a place that people want. Now the thing that the legislature has done is this one parking space per unit and you know that's just something they did. There's no logic to it. I don't know if councelor Schultz has visited my neighborhood but I mean we have a problem right now. There are two properties that there's not enough parking. So, they park on the sidewalk and I can't get the city to go give them tickets or anything. So, how are you going to have a livable walkable neighborhood if people are starting to park on the sidewalk? You just had an example of that in your previous thing where, you know, apparently a business hasn't provided enough parking. So, people are parking on the sidewalk and ruining the sidewalk and so forth. And if you don't want to believe me, you visit Chapel Street when you go home and you can see those two cars parked on the sidewalk or those two vehicles parked on the sidewalk, I will say. And so I think first off, if we're going to allow the uh owner not to reside there, what we need to do is change the zoning so that

essentially you're creating a duplex and not an ADU if the owner doesn't have to live there. So we should change the zoning. So the size requirement for a single family home since it's going to allow an ADU should be what we presently require for a duplex and essentially they're requiring duplexes. And as far as the one parking space per unit, well the legislature ruled on that. So we have to put up with it. But part of the what the city has to do to make up for that is to say, "Okay, we will change the subdivision requirements that all streets and subdivisions if they don't provide two parking spaces per unit have got to be 44 feet of pavement." So you can have parking on the street because that's what people are going to do if there's not enough parking spaces on the lot is they're going to park on the street. So you need to make them build a street that's wide enough so they can do it. Or the other thing is you say okay we are going to have a uh impact fee that if you you don't have to provide two spaces per unit but if you don't you have to pay an impact fee for the spaces you don't provide so the city can afford to provide parking lots or parking garages or whatever it may be. So you need to send this thing back to the planning board and say, "No, look, we don't want the slum lords in conquered. We want a livable city. So we need to scale some of this stuff back so that it will actually work." So, you know, if you want cheaper housing, allow the manufactured housing, require the owner to live on site, and require either a wider street or a impact fee for parking if they don't provide enough. I mean, this idea of one space per unit is ridiculous. I mean, one of these places that's parking on the sidewalk, they've got four cars for their unit. And a lot of the duplexes have got, you know, three cars per side. I don't know where they come up with

one, but it's just outrageous. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Schwer? All right. Thank you, Mr. Schwer. Is there anyone else would like to testify on this item? Right. Seeing none, I'll close the hearing. Madam City Clerk, item 33 C. It's a resolution appropriating the sum of $260,000 for fire department wages and benefits and authorizing an increase to the amount to be raised in taxes in the amount of $260,000 in the general fund for this purpose.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Members of the council, as a result of the negotiations between the city and local 1045, additional funding in the fiscal year uh fiscal year 2026 budget is needed to cover the full cost increases included in that new contract. Uh resultingly, an additional 260,000 is needed to fund this variance is requested to be provided through an increase in the amount raised in taxes. Any questions for city manager? Councelor Brown. Yes. Is there any reason, Mr. city manager why we could not pull these funds from the unassigned fund balance. Yes. The if I could. Yes.

Yes. So if you end up doing that, then you end up creating hole in next year's budget because it's a one-time revenue source. Okay. Right. And so when you actually did the contract negotiations, you understood that you would need this these additional dollars to make the contracts work. That's why you gave the cont the the union the contract that you gave them. follow up. U based on the amount that we currently have in the unassigned fund balance, if we pull this 260,000 from that this one time, are we still meeting our um I think we we changed the percentage that we were we decided we would have

Yes. Are we still within our goal for the unassigned fund balance? Be close. be it'd be it'd be close, but it depends if you do any other changes. Right. Thank you. May I paraphrase for you? And you say it'll create a hole. Okay. Uh do I understand what you're saying is that even though this year we wouldn't have to raise taxes, next year in addition to whatever other pressures we have on our budget, this would have to be paid for by an additional increase. Right. Thank you. All right. Any other questions of the city manager? All right. Uh, would anyone in the public like to testify on this item, Mr. Schwer?

Welcome back. Hello again, everybody. And I agree with Councelor Brown that this is a relatively small amount and instead of messing with taking it out of the increasing the taxes, it can come out of the unassigned fund balance or one of the other funds that every now and every time every other time a city manager wants to take something out of a fund, he says this won't raise taxes. So let's take this 150,000 out of this fund and not raise taxes. And the other place I want to talk about is I hope this contract you signed allows you to recoup funds from firefighters who engage in I don't want to call it unfortunate conduct. We have heard that this the city's insurer had to pay $450,000 due to conduct of some firefighters. And while that allegedly was paid by the insurance company, you can be sure that it's going to come back and haunt the city. We're gonna have to pay that plus probably their extra margin for it. So, it'll cost us 500 grand. So, I would like to suggest that the city go after the individuals who were involved in this and dock their pay by $10,000 each because, you know, that's only going to be like a fifth of what the city is paying. And it's not the taxpayers of the city that engaged this egregious conduct. It was individuals who were employees and they need to be told that you don't do stuff like this and hit them where it hurts. Hit them in the money. We need to, you know, get the people who were doing this and say, "Look, it's going to cost you money because it's cost us money." And that's where you can get some of the money to pay this. And then you say, "Well, what about the supervisors in the fire department? Aren't they the ones that allowed this to go on?" The answer is, "Well, perhaps." And then they're going

to say, "Well, look, we thought we were having fun. Isn't it the city personnel director and the city manager that should have told us to cut this out?" And I can't say I disagree with that logic. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Schwiter? All right. Thank you, Mr. Schwiter. Anyone else like to testify on this item? Seeing none, I'll declare the hearing closed. Madam City Clerk, item 33D.

It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $53,000 to include $50,000 in the golf fund and $3,000 in the arena fund for fiscal year 2025 retroactive to June 30th, 2025 to be funded from excess revenues in the golf fund and fund balance in the arena fund.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. M the council annually at the end of the fiscal year the administration reviews total expenditures in each fund provide supplemental appropriation requests if needed for funds that have exceeded budgeted expenditures fiscal year ending June 30, 2025. Adjustments are requested for the golf and arena funds. Supplemental appropriations are requested for the golf fund and $50,000 and the arena fund in 3,000. So looking at them individually, uh the preliminary results for the golf fund are a gain of 176 177,600 $600 in revenue received more than expenditures. A very positive result uh compared to the budget of 123,700. So as you can see, it did considerably better than budget. Preliminary results for revenues exceeded budget by 98,500. Preliminary results for expenses exceed budget but $44,500. If you look at uh the arena fund, preliminary results for the arena fund are a loss of $135,700. Revenues received less than expenditures as compared to a budgeted loss of $84,600. So this is exact opposite. Preliminary results for the revenues are short of budget by $48,600. Preliminary results for expenses exceeded budget by $2,400. Supplemental request amount is for $3,000 to align actual expenditure of the budget. So we just to cover that $2,400. Glad to answer any question.

Thank any questions for the city manager. Councelor Brown.

Yes. So I see the league and tournament is reflected in both revenues and expenses and it was short of revenues and it was also over expenses and uh in looking at the monthly budget detail that was provided by the deputy city manager of finance um it looks like we are not making any money at all from these uh leagues and tournaments and I'm just wondering um if there is a cap on the number that we have because I know there are dozens that we have and in fact the friends of the bee have had four um there are no donations towards us and I think these leagues and tournaments keep us from having uh additional greens fees so I'm wondering if there is a cap on the number of leagues and tournaments to allow for um additional uh greens fees play time

city manager so as you can see the revenue revenues are over expenditures by $54,000. So that's why we're asking just a round number of $50,000 to cover the the over expenditure. So you could see it actually did that much better than budget. Thank you. Any other questions?

All right. Would anyone in the public like to testify on this? Mr. Schwher. Hello. I was reading the government finance officers association website and under their audit standards and one of the things they said was that not just the overall accounts of the city should uh you know balance out but the individual funds should also balance out. And I think that whereas it may be legitimate for the city to use general funds to pay for golf expenses that it it should be noted that way. In other words, the golf fund should include all golf expenses including bonds for the irrigation, bonds for parking lots, barns for whatever. And then the city wants to, you know, put money into the fund to cover them, that's fine. But essentially what you're doing now is you're trying to hide the fact that some of this stuff is not, you know, going through the gulf accounts. And I don't think that's correct from an audit point of view. And I've asked a CPA if, you know, look at that and maybe contact the city's auditors and look into it. But at anyway, my point is that we don't really have a $50,000 surplus to put in the golf fund. We actually have a loss if you take those bond payments. So, I'd like to say this $50,000 instead of putting it in the golf fund, you should put it, you know, toward that over expense of the uh firefighters contract because, you know, that that's really our money. It's not golf money since they're operating at a loss with all their bond issues and we should use it to pay that expense. And the last thing

is I will say one of your suspense items. This business about changing the age for junior members from 29 to 39. We saw that when it came in and we thought the city manager actually done something appropriate that the correct age for a you know junior member would be 29 and not 39. And so I hope when you vote on that tonight, you'll say, "Okay, the error made by the city manager is in fact appropriate and we will make the junior thing 29." I mean, I'm just terribly shocked that the stuff that you let the golf committee get away with, they actually instead of trying to raise more money to pay for the clubhouse, they actually reduced some of the fees, some simulator fees, some have gone down. The more interesting thing is apparently there you can now have three adults on a family membership and two of the people that voted for that have a third adult in their family and they didn't recuse themselves. So I don't think that's a good thing either. We need to uh you know get this golf stuff under control. So, I hope you stick with keeping the junior membership at 29 and I hope you, you know, take the third person off the junior membership and do a few other things so they can actually start paying their fair share. Because remember that half of the golf fees are paid by people out of town. And if you want to say the rec department should subsidize golf fees for residents, that's one thing. But to say the city should subsidize golf for residents of Bow and Hopington and so forth, that's outrageous. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Schwer. Any questions for Mr. Schwanker? Right. Thank you, sir. Would anyone else like to testify on this side?

Welcome. Hello. I'm Jennifer Chase. I live in Penuk and I just want to say that I absolutely 100% agree with everything that Roy had to say. I don't know how much more money we need to throw at this golf course while I am counting pennies and worrying about being taxed on my home. We're we're debating whether we're going to raise taxes because we can't afford to pay firefighters, but we just throw good money after golf all day long for people who can afford to pay greens fees. How long are we going to do this? How long? That's all. That's all I have. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else like to testify?

Declare the hearing is closed. Madam city clerk, item 33. It's a resolution appropriating the sum of $3, $3,500 from Nuisance Abatement at 30 Penuk Street and Conquered and authorizing the use of $3,500 from the community improvement reserve for this purpose. Thank you, Mr. City Manager.

You know, members of the council, um I think you're all familiar with this property and the city seeks to move forward with the abatement of the conditions of the exterior of the property in compliance with New Hampshire state law RSA 174 colon 4. Specifically, the city seeks to hire a contractor to mow the vegetation as well as remove garbage and refugees that is accumul accumulated on the property. The city will seek to recover those uh these costs through the lean process outlined in RSA 1477-B following completion of the work. Just an update on this. Um since then, last week, the city took the property for back taxes. Uh so we would still want to go forward and clean up the property to help the neighborhood out and then of course uh put that lean on uh on the property uh so that when we then go to do something when you decide to do something with the property you'll have that that lean on there you can decide what to do in the future. But I think it's imperative that that property be cleaned up for the neighborhood.

Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? Council Brown. Yes. Um could you please explain the process for dispersements from the reserve funds? I noticed that this is coming from the community improvement reserve and then the the following one is the economic development reserve. Could you explain the process that we use for withdrawing funds from these capital reserve accounts?

Certainly Brian wants to come up and correct me if I go wrong, but essentially you hold a public hearing and make a determination if you'd like to take money out of the reserve for a certain purpose. The community improvement fund, this is a purpose that uh is allowable under that. And um that's where you you would take the funds from. If you then um receive those funds back, you can always obviously put them right back into the fund because you can use them on other properties if this comes up anywhere else in the community. So it's in and out account.

Yes. So I I understand that capital reserve funds are required to have a very specific purpose. Is there um an area where I can we could see what the parameters are for the community improvement reserve for the economic development reserve so we know what qualifies and what doesn't. Community improvement reserve is just yeah we have the city council approved the community reserve fund or the yeah the community uh improvement fund uh I want to say back in 2021 I don't remember the exact time um but the uh the description of what the uh appropriate uses for the fund would be were in that uh resolution that the council approved at that time. They're all approved by city council. It's all approved by city council. That's exactly right.

Counselor. Yes. Another one. And um do the trustees of the trust funds disperse these accounts from the capital reserve?

No, they the trustees don't vote on these dispersements from the capital reserve. Basically, what happens is the city council is the one who controls the money on these. So, the city council will approve um an expenditure for in the general, let's say the general fund budget is $3,500. Um the the treasurer will see that resolution and then she'll make an entry to uh actually withdraw the money from the reserve and deposit it into the city's um regular checking accounts. Um when you actually look at our financial statements, you'll see a uh revenue coming into that fund or into the general fund for a transfer in from reserve. So, if you look at any of our financial statements in a number of different departments, a lot of it is in the general overhead account, but you'll see transfer in from reserves. You'll also see it in recreation. Uh we might have in um uh general services, I don't recall. Um but you'll see transfer in from reserves and so you'll or trust and you'll see the dollars that are actually going in, but those are based all entirely on what the appropriation or what the authorization from the city council. So, if the city council doesn't authorize it, we don't actually do the transfers.

Oh, I'm sorry. I could go ahead. Yeah, I'm just confused because I see that these these uh funds are listed on the MS9 report and my understanding according to the charitable trust unit that the trustees of the trust funds oversee and disperse uh capital reserve funds and trust funds. So are you saying that's not the case that

the city council is the one that authorized the transfer in and out to to the reserve and trust funds. So when you look at um when you look at the the MS9 reports and the MS10 reports and then the trustees of the trust funds meet typically quarterly. So when they meet they actually look at the investments along with the financial advisors that the city has with right now it's citizens bank wealth and they actually talk about and uh all of the investments the strategies where the dollars are what they you know are being uh uh invested in. So that's really the MS10 report. The MS9 report shows the balances of all those reserve accounts and they look at what those balances are and they just try to understand what's going on in the market to make the best decisions for the investment strategies for all the trust funds and the reserves.

Mr. City just add to the end is and the reason you have the those trustees because there's very uh stringent limitations of what they can actually invest city dollars in. You can't be too risky with with a lot of these things. But the other part of this action is actually not only identifying where the money comes from to to do the work, but actually to do the work. So essentially when you take the vote, you're directing us to go undertake the work. If you don't want to have the work undertaken, then don't approve the resolution.

Yes. I'm just really confused because I I printed off the capital reserves and you know 34 colon 10 it talks about expenditures and it it does put it under the responsibility of trustees that they would be responsible for making sure that the vote happened that the separ this separation of duties are you saying that you know as for cities the chapter 34 applies

I'll take a look at it I believe that we are following the uh RSA is the way that we're supposed to be following. It's the way that we've been doing it for decades. So the and the city council is one that authorizes the transfers in and out. I mean, we don't actually have a trustee that would sit there and go to the bank, do a withdrawal slip, take $3,500 out, go to the other bank that that doesn't happen. That's not practical. The treasurer is the one who actually does those transfers.

I'm sorry, your honor, but I Yes, thank you. I was just in a financial policies class and I actually had um other um town administrators um elected officials telling me that that is exactly what they do that it is a trustee of the trust funds that manages the accountant that there is a book that they that they manage and they oversee. So that's why I am surprised that we're not following that. I'm I I'm not surprised that small towns don't have a checkbook that goes underneath somebody's pillow when they go home at night and they just they take it out and they write a check and they go and do that.

No, that's not that that that is what you So, what we what we do is very professional and and later on we're going to be talking about the uh the national award, the international award the city received for budgeting and handling it dollars. So, I think we can talk. I I'm just I would suggest you vote no on the or and let the neighborhood have to deal with it. I I I'm I'm okay with this. I just want to understand the process because I was reading about capital reserves and I'm looking at what other municipalities like Manchester, Bedford, their trustees of the trust funds also disperse capital reserves and I did not see that on ours. So that is why I asked it because we are talking about it more than once during this council meeting. Thank you counselor. Thank you Mr. Lebron.

You're welcome. Would anyone like to testify on this? I'll close the public hearing. Madam city clerk, item 33F. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $5,000 in the city council general fund budget for the 20150 vision facilitation efforts and authorizing the use of $5,000 from the economic development reserve for this purpose. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Nothing to add, your honor. All right. Any questions to the city manager? Open public. Would anyone like to testify on this item? Very well. I'll close the public hearing.

Uh, Madame City Clerk, item 33G. It is a public hearing on social district ballot questions in accordance with House Bill 467. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Nothing to add, your honor. All right. Is there any public to come and talk?

Yeah. Just by way of explanation, uh, the city council placed on the November ballot a measure asking the public whether they uh are in favor of the city allowing social districts. Uh and by statute we are we have public hearing at that time and by by statute by law we're required to hold a public hearing on this uh ballot measure uh 15 to 30 days I believe before the uh election before the the vote is taken. Uh and this is the opportunity for the public to testify on social districts. So, I'll open the public hearing. Is there anyone who would like to testify on social districts? Mr.

Schweer, show up to this meeting and I was going to say she's sick.

Thank you, your honor. And I guess I can't object to the city council putting this on the ballot because I wish more things were on the ballot like golf clubous and so forth. But, uh, anyway, uh, that's fine to put it on the ballot, but I'm going to use my chance to be on TV and talk to the public hearing to say why the public should vote against it. And the answer is that uh, we don't yet know how this might work or what's going to happen. And what I would like to say is, okay, let's wait until some business in town proposes a social district, explains what regulations they want to abide by the social district, and then vote on it once they've decided what they want to do. let the public vote on it after we have an explicit proposal. Because I just have this, you know, nasty feeling that if the public votes it in, then the city will say, "Okay, the city has always favored businesses over people. We'll let them do it." And there's all sorts of things that might happen. somebody you once they take their cup of beer and they're out of sight of the business that served it to them, then that business really can't be held responsible for anything they do. So if something happens, who's going to get the blame? Maybe the city because after all, the city is the one with money or I don't know how many city councilors know this. I mean, maybe they can afford the bars downtown, but you can get your beer cheaper at market basket. So, somebody might get one of these cups and put it in their pocket when they're done with it and then go buy Burton Market Basket and bring it back to an event at uh Eagle Square, say, so the you've essentially lost control over how much people are getting served at all if they're sneaking in their own stuff in these cups. So, I think it's a very

questionable thing. I think we should wait until we have an explicit proposal and then let the public vote based on that explicit proposal rather than whatever general thing the city might approve that's only going to wind up cost us money. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Schweer? Council Kee. Thank you. So, Mr. Schweer, you mentioned that uh you perceive the city favoring business over citizens and I want a bit of an explanation about that because that's not quite clear to me.

Okay. Well, let me let me give you a very explicit example. The planning board regulations, for instance, they assume that every person in the city is both an architect and an engineer. And when the casino was approved, the applicant showed up with a new report and the planning board voted on it immediately that night. So, no person had a chance to review that report. No person had a chance to say, "I wonder about this. I want to hire my own architecture engineer to look at it. They just rammed it through. I think the planning board should require that all the documents have got be submitted 10 days in advance and if they're not available at the time the agenda is posted, then the hearing is, you know, put off for a month or whenever. So everyone has a chance to review the documents rather than the applicant coming in and showing you know something wave it to the planning board and then they vote on it immediately. Whereas the typical person probably you know needs some advice on whether they should do that or not. The zoning board has a policy that after the applicant testifies the people can testify. There was a hearing where and it's supposed to be 10 minutes for the applicant and five minutes for the public. Well, there was some applicant who showed up and spent over an hour telling about the merits of his project without getting into the, you know, explicit stuff of this. And when I went up to testify, the applicant gets an hour, but the chairman said, you should you only get five minutes to deal with all of his points. And I think that, you know, once again, you need to have a regulation that the public gets 50% of the time. The applicant is and the last thing here is normally in a court case the parties are given equal time for the

zoning board. The person the applicant makes testimony. The public can you know say what they want about it and then the applicant can rebut the public's testimony but the public is not allowed to rebut what the applicant has said to rebut it. And as an example once again from the zoning board, there was a situation re regarding the uh monitor way project where in the rebuttal the applicant got up and said, "Oh, we don't need to reserve this as a industrial site because you want an industrial site some sometime later you can just create one anywhere in the city." And you know the proper rebuttal of that is yes but this particular site should be industrial because it has rail service and it's next to high tens high tension power lines which you cannot just find a place anywhere in the city that has rail service and high tension power lines but the public is not allowed to rebut the rebuttal. So the applicant gets two talks and the public only gets one. So, I there's two explicit examples of how the city's procedures favor the developer over the individual. And I think I've probably talked long enough, but if you want more, I'll take some.

Thank you. You any other questions for Mr. Schwiker. All right. Your honor, I do have a question. Oh, I'm sorry, Council.

Thank you, your honor. You talked about safety concern and people taking their drink outside. Could you please elaborate a little why you are concerned about that? Well, I think the answer is that the reason we have laws regarding liquor at all is that people who drink too much liquor can sometimes behave in, let's say, ways that aren't necessarily desirable to the public. And ordinarily, if you have a statument that serves liquor, they serve it and they can watch the patrons. And if someone, you know, gets too much, they don't give them more. or if somebody you know behaves strangely then they can maybe be held responsible for the conduct of that person if they over served them. Whereas depending on how your social district is defined like let's say you were define Eagle Square as a social district you know someone might buy liquor from one of those establishments take it to another point in Eagle Square where they're out of view of the establishment they might give this drink to someone who's underage. They might give it to someone who's already had too many and couldn't buy their own and the establishment has essentially no control over that. And one finer thing I final thing I will mention is the whole idea of social districts in a way is saying you really can't have a good n a good time unless you're drinking alcohol. And I don't think that's necessarily a message that the city needs to put out there. I think that there are people in the city who are underage and people in the city who are alcoholics that more alcohol is not a good thing. So having the city officially endorsing more alcohol is not a good thing. That answer your question.

Thank you very much. You did. Thank you. Any other questions?

All right. Thank you, Mr. Schwer. Appreciate it. Is there anyone else who would like to testify? Welcome. Hey everybody, thanks for having me. I'm Alex Stoyle of Rebel Stoke Coffee right down the street. Um, also pretty heavily involved in a bunch of events here in conquered. Uh, and one thing that I really wanted to commend you for is getting this on or hopefully getting this on the ballot quickly. To my knowledge, we're the first city in New Hampshire with this actually on the ballot, which means we have the chance of being the first city to actually enact a social district. Um I from my understanding and you guys might comment on this. It's not like when this gets signed any business can just do whatever they want. It's going to be a continued suggestion process from you guys on how to follow the guidelines of these social districts and then businesses have to follow those and apply for them. It's not just going to be like like all you know crazy downtown all of a sudden. So I I really want to commend you for getting this on the ballot. I'm so hopeful that it passes. I think that we conquered are really be becoming well known as like a destination city for events and nightife and a good time. And I think that allowing people the freedom to walk down the street during one of our events, maybe with a beer um would be fun and uh a good thing for our city uh when we have these outdoor stages. Not being limited to this weird little beer garden in the middle of, you know, Main Street and letting people kind of roam. I I'm a big proponent of letting people make their own decisions. Um, and then if there are problems, addressing the problems and not getting caught up in all these problems that could arise before they actually do. So, I would uh I I wanted to give you guys a big pat on the back for getting this on the ballot. Hopefully, I think that would be amazing if we all get the opportunity to vote on

it in November. Um, and also I hope I would urge the public to um to let this get through the first step. vote yes um so that we can try to make these social social districts make sense in our city. Um so thank you all. Any questions for Mr. Stoyle? Uh council foot then councelor.

Thank you Ron. I just want to make a comment relative to coffee and cars. I went a few times this summer and the the September event was just spectacular. the people. I don't know how many thousands of people that attended that, but it was it was remarkable how you could walk down Main Street from Center Street down to the Capitol Center for the Arts, I think it was, and a couple side streets and there just thousands of people just enjoying the day uh in the event. So, really nice work uh relative to that. Thank you. Thank you. And I promise I will not apply for a social district for Cars and Coffee. It's a bad look. You won't get drunk with coffee. It's a bad word. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna keep those things separate for trip.

Is that Kalúa? Never. Never. Never. Never. Just coffee. Councelor K.

Thank you, honor. Uh I just I want to echo what councelor Foot said. Um, you know, there was some resistance uh two years ago, particularly from council Brown that wanted to hold up your project and the the whole idea of uh bringing uh folks out to on a Sunday, a Sunday morning in particular. uh but it's been a huge success and uh I just want to ask you uh not only for your business but can you tell me about the impact that's had with other businesses up and down Main Street?

Yeah. So I I walk before the main event I walk up and down Main Street and I try to tell everyone that it's happening and I try to warn everyone and I I'm always kind of like braced for, you know, people to say, "Oh, this is not there's going to be no parking and my customers won't be able to find it." And this year, not one negative comment. I mean, everyone was at the very least just saying like, "Oh, cool. Like, I'll come check it out." And at most I had a few businesses, I won't name them, but saying that these events were leading to some of their busiest days of the year. Um, a business down on Store Street, in fact, told me that it was their by far their busiest Sunday of the year. Um, and that was not even in the footprint of our event. So, it it is good and it's it is an example of a small event and kind of letting letting us try something and maybe make a mistake or two, but you know, if you if you let us try, I think we can grow these cool things and I I think frankly we've created like a micro economy downtown on these second Sundays.

Well, thank you. Thank you for Thank you for your support. Sorry, city managers. So, I I just want to say I can affirm exactly what you're saying. I've talked to the many of the the property owners downtown. They've had experience. But a lot of it has to do with you and Lindsay working working with them, making sure that you listen to what their needs are and taking care of those. And when you you know, you do what you say you got to do. And we appreciate that. Thank you. I should come here more often. This is great. And anyone else? Unrelated compliments. Welcome. And I'm glad you persevered through the people who fought against you. Thank you. I can I can tell you that it can change in a second. Council Brown here. Oh, I love this theater. I wish I brought popcorn. Um, what does that mean?

Well, counselor order. Out of order, apologize for because you brought up my name and as did you. Uh, your honor, I would just like you to know that I had a wonderful conversation with Mr. Stole after that meeting and he said, "I'm okay with hearing from people and and working through issues." He I I think you remember we talked about it that I had said I I was not opposed to the to the um issue. I wanted to make sure that people had an opportunity to learn about it and speak to it. So just for clarification purposes. Thank you counselor. Any other any other questions? Could you want to speak now or did you want to

whenever you want to recognize me? Is it is it relative to this issue? Not. Yes, it is relative to this issue, but not this particular person testifying. All right. Thank you, Mr. Stone. You all Thank you. Is there anyone else who'd like to testify on this issue?

Hi, my name is Ben Green. I live at uh 20 Walker Street. Um I wasn't originally going to testify on this, but um I just wanted to say um I'm thank you guys for putting this on the ballot. I think this is a really exciting opportunity for the city. Um I to my knowledge I think there's only a couple cities in the country that do something similar to this. I know you know I mean New Orleans of course and Savannah, Georgia. Um, and I understand that there are going to be trade-offs, positives, benefits to this, but um, I think that um, I had a conversation with uh, Sad Hind recently and he was showing a new painting that he made and it was conquered at nighttime and the street was empty and everybody was in bed and he said this was conquered at 7 p.m. So I think that um, you know, this is a really great opportunity. You know, I love Conquered, but you know, when the sun sets the streets empty out. Um, and I think this is a great opportunity to keep people out. Um, and you know, I understand there are concerns about alcohol consumption, but you know, people are going to consume alcohol regardless of whether they're allowed to do that in the street or not. Um, and I just want to say thank you for putting this on the ballot. Um, I think we have a really unique opportunity to kind of be a trends setter here. um and to lean into uh what everybody's been talking about the fact that we are a destination and the fact that um this is we can be the you know the the trends setter on this. So thank you so much.

Any questions counselor Curts? Thank you uh Mr. Mayor. It's more of a comment than a question. Sure.

Thank you for your testimony. As a point of clarification, just because you use New Orleans as a comparison, voting for the folks watching from home and in the audience, voting yes for social districts does not blanket allow that in the city of conquered. There's a very It just allows city council to then create parameters for time, location, date limited opportunities for social districts to occur as oneoffs. Um, I just wanted to clarify New New Orleans paints a very vivid picture, you know, in folks minds and and just being clear, this is this is just opening the conversation. This isn't setting anything, you know, down. Um but um and I think that, you know, there's trade-offs. Obviously, you're have to increase enforcement, but I think that the benefits that will be to local businesses and um keeping people on the streets after sunset, I think, is a is a very worthy worthy cause. So, Mr. Would you would you believe that there's more downtown nighttime activity in conquered now than there was 40 years ago?

Oh, I certainly believe that and I think that's great and I think that if we continue leaning into that, I think this this would help us lean. And would you also believe that many of the downtown evening establishment owners I I talked to tell me their biggest challenge is finding help. And uh you know I was at a local restaurant Saturday and they had empty tables and people waiting because they just didn't have enough people in the kitchen and they didn't have enough people enough weight staff to fill all the tables. So yeah, if we could get more people work that would be great. Yeah. Yeah. So just wanted to say that though. But thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Would anyone else like to testify? Hello, the council and the city mayor. I mean, city manager and the mayor. How you guys doing? Good. Fantastic.

Um, I think this is something I've been thinking of um lady and I think um we have to lay down some some of the barriers. And don't get me wrong, I I do support this. Um, but it comes with uh it comes with other things that we have to talk about and we have to organize. Um, by the way, this is one way of us bringing um economy up. Um, and it's going to strengthen our economy and I'm happy for this. I'm excited that this is uh going to be a part of the conversation. But let's take close look around our community. Um what I've I've experienced over the eight years is conquered community. You know, I've seen a lot of uh people helping others around personally like teachers, students, community members, you know, some of the city councilors. I've seen I've seen how much they the community cares about everybody around us. And and I call that concrete family. And and when you when you take a a closer look what what is the problem when it comes to disconnections, it's not the people, it's the the policies. is that the work we do as as leaders around our community that um we realize that there's division based on the systems we have in place right and this is one of the things we have to talk about

um social district um it does it does bring a lot of solutions to our community to make sure that young people stay in our community. Um, making sure that we have, you know, small businesses are supported, thriving. Um and but we do have other community that most of these um opportunities are not common to them. And I think I think we're a little bit you know blinded on that. We don't really um include some of the community members that are part of our community um that maybe they might benefit from this or they might want to be a part of this or want to enjoy this, right? Um so for instance like economy economic um bringing economic up we talk about small businesses and that's part of this idea. Um how can we bridge the gaps we have through small businesses? You know how can we build a stronger community through these opportunities? How can we create safe and more welcoming neighborhoods through these opportunities? Right? So, I'm I'm specifically I'm talking about these opportunities because social district

brings uh our economy up, right? But again, some some members of our community are left out out of those opportunities. So I don't I don't want to speak a lot more about this. Um again, I'm so happy that you're discussing about this because um now we get to understand the disconnections we have. If if if we give it a time and talk about it and bring the right people on the table and make sure that we're we're we're finding community members, we're going to those community members. We're we're we're going to the community and talk to the people and and and ask them about these opportunities. It's not bad. It's great because I want to see conquered become alive again, right? And I enjoy conquered, don't get me wrong. So, with my um my conclusion, I love this opportunity um because it's going to strengthening local economy. Um it's going to create um welcoming neighborhoods. and and and I'm counting on you because you are leaders. Now you're going to take um a closer look at the rest of the community. How how can it be how can they be part of this opportunity, right? And that's why I I think this is going to create a safer and and welcoming neighborhoods. Um and and uh we have underserved areas in our community. How can we explain that?

Are we only talking about talking about the downtown? We have the heights, right? And and something I've learned about when it comes to economy, um the other side of a community, the heights, uh they they're not there's no opportunity for young people that are growing up in those areas or families that are growing up in those areas to dream. Right? The only way to keep somebody from opportunities is to lock them in area where there's no, you know, there's no place to sit outside to enjoy coffee. Um, a space where people can network, a space where kids can spend their time on on on Main Street without having to worry about traffic, right? So basically if we have young people that are growing up on on that side the heights they don't have that much opportunity to dream as any any other young people that are growing up on this side. So if we're trying to create these opportunities, how can we bridge the gaps? How can we make sure that our streets are more safer and accessible? How can we make sure that the heights and and and the downtown becomes one? Because again, concrete is is is one community. It's one family. I I see everybody in conquered as one family when we're only separated by by policies we have in place. And this is going to be one of the issue. So I want you to judge based on

the community we have not not what you desire. reach out to those community members, go out, find them, talk to them because you have to go where they are and and there's specific way of reaching out to some some people, you know, depends on their background, their understanding, their language. I speak five language. If if you wanted me to communicate with you culturally, you know, if you wanted me to communicate with you as I would communicate with with my young brother, with my with my parents or with my relatives, I would have to speak my language. I would have to access uh the language that that I I understand. Same goes with culture. Culture is different. understanding is different when it comes to systems. We have different uh understanding about all the structures. So I don't want to go far um to this and I don't want to lose my my point but I want you to understand that it's not going to end right here right now here where you're sitting. This this is going is going to end in the homes of the people that elected you. They're the one who's going to make decisions whether we have social district or we don't have social district, not us. I'm saying us because I think I'm a I'm a community leader. I've been I've been present in the community and I want to show up as a leader because I want to speak for the people. I want you to hear me my my ideas not because they are perfect or better

than anybody here but because I'm speaking from experience and I'm speaking from the heart. I'm speaking for the people that that that doesn't have a voice or are not able to show up and speak because this is exactly what they would tell you. So get out and talk to the people and make decisions that people support not what you make you decide um upon. So, thank you for your for your time. That that's of my test. Thank you, Mr. Nation. Thank you. Is there anyone who'd like to ask a question? Thank you very much. You're welcome. Is there anyone else who would like to testify?

All right, Council Kurts, Council Schultz, I'm sorry. Loving upgrade. Um, thank you, your honor. I know you know my It's okay.

I just want to just take a moment to say that State Representative Meil Gibbs of Conquered um had hoped to be here tonight to testify and give uh a snapshot of the many hours of testimony that happened at the state house because she serves on the commerce committee and my conversation with her was enlightening. Um but she's ill and could not make it tonight. So, I just wanted to let folks who are listening or watching know that um state rep. Meil Gibbs, two Rs and Merryill, um please look her up if you would like to reach out to her on her official page was her email and her phone number. She would love to give a very balanced um snapshot of the testimony that they heard which then led to this being allowed. Um, and I will say also thank you to repres uh to councelor Kurtz for her uh clarification on the New Orleans point because I don't think that was anyone's intention ever um for conquered to have or New Hampshire in general. But that is it. So please do reach out to her if you would like to hear a balanced snapshot of the many hours that the state house um had to look at this. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Councelor Schultz. Uh, I will close the public hearing on this item. Madame City Clerk, item 33H. It is a public hearing on Kino ballot question in accordance with House Bill 737. City manager. Anything? No, sir. All right. Is there anyone who would like to? Again, this is a public hearing required by statute. Uh, and uh uh we are not taking any action on it. Is there anyone who would like to testify? Mr. our band, didn't we?

Okay, folks. I promise this is the last one tonight. And uh as far as as Kino itself goes, I mean, it's a way of uh getting money out of the people who can least afford it. So overall, it's not something I generally support. I think, you know, maybe they should be allowed to be foolish if they want to. But my real concern with this is once again here we have the legislature telling us what to do. I mean, we had a vote on Kino. We voted no. We could at any time vote to have another vote on it, but no, the legislature is going to approve it unless we have another no vote. And I think we should pass this on to our representatives that we're tired of having the legislature tell us what to do once we've already, you know, said what to do. So I think that, you know, that's what I would say is I would vote no on this simply because I'm tired of the legislature trying to tell us what to do. And I will add one more irrelevant comment. I hope that if social districts are approved and we have a committee to look into them that the mayor will appoint a committee that are for and against social districts in proportion to the number of people that voted each way on it rather than having a committee that's all in favor of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Schwiker. Any questions for Mr. Schwer? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Schwiker. It's been good to see you tonight. Is anyone else Is there anyone else who'd like to testify on keynote? Very well. Hearing is closed. This moves us to the public hearing action of our meeting. I'll just note that we will not be taking any vote on uh the last two items. The public the uh social district ballot question or the kino ballot question. Uh these those public hearings were held strictly because they were required by statute. Madam city clerk, item 34. I'm sorry, Councelor Kurts.

Thank you. May I make a comment on Kino given that we are not going to have a discussion period? Uh, I will allow you. Yes.

Thank you. I just want to clarify again for folks at home that the way these ballot items are written is that if you want social districts to be considered by Conquered City Council, you would be voting yes. And if you want to prevent Kino from happening in conquered, you would vote. Let me clarify the language because it is unclear. So it's going to say, shall we prohibit the operation of Kino games within the city of conquered? Shall we prohibit? Yes. So yes on social districts allows them. Yes on the Kino item prohibits Kino, which is currently what we have in conquered. I think that's important for folks to be able to watch and rewind and hear again prior to being in the voting. Thank you, Mr. May.

That's a clarification, not necessarily an advocacy. Correct. No, I am not speaking to either issue. They're ballot items for the constituents to vote upon. I just want folks to be educated and understand exactly what it is they are voting for. And these are confusing and they're going to be right next to each other. So, I I just it's just an educational moment. Thank you for allowing it, Mr. Mayor. That's quite all right. All right, madam clerk, item 34. It is an ordinance amending the code of ordinances chapter 18 parking stopping standing in parking parking prohibited at all times in designated places to modify parking requirements on Pleasant Street between Laneley Parkway and the intersection with Hopington and Dunarten Roads. Do I have a motion? Move approval.

Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Councelor Brown. Yes. I'll just say that u the folks who live across the street actually did come late and they had just left. Um I as the report states I did meet with uh the Birches. I did speak with them about uh concerns and um they were amendable to this and I'm going to continue to work with them um going forward. All right. Thank you, counselor. Any other any other discussion? All right. All those in favor of the motion as presented, please signify by saying I. I opposed. No. Eyes have it. I have city clerk. Item 35.

It is an ordinance amending the code of ordinances zoning code chapter 28 by amending article 282 zoning districts and allowable uses section 282-4K table of accessory uses use number 13 accessory dwelling unit. Article 28-5 supplemental standards. Section 28-5-52, single family detached dwellings with one accessory dwelling unit. Article 28-9, administration and enforcement. Section 28-9-4, decisions by the planning board. Section 28-9-4F, architectural design review and the glossery.

Moved and moved and seconded. Any discussion? Councelor Kurts. Yes, thank you. Well, I am very excited that the state RSA changed and that the city of conquered has written an ordinance to bring us in compliance with that and I believe that uh these changes to ADUs um are going to be incredibly beneficial to the city. I'm deeply concerned about the change made by the planning board and I was wondering if be appropriate to ask for more information from our representative who was present at that discussion. Uh would you allow it? Councelor, would you like to

Todd, could you let us know what the planning board was thinking and removing the owner occupancy requirement that neither of the properties needs to be occupied by an owner?

Um, well, I don't I I hesitate to speak on behalf of the whole board. Sure. I I think that uh the uh the the general thinking was uh that since the state has uh for a better word kind of imposed this on municipalities anyway uh that uh the planning board felt that this is probably the best way to move forward with that to allow u to allow the the uh intent and the interest of the of the state's recommendation to move forward in the best possible way. I think I think that was generally what what they were looking at that the intent is to try to loosen up these regulations to allow for the greatest possible flexibility and I think the planning board probably felt that that would

that this would do that. I have a follow-up question but it's not for counselor Todd. Okay. Okay. Well, unless he happens to know it. Do we have any ordinances protecting against um short-term rental use of an accessory dwelling unit or primary property in the city of conquered? do not then I would like to say that I'm deeply concerned about the potential abuse of this ordinance as written. Council Brown. Yes. Do we um have the ability to levy impact fees as Mr. Schwiker suggested or would this need to go back to the planning board for that?

I I'm not sure what the structure would to levy an impact fee. You you have you have already have impact fees or that would apply for this. You have impact fees uh for residential. So, but it would only cover I believe recreation and

just recreation and transportation, but not not you can obviously there's a whole slew of things you could charge impact fee for, but this would be for recreation and transportation. follow if I if we wanted to do as Mr. Schwiker suggests I actually I think that's a great idea um because I do know um the premium of parking um if we wanted to impose impact fees for parking uh purposes to go to the parking fund. What would we need to do

if we were to do that? I would be most comfortable re-referring it back to the planning board so that they can take a close look at it rather than trying to do it in that nature around this table. Councelor Schwaser, I have two comments. One, I thought we had set up some sort of review process of impact fees. Is there a pro a committee or a group looking at impact fees? There is a committee that is chaired by councelor. I would I would defer that issue to the the group that's reviewing impact fees. That's my first comment. May I make a second comment? Yeah.

So, I had a concern that similar to Mr. Schwher about the prohibition of manufactured housing. And I was surprised today that actually there's special definitions in in state law about manufactured housing versus pre-sight housing because I thought that the notion of having sort of offsite manufacturer of certain components of housing can be efficient and that's called pre-sight housing and it's defined specifically in state law. So this ordinance does not prohibit pre-sight housing structures that are manufactured offsite only specifically the kind of long body 40 foot long manufactured housing that we think in terms of uh of mobile home types things. So anyway, I was clarified that today because I think the notion of using certain offsite construction of certain components can actually speed uh construction as we're seeing in the state parking garage across the state. So I just want to clarify

councelor uh fenny.

Thank you. Um, as a person who actually uh made the motion, uh, I think this is a good change. Um, if we want to make housing more available and affordable for residents of the community, we should be taking advantage of all of the opportunities to create accessible dwelling units. You've got many parts of the city where you've got either garages or barns or or other structures that without this would require residents to go through a a very long process, get approval uh to to make those into housing. And if we want to increase housing stock, particularly in parts of the city that are pretty constrained, this is a great opportunity for us to do so. So, I compliment the planning boards for moving so quickly and putting this together. Um, particularly since the law just barely took effect. Um, so I strongly uh support this and think we should move forward with it. Thank you.

Cage, thank you. Just a question for council Kurtz. Was your concern like abn uh abuses in Yes. Airbnb my Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? Councelor Schultz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I just since um well, I want to second everything that um councelor Benny said, uh we have had too many barriers to the sort of things that would more quickly help us have access to housing in conquered uh and in many places in New Hampshire. Uh if you happen to know the people who sponsored the bill that led to this, uh that is not typically a group that agrees with each other. Uh they also had concerns about Airbnb type uses. Um, two, I don't know, I can't speak to that other than from what I understand the assessments that have been made thus far of conquered, correct me if I'm wrong, typically have looked at um out ofstate purchasing of land. And as far as I understand, conquered isn't one of those communities that has had a a buy up of land from people outside of the state that would potentially considered uh the types of organizations that we know have done this in other places. So I realize that's anecdotal. Please take that as anecdotal. Um, but I strongly support this um because I know it is among the things that um and to clarify for my friend um Oh, he's not here. Goodness, I'll have to email him. Mr. uh Schweiker referenced uh it tends to be the business community free stator and the majority of progressive and moderate Democrats who typically don't agree on anything um have formed a coalition to look at zoning, parking, etc. laws as a way to uh give more access to more the most quickest pathway to the quickest

pathway to build more housing. So, I couldn't be a stronger supporter of this and um I'm glad to vote in support of it. Thank you, councelor. Any other council?

Yes. I would like to make a motion that we send this back to the planning board simply to address uh impact fees for parking on the parking committee. This is something that we've dealt with where there are um homes that were older that were converted and were fighting with parking. I don't see it as a barrier, but I see that it could build the coffers up for our parking fund so that we could address it um in the neighborhood in a different way. So, I would just I my motion is to send this back to the planning board to address um or craft um impact fee language for park council. We have a motion on the floor already. This is an amendment.

So, you're voting. You are I'm making an amendment to amend the the current motion. The current motion is to accept this report. Is that correct? Yes. So this is is an amendment to send it to the planning board. All right. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Moved and seconded. Is there discussion on the motion for the amendment? Councelor Curts. Councelor Schultz. Damn it. I'm sorry.

That's okay. Um, I just want to say that is an example of the sort of um barriers to having housing that I would I would think would actually stifle the ability to have ADUs. I think that we should support this uh as it's been presented without amendment. Thank you, counselor. Any other discussion? Um, may I did you say with the amendment? without I oppose it because it's another requirement that would slow down the development of AUS. Professor Vincy, I just want to say I agree with Councelor Schultz on everything she just said. Second,

I I I will say that I agree with Councelor Schultz, too. I mean, I think it's a well-intentioned idea, but uh you know, I I think it's another barrier, and uh again, I talked with a a woman I know today. I'll I'll talk about that later, but uh I'm going to move the question. Uh so all those in favor of this is of the motion to amend to refer to the uh uh planning board, I believe. Right. All right. Uh please signify by saying I I oppose. No. No. No.

All right. The motion fails. Uh we're back to the original motion, which is to approve. Let me comment if I may on councelor Curts's uh concerns. I share your concerns about about temporary use of of structures. To me, this is a broader question. I'm not sure what parameters we have under state statute to make any limitations on uh short-term rentals and things like that. Um if we were to address that, I would prefer to do it comprehensively. Uh because I agree with you, it's it's a it's a challenge. There are there's at least one property in my neighborhood that is, you know, a a a family single family home that is an Airbnb.

And so, it's off the market for families that need a permanent place to live. So, if we were to address that, and again, I do not know what what latitude we have under state statute. I would prefer to do it more comprehensively. I will be voting in favor of the motion. You have a few Councelor Curts and then councelor Fennessy. I just I had a point of clar a question. I don't know if Mr. Walsh is allowed to answer at this point of the evening or if I missed my opportunity to ask it. Staff answer a question. What's the question?

The question is, does this state RSA which has just been passed override anything we would say at the city level at this moment anyway such that if we did not pass this tonight, individuals would be able to build ADUs? I think so. regardless of the language of this ordinance. So, yes. Yes. Yes.

So then I'll just follow up and say that we don't need to rush something if we think it has imperfect language. We're not throwing barriers up to individuals where they're allowed to do what they want. And we can then consider whether or not owner occupation is a necessary safeguard that we believe will benefit the residents of conquered who live in neighborhoods with large houses and garages that should be owned by residents of conquered who care about the city and who want to age in place or house their adolescent you know young adult children who can afford a home without letting those properties be bought up by outofsters who will then flip them both and rent them to folks without any care about what happens in our communities.

Council then council grad. Thank you. Um, so I just pulled up Airbnb uh because I was curious. Um, I see eight places that I can rent for next weekend. At least two or three of them appear to be hotels uh that are putting it up on Airbnb. So, I have been involved with short-term rentals in a lot of different places. Um, I love Conquered very much. We are not really a short-term rental destination. Not yet. Well, unless we're going to get a lake or an ocean, I don't think we're going to be one anytime soon. Um, unless Penook Lake becomes, you know, the next.

So, um, I I have heard this uh concern about everything's going to buy up every um, and I I've not seen it. Um, I think there are places that have traditionally had short-term rentals like Lake Sun,

where it's gone on for 150 years, maybe more. Um, and I I I just don't see it having a significant impact on housing stock here. It has an impact in a place like New York City perhaps where, you know, people are coming in and they want to go around. Most of the people that I see coming into conquered are not staying or staying here maybe for work, but they're passing through going somewhere else. Um, so I don't have that concern at this point. Obviously, if we see it as an issue, then I obviously we can address it down the line, but I would be reluctant to try and impose uh barriers at this point to try and solve a problem that we don't have.

Councelor Grady. Yeah. I would just like to thank your honor. I'd like to offer another perspective about um how the value of short-term rentals. I think that we are constantly faced with shortages for um emergency personnel in communities where we have some sort of emergency situation as well as traveling nurses, doctors who come in on a temporary basis. We also have people who just love the city of conquered and want to come and spend some money downtown as well as out of state grandparents, caregivers. So, I do think that um I am personally comfortable with um this and I don't think that it's gonna um it's going to be a huge attraction for

Council Kurts. I actually agree with everything Council Grady Ston said and I my primary concern is not abuse of short-term rentals when there's an owner living on the property. My concern is a slum lord situation where an out of stater buys up two properties can do whatever they want with them max to maximize their profits with little care. I'm done now because it's clear how this vote is going to go and I hope we don't come back here trying to fix a problem that we allowed to happen. Thank you, Councelor. Council Brown,

I would like to say that there is uh a house a block away from me that is used for Airbnb and I hear from the neighbors regularly that they are that it's awful because the they have people who are renting this house and they're playing loud music. They don't they don't care. they're here for a short period of time where if there is an owner uh in the building they are more concerned with the neighborhood with the neighbors with working with the neighbors. So, I absolutely agree uh with councelor Curts's point and you know in the west side in ward 5 we have a lot of beautiful old homes and I can absolutely see that happening having these old homes be bought up reconfigured so they could be Airbnb and then the people who who live here in maybe smaller homes are suffering by being around a lot of um short- timerrs and we we do have a draw the state house. How many rallies have we had where we have a lot of people and we have coffee and cars. So, you know, we do have a lot of people coming to conquer

thankfully. Councelor Horn, did we have a definition of manufactured housing? You because you came up with a different It's in state, right? Yeah, it's in state s. Oh, the state statute for ADUs includes it and we just have I think it's separately defined. Yeah, manufactured housing is separately, right? So, I'm curious how it got into this into ours manu like how we're prohibiting manufactured housing. I believe the state statute prohibits manufactured housing. Am I correct, Councelor Schultz? I would refer to the folks actually looking at the law than me, but I'm pretty sure that's true.

Are we Are you still looking for something, Council Fenny? Are we ready for the question? I'm ready whenever you are. All right, roll call. All those in favor should probably roll call. All those in I'm sorry. Roll call. Uh, a roll call has been requested. Madame clerk, please uh by councelor Schultz, please call the role. Councelor Schultz. Uh, I'm confused. Yes. The motion. Yeah, the motion is to Yes. Councelor S. Yes. Councelor Todd. Yes. Councelor Brown. No. Mayor Champlain. Yes. Councelor Fennessy. Yes. Councelor Foot, no. Councelor Grady Sexton, Councelor Horn, no. Councelor Ke, yes.

Councelor Curts, no. Councelor Mclofflin, yes. Councelor Mctora, yes. And councelor Sasher, yes. So, if my math is right, it passes 10 to four. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. Item housing is more than 36. It is a resolution appropriating sum of $260,000 for fire department wages and benefits and authorizing an increase the amount to be raised in taxes in the amount of $260,000 in the general fund for this purpose. I have a motion move. Second.

Seconded. Okay. Is there discussion? Councelor Brown.

Yes. Um I uh feel that this is a small sum and it may be a whole but when I look at January when we transferred 3,79,000 unassigned funds into different buckets for the unassigned fund balance typically uh when it goes into an unassigned fund or it goes to an assigned fund it is for a specific purpose and we had yes a million and a half that went to paving 500 00,000 to HR. We had 400,000 go to recreation reserve. 300,000 to economic development. I think 260,000 is well spent coming from the unassigned fund balance without having to increase the tax rate. So I make a motion that we pull the 260,000 from the unassigned fund balance.

Are you making Are you moving an amendment to I'm making a motion. There's a motion on the floor to accept the report. Then it is an amendment to the report. All right. Is there a second? I second. All right. Moved and seconded. Is there discussion? Councilor Horn.

Uh when we were discussing this earlier, it said we would have to raise taxes next year to account for the 260,000 which isn't necessarily true. we would just have to perhaps lower spending in other areas, increase our economic development and increase our fund our increase getting money in other areas. So I think because of that we've already approved a certain tax rate. That's what the community expects from us and I think that $260,000 for our unassigned fund is not a lot. Thank you. for the discussion. All those in favor, please signify by saying Nathan.

Nate, I'm sorry.

Thank you. Um, I will not be supporting this amendment. Uh, I don't think it's a good practice to use your savings account to pay operating expenses. That generally is not a good uh means of doing business or operating even a household. So um this is wages uh that we negotiated. We understood that there would be an additional economic impact as a result of it. Um so I think it should go uh as part of the tax rate and I don't think we should dip into what amounts to our savings account to pay for these operating expenses. Next year obviously you know we can take a look. Hopefully uh it will have less of an impact. Uh but I suspect given what we negotiated uh there's going to be an additional increase uh for all our employees. So um I think if you don't pay for it now, it's actually going to have a uh increased impact next year because not only do you have to pick up the 260 that you didn't do this year, you're going to have to get the raises on top of that. So rather than you know a increase of 260,000, it's going to be whatever that total number is. Just to make it more concise, it's going to be exponential. It's going to compound, right? So, yes, I agreement with councelor Fennessy.

Councelor Kurts. Thank you. I agree with councelor Fennessy and I think that as painful as it is and difficult as it is for this council to sit here and add yet another tax burden, we also voted for this contract. We negotiated it and we have to accept responsibility for the impact of that. Um, and so we did make a decision to increase wages for our firefighters which I stand behind. Um, and we have to pay for that. Any other discussion? Councelor Brown.

Yes. I just, you know, I'm looking at the consent agenda item that I had pulled that talks about using the fund balance. Um, and I'm just surprised that we're talking about using it for an accounting error, but we're not going to use it for we're going to increase taxes instead uh and say it's to cover uh the wages of firefighters. I I feel that the unassigned fund balance is for this purpose. If we we distributed $3 million and we didn't have set funds, we have $299,000 for equipment, 300,000 for economic development. There wasn't a specific reason for those things. This is something specific. I think this is a wise use of our funds and I think our taxpayers would be deeply grateful.

Thank you, councelor Councelor Grady Stton. Thank you, honor. Um, may I just ask a question? Um, do we know how much the tax rate is predicted to go up attached to this? I just city manager about a half a percent. A half a percent. Thank you. Yeah, a little more than half a million dollars is a 1% tax rate increase. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. as a renter whose um rent increases have been massive and that when our tax rate goes back down uh rent never decreases. I will be supporting this amendment. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you honor. I just want because earlier the city manager tried to explain when we take this fund now how much that will be coming next year how much we need to raise. So I would love for you please to take this opportunity to explain to us there is no way to avoid this because even if we take it part of that fund we still have to reimburse that. That's is that correct?

That's correct. You you'd have to take you have to take this same plus a little bit more next year. Essentially this is the question is do you want to do more deficit funding? I mean this deficit budgeting you're going to end up taking dollars out of here for a reoccurring cost. We've always coached against doing that. You can always do it if you like, but you realize you you're gonna you got to pay the piper one way or the other down the line. You can put it off maybe because the time of year it is, but uh this is um this is not something you you you've tried to do in the past. You you've always tried to be uh upfront with the taxpayer and say, "Hey, we our our firefighters deserve these raises. They should be paid this. We want to be competitive. we're going to have to pay those pay those wages and this goes forward. If that's not the case, then that's not the case.

Follow up. Council second. Thank you. Just to follow up uh to build on what councelor um Grady section said about the tax increase if we were to do to take part of that fund, how are you projecting to raise the tax next year? Because now you said it might be 0.5, right? You wouldn't have to raise it next year if we use as a committee. That's right. Thank you, Councelor Schultz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. But isn't the answer actually um to his question we as a council or whoever the next council is actually is the more whoever's in the next council would be making that um decision. It's not automatic. Correct. What's automatic? Um, it would be suggested to us in the answer that was given that it would be something that we automatically would do when in fact that would be an additional decision that we would vote on assuming we are the next council. Whatever the council raises for taxes is always up to the next council what you'd like to do. That's true of every qu of every year that you go through that. So there's nothing and therefore

follow up Mr. Mayor. So then the correct answer to that question would be it depends on what the next council decides. I just want to clarify so that we know that it isn't a done deal. It's something that we would the next council would have to vote on. The next council would say we're going to give everybody a 5% tax reduction. True. Sure they could. Thank you. Any further discussion? Right. I'll I will be voting against the motion. the motion which is to uh cover the uh firefighters uh pay raise differential by by uh uh withdrawing money from the unassigned fund balance. Roll call, your honor. May I finish, councel? Of course, please.

Sure. I guess so. Thank you. That's very kind of you. Uh, and I I am I'm going to vote against against the uh uh amendment because as the city manager has noted, I mean, we certainly could down the road, you know, next year uh you know, we could certainly make significant reductions in city services that would not require us to, you know, raise taxes in order to pay for next year's 4% pay raise increase, which is we're contractually obligated to uh 5% 5% 4% 5% but five

five okay anyway so we we we thank you we we we certainly could make reductions I think we saw during this year's budget process how difficult it is to make reductions without cutting services you know we could certainly maintain next year's uh pay raise uh as well as make up the 260 60,000 for this year's pay raise by eliminating firefighter positions. But what I'm hearing from the firefighters is that they're stressed already because they have five vacancies. And you know, I don't know if that's something that we want to do. And that also would mean pulling equipment out. There are other things that we could, you know, make equally draconian decisions about. And we we will, you know, those of us who are back, you know, next next spring will make those decisions. But to my mind, it's prudent right now to make an incremental increase in the current tax rate in order to cover this uh cover this overage due to the contract negotiation so that next year's city council doesn't have to be burdened with also making decision about how to cover this. So I hear I've had a request for a roll call. Madam City Clerk, please call the Just to clarify, the motion is to amend the motion to approve to pay for the U $260,000 from the UN undesated fund balance.

Councelor Brown, Council, I had a question, but I don't know if it's too late. What's your question? Do we have a general idea of the unassigned fund balance? What the balance is? It's 15 million. Over 15 million, I think. Is it over 15 million, Mr. Libr?

I don't have the exact number in front of me, so I apologize. It's about 15.1 million. Um we'll have a report coming to the uh fiscal policy advisory committee in November along with the ACFR presentation by our city auditors. Um that report will show that the unassigned fund balance is at will be at 20 uh.7% which is just a very slight amount above the uh city's goal of 20.5%. So um you'll have that information will come forward to the city council in the December meeting. Great. Thank you so much. Go ahead. Madison Clark, please call the role. Councelor Brown, yes. Mayor Templan,

no. Councelor Fennessy, no. Councelor Foot, no. Councelor Brady Son, no. Councelor Horn, yes. Councelor Keech, no. And unlike our cousins on the school board, I think having a surplus is a really good idea. Curts, no. Councelor Mclofflin, no. Councelor Mcamera, no. Councelor Squasher, no. Councelor Schultz, yes. Councelor Seiku, no. And councelor Todd, no. Motion fails.

Motion fails. Now on the table is the original motion uh to uh approve uh the recommendation. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. No. passes unanimously uh by the necessary twothirds majority. Madam city clerk, item 37, it is a resolution appropriating the sum of $53,000 to include $50,000 in the golf fund and $3,000 in the arena fund for fiscal year 2025 retroactive to June 30th, 2025 to be funded from excess revenues in the golf fund and fund balance in the arena fund.

Move approval. Second. Second. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor of the motion is presented, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed? No. No. Eyes have it by the motion passes by the necessary two-thirds majority. Madam city clerk, item 38. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $3,500 for nuisance abatement at 30 Pentacook Street in conquered and authorizing the use of $3,500 from the community improvement reserve for this purpose. Move approval. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion.

All right. Uh let me just comment and say that uh I have heard from neighbors of this property who were very concerned about its state of repair and about the state of the property in general. and I think they'll be very happy once this cleanup takes place. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I oppose. No. The motion passes by the necessary twothirds majority. Madam city clerk, item 39. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $5,000 in the city council general fund budget for the 2050 vision facilitation efforts and authorizing the use of $5,000 from the economic development reserve for this purpose. Approve. Second.

Moved and second. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion as presented, please signify by saying I. I. No. The motion passes by the necessary twothirds majority. Uh we now have a report. I believe Mr. city manager. We do. I'd suggest you take a two-minute break because we got this will be another half an hour, 45 minute report. All right. The chair chair orders two minute break.

No, I'll wait a little bit. This is the police station. I'm not going to stay. I'm going to call the meeting back to order. This is city manager.

So, we have a presentation uh by Beth Fence, the marker, who will lead us through this uh for the uh for Bootin Street project. And I have handouts. I'll come around and give you all the handouts. And then everything you see in this handout uh will be on the city's website tomorrow. Great. Um, Tom takes care of that. Thank you all. Um, good evening, mayor and city councilors. Uh, Beth Fenceer, director of special projects with community development. Um, I'm working with Chief Osgood and our, um, deputy chiefs on this new police station project. Also have here tonight Jesus, public properties superintendent and Matt Bolio from Milestone, who is our construction manager for the project. Um, our goal tonight is to talk you through the report that's being handed around right now. um with the hope that a public hearing is set for November 10th's meeting to appropriate construction funds to move forward with the schedule that we've outlined in previous presentations. Um but we wanted to walk you through because it's a lot of information. It's only 20 pages long, so you'll have some good reading. Um, but hopefully you have a chance to read it after tonight and come up with any questions that you have a month to get to us so that when we come forward before you on the public presentation during the public hearing, we have the best answers for you for that night so you can make the best decision. So, um, that's our goal with this presentation tonight is walk you through the report, let you know what information we have, and then you can get back to us what what additional information you would like us to present at the future meeting. Um, that being said, so I'm just going to quickly go through the timeline of how we've gotten to where we are tonight. So it goes way back to the 70s. Um, a 1978 report said in the year 2000, the existing police station would no longer meet the needs of a police department. So studies were conducted in the early 2000s, but were halted due to the recession in 2008. So everything was on hold um for either expanding the

police station or moving to a new location until about 2019. um and facilities needs assessment and space planning study uh determined that the existing location was not sufficient. I'll talk a little bit more about that, but um up to this point, we've talked a lot about the 2021 study, the HL Turner study that led us to the decision that we needed to find a new location in the city for a police station. So, in 2023, council appropriated funds for a site selection study. Um, however, an opportunity to purchase the Fort Booten Street location came about because Conquer Group was relocating outside of Conquered. So, we repurposed that site selection study um for due diligence for the acquisition of that property. In December of 23, city council approved resolution 9604 to enter into a person sales agreement for the Fort Booten um street property for the purpose of a new police station. And then then following the due diligence activities in April of 24, council authorized the city manager to move forward with that property acquisition. And you were presented at that time with two options. Either to demolish the existing building and brand build a brand new facility or to reuse the existing facility, repurpose it, and build an addition to accommodate a new police station. Council at that time opted for option two, which is to save the iconic mid-century modern building and repurpose it for a police station. We acquired the property in May of 24 and then in June as part of the um FY25 funding uh council appropriated funds for the design of the new police station at Fort Booten Street. Um following that we went out to RFP. Um we hired a construction manager, Milestone, our local construction management company that's done a lot of work with the city and the design team um was selected through an RFP process. So that's Haramman Architects out of Portsouth.

In um between January and May, the design team worked to diligently determine what the best programming for the police station would be and to start to come up with schematic designs for the addition and the reuse of the building. We presented to the heritage commission in May. Um the property is located adjacent to the historic district, but also it's a historic building. So we wanted their input on the exterior finishes and also went before architectural review committee in June of 2025. All of those were public meetings. And then in July uh 2025, hopefully you all remember, we were before you with those schematic design plans and a schematic design level cost estimate um that presented to you. So that brings us to today. Um I'm going to review a lot of information. Hopefully um at this point you're pretty well aware of why we've gotten to this point of why we need a new police station, but I'll go through it quickly. Um right now the uh police are located right next to us, Green Street. Um it's about a 20,000 square foot building constructed in 1975. It's four stories including the basement. Um they're servicing about 45,000 residents. Our population doubles during the day. So, not only are they serving our residents, but they're servicing the 90,000 plus people that come and work in the city every day. They have about 50,000 calls per year. Um, right now there's 90 sworn officers and 26 full and part-time civilians. Briefly, the 2021 study or the needs assessment found um that the current design of the facility severely limited renovation options. Um, so it's been brought up that that study said 27,000 square feet would be appropriate for a new police department. That sort of is based on the limitations of the existing site itself. So what could they do for that day? The most they could do was 27,000 square feet. So that's where that number came from in 2021. Um, there's

insufficient real estate around the existing facility to expand to meet the future needs. And that's what we're talking about is the future needs in addition to the current needs. Um, there's a lot of adjacency issues and separation of spaces and I have Chief Chief Osgood here tonight. If he if you have any specific questions about any of these issues, feel free to let us know or you can raise your hand or interrupt. Um, but this hinders some state and national accreditation um, challenges that we have. Um, there's a lack of secure dedicated parking. Most of you probably have walked through their parking area. Um, the public walk through it often. So, it definitely poses a security concern for the police officers. Um, and at the same time, we're throwing out of room at the um at city hall. So, there's space needs within the municipal campus as well that could be addressed by relocating the police department to another facility. Briefly, you've presented been presented with this information in the past, but this just shows you the upward trend of um city's population in service calls. It continues to go up. There has been noticed that there's been a dip in some of the service calls, but the chief can talk about how the service calls have actually started to change where they're a lot more intense. Uh so the numbers going down doesn't necessarily represent the amount of work that the police officers have to um deal with on a daily basis. Um and these are the numbers that we use to start to project how we would grow 20, 25, 50 years into the future. And this just talks about um the number of staff and the projections are based off of the growth that's occurred since 1980 between 1980 and 2023. Uh the orange is the um nonsworn personnel or civilian personnel and blue is the sworn officers. So our projection uh virtually this was done as part of uh the 2024 study to talk about what what do we need? What's

the population projected to grow? The population growth is um based on projections between 1980 and 2023 and this aligns with the city's master plan as well. So these are numbers that other planning in the city is looking at. Um and we're looking at the the calls for services increasing almost doubling into the future and then looking at the number of sworn officers and non-sworn personnel and even since um as the department starts to change the type of officers or personnel that's needed. So the social workers, that's a new department within the city that has grown a lot. Um computer crimes has grown significantly. So as uh modern policing changes, the type and number of personnel will also change. So that's something that's accounted for as we move forward this. So this brings us to for Bootin Street, the site that was selected for the new police station. Um I'm just going to go through just some reminders of what we're dealing with notes. So, it's a 2.16 acre site. It's located at North State Street and Bin Street at It's currently at a a lighted intersection. Um, there's about 700 ft of frontage, currently 113 parking spaces. It's an existing about 38,000 square foot building. Um, it's a quality example of mid-century modern architecture, and that was one of the reasons that uh we felt it was important to save that building. Some of the strengths that were identified during the due diligence process when um council decided to purchase the building for a police station was it's centrally located. It's inside urban growth boundary. It's easily accessible to major transportation routes. It's a mile from the city campus. It's adjacent to fire department headquarters. Um it's a large enough lot for expansion. There's three driveways so there's plenty of access to and from the site itself. it has access

to all the major utilities that already exist on the site. And at that time, we had a willing seller. So, that helped make that decision easier. Some of the considerations that we knew would be challenges as we entered into this project was the triangle-shaped lot. So, it was a little less efficient site layout. So, we've definitely had some challenges with how we were able to lay out parking and the building addition. um knowing it was a historic building, not only did we have to try to match the materials to maintain that same historic building aesthetic, but the structure structural integrity um some of the existing mechanical equipment needed to be replaced. So, a lot of challenges that come along with purchasing and renovating a a 60-year-old building. There's also the challenges similar to what we have here on campus, but long-term future expansion is limited based on the uh development around the site already and we are adjacent to the historic district. So, you're limited of where you can expand within that area. Some of the building assessment findings that we were able to use moving forward with the design and reuse of the building. Um so, the structural components were good and reusable. Um, air conditioning at that time was considered to be reusable, but we are now moving forward with a more energyefficient HVAC program. So, it was um, some of that equipment was actually repurposed and we were able to save money on a chiller for the library by salvaging the existing chiller out of this building and moving it to the library. So, that saved about $120,000 for the city by being able to reuse that. So, those are some of the costsaving things that we're looking at as we go through with this project. Um some of the things that we knew that we would have to replace that would have cost implications were um the electrical system, the water service and plumbing, heating, ventilation, doors and windows. As you can see that image of the windows are starting to um show some wear and tear around them. Um that's existing glass on the facade of the building. Um

those were some challenges that we knew that we had to replace those. Um, the roof had some uh strength issues of what it could withstand as far as any additions on the roof. Um, or adding any solar or green roof to it would pose challenges. Um, we'd have to replace the fire system and upgrade telecommunications. We'd have to install we have to install a sprinkler system. There was no existing sprinkler system. There was ADA compliance issues um, which we have to address as part of the design and a lack of insulation. So these are things that added to the design cost um and challenges of repurposing that building. Um so the fun part uh the design process. So once we had our design team on um board with the Haramman architects and um Milestone, we were able to go through and revisit the space need studies from 2021 and 2024 um that was presented to you a couple years ago. And then looking at beyond the 20-year growth, looking at the 50-year growth. If we're going to invest this much money, this is a multigenerational progress, excuse me, project. So, we want to make sure that we can expand for at least 50 years and make sure this building um serves our city for at least 50 years and hopefully beyond. So, we revisited some of the numbers um looking at some national standards and you'll see that the existing Green Street facility is about 20,000 square feet. In 2024, we were looking at 52,000 square feet and this is gross square footage. So, that includes hallways, um mechanical spaces, um any of the circulation associated with that. Um some of the previous information that's been out there says the number 44,000, that's the usable square foot. So, this kind of gives you that that larger number of what the actual building would have to be besides just the spaces themselves. So, that's what these numbers are showing. And then with the 50-year growth, we were looking

about 59,000 or 60,000 square feet would be needed for um growing into the future for the current trends in policing. Some of the things that have impacted um what the size of the new building is going to be is we have to meet certain um building codes. So the IBC international building code risk category 4 um sets of uh regulations for critical facilities. So it requires more robust structure to withstand extreme um environmental loads. So such as earthquakes and hurricanes and also requires redundant building systems. So we'd have to have two electrical services, two water services, two boiler plants and two separate HVAC systems. So these are things that were not considered in those original studies um moving forward because we have critical facilities within this building itself. Also, reusing the existing facility posed some challenges. Um, trying to fit these spaces within an existing facility may not have been as efficient as it would have been if we had torred it down and were able to start a new. So, we worked with that. So, that sort of built up some of the extra space and how we got to a 70,000 foot building. I'll talk a little bit about more with some specific examples of how we got there. So um going through this process, this is just some diagrams. Um for security purpose, we are not showing what departments are going where within the new building. But if you look sorry on the uh left hand side here, this giant square um rectangle is the new addition and this is the existing building. So um basement, the um second floor or yeah, first floor, second floor, third floor, which is often referred to as the penthouse. um that's existing, that's not being expanded. Um the addition will only be two

stories. Um no basement, it'll be slab on grade. Um so when doing the space programming and starting to fit those pieces into the existing building, we're looking at improved circulation for both people and vehicles. So that's both for staff and public visiting the site. Um improved evidence handling. Um so there's definitely improved efficiencies with that. Private victim and witness support rooms. So trying to separate um and make sure that victim and witnesses are protected and that's part of the security measures that we're looking at in the design um embedded social and child services. So as we expand the social services within the police department um having spaces for them that are separated and have their they have special entrances um that they're protected and um separated from perpetrators or other um people that they we don't want to have them intervene with. um dedicated rest and recovery spaces. So, one of the goals um for the new police station is related to retention um and recruitment and having these spaces for uh police officers and the amount of stress that they deal with on a daily basis um including dispatch as well. We having spaces built in that allows them to rest and recover and have spaces to gather. So, we've in um included a staff hub which has a kitchen, seating area, wellness areas, um internal courtyard that's private for them and it's a secure space. So, that was very important for us. Um the gender inclusive flexibility. So, the this has to do with the number of male versus female officers which has changed over time and that's one of the challenges in the existing PD is uh the women's locker room is insufficient. Hopefully, people have had the opportunity to watch the video that we did with Conquer TV that shows some of the challenges with space. And you'll see the women's locker room, they had to repurpose, they had to put lockers in the shower because they they don't have

room for lockers. Um, so built into this new facility is flexible locker rooms. So, over time, as the genders of different officers flux between men versus women, you can change that and you have room to grow and expand within those spaces. Um and then emergency preparedness. So making sure that adjacencies um and circulation is the most efficient so officers can be on the ready to respond. So just some examples of um some spaces within the facility comparing of what the existing I gave sort of overarching square footage is but this specifically gets into some of the uh detailed departments within the facility itself of what is recommended or needed for currently what they have existing um and what we need and what's actually being provided. So a lobby is a great example. If anybody's been to the police station, the lobby is not the most welcoming environment. Um, it's only 140 square feet right now. Um, currently they're recommending we need about 1500 square feet. So, we're proposing about 1,800 square feet. Um, lockers were about 1,200 square feet. We're we're expanding that to,900 square feet. So, this is detailed in your report. I'm not going to go through everything, but you can see where we've gone from 59 000 square feet of needed to 70,000 square feet proposed. And you'll see with some of the spaces, they're a little bit bigger than needed. So it's like 200 ft extra here, 200 feet extra there. So there's no 10,000 square foot area that's making up that difference. They're pieces here and there. So this is the um last week we had a presentation with the architects. Um it was a community input session. um where they presented the building that's

proposed. Um so some of the goals sorry if you want to be here. Um so some of the goals of the new building we're uh reusing the existing iconic main entry. So there's sort of that wavy thing there. Um this is the these are renderings of the existing building. We'll be replacing um the windows with a more energy efficient um material plus uh ballisticated glass. That's another expense added for that. And then this over here is the addition that will be added there. So trying to blend in the materials together so that it all cohesively comes together. Um the site design will be using um SEPTA head principles. So, crime prevention through environmental design. And that means they've added benches, um granite blocks, other ways of adding um additional security and barriers to the site, but having it blend into the design itself. Um the see a little better here. Um there's a nice added feature, a commemorative plaques for retired officers and civilian staff that have their names added to this. That's a security feature. So, it's a it's achieving two goals of honoring um people that have served the community, but also providing protection for current um members. Um some of the other features that are included in the new facility um are flexible community meeting and training spaces. So, some of the challenges that the um police have right now is there's insufficient training space. So, they have to go to other communities um that incurs additional costs for the city. they have to pay for not only the training but staff time um pdium mileage etc. With the expanded training facility, they'll be able to train on-site and save the money for the city in that way. Um there'll be community space that's the non-secure area so members of the public can or be able to come into that space where they can have

um is that the crime lab? What's the monthly meeting? I can't remember.

Crime crime meetings. Um sorry. uh or a boy scout or some other community um could have meetings within that space itself. Um there's dedicated interview rooms um including soft interview rooms off the lobby. Uh there's multiple salort bays to improve efficiency. Uh specialized evidence storage making it easier to access different types of evidence. um for officer and staff well-being. There's wellness and physical conditioning spaces that help support training requirements, dedicated report writing areas, uh with direct access to booking and patrol vehicles, ergonomic workstations. Uh for logistical support, there's adequate patrol gel and excuse me, patrol gear and vehicle storage, evidence vehicle storage, and energy efficient systems. This is a view of the secure area. Um this is where patrol vehicles and staff vehicles will be within a secure fence area. Um the um the garage spaces. So right now there's limited garage space in the existing facility. So some of the specialized vehicles have to be parked outside which impacts their life cycle uh and potentially increases the um decre increases maintenance costs and reduces their their life cycle. So by giving dedicated garage space reduces maintenance costs but also um limit reduces the uh distracted um vehicles won't have to be replaced as often. That is the goal of having those garage spaces. Um some of the other um selections for the building uh materials for the new addition were se selected for their durability, energy efficiency, cost effectiveness and complimentary aesthetic to the existing building itself. Um, building systems that are

proposed have been selected for longevity and energy efficiency. Um, including LED lights, efficiency and efficiency controls, low temperature condensing boilers, modular chillers, and lowflow plumbing fixtures. This is the proposed site plan. Um, so you can see the addition versus the existing building. The site has been maxed out. Um, we've been able to squeeze about 91 parking spaces on site and that's between the secure parking and public parking. Um, we continue to figure out different ways to add parking on site or get as much as we can on there. Um, secure space. One of the um, your honor, may I ask a question? Yeah,

there just seems to be a lot of distraction going on. You're doing a wonderful job. I was just wondering if we could um, limit the distractions. distractions. There's a lot of people conversations. I can see that you're sure being impacted. Sorry about that. Can we take a three-minute recess? Is that all right? Sure. Can we just suspend a second? Okay. Take a three-minute recess.

All right. Well, we need Dean. Thank you so much for your patience. Sure. Thank you.

Um, okay. Site plan. Um, so again, this is the proposed site plan as it currently leaves today. Um I should I should have mentioned or should mention we're currently 60% design development documents. So we're still working through some of the design. Um so this is where it stands today. Um looking for efficiencies and continued changes um on the site. Some of the feedback we've received. We do have some um screening along the fence line. This is the historic district. Their residential properties uh back here where we had a chain link fence. We had we had a request to do a more historically accurate screening fence. So, we're looking exploring options for that um to address some of the abutters concerns over there. Um and we have uh proposed screening along the northern side of the property. There's an existing residential property property adjacent to there. We do have a meeting in two weeks with the owner of that property to discuss potential easements for um adding additional vegetation so that they have more visual and sound buffer along that side um if this project does move forward. Um one of the things that was a benefit for the site is it is along an existing public transit route. So there is a bus station there that will be retained. Um it will remain um so that and then we will be adding bicycle facilities. So trying to support alternative transportation to the site. It is at an existing lighted intersection that is being studied under another CIP. So we're working closely with the engineering department uh division and VHB the um traffic engineer working on that to make sure that the project fits in with any of the proposed improvements to that intersection. some of the other considerations as we move forward with the design. Having uh green meeting green building standards or sustainable design considerations um not only help with um meeting some of

our renewable energy goals that the city has established but also helps reducing um energy costs as well. So we have high performance building systems to reduce energy use and operating costs and J Burgess could probably answer a lot better any questions you have about that. Um but through those we've been able to project that our energy use will be 23% below the national average for public safety facilities. Um so we put a lot of work into that. Um trying to achieve water efficiency through lowflow plumbing fixtures but also reducing irrigation needs by putting native or drought tolerant plantings in the landscape. Currently, we have proposed a green roof on portions of the existing building and also the um addition and that's to help mitigate heat island effects and also storm water runoff. And then we're currently um exploring rooftop solar um feasibility. There are challenges to that. The existing structure cannot support solar on the roof. Um so for the addition we're looking at that but we're challenged by um the mechanical equipment for the redundant systems taking up space shading from the existing building and shading from adjacent tree cover. Um but we are looking at about 6,000 square feet may be available for that and we could cover 15% of the energy load with solar if that is something that council wants to prioritize it. um the cost. We are starting to lose incentives. People probably paying attention to the news. It's not as cost- effective um to put solar. So, looking at investing in larger solar projects throughout the city to help green the grid as a whole as opposed to investments on the site itself and instead invest in energy efficiency on the site. So, those are things we're exploring currently as part of the 60% design package. Um so, the cost estimate. So, um, here's a brief overview of the cost estimate where we stand right now. It is a, um, 70,275

approximately square foot building that's being proposed. Right now, we're looking at a bottom line construction cost of 45,500 I'm sorry, $45,000. 45,500,000. Yeah. 45,000. Yeah.

The deal. So that's about $647 uh dollars per square foot. We were able to compare this with other new police stations regionally and we're right on par with other facilities. Um Salem, New Hampshire is probably the most recent one that's doing construction. They were running about $775 per square foot feet. However, we just got information yesterday that they've um did some value engineering and they're down to about $670 per square feet. So, we're still below that square footage. Um, the benefit of having Milestone on board from the very beginning is we've been able to look at constructibility and feasibility and materials and do cost cutting as we went along with the design project. So, we've been value engineering throughout the project, but I'll I'll give more information about other options that we have um for the financial protection. So, this is on page 18 of your report. It's a little tough to see, but um hopefully you can see it within the report in front of you. Um we've broken out um the top section is the funds that have already been appropriated um by council. So the property acquisition bond, the due diligence bond, weatherization bond, um the design bond and then um cash the money that has been appropriated for um interior property maintenance, so snow removal, landscaping,

etc. So looking out forecasting um we included fiscal year 25 just so you could see the money that's been expended to date. Um and then the proposed uh bond issuance if appropriated and approved by council. We are suggesting it be broken into two separate construction bonds. The first one being $19 million that covers the initial site work and work over the first year of the project. the second one about 26.5 million and that number could potentially change. So we want that that number will include construction contingencies. So right now we have about $3.3 million in contingencies because we're still at the early stages of design. Um we're not exactly boiled down to the exact number. We'll work with Milestone to get a guaranteed maximum price in January if the schedule moves forward as currently proposed and that number may come down. So, we want to break it into two bonds so that we can reduce that second bond if possible. Also, we're looking into different grant opportunities or donations. Um, until we have a approved project, we can't go after those grant funds. So, hopefully we can get that number down again through grant funding and other donations to move forward. Um, it's a little bit enlarged. So just so you can see the implications for tax rates um fiscal year um 27 you'll start to see the numbers start to go up as the bonds are sold that bonds for the whether excuse me the design has not been sold yet. um were at the previously when it was decided to be appropriated, the decision was made to hold off on selling the design bond to um coordinate with the construction bonds. So that be sold in fiscal year 27. So those numbers jump up there. Um so we usually look at about a $400,000 assessed value a house um the lower number here. So you can see

the um cost impacts over the next five years and we can give you information beyond that if you would like to see that um just briefly we've projected um annual on& and M costs um that the city will incur by taking on a new building. Um the costs themselves are similar to the square footage of the existing or sorry cost per square foot for from the existing facility. It is a larger facility so it will be more money. um the maintenance and custodial needs will be higher. So, it's recommended additional staff be brought on board to cover those additional needs and those are also in the report. So, you can look at that more closely and ask if you have any questions for more clarifications on that. So, currently we're looking at additional value engineering or add alternate options. Um, here's a list of things that we've been able to go through with our construction management team and our design team of ways we can potentially save or things that we can sort of hold in a bucket if we have money at the end of the project to add back in. Um, some of them are like the green roof or rooftop solar things that we're still exploring for uh green energy or uh green building goals. Radiant heat sidewalks is something that we're still looking at that has impacts on the HVAC system. So, um, if that's something that we want to reduce the scope in, we have to do a little bit more homework to figure out what the cost implication of that is. And, um, signage, uh, reducing the grade of furniture, material selection, using lower grade carpeting or wall finishes, removing interior window treatments. So, these are the things that we're starting to look at of ways we can start to potentially save money as we move forward with the project.

So, in summary, um today's request, um is for you to review the report and set a public hearing for November 10th to uh vote on the resolution to appropriate funds for construction. Um I will note that that distraction is that resolution I passed out does have a a typo. Um it is for the $45.5 million. So, we'll get you a revised report and resolution that has those numbers that match. um benefits for the police department. It'll help them achieve a new modern facility that'll meet current needs through oh sorry I should have changed that through at least 2077. Um so we're looking for 50 years into the future. They'll will remove barriers to state and national accreditation. It'll strengthen morale. Um I think you could talk to any police officer and know that the existing building definitely impacts morale. Um and it impacts recruitment and retention efforts. will improve safety and efficiency of operations. In addition, um the prosecutor's office will be relocated in this current proposed plan to be a to be within the building. They'll be on the top floor that allows us to vacate rented space. We're currently paying for them in a lease space on Horseshoe Pond, so commercial street. Um but that'll help improve operational efficiencies and interdep departmental coordination. It'll give the opportunity to renovate the Green Street Police Station for other municipal uses and it'll re exc excuse me relocate the police department closer to the fire department so we can centralize our public services. Just some other thoughts. Um where this current proposal plan meets the goal of preserving and adaptive adaptively reusing the mid-century modern building. Value engineering and cost savings have been considered throughout the design process. Um, and to meet the current schedule of spring of 2026 construction start, that's something that we've had a

goal ever since we've purchased the four Bootin Street property. Funds would need to be appropriated by the end of this year. Um, otherwise we risk pushing start to 2027. Site contractors are already booking into next year. So, the longer we wait, the bigger risk we have of pushing it into the future, which will definitely increase the construction cost. Even in the past year, we've seen numbers go up. Um, so likely could be multiple millions of dollars annually if we push this off into the future. Um, so currently our schedule, we've acquired the property, we've weatherized the property, we're in the design and permitting phase pending council approval. Uh, we'll move forward with final bidding for construction in January. Construction will start as early as April of 26, hopefully move in in October of 27 and start to operate in November of 27. Um, also concurrently, we are doing a space assessment and master plan of the municipal complex to see how that building could be reused if the police department does relocate. So, um, we have a website, the conquerednh.govnew police station where we have information about the project. There's uh videos, the tour that we did with Conquer TV of the existing facility as well as the meeting we had last week and the presentation. We'll have this report up. Um all the previous resolutions of reports are on that page. So it's a area a place where people can go to to get information on this project and we'll continue to update it throughout this project.

Thank you. Great presentation. Sorry about the distraction. That's okay. uh questions. Professor Brady St. Thank your honor and thank you so much for the presentation. Um I know some of us were on the table were at the community um presentation that you had given along with the architect which was also really informative. I think um could you remind me I think that the um number was in terms of delays uh if we don't move forward with this was it something like $40,000 a month um that was projected. That was a number that the consultant had given that he's seen in other parts of the country. Thank you. Thank you. Other comments, questions

the council. Thank you very much for the presentation. Very clear. Is the value engineering already factored into your overall budget yet? 1.4 million not all of it. So this list the It goes back. This list has not been included in I see. Thank you. Um, I have a couple questions. One is about how how do you know how many how many square feet the training space encompasses? We're going to ask that question 4,000.

I can look that up. We do have that information called out. But yeah, I have a second question on that. And how how is the 1,700 square feet of growth space configured? Is that just like empty space that's over in a corner somewhere? It's so there's about 400 square feet in the um computer crime and the investigations unit. So that'll be built out as a shell. So it'll be closed off, but it'll be ready for fit and finish at a later date. Okay. And then another area is within So that's in the new addition. And then the remaining is on the second floor within the existing building. And again, it'll be shelled so they can finish it out, whether it's evidence storage, additional office space. Um,

so it's not configured in a way that would allow us to say, "Okay, we'll leave that expansion space to a future council." Correct. And how much how many square feet for the for the training space? I don't have it. I don't have it. Sorry, we don't have it accommodates our current coming forward. Thank you. Yeah, it's about 1400 square feet.

1400 square feet. Okay. I mean, I I know uh at the presentation that Council Grady Saxon referenced uh there was talk about an electronic uh you know, training uh facility, things like that. And uh while I know that it's more convenient to have everything in the building, I also know that for example, Primex has what I assume is a similar type of of of system which is just down the road. Uh and as we look for economies, you know, how critical is how critical is that facility? Um, so the we already own that machine that so we already have that over there and with the the existing room that we're in, it does have some space limitations. So the extra space um posed here would accommodate that and also accommodate a closet to pack it up and put it away in. Um,

so it's really just someplace to put what we already have. Yes. And use it that makes it easier to use. Okay, council Brady S. I'm sorry. I'm happy to defer if you would like. This is like this is this happens all the time.

Uh so I was also at the the hearing. Sorry, not the hearing, the meeting that took place and I thought you did a great job with the presentation. Um I know one of the questions that got asked was the size of the building. 70,000 square feet seems like a lot and I know part of that is with respect to the addition. Uh so one of the questions I got from someone coming out of the meeting after you know a day later was where would there be any uh cost savings if we simply you know made the addition bigger to get us to whatever the number is we need and just not bother renovating the existing building. Um I don't know if I understand that. So

So my understanding based on the presentation was that um the size of the addition is driven by the need to meet this level four uh code issue. And so the question I was asked was okay the addition is I think it's is it like 40,000 square feet? 38,000 square feet. Okay. So, if we just increased it to 60,000 or 55, whatever the number was, would there be a cost savings of doing that as opposed to renovating the existing building to get to that 70 number?

So, we did a cost analysis of cost per square foot for the addition versus the existing. To renovate the existing, it's about $514 per square foot. To build the new addition, it's around $717 per square foot. So that'll act it's more expensive to do the addition than renovate the existing. So it would actually make the cost go way up. That's a followup. Followup.

Thank you. So um with that understanding, have we looked at ways to reduce the size of the addition so that it's at the minimum level required to comply? So what's driving the size of the addition is the facilities that the police department has depended determined to be critical. So holding cells um patrol the sallyport dispatch and those are all on the first floor for accessibility and plus the garages for storing all the special equipment. The second floor is um where computer crimes are where evidence storage is. So those might be actually a little bit larger than they need to be, but it's really driven by the things that need to be on the first floor. So technically, we could reduce what's on the second floor, but you'd have a sort of a stepped back building, and I don't know that that would actually give enough cost savings. Do you have anything to add to that?

No, I think that um like in the original building next door, um the originally proposed evidence room, the property and evidence room is completely full. It's full of just guns right now. And so we've had to find about 10 different places in the building to to store evidence and expand the mezzanine space and such. And so if we're looking at being in one place for 50 years, we want to have it an extra large evidence room uh to to be able to accommodate our evidence uh over the next 50 years. Some of the evidence that we have is permanent. We cannot get rid of it. And um so I think that the design and the recommendations by the consultants have been spot on

and some of the costs related to um HVAC and electricity are some of the biggest numbers and those won't necessarily change by reducing they may change a little bit but those numbers may not come down as much as we need them to come down just by reducing a couple hundred th or a couple thousand square feet. Uh before we get to council Brady Sexon, I I can hear a constituent just saying to me, why do you have to keep evidence permanently? Usually that's in a homicide case. Okay. Statute of limitations in certain cases.

Um thank you. Have you considered moving any of the other offices to the building that we are currently paying rental space for in order to meet a savings. So, currently we pay for prosecutor's office and human services. So, prosecutor's office will move human services. We're actually looking to move up here. Okay. City. Are there any other departments that we've considered or offices that would u Mr. Manager would there be parking?

Parking. Yeah. So, everything those are the only two offices that we actually lease space outside that we're paying other people for. So those intention all along was to bring them back to the campus. Uh and of course it makes sense to have the prosecutors in the police department, but it but it also makes sense to have um human services back on city campus too because right now they're just by themselves. They're out of the way. They're hard to find.

Cas. Thank you, Honor. Uh I I was curious um as I look at your projections uh about sworn officers and nonsworn uh the nonsworn officers uh positions go up kind of sporadically and I would not have expected that. I mean what is the reason for that? Um I haven't looked at that but um you know it it takes into consideration that um for instance for example our social worker unit has gone from zero to three in what less than two years and um you know the the the community service aid concept that we have um one or those right now is though bringing those on especially if they're 24 28 hours a week part time. Uh those are very valuable to patrol and to the the community. Um we've also would look to in the future at exploring um additional civilians that work in our property room. Um so that's that could be it. Right now the city manager knows that we're wfully uh understaffed in our dispatch. Um and I can see that growing in the next decade. you know, we have seven full-timers. We really should have probably nine or 10 to adequately cover the schedule.

It makes total sense to me because first of all, they're they're not group two employees, so they're they're cheaper. Uh but social workers, evidence people, I mean, even something as simple as uh taking routine, you know, reports for mandalism or or something that doesn't necessarily involve an officer. It makes makes total sense. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Something. Absolutely.

When I when I asked them to to look at time frame of doing this, we've done projects in the past, our our major capital projects, we've looked at 50-year time frames. um when the when the city council for whatever reasons that were in place when they built the previous police station uh built it and um realized as it was done that it was already too small and then as they expanded it they real after it was finished they realized it was too small. And so when we look at this um you know you could and there's there's always ways to economize here but when you look at this do you do you want to put something that you build now knowing that in you know to me if you're coming back here if city council is coming back here in 10 or 20 years a major addition and major improvements to this we haven't done our job we we really haven't you you can see the growth of this community you can see people talk today about it being a destination place you know when um and they think about a lot of these a lot of facilities are built based on populations well when you're a capital city and a major economic driver in in in the state. There's a lot of activity that goes on here. Wait, wait till the next major protest occurs downtown coming up very shortly and you have thousands and thousands of people descending on the city and the support people want to have support systems and services for them. Whether it's that or or anything else goes on, you need to have the facilities in place to do that. And um I don't see the the needs for the social worker positions going down. I mean that was when we introduced when the chief and I introduced that two years ago

it was zero we were at zero and we have been at zero for hundred years and now we're at three and I could see us being at five in no time at all be another person and also adding a um you know support staff to that. Uh so we're you know but how do you do it economically and how you do it in in a smart way and there's always ways to look at this and that's why when when Beth put it together you see all the ideas that at least staff has come up of how to reduce things and the whole idea is now you look at it and you say okay this is something we'd love to have but we can't afford it the taxpayer can't you know can't do it this year and uh we'll meet you there but this is this is no different than when we did Main Street than we did the community center than any other major projects. Um just finding the right solution for the for where we are today and where we need to be 50 years.

Thank you, Councelor Schlawson.

So from 80 to 23, the growth in calls for service was double the population growth. Population growth was about 1.1% a year and calls for service were 2.6% a year. So that rat that double more increase in the calls for services is more than double the rate of increase of the population. Do you see that continuing and if it that because that that sort of like dramatically increases the needed calls for the expected calls for service and what is driving that dramatic increase in calls for service? So, so as I talked about in the most recent uh meeting is is that um calls for service um are sometimes calls from the community um or they're self-generated by a police officer. And when we currently have 10 vacancies and since 2014 to current, our staffing numbers have always fluctuated downwards and they get better and they they stay uh down. So we we can have upwards to 18 19 vacancies. So if you can get up to full staff and if officers typically generate five calls for service a day or for for their shift that are self-generated, you think about if you have 20 vacancies, how many calls for service can they generate in over a calendar year? So you're going to see that swing as we get back

um to to full staff. Um I think the the calls for service that we we currently do today are not all but most of them well many of them are very complex and they they require um tons of hours after the call is closed to further investigate that that incident. So, um, calls for service as just as by looking at it's a good number to look at and and take take the temperature on that, but you really have to peel back what's what's driving it, uh, one way or the other. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Um, I'll entertain a motion to accept this report and set a public hearing for November 10th, 2025. Moved and seconded. Yes. So, um, Beth mentioned there was a typo in there. I have revised information if you want. So, that way you'll have exactly the same thing as that the community will see on the website. So, I'll hand those out to you and we can as you go along. Excuse me. Is it the entire report or I got the whole thing for you. So, that way you don't have to worry about too distracted to vote.

We can take It's even hot. Those are old.

All right, we have a motion that has been moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying I I opposed. No. Eyes have it. Thank you. Thanks very much. Great job. Excellent. Just saying. This brings us to items pulled from the consent calendar. Madame city clerk. Item number nine.

Yes. It um was pulled from consent by council Tennessee. It's listed as a referral to the recreation and parks advisory committee as well as the parks and recreation department. It's a communication from conquered national youth softball and conquered northeast regarding unification into a single recreation softball program and proposed expansion of uh conquered national youth softballs lease to include Dylan and center fields.

Thank you. So, uh, I did pull this, uh, because I wanted to add as part of the recommend as part of the referral that we also have parks and wreck look at the little league fields, uh, because there's been recent consolidation of the little leagues uh, into one conquered little league. Uh, and so with the Memorial Field project looking to potentially eliminate one of the little league fields, I think it probably makes sense to have parks look at sort of both softball and little league at the youth level and make sure that the the fields that are being allocated make sense. So that that's what I wanted to add to the referral. Yes. Is that a motion?

That was my motion. Is your motion moved and seconded? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion as presented, please signify by saying I opposed. No. Eyes have it. Madam City clerk, item number 24. Yes. Oh, I apologize. Sorry. Item number 24. This was pulled from consent by councelor Brown. It's a report from the deputy city manager finance regarding 2026 youth uh excuse me young adult membership age correction for Beaver Meadow Golf Course. Thank you councelor Brad.

Yes. So I pulled this because there are actually a number of typos um changes to this report in addition to this um age change. Uh we did have young adults. they were it was 19 to 29 in 2016 and actually in 2016 the college rate was higher than what it was in 2025. So I I agree with counselor or I'm sorry I agree with u Mr. Schwiker that I think we can keep the young adult rate uh 19 to 29. The other um typos that I um found in the report related to the budget details, Proctor and Tilton had not uh used Beaver Meadow until just recctor has never used Beaver Meadow. If you look at our uh budget detail from 2026, they weren't included. uh Tilton Bo and Bishop Brady were um we expected that they would only pay 2500 which isn't even the rate which hasn't changed since 2011 which is $3,160. So, you know, I um I don't understand why we are bringing in boarding school students when there is nothing still at parks and wreck for conquered kids. And now the rate is listed as um $15 for kids and Tilton they have eight golf courses closer to them. Uh they pay more at their at Lochmir where they go. So I don't understand why we need to include boarding school students. I think that should be um eliminated when we do not have anything at parks and wreck. Um also uh councelor Fennessy

asked me he said where are you getting where are you getting your math? Last month when we were looking at these rates, the report that council got did not have the revenue for 2025 that the golf advisory committee had. So that revenue information was omitted. What I was doing is I had printed off the golf advisory committee report, added that to the recommended increase, and it didn't meet our 2026 budget. That's why I was saying we can't accept this because it's not even going to get us to budget. So, do you have a motion, counselor?

So, I am going to say that um I do not accept this report. Um that I think at the very least it should stay at 19 to 29. In addition to the changes, the recent rate changed the family rate from two people to four. That is four adults for one rate, which is obscene actually. Do I have a motion? Do I have a motion?

Your honor, I'm still speaking to my I'm still still speaking to this. Councelor, I you you're making a great speech and it's very well organized, but the item before us is to correct a typographical. So, I'm saying that we should not accept this, but I'm also showing that the report that we received had other changes which drastically reduced rates. So, we are not increasing revenue. We are councelor, what is your motion? Does your motion My motion is that we do not accept this report? And actually, your motion is to not accept the

not accept this report. But I also think that we need to send it back to the golf advisory committee so that the rate changes actually meet our budget expectations and the family rate should go back to two people. May I help you? I'm sorry to interrupt you. May I help you? I'm trying to discern what the motion is. So the motion is to uh is uh to uh refer this back to the golf course advisory committee. Is that your motion? That is correct. so that the rates reflect will get us to the budget expectations of 2026. Thank you. Do we have a second? All right. The motion fails for lack of a second. Do we have another motion? I'd like to make a motion to accept the report.

Second. Moved and seconded. All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying I post. No. Have it. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. Item 25. This item was pulled from consent by councelor Fennessy. It's a report from the director of office of management and budget regarding the distinguished budget presentation award for the city of conquered for fiscal year 2026. Council fantasy.

Thank you. Um I'd like to invite up Rebecca Doerty and Olivia Harvey to speak to us a little bit about this. Uh for those of you who don't know, this is the 11th consecutive year uh that we have received this award and Rebecca and Olivia were the ones responsible for putting together that budget. So if you can just give it introduce yourself and give us a little bit about I am Rebecca Doerty. I'm the director of the office of management and budget. I've been with the city for about almost 12 years now and I love Olivia Harvey. I'm the management and budget analyst and I've been with the city since April.

So, uh this is a national recognition from the government finance officers association for best practices in budgeting. Uh we were the city of con was among 190 communities to be recognized for clear, concise and comprehensible budget document. Uh this is a very high honor and like to thank you once again uh for all of your hard work in putting it together. We spent many long nights uh reviewing all the documentation and uh I just want to give the opportunity to recognize you both and I'd like to make a motion to uh accept the report. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion?

Yes.

I think I think it's you know the work that's been done has been has been spectacular and and I think one of the things you'll notice here is that really calls out the transparency and budgeting work that's done for the entire community. So, it's not just for the council, it's for the entire community to be able to see the information that's out there and look at it and understand. Now, whether or not people understand the intricacies of all the different budgeting pieces, that's one thing, but the information is there for people if they want to go look for it. And that's not true of a lot of places. And I think that's I think that's really the accolades go to you too for the good work. Again, this is year after year after year. Uh everybody who's been on the council gets to see the quality of this information. I have to tell you this is not the quality of the information you get in most places. This is spectacular. Um and uh congratulations.

Thank you. [Applause] would not be able to produce such a spectacular document without the council, without city staff, and without administration. Our focus is always on concision, clarity, and transparency. And this award recognizes the city for that. Thank you. Thank you for all that great work. Wow. Yeah, great. Thank you for passing. Uh, we have a motion. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

Oppos? No. Eyes have it. Thank you so much. Wow. And you didn't even have to worry about the music playing you off. Uh, Madam City Clerk, item 28. This item was pulled from the consent agenda by councelor Brown. It's a resolution to revise the fiscal year 2026 general fund budget due to the final MS1 real growth estimate reduction. Thank you. The chair recognizes Constant Brown.

Yes. I am just um first wondering how we didn't see this coming. And secondly, uh this seems like it's an appropriation and if it is an appropriation after budget, then it needs to have a public hearing per our charter number 37. I don't agree. Is this not an appropriation? The use of the the funds.

This is the appropriate way to address this issue and to see it coming. This is again if the city's going to try to support affordable housing. This is what's this is what happens when people file for these for these uh agreements and if the city is going to um I mean you you can't stop people from selling property to the state of New Hampshire.

I I'm just surprised that we didn't factor in you know the the police station that we knew Mr. Dupri was going to be selling. We didn't recognize that. My second point that we are appropriating this report seeks to appropriate funds. Um and per our charter number 37, we have to have a public hearing before we appropriate funds after budget.

Mr. M. Lebron Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. Um, actually, we're not appropriating funds. We're actually deauthorizing some funds. So, we've got $176,000 that we're deauthorizing from expenditures. Um, when you look at the charter and the appropriation of funds, it's for expenditures. And so the city uh administration is not allowed to spend money unless the city council has authorized those funds through an appropriation process after the charter needs to be or after the regular budget adoption process needs to be by twothirds vote of the city council to do that. Um what we're doing here is we're actually uh if you look at the um uh go to just that tax rate calculation sheet. So, we're showing a deauthorization or a reduction of the actual appropriations and then we're looking of $176,500. And then we're also uh looking at using u $105,000 from uh fund balance in order to um help support this uh effort. Uh as well as um where you we're reducing the uh overlay calculation uh which is not uh an expenditure line in the budget. It's just something that is part of the overall tax rate setting item by $125,000 reducing that from 200,000 to uh $75,000. So all of this was done in an effort to try to keep the tax rate uh at the same level that was uh uh uh recommended at the budget adoption process, understanding that you also had a vote tonight that you increase the tax amount to raise in taxes by $260,000 uh for the firefighter contract. So this is really a reduction of expenditures which is a deauthorization. So a public

hearing is not required for a deauthorization of expenditures. Um I've consulted with our city uh city solicitor on this issue and he agrees wholeheartedly that we've done this in the correct way. Super. Thank you Mr. Uh however the I'm sorry the increase question.

Yes. The increase the use of fund balance isn't that an appropriation? Isn't that that's an increase? It's an it's an estimate of a of a revenue as opposed to an appropriation. So when you think of appropriations, it's actually the the allowance of spending money. That's the appropriation. So when we look at the overall budget for the city, whatever that dollar amount is, we need to have the authority by the city council for us to spend that money. All the rest of the revenues are revenue uh recommendations or revenue estimates um for everything that we have from motor vehicle registrations to um you know it's taxes you know we make an estimate of what the taxes are going to be uh interest income all those things are all estimates those that's not an appropriation of funds to spend those are all revenue estimates

I just want to clarify yes so it doesn't matter what the line is we can increase it decrease it without having to have a public hearing. Is that what you're saying in in the revenues? I'm saying for like a fund B for this instance. Y so anytime we want to increase a fund balance, we would not need a public hearing to do that. If you're if it exists already is what you're saying.

If you want to increase the use of fund bounds. So what what could you give me an example of how you would increase? Like I'm just saying like you just this is this exists and you're saying we're just increasing it. It's not an appropriation, but we're increasing that. So if we have a line somewhere that says we're using this fund balance, we can just say we want to increase this by 200,000 and that would not require a public hearing. Public hearing would be for whatever you're going to expend the money on. So, if we're going to increase the use of fund balance by $200,000 to buy, you know, four new police cruisers, you know, that would require a public hearing by the city council and a two-thirds vote of the city council.

Council fantasy. Thank you. So, I just want to make sure I understand. So, let's say, for example, rather than use of fund balance, we decided to estimate that our revenues from taxes, property taxes would increase by 5,000. We could do that. You could. That would probably not work out real well in this scenario. But I mean, I'm just trying to understand when we talk about revenue lines like we could we could theoretically uh estimate that the revenues for car registrations were going to increase by 105,000 if we wanted to.

You could. And what the net effect of that would be is that the you know amount to raise in taxes would go down by $105,000. I mean, it's it's a you know, it's an offset in in those pieces, you know, and you're I mean, I'd love to be exact on the revenues that we receive, you know, but it's kind of hard to be exact on interest income or motor vehicle registrations or any of those kind of things. It's just, you know, I have a crystal ball. It's not working very well most of the time. Mr. City Manager, simply put, we're asking you, we would like to spend less money so that you can keep the tax rate down. That's the That's the Okay. Do I have a motion? So move it to accept. Move to accept. Second.

All right. All in favor, please signify by saying I. No. Eyes have it. Motion is adopted. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Leon. Appreciate it. Appreciate the good work that your team did. Thank you. They're phenomenal. Yes. Uh that brings us to comments, requests. Let's start with Councelor Todd.

Thank you, your honor. uh want everyone to have a happy and safe Halloween celebrations coming up in Panakook. It's called Gate Night for various reasons that I won't get into, but it's the before Halloween, which is the 30 the 30th. Uh and hope everyone has a safe time there. For additional Halloween fun, the Pentagal Society is holding their annual Halloween parade. Uh games, cider, and a parade around the Bog neighborhood. Uh you can come wear your costumes. Uh that's on Saturday, October 25th from 1 to 3 at uh the uh Pentagook Historical Society on 11 Pentacook Street. Thank you.

Would you believe that in my hometown on gate night there was a an outhouse that hung over the Ashawag River that was pushed into the river every gate night? We don't do that. We don't do that kind of thing in Panic. Not that I'm recommending council horn. Which name? Uh He stole my thunder. I have nothing. All right, councelor McNamera. It feels like it's been a long wait, especially when you're you're a child, but um it's finally here. This Friday, October 17th at 5:00 p.m., we will have the opening celebration for the new Monkey Round Playground.

Um thanks to all the hard work that the friends of White Park have done and the city's work um and who has supported this along the way, especially towards the end. It's a pretty incredible thing. So, if you'd like to join us Friday, October 17th at 5 p.m.,

all I have is for my fellow colleagues, as the city manager pointed out, I did take a class. It was the New Hampshire Municipal Association's financial policy certificate um course, and it was wonderful. And they will come and give us training because we actually have legal obligations. uh we have to maintain internal controls that is RSA 41 col9. I asked um the city clerk to share a checklist for you to look at. This is something that it's very important. Um it's our responsibility and the New Hampshire Municipal Association is wonderful. So I would highly recommend um looking at those course. It was free. So

that's thank you. Um, I just want to remind folks that there's the community costume swap for Halloween costumes. You can drop off donated costumes to conquer public public library uh at the front desk and the actual swap will be at the conquered public library on Saturday, October 18th from 93. That's good. Thank you.

Uh, just one thing uh from Conquer Parks and Recck, the fall winter brochure has gone out. Uh I believe it was delivered to schools today. So uh anybody who wants to register for any programming uh those are now available and go check it out online. Thank you. All right.

Thank you, your honor. Um I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all counselor that were at the multicultural event. I think um I thank people that attended, participated, volunteered and support this to make it a successful event. There was eight counselors at the council table and we had a lot of traffic there. So I want also to thank all the business and people that sponsored this event to make this year a successful event. Without their sponsorship, we would not be a successful event. And thank you to everybody that make it happen from people that kept us safe to people that volunteered their time to people that had tables there. And thanks to Jessica Leston and his her team for an excellent planning and to everybody that was involved. We had a great time. Thank you all.

I'll just remind you the city clerk is still looking for her banner. Okay. I have it in my car. Yeah. You asked me yesterday or the day before. I told you I have it in my car. So you can get it anytime. We'll get together afterwards. All right. Councelor Schultz,

two very different things. Thank you, ma'am. Um, first I just want to take a moment to recognize that there has been another death on the W 9 side of Lowden Road on October 3rd at about 710 p.m. A hit and run accident occurred and unfortunately Elizabeth Benoy, I hope I'm saying her name correctly, did pass away. And I hope that anyone who has any information about this will contact uh the conquered police and to Thank all of those who responded to this incident. I'm sure that was not easy. I'm sad that we have a second one so soon after another one. Any death like this is is unfortunate and I'm sure that is inadequate to say, but it is as it is. Um, the other thing I wanted to say is just a two sentence land acknowledgement in honor of Indigenous People's Day. This comes from Indigenous New Hampshire collaborative collective. You can find multiple types that have been used in New Hampshire at indigenousnh.com/land acknowledgement. We are located on indina which is the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abanaki Penuk and Wabanaki peoples past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude the land and waterways and the people Al-Nobach who have stewarded indina throughout the generations.

Thank you councelor councel foot.

Thank you your honor. Um couple of events I attended had a great time. I and councelor McNamera Dennisy and the mayor went to the Thrive U walk in their shoes fundraiser for those who have experienced um abuse and so it was very enlightening and it was uh had a good time, nice fundraiser. It was good for Main Street and good for the community. I also attended the Friends of the Be fundraiser this past Sunday at Beaver Metal Golf Course. It was a 5 hour and 40 minute round. I'll never do it again, but I had a lot of fun and it was cold and windy. And then lastly, building on councelor Curts's uh recommendation that we make it very clear to those for the kino and social district uh upcoming vote. I've had numerous people call me not understanding. So, I thought we we spoke uh one of last meetings to come up with some sort of card that's going to be or some sort of voter uh educational piece and I hope that we follow through and make that very clear so folks know exactly what they want to vote for.

I believe that's on the city website under the u uh sample ballots section. It is. And we do send that handout out with any absentee ballots that we issue. Sorry I mentioned it, but thank you for your efforts just to let people know it's there. Thank you. That's good stuff. Thank you. Lots of help from the legal department with that. Thank you. What's that? Kudos to the legal department. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you.

Uh I don't have anything substantive to to share. Uh you know, except uh you know, this is a great moment. A number of us have been in the trenches on this for a while. uh meaning the White Park playground also uh just to underscore what councelor Foot said uh walk a mile in her shoes and we were on the Mac I was on the Macra team uh and it was a great event lots of energy uh and I think this is the 11th year that that took place

u I don't know that I was have been in every one but somewhere close to that I think so uh it was great and congratulations to thrive and the organizers because uh people ask me sometimes why do I have these bracelets on my these plastic bracelets. Uh one is for Alzheimer's which is what my mother died of and the other is uh from one of the walks and it's to remember victims of domestic violence. So let's all keep that in our minds. In any case um I will in a moment entertain a motion to adjourn. I will remind the city councilors that we do have to go we do have to resume our non-public session. So, we'll have a brief break while the room clears and people take care of whatever they have to take care of. Please don't leave. We will be reconvening our uh nonpublic session. So, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn.

So, moved. So, moved. Seconded. All in favor, please signify by saying I. Oppos? No. Eyes have it. We are adjourned.