City Council - Regular Meeting

going to call to order the Monday, November 10th, 2025 meeting of the Punk City Council. Uh would you all please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. Thank you for Madam clerk please call the role. Council Brown here. Mayor Jefflin here. Councelor Fennessy present. Councelor Foot present. Councelor Brady here. Councelor Horn here. Councelor Ke here. Councelor Kred here. Curts present.

Councelor Mclofflin here. Councelor McNamera here. Councelor Slasher here. Councelor Schultz here. Councelor Seiku present. And councelor Todd here. Excellent. Thank you. Um I will entertain a motion to approve the uh city council minutes of the October 14th, 2025 meeting. So move second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor please signify by saying I. I opposed. No eyes have it. The minutes are adopted. Uh like to now go pass things over to the city clerk for the canvas of the votes for the municipal election held on November 4th, 2025.

Thank you. So in followup to the November 4th municipal election, I ask council to canvas the votes cast declaring the following candidates elected as they receive the highest number of votes. So for the office of mayor, mayor Champlain was reelected. The um at large counselors Amanda Grady Sexton and councelor Fred Ke were reelected in wards one, two, and three. The incumbents, councelor Todd, Councelor Horn, and councelor Kredik were reelected. In ward four, Mark Davyy, who is in the audience, was elected to fill a vacancy. Ward five, Stacy Brown was reelected. Ward six, um, Ace Lin Collab is in the audience as well as a new, soon to be new member of council. Ward seven, councelor Schlasher was reelected. In W eight, councelor Seiku was reelected. Ward nine, councelor Kurt uh, Schultz, excuse me, was reelected.

And in I love that, not as much as I do, Mad. In W 10, Councelor Foot was reelected. And then attached to your report, you will see the various ward officials that were either elected or reelected to their positions. Very good. Uh do we need a motion to accept the campus? Yes, please. I'll moved and seconded. Any discussion? Councelor Kurts.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just want to publicly thank everyone who uh put their hat out there to run. Um and also the individuals who um we did not name but who serve essential roles in the city and often we don't know their names or see them um but um you know work moderators, clerks, supervisors of checklists, they're responsible for assuring that we have free and fair elections along with our amazing city clerks. I just want to express gratitude to all of those folks. Thank you counselor. Many volunteers. Yes, there just dozens and dozens of volunteers contributed their to make the elections. Yeah. And we rely on all of them.

Ready? Councelor Su, I just want to say your honor, I get few people reaching out to me in our committee of immigrants saying that this is the most smooth process they ever went through. They bring their people, they ask to go help them, and they did express themselves by voting. So, I cannot commend it enough to the city clerk and city administration and everybody involved in this process for making this process easy and congratulation to everybody that got elected and kudos to everybody that run for office. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Kick.

Thank your honor. Uh to pivot to another another subject, the fan upstairs here just turned on. Could you make your announcement about hearing aids and uh hearing devices, please? Thank you, counselor. Uh thanks for reminding me. Yes. Uh we do have uh hearing assistance uh uh devices available in the back of the room uh through uh which uh Mike usually waves so that you can see him back there. Thank you, Mike. Uh at the Concrete TV booth uh these are earphones that will allow you to augment your hearing uh during our session. Thank you, counselor. Are we ready for the vote? All in favor, please signify by saying I. I

opposed. No. Eyes have it. Canvas is accepted. Thank you, madame clerk. All right. Um this brings us to the consent uh calendar. Uh we have uh one item which has been pulled from consent. That is item number 20. All other items are remain on the consent calendar. I think there are more than that because two of them were withdrawn. Okay. The two of them were placed back on the consent on the consent calendar. Move approval. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed? No. Eyes have it.

This brings us to the uh public hearing portion of our meeting. Uh could I ask uh through a show of hands, how many people are here to testify on the police station item? All right. Fine. I'm going to move that item up to the front uh to the top of public hearing agenda to facilitate all of you. Uh madame city clerk, that would take us to item 30 L. I believe you are correct.

Thank you. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $45,500,000 in the police headquarters project CIP643 for the construction of the new police department building and authorizing the issuance of general fund general obligation bonds and notes in the sum of $45,500,000 for this purpose.

Thank you. Uh councelor Brown, you're recusing yourself on this, right? Uh your honor, I believe I I would like to participate. My husband is not a construction worker. Uh this is not something that is uh material or direct. Um and I feel I should participate in this council. I I I don't believe you can. No,

I disagree, your honor. Uh, under the city charter, the city of conquered, New Hampshire, section 53 states that no elective or appointed officer or employee of the city shall take part in a decision concerning the business of the city in which the officer or employee has a financial interest aside from salary as such, direct or indirect, greater than any other citizen or taxpayer. The city's ethics ordinance, specifically ordinance number 3145, amending article 16, section 163, defines conflict of interest to include situations in which an elected official's family member is employed by a city department that is directly affected by the matter before the public body. It states that for city employment, a conflict of interest shall only arise when the matter before the public body involves the department of which the officer or elected officials family member is employed. Also, council rules, rule 6A and 6B, affirm that counselors must comply with the ethics ordinance and that any potential conflict of interest must be declared before discussion begins and the mayor or presiding officer rules initially and the council may vote on the eligibility of the councelor.

I request a vote, your honor. All right, councelor Brown requests a vote. Before we vote though, I have a question because I think as a responsible counselor and this is my statement. If she feels that she doesn't have any conflict, I personally will vote no, I will let her judge based on what. I just want to share that because I think it's very important for all of us. we have something in front of us to know what is an ethics um what is a conflict of interest based on what you just read if she feel comfortable to do so I'll vote no on this

okay we're ready for the vote all those councelor feny I was just asking for clarification so uh if I understand correctly councelor Brown is challenging the rule of the chair. Support the chair. Correct. So, if we support the ruling of the chair, are you voting yes or no? You're voting yes. Thank you. So, a yes. So, support the ruling of the chair that a conflict exists. A no indicates that uh you disagree with the ruling of the chair. Roll call. Council Brown calls for a roll call. Madam clerk, we will start with councelor Brown. No. Mayor Champlain. Yes, councelor Fennessy.

Yes, councelor foot. I don't think you can. I don't think. All members present must vote.

I'll vote yes. Councelor Grady Ston, yes. Councelor Horn, no. Councelor Keech, yes. Councelor Kovik, yes. Councelor Curts, yes. Councelor Mclofflin, yes. Councelor McNamera, yes. Councelor Slasher, no. Councelor Schultz, no. Council Seu, no. And councelor Todd, yes. So, the motion passes 10 to 5. Thank you.

All right, Mr. City Manager. So, your honor, members of the council, I'd ask uh Beth Fence Market to uh present and then she has a small piece to present and then I have a small piece to present and then I'd suggest you open it up to Paul. Thank you.

Thank you. Um so, you all received a copy of this presentation so you can follow along. We also have it up on the website. Um if anybody at home or in the audience wants to follow along, the project website conquerednh.govnew policeolstation and under quicklinks um so that people can zoom a little bit more as we go through some of the numbers. So, thank you for the opportunity to um present again tonight as part of the public hearing. Just going to give you a brief update from some questions we received since October meeting. Um and I don't plan to repeat everything that we've said so far. I have a whole team of people back here for questions as they come up tonight. Um there's been hundreds and hundreds of hours from all these team members that have worked on this project over the past year. So, we're your resources. There's only so much we can fit in a presentation. So, please take advantage of everybody being here tonight. Um, okay. So, one of the questions that has been brought up um is about the projections in staffing and how we came up with the design um and how do we um how we built in for the future growth. So, it's very difficult to predict the future of how it's going to grow and for the next 50 years. We're trying to create a 50-y year and beyond building so the city doesn't have to go through this again anytime soon. Um, and you could talk to the chief or anybody else in the police department and realize that we're someplace where we didn't even predict we'd be 15 years ago. So through that um complexity of predicting the future, we've built a lot of flexibility into the building itself. Um, and just an example here is a space. These are all office spaces with nonstructure bearing walls. So in the future if this department doesn't grow as projected and other departments say if social work becomes the more important larger group within the division in 15 years then we can restructure this area for minimal cost and not a lot of impact to the building itself. Um so that's one way that we've addressed that f flexibility in the design. We've also included shell spaces throughout the building. So it's we have some areas this sort of blank space

right here which represents about 400 square feet of shell area that won't be fully built out. Um and those are sprinkled throughout the building. Again that flexibility for different departments that grow at different rates so it's not all in one chunk area as future growth area. And then putting conduits which are just chases in the walls for future wiring or any other conduits that we um wiring or electricity or anything else that we'd need to um put into these spaces. So, it's future proofing the building um to save money in the long run. Um see about that. We'll get to the money part. Um so, just a reminder, this is the cost estimate. We have not changed any cost estimates since October of where we're at for the construction of the building. This does not include um this cost right here is not everything including the acquisition and the design fees, but we're at about $45.5 million and that's the amount that we're requesting for the bond um resolution to be approved. Um so we've talked about different ways of how we could save money on this project. We did this project um by hiring a construction manager at the very beginning of the process so we could learn about challenges that we would have um buildability issues and that would help us with upfront cost savings. So here's a list of some items that to date we have saved. So they're not included in that $45 million um price range. So an interior fire range initially part of the project that was a pretty expensive um proposition. So we immediately eliminated that from the project. Um the communication center, so where all the radios um and everything comes out is currently in 35 Green Street, we have decided not to move that. That's about a $2 million savings. So by the city maintaining it at 35 Green Street, we're able to shave off about a $2 million. Um, if in the future, a question about phasing, in the future, we can move that if that's

something, if there's a different use for the 35 Green Street building, then that's a $2 million project in the future. Um, changing the glass curtain wall to aluminum composite material, that savings up front, but also long-term savings with energy efficiency. Um, exterior bricks changed to concrete masonry units. And this was part of having the construction manager up front. they're able to go out to subs and say how much is this going to cost at this point in comparing that. So already $25,000 approximately. These are sort of order of magnitude costs. Um I t we've talked a lot about NFPA requirements and category 4 requirements. Some of them are flexible that the city can make determinations on. So if we followed it to the letter of the law, three generators would be required. We've made decisions that we're able to meet the requirements by only having one generator and there's other backups that we can. So that saves about $100,000 in space on the site. Um redesigning the elevator, again that was input from the construction manager being part of the project really early on to change the design and relocate the elevator so we could avoid this corner post um elevator. Changing the surround of the generator to a cheaper material. Um eliminating a Faraday room which was previously talked about. um eliminating the need for commercial kitchen ventilation upgrades by removing an oven in the kitchen which was significant savings and then reducing scope of electric doors but again leaving conduits in so future we can add that back in if we need to. So that's about $7 million upfront saved but also by virtue of buying an existing building and making that decision which council made in April of 24 to reuse it and build an addition. At that time the cost estimates were about a $6 million difference. If we demoed the building, built completely brand new, it's possible it would have been even more expensive than what we're building now. So, by making the decision to put part of this building as an existing with part of this facility with the existing

building, we're saving approximately $6 million $6 million upfront. Um, again, these were value engineering items that we talked about last month and that were in the report and I just broke it out a little bit different because we're at the point where we need to make some design decisions. Um the first five items have implications with um mechanical, structural, HVAC. Those are decisions that we need to make now if we're going to remove those from the scope. And all these other items we can add back in at the end if council wants to choose elect to remove those at this point and then as we go through the design process, we can elect to put those back in. So I think with that I'm going to pass it on to Tom.

Thank you, Beth. So this this chart here is what you essentially saw uh as part of your October 14th discussion except what we did was we took it out another year from 2030 to 2031 and eliminated fiscal year 2025 just so you have a little bit more information but you can see the numbers uh and the impacts uh right here and I and really we're going to use the $400,000 assessed value property when I discuss this and that's what you use for your tax rate discussions. So that's uh for for the purposes of this discussion, but we also showed the $250 and the $500,000 uh piece. So So um what you'll recall on at the October 14th discussion, the we looked at uh doing a design bond sale in January, this coming January, uh for for 25 year term bonds at three and a half%. And there was going to be two issues issuances. One would be in January 26, one would be in 27. uh splitting the cost in half to 19 million and 26.5 million uh with 25 year payment return uh term at three and a half percent. So that again that is what we started with looking at and the reason I bring this up is looking at different methodologies and how to save money and and change uh some of the assumptions that were made here. Again, everything that I'm going to bring to you tonight, you can pick and choose what you want to do it. If it doesn't make any sense to you, just ignore it. Uh but I think all in all you can take it as a package or you can take them individually. So best go. So looking at this um and I'll just go over this as an initial part and then I'll break each piece of the down. So what you're going to see here under the proposed construction bond issuance right in the middle uh um you're going to see the proposed construction issuance of one, two, and three issuance instead of two issuance. and what we've uh done. Um there you go also see just below that again the middle section the top piece where it says already appropriated that is all to say we're not changing any of that. If you decide

that you want to change the overall costs then you'd look at that but what what I'm what the approach that I'm taking is how are you going to finance this and how can you maximize your savings uh going forward. So I want you what we'll be talking about as we go forward is proposed construction bond issuances and also if you go down from there you're going to see in italics use of community improvement reserve and use of fund balance. So uh again I'm going to focus on each one of those as we go through. So look looking at uh the bond sale. So, um, if you changed, uh, based on if the numbers I'm going to show you, if you changed it from a 25-year bond to 30-year bonds for the first two, the issuance one and two, you'd still be at 3 and a.5%. Um, and what I'm suggesting is that you take that two issuances and make it three, where you do 19 million in 2026, which is the same as what we have suggested, but taking the 26.5 million and make it a 20 million bond in 2027 and a 6.5 in uh 2028. And the reason for that is, if you recall, when you look at the details of the numbers, it was about $3.3 million for contingency because again, we're only at 60% design. So there's m there's much more work to be done. Why go out and borrow those dollars if you if you may not need them. Uh so what I'm suggesting is you break this into three pieces and you do that last piece if you need to do it and and and decide um what you need to do. It may not be six and a half million. If it truly is contingency, it could only be three million. So why borrow the money and why pay the interest on it? Why pay the principal on it? Why have the tax rate impact on it if you can if you can avoid that? So again, issuances one and two would be 30-year bonds at three and a half percent. Issuance three would be a 20-year repayment at three and a quarter percent. And then we would look at the uh community improvement reserve and the use of the fund balance as the next piece.

So here again the top part above the orange bar is all the same. What now this breaks it down into three pieces. you see issuance one, issuance two, issuance three, and what those costs would be associated with, and how that impacts uh and I'll show you when we get to the end how that impacts the um uh the cost per per taxpayer per year. So, that that's what that P middle piece is. And that uh pretty dramatically changes your annual principal and interest payments going out over the next several years. Now, same same chart, same as chart. Now look at the red bar. If you look at the red bar, you can see the use of the community improvement reserve in fiscal year 27 and 28 and 29. You remember because the city was a housing champion because of all the new housing that we brought into the community, received a grant from the state. We use some of that grant dollar to clean up some of the uh the homeless camps in the in the sites. But you still have $1.1 million left. You could take that and there's no uh purpose for those dollars right now. You have that sitting in a reserve. You could take that $1.1 million, spend $500,000 in 27,500,000 in 28 and the remainder in 29 or you could break it into any which way you want. You could $300,000 a year for you know for three and a half years or four years. Um again to and the goal is to reduce the total property tax impact rate in those years. Also, what I'm suggesting is you see below that right above the bottom of the the second red line is the use of fund balance. You purposfully over the years uh anticipating this project have underspent uh your fund balance and you're actually at about 9.7% uh of where you your target your target is 10 to 14% of appropriated. You're at you're at about 9.7%. What you can do here is start using some

of that fund balance. Why hold on to those dollars if you can use it to uh reduce the tax rate impact. So what I'm suggesting is using $200,000 as you can see in 27 200,000 in 28 329 300 350 and 30 and then start weaning yourself off that. This is a decision that you make each and every year. So if you have the dollars in there, the economy is going well, you can you could you'll be easily do this. You remember the re the reason you built up the supply when everybody else was increasing their tax rates during COVID. You came in with a 0% tax rate increase and everybody else all communities around us and other governmental agencies were increasing their their their expenses to the taxpayer. You said no, we're going to do 0%. That gives you this flexibility to do this. So what I'm suggesting you've rebuilt that flexibility, use it to uh reduce the tax rate impact. So with that uh looking at now combining both those numbers Beth go through what does that mean? So if you did a bond issuance split of increase from two to three years a repayment of 25 to 30 years uh 20 years on the third year use of the community improvement reserve in the fund balance. Um the tax rate impacts for these projects would be you can see at how many cents uh on here. So you'd go from 26 is already baked in for that. But now you start borrowing in 27. You'd go from 39 cents to 23 cents, 84 to 56. As you can see, that dramatically reduces those impacts as years go out. Instead of having in 27 $157 impact on a $400,000 home, it would go down to $92. In 28, instead of having 337, it would go down to 226. And then you can see it slowly starts to go down over time. One of the things to mention here too, this is not like your home mortgage. This is and sorry to jump on your idea. This was your idea bear. Uh so instead of like your home mortgage where you start paying principal interest payments and that number is the same that goes up for

30 years. These numbers go down dramatically. So by the time you get to the end of the bond payment, your payments that we're putting out in principal interest is about half what they are at the beginning of the payment. So these numbers are going to start to decline steadily over time. So this is one approach you can take. Again, you can pick and choose any of these or none of these to dramatically uh reduce the impact of the tax rate on people if you decide to move forward with the project. Be glad to answer any questions. Did you want to go to the uh public? Oh, no. From you if you Okay. I'm sorry. Questions for the city manager. Casy.

Thank you. Um, I just had a question. If if and maybe this is better for Brian, but if we're going to use uh the 1.1 million from the community development reserve or fund balance, is there a reason why we wouldn't use that all in one chunk to reduce the amount that we're actually going out to bond? Yeah, I ask ask Brian to come up, but u and we we have the same answer. So, go ahead. Go Brian. You I know you say it first I'll tell you the same me.

So I think trying to look at this in in a measured approach. So you know there could be fluctuations from year to year and what happens with our fund balances could be fluctuations in year to year and what you think you want to use you know from the community improvement reserve. So it still gives you the flexibility to be able to use you know each of them. I think the other part of it is when if we take a million dollars or take, you know, $900,000 out of that fund balance in addition to what we're already using, that starts to have the rating agency take a look at us and say, hey, what are you doing? And then, you know, if we use the more that we use, rating agency is going to say, you know, okay, you know, we see that you're now starting to decrease your fund balance on a a greater level. So, you know, we're going to put you on a negative watch or we're going to put you on a, you know, we're going to reduce your bond rate. when we they do those kind of things and that increases the cost for us to go out and bond items. So, we're going to have an increase in expenses. I can't tell you exactly where those triggers are, what those dollars amount are, but I think that if you use that measured approach, you have the year-to-year decision that you can make in order to be able to determine, you know, does this make sense? Could have a great year, you know, for auto registrations and building permits and all kinds of other things. So, be able to add a little bit more to the fund balance, be able to manage it a little bit more and try to stay some ways within the some ways within the um goals that the city council has. Um you can change the goals. You know, you can do a lot of different things, but I think that if you if you take, you know, it's like it's like at home if we take everything from one piece all at once, right? Gives us a little bit less flexibility. But if we able to manage it through a bunch of different things, then we have that flexibility or the council has flexibility from year to year.

Questions? Councelor Todd. Uh thank you your honor. Uh thank you and also thank you Mr. City Manager, Mr. Lebron for your work on this and calculating this out for us giving us this option. My question is beyond FY 2031 what is the uh what are the amounts that uh residents can expect in terms of the option two let's say decreases. I think you referenced that it dramatically drops off. What can you give us a sense of what that is? I think if you take a look at, you know, if you continue to use some fund balance in order to make that work, you're going to see be in a declining mode because the because the debt service is going to be declining a little bit over time. You know, like Tom said, you know, if you look at, you know, what the payment is the first year, you know, on a $90 million bond, the payment for the first year would be $1.3 million, right? If you look at it in year 29, it's $713,000. So, you see that that interest declining every year. The principal remains the same. the interest declines. So you see that decline in the amount that's going through the the amount to be raised in taxes for that game.

Is that so are we talking then about dropping from 294 to is it 200 or I was just trying to get a sense it won't it won't be that much. It won't be that much. Right. So if you still if you still use some fund balance you know you'll see it drop a little bit you know more measured. if you use, you know, if you decide not to use any fund balance. Obviously, you're gonna have a little bit of an uptick in that amount that you would have to to raise because you're not using that fund balance. So, it's really all part, it all comes together each year. You'll have to take a look at it each year and see what that number is. It's not going to be a dramatic drop, you know, in the next year. It's going to be measured. Thank you. Any other questions? Closer.

It's about the construction manager. I think I heard M Spencer Mer you say that the construction manager was able to identify some cost reductions that made sense in I think in a prior handout we had construction manager was omitted does that make does that do we have a construction manager that we hire separately to help us manage this project and value engineering is that is that the case

it yes I think it oh sorry that loud um it it's possible Well, um, we already you already appropriated money for the construction manager, so it was omitted from that cost estimate for construction because we already had that money appropriated under previous appropriations. But yes, Milestone has been under contract with us since prior to selection of the architects. And may I follow up? And so the benefit of that is that we have an experienced construction professional advising us when the designs come in, when the construction bids come in about the logic and the b and the cost benefit of some of those proposals to us. So sort of our agent negotiating some of these design. Is that my understanding?

Correct. Yep. So all the bids come through them. All the subcontractors will be through them. So they solicit the bids and they work through that directly with the contractors where we don't necessarily have that experience. they are going to be building the building with them so they have that expertise to work with them. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Right. Thank you, Mr. Exa. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. I'll now open the public hearing. Is there anyone who'd like to testify?

Can I choose which seat I want? You may choose whichever seat you want. Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. My name is Tracy Bricky and I am a resident of Penoke or should I say conquered. Minister, you'd say Pentecost. I would say

I know you would. I know you would. It's a It's a running joke. Um my question is about the community improvement reserve. Is that a grant that we have? And if it is a grant, how was it written? Was it written so that it could I in a former life I wrote some grants and I know that I couldn't change partway through what I was using those grant funds for if it wasn't actually put into the um into the the body of the grant. So my question is is it really something that we're going to be able to do? Is it going to be a real hard is it going to be a process and how much money is left in the grant and how long will that how long will we be able to use the community improvement reserve? Those were my questions.

It's open answer. Yeah, I'm happy to. Okay. It's open-ended. Sure. The um the it's really an award that we got because we were a housing champion. So we and we can use it for any purpose we want. We could use it for you go buy a truck with it. Okay. Okay. So, um, it will it's the it's $1.1 million, which is 500,500, and $100,000, and then it would be gone after that. All right. I just I just didn't understand how that worked. Thank you very much for taking my question. Thank you all. Anyone else like to testify?

Welcome. Thank you. Uh again, my name is Chris Eman. Uh just in full disclosure, I'm not a resident, but I am the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club. I just want to speak out in favor of this uh of this project. And um you know, I've been at the police station, jokingly, not not for reasons you might think, but um for other reasons, and it needs to be updated. They need more space. So, I think in uh we were once part of the police department years ago. The boys club used to be the Conquer Police Boys Club. Some of you have been in town for a while and I guess it's just an affinity for the organization uh since we were once partners and we just want to speak out and support and support support our our police officers. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Mr.

Thank you very much. Have a good evening. Thank you, Chris. Thanks for everything the Boys and Girls Clubs does do. Anyone else like to testify? Welcome.

Thank you. Um, so I'm Althia Barton and I'm a resident of Pinnacook as well and conquered. Um, I serve on the Heritage on the Conquered Heritage Commission, but I'm testifying tonight as an individual, um, not as a member of heritage. I support this project 100% and I want to thank city staff and the police department for working out what I'm sure were a million details to devel to develop what I think is a great plan. Um I like this project for three reasons and there are a lot of people in the audience still so I'm going to try to keep it short but one is that we clearly need a modernized police station. The second is um it's seems like the most cost-effective and also environmentally sound option. And the third reason is that it meets the city's goals for historic preservation and adaptive reuse. Um so um you've all been on the tour of the police station. I've been it seems like a very depressing and difficult place to work. Um you may know that the old you all know that the old Pentacook library um used to be a police station. Margaritas also used to be a police station um in Penuk. There are still jail cells in the basement and the building is for sale if anybody is interested in converting it to something cool. Um but there are reasons that the city no longer uses those old spaces. Um and um for something like police work, I really think we need um modern facility where professionals can keep everyone safe. Um that includes witnesses, victims, um people struggling with mental health, mental health crises or struggling with substance abuse who

are coming through and being processed to um people coming in to pay a parking ticket. Um, I like the fact that a mo that this new facility would be a modern facility that would meet accreditation standards and um be designed to keep everyone safe, including the police officers, the staff and the social workers. Um and um I also think that people coming to work at the new station will love coming to work there, love arriving at work as opposed to now. Um and um people who love coming to work will do a good job. Um, it's important to me that our police department uphold the highest standards of compassionate law enforcement and I believe they do that now, but I believe that a new facility will help that effort even further. Um, it's also the most cost-effective envi environmentally sound option. um renovating the old conquered group building and adding onto it is a green environmentally sound solution. Um I appreciate that the city purchased that building so that it would not be demolished. Um, demolition means loading up all the resources that are embodied in an old building like that and trucking them to a landfill. Um, it's a waste of resources and you lose all the embodied energy um that is in an old building like that. Not to mention losing a beautiful mid-century landmark.

Um, And thirdly, you may know that um I love history and preservation. Um I have strong feelings about this city's historic resources um from buildings to cemeteries and parks. Um and my view of preservation is not to glorify the past or turn everything into a living history museum. Um it's about using old bu buildings often for new purposes. Um, I love this building mostly because it's cool. Um, I love the color of it. U the the geometric glass facade of it. Um, the stone accents. U, it's it's really um it really makes a statement. Um, I will say that when Beth Fster presented this project to the Heritage Commission a few months ago, um, she asked members of the commission whether we thought it was important to keep the original teal colored glass panels to keep it authentic. And from a strictly preservation point of view, that is important. And I expressed that during the Heritage Commission meeting. Um, she asked how we felt about replacing the teal glass with blue glass to represent the police department. As I drove home from that meeting, I thought, man, those drawings of it in blue, it looks just spectacular. And as you know, architecture is important because it lets people know what's happening in that building. It lets you know that when you're entering that building, you are entering a space that has a purpose. So to me, to have new blue glass um

um on that old part of the building uh would inspire officers and staff to do their best compassionate uh law enforcement work. So to summarize, um I support the building for safety, for the well-being of all the members of our community, um for it being cost-effective, environmentally sound, um and because it meets the city's preservation goals as outlined in uh council priorities and in the current master plan. I think it's a win-win project. Um and I support it. And if I owned a 1940s police cruiser, I would donate it to display in front of the building like the conquered coach was uh that used to be inside. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions? Miss Schulz. Hi. Thank you. I like the teal for whatever it's worth. Um what do you So you What do you think of the expansion design?

Um So, um, there's sort of the architectural view of it of how does it look from the outside. Um, I think it's tucked back. I think that the design team has made a lot of really good efforts to um to make it um compatible with the current building. Um, and really that's all you can hope for is sort of it being a sensitive edition that respects the original. Um, it's large of course, so it's not like it's tucked back and you can't see it. Um, and any other questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for the water. Talking in front of a group. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and members of city council. My name is Drew Beamer and I serve on the public safety board. I previously served on the state juvenile parole board and I currently serve as a state level agency director responsible for improving operational continuity in permitting enforcement and compliance for large-scale energy projects. I'm here tonight to speak in strong support of the proposed new police department facility. I do however want to make it clear that I am here on behalf of myself only as a resident of 149 Rumford Street, a taxpayer and voter here in the city. I want to begin with a simple principle. It is the role of the police to protect the public and it is the role of decision makers to ensure the police have what they need to do the job safely and effectively. Policing will never be risk-f free. If it were, it would not be policing. The men and women of conquered DD have chosen to put our safety, yours, and mine, and the safety of our friends and family above their own. And for that, we cannot be thankful enough. But we do have an obligation both to public safety and to the recruitment and retention of qualified officers to make the job as safe, professional, and sustainable as possible. And I believe this project accomplishes just that. The current police station on Green Street was built in 1974 with a couple of additions over the years. Since that time, Conquer's population has grown by almost 50% and calls for service have doubled, now reaching around 50,000 a year. The building simply was not designed to support the scale, volume, and complexity of modern law enforcement. The department now supports a daytime population of nearly 90,000 people in the region, but the building is only about 20,000 square

feet and has no ability to expand on its current site. It's also important to acknowledge that the nature of crime has changed. Local police are now expected to investigate cyber crimes, identity theft, financial fraud, coordinated narcotics trafficking, and human trafficking, among other 21st century public safety hazards. These cases require dedicated space for technology, evidence processing, interview rooms, data analysis, and coordination with state and federal partners. This isn't just about having more space. It's about having the right kind of space. The current building cannot be configured to meet those needs, no matter how efficiently the department works within its own walls. There are structural safety issues that are not immediately obvious to the public. The current station lacks proper vehicle barriers. For instance, individuals in custody must sometimes move through common or administrative spaces that house civilian employees. evidence storage and investigative offices are constrained or intermixed where they should not be. These are not cosmetic problems. They are safety and accreditation issues. They are the kinds of problems that make it harder to retain officers, harder to train new ones, and harder to meet modern professional standards. The proposed facility addresses all of these shortcomings. The site offers roughly double the usable space and the flexibility needed for secure intake, proper evidence handling, officer training areas, and a safe separation between public operational and detainees. It also allows for more efficient operations and long-term adaptation as concrete continues to grow. The design work also anticipates sustainability and energy performance,

bringing projected energy use down significantly compared to similar facilities elsewhere. I understand this is a large investment. The current estimate is approximately 40 I put 41, it's 45, correct?

Million dollars. But delaying this project will not make it less expensive. Construction material costs are rising every year and the need will never go away. Each year we wait, the cost goes up and the operational strain increases. This is not about expanding the mission of the police department. It is not about changing policing. It is about aligning physical environment with the responsibilities we already ask these men and women to carry out. It is about protecting the people who protect us. For all of these reasons, I strongly encourage council to move this project forward, to keep the proposed timeline intact, and to invest in a police facility that reflects the level of public safety our community both expects and deserves. Thank you for your time and I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Beamer. Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Yeah,

county members of the city council, welcome. I'm pretty damp. It's raining out. Got back from school. Okay, we'll make this brief. Oh, fudge. Um, I want to thank all of you first off for um investing so much time and energy in this project. Stephen, would you identify yourself?

Sorry about that. Uh, Stephen Kder pronounc him. Uh, I'm a resident here in conquered, but I teach um in Manchester. Um, I want to thank you all for the time you put into this project. Um, I will say I 40 a $45 million building building doesn't make me feel safe. Um, I appreciate all that the police officers do. I just think I just think investing that much money in a building as opposed to in resources for the houseless, um, resources for children, resources. I think that money could go a lot further in different places. I think they're I'm appreciative of all the work they do, but I just don't I can't I can't I can't imagine spending $45 million on a building that would never make me feel safe or make me feel good. Um so I would encourage the city council um to think of other ways um to use this money or because I just think there's other ways in which it could be better used as opposed to on a building. That's it. Uh any questions?

Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Ker?

Thank you so much. Would anyone else like to testify? Mr. Mr. Schwher. Good evening, mayors, members of the city council, city manager, city clerk. I'm Roy Schwiker, and I guess I'm a little bit horse. I'm sorry about that. But anyway, I may be one of the few people that remembers the old police station at Bsentennial Square, but it wasn't by Centennial Square then. I remember going upstairs to the police station there. And yes, that was a sad thing and it's well gone. And remember when the current police station was the brand new shiny police station, which unfortunately wasn't properly designed. So, the police have been having trouble with it ever since. And I think we're about to do another one of those. But anyway, my first concern about this is reading all the different things. The numbers are different every time I look at it. There's uh one the October thing says the existing police station is 20,000 square feet. The recent email from the mayor said it's 20,493. Slides from November say it's 21,790. So, you don't even know how big it is. As far as the new one, I've seen one place was 70,29 275, another place was 72,828. Come on, people. You know, can't you even make your numbers get together? But anyway, my real concern about this is I think it's too big. I don't understand how someone can say it's environmentally sound to build a police station that's 50% larger than it needs to be. You can reduce the amount of environmental concern by making it smaller. And at one time we

were told 27,000 square feet was enough. Then in 2024 it was 44,000 square feet. Then it was 47,000 square feet. So how this suddenly became 72,000 square feet. I think basically the problem is we had this giant empty building and the architect is trying to fill it up. I think that's a mistake. And I agree with the police officers that, you know, want themselves a new efficient station. I don't think trying to span between the existing and the new building is a way to make it efficient. So, I'd like to suggest we build a new police station, but it's not going to be 72,000 square feet. It's going to be maybe 44,000, whatever the correct number for a new police station is. And maybe we can put that up on that end of the lot where the addition was going to be and make it a police station in seven edition. And if it won't fit there, there's a couple other lots in the area it could go on. But I think the thing is we should build them a police station. We should not give them this giant building to deal with. I mean, I don't know if you read the thing. We're going to have to hire three more janitors for the police station just to keep care of the keep track of the bigger building. Is that how you want to invest your money? more janitors and not more police. That doesn't sound reasonable to me. So, we need to scale this back to a smaller thing. Build it as a standalone. As far as the existing building, my suggestion was we sell to catch for the amount we paid for it. They turn it into low-income housing, 40 units there, few small units, which is what we need more of. The developers don't like to build efficiency apartments because they can't rent them for much. But you can build, you know, a lot more of them than you can if they're onebedrooms. And there's a lot of people that would be happy to have a small apartment instead of none. So we need to do is put the police station as a standalone building there

or somewhere else. Get that building to someone who can turn it into housing. The catch doesn't want it. I'm sure there's other people that might. I think one thing that the city needs to do is uh get a different project manager for this project. I was very unhappy with the character who went to the public meeting or was it the eighth who instead of you know talking about form and function the sort of architects do he saying oh we're going to security features we can't tell you about them because they're secret for the police. So what we need to do is have a project manager who's a police detective because first off as a police detective you can't say we can't tell you what it is. You can tell it. Secondly, he understands how the police department works and he can determine whether these safe safety features are really good or bad. The third thing is a police detective is very good at knowing when someone is trying to feed him I think that's very important in this case. So, you know, get yourself a police detective as a project manager. And if you don't have one available because they're too busy solving crimes, maybe you can find one that's recently retired or something. And my very last suggestion for you folks since I have a feeling that once again you're going to vote to build the station 50% bigger than it needs to be is at least put some other things in that thing like move the human resources department into that building and some of that space because I have a feeling that if you pass this you're not well that's another thing there's another 10 million down the road to convert the new police station offices I have a feeling that once you build this and memorial field and everything else, people aren't going to want to spend that $10 million to convert the police station. So, you better get the human resources people moved into some of the rattling around space and this so

that they got themselves a real home and save our rent. And you know, my feeling is when I first heard about this going to turn an office building into police station so we can turn a police station into offices. That sounded kind of strange to me. I have a feeling that you're going to run into more expense than you think to try and revamp that police station into something else. Another thing is that $2 million to move the dispatch center. I understand a couple of people have run into that before. I think the county had some similar problem which is why the sheriff's department and the dispatch are in different places. I think that uh Lakes Region Dispatch is at the old uh state school and they're being evicted. Now they're sold to developer. It's going to cost millions of dollars to move electric dispatch to somewhere else. So once again, this is a huge expense that you're trying to hide because sooner or later someone's going to say really the dispatch should be in the police station and not relying on wires or microwaves between them. So this is a lot more expensive than it needs to be. You need to size it to a appropriate size and give them their own nice building instead of trying to patch onto this other thing which can find a better use. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Schwer. Any questions for Mr. Schwiker? All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Welcome, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. My name is Bob Barry. It's been a few years since I've been here. Uh I was the police chief here in the city uh in the time from about 2007 to 2011. I've been retired now for 14 years. I wish that I had been here in about 2008 asking for you to support uh construction of a new police station, but that didn't happen. Uh I could talk an odd nauseium uh about square footage and evidence space and things like that. Uh all that information has been shared. Uh it's you will all have access to that. So I'm going to just keep my remarks uh brief because there are a lot of people here with uh good information uh that you need to hear. Uh couple of things. Uh since I retired, I continue to work tangentally with uh municipal government. I'm a risk manager for one of the risk pools here in the state. I do um regular risk assessments of municipal facilities including police departments. Uh there is a uh fairly significant exposure to risk in the current uh functionally obsolete building that is over here at 37 uh 35. Um it is a matter of time until a u person in custody comes in and is either injured or injures somebody due to the physical makeup here next door. uh it is dangerous uh and something bad is going to happen. Uh during my career uh we had uh at least two incidents where people in custody uh

either attempted or were successful in taking their own life over next door. Uh it is a building whose time has passed and it is not going to get better on its own. uh you folks around this table uh have the opportunity to make a transformational decision uh for public safety in this community for years and years going forward. Uh 50 years plus is what I've heard. Um it may seem like a long time, but when I was hired next door, the third floor of that building was just being completed. It was a active construction zone. So time passes fairly quickly and um if you don't make the decision uh that I support here tonight uh the cost of the decision that you will have to make someday is going to do nothing but increase. So I would ask you to support that. uh and in supporting in in voting for uh this project as it's presented uh you have the unique opportunity and one that I have not seen in you know 40 years of uh being either directly involved next door or involved as a member of this greater community. you have the opportunity to show support for the men and women behind us and who work next door uh like no other um opportunity that any council has ever had. As I said, this is a transformational decision that you have the opportunity to make and I would ask you to um support this presentation or this project as it's presented to you here tonight. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Chief. Any questions? Councelor Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for your service um for your pleasure. Appreciate it very much. So, I would assume you have uh the ability to step back and have some objectivity too. Is there any aspect of this project that you could see um if we eliminated it, it wouldn't cause any detriment on the risk situation and would potentially save money? And if you don't know, that's also okay.

So, as as presented, as we just heard, um I'm not sufficiently up to speed on the minutia, if you will. Uh, the one thing that I anticipate you will be asked at some point to add in is bringing dispatch under the roof of the new building. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions, Chief? Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council, thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. only the radio.

Welcome.

Good evening, mayor and members of council. Name is Rod Rener, resident here in downtown Conquer for many years. So, I'm going to listening to the many attributes that the new station will offer. I pretty much are in total agreement. Um it is necessary. So I support the product but with conditions. No surprise as an engineer, right? So my conditions are um is I've tried to follow this over the years from 20,000 thereabouts for the existing to 40 as an initial suggestion 40 42k square feet maybe 45. Now we're up to 72. So there's been a lot of variations and exceedences I believe in transferring info to the public. Um last October when staff had a a trueformational meeting unlike this. I was very complimentary uh to city staff and Beth for doing it.

My only comment at the time were twofold. one was we should have had one earlier in the spring so that would there would be less of a surprise in the last quarter of the year and then secondly um I suggested that we defer the final vote this evening so that we evaluate one other option so my I'm trying to reach a compromise so again I support the project why can't we meet in the middle settle on a number go back to the architect Let's design this for 45 to 50K square feet. Let's do that. You can go back to my testimony at theformational meeting in October and I suggested designing a knockout wall on the addition so that it's there in plan but there is a knockout wall on the west side of the addition such that in in the future 10 12 years out it's ready. It's there. We bring the prints back out. Yes, they need to be updated, but it would save us some money. I would not be testifying this evening if City of Conquer wasn't experiencing a perfect storm. So, please don't operate in a vacuum. Um, many of you have said through news media that yes, you've heard your constituents, you've heard your listeners. Again, I think if this was the only project on the CIP, it would go through no problem. But, you know, that's not the case. Run the middle memorial field. Okay. Many other things that are on the horizon. So, and I know some of you will say, "Wait a minute, wait, it costs more money in total if we do the expansion a decade out." Yes, total costs will be

greater, but perhaps Emperor Donald will no longer be in power and we might have more grant dollars available to help us out. So, that's my suggestion. Um, yes, proceed forward, make a number 45 to 50K in terms of,000 square feet, design a knockout wall. It can be done. Questions for Mr. Rainer.

Mr. Rainer, would you believe that I've asked about modifications to the current plan and uh one of the challenges on that is that obviously, as you know, as an engineer, it would cost us additional uh architectural design cost and also probably could not be completed so that we could start our bonding in January and also get into the spring 26 uh building cycle. Uh do you have any thoughts about that? Uh, I hear what you're saying, but what is the rush? What is the urgency to get it done in to initiate construction in the spring? Uh, bonds might be the same in midsummer, the rate or in the fall. Um, initiating construction in the fall. Uh, we can do that too. If we say I know we're gonna I know many of you will say the total cost over time will be greater and I acknowledge yes it will but because of the unless conquered has won the power ball recently. Okay. Uh you know let's try to meet in the middle and do a compromise.

Thank you. Thank you and um appreciate your uh testimony here as an engineer. So when we cut it to 20 because you said between 45 and 50. Yeah. We are at 70 or 72. If we cut it say we are at 50 and we save 20 square foot 20,000 we are talking about how much are you projecting on saving on that? Because even if we delay it we know it's going to be losing but how much are we going to save on that? So that when the loss we calculate might combine with that.

It's a valid question. Um but I can't tell I I don't know. I do not know. I've seen numbers kicked around that it's around $700 a square foot which was cited in the news media as being very I think it was 692 but I'm going to round it to seven. So at 20 * 700 140. Okay. So no that's that should be 14 mil. Mhm. Okay. So again, I wouldn't be here wasting my time or yours if this was the only project on the CIP, but that's not the case. So if we are project follow up

so if we are projecting to say 14 million do you think we've done 14 million we will be able even if we wait a month two month or whatever month we'll be able to not go in any hole we can still have some cash flowing because 40 million for 14 million out of the 45 I'm just trying to do a math here because it will give us 31 million if I'm 14 million could be allocated towards other CIP projects that are forthcoming as we all know. So that that's my point and it would kind of serve to minimize to somewhat deflect the projected cost increase. Thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you, Mr. R. Thank you. Okay. It's gonna be a race.

Charles Russell Conquered. Congratulations to all of you that were reelected and uh to those of you that didn't run. Thank you for your service. Um Charles Russell of conquered um I guess I'll draw a parallel. The three questions would be location size and cost. uh two years ago, less a month, uh we were here uh talking about a golf course for a $10 million golf course and that was kind of deferred out and uh we ended up with uh a $6 million golf course clubhouse. Uh and so that uh as Ron suggested the prior speaker, it may be time to kind of look at some of these things. One of the uh one of the issues when you go out and you get architects that specialize in uh certain types of buildings, as we've seen with the the school issue, which we won't talk about, um specialize in public safety buildings, they're going to goldplate it or platinum plate it and they're going to put in all the bells and whistles and state-of-the-art. And what happens is uh as what happened I guess with the golf course and to a lesser extent on the schools is they start looking at what reductions can we take along the way. And so uh Mr. Swiker had some questions. I thought we were going from 22,000 square ft to 52,000 but I guess if it's going to be a bigger building maybe it is higher. Um but um but but the question I guess on one thing is I see where start to sorry to bounce around but uh we're going to put social service and the prosecutor in a police station when they're already someplace else if we're going to vacate to some extent the uh 35 uh um Green Street next door then perhaps we could put the social service and prosecutor in there as well to the extent that uh you're going to keep the communic communications in there, then perhaps you could keep the Sallyport or

some of the more uh uh police intensive type facilities there since they're already there. Um but anyway, but it's it's a uh it's a continuum. Uh we have homelessness and why do we have homelessness? Because we have expensive rents and because of expensive rents, then we have a lack of a workforce and business gets involved and then what happens? tax wages have to go up because people are commuting in and then taxes are increased and then what happens is the landlords increase the rent and then we cycle back. So to the extent there's this continuum about uh building a facility that's probably beyond the size that's really needed at this point. I looked at some of the figures and uh you know we've gone up 200 people a year over the last uh uh 10 or 15 years. I came here 50 years ago. There were 30,000. It jumped to about 45 jumped to about 40 in the early 2000s. So undoubtedly it's needed. Uh we're it's a process. You're in the process. As the prior speaker said, there should not be a rusted judgment. Let's do it right. Uh you know uh the is we're not far from a taxpayer revolt if all these uh things are going to happen. And so, um, we need it. We have the location. We don't have to fight like we did with the school district on where we're going to put the building. The question is the size, the cost per square foot seems uh, reasonable as Ron said, but I think reductions can be made and time needs to be uh, put into it to make those reductions. I'll take any questions if anyone wants any.

Any questions for Mr. Russell? Councelor Kurts. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Russell. Based on your experience with the middle school project, do you believe that delaying going back to the drawing board, coming up with a new design will actually save us money the taxpayers have conquered in the long run? As to the police station, yes,

Mr. uh uh the prior speaker talked about 20,000 less square feet at $700 a square foot. That's $14 million. I mean, I the the counterveailing argument is, well, if you don't do it now, it's just going to get much more expensive. Well, if you make it smaller, that expenses are going to be aren't going to be the driving force. So, um, you know, what what's the reason? You know, what's the reason for I thought it was two and a half times. Apparently, it's three and a half times. I mean, that's that's what they were going to do with the golf course when it started. I think it was going up two and a half to three and a half times the current size and there was no justification. You had a comm you had a citizen committee that was pretty much driving that or or a council subcommittee driving that. So I think money can be saved but you need to go through the process. You don't have you know uh a number when you go out and buy a car you don't go in and say I'd like to buy a car that can get me from here to there but what's the next thing you say? Well, this is my budget. You know, we're not hearing the budget first. The budget number should be there before you start the design. That's what that's the way the process should be working. That hasn't happened in the uh in the school process. They go get a Boston architect and it's probably 50% more than what it should cost. I don't know where this architect comes from. They obviously know things, but there are things that can be stripped away. So, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Russell.

Well, mayor, uh, city council and staff, um, thank you so much for your time. First of all, let me appreciate you guys for the time that you give this work. I think it's I don't know. I don't know how I can speak about because I did experience a little bit what you guys go through. So it's it's really um yeah I appreciate it. Um I do appreciate I'm sorry forget to identify yourself.

Oh I'm sorry. My name is Fisto. I live in Conquered Penuk. Um yeah thank you. Um so uh something I'm thinking about first of all I do appreciate the engineers and um the police. I think I think if we speak a little bit about the police, I think they do such a great job in our city and it's it would you know it would make sense if if we support the work they're doing, provide the space they're asking, make sure they're safe, make sure they have equipments they're asking for. That's that's common sense. That that's something that everybody would want and I want that. And I said from the beginning, I do support this project with my whole heart and I want this to happen. And the fact that we want to keep our police safe and make sure they do their their work. It's it's what drives us, you know, to do this work. It's what drives you to do this work. It's why it's why the community is here to speak about these um these ideas because they're such a great ideas for the for the community. But here's something we have to think about, right? Um I've I've listened to the city to the community members. I' listened to some members of the community face to face um sitting in their homes, you know, just watching what's going on. And you realize that now the community is awake, right? They're talking about the costs. They're talking about, you know, housing, talking about different kind of issues we have in our community. And it really has a lot to do with with how we we fund projects. It has a lot to do with how we spend our tax taxpayers money. And adding to this project, I mean adding this project to the cost, it would mean that

we, you know, we take off some other projects that really supports our community in terms of, you know, other areas like housing and other things. Um, most importantly, and this is safety, right? We're talking about safety. Most importantly, when you talk about safety, we have to we have to make sure that we understand what that means to every member of our community, right? And when you see the budget that you have 40 plus million dollars, that's a lot of money. I would suggest that we don't rush, right? Keep working on this, you know? make sure that this is happening. It's really not about the time. It's about it's about the cost and it's about the quality of this project. And my brother and I do, you know, brag sometimes he's like when you buy like you buy expensive stuff. I don't buy expensive. I buy something that is going to stay longer. I buy quality. And so I don't want a a police station that after 10 years it's not longer helping our our our city or our police. We want something that is going to last longer and something that is is going to help our our our police uh our our police uh police and I would say that this is not the right time to invest in a new polic

but the fact that we're facing these these issues. We have to we have to know that yes, it's good to protect our police. It's good to provide the equipments they they have they need, but also it's it's good that we understand that some community members are priced out of of our community based on like the costs and we have to figure it out and do our homework and and change some numbers because I did I sit down, I did some research based on what I saw on the on the city website, you know, I asked for for some information and and I do connect with our city cler she's doing great job y'all like amazing

fast on time I I really appreciate your service but honestly I did research and that know outside the community what other cities are doing you know you know access accessing federal grants accessing state grants you know they have made some changes around, you know, fiscal responsibilities and and I think that's work that needs to be done. I think there has to be um a a chance an opportunity for for this city council or next city council to examine how money is spent line by line because that's what I did and and and I hope that in the future I'm going to be able to come up to come with the the final you know findings I've I've come up together put together but I'm telling you there's a need for the city council to uh do some examination examine how the money is spent. And by the way, when you look at the, you know, the participation, it's also something that needs to be paid attention on like we have to pay attention on like participation. It's important uh when come especially when it comes to safety. Safety is important when it comes to participation. So I suggest that um you take this back and probably hand this to the next council um and then uh I'm sorry. And then um continue doing the work, continue because I want to I want to support this. I want to engage young people. I want I want to make sure that this is supported, but we have to understand what's critical in our community. And what's critical is that people are priced out. Again, I don't want to continue like, you know, rotating, but people are asking for fair living, you know, living style. and and make sure that if we're

investing in our city, whatever comes back, it benefits everybody. And and you realize when it it's not benefiting everybody. When when the the the when the you know projects that we're doing, whatever is is spent is not benefiting everybody. You realize that some people are not really, you know, part of what we're doing. and some you know there's gaps and there there's also disconnections when that happens. So I suggest that you bring this back this priorize what's more important to the to the community and this is important too but this not the time for it but let's keep working on it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any question for Mr. Fisto? Okay thank you for Thank you. Nice. Yeah.

Good evening, counselors. My name is Chris O' Conor. I live on South Street in Ward Six here in Conquered. Uh, as a I consider sort of an average homeowner here in Conquered. I am not poor by any means, but I am not wealthy by any means. And it seems to me folks like me are facing a looming property tax aoph apocalypse. And that's based on many of the things that have been mentioned. One thing that has not been mentioned is the current assessment which if those people are doing their jobs correctly, the house I bought for my wife and I bought for nine years ago will probably double in assessment. Now, if my property taxes double, then with all respect to the police, they can stay right where they are. Um, if this council uh adjusts tax rates to offset those assessments at least somewhat, then I'm uh more than willing to consider this project. But until we know what those uh property tax rates are, how high they're going to go along with the middle school and all the other projects, I don't think it's wise or prudent at all to go forward with this project. I think it is the wise thing right now to put this whole project and many similar expensive projects on hold until there is a fair understanding by all the taxpayers of conquered to know what their tax rates are going to be once those uh assessments and tax rates are put in place for the next uh tax cycle.

Thank you Mr. Okconor. Any any questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. Did anyone else like to testify? Yes.

Good evening everyone. Welcome. My name is Paul Dean. I am a resident of Conquered. I'm here to with you today to highly recommend you that you vote on this. And let me tell you why. In January, I retired of 40 years in law enforcement service. 18 of those as a police chief. I went through this in my previous job. Not to the scale because I'm a small agency. But these conversations happened then in 2011. Why can't it be cheaper? What can we do to cut costs? And what ends up happening quite frankly is police departments are so in need of a better facility we acquies. So let me tell you I acquiesced and let me tell you where it happened. In 10 years my the police department was falling apart. The walls were falling apart because they used cheaper sheetrock. Door knobs were falling apart because they used smaller cheaper things. The biggest part to that is space. And you think space isn't an office is really what we're talking about. It's space for storage. It's space for evidence. And we ran out of space after 5 years with records. Some things that the police have to keep are forever records. And not all those forever records live on a computer. in the evidence room. The police have to keep same kits done for sexual assaults forever. There's evidence in your in your in your evidence room right now with firearms that have been there forever. And so we have obligations to do that. And if we don't do it right, we face civil litigation. Now, I've looked at the plans. I don't

think they're extravagant. I think wellought out. In fact, I know your chief well enough to know that he's not an extravagant human being. He just wants what's best for your community and the officers. So, there's a couple of things that I'll just say and everybody said a lot of great things and I appreciate the people that that have concerns with taxes are important for all of us, all of us sitting here. It's a big deal, but so isn't public safety. So, let me tell you where I get nervous right now. I get nervous if a juvenile has to come through your front doors, your doors there as a suspect or a criminal. Federal law says you have to keep sight and sound from people. I challenge sight and sound is taking place all the time. Maybe in the evening shifts when there's not many people around, but it during the day we're violating the law. Not intentionally. It just happens to be the way things are set up. Accreditation standards. My agency was dual accredited and has been accredited for the last 15 years. Accreditation standards are national standards and those national standards will be used to look at the conquered police department in times of civil suits because they are the standards. They are the standards that police standards of training says should happen. They are national standards and international standards on how law enforcement should be doing business, but it really focuses a lot on the facility and the facility's use has changed over the years. Domestic violence, there needs to be soft rooms. There needs to be safe places for victims of domestic violence to come in and be able to sit there with a social worker, a domestic violence detective in order to

make sure they feel safe and they're able to get the services that they need. Mental health for law enforcement, it's out of control. If anybody tells you any different, they're lying to you. every day law enforcement almost every call now we're going to has a mental health component to it and then add in the internet to some of those things with our young people and you have an explosion. So when I see a thing like a Faraday room not being considered, I understand. Okay. But I can tell you 100% that you're going to need a Faraday room cuz you're a cyber detective. Those working on are going to need that. I see that you had a range in there in your cutout. Okay, I understand that. But what's dwindling is outdoor ranges. As as your community gets more compact, even when your ranges, they're going to start to complain. Most outdoor police ranges are shutting down. Where are they going to qualify? Or do you want them just to go out there once a year and do and shoot their firearms? I think all those things are important to consider. And you got a tough job here to do this. I know all those projects that are coming up as well. I don't envy your your job and it's difficult but please the amount of square footage in there is right and it is right to carry you 50 years more. I please encourage you to support the police department. They've worked hard for this. They've

done the work. Please give them an opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Dean. Any questions? I do have a question. Yes, Council. Thank you for your enthusiastic support and it seemed like based on all the benefits you just listed, you did mention the tax and how important it is and I'm sorry if I failed to know where you live. Where do you live? question. We I live I live on North State Street.

Okay. Um you mentioned that the tax is something and you don't envy this job. If I ask you one question on this entire project, what would be an opportunity for this project in your thoughts? Thinking about Yes. thinking about the fiscal responsibility that we all have to take on an opportunity for the success of this project that is

yes there's a community room that's being built there in my police department we ended up making our training room into a school room for college students and five college classes were held there every The amount of goodwill and officers interacting with young people was amazing. Stuff that you're not going to get on an everyday basis. Your community room will be the basis for the police department to host many events. We we are excited that this community is diverse. I sat on the governor's uh DEI uh commission under under Governor Cenounu. It's needed those kind of those kind of avenues are needed to build relationships and I think that's a success that you can't you can't buy as PE police struggle in this country to be seen. So that's just one success that that I can point out instantly that I know it will work.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other questions? Question. Thank you, Chief Dean. Thank you so much for your service. Thank you.

Welcome.

Hello. Um, my name is Lisa Bedwin. I live in Ward 4 here in conquered. Um, I support the police unequivocally all the time. Uh, it's true. We do in fact need a modernized police station. Yes, police deserve and and the people they bring into the police station deserve a safe place that is has the appropriate technology and the items needed. That being said, I have some courageous and potentially uncomfortable points to lift up as you contemplate um approving this project. I would like to know what is the current operating cost of the police station because the projected new cost is between $500,000 and $700,000 a year and that will also represent a tax increase on the taxpayers. The building is very big and I appreciate Mr. Rainers and Mr. Schwikers and other uh other conquered residents comments on that. A long time ago in the age uh BC before children I earned a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice and I know that crime rates have fallen steadily in New Hampshire except for the blip of 2020 since 2016. Crime rates have also fallen both for minor crime as well as violent crime in the city of conquered. I think it's really important that you all know that and I think it's really important that

the residents of conquered know crime rates are falling on a tax consideration scale. I appreciated hearing another resident's call that this is a perfect storm. I happen to know uh a young man living in this city who pays about $5,100 a year in property taxes. And his property taxes are going to go up between the new middle school project and this police department project $500 a year. That does not include the projected increased costs of UNET. That does not include increased costs in food and other non-negotiables. There are many senior citizens living in the condo or in the condo association I live in who wept to the board of the condo association. We had to do a special assessment because they are on fixed incomes like my son is on fixed income. $500 on a $5,100 a year tax bill is unimaginably difficult. Unimaginably difficult. Um, I would recommend to this board that you leave out all of the ad alternates to minimize the the costs. I hope that you will give serious consideration to ma Mr. Rener's suggestion of building the wall that he referenced as an engineer that I can't

replicate that language. You are entrusted with our votes on the well-being of all conquered residents here. We spent $6 million and I would offer in my opinion foolishly and recklessly on that golf course renovation. It is your job as elected officials to look out for the common good for the least for the citizens of this city who can least afford to be here with the with the tax apocalypse. I loved that by the way. Thank you. With the tax apocalypse that is coming, we are going to end up like Portsmith where people working at the Hotel Conquered are going to be living in Henker and Hillsboro and surrounding towns. And that is unacceptable. That is an unacceptable moral and ethical way for us to stage ourselves. In the future, I would encourage the city council to adopt a policy where there is an architecture, engineering, and contracting team that is hired. If you perhaps you did this on the front end, but that's not my understanding. And you give any project project budget from the beginning and you tell the AEC team this is what we have to work with. You stay within our guidelines because we are here representing ordinary citizens of conquered. Those people for whom a $500 jump in one year in their taxes is untenable. We are looking at people choosing between food and utility bills. And this is not even you you the the city council also knows that there are downshifting tax pressures from the state of New Hampshire's also highly irresponsible non inability to decide to tax uh

granite sters fairly. So that pressure is on you all as well. I would also encourage the city council moving forward not to silo each month's review of proposed additional project expenses in January. Have a map what's coming up so that when you're voting in May or March that you know what you're expecting for um uh a budget line item in October and the public deserves to know. back in March when you all were taking public testimony on the golf course and hearing about um the complaints and concerns about the cost of that, we had the right to know as citizens some idea of where the cost of this police station was going to be. And again, like we have to build a new police station. That is not a question. We have to do that. We need to make sure that the police feel honored and respected and valued. And we need to make sure that the again I'm repeating myself that the people who they take into custody or who they're educating um that they have a reasonable clean safe space. It is really important that this city council change its practices around having a better map and a better landscape at the front end of the year of what the expenditures for the city is going to be so that you all know better how to prioritize making sure that you are lifting up the common good and the least among us as you are deciding on what kind of money to spend on what kind of projects. I I am so angry that we spent $6 million on a golf

course knowing that this project was coming up. And how much money did we spend on affordable housing so that people who work at Dose Amigos and the Hotel Conquered and who are janitors in our public schools can still live in this city and enjoy it. Economic privilege is sometimes hard to bear. So, I would urge you to think deeply and carefully about people who you might not get to spend a whole bunch of time with because they're they're not in your social circles, but they exist. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Councelor Kee. Thank you, Honor. Just one question if I could.

Order, please. To be quite honest, I'm not clear if you support uh building a new police station or not. I I understand you don't like the cost, but are you supportive of the project? I support the police getting a new police station. I think that it's very important to try to trim the costs and I, you know, I'm not going to talk out of my wheelhouse about issues that I do not have subject matter expertise on. So, I'm not going to I can't speak to what is a reasonable cost. That's your job. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like

welcome.

Hi there. Um, nice to see you all. I didn't expect to speak today, so I'm sorry if I'm a little illprepared. Um, my name is Ser. I live in conquered. I live that on North State Street. Um, and like some of the other people who spoke today, you know, I I love Conquered. I'm very passionate about Conquered. Um, but as a young person who lives in conquered, the reality is, um, I most likely will not be ever able to own a home here in conquered. Um, I rent and I have to hope every year uh that my rent does not increase because if it does uh I could potentially be homeless because of the lack of other affordable options here um in conquered. Uh and I know friends of mine who have had to relocate uh because they lost their housing in conquered and could not find more affordable housing. Um and I have some experience um that I wanted to to share with you guys as a again a young person in New Hampshire but uh who's worked in a variety of different helping professions. Um one of them being the crisis center here in conquered um I worked there for about three years and I to be clear I don't speak on behalf of any of my present or past employers. These are my opinions only. Um but so you I'm not sure if you guys know um most of the workers make under $20 an hour at the crisis center. Um, and these are people who are dealing with people in life or death situations, high lethality situations. Um, and most of them make under $20 an hour. Uh, we staff a 247 hotline. We run a shelter uh 24/7 every day. Um, for most of my employment, I worked off of uh plastic um foldable tables because we couldn't afford furniture. Um when we did buy a new building um we ended up the advocates all work from the basement um which was not uh renovated into anything other than basement. There's sewage that

runs through it that we hear every time someone flushes a toilet. Um I loved my job at the crisis center. We didn't have the resources that we needed ever. Uh every time a client needed a hotel, we had to fight to justify the reasons as to why. If somebody needed a bus ticket, we had to we couldn't fund that oursel. We had to rely on um on um Hearts for Kindness, we had to rely on the victim compensation fund because we could not fund um people who needed help. Um and some of these people are people that didn't feel comfortable calling the police um because of whatever it may be. Um and we were the front lines for a lot of those people. Um, so just when thinking about some other people have brought up other ideas of other ways to spend some of this money and I will have to be honest with you, I'm not a numbers person. I can't project to you what's an appropriate amount to spend. Uh, I do support uh updating um things to make sure everybody in conquered is safe. That includes the police officers that work here. That includes the people who work at the crisis center. Um, that includes um, currently I work in mental health. Uh a lot of people cannot afford to be licensed in the state of New Hampshire because of costs associated with lensure. Uh we're losing yearly we are losing counselors because people cannot afford it. Uh people student loans they cannot afford housing. Um and you know there are a lot of in other counties not so much in Maramat County because I used to also work in in the courts. Um, you know, there's a lot of other types of treatment courts that other counties have that we could absolutely adopt. Um, treatment courts for people with substance use issues, mental health court, family treatment court, veterans court. I don't believe we have any of those things here. Um, but they do have them in other counties and they help save lives. They save families. And I understand um that the idea is is that more police officers and

more social workers will um prevent people from being in the situation, but it doesn't if we don't have any resources for people. Um I work in mutual aid. Um we have been trying to assist people who have been affected by the uh encampments um being uh cleared. Um, and what we hear from police officers, um, is that they can't recommend really anywhere for these people to go. Um, there are no walk-in shelters in conquered. Uh, most of the shelters that exist in conquered are for families only. Uh, I believe there might be one shelter that is not specifically for a protected community such as survivors of domestic violence or families. Um, and I, one of my personal friends, Tim Russell, died this year as a result of homelessness. Um, and I really do believe if he wasn't homeless, he would still be here today. Um, so I just need you guys to know that again, if we don't have any resources for these people, how do police officers and social workers help them? Um, we need to fund the resources for people to have. Um, in the mutual aid work I do, we serve between 30 and 50 people every week, um, who are not getting what they need. We have hygiene, we have medical supplies, we have food, we have clothing, we have camping gear because they can't get that anywhere else. And all of the money that we have for our mutual aid projects are donationbased or grant-based. So these are coming from our community is funding our community at times more than our city is. And we hear that from people is they don't have the resources. I volunteer at our winter shelter that is open for maybe a few months. Uh it's not open right now. It's very cold out tonight and there are on average about a hundred

people in conquered who are completely unhoused almost every day given a I think that was a 2024 stat. Conquer's a pretty small place. There's a hundred people. Um and knowing too that it is illegal to um camp anywhere. There is nowhere that people can legally be and there is no shelters for them. So again, I I don't have numbers for you. Um but I have a lot of experience working with a lot of different people who need a lot of things that this project will not fix. Um, and yeah, that's that's what I have to say. If anybody has any questions or Thank you. Any questions?

Council Schultz. I just want to say thank you for the work you do. It's thankless work and I really value your testimony. Thank you, Council. Thank you, your honor. Um, Sier, you gave us your first name, but not your last name and it's important for the record. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. My last name is Mosqua. Mosqua. Council. So, you support a new police station at a lower cost or what? I'm sorry, I'm not putting words in your mouth. What?

Yes, I I Yes, I I again I I do understand because again, working with with victims, there were a lot of times where criminal cases couldn't proceed because uh we couldn't get police reports or evidence or, you know, um I don't necessarily think that more officers will prevent domestic violence. domestic violence is a systemic issue uh that police can be a part of. Um so I do support making again a safer conquered for everybody and that does include police and I do think that some of these things that are talking being talked about do make sense um that will help keep our community safe as well. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anyone else would like to testify? Evening everybody, Mr. Mayor, city manager, counselors. My name is Katherine Keller. Um, I own a house here in the South End. I've been an employee of the Conquered Police Department for over 20 years now. Um, and I just came to talk about, um, a couple areas of the police department that I have direct um, knowledge of. Um, first I'd like to say I don't want my taxes to go up just as much as anyone else. I work two jobs. I work hard. I'm a single homeowner. Um, so I I I get to struggle, but there are a couple big items on this upcoming year that uh I believe in. One of them is obviously the police department. Um, I'm going to speak on three things. The meter room where I get dressed for every day for work. um the reception area and the women's locker room. The meter room that we currently have right now, there's five of us. There's five lockers. We have two open positions. We have one person in background. There is no room for lockers for them. I don't know where they're going to get dressed. I don't know where they're going to put their equipment. We have a lot of equipment, especially in the winter time. Coats, boots, hats. I mean, we carry a lot of equipment on us personally. our our machines, our radios. We've outgrown it. Our meter room goes directly out into the garage. The ramp that um if officers are bringing someone into custody, we I've walked into people coming up that ramp more times over my career than I want to admit. Um it's not safe for me, it's not safe for uh the officers, and it's not safe for the

person in custody. Uh the second area is the reception area. I work I cover there um one hour every day for the receptionist lunch. I cover when she's on vacation. I cover when she's gone to appointments. That area is like working in a closet. There's not enough room for um all the equipment that we use, the computers, the cash register to do uh parking tickets and other fingerprints and whatever other money comes in that we have to run through the cash drawer. Um, if someone is calling in on the telephone and there's somebody at the window, that person at the window hears every conversation I have. People are, you know, calling in, they want to report stuff to me. I'm writing it down. I have to ask them questions so that I can get the call out to dispatch. They can disps. There is no privacy. Um, the women's locker room. When I first started 20 years ago, I had a locker in there. I've been booted out of that locker room for a long time now because there's so many women officers that now they have run out of room in there. Our women that work for this department deserve a place to be able to get dressed, to keep their equipment, to uh keep their personal equipment. If they want to work out in the gym and come in and take a shower, they deserve a place that they can go and do that. We have run out of room for them. We hire any more women officers, I really don't know where they're going. And it's a shame. And I know a lot of people are like, "What's the rush? What's the rush?" The rush is we don't have we don't have room for parking people. We don't have room for the new female officers. It it we got to do something. because something has to be done. They they deserve somewhere to go, somewhere to have. I mean, I've never been to the men's locker room. Can't speak of that,

but I can't imagine it's much better. So, um yeah. So those those are my concerns for and it's not just and I think people are under the impression it's you know when they talk about the police station it's not the police station just the police station the police parking enforcement the social workers city prosecutors all these people are going in this new building it's not just our police officers so um that's all I have to say any thank you thank you any questions councelor credit

thank you I just want to thank you for your service I know that um I've been working downtown probably for as long as you've been doing the um parking enforcement. And I think that often times people miss the fact that our parking enforcement officials in the downtown are the front line to medical emergencies that tend to happen on the street as well. whether it's um on our unhoused community, whether it's from our um senior citizens downtown, the legislative um bodies that you often are noticing an emergency long before uh we can get help to somebody and on-site. I know this because I've seen this I've seen you give this type of service in our community and it is greatly appreciated. I'm so glad that you brought up the locker room. To me, when we talk about a city that is diverse and equitable, equity fails when we can't support our women um and our women in uniform. Thank you so much for your testimony and your service.

Thank you. I have a quick question for you. So, if a redesign to reduce the square footage of the building pushed this project into 2026 so that construction couldn't start in 2027, do you think it'd be acceptable to not to have a new station until 2028? I'm telling you, we're out of room now.

So, we hire two more parking people, we're we're out of room in the parking division. We hire more female officers, we're out of room in the female locker room. We we are just unfortunately we the city I mean well not unfortunately but the city has grown uh the police department has grown substantially in the 20 years that I've been here. So I mean it's just a sign of the times that the building just does not hold all of us anymore. Okay. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Would anyone else like to testify? Welcome.

Thank you. Um I'm Nicole Fox. I am a resident. Um so I attended the public meeting that the city had um a few weeks ago about the police station. Um and I am persuaded that the um from all the photos of inside the police station that they are truly out of room as the speaker just before me said with far more detail. Um I think the location in the city is truly ideal. It's got provides it's so much um good access to transportation to be able to provide good response times. um the existing building is the size that it is and um the addition is needed for facilities that can't be housed in that existing building and so the extra size um you know if the existing building was the perfect fit and it was a little bit smaller that would be great but having additional room for expansion of services um you know other speakers have spoken about um mental health challenges and social workers and having the ability to have more social workers to work with the um closely with the police officers I think would be a benefit to the community. Um I am a member of um the middle school building committee so I will wait for the tomatoes to be thrown at me. Um and I'm not speaking for them but I have been to all the presentations from the architects um and the construction manager and the costs have gone up significantly with every delay that we've had. Um it's not likely to get cheaper. Construct I'm I'm also a civil engineer and infrastructure costs, steel and concrete keep going up in cost and so delaying the project is unlikely to really um solve those financial issues that people are facing. Um I do think it is a really unfortunate confluence that

so many significant projects um are kind of coming due at the same time and we have so many needs in this community. I would love for the city um to look for ways to reduce um you know budgets in the future to alleviate some of the burden on residents and to encourage business development so that those effects can be paid by business growth instead of just residents own homes. It is really hard for folks. Thank you. Any questions? Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Would

anyone else like to testify? Good evening, Mayor

and council members. My name is Kristen Ritz and I'm here to show my support the new police department. Not just as a conquered resident, also as a police department records employee. Some dangerous people have been brought into custody. And when they are, they are escorted from the Sally port to Holden cells. And the only way that can be done is to walk past the records office, leaving Records employees essentially defenseless if something ever happened. With the new building, we have worked with command staff and the architect design team to create a workflow in records that not only will provide a safer environment, but several other benefits. One is we will have a dedicated and locked payroll office and another is we will have a separate records window to enhance efficiency and privacy. and we'll no longer be sharing our records window with police officers registering sex offenders. There will be a separate lobby area for the officers to register sex offenders.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. And thank you for the work. Thank you very much for your service. Thank you.

Did you put your hand up? Yeah. All right. This is this is why uh if we do build a new police station and when we do reconfigure this campus, I would like to have a city council chamber where everybody is visible from the mayor's seat uh and where everyone is able to testify without walking upstairs. So, my apologies.

Perfectly fine. It's all right. Um good evening. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, city councilors, Mr. City Manager. Um my name is Aceen Caleb. I live in uh W 6. Um I'll be joining you in January. Um and I look forward to that. Um, but right now I'm obviously I'm speaking um just as a resident of conquered, resident of my ward, and um also as someone who spent the last couple of months um speaking directly to my my neighbors, to residents of Conquered about the issues that are important to them and what they care about and what they are concerned about. I'm just gonna close this.

Oh, okay. All right. Um so I have a few thoughts written here. Um, first I I would like to say that um your vote today isn't whether or not to build a new police station ever um at any point in time. Um I see this this vote against this this vote for or against this project asked the question is now the right time. Um a number of other people have gotten up here and and um echoed similar sentiments. Uh and I appreciate um them sharing their voices. That's the decision really. Uh whether or not a new police station is urgent at this point in time, urgent enough to push through now. Um perhaps there's value in waiting or in pursuing a different course of action to solve the critical issues uh that face our police department. Um or andor also allocating resources to attack crime at its root. Um because buildings do not prevent or solve crime. Um, I have I have read the documents associated with the new police station and I've also done my best to share um share the information that I've learned uh with with people in uh a digestible way. Um and I do understand there are significant needs. Um interview rooms, um better support for victims, um survivors of domestic violence, um ability to achieve the accreditation which was spoken about earlier. Um accreditation that is voluntary but does set set really important standards um for police conduct that I do think are are important. Uh and then the better space for evidence storage. Um these are things I understand. I I obviously I don't have all of the answers on how to solve those problems if we don't move forward with this police station. Um but I just want to be clear on that point. So back to the urgency. Um another individual spoke about uh downward trends in crime. I think that

was Miss uh Bowden. Um and yes, our population will be increasing in the next few years, few decades. Uh calls uh for service have increased. Um, but I don't know the breakdown of that. How many of those are are crime related? Calls for service um does not equal increased crime. Um, but I also want to point out, I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet. Um, according to the proposal, this police station will be ultimately almost the same size as Manchester's. Um, a city nearly three times the size of conquered. Um and to me and to a number and to folks that I have spoken to, I wonder if this is just simply too much or too much for right now. Um people have mentioned the poor timing. Uh we have the tax burden that folks are going to feel um regarding rebuilding at runlet $155 million. And I say this as someone who does really believe that it is a critical urgent need um for our students to have an adequate middle school, a middle school that is not a health hazard. Um I believe that's super important, but I have heard so many concerns from folks over the last couple of months knocking on doors and just being online and responding to comments and speaking to friends and neighbors that uh that is going to cause a significant burden on them. um which will reflect on property tax bills and another person before mentioned rent prices which I really appreciate. I am a renter. I will be one of a few renters up here and um I understand my fate is also tied to rising property taxes. Uh, and I'm I'm concerned. Um, and I'm empathetic to folks that see their property tax bill directly. Um, I have something I'd like

to to read. Um, I am not obviously an office yet, but I have been getting emails, people reaching out who would like to be heard. Um, I I received an email from a neighbor actually. Um, I don't know this person yet. I look forward to getting to know them on Conquered Street. um which was sent over to the city clerk and to council members and I'd just like to read a little part of it. Um this individual says, "As a longtime resident of Conquered growing up in town and now recently finally owning property on Conquered Street, I've seen the good that the Conquered Police Department has done for the city. However, I have seen the city struggle to address the root cause of much crime. I've also seen and experienced firsthand now how painful large property taxes increases are on homeowners. And so I I read that and I really I felt that and that perspective that was shared is not unusual. I I do I have like I said I've spoken to so many people and I've spent so much time online and I have not seen many people up until a couple hours ago um speak speak favorably of this project um simply because of the tax burden that it will cause. Um, and of course that is anecdotal. Um, but it doesn't mean it's not a real barometer of of how the public feels. Um, another email I had somebody in Ward 10 named Elaine. She's lived here, a homeowner for 50 years. Um, she forwarded me a message. Uh, she sent over to the city city clerk. Um, she says this proposal comes in the wake of the school board's decision to build a $225 million in parenthesis. This includes interest on the bond uh middle school. Um then there's the multi-million dollar project for Memorial Field and the multi-million dollar Beaver Meadow Clubhouse. How do you think low and middle inome as well as most elderly residents can afford the

taxes for all of this? The short answer is we can't. The reason I bring up waiting is this is a terrible economic time to be asking the public to help pay for things that aren't immediately urgent in my mind and based on conversations that I have had things that aren't immediately urgent when they are of this magnitude um in terms of the global economy and also individuals and how their pockets are hurting. Um, I wonder how bad things are going to get. Um, I don't know if any of you here um get your health care through the Affordable Care Act, through the marketplace. Um, that is how I access health care and I am going to have to make a decision whether or not to be insured next year while I'm sitting right there. Um, things are very very hard economically and I just wanted to point that out. That's a personal matter but I feel it's relevant. Um, we don't know what's going to happen necessarily with with our health care, but I have a feeling that folks are going to be paying a lot more. I will wrap it up soon. Um, but I will also give an example of how I see public confidence and trust eroding and how I see that playing out. Um, we do have more major spending um, coming in the future. Um, when I think about our at capacity wastewater treatment plant and I think about the

what is it that $31 million potentially that we'll have to spend on that by that point we will have the $155 middle school, the $45 million police station. Um, I am not sure the figure for Memorial Field. Um, but that's a lot to ask of people. And when we are faced with matters like the wastewater plant that are urgent and must be addressed in order for the city to grow and effectively expand the tax base, welcome in new residents and grow our tax base, which is so necessary to lessen the impact of some of these projects. I think by that point people will be very very stressed and upset. Um ultimately to sum it up I just worry that the spending in quick succession will be too much for people to bear financially and that is also not to say that we will not fall on better economic times. I don't know. I feel like in a few years things might be better for folks. Um, but I am hearing that people think it is not the right time. I appreciate you listening. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any anyone else like to testify? Welcome.

It's all right.

The Bobby Knight situation. Exactly. Just don't don't be careful when you step off the back. All right.

Good evening, honorable mayor, Mr. City Manager, members of city council. My name is Patrick Orias, and I am joined this evening with Nicole Murray, Steven Carter, and Matthew Dwan. I serve as the president of the Conquered Police Supervisors Association, and Nicole is the president of the patrolman's association. Together, our association res represents the collective bargaining units, the sworn officers of the Conquered Police Department. The remarks I'm about to make are presented on behalf of both of our unions and the dedicated members we represent. I'd like to begin by expressing our sincere appreciation for the continued support this council has shown toward the Conquer Police Department and our members. Your partnership has been essential to helping us serve our community with professionalism and dedication throughout the years. This evening, many of our officers are watching this meeting live and a few are present. They are all hopeful that you will vote to approve the new police department. This project represents not only a muchneeded building, but also a lasting investment in the safety and future of our capital city. Our current facility has served the department and the community for many years, but no longer meets the needs of a modern law enforcement agency. The building is outdated. We have outgrown our available space and it lacks the safety and security upgrades necessary to meet current standards. A few examples of these limitations that affect daily operations include the following. One of them you've heard multiple times. Our booking process. Our current booking process requires physically walking an arrestee through the department's garage and mechanics area and into an elevator to bring them downstairs into the basement where they can finally be secured into a booking cell for processing. This setup presents clear safety and logistical concerns not only for our officers but also for detainees and civilian staff who may be adjacent in adjacent areas. It is far from ideal yet it reflects the space constraints we face every day. Another issue is limited work space and equipment. To access or utilize certain equipment and tools, our staff must routinely move or shuffle vehicles and

other items out of the way just to make room to work. We are simply out of space. Our detective offices are overcrowded with multiple investigators sharing areas that were never designed for that level of staffing. There's little privacy for sensitive case discussions or interviews and workspace limitations affect both efficiency and professionalism. Our newly established social worker program, which provides critical outreach and crisis response services, had to retrofit an interview room and a storage closet just to create a small office space. While this program has already proven to be invaluable community resource, its effectiveness is limited by the lack of adequate facilities to support this important work. Our property division responsible for managing, securing, and maintaining all evidence and stored property is currently stationed directly above Mechanic's Bay. This arrangement is far from optimal. The lack of proper separation of ventilation between uh between vehicle maintenance areas and evidence storage presents environmental and security risks. It also makes it difficult to maintain proper chain of custody standards and evidence integrity in a modern facility. These critical functions would be housed in purpose-built secure spaces designed to meet accreditation and best practice standards. These daily inefficiencies and limitations take valuable time away from our mission of serving the public and ensuring safety. Another issue is parking. Our department also faces serious parking constraints. We have only 10 on-site parking spaces for all available employees. This includes both sworn and civilian staff. Many are forced to find parking offsite before beginning their shifts. Even simple challenges such as limited parking and cramped workspaces create frustration and negatively influence the start of an officer shift every single day. While I have only presented a few of these daily limitations, a full list of challenges is lengthy and continuing to grow. A new facility is critical to addressing these issues of capacity and safety. It will it will allow us to meet current and future staffing needs, properly store and process evidence, and

maintain compliance with accreditation standards and nationally recognized best practices. These improvements are not simply about convenience. They are essential to ensuring that we can continue to provide the highest level of public safety for the residents of conquered. This project also has a direct impact on officer morale and retention. Our officers take great pride in serving the people of conquered and many have been actively involved in planning phases of this project. Their participation has created a sense of ownership and excitement about the future. Investing in a modern, functional facility demonstrates to our officers that their work is valued and that their safety and professional growth matter. This investment will help us retain experienced, dedicated personnel who are committed to serving this community for years to come. I'm aware that the Conquer Police Department's command staff has been consistently mindful of the financial impact associated with constructing a new headquarters. Throughout the planning and design process, they have worked closely with city officials, architects, and subject matter experts to ensure that every element of the project delivers long-term value to the community. Recognizing that this new facility represents a significant public investment, the command staff has emphasized emphasized efficiency, durability, and adaptability. The design focuses on meeting the department's current operational needs while allowing flexibility for future growth and evolving law enforcement technology. Every decision has been made with a focus on longevity, energy efficiency, and reducing maintenance costs, ensuring that the building will serve the citizens of conquered for decades to come. This forward-looking approach reflects the department's commitment not only to fiscal responsibility, but also to providing a safe, modern, and sustainable workplace that supports effective policing well into the future. Approving this project is not is not simply a vote for a new building. It's a vote for the future of public safety and conquered. It is a commitment to maintaining professional standards, supporting the men and women who protect our community, and ensuring that our department can continue to grow and evolve alongside the city that we serve. On behalf of both unions, I want to

thank the council for its ongoing support and for your thoughtful consideration of this important project. Your decision tonight will have a lasting impact on the future of our organization and our shared mission to keep New Hampshire's capital city safe for generations to come. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the job that all of you do to keep us safe. Any questions? Very good. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Anyone else like to testify? Welcome. Hi, I'm Kate West. I live in W nine. [Music] Um, one of the things that someone that testified before me talked about was resources for people in need. There's a lot of data that shows, right, the cause of criminal activity. A lot of the time has to do with a lack of access to adequate resources. Uh I do believe that uh officers when they think about a community that's safe and they think about a community of people that are thriving that the hope is that they're needed less and less, right? that as people get the resources they need and they are not in a position where they feel desperate or they are able to thrive without engaging in criminal activity that we would need less and less police officers. I would hope that that is a collective vision that we have that ultimately we are hoping that we do decrease criminal activity and we are able to provide the resources to the people that need them. What I do think is also important to think about is if that chart was back up there, thinking about all of the coexisting levers in terms of property taxes that assessment people's homes, the value of their homes go up to the

point where if you lower the tax rate, they still end up paying more. Right? Um, if we think about how being homeless in this city in a lot of ways is criminalized. If you price people out of their homes, that's going to increase your crime rate because there are a lot of things about being homeless that are illegal. As you heard, it's illegal to exist. There's nowhere to camp if you've lost your home. I personally think the the really big issue is in C this capital improvement project being in a long line of capital improvement projects and the people in our community feel it and I know that they're telling you um I heard someone say that the police station was built in 1974. I think that's 20 years newer than Runlet. So, when people are sitting up here telling you that they think it might be worth it to take a pause, I really hope that you do because in their day-to-day life, they can see a future where they're going to lose the homes that they've been paying on for 30 plus years and the community that they've been living in for 30 plus years. I also just wanted to talk about the um the way that there was this $7 million savings that was projected. And it sounded like it was relative to a future plan and not relative to what our police officers are like the operations budget of our our our current police station and the officers as things currently are. And it sounded it's difficult for me to

understand how that's seen as savings because it's not based on a a real number. It's based on a projected number. It feels a lot like me saying I'm saving $2,000 a month because I'm not leasing a BMW instead of saying I'm saving $2,000 a month because I've downsized into a smaller unit. That's actually affecting my current lived reality and the way that I operate financially. So, and then ultimately someone else also brought up federal grants and thinking about you had said that there's money that we received that you were talking about allocating to this project that was given to us because we are housing champions is what I think you said. Uh, I just wonder what the spirit of that really was and whether or not we would be honoring the spirit of that by building a police station. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions? Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to testify? Welcome.

Hi. Thank you. Uh my name is Sabrina Freeze. Um I live in Ward 4, actually really close to where the police station would potentially be built. Um I'm just going to speak speak on a small piece of this. Um uh as part of my job, I read a lot of police reports. I specifically work with domestic violence cases. Um, and um, something that I've noticed from reading those reports and looking into them, um, I think some other people have said this, the police officers are being asked to do a lot as part of modern policing. Um, I think more than they're necessarily capable of. So, um, I'm interested in the idea of improving social work and victim services. I think it's something that's really necessary. Um, so I wonder if the money for this project would be better employed supporting those services directly as opposed to through the police department if they would be directly to those. Um, from working with um, domestic violence cases, what I can say just from my experience reading those reports, um, there are a lot of great people that work with victims. I work with those people directly and they do amazing things and make the victims feel comfortable with kind of talking about probably the worst day of their lives. Um, but I also watch a lot of body warn camera footage and I can see that um the police officers are not always trained to make those people feel comfortable and to share their story. So, a lot of things get left out of the report. Um, and I think that having someone with a different role and a different, um, title and potentially someone that doesn't hold a gun, um, can make victims feel a little bit more comfortable as, uh, the first person on scene. Um, so I just think that maybe the services could be better employed that way. Um, my last little thing I'll say is I think, um, when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. I think there's a lot of problems in our world and in our city that require tools other than hammers. Um, and I think the

money for this project could be better served towards those tools um as opposed to potentially um building housing for more hammers. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. So my question is I know you said if we can use this money toward supporting the work that you guys do every day and thank you for all you do. Do you see this police station? I'm not saying the plan that you have in front of you. Do you think it's important to have a police station based on whatever you heard and what you read? Um I'm sorry I forgot to mention that part. Uh no I don't think so. I think that the money could be better used for other services that aren't housed in a police station.

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

Anyone else like to testify? Going once. Going twice. Right. I declare the hearing closed. Madam City Clerk, that brings us to item 30A. It is an ordinance amending the code of ordinances title 2 traffic code chapter 18 parking article 18-1 stopping standing and parking handicap parking to clarify parking requirements for public accessible parking spaces and time limit requirements.

Mr. City cler Mr. city manager. Sorry. Your honor, members of the council, staff has coordinated with general services and field verify the city's on street accessible spaces and those accessible spaces located on city surface parking lots. The ordinance that you have in front of you update schedule 18 to both reflect the actual public accessible spaces and to specify the applicable time limit for use of these spaces where applicable. The parking committee at their um August meeting provided staff with direction to proceed directly to city council with these amendments once they prepared.

Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing on item 30A. Would anyone like to testify? Seeing none, I'll declare the public hearing closed. Madam City Clerk, item 30B. It is an ordinance amending the code of ordinances title 4 zoning code chapter 28 zoning ordinance zoning districts and allowable uses by amending section 28-2-4K table of accessory uses article 28-5 supplemental standards section 28-5-9 child daycare facilities and the glossery.

Thank you Mr. City Manager. the honor members of the council. The city needs to update the zoning ordinance to be consistent with statutory changes and therefore recommends the following amendments to the zoning ordinance to amend the accessory use table to allow family-based child care daycare facilities by right uh as accessory to any principal resident residential use in any district and to revise the accessory use table to allow non-familybased child care facilities. Uh also uh revise the definition of uh child daycare facility according to the ordinance. Update the standards set within the supplemental standards section 28 uh-5-9. The planning board reviewed the proposed amendments at the September meeting unanimously recommended. The adoption by the city council and the approval of these will bring the zoning orders into compliance with state law.

Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing. Would anyone like to testify on item 30B? Seeing none, hearing is closed. Madam City Clerk, item 30C. It is an ordinance amending the code of ordinances, title 4, zoning code, chapter 28, zoning ordinance by amending the glossery.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. The other members of the council, as a result of Senate Bill 283, the city must update its zoning or owners by amending the glossery to include a revised definition of be below grade area as well as revise the existing definition of floor area ratio to expressly exclude below grade areas for new construction. The planning board reviewed these proposed amendments in September, unanimously recommended adoption by the city council. Glad to answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? Seeing none, uh, I'll open the public hearing. Anyone like to testify on item 3C? Seeing none, I'll declare this public hearing closed. Madam clerk, item 30D.

It is a resolution reading the city of Conquered's housing and community development plan. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Mr. Thompson, would you approach? Welcome, Mr. Thompson.

Evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, uh this being part of the city's uh process with the community development block grant, I do have a script that I am required to read in order to be compliant with HUD regulations. Uh I would note for those that are here, there are handouts available for all of the CDBG projects that have public hearings here tonight in the back of the room. Uh this is the proposed conquered housing and redevelopment uh community development plan which identifies needs currently exist or anticipated within the three years. Uh the city is required to have a plan updated no no more than every three years in order to be eligible for federal funding through the community development block grant program. This plan provides the basis for the city's housing and community development objectives and to apply for CDBG funds. The housing and community development plan could be no older than three years. The current plan was adopted in 2023. There are no changes proposed uh in the language of the 2023 plan. Uh, this will likely be updated in more detail following the completion of the city's master plan.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Any questions for Mr. Thompson? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Thompson. I'll open the public hearing on item 30D. Would anyone would like to testify on this item? Right. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. Madam City Clerk, item 30E. It is a resolution authorizing the city manager to submit an application in an amount of up to $500,000 and to accept an appropriate grant proceeds of up to $500,000 of community development block grant funds to support families in transitions by Centennial Square renovation project creating four new units of affordable housing.

Thank you, Mr. City Man. Tim again, good evening. Uh, this is a proposed application for community development finance authority for up to 500,000 in housing funds. Of the grant funds, 30,000 would be retained by the city for administrative costs associated with the project and the remainder of the funds and the benefit of would be subranted to families in transition. Families in transition would be using the funds to renovate office space into housing for low and moderate income households. the projects proposed one unit at five market lane and three units at 9 Oddfellows Lane Oddfellows Avenue which is in Bsentennial Square.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Any questions for Mr. Thompson? Mr. Thompson, is this an example of the city partnering with a nonprofit to provide more affordable housing? It certainly is. Is this the first instance of this? It is not. Uh, off the top of your head, how often have we participated with nonprofit? The city has been involved with community development block grants dating back into the 1980s uh and beyond. Uh we've appro approximately uh been recipients of over $25 million of community development block grant funds over that time period. Any idea how many affordable units that's created? I do not have a total number off the top of my head, but it would be in the hundreds. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Would anyone like to testify on item 30? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. the city clerk. Item 30F. It is a resolution adopting an anti-displacement and relocation policy statement and procedures in support of the city's community development block grant applications to the New Hampshire community development finance authority to support families in transitions bysentennial square renovation project at nine f oddfellows avenue and five market lane. Thank you Mr. Thompson. Are you deferring to Mr. Thompson, Mr. City? I am but I'm sorry I should have gang these two hearings together. I'm sorry. We've got a couple more after this as well.

Uh this uh uh housing uh and relocation displacement relocation assistance plan is again required by the community development block grant program. Uh the plan outlines the measures required for CDBG projects that involve any potential displacement or relocations of persons or businesses. If the city were to undertake a CDBD project where it involve displacement or relocation, they would have to follow this plan. The plan outlines the measures that would take to find compatible suitable housing for those persons or businesses that are displaced or relocated. In this particular project where these spaces are already vacant within the buildings, there is no displacement or relocation anticipated as part of the project.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Any questions for from the council? Seeing none, thank you very much. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to testify on this item? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. Madam City Clerk, item 30G. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $678,000 in the Conquered Stables redevelopment project CIP 664 to support the remediation of hazardous building materials at the Conquered Stables building 111.5 War Street and accepting the sum of $678,000 in unmatched grant funds from the US Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Cleanup Program for this purpose. Thank you, Mr. City Manager.

Yeah, members of the council, the source of the grant is the bipartisan infrastructure law funds, and there is no match or cost share required. Upon accepting the funding, the city staff will work with the US EPA program officer to prepare request for proposal for hired qualified environmental professionals. Staff will also work with selected QEP to prepare a work plan and schedule. Anticipated the cleanup work will be commence in 2026. Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? All right. Anyone in the in the audience would like to testify on item 30G? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. Madam city clerk, item 30H.

It's a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a payment in lie of taxes agreement between the city of conquered and L Ursa Minor LLC. Mr. City, thank you. Mr. City manager.

The honor, members of the council, LSC Ursa Miner plans to build, own and operate a photovotellic solar facility anticipated to have an estimated name plate capacity of approximately 4.98 megawws alternating current and has leased a 36.5 acre parcel from LA Brochu Inc. for the purpose uh the proposed development is renewable generation facility defined under RSA 72 col 73. uh that colon 7274 authorize communities to enter into the uh payment l of tax agreements with renewable generation facilities upon a duly notice public hearing which we're at tonight. Proposed payment L of taxes for 20 years guarantees a payment of $1,16,664 over the course of the agreement. The payment L tax rate was calculated based on the value of the proposed project. The estimated tax rate over the life of the agreement. The applicant has agreed to pay this rate on a front-loaded basis. So the payments will be higher at the beginning of the project and reduce as uh the equipment depreciates. In the event that the material changes uh for that development, the um change estimated value of the project, the city has reserved the right to renegotiate this agreement and adjust the payment L tax rate uh commensurate with these changes pursuant to RSA 7274. The attached agreement which you have in front of you requires council approval after the public hearing and allowing me to execute the agreement on behalf of the city. This is a huge win both for the environment and for our taxpayers.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Any questions? All right. Uh I will open the public hearing. Would anyone like to testify on item 30H? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. Madam City Clerk, item 30 I. It's a resolution authorizing the city manager to submit an application in an amount of $130,000 and to accept appropriate grant proceeds of $130,000 of community development block grant COVID 19 funds for the conquered coalition to end homeless emergency winter shelter and resource center operations.

Would any uh would the council object if I uh combine this hearing with hearing on item 30J? No. Thank All right, Madam City Clerk, would you also read item 3J? Sure. It's a resolution adopting an anti-displacement and relocation policy statement and procedures in support of the city's community development block grant COVID 19 application to the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority for the Conquered Coalition to End Homeless Emergency Winter Shelter and Resource Center Operations. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Mr. Thompson,

mayor, members of the council, uh you may recall back in uh 2019 2020, the federal government uh made available uh specific CDBG funds for CO 19 pandemic. Uh back in 2020, the city successfully applied for and received uh several hundred,000 for a variety of different projects. Uh there is approximately $1.038 038 million left in those COVID funds for the state of New Hampshire that have not been expended and the community development finance authority is trying to get those expended before they are clawed back by the federal government. Uh in this particular case uh this is a proposed application to the CDFA for up to $130,000 in CDBG CV funds. of the grant funds, 16,000 would be retained by the city for administrative costs and the remainder of the funds would be benefit of and subranted to the conquer coalition to end homelessness for estimated costs to be incurred for operating their winter emergency shelter uh at 230 North Main Street and the resource center at 238 North Main Street for the period of December 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. The funds requested would provide reimbursement for additional services that uh the coalition is providing to per people experiencing homeless and conquered that continue to be related to the pandemic. Uh the second part of this public hearing is for the anti-displacement plan. Again, this plan outlines the measures under the uniform relocation act required for CDBG projects that involved any displacement or relocation of persons or businesses. If the city were to undertake the CDBG project that involved the displacement or relocation, they would follow the plan. The plan outlines the measures that would city would take in order to find comparable suitable housing for persons or businesses dislocated displaced or relocated. Uh no displacement or relocation will occur as a result of this project as the project is for operating costs for the shelter and their resource center.

Thank you Mr. Thompson. Any questions for Mr. Thompson? Seeing none. Thank you Mr. Thompson. I do also wanted to note the total number is $25.3 million of CDBG funds and it's been since the inception of the program in 1974. Thank you sir. Thank you for being precise. Would anyone like to testify on items 30 I or 30J? Yes.

Welcome back. Yes. Nice to see you guys again.

Um I'll keep this super quick. I know it's really late. Um, I just wanted to say that I I support this allocation of of grant money. Um, and I would hope that we could find even more uh money to allocate towards the winter shelter. I'm not sure if anybody here has volunteered at the winter shelter. Great. So, you must know um it is bare bones. Um, these people are are full-g grown men and women sleeping on twin um bunk beds um which I could imagine uh is not very comfortable. I haven't ever slept there myself, but I would also um suggest that you guys consider u maybe reallocating some of the money that you proposed for the um police station to the winter shelter and other resources as I think that that would be a better use of money. Thank you. And also, I'm sorry I didn't identify myself again, but my name is Sam Mosqua. I live at 74 North State Street and uh thank you for allowing me time to speak.

You have another question from Council Kick. Just for clarification, this is an application, not an allocation yet. First, we have to get the money, then we can allocate it. Great. Well, I support the application. Excellent. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Would anyone else like to testify on these two items? Thank you. Um I do support this allocation and um I she talked a little bit about it. um if there's any chance that we can increase the amount of money and I'm talking about you know when it comes to like um taxing our developers and all those kind of years I think we have to get more money from those areas from outside and invest in these projects because that's a critical project for homeless homelessness and we're talking about like you know if we're investing if we're working with developers we have to identify what they're going to be paying for as as in like you know paying taxes. I mean we have to tax developers before we tax our homeowners or you know uh community members because you know you look at some of the developers do own a lot of large parking space. you know, they have a lot of big mean big, you know, uh, trucks, you know, meaning that we would have to like look into like if we we spend a lot of money, taxpayers money on the roads, fixing roads, fixing whatever parking spaces, drainage, I mean, sewer, you know, those kind of things. If we're working with taxpayers, they have to pay for those small small, you know, items we have. So we can we can tax I mean we we tax them. We can pay for those shelters. We can pay more and we can add more money. So my point is how can we tax our developers more

than we we tax our our homeowners or community in general and then we invest more in homelessness. and adding more money to that I mean funds to that it would eliminate the fact that you know after after winter some of these people struggle so how can we make come up with an idea that would seem to be a permanent solution to this issue homelessness so that's that's my testim thank you

any questions any questions thanks very much would anyone else like to testify on these These two items 30 L, 30J. I'm sorry, 30 I and 30J. All right. Close the public hearing, Madam City Clerk. Item 30K. It is a public hearing regarding the status of the following. $25,000 in community development block grant planning study fund subgranted to the families and transition and $25,000 subgranted to community justice center. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Mr. Thompson,

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, uh this is the required status update from the CDBG program. Uh, as the council may recall, these two uh projects were both granted uh applications through a CDBG uh to receive $25,000 each for planning studies. Uh, as a result, uh, one of those studies resulted in the application that you just heard earlier tonight for families in transition. Uh, their study was for the determination of the feasibility and estimated costs for the renovation of those office spaces at Bsentennial Square. Uh the estimated total cost of that project is approximately 800,000 of which they are now seeking $500,000 of CDBG funds. Uh the second project was the community justice center which as you may recall was a combination of the New Hampshire legal assistance 603 legal aid and the disability rights center of New Hampshire. Uh looking to consolidate their operations into a single site. uh they have conducted that study and they have determined the estimated costs for that would be $5 million and they are still still exploring options for financing uh eventual project.

Thank you Mr. Thompson. Any questions for Mr. Thompson? Thank you sir. Would anyone like to testify on item 30K? Right. Seeing none close the public hearing. This brings us to our public hearing. We have a two-minut recess. Two minute recess has been requested. Two minute recess.

Here we are. All right. We're reconvening the meeting. We now are in the public hearing action phase of our meeting. Madam City Clerk, item 31. It's an ordinance amending the code of ordinances title 2 traffic code chapter 18 parking stopping standing and parking handicap parking to clarify parking requirements for public accessible parking spaces and time limit requirements. Thank you. Do I have a motion approval? Second move and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor please signify by saying I.

I opposed. No. Eyes have it. The uh motion passes. Madam City Clerk, item 32, an ordinance amending the code of ordinances, title 4, zoning code, chapter 28, zoning ordinance, uh, article 28-2, zoning districts and allowable uses by amending section 28-2-4K, table of accessessor uses, article 285, supplemental standards, section 28-5-9, daycare facilities and the glossery. Move approval. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? I'm sorry. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. Post. No. Eyes have it. Madam of city clerk. Item 33.

It's an ordinance amending the code of ordinances title 4 zoning code chapter 28 zoning ordinance by amending the glossery. Second. Moved and seconded. Discussion. Right. All those in favor please signify by saying I. I. No. Eyes have it. Motion passes. City clerk. Item 34. It is a resolution reading the city of conquered housing and community development plan. Approval second move and seconded discussion. All those in favor please signify by saying I.

I opposed. No. Eyes have it. CL item 35. It is a resolution authorizing the city manager to submit an application in amount of up to $500,000 and to accept an appropriate grant proceeds of up to $500,000 of community development block grant funds to support families and transitions by by Centennial Square renovation project creating four new units of affordable housing. Move approval. Seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I opposed. No. Motion passes on the requisite 23 majority. Madam City Clerk, item 36.

It is a resolution adopting an anti-displacement and relocation policy statement and procedures in support of the city's community development block grant application to the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority to support families in transitions by Centennial Square renovation project at 9 Oddfellows Avenue and 5 Market Lane. Move approval. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor uh please signify by saying I

opposed. No. Eyes have it. Motion passes. Madam city clerk, item 37. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $678,000 in the conquered stables redevelopment project to support the rem remediation of hazardous building materials at the conquered stables building on Warren Street and accepting the sum of $678,000 in unmatched grant funds from the US Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Cleanup Program for this purpose. Seconded. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. No. Eyes have it by the requisite two-thirds majority. Madam city clerk, item 38.

It is a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a payment in lie of taxes agreement between the city of conquered and LSC Ursa Minor LLC. Move approval. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Oppos? No. Eyes have it. Madam, city clerk. Item 39. It is a resolution authorizing the city manager to submit an application in amount of $130,000 and to accept an appropriate grant proceeds of $130,000 of community development block grant co 19 funds for the conquered coalition to end homeless emergency winter shelter and resource center operations. Move approval. Second.

Moved and seconded. Uh any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying, Mr. Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. I just council Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I just um I just wanted to say that uh as a footnote to this that I think that we the fact that we don't open the shelter by weather rather than by date um is frustrating. That's all. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. No. Eyes have it by the requisite twothirds majority. Madam city clerk, item 40.

It is a resolution adopting the anti-displacement and relocation policy statement and procedures in support of the city's community development block grant co 19 application to the New Hampshire community development finance authority for the conquered coalition to end homeless emergency winter shelter and resource center operations. Move approval. Second. Move and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Oppos? No. Eyes have it. Madam city clerk, item 41,

uh, public hearing regarding the status of the following $25,000 in community development block grant planning study funds to sub subgranted to the families in transition and $25,000 subgranted to community justice. Thank you. Move approval. Second. Move. Seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

Oppos? No. Eyes have it. Madam, city clerk. Item 42. It is a resolution appropriating the sum of $45,500,000 in the police headquarters project CIP643 for the construction of the new police department building and authorizing the issuance of general fund general obligation bonds notes in the sum of $45,500,000 for this purpose. Approval second. Moved and seconded. Discussion. Council

H. Um, I would have to I would agree with Mr. Rainer that we cannot live in a vacuum and I would like to see some compromise. Um, first off, touring the police station is one of the very first things I did when I was elected. So, I'm well aware of the needs and inadequacies in our current police station. But we cannot ignore the juxtiposition of just six days ago asking the community to bring food to the polls to help feed hungry neighbors. And now, six days later, we're asking them to accept a $45 million project. It's also hard to ignore that we all campaigned up until six days ago on fiscal responsibility and working to lower taxes or keep them level. And again, we've won our seats and seem to have forgotten those promises less than a week ago. We know we're at a disadvantage with having a large portion of our property being non-T taxable with state properties, etc. But this huge project is a hard pill to swallow on top of the new middle school, Memorial Field, the clubhouse, and the fact that even the operating this property will cost nearly half a million dollars more per year is overwhelming. Not to mention that we are just a few months away from learning the outcome of the revaluation that has proven throughout the state to significantly raise taxes on mobile homes and lower valued properties. It's impossible for me to ignore the pleas of the taxpayers. And when I say that, I also include renters in that because they do pay taxes through um the property owner. Unfortunately, rent will never go down, even if taxes happen to go down. But it is hard to ignore the pleas of the many people that have reached out in despair and fear of losing their homes if we continue these tax increases, especially when we're not offering a way to counteract the spending. We just had to raise taxes a month ago because our revenue is not meeting our own expectations that we budgeted for. But we're not providing a plan to write

this train and start increasing revenue to help pay for all of these very expensive projects. I feel like we're approaching this in a very backwards manner and we need to reassess all of these projects and actually actually come up with a plan to raise revenue before we continue to spend. Councelor Council Schultz.

Thank you. Your honor, um there's no way I could be as eloquent as Councelor Horn was, but certainly the section that she spoke to from today's testimony also stuck out to me that, you know, to have all of these conversations about these big ticket items. Um assume, you know, it feels like a vacuum is simply just not the case in how folks pay their property taxes or Thank you very much for mentioning the fact that renters pay through their rent. I appreciate that too. I'm wondering if we could take a beat a couple weeks to a month to have a few more clarifying points um to see if anything could be made more affordable in what we've been presented. I think I think everyone agrees that there's a need for um for a number of really smart good reasons. Um, we need a new something station is what I believe we need is a new station. Um, and I and I also appreciate the fact that we have a building that we bought for this purpose, but can we look for more cost savings um with some more discussion with more questions? Um, can we take a beat and have that conversation um and look for savings? I think is the thing that most concerns me. Can we both find ways to pay for this and provide safety in the fairest way possible if we took a couple weeks to a month to really um sus out a few more questions?

What specific questions do you have if I may ask? I'm sorry. Say that again.

Which specific questions do you have that you'd like answers to? Well, we went over the bond issues, but have we discussed in any way, shape, or form the possibility of seeking funding from the state? Have we have we sought uh ways to save money by working with the county and state? Is there anything that uh benefits us sharing a city with um the police academy and their wonderful firing range um and all of the assets that are available to us there potentially? I can't say that I'm an expert in this. I am an expert in how budgeting is for people of my district because I also struggle with those uh conversations and I just want to make sure that we have the most palatable affordable project possible. So, um that's what I seek.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification. I'm aware that some counselors have indicated that they would like to have a mo some time to mull over the things that have been proposed to us. Council, I have to say I think that the staff has already looked into many of the things that you're talking about and I've certainly asked the staff about what impact a delay to redesign would have and basically that pushes it back into 2028 and whatever costs there are then. But I respect your concern. and I respect the concerns everybody has said. Uh to that to that point, I'm wondering how many counselors would be available to meet next Monday, the uh 17th of November to if we were to table this item and reconvene at that time.

I only see four people. Oh yeah, sorry. Checking calendar. Three, four, five. All right, people can check calendar. I will not be present. All right, council credic. How about on November 24th at 7 p.m. 24th? That's Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving week rather. Which day? Monday. Monday the 24th. Yeah. 1 2 3 four five six seven eight nil. Is your hand up? I don't think you was just a All right. Not available. I'm not sure at this time, but I don't want to commit to something. Okay. At this point, he needs to talk to his wife.

Your wife. I couldn't resist. I apologize. Jenny, I knew it. I knew it. Jenny, he's my friend. I can tell you that.

So, I'm struggling a little bit on why we're going to delay this. Um, I went to public hearing last month and the city staff did an outstanding job answering questions and and the questions that were presented to uh staff and the um the consultant were followed up at the last city council meeting and and was explained explicitly what they were doing. So, I'm I'm trying to understand why we're going to delay this. Um, I do have some questions relative to operating maintenance cost. I have questions relative, you know, the 45 to 70,000 whatever it is. But you know I'm not sure everyone understands that as I understand it maybe I'm wrong is that the building the new building is going to be a hardened building where certain tasks and only those tasks can be can occur in this area where some the existing building that we're going to renovate is going to have more administrative staff and more civilian type activities. And so I'm not sure we can, you know, if you have questions about the size of the thing, um I'm not sure that those are going to change between now and whatever alternative date we want to choose.

To be honest, council, I share your thoughts. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Um I would say at least for myself, um we just got a completely different

mechanism for financing it. So, I asked a question earlier. Um, obviously I have not had a chance to figure out what the cost uh what the potential cost savings could be doing it in one fashion versus another and I haven't looked to see uh how that jives with what our current uh fund balance is. So, I personally have some questions related to that. We certainly have heard a lot from people tonight and I think there were questions raised as well at the public meeting um about sort of the size difference. Um I think um most capital projects we've done over the last I don't know 20 years there's always been some push back on size and an effort to try and rightsize things. Um I don't know whether that's appropriate here or not. Um I I still struggle with uh trying to understand exactly what programming is in the 70,000 square foot sort of total building. I understand the need for the addition obviously to get sort of the level four. Um I think somebody suggested why don't we just build a building? I did I think I asked that question at our last meeting and basically if we just you know dropped the building and built you know 40,000 square feet of level four it's going to cost us more. I accept that.

Um but what I struggle a little bit with is um if we're seeing um a square foot price and and I'm not saying you know I think somebody said oh we might save 14 million if we cut 20,000 square feet. I think that's doubtful personally that it would be that much. But if you had to spend a million dollars to uh look at potential redesign to, you know, drop 10,000 square feet, I don't know, maybe that saves you money, maybe it's worth it. Those are the sorts of things that I would like to sort of better understand, at least personally. Brady St.

Thank you, your honor. Um I think that there is a great deal of urgency in moving forward with this project. I heard loud and clear from you know our female um staff that they have inadequate facilities. That's unacceptable in every way. Um that needs to be addressed. I've also heard from staff that there's fear around um some of the structural issues that um give them exposure to some um significantly dangerous people as well as our officers in terms of um some of the holding spaces. It's just it's unacceptable and we need to move forward on this. That said, I think that, you know, there are some good faith um reasons to take a very brief pause. I would support in order to look at the new, you know, information that we got to hear more feedback from the public as well as the press. The first time any I've seen it. This first time the public has seen it. I think that's fair. Um I don't want to slow walk this to death and I don't want this to be used as a reason to not do this. like if if people don't support this, you should just say you don't support this um and not drag this out further because it's going to cost more and it is uh currently a dangerous situation and we shouldn't have our employees in in um the current structure. So, I feel that I'd be okay with a a a short pause to digest this information. I think that that's good governance and the public deserves to be able to digest it as well as us, but I hope that we can move forward quickly. Council second councelor Mc.

Thank you honor. Um I think I am going to second what every at least the two counelor that spoke before me. When I was coming today I wanted to see whatever we can discuss here and I heard it loud and clear during my time campaigning and I want to say thank you to W 8 for giving me this opportunity to sit at this table. None of us here take things lightly. We all hold our responsibility. I talked to every counselor at this table and I can say nobody take things lightly and I heard loud and clear from world 8 um resident that the tax is taxing them out of Concord. That being said, I see port having a very modern and affordable and good police station. And for that reason and for the new plan that we have today, I would need more time to digest and the two weeks or the one week I support. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Me.

Thank you, your honor. Um, you know, we've learned from history that if we put it off, kick the can down the road, it doesn't happen or it's too expensive. Um, and I've also heard a lot about this building. It's not just a building. This is a place that houses the men and women who support our community, who provide safety at their life's risks at times and emotional, physical. Um, and why wouldn't we want to support that? Because I think most of our platforms here on running for election is safety. That's the number one thing that our community wants. Um, so I'm willing to take the time. I think I need the time to digest this, but I don't want to go more than a week because I we can't push this off into December. No way can we push it off January. So, I'm willing to take a week and come back and discuss this discuss the um ideas that the city has given back to us the three options, which I appreciate. Um, that's what I'm willing to do is take one week and come back and take a look at those and have a discussion and make a decision.

Thank you, councelor. Councelor Peach, keep a motion in order. I'd like to make them unless there's further discussion.

I I would just like I will I will entertain your your discussion in a moment. Um, I would just like to echo some of the things that was said uh by members of the of the council. Uh, you know, I think it's unacceptable that female officers don't have adequate locker room space. I think it's unacceptable that civilian staff have to worry uh about running into a prisoner uh you know being walked through the building. I think it's unacceptable that children have to be in the lobby at the same time that sexual offenders are coming in to register. Uh I think it's unacceptable uh that our police officers are eating their lunch at their desk and don't have a decent place to gather and to share information. I think I ran on public safety and I feel about that very strongly about that. And I think our men and women in uniform and our police social workers and our civilian staff and our meter uh readers, you know, our our parking enforcement people deserve to have a decent place. We uh earlier this year approved salaries, salary increases for these folks because we valued them. We wanted to retain the people we have. We want to recruit more top level people and to recruit somebody and put them into an overcrowded, you know, uh, uh, underequipped station is just not acceptable. And it's a fantasy to think you're going to be able to keep people when they have to work in those kinds of environments. I'm extremely sensitive to the to the tax impact. I also am very sensitive to the fact that as councelor McNamera said, if we kick this down the road, it's not going to get cheaper, you know, and based on my conversations with staff, any significant change to the current plan is going to have to go back to the architects, which is going to cost more architectural design fees and which is probably going to force us to have to build this, start building it in 2027

rather than 2026. So, I'm absolutely happy to take a beat. Uh uh and uh Council Credit, I saw your hand up.

Thank you, your honor. I I appreciate it. I don't want to repeat things that other people have said. I think the most important conversation at the table is besides the fact that we keep kicking this down to the future. Um the way policing was done in 1974 when our police department moved in there is not even close to the way it was or it is operating today. that we should be taking pride in our police department and how they've expanded their community policing programs. They've expanded the social services. Um, the outreach that we do in our community above and beyond the infraction of a law is welld deserving of a space to operate that is safe and that is um, everyone in our community should be welcomed to be there as part of that um, community uh, element that we're looking for. Um, I think the accreditation of our police department, the risk factors that we heard from our own police department and former police chiefs that haven't worked for the city in over 16 years, it speaks volumes to the risk that we all know exists. We were supposed to take this up in 2004 and we kicked it down the road. 2019, we kicked it down the road. 22, 23, 24, and now here we are in 25. And we want to talk about delays. Again, if we're going to support our officers and the people that work in that facility, our civilians and our community, we should be having this conversation realistically now, and not making it more expensive a week from now, two weeks from now, a month from now, six months from now, a year from now. Thank you.

Thank you. Recognized council for a motion. Thank you. I would like to make a motion that we recess this discussion, table, I'm sorry, table this uh this issue until Monday. the 17th. And I will say um I'm I'm supportive and ready to vote in favor of this this evening, but in deference to um a lot of your good comments around the table, I don't think a a week matters a whole lot. But what I will not see happen is this ground to a slow death, which other projects have sometimes happened to and other people um adopt that that strategy. So I absolutely will be on the lookout for that. Was your intention at 7 p.m. Pardon me? 7 p.m.

10 p.m. Yes. I'll defer to you, mayor. Whenever you like to schedule it, I'll second the motion. Moved and seconded, councelor Schller. So, councelor Ke, I agree with you and I agree that we need this this building. I would prefer two weeks out of uh the scheduling of some of the counselors here. So, if that's acceptable to you to go to the 24th, I'm this is not kicking it down the road. It's just doing due diligence, reviewing these new financial numbers. Thank you.

I think that the staff has done a great job in the design. The police department has done a lot of work in envisioning not just what we need now, but what we're going to need in 20 and 50 years. What is the future of policing in this community? The change in demography. We're the second oldest state in the country. The number of community and mental health calls are increasing. Uh we may need to dramatically increase our community uh policing and our mental health. But I think they've done a lot of work at thinking through the making sure that this building will fit the future, having it flexible and adaptable. So I I think it's a very strong design, but I think out of deference to the changed information we got today, I would prefer a slight delay, not kicking it down the road. And if that's acceptable, councelor Kee,

make your I just I'm just that's acceptable friendly amendment or friendly amendment. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, the motion is to table this item uh until 7 p.m. Monday, November 24th. Yes. Point of councelor Kurts. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Point of clarification, because this is an appropriation, we do need 10 votes regardless of correct who is present. So, Madame Clerk, did we have a confirmation of how many counselors could attend on the 24th because I thought I heard on the 17th only eight, which would I did not hear that on the Sunday. No. All but one. All but one on the 17th. I think I think councelor foot is trying to and then Jenny, could you make a decent? Okay.

Thank you. I misheard around the table and wanted to make sure we weren't setting ourselves up for disaster because I also feel to move this forward. Thank you. Uh we ready for the vote? Is everybody clear on the vote? The vote is table uh this item until 7 p.m. Monday, November 24th when we'll reconvene in this chamber. All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I no eyes have it. The uh item is tabled. Uh that brings us to reports. Mr. Gil, good job.

You need you made it, Dave, to I need to turn this on. I preloaded this, so hope it works. Modern technology work maybe

first one the box is empty.

That's what I'm trying to do. She always does. Where were they? Did you buy those? I got those for you a couple years ago. Were those good? What? I got her. I'll take a dip. The beaver bunnies. No, I was eating them. Yeah. I don't know what they were there. There was an issue going on with came in. Oh, tech support's coming over. There were a bunch of files popping up. [Laughter]

Then I'll get charged for uh damage of city property if I did that. Mr. Thompson's coming to talking about it's got a mind of its own. Is that right? Is that right? Maybe came in earlier today and preloaded it.

Oh my god. That was the Yeah. So we just rules conversation about the item from consent. That's what's left. Thinking about% of the time. We could just do this. I don't have any good looks anymore. I ever had Oh my goodness.

Am I a new employee?

On the web. So he doesn't The PowerPoint's on the website. If we just want to I think we should even get on the web. How about we do it right now while they're doing that? I can't even get on the rest of us. Mr. Hodley, would you please come forward?

David, I think they can see it. Although they can also never never wanting to um except screen miss an opportunity to embarrass somebody uh an employee. Uh Mr. Holdley, Jeff Holdley has been appointed as your new general services director. WOO!

You know, he's been acting for quite some time and he's done a fantastic job. Great. We went through a national search process and Jeff came out on top. So, congratulations. Congratulations, Jeff. Very exciting. Mama, be proud. [Laughter] Start without your data. Confirm. I need you here. Jenna, I don't know what the hell you think. He can hardly do math. Betty said that. And if you know her, that's exactly

Yeah, I believe that. I believe she not that extreme. She was my fifth grade teacher. What happened? Oh my god. She stops me when I drive by. Wasn't tough enough. She wasn't tough enough. She wasn't tough enough. Tougher as she got older experience. She tried to tame me. Call that seasoned. It was there. Oh my gosh. I don't know why it's up. Come on. 30 minutes. I'm gonna have to take a vote.

It's not open. That's a PDF. It started acting up.

Yeah. All right. Look at that. That's fancy. Good evening everybody. Uh green mayor. Oh no. Oh my god. That's Oh my goodness. Yeah. I don't want to click. Click. There's a new version released today. Good evening, mayor, members, city council, city manager. I'm David Gil, the city's parks and recreation director. Closer to you. Thank you. Better.

Yeah. Um joined is Eric from VHB and Chris from Hunter Sports. Uh just a quick review. The past two years we have been working on the master plan for Memorial Fields. Uh couple slides of the history um is made up of uh different parcels. The first one was donated in 1926. In the early 70s we did acquire additional land. Um and it's approximately 36 acres right now. Um Memorial Field today. Hey, I think everybody's pretty familiar with it. Um, 36 acre park, two football fields, track, baseball, softball, little league, uh, multisport fields for spring and fall sports, uh, tennis courts, basketball, and obviously some crosscountry ski trails in the wintertime. Um, the current site, I think everybody's familiar, the 1970s expansion that we did, um, does not anticipate the sports of today. Uh the the two football fields, the lacrosse fields, boys and ladies cannot fit into the into the field. Um the track needs to be replaced. Uh Conquer School District is not going to be using the track as of spring due to the poor condition. Um site drainage. Uh I've got a couple pictures of a poor site drainage. Uh drainage has failed over the years. Uh the football bleachers and baseball bleachers need to be replaced. Um, all fields are grass. Uh, there's a growing conversation in the community. Can we have artificial turf in one or two fields? Uh, parking challenges, ADA challenges. I was reminded earlier when I uh shared the PowerPoint that the the field lights at Memorial Field. We have three uh athletic fields um baseball, softball, and football. All the field lights do not work to the point that we have to rent portable lights um to have night football games.

Just a couple pictures of the site issues. Um 1970s drainage is clogged, failed. Um we do have a lot of standing water. We are getting lots more uh heavy rainstorms and when we get an inch plus um the current site holds a lot of water. It is in a bowl. Um so it's kind of natural. Um the red triangle, no it's not really triangle, rectangle, um is approximately the 1970s addition. Um that is approximately where most water problems are. It's also a couple feet lower than the main football field. Um and you can see on the right, um we do have some issues with drainage and when the frost comes out, uh the fields aren't uh really playable. Um, for everybody just remember back in June 2023, the city and the school district formed a partnership, jointly funded the master planning phase. This is what we're reporting on tonight. Um, master plan is just a 40,000 foot look down at a complex. Does it have all the amenities you want, all the amenities you need? And then try to come up with a plan. We had a first public meeting back in uh September. We had another one in February 24. February 24, we had about 120 people at the meeting. Um, we did have breakout groups and have conversations of, you know, what does everybody want with a new master plan. Uh, I also met with the students at the runlet, um, and at the high school to figure out what the student athletes want. They're the ones that are using the fields. Um, community listening sessions, kind of what we heard is similar to what we knew. uh address the drainage issues, more parking, improve fields with lights, increase accessibility, replace aging bleachers, new track, you know, keep all the current users, plus uh

field hockey to the complex. Right now, Conquer School District uses Rollins Park in the fall for field hockey, um just because there's not enough field space at the complex as it is. Um add locker rooms, updated bathroom facilities. Um you know, keep and improve walking trails. Uh they like the crossc country ski trail is connected over to the white farm area and then the desire to have artificial turf fields. Um I'm going to turn it over to Eric to kind of go over some of the site constraints um of the complex. Thank you David. Uh my name is Eric Jad. I'm the director of land development for VHB and our Bedford New Hampshire office. And uh our initial task here was to just really dive into the existing conditions, understand the property and what we're up against out there. Uh so we did a full existing condition survey, understand the property lines, uh full natural resource evaluation to understand the wetlands, streams, what those constraints um are doing to the property, understanding those buffer zones, uh topography, doing the um understanding what the grades are, which ties into the ADA challenges, drainage challenges, and then also uh complemented that with geotechnical exploration to understand the subsurface conditions to understand what's really going on uh beneath the ground, what the soils are doing and what they're not doing, which is primarily allowing the the water to infiltrate, which is causing a lot of those uh flooding problems that you saw in those pictures. So, setting that all up uh kind of sets the stage for us being able to place the various pieces uh for the master plan. Next, just scroll right and we also uh took a high level look just to evaluate the existing parking out there. I think uh most folks

understand that parking can be challenging when uh multiple events are going on at the facility. So currently out there um you know on the existing lot in red there's about 128 parking spaces. We took a look at what's available on the street parking. A lot of people park on the street. Uh it's about 136 total. And then on the stateowned land during um off peak hours that they're not using the lots, there's an additional 155. So it's about 419 total parking spaces in the vicinity to max out the parking demand out there. So uh I know we were charged with also trying to identify ways to increase the parking on site to uh reduce the the parking issues in the area. pass it over to Chris.

Hi, good evening. My name is Chris Huntress. I'm with Huntress Sports for landscape architects engineers. Um, and we specialize in athletic facilities. Um, we've been working with VHSP and with the city uh since 2023, if not before, to look at, um, master planning and conceptualizing the program and how we might be able to get things to better fit and improve some of the issues that you find here in Memorial Field. So, we had the first listening session in back in 2023 um, where we didn't present plans, we presented um, opportunities and constraints. We presented the, you know, the issues that were on the site and just listened. Some of the things that came out of that, we heard things like, you know, obviously a new a new 400 meter track was important. Expanding that track to accommodate soccer within the the confines of the track um were also important. 2,000 seats at the track may not be necessary. You could potentially do less there. However, there was strong desire at that time to have a second uh competition field with a larger seating plan that was not part of that was not um surrounded by a 400 meter track. So, we looked at ways that we could accommodate some of those um and improve your existing facilities both uh in place where they are today um and how we might expand and and improve on that. So, this was a a concept option A that was developed back in 2024 after those listening sessions. This does include a 400 meter uh eight lane track with 750 seats. It did widen the existing um um the existing field within to accommodate soccer. Um we included a new fieldhouse. Uh that fieldhouse would have new ADA compliant bathrooms, locker rooms, concessions, and storage areas uh for maintenance equipment and the like. We provided a full-size um competition field with 2000 seat grandstand uh in the location of tennis now really

because of its uh proximity and need for arrival. Uh we were looking at ways that we could um improve someone's uh arrival to the campus and make it most most efficient but also make it most attractive. Um, and removing some of the taller fences that surrounded tennis and moving those back and expanding the views as you arrive into the site was something that everyone seemed to find uh to be a positive. At that time, we recommended rebuilding baseball uh in place and and renovating softball. As Eric had said, we we had an eye towards parking. I think we went from about existing, you've got about 128 spaces on site right now, we added 56 uh to that. um in this in this current plan under under option A. Uh the other thing this did was it moved and reconstructed tennis. You've got 10 tennis courts and two basketball courts. We moved those down into kind of the southern corner, if you will, the the lower right hand side of the of the courts and then connected all these with ADA accessible walkways. Um, some of these fields being the track and field and the baseball field and the primary competition field included sports lighting. One of the other things we were tasked with is better understanding how we could phase this plan and could we do the first series of improvements uh without impacting the city's ability to to continue to construct or improve these further down the road. So, this was a plan that looked at taking those that first scope of work being the the track and field, the parking improvements, and the fieldhouse and building those, leaving tennis courts in place, leaving the other facilities in place, allowing you to do drainage improvements and things on the lower fields uh while we work up in the up in the upper parking lot. And at that point, I will hand it back to Eric to talk about drainage and other improvements. So this plan up here is showing the

primarily the major drainage improvements that we would anticipate on the site which which really needs to raise up the lower grades um probably three to four feet and that will allow us to get in some adequate drainage to be able to discharge out to the the wetland areas as it does today. Um currently the the drainage pictures that David had up before are discharging beneath the existing elevation of the wetland that's out there. So they're they're essentially filled with water and it takes a lot of pressure to to get those pipes to to get water moving. Additionally, there at the bottom of that screen, there's that thick uh blue line. There's a collapsed I think it's a 36 inch culvert going into the state property which during the heavier storm events that is significantly reduced in flow. um which is why I believe we're experience some of that back up into the field stirring those major storm events and then over time it's slowly retreating. So one of the first fixes would be that culvert which would help alleviate those heavy storm flow events but ultimately you still need to raise those grades due to the poor soils and high groundwater um in that area. So we this is a very schematic drainage design. Uh as we're looking at the fields and what fields are going to go where. Uh there are opportunities where we can utilize uh the field footprints to be able to store and manage storm water beneath those fields uh to reduce any surface basins that could take up a little bit more space. So this is the uh cost estimates from the 2004 option A. we're calling it um final design and permitting which would be the next phase if we were to move forward is $1.2 million. Um we did um put down to some suggested phasing costs with any master plan you would include um we included the wants and the needs so to speak. Um we 1 A and 1B basically the needs you know to

improve the field, improve the parking, improve the drainage um and the other ones can can go down as needed. Um, one of the conversations I picked up earlier, um, grant funds uh, back in the spring, I we did um, send a letter to the city to apply for a land water conservation grant. In September, we did get notified that they do want us to apply for a full grant round that's due the end of December. That would be up to a $500,000 grant. So, we'll continue to look at

Bless you. Bless you. We'll continue to look at those opportunities to bring in um non um taxpayers money. Um back in June, uh June, I think was 2025, um the city council formed a subcommittee. Um two city councilors along with two schoolboard members. Uh councelor Foot and Councelor Fantasy was representing the um city council. Um councelor Richard and Higgins represented the um conquered school district. Um and totally had seven meetings. Um several of them had public there to give input and give ideas. Um ensure the master goal was to ensure the master plan addressed all the site problems. Make sure the proposed fields are the best locations uh in the complex. Make sure the new track um improves the ability to host track and field meets. Increase on-site parking ADA accessibility. And again to continue to that, can you have um the master plan built in phases? Um, real quickly, the same things. Um, um, the subcommittee updated parking plan as presented in in the original plan. We added about 180 parking spaces. Um, we moved the track um to a lower southwest corner of the complex. Uh, that is a grass playing field. Um, two softball fields where the running track is right now. Um, new fieldhouse. Uh the fieldhouse has four team rooms, public bathroom, concessions and equipment storage. That was one of the wants from the athletes. Um new maintenance building, new concession uh bathroom. And the subcommittee also expressed support for the city to look into purchasing the state land to the west for potential uh future parking needs um going forward. turn it back over to Chris to talk about

the

Thanks, Dave. So, this plan was a result of the conversations that we had with the with the joint subcommittee and some of the direction that that we took. It does a couple of things. One is it expands significantly the parking along the east side up near South Fruit Street uh by 180 spaces from the 128. It adds 180, so it gets up to about 300, more than doubling the amount of parking. um on site while still including bus and parent uh pickup drop off areas and handicap parking and accessibility. The fieldhouse stays in reasonably the same location. We left tennis and basketball where they were. We did, as as David mentioned, move track and field down to the south corner um and left baseball in its original place, but reoriented it towards the northeast, which is a preferred orientation for baseball. That does create a very tight um trading plan between baseball and the track and field down there, but it does loosen up the rest of the site. We did lose one little league field in this scheme over the other one, but that allowed us to put the two multi-purpose fields uh down along the western property line with the 2000 bleacher and then moved two softball fields up to the existing location of the track and field. Um so this was the the final schematic that was prepared by the um by the joint subcommittee. The fields that would have sports lighting on this would be uh the baseball field, the track and field, the competition multi-purpose field, and then the competition soft one of the competition softball fields. Back to Dave. I'm happy to take any questions. No, we have to go to phasing. And u this is one of the phasing options um that BHB came up with. Um we go over that a little bit for sure. Yeah. Looking at u the track putting that in first in the bottom right hand corner uh allows us to really start

looking at the grading and bringing up that lower level grades and taking those essentially those three fields off on the bottom offline raising the grade to be able to get the drainage in and kind of working on a clockwise rotation around. So taking that track out then allows the softball uh to also get uh constructed as well while expanding the parking to to get that in for the opening of the uh new track. phase two, looking at the kind of how the the monies would all be split up as well as the the construction goes around saving some of the the building construction to the second phase along with uh the baseball construction as well. Uh and then the the final phase would be uh potentially resurfacing of the the tennis and basketball courts. And again, this is um updated um budget projections at a master plan level. Again, the next phase would be $1.2 million for final design and permitting during the final design process. We would get more granular into the cost. So, it would be uh you know 30 to 40% design. We'd be able to get firmer numbers than just a planning stage. Um again, phasing construction costs. We kind of went into to the requirement safety issue fields versus the new buildings and team rooms. Uh projected operating costs are $31 million. If you did everything at once, um we're not proposing we construction costs uh we would not be proposing that um amount of expense all at once. And then um next steps um next Monday um going to the conquered school district with the the same the same presentation to kind of give them an update where we're at where the subcommittee stands. The subcommittee did make a recommendation to approve um the plan as

presented the last one. Um we would have to continue to work with the city council city um school board on how to jointly fund the $1.2 $2 million for final design and permitting. Uh the city in this year's budget FY26, we do have funds approved. We have a project approved at 7 $750,000 with the city share u with the other 750 um being donations. Um but it cannot has to be matched with other dollars before we get approved. That is that money is there and that 26. Um in this year's budget we had estimated phase um the design and permitting phase at 1.5 million is actually at 1.2 so it's a little bit less. Um also during the final design and permitting phase we would have to develop new operating costs. Um we do have more fields with lights. There's new staff. There's new equipment. You know if you put in the bathrooms and team rooms there's going to be more janitor. There's more supplies and stuff. So we would uh pull all that together as part of that process and then um once funding is approved final design and permitting it is 12 months. Um so uh we have some tracks going to be offline this if we have other items coming down. Best case, it's a 12-month design process even before we come back to try to talk about funding and how we pay or grants or sponsorships and all that good stuff. So, that's the end of the report. We do have everything online just in case anybody is listening from home. All the public meetings are online. All the PowerPoints are online. Um, we have links to all the minutes for the subcommittee from our website. So, uh, everything's there in case anybody would like to look it up. questions for

I bet you know what I'm going to ask. Have have the discussions been had the split of who's paying for it? If they have not been had, when will they be had and who will be having those discussions? That would be a city administration question. No discussions. When will that when is that in this next steps process? Whatever the council wants to be. Council.

Yeah. So, this just feels really crazy um because the middle school still has not or the school board has not put out the numbers for the middle school and it's $155 million. Now, I I didn't participate in the earlier uh report or whatnot, but if people look at the um tax impact for a $45 and a half million project, that's $281 on a $500,000 home. The middle school, look, using that same math, that's an additional $960. This would then be another $211. Our residents, their wages are not increasing as fast as we are um setting up projects. This just feels crazy. We can't I feel like we can't approve anything if we don't know what the middle school numbers are. We don't And we have the revaluation. other communities, the manufactured homes, they saw their tax bill triple. We're not going to see that until next year after we've approved all these things and construction has started. This is catastrophic. This is devastating. I was looking at um mobile homes in Ward 5 currently assessed at $99,000. Council, do you have any questions about

I'm saying that we have to table this until we get the numbers, the finances from the school district. I'm making a motion that we table this. All right. Is there a second? Um motion fails for lack of a second. Councelor Schultz.

Well, that was confusing because um for a number of reasons. I'm also mindful of the time. I might have second it. And this goes to a bigger point. There was push back on any resistance earlier when we were discussing the police headquarters and yet when are we supposed to ask the difficult questions is it only on one-on-one conversations with each other separately because I have some real I just out of genuine pure ignorance on my part please ask

okay because I don't know that this is a fair question to you all although maybe it is I feel like um my understanding for my experience serving on the Everett Arena board is that the nature of kids sports have dramatically changed from what it was when I was a kid when everybody could play in multiple teams whatever that now it's moved to these sort of and again I don't understand this world traveling teams where people sort of at a very very young age pick a sport and then are sort of shoehorned into these teams that are essentially more profit than they are public school teams. If I understand it correctly, that's a world I don't understand and how that um this impacts that. Um I'm concerned for kids in sports. I realize I'm not on the school board, so that's a separate conversation, but that does concern me on what is public money being spent on on behalf of the council. I also care about the fact that there's another school district in conquered Panakook and I have concerns about the payment that those residents of conquered would face for a school uh board that isn't theirs. Um and I just would like to hear more of the points that I realize you're not addressing which is how the heck do we pay for that? So I guess really my biggest question is what is the implication in the changing of youth sports that impacts this to these what used to be public school teams to now these traveling sort of forprofit teams. I like that's an a counselor fantasy question

fantasy you're on the spot four minutes on the spot. Um two

ah where to begin? Um, so I think this is a uh place of recreation for everybody. Um, I think if there are forprofit groups that are going to be using it, there's a field charge associated with that for all of the various fields. Um there there is revenue potential with respect to for example in the notsodistant past. Uh we had a baseball field that was very high quality. Um you might have seen it in our consent agenda. We hosted the Babe Ruth World Series. Uh we used to have the Corey dogs there. Um the conditions of Memorial Field have deteriorated very rapidly. We used to host NHIA tournaments all the time because conquer is pretty centrally located. They will not send anything to us anymore. Um so uh I think the plan which uh I thank councelor Foot for being an excellent chairman uh of the uh of the committee worked really hard to try and figure out a way to uh modernize and uh find some efficiencies with how we would actually do the programming. So, for example, councelor foot uh was one of the ones to suggest that if we do two multi-purpose fields with sort of a grass uh field in between, we'd have essentially a layown area to be able to do those two fields at the same time and have some efficiencies in doing that. That's also the area in which we've got to do most of the drainage work is in the southwest corner.

Uh because that's the lowest area and it's where we've got sort of wetlands the closest. Um, one of the reasons we talked about moving sort of those really high traffic areas to that corner was number one, if we're going to have uh space that's available um on a, you know, 365, not quite 24 hours a day, but, you know, significant hours a day. We don't want to have an impact on neighbors. And if you see where the football field is right now and the lights are shining, there's a house right behind there. There's a couple houses right in that neighborhood. So, part of what we want to do is minimize the potential impact on the neighborhood. If you move uh the uh multi-purpose fields to the southwest corner, the only thing they're next to is a corn field and a church parking lot. So, we thought that would be a significant improvement for the neighborhood. um the cornfield, you know, we've flagged as potential future parking uh in the future because, you know, one of the complaints that I'm I'm sure um Council Mcofflin has heard from some of her constituents is, you know, when you've got I think the spring's probably the worst. You got a track meet, uh a tennis match, a baseball game, uh adult softball, and a little league game all going on at the same time, which happens probably three to four nights a week at least. There is not nearly enough parking between uh on-site, the street, and the um the archives. So, um, one of the things that we talked a lot about was trying to get as much parking as we could on site, recognizing that this plan that you're looking at does not solve all the parking issues, but thinking, you know, 10, 20, 40 years down the road, where's excellent source of potential parking? Well, to us, it would be for these corn

fields that are, you know, potentially excess state property. you could create a new entrance point off of Langley Parkway and have sort of a new gateway into sort of your your big field. So, um a lot of this was thinking I mean uh as you press on the first slide this uh I think the first donation was in 1926. Uh so we were taking a long view of trying to figure out what what are going to be the needs of the community for a recreation space over the next hundred years and how do you orient it in such a way that it will have uh minimal impact or minimize the impact on the neighborhood increase uh parking and increase potential playing opportunities. So, by going with two turf fields and a grass field that are multi-purpose, you're going to be able to have field hockey and lacrosse and um soccer and football and all of these things. And who knows, there's probably going to be, you know,

sorry, there's going to be a bunch of uh sports in the future. Chair will entertain a motion to continue the meeting beyond 11 o'clock. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. No. No. The chair is in doubt. Roll call. Sorry. I will start with Mayor Champlain. Uh, yes. Councelor Feny. No. Councelor Foot. Yes. Councelor Grady Sexton. No. Councelor Horn. Yes. Councelor Keech. No. Councelor Kick. No. Councelor Curts. No. Councelor Mclofflin. No councelor McNamera. No

councelor Slasher. No councelor Schultz. No councelor Seikub. No councelor Todd. Yes. And councelor Brown. No. The motion fails. Okay. Then we will reconvene tomorrow at 7 to continue the meeting. And I hope tomorrow. Well, you want to reconvene on the 24th when we're already meeting tomorrow's holiday. We'll reconvene on Wednesday at 7. Mr. Mayor, I have a time announcement.

As you're leaving, you may want to hear that there is a listening session at the community center with all of your state reps. Hold it. Hold it. I thought the meeting was over and I'm just speaking or Or do you want to continue this meeting in two weeks when we All right. 24th. Nothing good comes after 11. All right. Thank you. Meeting is recess. I'm sorry. A motion. A motion to recess. All in favor? All right. All I would like to make an announcement for the two people who are still listening. Say listening. And the microphones are on.