Town Council - Regular Meeting

To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can I just remind everyone if your cell phone is on, would you mute it or turn it off, please? Mr. Chair, could I make a motion to adopt the agenda with an addition under nine uh for discussion of the town attorney letter that was presented this morning? I'll second that as 9C. Yep. Yes.

Unless you think it should go somewhere else, but I think that would be Is it continued business because we've already discussed it or No. Well, not at a count. I mean, it was at a special meeting this morning, so I just want to make sure it's in the right place.

Is there any opposition to that? No. Okay. And as 9C or maybe was already second. Yeah. Second. Those in favor I added to the agenda. Agenda item two, adoption of agenda. Move to adopt the agenda as amended. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Not. Those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Is amended is adopted. Agenda item three, approval of minutes regular meeting of February 24th, 2026. So move second. Motion made and seconded. Is there any discussion? Any errors, omissions or changes to the minutes as presented? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Oppos? Nay. So approved. We move on to public remarks, which I imagine is why most of you are here this evening. just you need to get me to recognize you to come up. Everyone will who wants to speak will get an opportunity. Speaking time is limited to three minutes and the our clerk will time that you'd like to watch the rules and weapons. That's not supposed to happen, but all right.

So, I guess you're going to that podium. Yeah. Yes. Ma'am, did you did you have a question? No. I was just going to get to that in a moment. Oh, I thought you I thought you were calling her, too. So, I thought you had a question.

Okay, hold on. You'll be first. Also, when you speak, give your name and address to the clerk for the record so that she keeps gives the right uh identification to your your remarks. As I mentioned, limit your remarks to three minutes or less. And please do not make disparaging remarks about or about the personality or the character of any individual. You can think whatever you like. These are part of our normal procedures. So,

Hi, Cindy Craig, three Candlewood Drive. Um I would just like to say to everyone that is here this evening that u the town has been working very hard on doing a plan for the next 10 years which has had neighborhood meetings, focus groups which are ongoing and um the turnout at those meetings has not ex been exactly what I would consider this that plan. It's a POC. It's the plan of conservation and development and it's done every 10 years to decide how we as the citizens would like to see our town grow, develop or be conserved. So, there is currently a survey that is out on the town website that everybody here should be filling out about what you want to see in your town in the coming 10 years. We had a um um infrastructure meeting which was probably the worst attended of all the meetings we've had which was about water and sewer. Where were all of you then?

Well, it was in the paper. It's on the website, you know. So, you know, you need to you need to be reading the paper. you need to be looking at the website and you know people are following Facebook. It was on Facebook. All of these meetings have been on Facebook. So anyway, my encourage everyone here tonight by the end of this month to go out find the POC survey which is about how you as a citizen of East Hampton would like to see your town in the next 10 years. And if you don't do that, then you shouldn't be complaining.

Discourage remarks.

Okay. If it's what they want to hear. Good evening. My name is Beth Angel. I live at 34 Country Lane. I did go to the POC meeting on the infrastructure. I thought there were a lot of questions left open and I thought there was a lot of um disrespect for the public who raised a lot of questions. Excuse me, I'm a little nervous on this sewer system. And I think the best thing for this town would be to have a a big open discussion on all the questions that a lot of these people have raised. I have a lot of questions. I've listened to both sides on this issue. And I also have one question uh to maybe uh town manager Cox, maybe the town council. Who has the right to fire any head of a department like the head of WPCA? I would like that question answered because what I saw at the WPCA, the infrastructure POC was a very disrespectful town uh staff person and I don't think the town people deserve that kind of treatment. Thank you. My name is Frank McLean IV. I live at 28 Deep Bill Hill Road in Cobalt.

I grew up in this community. I was fortunate to go through the East Hampton public school system. I was even fortunate enough to be the bell ringer mascot my senior year in high school. Class 98. Who's here? Class 98. Um, I currently have a small farm and I work to serve my community by remaining a local food source. And um, if I'm completely honest, um, I'm nervous. This is I'd rather be in a garden than in a group like this, but um,

I love this community and I hope you do as well. Regardless of the deception and vitriol currently making the rounds on social media and in the press, the facts are clear. We are not here tonight to consider the purchase of a parcel of land for a simple expansion. Even though Anthony Dimone lies and does not want us to refer to adding extra land and facilities to our existing water plant that's currently not operating at capacity um as an expansion, but more on him later. We are here tonight because this defi this this this decision, this conversation officially kicks off what is, as some of you heard me say earlier, um two phases of unwanted, unnecessary, and utterly ruinous development. Development that voters should have the opportunity to support or deny. Now, I'm not going to act like a smart farmer here. I'm going to put the cart in front of the horse. I'm going to talk about the second phase of this debacle first. Told to me directly by Anthony D. Simone when he called me in October after speaking about me and my family's land indiscreetly around town for months. Human waste turned into sludge, brought daily into East Hampton by an estimated 40 to 50 18-wheeler trucks from across the region to be burned down into bioolids that will be trucked out of this $40 million propane fired facility 365 days a year. How are homeowners, taxpayers, residents benefiting from a bowaste burn facility in East Hampton?

Estimated to bring in just over $1 million in annual revenue to the town of East Hampton's tax base through this development. Is there a plan for how these funds will be allocated when the project or if the project is completed? All of us here tonight looking at you know relief on our property taxes will not be actualized. Excuse me, buddy. Yes, sir. Uh, you've reached three minutes. Let me do that. Wait, we we don't we give everyone three minutes there. If you don't,

are we running? Do you think? He does all my life. Thank you. Give our lifetime. We don't Anderson 38. WE'RE DONE WITH THIS [ __ ] TOWN. Time to speak, sir. You don't even live in this town, do you? YOU DON'T EVEN LIVE IN THIS TOWN, DO YOU? I know, sir. You are You are great. Thank you. I am.

We're going to need to remove you. You don't care. You got to eat the table. You bunch of crooks. YOU'RE ALL BUNCH OF CROOKS.

You ever know that name? You're going to get the truth. Yeah, I'm speaking the truth. I'll continue. Continue. You got about three minutes, sir. Are we ready to completely desecrate our quality of life at home, our property values, and our community for such a pittance? Estimated to estimated to bring over $1 million in annual revenue to the East Hampton tax base. Are we ready? Tidal. So handsome.

Tid Griffin of Griffin Residual LLC. The developer from Georgia will benefit from this development. His group of private equity investors will benefit from this development. You won't. We won't. You won't. You live here. You won't. Now, thank you very much. I'm okay. Yeah.

Thank you. Phase one. Currently, there have been discussions with regards to a parcel of purchase, a a purchase of parcel um surrounding our existing water treatment facility currently located at 20 Gilders Road off of Route 66 at the edges of Cobalt and Middle Hatam. Tid Griffin with Anthony D. Simone has been contacting land owners through Anthony D. Simone, as some of you heard me say earlier, I was one of those land owners that Anthony D. Simone contacted with regards to the bow-waste burn facility. Now, I'm not a real estate agent. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not what some of you might consider very smart, but uh my family enlisted legal representation to frankly protect our interests because as homeowners and land owners and just smart Americans, that's what you do. A town official speaking to land owners on behalf of development developers funded by private equity is a conflict of interest in my in my opinion. When Anthony D. Simone called me on behalf of Tid Griffin and Griffin Residuals in October, his exuberance at the proximity of my family's land to the existing water treatment uh facility was palpable. And he outright told me that the private development would be connected to the existing public facility. I took notes on that call. I thought it was important. He warned me that any text communication I had with him was accessible to the Freedom of Information Act. I don't know why. The numbers he brought forth while acting as a seemingly indiscretet liaison for Griffin residuals made me uncomfortable. My law office, who handles my family property uh considerations, have those notes. The

ethics attorneys I'm now consulting with also have those notes. A town official speaking to land owners on behalf of developers funded by private equity and misleading the developers plans, offers, and attention seemed criminal. A town official openly strategizing ways to lie about the obtrusive stench from his muchdesired development by blaming a local farmer is reprehensible. Anthony D. Simone's checkered past in Derby aside because I know that we're all familiar with his failures in Derby, right? Google him. Mr. Cox, I appreciate you coming in here earlier and accepting questions and being accessible accessible to the public. And frankly, fire Anthony D. Simone.

Yeah. The residents of East Hampton will not see real significant value from this development. On the contrary, the residents of East Hampton, you, us, us, will continue to carry the increasingly increasing property taxes while smelling, seeing, and dealing with this carbuncle of deception, poor planning, and greed. If you cannot see or if you choose to not see your neighbors, your constituents do see through the smokec screen. We hear the unspoken and it feels like in this room tonight we feel the deception. On the surface, this project and this vote originally scheduled for tonight to approve this acquisition is not obviously connected to the bow-waste burn facility already being quietly worked on. But the facts are clear. Once this phase on once phase one of this project is up and running, Griffin Residuals Anthony D. Simone can next turn to the sewer burn plant project and change East Hampton from Belltown to Bowwaste ground zero. If action is not taken tonight to remove an ineffective, dishonest, seemingly corrupt public official, and plans proceed to push these disasters through. I request that you schedule another vote and change the East Hampton High School mascot from the bell ringer to a bowel movement. Make this [ __ ] show official.

Senator Michael.

My name is Mike Pergalini. 16 Fern Lane uh in Middle Hatam and I like to follow the the gentleman farmer and perhaps add some math to it because it might help people understand the scale and scope. Uh using the town's own memorandum which was published by Mr. D. Simone, I'll come back to this document. The town is capable of using somewhere between three and seven uh million gallons or wet tons per day on a 365 day year. That's two 2,555 wet tons of waste that this town and this facility needs to process. This memorandum dated June 5th, 2025 and the other documents related to Griffin residuals talk about a facility capable of processing between 300 and 400 wet tons per day. 350 tons per day on average. Multiply that by a year is 127,750 wet tons or 50 times the needs for this town and this and this community. 50 times. What are we doing? I look back to this letter in August of 2024. The public utilities administrator, that would be Mr. D. Simone reached out to or approached Griffin Residuals. Whose authority did he do that under? He didn't do it under the town's authority. He didn't do it under planning and zoning. And all it all comes back to you folks. What's he doing running rogue with this type of proposal? Back to the math.

20 ton truck limit on the roads. So that 127,000 tons, again, we're using a um um midpoint number, 350 tons per day, is no less than 6,388 trucks, probably more because you've got smaller trucks like septic trucks running through. On 250 work days, that alone is 26 trucks. I checked the information I can find. The entire state of Connecticut generates roughly 560,000 wet tons of bioolid a year. The entire state, let me say that again. The entire state generates 560 wet ton 560,000 wet tons per year. Why is the town of East Hampton trying to solve 23% of the problem for the entire state under whose authority? What? These people didn't vote for that. These people didn't ask for that. Why are we so s trying to solve a quarter of the waste disposal problem for the entire state? I'll use the numbers again from would somebody like to see me a few minutes.

My wife is first offering her her time. Uh let's use the cost here in this financial impact. This this is offering a savings to the town in the in the vicinity of $160,000 on an annual basis. That's 5% of the entire budget for just the WPCA. It is onetenth of 1%. Let me say that again. It is onetenth of 1% of the expenses of the entire budget for the town of East Hampton. We're talking about a rounding error and we want to put in a facility capable of handling 25% of the waste of the entire state. Something's wrong here, folks. I have the memo or one of several which confirms that the Griffin Residuals thinks that they are well in the final stages of executing a long-term agreement with the regional bioolids processing facility for Colchester and East Hampton. Somebody's wrong. And it's not something that we can say that we were not aware of because Mr. Solomon, there's a letter directed to you and Mr. D. Simone answering questions as to the size of the facility. You know that this particular facility that's that's that's dated June 9th of 2025. Planning and zoning is also involved. Miss Hajj, another person who likes to put commercial as opposed to the residents in in uh in focus. Letter July 11th, 2025 to the town of Eastanthian, Juliet Hajj from Mr. Tid Griffin. We look forward to

the Griffin development of the regional bioolids facing facility. They're treating it as if this is a done deal. It's it's seems inappropriate to say the least. We talk about purchasing this piece of property. Uh let's see. I apologize. Bear with me one second. It's on my phone. The the notice that originally went out suggests that it is a town resolution for the appropriation appropriating $105,000 for the acquisition of property. If the town is going to acquire the property, the town needs to have a referendum for the public. Okay? It's a town is is acquiring the property. It goes to a public vote. It's a change in the development. Further on that point, uh if you look at the assessor's page for the town, the Gilders Gildersleeve facility is already listed on the assessor's page. So why would be it would be adding anything other than adding to that existing property? It needs to go to a public vote.

Mr. Mr. Hines, we started a conversation this morning while you were remote and I asked a question about the planning and zoning committee and how it seems at times to be more the exception to the planning and zoning committee. I'll ask that question again. This council is directs both the planning and zoning committee and also has input as to the town and to the hiring of the utility. When are we going to take some responsibility here? Who's going to take some responsibility here and reign this in? Right now, the inmates are running the asylum and we need to correct this. uh disagree.

To close, I think it would be appropriate for a resolution by the this council to formally terminate any and all agreements currently in negotiation with Griffin Residuals. Inform them that the public utilities administrator has no authority to negotiate with them and has been doing so in bad faith. We need to revisit the current status of the WPCA board which has three vacancies. Why does it have that board have three vacancies at this time? And to to dovtail into what some other folks has said uh there it's clear based on comments that certain employees of the WPCF and perhaps planning and zoning need to be investigated as to their comments and commitment to the the residents of this town. With that, I thank you for your time. Hi, my name is Greg Fcher and I live at 64 South Main Street, East Hampton. Uh, the first thing I'd like to say is, did anyone here come to support this thing?

No.

Okay. A sign of hands of anybody who doesn't want this? Oh, okay. Great. That's easy. All right. Now, uh I got a few questions. Now, judging from what I read in the paper, um does does this meeting have any influence? Possibly. Is there anything that we can say? Is there any way that anybody can change what they're already planning or is this just for show? That's one question. Okay. If this was something I've heard that this vote was taken, I don't know, in the ' 70s. Um and clearly we went past the uh appropriate time to do it, you know, right to this is past, right? Isn't this thing overdue? If it was from the 70s to improve it, right? What in another 30 years? Are we going to need another lot next to it? Do we keep having to build this stuff? And was there no comparison of the costs between keeping it the existing site? Why don't we get to see that? Why don't we have renderings of how it's going to look as you drive past it? The various neighbors, the smell, things like that, the trucks. Um, so are we bound by a vote that happened in the 70s even though everything has changed? Um, and uh that might be all of it. But, uh, so that's what I have to ask. And you know, I don't know if anybody read the paper. I put it there was something happening in Hebrin where they wanted to move the salt facility uh and I wrote a letter in the New York in the um and thank you uh I don't know but about I picked this place to move to cuz I was fell in love with it back in 1984. I don't know that I would have wanted to move to a place, you know, I mean, how are we going to improve? If we're

supposed to improve the town, how does this do it? Okay, thank you.

Hi everyone, Rebecca Hajj. I'm at reside at 20 Old Middletown Road and I also have four and a half acres on what may be 22 Old Middletown Road if I decide to stay here. Um I was here at the 8:30 a.m. meeting this morning. I didn't get to talk. I had my granddaughter. I would encourage anyone who didn't watch it to watch the Zoom meeting from this morning. Um, what I heard in the 8:30 a.m. meeting this morning was a bit circular on the discussion of property ownership and the subject parcel that was threatened by Anthony D. Simone that um, Buddy Mlan talked to earlier. Um, it sounds like, you know, the town manager and the town council said they wouldn't support it being taken by eminent domain. Um, but then I also heard the town manager say if in fact it goes forward and that would be a decision of Griffin res residuals would have to make. So I'm still a little unclear that if we're all against an imminent domain thing and the property owner doesn't want to sell, then why could how could this go anywhere in the first place?

It could. You would think, right? It should be under discussion and we we we should all get to go home.

Um, but I guess that's not the case. The other thing that concerned me is the comments about the land use and planning and zoning. Basically saying special permits are never denied. So you want to get rid of the wetlands, the aquifer, you want to just change the residential zoning to industrial, done, right? No problem. Um the the main concern for me here is well it's it's a stone throw from my property. Uh my son was planning to build a home there. Why the hell would you ever do that now if that goes through? wouldn't, which is what I thought this town wanted. Um, you know, single family home development, not overdevelopment, not huge um section 8 housing, I'll call it, which is what we're threatened by. If this doesn't go through, you know, supposedly we're going to get section 8 housing, which I'd rather have over this bioolids facility, by the way. Bring it on. Um, this is residential farmland. It's not suitable for this industrial sewage drying facility. Um, you guys know all the reasons. I won't reiterate them because I don't have time. Um, I live on Old Miltown Road. It's the Route 66 accident detour route. Um, it happens a lot. I can't imagine the trucks going through there. I've had six uh tractor trailers stuck in my front yard more than once. Um, it's not a good scene. Um, I also believe along with many others that there's some serious ethical and conflict of interests with uh Anthony D. Simone um and the family members with the plan and zoning board and the WCPA. Again, watch the Zoom meeting if you haven't watched it. I also worked at corporate America for many, many decades before retiring. I worked in controls and compliance. I worked in mergers, acquisitions, and divevestatures. I worked with a lot of attorneys. um if that were in that space, he would be removed, fired, escorted from the building, terminated

immediately, and probably legal action taken, frankly. And then, thank you, Michael Pervolini, cuz the math ain't math on why we would want to do this. Lastly, because somebody asked about the room, I'd like to ask the council members, who is for this bioalis facility and who is against it? What's your opinion? Because you guys have known about this a lot longer than we have. So, do you support it or do you not support it? All support. If you support it, can you raise your hands? You work for us. We We want to know your position.

Well, you're going to lose. Oh, you know my position. Are you against it? Are you against Oh, I thought you were saying are we in support of it? No. Oh, I'm not in support of it. Okay, I'll rephrase. Are you against the bofuels solids drying plant facility going in the residential space? Are you guys against it? Raise your hand. One, two, three. Four. Four. So you three would like the bioolids facility. No, you're not. I'm not. That's not what is happening here. Are you Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing? Four against three four.

No. All right. Thank you. Just to make it clear, I am not in favor of this plan as it's materialized and got to this point. You heard this morning. No, I was. There you go. Was not we didn't First of all, we're not taking Why wasn't there a vote? when it all down. Yeah. Because of a legal opinion.

Why wasn't that opinion presented? It was It was I did put it on Facebook. I shared it. When we got it, did I hear it? Oh, yeah. I did. It's crazy. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Here we at again just night Peter Downey 166 Lake Drive Eastampton Connecticut for anybody doesn't know that's Hazen Tree Farm.

Does anybody know about Juliet Hodge also and her background and before she came here? This is the person who had had an active lawsuit going against her. I'd called the individual. Guess what he is? He's a farmer. What was going at on at the time in town when she was hired? Does anybody remember down in Her State Park? Kind of funny you would bring in somebody like that to run over town like that. Screw the farmers. Look at Buddy. You want us to come tomorrow and talk about it? Tomorrow's not going to be a fun meeting either. And Dean, you're not running those sewer pipes through our property when we get it. Okay. You got that clear? It's on the record. It's part of the property is being sold. We have members of the family who want to sell, which is fine. If you guys want to buy it, it's going to be for sale. All right. I'd like to stick around. The way things are going, I don't think it's going to happen. Do you want me to call Reg up and get him down here again to bring you to the woodshed?

Peter,

you're disgraceful and pathetic. I'm going home to talk to my trees. Uh Emily Cronin, 24 IBY Road. I promise I'm not going to come anywhere near three minutes. The less time up here, the better. Um I'd like to express my deep concerns about the impending WPCA land purchase. Uh as well as the proposed bio solids facility. Uh that project has apparently been in the works for a year and a half now, being kept secret from the voters of East Hampton. A facility of this magnitude is not appropriate for this town size, a town of this size, and it's certainly not appropriate for the rural residential neighborhood targeted. At the heart of this problem, no secret at all, is Tony D. Simone. This council should have deep concerns about the fact that within a month of being hired, Mr. D. Simone had already contacted Griffin and gotten this project rolling. His intentions were never to serve the people of East Hampton, but rather to serve his own ambition at our expense. He has critically damaged the trust that people have in local government, yourselves included, and you should take personal uh stock in that. A town employee should not be degrading citizens, mocking them in a town meeting, misleading the town council, and outright lying to the residents and voters. At this point, Mr. Dimone's reputation is so damaged that we can no longer trust any information he provides about any project. and that includes the proposed land deal, the wastewater facility expansion, and the Griffin residuals debacle. He's proven that he will lie, omit information, and mislead the public and this council to get what he wants. If this were such a great project and it's going to benefit everyone in this town, why did you actively keep it a secret? I urge the town manager

I urge the town manager to do what is so obviously necessary at this point and fire D Simone for his glaring ethics violations. The damage he's done to public trust in this town is immeasurable. I also think it's necessary to reconsider the level of power and autonomy that you've granted to the WPCA. They apparently answer only to themselves and have demonstrated a complete lack of ethics or standards meeting or even developing a plan and Tony D. Simone can just walk urge this council elected the interests of East Hampton and the backdoor politics and see who elected you. He needs not.

My name is Maria Trolongo. I live on Lake Vista Drive. I'm not a great public speaker. Um, I don't play partisan politics and normally don't engage in any public political discussions. I don't wait into it. But the moment on Facebook, um, where I became aware of this project and I saw Kevin Rogers photo showing his property where the plant would be built, I knew I had a responsibility to speak out, to stand for him, and choose community. I worked my whole life to be able to buy my own home. It's small. It's humble. It's nothing fancy, but it's the largest financial investment of my life. And I'm sure that's probably true for most of us in this room that own homes. So, I looked at Mr. Rogers photo and I wondered why this town would allow Anthony D. Simone's personal agenda and relationship with Griffin Development to cause such harm to a resident. His property values will tank to non-existent. He'll be surrounded by noise, trucks, and stench in what is supposed to be a residential neighborhood. and ask any realtor what is his ability to sell his property. That's generational wealth gone to zero. That's his whole life gone. And then I watched the December WPCA meeting. Again, something that got shared on Facebook. The arrogance and rudeness of these members so cavalier about decisions that will significantly impact East Hampton residents. And then the comment about blaming smells on Mr. Bear's pigs. I'm appalled. They owe an apology, a public one, and they should be removed from those positions. It doesn't matter who said it. They laughed, and none of the people in that room objected. They're just as guilty as the person who made the comment. It's horrific. I coveted life in this town. I wanted to live lake life, small town America, neighbors who say hello, and local shops. Two years ago, I found my

door. I live here. I volunteer here multiple days a week. I support local here and I enjoy stopping in places and meeting other local residents. I've never met a person here that I didn't like. Anthony D. Simone has no place in this town. His bizarre relationship with Griffin Development has no place in this town. He's needs more than just a visit from the town manager HR saying, "Stop doing that. Don't say that." He will be the ruination of this town's brand and destroy credibility. Move to East Hampton. make a huge financial commitment and then we're going to build a wastewater facility right next door to you. We're going to mislead you about large trucks. We're going to make unsubstantiated claims about financial numbers, act as a proxy for a company to threaten a property owner. And we're going to turn East Hampton into a giant toilet for the entire state of Connecticut. That's exactly what it is. He'll finally get Griffin in a town. He's been trying to do that forever. Apparently, from what I've researched online, that's what I've read. And just imagine marching in old home days. And what we're going to smell is a stench. And it's more than salmon pete pulling a wagon and the occasional manure dropping. It's going to be a stench from bio the bioolids and everything else. That's what our town is going to become. Apologies need to be made from this council, from WPCA members, to every resident, but especially to Mr. Bear, Mr. Rogers, that threatened property owner to anyone really that has had to deal with him because if I've been hearing about him over the past couple of days privately from people, if I have been and I'm not someone that gets in the middle of this stuff, it's really not a good situation. He needs to be removed from his position. Everyone knows it. He's crossed too many lines and all of you are getting skewered publicly. I mean, Facebook has just been

on fire. Stand up for East Hampton. Stand up for hardworking residents. Stand in front of people. That's That's why you're there. Stand up for us. I'm I'm busy volunteering in town. I don't pay attention to this stuff because I trust that people that sit on councils, people that sit in positions of power are going to take care of things while I'm off doing the little things. I'm nothing and no one. I'm a little homeowner, but it's up to you to make sure that this town is protected. Do the right thing. Fix your reputation and the towns. Thank you. My name is Tim Murray. I live at five shipyard road in middle Hatam. And if you don't recognize the significance of that, I'm about a quarter of a mile downstream from the proposed facility. Mine Brook runs behind my house over an old mill dam about 25 ft from the back of the house. I've been my my background is I I retired recently after about 55 years in engineering and construction management and I've done everything from small projects on the order of $150,000 up to being a senior manager at a multi-billion dollar nuclear power plant construction project. I've been involved in everything from planning and zoning to all kinds of regulatory issues with various towns and the nuclear regulatory commission. So I'm familiar with a lot of this stuff at least how the processes

should work. I came back to town about 18 months ago and it was only a few days ago that I heard about this development and I am very concerned by what I hear. This sounds like an absolute circus and I think you owe it to everybody in town to take a second very hard look at what's going on. I've only heard the arguments of the objectors and from what I've heard in the way of facts. I don't see a justification for us doing this, particularly the figures that were talked about where we're supposed to take care of approximately a quarter of the state's waste. That's absolutely absurd. I am very concerned about when this thing goes into operation. If it's built, when they have a problem with operation and a leak and it discharges into mine brook, it's going to travel about a quarter mile downstream and go over that dam behind my house. It's a very effective airator and it'll release all kinds of smell that in addition to what gets airrated just by the general operation. So I am asking you please take a close look at this because I'm going to take a close look at it and I'm going to be I'm going to be asking you folks to do your due diligence particularly when it comes to this uh Anthony D. Simone, who I don't know anything about him other than what I've heard here, but it doesn't sound at all good. Thank you.

My name is Lori Whechch. I live at 41 Cone Road in East Hampton. Last summer, there was quite a few of us that spent a lot of time working on a petition against the sewers, against overdevelopment, so on and so forth. At that time, the council had the power to help us and they did the right thing and several of the streets were taken off as far as the sewer goes. But Alden's Crossing and Long Crossing are still in jeopardy of that. I realize that the council at this point doesn't have a lot of say over that, but what you do have say over is the person that does have the say over Mr. Anthony D. Simone, who has lost the public's faith, that seems to be only considering what he wants and has the audacity to insult people in our community. People that have been in our community for years, that have been in this town for years, just like Mr. Markham. I'm sorry. I know you have been here forever and ever. So, and

longer. Yes.

Yes. They have lost and you guys are taking it like on that chin for all of this. What you do have control over is the people that everybody has been talking about. You've heard the numbers. You've heard the facts. You've seen documentation. You've heard everybody in this room. They've lost faith in everything. They're We feel like we're being lied to, like we're being kept out of things, like, you know, this is changing and oh, this meeting is this time, this meeting is this time. And I did understand the reason for the change of the meeting. I I I just don't feel confident into these people that you have control over. When I walked in here, it was 10 after 6,4 after 6, and Mr. Cox was having a conversation with the people in the front row. And I apologize to those people because I certainly didn't mean to insult you in any way. But if you're going to be here, and it's supposed to be a public meeting, it needs to be on camera in front of everybody so everybody can hear. And believe me, you want that because you can't trust anybody. So you have the power. Whether or not you choose to use it is up to you. And that's what we're looking for. Why should you all sit there and take it on the chin for somebody else? I'm sure it's not happy thing because as it happens all the time, there's a story about this council member and a story about this council member and and you

know whether it's true or not, it's you guys. It's your families that are taking the brunt of this. So I would give that some thought. And one more question, where is Mr. Anthony Dimo? Uh maybe maybe he's hiding behind his computer or whatever, but you guys are sitting here getting scared and that guy's probably all having a beer. Thank you.

I hope this mean sir. Hey, good evening. I'm Jorge Hernandez. I've been a resident here in town for 26 years. My wife and I live on Barton Hill Road. Without a doubt, this is a very complicated issue, very charged. We're hearing a lot of emotion, and that's a good thing. This is a a historic benefit and tradition of New England town meetings where we get to speak our peace and stand up for what we believe is right. So much of what we've heard tonight is controversial as hell. There's nobody here who's happy to have to go through this and hear about this. It's misleading. It's secretive. Controversial is hardly the word. I wonder if there aren't legal issues involved with the behaviors that I've heard about tonight and that I've read about and that I will further investigate. And I would encourage everyone here to raise the flag and as I have done in the past, get in touch with our attorney general in Hartford. William Tong, who has the easiest email address on the planet to remember, which is attorney.generalct.gov. I will tell you, I've been in contact with this individual before and was surprised to hear from him same day. So maybe we need a higher power looking

at this on our behalf to see what laws have been violated, if any. Maybe we need to take this beyond the borders of our town that we know and love and have invested not just our money but our hearts and our lives into this community. Attorney.gov I'm sorry attorney.generalct.gov William Tong. Thank you. Margaret Fabber from 45 Schoolhouse Lane in Middle Hatam. I am 100% against this project that it will destroy the character of our town and so are all of my neighbors. I've canvased them. Um you town council need to start listening to the people immediately. Fire the corrupt D Simone who sounds like mafia to be perfectly honest. Stop this project. Be transparent or resign yourselves. I That's it.

Hi, I'm Teresa Roillo, 76 Abby Road, East Hampton. And I'm probably going to be vilified and stoned for what I'm about to say. and I'm not for this project. I will start with that. Um but I'm questioning I just want to know here has anybody here actually visited our water treatment plant that we have right now on Gilder sleeve? You have? Okay. So you all know it looks like a little mini um you know metabasset plant. It's got the big open pits. It's got the you know all the little steam coming out. It's got the tanks. It's got all of that.

When I was there this morning I didn't notice any smell. So, we'll start with that. So, if people are talking about all these smells and everything that they're going to be smelling, we've already got this plant. We've got this treatment thing in our town. Um, it doesn't stink. Not There's only one. Okay. What's that? Are you Does it I Okay. All right. Okay. I don't know. I was I'm like I said, I'm going to be vilified speak

and I'm not saying I'm for the project. My husband and I were one of the people that actually got everybody um informed about the sewer projects over the summer. We we helped start what you know um the whole grassroots project. We come to the meetings, we listen, we try to get um you know information and that what I want to say is I want more information on this is if this is going to be something that's going to be pushed down our throats. If this is something that we can't avoid, I want this is what I think the biggest problem with this whole town is. It's everything is done behind closed doors. Um the bio plant itself, it's not going to be burning anything. What's going to happen is if you actually took a tour of the plant and you saw the sludge, the sludge itself actually looks like moist compost. It doesn't stink. He pulled it out. I felt it. It really does not. It's like moist compost. What the thing? What's that?

That's after it's finished. And that's what we're doing there. No, but that's what's happening. So, this what the bio plant is going to do is going right now that that sludge is being put in trucks. So, when you talk about truck um you know uh traffic. So, that those that sludge is now being put on trucks and hauled out of here and it's being sent to another facility where it's being burned. What this facility supposedly is going to do is going to take this sludge and instead of us c you know um spending money to send it out to be burned, it will be um left here in town and it will be basically baked like it'll be um I can't think of a better word. It's going to be so like just it'll be dried. it to be um and and then it'll be shipped out I guess and used as filler. That's what I was told. Again, I think what we need to do if this is going to be shoved down our throats, I want more information. Supposedly, they had people give presentations to the P&Z. They've given presentations to you, but they never gave us information. They never had a town meeting and said, "Hey, this is what we're proposing to do. this is what we want done. Why didn't we get that so we could be informed and make the right decisions? When we had the sewer thing, they never gave us any information. We had to find it ourselves and then we got to um you know, you guys were good. You you turned it down and whatever. But that's the biggest issue with this town. Things are done behind closed doors. We need somebody to um speak up and tell us these before things start happening. So, just wanted to say my piece. I'm sorry if I offended anybody, but that's what I was told. Like I said, I took the tour this morning. I hope other people take that opportunity to go and see what's

going on there. And there is a lot of repairs that are needed. There are lots of repairs that need to be needed. So, we do need to upgrade that facility before it does really start dist. But again, again, if anybody knows me, ask him why he hasn't. If people are needed,

the people that know me, they will even even D Simone will tell you he hates my guts because all I ever do is question everything he says. I So then that's what I do. But I I'm not his biggest fan. I will never be his fan. The man, he has no people skills. He really does not belong in the position he's in. But I did see the facility. I did hear what what's going on. Repairs are needed. I'm just saying if it's going to be shoved down our throats, what we need is transparency and what we need is information. That's what I'm saying. Bonnie Sweet Riley, 41 Lake Boulevard. Um, I had just a question because this morning and this evening I heard the town manager say that the town attorney had stated that it was uh this morning the the words I'm pretty sure were unnecessary and um un unnecessary and there was another word that he used that we did not need to take a vote. Okay. So he never said it was legally binding that we could not take a vote. He just said it was unnecessary. And my question to you was, did you any of you encourage the town attorney to uh investigate other avenues to circumn what he considered his opinion was unnecessary because it didn't seem the words I was hearing were legally binding that we could not take a vote. It was more an opinion. And I heard the word opinion just this evening and this morning. So I'm just concerned or I guess I just have a question. Did anybody talk with the town attorney to see if there were other ways to to work this out so that the town could take a vote? Because I

didn't hear anything about that this morning. So, that would be my question to you. And it would be my hope that as a town attorney that he isn't looking at his own interest in keeping his job where he might be getting, you know, some backdoor benefits, but possibly that you guys should be asking him, are there other ways that we could work this out? So the town, the citizens who pay the taxes, the the unbelievable taxes and all the little nuances that come with it, that maybe you guys could do that for the citizens. And also, I just wanted to pass along um that Lori We had mentioned that if anybody has an issue with any of the ethics that there are complaint forms that you can fill out and give to the town, whether they'll be noted or, you know, anything will happen with that, that's one thing. But at least it's worth trying just like being here tonight. But I would just say I would hope that you would be speaking with the town attorney, encouraging him to see what he could do to circumn this whole we can't vote BS. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Becky Abbott. I live at 138 Bear Swamp Road. Um, I always planned on coming. I planned on being able to vote, but I I will tell you this that I did watch that YouTube video of the WPCA meeting in December. I was horrified. I was horrified. Number one, none of the names were available. I figured out who Mr. D. Simone is. Um, and before they even started having their meeting, he checked. He did. Let me see anyone on Zoom. Anyone zooming us on this? No. Oh, great. Let's go. He actually did that. Now, it was a disgraceful meeting. I kept waiting to see is someone going to comment about how rude and disrespectful these guys was like an old man's club. I I I wasn't prepared for that, especially making the decisions for our town. Obviously, if it's a joint, obviously Colchester's not going to have any they're not going to back off. They're going to say, "Yeah, go for it. Go for it. It's it's a not in my backyard, but it's a great idea." And I will say, Mr. Cox, I I am very disappointed. you did stand up here earlier and I appreciated you talking, but you said

you do appoint these committees if I understood that correctly. And then when people were discussing this horrible, horrible display of what's supposed to be a town committee, your response was, this happened in December. Your response was, "Huh? I wasn't aware of that." Uh, I haven't seen the video. Uh, wait a minute. You're the town manager, and I'm sure this isn't the first time you've heard about that video, and for you to stand there and say to everyone here, I'll have to look into that. I'll have to investigate that. What have you been doing about that since December? because this is March extremely

disappointed and

I I I I have to say I know he's writing but I will say I taught my nine and 10 year olds at center school 20 years when someone is speaking you look at them you don't say anybody you have you acknowledge that you're hearing what that person is saying. That's just common decency and common manners. And I taught that every year. I don't understand. I I know I'm a little I don't understand how we got here. I don't understand how this town allowed this joint commission, which doesn't just include our town, have complete control over what happens in our town with all of these drastic these people that you really investigated. You you have a lot more knowledge. I've been researching it, but you have a lot more knowledge than I do. How did it ever get to this point that that one committee is allowed to say, "Huh, yep. Sorry, town. Uh, you got to do this." And that's because we can. Was it was given to us this power and obviously it's not being managed. And I I I just am very flumxed by all of this because I've believed in this town. The distrust has been going on a long time. Planning and zoning. Let's this one developer pretty much run in and do whatever he wants. That's what the sewer system was all about. I was here for that vote and you stood up to them. You stood up to

him. He said, "You can't do that. You can't make that. But this one developer. Wow. I want to build a development up here and I'm going to need sewers. So, we got to figure out a way to get them up. Residential has been sewn commercial for no reason at all. There's no safety net anymore. People are very afraid that there's a lot more going on than what we're even seeing. We never even get notices about this developer name is conveniently never released obviously for obvious reasons. It's all under LLC's. LLC's. So, I I just I I I I just want to tell you that I I know that you guys are here for the town, but we're not seeing anyone standing up and saying this isn't right. We're here to represent the town's people, not a company, not a joint town commission that they don't have to worry about cuz it's all going to be on our town. There's no respect being shown here. No, I'm sorry. And I think that that's why people are getting so discouraged, so disappointed because we're treated like this. I'm sorry, but I have to say it. And my nine and 10 year olds for 20 years learned better manners than I

even Katie Huey Pepin. I live at 56 Kilipon Road in Middle Hatam. I am directly across from this proposed area. I moved away from here when I was 24 years old. I'm at least third generation. Most of you have pro, not most of you, several of you have gotten married in my grandfather's H Highleberg in. Moved back here a few years ago. Great town, great neighbors. Unfortunately, had a fire. Mr. Swan immediately was at my house. People are always here willing to help. There's a few people in this room that need to go. They do not stand up for us. You do not represent us. You all work for us, not for you.

On our roads between four of us, five of us. There's almost 15 acres that's going to be affected by this. Our wellwater that our children drink. We all have animals, whether it be livestock, pets, another stay-at-home mom that lives next door and I are working on homesteading vegetables, flowers. How do we bring our kids outside when it smells like human waste? We worry about our wells. This is not the town I moved back to that I grew up in. There's a lot of people that are really mad. You all work for us. Why are we building? Why are we buying that property? Why? And for those that will not raise your hands to oppose it, a lot of people are watching. A lot of dirt is being dug up. It is a small town. You need to pay attention.

Thank you. Hi, I'm Jen Palmer. I live at 3 Wang Gang Trail and um I have lived here for almost 23 years and I moved here. I drove into this town through the center of town, drove down into Middle Hatam when I first came to East Hampton. And I literally moved into this town because this is what I wanted. I wanted that small town. I wanted to be able to come in and I was pregnant with my son at the time and I was just I envisioned of living in this small town and having this and driving past this area. I drive past almost daily and the the vision I see of what this could turn out to be on 66 is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. And I I want to say I want to say that I'm actually thankful And I can't believe I'm saying this for Facebook because I never would have known about this if it wasn't for certain individuals that did put this on Facebook. And the debacle is like is just horrendous. And the dis and to start off with this meeting that I saw that happened in December and I did not know who the Bear family was and I apologize for that because I probably should. But when I was listening to what these people were saying about this family that lives in our small town and the disrespect, I sat there, my mouth, I'm watching this on my phone and my mouth literally dropped of how another human being, a group could sit there and talk and and blame a f and say they're going to blame a family was disgusting. Absolutely positively disgusting. So that right there is

just disgusting. The sneakiness and undermining of this D Simone man of this project and his relationship of what I've learned with the Griffin residuals or whatever the name is is horrendous and the way that it's happened and when he was hired and how the gentleman whoever had that was, you know, he was hired and then a month later he went to the Griffin. It's all just so illegal which is just horrible. Also, and as I was saying, let's talk about this project that will be directly on 66. And the first thing these people, anybody who comes into our beautiful town, they're going to see a waste project sitting right there on 66. As well as the traffic. I've been stuck in Cobalt when there's been an accident. God, can you imagine if we have all these tractor trailers, they're trying to get through down 66, our little two-lane road, it's not going to happen. It just it can't happen. Sorry, I'm getting on a My hope and my prayers is that the power of the people will actually be seen and heard because I don't live anywhere close to where the people where this project's going to be, but it's going to affect everybody. I'm done. It's going to affect everybody. So, I pray that you all just make it happen. Get rid of this damone man and make this happen. Hi, good evening. Uh, Kirk Kamiski 62 WAWAG and I want make two points. first is and I was thinking about the uh the WPCA and that was formed after statutes

somewhere in like the 1960s or somewhere around there and then East Hampton just implemented those statutes and I real and I want to say that because it may not have been implemented according to the statute and it could do better and looks at revision because they're supposed to be a separate entity. They buy property. They're responsible for the management of the facility. And it's not East Hampton. It's not David Cox's or the town council's responsibility for the operation of that plant. The statute is just quite clear on that. Now the the East Hampton may have been doing some like HR and finance issues where they get paid a particular uh what do you call that amount of money from the WPCA and the joint facilities. So it's not the regular taxpayers us folks that do not have anything to do with the uh wastewater treatment. We do not pay for the operations of that facility. It is those people that receive the operation from that facility. They pay for that operations facility, not underneath the the the town councils. That's the first thing. And so, and I asked the town council if they we could clarify that a little bit of what is our the town council and the town's role and responsibility with the WPCA and joint facilities cuz I don't use that. I don't want to pay for that. So, I don't think anybody else in here wants to pay for that. And David Cox, I know helps out, but the town does get reimbursed for expenses for like payroll and all that. So, that's a separate issue. Second is uh my wife is in involved with

environmental. As a matter of fact, she started with her career and uh Meridan with the wastewater treatment plant. Then she worked at Ki Inc. for a year. She's a uh the radio chemist there and then she eventually uh decommissioned the whole plant and then she went to Bridgeport wastewater treatment plant. But the point is is the facility in Bridgeport. If you want to talk about East Hampton, they did not smell. The way they process it, there was no smell. Now, if you guys have a different issue, fine. My wife worked for Bridgeport for 5 years. She said it doesn't smell. So if you want to like make an issue, however, that facility is over 40 years old, it's going to need something eventually. We have to think about that as a town and the WPCA, it's their responsibility, not the town of East Hampton, but it's their responsibility to look at that. So we have to just keep that in mind. This is it's an aging plan. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

What's that? You got a question? How do I How do I ask? Um, no, I mean, we'll do it like a 30 second question. It sounds like It sounds like they're saying the town can't do anything about correct, but we have to be recognized that the WPCA will be doing something. Those are two different entities. These guys are not WP. That's fine. I understand. You're saying the pound can't do anything. Are you suggesting that the state needs to get involved? Well, I don't care. Whatever the state wants to do with WP, I don't care. These guys don't.

I think one of the problems with that is they're asking to buy more land. Oh, no. No. I the more easier for them to make from the meeting, the county does not have any responsibility of anything to do buying land for WC. That's their issue. that cannot be discussed. They want to say something else. They want these people. No, we don't. WPC roads, the trucks, all that stuff. We pay for that.

But not that the W is paid for by the not these guys. They have nothing.

Good evening. William J. Nton Jr. Fort Coughlin Road Cobalt. I've lived at Fort Coughlin Road Cobalt for almost 30 years and I like it there. This proposed plant would be in my backyard literally. Mine Brook is the only thing that would separate my land from this facility. The front yard is Coughlin Road basically. And all these trucks I heard about this morning, 26 plus per day would be going right by my house to a a road that would be constructed. Coughlin Road to Gildersleeve, I guess, and and down to the new plant that's proposed. So, you know how I feel about that. I take my bike out almost every day during nice weather on the airline trail. And when I get to the water treatment plant, uh, or the treatment plant that's there, I smell the odor. There's no question about that. And from my yard, if the wind is blowing southerntherly, I smell what's there right now. There's no question about that. So I have a question that I would ask the town council right now considering the fact that this is in proposed to be in my backyard. Put yourself in my shoes. Then put those shoes on my land and look around the backyard where the plant would be, the front yard where the trucks would be. And how would that make you feel if that was your property? What's fair about that? Thank you.

Hi, Salafora 147 Colchester Avenue. I uh mistakenly thought that uh we were discussing the uh what pu uh what part of land were would be uh expanded upon and thought that well first of all the land we're talking about right by Route 66 is horrible. It's the worst thing in the world to do. I've been in town for 50 years. To come into town to a sewage plant to get through that to get to the center of town is awful and it's it's disgusting and absolutely needs to be uh decided against. Um I had no idea of how much waste we were talking about. And so my I firmly believe rules are meant to be broken. We cannot be held accountable for something that is decided upon 20, 30, and 40 years ago to join a commission and to join other towns on. I say look for a way legally or however wise vote on it here in committee or have a a referendum and get us out of this. Um we don't have to be a part of a joint town committee. We can say we're done. That's it. Thanks.

My name is Denise Sawyers. I live on 77 Barton Hill Road in East Hampton. Uh, thank you for listening to me tonight. I just wanted to say that I was someone that was impacted by the WPCA. I'm so glad there's so many people here to support the farmer who was bismerched at that meeting. That is not okay. That made me so mad that I came here today. I believe in farmers. I believe in education. I don't believe in people that say I can't help cuz when I sued the town because I live on Barton Hill Road because of the grinder pumps. What I would say is there's power in numbers. You guys start a GoFundMe, you get lawyer up and you fight it. You don't sit here and say we can't do anything. That's bull. And I won't end it with what the word brilliant that I want to say

because you know what? You can fight this. This is not okay to say, "Hey, you know what? Those people that have gardener pumps and electricity is not working because that's what I heard in the meeting. Oh well, too bad for them." Give them a pat in the back and say, "Hey, that's okay. Sorry, but we can't help you. Is that what my sewer money goes to? A pat on the back. Cuz that's bull. That's not okay. Cuz why should I pay for that? Why? Someone answer. Cuz it's not okay. It's not okay to talk about that farmer like that. It's not okay to say we can't help. And if the WPCA has that much power, then we need to find out who's above the WPCA. And if not, we need a GoFundMe to lawyer up because these people shouldn't have to deal with this bull. I know. And I've done it before. So, we'll I'll be glad to help out and do it again. It's not okay. Our taxes pay for services. They do not pay so that you can confuse the people and say, "It's not my problem. You were going to say that smell came from the farm. The WPCA thought that was okay." That is not okay. I'm mad. That's disrespectful. I don't even know the farmer.

But you better believe I'm going to find out who he is because he needs help. No, he's right there. He's right there. He's a good man.

You're not going to point the finger at him because of your stupidity. And I'm not talking about the town council. I understood what you were saying, Karen, that the town council and the WPCA are separate. So, if they're separate, let's find out how to work together to make it work for the people because we pay the taxes. We're here to pay for the taxes. Education. You tell me you can't afford teachers, but you're going to you're going to pay for the attorneys that are going to these people are going to hire to fight you. How much is that going to cost? Cuz that's a lot of bull, too. Cuz that costs money. Attorneys are expensive. We're going to be suing each other. Let's work together. We can do better. Dalton Pazinski, 42 Marbor Road. Um, I just wanted to say that I've lived in town for 28 years. I grew up here. I was born and raised here. I watched this town turn from heavily wooded to overly developed, subdivisions everywhere, storage units, everything under the sun, you name it. I think the last thing we need is a giant turd oven. If I'm going to be completely honest with you, I think that's the last thing we need in this town. Um, if I remember correctly, being that the grinder pumps were right across the street from my parents house, for many years, every time we would lose power, they would have to bring a grinder pump there, and we would have to listen to it all night long, every night. Um, after that, it turned into the for the sewer main that runs down our road that burst and it leaked quite a bit of sewage into the lake. um that took quite a while to get repaired. I think it was about a month

of that being above ground. Um and then I remember another leak on the airline trail that smelled absolutely horrific. Um I think instead of us investing money to take other people's sewage, we should invest on our own infrastructure first and fix what we already have in town. I think that's the best thing to do versus building something completely new to take on four other towns. That just seems like the best thing to me. Um, I would also like to say that WPCA's conduct in that meeting is completely unprofessional. My friend Bob Bear back there, there there was no need for him to get made fun of. It's a farm. Animals smell. They don't have a toilet to go take a crap in and have it flushed away and hauled off. They don't have that. Animals, they that's what they do. They poop outside. Um, coming from a farmer myself, I I that actually really annoyed the hell out of me if I'm going to be entirely honest. So, Bobby Bear, I stand with you and your family, that's all I have to say.

All right. I'm Robert Bear. I'm part of the pig farm. My dad's dad started it and he kept it going. It has got to I've got to know a lot of people in this town. Like I said, Dean, like somebody mistakenly said, Dean Markhamm has been here a long time. But he seems to forget how this town was started, not going behind people's backs, not doing closed door meetings. They're they're they're okay though, right? Because in a closed door meeting, somebody that you hired got to bad mouth my family and you're not doing anything about it. You should you are not doing anything. A person that you hire, this is on you. They're not going to stand up for you because they have no balls either. It's on you. You

So are you legally going to do the take care of the damage of his actions? either fire him or you go. You caused this

to make fun of my family. A farmer and you're allowing this. You are allowing this. There's no other way to say it. You did this. Solve it. council. If he's not going to take care of it, you have the power. Um, Pam Hatfield, 37 Fern Lane. Um, I get very nervous. Sorry.

Is that better?

Um, a couple of things. Uh, when I came in here, I just wanted to add a few comments. I agree with everything everybody's saying. A bioolids plant in East Hampton is not alongside the airline trail in a residential neighborhood. Uh not far from the historic district, I believe. Uh it just I I don't understand how any of you could support that. I'm I'm shocked. So were the bioolids. Are they doing business with our town? Who owns that? Do we have to do business with them? They're not a suitable business that we would want. So I would ask you as town council members and planning and zoning and registered businesses in the town if that's even a business that would fit our town. I think you have responsibility in that sense because you seem to be sherking the uh WPCA and washing your hands of that, including you, Mr. Cox. If you have oversight, you have responsibility. If you appoint people, you have responsibility. Same thing for you, town council. If you appoint ENC members, you have responsibility to oversee what happens. Um, I was alarmed at one of the PNC meetings I attended because of the Fern Lane uh encroachment with commercial on 151, St. Clemens, the VAT, it goes on. But I was surprised to hear the PNZ refer to the plan of conservation and development as the plan of commercial development. That's alarming. Okay. Another thing that is alarming is on

social media I saw a copy of a town memo. Um it was Griffin responding back to Juliet Hajj. Uh in this correspondence uh Juliet called out the potential risk that is common knowledge in bioolid processing of explosion. explosion. Okay, I'm not sure what that means in a residential neighborhood, but I was alarmed to see that in writing in a memo communicated to the town. So, you should all be aware of that and you should have seen that memo. That's alarming. Again, airline trail, you know, we're trying to say we're a rural community. We're trying to bring in tourism, but we're going to have a bio solids factory. Um, one last point. I'm really concerned about conflict of interest between town's employees, board appointments, appointed individuals that serve and accountability. Okay? Uh, many of us have worked in the corporate world. There's ethics that you need to follow by law. Okay? And if you don't, you're held accountable. So, I'm just saying accountability here. You guys might not be directly able to make those decisions, but you certainly can influence them. And you know that all of you do. That's all I'll say. I'm Janice Kavanagh. I live at 204 Hog Hill Road. I um had a lot of paperwork that I brought with me, but a lot of it's been covered.

Um I spoke to the attorney general's office for about 35 minutes because when I heard that the lawyer said that there was nothing we could do, I really wanted to know whether there was something we could do. And I was told to that one of we should fill out one piece of paper and all of us all that great information that you guys have has to go in. We will bombard the attorney general's office with this information because they do they have control. And Mr. Cox, if you can appoint them, you can unoint them.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else?

Yes. Yep.

Mary Jane Wall, 65 Smith Street. Um, Mr. Cox has said that u most of this is actually governed by the joint facilities committee. The joint facilities committee meets on every third Tuesday of the month. And so I was told by one of their members to say we all need to go to their meeting and watch for any special meetings that might get posted. Otherwise, it's next Tuesday. They weren't available, but they've done that. You have four online.

You got another one, I think, up here. Let's take the uh four online. This lady,

good evening. I'm Caleb Bueno of Keel Punro. First and foremost, on behalf of the of humanity, I apologize to the Bear family for the degrading of character. With that said, I am directly across the street from the proposed plans. I have front row seat to these plans. After moving here in 2018 and starting a family, we have met so many townies. Pretty amazing that a town can be pretty amazing that people want to live here generation after generation. and I want that for my children. To address the smell, I have family that work in water treatment plants and yes, they do smell. I read on social media that Mr. Hints was only worried about his property value losing value and I don't see that as a problem. I don't think anybody would want their property value going down. And I'm also confident that Mr. Hints has the best interest of residents in this town. and we have

this proposed development that serves less than 20% of East Hampton but yet 100% of this town is clearly affected by this development and clearly do not want this. I shall ask you as res residents of this town as I hold my children accountable where is the accountability? Thank you. One thing I just again

again Jen Palmer remaining on um the lady said that um the attorney general said that we need to send letters. I am more than happy to take this on. If you would like to email me, you can find me on Facebook, Jennifer Hens Palma, or on my email paper. It's JP Palma 13@yahoo.com. I am more if you want to bombard me with all of your comments. I am happy to get them all together and send them to the attorney general. I am more than happy to do that because I I really feel this deeply about it and I don't want this in our town. be online.

Hang tight. We'll come back after online. Jennifer, Jennifer, go ahead. Can you hear me?

Yes. Seeing how uh D Simone does not have the balls to show up tonight, I will ask why he's not fired, Mr. Cox. Why is he not fired already? Because any place that I've ever worked, had I threatened somebody with eminent domain or threatened anybody, period, I would have been fired on the spot, escorted out, and said, "Have a good day. Bye." But I also want to ask, is it correct that everyone in that room, as long as they live in that town, is considered the town according to the town charter, chapter 1, section 1.1? Let me ask you this. Uh, you know what? I'll answer it for you. We are the town. We elected you to represent us, not replace us. So, we are the people and we are telling you we don't want this. So, that is the direction you really must go. And you need to also fire D. Simone cuz that's another person, a personal friend of mine who he has been harassing about her sewer and having two hookups when it's really only one residence. He's threatened somebody by eminent domain. Why does this Why is he not even fired by tonight? I'll give you 10 seconds to answer that. Or do you not have the balls to fire him yourself and the town council should fire you next? But also my second question is for Karen.

Karen, are you on record? Did you or did you not give or sell a portion of your property to Wayne Ran for a free hookup so we can put in his sewer line? Remember, you're going to be on record and people are going to find out. I did not. Prove it. I did not. I'm sure we'll prove it once he starts doing it. Right. He's not doing anything on my property. So, gave it to him. I didn't give anybody anything. No. You didn't give him You didn't give him an easement. I did not. Liar. We did not come to any agreement on any easement. Thank you. So So we can expect to see your payment of your hookup. No,

because you dug pretty deep. You dug pretty deep. Have to hook up. You did. You dug pretty deep. You dug pretty deep and fought it tooth and nail. Now all of a sudden you're quiet. I'm not. You're quiet. Actually, all you town council members are quiet. Y'all need to go.

And don't you ever ever disrespect a family member that's a personal friend of mine. Love you, Robert. And I love the Bears. And I hope I hope y'all smell the pig [ __ ] Smell that pig [ __ ] Nothing more. [ __ ] Oh yeah. Hi. Can you all hear me? Okay. Yes.

Okay. Thanks. Hopefully Royy's having a great night. Uh what a meeting. I'll tell you what. But uh so uh here's what I got to say. So earlier today in the special town council meeting, we were told that the people have no power or authority when it comes to the proposed land purchase and potential resulting sewage facility expansion. We were also told the town council had no power on this matter as well. The whole process stinks uh and was either mismanaged through a possible lack of competence or an intentionally mishandled now under the cover and alibi of a legal opinion requested by the town council majority who appear to approve uh the proposed property purchase and potential sewage facility upgrades, expansions, or whatever we're calling it today. Uh we were also told that the power to fire town employees rest in the hands of the town manager whom the town council said was responsible for identifying the concern that we the residents and the town council are powerless here leading to the legal opinion that effectively squashed the vote uh for East Hampton taxpayers. With that said, I call upon the town manager to immediately fire Anthony D. Simone for reasons that include but are not limited to his alleged unauthorized threats uh to a property owner, that his property may be seized by the town through imminent domain, uh for his public mockery of a local resident farm owner, and for uh his expressed willingness to lie to the people of East Hampton, blaming any sewage plant odors on said farmer rather than the sewage facility in question. Uh if the town manager refuses to fire Mr. D. Simone, then I call upon the town council to compel him to do so or fire him should he refuse to take the appropriate action after that. Uh it was alleged that the other town employees who have family uh employed in positions that create conflicts of interest in the matter are in town positions with influence in the process and I demand a full review be completed to determine the validity of these conflicts of

interest. And should any town employee involved in the process be found to have conflicts of interest, I call upon the town manager to fire them immediately. And should he refuse again even after being compelled by the town council, then he too should be fired. The town council should immediately pause any further actions on the property in question pending a full review of what has happened to date. A full review of the actions of the town manager, David Cox, as well as the actions of Juliet Hodgej, planning and zoning administrator, should take place. I'm not going to even bother with DM Smoke because he should be fired already. Uh, and the results uh should dictate the future of the employment of all these folks employment with East Hampton as well as the future of any other current employees that they are if they're found to be at fault in any related wrongdoing. Now, the town council member, uh, town, uh, Ted Hints is the only council member who really appears to have the town's best interest in this particular matter. Uh, so I would recommend he be given oversight into the inquiry, and he should be uh, reporting directly back to the people of East Hampton without any interference from the town council or any town employees. And should any town council member be found at fault of any related wrongdoing in the inquiry, they should render their resignations. Uh should the town council members fail to take these actions or interfere with it with the these actions in any way, their resignations should be rendered as soon as possible, it's past time for the taxpayers of East Hampton to regain the control of the town. And unfortunately, inquiries and firings appear to be the only recourse we have. I think the town council needs to tell this town how it will restore the balance of power in this town and how it will rectify this debacle and how it will restore legitimacy of the town government in the eyes of the taxpayers. And moving forward, I would hope the voters of East Hampton remember what happened here and make better choices in the voting booth. Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great night. Get home safe.

Hello. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Uh Jesse Brunson, 20 Cone Road. I uh was pleased to make the uh front page of the River East in regards to referring as this as the uh takeover of South South Glastonberry. Uh in regards to this um property acquisition, has anybody worked at a bioolids plant? I have. I did some contracting work at one, electrical contracting. Uh regardless of how clean and environmentally friendly the plant is, it's filthy. There's dust everywhere. It coats the rafters, coats the walls, coats the parking lot, uh with a nice substance uh the color of Billy Rubin, brown. Regardless of the vessel that the sludge is transferred into, regardless of the process, it is, as uh Dalton referred to, it's a turd oven. the recovered natural gas that is being touted. What plan do we have to put that back into the infrastructure that hasn't been discussed? Uh has anybody taken a wrong turn down Coughlin in times of traffic? I have. Not real convenient. And now we're going to put truck traffic down there.

No, we're not. Explosion. That is a scary thought. Um

you know the the aquafer u I'm on cone wellwater etc. Do we need this in our town? Are we that hard up for uh tax revenue? Do we need this as the forefront of coming into our town? As far as Mr. D. Simone, you got to really applaud him as a corporate shill. You you you really do. His uh his budget is based off of who uses his pipes. So, as far as everybody who vilifies him, including me, I'm on Cone Road. Absolutely do not want anything to do with the sewers. He's trying to gain customer base as best he can. So, by all means, he should represent the private sector in getting somebody in here who can um pad his coffers. He's probably used actually not even probably, he is 100% used to largecale jobs in highpaying, high-profile areas. So, he now lives at 26 Hog Hill in East Hampton and has to rub shoulders with us. He drives a fancy uh WPCAowned Explorer. It's parked right out front whenever he's here. Whether that's take home, I don't know, but it would sure be nice to drive a free car with free fuel, would it not? And now he is trying to gain funding. He is trying to gain customer base and he is trying to rub shoulders with the elite at, you know, the inevitable conferences and meetings about wastewater facilities and all that. Cool. Why should he do it at our expense? Let's think about that. Why should he be trying to build customer base from the majority of the

township that doesn't benefit from his sewer project? Now in my opinion the bioolids facility let's think about this they process sludge they dry it okay now that energy goes back into the the the methane right goes back into the grid correct let's think about this where on the WPCA infrastructure can this plant go aside from the assigned location has anybody done any any research into Connecticut's existing bioolid facilities. Fairfield has one. That's the one that I worked at. And they were blending that into a mulch fertilizer that they would sell. That got shut down when Connecticut banned fertilizer, mulch, etc. for sale due to PAS concerns. There are three other locations in Connecticut to my knowledge that process bioolids. One in Bridgeport, one in either Stamford or Stratford. You got me on the public stage. Can't remember which one it is. And there's a third location in New Haven that appears to be a fleet garage. That's Synag. Those facilities are located directly next to wastewater treatment plants in heavily industrialized areas. Why would they be located there? Due to piping, due to convenience, and due to the fact that nobody wants that in their backyard. Correct? I mean, I don't want it in my backyard. I don't want to drive past that twice, at least twice per day when I'm going to and from work, especially overtime calls, seeing people. I don't want to drive past that. But how many people drive past wastewater treatment

plants aside from a metabid? very few. So, do we want this hazard? No. Do we want Mr. D. Simone to gain customer base and to gain funding independent from the town based off of his joint municipality venture at our expense. That's where we are going to house it, not in my backyard. Are we going to house this in Colchester? In reality, these trucks have to go drop the sludge off. The sludge then gets dried out and dewatered. That water effluent gets processed through the sewage system to the treatment plant. Now, unless this is some crazy volume, why can't that be placed on a trunk line anywhere else in this region? Does Colchester want it? Probably not. Great. We get tax revenue. We get whatever. No, not really. We have to we have to deal with the hazards. We have to deal with the proximity. We have to deal with the contracts and potential expansions and um another question. Anybody have a bad day at work? Anybody feel less than uh 100%. Any breakdowns? I have I' I've been less than 100%. What happens when this plant's odor mitigation fails? What happens when they have a ventilation failure and that dust that I was referring to before it goes into the community? Uh what happens when things are operating less than prime? I I work for the state and funding and repairs take forever. Anybody that works with a state or municipality can tell

you nothing's fixed overnight. So who deals with that? The residents, the taxpayers, the customers of the sewage plant. We don't want it. Absolutely not. So this corporate shill, Mr. D. Simone, needs to go back to the aforementioned corporate closet where he came from. Take away his fancy packaged Explorer. I drive a base model Tahoe. Take it away. Let him drive his own personal vehicle around to his projects and his pet, you know, his pet ideas and whatnot. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Lindsay Jane Fredo just Lindsay, can you hear us? Can you unmute? Can you hear me now? Okay, there we go.

All right. Uh, Lindsay Gianfredo. I reside on North Cone Road in East Hampton. I've been a resident here for over 40 years. Um, I'll keep this short as several residents have already outlined several serious concerns about Anthony D. Simone's conduct while serving on the WPCA. I won't repeat those details, but I just want to add my voice in asking the town to remove him from that position. Our boards should reflect professionalism, transparency, and respect for our residents, and I don't believe he's done any of that. Uh to the town council, thank you for your time and respect in listening to our residents. Uh that's all I have for you today. Neil Peron.

How about now? There you go.

Okay. Good evening. Um, so 167 Ninjahal Road, East Hampton, same zip code, different town, but um, obviously with this whole night, so I'm kind of invested with this because my um, daughter lives up the road from where this will be. I've sat on numerous of boards myself and my main objective when I was on ZBA, BOE, and other boards is I always represented the town's people, not my own belief and not my own feelings. Those get checked at the door. So that goes for the town council members. Anybody elected in town. Obviously, nobody wants this. So ethically, everybody on the board should be voting no. And if you're not, you're kind of representing yourself. And um you may want to resign. For those that are saying there's nothing the town's people can do. There was a situation here um that was not on any of our agendas for our town. There was a pro uh talk of changing a street name in our town. So, this could kind of go and coincide with, you know, East Hampton wanted to take this property for this uh project. So, all you simply have to do is draft a petition that states that the following people that are signed, you know, signed this uh petition are dead or uh not dead, sorry, are um against the town acquiring this land. That's pretty much all it has to say. The wording obviously would be better than now. All you are required by Connecticut state law is 50 signatures of residents that live in town that can be verified by their uh driver's license. Once you have 50 or more people on this petition, it can be brought to the town clerk. The town

clerk by Connecticut state law has 24 to 48 hours to verify with the ro voter of registerers office that those signed it are actual taxpayers in town $1,000 or more or they own property which automatically forces a town meeting which also forces a town vote. So the meeting would be on the town not acquiring this land and now the taxpayers now have a say on whether or not it goes forward. If it gets voted down, it gets shut down and there's nothing any board can do in the town. Hopefully this is helpful. If anybody wants to reach out to me on how I did it for our street over here and how it was a full success, um everybody in our a lot of people in our town came up and uh it got voted down and it was dead in the water. Um, that's all on record at the town of uh, Hatam Town Hall if anybody needs that. So, good luck to everybody, but um, remember board members, you represent those that voted you in and paying attention to what happens in town because my daughter does go to school. I remember quite a few of you saying we are going to represent the people and keep our town small. Don't go against your own word. Have a good evening. Let's click.

Hello. Can you hear me? Yep.

Um, I just like to say I'm at 8 West AB. I am a former resident of Middletown. I've been here about nine years now. Um, how many people have driven by Metabassad on Route 9 coming towards the bridge? You see the little streets um on your right that are bridging Miller. I lived there for 9 years. Warm summer days, you can smell Mabaset and it's horrible. You have to keep your windows closed. doesn't really help, but you keep your windows closed because the smell is horrific with that plant. And it's going to do the same here in this town. You're going to be able to smell that plant. We're mile and a half. You can smell it on warm summer days. Thank you and good night. Is there anyone else?

We have the one over here. Yeah. Is there anyone else would like to make public comment now?

Hi. Uh my name is Cindy Hibler. I live at 36 Abbey Road. Um, I offer slightly different perspective. I just moved here six months ago um, from Texas. So, I came 1700 miles. Um, I can assure you if that plant was there, we would not have picked East Hampton to live. Um, I also wanted to point out, we keep being told, come to this meeting, come to that meeting, come to this meeting. I have a young family. I'm on the PTO for elementary and middle and I don't it's not that I don't have time because everybody can find time to join Zoom technology is great but it's very very difficult to have a young family or an old family and make all of these meetings just to stop corruption it's difficult and I don't know what we are supposed to do as citizens to make sure that we are knowing oh well they're trying to do this this week. So, we need to Oh, we all have to show up to this meeting. What are we supposed to do? Um, my first experience in town was the sewer that was trying to run down my road. I didn't even live here yet. And I had to come up here and I'm horrible at horrible at public speaking. Um, but I had to come here and I had to stand up here and I had to explain we don't need this. And luckily the the council was able to do something, but we keep being told you guys can't do anything. But you can. You appointed these people. They appointed the people. And it all comes down to you guys. So we need you to help us.

Door.

Yes. Hello. Um, Kyle Dassler, William Drive, East Hampton. Um, I've heard a number of things said tonight, stated tonight, and passions are certainly running high, and that's understandable given the situation. Um, this is not by any means a new issue with the WPCA. Until rather recently, the WPCA did not have to hold public meetings when they raised rates, and the town continues to pay for research and plans for a centralized water system. The Tony vamp has spent millions of dollars in such research and continues to spend money on such projects. And then there was the $40,000 $40,000 sue expansion that was nixed luckily. And the only real comment I have to say is that uh if you're asking people to resign or to be fired, please submit your application to serve on the WPCA. I mean, they need people. They're short three people right now. And if you don't like what they're doing, submit your application. Serve the town if you can. I've heard a number of people that have the experience to do that and I think they would be excellent candidates for the WPCA. Please submit your applications. make the changes that you're complaining about which are completely valid and submit your application. The town will take it, the town council will consider it and hopefully people will submit their applications. And thank you very much. That's all I have to say for now. Take care. Is there anyone else in the audience who

would like to make public comment at this time?

I got time. My farm came under attack. I want something done. I'm not going to but I have a meeting here tomorrow that's back [ __ ] So you're going to see a lot of you somebody's going to do their job and a lot of us don't have time to join these committees and stuff and develop meetings and people have jobs and a lot of us are corrupt so we don't work long enough to work.

I want something done by the tactical. I'm not going to stop until something is done. one last time. Is there anyone else wishes to make

I just want to say one thing and that is you know people still were going to go to Washington DC even though there was a giant fountain of uh excrement there but one accident here would make this reputation of this town forever people would know about it you know just one accident you guys going to have an open let us hear for transparency purposes what decisions are behind closed doors like always. You guys could vote on some of these things right now.

Contact the attorney. Had a stop to vote. See what else we can do. Maybe serve us. Family. Come on. You ready to present us? Let's go.

So, if we're going to submit something to the attorney general's office, give up as many names as possible. If nothing else, I absolutely I'll stay at shop all week hardware all all the time. I work there. So feel free to continue. This is the last comment.

It's done. It's done. you.

So, once again, Kevin Rogers, Coughlin Road, uh, pretty much said everything I needed to say this morning. Um, except, um, I haven't had a good night's sleep. I have not had a good night's sleep, um, in 6 weeks since I first heard about this. And you have the power right now to give me my first good night's sleep in 6 weeks. If you would turn to this man and demand that he fire Anthony D. Simone, I'll sleep like a baby. Thank you. What is got to be done?

Rob. Rob, sit down. What got to be done? Rob, please sit down. What is better to be done? This is We're here. We're here. What are you going to do? This is the reason I'm moving out of this town. We're all here. You don't care. We're the town. You guys obviously won't speak for us without closed doors. Bob, Bob, Bob,

do your job. I got a lot of thinking, a lot to say. No, I think that's an appropriate venue for you to proceed with a petition. It isn't appropriate.

As many of you know, in corporate, you wouldn't make a HR decision in front of your entire company. I said, as many of you know, in an HR world, you would never make a decision in front of the entire company. How do you sit there and ask us to do the same thing? I'm not going to disagree with you, but we are not going to debate this in front of you. It is not the HR proper thing, and we could be held liable for anything said, and it is not going to be done in this in this fashion. to defend

but thank you Ted. Yes.

Um hello my name is Suzanne Sadler. Um, I live in 12 12 Walnut Avenue and um, I am a rate payer that everybody's been talking about. I do care very much um because um, every single year since I've moved here in 2005, our rates have gone up um, quite a bit. Every single year consecutively. And um, I have a two family home. Um, but I only but my family lives upstairs. Um, and we have two bathrooms and I'm paying over $1,000 a year um for those two bathrooms. And every time I ask a question about who has the authority to review this or um who has the authority to look at these rates on behalf of of the rate payers, I keep getting the runaround. um go talk to the WPCA. Then I go there and then they say they laugh at me and say, "Well, you have potential of earning more income, so you have to pay more." Um and um it's actually quite demoralizing to hear something like that. So I just want to know who has the authority to actually look at these things. Thank you. M both myself and other members of the council and Mr. Cox and certainly the recordings have recorded all this and taken it notes and information. A lot of the questions will be addressed within the next I'm going to say next week which will be made public. From there we will bring this to the council for discussion and see where we we go with

the facts of the situation. Now, it as far as Coughlin Road and that plant, just from my own perspective, when I heard that was a venue, I I told the town manager and my colleagues that that was a nostarter, that was a terrible, terrible place to access and run have a facility like that. Whether that has been listened to or not, it's still up to an individual. several factors. an individual who would be willing to sell the property first of all because they don't have to sell it and a plan that would have to meet approval from a number of venues including some of the boards that we mentioned tonight locally the WPCA the joint facilities committee the PNZ the inland wetlands de from the state probably public health from the state as well as the council ultimately and you the voters. There's nothing that I see that's on the table at the moment that this is going anywhere in East Hampton.

If I might interject, if you read the memo, there's no public input or no public vote on on this memo. If you the said for the next stages are uh PNZ, town approval of PNZ, town approval of inland wetlands, Connecticut deep approval, developer agreement, construction phases, and project closeout. Not one item on this list says the taxpayers will have a right to vote on it. It is a private venture, and there is nothing here that says that that it is going to the public for a vote. in their their memo that they still

anyways why anything really tiger what was that making you can't speak truthfully what do you mean speak truthfully I just said about the people would be in public, right? Would that be first before you? It would be one of the It would be what?

It would be one of the avenues of public input between the various committees and authorities responsible for citing such a venue. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. personally because I don't think they're certainly welcome based on what you the the citizens of East Hampton have said and the town buy it and not give it to them. Nothing. They could buy it for open space. That is absolutely correct. No,

it's not very that would be that would be an option uh that the town can buy any property for open space. It would be I mean we'd have to go into some kind of discussion but that is always an option. The town has bought open space in the past um and you know so that that that is definitely an option and we get to vote on that and yes you would be able to vote on that because it would ever be whatever the purchase agreement would be with the um public meeting where the whole town can come. Um

there is a process of procuring land in the town which requires it to go through the uh finance department. has to go through the town council. It is not something that can go immediately to the public and that would have to be something if that is something that you're interested. Again, that would be part of your petition to the town or to the council that you want to buy that that parcel of land as open space and put uh by the or buy the development rights. We don't even need the land if we buy the development rights because then nothing could ever be done on it. So, you know, you could also, you know, that's another thing that could be done by the town and actually that might be a little bit more secure because then it would remain its farmland where no one could ever develop it instead of an open space uh thing. Again, put in a petition, get it to the council, we could put it on the next meeting, it could go to the board of finance if that's what you're all in favor of. Um, I would be very happy to bring that to an agenda if that's what the the taxpayers want. Thank you.

I'd like to second what Dean said. I don't think this bio plan is going any place. I'm not sure like that idea. I I agree. Make sure of it, but I it just makes no sense. All right. that the town is not for this. Why can't you just stop? Why can't you just say, "Sorry, Mr.

Go back to Kentucky." Why wasting any more time or money on something that we know isn't going to go? So the you know property owners and businesses have rights and you can't just take away their rights. I'm not suggesting you need a process to do that. You need you need to follow the rules.

You committee and you're saying that if the town doesn't block this, why can't you just say to drift? You're not going to you're not going to get anywhere. Then he won't buy the property. He won't be bothered. Right. Well, we can we can say that and if we can buy it for that thing, why couldn't we buy it not to use it? Wait, that's why I say put like a development rights where it cannot be built up. You just mentioned that business owners have rights. What business does this organization have in common? I'm sorry, I didn't hear.

What business? None. So, businesses have rights in in general. I think Jack was making the point that businesses do have rights under the law. Not specifically this particular operation has any more rights over anyone else. I'm talking this guy doesn't have to. So it's a moot point. You get it?

Why mention that? Why even mention that? and he doesn't have business own business in town. Why does he have rights? Sir, if we were to tell him he is not allowed to come to town, the town could then be sued as well. You have to follow state law. As much as I do not want this anywhere near this town, you can make it difficult for him to get here, but you cannot tell him he can't come. then we'd be subject to lawsuits and we could get ourselves in a lot of trouble then we are not going to do because that will not serve the taxpayer of

East Hampton did I speak out from anyone here that we're not going to cause ourselves legal problem okay but again we can make it as difficult for him to come and not want to come here but we cannot tell him he cannot come I'd like to have a discussion. Okay.

Because you say we can't come here. We as voters can tell them they can't come here. Acting through you folks. If you buy the property, then there's no way that he could come here. So, that's that's the solution. Let the town buy the property.

My point is maybe your referendum to be voted on by the public. is the answer. What's involved in getting the ref? We would have first I would actually ask the uh town manager to get a a a legal opinion as to whether we could be sued by having a referendum to hold someone out of our community. If we would not be sued or could not be sued for that, I would be in favor of that. If it's something that is going to put the community at jeopardy, we cannot do that. Who is the town attorney? Uh Rich Carella

Rich Carella is our town attorney and uh he's with u uh Kelly. Um so I and it's a a regional firm so I'm sure they would have someone that would be able to answer that question. Um, but again, we don't even know if there's the land's under contract right now. That's not that's between the land owner and Griffith. That's not something that the council that that is not where we are at. So, we don't actually know whether that land is even private property. Correct.

Can we say we don't want that type of facility here and not mention it? for that would be something for residential. So that would be planning and zoning that would not change the residential. Mr. Chair, if that could potentially be something that can be worked into the POCD. We have the right to say there are certain things we want in town, certain areas we want to develop, certain areas we do not want to develop. Again, the POCD is a very important document. Please f do the survey and let us know what it is that you want in this town. We do have controls through regulations in the plan of conservation and development.

The questions are very unclear. It's unspecific. There's nowhere to make a comment or clarify your answer. It's yes, agreed, disagree. Pretty much

after we have after we have all of the survey results finalized, there will be a visioning session set up to review those survey results and finalize input from the town. We will be posting it on the website. We will be posting it on Facebook. We can send it out through the town email where we notify you all of the meetings. Okay? But you you have to check back. I can't send you a carrier pigeon to your house. All right, we have BJ's been sitting up there waiting to talk. Do you mind if he just simply resend our offer of intent to Griffin to pursue this?

We have no offer of intent. There is uh there is in its thing there is something that letter of intent is there in the memo from uh dated June June 5. Yeah. It could be done by this council tonight. We're sending that amongst yourselves that do you have a copy of that letter of intent or can you get it? I don't have I don't have it here. Sure, someone does. Does someone have the letter of intent? So, I can at least read it. Yeah, I know. I got the same thing, but I remember what you got.

Sure. Um, as far as surveys, the surveys, the questions were very devoted. You could pursue it or look at it a different way. So I feel they were very um you could you could answer a specific question yes no maybe no comment section it was like agree disagree strongly agreed strongly or somewhat agree I think it needs a little bit more I think you should resend that survey again and say do you want this yes no maybe and a a comment

it's no much more than that and it was very lengthy And it was repetitive as all same question rephrase different ways. Why don't you try doing it again? Maybe more people would be in tune to it. I think so. There was a committee of 20 people that worked for months on that survey. All of those meetings have been public. Dave, it's not on the website. It's not on the website, right? The letter of intent.

Yeah, we don't have that letter of intent available. I don't I don't have it. I don't see if they're seeing if someone has it, but it's not on the website under the bioolids information. So, I don't know where I think we need to see it and bring it up for discussion. Um, I'm okay with even if we have to hold a special meeting next week to to get this. I agree. I would like to see the letter of intent, see if it's something we can do. Um, maybe we can schedule a special meeting

a special meeting uh to just discuss WPCA. uh we have to address the appointments with the fact that we have fathers and sons that are on the board. They have sons and bo uh that are also write direct reports to Tony. We have to discuss there's so much that needs to be discussed. Why can't we just do a Tuesday meeting to discuss WPCA property appointments the whole nine? Interesting. Well, no. It would be probably a Tuesday night when that's what we meet. So no problem having a meeting as long as what we are discussing is legal and we're allowed to do that.

Yeah. And we we will not get into personnel matters unless we're in executive session in which case any personnel will be able afforded the opportunity to come in as required by law. We don't even have authority over personnel but we can in the charter but we we can meet in executive we've done it before. So is this letter of intense signed? Well we don't know. We don't have it, but it says in the memo. It is because I don't remember us approving a letter of intent. I don't think we did, but it's a good time.

I have a question really quickly. What is this property zoned for? If it's zoned for residential, why are we having this discussion? Why are these people allowed? So that means it's got to go through zoning and I need to be educated because I'm I really don't know all the ins and outs. But what I do think is if you have a residential property and that's what it's zoned for. We're going to go out of our way to change the zoning to then give it to a company that know the people some people have left because this meeting is so long and obviously people are so disturbed that they're still here. Item five. We still have to get 15.

Oh my god. Okay. Well, I hope you brought a cot because it's going be a long night. But I just really think that if they're not zone for that, what are we doing? Why? Why are you upsetting this whole town? Rescend it. They're not They don't need to be here. Goodbye. I don't get it. Help me understand why meeting will happen. Can someone answer that question for real? I'm I'm so serious. I really want to answer. Why are you going to change the zoning to then have a fight and then have all these people hiring attorneys?

You can request the zoning change. It just cannot be spot zoning which means that if it did abut the WPCA which is industrial it could not be done but because it abuts industrial you spread by application so we can deny an application correct the application so let's deny it let's do that we're so powerful we could do that is the one not WP deny that zoning application but sorry can you say that one more planning and zoning denied that application. But why?

Because they can. They are the only ones for the zone change. We don't have the authority to do that. I don't really Yeah, but that's where the general public has to pay attention. If it goes to PNC, then it fails and goes to ZBA. That's where you need to show up and let that council know not to pass it. There's people speaking that are supposed to be problem. That's the problem. Juliet that is legal from the state of Connecticut. That is not a choice by

then it's all right. So in in planning and zoning you can speak at at public comments. You can talk on anything that is not in public hearing. Then there's a public hearing. That is the item that is legally noticed. And then you can talk about anything you want on that item during the public hearing. You can continue a public hearing, but once the public hearing is closed, you may not as a public again comment on that item. Then it is only a board discussion and the board will make the decision. But you do have multiple times and there's many times when I was on the board that we continued the public hearing for months and months and months. Well, that's how it was when I was

Can we have another public hearing? What is that public hearing? All right. So, let's have one. And can you tell us when that public hearing will occur? No, we're not going to at this point, but that would be great to know. Like, we want public hearings. Okay. We don't have it. I don't I don't I don't I don't know what point we're on to, but I think this this group needs to know when it's going to be the end of this project. So, we need we don't know. We don't need think. I think I'm going to figure it out. We want to know when do we get an answer. We don't we don't know. We don't care. Will not be tonight. But we I can assure you that we're on it. At least I am on it. I I

Thank you. You know, serious. We've had so many question, you know, just the the behavior of some of the people that are in public here. Shouldn't that be checked by our town? Yes. Shouldn't we get rid of that? You know, let's just get I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm just saying that if you're talking personnel matters, that is not up for public debate in this forum. To be gone.

Okay. And that is our prerogative and that we can do. Uh there are some procedures that have to be followed. It is that for all appointed members, they do have rights. Okay. So we if we're going to do anything, we will be doing it so that it stands that it's not something that we're going to make a knee-jerk reaction. As much as I can assure you, there are certain ones that I would love to do right now. Um but we will do it correctly so that our decisions will stay but we cannot do it in this environment. You got to give us a little bit of time to try to do it. So

others are appointed. Correct. Just like we are elected, they're appointed and we have many elected andappointed positions in the town. If we had everyone elected, trust me, no one would be on any board because no one wants to run for public office. That's reality. All right. Sorry. Yeah. And the money's already set aside, right? Already.

No, no, no. That is not set aside. Well, first of all, be before we decide how many names need to be on the petition because is I as far as I'm concerned, everyone here could sign it. The thing is, we don't know if there's an agreement with Griffin and the property owner. It's not We'd have to approach the property owner and see if it's even for sale. What's that? He has been potentially coerced. That is true. I mean [ __ ] legal that that has already left the bar. Just resend it. How many you know?

The WPCA has the agreements. The agreement is getting in the talking order. Order, please. But that's a W. No, she's talking about the land. You're talking about the land parcel purchase. I'm talking about the letter of intent. But if the letter of intent was with the WPCA, the council does not have the authority to resend something that the W We don't even know where the who did it. We need to find it. We need more about it. Let me hear what Denise has to say.

Yep. As is not industrial as is the property that they're looking. It's a body. So, it's residential, right? But but if it's a budding industrial, they can apply to Ted. What she's saying is all of those properties where the town garage, estate garage, that's all still zoned residential. We never changed it. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, cool. Way to go, Bernese. You see how those years in the town clerk's office works for us? All right.

Excuse me. I'd like to make one more comment in light of the additional information that's been shared. This is Mike Fergalini. Again, I would invite each and every one of you to attend planning and zoning meeting and see how it is the public is railroaded not to make comments even in and again this is personal uh with regard to Fern Lane and an agreement that had made with a non-conforming commercial use. We were railroaded with a definite bias for a commercial property. If this is going to be discussed in planning and zoning, including the potential of of uh re reclassifying a property to commercial, you all need to be there. And remember, you designate while you are separate and and have to have some distinction between you and planning and zoning, you're the ones responsible for them. You delegate authority to them. If you delegate that authority then

unfortunately by state statute we do not that's the only autonomous board. I would encourage you to from a personnel standpoint watch the actions of the person and I encourage and I encourage you to attend that planning and zoning meeting and see how the public is treated buy to buy the property you have all this stuff could happen notices and you could I don't know you have a 10day notice of uh uh time uh public hearing on it. So you have a public hearing and then you have a 14 day I don't know a month if you do it in a month

probably right is there's a 10day or 14 I mean I guess we have to talk and find out if it's available I may not know hypothetical we don't do it but we don't know if it's available right but if it is I just wondered how long it would take and will someone mention reaching out to the owner I can reach out to the owner thank you sir I'll be fine We're closing public comments at this time. And I think that I would love to report him that opportunity. Yes. Three hands online. If you care.

What? You have three online including Beth. Beth already spoke, but I guess she wants to speak again. I don't know if you want Juliet to go on because that's gonna just be there. Well, people got you really want to do that. Mr. Chair, everything else go.

We have accepted an exorbitant amount of public comment tonight. I'm glad to listen to all of you. Um, we've allowed people to speak multiple times. I think at some point we do have to move on. We've given adequate more than adequate time. Does anybody disagree and want to continue to allow public comment? That's certainly up to the entire There's there's three more comments. You know what? Let you may as well let him talk. We've let everyone talk. run down unless um we're just gonna have to move quick on the rest of the agendas. I have to work in the morning.

Can you hear me? Yep.

Thank you. I'll make it very quick. I just want to let everyone know that that POCD I hope is still on the main page, east hamptonct.gov on the left. And I hope that everyone will get on there and uh speak your voice how you want this town to look. It's so important. We've been fighting this for 20 years. So, please do the POC. Make your voice known. Tell all your people and friends, family. We need to get more than the I think it's a little over 300 uh submissions. I'd love to see like thousands of submissions. There's 13,000 people in this town. Please let your voice know how how you want this town to look. Do you want it big businesses everywhere? Do you want uh um uh Berlin Turnpike on the 66? You want us looking like Glassenberry Enfield? Or do you want us to be the small town rural community that we all moved here for? Please, please fill out that POCD. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hi, I'll just take this brief. I just wanted to say I've heard a lot of things tonight. I want you to understand that I'm hearing you. Um there are opportunities to give your input, but I also want to offer the fact that uh I do have a very very open door policy. I've heard a lot of things tonight I think that need a little clarification about the process of land use um and what happens when a proposal comes to town. I want to reiterate that there is no proposal before planning and zoning and obviously if there were the public would have ample opportunity to provide their input but I am available in my office. I don't turn anybody away if you want to come in and ask me questions about the process. I am more than

more than happy to answer your question. Thank you. And please fill out the survey. But she is the expert on what can be done during the process. So if you have a question about where in the process things happen, she is the person to ask. Peter. Peter. Peter Peter, can you unmute?

He's unmuted. Okay, mutate. You just have one more thing. Last person online. Justin Kelly. Yes. Great. Hey guys, how's it going? Justin Kelly from 31 Lakewood. Are you guys able to hear me? Okay. Yeah.

Oh, lovely. I apologize. I was in the meeting earlier, but I had to uh leave for for a little work. Is this the end of the public comment option? Well, I'm so sorry. What was that? Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Um, and I I do apologize and I know it's been a long night and so I'll make it really short. Um, Justin Kelly from 31 Lakewood. I I moved to East Hampton two years ago. Um, and a lot of you guys may remember me a little bit. I I was my pride and joy to stand before you for 6 months at every planning and zoning wetlands and town hall meeting that you had. uh being a new East Hampton and speaking in the defense of the people and kind of learning about a lot of development that was going on in East Hampton. Um just attributing a little to what we spoke of before, one interesting fact that I think a lot of people don't seem to realize is that every sewage treatment plant ever built in the dawn of time has been next to some sort of waterway or river. And what they don't usually tell the public is the design of that from a, you know, hundreds of years ago or hundred years ago was that if a sewage treatment plant ever could not handle its load, the backup measure was the river next to it. That's why they're all along the Farmington and the Connecticut and the streams. That being said, as we potentially try and circumvent our own waste and potentially other towns, does that mean that the new backup measure is going to be potentially

Pine Brook? Pine Brook or Mine Brook there. Right. Exactly. And that's that that that concerns me. So they don't most people don't realize that the backup measure for a sewage treatment plant is to dump it downstream. Well, that downstream happens to be East Hampton

and everything below it. So that's that's just a little shed of light that I wanted to point out there. Um the eco impact is I mean you can only imagine it's horrible. Every time we drive by Middletown right right on that highway there we know what's going on and there's a reason why it's right next to the river is because in order to have a backup measure for a city if they can't handle it flooding like history rains that we've had over the last couple years the the answer is dump it downstream. So, that's something that I think that we're going to definitely want to see, especially if people are going to be like, "Well, that's uh that's not that important or it's a residential or we're going to reszone it or whatever we're going to do." No, that's not okay. And on a side note, you know, one of the reasons why I fought is because I wanted to see good for East Hampton and I wanted to be here and contribute to that. It was Derek Johnson who showed a statistic that I believe it was East Hampton's development has increased 200% the last couple years more than Glastonbury next to us, more than other areas next to us. And what I think this is a good reminder of today is this isn't the first time this isn't the first time that East Hampton has been subjugated to a a crowd of people upset about a development. I was part of the last one.

I think the mistake that somebody made this time is you guys finally chose something that really pissed everybody off, not just a couple people. And you really chose something that is not going to be so easy to get away with as some of the other things. And that's the kind of concern that I'm looking at here is when it was a town road, when it was a whed, when it was a 30 acre development next to me, yeah, there was a lot of upset people anywhere. But this one I find to be more significant because I feel like someone might have really messed up this time because now you guys somebody has really upset everybody in East Hampton. Well, St. Patrick's Day is too

and what's a benefit here I hope is that it does shed the light that East Hampton where most people move to have a quiet Lake Town existence. That's what everybody who lined up here to tell you is actually selling out. People are collecting on the things that they did years ago. Thank you, Justin. Thank you. Thank you. Closing this public this agenda item. Public comments or remarks. Yeah,

you're welcome to stay. We've got another two or three hours of business. Can we discuss the public meeting uh for next week before they all leave so we they make sure that we have it? Tuesday is St. Patrick's Day, so I I do not really want to come here on a St. Patrick's Day to be honest with you. So, either just the board of finance is doing all of its budget reviews next week. Oh yeah. And so most of those occur in this room other than

other than Wednesday which is the board of and and I should say in the board of education. No the board of finance is doing all those reviews which normally would involve me but that's fine. I can not go there. But I think someone else want to attend those too. Yeah. So I just those are all Monday through Thursday of next week. Um, Wednesday is um Yeah. Um, yes. Thursday. Thursday this week. No, this Thursday. Thursday's open space PC. What's Do we need to discuss it? Can we?

Yeah. So, Thursday is on Thursday here in this room right now, we are scheduled to talk about open space for the plan of conservation and development. So that's a great time to come and voice your opinion about open space. That would not be it's not like a voting situation. Again, it's input. 6:30 in this room is open space on Thursday. If it were open space, they could never touch it again. If buys it and we're I mean it's you have it depends what's legally written into that. What time can we do that? 6:30. So if we had a if we set a special meeting that would conflict with what we already have set for open space. So you would not be able to attend both.

We can also bring it up. We we can figure out for a special meeting because that doesn't take No, it takes 24 hours to post anyway. So but I was just saying if we could get it if we could while we're all here we can get it on um you know if we maybe What time is POC? It's at 6:30. Can we push it back to seven and maybe we can meet at five? Doesn't matter to me. I mean, I don't know if anybody has to I don't know. I can't recall who the people moderators were for that. I don't foresee it being a huge issue, but I can certainly send an email to

or even 5:30 and then, you know, give us an hour at least to discuss. I mean, I think we're going to need a little bit more than an hour to discuss the but I do want to get it on the agenda, not wait until our next council meeting in two and a half weeks or two weeks from today.

I'm fine with 5:30 on Thursday. Okay. 5:30 or 5? I thought you said five. Well, 5 or 5:30, whatever. I I would be here like 5:15. All right. Well, can you make five? I I can I make five? Yeah, I have to I just leave a work early. I I won't be here till 5:15. We end rehearsal at 5:00. I I mean, I can only make it at 5:15. I don't care. 5:30, whatever. You know, I drive by. You just can't start them early. So, BCD has to wait a couple minutes. So be it. So, we we we tell everybody to come here at 5:15. That's this Thursday. Thursday. This Thursday. Should I put this in?

You put this in right now. Changed my Sophie at the gym at 5. So, can we actually set a public meeting date without the agenda? Well, we're going to discuss the appointments and make up the agenda and make sure it's distributed at least 24 hours in advance. Is that how that works? Yes, we'll come up with something tomorrow before 5:30. Before the close of business before 55 before 4:30 whenever the town hall clos 5:30 we decided down 5:15

I'm going to do my best to be here at 5. I mean, yeah, whatever. I'm gonna try to be here for Yeah.

That's 1212. Yep. We had a portioning at apartment space. Right. I'm not here at 5:15. It's because I was walking from the street. We're going to move on on the agenda. Are we all set? Yes. Yeah. Agenda item five, presentations. We have no presentations. David, I know you wanted to comment. Would you like to do that when you make your direct uh manager report? I don't think there's anything sir.

Very much to us. You got a lot of points. Thank you, sir. Thanks for getting out of here. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's no doubt. And I was like, yeah, and they didn't know any of us. must have been in here longer than I mean I mean should have made public.

We'll see if there's here and shift. Yeah, I know it. I know we're on six bits and contracts. beer. That's all we need. Thank you for listening to all the [ __ ] Have a good night. See you later. All right. Item six, bids and fun facts. Have no bids and contracts in this section. Item seven,

resolutions, ordinances, policies, proclamations. We have none of those. I agenda item eight, continued business subcommittee reports and updates. Well, all the POC did see stuff that has already been mentioned, please. Yeah. And we're going to talk about the firehouse. That's right. Yes. The steering committee. Yeah. So, pass. Moving on. New business. Agenda item nine. a discussion and possible action on a professional services agreement regarding fire station property assessment.

Uh thank you. Uh on behalf of the uh firehouse uh site and development steering committee or committee rather uh I'm presenting to you a recommendation from them for a uh professional services agreement with silver petetroch fire fire station uh property condition assessments. Uh as I outlined in the memo, the commission uh submitted or rather put out proposals for sought proposals from firms uh that undertaken this activity. Seven went through uh a um tour of the facilities. Five of them ended up submitting proposals. Uh the commission ended up interviewing three and has made that recommendation. Uh so the proposal is to uh authorize an agreement with them in the amount of $50,100 uh for that work to review the current conditions and various other matters at all three of our fire stations.

I just have couple of quick questions. I think they're typos or oversightes. uh odd page under scope of work in the RFP document or the proposal document. This one. Okay.

The third uh bullet or fourth bullet, it talks about information about the school year. What does that refer to? Oh, clearly that's a mistake. They obviously they they're not talking about schools. They're they know that they're reviewing that's a mistake in their own material. They know they're reviewing a fire station. Okay. And I guess on-site assessments were a town, not a city. Yeah. Common mistake that people make, but you're right. Yes. And I just had regarding the roofing, should uh review for mold be an item on that? Um

it was part of what they discussed and and so observation of that would be um something they would do. Uh but if there was actual testing that needed to get done, that's a separate matter that we've kind of uh told them that they did not have to deal with. environmental testing. They don't have to test, but they would review to visually find out. Okay. Yep.

And I guess in general, um I know in the when we were reviewing 11 Skinner Street, we were contemplating meeting and training space. Is there anything in here regarding that? Um the intent of this review is not to look at the future uh necessarily, although other than to assess it against um to some degree modern fire station needs and and identify where this our buildings might fall short. So while there's not a direct assessment of how much space we need for that, they might comment on in accordance with NFPA standards or normal firehouse construction standards, uh there might not be enough space for X activity, Y activity, whatever that may be.

Yeah. Really the purpose of this, this is not really building committee, right? Yeah. This is just give us a what what we got, right?

What do we have? How is it sufficient for whatever purpose or any purpose where it is deficient for modern uh firehouse uh sites and uh so that's where we are. So there's a lot of other things that would and these types of questions would come up uh in a uh building committee format when when and if that's uh we get to that point. And I guess the last one is we're not Meridan. It should be East Hampton. But this is probably from their stock

which may raise this concern to start with. They can't get their proposal right. How much are they not going to boil a plate or their review? Um, I have to say I have concern on that because when you don't take the time to prepare your documents the right way, how what's make us think you're going to prepare your you're going to have the same due diligence in the work that you're doing. So that raises concern for me because if they're giving us a boiler plate this, are we going to get a boiler plate on every building? I'm fine.

It's up to you. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Yeah, chairs. I say that trying not to interrupt meetings. Uh fine.

Chief, uh Robert Rainville. Um so with that, uh the proposals that came to us, um this specific firm has done hundreds of these uh across the state. Um, so, uh, if you look at their actual reporting that they've given us, the samples, they have hundreds and hundreds of pages and pictures of every single little thing that they come and check inside the buildings. So, the proposal might seem kind of boilerplatey, but all of them were um, they come in with ideas uh, about your town and they're trying to kind of get your business. So, uh, some of them are trying to sell you things. Uh, this company that we're recommending was very solid. Uh they have done hundreds of these like I said um and the Meridan just happens to be one of the most rec recent ones that they did. So that's probably why uh it is a typo on there.

Thank you for that. Is there any u stick up for any other questions or destination regarding understand that I move to accept the professional services agreement from silver patroli and associate second motion made and seconded. Is there discussion of proceeding with this? Not a vote. Those in favor I opposed nay. Thank you guys. You're welcome. Do us well. Good. Cocon 9B.

Christine, you think I hit it? I'll invite Christine Ketawa, the library director, up to talk about LCL. My gosh, you Sorry. So long. I'm sure the last thing you want to do is hear me talk about freaking

um so I am here to recommend that the East Hampton Public Library leave its current library consortium which is called Lion and enter into a new agreement with the consortium Library Connection Inc. or LCI. I just wanted to give you guys like kind of a brief rundown of what a consortium does for our library first. Um, so they're cooperative groups of libraries that um allow us to share core technology systems like our online catalog and our circulation software and they let us get discounted group rates on those technologies and other technologies. Um, they also provide us with delivery service between libraries for interl loan materials. Um, and they're really just fundamental to like running a modern library that can meet its patrons needs. The reason I started re-evaluating our Lion membership um is because in the last couple of years, a lot of larger libraries have left Lion and transition to other consortia, which really just made me concerned about their long-term organizational stability. Um, it also means that we have access to fewer physical resources through inter library loan because we rely on some of these larger libraries that have bigger budgets to get more materials that our patrons might want. Um, and so we looked at two other consorcia. There's only the three in Connecticut. So we kind of got a full picture of what all of our options were. Um, and we decided that LCI was the best fit for East Hampton. They are well established. They're growing. Actually, the libraries that have left Lion have gone to LCI. Um, and they're already serving a lot of neighboring towns for us, Marboro, Colchester, Portland. And so, that's really nice because we share a lot of patrons with those towns. Um, and so they're already like in our computer system, and it's just really convenient. Um, it also because they are a growing

consortium with a lot of larger libraries, it gives us access to a greater volume of physical materials. They have about twice the physical circulating items as we can get from Lion right now. Um so just more options for our patrons. Um and they also use a much larger courier service for that interl loan delivery than Lion. Um delivery with Lion has been really hit or miss. It's a very small company. If a truck is broken or somebody's sick or something, we just don't get those materials. And LCI contracts a much larger company where it's just a lot more reliable. There's also a lot of kind of like little perks that we get through them with our annual dues at no additional cost. So, there's a product called Museum Key that lets our patrons like download our museum pass collection from their home. So, they can use that service without having to come into the library, which is really nice. We also get um unlimited licenses of our circulation software um which we don't get through Lion. We're limited right now. It's not a huge deal, but it's just sometimes you'll have like a service bottleneck where, oh, I'd love to check out this book for you, but unfortunately all four licenses are in use. You know, we try really hard to just eliminate those kinds of issues. Um, it also gives us and our patrons more like automated notices like hold reminder emails and report reports for us. Um, so just reduce staff workload. Nice for our patrons. Um, and they also have a proven willingness to adopt new technologies as library needs change, which is something I found Lions to be kind of lacking in. Um, as far as the financial benefits through LCI, we would pay lower annual consortial dues. Um, so we pay Lion about $30,000 a year with the LCI would be paying about 25. And I think in terms of long-term savings, it could be more

substantial than that. LCI is committed to only raising dues 2 and a.5% a year. Historically, Lion has always raised them 3 and a half to 4%. So, I think those savings might grow over time. There are some drawbacks. We lose some IT support services. LCI doesn't have as much IT support as Lion does. Um, Lion currently hosts our website and they also um provide us with a firewall. Those are things that we'll have to go out and get on our own. Um, but we feel pretty comfortable internally with library staff doing those things. And LCI will help us with a lot of that. Um, uh, Lion does require us to pay a termination fee for us to leave. It's equal to 10% of our annual dues. So, it would be about $3,000. It's a one-time cost. I really think that the long-term benefits outweigh having to pay that.

Anytime you leave or just off contract.

Um, it's anytime you leave. So, um, I think the benefits outweigh having to pay that. Um, and we can actually pay it out of the library budget this year with leftover funds that we have that we haven't spent elsewhere. Um, so based on all this, it's my professional recommendation that we terminate our membership with Lion and enter into an agreement with LCI. If we do so right now, this transition would not take place until July of 2027 because we are required to give Lion a full fiscal year's notice in addition to paying that fee. Um, at that time we would enter into an initial three-year contract with LCI, which given the scale of the transition, migrating our entire catalog, retraining staff, having patrons like learn how to use the new tools, um, the time frame really allows us to like fully implement everything and give it like a real chance to evaluate it. With LCI, after that three-year period, we don't have to give as substantial of notice as we do with Lion. We have to give six-month notice, but it's not tied to the fiscal year. It's just 6 months like whenever. And there is no fee to leave LCI.

So, are they going to allow you to start transitioning and training on it before the the cut over date? So, and at what cost is that? So, are you going to be paying the 30,000 and then another 24,000 for the year to to get everything up and running through the new system?

No. LCI has actually um been really wonderful with that. So, what they'll do is in May of 2026, they or no, sorry, May of 2027, they will um start the process of transitioning all of our like patron and catalog records, but we actually won't pay them anything until July 1 of that year. So, there's no time that we would be paying both consorcia. They just kind of build in that buffer period to make sure that by July 1, we are up and running smoothly. If um this Lion that you're currently with, if they've lost so many of their larger libraries, how can they still hold you to a year contract, if they've lost your your base of where you're supposed to be doing? If if they've lost most of the their library and you have nothing there, how can they handcuff you into a year contract? Uh is there any um is there any out on that? Have you talked to anyone? Because I mean, if they can't provide the service, then you shouldn't be stuck paying the uh $35,000 for the year or $30,000 for the year if they can't hold up their end of the bargain with the libraries you've been using for all these years.

I mean, I certainly don't want to imply that like Lion has no libraries, but majority of what you're

But certainly there is less value in it than there used to be. They know that I have been talking with my library advisory board about leaving, but we have not had any official conversation about it because that felt like jumping the gun before I came to present to you. It's certainly a discussion that I could have. I don't know that we have an option to get out of that one-year notice period. I know all of the libraries that left in the last few years um have given that one year one fiscal year notice. And I don't even know like what if LCI would be able to take us on sooner. I'd have to talk to them about that, too. But I certainly could inquire about that termination fee if I don't feel like they're meeting their duties. Yeah,

but there's a contract. So, I understand. But I mean, if there's a termination and they're if they're not holding up their end of the uh you know, and when is the is the contract just perpetual or is it negotiated at some point in time? In my time as director, it has pretty much been perpetual. hasn't been renegotiated at any point, but it's certainly a conversation I'm willing to have with them. It's worth having. Yeah. Um, so the library advisory board recomded this and supported it at their March meeting. Um, we think it's really in the best interests of our community here. Um, and so I'm asking you guys to do the same.

Library change, just do it. It's uh uh commercial method. Second. Second. Any questions? No. Everybody understand the motion? Yes. Those in favor signify by saying I. Oppos? Nay. Thank you all. Dean, since we're having a uh a special meeting on Tuesday, can uh I make a motion to move the Thursday 9C to our Thursday meeting at that. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Much appreciated. Agenda item 10, town manager report.

Thank you. As always, my written report is on the town's website and in the town meeting packet. Um number of things in the uh item, the report as always. uh the POC information that was talked about earlier is all referenced in there for folks to take a look at uh with with links uh as well and uh the meetings that are upcoming. Uh the one primary thing I wanted to mention and I sort of alluded to it before uh the draft of the town's general government budget has been uh completed and is uh my recommend my recommended budget has been uh distributed. I think it was on your uh table tonight. I think it's been sent to the board of finance. I believe it'll get uh one last proof and then post posted rather uh to the town's website tomorrow. Uh the it includes sort of the as you'll remember the full description of the entire budget including the board of education but the details of the board of education budget are not in there. Uh they're in uh with the material from the board of education on their website and then you'll get their packet uh at some point in the near future as well. Um and then as I mentioned that goes into the review of the uh board of finance in the upcoming week with uh starting with what they take as a public hearing on Monday. So folks are invited to come in and comment on that. If you have any questions I'll certainly take them. Otherwise that is my comments for tonight.

Well said everyone. Thank you. Moving on. Agenda item 11, appointments. Can we add that to Thursday and appointments? A discussion on appointments for WPCA. You talk about it right now. Yeah. No, I I said, can we add that to Thursday's agenda? Dean,

why don't you talk to talk about it right now? You want to? What's the issue? um that we have a father um and a son on the board and a father and son that work direct reports to the um to Tony and I feel that that's a conflict because they if they don't do what Tony wants them to do on the board then they can retaliate against their their father or son. Um one is a direct uh the second increment and another I guess is a maintenance. I don't know these people, but they're on the WCA board.

Yeah, WPCA board as a father and a son, and their employees are another father and son. So, they're on the board and their direct family is works under Tony. One is his second in command and another one. And so therefore, as board members, if they don't do what Tony wants them to do, they can take it out on their family. And I think they should be removed from the board at once. I will I I I really have to hear you say that again. Okay. Let's get the Let's So, let me There is a Yeah, go ahead. Use names. Use names. Okay. Go ahead.

Hang on. Hang on. I got to find it because I had someone send it to me because I couldn't it I know there's a Liam. Yeah. Liam Dylan, right? Okay. Just uh we just put them on the board. Yeah. Well, his either father or son works for Tony. The father is an operator at the plant. Correct. Yeah. Yep. So, we're aware of this and I'm glad you brought this up. I'm glad you brought Well, and then the other one is Well, here's the thing. No, no, let me brought it up. I want to explain it. I want

let me finish what let me finish what what I'm going to say and and I know that one of them is a plant operator in in Meridan and has plenty of qualifications and and that is not the thing. The thing is the appearance that if they don't side with Tony on a matter if who doesn't side on what? The ones that are on the WPCA board. Okay. So they have family working directly for Tony. Correct. So you're saying if they don't side with Tony on the board that it could it could have implications on the

right. So therefore by default Tony can sway the board at least two members. You're short a member and you have no alternates to seed them. So they can't even recuse themselves and that is not appropriate and whether you knew about it or not it's it I don't believe that that's an an appropriate thing. And yes, it's Kyle, Dylan, and Liam is Liam's father, and Mike Seretta is Paul's father. No, I So Paul and I know about the Liam situation, and uh we uh discussed this very clearly at our appointments committee meeting. It didn't get discussed at the council table. Well, I have to tell you something. You voted for it.

Yeah.

Yeah, we had to vote for it. Now, so let me go back information. My turn. My turn. Go ahead. So, we get this application from this young fellow named Lean Dylan and we had him in as we always have everybody in to interview. They don't get on to unless they interview. So, Liam comes in, young fella. Um, this is his application. I'm going to go I'm going to read it to you right now. said, then there are a couple of questions. These are the answers to his questions. How many years is a local resident? 23. He's lived here for all his life. Um, why do you wish to serve? This is a way for me to give back to my community. Eight skills and abilities, constructibility, logistics, material procurement, budgeting, value engineering, project management. So now his occupation and background. I majored in construction engineering technology. I am currently a project engineer for a general contractor and a construction management firm. I have managed projects ranging from 22 million down to uh what 10 million uh dollar projects ground up and full res renovations. So, the background of this young man uh was pretty good. Seems pretty good and aligns pretty well with what he uh what we're looking what he's applying for now. What he said. So, we're talking uh and again, Karen, you were there.

We're talking and um he mentioned that his father was the op was an operator there. And I said, um, well, gee, you know, uh, this could appear out of place. It could appear that there could be somebody could contrive a conflict of of interest here. And sure enough, you bring it up. So, what I told him was this, and Karen and Tim, you follow suit on this. I said, 'Look, I said, when you're on that board, you have to realize that any decision that comes up relating to your father, you have to recuse yourself.

Yes.

Period. We had a very serious discussion about that. And what we told him at that meeting, what we told him was that any indication that we see that you do not do so, you come off that committee. So here we have a young man brought up in East Hampton, dedicated to East Hampton, few generations. And this is the type of kid, young adult that we should be encouraging to get on these commissions in town to serve the commission. This was an opportunity to do so. any conflict of interest which you which you might be referring to or anyone else might be referring to we addressed no two ways about it we're monitoring it and we look at it and that was a story so I'm telling you that I support this 110% because this brings along a new generation in East Hampton of East Hamptonians which serve their government

and I boils If you thought it was not noteworthy to even mention when you asked for appointments or for an approval, then obviously you thought something because you didn't bring it up when you appointed them to the board to say, "Hey, look, we've already addressed this and and we're going to do X, Y, and Z." So, yes, I do have a problem. I have a problem with you hiding that fact when you when you did your appointment thing and I also have a problem with him being on the board. Well, I have a problem with you categorizing it as hiding because it's not. We've got a committee that talked about it, laid it out, and laid out the parameters. Very simple. So, you know what?

Bio. Look, you Oh, okay. Coming from you, that's pretty rich. Yeah. Okay. So, go ahead. You want to start character debates, sir? Hey, you're the one that's going that route. Oh, do not go there with me, sir. Oh, okay. Okay, gentlemen. But nonetheless, that's the situation. I stand by this 110% as does my committee. Period.

I have no other appointments. Thank you. Anyone else? No. Item 12, tax refunds. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to refund six uh refunds totaling $3,252.99. Good. All right. Second.

Motion made, seconded. Is there any discussion? Not. Those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos. Name. adopted. Item 13, public remarks. Yeah, I had too many of those. Yeah, go look, Kyle. Online, Kyle. Yeah, Kyle.

Yes. Hello. Thank you. Um, I'll keep this relatively short, certainly within three minutes. Um, thank you to all the town council members and the town manager for their patience in listening to such important public comments earlier. This is clearly an issue and matter that has been brought forward by the head of the WPCA, by the town council, whose hands are figuratively and legally tied due due to how the WPCA um joint facilities operate. Um, I believe that the town planner does have the best interest in the town and has been attempting to move forward with changes in our regulations to better position the town to be more fair to both developers and residents. Um, develop developers need to be cooperated with and not collaborated with. And I think that Juliet Hajj recognizes this uh which has been which is why some people in town are asking uh for resignation or her to be fired. Uh regarding the application for the property at hand, uh from my understanding, there has not been any application for a zone change and that this still needs to go to the PNZ. In regards to the legal opinion that was requested, um, thank you to Kieran Wet for requesting it and thank you to the town council for agreeing to actually move forward to get it for a better understanding of the overall situation which so many people showed up for and complained about tonight. In regards to spot zoning, um, generally and sadly, this has been an accepted mode of operation that is gifted in East Hampton. Has been gifted in East Hampton for many years. Some

people get it, most don't. Even Ted Hint knows that.

My comment is about volunteers. If you're an East Hampton resident serving East Hampton to improve land use, residents need to apply to the WPCA, especially after Teddy's and Mr. Nok's remarks. and the PNZ land and the PNZ. Um, land use is one of the most important means of how East Hampton moves forward on how the POC develops and on how we can improve the town in a manner and in which a majority of town residents want to develop. Thank you very much.

Thank you. about zoning we just one question what exactly Thursday is our agenda uh we have WPCA on there we have the uh the uh legal opinion and uh I still uh would like to discuss the other uh appointments because we have two of them and uh are we going to do an executive session at some point too? I think that would be uh well we're only running around the bill, aren't we guys? Well, we're still if we have room to land then but uh

now if we are going to do an executive session there are only a couple reasons we can do it. So we'd have to decide whether it would be for pending legal matters um or if it was personnel matter then we would have to you have to notify the personnel that is going to be talked about in there they have the option to be there and they have the option to make it a public uh in the public forum. So, um I would suggest a personnel um matter, but uh that the employee must be notified uh prior to our executive session.

Uh I think it's a 24 hours. They have the right to bring an attorney. They have the right to make it a public and they have the right to uh uh Right. They do they they don't have to be in for our discussion, do they? the whole discussion. we they have to know we're talking about them and then they have then whatever we decide they have the right to um and I know if they want it to be a public discussion they can force it into the public but I don't think that they they they're not invited into our executive session and the only time that is because I know we had one that was forced into public and where the employee said no if you're going to talk about me you're going to talk about me in a public forum and that's their right um but I do think we should have a uh exe uh executive session for personnel and notify the employee that we will be doing.

Was that the chief of police? For what? Public. The example you cited was that for the chief? Uh no, he was who was it? No, it was not the chief that wanted it open. Um it was another staff member that we we did actually had an open meeting because they refused to uh close the uh the executive session. They wanted it out in the public. Um I don't remember who it was. It was very odd. Um but 10 years ago. Yeah. Had to be a while back. Yeah. Yeah. The the Matt ones we those were not uh open.

Well, I mean, in general, you're right. I always check those with I always check that stuff with the attorney before I do it. But in general, you're right. And so if if tomorrow if we think that that's what the pursuit is on Thursday, we can we can make sure that those notices go. I would say make sure the notices go out. We have to have the discussion. I just have one question, David, regarding the uh collection of revenue. I meant to bring it up. Is Christy back to work for the town or is she just filling in to help get us through? She has left Hebrin and has come back to the town of East Hampton. Okay. It was not a fit for her.

Just curious um under the attorney letter, would that also talk about the contract for the land that exists? Would that be covered under the attorney letter with talking for the special meeting or I'd like to talk about the actual contract and who it's you know whether it's signable whether it's uh who the contracts with with the uh the LV or L whatever. So I want I want to talk about the contract that is existing the PSNA that the council approved a few weeks ago or a month ago or whenever that was.

So that if not I want that you know I think we should we need to talk about that as well. But I don't know if that's covered if we just use the the legal opinion because it refers to it. But I think we'd rather probably have the contract itself uh to discuss.

Are we okay actually finalizing it tomorrow though? I We're just all really tired. Yeah. Yeah. Can we just put out a draft and just Can you just put out a draft in the morning and just let everyone respond? Like I you. Yeah, just cuz it's 7 o'clock and Yes. I don't want to 9:00. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. We haven't reset the clock. Well, that's because, you know, uh we're in the stone age where they don't reset themselves anymore. Kind of like my alarm clock. Can I make a public comment? Is that allowed? Not technically, but sure. Sure. Sure. Is it not? No. No. No. I get it. I know. It's crazy, huh? But technically, no. Okay. public though

we or you can do it under announcements and communication is an announcement or correspondence or communication. Yep. You Yes. Okay. Got it. Of course it is. Are we there?

Yes. I just want to say for those the few that are still here and to my fellow council members and those online I think most I think amongst us ourselves we all know that we ran for office because we care about this town and although we don't always agree on procedure or the ways I think to get to where I think we all want the same thing for our town and that is to live in a a town where everybody you thrives, gets along for the most part, and we, you know, we work together and you know what transpire transpired tonight. I actually am happy that it happened because I feel like for the first time since I I mean, I'm new to this council. There's a lot of things that took place before I even came on that I knew nothing about, you know, like that the facility like I've never had a presentation on that. There was no I had no indication that was anything we were voting on. You know what was presented to us about that parcel of land was for you know in case we needed something for the water sewage. That was the extent of what I knew. But that being said, I think that the collaboration that we showed this evening amongst I wish more town people residents would come out to our meetings so we could collaborate together because that's when we're all talking. That's when we end up with results that are best for the town and the community. And so I appreciate the conversation that took place today. I appreciate the collaboration that took place on this council itself amongst all of us. And I hope that that could continue in the future. Thank you.

Is that it, folks? Make a motion to adjurnn. All right. Is it late enough? We're journed.

Get out of here. I revived Tim.