Town Council - Regular Meeting

Moving to the agenda, item two, adoption of agenda. Motion made and seconded. Is there any discussion? If not, those in favor of adopting Agenda is presented, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Agenda is adopted. Item three, approval of minutes, regular meeting of July 14th, 2026. Motion to approve the minutes.

Second.

Motion made and seconded to approve the minutes. Is there any discussion? Any errors or omissions from the minutes that's presented? Hearing none, those in favor of adopting the minutes or approving the minutes of July 14th, 2026, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Ayes have it. Minutes are adopted. Agenda item four, public remarks. Is there anyone who wishes to make public remarks? Cindy?

Cindy Craig, Three Candlewood Drive. For the average citizen, getting up and speaking in front of a group of people is not easy. Add that you are emotional about the subject you are speaking on, how it affects you and your family, and that you may have an audience out here that is of a different opinion. that doesn't share your feelings. That is a very daunting situation to be in. Then to top it off, one of the people you are addressing is completely ignoring you, looking at their phone. That is disrespectful, rude, demeaning, and not what you were elected to do. You are here to listen and consider what all of your constituents have shown up to share. I would like to propose that all phones for those that are on the bench be surrendered to the administrative table before the meeting goes into session. This shouldn't be necessary, but it is this inattention happens consistently and our citizenry deserves better. And we saw a good example of this when Crystal got up at the last meeting to speak about the education budget. If you can't listen, you can't learn, and you can't have a debate. Diversity of thought is the foundation of education. If you can't lead with respect, you will never get the benefit of being in a room of people who think differently than you do. Thank you.

Can I make a public comment? What's that? Can I make a public comment?

Can you make a public comment?

Yeah. Or should you under correspondence communication?

Anyone else who would care to make public remarks at this time? Karen?

My name is Karen R. Johannesmeyer, 16 Penny Corner Road, Portland, Connecticut. I'm a member of the East Hampton Third Connecticut Regiment of Fife's and Drums. Recently I participated in the Deep River Muster and I have to give the Muster committee a lot of credit because when they read the muffled drum, when we lose members in our ranks, Mrs. O'Neill was read among the ranks because her and the Gov, was we're good friends to the fife and drum and I thought at least all of you up here in the community should know that. A lot of people are not aware of it, but they helped the fife and drum out by having Yankee Doodle be the state song and you're all part of that. And I want to thank all of you for supporting the Gov and Mrs. O'Neill. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Good evening. My name is Christopher Higginson at 110 Hog Hill Road. I was born in California in 1983. That made me an American for 42 years, almost 43. I've been a resident in East Hampton since 2023. And I am concerned about some of the departments and the offices within the town committee on veterans. I've served this country for 21 years. I'm a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. I've gone through three combat deployments to Iraq. I also did a COVID deployment on the hospital ship in Los Angeles. I did a combat lethal advice and assist in the Philippines. And then I was on a Tier 1 presidential mission on a submarine. I have my master's in healthcare administration, and I've done so many roles within the medical community that asking for my benefits is really hard here. And talking about the public act number 2426 that's been in act since 2024, some of the issues are still having, well, I'm being told no instead of looking into my questions. So I would like to ask the committee as you go forth to make sure that your constituents, veterans or not, is treated equal. And instead of saying no, get back in the books and tell me why it's no instead of helping a veteran get to yes. Thank you.

Thank you again.

Anyone else?

Valerie Baker, Rena Lane, a couple of things. First of all, on the bulky waste disposal rates and consideration of a bid waiver request, I would remind you that we have spent an inordinate amount of money on transportation contracts that were no bid contracts for a former resident who owned a bus company. I am against no bid contracts. and waiving contract bids because it doesn't necessarily lead us to the best solution. If the bid submitted by our resident person is the best bid, then it should be able to stand up to scrutiny and competition from other bids. So I would urge you not to do that. Secondly, I would like to remind the Council that the Town made it extremely clear that we don't want sewer expansion. You may recall March, April meetings. There was a memo from our town manager that was circulated showing that meetings took place regarding the development of one schoolhouse road, requiring the sale of half an acre of town property to make the project happen. There are a couple problems with that. One is that the rendering appears to be missing any illustration that shows septic. The memo actually states septic or sewer is not required. However, if you look at the renderings, it would appear that something has to happen and it is not shown. We don't want to be in a situation where we go forward with a sale. And then, oh, surprise, we need to expand our sewers. Who could have predicted that? Let's not go through that again. If we're going to keep saying that we're subject to the law that says that we have to have a certain number of low income units in the town, and if I recall the attorney that was threatening to sue the Planning and Zoning Committee correctly. We need seven more units that are low income. Why don't we just build seven more senior low income units and be done with it? We'll meet the requirement and we don't have to go through this again. But I don't want to keep coming in hearing the threat that we're going to have to do something because we don't have enough low income units. We are lacking seven, put seniors in it, We're done. Thank you.

Anyone?

Leonard Johnson, 21 Long Crossing Road. If the town provided sidewalk snow removal program is completely eliminated, then we need an exception for where there is an insufficient buffer between the sidewalk and the road. In other words, when snow plowing puts snow on the sidewalk, then the town should be responsible for clearing the sidewalk. Thank you.

Thomas Crean, 35 Lake Drive here in East Hampton. Just piggybacking off what that gentleman just said, I can't speak for every sidewalk in town. I don't know which ones are exempted and the town is maintaining, which ones the property owners are maintaining. But on Lake Drive, there is no buffer zone. The plow trucks literally pack the snow four feet high on that sidewalk, and that snow turns into ice almost immediately. I have a big snowblower. It will not handle it. I don't think I could buy one that's big enough to handle the snow to get stumped down there. My other concern is, do we really want people doing it themselves on Lake Drive and blowing that snow right into the lake? That snow is going to be loaded with salt. There's not a huge area that you could dump it without going into the lake. I think the town does a pretty good job with its huge one. They can direct it where they want to direct it. People are just going to throw that snow right into the lake, and I'd hate to see the lake go backwards. The lake has made some pretty incredible strides over the last few years. and I don't want to see it go backwards. So I can't speak for everybody in town, but there's a problem on Lake Drive if we're going to have to do our sidewalks.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Anthony D. Simone, 26 Hog Hill Road, East Hampton, Connecticut. If you're going to talk about the Middle Haddam School sale of the property, I respectfully request that Mr. Hintz be required to recuse himself. He prejudiced himself online with posts in the Uncensored group, and he also lives in Middle Haddam. And based on some of his comments from a January council meeting where anything we can do to not comply with the state's affordable housing plan, like, you can't allow that. We've already been through this once. It turned into a crap show. Didn't recuse yourself then like you should have. Yeah, I know, because you don't care. It's my time, not yours. So that's all I'd request. There's been multiple discussions. When people say backdoor deals, this is how a development works. A developer comes to town staff and they propose something and town staff meets with them. That's not a backdoor deal. That's us doing our jobs for our constituents. And everybody wants to give us crap about it. Well, guess what? Some people are for things. Some people are against things. But you're supposed to have open discussions. And the dialogue in this town on both sides is disgusting. I've been a Republican my whole life. And the Republican Party in this town is a joke. The way you guys act. You know what you're telling us? You don't care if our taxes go up. Because for us to have no tax increase this year, we would have had to add 140 of the houses they're building up on Lakewood. drive a year to keep our taxes from going up. And you guys want no development. So my request to you is let's follow the process on conflicts of interest. He needs to recuse himself. Thank you.

Anyone else?

How you doing? Kill Hat 265 White Birch Road. This is a first for me. I was hoping to never have to come down here. Look, the proposal that you guys have for Middle Haddam isn't even legal. You know it's not legal. You can't have 36 apartments on 2.7 acres with a septic system. It does not work. It's fraudulent. The fact that he actually brought it to this town hall is against the law. I don't care what Mr. DeSimone says. He drew these things up. We know he plays pretty loose. That's all I'm going to tell you.

OK, my name is Chris Patel. I'm from 15 Old Clark Hill Road. And I just want to talk real quick about open space. There was a POCD meetings during the POCD process. And one of the things I talked about was open space. And currently, the town does not have really any program for acquiring open space. There's no budget for it. There's no really afterthought, I feel. There's an old saying that they say in regards to land, they're not making any more of it. And that's a very true thing. And there's been many opportunities in the past to get certain parcels for open space. Now, you can't buy every single parcel in town, in every single yard or forested area. I think the town and the people, the residents of the town do have an interest in preserving certain parcels for open space when applicable and when there's an opportunity. There have been many opportunities in the past that turned into developments. Not all development is bad, but there was a time when, as I understand, the town council was approached before the area where Seven Hills was developed, an area where the airstrip was off of Clark Hill. People tried to rally to save some of that for open space. There's even parts of the town you could buy for open space and deed it properly, where the town could turn around and lease the land for agriculture use or other things as well, and maybe recur some of those costs. Recently in the budget discussion, they said there was an $800,000 surplus. I don't agree with the route that was taken with acquiring that to the next year's budget. But however, if there's something, an $800,000 surplus, well, there's a parcel of Hazen Tree Farm for 1.2 million. You could easily put that in a 30-year note and yeah you know that's easily an affordable open space lot i think there's a lot of other opportunities in town i asked the town i asked the council take a look at that and um that's and the only other thing i would add to that is um i i do oppose this middle hadham thing it seems like it's very new so i'm going to wait until there's any type of hearing on that and whatnot but it is a little concerning the way that things look in a preliminary way but thanks

Hands raised.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Rebecca Harvey, 49 Flanders Road.

I have some notes here.

I kind of want to start with thanking Councilmember Ted Hintz for last night's meeting that was hosted at the Middle Haddam Library. It was actually very well attended for the first one in my opinion and it was very nice to see current and former board members in attendance. There was open discussion. We heard everything from what's going on with this budget to different conversations that were had in previous years. I just think it brought a lot of transparency and hold everybody that was making comments to some type of standard because they had other individuals that might have had a different viewpoint on how those discussions went. And I think it's something that the town council members should highly consider moving forward because I think I would attend those meetings regardless of who's hosting them. When it comes to snow removal, I kind of kept badgering this point last night at Ted's meeting. The town should not be removing snow from people's sidewalks. If there's exceptions and possibly the people at the lake are going to see an issue with this, they can absolutely volunteer to pay more and have snow removal done off of their sidewalks. But every other town, you take care of what's in front of your property. It's kind of like I used the analogy last night of if the town wants to use the first 10 feet of my yard as an easement and allow Eversource or the town to tell me what I can and cannot do. If you want to remove snow from the sidewalks, maybe you guys can come mow the front of my lawn those first 10 feet and we'll kind of even out the burden here. As far as the transfer station goes, I see that that's on the agenda tonight. I've spoke with Rob Baer and he's made a ton of valid points regarding the size of the road that the recycling plant is on. No traffic studies were being done. I think he's had some managers, I'm sorry, some discussions with the town manager and the chief of police and think that further discussion should be had. When it comes to the Middle Haddam proposal, And I'm speaking to the town council right now, but you literally just had DeSimone himself come up and speak. He should have recused himself multiple times and was actually working on these projects during his time of employment. So his comments tonight should be voided out and not considered by a single council member because that itself would be a conflict. And I'm very much opposed to anything to do with this, especially the way that it's been presented. Have a good night.

Jason?

Good evening.

Jason?

Good evening. My name is Jason Puglieli. I'm a resident of 20 Schoolhouse Lane. I live two houses up from the schoolhouse. Moved into town about five years ago. just because of the location, how quiet it is and what a nice community this is. I was very dismayed this afternoon to hear about six hours ago I was notified about the proposal that's being brought up with the schoolhouse and turning it into a condominium complex in a sense. I understand the need for elderly housing. We have we have obligations that we have to meet there are many other properties in east hampton itself that can be renovated for a much less uh lower cost than it would cost to rezone this district which by the way is zoned as an r2 and has a limitation as to the building lot size um just recently my neighbor across the street from the schoolhouse applied for a permit to extend his garage and was denied because it exceeds the square footage of building size that's allotted on that property. The 30 plus buildings that are being proposed at the schoolhouse property would far exceed that. In addition to that, we're in a wetlands area I would like to highly recommend that this gets pushed off until any developer can provide us with proper documentation of how they are going to preserve the historic area and all the bylaws that are supposed to be upheld by the historic district. In addition to any environmental studies, traffic studies, and any studies that are required for this area. I think this is the council and I am directing this to you. I think you are pushing this way faster than it should be. And you are not preserving the historic district the way it should be. That the historic district is the only reason why I moved into this area because of what it is. I ask that you do not take that away from the community. Thank you for your time.

Rebecca Hodge?

Hi, this is Rebecca Hodge, Old Mill Town Road in Cobalt. Can you hear me okay? okay i just wanted to um two things i just wanted to echo um what rebecca said uh for the meeting last night that was held um hosted by ted at the middle hattem library um it was well attended um by a a wide variety of folks and um it was really nice to have representation from the board of finance and board of ed and um other council members um and a lot of different opinions at different view sites and it was very civil and um very productive um so i i'd echo that um if anyone else wanted to host a similar meeting um i took a lot away from that uh and it was it was just a good experience um i learned a lot also about the the transfer station and um folks were spitballing some options that should be considered. I'm very concerned with the thought of closing it entirely. I think that would be very hasty. I wouldn't like to see that happen. So I just wanted to urge the council in the budget decisions to maybe just do a little more discovery before you know, that's that's considered as an option. The other thing I wanted to just mention with everyone else here is, you know, the middle home development. I find it do find it rather ironic that the development like this is being proposed in a historic district where, you know, my sister's in that area and just trying to side her house and put in windows is like an act of God getting blessing to do that. So I'm just a bit surprised that a development like this is going kind of fast and furious. And I think you need obviously you'd need sewer I looked at the site plan too it wouldn't be supported under septic um and it in my opinion you need a lot of infrastructure changes there as well like with schoolhouse Lane I don't I think the area could support something like that right now and I'd um I'm in cobalt in that middle Haddam but I think you'd be hard pressed for uh the middle Haddam community to support it but I'll let other folks speak on that thank you

Is there anyone in the audience who still wishes to make public comments?

Definitely.

Hi, Alexis Crean, 35 Lake Drive. I've just found support of two agenda items for your consideration. One is the snow removal of the lake drive. In addition to the points that have been made this evening, I would like you to consider generational support. The individuals that live on the lake are of an older population, which would be a burden to them. And regarding to issues of cost, I think that it's also difficult. I do have historical memory of when the sidewalk went in that there was, Different discussion on the size of the sidewalk. So it's a fairly larger size, not a typical neighborhood size sidewalk that was put in and thus therefore the equipment for the town to acquire was considered and used for that snow removal. The other point is that I would like to I was speaking to neighbors who wanted to come to the meeting this evening, but we're prohibitive because of a family health care issues and they asked that they consider the points that we've made today. Also, they are in support. They just could not be in attendance today. The other thing is that as the transfer station. I understand that you have a difficult job in looking at the budget and considerations of financial considerations. But I would say that as a town member that we have limited services in East Hampton that we receive on a general level. I know that we have a considerable amount of budgetary services, but one of the town services that we use a lot is the station. And we've worked very hard to work towards, you know, ecologically keeping our inner yards and things and in a manner to protect the lake and to up the upkeep of the town. And so by limiting us or eliminating or moving it out of the town, it would also create a burden for the individuals here in East Hampton. Thank you for your time.

Anyone else? If not, we'll move on an agenda. Presentations.

No presentations.

Gen item six, bids and contracts.

Bids and contracts, aye.

Gen item seven, resolutions, ordinances, policies, proclamations.

None of those, aye.

Gen item eight, continued business subcommittee reports and updates. Are there any? no updates or subcommittee reports agenda item nine new business a discussion and possible action to set a monthly budget for august 2026. uh thank you the item you have in front of you is as you said the uh the monthly budget for

august obviously because we don't have a town overall town budget at this point we need to proceed on a monthly basis so what you have in front of you are the expenditures related to education and town government the education number comes up a little the town government number goes down a little bit education obviously getting into the school year and having to begin that for the upcoming year. And town, we had already made some of our payments, so that number moves a little bit. Regardless, the figure for the month of August is proposed at $6,253,330. Make the motion to approve.

monthly budget for August. The amount of $62,533.30. Is there a second?

Second. Is there any discussion? Questions? If not, those in favor of adopting the August monthly budget.

Actually, can I ask a quick question? How did we fare for July so far? Were we pretty accurate or

To be honest with you, I don't have that number right now. I haven't run that figure. All right.

Back to the question. Those in favor of adopting the monthly budget, I signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. You guys have it. Gotcha. Amount of $6,253,330. It's adopted.

Thank you.

Agenda item 9b, discussion on bulky waste disposal rates and consideration of a bid waiver request.

So you have in front of you, and I'll invite Matt Walsh to come up and talk with you a little bit more detail about this, but you have in front of you material from Matt that talks about four now quotes he's received for basically the hauling of the dumpsters out of the transfer station. Received those figures some early as last week and then another one yet today or late Friday, I guess. I provided the town council with a review of the costs associated with each of those. Matt can talk a little bit about that when he comes up. But in general, what the proposal is, is to ask the council to waive the competitive bidding process in favor of the 4 quotes that we have received for the service. The benefit to the town is it eliminates the requirement for staff to create a bid proposal package, put it on the state's DAS website, and go through all of that process when we've received quotations for haulers in the area. Certainly, if the town council doesn't want to do that, we'll go through that process and put that together. But the overall cost of this removal does stack up pretty quickly. It's the largest expense at the transfer station. it does stack up pretty quickly and would end up exceeding considerably exceeding the twenty thousand dollar threshold that we currently have for sealed bid work so anyway that is the proposal in front of you matt if you want to come up and give them the details so that they know uh what they're working with

Matt Walsh, public works director. As part of looking at ways to save money at the transfer station after the last budget referendum and the removal of the two days, we started really digging in to see how we could save some money there. I went out, we got some quotes for tipping fees, which were pretty much all in line with each other, but the big thing is the trucking. The further away the facility, the more it costs to truck the material. Currently, with all waste, you can see in my memo, we're getting charged $170 per trip. So that's to take our dumpster to their facility on Murphy Road in Hartford, bring back an empty one, take another one. but the tipping fees are all similar, except for Casala, you could see, and Willimantic, they were less, but again, they're going further, so the trucking fee is higher at $250. So again, I don't know if there's any questions, and then when you add those trucking fees to, the tipping fees, you kind of come out with a per ton about rate, you know, assuming like, okay, each dumpster is going out with about five tons of material, you know, you can kind of figure out, you know, how much per ton we're paying. So, you know, if you break it down, Belltown was the lowest because they're not charging us for trucking because they're very close in town at $150 a ton. The next closest was Casella and Willamannick, and they were at $177 per ton. So I did reach out. These are really the only haulers that I'm aware of. I know there is one in Manchester that I didn't reach out to, but I kind of found out about them late in the game. So this is what I came up with.

how many tons or how many dumpsters do we do a year and what is the anticipated savings, especially let's, God forbid the budget passes and we, you know, for the next couple of months, since all this is actually for, if we actually close the dump in December.

So I can't give you an actual, I could, if I did more research on how many actual dumpsters, but I have how many tons of material. Um, so on an annual basis, we're doing anywhere from about 665 to 775 tons. It's pretty consistent for the most part. And then, you know, a dumpster typically, depending on what's in there, goes out with anywhere from four to seven tons. If it's, you know, real compact material, you know, you're getting more, you know, a better rate. It's still the same trucking. But sometimes the stuff is, you know, more bulky stuff. Um, as far as savings goes, you know, essentially, you know, right now we're paying, um, a hundred and, you know, basically $95 a ton. You know, we're going to save about 40 something dollars a ton. Um, if we were to go with this proposal, you know, and I think somewhere I put that it equated to, was it about 39,000? I think I could put in there somewhere. Or maybe I didn't put that in, but that's what I'm with.

I came up with 21,000. If it's 775, it's fine. And the difference between Casella and Belltown, um, is the 27 bucks. So it comes out to be about $21,000 in saving over the, uh, the next one over what we're currently paying. Um, obviously that that's a little bit more, it's about $55 a ton.

Um, yeah, it's, it's variable. So it's tough to get like an exact number just because of the tonnage. Isn't the same, but right. It's, it's somewhere in between 20 and $42,000.

Um,

how long have we been paying the additional amount or how long has belltown been able to to do this service and i guess why haven't we pursued it uh that's a good question um basically all waste was the loan hauler for mira when we had our contract with them so when our mirror contract expired it was two was it two years ago some somewhere in that vicinity we just continued using all waste um and their tipping fees were pretty much the same but then little by little their trucking fees have increased over time to the point and you know honestly i think this whole budget process has kind of been a catalyst for let's find some other options

I have one question. I'm not sure if I can answer or not, but people are concerned about Russian leaves that the transfer station now takes.

OK, so yeah, I don't know as far as that whole other question.

Yeah, I didn't know if you knew.

That's why I didn't. Right. So you have that whole other proposal that everyone's talking about.

So this is only for our current transfer station that is just to lower the cost there currently as fast as possible.

And no contract, correct?

So no. I mean, I think we would want to write up something, but for this thing, It's like a proposal that we're signing. And I think there was a lock-in for one year.

Well, so we guarantee a year. and got the budget passes and we're now out in December, are we now obligated to pay the difference?

I think you have to, again, potentially look at other facilities. If let's say all of a sudden Belltown goes up as a tipping fee of $200 a ton, I think we have to investigate. And at least when you're not locked in, you still have that option. But if I remember right on that proposal, this was locked in for one full year with no trucking.

And the 150, but it was just a lot good price, not a contract.

I'm sorry I think the question is, the question is, do we have an obligation. For a year to pay a fee, even if we're not hauling materials.

No, not that I saw. Did you see that? I don't remember saying that.

No, I just want to make sure.

Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

Matt, there's been some concern about. Entrance to the. This is all coach road.

So, uh, okay. So, yeah, it's. We can jump to that.

Yes.

Preliminary discussion of the concept of the closure of the transfer station. Okay. Matt will still be here for that discussion. I don't know whether you want to mix those 2 things and we can, it's totally fine.

I, you know, like, because I don't want to leave your question on answer either 10, you know? Yeah, no, no, no.

I get scattered easily.

I'm an engineer.

All we're talking about here, same thing is going to go on in the transfer station as always has been. Yes. Anybody dumping stuff up there never know a difference. What this is, is just who's taken away and how much data that's it.

It's just there's no change to what this is. This represents no change at all at the transfer station, except for who's hauling dumpsters out of there. And the town of East Hampton is getting it at a cheaper rate than we're paying. That's all this is right?

Is there anything the town council?

Needs to do isn't this well, we talked about it, you know, Dave and I, and Jeff, and, you know, we felt under the purchasing ordinance, you know, that we needed to, you know, bring this, you know, with the quote system, because, you know, it does stack up as Dave was saying to a lot of money in a whole year, even though, like, each bill might not meet that threshold. It's probably something that you guys should look at.

what's the i know ours is very low but what is the state sealed bid it's much higher it's in the 100 or 120 isn't it for the depends on the project i know for housing we were over 100 but we have to go out for the three bids um right and i know we have a very low one here the fact that we have three quotes without going out for three bids um which we were able to do when i was on housing after talking with the state if we were under Uh, certain thresholds, uh, without a problem, or if it was for a, there's other caveats. And I know we could just leave it, but we do have four proposals here. Um, I don't see where there's a problem with waving it, especially for the, it sounds like we're going to have to do something with the transfer station one way or another. Um, and, uh, If we can have any savings at the current time, I think that's a win.

Yeah, right. Regardless of what happens in the other situation, this is good. Yes.

Even if it saves us, you know, a quarter of it, you know, $5,000 to $7,000, it's still a win.

That was my feeling.

So I would make a motion to waive the bid for the hauling from the transfer station.

Second.

Second.

If I may, just as a reminder, it's the low bid correct yes then we're waving no we're waving the bid process is what we're doing first then we can yeah we're going to make the decision correct but no no this is a two-step process you first you i you make a determination that you're willing to waive the bidding process that will get published in the newspaper A week, at least a week before your next meeting. So that the community and theoretically other proposals. Others that might propose have the opportunity to say, no, no, no, no, you should put this out because you might get better price or whatever. Assuming that we come to the next meeting and there's no change of opinion. You then would waive the competitive bidding and you could award then the agreement, the contract that next time. This contract has a value of about a 100,000 dollars. That's as I said, well above the threshold in the town council or in the town's code about purchasing that says anything above 20,000 with certain exceptions has to go through a bidding process, a closed bid product process. So that's your motion right now is to indicate that you will waive competitive bidding. We'll take care of the posting and all of those sorts of things. And you'll come back and you'll see this on your next agenda. Assuming that passes.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Opposed, nay. Adopted.

Okay.

Thanks, Matt. Okay. Turn to item 9C, discussion, potential programmatic changes as a result of budget reductions. Item 1. sidewalk snow removal.

So the reason that the Chairman and I talked about putting this in front of the Council is because there are in the upcoming budget as we all have identified some potential service changes as recommended by the Board of Finance and the intent was for the Council to sort of start talking about How do we want to consider those? What are the issues that we might face? You'll see that there are no ordinances in front of you. There was nothing to enact any of those changes. It's really to have an opportunity for the council to begin to talk about those things. I'll remind you rather that, for example, in the snow removal, what the Board of Finance recommended was removing the funds essentially for overtime snow removal. Maybe that allows a position where we aren't eliminating the service altogether, we're just postponing the service. whatever the case may be, it's an opportunity for you to start to talk about those things. Clearly the community has opinions on both of these matters that happen to be listed here, but really it was an opportunity because of the word other to start to talk about some of those things that are in the budget that that can create change in the community and begin to discuss how we want to do them. Certainly, as you've heard suggested here, people have stopped in the office or have given us notes about the transfer station and what the impact of that might be and what concerns there might be if, in fact, once we go through a process, we decide that the company in town that can provide that service in a competitive way is the best. But there's access issues. And so maybe those are things that we need to talk about and how we deal with that. Because I think in that particular case, I really think we're walking down a path of needing to develop some sort of an RFP process to at least get proposals on how that might change. Maybe that RFP process is proposals for closure. Maybe that RFP process is operate on our site. Maybe that process is seeing what neighboring towns can approve. It's really, or can offer rather, it's really kind of open at this point, what it really means that half year budgeting. Theoretically, that's a January 1 timeframe. we've made some accommodations here in uh disposal costs so maybe that buys us time you know maybe there are other things that can get done so it's really just an opportunity to start the conversation about how do we want to handle this what are the issues we think we ought to look at what are the things that we ought to put into of any kind of an rfp document or into an ordinance or maybe there's exceptions and now i'm thinking very broadly in both matters so that was the purpose of having the discussion in front of you just to let you have that opportunity to chat in a sort of formalized way those are my those are my preface comments mr chair i just wanted to bring up that i brought this up on our last meeting about i was concerned about remote taking that sidewalk snow removal away i thought that was going to be a problem

I brought that up and I kind of fell on some deaf ears here and, uh. I was, I definitely had some concerns about that. I don't know if we should do everything if we could split this up. Or what was saying about maybe not doing it in overtime. But I think that some of these people brought up some good points. This is not your standard sidewalk around the lake. And also that cloud does put a lot of snow on that sidewalk. And I was also concerned it was talking about around the cemetery area. That's also a very wide sidewalk that's used all the time for walkers, including around the lake and in the winter. And that would be quite an undertaking. And I think the cemetery has a lot of money to hire somebody to shovel that or snowblow it.

I also have some comments on the sidewalk. So last time I was on council, we actually entertained this. And I would like the town manager to maybe go back and take a look. We were advised not to do this. And that's why we still do the sidewalks. I don't recall exactly the particular, but I know that in the end we were advised that we should not change the ordinance as it related to these existing sidewalks. I do see the frustration with this when many other towns It is you clear the sidewalk. It doesn't matter whether it's wide, short, whatever. And you have so many hours after the snowfall to clear it for insurance reasons. And if you're not, you're fine. I get that. To eliminate the overtime and not plow the sidewalk until Monday, I think raises so many problems from everyone knows if you leave your driveway, you don't plow for a day. what it is to try to do it it takes twice as long at best it's never easy and we have a liability then that we're putting on the town when we say we're agreeing not to do and keep our public safety for our hand for two or three days just because we're going to try to avoid some overtime i have a major problem with the liability factor taking out overtime and not doing sidewalks on the weekend um so i will not support something like that again i do understand the the premise behind it um but we also have to consider the liability to the to the town and the safety of our residents so um i think that we need to do some further before even um entertaining that we need more facts Dave Kuntz, And thankfully that motion was just to remove over time, which is nothing that. Dave Kuntz, is set in stone with the budget.

Hal Hallstein, Well, we haven't made any motion no.

No, but the Board of Finance did. They were very specific in the wording, and we adopted the budget of the Board of Finance, which has specific language in it. Like it says it will close the transfer station on January 1. Now, we can decide on January 1 if we want to close it. It had specific wording in the language to close it by January 1. So that is a problem because it was not clarified. There was no change made at the council table and that is being with what was presented to the public. Um. Which is 1 of my major concerns with the, with the transportation.

Mr. chair, if I may on the sidewalks, I'd like, I think the council should look at the map of the sidewalks that we're actually talking about. And if possible, Matt, would you be able to look at those and make recommendations based on your expertise? What ones might be a problem for residents to clear what areas we should be concerned about? Especially when we are talking around the lake.

I mean, I can do anything you want to make it a problem. There's about 9 miles, right? You know, that would be a little bit of a difficult position to.

uh put myself into as far as you know what i think um i'm thinking more like well i'm thinking more the ones like especially along lake pocahontas when we're talking along that side of the street now we are talking about blowing it into the lake so where could it create an issue for the town if we allowed residents to clear

I think that is very true. Like we go through there and the snow end up right on the sidewalk. There's a lot of snow there sometimes. We don't have a lot of options for ourselves. Sometimes we put it right in the gutter, then we come back and sort it out. Sometimes we have to put it right

the edge because it's such a narrow space but that's what i'm thinking those those spots that you know create an issue for you clearing not necessarily what should what should happen but you know this spot is an issue because your guys clear it and it becomes an issue so if you could let the council know what those spots are and the entire council can look at the map i think that makes sense to make a more informed decision matt just a question

Is there any documentation about what the fire district gave up when the town took over plowing?

We have not found anything that really talks well about that. As you know, we've looked in minutes. We've tried to find really anything that's clear on that, and we just simply can't find anything.

But the lake is not the fire district, right? So clearing around the lake must have been done at a different time.

It's, it's very, I feel that word is very convoluted. Why we do what we do. I've only continued what we've done. Like, for instance, like, we do Valley Drive, like a subway. doesn't really make sense. You know, I can see that we do. That's like a group that everybody is like those things, you know, kind of make sense to me. But then they're random ones that we also do. They don't make sense.

Yeah, right.

I've only continued what's been done. As we're looking at now, it's hard to also just stop doing something.

Or stop doing half and explain why you're what your location that you're gonna you're gonna just say, Okay, We're going to stop doing you because we don't like you today. Right. Or we feel that you should be able to afford to do it yourself. What happens?

How long are the sidewalks that we do? Approximately nine miles. And there are many more sidewalks than the ones you do. Yes. I can attest to that because I have to. Yeah, quite a few and alone. I've got about 400 to 500 feet that I have to do myself as a result. And it's no fun for sure. So it's pretty important you guys get up there and do it.

You guys do some of Skyline right now? No.

Not at all. No, everybody does it. Everybody does their own. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, do you know how many feet or miles of sidewalk there are? In other parts of town who are required to remove their own.

So everyone is required to remove the loan. I would have to get you the number of how many actual miles of silos.

Okay. Yeah. I don't want to go nuts, make you go nuts on that. I'm just trying to get appeal. Is it like another nine miles? So you're, we're doing half and we're not doing the other half.

I would say there's probably at least off of my head, at least another

had to guess another 15 miles where everybody else has to do their own if i had to guess yeah totally yeah and of course what we find there is you get people of all ages you know no not like young guys like me you know but you know who have to uh yeah it's typical a lot of people do so i think there's already a built-in inequity in a sense uh at times For example, though, the lake issue is pretty important. It's not really in front of somebody's house. It's narrow, to be honest with you. It's probably the most used recreational walk path in town, even compared to the trail. You know, that's something that certainly I would see the town needing to take care of. In my in my view, I think that's the right thing to do. I kind of go along, Karen, let's take a look at the map and just get informed before we make any decisions. That's what I would say.

Does the town have any legal obligation to clear sidewalks in any place?

except on its own property right we have to clear everything on our own property and that uh it goes back to the fire industry situation I think we've kind of done things, for instance, the village, that's part of the fire, but that's a very difficult place for snow. So I think in any circumstance, even if we did stop doing snow removal, we still have to load the snow on, but because it prevents a issue for sight lines, people who come with energy, so it does prevent a host.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, He also have the argument people like you followed everyone's driveway to it, they still have to dig through it, so you know I mean. HAB-Jacques Juilland, i've heard that you know as well, you know, so why should you know they be any different than the ones that you.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, I can see both sides, I live in a cold side.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, I mean, I understand both sides, but I mean as far as like I do understand that them to village Center. I don't know, because, you know, you go Main Street, Middletown, they all shovel their own sidewalks, too. And, you know, the town does come up and pick up the center. So, I mean, it shouldn't be your responsibility to clear every front of every storefront. Maybe if they do put it to the road where you have to come and, you know, clean it up for the sidelines and stuff, that makes sense. But those are awful large areas to have to do it at the taxpayer expense. Absolutely.

let's take a look at the map and get a little more you know educated as to what's getting cleared where and what's not and what's in the best interest to everybody in town didn't you say it took about five hours to do it in an average storm if if we send out two well depends on if we have two running machines right um it's about five hours

John Potter, You know, storms like the past where it stays. John Potter, Sure, you know, I know you work on says 24 hours. John Potter, I will.

John Potter, All right. John Potter, Good next step. John Potter, I can get that. Thank you.

John Potter, For the comments and remarks discussion. John Potter, Vaughn to. Item two, transfer station closure.

Mr. Chair, can I ask a question about that? I think you had started it earlier, but I know that there is a second access that Belltown uses. That's not an official roadway at the moment. Um, is there a way that the town can look at that with zoning and dates? Maybe 2 to zoning in the wetlands regulations to see if that secondary access is something. That can be turned into a permanent usable access for bell town. Should we decide to move forward?

I think the answer to that is sure we can look into that. It's all private property in it.

Um, I don't know what cross easements they have if they have any, um, we can certainly try and insert ourselves into that. If that's a route we want to go. Sure.

Well, I think it's worth just asking them, you know, what's there can we look at that? Is that an option that they're open to that? The town it's feasible with zoning regulations that it would be allowed to do that. Um, you know, because obviously I do agree that. Traffic and old coach road could become an issue and we don't want to put the residents in that situation. So. I think knowing if there is any opportunity for secondary access would be smart.

Can we back up a minute? Yeah. Could you summarize exactly how it would work? You know, so... How what would work? Well, if the Belltown Recycling has made a proposal, we could close all or part of the transfer station. And so, what is the proposal?

So, the proposal that we received, which was unsolicited, but the proposal that we received that was forwarded to the Council by Council Member Feigl and then subsequently sort of became a topic of conversation in the community and the Board of Finance asked about about it and whether they could then just eliminate the funding for the transfer station, which, as you know, they did not. They only eliminated half of it. The proposal that was made, which was just based on, I think, his I think his current business model, plus I think some conversations he's had with Matt about how the operation works at the transfer station and ways that because of some new equipment that Mr. Flannery has purchased, he can help us reduce costs at the transfer station. He made that proposal, and the proposal probably covers most of what we do at the transfer station and certainly the things that we do the most of, right? I think the proposal covered certainly bulky waste. The proposal covered yard waste, right? brush brush more accurately it covered metals which we take i don't think it addressed mattresses that we take other than of course people could put them in the trash it didn't address electronics for example that we take so there are a few things that we would need to figure out a way to address whether it's with the proposal that came from belltown or the proposal that came from or that a proposal that might come from someone else we just have to figure out how that would work so With that as a preface, I think the concept is that this private individual is saying, we can duplicate what you do, excuse me, what you do currently at the transfer station, we can duplicate that here and there would be no cost to the town because it would just simply be fee-based because they have a scale, they can weigh whatever somebody brings in, they pay the actual cost and they move on. And some people like that concept for that purpose. Some people like the concept of going there because many people go there anyway for metals recycling, for example. We don't pay people who bring us metal. They bring it to us, we keep it, and we use it actually to replace the dumpsters, the monies that we get from that. We replace the dumpsters at the transfer station when we need to using those funds. I mean, there are things that would be different there potentially. So, from a concept, that's sort of where we were, and that's why this even came up as a discussion in the community. As we, as, you know, we've been looking at ways to make sure that the transfer station, or to minimize the loss we have at the transfer station annually through adjusting fees. The council has made 2 fairly significant fee changes in the last couple of years. things of that sort, but perhaps there are other ways to address that short of closing the station. Perhaps there are other ways to address cost. Perhaps there are other ways to address the overruns that we, or the significant overruns that we have there, whether that's fee adjustments or that's operational changes. The most significant thing that we get at that transfer station in terms of weight is material that is brought in by either dump trucks or you know, double axle dump trailers or some very significant, very high weight capacity trailers where people have done work. Commercial contractors often have done work for residents and because of policies and the conversations that staff have had with town councils over the years, those folks are allowed to dump. And it really was to some degree those folks that we were chasing when we as a staff recommended increasing those fees pretty considerably because those loads are very heavy. And it's really been challenging for us to even assess how heavy they are. Because we have no way to wait and so that's, I think, part of part of the issue, but and that is potentially a change that could be made in the operations there that would lower the cost. Still make the thing available for residents who are doing their own work, you know, residents who are taking care of their own yards or doing work around the house and all of a sudden changing their house. And all of a sudden they have a, you know, that old. couch in the basement that they no longer want, and Goodwill doesn't want, they can bring it there for a reasonable cost. So I think there's possibilities, and that's really what this conversation is about. But I don't know whether I answered your question, but that's the basics of what the Flannery proposal, again, unsolicited Flannery proposal, and what that concept talked about, and where I think some options of where we might wanna go.

Well, if I try to characterize it, in the flannery proposal um everybody who comes with a load would pay the basically the cost of that loan correct when we go to the transfer station we have a sticker well we have a sticker we bought and in addition we pay a set fee which may or may not be related to the actual cost of that loan right may not relate well to the cost of that you're right

Fundamentally, that's the issue.

And so in some sense, Leonard, as long as his costs are consistent with our fee structure, then similar costs overall.

I don't know. Because I think if you look at how much we bring in in fees compared to how much it costs us to dispose, of that same material, I think that the cost for many of those loads will be higher. I would argue that perhaps some of them might be lower, but the reality is most of those big loads will be higher. And that's because we're paying, we meaning the taxpayers are subsidizing those very large loads. I mean, fundamentally, that's the issue with the transfer station. It has been for probably most of its life.

Yeah. So that's not obviously in the town's interest or not obviously in the taxpayers. Well, it's not fair.

We probably have 750 households that use the transfer stationing. Maybe sometimes that climbs a little bit to maybe closer to nine, but I think generally on average, it's about 750 households that get stickers.

Okay. Are we going to have to replace the dumpsters under the plenary proposal?

If we were no longer operating the station, no, there would be no purpose for us to have them.

Okay. If I'm correct, we get the metal now and we use that to replace the dumpsters.

Right. We get the cost of that, which is held in an account at Belltown. And when we need to replace a dumpster, we take it out of that fund.

So if we don't need to replace the dumpsters, do we have really a wash between the two proposals or two options?

What specifically as it relates to dumpster, sure, but not in the overall operation of the facility.

So if I may, so what we're shooting for or what we think we might be shooting for in the elimination of our transfer station in this particular case, we're trying to make it so the transfer station costs no more money whatsoever to the town. Is that correct?

I think that's what the concept is, is to try and take advantage of an opportunity that eliminates a cost.

Okay. In other words, shut it down, no costs, everything is done through a new service.

I think that was the, certainly I think that was the premise that the Board of, if I can put words in the Board of Finance's mouth, I think that's what they were looking for.

But that's what we're getting at. If it costs this, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, that's one thing, but essentially getting rid of most of the cost. Is that, to the town, is that correct? I would imagine.

I think that was the intent of that. Okay, it may or may not. It sort of couples in my mind with their comment to the council, if you want to raise the fees.

Yeah.

and cover that the additional days.

I think as we talk about this issue, I think it would be important for me anyway to understand, first of all, all the things that taxpayers, residents can currently bring. Brush, tires, mattress, electrical stuff, appliances, obviously, the healthy way. And it would be important for me to understand, I think, for all of us to understand, would the proposal handle all of those things? Then maybe in addition to that, cardboard, which you have a problem with cardboard, don't you? Yeah. In other words, it would seem to me that we should be looking at this if we have at least equal to or better than acceptance of stuff. Make it better. You know, I would like to know if in fact this, if Beltown can handle all of those things. Plus more, you know, plus more if they can. Uh, you know, I'd like to get a feel of that.

Sure.

Uh, that's number 1 number 2. Relative to the transfer station, uh, to operate that transfer station. Do we need a license? That's what is that license?

It's a permitted facility.

It's a permitted. How long does a permit go?

So, I think the last permit was 7 years, and we just got our, they basically. Sometimes they do what's called a reissue the same permit. We didn't have to go through a whole nother process. We just took our same permit and said, okay, you're good for another. Okay.

So we have about five more years of our permitted. If we don't actually use it, do we lose the permit or do we keep the permit?

That's a good question. And we're looking at that.

Yeah, I think that's important.

Yeah, I think that facility also serves purposes. Formed a reader. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. It could be very, very useful. So I want to make sure that. Whatever we ultimately may go to. On on the closing of the transfer that in fact. If at all possible, we keep that permitted use of don't you think so? you never know when you need it you never know you know what the future holds and you don't want to give up the the the ability if you had to take back yeah the backup yeah back up if you had to take it back at least we still have a place to keep it so I think that's Keith or or one of the key things I would say Belltown has a permit themselves for me yeah oh sure yeah Dean

I have quite a few comments, so I'll try to make it brief. First of all, you mentioned that the access was on private land to the backside of Belltown. So I would like to ask you, since you brought it up, Would you like 50 or 100 cards driving through your backyard every Saturday?

I don't know what it looks like. I'm just asking you a question.

I'm just asking you a question. You were very quick to throw it out there. You know, it's someone else's property. You tried to, you know, make a roadway through. Would you want that done to you? That is just one of my questions there. I'm wondering how this conversation is happening now or why it's happening now. Um, since the actual motion said to close the transfer station by January one and replace with a private service, it didn't say, hold on. It didn't say the motion that was approved by the board of finance and subsequently by the town council specifically states that the transfer station is gone January one. That is what was presented to the taxpayer. Now you're backpedaling and you're saying, well, no. We might have five more year. Maybe we'll do this. Maybe that's not what you put forward to the taxpayers. That is a problem.

I don't believe it is at all. Of course not. It's not. Of course not.

Mr. Sheriff. So now that we've, we've talked about some changes now, so I think it would make sense for the council to also get some new dollar figures associated with these changes, because we've talked about changing the disposal fee. And having potentially having belt on recycling, do it for 150 a time. So, where would we be now in cost for the transfer station with that change? And with the fees that you've already changed so that we can actually assess where our costs are now, because the, it's changed from where we originally were when we were talking about this budget. And I'd also be interested in. Would there be a size limit on vehicles that we could potentially say we're only going to allow vehicles up to this size in our facility because that's what we know we can reasonably estimate what they have in their truck bed or in their vehicle or in their small trailer? and we're pretty accurately charging the right rate for that versus a larger vehicle that we know a lot of times we're really not charging the right rate and saying, I'm sorry, we can't accept vehicles over this size. You would have to go to a commercial facility and pay your actual weight. If you have any idea of what those loads might be or potentially cost savings there, if we said we have to limit the load size based on our capacity and our ability to weigh things.

So from my understanding there is that the bulk of the heavy weight that goes out with this problem contractors, you know, you've got shingles getting done. And, you know, even if someone comes in with a small trailer full shingles, that's terrible candy. and you also put the other stuff on top so you don't see the shingles underneath maybe but you know the problem is that our piece schedule is based on the vehicle right so you know somebody with a man with a you know a mason dump that holds seven tons or whatever and we don't that much material for our dumpster and we let them and then charge them for the mason dump which you know is a lot of dollars but you know it's really probably like 800 and costing a little bit So that I think really that's where the bulk of the issue lies. It's not the residents coming up, bringing couches or sleeping couches or whatever. It's it's it's still right here. Right?

Come bring a lot of stuff to that point. What if that's the only vehicle you have, and you're not filling it and now you're going to charge me 250 dollars because that's the only trailer I have because I use it for home and newer and now I have to take, you know, a couple of things. And now you're going to charge me 250 dollars for something that should cost me 5 bucks. That's so and to say, I can't even bring that trailer as a resident, because that's the only trailer I have. I have to go rent something. in order to go to the dump because you don't like the size of my trailer. That's a discrimination thing there to a right.

But I would say as a reminder, when the council talked about that very issue came up and if someone brings material in a double actual trailer because that's what they have and they're bringing us a stuffed chair on the couch that's what they're going to pay charge accordingly they're not going to pay for that and we talked about that when the council adjusted the fees about discretion when she just said if you have this trailer you can't bring it in i will restate what i meant i'm talking about a vehicle fully loaded where our town staff is truly not capable of determining what the weight of that vehicle is

I understand the contractor, but what if I happen to reroute my house and I'm as a resident, I'm bringing it to the transfer station. That is my right as a resident. I'm not being paid, you know, no one's, I'm not paying someone, they're not making money on me, you know, and if someone can't afford to have someone do the route, then we shouldn't be penalizing them as a resident. I understand the contractor. If, you know what, that makes perfect sense, but you shouldn't penalize a resident just because they're doing it themselves.

But you can only take the contractor out of them and only residents. It's not going to matter what you come in with. Like if you're going with a dump trailer or if you're a resident with a resident sticker, that kind of alleviates the whole thing. It doesn't matter if you have a dump trailer or a dump truck. You know, because it's really the contractors that come in week after week that are...

So how would we be able to eliminate that asset?

A lot of times they're coming with commercial vehicles. So that's something we have to, you know, you've got to have to look at in the ordinance change or whatever that was done.

And they wouldn't have a sticker. They wouldn't.

So it's very sticky because the way the ordinance is, if they didn't say that they did the work in East Hampton, right, that they're allowed to dump them.

you know and it's very hard for my guys out there in the field to determine like well you know how do you prove that question you know it's but they could not have a resident sticker on their vehicle so you could say only you could if you wanted to only allow vehicles with resident stickers

But previous boards have required us to have methodology by which what Matt just described can go on. The contractor working for someone in town can avoid disposal costs.

It's up to us to figure out.

But if those contractors are working and getting paid for the work, they should be going to the commercial facility and paying for a ton to get rid of that waste and not saving money by using our dump that our residents are paying for other tax dollars. So, if that's truly where the problem lies, I think that's the issue that we need to look at. So, potentially, we can lower the cost enough. So. We don't have to make a drastic change for the residents. And I do appreciate Ted and understand what you were saying about the decision that the board of finance made, but that does not mean that we cannot go back to them and say, we found a better solution. That is more cost effective. Every, every decision that is made, it's not permanent when the dynamic changes and we find out new information, even after the taxpayers vote on it.

that is a proposal that is sent to the taxpayer that is the motion that was put in the budget that is what is the people are voting on on august 5th and now so if they come out and they say we're going to approve that because you know maybe some people want the dumb clothes and all of a sudden now you're going to say well that's great i'm glad you voted on that but we decided we're not going to do what we just told you just voted on but if we found a cost-effective solution for them It doesn't matter. That's the motion you put forward to them for the referendum. That is exactly what it says, that you're closing the dump on January 1.

This board, this council is voted on, is approved and elected by a majority of people in this town to do what is best for the town. The responsibility of closing or not closing always rests here. And as Karen said, if something is better for the town, we're gonna make that decision. And then you wonder why the taxpayers don't trust you. It has nothing to trust. They trust us to make the right decision for them. That's it. Very simple.

So is there something we should do?

We've got a lot of feedback. We've got some things you want us to look at.

But I think, I mean, OK, so.

You have to look into the fact that whether you can actually reverse something that the taxpayers are voting up. Sure. We keep getting opinion if you don't agree with the first one.

So it seems to me there are always things that

I have a right to do that, sir. Stop talking under your breath. If you're going to say something, say it out loud so the residents can hear you.

Keep the transfer station open, but restrict contractor loads. Keep it for residents. And I think we want to end with the new hauling. We want to cost estimate how much have we saved. by doing that? And the second is, is there an option for Belltown to handle residents' waste directly and we don't longer have the transfer station? We still keep the transfer station. It's no longer in use, but we keep it as an alternative. But we, the residents, go to Belltown and pay the rates that are whatever that is. Those are the two alternatives we're considering.

Well, it's not necessarily So this has to go through that RFP proposal for the process. So, you know, we say downtown is likely to be the closest one. It's very hard for anyone to compete with that. You know, as Dave kind of mentioned, there are other alternatives that could go into this proposal. And I think if we're going to go this route, you know, that's what this conversation is about. What does this look like? Can we have someone use our facility? You know, there's all these things, but, you know, that's And we'll have to look at you know, so I don't want to just go operating it's definitely bell town, you know we don't know that you know we have to follow the process.

I agree. yeah. Other.

i'm 10.

So just two items that I want to mention about the manager's report, which is as always in written form on the town's website and was in the town's council's packet. One thing that's not in there that I'll mention that has been some post on Facebook about lake treatments are ongoing right now this week or will be ongoing this week for the metafloc treatment, which is that that material that gets put in the lake that binds to phosphorus and helps that fall out of the water column. It's really intended to address primarily algae growth. So that's ongoing this week. People will see that out there. There are no restrictions related to that in terms of swimming and et cetera. That's that's an information for the users of the lake. The other thing I mentioned, of course, is we've talked about it quite a bit tonight is the budget referendum coming up on Wednesday of next week. I emphasize Wednesday of next week, Wednesday, August 5 here in the town hall. People can get their absentee ballots now at the clerk's office and cast their ballot for that at this point. If they're ready to, and the. The town manager's report included the board of finance version. The town. The town council version is now on the website for people to look at and see kind of where we are and what items have been cut to get us to the point we are at. Now, there's a little summary of the budget in my comments in the budget that talk about the fact that it's a 6 tenths of a percent increase. over the budget from last year, about a 2.03% increase for the Board of Education. That's about $767,000. And actually the town's budget is a reduction from last year of 438. So there's about a $350,000 increase in the budget over next year. And importantly, the tax levy for next year goes up by less than 50,000, over last year based on the fact that we got some new revenues and some enhanced revenues in the budget this year as well. So that's a tenth of a percent of an increase in the overall tax levy. Three cents if we were to take that down to a million. So that's information for you. I'll certainly answer any questions if people have them. Questions?

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Agenda item 11, appointments.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, we have a few appointments to make this evening. Start with the first one. I'd like to nominate Chris Caldwell to a regular position on the Agricultural Commission for term ending 12-31-28. Is there a second? Second.

Is there a reason you didn't bring up one of the alternates that was already on the board and then move Colville to an alternate position?

Yes, there was. The strength of her resume. The strength of her resume. That's why the committee made that decision.

What does she do? Is she a farmer?

She was instrumental in developing a certified organic farm, five acres, Arthur's Vineyard, and adds quite a bit of expertise in that particular field. The alternates, all good people. No toys about it. We put them on because they were. They're not as strong in that, in the agricultural field, and by their own admission, but wanted to be there to help and add in. So that's the reason why. Good candidate.

Any other comments?

Very good candidate.

Not? Those in favor of appointing Chris Caldwell to the Term of Agricultural Commission, term expiring 12-31-28. Yeah. Signified by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Appointed.

Thank you. The next appointment is Tyler Semro. Uh, to be, uh, nominate him to serve the, uh, term ending 1231 26. That's an open open term right now. Uh, 1231 26. Clean energy task force, he currently helps, uh, helps them out 10 meetings. Uh, the chairman of that, uh, uh, commission recommended him highly and so do we after discussion.

2nd. Any discussion? Well, those in favor of appointing Tyler.

Tyler Simrell.

Simrell, excuse me. Term expiring 12-31-26, Clean Energy Task Force. Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. So appointed.

Well, the last group of appointments has to do with the fire commission. Chairman Darren Hearn, obviously a regular member of the commission, indicated that he'll be moving out of town sometime by the end of the year. And what he'd like to do is move to an alternate position. We have one alternate. He'd like to move to an alternate position and simultaneously move up the alternate Dan Wasilewski to full membership on the Fire Commission. Darren's term or the term for which is open for him would be term ending 11-30-27. And Dan Wasilewski, his term as full member would be 11-30-27.

28 essentially they're switching positions second that change can you change their terms or doesn't he step in for darren and that become the 27 and then the alternate still the 28 i think that that's how it's typically done you don't change the term when you move up i don't think but no i i believe whatever term you're filling things like darren was 27 so was lusky's going to 27 nuts and darren's going to 28. darren's current term ends 28 as well all right i'm sorry i thought he stated it as moving into those positions okay yeah i thought it was reversed yeah i guess any comments questions about those in favor of the the move to um

to fire commission, term ending 11-30-28 as a full member, and appointing Darren Hearn to the alternate position, term ending 11-30-27. Yeah. Perfect. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. If not, those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Ayes have it. Public remarks. Is there anyone who wishes to make public remarks at this time? I think .

This is my first meeting here today, and I feel a little disrespected from the board not being better prepared. A lot of the questions I feel that you've asked, especially to this gentleman here, felt like could have been read in the policies, especially the changes and everything like that. So being better prepared to ask more questions pointed questions instead of so broad. Being here for an hour and a half over stuff that could have been read, had better questions prepared, could have flowed a lot better. Disrespecting other council members during this thing. Yelling at people with clarifying questions with what if questions doesn't help anything. You know, this one what if isn't going to stop anything. So have these small little questions and little points at each other. It's not professional for you guys, and it's not professional for us to watch. So please be respectful to each other while you guys are trying to deal out your issues. All right. And last thing is, is there was a lot of gaps that you guys should be like red flags when this gentleman said here that this company just did a permit like they did last time should spark some red flags. Why are we not getting into the books and asking these questions of, all right, what's our permit spot? Why do we not have a list of streets already out on what should be shoveled? If the safety of the community is asking for help with shoveling snow, it is your responsibility to help the community and not fight amongst yourselves on what's better for you guys. The community is asking for help. So whatever issues you have with each other, get them out because we are asking for you guys since we elected you or some of us did. So that's all I have to say.

Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to make public remarks? Move on to the hands.

Donna Benito, 2A West Street. I am not in favor of the town stopping the snow removal of the sidewalks. I have several concerns. On April 13th, 2010, the town council adopted in the town charter 273.10 and 273.11, it states that the town is responsible for removal of snow of the sidewalks of the streets that are listed. I didn't think you could change the town charter without a petition. But maybe I'm mistaken. I really think this is a very big safety issue and a hardship to seniors, many of which live right there. Last snowstorm there, I had nothing better to do than look out the window and count, even in the snowstorm, over 100 people walking by. We are blessed, and this town has such a beautiful area. The sidewalk is narrow. As said before, there's no buffer zone there. This past winter alone, there were two accidents right on my property there too. I would hate to think that I'd have to go out there to shovel snow and get hit by a car because people are going by too fast. I mean, I really am appreciative of the public works plowing the sidewalk. They do an excellent job. As said before, it's narrow and the machine that they have puts it, shall I say, to the right, not going in the road. I think if people were to shovel it themselves, I'm not even five feet. So there's a fence there. I couldn't push it this way. I'd be pushing it into the street. The plow would be coming by with the big plow and it'd be back on the sidewalk. It'd be a battle. The other thing is a lot of the people don't live there year round. They don't even plow their own driveways, never mind plowing the sidewalks then. I mean, who's going to police this then? Are we going to have Matt come around and check to see if the sidewalk is done? I don't know. Even if we'd like to hire somebody to plow, who are you going to find? Most people, contractors, they just want to do a driveway quick in and out. They don't want to do sidewalks. I have two very small sidewalks in my condominium association. I had to search somebody to come and do the sidewalks. It would be impossible to do 400 feet. Perhaps some solutions can be that you would charge people who live along there more. I don't know. Maybe close the sidewalks or maybe just don't do it on overtime. Please change your minds on this proposal. Thank you.

Just a question. You mentioned it's in the charter?

It's in the code, not the charter. The charter is only a short, that can be changed. It's part of the code. which can be changed. The charter cannot, you're correct. That has to go through a petition process that takes about 18 months, but that, that is an ordinance that was done. It's part of the code of the town and that can be changed by council.

Good evening.

Rick want at 35 long crossing road.

oh yeah about the transfer station uh just some anecdotal uh experiences of mine uh municipality that i currently work for we do not allow dump trailers um and no commercial enterprises are allowed there either a municipality i formerly worked at there was no businesses allowed and no commercial uh enterprises allowed and as an employee we did have to look and if it looked like business or commercial materials we refused the loads and turned them away lastly glastonbury does not allow anything over a regular registration for their vehicle so if you had a combination plate like i do on my pickup truck So I have a combination play. If I lived in Glastonbury, I would not be allowed to get a transfer station sticker for the town of Glastonbury. Thank you very much. Bye.

hi rebecca harvey 39 flanders road uh so after listening i just have a few things to say the first thing is seriously um i've had conversations with our town manager regarding contracts and purchasing measures that the town takes using all waste um as a hauler with the dump is a perfect example these things should be done continually in every department like what am i missing here exam these are perfect examples of why residents feel our funds are mismanaged The town manager needs to get a hold of the business that he's running and stop spending money like it's not his. But wait a minute, it's not his, it's our money. And that's why these measures aren't being taken. Again, with the snow removal, this is literally a hill I'm willing to die on. If you wanna live on the lake and have a nice walkway, you really just need to do your part and shovel it or make friends with your neighbors and help each other out. That's what a community does. i live on a corner our snowblower can't always handle it but guess what we go shovel it and we even help out our elderly neighbors liability is going to fall on the property owner regardless of who's doing the removal and upkeep so do we want to keep it where if the property owner gets sued they say well we didn't do that the town did and they want to try and hold the town liable that doesn't really make sense either If this continues, like seriously, I would expect that any snow that gets plowed to block my driveway in within the easement be removed by the town. And I will seriously call the town manager in public works every day to get it done. Residents are supposed to be treated equally. Special treatment of some is not that. The concerns that have been mentioned are literally the same issues that the rest of the town deals with on a regular basis. And I agree that if residents would like to continue with these services, that they can get charged extra for it. If they're living on a lake and they're not there, they're going to have to hire a company to take care of it. Another question I have is, I heard that Valley Drive is being shoveled. Is that because it's the town manager's road or is his driveway also being plowed while Public Works is out there? Because I would really like to know that. And regarding the transfer station.

Please keep the comments.

Are you going to censor me again, Dean?

Keep the comments. After what you said about me at the last meeting, Dean, you have no right to censor anyone.

I have every right to talk about matters that are being discussed right now. Don't censor me again because you came close to a lawsuit last time. Can I continue? My three minutes were not up.

Sorry for interrupting. You can finish. Can I continue? Yes.

okay so i would like to know the answer is the town manager's personal property getting taken care of when our public works department is out there doing his sidewalks i'd like an answer to that the last thing i was going to say is regarding the transfer station we live on flanders road and the amount of traffic is actually quite substantial uh so i do think that there should be some type of traffic count going on when the dump is open so you guys have you know how many vehicles are actually coming in here to know if that side road off of 16 can handle it. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Really?

Billy Anderman, 37 Royal Oaks Avenue. Oh my god, where do I start? This meeting is quite literally a clown show. We don't, the council does not know if the excuse me, the If the motion at the Board of Finance supersedes the council's authority over the transfer station, we're arguing, screaming at each other over clarification questions. We're arguing about people talking too quietly. And quite frankly, I think all seven of you should resign. What a disgrace. Thank you.

Yes, this is Jason Puyalli over at 20 Schoolhouse Lane again. I have to agree with everybody. The mannerisms, professionalism, and the way that this town council handles itself is less than professional. I heard a comment tonight that you were there to represent the town, that you were voted in to handle and make decisions on behalf of the town. You seem to forget not only do we vote you in but we can vote you out the way you're upheld um handling yourselves up there disgrace absolutely disgusting but i digress the issue that with the transfer station um i work in the environmental business um deal with waste management on a daily basis I don't know why this town is not referring to the DAS contracts. They're in place for a reason. They're set pricing. It's passed through pricing for all waste disposals with the state. We don't have to pay extra. There's no markups and it'll put everybody to bid against each other to be able to bring down our costs on the per tonnage load fees. As far as the disposal quantities, When I hear somebody say that they're only disposing of five, four, five tons at a time, those are 15 yard cans. Why are we not using 30 yard cans where you would have a 15 ton minimum going out at a time, which also minimizes how many times we have to swap those cans out. That's cost savings alone would be substantial. It's very disheartening to see that nobody showed up to this meeting with a full presentation spreadsheet to show us the numbers and the full breakdown. So we can help, you know, if you guys don't know the numbers, there's people out here in the community that can help with it and can easily help us come up with better figures and get us better proposals. This private party stuff, one hand helping the other has got to stop. There's bid processes for a reason. Follow through with them, please.

Is that it?

Close public remarks.

item 14 communications correspondence and announcements but what about it it's not on the agenda it's not on the agenda it was not added it would have required a two-thirds vote of the original agenda even though it was said that would be put on they decided not to put it up outside of them

No other comments? Move to adjourn. Second. Motion made to second and to adjourn. Those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

We adjourned.

I'm going to go on the phone until then dinner.