Town Council - Regular Meeting

Because I think that's been part of the problem, people not knowing when they should stop. Is there anyone who would like to make a comment?

Good evening. Robert Rainville, 130 Tarsha Road, East Hampton Fire Department Fire Chief. I just wanted to give you guys an invite. We are doing a live burn training where we'd like to have the town council and town manager come if they could. We're going to be doing it on two separate nights. That'll be September 20th at eight o'clock. It's a Sunday morning. or a thursday evening the 24th at 1900 which is seven o'clock um so if you'd like to come we'd love to have you guys to kind of show you the things that we do uh in live fire training so um You guys will be able to go in the building. We'll kind of give you a tour of all the things that we're doing, showing you the things that are happening live on the fire ground, show you some of the tools we use. We spend a lot of money on tools and stuff like that. So we can show you what those things do, like our thermal imaging cameras and stuff like that, air packs and other tools like that. So if you guys want to come out, we'd love to have you. And the second one is I endorse the Lucas that you guys have on the agenda later. That piece of equipment saves us a lot of manpower. So I do endorse that. Thank you.

Is there anyone else here to make public remarks or comments at this time?

We have one on one. Rebecca? Rebecca?

Hello? Sorry, I was having an issue getting it off of mute. Rebecca Harvey, a resident here in East Hampton. Just wanted to touch on a few things that I saw on the agenda for tonight. One is the Route 66 and Main Street property. The council had previously discussed this property and agreed that it was not something the town was interested in pursuing, so no action was taken. The property is now being advertised The coming soon on the building, which suggests the property owner is actively pursuing or receiving revenue. If the town is considering signage or using the property in this area for that or for sharing town information, I believe we already have more than enough usable town-owned property available for that purpose. For the unanticipated revenue, these are definitely already paid tax dollars. And I believe we should not only be using them, but looking at how we can further put funds to work for us. As I understand it, we are currently above the 12% level in our capital or reserve accounts. I'd like to see the board of finance and town council clearly determine how much we currently have in our savings and reserves and determine how much of that could actually be used for our roads. Our roads are one of the only issues in town that I think everyone agrees on, and they need attention. We continue to have roads that need to be repaired, yet we are holding significant funds in our reserve. At the same time, when an emergency comes up, such as the Wapawag Bridge, we are taking money from the road budget rather than using the emergency funds. That raises a question, which is what are we actually saving this money for if we're not going to use it for emergencies? I also think the fire chief should be getting a vehicle purchased outright and not putting that through bonding and keeping us in a never-ending loop of payments. For the WPCA and sewer moratorium, while the town council remains the body of the WPCA, I would like to ask the council to extend the current sewer moratorium for one additional year. I believe that that would give the new board time to be appointed, get organized and understand the issues before it and become comfortable in its role before making decisions that have a significant impact on the town. I also think that the additional time would be a reasonable and responsible approach. The other thing that I wanted to just say is I was kind of hearing and researching some of the lengths of the service for the town boards. And we have some members who have served on the same boards for many years, sometimes 20, 30 decades. Well, That time and commitment is appreciated. I was hoping that the town council would consider establishing reasonable term limits for appointed town boards and commissions. And seeing that I haven't heard the buzzer go off yet, I have also been hearing some rumors around town that the police of chief has resigned and I have not seen him at any meetings. Is there any clarity on that? Thank you. He said in the book. Okay, thank you.

Is there anyone else? If not, we'll move on in the agenda. Agenda item 5A, presentation from representatives of the Stefano property, Route 66 and Main Street regarding their proposals.

How you doing? My name is Dan DiStefano for the people that don't know me. I am here tonight for a quick proposal on, I'm hoping, could I pass this out to the board members?

Oh, you guys each have got me already.

Nevermind. I should have saved the tree. Okay. So, We have a unique situation, I think, on that corner piece right there. This started back in 2008 when two or three town council members actually approached me about doing a different venture on that property. We couldn't come to agreement on what would actually be on there, so it kind of went by the wayside. This reappeared last year when my father came down with COVID and he's 94 years old and it wasn't good for a while. And I said to myself, well, you know what, if we're ever going to do this, I either got to get it done now or it's just not going to get done. So. My father didn't even know that I was pursuing this on his behalf. And when the little brick building came up for lease again when Gail retired, all heck broke loose and he says, I'm going to sell the property. So I decided to come out to him and say, you know what, I'm trying to work in the background to see if we can make a historical memorial for the town of East Hampton on this property. So if you look at what's in front of you over here, what are we looking at? As it was explained to me in 2008, you're looking at the gateway to East Hampton right there. That corner right there is on the corner that goes to the lake, goes down to the center of town, comes right through town. There's no more visible spot in the town of East Hampton as of right now. that has that much visibility. When that spot came up for lease again, within three days, he had six offers on that spot within the lease, to lease that building. That's how quick that spot goes. Along with the lease came offers to buy the land. And I said to him, you know what, hang on. I didn't get a chance to come in front of the board. I'd like to present our case. Maybe something can happen. If not, then we move on from there. So what we're asking is to do a joint partnership with the town of East Hampton and bring in Belltown or something of our heritage of East Hampton, whether it's Shipmaking, Bell Factory, anything. I had the opportunity to talk with C.C. Bevin about this. I talked to Karen Barton about this. They're all on board with this. They said this would be a great location to express East Hampton's Bell heritage and other things. And they also made it known that it can't just be about those two families, right? Because it wasn't just about those two families. There was Gone Bell. There was Star. And, you know, besides that, that location alone, Dean remembers it as National Foods, no doubt. And there was a laundromat there. My father would tell you the little brick building when he was a kid, that's the Italian guy that cut hair. That's all he knew was the Italian guy was cutting hair there. You know, so that corner has been around for a long time. And I think we can make something out of it. And, you know, speaking with CeCe today was awesome. Talking with her and, you know, she said to me, we were talking about places in East Hampton. I said, yeah, down from Dr. Gardner's. Oh, Dr. Gardner's, sir. grandfather, which I didn't know that. Dean might have known that. I didn't know that. I thought that was kind of cool. So I'll just go over the presentation real quick. You can see it right here. The biggest thing is, I guess, we're asking for a 40-year lease. And There's a reason for 40 years. In 40 years, I'm not going to be around, I don't think. I'm in pretty good shape, not that good of shape. I'll be 100 years old. I don't know. My father's 94. I might be. So we're putting it in the hands of our heirs with explicit instructions that it will be renewed again. Then other heirs will be named within the 40 years. It will be renewed again. We want this to go on for hundreds of years. I'm hoping that the town will take, you know, what we have in front of us, take a quick look at it and say, you know what? Maybe we can do something with this. You know, it's up to you guys. So you can see what's on the front right now. That's what it looks like. If we go to the next picture. You're gonna see, this is where the proposal comes in. This is what we see every year during voting time, right? Except there's normally Democratic signs up there and all other kinds of signs. We're limiting our signs now, but we still have a town sign right there, right? Inside the middle of it. And it's kind of funny that we have a town sign there, because who asked to put a town sign there? Nobody called my father to ask, can we put a town sign there? So now we're talking liability, right? Great sign. All the other signs, you know, for, I don't know, my father's owned it since 1971. But since my restaurant burnt down, that's when all the signs mysteriously appear and stuff. I sometimes get a bad rap because I take them down. I do take them down. I take down tag sale signs. I take down Bob's Building and stuff like that. I allow everything that promotes East Hampton only. And that's what I'm here about. Just promoting East Hampton. And that's why, but when I do take your sign down, if there's a phone number, I text you and tell you where your sign is. Because I don't want you to spend the money and not get your money back. That's not fair. So that's what we have right there. And this one over here. So what are we looking for in this, in the 40 years? we're looking for a tax abatement on one, one West high street, right? Because that's what the town will be using for the next 40 years. Um, the town will design, this is what I'm asking. At least the town to design some kind of historical, uh, something for East Hampton on that land. So we're looking for tax abatement on one, uh, one West high street and tax abatement on seven West high street until that land leaves my father's name. Um, once again, let me stress my father's 94 years old. Um, So, you know, I mean, I'm not sure what you guys think on that, but that's what we're asking for. We're also asking, while there is a town green on 1 West High Street, the town picks up liability for that. If somebody falls down looking at whatever they're going there to see, we're not held liable. We have gotten phone calls, people falling on that property. Who's liable? Well, why are you on the property? I mean, it happens. What are you going to do? And the maintenance of 1 West High Street, not 7 West High Street. We don't want liability on 7 West High Street. We just want liability on 1 West High Street, and we want maintenance to 1 West High Street. Any parking that would be done to use the town green would be maintained by the town of East Hampton. If you go to the next page, this is an image that I'm hoping that doesn't happen, right? We've been approached with that years ago. I mean, there's a car off on the left waiting to come in. That was me, actually. But no, but really, I mean, that could really happen, right? And then we have a corner that we could have made into a town green where we don't have a town green. I asked somebody today, where is our town green? I was told the town green is the gazebo on the church lawn. It doesn't say town green. It doesn't say anything about Belltown. We should have placards on there telling the whole story about East Hampton. Let it be known what we are. I was sad to find out on AI today that we're not known as the Belltown of the United States. Seattle, Washington has a town named Belltown. They're known for it. That's our nickname, but it's not our official name. That is their official name. And if we want to be notified with that, we got to call Wikipedia. and I'll have all information done. I don't want to do that, but I just thought I'd mention that if you want that done for East Hampton. As I said, you know, if this does go through, there would be a couple restrictions that we would like put on it. There's no it's a political free zone. There's no political campaigning rallies, signs of any kind. Democrat, Republican, independent just can't be. It has to be a welcoming place for everybody in East Hampton to feel welcome and not feel shunned by what political party that they're rooting for at that present moment. I personally don't want tax sale signs, yard sale signs, business advertisement, private promotional. We allow stuff for the VFW, the lobster stuff, because that's the VFW. We're trying to allow community stuff. The Lions Club put signs there all the time. Also, within this project, The old foundation to that building, to the Thatcher's building, we call it Thatcher's once again, was that well before that. As I said, my father bought the land in 71 off Jim Walsh, who was the original owner. And my father considered that land, he called it today, that was the North Town Store. That's what that was to him as a kid, the North Town Store. Because the South Town Store was his grandfather Giuseppe down on Skinner Street had a store down over there. That's kind of cool. So we have the granite to that building, the big granite slabs of the foundation at my father's house that the town can use at their discretion as long as it's inside that square, inside the town green. As long as they want to use it for the town green, we have all sorts of pieces of that. They're beautiful granite. So we're offering that up also. The last page, or the second to the last page, this is AI at work, right? Doesn't have what it should have on it, right? I mean, because this is just AI quickly done in about two seconds from my son. Realistically, I mean, there should be other stuff on there. There should be placards about the Bartons, about the Bevins, about Gong Bell, about Star Factory, about the fishing line factory in town, about the shipbuilding in town. You guys or East Hampton has an opportunity right now. to put something on there that expresses East Hampton's history. Right now, we don't have much in town. If you go to other towns, there's a friend of mine that has that book that goes from town to town to town, some Connecticut book, and she posts all the time about it, and she goes town to town, and she's always on a town green. We really, unless somebody knows, we don't have a town green. And this, in my mind, would be the perfect location for a town green as you're coming through East Hampton. Either way, you're going to the lake, you're going anywhere in East Hampton for the most part, you're going past that corner. My generation knows it as Thatcher's and Mr. D's Corner. Dean's generation knows it as something different. If Tim was here, Tim would know it as Thatcher's East Hampton Pizza House because his mother and father owned it. They were renting from my father at the time. so you know i guess i guess what we're offering and and i'm not sure you know if what you guys want to do you know it's it's to me it's a great offer you have a chance to build a town green so 60 70 80 years from now when we're not around anymore and our great grandchildren are here we have something in town that expresses what we were what we started as you know, for East Hampton itself. And it doesn't have to be just industry. It should mention Lake Pokedepod or Lake Pokedepod and Princess Pokedepod. It should mention that, right? It should mention everything about East Hampton that you can. And with those foundation pieces, you can have different things all around the property expressing different thoughts and stuff, you know? I know in town we have a placard down the center of town. It's about that big, you know, you know. I don't know. To me, this is a great location. It's visible. Right now, if you drive by, it looks beautiful, right? Because all the American flags are on it, right? which I actually did a picture with all the American flags on that too. But my wife says you don't need that many pictures. So I don't know. So I'll leave it to you guys. I don't know what you need from me. If you have any questions, you know what we're asking and what my father is willing to give up. And when you think about it, it's a lot what he's willing to give up. giving up basically rights. There's no revenue for him whatsoever, right? I guess the only revenue would be the tax abatement. And if you look at what it is, it's minor in the scheme of it, right? On what the taxes are on the property. As I said, on 7 West High Street, the abatement is only while that is in the Stefano name. After that, whoever buys it, it goes to them. The taxes go back on them. But you have a town green for all residents and visitors for years and years to come. That's all I have.

Dan, the foundation pieces are not stored on site.

No, the foundations were at my father's house. He used a couple for a couple gravestones, but yeah, the gist of them were there.

So can that site be built on?

That site can be built to the specs that it was. I think it's a 50 to 70 building. It can be built to the exact size as Grandfather Claus didn't build to the same size that the Thatcher's building was with the laundromat and all the other stuff. So whatever that was.

at the same footprint i thought it was correct right the same size footprint footprint the exact footprint it was where it was so same square footage footprint oh size and he can go up a certain size but he can't it has to be yes it pretty much the same footprint so that picture wouldn't work because that would not be in the dimensions of the property because it's property obviously the pizza and thatchers were going the opposite direction so you'd So the Jiffy Lube would have to be reversed.

Correct. That was AI.

Which won't work. And it's only 0.17 acres. It's small, correct. So I think there'd be a major challenge getting something through zoning. Especially if the foundation, I thought the foundation was still there or most of it.

No, no, the foundation's not my father's. But if he's selling, he's selling it all as one, right? He's going to sell them both as one at that point. So then it's totally different because it is two different pieces of property, which the last caller didn't realize that. And yes, it is rented out again. And I was asked today and I said, I'm not at liberty to say who rented it at this point in time. They want to be private about it, which I have to respect that. And as I said, the Bartons and the Bevins said that whatever you guys needed as far as informational or they want to be invested in this, if they can, if you guys decide to go through with this, they would love to be invested in this project. To what scale, I don't know. But, you know, they want to be at least brought into the conversation.

The answer to your question, Mike DiLorenzo,

Oh, you know what? He said Mike, but he couldn't remember the last name. But he is 94, so he couldn't remember the last name.

Dean, do you mind if I ask you a question? So if the properties were combined, it would be 0.35 acres. What could be developed if they're not using the exact foundations?

You'd have to fit within the existing setback as far as both.

What are the setbacks for, isn't that a commercial though? I would assume it would be a commercial though. Just because it's a quarter acre, it doesn't seem like you'd be able to get too much there. You'd have to knock down one building in order to even, if it was sold as one unit, you'd have to do a massive reconfiguration and probably a very tiny building.

It would, it would be difficult, but I mean, if you have, like you said, if you kept it separate and he hasn't written a letter of intent to abandon whatever the use was before structure, then he could build back to that same thing there. If you did that, you wouldn't then be able to correct. But, you know, that's, you do have mixed use regulations now that you didn't have.

Because the one's only 0.17 acres. So, I mean, it's safe. Keep it.

Build to the footprint on that existing parcel. Then if you merge it and make it a mixed-use development, then I suppose that would happen.

If he chose to build. Right, which, I mean, right. Honestly, it's either going to be we're making it to a town green or he's going to sell it. At this point, you know, I mean, with his old age and I'm the only DiStefano left in town besides nieces and nephews. So they are my kids. But besides that, so, you know, there's no reason for for my siblings to say, yeah, let's go ahead with this. They're going to want to say I would assume they would want to sell it. They're not around. Right. I don't want to sell because I don't want to see a metal building on that corner. I walk past that corner four or five nights a week with my wife and my dog. That's my route that I walk. I don't want to see a metal building on there. I'd rather see something that expresses East Hampton's history, right? And we really only have one chance for that, really, right? I don't know. Why don't we use the nip money that came in? I'm just kidding. I don't know. Didn't nip money just come in or something like that I heard? Nippers. Right. Right.

You can figure out a way to call that recycling, sure.

Yeah, right, right.

Mr. Chair, so you're talking about potentially selling the property. So does that mean that the property would be available for the town to purchase?

Yes, depending on what would be done to it. Right now, the leasee of the little building has first option, which means nothing, right? Honestly, right, when you think about it, but that person does have first option.

But right now, the property tax on the two buildings are just under $5,700 and they dropped by $1,200. So if you go back to what they were, you're talking about $7,000 a year to host the site, which is a pretty big amount to come out of the taxpayers for 40 years. That's a pretty hefty amount to pull off the tax rolls for a sign with all kinds of restrictions.

Right. But 40 years, you're assuming that that little building is going to be in our family name for 40 years.

Right. But right now it's $2,500 on the... Correct.

So it's like $5,700 on both combined.

Yeah. Right. But the little building just dropped by $1,250. Correct. So if that was back to a regular, you know, if it went back to...

Yeah, if it does go back, right. Right.

But that's because it's commercial property and commercial property declined where residential went up, but that's not a norm typically under reval. So, you know, and again, hopefully your father, you know, is around for a while.

Oh, and he said 114 because the days go by so fast, he's a shoe-in, you know? So, and I mean, he's still out driving. We took one of his vehicles to be fixed because he's going to buy a new vehicle at 94. You know what I mean? So... You know, right? Right? I said, check out the one down past Gardner's house. So, but, so yeah, so right. Is it going to cost the town money? Sure. Over the 40 years, right? If just say, just say the 2,500 over 40 years. Right. Plus insurance. Right. Right. Which I'm sure you have a blanket policy, which would be minuscule to add that on. Right. But what are you getting? You're getting a historic monument to the town of East Hampton at no cost to use. When people approached us about renting the building and they asked, you know, how much are you going to lease the land for to the town? We said nothing. They said, what do you mean nothing? I said, we just want to see the town to do something with it. We just want to see a beautiful memorial to the town of East Hampton. My father was born and raised here. His father was born and raised. you know um not as long as probably dean's family might have been in longer ours were 1893 we like we love belltown you know it's one of a kind at belltown you know but that's up for you for you guys to decide but you know i don't think you see this opportunity come around often where somebody's willing to let you use their land for the next couple hundred years to build a memorial I mean, we're also going to build a Belltown Memorial or an East Hampton Memorial in town. Where's the next place that's open? That somebody will let you use their land without selling to you, I guess.

Thank you, Dan. We're going to take it under advisement. We'll be back.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

We'll put that on our agenda for discussion at next meeting.

Okay.

Moving on. Agenda item 5B, presentation of the plan of conservation and development.

Yeah. Oh. Just if you want to go on. Probably more than you need, but.

So we're here tonight with, there's some members of the steering committee. I don't know if you want to raise your hands in the audience with me tonight to just give you the initial introduction of the plan of conservation and development, which the draft is, I'd say 99.9%. um ready to go if you've looked at it online you'll notice a couple highlighted spots in the section three that have to do with the police and fire i needed some stats for you from you guys so we can fill that in that's you know that it's okay if it's missing right now um so it's it's pretty much good to go uh i'm gonna make a couple minor corrections that were uh Doug McEwen pointed out, you know, some spelling errors and few things. And once that's fixed up, I'm going to send it off to the state, but this is your opportunity. Just, I'm just going to go through briefly what the plan is, what we tried to do, the public input and things like that. There'll be a more formal opportunity, obviously for the public to speak on the 22nd. Should you all decide to have a public hearing? Yeah. You could not have a public hearing, but allow public comment. I mean, you can be as formal or as informal as you want to be. Then the month of October will be the sort of formal public input period. That's when I send it off to the regional COGs for their review and comment. So, you know, nothing can happen in that month anyway. So people can send in comments, call me, email me, however you need to get the comments to me. And I'll keep it on the planning and zoning agenda is sort of an item that they can. Discuss informally if they choose to, and then the formal public hearing for adoption won't take place until I think we figured out December, early December. Possibly November, I just have to look at the timeline again. So there'll be plenty of opportunities for public comment. I just wanted to sort of give you the overview of what we have so far. So we'll go to the next slide. So the most important thing to remember is that the POCD is just a statement of policies. It's what you base all of your decisions against. It doesn't replace zoning. It can't approve anything all on its own. It doesn't replace ordinances. But it's through those things, the zoning regulations and ordinances and budgets, that's how we implement this plan. So they are tied, but it doesn't replace your ordinances or zoning. So if a proposal comes in and it happens to be consistent with your POCD, you still have to go to planning and zoning and get it approved. So it's not like an automatic approval. The planning and zoning commission is supposed to be on board with the POCD and only approve things that are consistent with it, like map amendments or zoning amendments, things like that, or new zoning regulations. But it is a guiding document. It's not mandatory per se. That said, if everybody is not on board, including boards and commissions, staff, Department heads, things like that, then it's useless. Because if everybody isn't on board and dedicated to upholding it or making decisions based on it, then you might as well keep it on the shelf. It's not going to do any good. So we really do need for everybody to be on board to, you know, to implement it this time. And then I would also remind you that you can amend it at any time. So if something changes in the town and you're like, wow, this doesn't really fit anymore. You're welcome to open it up, amend it. And that starts that 10 year clock again, by the way. So, all right. The next slide. So I just want to make sure, the last time I had a presentation, nobody could see it online.

It's being shared.

OK. I don't know what we did wrong. Apologies to anybody who was here for the planning zoning meeting that couldn't see it. I will post those slides and my comments online so you can see it after the fact. So this plan is organized in three parts. We decided to do something a little bit different. So it's not going to look like the POCD from the 2016 plan. We've done it in reverse. So meaning we thought that it was important to put all of the important stuff within the first 40 pages. In case nobody wanted to read beyond that, we wanted to make sure they got what the gist of the plan was right off the bat. So you have an introduction and that part 1 just dives right into it. Has the goals and the objectives and the and the timelines. upfront. Section two is sort of a deeper dive into the evidence that got us to part one. And then part three, if you just took it out in a separate document and you added the goals and objectives, it would be a traditional POCD. So it's got all the chapters that you have to by statute go through in a POCD. It's just... you know, in part three. So each section is meant to stand alone. Like if you only pulled out part one, you would get the gist of what we heard from the public, you know, the basic data and how we arrived at those goals. If you wanted more, you would then move to part two and that gives that deeper dive. And then if you need, you know, reading material at night, you can go through the part three, which is obviously much lengthier. Next slide. So how did we get to these goals and objectives? We worked very hard at getting public input. I mean, this is much more input than you had in 2016, for sure, and probably more than you had in 2006. It happens to be the way I personally write plans. I don't live in your town. I don't have a vested interest other than being a staff person, so I can't write your plan. I have to have the public write their own plan. That is the only way I know how to do it. It's the only way I've ever done it. So we took a lot of time Getting that input. I started with the neighborhood meetings. It was a technique I used in North Stonington and it worked so well that I've done it every time. Where you get out into the community to try to get more people to come. And that initial neighborhood meeting, we really got to hear, you know, basic... the things that people loved about town, what they didn't like about town, how they saw the town in 10 years. So I got that basic blanket of, okay, I know what the priorities, or not the priorities, I know what the values are and what people want to keep and what they're afraid of and things like that. That helped us develop that community survey, which is obviously a much, you know, has a lot more breadth. You're trying to find You know, based on what I initially heard, we then tried to dive in a little bit deeper on the topics that came up and, you know, given this set of circumstances, what would you prioritize or how do you feel about, you know, housing or how has it affected you? And we really try to get as much information as we can. And in that survey, knowing that people wouldn't like certain things about it or might think certain things about it, I, if you notice, gave a lot of opportunity for other writing in your answer, which people did. There were thousands of handwritten comments which were all summarized and incorporated into it. And that was done on purpose so that in case we didn't have an option that they liked that they could write in their own option. So then knowing what the hot topics were, sort of ahead of time, we scheduled focused discussions on economic development, housing, the village center, and infrastructure, which was a hot topic for sure. We met separately with the students, we met separately with the seniors, and there was a village center walk to sort of look at the area, the village center, which is a big focus in this plan, so that people could learn more about it, what happened there, what's there, what the opportunities are, and what the challenges are. So all of that culminated in the visioning session. where we sort of put all those pieces together and thought about visions for each of the major topics, like housing, economic development, and the village. The data is important, too, because we can't just take all this public input on its own and take that to be you know i don't know gospel so to speak you know you have to weigh it against what the actual demographic reality is what the fiscal reality is you can't just it's not standalone all of that has to be weighed against what the data is specific to this town what are the what are the what's the situation and what are the trends here in east hampton and how does that data fit in so that's the process that we took i think um We had good turnout. We had 663 survey respondents, 219 in the focus groups, 113 in the neighborhoods meetings. 40 people came out to that data analysis, which was good because it was back and forth, you know, sort of challenging Don on some of his data. 35 high school students, 62 in the visioning session, and 20 in the village center walk. And these were also deliberately different types of engagement, because some people don't like to talk, speak in public. They don't want to come out to a meeting. They'd rather handwrite everything in the survey. So we just made sure that we covered all bases and made it as comfortable as possible for as many people to participate as possible. Obviously, it's not a scientific sample. We didn't get 14,000 responses on the survey, but it should be considered good public input. It's decent public input that definitely allowed us to come up with priorities and goals and objectives comfortably. Not coming from me, everything came from the public. And if you read the plan, that should be immediately obvious in the goals and objective. The plan doesn't treat every survey response as a mandate. We identified majority positions, demographic gaps, like, for example, the survey reached a lot of homeowners older generation of people have been here for a while we didn't get a lot of young people responding to that or you know people that had only been here for a couple years, although we did we did pretty well. So I think i'm comfortable with the the level of engagement next slide. So this will be online, so don't worry that you can't read it. But it's in front of you. But this is basically just what did come out of those meetings. And what we found is that residents strongly expressed a desire to preserve rural character and historic character, open space and natural resources, and water quality, which ranked probably the highest in the survey. So in other words, they're trying to protect what residents feel is irreplaceable. And that that was number one. That is our number one goal. So that was consistent through all of the public input. They expressed concerns about taxes and the cost of living and the need to strengthen the tax base without sacrificing the landscape that makes East Hampton East Hampton. And that's a pretty important one, too. That's focused on in goal to right off the bat. People talked about wanting to turn the deteriorating mills and contaminated properties into assets and give the village center enough people and activity to actually function as the center that residents want. Some residents wanted additional realistic housing choices, particularly for seniors and young adults and smaller households, and others opposed additional housing altogether. Nearly one quarter of the survey respondents indicated that they didn't want any additional housing at all. And that's reflected in there. Residents supported some forms of economic development, but while expressing concerns about the scale, the appearance, and the location of new developments. No metal buildings came through loud and clear. Residents wanted to see improvements of the road. That ranked very high. So the gentleman's comment early, somebody's comment, Rebecca's comment is well taken. They wanted stronger enforcement of land use regulations and more rigorous review of development proposals. They want the town to be much more deliberate about its infrastructure, where it goes and who bears the cost. And they wanted the town government to communicate earlier, explain decisions more clearly, provide meaningful opportunities for residents to participate. And, you know, most importantly, I think the steering committee and I, we need to stop measuring planning success by a document that was adopted and start measuring it by whether or not it actually changed anything. And this plan really does try to get to that in that section one by having your goals and objectives and actions, your responsible party, your timeline, and then a sort of a a consequence if you don't achieve it. And you'll notice in the document, if you've looked at it, that there's some goals and objectives that have the word priority listed in front of it. And those are the priority ones that if nothing happens within six months, somebody's got to explain themselves and we need to reevaluate it, figure out why it's not happening and make changes. Next slide. So when we take all of this and we look at the data, we discovered that the problem East Hampton has is not faulty governance or fiscal irresponsibility on its own. Your problem is structural. You have some significant structural problems that are causing a lot of the issues people ranked as very important. So some of these include you've lost a lot of people. You've lost 789 people since 2000, but you've gained over 1,000 new households. Well, what does that say? You're losing people, but you now need double the housing. It's because household sizes have shrunk dramatically. And there's 54% of households are only one and two people households. What does that also mean? You don't have a lot of kids in the school, so that your enrollment has gone down. but 20% it's gone down, but all those costs are fixed. So they're all the same. So you're doing more, you're doing the same services or providing the same services with less people. So the cost per person for these services is going up. So more households mean more demand for town services, road, trash, senior programs, emergency response, but fewer people per household means slower grand list growth. And the town is asked to do more with less. Your population is aging, probably at similar rates to a lot of the towns in Connecticut. Where I'm working now, they're aging a lot faster, so I guess you can feel good about that. Your median age is 43.1, but it's climbing. And an aging population brings many planning challenges. It changes what kind of housing, services, infrastructure that the community needs. You can anticipate a greater demand for EMS, senior services, health services, and transportation assistance that you may not have to think about now. And those have big budget consequences. Given eventual mobility limitations for most older residents, you're going to have to prioritize sidewalks, safe crossings, accessible public spaces, ADA improvements, lighting, and connections between housing and services. Seniors also have fixed income. A growing fixed income population makes continued reliance on residential property taxes increasingly difficult because you're asking these people to provide all the income so that you can provide your services, but their income isn't going up, but the amount of services you need are going up. So it doesn't match. Part of that problem is where does your income come from? It comes from your residential houses. So 81% of East Hampton's taxable value is single family residential compared to only 7% coming from commercial and industrial combined. That's a significant structural problem that you need to solve. And then 25% of your land is not taxable at all, including those brownfield sites, a lot of the town on parcels in the village center that are not on the tax rolls, but obviously you can see a huge opportunity to do something with those and get them on the tax rolls and that would help that 7% number go up. The town also has important natural resources and environmental constraints that ultimately shape where and how development occurs. So you have a lot of environmental constraints and you have a residential population that doesn't want you to touch any of those areas, and rightly so. There are areas instead that you can focus on and leave the outskirts of town where your open spaces and your lakes and your wetlands and you have lots of forest and farmland, you should leave those alone and focus. If you have an opportunity to focus that growth elsewhere, do that first. But your long-term fiscal sustainability depends on both the composition of the tax base and the composition of the population. And you obviously have to have a clear understanding of your limitations. Your location also is a limiting factor because you're not going to attract bigger development than some of these towns that are on the 395 corridor or 95 corridor or something. You're not going to get any of those. And nor do you have the population density to attract any of those. So you can... breathe a little easier knowing that's not going to happen and focus your efforts elsewhere. Next slide. all the things that we've talked about a lot of times when you do a plan of conservation development you have the two camps you know the environmental camp the conservation side and the the pro development side and they are never going to agree it's not going to happen it's not my job to try to make that happen the job of the pocd is to identify these themes and concerns and priorities and try to figure out what the trade-offs are and how can we have one and the other. So it's not helpful to think of these priorities as opposing. They're not conflicting. We have to start thinking of them as one reinforcing the other. They're compatible. So what do I mean by that? What do I mean by that? I wanted to give an example. So for example, the mill site. If we wanted to redevelop the old mill site, The complementary objectives out there are, you know, there's some that are pro conservation and some that are pro development. So we can preserve a historic site. We can remove blight, remove contaminants. So we're cleaning up and helping water quality, which is number one goal. You're adding untaxable building back to the tax rolls. That's that supports those who want to diversify the tax base and take the burden off of the residents. You're creating housing. in general, which you need, but you're creating that housing in the area that's already served by at least sewer infrastructure. You do need water, but you know, but you're you're taking that density and putting it in the village, which is going to support your local businesses, which is definitely supported in the survey and provide housing for employees so they don't have to live out of town to come work in your town. All of those will help help new businesses come in or existing businesses survive, but it also will attract new businesses in to maybe invest in those old mill buildings and make something happen if they know that they have the density or they can support that. And then you're facilitating the reuse of an already developed land versus taking down all the trees on other properties and building on vacant land. So you can see how they... you're satisfying so many goals in one shot with this one proposal. But some people say, oh, redeveloped mills, that's development, that's not conservation. That's not true because you can also use part of that site for open space. And you're, like I said, improving the water quality and other things. So some of these goals are very compatible. We just have to look at them that way instead of starting, you know, coming into the scene saying, look, I never want any development whatsoever. Well, maybe you do. I mean, I say all the time, the only way you get open space in a town is through a subdivision. You have to have the development of the subdivision in order to gain new open space, protected open space. So instead of saying, oh, we should never have subdivisions, we say we should have better designed subdivisions, maybe, you know, conservation subdivisions so we get even more open space and we're not impacting, you know, a neighborhood. So if we can start thinking about it that way, it'll be helpful. So this plan is full of those kinds of trade-offs and choices. Preserving rural character means putting development somewhere else. If you want to preserve your rural character, you have to be deliberate about where development can occur because you have other people saying, I can't afford the taxes here. You've got to do something about this tax base. So we can't say no development. We have to say, all right, yes, I agree. The cost of living is too high or whatever. But I only want it here and I want it to look like this. And you can do that. You can adopt design guidelines. You can identify an area on the map and change the zoning for the rest of it to never allow what you don't want. You have a lot of tools at your disposal. And we've tried to pull all of those things out and find those tensions and trade-offs and come up with a solution. And so you'll see that in the plan. Next slide. So all of these again, you have to read that these are all in the document itself online, but all of that public input and weighing it against the development prior the data and the visioning session, we came up with vision statements. Instead of trying to come up with one generic vision statement, like a lot of towns do, we gave up on that and did individual vision statements for the main topics in the plan. And then we put guiding principles ahead of all of the objectives and actions. So you'll have your vision, then you have your goal. your guiding principles or priorities, or policies rather, and then your objectives and actions and timeline. So we thought that flowed nicely. So next slide. So if you're reading along, that's just the visions and policies that we came up with. Next slide. So that brings us to the goals. So the seven goals that we came up with, protect and enhance the first two or protect and enhance East Hampton's natural resources and water quality, open spaces and agricultural lands. So this means conservation and targeted growth are linked strategies. That's what we focused on. Protecting large areas makes it more important to use appropriate developed infrastructure, served areas efficiently. So If we want to protect large swaths, we have to find the areas that we think are eligible for development or it would be okay for development because the infrastructure is already there or it's already developed and we want to redevelop. So every goal, we took what we heard. What we found through the data analysis and just you know conversations our own talking whatever and then we came up with the goals, the actions to support it, the second goal was strengthen and enforce Community character standards. and characters never preserve by saying you know we can't have any change you're not. Things are going to change. I mean, if you look at the town 100 years ago to today, things changed. It's inevitable. It's going to happen. But what you can do is try to control the way that development occurs, the pace that it occurs, where it occurs, what it looks like. You can prohibit metal buildings if you don't want metal buildings. So use your tools. Next slide. The third goal was strengthen economic vitality and fiscal sustainability. We felt that economic development should be place-based and realistic. Like I said, you're not going to get the big box. You shouldn't strive for things you know you're never going to get. A lot of towns are like, oh, what is the grocery store everybody always wants? I can't think of the name. Whole Foods or something like that. You're not going to get it because you don't have the population. You don't have the traffic counts. There are certain things you're just not going to get. What can you do? You can make your existing industrial buildings. You can give them new life. These are just AI. No development proposals have come in. It's just me playing on the computer. What would that existing industrial building look like with better landscaping and a facelift? You know, that's realistic. Restaurants are realistic. Offices are realistic here. So there are certain things that you could focus on that, you know, no, it's not. Maybe it won't bring you the... Huge tax revenues that people want, but it'll it'll improve the values of those properties and get that 7% number up. So next slide the fourth goal was guide housing to meet Community needs. And this, this is the. the plan there's a before and after but this is the the building that's on main street near the best way on the corner um so it was it's i guess it was an apartment building before but this is it reimagined as middle housing which is now required by the state so the state has said you must allow certain types of housing, two to nine units in your commercial districts. I'm not sure that that's a commercial district, but it's an example of a smaller housing unit. So it doesn't have to be huge apartment buildings. It could be something that's attractive and, you know, reusing an existing building and try to keep the style of that, of the historic building. The next goal is to reinforce the village center as East Hampton's civic and economic heart. This is obviously the biggest push in our plan is to seriously focus on the village. It's been in your plans as a goal for at least 20 years at this point. And if you're serious about it, because it will check off so many of the boxes, so many of the goals and things that your residents have asked for, that you have to make that, just commit to it. Get the water there and continue with the brownfields grants that you've been getting for planning and remediation and whatnot and make it happen because that could really be the key to fiscal sustainability in this town and housing and all sorts of things. And the next goal is align infrastructure investment with community goals. We also heard loud and clear that investment should lead targeted development in designated areas. It shouldn't chase development into undesignated areas, meaning you pick first where you want it to be and allow the infrastructure to support that. And that can change over time. And it's obviously based on your capacity and whatnot, but, you know, Don't have it be reversed. You choose as a town and then facilitate that infrastructure to make that development happen. Never use infrastructure as a weapon. Use it to your advantage. The last goal is support a livable, inclusive community for all ages. So this goal incorporates quite a bit. It talks about senior services, the library, And a lot on governance, making the process transparent and clear and predictable and accountable. And we have a lot of goals and ideas of how to make that happen. All right. Next slide. So a POCD, the actual plan is your future land use map. It's usually one map, but when I tried to put everything on one map, that was way too much. So I had to separate it out in two, which is a little unusual, but I think it's easier to read. If you don't like it, we can put it all on one. But so I wanted to, because I don't like to separate out conservation and development, because I do like to emphasize that they're, you know, they're players on the same team. But the first, the conservation land use map identifies, we looked at all of the natural resources in your current reserved or. protected open space and we tried to identify potential wildlife quarters, the conservation Lake Commission weighed in on this heavily on the map there's those little polka dotted parcels.

The ones that look like this movie oh. That happens to be your parcel, don't panic.

We're not saying we're taking your parcel. It's just saying, should those become available, the town should consider purchasing them or encouraging a land trust to purchase them because they sort of complete that corridor. or they add a layer of protection to the already protected lands. You can see how some of them sort of fill in gaps in your open space. And this kind of map helps the Planning and Zoning Commission when it comes time to approving a subdivision that has required open space. You want them to give you meaningful open space, primarily maybe something that abuts up against already protected open space. You know, we have to stop letting developers just give us our, give, you know, the worst part of their parcel. You want it to be meaningful. You want it to connect to one of these corridors or to at least, you know, complement it. This map also shows the natural hazards and whatnot and that's mainly because the town is going for their sustainable CT certification. So I wanted to make sure that was mapped as that gets you points towards that certification. Then the future development land use map, we You know, we talked a lot about this. Because of what we heard, you know, we didn't hear that there was a lot of support for development, you know, housing or otherwise. So we're quite conservative in identifying what the future plans are. So there's three different areas. The first one is down in Cobalt, where the post office is. Actually, you can switch to the next slide, because I think that's that first slide. Yep. This again is just AI, which is playing. So we're just talking about a little infill, not expanding the commercial district or anything like that. Just, you know, what could we do to support that little that corner to for some better development or infill development? We are talking about. uh extending some sort of a sewer line out to portland to gain customers there if we don't want to have customers here we can still add them somewhere else so they can help pay for your infrastructure um and then extending the water line obviously up that would be going towards the village and that's what we're proposing there next one this is the This is the industrial part. So the purple is your industrial zone right now. Right now, today, as we speak, much of that zone is used residentially. I know it's zoned industrial, but the current land use is residential. So we thought that that deserved a little reevaluation to see if the zoning made sense or if you wanted to change it to commercial or to mixed use. to sort of allow those residential uses to morph into mixed use or something that would help with the tax rolls in an area that's already served by infrastructure. This is, again, me playing with AI, but that's one of the mill buildings just reimagined as mixed use or housing. I don't have my glasses on, so. Next slide. And this is the Epic Arts building. I just think that one looks great. I'd love to see that happen for you. But that's reimagined as mixed use and spruced up a little investment. You're saving historic property. There's money for that sort of thing. If you put housing in there, there's even more money. Next slide and then the housing growth area, which you are required to do. So this is not optional. You have to put it on this plan. Whether it's 1 parcel or 3, but you have to put it somewhere. So we decided to highlight this area of town because Hampton woods is up there. There's already planned housing there. I mean, this is where some of your, you know, this property is in that area, and there's another phase for this project that's going to include housing. So, I mean, lowest hanging fruit, most conservative, we could come up with, all right, focus the housing there and in the village center in the text. The village center is also highlighted as a housing growth area, more so mixed use in Mill. So those are your areas for the land use plan.

Next slide.

I'm going to go back to infrastructure just because that really was a big topic. So I just want to emphasize that the planning strategy suggested in the POC is not to expand infrastructure to enable development, rather to decide where that development belongs first and then align with that decision. So I know there has been a lot of concern about that, but... your infrastructure capacity really determines where development can occur and what kind of development can occur. So I feel like you should be identifying areas to allow for certain development to occur and you should allow that infrastructure to expand there. Next slide. I would point out that we did go back and forth for a while about the sewer map. So it has come to light, unless something's changed since I left, that the only approved map, The is the 1970s map that was the only sewer map that's actually been approved by DEP in a facilities plan for this town.

So that is your map so that that this gray area that's kind of underneath. That's the sewer area future sewer area.

That was identified in the 1970s map. The green is actually where the sewer is today. That's your active sewer lines. And then there's tiny spots of brown.

Being conservative. Up here by Hampton Woods. And this neighborhood has been identified for a long time because it's tiny, tiny parcels in the soils that should be incorporated in. It's practically surrounded by the existing sewer area. And then again, that little section out to Portland. That's the only expansion that we're showing.

And then the housing and development map, I just updated that because that's a map that you guys have seen. And that map shows there's not a lot of vacant parcels out there available right now. And they're scattered. throughout town, but they're scattered. Most of them are in areas that you want to protect. So that's significant because they are privately owned. So if somebody does want to put housing on it, let's say affordable housing, unless you make a very deliberate attempt to get to your 10% housing goal or comply with the housing growth plan, then they're all vulnerable. But the moment you get to that 10%, Then then you can preserve those. So that's another example where deliberate development somewhere, even though you may not be comfortable with housing or affordable housing. But I bet you would be really uncomfortable of all of those vacant parcels. up in the northern part of town or the southern part of town if they all suddenly had you know trailer park that's you know mobile manufactured homes count as affordable housing if they went in everywhere i think people would be a lot more upset not that there's anything wrong with mobile home parks but you know dense housing the manufactured homes um because that's becoming popular in other towns that's why i bring it up um all right next slide so To conclude, our vision for 2036 is a revitalized village center, protected natural resources and rural character through a lot of major changes to your zoning regulations and the enforcement of said regulations. Housing opportunities through all stages of life, which means you have, even though it's uncomfortable, you need to find spots for rental housing or smaller units because that's what people are calling for. A strong, a stronger economy and a more sustainable tax base again. Go for the places that are blighted anyway that you, you should get back on the tax rolls that would add vitality to the town. And then a transparent and predictable local government and. And that's it so. I encourage you all to at least read the first 40 pages and then just let me know if you're going to have a formal public hearing. And if you want, you know, what kind of a presentation you might want then, because everybody I'll put all of these up online and obviously the videos online. So people can watch the two presentations. The one for PNC was a lot longer. Um, But it'll be up to you what you want me to do for a presentation. If you want to actually put the goals up. And the word on the goals, yes, there are a lot of goals there. So one of the things I would actually encourage you to do and Planning and Zoning to do is really go through those because The timelines, I don't really, it's hard for me to assign a timeline knowing that I'm not going to appear planner. So initially those were assigned thinking I was going to be here and I was comfortable with being able to get that done. But if you feel those need to be pushed out, I just, I need feedback on that. So all of you guys and all the planning and zoning and the public really need to give us some solid feedback on that. And then all of the public comments that we get, we'll go back to the steering committee. We'll talk about them. We'll make suggested edits. Planning and Zoning Commission will weigh in on those. I'll keep you in the loop with track change documents. I'll get those up on the website so that you can see what's going on. And I'll try to give you some sort of a summary if we make bigger changes. And then hopefully it'll be adopted by the end of the year and you can move forward.

Thank you. Very good. Excellent.

We have any questions now?

Just a quick question, if I may. This approach, your approach here, I think it's spectacular. Great. This approach that you've used and how you relate things out and made them interrelated, a lot of the issues. Is this pretty much standard? Is this sort of a standard approach of planners, Connecticut-wide, statewide? In other words, would any other planner in any other town understand your approach here, really buy into it and really know what you're trying to accomplish?

They would. And the state, we have to also show consistency with the state plan of conservation and development. And I actually hadn't really read that full plan. And I was reading it recently. I'm like, oh, that's what we were just saying. So it's actually perfectly in line. Their approach has become that. And I think I just read, I think it was Chaplin's POCD. And then I guess we weren't the first. They did theirs backwards, too. Yeah. i know and they put all the goals up front but you know it it's it's it's a solid approach i mean because we have to start being creative i mean all towns are have that that same demographic problem and fiscal problem this is not unique to east hampton at all so we have to start thinking outside of the box and figuring out how we can check off you know more goals reason i ask is because i

i'm so impressed with this that i want to make sure that in our search pre-replacement that we get somebody who has your insight uh into this and what we need and uh i think i think that's that's critical that's what we should be shooting for in my view so thank you very much great job great leadership thank you good job you always have your steering committee you can

Well, turn them into a more permanent committee and invite residents to join on to.

So, thank you. Thank you all.

Moving on in the agenda, 6 bids and contracts.

None of this.

And item 7 resolutions ordinances policies and proclamations resolution considering granting electrical utility easements on Lakewood Estates property So the council's asked to consider sort of consider granting to

the owners of the Overlook Estates, the Lake Overlook Estates subdivision that's under construction right now, grants of an easement across what will ultimately become town land and what is currently, of course, private property, but will ultimately become Freya Lane, as well as acknowledge that there will be a utility easement just slightly outside of the right-of-way and paralleling the right-of-way for the electrical utility. The reason the council is looking at this, which would not normally be in front of you, is because of the timing of it. It's because it's post a review by the Planning and Zoning Commission. As part of the subdivision, it's basically allowing the utility line to be closer to the right of way edge rather than under or closer to the roadway. That's what it will allow, plus the owner will be granting some easements up where driveways go and things of that sort. So the council is asked to go ahead and authorize the execution of these easements so that they can get done. Mostly the town's part, as I said, is related to the right-of-way and to the crossing in front of the open space parcel that the town will ultimately own.

So why wasn't it done at PNC?

I suspect it had to do with not knowing exactly how Eversource wanted to do the installation of their utility. Plus the roadway's been installed and the sewers are underground already. So Eversource had to work around that. What this allows is the only place that the utility will go under the road is at the very end where it will extend by where that cul-de-sac is now.

So had it been in the original planning and zoning, would that have been approved the way it sits?

Might have been a little bit different. I don't know.

I guess my question is, is there a reason to approve or not approve? Since we are not the planning and zoning board and we're getting this after and it never went to planning and zoning and we're just asked to approve it. Yeah, I don't know that there's a little bit more information than were being presented an easement, but we don't know if it's a legitimate easement or something that we should or should not be approving.

Well, I don't know.

I don't mean a legitimate easement, but an easement that would have been approved had it been part of the original development or not.

I can only speculate, but I think it probably would have been approved. It gives the utility space to work without because it's underground utility. It gives the utility space to work without affecting the integrity of the roadway that's there. So it allows them to push their utility far enough back. It gives them effectively a 20 foot wide or more easement.

And is this in our open space easement that we're, is this part of the open space that where this is going?

So there's one crossing in front of the open space, that parcel that would be at noon, if you look at the map, the one that says open space parcel, it's an 11 acre parcel, that would cross in the very front of that parcel. That's the only place that crosses a parcel that the town would own as quote unquote private property, this parcel on the north end here. Or the upside of the...

So by granting the easement, it's not going to impact any of the open space or disturb it since we're requiring the open space?

No, other than there would be a utility easement across the front 10 feet parallel to the road.

Which 10 feet is...

And you can't see it very well on the scan of the map, but the existing plan from Eversource ends on the, what I'll call three o'clock on the bulb of the cul-de-sac. It ends at about that location. Runs on the south side of the road and ends at about three o'clock on the cul-de-sac. But ultimately they'll have to serve those three parcels on the north side.

This gives them the right to dig and to install electric lines. But then it's gone, right? Once they've done that.

No, it would maintain because they would need the ability to go back and maintain those lines should something occur. And I think that's really what's going on is it's getting it away out from underneath the road. And Eversource is saying, look, we need more space. Fundamentally, I think that's what's going on. Because ordinarily, especially when they're using poles, that would be under the road. From our perspective, from a staff perspective, I don't think there's any issue in signing the easement and allowing it to go ahead.

I'll make a motion to authorize the town manager to sign the easement. Second. What do you need to do?

Motion is Made and seconded to allow the town manager, authorized town manager to sign the easement. Any further discussion? If not, those in favor? Aye. Opposed, nay. Adopted.

Thank you.

And item eight, continuing business subcommittee reports and updates. Do we have any subcommittee reports?

No. I'll talk a little bit about America 250. Just yesterday, the East Hampton float was in the Middletown Parade, the Middletown State America 250 Parade. Thanks to Kevin Burnham and helpers in building it. and several people in going along with it yesterday. The American 250 would like to come and talk, well, I would like to thank Kazan Burnham and we're gonna talk about that later, maybe next meeting. But they'd like to come and make just a review of what we've done, the various events that have happened So that'll be on our agenda in the future.

Thank you. Anyone else? Subcommittee reports. Moving on. New business discussion and possible action on additional appropriations from unanticipated revenue to capital reserve fund.

The council is asked to review and approve the recommendation from the Board of Finance for the reallocation of unanticipated revenues from fiscal 26 to the capital improvements plan as described during the budget review process so that those dollars can be used to offset the capital improvements to be undertaken in fiscal 27. So this is essentially one of the first steps of the year-end closeout for fiscal 26. Ordinarily, you'd see this a little bit later in the year, but because the budget was adopted, we felt it appropriate to go ahead and get it done so that those monies could be moved. What you see there is the sources of income above what was budgeted for the town in the amount of $593,400 that would be moved. based on the recommendation and then an appropriation moving that over to the capital reserve fund second is there any discussion can i ask a question um i recall in our budget discussions the um

the 10 to 12% that we wanna keep in reserves, correct? This money, is this the additional above the 12%?

No, this is not monies that are in the town's unobligated reserves. It is not that fund. That's sort of where the difference is. If we were gonna take money out of the fund, as was talked about earlier this evening, if we were gonna take monies out of the town's, if you will, savings account, That would require ultimately the town meeting to approve that. If we're using dollars that, so to speak, aren't in that savings account yet, the Board of Finance and the Town Council have the authority to authorize their use.

Okay. Okay. So this is just unanticipated revenues that came in above what we expected from last year.

So as you can see there, investment incomes in excess of what we estimated they would be, tax collections that were higher, interest on taxes, conveyance taxes, things of that sort that came in higher than we anticipated. And the Board of Finance chose to take advantage of that and use that to offset future expenses.

I just want to go on record again and saying that I think that it should have gone to a meeting and the it's being done after year and and I absolutely oppose the transfer without a town meeting.

Call question.

For the discussion. The question is called. Those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay.

Nay.

Ayes have it. Going five to one. Agenda item 9B. Discussion and possible action on a request from the East Hampton Ambulance Association for the use of town opioid settlement funds for the purchase of a Lucas device.

So as you know, the town of East Hampton, along with probably almost every municipality in Connecticut and many municipalities across the state, across the country rather, have been receiving funds from the manufacturers, the distributors, the marketing entities around various opioid drugs. as part of the settlements that the various attorneys general reached with those companies in penalty for their role in creating the opioid crisis that the country is facing. Those dollars get distributed to municipalities, as I said, based on a percentage of population and various other factors. We get a very infinitesimal amount, but it has been accumulated by the town to about $110,000 right now. We've made some small expenses, Narcan and other things like that, to outfit the police department and the fire department to make sure they have at least some of the supplies that they need that we can buy through that source. It can also be used for other purposes, and as the chief of the service, Chris Weary, will talk about in a moment, because I'll invite him up to make the presentation to you, as he'll talk about in a moment, there are other opportunities for its use, including perhaps some of the type of devices that the association is looking for. So I'll invite Chris up and he can share with you what his goal is. I've asked the council to make this choice because we really don't have an internal policy on how the funds would get used other than the direction and the limitations for the settlement. Because it's a significant amount and because it's an outside entity, I thought it appropriate that the council hear it and make that choice. So I'll invite Chris up now at this point. You can bring your show and tell and just put it here if you want.

Yeah, if you want.

Chris Weary with East Hampton Ambulance Association. So you all have the presentation in front of you, but I am here to request the use of town opioid settlement funds for the purchase of a Lucas device. I won't bore you with reading the entire thing, the four pages of the request, but I'm here to answer any questions, perhaps explain a little bit more about the device, how it's used, if you wanna see it, we can certainly set it up for you. So fire away.

I'd love to hear more about the device. I wouldn't mind a presentation.

Okay.

To see how it works, if people are interested.

Sure, so I would imagine the question is going to come up, what is a Lucas device and how is it used? So a Lucas device is a mechanical compression device that's used in CPR. It's set up, thanks to you, and thank you for your endorsement earlier. Appreciate that. So it is used in the events of CPR and it frees up manpower. So the device that I'm actually, that I brought is the device that is not in service any longer.

It looks like a plunderer simply. Oh yeah, really? Look at that. Wow.

The yellow back plate is put underneath the patient, and then the plunger is connected to the back plate. The plunger is pressed down onto the individual's chest, and you hit go, and it will perform compressions. It's a standard rate of 102 compressions a minute and have a standard depth that's AHA compliant. So this particular device doesn't have a battery right now. This is the one that's not in service, the one that failed. It's 11 years old and manufacturer has a service life, recommended service life of eight years. So I inquired about fixing this one. They said it's probably a motherboard issue, which if the parts were available would be in the neighborhood of $2,500 to $3,000 to fix it. I don't think that that's a wise investment being that this is 11 years old and well outside of the recommended service life. Hence the request to use opioid funds.

There's two things. Would you talk a little bit about how many you use in the department or how many you would ideally have in the service? And then if you can, just touch briefly on the nexus of how that gets used in overdose situations, those sorts of events.

Sure. So we have three units. We have three ambulances, and we would ideally have one of these units on each ambulance. Obviously, this one isn't working. So right now, we're rotating the units as we rotate the ambulances for service. So our third due ambulance does not currently have one of these devices on it. We ideally like to have one on each ambulance so we don't have to worry about rotating and things like that. The other issue that we have right now is that our second oldest device is eight years old at the recommended service life limit. That's not to say we're taking that out of service. But if next year or the year after that one fails, we'd be down to one unit.

How old is the first, the other one? Three.

That's the baby. So to answer the rest of the town manager's question, how is this used and how does this relate to opioid overdoses? In that situation, that drug suppresses the respiratory drive to the point where you could go into respiratory arrest, which then would trigger a cardiac arrest. And that's when we would ideally use this device. Yes.

I have quite a few questions because I have to tell you, I'm not a fan of the Lucas. So I'm going to ask a few other questions.

Fire away. We'll throw tomatoes at each other.

Yep. No, that's fine. So I guess one of my concerns, as you know, is the state protocol, the four cycles before you can even use the Lucas, there is a, obviously a limitation just by looking at it. Your body has to fit under there. Uh, you cannot be too big, too small. Um, the typical training, I guess, let's start with how many times have you actually used the Lucas, uh, in the last couple of years?

How many actual calls were, uh, well, I personally have used the Lucas device twice in the last five days. Um, Once in Marlboro on Sunday and once here in East Hampton on Friday. Prior to that, I don't have a full picture of the data on how many in the last year, but.

I mean, I kind of like to know that because I don't think, and how often are, is the training being done on that? Because Yes, Rob made it look easy to put on, but he's not rolling the person. There's just so much time off the chest with that unit for install that if the training isn't 100%, I believe, this is my opinion, is you're doing more harm than continuing compressions by trying to fumble with getting that machine on. That's just... You know, in transport, I totally understand, you know, if you're in transport. But typically on an arrest, you also have the assistance of the fire department on top of your two EMTs. So when you're rotating in, you know, as far as the time or fatigue, you know, there's typically quite a few people that show up for an arrest or used to. I don't know if they still do, but they typically do.

Yeah, the fire department is fantastic in these situations, showing up with a ton of help for us. And so I hear two concerns that you've got there. The first being the time it takes to put on. And the second being, well, why this device versus just manual equipment? manual CPR. It's kind of a continuation maybe of the first. But we do train on this. We train on it all the time in the association. And I think with the fire department, we communicate extremely well with everyone on scene. And so what we do is we put this on in stages. And so there are I'll call them breaks in CPR where you're assessing, um, after, uh, after a couple of rounds of CPR. So what we'll do is someone will simply get the, uh, the device out and get it ready. After, uh, a couple of rounds of CPR, the, the back plate or backboard will be placed under the patient. Uh, manual CPR is continued. We get to another place where we're assessing the patient and it's clipped in and turned on. So we do practice with this regularly. If there is a delay in those compressions, in my estimate, it's a couple of seconds. And when When you are, I guess, comparing those couple of seconds to then bad CPR or ineffective CPR while you're moving a patient, I would rather take four or five seconds to get it on than risk ineffective CPR when you're moving the patient out of the house, putting them on a stretcher or into the ambulance, and then while you're transporting.

So that's going to be after like at least 20 minutes on seat, right?

Well, not necessarily. So, okay. So then the question is, when does this shine? When is the real use case for this? And it's really in transport, when you're going to be transporting someone. So then... I guess you could also ask, well, do you transport someone when you're doing CPR? And the answer is yes, we do, for various reasons. So there are really three different situations where you do CPR until you're told not to anymore. The individual is deceased. or you transport while doing CPR, or you get ROSC, return of spontaneous circulation. So where this device really helps the ambulance association and fire department is when you're transporting. Getting someone out of the home onto the stretcher as you're moving the stretcher to... the ambulance, you know, you've all seen the TV shows where someone's on top of the stretcher and doing CPR as they're being rolled down the hallway or something like that. Well, you know, we don't need to. We can use this device. And we know that it's consistent. You get the same depth and the same rate that you need. So I don't know if that answers your questions. And that's my view of those.

I'd really like to know the usage over the last couple of years. And I'm just wondering if there's a more effective use of the funds for EMS training. What other training opportunities, I know you just got a new few mannequins, and what other training would benefit the community

We can make that request next month. I can make that request next month.

I do think that the training for the EMS, both fire, because there's a lot of new EMTs at the fire department as well, I believe, from our meeting, that if there was some kind of cross-training or bringing in training people... I think might benefit the community more than a Lucas, I guess is where my, my thought.

Yeah. I mean, the training would certainly benefit the community. I completely agree with that. I don't know if, if one would benefit more than the other.

I'm just thinking there's probably more. How many, you know, how many actual arrests over the course of the year versus other items that, you know, would warrant additional training. I'm sure that there, through your calls, there are deficiencies that could be addressed, not deficiencies, but areas that could have better training from an overall organization standpoint that would benefit the community.

Sure, training is definitely something that... This should be a focus. And because we're primarily a paid department, when you make training mandatory, then you have to pay your people to come train. So that becomes an issue. I don't know. We can, I guess, go back and forth and debate whether one is more important than the other. I think this device is important for the organization and for the community, especially given the age of our second oldest unit. We're going to have to start replacing them.

It seems to me it's an and question, not an or. It's don't do one or the other. Maybe it's do both.

I don't know how much money we have. I think that the training would definitely, training dollars would definitely benefit the organization. It's my opinion.

Could we just clarify, the town manager has said we have $110,000. That's correct, Dave. That's what's currently available for us to use from these opioid settlement funds. So it seems like this would be a small amount in relation to the overall that we have available and would potentially still leave. some funds available for training. Can we match the funds for training? Would you be okay with that? From tax dollars? From the opioid. Oh, absolutely.

If you match it, I'll support. I want like more training dollars.

So 15 for the device and then the rest for training? Come on.

Not at the moment, but I would say at least another 15 toward training I would like to see. Because I really think that it would benefit the overall community the more training all of our EMS can get. And maybe some of the training needs to go to the fire department as well for some of their, you know, there's got to be a way that we can move some of that into the training fund for the fire department because they can also, the more knowledge that our volunteers and our paid have the better off we are as community. And the more times you do something repeating, repeating, repeating, it becomes second nature. We don't have the call volumes that the cities do. So the more times you can repeat it in the education environment, the more it's automatic when you get on soon. And so I would much prefer to see if we're going to do the Lucas, I would want 15,000 to go to education as well.

Mr. Chair, I would assume, I shouldn't assume, but I will, that you would never turn down another $15,000 for training. I'm guessing that you probably came to the council asking because this was a necessity right now and You don't want to ask for too much, I'm guessing, with the state of the economy right now. So I have no problem with that.

I mean, if we got 100, I mean, I'm telling you that trading, if you do it repeatedly, I think it will be.

I'm not disagreeing, and I'm sure they're not disagreeing. But as the experts here in the room and that do the job every day, and they're coming to us for this, I would think that that's their priority. Again, I have no problem saying let's allocate another. 15,500 or 400 for training as well. At the same time, I think it's vitally, you know, it's vital to what they do, but it's like you said, it's not an either or it's, it's an and so. All right.

So yeah. Mr. Chairman, so we can sort of move this along. I would like to move to allocate the request $15,444.25 from the Opioid Settlement Fund for the purchase of this device. And relative to training, I'm not so sure we have to come up with a number right now. If you'd like to come back and say, hey, this is what it'll cost, I'd be glad to.

How about if we start with the $15,500 that Lucas is?

Yeah, it's fine with me. That's what I'd like to do.

No, he's saying $15,500.

For training and $15,500 for the Lucas. So $31,000.

I'm not so sure $15,500 is enough or too much or what they'd be used for.

I'd like to hear. I can assure you.

I'd like to hear exactly what they, well, these guys are the experts. Do I hear $30,000?

Karen Hollweg, Mr Mr sheriff ma could we see a proposal on what we're allocating the training to I think it would be smart for the Council to view. Karen Hollweg, Would you just like it here's the money we don't care what you use it for. Dave Kuntz, training because there's so many.

Dave Kuntz, Look, I just don't mean to be rude, but how many of the other Council are going to understand all the different trainings that they're going to do so does it really matter if they tell you exactly what training you're doing.

Karen Hollweg, Well, we would want them scheduled and. planned out that these are the trainings we're going to do. Here's what it's going to cost. And we're going to complete them in six months rather than infinite. We don't know when it's going to be used. I'm happy to allocate that money, but I would want to know a timeframe when they're going to use it, when the trainings are completed so that there's an end. So there's a plan. Yes. If they could come back at a future meeting and give us that information, I think we'd all be happy to allocate that.

Alternatively, the, so there's, As I mentioned, alluded to before, there are pretty strict requirements on what we can use it for. I'm fairly certain that we can find a training regimen that would fit the requirements. perhaps it's appropriate if the council's interested in doing this, you could allocate those dollars via motion tonight if you want it, and ask the chief to come back and outline for you the type of training that that would be getting done. Perhaps some of it's already taken place, but to outline the training that would be getting done and the timeline that they anticipate doing that training using those funds More of a, not necessarily an after report. You can certainly get that at the end as well. But A, this is what we're going to do with the funds you've allocated to us so that you can close the matter tonight, allow the chief and others to look through what the training might look like. I would encourage the other departments to get involved in that conversation and see if there's cross training that can be done. Because as was alluded to, even this device gets, you know, a lot of hands on when that gets pulled out and deployed. So that's kind of what my recommendation would be. If you move forward with the device and an allocation for training, Chris, on behalf of the others, would come back and explain to you how to get used in the time frame you're doing that. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So I had a motion on the floor then tried to put it on the floor for the 1544425. I suppose we can add to that a $15,000 additional for training, but I would like just So we would have public understanding of exactly what that training would be used for. So we are sure it is being used in the spirit for which the opiate funds are being given to us for. Sure. Just to cross, just to check that off. I would like to hear that.

Sure. We can put that together for you and come back.

So it's 1544425. plus 15,000. That's the motion.

Second.

Very good.

Motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? If not, those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed, nay. So adopted.

Thank you all. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Rob now you need to come up with a plan for opiate training.

And item 9 C discussion on the WPC a ordinance.

Are we going through this tonight? Are we just making suggestions?

Yeah, I don't think we're going to vote on this tonight.

Can I just press up suggestions and people can read it for the next meeting if that works? It's fine.

Jack, does that work for you?

Yeah, let me just, my view was that when we come up with is a list of changing. And at the next meeting, we could discuss those changes. And these are high level, not detailed. At the next meeting, we could discuss. We could choose, at least tentatively, which ones we definitely want to include, some that we might not want to include, none. And then ask for the town manager with the help of legal counsel to come back with a proposed changed ordinance. It'll take us two or three meetings to get there.

I was just going to pose the question, do we want to have a special meeting just to deal with a discussion and- Probably.

We're not going to get that tonight. That's just too much- It's too late.

We'll put that together and establish a date. We'll give us some time to read through all this and digest it.

Could I make one comment on this?

Sure.

So what Mr. Hintz has proposed does mention wording about creating a water pollution control authority again. that particular wording and creating that authority does by state statute give up some of our rights and control. Okay. Yeah.

But I referenced the statute and the certain things that the town's attorney needs to weigh in on. to whether we can actually do what some of my thoughts are.

Okay, because what I had looked at was that same principle, but rather than naming them as the Water Pollution Control Authority, keeping it as a water and sewer commission that oversees the main day-to-day operations and things that the council really doesn't need to be involved in. But then major decisions, when we are talking about expansion, And issues brings it to the council, who is actually acting as a water pollution control authority for that purpose.

That's exactly what I tried to get into here. I don't know if it'll work. We're on the same page. We're on the same page. That's exactly what it's tried to do. Everybody, shut up. But again, it requires an attorney input as well, whether we're close to the state statute or not.

Okay, moving on to item 10, town manager's report.

Sorry, I was starting to read.

Thank you. I just, as always, will say my report is part of the packet as well online in the town manager section of the website. a number of items there from a variety of different departments. I'll highlight two items, one in follow up to the conversation you had earlier this evening, or rather the presentation you had earlier this evening. The draft of the POCD is online. There's a link in the electronic version of the Town Manager Report if you want to grab it there. Otherwise, you can link it from the front page of the website or go to the POCD Steering Committee page and it's there. We're revising that to show not only that document, but the attachments as well, so that the community can look at those as they begin to prepare for whatever comments members of the community wish to make. The other item I'll reference is a more significant one for those members of our community that live on Abbey Road, Serafin Terrace, North Cone. That work is underway this week for rehabilitation of those roads. So as part of the improvements that were improvements that were approved as part of the capital plan this year. Those roads are being done. As those of you who read my report know, Child's Road has been swapped out temporarily because it ended up having more significant drainage work that needed to get done by Public Works. So they'll be working on that this fall. And then Child's Road will hopefully be able to be done during the summertime when traffic is less of an issue. So those folks who live on Abbey Road, Serafin Terrace, and North Cone should have received a letter from the Public Works Department outlining the project that will be done, but basically that's a reclamation. So that whole road is getting paved up and pulverized, or milled up, rather, and pulverized. reshaped and redone a new base and the new asphalt gets laid on top of that. The Public Works Department was out there earlier adjusting stormwater structures and those sorts of things. And at the end of the project, once the paving is in, the Public Works Department comes back and we'll put in curbs and we'll adjust driveway aprons and those sorts of things to keep the water in the road as much as possible like we intend. So those are the two things I really wanted to highlight for the community at this point. I will mention one other thing kind of on the fly. You'll notice that there's been some discussion about a program called Laptop Connect or Connect with the CT being Connecticut. It's a program that the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, DEEP and the State Library have and are implementing through most of the local libraries in the state. whereby households who meet various qualifications, the most significant of which is that they're on some sort of public assistance program, have access to use a laptop computer provided by the state through a grant for, a period of time, up to five years, to facilitate their household's connection to the internet for school, for business, for whatever the case may be. So East Hampton is fortunate enough to have 25 of those and those are available through the library. If you're interested in those or feel like you're qualified for that or you know someone is qualified for that, information is available at the library. I also happen to notice that the, I think it was Deep put it out today on Facebook, some information about this, and you can grab information through there as well. So for those of you in the community that this might be helpful for, that is available now. So the laptops are received, the processes are in place, the folks who need to review The financial pieces are in place. So by all means, come and use those laptops so that you can have access to the world, so to speak. Those are my comments tonight from my town manager report. If there are other things you have questions on, I'll certainly answer them.

Great report. Thank you. Thank you. Very, very valuable. Thank you.

Moving on. Agenda item 11, appointments.

Yes, we have... couple tonight. Really just to re reallocation of people this has to do with the middle Adam is dark district. The commission has asked us to change to 2 of its members will pull member to alternate and an alternate number member to fall. But tonight just to swap positions. And So what we're looking at is a current full member, Kara Peterson, would like to go to an alternate position, term ending 12-31-29. And a current alternate, David LaRanger, would like to go to the full membership at 12-31-28. This request came in to the office from the commission.

David's last name again, please.

Loranger. L-O-R-A-N-G-E-R. Loranger.

I'll second that appointment. Change.

Is there any discussion? Questions? If not, those in favor of the motion the two people to just switch positions. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. So, adopted. Rich, would you like to just comment on one thing? There was a question that I heard about the number of people that have had extended timeframe on various boards and commissions, and I know we've done a lot to fill those vacancies first and to bring some new blood in.

Yeah.

Where does that stand?

Relative to what? The.

There was a question.

Limitations. Yes. Term limits. We have no term limits, but we had we had term limits way back when in the 80s and that lasted for about a about a year when it was switched back to unlimited appointments if they were so willing. So currently, as we speak, there are none, or at least there is no ordinance that I'm aware of that limits any terms. And there was a comment, as you referenced, as far as Are they? Are there? There are not. And in fact, there are people who sit on committees who have been there quite a long time. And for, you know, one or two for, I don't know, a couple decades even.

Before I was born?

Some of them. So that's the exception, not the rule, I might add. That's the exception, not the rule. So I think As we go forward and we discussed in committee and Karen, you can correct me if I'm incorrect. We've talked about this issue and basically if there's been a, if someone's term comes to an end on any particular commission and they've been seated there for a long period of time, normally what we do in that case, we don't interview them. again, rather people who wanted to serve another term. But when it's been a long period of time, it's been our position that we'll ask those who've been there a long time to come back in for a meeting, an appointment with us, and we'll discuss exactly how much more they can offer or want to offer that they've been on for so many years and to maybe we need some new blood in those commissions. To be quite honest with you, it's a responsibility of this board, this council, and I guess through it, the appointments committee to say, hey, you know, we need Duke blood. And just because you've been on the board before for however many years doesn't mean you get a lifetime appointment. I think that's important. And that's our, that's our position.

I agree with you. Unfortunately, the only times that I've seen the council pull someone off of a board or commission, and I'm not saying this council or the past, is typically for a politically motivated reason, not because the person didn't want to serve. That was the last time I remember someone actually being pulled from a board or commission so someone else could be appointed in their spot. And so you run a, you know, you kind of run the devil's on both sides because if you take someone off, you're going to be accused of taking them off for a political reason. In my last 20-some years, that's the last time I remember someone being pulled off. It was so that someone could be reappointed by an opposite party and to get what they wanted on the board. You don't want to be perceived as trying to stack a board. You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In the past three years that I've been here, most of us, in fact, have been here. Never have we pulled anybody off once we applied, meaning out of committee. This board has in the last couple months. We know that situation. But the committee, it's not the... It's not the desire of our committee to do that. If they've been in fact appointed by this board, they run their term, very simple. And so that's really our position on it. It's only when somebody comes back up and wants reappointment if their term is ending, would we ever have them in to discuss it if in fact they've been many, many years. That's our position or has been up to this point.

To reiterate what Rich just said, we haven't looked at anyone to say, oh, wow, you've been serving too long. We're going to pull you off now.

We've been waiting till the end of their appointment to make that process happen.

So I'd recommend the best way to handle it is if a person's been on a board a long time, see if you can find somebody else in the community who wants to serve. And then if they don't, then you reappoint. But if there is somebody new, prefer to appoint the new person. Understood.

Sorry, I extended the meeting. Moving on. 10 item 12, tax refunds.

Motion to Refund $4,020.50 to 20 rightful owners. What's up in that?

Is there any discussion? Not those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. So adopted. Turned to item 13, public remarks. Is there anyone at this point who would choose to make public remarks? Chief?

Aye.

So I didn't want to speak out of turn while Chris was talking. I don't feel like it's right to talk while he's presenting. It kind of makes things get a little cross. So just to clarify for training, we do have to do training every two years. If you want to be medically certified, we don't make our firefighters be medically certified, but we have about 20 that are, which is a great thing. It's something that they step up to do for the community. So it's not a mandatory training with that. two years. I'm due actually this month. So we have around 10 members that have to take their recertification. So I have to do 16 hours this month essentially to get recertified with that license that I have. So I'm an EMR level. You could be an EMT like Chris is, and then you have to do 40 hours of training in two years. So with that money that you guys have that could help us essentially with that type of training because we do CPR we do the Lucas we do Narcan training and other things like that. So that money definitely can help in those places where we're taking money away from training to add to, you know, we can add more training in essentially. So if we're going to take that money to kind of help with the other trainings that we're doing, that would be a great thing. So it opens the door for the membership. We have 76 members and we spend around $22,000 every year just on training. So Uh, training is a very important thing. Um, so I appreciate you guys making that motion.

Thank you. Sir, anyone else who would care to make. Public remarks this time, no hands raised. Move on 14 communications, correspondence and announcements. The August 2026 board and commission summary is available. The East Hampton Ambulance Association first quarter financials are available.

Chief, I forgot about you, but they are the R1s. The officers are also the first ones on scene for the, so maybe the police department should come up with a training as well that maybe some of that money could go toward your training. I didn't mean to. Forget about you back there.

There ain't nothing further. Move to adjourn.

Second. Very good.

We are adjourned. Thank you.