City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Like to call this meeting to order, please. Item two is adjustments to the agenda. I have a handful of adjustments. Um one's merely a correction under 4J. Um I referenced 9 Boon Street that I mention citizens building on the brain, but that's and I should also reference the change to the tax map number for that. Oh, I'm sorry. What is that? I It's I7. Yep. - 0 C4-17. Yes. Thank you.

Uh under 4F, we have another perpetual care lot to add at Bayside East, lot C7 for Gail O'Hara. It's actually Bayside West, Brian. Section E. Sorry. No, that's all right. Bayside Bayside West section E. Yeah. Lot C7. Gail O'Hara. Yes. And that's 550 like the other two. Is that correct? No. 150. 150. Okay. Let's see if I get the next one right. Nope. I'm sorry. I'm just following through. Yeah.

All right. Uh and then there are two potential additions. one is to add 4N discussion on the mobile vending unit ordinance if desired and um and that's it. Do I have a motion to those changes? I move to make those motions that change to the agenda. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Dennings. Yes. Council. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes.

Council.

Yes. And I apologize. I meant to excuse councelor Cely. He will not be attending tonight's meeting. Um, and we're going to be going to item no other adjustments. Okay. We're going to item three, public open forum. Um it seems like the last couple meetings have got a little out of hand with the open forum process. Um last meeting was very um how do I want to put this? Um I don't think it was fair to some individuals because people were calling out people positions city employees and I don't think that that's necessary and we do have a public forum policy. I'd like to see us try to adhere more to that. I'd like to have you address me as council president and let me try to answer your questions. It seems like in the last year or so it's been a lot of people get up to the microphone and they directly go to the manager hoping he's going to answer all the questions. It's the council. It's our meeting. It's not the city manager's meeting. He will cover a lot under his reports but the meeting should come to a meeting. So having said that, anybody from the public like to speak under public forum, please come to the microphone and state who you are, please.

My name is Sue Ellen Hendris and I'm from Eastport.

Yes. Thank you. Um and my question that I have is regarding um last meeting it was mentioned that the city has a backlog of legal items to attend to and this was put forth because of the question of why multiple lawyers are employed by the city and my question is how many items or how long is the backlog? Uh, what is the total annual line item budget for legal fees for 2026? And I would assume 2027 since it is a backlog. I don't know how long it goes for. And when do you anticipate the backlog to be caught up?

Okay. I will try to address some of those questions. First of all, thank you for announcing who you are. Secondly, we don't have multiple attorneys. We have two. That's one, two. We have two specialized attorneys. The city manager requested a chance to have manager a attorney that deals with only municipal law. Council council Mahar is kind of a general attorney who has been with us for 25 years. So he he's a general attorney, but some of the manager's questions were more focused on um I'm just going to go out on a limb here. foreclosed properties, municipal foreclosed properties. That's a lot of where the backlog is and it's we've had so many managers trying to get a grip on it and as soon as they get a grip, they leave. So, it's backlogged and we're trying to get it caught up to be fair to the taxpayer because we have a lot of property out there that needs to be cleaned up and it needs to be done in a timely fashion. And I'm not sure of the dollar amount, but I can certainly get those for you.

Okay. The dollar amount is important since you're asking to employ more than one lawyer. Because the budget is very important to the taxpayers. Yes. And it appears wasteful for the council to say quote unquote, this is from you, sir. Yes.

I'm unhappy with Dennis's work. Yet you insist that he remain on because he has quote unquote history. And it sounds personal instead of just business to me. I don't know how you quantify or qualify someone's work value based upon history and it sounds costly. Um, I guess first of all, I don't know whether I spoke that I was unhappy with. It's I don't I It's a quote from the last meeting. I I can play it back for you if you want. It was No, I don't I don't need to hear it. If if it's there, I I'll listen to the meeting because we have I can only go by what you say, sir.

Okay. Well, if if I said that, then I'm I'm sorry I said that because he doesn't he doesn't work for me. He works for the city. I would hope so. Yes, he does. And and what I just want to know what it's going to cost us to employ not only dentists, but another group of employees that have specialties and whatever. I don't know because no one's telling me exactly what it is. All these it might be real estate. It might be other items, but it's not clear. It's not clear what the money is being spent on and why. and I'm asking why. Uh I think someone should speak to that. Okay. Um I I will do my best to get you an answer.

Thank you. And and hopefully it will answer all of your questions. I will do that. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else from the public like to speak? Hearing none. We'll close public open forum. Item four, new business 4 a request for letter of support PV library band stand recre restoration project. There's a copy of that. It should have been in your packet, I hope. Yes.

I thought I saw that. Uh it's band stand restoration. Um they are um attempting to find um grants uh financing for this. Um I'm sorry I want to make sure I know it's a T-Mobile grant through their hometown grants program and uh so they're looking to potentially, you know, refurbish the band stand. Uh there's no commitment. We're not the pass through. They just want a letter of support. I make a motion to send a letter of letter of support for the PB library advanced stand restoration project. I'll second it.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion hearing? None. Roll call, please. Council Dana Cummings. Yes. Council Mang, yes. Council Stevens, yes. Council Moon,

yes. 4 B discussion of a proposal digital equity support for graduating shed high seniors. You should have this in your packet as well. Digital equity committee um has money left over from the fiber committee. As you may recall on point it was supposed to help bring the fiber forth and then city did it on their own and they said it retained funds. So they've been looking for an appropriate use at their last meeting. Uh they were hoping to allocate $2,000. There's more than that. I believe there's six in there. I'll double check, but there's that's a portion of it. Um to provide up to five graduating chef high school seniors with a laptop and desk computer upon graduation. Um it was going to be going to a nonprofit give it get it. Um that would go through all the pro the processes of uh getting getting the machines to them. Um, and it doesn't require any city uh um staff time and give it get IT was actually willing to match this $2,000 which was not um we have

I wonder how they were going to get five computers. Yeah. So So the actual amount that would be awarded this year would be $4,000 but only and it's not additional money. It's money. It's money we're sitting on and yeah. Okay. I make a motion to what we say grant money to approve the shed high school senior device program as as proposed by the digital equity committee. I'll make that motion. So move that. I'll second it. Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion

hear? None. Roll call, please. Sir Danny Cummings. Yes, councelor Mang. Yes, councelor Stevens. Yes, councelor Boon. Yes. C request for an additional appointment to the deer committee. Request was received by Janice back in February 17. have a top.

I um I'm the laser on for the day committee and I talk to the to the chairman of the well the chairman of the board we'll say the head of the no Walder Cumins is the chair of the of the deer committee. He felt right now that he that he talked to some of the members. I don't know if he talked to all. He told me he talked to some of the members. they didn't feel they needed anyone any more committee members right now and um he said he like to hold you know they like to hold off right now you know that's interesting

but I'm just delays on that and um but there's another thing coming too we might not even need the day committee I mean there's a survey out there that comes back if they don't need you know, if there's not going to be a hunt, there's not going to be a deer committee or whatever survey says. So, I don't know how the survey is going. I haven't had a chance to catch up with uh on that. The public can still attend the meetings,

but the p the meetings are public. You know, they're posted and the public's welcome to attend on that. And, you know, they're during the day. That's, you know, I have all day. Yeah, that's why I'm the laser because I'm the only one not working. Collecting these surveys have not been retrieved yet.

They collected. So does the board have appealing or motion or so are you suggesting we not add people to the game committee based on the input from the chair from the chair? Um I would just table it till after the survey comes in see what happens you know.

So you want to make the motion to table until the survey results come in. I think that's fair, you know, the fairest thing, you know, and you know, anybody's welcome to come to the meeting.

Janna, you're present tonight. Um, can I ask just one question? When we put this out requesting people to submit names to be on that committee, you you didn't put your name in. I didn't see it. Oh, I didn't I had no knowledge of you putting it out. Okay. I saw it after the fact after I saw that there was a deer committee. Yeah. Um and I I I didn't talk to Walter, but I did talk to Chris and Chris felt that um number one, we should put a limit on how many's on the board voting members. And cuz if we allow one to join, then we must allow all of them to join unless we put a cap on it.

My my there was a deer committee that I was on and it was dissolved, right? And I was a standing member and I don't understand why some of the people got back on it, but not me. But nobody contacted me and said, "Hey, we're dissolving the committee you're on." I don't know. I don't know when that happened. Walter didn't curs. Nobody did. I don't know when that happened, but I it was a couple months ago when we went through the committees that were inactive and the deer committee had not been active since we but lasted I think at the same meeting. Not I think it was advertised in the paper.

Advertised in the paper if I could get you the date. I don't remember when it was in September. We advertised in the paper for that. It wasn't like we called people up. you want to be on the D committee. That didn't happen. See it in the paper because I don't have any paper. Yeah. Yeah. We picked people in October, so it hadn't been advertised September. How many do you have for members? I think six is six right now. Six is voting members. Plus, it's open to the public. I mean, the meetings are all public, right? But like six is like seven would make it odd an odd for for voting purposes

and I don't know how long like like council Ming says if the survey comes back they may not even have a committee. So I well I I wish you'd have put your name in because I certainly would have supported you. I I didn't know about it. I I I put in February. Yeah, I know. I know. And that was when I found out and I didn't realize you were on it before. If I if I'd have known that, I'd have said something to you cuz it Well, I don't I don't know. I can't speak for that. I know, but I I we had we had meetings together

and and I and I can say that Chris said you were on the committee and you were a good committee member. So, I I just I guess I would I would I I wish you'd put your name in sooner, but either way, um I will do what we had. It probably had something to do with the fact that I had a heart condition and I was getting treatment at the time and I wasn't reading the newspapers. After I had my treatments, then I found out about it. Yeah. So, I had priorities at the point, you know. Oh, no. I understand that. We We all have those. Um either way, I think we have a motion and a second on the floor. We haven't technically made it.

Oh, we haven't made any. Oh, no. Okay, that's just a question, I guess. So, do we want to make a motion? I'll remember this the next time we vote.

I'll make a motion to table it. I'll second table to the conclusion of the survey to see where table to the conclusion of the survey. Further discussion on the motion hearing. None. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Dana Cummings. Yes. Councelor Morang. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Council.

Yes. Item 4 D, accept donation of $410 from Deputy Shellfish Warden Lawrence Small, volunteer hours, cost to become a certified warden, conservation badges, and two shellfish measuring rings. So, is he donating to get those things? No, he's already done. We acknowledge that we're that he gave it to us and we're accepting it. So, okay. All of them. I move to accept the donation of $410 from Deputy Selfish Shellfish Warden Lauren Small. I'll second. I'll second.

Sarah's got the pen. We'll see who second it. Uh, any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Danny Cummings. Yes. Council Morang. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Councelor Boon. Yes. 4 E. Approval of sewer commitment third quarter fiscal year 2026 $176,94.75.

Since sewer is on here, why did the sewer bill go up so much this time? Cuz it No, maybe your usage went up. No, hasn't gone up. It was higher. Everyone I talked to it goes back. Could it be because of the delay? I don't I don't believe no because we it's a flat rate call city hall I was not aware we have not received any complaints that I'm aware of and that bill has been up for some time now so this is the standard standard okay do I have a motion for that

I move to approve the sewer commitment of $176,94 $4.75. Do I have a second? I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Danny Cummings. Yes. Councelor Morang. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Councelor Moon. Yes. Do you have a copy for signature? I do, but for the for sure. Correct. Yes. I just haven't signed. I have the original. Well, you have the original. So, we'll have you sign at the end of the meeting. Okay. Okay. I have those all going here at the end of it. Okay. Okay.

We're on to 4F for petrol care lots. First one is Bayside West section E lot number 23. The amount of $550 for Victoria Gans. F3 is hill uh F2 hillside west Gracie Lane lots 31 and 32 $550 David Mitchell and lot three is Bayside West section C7 for $150 for Gail O'Hara. I'll make that motion.

I'll second it. Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion hearing? None. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Dana Cummings. Yes. Councelor Morang. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Councilor Boon. Yes. 4G. Appointments of Rachel Williams to digital equity committee. Do we have a letter? Um, this was a request. Ella, did you handle this one? This is this came from me, Elaine.

So, the chair, this is a request from the committee. Um, Rachel, for is a known quantity. She's on the budget committee, but I we may actually I don't believe we have a letter. I have an email from her. She's actually sent it to Hannah's email. So, she followed up with me on it. That's why it's on this agenda. All right. Was there anything in there apart from the request for her? We But we have been asking for people to give like some quick summary of why they wish to be on it, what they bring to it. There was nothing nothing on the email lane sent me. I can't speak for what she said at the hand. I'm sorry. Is this a committee that's short?

I I believe they just want some more people to get things done. I can't I couldn't tell you off the top of my head who's on it. They're the ones who generated the thing we voted on earlier. Um I don't believe they have serious impending work right now. If you wanted to push this to two weeks, it would not be the end of the world to get some special to get some. Can you make that note that we just want to get a formal request from Rachel and we can we'll handle this on the April meeting? Okay. Do you want to move to table and move for the chair to give her? Yeah, they can talk with me if there's any questions.

Yeah. Move to table the appointment of Rachel Williams to digital equity committee for further information. I'll second that. Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Do you want to put the date or do you want to just wait till April? April. April. Yeah. Add that to the motion for the April meeting. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Councelor Danny Cummings, yes. Councilor Morang, yes. Councelor Stevens, yes. Councilor Boon,

yes. 4 appointment of council liaison to energy committee. Yeah, this of course has been Jeannie Peacock's um PET committee. They've generated a lot of grants. They've done a lot of good things, but she's not a counselor anymore. So, we don't have council leaison. So she requested it possible to get on council leison on and yes they tend to meet during the day. So the only one that doesn't work there's no one I'm on like more committees than like what time do they meet? 115 usually. Oh there's no way. Um I can meet in the summer but that's it.

If uh the only person who's capable of making that time is not able to add another committee. I can certainly tell Jeie that and explain what the problem is and either see if they want to change. If they meet in the evening, I can do it. Okay, I can or you could just try. Okay, fair enough. I guess it um I will take that back to that. Yeah. Okay. So, H, we're going to No action on H. I just say no action. Okay.

Yeah,

we're on 4 I bid opening results for sideway project sidewalk project. So yes, after 6 years, 7 years, 8 years, however long, we are at this point. We received two bids, um they were quite divergent. Um one was for over $900,000. Uh and we won't need to talk about that any further because by rule, you are required to take the lowest bid. This is the way these projects work is that you are allowed to choose the design firm. The criteria for design firm isn't supposed to take money to concern at all. You just pick the best design firm. And then the flip side of that is this one, which you have to take the lowest unless there's a fell reason not to. It came in at $435,596, which is more or less in line with what we anticipate. We have sufficient match for it. Um we uh I've had so engineering is our uh is our partner is our project manager on this. They'll be bringing the clerk of the works in and everything else. So they uh and the state reviewed the bid. They didn't raise any uh issues. We called both references. Um the references had good things to say. Um we had a phone call with me and Jody O'Neal the project manager from SU and Howie sat in uh and we talked through it and uh the uh the bidder is actually grew up in Callus is working out of Bangor now. Um is familiar with the folks he will have to subcontract with out here to get equipment and whatnot. um we believe uh as to our best the best of our knowledge he's capable of executing on the contract. So the next step is to either accept this bid uh you do have I'll just say for completeness sake the opport the option to reject the bid and therefore the project and as we said before that would cost us something $110,000 at this point

to get nothing. So it is uh EMX is the name of the accepting the bid from ENX Corporation. So if if we reject that, we've got to we've got to pay back the state. We have to pay back the design the full amount of the design. This is a 20% match. We paid 20% of the design, but that would leave about 110 120. So we're better off doing

now that we're at this point. We have it set aside. Um, I'll be talking I I sent you guys some stuff about capital and I'll be talking about that thing. I believe we're in good shape uh in on the capital fund. Like I said, it's where we thought it was. Um, it was going to be um you know, even if even if it's this is not, you know, short I can't I talked with How said what contingencies can be we'd be worried about. He says, "Well, you could you could find some vitrius pipe. We don't know about some storm pipe." But we didn't think that that was going to amount to huge amounts of contingency. That was the only risk we could we could come up with. I will say the contractor having been from cows was saying he really hope he might be able to get done by July 4th. I just want to warn you I'm going to probably tell him to hold his horses cuz if he wants it done by July 4th that it better be done

by July 4th and I think it might be safer to not take that risk to battery street right street to battery alone. So it's not a huge traffic area. No, just you know the question is you don't want to leave uh you don't want to leave you know granite curbing out and equipment and that sort of thing. That would be my concern. It would need to be done or nearly done for it to be accepted. So yeah, so the motion would be to accept the the bid from EMX Corporation for let me say that number again. 435

$435,596. I make the motion to accept the bid for EMX for $435,596 for the sidewalk to finally get done. I'll second that. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion hearing? None. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Dana Cummings. Yes. Councelor Morang. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Councelor Boon.

Yes. 4J, direct city manager to inform the former owners of the following 3537 Key Street Tax Map I7 0C2-21 20 Boon Street Tax Map 7 I7-0c417 1A Readout Hill tax map F4 OD5 5 09 and 9 Snider Road tax map E2 08405.

So just to be clear, we we've actually made motions on some of these properties before saying we're willing to move forward, but um now that we're finally getting to a point where hopefully we'll get a realtor out. Um, we went back over the details with of what had to be done and there is actually a pretty formal boilerplate letter that's that's the intent to sale that we have to deliver and we cannot list the property for 90 days until 90 days have passed from that notification. So since we haven't done it for all the properties, I'm just bringing all four of them again so there's no confusion about what we have or haven't uh for all four of them. So, but so if I could just have that motion, we will send the letters out uh super quick and we'll be able to take the next step moving forward. I move to direct the city manager to inform the former owners of 3537 Key Street, 20 Boon Street, 1A Hill, and 9 Schneider Road.

I'll second that. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion hearing? None. Roll call, please, sir. Councelor Dana Cummings, yes. Council Mang, yes. Councelor Stevens, yes. Councelor Boon, yes. 4K, approval of realtor bid policy.

Right. So, um, this is not something I we have to force the conclusion tonight, but I would really like to see it done in April if possible because we're right now we're on a 90-day clock and at the end of 90 days, we can move forward. Some months ago, I brought forward a proposed policy. It was kind of detailed. Uh, and the intent was to basically open the door to anyone who wanted to throw their business card in the fishbowl and we'd say, "Go ahead, we'll take the business card out. Um, you get the you get the property for 12 months. You can try to sell it." Um, at the time there was some concern that maybe it was excessively complex and whatnot. I simplified it a bit, but um, I haven't received any other concrete suggestions about how to change it. So, I'm just bringing that forward. I however now that we have four properties plus we talked at our last meeting that you may want to consider listing the senior center with a realtor. I say maybe we're back at the RFP approach where we would put out um an RFP which I gave you I sent you guys a potential sample again. I no ego in any of this. I'm just trying to give you material to work with. Um and uh that would be the other way we'd work with one agent. I don't know if five properties is too much to ask one agent to list. um you know there are some things we have to talk about there but those are the two primary paths I can go forward with um talking around the state I'll actually be talking some people in Bangor on Friday about this I don't know that there's been any more innovative approach to this I don't know if you've heard anything Dennis

yeah people are still finding their way yep yeah but um so it's a time for you guys to talk about what you'd want to do if you feel like you can take uh action on what I provided with you welcome to do So otherwise um this is a chance at least to talk it out and be prepared so we could do something. So whoever is selected would get all five properties or that that would be the simplest thing. Yes. Um yeah and four of them would need a quick claim deed which is problematic on the sales

right um not that any of you care but I'm sitting here. I will say there is I think it's there's still a case before the Supreme Court uh about modifying this. So yeah, somebody's trying to not just get what you could sell it for, but to get fair market value. In other words, if we took a house that you think you could sell in the open market for $200,000, there's a a case where a person is trying to say that's what they should be able to get, they have to sell it for that. It's very unlikely it's going to be found that way. the case itself, which is interesting, it it's a problem because it turns out the the community in Michigan shouldn't have forced on you probably. And so there's another thing that's confusing in there, but that part was helpful somewhere else. So if you're interested, I'll tell you about it, but I don't think it's going to affect us. And actually, one potential remedy um is what the state of Maine has already done, which is require a realtor. If you listen with a realtor, you can't argue that the realtor can't sell it right now, but they I believe they went to auction on the house in Michigan, and that's where he came from. So anyways, city manager geek if if council was to choose a realtor each piece of property that came up, is that against the rules?

Uh, no. I mean, if we feel No, I mean that's certainly if we feel that one firm is doing better than another this first quarter of the year, we could go with that firm. And if we feel the second quarter a different firm is doing better, can we put a different piece of property with them?

I Oh, abs you I you have total freedom here. So again, Dennis, correct me if I'm wrong at this point, but you're not obligated to go to RFP that people do it so that it looks good. But, you know, I want to make sure you've given everyone an opportunity, but certainly the the council could can choose to do this however they wish to. I put the policy in place so that either if said their questions arrive here or future councils want to know how we've done it in the past, it would be written down. Um, but if you know, I believe uh don't quote me on this in the paper, please, if I got wrong, but I believe the city of Kalistister said, "Let's go ahead and do it." And they they got a bunch of names and they went on from it. But as you know, I tend to like to paper things with words a little bit to make sure we we are agreed on what we're doing.

The simplest one is put it out to bid like and let one so property is what you would say. I'm sorry. Say maybe I misunderstood you. Can you say that again? The simplest thing is to see who wants it in the real estate. Put it like out to a bid to the real estate RFP like one then you're not chasing them. Oh, right. Yeah. That would be list everything for us. Yeah.

Because the RFP you you've seen the RFP. It's really not that much information in there. Um and it's you would not be obligated, you know, you're off you're not obligated. You can take any who anybody you want. You can make your own criteria. Maybe, you know, maybe someone gives you a slightly lower um commission, but if you feel another agent is going to be more capable, you can totally within your rights to choose whomever you would wish. I do think that's a little bit cleaner. The problem putting your name in the in the fishbowl thing is you just have to make sure you put the name. You only get one property. How often do you do it? How do you get your name back in? And that sort of thing. Oh, yeah. Um I don't want to be chasing a tail.

And I'm hoping we won't be selling a lot of these, but we got enough right now. Yeah. and the senior citizen center. That's the old one. That's a clean sale. I mean, someone would jump on that to sell for us. And and that actually complicated things a bit is, you know, we have two different kinds of sales. We want two different kinds of process. And yeah, that's when I I started leaning towards RFP for that reason. If you feel like you've got a realtor you're comfortable with, then it really doesn't matter what you're asking to sell. That's what I'm leaning towards. That way you're not chasing your tail all the time, you know, go to that person.

I guess my question to you would be then, um, you know, the the RFP package I put together, I I spent some time on, but um, I would really really want to make sure you guys have read it in detail and thought it through. If you if you feel like you're at that level of confidence, we can certainly adopt it today. But, um, if you want a little more time, I would we have plenty of time to do it. Well, we're meeting in two weeks, right? That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, that's what he wanted first. He wanted to meet every two weeks. No. And to be clear, actually, we can't even list these properties until the end of June. Until the end of June. So, if you want to push it out until then, that's fine.

So, let's just I guess at this point, um, I don't need any action if you're not prepared. But, we'll make sure this shows up earlier and earlier on the agenda until we get it done. Okay. But we did pass one earlier. Yes. Yes. No, we never passed it. Thought we did. No, we brought it forward, but we didn't act on it. Oh, wasn't it to the I I it's some of it's coming back, but I guess my concern was my concern was if somebody

if three people were interested out of seven, I don't how many real estate agents we have. I mean, at some point the fourth person could say, "Well, now I'm interested. Can they put their name in the bowl that we don't have?" And then it just Yeah. And and I guess I agree with council Murray that we should have a person and that person's responsible for selling our properties.

So So let's make the focus then. Look at the RFP package and let's make sure you're prepared to pass it any. And to be clear, we did pass a sale of city property ordinance which just stated we would go through a realtor that just brought us into agreement with the state. We didn't say how we take it to a realtor. That's what this policy is for. And that's that's a policy, not an ordinance. And we should also have councelor Sely here. So that will be a full board decision. Um so we just table K till April. That's good. So we are on for L discussion of cell cell tower lease.

Yeah. So um our current uh the current person who the current company that leases our cell tower is asking to have cell tower lease modified and I've had um interest from another company that might want to take an ement on the tower instead. Um at this point I don't have uh anything formal I'm asking you to act on. I guess I do want to I need to act I need to enter into negotiations and figure out what I think the best uh option is here. Um so I guess I don't know if I need an action here unless you want to officially approve that. But I didn't want to move forward on um talking companies and saying yeah go ahead and work things up. They'll have the elementary school.

Yeah. Um, I guess I'm I'm not going to destroy our negoti negotiations anybody saying our current lesson would like to reduce the amount of the lease and I believe the other company is willing to keep it more or less where it was, but I haven't gotten officially, you know, we're not in a commitment phase yet. So, um, and we own that tower or just the land.

We own the land and then currently it's leased and everything on the tower. We don't do anything else with that. We re we receive $550. Yeah, $550 a month or $500 a month, whatever between $6 and $8,000 this one. Um, I will say a potential part of the negotiation is to negotiate a lump sum for a perpetual leasement and I will be looking into that. Um, I have some reasons in the short term to potentially like the uh the possibility there. My my back of the envelope calculations show that if you take the lump sum, you get the opportunity of cost somewhere between 14 and 18 years. So, 18 years from now, someone might be mad at me, but we would have some money up front to get some stuff done. Um, I wouldn't I'd be bringing a final agreement to you, but I want I want to be able to start that negotiation. And if and honestly, if someone on the council would like to be part of that so that you know what I'm considering, but obviously I'm not sitting here putting all the terms out. I don't want to broadcast what is being offered.

So, you just want permission to negotiate if that's if you're just comfortable with that. and then I will bring forward uh the best proposal I think I can see. And again, if one of you would like to be in the loop on that, actually, I'd be more comfortable if one of you were in the loop on that. Billy, if that's all right with you or somebody else's particular interest in it, I don't have any problem involved. All right, we'll work with Billy. Yeah. Okay, that's all I need there. All right. 4M discussion of proposed amendments to rules and procedures of committees. This is Ron.

Um back in the summer I had when we had all the trouble with committees about who's where and who's getting added, which is why we changed. We added some of the have a letter of why you want there and that sort of stuff. I looked at the at the actual policy that we hold and there were some things that I can't find right now that I thought could have been added or changed. Yeah. Um somewhere in your packet it's colored the red like the policy initially or the we don't call it a policy. Yeah. policy. It said the city sets the following rules and procedures for the following. Then it listed out the committees, but then what do you do with the committees that are started afterward? So, one of the easy ones was that are not expressly defined in the city charter. Then if you look at the the ones to the right are the ones that are specifically mentioned in the charter. So that every committee that might come up, it would apply to them. There was no minimum for a committee. That's part of why the disability committee got disbarred because they only had two members. So, how do you get a quorum?

You either can't or you don't. So, minimum of three. Currently, it says 12. Is that too many? It feels like a lot. Just a suggestion.

Yeah. Um there is always a conversation about should there be specific set aides for residents of the city like should we have people from out of town. There are some committees we have people from out of town on them. Some committees it's appropriate. Do we address that in this policy or not? Um, residents seeking to join a committee should fill out a form or send in a letter of intent to the clerk of the council for consideration as to why was one of the things that we've already kind of added just unofficially. Yeah.

Um, three um when they're committed. Number three said, "Each committee shall establish a statement of purpose, which they were doing, but then they're setting their purpose, whereas sometimes that conflicts with the goals of the council. So, should the council be determining what they're doing and for how long?" You know, is this a committee to last forever and ever? Hallelujah. Amen. Or is it time? And then number four was just that their agreements would be would be in agreement with the participation policy which was passed after this was written. So those are some of the things that I was looking at adding or changing for the policy just to make it cleaner.

I think that cleans it up. Yeah, I read that. So, do you we all have copies of this? Are we Yeah, I've got you. Hey, but that's okay. You're fine. I was looking at Billy's. So, this document is entirely under your control. Um, it's your choice to what you want to change. I guess I'll say if you're interested, the only thing the city manager was interested in here was was the feeling that we know what the committee's purpose is so that we can do a better job of keeping track of who's doing what in the office and

the only one that's really a question is a residency thing. How do you deal with that when some committees is appropriate harbor committee there are people from Perry and whatnot surrounding areas a lot of people on that cuz not a lot of people in the east will have votes and I don't think harbor committee is on nope that's a non-charter committee it seems like in the past we've had some non-residents on committees and I I almost thought we changed the policy to no more than 2/3. Twothirds had to be local residents because of the harbor committee. There was two or three people from Perry on it.

The black is what the existing policy was, so I didn't see it in there. Well, the airport, too. Yeah, the airport, you know, the name of the airport's the big one that runs out. So, that could be a way that some would be allowed. Yeah, as as we have it posted 2019, as far as I know, last time this were modified, it does say of the city and we have not been compliant.

Those are just my thoughts. I think though when you have a uh somebody who's a non-resident you you've kind of specifically done that. So you're it's very clear that you're not following the right you just I mean clearly this there's no although the policy is supposed to guide you and obviously we continue to act in intentional contravention of your policy that would be bad but I don't think there was any well we start when a new committee is proposed we give them this policy to follow right and they have been following what was written so just want to be fair to everyone all around.

So you thought it said what 2/3 had to be residents of the Well, the the the one that quickly comes to mind and it was only a couple years ago was a resident of Perry, but a business owner in Eastport wanted to be on the budget committee. They're a taxpayer, but they're not a resident. So, it kind of throws a monkey wrench into it because you got a non-resident voting on taxpayer money,

but they're a taxpayer through business, so they do pay taxes in in a roundabout way. So, um, and it's it's I I guess at the time it's I I think some of the, um, I I for one would would not like to see a non-resident be on a budget committee in the city of Eastport. That's just me. A budget is part of the charter. I understand that. uh and

many is is is by charter that the uh its residents by charter. though I was about to say looking through some of these we would I the ones that are in the charter are we'll have to look at each of them to make sure but I I would say you know maybe we make it clear that these are that are not explicitly defined so don't worry about it these those are off

um so it's the ad hoc committees that you're creating and ad hoc committees are by their definition advisory and like I said there might be the airport's the best example right now that we we need the expertise of non-residents on that committee. That's the mechanism we've chosen to help us guide and I we couldn't do it without them. So, um I believe the recycling has a few red part members. Yes, they do. Yeah. Like they they only have a vote on that committee. They don't have a vote to do anything with tax dollars. I mean, they can spend this much money.

Yeah. Then they have to come to us. Well, I'll be if it's under $5,000 and it's it's within their mission and within their budget, I've been approving it. I mean, they only have a $3,000 budget anyways, but you know, they say we need we need this piece of equipment to do it there. It's within their budget. I approve it. Um, but yeah, they can't spend money on their own. No.

So, the only thing I might say is that as presented, we this isn't quite ready to vote. Right. Right. Um it's I I definitely think that some of the city committee ad hoc committees um and much like in Janet's situation right here now we should put a cap on it and I think 12 is too many and I agree with Janet it should be an odd number. So if we're going to do it, let's do it right. And if we think seven or nine, I think sometimes too many members, it becomes too encumbersome. That's just my personal opinion.

We sat in some meetings. We're like, do we have a quorum right now? Because we had we didn't even know Mark. So I I mean I that's just one for me. I I seven

I think seven would be a better number. uh voting members of that committee. But all these committees are open to the public. All of these committees are open to public input. Um many times I've gone to different meetings and I can't I can't count enough people there to vote on things. So if somebody wants to come and be a voting member, then they should be able to get on. But but I think it has to be capped. So, um I agree. 12 seems like a lot.

Yeah, that's a little excessive. Um I think they were just trying to fill the seats or whatever. I mean, I don't think you can get 12 in a meeting. Um I don't any of those committees that I've ever attended have never had I don't believe they've had 12 people there. So, But I definitely think that we can we should table this until the next meeting and at least have a chance to clean it up a little bit more. And um and I think one of the big ones that we have a couple things that I've seen since Brian's been on board with us is the committees are coming out with a purpose,

a set goal. This is what the committee's formed for. And the second thing is that they submit like Janet did tonight. She submitted a letter and and request and a reason why she would like to be on that committee. I think those are those are important things. I mean, I understand emails going to Eller and Hannah and different places, but it's still it needs to be in document form so that we can at least see and and I think those are beneficial things. I mean, I'm all for those. You might want to wait till May. We've got a lot going in April. I was going to say you're starting to fill up your April meeting a bit, but uh

only two weeks. How can we filled up? We need a few more things today. Okay. But I I think you're fine to table the next meeting, but let's we'll put this at the end of the agenda if we run out of time as given some of the other stuff I'd rather see done. But you're okay. what I was thinking.

Sure. Do you want to make a motion or do you want to just table that or give it a date or I don't know how how do we normally do this? I usually find just saying let's carry it to the next agenda. Yeah. If you're going to table something, you should have an a motion to reflect that. If there's simply no action, just don't table it and move it till the next meeting or instruct us to put it on the agenda. So that that's my end. We'll put it on the April. Okay. Yeah, we'll carry to the April. All right.

And we are on 4N mobile lunch unit discussion. Yeah. So, um, I'm Since I wrote up a bunch of stuff, I'm going to talk about it. This is just like the last one, though, only this one's worse. Um, this one needs a public.

Yeah. So, thank you to Rhonda who made a bunch of notes um on this, but she brought them to me and I said, I'll try to turn them into language. We have a number of issues here. The first one is as we have we've had this ordinance on the books since I've been here. Um I've not been enforcing it because it's um just been difficult to enforce. Um as written, you're supposed to both have got you you're supposed to have gotten a vict license first which requires a public hearing here and then a vote and then of course it requires notification of public hearing. And then once you've acquired that, then you can apply for the mobile vending unit ordinance uh license, which doesn't require a public hearing, but does require a vote from you. Um, and that's just been, you know, the first year I was here, I didn't know what was going on last year. You know, what happened last summer. There was no way I was going to deal with that. Um that in and of itself maybe isn't a problem except then um well first then we that except that for special events you're not required to have a vixelers license. Thank goodness but you are required to have one of these MVU licenses and we have never asked for that from any special event. Um u and some people believe that you didn't need one and that actually is true for the vendors and peddlers license for a special event. The that that ordinance says you don't need a license but this one says you do. Um so if we want to enforce this we're going to have to look look to do that. I believe it doesn't cost anything but um and so it might require I made I did add something in there but at present it doesn't cost anything a special event license and it wouldn't be impossible perhaps to ask event uh people running events to assemble a list of their food trucks and send them to us you know at least a month and a half in advance and that sort of thing and the question I

guess is that is is to what end what are you hoping to achieve Alan Skinner was in he had some very specific requests. Uh, one about being able to have an exception for working in an R2 zone. That begged to me that up another question because that he also suggested he wanted to be able to move from location to location. As written, this assumes you're going to be in one location that you're going to give information for. Finally, cruise ships. Um, cruise ships bring food trucks down. So, they're just a special event, but there are a lot of them. Um, the port director has expressed the opinion. I don't think it'll surprise anyone that he thinks they could handle all this by themselves without any of your intervention at all. And I I said I'm not sure the m municipality wants to give up that control.

At the same time, I don't think we want to be involved in um having to go through but if we're going to do a special events process, it needs to be for every special event process.

So, this is why I made a bunch of different proposals. Yes, you did. Um and because I did I figured I'd have to give you the options and separate them. one. I don't even think I printed out the simple one. The simple one was just taking bular licenses out. I don't remember what why that was in there. Oh, I should make it clear. I think it's clear the intent of the ordinance is to protect the brick and mortar restaurants that they own they own property. They're paying taxes. You don't want that to be cannibalized by a food truck. I don't know if anyone feels like we're at risk of that right now. And certainly, I don't think they're in special events or cruise ships. uh um the part of the ordinance that deals with kind of an everyday or regular food truck I think is mostly okay. Um it's just all these special things that we hadn't thought about. So one just took up the picture of the license requirement because I I thought maybe that was overkill. Um one is rather extended with respect to um special events and being able to move um in locations and that particular one. So that that's got you can see lots of changes in there, but it was me trying to cover all the obvious things uh that we could deal with. Um and one attempted to address balance issues.

So this I want to get back to that one. So you mentioned an R2 though that's like putting it in your in your driveway and selling it out of your house. That was a specific request. You can't sell it out of the house. Well, out of your trailer, but I mean that's in somebody's neighborhood. Uhhuh. And and to be to be clear, I'm not at this point I'm really not advocating I'm I'm still on the fence. I'm not advocating any of these, but since that got us talking, I thought it was at least fair to do that. But you're correct. Um and you know, I mean that's, you know, that would have to go to the zoning board. That would have to, you know, you might not have to go to the zoning board, but they would have an opinion. I'm sure. I'm sure they would. I'm sure the neighbors probably would, too.

Exactly. So, just leaving it there because it had been requested. I wrote wrote up language that would show what it might look like. You're the neighbor. I am the neighbor. I am the neighbor. But I'm just saying there's more neighbors than you. You may have issues with parking and what? That's what I'm saying. I mean, you know, that's a big request. I was trying to be a good guy with this one and be as helpful as I We can leave it at that. Yeah.

So, um, again, this is one of those things where it's not there. I mean, there are a couple of ways to go. is with all ordinances. Um, I don't generate language. You guys generate language and you have to pass a specific language that you want to amend an ordinance by because it has to go to notification and public hearing. Um, so I don't know how you guys want to go forward with this. My only request to city manager, I guess, is if if it is your intention, if your intent if your intention is not to change this, um, I'm going to call the Fourth of July committee, the pirate committee, everybody tomorrow. the fourth of July committee is very concerned already and tell them we have to we have to deal with this licensing.

Um and one option I didn't put out very mentioned before is you could of course if you one way of trying to deal with this would be go through and cut out everything you everything but the essential in this in other words maybe make less of an ordinance that you think in the long run but one that'll get us through this year. I wasn't going to tell you what that would look like, but I thought about that at one point. Say, no, what would be the next thing short of repealing it? Um, which would make all the problems go away, but arguably food trucks could show up anywhere in town or you wouldn't have a tool for asking to move on.

Well, you know, to me, you know, like a special event like the Fourth July cruise ship, you know, I can see that downtown. But, you know, to me, we've got to protect our restaurants and our taxpayers and our business people. I mean, these ones are coming in from out of town, except for this new one that do not pay taxes. And, you know, my deal is we got to keep care of these people that's keeping us afloat cuz Eastport didn't look very good downtown a few years ago. It looks pretty darn good right now.

I'm a man who's good at giving options. Another option is to reduce this to nothing but special events. In other words, to say they are prohibited except during special events and then put some controls on the special events. Just so you know who's coming in um or or do you know that that or so you have defined the special events? Well, the the reason I'm doing I'm doing this is that we I believe last year we made a kind of blanket cruise ship special event thing but the big ships. Yeah. The thing that's tricky with that of course is that those dates can sometimes shift. So there's some language in there to deal with that. But that's another approach. Say we don't do food trucks except during special events and here's how we handle them during special events. I'd be inclined to to support that.

I I would be willing as always to try to generate language, try to generate a version of that that reflected that. Um would you like to discuss this at the April meeting? This feels like workshop is needed more than we got to move on this. This we can't hold the 4th of July, right? Yeah. So, this feels more like a workshop than a meeting. Yeah. Just to get together at a table banging out. So, the end of the day though, we you know, it's we got to take a common sense approach to this, you know. We just we can't just let these anybody come in here anytime they want, you know. Has that been occurring? I don't know. No, I don't. I don't come downtown very

often. without naming names. There was one vendor who the first year I was here had gone through all the process to get their license. Um last year there was someone who was regularly here but had not gone through the process. They did no one was complaining. I didn't receive any issues about it and I was not in a position to enforce. I knew what was going on but I didn't deal with it then. But that's why it's important to me now because we can't just have it on the books and not not deal with it.

Yeah. But I think it's it's fair to have a workshop prior to trying to make any decision because um as the the port director did indicate he would like to be involved in that because um in the last two weeks there's been food trucks on the pier. So is that fair to somebody in town that would like to have one but we can't because we don't want to allow it. But yet the port authority is going to allow it all over theirs. And I

I I don't want to be one to stifle economic growth.

Um I uh I I know in the last couple years the Danny Sullivan had his pizza up here every Wednesday. Many people look forward to it. Um, so, uh, Danny's not a he's a local boy, but he's not a local taxpayer and he not a brick and mortar, but he was he had a set schedule and everybody knew that they could count on that place for that night. And um, and sometimes, not so much in the summer, but sometimes in the winter, you need outlets to have a extra place to go. you don't have just the same one, two, or three. Um, but I I certainly would encourage a workshop and I I think it would be beneficial to the the board to hear all sides. I I tend to agree with councelor Ring and I sympathize with councelor Stevens if they have it in a residential zone, but that isn't new yet. things I put in is

parking would be a big issue and and there's yeah there's a lot of issues there I think so I don't know what kind of a date we can come up with for a workshop well our meeting is April 8th do it April 1st uh trying to think what my schedule is Um, well, can't do it next Monday. The rest of the week is open for me. I think the first would in fact be the Wednesday be this time next week. That's the first I can do it. You want to do it on April Fool's?

Sure. What time? I I have something I've got to do by 4:00. Tuesday better night. But Tuesday be better for me. I think Tuesday good. 31st. Yeah. I think it's I think it's important we get it in before the 8th the meeting. So if we can take any action, we can take it on that 8th. Take a look. I don't think it matters. What day? Not that you necessarily even have to have it here, but I am able to make the April 1st. 31st. Wednesday. Wednesday. Yeah, I could do that Wednesday. I can do You can do the first. Yeah, I can do it Wednesday. Yeah, I it's Tuesday. I've got to go somewhere.

Uh so, so do we. So, Wednesday, we don't need Yeah, we we're not having any meet. We're not having any minutes or anything. It's a workshop, right? Yeah. We can we should still put out put out a notice so people first. Is that what you're looking at? Yeah. Right. We can get you don't need an agenda. We could just say workshop for the meeting. Um but don't take any um so the idea if you have a workshop you might even come up with something at the end but you don't necessarily take action until the 8th. Make the motion on the eth to amend or you could have a you could have a workshop with a single item agenda action on motor vehicle ordinance amendment.

We have we have time workshop and even go into a meeting to decide what you want to do. Yeah. Well, if we do that, it'll be two weeks. Yeah. You're not you're not you're not actually acting. You're you you're proposing the amendment. At that point, we have to go to public hearing notice and everything else. But for just the workshop and the initial motion, you could walk into any meeting and say, "I have an amendment and make a motion. You don't have to do anything special for that. It's after you make that motion." So, the first at 6:00, we'd like to be here six here or city hall. Do you want public? Um, the public may be interested and I know the port director will be interested. So, I'm sure he'll be happy to have us down here. Oh, he No. Yeah, he's Morgan.

We might want to check their schedule and make sure they don't have Well, let's say let's I think you should go ahead to schedule when you want to and Ella if you can. I can ask you to contact him tomorrow. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're going to be in Florida. Greg, I'm sure I'll get an earful before she leaves. So, next next Wednesday at 6 is a workshop and tenative motion if we decide we need one. Do we need a motion to go to workshop or just call it? Yeah, I I

make a motion to have a workshop on the mobile vending unit ordinance for April 1st at 6:00 p.m. I'll second that. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion hearing? None. Roll call, please. Sir, council Jana Cummings. Yes. Council Ray, yes. Councelor Stevens, yes. Councelor Bon, yes. That gives you an opportunity if J AJ's able to make this.

Item five, minutes of previous meetings, February 11th, 2026. I move to accept the minutes from the February meeting. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Dana Cummings. Yes. Council M. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Councilor Boon. Yes. Item six, city manager report.

All right. I got a number of things today. Um, first off, the Vaness grant generator for the sewer, that that um grant was officially approved this week. Um, the match on that is $47,000 and that's in my capital plan here. I just want to say that again because it's possible that that match changed and I can't find a motion acknowledging it from the council. This is a little bit like what happened with the sidewalk grant. You may recall I had to go hunting for when did we set this aside and everything else. But this wrote that grant two or three.

That's what I thought. Yeah, we went from a 10% to a 25% match. I just want to say out loud again, it's a it's a 25% match will be 47,000. It's a necessary generator upgrade out of finance. It's it's uh you know I I will say uh and we can talk about this. Well, I can talk that right now that match we do not have a sewer reserve. You may well we do but we created it last year.

So there's essentially nothing in it. So this will have to come out of general fund as a match. Um well not won't have to let me rephrase that. That I think is how we've done things in the past. It's certainly how middle street worked. Nobody I think acknowledged it at the time but the middle street work that was down the generator that came out of the we have not yet crossed the bridge on the sewer budget budget committee right now. So we can look into, you know, there is some there is some infrastructure money and there what not. There's not 47,000. So I will probably be coming back to you um at the next meeting or the meeting after to approve some portion of that to come from general funding. Um and we can if we have issues with that we can cross it at that point. So I just wanted to bring that up. Um I just wanted to talk about I had a request from Reed. You still here?

I'm still here sir. There you go. coming to me with some frequency asking if we could do anything to try to find a way to get him a acco vehicle on the cheap. Um, know anyone available, Reed?

Well, we have a couple of options. Um, the reason I wanted to bring this up, I um, you know, I have discretion up to a certain amount to go ahead and take action anyways, but I didn't want to do that. There are there's potentially one vehicle still out there and the county is putting a bunch of uh old vehicles out to bid right now as well. Um I'm inclined and the benefit with the I think all these vehicles they are set up for for the ACO. They've got a cage in them and everything else like that. So there and I I gather we have one in the past. I don't know how long ago were you ever working with when a working ACO vehicle?

Um I didn't work when we had a working ACO vehicle. Um, the vehicle that I use now was something that the uh, council graciously accepted a low bid on so I could purchase a former police cruiser, use a cage and that kind of stuff. I've been happily using that for three years, but that vehicle has now also fallen into disrepair. Okay. Um, last one we had was a pickup t that's Yeah, I think we finally got rid of that white one.

Yeah. So, I just I don't need an action on this unless um and I guess I'll talk with Creed here. For some reason, we think we're looking at an amount that might exceed my discretion. Um I will have to make a change. We already went through acco budget. Um we need to have a line for insurance and gas and whatnot. It won't be large, but it's going to increase that budget. Um but that will give him um well, you'll see if you look at we'll get to financial report in just a second. ACO is through the roof right now in part because you had to drive back and forth with that animal for yeah just three or four months alone I'm racking up a thousand miles

we're getting mileage right now so we would we wouldn't be paying that anymore we'd be trading that off for this other expense um and I think it's just better to have a safe vehicle and whatnot we don't have a lot of acco you don't need it till you need it exactly so I just because it's a a capital purchase I didn't want you to hear one day that the city manager bought a car and he didn't know why. So, we'll be looking into it and if it's going to be over my discretionary, we'll have to come back to you for that. Anything you wanted to add, Reed?

Um, I mean, as I was talking to you before, I know budgeting kind of interferes with things, but um, a municipal vehicle, I'm not even talking about just an ACO vehicle. This can be used by fire department, EMS, ACO. I would put a sip on it that did not go to the police department. Um, there are plenty of cruisers there. Um, they have their own expense line, that kind of stuff. Um, I don't want a vehicle that costs more than $5,000. Pleasant Point Police Department is willing to cut an excellent deal on one of their cruisers that is well equipped to handle the job. Um, if I were to depart tomorrow, um, when you try to recruit another animal control officer, um, hey, here's a job, get your own car, do your own thing, might make it difficult, um, having ACO is a state mandate, so that can put the city in a little bit of hot water if they don't have one. Um, it'll just set the position up a little bit better for two years down the road. Um, I I use my own car. I have to use my own car. Anything in town I do not get reimbured for mileage. Um, only outside of town I get reimbured for mileage. Um, I do quite a few trips back and forth to the courts. You got to go to Callus, see the clerk there, go down to CHIS, get the judge to sign your paperwork, come back to Callus, get it filed. There's all sorts of wild stuff going on. Our contracted shelter is up at Callus. Um, anytime I pick up an animal, I can bring him all the way to Callus. Um, if Perry is gracious enough to let me hold an animal in their facility overnight, that's just Barry. Um, but there's I never would have imagined there's that much driving, that much transport into the animal control business, which there is. Um, and then another thing I'm trying to make it multi-use, the municipal shellfish warden role. Um, that's another thing. I'm taking my own car. I'm trolling in town. If I'm in town, I'm not getting mileage reimbursement. um that kind of stuff is just

that's why I'm pitching the idea. Um one for my own these are the troubles I'm running into and two in the future if if these positions need to be filled that might be a uh a huge help. Um the car I'm after has air conditioning has cage and what I have now has a cage doesn't have air conditioning. Um there's just there's just been some problems in the past something cheap. I'm not talking going out and buying a $10,000 $15,000 car. I'm looking specifically for the Pleasant Point Police Cruiser that they're willing to do no more than $5,000. They've already agreed to get it serviced all all set and ready to go for us.

Not to throw a wrench in anything, but what's this cruiser that just sits up here in the portyard? Is this any good? Black police cruiser sits there right by see it every day. Yeah, we that that's our that's our if everything else needs work thing. It runs. Okay. Um it it has some transmission stuff, so we're not running it too hard right now. We're hoping we're hoping to I I'm not hoping to buy I'm hoping to skip next year on a cruiser. I've got uh my fisc year 28. No, I just think we could flip that to Reed if you you know.

Yeah. No, that still gives us some other back back uh backup right now. Um right. I mean, we're hoping we'll be in better shape, but you know, we had to run that hybrid one to Hampton twice this year. All the lights are off, so we think we're going to be good. But when we did that, we needed that to back up. All right. Um financial report, I distributed that to you there. It's it looks kind of like last last month except it's a little further through the year. Um the headline is 73.2% of the way through the year. Our expansion at 70.3. You know, I'd be half like 68. We'd be way under, but that's probably not realistic. Um the overages you see you've seen before. Admin is overdue to auditing legal and some building repair. We talked about acco just now. Debt insurance are slightly over. That's just budgeting rounding for me. We're going to get a little bit closer but over by 2% something like that. Um programs are way over because of the remodeling of the youth center. Um I think we're in good shape. Um, you know, I'm waiting to see. When I look at the pattern of expenditure just out of our general fund, it looks like a pretty straight smooth line for the rest of the year. We only got a quarter of the year left anyway, so we don't have that much space to get out of whack. But, um, yeah. Um, I

economic development. What do we

economic development that is almost fully expended that is mostly actually the contract to clean the bathrooms here. we pay Paula and that was that's an agreement that goes back many years with the Chamber of Commerce uh to do that. There's also um an ad which we're talking about right now typically been in the in a state of Maine publication the big tourism publication but they're reconsidering what they're doing there that's that's getting less uh stuff there but there's some money in there for that and um electrical fixes to electric infrastructure downtown. So, we had like for the the the street lamps, for all the holiday stuff, the the outlets up there were rusted out. And we don't actually have a line for that. So, I'm I'm bumping economic development this coming budget to make sure you have someplace to put it. Okay. Um I didn't print out your fund balance thing. Our fund balance is fine, though. You've seen that graph where it is. It's right where it was before. Even with us paying out the extra money to the county, I think we're in good shape. Um, our fiscal year 24 audit is essentially done. We were sent the final copy. I approved it. We just haven't printed the final final yet. Um, that shows us with a um unassigned balance of 1.18 million, which is which is good. Arguably almost too good. It's actually actually at the top of our um unassigned uh balance policy. Um I'll talk about that more when we get um more information together. But what that's going to enable us to do is potentially get some capital done because we had exhausted capital. C capital's in better shape than we thought because two years in me and the treasurer we had talked I believe I talked to like the last year we actually made a capital fund. Turns out we actually had one in there had like $100,000 in there but we it hadn't been we hadn't been doing activity on it so we didn't know it was an active fund. That's been audited and I think we're in pretty good shape. Um, I've sent you um, and I'm not going to ask for any I've sent you essentially a revised potential capital plan. I want

to talk with the auditors to make sure I'm reading everything right, but it is possible I will be coming to you in April or May asking to put the city hall roof out to bit. I when I look at our capital projects, that's when that just has to happen. I'm waiting for a day for wind like we had last week to come up and take a whole course right off and then we're going to have to do something

um, and maybe do something interior there. I've also put together the idea I think we can now you you authorized me to go to bid on a reval but we haven't gotten the bid package together yet but I'm planning to do that this coming month to see who responds. Um assuming that that's going to cost us $100,000 twice over two years. We should still have enough money for that. Um we're okay. We're not going to be, you know, we're not swimming. It's given how much stuff has been neglected and how cautious I've been about trying to spend money. I I think we're in pretty good shape. You should have from before the police report. That was just to the end of February. I just want to point out we covered 90% of our calls. So that's my primary tool for measuring the police department. That is staying on budget, which they also are. Um there were some other ones in there. Everyone's doing a pretty good job. I don't think there's anything I have to pull out on that. Uh and if I may, just I'd like to respond uh with respect to to legal. I've said this in in this meeting a couple times now. I'll say it again. We do not employ two lawyers. We have two lawyers who work for us. Um, so we only pay hourly. You know, it's not like any Well, Dennis is on retainer, but that essentially covers his time here. The other uh Drummond Mitchell is not on retainer. They only charge for the hours they work. And I obviously it's legal. I can't go into everything that we're working on, but I will point out, yes, we're having to un untangle foreclosures and purchase agreements, which are have been on there for years and are really a mess. There were questions about paper streets, um policies that we passed that really needed a legal eye on them to make sure they were okay. Our HR policy, which they haven't even gotten yet, but we're going to be getting on to that. Um that sort of thing. Uh FO request, uh public access, bunch of things, things that just haven't been taken care of. I our legal budget I believe for this year was $10,000

and we will exceed it this year. Not by a whole lot but we'll be within here but um there's a lot we had to go through and I believe I I have it's 9,000 9,000 and we will pro and I'm asking for 10,000 next year um to continue on with that. Will that get rid of your batch log? We'll see. We'll see how where we are with foreclosures at that point. That's a messy one. That's going to take a long time. Sounds expensive. Yeah.

So, but we're getting there. I mean, part of what's going on here is we are we were missing policies and you know, like our internal controls policy had never been reviewed or hadn't been reviewed since I was here and we made changes. It's just stuff that have been left sitting for so long. So, I can't tell you today that I I know everything that's on the backlog. Frankly, I'm still as I'm going through here learning it would be good to have. I, for example, have a liquor option policy that policy I'd like them to look at. Spend an hour looking at, you know, nothing. An hour will cost $225. That's what it cost to have a lawyer, but I want it to be done, right? So, we'll do what we can. I have no I do not enjoy signing legal bills. That makes it feel any better, but it's a necessary part of doing business. I believe I have covered SE grant match capital planning. I'll bring that up at the next meeting. That's it. Unless anyone has anything you want from me, that's it.

Thank you, Brian, for your report. Item seven, council leaison updates and issues. I just get back so I haven't got much good calling. I went to my first ambulance meeting but that's a whole lot of new learning. Yeah. Um we're very fortunate we have it. Yes. Our stipend will be rising but only by about 4% right now. It's better than I I thought we'd do. and uh I'll be getting my hands he's going to do all the voting, but I'm getting my hands into the numbers now on there. But right now, it's it's it's looking it's looking okay.

Can't help himself. Yeah. I think the the city is very fortunate to be able to retain that service cuz the alternative isn't looking good and a lot of municipalities don't have the luxury we have. So, well, there was some conversation about how the Down East Emergency System is going to be stretched. We're taking on They're taking on Cutler. They're talking about Devonville closing. So, they would have to pick up. I think Wayne Seal is going to retire. Yeah. No. Yeah. He's done that forever. Wow. We're very lucky.

Yeah. Well, everybody's here. Unfortunately, I missed both of my meetings. The airport I did not make. Uh I do know June 11th they're doing the Sky Hopes benefit dinner at the Waco. June 20th is the airport days. I suppose um the seniors I didn't get out there. I do know we still have some flooding issues. Um hopefully we're going to be able to get those addressed and taken care of for long because the pool table group has been voted in, but they don't want to put the table in the basement. All

the water's coming in. So, we're hoping to get that taken care of, but it's getting a lot more use and it's a lot more community involvement out there. So, I'm pleased with that. So, and other than that, um I I've been watching the budget hearings and budget meetings. I did go to one um but AJ's that's his kind of his meetings. Um uh it's I like all of you are taxpayers. Um we all need to be concerned with what's happening with our tax dollars. Um, so I I do try to stay a breast of it and hopefully we can get through this without being too painful this year. Uh, any increase is painful. Um, I heard today fuel oil is 580 a gallon. Talk about painful.

Wow. Yeah. Garbage oil essentially. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, I guess I will um entertain a motion to go into item eight, executive session. Is it possible to ask a question, but I couldn't ask a poll because I didn't know at the beginning for the public forum? You could ask a question. Sure, I'll allow it. Okay. Yes. Now under uh pro uh rules and procedures of committees is it normal procedure for a committee committee members to decide who can and cannot join? No they don't make the decision the council does.

Okay. As you know I sent a letter. Yes. And I had previous experience and I put that in my letter. Yes. It sounded to me like what council Morang said was that the current members had decided they didn't need me. They didn't say no they didn't need you. No they didn't need any more voting members. But how that's not a normal procedure for committees to do that when it isn't up it isn't it isn't up to the committee. It's up to the council. It is part of the liaison's job to listen to the concerns of the committee.

I I get that. But like all the other committee, this is the first time I've ever heard of this happening on a committee. Like when someone asks to join if it's not 12, you know, over 12, this you know, do you know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying, but it's like I I feel if if we allow one and 10 more come in tomorrow, we got to allow all 10 because we just set that precedence. Yes. You have a policy and procedure right now that allows 12. Now, I'm I mine my my request made seven. You they allowed they had five. They allowed uh I can't remember his first name, but last name was Weston. I read that he was added in Karen.

Yes. I don't think Karen was after the fact. I think he came in a month after the I looked he was at the first he was at the first meeting. He I could look later. He was. So they allowed one other person to come in later after the fact and I'm only one other person which would bring the total to seven, not over 12. Well, we haven't decided whether or not we're going to take anymore. the next meeting you may be the one that take but I but I I hope you see our side too Jana we don't want it to get too overloaded and seven isn't going to make it overload no I agree with you

so at the next meeting hopefully we'll have some more clarification on it and we may not even need the committee if that survey comes through we don't need the committee it may it may be I haven't been to any of those so I had no idea kind of I I don't have any idea. I think I I think I get it really well. So, but thank you for your interest and I hope that we can get you on there and it will work out. But you still can go to those meetings. Don't stop going just cuz you're not on the committee. It's open to the public. I haven't seen them posted though. Are they Where do you post them? high delta. They get posted on the website and they get posted uh they should be posted at city hall in the front hall.

Okay. Um the two banks, the IG and the post office. Post office. Yeah. The the statutory requirement is 48 hours notice. Um and I don't believe they have a meeting scheduled at present. No, there's nothing till the survey. Uh if you'd like, this might be a good thing. We have a new website up. You should be able if you create an account on that website, you should be able to request getting notifications about things like this. I honestly don't know how it works, but I'm just putting it out there as maybe this is a good chance to experiment with it. Um, we haven't had it, you know, we're doing the best we can, but yeah. Okay. Very good, Cecil.

Um, so I can go and not come back. Uh the reason I'm here is on the last uh school board meeting, I volunteered to be on the the building committee like to get a a unified estimate of repairs for the schools and Paul was in that. I thought maybe he'd be down here. That was on the agenda. I wanted to know what I signed up for, if anything. Nothing here. Nothing here. That's a school. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Wait, I'll I'll catch Paul. He's ahead of it. I know that. Yeah, I don't I don't even know that. I'm sorry.

Okay, but sorry, Cecil. All right. Do I have a motion? 7:32. I move to go into executive session for personal matters, title 1, MRSA 4056A, and consultation with legal counsel, title 1, MRSA 4056. I'll second that. Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Sarah, yes. Steven,

yes. Yes. I'll entertain a motion to come out of executive session. 805. I make the motion to come out of executive session. I'll second that. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion hearing? None. Roll call, please. Sarah. Councelor Dana Cummings. Yes. Council Ray. Yes. Councelor Stevens. Yes. Councelor Boon. Yes. We're on item 10. There is no action. No. Item item nine. Action from executive session if there is any. No.

Hearing none. Now we're on item 10. 806. I move to adjourn. Seconded. Seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Sarah. Counc. Yes. Counc. Yes. Council Stevens. Yes. Counc. Yes. Wow.