City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order please. Item two is adjustments to the agenda. I would like to make a recommendation that we move item five up to 2A so that we can schedule those public hearings. If the council has any suggestions or motion, it would be great.

Just on that one?

That's all I have. All I think.

I have a couple of minor ones, but why don't you move that one first? Okay.

I motion to move item 5 to item 2A, the public hearings.

Seconded.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone?

Yes. I'd like to add a 7J. I'm looking for approval for two Department of Justice COPS grants, and I'll get into the details of that in the item. COPS, C-O-P-S, all count on it.

Do I have a motion to that effect?

Make that motion to add the approval of DOJ COPS grant to item 7J.

To be clear, approval for F to apply for. Just make sure we're not accepting any funds at this point.

Approval to apply for the DOJ COPS grant. Yes.

Billy, we're having trouble hearing in the back. If you could either turn up the mics or speak a little bit more loudly, we would appreciate it.

We will try.

Do I have a second on the motion? I'll second it. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Wright? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone? Yes.

Any further adjustments to the agenda? Seeing none, before I go into item three, I'd like to publicly thank Councillor Ray for coming aboard. She is duly sworn. She is sitting here tonight with us.

You might be sorry.

No, I don't think so. All right, we are on item three, public open forum. Please keep them brief. 2A, yes, you're right. Jeez, everybody, calm down. All right. Well, five, I guess. Scheduling of public hearings. to a, I guess subsection A, from petitioner's committee, reference proposed ordinance prohibiting large-scale data centers. Do we want to do them both? I would think that we should, because they're both under the same public hearings at the same time.

The question is, what day do we want to schedule them? Do we want to schedule it on a council meeting, or do we want to do it on a special day?

for a special day, separate from a regular meeting?

Or you want to do both at the same day?

Yes, but whichever one we're scheduling. August 5th?

Yeah, so the ordinance requires that the public hearing be published in the newspaper in the city. The 24th of July will be the date we target for publication. It has to be done no fewer than at least 10 days afterwards, which to me is August 3rd, which is a Monday. The regular meeting will be August 12th, which is a Wednesday.

So you want to keep it on a Wednesday? Is that what I'm hearing? I prefer to. What are your thoughts? I don't care. There's Monday the 3rd, Tuesday the 4th, Wednesday the 5th. I'm free.

Wednesday the 5th.

I make a motion to schedule the public hearings for the proposed ordinance prohibiting large-scale data centers and the proposed ordinance requiring voter approval for ceremonial and industrial. Commercial. Commercial, sorry. For August 5th, Wednesday, August 5th at 6 p.m.

I believe we have the board director here. Do you know if this venue is available?

Chris, he wanted to know if the venue here was available on August 5th.

If you don't know, we'll just verify tomorrow. We'll have to verify it tomorrow, but I have to check the schedule.

I don't know the answer to that question. Presumably, at the Port Authority, if that becomes a problem, we'll have to negotiate it. Okay.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Good evening, Dennis.

Hearing no other discussion, roll call please, Sarah.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Now we can do three, public open forum. Please, if you're going to speak, please come to the podium and state your name, please, for the captioner. Yes. Thank you.

My name is Jeannie Pegram. I live at 144 County Road. I have a couple of questions that I wanted to pose to City Council. Everybody's obviously very concerned about the taxes. Can you speak more into the mic? The taxes, the taxes. You have to talk.

Let me just make sure it works, though. That's right.

I had a couple of questions and one because everybody is so concerned about taxes. I wanted to know if the Tides Institute because of the numerous properties that they have within the city limits are involved in the pilot program where it's a payment non-exempt organizations?

To me, that would be a question for the tax assessor. I don't have the tax information on the Tides Institute. I don't. I'm sorry.

Thank you. Brian, would you be willing to follow up on that? Oh, absolutely. Secondly, I wanted to know if the fiasco at the airport has been resolved and the hangar owners are all set with their agreements with the city.

I will be discussing that later this evening under council liaison updates. Yes.

Great. And my third one was that I would like to look at reinstituting the disability committee because We are grossly out of ADA compliance and we are violating federal law every day and we are subject to huge fines If it comes to light, I know that in the past there have been people who volunteered to write grants or to help with the grant writing, and that would support a lot of financial changes to our existing infrastructure. So I just wanted to put that out there because I think we need to do that. I think we cannot continue to brush it aside.

I would agree. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

This is available on the 6th.

Hi, Joshua Middleton, Eastport resident. I have a question regarding the data center not connected to group additions. And that question is that in their application for the data center company, Deep Green, claimed to have community benefit agreements and ongoing contact with eSport and SEPIAC. The government of SEPIAC filed a challenge with FERC regarding this claim, which was false, and eBrain was forced to amend their application based on that. And my question is, since eSport, as far as we know, has no community benefit agreement or any other ongoing connection with eBringing, why have we not filed a challenge with FERC to force them to amend the parts of their application that refer to arrangements with eSport? I was going to discuss this under state management decisions.

So you'll be brought up under city manager's reports, I guess. I'm sorry, Josh, I don't know the answer to that. Thank you.

My name is Christine Mazzarando, and I just wanted to put on record about 144 Water Street, 8 Capon Avenue, and 14 Capon Avenue. Moving forward, I would like more transparency, clearer communication, and more follow-through. Brian and I have been talking this week. We have a lot of uninvited guests, and I would really like to stop following the code ordinance on that street.

Okay. Stop following the code?

Stop. Stop following. It's not just the bottom layer. And Brian and I, I don't want to go into detail what's going on here. I have my private stuff. It's not private. But we really need to stop following the ordinance on the street.

Okay.

And I just want clearer communication. Okay?

Very well. Thank you, Chris. Further comments from the public?

Hi, I'm . I'm an Eastport resident. I'm also part of the Commissioner's Committee to ban the AI Data Center. Firstly, I want to say that I'm glad you scheduled a public hearing. I hope during that public hearing that you add the proposed ordinances to the no member ballot without amending them. Do not weaken the language. Do not amend them in a way that will allow a data center to come and build here without voter approval. The charter allows you to do that. I think that's a ridiculous thing in our charter that lets us get petitions, get it on the ballot, and vote for it. And the charter allows the city council to amend the language before we have a vote on it. I think that's absolutely absurd. But I urge you, add it to the ballot the way that it is. This is what the people wanted. This is what the people signed for. Secondly, I want to talk about the cruises. Last year, the Quaddie Tides reported, quote, the East Port Port Authority is considering a dredging project off the breakwater in order to allow larger cruise ships to tie up the pier. And in May of this year, Chris Gardner told the main monitor, quote, Cruise ship companies like Holland America are looking at changing the ports they visit in Maine, driven by the restrictions Bar Harbor imposed. He said, quote, the changes in Bar Harbor are making Eastport that much more attractive to cruise companies. It's a tremendous opportunity if we do this right. These aren't the sentiments of somebody who wants to protect Eastport from becoming another Bar Harbor. If Gardner promises that he won't make Eastport a cruise town, why hasn't the Port Authority made a policy capping cruise sizes the way that Bar Harbor has? The city council president and the city manager both sit on the Port Authority board. Last year, both of them made public promises multiple times to negotiate a portion of the $10 per passenger fee that the Port Authority collects. They haven't done that. Last meeting, I asked why. Billy, your answer was, I can't do that because I sit on both boards. It should be a conflict of interest for our city leaders to sit on the board authority board if they aren't going to negotiate on paper.

Thanks. Thank you very much.

This is just a follow-up to Jeannie's comments. Laura. I'm Laura Stancic, sorry. Thank you. And several years ago, Billy, you may remember, I don't think anybody else on council was on council then, there were a group of us that volunteered to create a grant writing committee. And on there, there were three or four people who had spent their lives writing grants. At the time... It was deemed unnecessary. And I just want to put forward that if something like that could help the city and a staff that I know is already overtaxed, I know there are a group of us who would be very happy to give our time to that to bring dollars to Eastport for projects like infrastructure projects that we desperately need. So if that's of interest, let me know. I'll put my energy there.

Thank you very much, Laura. Thank you. Further comments from the audience?

I just wanted to give information to people including council. There is an organization that was started by Governor Mills for the main data center advisory council. I have the information here if anybody would like to snap it, put it in their phone, These people will be regulating for the state on these data centers. You can go to their meetings. You can become part of their newsletters. All their information is here. I will leave it here for you people if you want to, like I said, photocopy it. But I think the council should also look at this because these are the people that are going to be writing the laws for these data centers. You are the people who are going to be incorporating them in your town hall appearances. Back to the woman who just spoke in regards to your own charter. You people voted your council in. They had the option to implement a moratorium anytime they want.

It's right here in your town charter. It is.

Why didn't they do this for you? That's my question. Thank you.

Further comments from the audience?

It's not too soon to be pushing back the AI data center. Waiting until permits are issued would be too late. So the people that have that opinion, really it's a useless opinion. The people of Eastport have signed petitions against the Dev Center. Anyone at City Hall or City Council not willing to put this up for vote is publicly denying the voice and rights of the residents of Eastport. I urge you to add in the policies to the November ballot today without another delay. had another delay, had another meeting, another meeting. She could do it today. We could have done it yesterday. We could have done it May 13th. We could have done it in June. Anyway, I do have one question. Has anyone on the city council or the city manager signed a nondisclosure agreement with any company associated with the proposed AI data center in Eastport? Has anyone at the Port Authority signed an NDA for the data center? pertains to the fact that no one from the city council nor the city manager signed their name and their title to the no support letter sent to Mr. Wolfson. The letter was signed by the city clerk on behalf of the council. No individual name from the city council, no individual title of support. No one on the city council is challenging this. The city manager is dragging his feet and saying it's too soon and we can't afford it, and that's not helpful because the people here are telling you otherwise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I've got one last one. Anybody want it?

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's good to see you all here again tonight. I want to speak to two different items that are on the agenda tonight. First, the data center, and I don't need to go into why I oppose it. I think you all know I've been very vocal on the news, in the newspaper, and to you personally. My urge is that you either pass it, as was stated by Bernie, as it is now, or You act very spontaneously and judiciously, expeditiously, so it can get on the November ballot. That's my ask there. Secondly, I wanted to speak to the cruise ship situation. What I want to speak to is about the fiscal responsibility. protecting our municipal budget, and learning from the challenges of other coastal Maine communities as cruise ship traffic scales up. With larger vessels on the horizon, our municipal services, including our roads, which are in disrepair, emergency responders, sidewalks, which you know what shape they're in, downtown utilities, they all face significant increased wear and tear. I want to acknowledge that maintaining our port infrastructure is essential. I know that. And I recognize that the Port Authority carries significant costs in maintaining our waterfront infrastructure. And there are two separate budgets that aren't speaking to each other at all, and can't at the moment. like to say at the same time is that the city and its taxpayers also absorb added expenses connected support activity and I believe and I may be wrong but that includes police coverage during the ships visits traffic management and increased demands on public works and potentially our emergency services as we look at cruise ship activity and other port operations what revenue opportunities exist for the city itself. If there are fees, leases, or service reimbursements that could help offset municipal costs, those should be explored. Right now, it's my understanding that the Port Authority charges cruise ships berthing fees, for-fridge fees, and passenger fees. but it's also my understanding that none of that revenue comes to the city. Is that correct?

I'm prepared to address all of this when we're on the item.

Okay. Given the added burden on municipal departments, I think it's reasonable to ask a few questions so we can better understand the financial relationship. I certainly don't understand it. and explore options that could help reduce tax burdens on residents. For example, the Eastport Port Authority collects a $10 per passenger tariff. However, because of our historic $0 lease, exactly 0% of that money flows into the city's general fund to reduce our property taxes. Can the city establish its own municipal fee or surcharge on cruise ship arrivals? Is the city legally able to amend the current zero dollar lease agreement of city owned property and collect a payment in lieu of taxes to help offset municipal costs? When the cruise ships are in port, does the city need to provide additional police, public work staffing, and if so, who pays for it? Are there opportunities for service reimbursement agreements so the city is not subsidizing port activity with taxpayer dollars? I recognize that the municipality itself must be directly compensated For example, the city of Portland currently charges a combined passenger and infrastructure fee of $21 per passenger, which will soon scale up to $31. That's a big boost from our tent. So maybe we could have some type of agreement where we boost ours and the city gets and community scale. In Bar Harbor, the sheer volume of thousands of daily passengers overwhelmed local infrastructure to the point where the citizens fought a multi-year legal battle to pass a strict 1,000 passenger daily disembarkment limit. Bar Harbor's experience proved that without quickly become congested shifting the financial and social burden entirely onto local taxpayers is the port authority considering limiting the number of ships per season visit the ship size passenger department coming into Eastport in summary while the port authority serves as an excellent purpose economic engine for maintaining port infrastructure and local businesses, the taxpayers of Eastport cannot absorb 100% of the municipal upkeep and congestion costs while receiving 0% of the direct docking revenue. I believe it's reasonable to explore options that would allow the city to gain some revenue from port operations, whether through areas that I mentioned before, to help off some of the costs to taxpayers. My goal is simply to ensure that Eastport residents receive a fair financial benefit from the activity happening on our waterfront, while still supporting a strong and functional port. Therefore, I urge this council to explore real revenue and protective options before our infrastructure is overwhelmed.

That's going to conclude public forum. In the past, I've asked that the comments are limited to two minutes. I think we're stretching it a little. I certainly do not want to go to a stopped clock. We need to hear from you people. We need to listen to you people. But we've got to keep it somewhat under control. That's all I'm asking. So we are going to move on to item four, please.

Mr. Council President, for the record, there were some written comments submitted. I just want to say that if that's there, we'll make that part of the written record.

Okay. Item four, informational update to cruise ship matters. Our port director is here, Chris. Thank you.

No, it's all right. I talked to you a lot. Yeah, but it doesn't make it over. No, and I'll hold the mic. I don't mind holding the mic. Clearly, you've never seen him work. Easy for me to do. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bruce Gardner. I am the executive director of the Eastport Port Authority. I've been the executive director of the Port Authority now for going over 20 years. And I'm glad to be here this evening to address some of the issues. I think it's only fitting that I follow what you just brought because you've raised some great questions. And I obviously yield to the council at any time if you want more directed questions, by all means, or I can kind of try to address what was just brought up if that's more fitting. I certainly want to be definitely.

It's your request, Chris. Informational update on cruise ship matters. I'm going to leave it up to you.

Two minutes.

That's not public forum. This is an agenda item. No, he's not. He's an agenda item.

I want to start by, number one, apologizing to this group and to those who have questions within the community. And here's why. These are not questions that have not been raised before. They have been here 20 years. It's a failing on my behalf to remind myself that even though I think these questions have been answered, the reality is there's new people moving to Eastport every day. And they have questions. And we have to make sure that periodically we're doing our best to update them. So I want to start by saying that I think there's some confusion on how the Port Authority works. I don't want to generalize, but I've heard different things within the community, like there was some amorphic thing that just kind of hangs out on the edge. And it's not uncommon or unreasonable for people to be confused, because we are one of one in the entire state of man. There's nothing else like us. So it wouldn't be reasonable for people to say, well, that's a pretty common thing. So your questions are very reasonable. And what it is is in 1977, the Port Authority was created. For a little bit of historical background, it was on the heels of the then modern day, if you will, AI center in the fact that it was the Pittston Oil Company back in the 70s that wanted to come to Eastport. There's a very famous Salt Magazine article that if you wanted to read it, it details it. And it split this community in half. At the time, e-sport was in an economic downturn, and some thought that that would be an aimless. And some people didn't think it would fit e-sport. It was a 51-49 type vote. And Pitt's Oil Company didn't come to town. At that time, those who lost, if you will, the 49ers, they said, if not this, then what? The economics of e-sport had long come from the ocean, The oil refinery was looking back in the same direction as from the ocean. But if it's not going to be that, then what is it going to be? And that is why in 1977, and I can provide people with copies of this if they would like, then Senator Harry Vos, at the behest of the people of this community, introduced a bill to create the Eastport Port Authority. And the unique part of that is, and I'm going to overly generalize here, and this has been part of the confusion. What it did is it bifurcated the responsibilities, the public responsibilities of this community, into two very unique boulders. Again, it's an overgeneralization. City council, matters of the land. Port authority, matters of the water. And that law was enshrined. The people of Eastport voted on it, and they accepted it, and that is what they wanted. And in 1977, the Eastport Port Authority was created. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, the Port Authority is not something you don't own. It is your city. It's just the water hat. And many of the questions you have, extremely valid questions, right questions, Wrong meeting. The Port Authority Board, you elect them just like you elect your city councilors. Four are elected at large. The city manager and the city council president, by virtue of their office, have an automatic seat on the board. Why? Because in its founding, they recognize that there is a unique relationship here. And that council, by virtue of its existence, should have a way to vote. So they do. So 4 plus 2 makes 6. And eventually, after some iterations and changes, the Maine Department of Transportation, the state of Maine, because we're very much part of the overall transportation infrastructure system in the state, said, you know what? We ought to have a state too. So the state of Maine puts a person on that board to represent the state cities. 4 plus 2 plus 1 makes 7. That is the seven board members that oversee the Esports Board of Trustees. And with that, our meetings are the third Monday every month in this building. I would love to see turnout of this size, but it doesn't. It doesn't happen.

You don't post it. It's not posted on the city website.

Stop for a second if I can. You keep confusing that it's not posted on the city website. We are not necessarily there under the city. It's city-port authority. They're equals in its own sense. There is some unique relations, hence the weighted vote. And I'm going to have to over-generalize here a little bit to get to the questions. But we do post. It's not a matter of if it's not posted by the city, big C, it doesn't happen.

Where do you post it?

We post it at multiple public locations, the bank, the IGA, City Hall. We do physical postings.

It's not on your website or on your Facebook.

And if it needs to be, it will. And we can go back and forth. And we want to hear about that, but this is not the place to hear about that.

It's to go to our court authority for you.

That's the place to do that. The problem, the frustration has been, you've been coming to these meetings, airing grievances, getting no response, or you think you should be getting the runaround, when the fact of the matter is, you're just in the wrong spot. Those four publicly elected members, these two gentlemen as part of that board, they are the ones that dictate and govern what the Port Authority does. Now, what is it that the Port Authority does? To your point. We are charged with the physical infrastructure of this city. Public infrastructure. Your infrastructure. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to make just the payments on this. Hundreds of thousands of dollars that you do not see anywhere in your tax code. You own it, but you don't have to pay for it with your property taxes. And speaking of property taxes, the Port Authority, by design, we pay, even though we're publicly owned, by virtue of our charter, we pay property taxes ourselves. So we are already giving contributions in cash, if you will, to the city. Next year, with changes to the Coast Guard station, which we own, and we're advocating for more money out of the federal government to give to the city, The Port Authority will make payments in the neighborhood of $90,000 a year to the city. That's what our numbers will be. This is for around $65,000 to $70,000 in real cash that is paid. So when you say, well, the Port Authority ought to be giving the city money, we are. We are. And then, I appreciate, we'll have plenty of chances to go back and forth. But also, we're not very good at times at, probably speaking, all that we do. So I generated a little list. Over the years, the Port Authority has purchased, direct purchased and gifted to the city, police cruisers, equipment for the police department. We rebuilt the boiler system at the high school. Our staff, Richard Clark at the time, did all of that work at no cost to the city. We provide our buses to the school department at no cost to the school department. We have done road repairs on roads we don't own. All of this that we paved out front is a city street. We recognize, to your point, there's a lot of foot driving on that. So we paid to fix it, because that is the entrance to our busiest facility. Our other busy facility on the back side of the island, we paid to buy all the land necessary to build a new port road into the Estes Head facility. Why? To take the truck traffic out of the residential area. And then what did we do? We've got the old county road that used to go. We had that fixed, brought up to a new standard at zero cost to the city. And quote, unquote, abandoning that route as our own, we brought it to a standard and walked away. Multiple donations. You may have seen my little tricycle around town watering the flowers for the Garden Club, what we did for the Fourth of July, Pirate Festival, PALS, the airport. All of them will tell you that the Port Authority is writing checks all the time to these community things. We don't say it enough, and that's on us. We help the city snowplow during snowstorms. Our people, our equipment.

But they're your people.

It's your equipment. That's keeping snowplow costs down because the city doesn't have to hire more people. They don't have to buy more equipment. We're doing that. We rebuilt the breakwater. When the breakwater collapsed, that was owned by the city proper, big city. They owned it. They were only giving us a lease agreement so we could operate on it. The city budget couldn't afford to fix it.

That's why it fell into the ocean.

We stepped up and were the ones who took care of getting it rebuilt. Now, did we get federal and state money to rebuild it? Absolutely. But it took millions of dollars of local match in order to leverage that. That did not come from your tax dollars. Not your property tax dollars. It came from court operations. And to show you the issue of how bad it was, the morning of the collapse at 2.17, I spoke to the city manager at the time, which wasn't Brian, and I said, you know, battle stations, trying to figure this out. We need your insurance company to figure out what we're going to pay for for liability and property loss and all of that. Jeez, Chris, we canceled that eight weeks ago because we didn't have any money. So the court authorities had no help from the city's insurance interest, and we had to do that alone. At the same time, the city council then said, see that pier down the street, the fish pier? Would you like to take that one off us too? Because we don't have the money. The taxpayer, the property tax can't afford it. Can your operations do it? And we said, don't know. We'll try. We took it over. The very first year, we had to put $147,000 into just getting that to a point that we wouldn't have to worry about somebody getting hurt. Fishermen could use it, and we didn't have to worry about weed collectively as a community being sued. Public restrooms. This very building that you're in, the city was clamoring for public restrooms, but the property taxes couldn't afford it. So the Port Authority, through our operations, we built this building and built those bathrooms. This very building that the city council sits in has its meaning in it because the city otherwise doesn't have a suitable enough building. It's being done in this building at zero cost. I charge the general public, just to cover the little bit of maintenance or cleaning, $50 a whack if you want to come in here and have a birthday party. Right? $50. Not an old fee. So much was chatted about the $2,600 that we paid. The city should charge the $4,600 of the extra police coverage for cruise ships.

Police coverage we didn't ask for, by the way.

We paid for our own security personnel down here. We wrote that check because we didn't want to fight. But that same year, city personnel, city meetings, city committees, city council met 57 times in our building. If I charge the taxpayer the same thing that I charge the member of the general public, rip up that PD check and send us one for $200 and we'll call it even. But I didn't charge anything for that. We didn't charge anything for that. The people own this business. They own this building. We put in an ATM. We pay for the water bodies in the community. And we pay for all of this because what's also lost, ladies and gentlemen, is we are a fishing community. There are 65 different private businesses down there that rely on us. There is no other facility in a thousand miles on this coastline that mimics that. They pay a fee for it. When I opened the Port Authority back up in 2017, after its rebuild, we set the fees on it. Due to the fact that we, all of us, have been able to bring in cruise ships and other things to help pay offset localized costs, every one of those fishermen down there have not seen a rate increase in 10 years. You ask any one of those fishermen if there's any other part of their business model that hasn't damn near bankrupted them over the past 10 years. But it hasn't been us, because we have found a way to allow cruise ships to help offset the working fisherman costs in this community, which is vital to this community. Transient boating space. Businesses in this town rely upon that connection through the summer. The only people that maintain that infrastructure is us. And you know what we get for a day visitor coming in that want to go to the WACO or Race Buster or anywhere else? Zero dollars. We get nothing for that. But we do it because it's a service to the community. We've rebuilt the boat ramp out here. We don't own it. C Street that goes down by the WACO. For those who have been around, you remember when that street was falling into the ocean. The Port Authority provided all the material that it took to secure that street. All the riprap, all the rock, all the fill. And we provided that to the city, Big C, at zero cost. Why? Because we're all owned by the city, Small C. We're all in this together. Let's see. On the school district. We've repaired fences, we've put up scoreboards, we've used scholarships, we've done movie nights downtown, we've invested money in the library. In 2003, the Coast Guard station was built. If the poor authority had not stepped up, assumed that build at about a couple of a million dollars, and strapped on that bridge, ladies and gentlemen, the United States Coast Guard today would not be in Eastport. The federal government had announced their departure because they didn't have the infrastructure suitable, being on the third or fourth, whatever that floor is, or the third floor of the post office. The Port Authority stepped up, and we built that. And next year, that building is going to provide $50,000 a year in direct revenue to the city. $50,000. The Bowie Christmas lights.

Oh, the Washington Street parking lot.

The parking lot up here that the city owns, that also goes down to Moose Island Marine, that was purchased by the Port Authority. Because at the time, I'll admit, I thought, was it done by me? But it was done just before I came in, and I looked into it, and I thought it was a hell of a thing. Because that was purchased under the auspices of the Port Authority saying, we need it for a cruise ship parking. I've never seen anybody bring a car on a cruise ship.

But that's what they said.

And they used our funds and our ability to buy it. Obviously, that made no sense. It was needed because it needed to be a city parking lot. So what did we do? We said, fine. We'll give it to the city. The city said, oh, don't do that. Because we're going to lose the tax revenue on it. If you give it back to us, we don't get to pay taxes for it. I said, fine. Take it back, develop it as the city sees fit, and until you sell it to somebody else, or if you do anything else with it, the Port Authority will still pay property taxes on it. Even though we don't own it. The house was part of that. The city sold the house off. When I found out, I said, oh, great, we're going to lower our tax bill a little bit. The then city manager, again, not Brian, I've seen a baker's dozen of city managers since I've been here. They came to me and said, yeah, well, we sold this guy a house for a song, and one of the deals was we told him that he didn't have to pay taxes on it for the next year or so. Why? We said you'd keep paying him while he was rehabbing. So not only are we paying property taxes on a piece of property that we don't own, the city didn't even own. But the city asked us to do it, and we did. Oh, let's see. This sewer pump you see out here, that sewer pump is one of, is it five? That's close enough. Five or so major sewer pumps in this city. When that fails, it's the lowest point in the city. messy situation. When we built this facility, when we built this facility, we told the city, you know what? Put that sewer pump on our light bill. And it's incorporated into the port's light bill. The city doesn't pay the light bill on that sewer pump. And why is that important? Because I have a generator back up for this building. So when the power goes out, you as taxpayers, then the city hall, have one less thing to worry about. Because our generator, your generator, our little c, generator, takes care of that. And again, its maintenance, its cost, its upkeep, $0 on your sewer account. $0. And as being a generator, Seth, please.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask Chris a question?

Yes, you may.

Thank you. Chris, I think you've done a pretty good job explaining the value of the port and the improvement. to our taxes situation. One question I heard raised from the audience during public forum was about the cruise ships, and could you tell, could you share with people your policy on one cruise ship?

Great question. And I was quoted, and it's very important you listen to the words, and those words are important. It said it would allow the Port Authority to dock bigger ships in Eastport, not bring them. Dock them. On Sunday, you'll see a Holland America ship that has about 1,700 people on it, 900 feet long, will be docked in the bay. Because here, we can only take up to 800 feet. As a result, we want to expand the berth just to be able to tie them up. And we'll, geez, Chris, if you expand the berth and tie them up, are you going to put another one in the bay? No. Because we are self-limiting. It is a stated policy, voted on by the Port Authority Board of Directors, that unlike Barhart, unlike Port, unlike Rothman, the Port Authority here at Eastport has a one-ship-per-day limited policy period.

But you can change any time you want.

Bernie, I really appreciate the chatter over there, but I will tell you this much.

You're right. You're 100% right.

We can change any policy we want. You know why? Because that's who we are as a community. We can choose to change any policy we want. But just because we can, doesn't mean we will. It's very nefarious just to think the negative about everything. I've heard so many people say, we don't want these cruisers to change the character of East Waterman. I agree with that. I've been here for 30 years working for this city in one way, shape, form, or fashion. Nobody has to be ready to protect Eastport on my behalf. I went to high school on the hip. And the fact of the matter is, if you don't want Eastport to change, you need these Christians. And here's why. Because just like they did with Pittston back in the day,

If not this, then what?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to survive as a coastal community here. We have to.

Last year, we brought 35,000 people to town.

Big number of headed fed bags. We did that over the entire season. Ladies and gentlemen, over the last four days of the 4th of July, you probably brought 30,000 to town. In four days. But by having those 25 days that we share our little community, 25 days, yep, a little crazy downtown, but 25 is not even that. Because half the ships are the Pearl Seas, right? There are 250 people. But the big ones, right? The big ones that have a couple of thousand. Maybe 10 days a year. Maybe... But for those 10 days, you can ask businesses. We have the Waffle here in town, our oldest restaurant.

They'll tell you that by having those 10 days, that allows us to enjoy the esport we know and love for the other 355.

This idea that somehow, by sharing our community for 20 days a year, that it's going to change it. Sharing our community for 20 days a year is what's going to allow us to keep it. I mean, I don't want to direct the crowd, but the businesses here tonight, they can stand up and tell you what it means. If you like the wacko, I'll use that as an example again. If you like the wacko open in February, I hope you enjoy next Sunday. Because that's what it takes. That's what it takes. So, yes, we are very self-limited. Now, to your point, Bernie, you can change that at any time. You're right, we can. But if we did, it would be a self-defeating proposition. The reason why people love East Portman, why we've been deemed the most welcoming port city in the world, is because we ensure that when a ship shows up, the day is just about them and not nine other ships. And that's why they come to us. And as soon as this day at Yoga Addicts that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered, then we think, let's get a second one. Let's get a third one. We will ruin our brand and it will cure its own problem. Because they won't come anymore. So you don't have to trust me. Because I know there's people in this community that don't like me. That's fine. You don't trust me. That's fine. The reality is, is that the business itself is what limits it. Don't believe it? We could have done more. You see all the ships that we've brought in. You don't see the ships we've turned away. And we have turned ships away. Sorry, we have a ship that day. At the beginning of this season, Virgin Cruises wanted to come in. They went to St. John's. It was in the spring. 4,000 people. And I said, you know what? This community's not ready for that. Too early. Not what we do. Thanks, but no thanks. and we turn them away. So this belief that somehow we're off to the races and it's just going to run away with itself, I can understand your concern. You look at Bar Harbor as an example and say that could happen here. But with all due respect, let me tell you. Bar Harbor got away from its cruise ships over the past year or so.

Anybody been to Bar Harbor lately?

Can you find a parking spot anywhere downtown?

No.

The congestion problem that Bar Harbor has has nothing to do with the cruise ships. They just opened the Acadia rideshare transit complex on the outside of Route 3 in Trenton. Because the Route 3 in Trenton turns into a parking lot in the summertime because of Acadia National Park and all the vehicles trying to get there. We brought 35,000 people to town last year. They showed up at 8. They left at 3. 3.30, you could fire a cannon up Main Street on your soul. At 5 o'clock, you could go to the local watering hole, and there is nine empty seats at the bar. We never had to put up a paid paradise and put up a parking lot. The Rathsons didn't come in here and build a 400-room hotel. Did none of that. And 190 never looked like Route 3 in Trenton. So if you want to say that we want to make sure we save Eastport, I can't think of any other way to bring people to a town that thinks of itself as a tourism, arts community, down east, all of that stuff. How can we get people here if we don't want them? We certainly wouldn't want Buckley to look like the Fourth of July all year round. We love the Fourth, but man, don't we love the Fifth, right? So with that, I want to make sure you understand there's nothing nefarious about it. And if you have questions, we want them.

Again, right questions, wrong meeting. Come upstairs. We'll talk to you. Could I add a couple of things to what Chris is sharing? As a business owner, Matt Boyle. That's up to you.

We do need to wrap this up, though. We've been an hour already. We haven't got halfway through.

Matt Boyle, Echo Diner. research on the cruise ship impact on the wagon. 18 of those days that we had cruise ships in 25, we were 186% up in sales. Where do you think that money went? You think it went to Mike and me? No. It went to our sales taxes, our payroll taxes, and all of the things that end up back in the community to help you all. It also went to a fundraiser for Skyville. It went to a fundraiser for Sarah's House. It went to library donations. It went to a ton of other donations. We do a donation. I'm going out for the food pantry. Because of cruise ships, we can get back. Because of cruise ships, we can support the community. I have told Chris how great the cruise ships are for us.

But if he brings more than one a day, then more than one a day. Hang on. Mike, thank you. Bertie, to answer your question, no, he asked if he could speak, and I allowed him. That's what I did. Thank you. It's not an open forum. He directed a question to me and asked if he could speak, and I allowed him. No. We need to wrap this up. Yes. Thank you.

And I will wrap up with this.

Thank you.

I just want to put some finishing touches on it. Just so you know.

Y'all doubled cruises this year. We got twice as many cruise ships. Could we?

Please.

We want to hear.

No, anybody cannot talk. We cannot talk.

From the port's perspective, we want to be, you own this business, ladies and gentlemen. You own this business. Any questions, we encourage you to bring them to us. But just to put a finer point on it, we spend somewhere around 300 and some thousand dollars a year keeping that off of your tax bill. Last year, we netted, you get 10 bucks a head, you're right. Subtract expenses, one of them being $12,000 a month in loan payments for that rate board. We didn't bring in as much in friendships as we give to the city in total. So, I just want you to know, we're here, you own this business, if you have questions, right building,

That's all I have. We're going to go to item six, please. Old business, 6A, request of the placement of a memorial bench from Mary Gelada in memory of Grace Wernerman.

I will ask you to carry this to the next month. I need to sit down with Howie. We have to find a location.

I thought we already voted on this before.

We brought it up. We haven't determined. I can't ask you to approve it until we know where we're putting it and what we're making it out of. It's going to be donated, but we want to know what's going on. I just haven't been to it. We'll get to it next month, I hope. Table until August? Table until August.

I move to table the request for placement of the memorial bench by Mary Gelater until the August 15th meeting.

12th. 12th. 12th meeting. Do I have a second?

Second. Second.

We'll move to second it. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Covington? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seely?

Yes.

Councillor Boone?

Yes. 6B, Street Vendor Ordinance.

So this is back in your court. I would ask at this point, as frustrating as it might be, that unless the council has a clear... Pat, it wants to follow on this. That will be easy to implement halfway through the session. I hate to say it, but I would just assume not have to try to implement policy after we're already past the fourth. We're into other festivals. The city will, you know, should there be food trucks who show up, we'll regulate them for... Safety, you know, for making sure they're not on our land, that sort of thing. But I would rather get this done in the fall because changing it in the middle of it is going to be difficult, of course. So you want us to table it in October? I ask you to table it in September.

September? Yes. So we continue with a no ordinance at all. We have an ordinance.

I have been formally instructed not to enforce it. I am interpreting that as meaning I am not going to ask for Fichtler's licenses. We will not be issuing a food truck. However, I think the spirit of that ordinance, and keeping in mind we do this stuff in residential areas, the planning board chair has expressed an opinion that that's covered by the zoning ordinance. So I would leave that there. So we're not going to just let the place go crazy, but we're not going to implement the letter of the ordinance. Again, if there's an issue, we'll look at it from a public safety or disruption point of view, not from enforcing the ordinance to the letter. Okay.

I'm going to table the street vendor ordinance till the September meeting, whatever day that's on.

9th, I believe.

September 9th? Yeah. Do I have a second to the motion?

I'll second that.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings?

Yes.

Councillor Ray?

Yes. Councillor Stephens?

Yes.

Councillor Seeley?

Yes.

Councillor Boone?

Yes. Item 7, new business, 7A, sewer rate increase of 3.3%.

I'd like to direct your attention to just what I've given you today, this guy that got the sewer statement on it. This is just what we worked on at the workshop. I'd first like to point out, I actually think I saw a different motion first. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe, Bill, you got it wrong the longest. I do not believe the city has ever actually, in my memory, officially adopted the sewer budget because the motion we made at the previous meeting is for taxation. Sewer does not come out of taxation. So we published the sewer budget. We published the bottom line on it, but we never actually vote on it. So my first request is going to be, as we brought up in the workshop, the sewer budget is increasing from... So the sewer budget for fiscal year 25, the total expenses as budget were $713,220. That's going to $736,985, $4, sorry. And so I would ask the motion to be just to approve, how did I, I phrased it on the first thing here. To approve the fiscal year 27 budget for sewer expenses of $736,218. Then it comes to the question of the rate increase. I'm going to direct your attention again to the back of the work unit. So as budgeted, and the estimate I've made for what billing would be comes from a number of places. I won't get into the details. It's intended to be a little bit under. And as you can see, it is. Last year, I had hoped billing would bring in $698,920. We brought in $708,292. I consider that a good cushion. We need to make sure we have a little bit more than we need. The bottom line is we actually operated slightly out of budget this year. We came in at 102% of expenses, but because our revenue came up a bit, we're only at 101.9%. I guess it all washed out. I'm sorry. In any case, to stay equal with the necessary rise, A 3.3% increase will bring us exactly to break even on our budget right now. So that's why I requested 3.3%. On the front page, I do give a summary of what that actually means. The current quarterly base rate is $169.52. A 3.3% increase would raise that to $175.11. That means if you only ever pay the base rate all year, it's $22 extra, $22.40. Each additional unit will rise $13.59 from $14, another about $0.40. So if you pay additional units, you're paying another $0.40 per unit. At the risk of producing pitchforks, I would like to at least suggest there's something to be said for it going a little bit higher than 3.3%. The impact of 5% would raise it by another $11 a year on the base rate, and it would give us a little more cushion in what's one of the most dynamic budgets we've got. I keep picking on both. Of course, sodium hypochlorite, or chloride, I forget which one it is. which I see coming in five-figure invoices for an absolutely necessary chemical whose prices continue to go up. However, at this point, I defer. The minimum request we need to be able to run in deficit is 3.3%.

And all this information comes from the company that runs our sewer? Well, yes, we work with them.

So all the data here comes right out of our system. Well, again, you sign the bills so you see that. We process all the bills. The decision about how to run it, yes, comes from all of us.

Can we put, like, a stick there or something? Yeah, a motion.

I don't mind propping it open if it'll cool it off in here. Or then that way there, they don't have to keep opening and closing it. Just prop it open.

I couldn't really hear you. Did you say 5% would be an $11 increase over the year?

No, 3.5.

Yes, I'm sorry. So a 3.3% increase would mean a year's worth of base rate would increase by 2240. If we went to 5%, the year's increase would be 3390, which is about $11 more than the 3.3. Sorry.

No, it was the door.

It was the door. I will point out for council's benefit, if you look at the line items, yeah, we're out of budget on a number of things. And I will also kind of point out to you, you may recall, you haven't gotten a statement on the sewer since I started here, because I've been mostly dealing with the taxation side of things. This is kind of hard to read. You're going to get, starting next month, a summary from sewer that's a little bit easier to read. A lot of the overages here, unlike utilities, you may recall I was budgeting utilities across the city and just increasing them because going category by category was too much. Obviously, sewer turned out to be over on everything, but I didn't separately treat it. So that's on me for not handling that a little bit better. But like I said, overall, the overages and the underages sort of cancel out. I do want to point out one very large number. It's about two-thirds of the way down. It's line 04-40-14, sewer debt payment. $183,000 times $3,954. In 2021, the city took out $4 million, or more than $4 million, in a loan from the USDA. Now, I wasn't here for that, and I don't remember the specifics, but I know what the problem was. The sewer had fallen into profound disrepair. So I want to point out that of that $736,000, 183 of that is going to be debt service and will be until 2048. Now the good news is, yes, the good news is, of course, there will be inflation in that time. So by the time we're all dead, that won't seem like such a big number. That is a significant cost, and it's from neglect of the plant during that time. So in the coming years, I'm hoping to move from a budget that's been pretty reactive and basic to something that is a little more forward-looking. I don't think we're facing quite that much damage anywhere else in the city, but the fact that we've not kept out on maintenance on buildings and other things, I don't know. So if possible, like I said, I believe the first vote is a formality as we've already agreed on the amount, but I think it's good for there that we have a motion to approve the fiscal year 27 budget for sewer expenses at $736,218.

Which was in the budget that we passed?

Yeah. Well, no. Like I said, because the way we've always passed the budget here is that motion only basically states the amount that's going to come from taxation. None of this comes from taxation. It's always been implied. We've had the budget. We've worked through it. But we actually never had a formal motion to accept that's what it was. So that's what I'm asking for tonight.

736,218. Correct. 18. Make the motion to approve for fiscal year 27 the budget for the sewer expenses of 736,218.

Seconded. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion?

Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone?

Yes. And then the second request is for a minimum 3.3% increase. Otherwise, we'll run in deficit. We are intending for this to take effect in October. It will not affect the billings that are being put together now. So the motion would be to approve a rise of X percent beginning with the October billing.

So minimum 3.3, but you would really like to see a little more?

Yes, I think. I think it would be better for us to be a little more cautious. There's so much we're not... PFAS chemical stuff they have to worry about now and things like that. I'm just worried about, I really don't, it's not that I want the extra money and it's not like it's going into our party fund. Colleen has brought up before the question about, I believe in previous years, the sewer's run in deficit. It's actually implicitly been paid out of taxation. I don't intend to go try to figure that out. I am just trying to make sure we have enough of a cushion to prevent that from happening given that I can't predict what's going to happen in the next 12 months. I would bet on that right now.

I'd just like to point out to the electricity and the heat costs.

There are two things about the utilities cost. They're way over budget. Part of that could be that the budget's wrong. But some of them are quite high. And I need to talk with the sewer department about that. Somebody like we have no control over the pump stations, right? Although most of our storm water has been separated out from the sewer, not all of it has. So we typically see a lot. If we have a rainy spring, we see electric bills on all the pump stations go up. We can't control that. It's a necessity to pump everything around. I need to do that analysis. I have not done that analysis right now. You and I spoke about is there a solar power thing? It depends on how they're using the electricity and when. I will talk with Oliver. Honestly, to be honest, I haven't gotten a full tour of that entire facility and how it works. I've really been looking forward to that, believe it or not, and I haven't been able to schedule it. I'll be

I don't want my first motion to be an increase.

I'll put my head up there and say if you're able to go to a round four, that will... I guess I should point out, on a $736,000 budget, or actually, so it's a previous $700,000, so we're talking a rise compared to that, a 1% increase is $7,000. So as painful as it is to try to say I'm raising another percent, if I'm trying to build a little bit more of a cushion by raising it 1%, I'm getting $7,000 more. Um... And basically, we're running flat right now. So if you go from 3.3% to 4%, you're getting like a, let's say, $5,000 cushion. It's not a lot.

I hear what you're saying, and it's still painful to inflate. How do you guys feel about it? Do you want to stay with the 3.3% or do you want to go up to 4%? We're going to pay it one way or another somewhere.

Yeah, round it up.

As painful as this is, I make a motion to increase the sewer budget by 4% for fiscal year 2017. Beginning with the October billing. Beginning with the October billing.

Not the budget. Not the budget.

The sewer rate. Sewer rate, 4%.

I'll second that.

Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion?

So, Billy, not Billy, Brian, you said you're going to, this is kind of one of your next things to dig into?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call please, Sarah.

Councilor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councilor Ray? Yes. Councilor Stephens? Yes. Councilor Seeley? Yes. Councilor Boone?

Yes. Thank you. 7B, commit sewer fees to treasurer for fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 at the cost of $168,595.32. Okay.

Where did you pull that number from?

From the report in there.

It may not have made it into your packet. It did. Did you distribute that? Okay.

It's a blank sheet, and then the one on top of it has the number on it.

And this is the standard, it's a regulatory requirement for the sewer to be permitted to bill every quarter you approve the amount as reported.

So motion to commit the sewer fees to treasurer for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026 for 168,595.32. Second. Second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call please, Sarah.

Councilor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councilor Ray? Yes. Councilor Stephens? Yes. Councilor Seeley? Yes. Councilor Boone?

Yes. Item 7C, transfer of the fiscal year 2026, boat excise tax to Harbor Account. Do we have an amount on that?

I didn't have one for the packet.

I think they were coming out on Tuesday.

Okay.

I'd table it. You've got to have the amendment.

We should table it. Yeah. Okay.

We'll carry that. Move to table the transfer of the vote excise tax to the August meeting. I second it.

Move to second it. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone? Yes.

7D, action on request for participation of sale of city property.

So we advertised looking for real estate agents. We've received two responses. The request and the packet, which you guys all saw when we proposed it last time, was not particularly exacting in what it was asking for. We're finding our way through this. We basically asked for what the fee would be, the all-inclusive fee, and if there was any property that we currently had listed that a realtor was unwilling to list. Both people who have expressed interest say they're willing to list all five properties, so that's four foreclosed properties, which we're required to do this for, and the senior citizen property, which you folks decided you'd prefer to have listed for the realtor after I will point out, Ann has made a couple of stipulations, and I'll be clear on that. She's stipulated a minimum six-month contract. It's kind of implied by the way the law goes together that this is actually a 12-month arrangement, because if they list it for 12 months and we are able to sell it, we are then free to sell it by any other means. So while Mike did not specify that, I would expect to retain the agent for 12 months. And she also speculates she was not going to be responsible for any property cleanup or removing any occupants, and we were not expecting to ask them to do that either. That is not responsible. And there are no occupants, by the way, just that there's no clear clarity there. Otherwise, you have before you what the two of them have. Mike has given a rate at 6%. And it's been rated 5%, but it's specified a minimum of $2,000 for each property listed. When the property is sold, I will point out, I can't tell you what the value are, but we do have one landlocked lot up on readout. And if one of them is possibly not going to hit, so 5%, $2,000 would be a $10,000 minimum. I'm not sure we necessarily hit that there.

Because it's 5% or a minimum, right?

Or a minimum, right.

Right, right. So if we sold, let's make it up. Let's say we sold that lot for $1,000, right? 5% of that would be insufficient. She'd say, even though you sold it for $1,000, you owe me $2,000.

Yeah.

I'm not reading that right, though.

Yeah. It's got a minimum of $2,000. Or a minimum. Oh, she wants at least $2,000. At least $2,000, yes. Okay. So if anything sells for $500, we're going to put in $1,500.

Just to remind everyone, as we look at this for the four foreclosed properties, the city can only recover from what we sell the amount that we are owed in taxes plus any expenses involved in maintaining or selling it. That will include this commission. Anything in excess of that will be required to return to the foreclosed property.

By the sounds of it, with Mike, his is 60%, whether it's $100 or $100,000, right?

That's the state's, I asked, the state has requested for all-inclusive fee.

But hers is 5%.

Hers is 5%.

But a minimum of $2,000.

Can we strike that?

We can do anything you want. I don't know what the children are doing.

Why can't we just say 5%?

4%.

Now we're getting into negotiations, I think.

We've never done this before. We specified no criteria for selection. All I stated was it was at the city council pleasure. If it's less than, if it's more than $2,000. Okay.

It's not like the 6% is actually going to cost us more. We're still going to be able to.

Right. That is part of what's making a decision here. It's not like merely just accepting the oil bid.

are going to be for a year, yes? That's what you said? Either one, whichever one.

So we did not specify in the ad what the term was. I imagine that's why Ann put it forward. Like I said, I mean, of course, if we were dissatisfied, you could make any choice you wanted. We are choosing to list here. I just figured this was the most open way to get interest. But the implication is we hope we do this for at least a year. But the council could, at its pleasure, make changes as it wished, depending on how things played out.

So you're asking us to pick one, please.

I think we need to go forward. You guys know me. I can sit here and multiply. I did say, I mean... We've been dealing with it for months. I guess I'll point out in Catalyst, they use multiple people and assign them one property at random. When we discussed this before, no one expressed a lot of stomach for that. So we have not... Yeah. I guess I want to turn that back on you. It's not what I want. It's what you want. And you still have freedom, but the way we chose to frame it...

Interesting.

Do I have a motion?

No.

I would lean towards Mike McVeigh. Make a motion. Cleaner.

Yeah.

So what's our motion? I move to accept Mike McPhee's offer to be our real estate, what am I saying? Our sale of city property, realtor for our sale of city property.

That works for me. Do I have a second?

Second.

We move to second it. Any further discussion on the motion?

You guys are chicken.

Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councilor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councilor Ray? Yes. Councilor Stephens? Yes. Councilor Seeley? Yes. Councilor Boone?

Yes. 7C, approval of Maine Medical Cannabis Program Caregiver Retail Store. Doing business as Snow Girl LLC, 9 Dana Street. I think Calvin returned. In case there's any questions.

This is the annual renewal. You may recall we missed it last year and had to have a special meeting for it. Oh, that's right.

I'll make the motion to approve. approve the renewal of the Maine Medical Cannabis Program caregiver retail store, Snow Girl. I'll second it.

Move to second it. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Counselor Dana Cummings? Yes. Counselor Ray? Yes. Counselor Stevens? Yes. Counselor Phillips? Yes. Counselor Boone?

Yes. 7F, remove former City Councilor Dave Morang and former Treasurer Tracy Calder as signature signatories from interest-bearing microloan account.

I'll make that motion. I'll second.

We'll move to second it. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stevens? Yes. Councillor Seeley?

Yes.

Councillor Boone?

Yes. 7G. Add Rita Harmon, Treasurer, Sarah Mutter, Deputy Clerk. Harare Harrison. Okay, thank you.

She knew I was going to get it right.

Signatories on interest-bearing microloan account.

I'll make that motion. I'll second it.

We moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Unfortunately, I don't have Ella to rely on anymore, and I was under the impression the microloan account had to have one elected counselor.

I believe that's the case. You should amend your motion to appoint one of you.

I'm pretty sure it was.

I mean, frankly, it wouldn't hurt in any case. But, yeah, we don't know. But if it seemed between Billion and Dennis Emily to accept it, so pick a name.

Who made the motion?

Colleen.

Colleen's got to have a name to it.

There has not been a lot of activity on this account. I will do it. Thank you. There you go.

Counselor Stevens will be the additional name. And did you second?

No. I seconded. Okay.

And you do second the addition? Yes. I second it again. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone?

Yes. Thank you, Councillor Stephens, for taking that on. 7H, Moonlight Movies Request, Hocus Pocus, October 3rd, 2026, with a rain date of 10-26. So moved.

I'll second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councilor Dandy-Covings? Yes. Councilor Ray? Yes. Councilor Stephens? Yes. Councilor Seeley? Yes. Councilor Boone?

Yes. Seven, aye. Amendment to City Council meeting minutes of September 2025.

Maybe I'll ask Sarah to explain this. This was a bizarre side effect of your city manager acting as city clerk during that period.

So we just had to make some minor adjustments to the September agenda. Those were highlighted so that includes the person who made a few motions and adding the disbandment of the disability committee. So we included those in that amendment. They are now accurate.

I make the motion to accept the amended minutes for the September 25 meeting. I'll second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Danny Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray?

I abstain because I was not here.

Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone?

Yes. Item 7J.

Not approval, application, or applying? Permission to apply. Right, permission to apply. The Department of Justice has what it calls its COPS grants, which will not surprise you, have to do with law enforcement and safety. The schools approached me looking at a grant in what's called the School Violence Prevention Program. Among other things, they could provide us the ability to reconstruct the high school vestibule, but in proper, you know, ways of buzzing people in, proper video, that sort of thing. It can also go towards lighting and a number of other things that they're working on. The second one is asked by the police department. It's about getting a school resource officer into the school, something that will be supported for up to three years. Both of these require 25% match, and I have informed both of them that we don't have that budgeted right now. Both grants specify that you can apply for a waiver of the match, but do not specify the criteria for that waiver. So I've told both of them, I think that these have deadlines that are fairly soon, end of July, beginning of August. With Council's approval, I say we can certainly go ahead and apply. And you would, of course, have to accept the grant funds at the time that came through. So I told them I'd come today and ask for that approval. I always assume when you give approval, that gives me the implicit ability to write a letter of support and to be required for the school one. And we will cross the bridge on match when we get to it.

So the resource officer, is that looking to hire?

So we would have to hire another full-time police. Our belief right there is that... That one, so the first grant can be applied for up to $500,000. So 25% match of that is 125 grand. So that would be an intimidating amount. On the school resource officer, I won't bore you with the details, but it would work out that assuming we hired someone at our current rates with full benefits, we'd probably be having to pay for it in the area of $25,000 to $30,000 a year if we were matching it. That person would need to be a school resource officer, but they would be employed year-round and would be part of the department. So should there be a need for a response, they wouldn't have to just sit at the school.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I have sat in at my own school. This officer will be dedicated to this school. Did not happen.

not supposed to happen and i've talked with mark about that at some length but i think anyone who's spoken to the chief knows he's actually very passionate about having uh we tried to get the policeman in the school when we had some extra folks and we did that a little bit but we weren't able to keep it up so i would i would worry less about that than you might in other places so i could motion to permit the application of the doj cops grants One for school violence prevention and school resource officer.

School violence prevention and school resource officer.

I'll second that.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Counselor Dana Cummings? Yes. Counselor Ray? Yes. Counselor Stephens? Yes. Counselor Seeley? Yes. Counselor Boone?

Yes. Item 8, minutes of previous meeting...

So I would point out the 813 minutes, that's the other thing your idiot clerk did last year. I actually posted meeting minutes for 813, but they were the July minutes? Yes. I apparently had started on those minutes, thought I had finished them, and posted them.

With all the extra time you had last year, Brian?

I apologize. This is why you have to approve them 11 months later. I apologize.

But it is for the 3, 8, 13, 20, 25, 6, 17, 20, 26, 6, 26, 20, 26.

Do you want to approve all three all at once? I make a motion to approve the minutes for 8-13-2025, 6-17-2026, and 6-26-2026. I'll second that. Moved and seconded.

Any present discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Abstain. I was not present.

Councilor Stevens? Yes. Councilor Sealy?

Yes.

Councilor Boone?

Yes. Item 9, City Manager's Report.

We'll start with the 4th of July. I think we had a pretty good 4th of July. I'll be honest, I was sleeping a lot of the 3rd. I was really tired that week. But I was out and around quite a bit on the 4th. Of course, we have to thank the 4th of July committee. I can't imagine what it's like to try to keep all of that together. We've got a good relationship with them. I feel like we understand what's going on better. They did an excellent job. Obviously, anyone who volunteered, everyone who showed up. Unfortunately, I do have to be a bit of a downer. For the 3rd year, we've had incidents after fireworks. Two years ago, we had a bunch of kids running around downtown, estimated about 40 that we had to chase around, and while we were chasing them down, we had a rash of burglaries up on the island. Last year, we had a gross sexual assault occur in the middle, again, of an awful lot of activity downtown. This year, once the bars closed, we had the cops estimate 80 and 100 people come out, and it was quite intense. A lot of ugly stuff going on, fights and whatnot. I've been told some, because of how old they are, entertaining stories of far more upsetting 4th of July, 30 or 40 years ago, but I believe, and I assume it's the opinion of this council, that we've outgrown that. So I just want to tell you what we're looking at going forward. Some stuff will come to you, and some stuff we're just working on our own. Actually, after the first year, the chief at that point asked, would there be any possibility of establishing a curfew for minors, at least on the 4th of July? So we're going to be looking at what other communities do, and I imagine that may take the form of an ordinance and come to you. Similarly, Matt Vincent tells us that at some point there may have been a loitering ordinance. It's one of those things you don't need unless you need it. These are tools.

I thought that was joined with the mobile vending. Loitering? Because I was told the story by a former officer that because they would come out of the cannery and they had a mobile vending unit here that sold food, when you've partied all night.

I do not remember that anything we did there. I'll look it up. In any case, similar thing there. We need to look through language. And in both of these cases, we're not imagining that this is something that we're going to be pounding the pavement on. But when you've got 100 people out causing trouble or a bunch of kids running around and you don't have these tools, there's not a lot you can actually do. While we don't have any, I'm not going to make any aspersions on any particular institution, obviously alcohol is an issue. When all hell breaks loose once the bar is open. So I'm going to be talking with the state alcohol agency. The police had actually talked about getting trained specifically in alcohol enforcement and various things. We had so many other things to do, we haven't done it. So we're looking at that. I am thinking of inviting the state to visit us more often, and particularly on some of these events. we are going to look at capacity issues this was an issue a couple years back as well and I need to work with the fire chief and what not to see what we might need to do because there is some Certainly when there was a call that required to go into one place, they talked. They were literally pushing people out of the way to get where they were going. So we need to know what that number is and if we can enforce it.

We have to do that down on the Canterbury Wharf.

Yeah, yeah. So it's a different place. And we're going to talk with everyone. That's the other thing. So Mark and I are going to talk before Pirate Festival. Pirate has typically not, Pirate typically has an awful lot of activity. It's never risen to the level the Fourth of July has. But I think it's going to be good for us to have this conversation when that's still out in front of us. So we regret it. And we're going to do everything we can to look at it. So sorry to do that. Otherwise, it's a great Fourth of July.

One thing I noticed, I was downtown for the Torchlight Parade, the kids on their electric scooters flying through the downtown.

Yeah, I noticed that as well, and I talked with Mark a little bit about that. When they see it, they yell at them, but they can't be everywhere all the time. I honestly don't know what the regulations are at this point. I seem to recall... Reading the Press Herald, like this morning, there's some bill that they're looking to squeeze some e-bike regulation into, but I don't know what that's about. So there might be state assistance there as well. I'll make another bet.

Most of the ones I saw were my students. I yelled at them, too. But you know what? In July, they don't have to listen to me.

And, of course, I've seen it's like they're going to take out a pedestrian, but let's be clear. I saw people move between cars, and, yeah, the people on them don't know how invisible they are. There's no way right in front of cars. I'll draw your attention on talking about this to the police department report. We hit almost 96% coverage in June. I won't berate that any further. I'm happy with what we've got. That number will almost certainly drop for this month. Special thanks to the Pleasant Point Police Department. They had a significant presence here after the fireworks. Without their help, it would have been a total mess. Thank you for that.

called this year as well, weren't they?

There was a call back up for sheriffs. By the time they were able to get here, most of it was under control. We had some issue with, you know, there was an ambulance, nothing immediate, but that had to be waited for for a while. It was a mess. It was not a happy moment, so we're going to take that seriously. You have a financial report, my usual financial report. This sort of closes out 2026. What I mean by sort of is there may still be expenses that are to be built 2026 that are still going to be processed this month, but looking at the bottom line, we came at 96.9% of taxation. I imagine that might creep up a bit, but we're at least under, and that's my main thing. Anyone who wants to go over, I'll point out the most exciting ones. Admin is high in part because of audit legal. Actually, we hit 100% though on overall. Our expenses were high, but because we were under on some of our payroll, we came in. Police expenses were a little high. I authorized that because payroll was low.

Say that again.

Because we had budgeted for some people we weren't able to hire until November and December, we had things like uniform. One of the drawbacks of doing a lot of part-timers is we have a lot more uniform expense. That sort of thing. At the end of the year, Mark came to me and said, I've got this money in my lines. How am I doing? I said, well, your actual expenses are high, but they're coming in at 85% of their budget overall. I approve of that. um aco we talked about that that was a one-time thing that right around a bunch of things programs the senior citizen center were eating that 27 without doing a transfer um street lights is a budgeting error i just underestimated uh ditto well ambulance changed um changed payments slightly so that's why that's a little bit over in the middle of the year city debt was a mistake of mine that we fixed before economic development's essentially right on higher than we had anticipated. All in all, pretty good. I may give you one more of these in August if anything significant changes. I'll also draw your attention to our primary bank balance draft. Once again, this doesn't mean we have this much money to spend, but it's the grossest measure of cash flow health we have. We are essentially dead on from last year. That includes your capital fund and whatnot. When we go to do things like pay county tax, if we spend out of capital in significant amounts, that that we start seeing that go down. But it makes me feel comfortable. We're not going to bounce a check. Money isn't disappearing on us because we made an accounting mistake. This has happened in other places. Sidewalk construction. The new sidewalk project will start on the 20th of July. You may have seen there's already been some utility pole relocation. I've had some people raise questions. Yes, they moved some stuff into the sidewalk. One of them is actually because of how the state has designed the ADA ramp that goes in two directions, and the pole's right there, and we've been over it five times with them, and they say that is how they want it, and that is correct. The other one I think will look worse when the new sidewalk, will not work so bad when the new sidewalk is built. But very interested and somewhat anxious to see how that turns out. The construction will continue into October probably. And it will include reconstruction of the ADA ramps at High Street. And the crosswalk's at High Street and 190 at Washington and right at the City Hall. Because the state was supposed to rebuild those when they paved 190. But long story, they decided, oh, we'll just wrap it up in your sidewalk.

So one at the bottom of School Hill.

Yeah.

And then the other one out here?

Yeah, right by the post office. Both of them are not... I want to point out, you know, so this is our first meeting without Ella. Donna Ray is our new city clerk who is getting an absolute trial by fire and is getting just trained to death. So I will just ask, you know, everyone to continue to be patient with us. Sarah, you've been with us how long now? Six. Six months. Our new treasurer has been with us two months. So everyone's new, and we're doing the best we can. But thank you for your patience.

You're the old-timer in the office.

Lita's the old-timer. Me and Lita. Lita's got it. Yes, he does. A couple things I said I would respond to. I hope I caught them all. I'm open for them. So Joshua was correct. There was a modification to the original deep grain application. They had stated, I will print that out for you. They had stated that they had entered into some sort of specific agreement with the tribe, which they had not. And so the tribe complained and they brought it back. And he's right. They did say that they were working. I believe they said they were drafting a community benefits agreement with the city. And they have not presented us with anything. Frankly, I didn't respond to that because I am assuming they are drafting it and will present it at some point. I can certainly, if someone wants me to raise an issue, I can raise an issue with them. But I don't think it materially changes what they're doing there. If they have a CBA, I'm sure they'll be happy to try to bring it forward to us to alley concern. But just in the interest of transparency, that's what's going on there. I will point out, they've also, they actually had to submit a change to their Alaska plan because of some lack of detail in how, oh, I'm sorry, Deep Green is also doing this in Deep Inlet in Alaska. Much larger than they have here.

In the same stage?

Yeah, sorry? In the same stage? Yeah, oh yeah, initial permits. They issued them, I think it was like a week from each other. And it had to do with how they were constructed. So I had not been following that docket. Actually, I had not been following our docket either. I'm following it now. And I'll get that to you. They describe how it's put together. I'm assuming, actually, I'll just point that out. Anyone who wants to go on the FERC website, search for Deep Green. Make sure you search back at least six months because that's where the posting was in February. But if you look at the, I believe it's called the Deep Inlet, It's a second one. It's one off from our document. There will be a modification and they put some more detail in there. And I will be looking into that. It describes how the structures might be put together. And that might give a little more idea of what's going on with that there. I will also point out they modified this proposal to make it much, much smaller. And I don't know why they didn't give a justification. But they had initially proposed that they would build a 15 megawatt, right? 15 megawatt phase one, and they would scale it to a 50 megawatt at this point. The one in Alaska is twice that size. They have since changed it to the pilot will be between 1 and 5 megawatts, and the finished one will be 15 megawatts. And I'm sorry, they do justify it in terms of having lesser impact, but that's all it says. I just got all these documents this afternoon as I was going through it. I'll get them all to you. And again, these are publicly available documents on the FERC website. I wanted to say, and I was asked directly, I said I assign no NDA with anyone, or anything that I'm aware of. Me either. And I just want to clarify for the support letter. The support letter is a minute from this meeting. There were four of you at that point. All four councillors voted in favor. No, five of us. All five voted in favor of the statement that the county commissioners had made. That was the specific request that was made. And what we submitted was the clerk attested minute of that. So it's an official statement saying, yes, the city council voted on this. So of course it carries out its name. It wouldn't ever carry my name because it's not part of my motion. And it's implied by what's in there. So there's no intent to not give support. That's just how we do those things. All right. I just also just want to acknowledge Chris's concern. We're looking into it. We're talking. She's right. We are talking. We will get into some details about that later, but I'm working with Tabitha and with Reed.

Can we have a time frame on this?

I'm sorry? I'm going to start talking with people. I've already got Reed looking at stuff tomorrow, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, Chris. Get me everything you've got. Alright, because you've told me you've done a lot of research and everything else. I am... I have the office of the local health officer, but I am not competent in that office at that moment. So any assistance I can have, I appreciate it.

Can I go when Reed goes?

I'm sorry?

Can I go when Reed goes?

Reed what? Can she go when Reed goes? Oh, when Reed goes!

Yes, of course. So I can point out different things?

Sure. Tomorrow, I will probably not be in Friday, just so you know, so if we can't get it done tomorrow, I will have to nap next week. Okay? I think I caught everything. If I missed anything that I was supposed to answer, I apologize, but I believe I caught everything. Anything else you want from me?

Quiet month.

I just have something to say. Yeah, we'll all be able to live on that. We're training a new person up at the cemetery, though, so that's part of the problem there. Yeah.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you.

Item 10, council liaison updates and issues.

Me either.

So I do. I want to take the opportunity because I wasn't part of the council when they voted to send the communication to the developer of Deep Green. So I just want the record to reflect that I am against the underwater AI data center. And it's unfortunate that everybody laughed. Because they're not here to hear the comments, because I am looking forward to our executive session where I can ask our attorneys some questions, and then I will be ready to support a moratorium or something. That's my opinion. One counting. Hello. Hello.

Senior Senator, I didn't make the last meeting. I apologize for that. I did, myself and Councilor Ray, was at the Airport Advisory Committee meeting last night. To direct Gene's question, the debacle over the airport leases are... resolving themselves. I think that the airport association and the airport advisory committee are starting to mend their ways and we're going to come back together. The goal is to everybody be treated fairly and equally. So we are getting there.

I talked to Steve Treber and there seems to be a disconnect between the head of and the people who have the hangers. And I guess my concern, Billy, was that this guy lives in Lubeck when he's up here. He's a resident of Tennessee. and he's kind of running roughshod over everybody in the airport.

No, that's a... That was just what I heard.

I don't hear anything. Excuse me.

No, that's... I think the very first meeting maybe was a little rough, but that's beyond us. We're past that. We're moving forward. We're starting to work together, and... Most committees are going to work together to make all this happen. It's moving forward, and that's what we need. How long? I'm thinking by August. I'm thinking. Other than that, the community airport days went very well out there. The pancake breakfast, I volunteered this year and had no problem with it. Very good to see a good turnout, and there's two different organizations doing that, the advisory board and the association. We're working together, so... Other than that, I really don't have anything else. Karen has something else.

No, not for you. What was Dave's committee liaison? Am I supposed to be on that? Harvard committee.

Planning board. Just tell everyone.

I don't think we've replaced those yet. I think it's planning board. Harbor and planning board.

I mean, you can certainly. Okay. So does that, how do we do that? Deer committee, I think, is over. I mean, you can make a motion to appoint you to his vacant liaison seats.

Okay. Or you can just show up. Yeah, well, all right.

And then report to us. I guess it would be proper to appoint her to the vacant seats.

Are we sure we know what they all are?

Just his vacant seats. Who knows what you're getting? You're going to get a surprise box of assignments. I'll take them for six months. I think it's just the two. Planning board and So do I have a motion to that effect? Yeah, I mean, we can make a motion there if we want to appoint her to his vacant seats, his vacant liaison seats.

I don't think there needs to be a specific place when you're making a motion.

Normally it's the first of the year when you appoint all those appointees, but...

Make the motion that Councilor Ray assume all of former Councilor Morang's liaison positions. I'll second that.

I move to second it. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call please, Sarah.

Councilor Dan Cummings? Yes. Councilor Ray? Sure. Yes. Wow. Yes. Councilor Good.

Yes. Thank you. I guess John Hurray should be able to find out what seats he has.

I can ask him.

Ask Dave when they meet and everything.

If I may have left off one little thing from before, just next step, the Women's Crisis Organization is going to have July 11th. And they'll be recognizing a number of people for their assistance with their issues. And we have an Eastport policeman who's part of that. So that's why I recognized Don Rice.

Also, we've got the Down East Trail on the 24th and the 25th. That race? Yes.

Yeah, that's right. That was worth the Eastport. Keep your eyes open for that.

Any other council ladies on our issues? Hearing none, we are on item 11. And I guess I'm asked to make a motion to go into recess for two minutes or three minutes before we go into executive session. Because when we make a motion, that room lifts. And I can't hear a thing. I'm sorry. So just go into a recess for five minutes.

I make a motion for a two-minute recess at 7.58.

Do I have a second to that motion? Hearing no discussion, roll call, please.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Thank you.

804, I move the motion we go into executive session for personal matters. Title 1, MRSA 405 6A, in consultation with legal counsel. Title 1, MRSA 405 6E. Seconded.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Danny Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone?

Yes. Need a motion to come out of executive session?

Make that motion at 9.08.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes. Councillor Boone?

Yes. Item 12, action from executive session, if applicable.

I make a motion to approve the pay rate changes for fiscal year 27. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley?

Yes. Councillor Boone? Yes. We're on item 13.

909, I move to adjourn. I second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, roll call, please, Sarah.

Councillor Dana Cummings? Yes. Councillor Ray? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Seeley? Yes.

Thank you. I said she forgot me. Come on.

He's going to say no.