City Council - Regular Meeting

meeting to order at 6 p.m. and we'll start with agenda number two Pledge of Allegiance Agenda item number three, rules of order. We use Robert rules of order and we'll proceed through the meeting accordingly. Agenda item number four, adoption of the Ellsworth City Council minutes from the following meeting of July 20th, 2026. How would the council like to proceed?

Move to approve.

Second. Excellent. Any discussion about the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor? Unanimous. Next, we're going to move on to the presentation of awards. We have a lot of time served here with three people. We're going to start tonight with Frank Pearson. In recognition of 30 years of dedicated service as the Harbor Commission member, through his decades of leadership, commitment, and stewardship, Mr. Pearson has made lasting contributions to the city of Ellsworth. His efforts have helped establish, enhance, and preserve one of Ellsworth's true hidden gems for the benefit of residents and visitors alike. Presented on the 17th day of August, 2026. Okay, moving on to Chad Wilmont with 25 years of service. In recognition of 25 years of service to the police department, your devotion to duty and loyalty to the community have contributed to the improvement of the city of Ellsworth. Presented this day, the 17th of August, 2026. And last but not least, Joshua Stewart, uh, in recognition of 10 years of service in the police department, your devotion to duty and loyalty to the community had contributed to the improvement of the city of Ellsworth presented this 17th day of August, 2026. All right, thank you all. Okay, all right, thank you. Okay, and onto agenda item number six, the City Manager's Report.

Thank you, Chair Pro Tem. I don't know what the official title is. Very temporary, Chair Pro Tem. Councilor White, this is great to be here in August. I don't know if this is our last summer meeting, if September counts as summer too, but what a great summer it's been. A few general updates, our municipal election nomination papers are still available. So if anybody would like to join us here at this table or at the school board, or with the library trustees. They're available right now with our clerk's office to pick up nomination papers, and they'd have to be returned to city clerk's office by 12 p.m. Friday, September 4th. So if you'd like to get involved in local government, please drop by our clerk's office and pull some papers. I'd also like to...

Excuse me, I thought... If I may, I thought City Hall was closed on Fridays.

Somebody will be here yet.

They will?

Yep, just like we've had in a few occasions. How do they get in? Door. We have signs that open them up. We've had City Hall, when we have had to do some election responsibilities, be open for it. So we keep it open. The second piece, making City Hall easier to navigate, a big thanks to our facilities groups in James and Daniel. They did an incredible job. We've recently relocated our code assessing, planning, and economic development team down to the first floor to make it much easier to navigate for our customers and do business with them. front office side and the clerks area and business licenses, but also questions can just go right over to that group. From what I've heard so far, it's been very successful, but it was a big shift in priorities for a bit to move everybody around, and Daniel and James, they did an incredible job with that. Proud of them. Also, huge thanks to their boss, Roddy Erlenbach, our director of parks, rec, and facilities. He's been doing triple duty all summer long and spring long, not just handling facilities issues, but opening up our parks and ensuring their maintenance, and also as the harbor master, and then also in helping to organize a work with some of our local businesses to organize a Thursday night concert series all summer long here in Ellsworth, which has been hugely successful. He worked to get a ton of private business partnerships to sponsor those concerts and to make them a great community event and really, really impressed with Roddy's work there. The other kind of big thing, obviously, I think for citizens is just I want to give an update on the Bridge Hill water main break and intersection repairs. Actually, I have Mike Harris, our public works director, just to give an update there. It's such a critical artery, and I know we've had some posts on social media and some other things, but we want to make sure that the correct information gets out there. So, Mike, if you could give us the latest on that.

Good evening, everybody. Mike Harris, Public Works Director. So just to give everybody kind of the rundown on everything that's been going on, we had a water main break with the main water line coming into the city on Bridge Hill this past Wednesday. And as a result of that water main break, the water literally pushed up through the asphalt in several locations on Bridge Hill. washed a lot of underlying gravel out from underneath the road which is why the road's currently closed which that water main break in an attempt to bypass and isolate that line to send water to to still keep water coming into town we opened up some valves to move it around and we had another water main break so Yeah, we got both main brakes fixed. They've been repaired. We haven't opened the Bucksport Road because we had to coordinate with the Maine Department of Transportation as it is a state road. And so we knew that there had been significant damage to the pavement and also to the underlying gravel. They came out Friday afternoon, made an assessment, basically told us that Yep, the road doesn't look good. These are the parts that we think you should fix, and it's up to you to fix it. So we got that determination from them, met today, and tentatively right now we're scheduled to start Thursday having having their road repaired. They're simply waiting for confirmation from the pavement company tomorrow that they can get the mill down here to grind and remove the pavement. And if that can happen, if they can come down Thursday, they will try to pave it Thursday and Friday. If they can't get a pavement crew, will mill it down to gravel and pave it the following week early in the week that's the kind of schedule and then once it's paved it'll be back in operation and people can resume their normal traffic pattern so until then we don't know how much underlying gravel has been displaced, and we do not want to put a heavy amount of traffic on it and have somebody go through the road at some point or another. And we have several open tears in the pavement that are still opened up and need repair that could damage vehicles as they drove over them. So it's just an abundance of caution and safety. We're not going to open that road until we fix it.

Great. Thank you, Mike. And I've notified the council we'll likely have to make some repairs under the emergency procurement clause. I'll try to bring it as quickly to city council as we can once we figure out the financing piece of this. But obviously, it's an absolutely critical piece for the city. So once I have more information on that, we'll work with the relative folks to give the city and the public the information on what it's gonna cost and the repair and the timeline for repayment might, it's gonna depend on how big of an issue it is. My initial inclination is the water department and the water rate payers are gonna be uh responsible for this and we'll have to do some sort of band bond if it's above our road reserves or a kind of future repayment but i need to look into a lot more of the financing options here on on this piece and obviously get some actual quotes on what it's going to be but it's a big repair so i thank you to our public works teams that were out there Until late that night, I know when I was out there, that's when the vac truck, which previously purchased by this council or previous version of this council, you could see the sort of small pump that was out there. At first, the vac truck comes in. Once they get the actual water shut down in a different area, it was really incredible to see them work and to see this hole just this big, to see how much damage that caused. And the fact that they actually cut in the right place to get after it and didn't have to make more cuts going down there. And made sure that our hospital and all of our businesses could have water restored. I know they were monitoring the standpipes in real time and it was a nervous situation. But thank you to our teams for working really hard tonight to get that done. And I know they're laser focused on getting it open to the public as soon as possible. My final thing was just a thank you to everybody who showed up last week for the listening session on short-term rentals and registration and potential regulations that we've been discussing as part of the budget workshop. We're going to be bringing back the comments and feedback from that session, as well as the online survey for probably a city council workshop as the next steps to show what the... We've heard some community engagement on that piece. I would say I was extraordinarily impressed all the people that showed up that evening and gave some incredibly good feedback to the city on pros and cons with this issue in ways that was, to me, the best of Ellsworth in civic dialogues. or what could have been a very tough issue, but it was, everybody was very well informed, and I really felt like it was a good session for the staff to kind of see all edges of an issue before it kind of comes even into the policy recommendation area, sort of bring back to counsel at the workshop and then we'll see if we'd like to move forward or with some version of this or not at all. And it was a great session and I hope that we can continue to have civic dialogues that are in that realm and the city can really provide an environment for that kind of back and forth on all of our major policy issues to move forward. And I think we have some tonight as well that for discussion that also fall into that realm. So we're looking forward to that discussion too.

That's it. Steve, you had a question? Yes.

Can we go back to the Bridge Hill thing for a second? You say there's washouts. First question is, does the city have insurance for anything like this?

Mike, do you know if this is covered by MMM?

Sinkhole insurance.

That was actually my question as well, and we're looking into whether or not it would be covered as a disaster or something for it. I don't know right now.

OK, secondly. I've heard grinding and I've heard paving, but I haven't heard anything about fixing the under layer. And my question is this. Grinding is one thing. Fixing the road is another and paving is a third. Should you grind and pave immediately or should we? pick up the pavement, repair the road, let it sit for two weeks, and let traffic go over it as a gravel road, make sure we have everything repaired before we spend the money on pavement?

So the intent is to mill it down to a gravel layer, repair the gravel layer, and then compact it and pave over it. If the council's wish is to, I don't recommend having that kind of traffic over gravel for over two weeks. It's going to destroy the gravel. I mean, we'll just have to keep going up there. So the current intent is to mill it down to the gravel, repair the base, and then go back after compaction with lifts of 12 and a half millimeter pavement, two and a half inches, then two inches, then an inch and a half surface. So that's the current game plan. If that's going to be changed, then somebody, one of you guys or one of your areas of council are going to have to tell me to change that. But for now, that's the game plan. And our intent is like we're putting a lot of traffic over Court Street, which is not meant for that much traffic. We're putting a lot of people in a frustrating situation, just trying to get it back and forth to home and back every night. Businesses get, you know, customers to their businesses. And and so my priority really has been to from the get-go has been to remove the pavement that we know is damaged, fix the gravel underneath it, wherever it needs to be fixed, compact it, and then repave it and lift and get it back open. And I think typically when you look at road work, when you look at the High Street Paving Project, they would mill and then they would come back and put down base. I don't know that two weeks, if it was a less traveled road, we were gonna leave it closed and let the, let's just let it settle for two weeks. I think that that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you wanna open it up and let traffic drive over it after we put the gravel, you know, get the gravel fixed, I think you're just gonna ruin the gravel again.

when the state did that road it was gravel and we drove over it i would just hate to see the city of ellsworth spend all this money on pavement before we know that we have no more leaks and we have no more settlement before we spend the paving high street didn't have under layer problems they ground it and they paved it i get that But boy, oh boy, if we're on the hook for this and we don't know the extent of the damage under the pavement, like I said, when the state rebuilt it, it was gravel and people were coming down over it during construction. And I'm no road builder, probably can't even spell the word. But boy, when I hear all these lifts of pavement, when we don't know if we fixed everything underneath, That, to me, is like putting a foundation on a sand beach.

Well, I'm going to tell you right now, then, the reason we had a water main break is because the fill that they put back under that road when they did it however many years ago was awful. Typically, when you put in a water main and you put in sewer mains, you can put any pipes under the road, and Pat can attest to this, you bed it in either crushed stone or you bed it in sand. And you bed it for at least 18 inches over that pipe. When we dug that pipe up, there was nothing close. There was ledge, pieces of ledge, rock, logs, like whatever they had nearby, it seemed like they threw in the hole. So to be completely honest with you, what would worry me even more than your concern, which is legitimate, is if you put the gravel back to where it was and then you let traffic go over it, that's even less of a barrier to all that crap under the road that's going to get driven over and vibrated. You put six inches of pavement over it, it's going to be less likely to disturb all that fill. The fill underneath that road is awful, is awful. And these days, we don't, we would not ever put a road back like that. These days, even when we go up the roads that we do right now, we have a water main, like the water main break on Grand Street. pulled out a piece of 1889 water main, we put in a section water main, that section water main has sand all the way around it for an 18 inch compacted lift. That's the way you're supposed to do it. The fill under bridge hill is nothing, there's no sand in there. There ain't no sand, ain't no crust stone, it's all whatever was nearby went in the hole. And it is not good. And obviously, going to that extent would be a major, major reconstruction project. So I'll do whatever the council wants me to.

Mike, well, I think it's an excellent point, Steve, both in the insurance piece and is there a temporary fix that Maine DOT would be okay with that can be cheaper in the near term, let things settle, and that can give us a little time to evaluate with our partners at Maine DOT on the best path forward, because that's obviously not a winner solution. We have a little bit of time, but not an extensive amount of time. And as you know, this 1800 pipes, these other issues, does feel like the Dutch boy with the finger in the dike.

Just for the records, anything would be a more improvement than what's going on right now. Gravel, pavement, whatever. I just hate to see pavement go down before we're sure.

But we'll, and councilors, if they want to ping me directly after this. But Mike, let's work on a plan that we can put together, send it to the council once we've had those conversations before we press play in the execution there. We'll note on the insurance and then on the temporary patch, but obviously importance is getting that road back going as soon as possible.

Yeah, I mean, that was the direction from DOT, to get it fixed as soon as possible.

Great.

We'll pull some information and see what comes back.

When you opened the hole, you've got X amount open of the road. Did you open it a little bit this way to see if like Jimmy Hoffa was there?

It was a pretty big excavation because you don't know exactly where the hole is. So we just used the experience of the crew and where the water was pushing up through. Obviously, it wasn't above us, so we knew the section where it started blowing out is where we wanted to start. We knew where the water main was. It's a pretty big excavation. We probably excavated, I don't know, I guess it was probably 15 to 20 feet wide and probably another 15 feet down over the hill. It was probably six feet deep we went down, probably, before we found the hole. So, yeah.

It's like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Looking for a water break.

No, because water's just blowing up everywhere in the pavement, all over the place.

It's going to take the path of least resistance.

Yeah, and there was the place they cut in, which when Mike showed me that little hole, I was... Because there was other areas down the way.

But you have 100 and something pounds per square inch of water pushing out of that thing. It makes a difference.

And there's ripples in the...

Oh, yeah, the pavement's all humped up.

Yeah, so it's not just that one area.

There's vertical cracks all the way down through to the intersection. So it was a good one.

Just speaking for myself, I don't think I would be comfortable getting into how you should fix your road. I think whatever you decide to use your best judgment is what I would have to support anyway.

Thank you.

Public's just going to have to be a little bit more patient.

I'm doing the best I can.

Yeah.

Thank you, Mike. Charlie, do you have anything else? That's it. All right. Okay, moving on to agenda item number seven, committee reports. We have some appointments here that we'll start with. The first is for the Arbor Commission. So there's a request from the Arbor Commission to appoint Danielle Gift, who was our previous planner here, and the previous tree warden. for the city to be a member of the commission with a term expiring for 6-30-2027. And as a member of the Arbor Commission, I fully support this. Danielle is TRAC certified, so Tree Risk Assessment Qualified, and it would be an incredible addition to the team, also with the ability to manage grants or help Roddy to manage the grants that we are currently working with, which we usually, we have the IRA grant that's in the second year, and we'd get the project canopy grants typically every year for either $10,000 to $20,000. So we would love to have her assisting with that. And I say... Are there any comments from the council?

Move to approve.

I second. All right, we're in a second. Way to go. Any further discussion there? Okay, all in favor? Unanimous, wonderful. And now on to the Solid Waste Committee, a committee that I just recently joined. There's a request to appoint Andrew McCullough, Kurt Clark, and Amanda Dias, Ziggy, I'm probably butchering that name, sorry, which is all recommended by Mike, the PUP Works director. And it says here that their appointments will support the work of the Solid Waste Committee and ensure continued communication or community participation in matters related to the solid waste management. Is there any council discussion for the appointments for the Solid Waste Committee?

Move to approve. Second.

Any other discussion? All in favor? Anonymous. Wonderful. Now on to other committee reports. Marina? Sorry, Councilor Smith. Sorry.

It's fine. So although it may be daunting to replace someone who has had 30 years of experience on the Harbor Commission, there is an opening if someone wants to help maintain the harbor and all the community service it does. There's also two openings on the rec commission because and In joining you, you would help be taking care of the numerous recreational spaces Ellsworth enjoys. This includes the parks. And speaking of the parks, the initial designs for the rework for the Milton Park playground have been submitted to the playground committee and they will meet to review and eventually appear before the council to help get a playground for the next generation. Thank you.

Anyone else? Carol? Historic Preservation Commission still has two openings on it, if anybody's interested in historic preservation. Right now, we are looking forward to work getting underway on the RFP for taking the seal down. which we talked about in workshop. So that's all.

Excellent. Thank you. And we'll talk about it later tonight as well. Councillor O'Halloran or Shea, any reports? No? Okay. I would like to add on a little bit to the Arbor Commission. We have started citing locations for the second phase of our IRO tree planting grant. This fall we'll be planting in Harbor Park and the Ellsworth-owned Union River Estates property on Water Street. We are currently working to secure the permits needed to plant along the Union River at Harbor Park. We are also looking forward to meeting with the management at the Union River Estates to ensure plantings are sited in areas of need and without conflict to existing uses. And we also hope to work with the residents before that planting as well. The plant is slated to happen in October, and I will definitely have more details for our next council meeting. And I just wanted to remind the community that this is an unmatched federal grant, meaning the city didn't have to put any money forward, that is primarily using volunteers to organize and to perform the labor in these tree plantings. And then I recently joined the Solid Waste Committee and went to my first meeting last week. And as many people may know, we are currently not making enough money through the solid waste fees to pay for the operation. So therefore, the property taxpayers of Ellsworth have to subsidize the net loss of roughly, it was $400,000 this past fiscal year. So the Solid Waste Committee is working to reduce that gap with the goal of being budget neutral. To note, the Cassell contract that costs about $258,000 a year expires in June 2027. So currently the committee is considering options like self-sufficiency, joining municipal waste hub, and partnering with Chickadee Composting. And we will begin meeting with much more regularity. I think it was about maybe once a year or so before that. As we get closer to that expiration of the Casella contract, once staff obtains some pricing so that we can fully understand our options there. All right on to agenda number eight citizen comments This is a time for the public to provide comments to the City Council about city business So, please refrain from speaking about any city About any items that are already on tonight's agenda that are scheduled for a public hearing As you will have time to speak then if you would like to speak tonight during come citizen comments please approach the DS, state your name, and please keep your comments to three minutes or less. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Debra Gillespie-Faust. I have a couple comments. One is... the road in Boggy Brook. We have a tremendous problem with being told that it's private, but Versant went down there and destroyed the road. Versant tried to fix it, but the old town manager decided that it was told Versant that it was a public road, along with the assessor. I have called, since this has happened, numerous times, every year, at least once, maybe twice. I just recently called again, and I got a call about my taxes, because they went up too. Since I've lived there, I have never had anybody come to assess my property at all from the town, at all, and not recently. And it went up quite a bit. I haven't done anything to my house since 2011. Nothing except mow my lawns and keep it mowed. That's it. So when I called the assessor, he told me that he was tired of me calling and that I would always get the runaround because I keep questioning when they're going to fix the road. And I want proof that when it became private because all my taxes when I first moved in, it said Boggy Brook Road. When I complained about the road and versus going down it to put the transfer station at the end of our road, I was told, all of a sudden I got a tax bill and it was Boggy Brook Way. And I called the assessor and I said, why did it change to Way? I said, and I moved in, it was road on my Texas State road except for this year, which was 2022-23. And he made the comment because Way means private. So then I asked why and when it became private, if you're changing it now. When did it become private? He cannot come up with any paperwork of when it did. On my deed and stuff, it does not say private or when he even bought the house from Habitat for Humanity. They bought it from the town, or from Jones's, and it doesn't say anything about private road. So on the continuing of talking to him, He said, well, I'm tired of this. And he said, excuse me, are you taking medication? I said, excuse me, what did you say? I said, that is rude, disrespectful, and I thought I'd bring it up to the council because this is how your town employees treat your community. And that is not right. I don't go up to him and ask him if he has a mental illness. So I want a public apology from him. And I will continue to keep calling about the road until I get proof. Your town manager already knows this because I've spoken to him as well. And I told him I don't want anything written. I want to see it in paperwork and proof.

You're right at about three minutes.

I'm done. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

I want to first start out by addressing the issue of the Finance Committee meeting from 8-10 last Monday, which I would encourage everyone to watch that meeting. The fact that just after the two-minute mark of the meeting that the city manager states that, and I quote, we're still not fully reconciled amongst all of our accounts. This is absolutely wild to me to think that this day and age, we are not reconciling our accounts in this city monthly. That gives no accurate financial standing on these accounts and does not show fiscal responsibility whatsoever. That is a basic function of every aspect of finance. But then later on, about 19 minutes in, the new CFO describes our financial situation rather bleakly as to quote, We need a financial turnaround. We are behind in bank reconciliations, behind in the audit. He goes on to state that when talking about our financial situation, and this is a direct quote, there's a laundry list of things in terms that we need to just get our arms around to improve and just to keep the plane in the air. So that's not even necessarily, you know, digging the town financially out of the hole. That's just keeping the plane in the air. He then continues about our finances and grants, grants that Mr. Brooks spoke about back in the May City Council meeting before his passing, that grants that are not always good depending on what they are, et cetera. In addition, further into the very eye-opening meeting, Councilor Nancy Smith, just after the 39-minute mark, spoke to this, and I quote again, we've known, you know, this is my third year in council, and we knew well as we got into it, probably after six months, here realized that we had some serious financial issues that we needed addressed, and Charlie's been leading all of that. If knowing back in 2023, why has a majority of council members continuously voted on spending frivolously, even after the begging and pleading of residents to stop and get accounting of the finances first? Instead, it's been literally one thing after another and continues to be. Dog parks, bathrooms, which actually should be off the table completely in accordance with Robert's rules, which govern these meetings, et cetera, et cetera. This, in reality, is non-feasance and misfeasance with our financials. Council and city manager should honestly be ashamed of themselves at this point, pushing things through that should have never been. It has been at the cost of residents and taxpayers. This brings me back to my question in June council meeting when I specifically suggested to hold off on passing the budget for 2027 until the finances got sorted out. It was clearly ignored as most things are with this council when it comes to actually listening to the public. And I actually want to thank the new CFO, Chris, for saying what we all have been saying meeting after meeting at that finance committee meeting. Maybe you will listen to him. And actually, when looking at the budget items, I have noticed that the Owl Wives sales revenue that has continually been budgeted anywhere from $25,000 in 2022 to now $40,000 in 2027 and has never seemed to have any income showing up in the line item where the actual year-to-date amounts. Not once in any of the years has it shown up to actually what it came in. Tiffany, you're right around three minutes. Okay. Can I finish? I have just a little bit, and then he'll take over for me. Not once in any of the years have it shown up to what it came in. So where can you see what amount has come into the city for that? I have also noticed that AP warrants issued and paid for on 8-14, that a payment was made in the amount of $3,125 to AA Atherton with a description of Ellsworth Owl Wives, and then the GL account is under Harbor, and then under Professional Services, which the description in your budget booklet for that is a fuel tank maintenance. So again, another example of something that is most likely in the wrong place, much like that of the 43,000 bank fee mistake a few months ago I pointed out, that we still don't know what was put in there.

Tiffany. Yes.

Thank you very much. Do you want me to stand up here to give you that? Yeah. Okay.

Hi, Gordon Workman, resident of Ellsworth. I'm taking over for Tiffany's room. Please start my time. Got you. I wish you had a clock here. That's all right. In addition to all this, our city charter states, specifically in Article 7, Section 701, accounts and records that the city manager must submit to the city council a monthly statement of all receipts and disbursements in significant detail to show the exact financial condition of the city of Ellsworth. When I Tiffany when I have asked several council about this they have not received this What is our exact financial condition of the city in addition to that section 7? bonds of officials of that same article states the council will require a satisfactory bond with significant security for all administrative officials trusted with any public money and may require a bond from other officials and employees as may be deemed advisable. Has this been done? Who is bonded or insured in the finance department, which the items are on the table? I would suggest that the council rescind the approval of the 27 budget using Robert's Rules of Order, which you can do by vote until we clear a picture of the real finances within the health of the City of Elsinore. You can still operate under prior year's budget if you aren't sure how that works. Tiffany can easily explain to you. In regards to Merrill Lane Extension courthouse project, has anyone gone to the county commissions and requested funds from the other 37 towns and plantations asking for funds to contribute to the county courthouse? It is not just a courthouse that elder taxpayers are using, but seems to be on the book four. I brought that up as well. And what are the plans for the roads and sewer lines? We have break after break and road issue after road issue, which they've talked tonight, did the money that was supposed to go to the road projects, quite a few actually been reallocated for the courthouse road. Where is this money coming from? The increased taxes. Speaking of funding, when the council voted for the track and the fire truck bond and the school department came up and said they were going to be doing fundraising to fill that gap amount to cover the track, shouldn't we be getting a monthly update on that fundraising process? What funds are they currently raising? Can anyone answer that? Lastly, in regards to the foreclosed properties, how can we sell properties that have an unknown owner and unknown foreclosure date? The city would then keep those proceeds. Out of the deeds this county holds, there are none for these properties. Thank you. And I don't know where you're looking at. Thank you.

Thank you for...

Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, seeing no more, move on to agenda number nine, councilor comments. Councilors, anyone like to speak? Councilor Shea. Oh, do I do that?

Can I let them in? Sorry. It's our attorney. Sorry.

You got some citizens that want to talk? I'll yield.

It's the attorney.

No, I'm sorry.

Oh.

Yep. Yep. I saw him.

I thought, oh, he'll get it from that. Okay, cool.

Try again, Tim. What do I do if he comes back?

Well, there should be a list here. You should see him pop up in the list, and you just say, there's a checkbox you need to look.

I just hit the checkbox, okay.

Yeah, wait a minute. I don't even know how to see him. It looks like he was in, but then he's out again. Okay. Unless he's having internet issues of some kind.

He was probably sick and waiting for me to do something. Okay.

Well, holler for me if you need to. Okay, thank you so much.

Sorry about that.

That's okay. Things happen, you know. I attended the hearing on the short-term rentals, and I was very impressed on the comments and how the meeting went. It was very respectful and polite and a lot of good points come out. Yes, I own a short-term rental. I have my reasons for doing it and I've stated them before. You know, I wish I could contribute more to having the issue about the housing out there, but there are plenty of houses to get affordable housing. Those who keep sending me e-mails and stuff wanting affordable housing, I hear you. I really do, okay? I wish I could do more about it by lowering property taxes so landlords don't raise the rents. That's the bottom line. That's the fact. Asking the city to fund some of this stuff? Well, as you hear tonight, we have issues with our water lines and we have issues with our sewer lines and our drainage systems. So you kind of have to make tough decisions on certain things. And you have to work with different agencies, i.e. the state of Maine. The state of Maine owns a lot of roads here. So, and again, as you heard, the issue about funding, okay? You know, I noticed driving around for what I do for work, which I'd rather not work, but, you know, you got to make ends meet. But I think Tim is back.

Oh, thank you.

I'm sorry. People need to slow down. People need to be a little bit more respectful of other people. And just so you know, some people out there probably already heard this from the Secretary of State's office. It's not a right to drive on main roads. It's a privilege. So treat that privilege with respect to the other drivers. I've witnessed so many people out there racing up and down our city streets. The streets I live on, Bayside Road, Bridge Hill, you know, I share the same sentiments as Councilor O'Halloran about putting the gravel road and just letting traffic hit it a few times. But there are people out there that just would tear it all up and make it worse for everybody else. There'd be riots. Public works crew would be out there constantly trying to regrade it, you know. But as you can see, the roosters are coming home to roost. What's under the roads has been there a long, long time. How they used to put those pipes in the ground isn't the way we do it now. Nothing lasts forever. So except some change in how things are done is getting more and more expensive. but I am looking out and I've heard, I'm sorry I didn't answer back to everybody who's been emailing me, but I hear you, I really do.

Oh, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Shea. Hold on one second here. No, I don't know. I don't think it's me.

I might be able to just call him and put him on speaker next to the mic. Okay. Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. I don't think it's me.

Okay. Any other councillors? Council comments? Councillor O'Halloran?

I've heard a lot of criticism about the cost of public safety. And I'm talking about the police, the fire, Public Works. Through the budget process, I heard many, many comments from our city manager about the cost of those departments, specifically the fire and the police. And I'd just like to say that I can't imagine a more important piece of government than police, fire, ambulance, public works. These are the people that, especially police, and Public Works are out all hours of the night doing like most recently this water main drama. And I would think that their budget should be the biggest, not the smallest, because they're the backbone of everything that goes on in this town. And I'm really tired of, I'm upset with obviously our costs of the city. but I'm really upset about the criticalness of those departments those departments need to they're the most important that we have there's many important jobs here in the city of Ellsworth but these people are hourly people that are out all hours of the night doing their job and I believe that their portion of the budget isn't as mean as it's perceived. I think our budget overruns comes from a top-heavy administration. And I think that the top-heavy administration needs to be thinned out. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Howard? Councilor Smith?

Summer is, in many ways, when Ellsworth truly comes alive. I can think of three options for live music. And you have people discovering the city for sometimes the first time and going, I wish I had known about Ellsworth earlier, or else I would have stayed longer, to longtime residents just enjoying an impromptu concert in the parklet. And this is, in many ways, what ties communities. And it is just something that I do really enjoy hearing. It is something that I heard. The idea of different communities coming together is something that I did hear in the listening session for short-term rentals. So it is just really cool to see what Ellsworth is and just, yeah.

Thank you. Any other? No? All right, I have some comments. So I also wanted, I went to the short-term rental listening session. Most of the council was actually there, which was really awesome to see. And I wanted to acknowledge how successful I thought that was. I really enjoyed that we didn't restrict the timing and let people, people's comments last as long as they did and that we held the back and forth dialogue there with the public. And I really encourage more of those events to happen in the future. And I also wanted to speak about the importance of counselors sitting on our commissions and committees. I believe it's a huge privilege to serve on this council and part of that privilege is doing the hard work that's needed across all the areas of city government. I really like the monthly reports that we get and they're necessary to really understand what's actually going on in all of these committees and commissions. It also matters that council sits at these tables directly. What we bring to sitting at this table is what we think is important and also what the public thinks is important. But I do have some concerns that these commissions and committees generate a lot of action items that need to be implemented, and too often these implementation falls on an already heavily burdened staff. The recommendation coming out of the work is really important, but I worry that we're asking maybe too much of our staff to carry it out alone. I also think that this applies sitting here at this council table and not just in the commissions and committees. And if we suggest something or push something in our own meetings, I believe the counselors should be the ones willing to do the work to help carry it forward and not simply just hand it off to staff and move on. So I'm just here to encourage us to not just sit at the meetings, but help implement the projects that we want, especially if they are our pet projects and we're passionate about them. We should be the ones that are rolling up our sleeves and doing the heavy work there instead of putting all the burden on staff. That's all I got. Okay. No unfinished business. So we're going to move to agenda item number 10, council order number 80802600. Okay. Request for the Deputy City Clerk to hold a City of Ellsworth General Municipal Election on November 3rd, 2026. Oh, what does that mean? There's no discussion. So I just...

So moved.

Okay. Second. Excellent. Any... Do we get to deliberate on this? No. Okay, no. All in favor? Wonderful. Unanimous. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to new business. Public hearing and action on the applications for renewal for the following licenses. Jennifer Wayne Goodrich, DBA Peppers Pub at 20 Water Street for renewal of a city class B license, amusement, vicular, and liquor, and renewal of a state class A restaurant lounge liquor license. Next, ARG Incorporated doing business as Pat's Pizza, 396 High Street for renewal of a city class B license, amusement, vicular, and liquor, and renewal of a state restaurant, class one, two, three, and four, malt, spirituous, and vinous liquor license, and Walmart Stores East, LP number 1932, DBA Walmart number 1932, 17 Myrick Street, for renewal of a class C license, vicular and liquor, and renewal of a state off-premise beer and wine license. Let's see. I think I took notes for this. So this matter is noted as a public hearing. I will open the public hearing. If anyone would like to provide comment on the applicants before the council, please approach the DS and please state your name and limit your comments to three minutes or less. So opening the public meeting. Annual. Okay. I will close it. Is there any comments or questions from the council? Would the council like to move?

I move to approve the business license renewals as presented.

Second.

All right. Any more discussion?

Okay.

All the licenses and everything's good to go. Good.

Wonderful. Thank you. All right. All in favor? Unanimous. Excellent. Okay, moving on to agenda item number 12, council order number 082601, public hearing and protectional action on a moratorium on RV parks in the city of Ellsworth, sponsored by myself, Councilor White. So let me just get to my... So I want to say that I... wanted to sponsor this item, not because I am opposed to development in Ellsworth, but I am sponsoring this because I believe that the proposal has a surface real gap between our current rural zoning and the direction our comprehensive plan has set for us. And I think that gap deserves our full attention tonight. When this group came before us last month, I was really struck by the argument that the development falls outside what the 2035 Comprehensive Plan directs us to do, which is to restrict development in our rural districts. That stuck with me, so I did digging and found what I found surprised me, that we really only have two rural zones, rural and rural drinking water, and what's actually allowed within them is broader than I expected. and broader than what the comprehensive plan calls for. So I wanted to have the residents back. I'm sorry, yeah, so tonight I wanted to have the residents back and hear from the public and talk honestly as a council about the time and costs it would take to bring our zoning into alignment with the comprehensive plan. And, yeah, I think you wrote a whole lot out in our packets. I didn't know if you wanted to kind of go over that as well.

MR. You know, I would. I want to get to the citizen comment on this piece because I know that's probably the most valuable for this session, and my memo is available with the council packet online. But I'm really thankful to be able to look more into this issue, just for a little background for maybe listeners. who might be coming to this for the first time. There is an RV park called the Anchoring Campground proposed at 566 Bayside Road. And it is currently in the planning board process. I believe it came in in May of 2026 for a major use site development plan of approximately a 52-acre property in Ellsworth's rural zoning district. It's targeting a summer 2027 open date. The planning board subsequently conducted a site visit. I believe some city councilors also attended that on July 21st. And I believe they submitted their final review of the applicant and to be placed in the agenda for September 2nd with the Planning Board for potential final approval. Or not. The Planning Board could request additional information before reaching a final decision. Some neighbor groups from an abutting neighborhood came out at the last meeting. An agenda item sponsored by Councilor Halloran. and spoke in opposition to the proposed campground or RV park and made some really excellent testimony on neighborhood character and compatibility, consistency with the comp plan, the adequacy of the existing campground ordinance, traffic and safety, fire and emergency, water and environmental impacts, and it was a good discussion. I wasn't here for it, but I was able to to review it. And also it was kind of discussed at that meeting, that was on whether a moratorium on RV parks would be appropriate here, which I've been looking into in conjunction with our city attorney. Two thresholds for a moratorium to hold for a municipality with a project of this type to prevent a shortage or overburdening of public facilities is one, and existing comp plans, land use ordinances, regulations, or other applicable laws are inadequate to prevent serious public harm. an issue where it could satisfy those criteria. It's also a debate on not. I know there's another piece of this on the rights of property owners and moving forward under existing rules and ordinances and those issues as well. But this is definitely an issue that deserves a lot of feedback and discussion and deliberation on whether to pursue a moratorium what action, whether it's a moratorium to strengthen the RV campground regulations, whether it's a moratorium to prevent uses of this type in rural zones across Ellsworth. Those are all potentials. I also provided to the council a proposed moratorium from the group that is in opposition to this campground, which I provided in the packets. We weren't able to review in detail before sending out, but the city attorney Myself has since reviewed, and Tim can maybe provide at the end of my comments a little bit of his discussion in general there. I have proposed in my memo no action as of yet prior to the planning board decision, and that's after consultation with our attorney. That's really sort of twofold. One is to let the independence of that process really play out, and that it could... come to a rejection from the planning board. It could have come to an approval, but in the case of rejection, I think that there's been some issues that have been brought forward here, and I'd still want to keep them as part of our process with ordinance reform, aligning the comp plan to those ordinances, the RV campground one specifically, but it would sort of remove the urgency if the planning board didn't approve, and keeping the independence of those two bodies So that's kind of the way, the second piece is to really kind of maybe establish a time that's really focused solely on this issue with the city council and both citizen groups that may be in opposition to this proposal if it were to be approved and then with the business owner as well, and the moratorium has a 45-day clause post-decision where there'd be time for that. So I made in my memo sort of a two- or three-step process to have two special meetings really solely dedicated to this issue moving forward. I should note... The group also provided a letter, which I printed out for the council, opposing my suggestion that we postpone a moratorium action tonight. I totally understand that. I believe they're right in the category of the statute itself does not you know, require us to wait or require the council to wait until a planning board does or does not approve. This statute's flexible there. This council could weigh in now before a planning board approval or disapproval to issue a moratorium on this type of use. They're completely right on that piece. I would still hold with the, that is, you know, the 45-day window, you know, still allows us to have a little bit more space for that moratorium and consider both sides of those pieces. that process, so I still think that's good to move forward on, you know, it could be a motion to authorize the city manager or direct, I should say, the city manager to set up a series of special meetings solely dedicated to the campground and to further review moratorium with the city attorney for discussion, potential action. It could also be expedited even further than that if the council doesn't does wanna weigh in before the planning board discussion, we could arrange, I believe that's the September 2nd meeting. We could look to have a special meeting on this as well for the city attorney and I to really review the moratorium in much more detail, provide potential edits. But if the council is sort of a, Or you can have a moratorium tonight, and we can talk to the council about some of the small edits that he thought of in that area where we need. But I think, obviously, after a lot of citizen comment, it would probably be best to make any of those decisions.

So Tim, I don't know if you have any more there.

Yeah, just briefly. I think Charlie did a nice job of laying out the requirements for a moratorium and the timeline for a moratorium and so forth. I just want to add that it's a fairly common tool that communities have. If you read the paper, in any given time, communities are acting moratoriums around solar projects, wind projects, farms, and there's been several campsite, yurt-type moratoriums in the last few years as those projects have gotten more popular. So it is a tool that communities use, and the absolute drop-dead deadline for my perspective is 45 days after there's an approval, then there really isn't any other avenue for a moratorium to take effect and have an impact on an approved project. So it's kind of the timeframe that you're looking at, but you could do it now, you could do it, again, within that 45-day period, if you feel like the criteria that Terry laid out in the statute have been met. And I think in my view, I generally don't try to give legal advice in front of the audience, I think, as Charlie indicated, that there are facts here. I think that it would be legally defensible if the council wanted to enact a moratorium in this case. Whether it's the right idea or not, that's up to your judgment. I'm just saying I think it could be legally defensible.

All right, thank you. So, oh, is there any council discussion here? Do you want to open up to the public and hear their thoughts first? Okay, so this matter is noticed as a public hearing, so I'll open up the public hearing. So anyone that wants to provide comment about the potential moratorium on the RV park, please approach the DS. Please state your name and limit your comments to three minutes or less.

Hi, my name is Kelly Brackett. I live at 165 Altnav. Charlie, nice to meet you. We've been emailing a lot. Thank you for your comments. I also want to take a moment to thank Councilor O'Halloran, who was the first councilor to respond to our request for sponsorship. His belief in freedom of speech and the residents' voices are what has gotten us here tonight. I'd also like to thank Councilor White for sponsoring this agenda item. We have appreciated her active participation in discussions with us on this issue. I wanted to focus on one question. Why is a moratorium necessary now? And the answer is timing. Ellsworth adopted its new comprehensive plan, but our land use ordinances have not yet caught up with that vision. In our existing UDO Article 56, Chapter 1, Section 101, it states, Implement the provisions of the comprehensive plan. Promote the health, safety, and general welfare of residents. Encourage the most appropriate use of land, end quote. The directive to the council to apply the comprehensive plan already exists within the UDO. Phase two of ordinance alignment process, including public participation, is about to begin. At the same time, the planning board is preparing to make a final decision on a 28-site commercial RV campground at 566 Bayside Road, right next to our neighborhood. This is exactly why a temporary pause makes sense. If you decided not to enact a moratorium, what will you do instead to protect the residents while the city's ordinances are being rewritten? A vote against the moratorium does not make the underlying problem disappear. The comprehensive plan still exists. The ordinance revisions are still underway. The need to establish appropriate standards for scale, intensity, and location of development is still present, and this application is still being considered under the existing outdated regulations. So what's the alternative? How will you protect residential neighborhoods? How will you ensure commercial tourism uses are appropriately located? How will you ensure that traffic, noise, lighting, water, wastewater, stormwater, emergency access, natural resource impacts are adequately addressed? A temporary moratorium is the most transparent and probably only way to do that. It provides time to complete the ordinance work already underway and establishes a pause on all new RV campground applications rather than making the planning board make a decision solely about one project. Even if this particular application is denied by the planning board and therefore no moratorium is enacted by you, another application could be submitted tomorrow or next year because we've heard that ordinance updates can take a long time. and it would be evaluated under the same antiquated ordinances, and you'd have the same residents showing up and talking to you. A moratorium now sends an important message. The comprehensive plan is not simply a document the city adopted. Its protections are valid and can be applied during this time of ordinance revision. Again, Article 56, Chapter 1, Section 101.1 directs you, the council, to do so. It says, quote, implement the provisions of the comprehensive plan, end quote. The people that voted you into these positions are relying on you to do your job tonight, to make the choice that protects residents. We are your taxpayers, your voters, and the key to the future success of Ellsworth. Please vote for a moratorium tonight. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Cindy Wangen. I live at 14 Marion Way, which also abuts the... We've provided you with a draft moratorium ordinance for your consideration. First, we want to be clear this is a draft and a starting point. We recognize that the council, city staff, planning board, or legal council may recommend revisions, and we welcome changes that make it legally sound, workable, and effective. We prepared the draft with our own legal representation from Murray, Plum, and Murray because we wanted to give you something substantive to consider rather than simply asking you to support the concept of a moratorium. The anchor and campground application is what brought the issue into sharp focus, but it has brought a light to broader concern. This is an Ellsworth-wide land use issue. The comprehensive plan calls for defining the scale, intensity, and location of future development and strengthening protections for rural areas and natural resources through zoning. Additionally, our current ordinance does not specifically address RV parks as a distinct type of development. The draft identifies gaps involving traffic, infrastructure capacity, wastewater, Environmental protection density setbacks and compatibility with surrounding land uses that are specific to RV parks. We have invested our own time and money to prepare this draft because we understand that drafting an ordinance takes city resources. The proposal is for a temporary 180 day moratorium during which the city can prioritize appropriate zoning and RV park regulations. This moratorium is drafted would exclude elsewhere's three existing campgrounds. We're not asking you to adopt this document exactly as written. We're asking you to begin working on it now by voting for a moratorium tonight. We have done what we can to get the process started. We ask you are elected officials to take it forward. Thank you for your time and for hearing us out. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Kristen Braun. I live at 74 Elton Avenue. There are many reasons Bayside road is not appropriate for an RV park, but instead of trying to list all those in my limited time for public comment, I will use this time instead to implore you, our city counselors to do all you can to ensure the city's comprehensive plan, which was finalized in November of 2024 is honored. City Manager Charlie Pierce said it well in his memorandum dated August 13th, 2026. Quote, Ellsworth recently undertook a substantial community process to establish a vision for future growth and the city's ordinances are still being evaluated and updated to implement portions of that vision. It is reasonable to ask whether the anchor in proposal has exposed a gap between the city's regulatory language and the community's newly articulated land use goals." I want to mention again that the comprehensive plan was finalized in November of 2024, which means we're going on two years since. And I can't find any mention on the city charter of an implementation committee. And it's my understanding that the comprehensive plan steering committee was supposed to just kind of seamlessly transition to an implementation committee immediately upon finalizing the comprehensive plan. And so that's a question I have. Is there an implementation committee in place? And another thing I've learned is that zoning was supposed to be updated within two years of finalizing the comprehensive plan. And that would be updated by the Planning Board and the Ellsworth Planning Department, not only for the comprehensive plan purposes, but also for the Maine Won't Wait Act, which is also known as the Climate Change Act. So I'm also wondering, what is the status currently of rezoning? As a citizen, I can't understand why a comprehensive plan was finalized without first aligning the applicable ordinances. It seems like a cart before the horse kind of situation. So please, counselors, vote tonight to approve the moratorium on the Anchor In proposal to allow you the necessary time to set our city's priorities straight. Thank you so much.

I'm Ian Braun, I live at 74 Alton Avenue, husband of Kristen, but I've been there for 24 years, and we have. I would also like to thank the councilors that have taken their time to meet with us personally and send email responses of our concerns. A majority of you have done so, so thank you very much. And also thanks city manager Charlie Pierce for the detailed and comprehensive memorandum that he submitted for your review today. Well done, I don't agree with waiting, but nonetheless, well done in reading. So I have a couple main concerns. I'm unsatisfied with the current information on the environmental impact of this development. At the planning board meeting in July, the plan presented to the board was inadequate in ensuring adequate septic and water usage. Key questions could not be answered at the preliminary meeting. Maybe this is standard practice for me as a citizen, that was shocking to see. and then it moved forward to final hearing. In the July planning board meeting, the agent for the developer, Steve Salisbury, spoke several times of working on the old C.V. Woodlot development with Bob Ray, the developer of what would become Alton's Avenue subdivision. In 2008, Robert Ray and Ray Builders was building subdivision without first obtaining a permit for the filling of wetlands as required by the Clean Water Act. The construction of the roads and the development of these lots results in the discharge of dredged and filled material into approximately 3.8 acres of valuable forested wetlands adjacent to several streams flowing into the Union River Bay. In the email I sent you folks, I cited the article. The proper planning and application process was not followed between 1989 and 2003. It was brought to the planning board's attention in July that there's a current EPA investigation regarding the clearing of trees on the law proposed campground. The planning board asked the city staff to gather details in that investigation. Since that meeting, I've not heard any updates. With the lack of information provided to the planning board in July and the possibility of an EPA investigation currently happening, I'm concerned we'll have a repeat of the damage done to the wetlands in the Union River Bay between 1989 and 2003. I believe this should be fully addressed before approval is given. Second, I have seen no movement by the developer to be, quote, a good neighbor. A counselor at the last meeting said we were fortunate to have a developer that is not a big corporation or from out of state. That would be true if a local developer was being a good neighbor. Otherwise, there is no difference. Simple questions as to quiet hours, the building and planting of buffers between our homes and the campsites, Would there be someone on site to address concerns? Or security in the off season have gone unanswered? Even when the councilor invited him to speak, potentially address these concerns, or even to say they would be willing to be a good neighbor, the developer declined. Regulations need to be put in place by the city council to address how the rights of neighborhoods next to campgrounds will be protected. according to the Maine State Moratorium, can be issued because the application of existing comprehensive plans, land use ordinances, and other applicable laws are inadequate to prevent serious public harm from residential, commercial, or industrial development in the affected geographic area. I believe the above reasons and others that we've stated meet this threshold and therefore advocate the City Council issue a moratorium until environmental issues can be addressed, zoning is properly updated, and regulations for campgrounds and next neighborhoods are developed. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Councilors, thank you for listening. I'm Carla Cantor. I live at 664 Bayside Avenue. And when I was looking over my notes, what struck me are two words, and that's new vision. And this is the opportunity for the city as a whole, the community, the councilors, the chance to update the ordinances. This is a great time with the moratorium to actually prevent things that could happen. A stitch in time saves nine. It's easier to apologize than it is to do the right thing and get permission. All of these sayings, all these cliches, they persist because they're real. So here's a chance. And I'm very favorably impressed with everyone that's spoken. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I really look forward to seeing some positive outcomes from the opportunity that's in front of us right now with a moratorium. So please vote for a moratorium. Thank you.

My name is Heather Dorr. I live at 168 Elkins Avenue and I would like to first acknowledge and appreciate City Manager Charlie Pierce. We feel that you really heard our concerns and we greatly appreciate that. We understand that he is trying to find a middle ground by developing a timeline with conditions for discussion and enactment of a moratorium. We take that as a promising signal that the moratorium is considered a valid option and we hope that our City Council will as well. We understand that the City Council and the Planning Board have two different roles. You establish the City's land use policies and regulations and the Planning Board applies them. Supporting a moratorium now does not interfere with the planning board's responsibility to apply the current ordinance. It allows the council to exercise its separate responsibility to address regulatory gaps before potentially permanent land use decisions are made, especially when the city is actively working to revise them. The proposed moratorium does contain a retroactive provision and we believe relying on it after a planning board decision is too risky with the added stress of timing. Based on advice from our legal counsel, allowing a situation to take place where the retroactive provision needs to be applied puts the city in the legal quandary of applying a new regulation to an application where a decision has already been made. If the council believes a moratorium may ultimately be necessary, there is little reason to wait for the planning board's decision. Please don't put the planning board in the position of having to make decisions under rules that the city itself has already decided are inadequate. We ask that you vote for the moratorium tonight. In case you haven't had a chance to read the letter that was emailed from our lawyers, I do want to just highlight an excerpt. It says, there is nothing in the statute, it states, Main statute is in the email as well. There is nothing in this statute that suggests that a proposed development should be allowed to go through a land use review first before the city council takes up the moratorium. If that were the case, then the city manager might have a legal basis for his recommendation. But the absence of any such language means that now is the time for the city council to review the proposed moratorium, not after the planning board takes action. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Kim Smolich. I live at 31 Outons Avenue and have for 28 years. Tonight, I am asking you to support a moratorium on the new RV campgrounds, not to stop development. We all recognize the importance of development, but to give Ellsworth time to get our zoning right. My understanding is that phase two of the ordinance rewrite will examine rural zoning. That makes a moratorium especially important. It would allow the city to address the shortcomings in our current zoning before additional commercial development is approved under rules that may not align with our comprehensive plan. Our lawyers were shocked to learn that Ellsworth has only one rural zone encompassing very different types of rural land. Many communities, including small towns like Trenton, use multiple rural zones to distinguish between residential, development and commercial areas. Why shouldn't Ellsworth? We believe Ellsworth should consider, at a minimum, two distinct rural zones. Rural residential, areas reserved primarily for housing, where commercial uses like campgrounds are not appropriate, and rural commercial, areas where commercial uses, including campgrounds, are appropriate. That distinction would be better for residents because they would have greater certainty about what can locate next door. It would be better for developers because they would have clearer rules about where commercial development belongs. And it would be better for the city because it would allow growth to happen deliberately rather than incrementally creating urban sprawl in rural residential areas. Right now, a single rural zone could potentially allow commercial ventures to locate next to neighborhoods that residents reasonably believe are rural and residential. Is that really what we want for Ellsworth? A moratorium gives us the time to answer that question and to establish rules that are clear fair, and consistent with our comprehensive plan. I'm not asking you to stop development. I'm asking you to pause long enough to get the rules right. Please give Ellsworth the opportunity to create a rural zoning structure that protects residents, provides certainty for developers, and serves the long-term interests of our city. I'm asking you to vote for the moratorium tonight. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Wyatt Braun. I'm a resident of 74 Alton's Avenue. I would like to speak about community engagement and what this application can mean for future development. There has been no meaningful outreach from the owner or developer to the surrounding residents. Several planning board members and counselors have encouraged them to reach out. listen to concerns, and work with the neighborhood, but this has not happened. Meanwhile, residents have raised concerns about traffic, noise, lighting, wetlands, drinking water, wastewater, emergency access, density, and neighborhood character. 150 no RV park signs have now been distributed. Nearly three dozen residents came to the council in July to ask for a moratorium, and I believe that this level of community response should matter. Additionally, we have not heard anyone publicly support this particular commercial campground being adjacent to this particular residential neighborhood, including the owner himself. We are asking you to recognize that this application sets a precedent. If a 28 site commercial RV park is appropriate beside an established rural neighborhood, what prevents similar applications elsewhere? There are nearly two dozen rural subdivisions in Ellsworth. This could mean more applications, more neighborhood conflicts, more council meetings, and more legal uncertainty. We have learned that some municipalities in Massachusetts require meaningful community engagement through town halls and incorporation of residential feedback before applications reach their planning boards. We asked the council to consider whether Ellsworth should adopt a similar process to prevent frustrating situations like this in the future. The moratorium gives us an opportunity to address both issues, better standards and better process. Please vote for the moratorium tonight, and thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Tim Mangan. I'm also part of the Merriam Way, Alton Drive neighborhood. But I think we would be remiss if we didn't also mention that the area past Alton Drive down into Trenton and the area up into town as part of this community that's going to be affected by this thing. We have 50 lots inside the Alton Drive area, Merriam Drive, Seabee Road that will be directly affected by this thing. And we've heard nothing of concern for us. OK. We have nothing against somebody making money. But this is not going to benefit us. It's going to benefit one person as opposed to all these other people being affected. There's other ways to do it. I've heard all kinds of plans. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about that. What about the people? What about the people that are going to lose values in their home? Is anybody going to reimburse us for that? What about the people along Bayside that have talked to me at work, where I work at the hospital, all concerned that the property value has tanked already on multimillion-dollar homes down there. It's now below a million dollars. We had a $400,000 home, got a bid on it, and the minute they heard about the campground, they gave it. They pulled their bid and said, that's why. There are better places for this. The purpose of government is to ensure that the rights of one individual do not usurp the rights of many, many people. I've heard all kinds of stories from people tonight saying it's gonna infringe on our rights, and it will. I understand the desire to make Ellsworth a beacon for vacation and increasing income. We need to be careful that we don't make it such a beacon that people stop coming. So with that in mind, I think a vote for moratorium tonight is appropriate. Look at this. The minute the spade hits the ground out there, we can't go back. It's done. And everything is going to go forward, and then we're going to have more campground debates, more of this and that because of the, what was the word I heard, antiquated or outdated zoning laws that are already supposed to be addressed in a comprehensive plan. I would be remiss to say I've been doing some like, we've had comprehensive plans problems before with other approved things by city planning with 64 complaints against them, three citations, and you wound up taking them to court for money. And that was out there with the main organics. Please look after the people and not just one person. Thank you.

Thank you.

Russ White, citizen of Ellsworth, and for those that don't know me, I'm also the state representative for Ellsworth, Waltham, and Fletcher's Landing. I'm told by many people that I probably should not get up and speak on this topic, but when you have numerous people contact me about their opposition to the RV park going in, And I've spoken to multiple people, some on the positive side for wanting to see it go in, and others that are against it. I'm all for free enterprise, and I'm all for Ellsworth developing. But I think, in this case, I am for the moratorium so that we can at least sit down, take some time, and take a closer look at what it would do to affect that area. You brought up a very good point when the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And in this case, there's a lot of people that want this looked at. And I've been told that if we get this moratorium and six months goes by and they decide that that zone is still adequate for a RV park, then so be it. But they want you guys to take a look at it, spend some time, speak to the people, find out if it's really the right thing to do. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else want to speak?

Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Selznicki, and I live at 48 Altona. This is almost impossible for me to be up here and say this, but I support the moratorium because the new comprehensive plan should be finished and in place before this project moves forward with the outdated ordinances. Our rural neighborhood, it really is a neighborhood. I'm only there four years now. But I moved here in Ellsworth because of this neighborhood, because of the ruralness of it. I have to admit, I would not have gone to 48 Alton Ave with this campground behind it. I know that's a personal thing, but I know you've been hearing all of the legal ordinances, and sometimes the personal thing does have to come in. You know, I think we deserve, you know, the protection of a decision like this that it's not just one campground. It could set, as others have said, the precedent moving forward to areas like Windsor Way or Joy. Like, those are beautiful homes up there, but they're also rural neighborhoods. Why can't campgrounds go in there, too? So thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, I will close the public hearing. All right, and open it up for council discussion.

First of all, I would like to say that the last time your group came before us, I was really impressed with the organization and the evidence that you gave us and the way you presented it. It's an emotional issue. I can certainly understand that, and I think you did a great job. I was equally impressed tonight by two points made, I'm sorry, I don't know your names, about the relationship between our comprehensive plan and the lack of alignment with ordinances, and this is true. And I think we have to make a decision, you know, whether our comprehensive plan is more than something than a really attractive binder that we point to with great pride or something that we actually plan to use. Ordinance revision or changes to ordinances is a time suck. It's very, very time intensive. and picky procedure. And we have to acknowledge the fact that there is a slippage there, that the coordination isn't there, and that we are going to have to play whack-a-mole for a while. When these situations come up and our ordinances are not current, we have to be willing to address them, which is why I will support the moratorium. It's just a fact of life. I see no benefit in postponing a moratorium. I think that actually kind of is a contradiction in terms. But I just wanted to say thank you for presenting your case so well. Thank you.

Anyone else? Counselor O'Halloran?

I find this process very, very enlightening and very interesting. When I first heard about this and I met with the group, You folks are organized. You make great points. And I think I told you the first time I met with some of you that I lined this up with some of the courthouse movement that went on with the residents. And the state comes in and buys that property, and then there was a group that organized and stood up against it, and the city ended up taking some of the burden to move this courthouse financially, which means everybody in this room is taking the burden to move it financially. And I sense... I sense all of the opposition. However, the comprehensive plan is a plan. Ordinances and rules are the rules. And in this case, it appears that you have a gentleman that did due diligence to purchase this property. He did the background work with ordinances, rules, and regulations. You can't do that background work with a comprehensive plan. That's a plan. It's not the rules. It's not the ordinance. It might be someday. But today, when this decision was made, there was ordinances and rules. There was no regard for a comprehensive plan that may or may not have rules to line up with it in the future, which I'm told could be 24 months. So, although I hear everybody, and I like your organization, I like the professionalism, I like all of the work that has gone into it, I think that it's really sad when you have somebody that does due diligence, buys the property that was for sale, hires people to make the plan, gets halfway through the process, and then the city put the brakes on, the business prevention brakes. Now, I realize that it's a sensitive issue, that it's in your background, it's in your backyard. I live beside the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery, okay? My folks went through this in 1969. So I understand some of that. I was very young, but there was a lot of chatter about it, and there was a lot of opposition. When the Department of Interior purchased this property for $13,000 in 1969, it seemed like the end of the world. But it wasn't in the end. I don't think it's fair. That a man comes in, does due diligence, makes a business decision to buy property based on the rules and regulations that are on the books today. And then, only then, do we pull the rug out from under the project. Therefore, I will not support a moratorium. I don't think it's fair. The property was for sale when this man bought it. and I really don't think, if you want a moratorium for something that we don't have in town, that's one thing. I don't necessarily agree with moratoriums, but in this case, you have due diligence, you have people that have paid professionals to do the work, make sure it complied with the rules and regulations, and now here we are. What about before this comprehensive plan was in line? Are all the rules and regulations lined up with the last comprehensive plan? No. Comprehensive plans are a plan. It's not the rules and regulations.

Thank you.

This is just a clarifying question. So in event the planning board says no, we still could in theory go ahead with a moratorium, correct? This is just clarifying so I have a full picture because thank you everyone who spoke. Public speaking can be terrifying and you have brilliantly articulated your points. It's just this is, I'm curious about if a moratorium could be done after two.

I'll speak to it and I'll let our attorney see if I'm correct or not. But yes, if the planning board were to vote no, we could still enact a moratorium on this and to ensure some of the folks have mentioned here that the issue would still be here of the alignment on a specific RV type regulation. I'd say in general, after reviewing this, I think, as you pointed out to the whole black and white, I think this is something I'd want reviewed. Is it in line with RV campground? Do we need to distinguish between the campground screens, buffers? There could be a strengthening of that. To Councillor Howland's point, I think that really is the central piece of, but these are the rules and regulations. And then there's a signaling to the rest of the business community, I think, are the core pieces. But the ability of the council to pursue a moratorium whether the planning board rejects or accepts the proposal can happen afterwards, but to the citizens and their legal counsel's note, the moratorium can happen now. There's no statutory reason where you have to enact it before the September 2nd meeting of the planning board. I'm a process person too, so that's why my guidance is a little bit more on the you know, let's have another meeting on this and really go forward with the...

The public comment is closed. Could you email it to us? We closed the public comment. I'm so sorry. But please, we can chat afterwards. Sorry.

So a kind of multi-step process to maybe try to have the business owner come here as well if they were to get your approval for this campground and really take the time, I think, which would be a pretty significant step to to interrupt a planning board process under our current merits. I may even want to see, I wouldn't want to talk to the planning board. That's why I'm trying to also keep some space between the planning board and the planners. That process needs to plan out as a separate body that we're not interfering with their judgment on our existing ordinances. That's what they have to go by. And they're an excellent group of folks. If all the I's and T's are not dotted, I can tell you this planning board is an incredibly diligent group of people. But I would understand, and there is the option, Councillor Smith, to do it tonight. It could take twofold. It could direct me to finalize language with the city's attorney on the moratorium. As I think folks mentioned, this was submitted to us on Thursday. We're still reviewing. I haven't had a draft that I would necessarily feel comfortable. We could try to edit it in real time with the attorneys to try to put his updates in there if you wanted the moratorium to take effect. It has been publicly noticed. I don't believe it requires a supermajority of the council to be present in order for it to take effect, so the council, should it be their guidance, could move to have this moratorium enacted tonight.

Great.

Tim, anything else there on just the legal aspects of those options?

No, I think you've covered it.

Great. So there was a question there is about the implementation committee that was supposed to be formed by the Comprehensive Plan Committee. Do you know if that happened?

There's been some discussion when they did their report out on where we could go with that. If we'd like to make it a priority to the council, we can come back at a workshop and really I think that's kind of a separate piece and discuss maybe that would be the mechanism to move forward on the establishment of a new steering committee with guideposts and timelines for a substantial revision of the ordinances. I would note, Council Martino, we do take the comp plan pretty seriously to make it a living document. We've executed on a lot of those pieces as part of the project management team in the last workshop. much of those initiatives are aligned to the comp plan. Many of them have already been done. The ordinance one is the big one. Phase one was really definitions and getting it all so a human can read it and not be wildly confused. That took an incredible amount of time, plus some city resources with a consultant to move forward with. that could again have time and cost and expense. We have one planner in the city that's, you know, we have a lot of growth and development, just keeping up with the planning board and all the things coming forward and that are new in the city is big enough itself. So I would, but this is a big thing. And I think moving forward on that as a priority tier one for the city, we have to move some things around and de-emphasize some other projects, but I'd be happy to consider that and come back to the council with a plan on how to move forward.

Yeah, I think that would be, from what I remember, the last comprehensive plan that we had, which was written in the early 2000s, a lot of that was not implemented and it costs that hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's a very expensive endeavor to go through, and it was disappointing when I had learned how we had not spent the time to actually implement what the last comprehensive plan asked. And so therefore, I definitely, I'm very glad that we are heading in that direction, but any additional help from council and the public, I think, you know, I would love to see. And it seems like we have a lot of very interested people that might want to help in a committee like this.

It also may help lighten the load on the staff as well because the planning department is now one person. We have a lot of one person or two person departments trying to service a city that's 90 square miles. Yeah. And growing.

And I think in the workshop that we just had, I know Brittany spoke about this phase two, but part of that was that it was going to take up to 18 to 24. 24 to 36, I thought. Yeah.

A long time. It was a long time.

Because it was going to be in-house.

Which is, I go back to my whack-a-mole analogy. Things are going to come up.

Yeah. Councillor Halloran.

So I just wanted to throw out that I met with the opposition on a Tuesday and I met with the project owner on a Thursday and I've heard a lot tonight that the property owner hasn't reached out to your group. And I would like to defend that a little bit in the fact that When I reached out to your group and said the property owner would be willing to sit down and talk, and I encouraged that to happen, and it seemed that some people just didn't want it, had a mixed report from what I heard. Some people was okay with it. Some people was not okay with sitting down and meeting it because they just didn't want it. I just want to throw this out here that five years from today, we're all going to be in a different place. Whether this project is alive and well or whether it is not. And no matter what happens tonight, nothing can get accomplished until both sides could sit down and listen to concerns. We've heard a lot tonight about the property owners that don't own the property, but we haven't heard from the guy that bought the property. And no matter what takes place tonight, that has to happen sometime. There might be some things that could get ironed out that is very easy to iron out. Rather a moratorium passes or rather it doesn't. At some point, any resolvement starts with some communication between the two sides. And, you know, I'm not saying that the developer could meet all of your needs. but he might be able to meet a handful, and he has investments that he's made too. So we can't just all think about the property owners abutting it. He needs a little bit of say with his own property as well, okay? So no matter what takes place tonight, communications is gonna have to happen one way or the other. And I wanna get back to the same thing I said. Property was for sale, the man bought it. He couldn't research the comprehensive plan. He could only research the rules and regulations that are enacted today, not what might happen later. Now, I've heard a lot about lining this up. You mentioned that the last comprehensive plan had its own case with this much dust on it that nobody did anything about. Maybe this is a good education for all of us if we're going to have comprehensive plans to really decide if that's just another document to collect dust if we're going to use it as a Bible or we're going to use it as fire-starting material. From what I can see in the past, it's been used as fire-starting material. So we need to learn from this process, no matter what happens, that we're going to have comprehensive plans. There needs to be an awareness that a comprehensive plan is a plan, and the rules may change to follow it, and they may not.

Councilor Shea.

I'm all for development, but I'm also to follow the rules that we put forth. Again, to echo what Steve just said, the guy bought the property. He's got a significant investment, just like all the houses you guys bought. And when LNAV... was a subdivision there was a group of people that fought that too granted the rules were different and things and mistakes were made and now they they're probably still being trying to get rectified okay that's water over the dean spilt milk okay I don't really particularly care for moratoriums. They are a tool for us, for legislature, legislative bodies to be able to buy some time to get rules, laws, regulations straightened out so that they fit better, okay? But you're also going to look at the whole process too. He's working with the laws that he already has. I went through pretty much the same thing with the parcel of property, but I didn't own it at the time, my parents did. And we have a campground on the lake that I'm on. My concerns, pretty much same as yours. If we did moratorium, I would like to see it play out to see what the process with the planning board, because there's still some unanswered questions. It does kind of concern me that sometimes property owners, businesses, business owners don't even make an appearance before the planning board. And I don't know if the owner is here tonight. So, and during public comment, I would have loved to hear from you. I know it's hard to get up and talk in front of people, I really do. And I applaud, I really do. I applaud each and every one of you and I do feel, I'm conflicted by it, you see what I mean? But I'm following, I'm looking at the rules and everything. Unfortunately, the can's been kicked down the road so many times. Comprehensive plan, that's just what it is. It's a guide, it's a plan. It doesn't become the rule in law until you take that plan and you work it into something that actually works. It could have been done years and years ago.

Thank you.

Nobody's talking about banning or preventing this RV park, okay? I don't think our legal advisor would like to address potential for an estoppel action. But the point is they have not had their questions answered. And this proposal by my esteemed colleague that there has to be a sit down of communication and compromise between a developer and the neighborhood is new to me. I have never heard of such a thing. He is under no obligation to sit down and talk to you. It would be nice if he were, but that's not the world we live in. So that's not going to happen. At this point, all we want to do is put the brakes on and get some questions answered to make sure that our citizens, our property owners, are not going to get trampled by an ordinance that needs to be updated to protect them. That's all.

Thank you.

And then I just want to go back and I kind of interpret the comprehensive one differently than Councilor Halloran where it's not really just a plan, but it is what we should be following. It's under the Maine Growth Management Act that any future land use zoning or impact the ordinance a municipality adopts must follow its comprehensive plan. So it is a legal policy foundation. And that first line there in the UDO says that we need to be implementing the policies put forth in our comprehensive plan. So that's what I'm caught in there. Now, I don't know if when we look at our rural districts, if RV parks will be allowed in those spaces. I think it's a larger conversation that needs to be had. I definitely am on the side that we should have more than two rural zones. It should be, in my opinion, more like Trenton where we have a rural commercial, rural residential, and our rural drinking water. That way we're really targeting where we want growth in our rural areas and hopefully encouraging more housing in our rural residential areas. I think that this is the second time in the past three, four years that neighborhoods have come together to oppose commercial development in it with the Surrey Road. And now on the Bayside Road, I think we're just out of alignment on what our residents want to see here in Ellsworth. And that being said, I want business in Ellsworth. I just think we need to look a little bit more closely on where we're allowing big business like this to move in. I have a question about if we were to not do anything to allow the development to happen, but then we rezoned this area and before any additional maybe sites were developed, would the owner be then restricted to just those initial 28 sites, or would they, how does that work when we allow something to happen, but then we change our zoning in that area? What happens to the existing business there? And they're allowed to expand?

It would depend on the 45 days.

It's considered legacy rights, so it gets to continue its operation, reasonable expansion after that, but it doesn't get shut down.

It doesn't get shut down, but it's allowed to expand? Or would it have to kind of...

There's certain expansion rates. So you become a legally non-conforming use at that point in time. And then there's rules around how much expansion you can do around a legally non-conforming use.

It kind of feels like that marijuana issue all over again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's another case of where it's... Yeah, yeah. All right, thank you, Tim. So I'm not sure if, oh, go ahead.

I have one final question for the city attorney. So if this goes forward, is there a opportunity to restrict the expansion through moratorium?

So the scenario is the project is approved as is, and then later there may be some rules that allow a certain level of expansion. for roads, infrastructure and so forth. And that project owner would come forward and say, I would like to expand in this sort of way. Then I think anytime that owner of property is required to get a permit and there are standards they have to meet, there is an opportunity for a moratorium to be put in place that would pause that development and perhaps restrict it

maybe even eliminate it depending on the outcome of that process so it would be possible if this project moved forward to limit its expansion through some way or another i would think so

May I ask another question? However, is the chance also equally present for an estoppel action because it would have been permissible under old rules?

Developers and property owners can always make that argument. We're dealing with property rights, so the rules do allow, as I mentioned earlier, up to 45 days after the developer gets permit approval to enact a moratorium. That's pretty unusual among the states in the United States to allow an after-the-fact moratorium to pause development. But in those cases, developers can always make an argument. You misled me. I spent too much money. I should be entitled to move forward. And then you end up in court having those battles.

Yeah. So let's do it now.

Any further discussion on this? I do respect our planning board and trust that they would follow the guidelines that are provided and follow the ordinances, but I think I am now leaning a little bit more in the direction of a moratorium this evening. I would, if there is no other discussion, I would definitely hear a motion from the council. I don't have it. Can you read it? Is there a proposed one?

There's no proposed language on this one, Tim. I don't know if you want to weigh in on.

Yeah, I think for, if you're asking Well, I see Councillor Allen understand that. Maybe I'll wait for his question.

Go ahead.

I think if we were talking about a proposed moratorium, the council would need to see the language ahead of time. We have some proposed language. I have looked at it. I've not examined it. I think it's along the lines of what you'd find in a typical moratorium. But we need to have this discussion, which we're having tonight. And if the majority said yes, we want to explore a moratorium that I would work with the manager and the staff to come up with a proposed ordinance that we would present to the council for consideration. And my view is that moratoriums should be as narrow as possible to not have any unintended consequences because a moratorium would affect everything that it covers. And so you'd want to have it focus in on the issue that you see as a concern and I've listened carefully tonight to what your concerns are. So if, if it, if this desire of the council to have a moratorium, then I would draft it in a narrow sort of way. So it gets at the issue and then it also gives guidance to the staff so they can come back with an appropriate recommendation of what needs to be changed. And one more thing we've heard zoning tonight. When you're changing zoning, that is one of the things that's most fundamental that you're changing with respect to property rights. So oftentimes, that is a big weapon. Something short of that might be performance standards. Or it might be maybe you allow campgrounds, because it's currently in allowed use. I think everyone acknowledges that in this particular zone. But maybe you say a campground over a certain number of units. is too much. So you try to do just enough to address the concerns that you have. And I'll stop there.

Thank you. So since we have no language, we cannot enact this moratorium tonight.

I have a, but I'll let Steve, I've got a solution.

What I'm hearing is can't vote for a moratorium or vote against the moratorium because we don't have any agreed language for the moratorium. I don't know how we could go forward with some blind action and what I'm hearing is within 45 days of the planning board's approval, we still have this opportunity to have the moratorium. And it would make sense to me that instead of just calling it a moratorium, that you have some drafted language. If this council wants a moratorium, for crying out loud, you have 45 days after the approval if it's approved. Let's get it right because that to me sounds like another trip around the comprehensive plan that you voted for a comprehensive plan and it doesn't line up with the rules that got us in this mess in the first place. So let's not make two messes here. If you're going to have a moratorium, let's get some language from the meeting that we heard tonight You still have your 45 days. Push this into September so it aligns with the 45 days of approval of September 2nd, you still have plenty of time for this council to enact it if they wish.

Charlie. Yeah, I agree. I think the middle zone could be here for what I'm hearing is that the council would like to proceed with a moratorium prior to the planning board's discussion, that they've, at least they potentially could. There's been no votes or anything yet. But that the plan as presented to establish additional meetings, let the property owner be heard, move forward is... potentially by some members of the council at this table, not appropriate now. And they'd like to act before the planning board or as soon as applicable. So I don't know, Tim, if it's possible to entertain a motion to direct the city manager to proceed with drafting moratorium language and to schedule a special meeting as soon as applicable, but no later than September 1st, and we have time to, under the special meeting requirements, to, you know, as soon as next week. We could have a new meeting, give the attorney enough time to review, and then come back. We'll notice to the papers. We can put it in the Bangor Daily News. It deals with American, and it will still satisfy the public meeting requirements. The public hearing requirements as well can be satisfied in a week, or is that different? How long do you need that for that one?

I think the timeline that you mentioned is fine.

Yeah, so I could still, yeah, the 17th, the 2nd, there's still sufficient time to put a special meeting on the books prior to the planning board approval for a full discussion of this. And then, you know, a moratorium that's been fully vetted through legal to move forward on.

I'd just like to point out that the agenda item stated discussion and potential action, which is why I was under the assumption that we had recommended language for this. But we don't.

Yes, Steve.

I move to table this until the regular scheduled meeting of September.

Is there a second for the table? Second. And it ends?

Comments, yeah.

No, I will not support that.

I believe after the second you have council comments. Councilors can.

Because tabling, no, it doesn't shut it down.

After the vote it would, yeah.

After the vote it would. Okay, so any comments then from council?

On the motion to table.

On the motion to table.

Councilor Shea. This way we can revisit it, okay? And amongst us, legal, city manager, staff, counselors can have a proper motion to get it right. Okay?

I will note that I asked it to be in a regular scheduled meeting for September. It lines up with everything going on. We don't need a special meeting. It gives the planning board the time to do their thing, and it gives the legal time to do their thing, and put it on the September regular scheduled meeting, and you'll have a full council. That's why I'm making that motion. It's not eliminating anybody's opportunity. It's just an opportunity. We don't need a special meeting for this. It's all lined up accordingly. And if the approval doesn't happen at the planning board, you can still press forward with this. It's a September regular meeting.

All right, there's a motion and a second. Okay, so all in favor? Okay, all against, I'm sorry. All right, so is there, gosh, I'm sorry. Motion fails. The motion fails, okay. So now, is there another motion proposed? I think my concern is having this go to planning board and then be approved and, I don't know, and then the ground is broken and...

without getting any of these questions answered.

Yeah, that is my concern.

So could the special meeting potentially have a moratorium language but also be a broader discussion before the planning board met? about this and seeing where the full council stood. So this way we can have the full council and discuss this, but also keep the window open for this, for... for potentially waiting or acting at that meeting. I want to be respectful of people's time with this, but I think at least that would allow an option that may be middle ground because this is, throughout this entire process I've been trying to piece together where I stand and It's, yeah.

And the dates line up so that we could before this meeting. It's basically what Charlie had proposed except... To accelerate the priority of the planning board.

And I should say that... Yeah, while I would love to have this be able to be one meeting as part of another piece, I do feel like there's going to be a lot of conversation necessary in this on how we go about the zoning piece, if a moratorium were to be considered, also to have a full potential seven councillors here for that discussion as well. And to move forward quickly, I think we're going to need a lot more meetings and discussion. And for me to really think through some of the comments that have been, I think one person mention that sort of you know that moratorium and then is you know is it just the RV is the zoning and allowed in this type of area at all going forward and other types of things it could not be an RV park it could be a whole realm of things it's a pretty substantial precedent to set in the middle of a planning board process an idea so I notice on the proposed language it is a six-month moratorium

What if, for the draft language, it's shorter? So this way, I'm gonna throw out two months, that's a random number, where we still could have these discussions, but the process is just paused so that we can move. Just trying to think of a way that

To expedite.

Yeah, but also not step on toes.

Yeah. My guess is that we would probably need that full six months to get.

The wheels of government turn exceedingly slow no matter how enthusiastic we are. I think cutting, making, deliberately cutting a short period down shorter is setting us also for issues. Yeah. I agree with Carol there. Can we schedule a special meeting?

I could do that. I'll do haste. And I'll get it done before the planning board. Obviously, you can direct me to do so as well. And I would, especially for folks because I'd also like to just think through some of the additional ramifications. Again, after discussion with legal counsel, and that's where this memo comes from, that's the recommendation was to wait for that piece. I'd like to consider the pre-planning board ramifications. We might also need a discussion in the executive session as part of that as well for roles and rights and responsibilities of the counsel to consider other ramifications. I think that's important. I'm always... And I also, like I did here, I want to provide some good... guidance on what that means, to your point, on how much time that would take. But this is an extremely important issue. I know it might seem like a small one, but some of the issues with the comp plan, the signals this sends to other developments in the area, having another special meeting prior to the planning board, I think, is right and proper, and I can get adhering notice.

So do I need to make a motion to ask you to schedule a special meeting?

Special meeting for the 31st. Yep, that'll give us plenty of time to get this together. The 31st? The 31st, Monday the 31st, with a revised moratorium for consideration.

Okay, so this is an impromptu motion with no language. I'd like to make a motion. To request the city manager schedule a special meeting on August 31st, for August 31st, in order to continue discussion on this potential moratorium and to formulate some recommended language in the event that we do decide to take action.

Second.

Great. Any more discussion from council?

I have a question before the vote. Sure. What prevents the planning board say that what prevents the planning board for continuing their process pending the moratorium? Man already has a schedule. What prevents the planning board from continuing that subject to the outcome of the moratorium?

Interesting. So a moratorium is, I haven't seen a moratorium that doesn't say you have to cease all processing of applications. It's an instant pause when it goes into effect for a certain period of time. To have an escape hatch to allow a certain project to continue, really think about that to see how that would fit.

I'm not asking it for it to continue. I'm asking to, I'm wondering if it would preserve the, planning board spot that they've already given this developer. I already have an agenda for that. Obviously, it couldn't get the final stamp until this moratorium plays out.

The meeting's September 2nd for the planning board, and that's posted. I don't think they couldn't change it to be earlier, so if this were to take effect then, Effectively, I would imagine, and Tim, correct me if I'm wrong, I know I'm putting you on the spot, but the planning board would have to cancel their meeting because there's a moratorium in effect that governs the item before you. Would that be accurate?

Yeah, I'll put some thought into that. I'm trying to think of a scenario where in the process would you want them to stop? So the planning board hears all the evidence and it makes its decision but doesn't issue the decision. or somewhere along that point in time. So if the moratorium is over, then self-actuating that the permit is received.

Yeah, and I think that's part of my hesitancy to go today was I haven't gone through with legal on the pre-planning board discussion moratorium and what that does to their processes. We discussed in detail. Approval, disapproval, the allowance of a moratorium to still be under full consideration, that would take effect and forestall this type of project to move forward. But the decision prior to the planning board meeting, I'd obviously have more guidance on exactly what that would mean for the planning board as well.

All right. So we have a motion on the table and a second. Any more discussion? No, I don't think we did. All right, so all in favor? And all opposed? All right, four, one. Motion passes.

And I'll post as many things as quickly as possible so that folks have guidance.

Thank you, Charlie. All right, and thanks again for everyone that came out tonight, and sorry, but we'll see you again soon. All right, moving along to agenda item number 13. We'll let everybody file out here. Thank you.

Good night.

Save this for the evening.

I'm just going to wait until... Yeah.

Thank you, guys. I do trust your judgment is on if incentive session is required. I'm so into this.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Trying to wrap my mind around it is... Yeah, this is a tough one.

Really a good conversation and work with Tim and... Emily, it's good to see you back there. It's a whole different group in here.

Thank you. All right.

Sue's here too.

Okay, so. Wait a minute, we can't.

Okay, so we're going to move on to Council Order Number 082602, the City Seal Update.

Charlie, is there anything you want to say? Want to go right over to Roddy?

I think I'll send it right over to Roddy. We had a great discussion at the workshop on this, some positive forward momentum. Roddy was able to be here for that discussion, so he's kind of hybrided. made a hybrid of hibernated on every bit and now he's kind of made a hybrid of council smith or council martin is incredible memo on the seal the task force and then also some of the rfp stuff so yeah uh roddy erlenbach director of parks recreation and facilities and pleased to hear that hybrid is now a verb

Yeah, so just a little bit of background on the project. When I came in, in the Employee of the City last year, this project was kind of already underway. The plan at that time was to work with the UMaine Composites Lab to research replacing the existing seal with a 3D printed model. Like I said, that work was underway Prior to my arrival, I kind of picked it up and went with it. Over the course of the fall, we attempted to provide the composites lab with a detailed scan so they could print out the mesh and offer us some guidance on the best means of producing or reproducing the seal with a 3D printed replica. Over the course of the winter, our contact there moved on. He's no longer in the employee of the university. The gentleman they put in his place to be our contact has been less than communicative, so the project kind of had the brakes pumped pretty hard. In that time, Councillor Martineau has kind of picked it up. with her work with the Historic Preservation Commission. And I did attend a meeting with them back in the fall when we were talking about the 3D printed model. It was very obvious that was not their favorite idea. So since then, Councilor Martineau produced, produced the memo for the workshop and kind of has taken this on. And so I've kind of fallen in line with the intent and the wishes of the Preservation Commission. So I used the document that she created to guide the composition of an RFP. And then I produced a memo that's all in front of you in the packet. So just a really, really super high level overview. What we're looking to do is release an RFP. that would break the project into two phases. And the first phase would be finding somebody who's not just a carpenter, but somebody who specializes in this type of restorative work to actually remove the seal in a way that doesn't cause any further damage to it so we can actually get an accurate assessment of the current state of it, inventory any pieces that are missing, any pieces that have deteriorated and are no longer there, figure out exactly what the extent of the work may be, bring it down, put it into a climate-controlled storage facility to stabilize the seal, the wooden sculpture, so it doesn't continue to deteriorate, allow it time to dry, like I said, to stabilize, and then assess it and give us an idea of exactly what work would be required to restore it. So that's just the phase one. That's what we're talking about tonight. The timeline for this was included in that memo. Ultimately, we'd like to issue the RFP in the fall, finalize removal plans after the RFP is awarded. That would be late 2026, early 27. If we move forward, the removal would happen in the spring of 27, and then it would go into storage, and we would not anticipate moving forward with a phase two RFP release until late into next year at the earliest. There needs to be adequate time for the seal to stabilize, to dry, to be assessed. That process alone will most likely take six months. So basically what we're looking at right now is to release an RFP to identify contractors that are skilled in this type of work and knowledgeable. My research, very, very preliminary research, ballpark estimate of what it would cost to remove the seal in a way to protect it, transport it to a storage facility, store it, and have it assessed would be anywhere between $15,000 and $30,000. I think in the memo it was $13,000 and $28,000 was what my numbers showed. And then, of course, any restorative work return of the seal to the pediment on City Hall would be a price point after that. We have been contacted regarding a grant funding opportunity. The Main Downtown Center and Revitalize Main Downtown grant, they're offering anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 in grant funding for historic preservation projects, and this absolutely falls into line with that. If we do move forward with issuing the Phase 1 RFP, we would actively pursue applying for that grant. The deadline is in mid-October. October 14th is the application deadline, so if we do receive recommendation to move forward with the RFP, we'll be starting our application process for that immediately.

Good, that sounds great. Can I ask a question? Did you ever find the piece that broke off a year ago? Is it in your offices?

There's a piece in Deputy City Manager Devlin's office, but it's not, if you look up, there's like that whole, it's got to be at least 18 inches to two feet long, at least. She does not have a segment that size. She's got a chunk that's maybe four to six inches.

Yeah, the chunk that fell off, I guess he threw it away.

Yeah, I don't know. It happened before I got here. Yeah, I know. I know I'm not. I know it's my favorite excuse, but I honestly don't know.

All right. No, that sounds good.

Yeah, if you have an email on it, I was trying to look up on it, but the person who wrote the email is here.

Oh, gee, thanks. Hold the pen. So, Sue McLean, city clerk, I guess. Tax collector. When that piece fell off, it completely shattered. It completely, it was, it was splinters.

I know.

And it, there was nothing to keep. So, it was swept up and it was thrown out. there was no putting that back together. It was like dust almost.

No, see, the problem is it's not that it was keepable. It would have been nice to have it. We're going to have to try and replicate the paint that was on this thing originally, and any piece that can give us a clue as to what that is because they've sanded off all the original paint. So what the historical preservation guidelines say, the federal say, is you never throw away anything. You put it in a baggie with the dust. But that's not your fault. There's no way anybody could have known that.

No, nobody, unless you're on the historical society, would know that.

And I had just started. I was under somebody else's tenure. So no, it's not your fault. I was just hoping I could. find it.

You asked where it was, so I'm telling you what happened to it. Fair enough. Okay.

We'll work around it.

You're welcome.

Good. Great.

Question about the grant. Yes. What would the city's match have to be?

I honestly don't have the answer to that. I basically was informed about it by email like a week ago, and I haven't really researched it. So, but I can look into that and let you know.

Thank you. I will say that in the, when I was doing my archival research on this, when they took it down in the 80s, not the 90s, but the first time they took it down in the 80s, It apparently was quite missed by the community, and the community was puzzled as to where it was and what was happening with it. And I think maybe we should do something in the way of public relations when we get a little closer to prepare them that it's going to come down and it's going to be down for a while. This is not something that's going to be done overnight. I'm maybe thinking, excuse me, it was put up in 1935, so maybe we put it back up in 2035. Who knows?

I'd like to think it would be sooner than that.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's a 20% match.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Roddy.

Yeah.

Any more discussion?

No, just some updates.

Okay. Okay.

Doing good.

Thank you, Roddy. Okay, what did I do with my guidelines here? Oh boy. What are we on to? Data centers. Thank you. I think it's the last one, yes? Almost there. Okay, great. So moving on to agenda item number 14, council order number 082603, public hearing and potential action on the moratorium on data centers in the city of Ellsworth. Charlie.

Yeah, I don't have too much on this one. I think I was actually discussed earlier in the The previous moratorium, this one, there's nothing before the city on. I think I was originally, we had some discussions and workshops on this. I pose somewhat to a moratorium here because there's nothing active and there is the ability to move forward with the moratorium. We're set to come in and we have, as noted, just an insane amount of work that's on a small amount of people that are relatively new. We had an incredible amount of turnover. You have the business attraction plan, the housing needs assessment, the comp plan, 500 plus action items on all of those, many that are moving forward and now seal. And what's been sacrificed on those for the last six years and the reason that it looks pretty similar to the first comp plan is whatever is the thing of the moment, all of a sudden, you've got a huge amount of time that has to get dedicated to it. And I think one of the sad pieces, too, with that, not to go on too much of a tangent, is the financial turnaround plan that gets put in the back burner. Reconciled accounts, the pieces I know folks heard some of the comments today. If you've been attending city council meetings and finance meetings for me, I've been talking about the reconciliation piece for a long time. It's been six years since those accounts were fully reconciled. a significant amount of responsibility for not solving that sooner. Chris, we got a new finance director in that's laser focused on it. And I need to get that priority one in the matrix. So other pieces, I'm trying to be wary on what has to drop and how do we keep that thing center of mind.

But this one I do feel after talking more and especially

I think there's a public transparency. I think we can turn this around pretty quick. Other cities and towns are already reviewing this, so it'll be very modern applicable language to move forward to. This isn't too niche, so I think we can move forward. And I think it's really, for me, it's important while I know and while insiders know that unless it's a data center the size of a GameStop, It's going to require a planning board to review. There's no secret deals that can get made. But there is that feeling in the community elsewhere that they've seen that happen around the country and that we put together a robust process if a data center was to be proposed, that there is appropriate safeguards and mechanisms in place that will dictate that process. I think actually some of the discussion relative to the moratorium on I would want to be as robust as possible to make sure that the community has their say in something like this. We have reviewed the moratorium language with legal. Actually, we didn't quite get it in. We actually had it prepared for the last meeting. As with all things, it became a very surprisingly busy spring and early summer with items that consumed an insane amount of time of city staff that were not relative to the work plans for the year. So I apologize that didn't get on last month, but the legal counsels reviewed the moratorium. I think we can move pretty quickly with our planning teams and legal to get this into effect. or at least proposed and probably workshopped once, maybe twice during that time frame. And you know, probably early 2027, I'll put it in the project management team, should the council decide to move forward. Obviously, if you don't decide to move forward, thank you, from a personal timeframe perspective. But if you do decide to move forward, we'd bring it back to the project management team meeting to start doing some initial discussion with the groups on kind of how much time is going to have to be committed and when we can come back with some kind of a process for citizen input and engagement. probably similar to short-term rentals in terms of the public dialogue on that.

Great. If we weren't to finish up the ordinance in that six-month period, would we be able to extend the moratorium, vote to extend it longer?

I'll leave it to Tim, but I believe there is an extension under narrow circumstances.

It's pretty common to extend them. As long as you've been working diligently on it, and not just sitting on your hands, you're fine, you can extend it.

Okay, great, thank you. Okay, is any council discussion before I open this up to the public?

Let the public speak first. Let the public speak.

All right. So this is a public, this matter is noticed as a public hearing. So I will open the public hearing. If anyone would like to provide comment on the moratorium for the data centers before the council, please approach the DS. Please state your name and limit your comments to three minutes or less. I'll open the comments.

I'm here out of sheer stubbornness at this point, so thank you. All right, good evening, counselors. My name is Leanne Sullivan. I am a resident of Ellsworth, and I'm here tonight in support of the proposed moratorium on the development of new data centers. For the past decade, I have been studying, teaching, and researching on topics related to environmental politics, including most recently as visiting faculty at the College of the Atlantic. My work looks at environmental politics through the lens of rules, how rules shape how decision gets made and who gets a say in making them. What I've consistently found is that democratic, transparent, and accountable rule structures are the best suited to ensure that the negative externalities of these sorts of large-scale developments are contained and accounted for. When it comes to data centers, this is particularly important for two reasons. First, that this race to develop data centers across the US is part of a specific industry strategy that researchers have documented over and over again. In this strategy, developers seek to advance large, high-stakes projects through opaque processes defined by urgency and closed-door meetings. In Lewiston late last year, even city councilors were caught off guard by a vote to approve a $300 million AI data center that they had learned about with only a month's advance notice. According to a 2026 paper published by the Environmental Law Institute, quote, data centers frequently employ non-disclosure agreements project code names, and shell companies to conceal the firms behind new projects, end quote, as a strategy. When we don't know who we are making deals with, we cannot hold them accountable, and that usually means bad news for taxpayers. In Maine, this drought of secrecy has led to the collapse of proposed data centers in Lewiston and Wiscasset, to name a few, and not without significant cost. In Wiscasset, for example, the city lost more than $200,000 in ARPA funding slated for affordable housing development when county officials learned of plans to reallocate the money towards data centers. These are not missteps that Ellsworth can afford to make. The second reason that is crucial that we develop a defined process for approving these projects is we know that the development of this infrastructure comes at significant ecological cost at a moment where many of our ecosystems are being pushed past their limits. Even small and mid-sized data centers can consume as much water as entire towns and draw as much electricity as 10 to 20,000 homes. New AI-focused data centers or even bigger consumers sometimes rivaling America's largest cities in terms of energy consumption. As we weigh the future of development in our own neighborhoods with our own tax dollars and by our own hand, we must acknowledge that underneath this question of feasibility is a moral question and that residents of our city deserve opportunities for open and honest deliberation about whether we want this infrastructure to be part of our legacy. This moratorium would allow time for our community to weigh this question together. And to help ease the burden on staff, I'm also happy to volunteer to take on some of that labor. So I will be in touch with you, Charlie, if that is useful. I thank you guys for your time and your consideration on this topic.

Thank you.

Thank you. Hi. Kelly Brack again, sticking around. I'm not standing here in opposition to a moratorium, but just something to consider for future thoughts of whenever the moratorium is lifted or going forward. So I haven't done as much research as this lovely lady, but I do know that there has been a huge effort in terms of data centers to be self-sustaining in their energy use. So for example, GE Bangor creates gas powered turbines. They are expanding significantly in order to meet the need of data centers across the nation and across the world. We in Maine are sort of uniquely positioned that this expansion of GE Bangor, we could potentially take on some of those people as residents in Ellsworth. So the expansion of GE in Bangor could benefit the city of Ellsworth in the future as, you know, commuters. Some of my family members are some of them. So just something to consider, that there is sort of like both sides of this issue, and Ellsworth could stand to benefit economically from GE Bangor's assistance of data centers. Do I want to see a data center in Ellsworth? No. But could there be regulations in terms of the size and the particular zoning for them, to make them so that they're not an eyesore in our beautiful landscape, and sort of welcome self-sustaining data centers, something to consider moving forward. We all rely on AI and computing these days, so I think I think to say that nobody wants data centers anywhere across the US is just unreasonable in terms of how we operate these days. I wanna see them going up into space with SpaceX, but that's gonna take a while to get there and our computing needs are now. Um, so just something to consider, um, moving forward once, you know, like I said, not in opposition to a moratorium, I think everything needs more time, more consideration. Um, but perhaps some of those things can be considered when this particular moratorium is worked on and lifted in the end. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Um, council. Any discussion? Councillor Smith.

Part of the reason why I do support this moratorium is because discussion about data centers can get really heated, particularly if they pop up suddenly. And this, at bare minimum, will give us the time to properly address our ordinances based upon citizen feedback. as well as ecological concerns because, and infrastructure concerns because Ellsworth is growing and we need to be able to serve our population. And we also needed to fit within our comprehensive plan. And I believe a key part of that is maintaining our water quality. And that is something that I do have a serious concern about. I also have concerns about what happens when, if there is a data center, what happens when it's decommissioned? How do we make sure that we're not left with a husk of a building? So this and infrastructure that was built or making sure that there is a clear, transparent process is critical. I would like to thank the first speaker. I believe you articulated my thoughts incredibly well. But we need time to actually have this discussion. because I don't like playing whack-a-mole. Hopefully this will give us time to react.

As an environmental historian, I can certainly agree with the speaker who pointed out that these kind of institutions are being targeted in areas where there's not a lot of organized opposition or awareness. I've been following some watchdog groups and there was an AI-driven data center that just opened up in rural Louisiana that meets those criteria that this community was small and it was just overwhelmed. And I wouldn't want to see that happen here. However, you can't deny the fact that that for Ellsworth, this is the kind of service-centered industry that could provide huge tax relief, huge tax relief if done correctly. It grieves me to have to say that because they are an environment nightmare. But I think planning ahead, I agree with Marina. I think we have to address it rather than pull the covers over our head and kick the can down the road again and say we'll deal with it when it comes up to see exactly what we're up against, exactly what we could be facing should we... get a proposal for a data center. Because we do have a lot of geography for them to look at. It might be pretty appealing to somebody. So better to address it now than when it comes up.

Thank you. I just want to say that the reason why we're having to make this decision right now is because the state of Maine currently has no regulatory framework in place and neither does the federal government. So I'm disappointed in both that they put the burden on small towns like us. It's unfair and time consuming and expensive. But I am glad that we are in the position where we're doing this before anything has been proposed here, we're very lucky that we jumped on this and we've got the upper hand in this situation. Anything else?

No? I agree with you guys. I mean, you know, let's get it done before we run into problems.

No more kicking the can down the road. Yeah. All right, so if there is no more discussion, I think there is a motion proposed. I'll make it. All right.

I move to adopt a data center more, a data center, main accent ironically. Not the word where else to give a sign, data center more, moratorium ordinance as presented with a immediate effective date.

Thank you. Second.

Great. Any more comments? All right. All in favor? Oh, sorry. Do you have comments? Seconded. Oh. Oh, here, here. Okay. Yeah. All right. All in favor? And all opposed? All right. Motion passes. Okay, great. All right, now I might need help again. So I know I need to, I think we're moving on to executive session. Am I right there? So I think I need a motion to do that. I move to enter executive session. Second. All right, all in favor? Great. All opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you all.

Have a good evening. I'll get you.

Can we do like a five-minute break?

Yeah, five-minute break.

I'll get you to vote 70.